“What it comes down to,” Snow Leopard said, “is that another, even more extensive expedition to Andrion 3 is planned. With luck, we may be on it.” Snow Leopard paused, and gave us a happy little smile.
“I’m thrilled,” Psycho remarked.
“Sounds like fun,” Coolhand added.
“Which brings us to the next subject, the sitrep for Andrion 2. First, the Taka. And by the way, let’s have no more talk of ‘Scalers’. It’s slang, and bad slang, and the Scalers don’t like it…” The tac room erupted in laughter. Snow Leopard flushed a deep red, then stifled a grin.
“I’m sorry. The… Taka…don’t like it, and neither does Firefall. He feels strongly about this, and Central is issuing a directive. Anyone using the term on the tacnet is going to have to explain why, and no explanations will be accepted. So let’s cut the use of this derogatory term. Remember, these people are our allies now.
“All right, the sitrep. We’ve about wrapped it up in the Sunmarch. The Hand of God is still on the loose, but it doesn’t matter. Almost all the Taka in Sunmarch have declared loyalty to us, and we have more auxiliary volunteers than we can use. The Cult is finished.”
Psycho held his hand up, waving anxiously.
“Yes, Psycho. Do you have to wee-wee?” Snow Leopard sounded like he was losing patience.
“No, I, uh…I know I’m going to get in trouble for asking this, but, uh…what’s Sunmarch?”
Snow Leopard looked at him, smiled patiently, and answered. “If you would sleep in your cube instead of on the lounge floor, you would know that Sunmarch is the Taka name for the primary continent here, on which we are operating.”
“Ah, I see. Actually, I knew that. Just checking on you. That was a good answer.”
“Psycho,” Dragon cut in, “will you shut down and let the rest of us listen to the briefing?” Dragon did not get along with Psycho at all.
“Does my existence disturb you?”
“Profoundly,” Dragon responded.
“All right, blackout,” Snow Leopard said. “Now, the lab report on our Systies is out. And they do appear to be Systies. The lifies went over the bodies with everything they had, but didn’t find much. Whoever sent them out took a great deal of trouble to make sure they were sterile. They chose Outworlders rather than some other race, which might have confirmed their status as Systies. All the equipment they carried was ConFree civilian gear.
“They’d both had c-cells, at one time, and both c-cells had been removed. DefCorps implants c-cells just as we do, for ID, health and tracking purposes. The former placement of the c-cells was similar to what we know about DefCorps commando units. The preservatives on the teeth were Systie make. The soil on the boots did not, unfortunately, lead us anywhere.”
“So how did they die?” Dragon asked.
“Heart failure,” Snow Leopard responded, “in both cases.”
“Maybe we scared ‘em to death.”
“Yeah, they got a look at Warhound’s face.”
“No, they spotted Psycho’s outfit and died laughing.”
“All right, blackout,” Snow Leopard cut in. “It’s not funny. It’s likely they were psyched to die in certain situations. And those conditions were met.” We greeted Snow Leopard’s remark in silence. The contempt that the System showed for its own assets scared us. I wondered if the Systie troopers had known about their programming. If they had, it must have been a truly terrifying pursuit.
“So what have we concluded?” Merlin asked.
“Command has concluded that the Systies are here, in this system,” Snow Leopard replied, “and that there’s got to be more than two of them.”
“Well, then, where are they?” Ironman asked.
“We don’t know,” Snow Leopard said. “Possibly Andrion 2, possibly Andrion 3. But Command believes at least some of them are on-planet, right here. And the most likely location is somewhere in the exoseg zone. The exo presence here is certainly tied in with the Systies.”
“Why haven’t we spotted power systems, if the Systies are here?”
“If they’re here, they’re not using power systems.”
“But you can’t run anything without power systems.”
“That’s correct. All right, here’s what we plan. We’re going right into the Forest of Bones.” Snow Leopard flashed a tacmap on the screen. “No Taka have lived there in a hundred years. It’s crawling with exos, and the hives honeycomb the earth. It’s such a massive complex it will probably take months of work to close it down. We’re going in to search for Systies, and to kill exos, and to rescue any living Taka we may find. They feed on living Taka, and we’re not going to give up on the search no matter how slim the chances. The Taka are willing to go down those holes with no armor, hauling tridents and spears. I don’t think we can refuse to help them. This is the area in which Taka history places the first appearance of the exos, which occurred, we have learned, shortly after Star Survey visited the system.”
“Makes you wonder,” Coolhand said.
“Certainly does,” Merlin added. “That means they’ve done a whole lot in a little more than…let’s see…eighty Veltran years, or just over a hundred stellar years.”
“Several generations,” Snow Leopard said. “Considering the short life span of Andrion 2 mortals, nobody living here can remember when there were no exosegs.”
“Snow Leopard, what does Command say about the history?” Priestess asked.
Snow Leopard referred to a miniscreen. “The legends are full of doubletalk. The creatures are associated with falling stars, just as our first captive told us. They came from the Forest of Bones, and they carry their captives away living. There are legends about fearless Taka warriors going down into the hives and rescuing fair maidens. Unfortunately, Taka civilization destroyed itself long before the exosegs showed up, so there was nobody to write a competent history. But Taka history is another story-let’s not get into that. The point is that we’re hoping we’ll find something in the Forest of Bones.”
“There should be something in the history,” I said, “some clue…something more than we’ve learned so far. How can a history leave out something so important?”
“Yes,” Snow Leopard said. “There should be something. We’re debriefing everyone who might know. But nothing so far.”
“What about Moontouch?” I foolishly asked. “Did Command get anything useful out of her? She’s a princess of the Dark Clouds and a priestess of the Book. If anyone in this worldwide lunatic asylum knows anything, wouldn’t it be her?”
Snow Leopard hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “Command was ecstatic when they found out about your princess.”
Priestess stiffened and I wondered if Deadeye had broken his word and told more than he should.
Snow Leopard continued, “Unfortunately, like so many other things on Andrion 2, it didn’t work out like we’d hoped. The lifies are convinced that she’s either completely insane, or she’s smarter than they are and is holding back. The general consensus was that it was probably a little of both.”
That brought several low chuckles.
With a completely straight face, he added, “Command also noted that she seemed quite…fixated on you, Thinker, and that if the right opportunity presented itself, you might be able to get more out of her.”
It took Snow Leopard several attempts to bring the meeting aback under control. Psycho and Dragon took every opportunity thereafter to ride me about my “princess.” Worse, Priestess seemed distinctly unhappy.
It took me two days to track Moontouch down. I found her in a tent of treesilk, attended by Taka warriors armed with spears. Cleaned up and obviously well tended-to, she was even lovelier than I remembered. She offered me tea, and lit some incense. I declined the tea and told her what I wanted. She agreed to take me to the Loremaster.
Moontouch led us to a swamp and at dawn on the third day, we glided over its still dark waters in a Sunrealmer canoe. Eight of us shared the boat: Moontouch, myself, Dragon, Deadeye, and four Taka warriors, Moontouch’s Dark Cloud bodyguards. They rowed the long, slim, graceful boat, which had been carefully crafted from fine woods.
Warm morning mists drifted past us. It was sultry and quiet. We could only hear the birds, crying out as they rose to meet the sun, and the faint liquid chunk of the paddles as we slid through the water. The eastern sky slowly
