again. Ghost ships. A ghost fleet! That’s what Brandon wanted to tell the Legion. A ghost mission, for a hundred years. Generations of officers and men, disappearing into the vac. Countless ships and men, swallowed up by this endless, ghost mission. It’s something important, it said, and something evil. Those were Brandon’s words-’something evil’. We think it knew more than it told us. It wanted to tell the Legion itself, but it can’t. So that’s it, the list it gave us, and that’s all it is, a list of ship’s names, and we hope it helps Cit. Now Cit had better leave.”
He sat down wearily, drained. “We’re sorry, Tinlan,” he said to his wife. “We’re sorry.” She did not reply. She cried again, quietly, holding the baby to her bosom.
Coolhand slipped the card into a pocket. “Thank you,” he said. “The Legion thanks you.” He handed something to the man. Tharos Cyprio looked at the credmark in his hand. It was Legion gold, a flaming Legion cross on one side and the Goddess of Liberty on the other, and after the credits were exhausted, it could be sold for the gold. It would change their lives forever, in that rat world. It would buy them years of comfort and security.
Tharos Cyprio slapped the credmark back into Coolhand’s hand. “We don’t want its money! We did this for Brandon! We did this for ourself! We’re doomed, and Legion money isn’t going to change anything! Go! Go in peace. And use the information to bring down the System. Bring it down, does it hear us? Bring it down!” He was losing control.
“Movement,” Warhound said, guarding the door, looking down the corridor. His jaw muscles clenched. Warhound was as solid as a rock. I knew we didn’t have to worry about the corridor.
Coolhand passed the credmark surreptitiously to me and I slipped it to Priestess. We were pretty sure his wife would take it; women are always more practical than men. But Priestess did not pass it on to her. Priestess latched on to Coolhand’s arm.
“You’re not going to leave them here?” she hissed at him in astonishment.
“We don’t have any choice, Priestess,” Coolhand whispered back. “We can’t let the Systies know we have this info. We can’t touch him. The best thing we can do is get out fast, to protect them. Thinker, call in the aircar.”
I raised the comset. “Tango, Redstar. Your package is ready.”
The answer came immediately. “Redstar, Tango. Confirm.”
“You haven’t been listening, Coolhand!” Priestess snapped back. “They’re after him already! When they catch up, they’ll find out everything! All they have to do is follow the bodies and go in the door that’s got the Legion trademark on it. This hasn’t exactly been a covert mission! Wake up, Coolhand! They helped us! And they’re dead unless we help them! And the System finds out either way! At least if we take them with us, the System doesn’t know what he passed on to us. If we don’t, they do!”
Warhound fired, auto V, and the thunder echoed down the halls.
“Decision time,” I declared.
“They’re Outworlders,” Priestess added, her final argument.
Coolhand paused only for an instant. “We’ll take them. Let’s go!”
“Come with us!” Priestess shouted. Tharos Cyprio raised his head, mouth open. Tinlan whimpered, and scrambled to her feet with the baby. She made a move to get something from the floor.
“No time for that,” I said. “We leave now! Let’s go! Priestess, escort them!”
Warhound fired again. “It’s just locals,” he shouted. “Follow me!” He proceeded down the hall, past bodies sprawled by the stairs, Coldmarker civilians, out cold. They looked like tough customers.
We scrambled down the stairs and the Coldmarker I had shot was still unconscious, slumped against the wall. We burst out into the street, guns up, and the cold hit me like a hammer. I could see my breath frosty in the air.
“Faster!” We ran down a dark alley, heading for the rendezvous with the aircar. Coolhand and me first, then Warhound and Priestess and Cyprio and Tinlan and the baby. The night sky suddenly lit up, lightning crackling everywhere. Deceptors! The Legion was with us! We charged around a corner and past the familiar group of beggars still huddled around their little fire.
“Priestess! What are you doing?” She had skidded to a halt by the beggars, and pressed something into the hand of the old lady. Then she broke away and rejoined us, into the shadows. An aircar flashed overhead, right over the tops of the buildings.
“Got you in sight, Tango!”
“Where the devil are you?”
“Land, Tango! We’re on the way!” We exited an alley into another narrow street. A gleaming Legion aircar hovered there, sleek and beautiful, the plex shining like black diamonds, a blizzard of trash and dust whirling all around it.
The assault doors popped open and Snow Leopard leaned out with an E, his blonde hair rippling in the breeze, with Psycho right beside him, his Manlink at his shoulder, scoping out the streets. Merlin and Dragon grabbed on to us as we piled in, and Tharos Cyprio, his wife and baby were lifted bodily into the car.
“Go!”
Redhawk shook his shaggy head and gave us a twisted grin and rocketed the aircar up into the flashing night. They would never get us now!
Priestess fell into my arms, her face shining with emotion. “We did it! We did it! They’re free! We did it, Thinker!”
I laughed. “No, Priestess, you did it! It’s you they should thank. What did you give that old lady?”
“I gave her the credmark, Thinker. Legion gold, for the poor of the System! We did it, Thinker! I feel wonderful!” She trembled with emotion. I held her tightly.
“You’re amazing, Priestess. You’re really amazing! You want to personally save the entire galaxy, don’t you?”
“I just want to help,” she replied. “I just want to help!”
Chapter 16:
Dead and Gone
“Go right in, Citizen. The Captain will see it now.” The exec of the Personal Ship Maiden was a slim, attractive female with wispy blonde hair, clad in the ship’s phospho violet uniform and carrying a shockrod. The door slid shut behind me as I stepped into the cabin, leaving the exec outside.
It was a mystery to me why Snow Leopard had ordered me to visit this slave ship-he gave no explanation other than a cryptic order that under no circumstances was I to be surprised by anything I saw. That, and an official invitation from the ship’s captain for a representative of the Spawn to visit the ship. I knew it meant trouble. The Maiden was orbiting Coldmark and the natives evidently wanted the cargo badly. Coldmarkers filled the corridors, bidding for slaves and sampling the merchandise. It made me nervous-the Legion’s role was to kill slavers, not sample their obscene hospitality. I wore civvies at the Legion’s insistence and was glad of it.
Her face a rigid mask, the captain sat on the edge of her desk dressed in dark violet, waves of auburn hair gleaming in low light, exotic Assidic eyes blinking like a caged beast. High cheekbones, a narrow, delicate nose, a wide mouth, and pale brown velvet skin. She was a vision from another world, all the secret memories of the vanished past. I stopped, stunned. Tara! She came to me in my dreams, sometimes, but I had tried hard to forget her. Priestess had made the process easier.
“It is…Beta Three? Of the ConFree Legion?” She spoke in the Systie dialect with a flawless accent, yet it was still her voice. A hard voice, as cold as the vac. Her eyes glinted with a resolve as unbreakable as Atom’s keel. She knew perfectly well who I was! And why the accent? Then it hit me, and it nearly knocked me off my feet. I could see it all right there in her eyes, everything that had happened to her since she’d vanished from my life. A psycher! The legion had trained her and flung her into the deep. Of course! Deadman! Tara is a Legion asset! How long must it have taken her to rise through the ranks of these degenerate slavers and gain their trust? How long for her to make her way to the top-how many throats cut and how many risks taken? How many hopeless slaves delivered to their doom?
Get a grip, Thinker! Watch your words-the Systies have probably got this room wired!
I swallowed hard, “That’s right,” I replied warily. “And you?” I could hardly believe it! The cabin gleamed with rare woods and stones, but I did not take it in. I could only stare, transfixed by this vision from the past. I had thought I’d love her forever. What in Deadman’s name is she doing here? How has she changed? What must it be like for her? How can she survive, alone?
I had Beta and the Legion to back me up. What did Tara have?
