Secret of the Legion (14 page)

I was silent.

"How's Whit doing?" Redhawk asked.

"She's fine. She talks about you a lot."

"Oh yeah?" A manic grin split his dirty face. "Well, can't say I blame her! That girl's got good taste! What does she say about me?" He was scratching his chest absently.

"She worships you like a God."

Ten laughed. "She's a honey, isn't she? I really like her. If we ever get outta this mess, I'm gonna disappear with her. Nobody will find us. Nobody."

"Sounds like a good plan."

Ten was resting his head on his hands, elbows on the table, looking out at me quizzically from behind long, stringy reddish hair. His face was pale and splotchy and spattered with slick.

"What?" I asked.

"I've got some news," he said. "Good news."

"What's that?"

"Valkyrie is alive. She's right here on Quaba."

***

"Does this place have a name?" I asked. It was so dark I could hardly see a thing. Little sparks flickered in the gloom and a milky cloud of glitter gently swirled overhead. The air was charged with sweet, musky incense. The music crawled over my skin, overwhelming me, infinitely sad, totally overpowering.

"Deep Dreams," Redhawk replied. "Try not to breathe anything."

"Off limits," something female hissed. "Nasty boys!" As my eyes adjusted, I could see a girl with glistening purple skin, completely naked, so tall and spidery I thought I was imagining it. I could only gape at her as she faded into the smoky dark with laughing yellow eyes. I had never seen a female Cyrillian before, clothed or otherwise.

"Let's see if we can find a table," Redhawk said.

"I can't see a damned thing."

A phantom with a pinpoint flash guided us to a table against one wall. She was an exquisite petite Outworlder girl, also completely nude. Shining, carefully clipped tawny hair, generous breasts, shapely legs, and a pink ribbon around her neck.

"Legion?" she asked us over the music. "Deep Dreams welcomes you. You will be alerted if Town Patrol enters. Please relax and enjoy. May we serve a softside?"

"No—blue ice, please," Redhawk responded. The girl faded into the dark. The eerie music continued, soaking into my bones. Shimmering clouds of ice crystals floated past our table—we could see nothing else.

"What's a softside?" I asked.

"Aphrodisiac," Redhawk replied. "You don't want it in this place. This is a fem bar. Males can look but don't touch, or a gang of very tough toms will toss you out on your ass."

"I'll try to remember that."

The naked sweety brought us blue ice, and we sipped deep dreams as a series of dim lights slowly came flickering to life out of the mists to focus on a slim, angelic blonde with very short hair and very long legs, clad in a pale filmy gown, dancing dreamily in the clouds.

My mind floated away, back to Planet Hell, where Valkyrie and I had killed together in the swamps, and run to higher ground, terrified and exhausted, and paused in a cold forest on a misty hill. She had sunk her fangs into my neck and left fingernail tracks all over my back. Gamma Two, she had been then—my Two, forever and ever and ever. And then, on Andrion 2, Beta Nine had touched my heart with deep, dark child's eyes, and taken me away. Valkyrie was lost to me, forever. Gone, claimed by the Legion and her own fevered dreams. Valkyrie had seen too much, on Coldmark, on Andrion 3, on Mongera, on Uldo. She was Beta Eleven by then, but was gone from all of us, forever. In the end she had been as cold as a biogen, out for blood and praying for death. I had prayed too, for her. I still prayed for her, to Deadman. Valkyrie—alive! I had last heard her voice in the tunnels of the Mound. We had been trapped and doomed, Tara and Gildron and Twister and I, and the O was rushing at us like a dragon from the stars. I had called out our impending death, just for the record, and Snow Leopard had responded, miraculously. 'It's them, Eleven,' he had said. 'Get that O!' And Valkyrie, invisible, had replied. 'I'm on it, One!' she cried out. 'Goodbye and God bless you!' Hurling herself at the O. Then the starmass had overwhelmed us. Valkyrie—alive! I had never dared even hope it.

Up on stage, the spidery Cyrillian girl had stripped the blonde and was licking her down like a frozen fruit bar, as the music rose to a shattering crescendo. I didn't pay them a whole lot of attention.

Redhawk had called our waitress over and had launched into a long, involved speech. I couldn't hear a word. The waitress was bending over to listen, a puzzled expression, her large breasts bobbing gently a few mils from his face. He didn't appear to even notice them. It was really kind of funny. When she glided away, Redhawk leaned over to me. "She'll check," he said. "She confirmed Valkyrie comes here every night. She has a permanent cube here, she's hardly ever in her Legion quarters."

"You've never contacted her?"

"No. I just found out about her. And I didn't want to show up in her quarters. She's got a new designation now, Three Three Two, and she's assigned to Admin. It's a dumping ground for screw-ups and incompetents. Also a good place to hide somebody. No human wants to contact anybody in Admin."

"You sure it's all right to approach her here?"

"Best place on the planet. These people are total outcasts, and totally suspicious. They're not going to cooperate with anyone official."

"So why is the waitress doing what you asked her?"

"I tipped her fifty C. And she knows I'm not TP or Info. I've been here a few times before, just for chuckles. Never knew Eleven hung out here."

The waitress appeared again, her perfect face completely neutral. "She doesn't know any Beta Ten," she said. "And she doesn't want to know any Beta Ten."

"Damn," Redhawk said. "But she's here—can we see her?"

"No," the waitress said, her face hardening. It sounded pretty final.

"All right," Redhawk said. "Give her this. If she won't see us then, we'll leave. Tenners?" He handed her a holcard. She looked at it skeptically, but accepted it and turned away, displaying slim silky legs and a lovely, firm little bottom that no man would ever get to enjoy.

"What was that, Redhawk?" I asked.

"A shot of us all—Beta and Gamma—on Planet Hell. I always carry it."

"Well, here's hoping they haven't psyched her." We raised our glasses to it, and drank blue ice. Up on stage the Cyrillian spider-woman was humiliating the leggy blonde waif. It was awful. I had to turn my eyes away. The music was like a great heartbeat. The whole room was throbbing. The blonde was whimpering.

"She'll see you." Our tawny-haired waitress was back. "Follow me."

She led us to a silent padded hallway somewhere far below the nightspot, lined with brightly colored doors. We stopped at number 44. Two short-haired, tough-looking, uniformed toms were lounging in the corridor, fingering their shockrods, watching us with some interest. The naked waitress pressed a doorbell and stepped back with disinterest, her task complete.

The door slid open. Beta Eleven stood there, a cold elegant blonde, an angel from Hell, emerald eyes, pale pink lips, slim and perfect, clad in a silken black robe. A black Legion cross was burnt right onto her forehead, the mark of the dead. She held Redhawk's holcard in one hand. As her eyes focused on Redhawk and me, the color rushed from her face and her head lurched back and she suddenly collapsed, falling heavily to the deck. Redhawk reached out to catch her, the waitress screamed, the two toms charged in waving their shockrods and shouting their battle cries, another girl appeared suddenly from inside the room, and for a couple of fracs it was very confusing indeed.

"She fainted! It's not us!" I screamed, desperate to ward off the two man-haters with the shockrods. "She fainted! Help her!"

"She fainted!" the waitress confirmed. The toms paused over us, hesitating, poised to pound out our brains. Redhawk had Valkyrie in his arms.

"Give her some air," I said. "We're friendlies!" Valkyrie evidently had a roomie, a sweet little underaged thing with silky brown hair, hovering over her in concern, watching us warily with big brown eyes.

"Valkyrie—wake up!" I pleaded. Her roomie produced a wet cloth and we daubed at Valkyrie's forehead. The toms were holding off and the waitress was still gaping at the scene.

She came around slowly. Her eyelids flickered and opened. Redhawk and I were on our knees beside her. She stared at us in wonder. One hand came up and closed around Redhawk's greasy reddish hair. Another came right up to my face, her slim fingers running over my cheek.

"Ten…" she gasped. "Three! Oh my holy God! You're real! You're alive! Oh my God!" Her face twitched, and she burst into tears, clutching us tightly, her arms snaking around our necks. "Where have you been? Where the hell have you been? Oh my God!"

***

Valkyrie's cube was quite a place. The Deep Dreams people appeared to be running a profit, to judge by the rooms they rented out. It was luxurious by Legion standards. Redhawk and I sat in yielding airchairs, accepting cups of dox served by Valkyrie's roomie, the little lovely with the thin silky hair. The walls were glowing with dreamy fantasy shots of fems disrobing and soaping each other down in improbable outdoor locations. When she finished serving the dox, the roomie settled down on a stack of cushions in one corner, watching us silently with big brown eyes. Valkyrie appeared from an inner room, completely composed, her face cold and hostile.

"You bastards!" she snapped at us abruptly. "How long has it been? Why did you abandon me? They told me all of Beta was gone. They said I was the only survivor! They said you were both killed. I saw your names in the Book of the Dead. Why didn't you contact me before? You bastards!" She was furious, icy emerald eyes, the color burning on her cheeks, the black Legion cross throbbing on her forehead. She reminded me of her fem lover, Gamma One, Boudicca, the Bitch from Hell, who had perished on Mongera in her arms.

"We only just found you, Eleven," Redhawk responded calmly. "I've been searching for you for close to a year—ever since I learned ConFree lied to us. We're all in the Book—you're in the Book, too. But we're not all dead."

She glared at us, her lips firmly set. "Who's alive?"

"We've found Dragon—and Cinta. Nobody else."

"Dragon! And Scrapper?"

"We haven't found Scrapper. We don't know who's alive, and who's dead. The bastards lied to us all, about everything—because of the Mound, because of the Ship. They told me the same—that everyone in Beta was dead, that I was the only survivor. That I had to change my designation, because of the Ship. And they psyched Thinker. They were trying to hide us from each other."

"Who did this?" Valkyrie stood in the middle of the room, as still as a statue.

"ConFree," Redhawk replied. "An Inner named Kenton Cotter-Arc. He's the ConFree Director for the entire Outvac. He gives orders to Starcom."

"And he did this to us?"

"That's right. He had a lot of help, but he's the man."

"He's dead," Valkyrie said. She said it with such calm conviction that I had no doubt she meant it. I stood up, setting my dox cup on a table.

"Come here," I said. She looked at me with glittering green eyes, and moved over to me in a trance. I embraced her, closing my eyes and floating away, a wave of emotion crawling over my skin. Her fingernails were digging into my back. Mine—she had once been mine. My head was spinning.

"Ten!" she called. He came over, and she pulled him close. We stood there in the middle of the room, the three of us, silent, embracing, trembling with emotion. I could feel the love, rushing over us. Beta was reforming—and the galaxy was going to regret it, I knew. Valkyrie's roomie was already regretting it, watching us gloomily from the corner.

"Dragon says hello," I said. "He said we're planning to kick some ass, and we'd like you to join us."

"Dibs on Cotter-Arc," Valkyrie gasped. It was so good to see her again, to touch her again, to inhale her lovely scent. I remembered it, from how many lost years ago, tugging at my heart. It was a taste of the past—my past. Her heart was thumping against mine. It was so damned good.

***

"All set?" Redhawk asked. We were standing silently before a door in a dimly lit, hushed corridor, Redhawk and Valkyrie and I, dressed in our blacks. It was a residential cube bloc in Quaba Base. Redhawk held a techscan against the doorlock, and it was glowing green. He triggered it, and the door snapped open.

We rushed silently into the darkness within. It was a largish cube with the bed set behind a little sitting area. She was in bed. We kind of expected that since it was 0100 hours, the pit of the night. Valkyrie and I were on her like a couple of bloodcats attacking a crippled bird. I grabbed a handful of hair while Valkyrie ripped the covers off and jumped right onto the bed, straddling her, seizing her arms. She was on her back, coming awake with a strangled gasp and a rising scream that ended abruptly when Valkyrie slapped her hard on the mouth.

"Shut down, bitch! Turn her over!" We flipped her over easily—she was just a little thing. Redhawk hit the lights. The door was firmly closed once again. I had a knee on the girl's neck as Valkyrie forced her arms behind her back. The girl cried out in pain.

"Cooperate, bitch, or I'll break your arm!" Valkyrie warned. Our victim was a petite little blonde with long slim legs, squirming beneath us in micropanties and a short, sheer negligee. Valkyrie was still struggling with her arms.

"Need any help?" Redhawk asked us with some amusement, his arms folded. Valkyrie had the cuffs on now, snapping them around the girl's wrists.

"She's going to need your help when I'm through," Valkyrie snapped, pulling the girl's panties down abruptly and jabbing her buttocks with a field syringe. It was a superflash sedative, and it slowed her down quickly. When the girl stopped struggling, Valkyrie pulled her roughly off the bed. She landed on her knees and cried out in pain.

"Keep your trap shut, bitch! Do what we say and you may live. Get up!" Valkyrie pulled her up by her hair, got a headlock on her, and marched her roughly into the sitting room. "Where do you want her?"

"Put her against the wall," Redhawk replied. Valkyrie slammed the girl back-first against one wall, then frisked her thoroughly. It hardly seemed necessary—we could see right through the negligee, and she certainly wasn't armed.