Douglas Hill - The Last Legionary 2 - Deathwing over Veyna

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Other books by Douglas Hill available from Macmillan Children's Books

Galactic Warlord Day of the Starwind Planet of the Warlord

and for younger children

Penelope's Pendant

Penelope's Protest

Penelope's Peril

DOUGLAS HILL

Deathwinc

OVER

macmillan children's books

First published 1980 by Victor Gollancz Ltd

This edition published 1996 by Macmillan Children's Books

a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd

25 Eccleston Place, London SWiW 9NF

and Basingstoke

Associated companies throughout the world

The right of Douglas Hill to be identified as the

author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or

transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with

the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any

person who does any unauthorised act in relation to

this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution

and civil claims for damages. ,

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed by Mackays of Chatham pic, Kent

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out,

or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent

in any form of binding or cover other than that in which

it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For Marilyn

PART ONE

REbEls of

CIUSTER

The •watcher among the rocks had not noticed the point of light when it had

first appeared, high in the pale yellow sky. Only when it had fallen further,

enlarging, brightening, did the watcher's one huge eye glimpse it.

The watcher's six arms halted their activity. Within its cold brain messages

were relayed and received. Silently it moved backwards, into a shadowed cleft

among the rocks, its eye fixed unblinkingly on the hurtling object in the sky.

In seconds the object revealed itself as a metal capsule, man-sized and

coffin-shaped. It fell bathed in fire as the atmosphere flared along its metal

skin. And it fell with a high-pitched howl as its small retro rockets cut in,

slowing its plunge - and at last depositing it with a bump and a slide among

the rocks.

It was a standard escape capsule, in use on many of the spacecraft in the

Inhabited Worlds. It had a tiny power supply, enough for some guidance

control, for its retros and for a continuous "Mayday* broadcast while in

flight. It was a spaceman's last resort when his ship was dangerously

malfunctioning, beyond repair.

The capsule came to rest less than a hundred metres from the watcher. The

great eye observed steadily as a seam opened in the capsule's hull, parting it

into two halves. From within it, as if hatching from an egg, a spacesuited man

emerged.

The man unfastened his helmet and took a deep, grateful breath of the cold

air, then began to peel off the spacesuit, indifferent to the biting wind that

swirled and moaned around him. He was a tall, lean young man with a

strong-boned face, wearing what seemed to be a uniform - dark-

grey tunic and close-fitting trousers tucked into boots. On the cuffs of the

tunic were flashes and stripes of colour, and a sky-blue circlet decorated the

upper chest. The same circlet appeared on the spacesuit helmet, and on the

open and now useless capsule.

The man folded the spacesuit into a manageable bundle with the helmet and

breathing pack, then straightened, studying his surroundings. It was an

uninviting landscape of dark, bare rock, so ridged and creased and corrugated

that, from above, it would look like badly crumpled cloth. Much of the rock

was discoloured with broad smears of a substance that gleamed a sickly blue

under the pale sun.

Yet, for all its dismal appearance, it was a place with an oxygen atmosphere,

able to support human life - even if not comfortably. If the man from the

capsule had been an ordinary spaceman, who had ejected from a crippled ship,

he could have counted himself lucky.

But luck had nothing to do with it. His ship was intact -orbiting in deep

space, under the guidance of the most unusual pilot in the Inhabited Worlds.

And the man from the capsule was no ordinary spaceman.

He was Keill Randor, the sole survivor of a race of people who had once been

the galaxy's most renowned and most supremely skilled fighting force - the

Legions of the planet Moros.

And he had chosen to land as he had done for a purpose - as part of a task he

had to accomplish in this bleak place.

As his gaze swept across his surroundings, he caught a glint of metal deep in

a shadowed deft. He moved closer, warily - and saw the watcher.

And he knew that his task had begun.

The watcher was a robot - a work-robot, he recognized, probably with a limited

programme and no decision faculties. Its body was wide and pyramid-shaped,

with a low centre of gravity to keep it upright on tough terrain. It had six

arms -

flexible, whippy tentacles of metal - with tools on their extremities, mining

tools like drills, scoops, pincer-like grabs. Surmounting the body, some two

metres from the ground, was a scanner "eye" - which relayed pictures to

screens that humans would monitor.

The robot moved slowly out from the shadow, rolling on heavy, rubbery treads

that made its advance eerily silent.

Keill Randor stood still, watchful but relaxed, fairly sore that the heavy

robot was no danger to him.

But he was less sure of his safety when, looking up, he saw two human figures

who had appeared on a nearby rise, with old-fashioned laserifles held ready in

their hands.

The smaller of the two figures waved an arm in a beckoning gesture. Keill

gathered up his spacesuit and obeyed, moving with sure-footed, athletic speed

up the uneven slope.

Both of the others wore hooded, one-piece coveralls, shiny and metallic, and

probably thermally controlled. Garments like them were commonplace on many

planets in the Inhabited Worlds. And the smaller of the two was a woman, for

the coverall did nothing to hide the shapeliness of her figure — no more than

it bid the bulk and muscle of her taller companion.

As Keill drew near, he saw an open, balloon-wheeled ground-car - of a make

almost as out-of-date as the laserifles -standing a short distance beyond the

two figures. He also saw the bulky man swing the rifle to fix its ugly muzzle

on his chest.

But the woman merely looked him up and down, then nodded. She had large, dark

eyes in a delicately oval face, but they held an expression of cool and

competent authority.

*We picked up your mayday," she said. *My name's Joss -this is Groll."

•Keill Randor. Thanks for coming out" He glanced briefly at the rifle held by

the bigger man. "No need for that - I'm not armed."

•Precautions," the woman said. "You've dropped into the middle of a war."

i know," Keill said. "That's why I'm here." As the woman raised her eyebrows,

he added, i heard some news about trouble here on the Ouster, and thought I

could find work. But my ship's drive overloaded and I had to come the rest of

the way in the capsule."

The woman called Joss studied him curiously. "Work? Are you some sort of

soldier ?*

'Some sort."

'Mercenary!" spat the big man named GroD, a sneer on his coarse-featured face.

Keill looked at him coldly. "Nothing wrong with being a mercenary - depending

on who you fight for, and why."

Groll was about to reply when the woman silenced him with a gesture. "You'd

better come and talk to the Council," she said thoughtfully, motioning to the

ground-car.

The vehicle was not only old-fashioned but old. Its drive stuttered and

bellowed, its body rattled with every bump, and there was a bump every few

centimetres. Conversation would have been impossible even if the biting wind

had not snatched words away from mouths. So Keill sat back, staring out at the

dismal vista of blue-smeared rock, wrapping himself in his thoughts.

He knew a good deal about this place where he had landed - more than he would

admit to its people. He had come as prepared as possible, yet ahead of him

remained a huge range of unknowns, of questions and mysteries. He would have

to deal with them as they came up, while posing as a wrecked spaceman, a

drifter, a soldier of fortune.

If they accepted him, his task would be that much easier. If not... then his

ship and its strange pilot were near enough to scoop him up if he ran into

dangers that even he could not overcome. So he was not alone.

Certainly not as alone as he once had been, totally, over-

whelmingly, when he had learned that he was the only living remnant of an

entire race of people. A race that had been deliberately, inhumanly, murdered.

At the time, he had not expected to feel that mind-numbing loneliness for

long. The deadly radiation that had enveloped his world, the planet Moros, had

brushed lighdy against him, enough to plant a slow death within him. He had

set out then, alone, with a steely determination, to use what time he had left

to find out who had destroyed his world, and why.

But he had been diverted. And bis life had been altered in ways that he would

once have thought beyond belief.

He had been gathered up by a group of strange, elderly scientists, brilliant

beyond the level of genius, whom he had come to know as the "Overseers'. In

their secret base, hidden within a small, uncharted asteroid, he had been

cured of the radiation's lethal effects - and had learned the truth behind the

murder of Moros.

The Overseers, tirelessly keeping watch over the Inhabited Worlds with uncanny

monitoring devices, had discovered the existence of a mysterious being who was

the single most malignant danger to the well-being of the unsuspecting galaxy.

Knowing little else about this being - neither where, nor what, nor who he was

- they had given him a name of their own: the Warlord.

But the Overseers at least knew the intentions of the Warlord. He was sending

out emissaries and agents to spread the infection of war throughout the galaxy

- to set nation against nation, race against race, planet against planet

Until, if he had his way, all the Inhabited Worlds would be ablaze with an

ultimate wax - and the Warlord would be waiting to emerge and rule whatever

was left after that final catastrophe.

It was the Warlord, the Overseers were sure, who had destroyed Moros - before

the Legions too could learn of his existence, and turn their might against

him.

So the Overseers had sought and found Keill Randor, the

last legionary - and probably the most skilled fighting man in the galaxy,

whether piloting his one-person space fighter or in individual, hand-to-hand

combat. They wanted Keill to be tbeir emissary - to go to worlds where they

suspected the Warlord's influence was at work, and there to learn more about

him and wherever possible to thwart his plans.

Keill had agreed - for the fight against the Warlord was his fight, too,

against the murderer of Moros. But when he had left the secret asteroid to

begin that fight, he had left considerably changed.

For one thing, the Overseers" scientific genius had not merely healed him of

the radiation's effects. That deadliness had settled in Keill's bones - so the

Overseers had replaced his entire skeletal structure, with a unique organic

alloy. It was stronger and more resilient than even the toughest metal. As far

as the most demanding tests showed, it was unbreakable.

And for another thing, his loneliness had ended. On the asteroid he had met an

alien visitor - an intelligent being from another galaxy, for there were no

intelligent life-forms other than man within the Inhabited Worlds.

Glr was the name of the alien, a female of a race called the Ehrlil - a race

of long-lived explorers of the unfathomable intergalactic spaces, a race of

small, winged beings who communicated telepathically. Glr herself, Keill soon

found, had special qualities of her own - among them a boundless curiosity and

an unquenchable sense of humour.

Glr became Keill's friend and companion when he left the Overseers" asteroid.

Now she was at the controls of his ship, immensely distant, yet in contact

with his mind through her telepathic power, which had no limits in space. She

was also his only link with the Overseers - for they had kept the position of

the asteroid a secret even from Keill, for fear that he might fall into the

hands of their enemy, the Warlord, and be forced to betray them.

Keill and Glr had already had one encounter with forces of

the Warlord, and had defeated them. And in doing so Keill had learned a

valuable fact. The Warlord's most important agents were organized into a

special elite force, whose leader was known only as "The One'. Many of its

members came from the Altered Worlds, planets where mutations had taken place

among the human inhabitants. But all of the members of that force, mutants or

not, were skilled and powerful, and as malignantly evil as their Master. The

nature of that force was revealed by its name - the Deathwing.

Beneath him, the ground-car's rumble altered, jolting Keill out of his

memories. The big man called Groll, at the controls, had been guiding it

through a winding series of gullies and low ravines. Now he had aimed it

towards a low, fiat slope, increasing its power. The wheels skidded slightly

on the smeared blue substance, and Keill glanced down at it.

It was, he knew, a simple lichenous form of vegetation. It was also why he was

there.

Because of that harmless lichen, war was brewing in this cold, rocky place. A

war that showed all the signs of the insidious, poisonous influence of the

Warlord.

Which meant that somewhere, sometime - perhaps very soon - Keill Randor would

once again come face to face with the Deathwing.

The ground-car roared up to the top of the low ridge, and had begun its plunge

down the far slope when Groll urgently brought it to a jerking, sliding halt.

Beyond the foot of the slope, from a broad, low area like a vast shallow basin

widun the rocks, rose a massive structure. It was cylindrical and flat-topped,

resembling an enormous drum - some eight storeys high, with a frontage at

least three hundred metres wide. Windows gleamed at regular intervals in its

sturdy plasticrete walls, and at its base, between huge supporting buttresses,

were wide openings that were more like loading bays than doorways.

On top of the building was a landing pad for spacecraft, on which was resting

the bulbous oval shape of a cargo shuttle ship. Around the edge of the roof

was a series of unsightly humps that Keill recognized as reinforced gun

emplacements.

The weapons within them were heavy-duty laser cannon. And they were firing.

The building was under attack.

High in the yellow sky a silvery dart-shape veered and plunged. A one- or

two-person fighter, Keill saw, with what seemed to be a skilled hand at the

controls - and with more advanced weaponry than the out-dated lasers of the

defenders. It was the crackling blast of an ion-energy gun that spat from the

slender ship's nose as it dived towards the huge building.

Gobs of molten plasticrete exploded from the flat roof, within dangerous

metres of the exposed shuttle ship. The silvery shape flashed over, curving

and zig-zagging, while the laser cannon hissed and flared, the bright beams

slashing in vain through the sky around the attacker.

Then the pilot of the gleaming ship pulled it around in a tight loop, on to a

different course. Something had attracted his eye. Something like ... a

ground-cat in full view on a nearby rocky slope.

"get out of here!" Keill shouted, as the slim, menacing shape arrowed towards

them.

Groll dragged brutally at the car's controls, to force it back over the

protecting lip of the ridge. But the elderly drive sputtered and hiccoughed,

and the wheels slid beneath it.

Above them, the attacking ship swooped for the kill.

Groll yelled with fear, trying to scramble free of the car, ignoring Joss, who

seemed frozen, unable to move.

But Keill Randor was a legionary of Moros - his reflexes, his muscles, his

entire physique honed by a lifetime's training to a degree beyond most men's

imagining.

In the fractional instant before flame blossomed from the ship's forward gun,

he had grasped the back of Joss's coverall,

braced himself, and flung her one-handed out of the open car, sprawling and

tumbling down the slope, And in a follow-through to the same motion, he dived

headlong after her.

Behind them, the entire slope seemed to erupt in a volcanic explosion of fire

and shattered rock.

The tumbling slide of Joss and Keill, over the greasy blue lichen, had ended

in a shallow deft in the rock - where they crouched while rock fragments,

molten or splintered, hurtled around them. So they arose unharmed when the

attacking ship had swept upwards after its pass at them and vanished.

Above them, the ground-car lay tilted crazily, the front end tearing up,

crushed and smoking. The energy blast had struck just in front of it, but

close enough to wreck it beyond repair -and to have killed any occupants.

Joss rubbed a grazed elbow, showing through a rent in her coverall's sleeve,

and looked at Keill with new interest. "Thanks for that. You're stronger than

you look."

Keill shrugged. "It's more balance and leverage."

"Perhaps. But I don't know many who could have done that." She pointed up the

slope. "Not even him."

Beyond the shattered car, the huge figure of Groll lay, stirring slightly. The

force of the blast had flung him up the 6lope - but he had been far enough to

one side to escape the full impact. As they watched, he struggled slowly to

hands and knees, shaking his head dazedly.

Motioning to Keill, Joss started up the slope towards Groll - while in the

distance, from the openings at the base of the mighty building, a crowd of

people were surging out on to the rock.

In no time another ground-car had thundered up on to the slope and gathered

them up. As they roared back down, Keill glanced over at Joss, seated beside

him. Her hood had been pushed back, and her thick dark hair flowed free in the

wind.

She seemed more excited than distressed by the narrow escape from danger - her

eyes were sparkling, her fine-featured face glowing, and her smile as she

turned towards Keill was

radiant.

She leaned forward and put her lips to his ear. That's Home," she shouted

above the car's roar, pointing to the building that was looming ever closer.

"Where the Clusterfolk

live."

Keill blinked. "AH of them?"

"all." She nodded, her smile widening. Keill grinned back in return - but the

grin faded slightly when he caught the edge of a look from Groll, in the front

seat. It was a look filled with a sullen, brooding dislike.

The big man had suffered no serious harm - but now he was clearly feeling that

he had been shown up somehow, out on the slope. Keill sighed inwardly. Not an

ideal start Out of two people, he had made one friend, one enemy.

But, glancing at the lovely woman beside him, he was just as glad it hadn't

worked out the other way round.

He settled back for the rest of the ride. As he did so, another thought formed

within him. But it was not one of his own. It was the silent, inner voice of

Glr, reaching into his mind.

I take it you are still alive, said the alien voice with an edge of sarcasm,

despite all the alarms I sensed in jour mind just now.

Keill began forming a silent reply, sorting through the events since his

landing. He had no telepathic ability, but Glr could reach into bis mind and

pick up some of his thoughts.

More clarity, mudhead\ scolded the inner voice.

Keill's mouth quirked in a private smile. For Glr, most human minds were too

alien to read, too much a clutter of swirling, overlapping, jumbled thoughts

and images - thick mud, Glr called it. She could read only surface thoughts

and in only a few minds - those that could form their thoughts

cleatly and precisely, like unspoken words.

So Keill gathered his concentration, and related to Glr what had happened

since his landing.

Then the war down there, seems well under way, Glr commented when he was done.

'So it seems," Keill agreed.

Andjou are still going to revealjourselfas a legionary?

"it's the best way, as I said before," Keill replied."1/ should help to ease

some suspicion."

But if there is a Deathwing agent there, Glr said worriedly, you will be in

grave danger from the outset.

"i've already been in danger? Keill said. "I didn't come here to avoid

danger."

He felt the ground-car slowing, and looked up to see that they were

approaching one of the doorways at the base of the huge building. "Enough for

now - we've arrived."

Be wary, said Glr. Then her voice withdrew, as the cat stopped.

The crowd surged forward round the vehicle, in a clamour of shouted concern

and questions. As they climbed out of the car, Joss held up a hand, and the

babble quietened.

"You'll hear all about it later," she called. "Right now the Council has to

meet."

"They're already gathered, Joss," shouted a voice from among the throng. "In

the meetin" room."

She waved her thanks with a smile, and Keill noted again the calm air of

authority that she wore, and the admiring deference in the faces of the crowd

around her - as obvious as the open curiosity with which they stared at him.

Then she was taking his arm and leading him through the crowd into the

building, with Groll lumbering stolidly in their wake.

They entered a broad, low-ceilinged area where a number of other ground-cars

were parked, with a few people and some

of the six-armed work-robots moving among them. Beyond this area they passed

through a doorway into a long, low brightly lit corridor, with more doorways

and intersecting passages along its length.

The interior of the Home seemed cheerful but almost entirely functional, the

bright plastic of its walls only rarely interrupted by metal or ceramic

designs. And the people that Keill glimpsed through the doorways, or passed in

the corridor, seemed equally functional in their shiny coveralls -though all

had time to call a friendly greeting to Joss, and to peer curiously at Keill.

"how many are there ?" Keill asked.

•The Clusterfolk ? Six hundred and forty-one."

"Make it forty-two," Keill said, and was pleased when her smile glinted.

But it seemed a laughably small number of people, he thought, to go to war

against a world.

At the corridor's end they stepped on to a moving walkway, rising upwards,

twining round a descending walkway to make a double spiral. It took them

rapidly up to the topmost level, where they followed another broad corridor to

its end. Gleaming metal double doors stood closed before them.

Joss let her hand rest lightly on Keill's arm. "Will you wait here while I

speak with the Council? Just a few moments. And Groll—" she glanced at the big

man "—you too."

"are you a Councillor ?" Keill asked her.

"one of several. You'll meet them." Her smile flashed, and she turned away.

When the double doors had closed behind her Keill leaned back against the wall

of the corridor, patient, relaxed. He knew that Groll was glowering in his

direction, and had no doubt that the big man had something to say. He did not

have to wait long.

"Reckon you're a spy, that's what," Groll rumbled aggressively. "Dirty Veynaan

spy."

Keill said nothing. Veynaa, he knew, was the large neighbouring planet on

which the Ouster's six hundred folk had declared war. It was not surprising

that a Clusterman might be wary of spies. Or perhaps Groll merely had an

ignorant man's aversion to strangers.

Then again, there might be something more to the big man's hostility.

Something deeper and more deadly. It might be worthwhile, Keill thought, to

stir him up a little and see what emerged.

"got nothin" to say?" Groll sneered, stepping closer.

Keill looked at him without expression. "I'll say this," he replied flatly.

"You've managed something I didn't think possible."

A puzzled frown wrinkled doll's brow. *Whassat?" he demanded suspiciously.

'To be even stupider than you look."

Groll was fairly fast for a man of his bulk. His knotted fist swung without

warning in a savage, clubbing punch.

It was a grave mistake - but Groll did not have time to realize it. He did not

even have time to register that the punch had missed, that Keill had swayed

aside just far enough.

Then Keill struck him, twice, his hands blurring past any eye's ability to

follow their speed. He struck with fingertips . only, not wishing to kill, the

fingers of one hand jabbing deep into Groll's bulging belly, those of the

other hand driving into the small of Groll's back as the first blow doubled

him over. The second impact and Groll's own impetus sent the big man lurching

forward, his head meeting the hard plastic wall with a meaty thud.

As the unconscious bulk of Groll slid to the floor, a sound behind Keill

brought his head round. Joss was standing framed in the open double doors,

staring wide-eyed.

'Sorry," Keill said. "He got a little... aggressive."

"he usually does." For all her surprise, she did not seem perturbed, Keill

saw, and she hardly spared a glance for the

fallen GrolL Tfou'te a very unusual man. I could barely see you move."

Keill waited, saying nothing.

She smiled quickly, stepping aside. "You'd better come and meet the others."

the room beyond the doors was sizeable, but no less functional than the other

parts of the building Keill had seen. It was dominated by a long, low table,

behind which stood a few metal cabinets and some standard equipment including

a computer outlet and a holo-tape viewer. But Keill's attention was on the

four people at the table.

Two were older men, grey-haired and stringy. A third was an equally

grey-haired woman, but heavy-bodied, with a cheerful ruddy face and bright

eyes. The fourth was a younger man, tall, dark-haired, with a narrow intense

face. They all wore variants of the shiny coverall favoured by the

Cluster-folk; there were no signs of rank or authority.

'The Council of the Cluster," Joss said formally as they approached the table.

"This is Shalet, Council leader," she went on, indicating the big grey-haired

woman. "This is Fillon." The young, thin-faced man. "And this is Bennen, and

Eint." The two older men.

Keill nodded to them all agreeably, but had not missed the subtle ordering of

the introductions. It was the leader, Shalet, and Fillon who - besides Joss

herself - were the important members of this Council.

There was a brief silence while the five inspected Keill and he studied them.

Keill broke it first. "I'm Keill Randor. Joss will have told you how I came

here, and why I was coming in the first place."

'She did," Shalet replied in a resonant baritone. "Says you're a professional

soldier."

Keill smiled wryly. "Mercenary was Groil's word."

Shalet shrugged beefy shoulders. "Don't matter. Joss says you're pretty good.

Saved her life - we got to thank you for

that*

«5

"and Gfoil just found out," Joss put in, Tiow good he is."

One of the old men leaned forward." Y* mean big Groll got nasty, and you're

still standin" ?" He shook his head wonder-ingly. "You're more'n pretty good,

boy."

*Where'd you learn soldierin" ?" Shalet asked.

Keill had been expecting the question. "On the planet Moros," he said levelly.

Above the mutters of surprise, Fillon's snort of derision tang out. "The

Legions?" There was an edge of a sneer on the narrow face. "They died out, not

so long ago. Everybody knows that'

Terhaps some survived," Joss said softly.

"one did, anyway," Keill said. He slipped a hand into his tunic, and took out

a disc fastened to a thin chain. Around the edge of the disc was the same blue

circlet as on bis uniform, and within the ring of blue was a tiny, colour

holo-pic of Keill's face, with details of his name and rank, embedded deep in

the plastic "This is a Legion ID, if it means anything to you."

"Does to me, boy," said the older man named Rint. "Seen "em before, on the

vid. Uniform too, now I recollect.*

Fillon snorted again. "So you're a legionary turned mercenary?"

'My people are dead, and I have to earn my keep," Keill said quietly. "It's

the only work I know."

"and how do we know," Fillon snapped, "that you didn't hire out to Veynaa,

first ?"

Keill allowed a puzzled expression to form on his face, and Shalet saw it.

*Veynaa's the planet we're at war with," she explained. Then she turned

impatiently to Fillon. "And you know better'n that about the Legions. Never

fought in an unjust war. If they was around, they'd likely fight for us, if we

could afford "em. Spyin" wasn't their trade, neither."

"it still isn't," Keill said firmly.

TU need more than words," Fillon sneered, "to convince

Shalct slapped a broad hand on the table. "Not me 1i get a eood feeling from

you, Randor. Reckon the Cluster could do vith a fightin" man like you."

•Don't be naive," Fillon objected. "He could be dangerous 1'

"Course he could 1" Shalet boomed. If he's the only legionary left, maybe he's

the most dangerous man around! So let him join us, an" be dangerous to Veynaal

We can tell "em we got two weapons..."

'Shalet I" Joss broke in sharply.

"oh, right - sorry." Shalet subsided. "Anyway, what's the decision?"

Fillon stood up abruptly, eyes burning. i tell you this man should be kept

under guard, till we're sure of him I'

"an" how're we gonna be sure ?" Shalet asked.

"Wait till Quern gets backl" Fillon snapped. "Quern will know."

The others all began talking at once, but Joss's clear voice sliced through

the hubbub. "If Keill Randor had been locked up earlier today," she said, "I

would be dead."

'True enough," Shalet agreed. "But maybe Fillon's got a point. Wouldn't hurt

to wait till Quern can have a talk with him." She glanced around, the two old

men nodding in agreement. "Right - let's be fair. Randor, I don't think myself

you got anythin" t" do with Veynaa, but we can't take chances. You can be free

to come and go as you like around the Home, but there's gotta be someone with

you all the time. An" we'll talk about it again when Quern's back. All right

Keill glanced at Joss, who looked sympathetic, then at Fillon, who looked

annoyed. "If that's what you want," he said calmly.

"Reckon it won't be so bad," Shalet added with a broad grin, "if Joss

volunteers to keep an eye on yV

i will," Joss said readily. Then she grimaced down at her torn coverall. "But

first I need to change."

Then while Joss is prettyin" herself," Shalet chortled, "you come on with me,

Randor. I'll give you a personal guided tour of the Home."

She clapped a powerful hand on Keill's shoulder and propelled him towards the

door, talking boisterously. But Keill's mind was still fixed on the words that

the big woman had spoken earlier - words charged with menace.

Two weapons...

On their way through the doors, Keill saw that the corridor was empty, which

meant either that GroII had recovered or that he had been carried elsewhere.

In either case, Keill knew, he had stored up trouble for himself from that

source. Not that one more bit of trouble, he thought, would make much

difference.

Preoccupied with such thoughts he walked with Shalet back towards the moving

walkway and down to the lower levels. So he was only half-hearing her voluble

stream of information - much of which he had learned earlier from the

Overseers, while preparing for his mission.

Shalet had begun with the basic fact that the small planet on which they stood

was the largest body of a collection of planetoids, asteroids and bits of

space rubble which had been drawn by various cosmic forces to cling together,

so that the whole came to be called the Ouster.

It moved through space as a single object, rotating round a common axis. And

the larger bodies had, over the millennia, developed simple forms of life,

mostly various lichenous growths including the blue substance Keill had seen,

and a thin but breathable atmosphere.

The Cluster orbited its sun quite near, in astronomical terms, to a larger

planet When mankind's early starships had brought colonists to this system -

during the ancient Millennium of the Scattering which had spread man through

the galaxy - they had found the large planet, which they named Veynaa,

suitable in every way to support human life.

They also explored the Cluster thoroughly - with one price-ay

less result. A scientist, named Ossid, studying the blue lichen, found it to

be a rich source of an amazingly broad-. spectrum antibiotic - ¦which the

Veynaan colonists named ossidin after its discoverer.

So the colony's fortune was made. In the centuries after the Scattering, when

the colonized planets were forming contacts, trading links and so on, ossidin

proved a valuable resource. The Veynaans planted a small sub-colony of workers

on the Cluster to gather the lichen and ship it back to Veynaa for processing.

And Veynaa prospered hugely on the ossidin trade.

Eventually, though, the people of the Cluster - never more than a few hundred

- stopped thinking of themselves as Veynaans. They enlarged their central base

into the present massive structure, named it Home, and called themselves

Clusterfolk. And a time came when those tough and independent-minded men and

women wanted to break free of Veynaan control. They wanted to govern

themselves, and to take a fairer share of the rich profits from the ossidin

trade.

When the Veynaans refused, anger and unrest swept the Cluster. Relations grew

more bitter when the Clusterfolk went on strike, refusing to ship ossidin. A

few violent attacks on visiting Veynaan officials were followed by retaliatory

raids. Unrest became rebellion.

Then recently, without warning, the Clusterfolk had issued a threat. If their

independence was not granted, they said, they would declare war on Veynaa.

At this point Keill restored his full attention to Shalet, since the war was

why he was there. Shalet went on to say that, for a while, Veynaa had been

leaving the Cluster mostly alone -except for occasional overflights and minor

harassments by Veynaan ships, like the one Keill had run into that day.

'They think it's comical," the big woman grumbled, "us folk declarin" war on

them. They figure it's just a lotta noise, an" we'll come to our senses soon."

•8

'Still," Keill said carefully, "it does seem a fairly unequal

fight."

'Sure it does." Shalet set her jaw. *But not if we've got ourselves an

equalizer."

Is that what you hinted at before?" Keill asked, trying to sound casual. "Some

weapon ?"

'Somethin" like that. But I shouldn't be talkin" about it. I'll leave it to

Quern to tell y* about it, when he figures it's all right."

Keill paused for a moment, so as not to seem too eagerly curious. "This Quern

sounds important."

"he is," Shalet assured him. "Been a big help to us ever since he came. Gonna

win this war for us, Quern is."

A premonition stirred behind Keill's calm control. "Since he came ? He's not

from the Cluster ?" "Nope - offworlder, like you," Shalet grinned. i got the

impression," Keill said lightly, "that some Cluster-folk don't like

ofiworlders too well."

Shalet snorted. "Don't judge the Cluster from the likes of Groll, or Fillon.

Lots of folk here are from offworld, come to get work before the trouble

started. Must be a hundred or so." Her laugh boomed. "Fillon himself, he's one

of "em, an" Joss too. All good Clusterfolk, now - even if Fillon gets a bit

prickly sometimes."

Keill nodded, storing the information away. It was an interesting fact about

Fillon, though not fully explaining the young man's hostility to Keill. And

the mystery man Quern was even more interesting...

But he knew better than to arouse suspicion by pressing Shalet with even more

questions. He regained his expression of polite interest as the guided tour

continued.

They descended at first to the lowest levels of the great structure, where

Shalet led him through the sizeable areas where much of the work of the Home

went on. Kcill watched the work-robots disgorge their heaps of fragmented,

lichen-

covered rock, which were gathered up to be powdered in mighty machines and

packed into storage containers.

Shalet explained that the Cluster was stockpiling the raw ossidin, while the

rebellion continued. "When we're free," she said, "we'll get the stuff

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OtherbooksbyDouglasHillavailablefromMacmillanChildren'sBooksGalacticWarlordDayoftheStarwindPlanetoftheWarlordandforyoungerchildrenPenelope'sPendantPenelope'sProtestPenelope'sPerilDOUGLASHILLDeathwincOVERmmacmillanchildren'sbooksFirstpublished1980byVictorGollanczLtdThiseditionpublished1996byMacmillan...

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Douglas Hill - The Last Legionary 2 - Deathwing over Veyna

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