Legion Of The Damned - 06 - For Those Who Fell Read Free Page A

by then. “Call Dr. Fortu! Tell her to hurry! Sok Tok is bleeding to death.”
    â€œNo,” Tok warbled, as the fingers of his right wrapped themselves around her left ankle. “It’s too late. . .” The Prithian coughed and a half cup’s worth of blood spilled out onto the hardwood floor. That was when Vanderveen noticed the dagger that protruded from the alien’s back. He’d been stabbed, yet managed to fly to the embassy.
    â€œSave your strength,” Vanderveen said, “the doctor will be here in a moment, and . . .”
    â€œThere is nothing she can do,” Tok croaked. “Now listen carefully, whatever you do, don’t trust the Thrakies. They claim to be neutral, but . . .”
    The Prithian’s words were interrupted by another racking cough followed by a second rush of blood. But it just kept coming this time, flooding the area around his head, and drowning his words. Dr. Fortu burst into the office right about then and rushed to his side, but it was too late. Tok was gone, taking whatever he had hoped to warn his employers about with him, his fingers still locked around Vanderveen’s ankle. Fortu pried them off, but a circle of blood remained and proved difficult to remove.
PLANET ALGERON, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS
    Corporal Nowake Longsleep stood on a rocky ledge not far from the village in which he had been born and looked toward the east. He’d been part of the Legion for seven years by then and fought on three planets, none of which were as beautiful as his native Algeron, a world that completed a full rotation every two hours and forty-two minutes. The phenomenon created a world-spanning mountain range called the Towers of Algeron. Longsleep knew that the highest peaks, some of which topped eighty thousand feet, would dwarf Earth’s Mount Everest, and the knowledge made him proud.
    All of which was intellectually interesting but didn’t begin to describe the sheer beauty of the quickly rising sun, the soft pink light that glazed the snowcapped peaks to the south, or the feeling that rose to fill his chest. He’d been away too long—and it felt good to be home.
    A light breeze ruffled the short gray fur on Longsleep’s unprotected back and brought him the fresh clean scent of his sister’s perfume. The legionnaire turned as a rock clattered, and she climbed to join him. “I thought I’d find you here,” Lighttouch Healsong said, reaching up to take his hand. “Nodoubt Truespeak wants to see you.”
    Longsleep was on leave, Truespeak was the village chiefand would be eager for news. The soldier nodded. “Of course . . . I’ll follow you back.”
    Lighttouch had big eyes, full lips, and was dressed in an everyday outfit of blouse, jerkin, and black pantaloons. The fur that remained visible was gray, interrupted by streaks of black, just like her mother’s. She was pretty, very pretty, and would take a mate soon. Not the old way, by an arranged marriage, but someone of her choosing.
    The legionnaire followed his sibling back along the cliff-hugging trail, down a series of hand-cut steps, and onto the granite ledge where more than three dozen earthen domes steamed under the quickly rising sun. At least a third of the homes were abandoned now, slowly melting away as the wind, rain, and snow conspired to wear them down. Eventually, after three or four years, they would be little more than mounds on which wild grasses would grow.
    Longsleep knew that most, if not all, of the empty dwellings resulted from families leaving the village when one or more of their males joined the Legion. Odds were that they lived in the squalor adjacent to Fort Camerone. A vast labyrinth of mud huts that the humans referred to as Naa Town. Life was hard there, but very few of them ever came back, suggesting that conditions were even worse in Sunsee.
    The soldier sidestepped a mound