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ever came out, either—except what the Legion wanted to tell.
    Whatever you want, you get. That’s what they told us as recruits. I didn’t believe it, of course. Nobody did. It was a complete shock, then, when we discovered it was really true. Whatever you want, you get. We could write our own ticket, and if the final stop did not turn out to be quite to our liking, we had no one to blame but ourselves.
    Hunting Scalers—nonsense! The Systies were the only real objective. But we hadn’t found them, so we’d find the Scalers, and interrogate them.
    “It looks scary, Thinker.” Priestess spoke on private to me. Priestess had walked into the face of death for us on Planet Hell. We all loved her, but nobody had yet touched her. I guess we didn’t want to spoil it. This way, she belonged to us all and us to her.
    “That’s a ten,” I responded, pleased she had confided in me, and not somebody else. “I’d rather stay here.” She knew I did not like tunnels. The nasty, nasty, narrow tunnel made its way down to a very unpleasant-looking underwater stream.
    It would be difficult. Difficult, but probably possible. Probably possible, a favorite phrase from Planet Hell, used as a prelude to many grim adventures. A wave of fear edged its way into my bloodstream as I watched the scan again on my faceplate. My legs turned to jelly.
    “Tenners, let’s go.” Snow Leopard slipped into the hole, crawling in head first, followed by two Life Science techs.
    We had been through a lot with Snow Leopard, and trusted his judgment. He was from Magna 4, a gigantic iceworld best described as a hostile environment. He resembled a white shadow, with blue-veined, almost translucent skin, pale pink eyes, and hair so blond it looked almost white. We knew we could trust him to do the sensible thing. He had changed since the early days in Providence. They did strange things to those that they made a One. Some members of the squad thought that he was no longer quite human, but we’d all follow him anywhere.
    Into the dark, headfirst into that evil hole, squirming down at a steep angle. I was in the rear, following Priestess. Wet, muddy earth, all over my suit. The darksight on my faceplate adjusted gradually and soon everything appeared to be glowing a faint green. It was an incredibly tight fit, my comtop pressing against the tunnel ceiling. There was barely room to move my arms, barely room to breathe. I felt awkward with my weapon cradled in my arms and my equipment scraping the walls.
    The dark closed in, and there was only me, crawling, and Priestess, ahead. I can do this forever, I thought. Just don’t stop; if I stop it will close in even more. My claustrophobia had amused my instructors in basic.
    “Beta, Snow Leopard.” The voice crackled on the tacnet. “The probes we sent ahead have been hit, they are blind. Coolhand, Psycho, move in and let’s take that Scaler.”
    I cut in, “What do you mean ‘hit’? Hit with what?”
    “Don’t know.” Snow Leopard didn’t waste words on bad news.
    A voice I didn’t recognize interrupted, “Keep it on v-min, guys.” Must be one of the techs getting anxious about his specimen.
    I kept crawling.
    Snow Leopard grunted over the comm and I heard a splash. “Damn it. All right, gang, I’m in the stream.” More splashing. “It’s a little slippery.”
    I willed myself forward. Priestess’s boots were right in my face. The blood rushed to my head, my heartbeat pounded in my ears. The tunnel seemed to go on forever.
    The boots disappeared and suddenly I was sliding and falling. An instant later, I landed in an icy black stream on top of an indignant Priestess. We scrambled apart and I followed her again, swimming like a snake in a sewer pipe.
    “Hold it,” Snow Leopard was breathing hard. I stopped and waited. “All right, guys, it’s a little tight here. I just got through, but I had to take my helmet off. You can’t get a good grip…with your comtops on. When you get here,