LEGION OF THE LOST

by Alfred Coppel
Until some completely satisfactory solution is found for strange disappearances
we know have occurred, this one is as good as any, for fictional purposes!

It is November 20th, 1809. Mr. Benjamin Bathurst, British ambassador to the Austrian court alights from his
coach at an inn in Perleburg. It is warm for November, and the inn yard is crowded and very dusty. Ostlers are
bringing a change of horses for Mr. Bathurst's coach. There is some slight confusion behind the coach and Mr.
Bathurst's attention is caught. There is a radiance in the air; the British envoy walks around the horses—
He is never seen again.

***

It is December 19th, 1944. Major Kevin Randick lies in the muddy snow of the Ardennes fifteen kilometers east of
Malmedy. A patrol of the German Fifth Panzer Army, heavily supported by armor, has overrun his command post. A
shell exploding nearby stuns him, and he has been left for dead in the snow. The tide of battle sweeps by; fog closes
in, blotting out the circle of light that moves questingly through the scraggy pines. The Portal finds him; it descends
over him, muffling the far-off sounds of gunfire.
Presently, the Portal retreats into the forest and fades. Kevin Randick is gone; where he lay there is only a pocket
of half-melted snow.

***

It is November 25th, 1872. The sea between the Azores and Lisbon is calm, almost glassy. An American
brigantine moves slowly through the unseasonal haze. The lookout aloft calls to helmsman. There is a scurrying on
the decks; out of the haze a shimmering circle of radiance has formed. It descends on the slowly moving vessel,
blotting out the cries of those aboard her. After a time, the Portal lifts, retreats into the haze and is gone.
The brigantine plies her lonely course. There is no longer a lookout aloft; her wheel swings untended. The ship is
a derelict, deserted, fading into the mists. There is a name arched across her stern—
It is Mary Celeste.

***

From the Journal of Extraterrestrial Archaeology, February, 1980.

Specialists are currently being besieged with questions concerning the collection of documents known as the
Neonyor Archive. This remarkable cache of records, found in the ruins of Neonyor by the first Holcom Foundation
Martian expedition, has been examined minutely by martiologists and certified by some as the work of the vanished
Canalbuilders.
However, in the interests of objectivity, it must be said that paradoxes abound in the chronicles. How is it, for
example, that documents purported to antedate the beginning of the Christian Era on Earth by some 6,000 years are
written in a language so tantalizingly similar to modern English?
The more facetious among the scientific brotherhood are suggesting that the Archive is the work of a Martian
Nostradamus or Cagliostro...

***

From the Imperial Recordat, Neonyor Archive.

"To the Grand Master of the Guild of Scientists: The caliber of personnel being recruited for the Legions through
the Portals is abominable. They are confused, surly and intractable. I can only conclude that they reflect the attitudes
of the Portal Men, in whose hands I have left their indoctrination. Let me warn you that this will not be allowed to
continue. Do not imagine that because the wars have taken so many lives that I am forced to rely on the Portals for
recruits, that I am entirely dependent on the Guild. You may find to your cost that this is not the case. I warn you.
Give me more men, and take care that they are properly oriented; a rebellion in the Legions will be fatal—to you."
Given this day of 21/44/336 at the northern capital of Nyor under my hand and seal,

—Gilmer, Imperator.

***

"To his excellency, the Imperator: Sire, I beg of you to remember I warned you that recruiting men for the Legions
through the Portals would be dangerous. The primary purpose of the Portals is research and the seeking of lost
knowledge—not the building up of the armies' manpower."

—Thavas, Grand Master of the Guild.

***

"To his excellency, the Imperator: It is with the most profound regrets that I must inform you, Sire, that the
remnants of the mutinous XIII Legion have escaped the trap set for them at Shago. Their panzers have scattered in
the wild country of the western lands, where I have no doubt that their leader, Randick, will reassemble them and
attempt to lead them to one of the free city-states in the north."

—Ranheil, General Commanding XIV Legion.

***

From the Judicial Recordat, Neonyor Archive.

"Thavas, formerly G. M. of the Guild, and Ranheil, formerly commander of the XIV Legion were this day found
guilty of conspiracy against the welfare of the state of Nyor and duly condemned to be shot by a commission of the
Military Assize of Nyor."

***

From the Log of the XIII Legion, Neonyor Archive.

6/45/336. We have entered kinder terrain than that of the wild lands at last. Three hundred strong and still well-
armed, we have been able to evade continuous search.
The havoc all around us, even in this milder country, is a bitter reminder of what war does to a land. The people
—those few who have survived, and who are not panicked by our winged hourglass guidons—grub in the earth for
sustenance, and they writhe under the heel of the tyrannous Gilmer. I know very little of the history of this fey
country whence I was brought by the Portal, but what my eyes have seen makes my heart heavy.
Randick has been magnificent. I do not know but that madness would have claimed us all except for him. We
cling to his strength like drowning men in a tempest. When one considers that he, like all the rest of us, was recruited
(I should say 'impressed') through a Portal, the true stature of the man emerges.
Yesterday we found a settlement of wild people. Taking care to surround the place with the panzers, Randick and
the staff walked unarmed into the square. The local headman—a bearded giant with slitted eyes like a cat (a mutation
was what Randick called him—such terms confuse me)—met us with spear in hand. I do believe he was readv to
murder us all, thinking that we had come to take his grimy little village from him, or collect tithes for Gilmer.
When he found that we but sought information, he became more civil. Randick was disappointed to learn that
these people know nothing of the Guild or the Portal Men. Our only hope of escaping Gilmer, Randick says, is
through a Portal; without one we are trapped in this nightmare world...
7/45/336. A pox on this meaningless chronology! I record it dutifully, and understand not one digit of it.
We are circling northward, seeking the city of Montroll. It is one of the few free city states that remain in this
land, and Randick has used that devil's device he calls the "radio" to obtain an offer of sanctuary for the Legion.
 I only hope that the people of Montroll are civilized enough to have a bit of tobacco or snuff for the weary...!
8/45/336. Randick is taking us back to Nyor. Montroll is a ruin; it has been bombed with stuff more potent than
grape by the flying machines. That I should live to see such wonders so cruelly used!
Randick says that Gilmer overheard our magic speech with the men of Montroll and destroyed them like the devil
he is. And today we were almost discovered by the disk-shaped things called spaceships. It is fight now, instead of
run. Better, so. I remember that in the other-life we did not defeat the little corporal once by turning our tails to him.
Randick has received a message of hope from a council of the Guild; their leader has been shot and they are in
open rebellion against Gilmer. Their Grand Master had the temerity to tell the Imperator that men snatched through
the Portals would rebel, and his reward was a musket-ball.
We have all taken wives from among the wild people; Randick has a plan and has so ordered it. The men have
been quick to agree though the women crowd the panzers and shorten rations.
I, myself (I blush to record it), have taken three...

—Bathurst, Adjutant-chronicler, XIII Legion.

***

From the Imperial Recordat, Neonyor Archive.

'"To the Imperator: The XIII Legion has been found. It is moving on Nyor from the northwest."

***

From the Log of the XIII Legion, Neonyor Archive.

10/47/336. We camped in a valley near the city of Nyor. From the hills surrounding our positions we could see
the skyline, a mass of unlovely ziggurats against the gray clouds. The place is ugly beyond belief, but we must
penetrate its outer perimeter and seize a spaceship.
Randick is in continuous communication with the now illegal Guild and the Portal Men. They have immobilized
all the spaceships and flying machines within the city, so that at least Gilmer will have to fight us on our own terms.
God save Randick and his plan!
11/47/336. At dawn we assaulted the city. In three columns, our panzers pierced the perimeter guard and drove
inward toward the spaceport. Gilmer seems helpless without his flying machines, and the Legions seem to have little
desire to come to grips with us. Everywhere that our winged hourglass flags are shown, there is panic and flight. The
natives of this land have built up a superstitious fear of the displaced ones. And little wonder—our men fight like
daemons. Randick has given them hope.
13/47/336. It is over. I write with trembling hands, for my eyes have seen—yes, the face of the Almighty. The
Legion is within a great iron disk—a spaceship. It has lifted us from the earth and flung outward among the stars. I am
terrified and exalted. The Portal Men among us find it commonplace, but even Randick is awed by what is happening
to us.
Gilmer is behind us, lost in a void of blue-black where the sun and the moon shine together against the star-fields.
And still the Portal Men are unsatisfied; they say he may follow, and so they are making a Portal machine to use
when we reach our destination. Wherever that may be.
6/48/336. I write what follows, but I do not pretend to understand it. Randick has been speaking with the Portal
Men and he has instructed that I set down the following words. 'Today is 6/48/336. In the chronology of the world of
the Legion, March 10th 3549. It is three hundred and thirty six years since the first atomic war, and not more than a
decade since the last. We of the Legion, stolen from our own ages, will escape and build a better life.'
His words are meaningless and I fear for his mind. That date—so far in the future—and those wars he speaks of,
what of them? Great God, this cannot be the future! And yet—I do not know.
12/48/336. We have landed; our great disk lies at rest on a barren red desert. We are not permitted to go
outside. The sky is almost as black as the sky of space, and two tiny moons race across the sky. A nightmare world. Is
this to be our paradise? The women are weeping.
The Portal Men have completed their work. I see again that familiar, hateful circle of light I remember from that
afternoon so long ago in the inn-yard. There is a great scurrying about. I can see through it, as though it were a tunnel
leading into a fair land. Beyond is a world of green hills and pale blue skies. Suddenly I realize that I am looking at the
past of this barren world!
The spaceship is moving. It is entering the Portal, creeping toward that verdant land—

—Bathurst, Adjutant-chronicler, XIII Legion.

***

In the chronology of a civilization twelve millennia unborn, it is January 1st 8,000 B.C. Mars is young, not yet a
desert.
A spaceship has landed among the low hills, a great discoid shape spilling men and women from its open valves.
Behind it, shimmering in the sunlight, a Portal is fading away.
These are the Canalbuilders—a legion come across space and eons without number. Here in this land they will
build their cities. And as their world grows old, they will spread great waterways across its broad plains.
And when their planet dies, they will seek another among the stars.