Free Curse of the Legion by Marshall S. Thomas

getting louder. LiLo was standing a short way off, looking at us. Now what?
    "What is it, LiLo?" I asked.
    "Madame Priestess and Madame Millie told me to watch you, sir, and if you put your hands on Madame Tara, I have to go back and tell them."
    "That's nice. You go back and tell them that I'm being a good boy, and keeping my hands to myself."
    "Yes sir." She turned and headed back to the pool.
    "I'm really hurt, Wester," Tara smiled. "You didn't used to have any problems with putting your hands on me."
    "Well, things didn't used to be this…complex."
    "That's a ten, Wester. That's a ten." She paused, staring into the distance, then resumed. "There's so much to worry about, Wester. So much. Like most revolutionary governments, ConFree started as an instrument—designed to rid us of the System, and guarantee the independence of the Crista Cluster as a galactic homeland for Outworlders and Assidics. But that task is done now. And what comes next—always? The instrument grows—and turns into an institution, living only for itself. Ultimately, it usually becomes that which it was founded to oppose. Unless we remain very vigilant, ConFree will become a slave state, just as bad as the System."
    "Wasn't that what ConFree feared the Legion was becoming—when they sent those ConFree Special Mission boys to kill us on Uldo?"
    "They were traitors, consorting with the System! Yes, they had reason to fear the Legion. But it was the Legion that saved ConFree, not them. It was the Lost Command, one of our most glorious moments."
    "Calm down, Tara. I happen to agree with you there. All right, so we've got the wheel of history or whatever you call it—and ConFree is getting soft and fat. Using warm water, hiring servants, having babies—right?"
    "We are certainly worried about that, Wester."
    "And our government is also getting big and fat, and the population will soon be slaves, living off government money and losing all their freedoms."
    "Not as long as I'm breathing, Wester. But those are real problems. Another big problem is the diaspora. All those Outworlders and Assidics, still living in slavery all over the galaxy, if not under the System then under all those slave states that succeeded it. What do we do about them? That's a problem."
    "I thought we were going to free them."
    "It's not that easy, Wester. Most of them are brainwashed. Many don't even know they're slaves. They think it's normal to have most of their earnings confiscated by the state, they think Voluntary Service is not slavery, they think it's normal for the government to decide who mates with whom to achieve a desirable ethnic mix and get rid of undesirable genes, they think the victim of a robbery is a social parasite and should be punished because he had more goods than the attacker, they think they control the government because they vote once every four or five years for approved candidates. How can you save people like that? They're not really Outworlders any more—they're sheep, they're slaves. They don't deserve our help. Why should our brave soldiers die for them? They deserve to be slaves!"
    "I'm sure they're not all like that."
    "No, they're not. That's the problem. There are plenty of Outworlders out there who want to escape—and join us. And we should help them. That's a problem."
    "So we're still a beacon, for them."
    "The light of liberty, Wester, shining through the galaxy, for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Yes, a beacon—that's good."
    "So that's not changing."
    "No—it will never change! We don't change our ideals! And the whole damned galaxy is going to know it! And when some gang of subhuman rats raids a ConFree world and slaughters our people…we're going after them, and their world is going to glow in the dark for a long, long time, and the whole damned galaxy is going to know about that as well! We don't have any choice, Wester. Not if we're going to remain true to our ideals. And when all those Outworlder slaves all over