The Eternal Enemy Read online

  A flash of sparkling emerald caught his eyes. The standard Haber greeting. There were two of them, side by side.

  “Hello, Markos,” the larger, younger one said.

  Markos returned the greeting with his eyes, adding a little orange to the edges of his.

  “Are you ready to help us, us now?”

  “Yes,” Markos said.

  “Please, Markos, have some food,” the older of the two said, holding out what looked like an edible tuber.

  “Thanks,” Markos said.

  And in return, he held his hands out to them for the thing they wanted. They approached, touching him lightly at first, then more firmly as the physical bond occurred, as the chemicals started to flow into his body.

  He needed to shout his joy but knew better.

  It was the first time he’d felt pleasure coursing through his new body. He’d never even thought that possible. He soared, his spirit lifting, blanketing the whole planet. And as their genetic material flowed into and through him, Markos realized how constant his pleasure could be. He could walk across the plains, greeting countless pairs of Habers.

  He would be a different kind of flow-bridge for them, the flow-bridge for which they had been waiting.

  His first generation would be strange. He shaped them in his mind’s eye before returning the genetic materials. And if these mutations weren’t the right ones, there would be others. And there might even be enough time, Markos thought. Enough time to create new ones, others more suitably equipped to deal with the change.

  5

  He sat in a small village, surrounded by Habers. The huts were simple, one-room dwellings, formed out of the native grass. His children were newly born, more Haber than Terran in appearance. The two sets of Habers who had birthed them had found the children were more like Markos than themselves and had left them in his charge. He was proud of them and the role he’d played in their births, in the changes he’d made to them as the flow-bridge.

  The children had more human musculature, though the muscles themselves didn’t resemble their Terran counterparts beyond function. They were a little larger at this stage of their development than a normal Haber child would have been—about ten centimeters taller than Markos.

  Their coloring was odd. They had the normal furlike skin that all Habers had, but there were streaks of color that shone through the brown-gray covering. They were beautiful to watch as they moved, expending energy, getting to know their world and their people.

  They played noisily, pushing and pulling each other, knocking each other down, playing as though they were normal, Terran children.

  The Habers took this aberrant behavior the best they could.

  One old Haber seemed genuinely pleased, as if watching this group of young, changed Habers fulfilled a lifelong dream. He stayed by Markos’s side everywhere he went, and Markos took to calling him the Old One.

  The Old One was different from the other Habers he had met. His eyes were denser, more crystalline spheres within them, and his skin was a little browner than the others. Markos felt at home, comfortable and accepted, his human past no more than a thin memory recalled with a pleasant feeling of pain, a dull throb, a melancholy reminder of what he had been. The Habers never brought up his past, and he felt no need to either.

  Adult Habers, those who wanted to mate, arrived daily in small groups. They waited with inhuman patience, watching the sunset with rapt attention, staring at the colors as if the meaning of life were contained in them. When there was nothing else to divert them, they watched Markos’s offspring, communicated with the Old One, or meditated in silence.

  Markos was glad he had taken the Old One’s advice. He had originally planned to walk over the face of Gandji, spending the rest of his life acting as a flow-bridge. The Old One had explained that that was unnecessary; he’d said the mature Habers would come to the village and seek him out.

  His children were born with a Terran’s understanding of conflict and competition, something they exhibited in play, though it was as alien to the Habers in the village as to Markos himself.

  “Are you ready for the next two?” the Old One asked, sitting by Markos’s side.

  Markos turned away from the child he had named Alpha, the most aggressive of the children. Alpha had just made a discovery: a stick can be used as a weapon to hit someone.

  Markos stood and held out his hands, offering them to the two slowly advancing Habers. It struck him as strange that they would be so shy and hesitant, as if Markos might change his mind any moment and refuse the contact.

  They gripped his hands firmly, melted their flesh into his flesh, changed their hands into his hands, creating the link through which their genetic material would flow. He accepted the pleasure that brought, the intense physical sensations and excitement, embraced it and tried to hold it close to his mind, but the feelings were too intense, too glorious to try to hold. He let his mind relax and take control of the genetic materials entering his body. He pictured the children he would produce, an image of stronger, taller, more solidly built Habers than anything he’d imagined before.

  Then something happened in his mind that he couldn’t stop. The images of the stronger and taller children exploded in size until Markos could detect vast spaces between what must have been molecules. It was as if he were shrinking, falling deep through the images and into some representation of the genetic material that made up the images. He somehow knew that molecules needed changing, and he could see the molecular structures change as he thought about altering them. With each change he made he felt a peculiar but pleasant sensation in his brain.

  When the genetic materials had been molded and manipulated, he pushed them out through his hands and into the two Habers. Contact was broken.

  The whole experience couldn’t have lasted more than a minute or two, but he was left feeling hollow, washed out. The Old One stood and offered him a root, which Markos gladly accepted. As he ate, he remembered what the Old One had said about his eating: “We, we demand this of you. That we, we don’t eat out of choice is our birthright.”

  He rested, giving his mind and body the time needed to recover fully. It was a simple life, one he was enjoying. He was doing something his crewmates could never do, in a way they could never imagine—being a xenobiologist firsthand.

  A Haber approached quickly, something odd for a Haber, until it stood before him. Markos flashed green to the Haber, and it returned the greeting.

  “The people have destroyed the village nearest their settlement.”

  Impossible. “Did you see this happen yourself?” Markos asked.

  “Yes. I, I saw this happen. I, I was leaving the village on my, my way to see you.”

  The crew had remained quiet and kept to themselves over the last few months. Markos had walked back to the area in which the ship rested and watched from a distance, curious as to what the Terrans planned. They had been setting up a semipermanent camp around the ship, keeping clear of the natives, being careful not to push too fast or too hard. Markos had been thankful for the time this gave him; his offspring could grow, eat, build themselves up, learn from their father about this strange race of invaders, understand what real conflict was and how to deal with it.

  “Did they have a leader?”

  The Haber flashed confusion.

  “One who directed the others, who told the group what to do.”

  It flashed red.

  “What did he look like?”

  The Haber did the best it could describing one of the Terrans. Markos figured it had to be Cathy Straka.

  Cathy?

  Wilhelm was second in command. Why should Cathy be in charge? What had happened to Wilhelm? A mutiny? Or was Cathy working on Wilhelm’s orders? He wheeled around to the Old One.

  “What are we going to do? We can’t fight them—not yet. The young I’ve produced are still in their first cycle. They don’t really understand what would be expected of them.”

  The Old One sat quietl
y, watching the last rays of the sun setting the sky on fire. “This is the change we, we may not survive. I, I do not think it matters what we, we do.”

  Markos’s anger rekindled as he felt old frustrations rise again. The tiring experience of trying to get these creatures to understand the true nature of the Terran threat, something he’d hoped was gone forever with Van Pelt’s death, was back, causing him to taste metal. The Haber before him turned his head away, took several steps back.

  If Wilhelm were dead, then so were the Habers. He couldn’t approach Straka and change her with his eyes as he’d done to Van Pelt. Everyone on the Paladin had to know of this ability and would probably shoot him on sight. Wilhelm would have told them all.

  Terrific, Markos thought. Death either way.

  Their only chance was to fight. But the only beings capable of fighting the Terrans were Markos and his offspring, and they were still too young.

  That left only him.

  “But we can’t just accept it,” he said a little too loudly, a little too forcibly in his gravely voice. “They’ll kill us all.”

  “We, we must accept it. It is the way of all things,” the Old One said.

  “Not where I come from. They can’t get away with this. I won’t let them.”

  “Then do what you can.”

  Yes, Markos thought. He’s right. They don’t seem to be worried—they don’t even care. I’m the one who’s afraid. If someone’s going to do something about this it’s going to have to be me.

  But what can I do?

  The next two Habers were waiting. The Old One was waiting. The messenger was waiting.

  “We’ll run,” Markos said. He didn’t particularly relish the idea of becoming a hunted animal again—once had been enough to make him hate that feeling, but it was run or die. “That cave, that cavern where I was taken after I died. Do you know where it is?” he asked the Old One.

  “Yes,” he said, flashing red tinged with orange.

  “I’m going to take these children there and hide. I’ll start teaching them immediately. You can stay here if you want, all of you,” he said, turning to face the group encircling him, “but I’m leaving. I’m not going to wait for Straka to grind me under her heels.”

  “We, we were hoping this would happen,” the Old One said. “We, we waited for this change, the change we, we could never understand. Now you can explain it to us, us, and show us, us what it means.”

  “What?” Markos demanded, totally confused.

  “I, I think it is time, then,” the Old One said, rising slowly to his feet. The other Habers in the village flashed an emphatic crimson red. “We, we can now go home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes,” the Old One said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Understanding is not necessary. You understand what we, we could not. Gather your children and I, I will lead you.”

  Markos stood quickly, his nerves taut. “Children,” he shouted, showing pink and yellow, “stop what you’re doing and come here.”

  All ten stopped, turned, then ran to him. While he explained what was required of them—silence, obedience, and self-discipline—the Old One started eating. He started eating everything he could find. Markos was astonished by what the Old One was doing.

  “I, I am too close to death to lead you home. I, I do not have the necessary energy for the journey. My, my life must be sacrificed in this manner so that you and your children can see home. This is all important for those, those waiting for us, us. They, they wait for our, our return to understand the change.”

  Huh? What was that all about? Markos wondered. But there wasn’t time to go into it now. The Old One had just nonchalantly turned and walked out of the village. He was heading toward the mountains. Markos quickly ordered the children to follow the Old One, and they all set out through the grassy plain.

  The evening was cool, the wind spiked with an icy chill. Mendils shrieked their mating calls in the darkness. The stars were coming out, filling the night sky of Gandji like thin, high clouds. The farther he walked, the worse Markos felt.

  Maybe they should have stayed in the village. He was abandoning those left behind to certain death. They would just sit there, waiting for the Terrans to come and kill them. Markos was sure that would happen, and that bothered him deep down. He shouted for the Old One to stop, then walked past the children to talk with him.

  “We can’t go. I was wrong. We can’t leave the others behind in the village. I can’t let these outsiders take your planet away from you without giving them a fight.”

  “They are not outsiders. They belong here just as much as we, we do. You are still of them. You understand them. Do not let your concern over the ones left behind cancel what you have accomplished.”

  “I still feel the need to stay and get the ones in the village at least well hidden,” Markos said.

  “And the others? In all the other villages?”

  Markos looked at the ground by his feet.

  “We, we must leave now and go home. These children are important. They are the answer for the change we, we cannot understand.”

  Markos knew there was something more here he wasn’t grasping, something the Old One wasn’t explaining.

  “Come,” the Old One said. “Or everything here will be wasted.”

  He turned and walked off through the grass. The children waited by Markos, waiting to be told what to do. He motioned for them to follow the Old One, then followed as well.

  They left behind a narrow trail of flattened grass. The children were silent, and Markos checked on them every few kilometers to ensure they were all right. He needn’t have worried; they made him proud by their composure and self-control.

  They stopped frequently to rest, to let their bodies catch up with them. Markos left the Old One alone. He felt awkward after that exchange they’d had minutes after having set out. He hoped the Haber knew what he was doing.

  Just before dawn the Haber stopped. The mountains towered before them, still a half day’s walk. They had left the plain and were in rocky ground, with small hills and cliff faces directly before them.

  “How much farther?” Markos asked, exhausted.

  “We, we are close now.”

  The old Haber left the small group and walked up to a wall of rock. He touched it with both palms, then he became rigid, immobile; a few seconds later a cave mouth appeared in the rock around the place he was touching. Markos couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. It had been a solid wall of rock and then, an instant later, there had been a cave mouth there. He was going to ask what the Old One had done, how he had done it, but he saw how much that had taken out of him. He seemed to have gotten smaller, lost some body mass. The Old One waved them all inside.

  Once into the darkness, the Old One bent down and lifted a small rock. He clenched it in his fist and then opened his hand. The rock was glowing, shedding a weak light. He handed the rock to one of the children and repeated it until all held glowing rocks. They each could have generated light from their eyes, but Markos knew that there was a blinding-threshhold: Their eyes’ photoreceptors would be blinded by their eyes’ cold-light generators if they generated too much. When Markos had flashed light from his eyes, he’d been momentarily blinded, and regulating the intensity of the light was a skill he was still developing.

  The light from the rocks was strong enough for them to walk safely into the cave. Markos didn’t recognize the cave—this wasn’t the place where he’d awakened after his death. He was apprehensive, but only for an instant. They were all in the Old One’s hands, and they would have to take their chances.

  They were safe. Or as safe as they could be on the planet with Straka in control of the Paladin.

  The Old One uncovered food stores and they all ate. The cave was large, with walls that gave off a soft, sickly-green light. The floor was dank and cold, but the air was fresh enough. Water dripped down cracks in the walls, slowly but incessantly dropping into little p
uddles on the floor every few seconds.

  They ate tubers and other roots, as well as some vegetation that the Old One needed to modify before they could eat it. Markos watched what the Old One did with his hands this time and was even more confused and amazed. That’s what they must have meant by “touch and change,” he thought. God, I’m glad they didn’t do that to the crew.

  “How do you do that, Old One?”

  “Here. You will understand more once you see this.” He handed Markos a large, irregularly shaped crystal.

  Markos had never seen anything quite like it before. It had a symmetry that was not immediately apparent. He turned it over in his hands, felt the coolness and solidity of it, and was impressed with its beauty. “It’s very nice,” Markos said, “but what has this got to do with what I asked?”

  The old Haber flashed yellow, and Markos shook his head. What did the Old One want him to do? The crystal was nice, refracting the dim green light in the cave into some beautiful colors, but it was only a crystal.

  He handed Markos another one.

  Markos turned the crystal over as if searching for a seam or an opening, feeling with his strange hands for something hidden on its surface. It was smooth all over, as though it had been polished or grown artificially. Other than that, he discovered nothing else about it.

  “It’s very nice,” Markos said. “Prettier than the first.”

  “You do not understand. I, I will have to teach you how to use them.”

  “Never mind about these,” Markos said. “Tell me how you did that to the cave entrance.”

  The Old One flashed the same lemon-yellow color again, then grabbed Markos’s hands, cupping them around the crystal. “Touch and change it, Markos. Penetrate the crystal’s surface and find what’s been changed inside.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The crystal has been changed. There are unnatural dislocations in its structure. They create colors that are very complex. You can detect these changes, understand them, and then understand the colors.”