The Eternal Enemy Page 6

  A book?

  The more he learned about these creatures, the less sense they made. After having seen that artifact so close to Tau Ceti and finding Gandji circling the star, peopled by these creatures, everyone on board the Paladin had been bothered by the inconsistency of their culture.

  If this crystal really was a book, then they could have a technology. Still, there was no explanation for where it had gone, or where it was now. And if they did have technology, why did they just sit and wait for Gandji to be destroyed? If they couldn’t or wouldn’t fight, why didn’t they just leave the planet? Or perhaps they had lost the technology enabling them to travel through space? But they had brought him back to life, a task that required an extremely high level of technology.

  He turned the crystal over in his hands, and the Haber let go of him. Touch and change it? He wasn’t even certain this body had that ability.

  Markos couldn’t close his eyes to block out the surrounding distractions, so concentrating proved difficult. He looked down, though, staring at his hands and the crystal within them, staring at his mendil skin, at the smooth coolness of the crystal in his hands.

  The crystal slowly warmed to his touch. He stared into its depths, clearing his mind of racing thoughts. The more he concentrated on the crystal, the warmer it felt. Suddenly it was warm and alive.

  He could feel wild and frenetic movement on its outer surface, as if it were fluid. He shifted into a nonbreathing catabolism. His hands seemed to join the physical structure of the crystal, piercing its top layer.

  He panicked for an instant, fearing he would never get his fingers out, fearing a permanent link as they sank deeper and deeper beneath its surface, but he fought it back. One quick glance showed his hands still outside the crystal’s surface no matter what it felt like.

  He detected the movement of shared electrons on the outer surface and realized that everything there was as it should have been; molecules were correctly aligned and nothing had been altered. He pressed downward with his mind, letting himself sink deeper, trying to become one with the crystal’s depths.

  Everything was suddenly different as he reached a second level. Atoms were displaced, while others pulsated, giving off light as they expanded and contracted. Groups pulsed together, and Markos recognized the colors, the actions, the complex Haber way of describing concepts and images with color.

  He listened to the crystal speak.

  And then he stopped listening and became one with the voice. His consciousness was gone, replaced by the mind in the crystal that told the story. He was in the body of a Haber, sharing his thoughts, his deeds.

  He stared out over an alien landscape.

  6

  Vegetation writhed in animal agony, whipped into motion by circular gusts of wind. The Haber, Yulakna, perceived a strong sense of lightness to the fluid movement, the entwining thin vines wrapping themselves into knotted confusion about each other and huge roots. The vines seemed to have a life of their own, each with a course in life, a series of patterns they had to follow.

  Markos felt the crystal held in Yulakna’s hand, recording everything that he experienced. He knew Yulakna thought of the planet as “Red tinged with yellow swirled with maroon.” Markos thought of it as Red. The homeworld Habers would see this world and decide how many should go to Red, what kind of positive mutations the planet might create in their race, what changes these mutations might create in their physical and mental states.

  To Markos, sharing in what Yulakna saw and experienced, the area being scouted was unappealing. The ground was claylike, a grayish ocher. Creatures as small as insects crawled in and out of tunnels and mounds of discolored earth in the few places the vines didn’t grow.

  Markos noticed the device attached to the crystal. He made a mental note to ask the Old One what it was afterward.

  There were trees nearby—huge, massive trees that defined the forceful, erratic gusts of wind that changed direction almost constantly. The upper parts of the trees were devoid of leaves. At the end of each flexible branch hung a small seed pod that dripped a sticky liquid. Their root systems were gnarled and twisted, poking up from beneath the ground only to disappear a few meters along. Vines, whipped in changing directions by the wind, seemed to wrap and unwrap themselves around the roots, causing the overlapping and twisting root system to seem even more complex and beautiful to Yulakna. Markos tried to appreciate Yulakna’s point of view, but the oddness of the place kept him detached.

  Yulakna walked farther from the ship he and the three other Habers had arrived in, trying to gather as much information about this area of Red as he could. He was already thinking of himself and his fellow Habers as fitting in with the native life-forms.

  Off to the right, animals grazed, feeding on the yellow vines. They were the size of small ponies, their six gangly legs supporting barrel-shaped bodies. Their hides were opalescent, reflecting the sunlight in patches of scaly reddish green and silvery white, which shifted as they moved. The natives grazed and did what all Habers understood, what all Habers felt was important. They lived, they bred, and then they died.

  Markos realized these creatures were incapable of anything more complex, though he understood now that no Haber looked at it that way.

  Yulakna heard something that didn’t belong and looked upward toward the source of the noise. High overhead a glint of polished metal appeared, and both Yulakna and Markos knew what it was. The noise increased; after a few moments its form became visible. Markos knew from Yulakna that the ship was neither Haber nor Terran.

  He had seen enough. He had to think.

  He let go of the crystal and saw the cave.

  “How long have you been on Gandji?” he asked the Old One.

  “Not long. Do you understand now?”

  “No, but I understand more. When you said you would take us home, you meant to your homeworld, didn’t you?”

  The old Haber showed crimson.

  “And you’re not native to this planet. You’ve had the ability to leave at any time. And I thought you were natives here, that your whole race was going to be wiped out by Van Pelt. Is this right?”

  Crimson.

  “What was the point to all of this, then?”

  “Finish the crystal and you will understand.”

  “Why let me go through all of this to save a planet that wasn’t originally yours?”

  “We, we needed Gandji until now, Markos. Finish the crystal and you will understand more.”

  He picked up the prismatic piece of rock and looked at it. “How old is this? When was this record made?”

  “Time is a difficult medium for us, us to use in communication. The crystal you hold is the first of many events that took place long before we, we met the first one of your kind.”

  “How long before?”

  “Generations. They explain about the change we, we will not survive. It is our, our hope to understand how to deal with the change.”

  Markos showed red. There was little more he could get out of the Old One yet. He gripped the smooth crystal in his hands and let his mind drift down beneath its surface.

  Markos thought of the countless complications an alien ship created, but Yulakna did not. Markos was shocked as he realized the true problem the Habers faced as a race. They were totally incapable of conceiving what conflict was. It was beyond them. They lacked the capacity to understand. This became patently obvious as Yulakna approached the landing ship with childlike innocence and expectations. How could these creatures have survived at all?

  If it had been Markos there, he would have been more cautious and returned to the landing craft. He would have lifted off the planet’s surface and observed the aliens from the safety of distance. He would never have put himself in that kind of physical jeopardy.

  But not a Haber.

  The ship settled to Red’s surface, and the winds quickly dispersed the dust and dead vegetation the landing kicked up. The ship was ten meters high, about twenty meters lon
g. From the angle that Yulakna approached it, Markos could see it was shaped like a bunker.

  Before the ship’s exterior cooled, while the metal skin of the ship pinged, a door opened.

  The Haber scouting party showed green and waited.

  A row of creatures filled the doorway. They were smaller than Terrans, a little taller than Habers. Either they wore protective armor, suits designed for fighting, or nothing at all. They had shiny black coverings, smooth and polished like an ant’s exoskeleton. Their heads were round and a little smaller than what human proportions demanded. White and red markings, bands of color, surrounded their heads. Their torsos were divided in half, much like the thorax and abdomen in an insect. The thorax supported two thin arms that were normally proportioned. Beneath the arms were hundreds of thin, short bristles coming out of their torso. Clamped in each pair of hands was a weapon, pointed directly at the Habers.

  Their abdomens were a third larger than their thoraxes. Three legs extended from the abdomen and supported the creatures like a tripod.

  The Haber nearest the ship showed green again.

  The aliens responded with their greeting: First an overpowering smell, and then heat lasers.

  There was no more recorded on the crystal.

  He opened his hands and dropped it to the floor. It landed with a dull thunking sound. The children were silent, staring at him with their clusters of tiny eyes. The Old One was silent, too, patiently waiting.

  It was all starting to make sense to Markos.

  “Give me the other crystal you had,” Markos said.

  “Do you understand now?”

  “I think I understand more than you do, Old One.”

  He held out his hands and the Haber dropped the other crystal into them. Entering and experiencing what it held was far easier this time and almost instantaneous.

  Misty ground fog, the stillness of death.

  He stood in line, facing a glowing patch of light about five kilometers away. Habers were linked together, their hands joined, creating a calmness and serenity as they waited, facing the oncoming death. They preferred to die as a group.

  The planet’s name was Darkness with a Dull Orange Glow. They had been born there, as had those who had given them life. This planet was theirs, settled many generations ago. They had become a part of the soil, part of the planet’s food cycle.

  The Habers belonged now.

  The line of Habers knew what the glow was. There had been a village there. They waited to see if they would survive this change on Darkness.

  The aliens would arrive soon, before the swollen red sun rose to burn off the ground fog, before the deep-biting chill in the air was gone.

  Markos shared the body of the Haber holding the crystal. Tansak knew they would not, could not survive this change. There was a glimmer of an idea that had spurred him to grab the crystal and its device—the Habers on Homeworld might be able to see this change. They might be able to understand it. They might be able to give birth to Habers capable of surviving the change the aliens forced upon them. And even though he knew they would not understand any better than the Habers on Darkness understood, he did all that he could do.

  What else was there?

  They stood and waited for the aliens to arrive and show them the change.

  They did not have long to wait.

  Even in the darkness, through the misty distance, the wave of advancing creatures was easily discernible. They were silent in their approach.

  Twenty meters away the advancing black line stopped. One creature, a little taller than the rest, made some noise and the air was suddenly filled with an overpowering odor. The aliens depressed the activating switches on their weapons.

  Markos unclenched his hands, dropped the crystal, and tried to stop trembling. His heart raced and his skin prickled with pain. That feeling of standing in line, waiting for death, was strong and haunting. It lingered like a bad aftertaste. He sat there telling himself it was okay, that he was here and not on Darkness with that line of Habers.

  He understood a little more now of how the Haber mind worked. His frustration had come from not understanding at all, from thinking that ideas and concepts could be easily communicated from race to race. Well, that obviously wasn’t true. His attempts to incite them into fighting for Gandji had been doomed to failure from the start. It was beyond them. They didn’t have the vaguest idea what fighting was.

  “How many …” he started to ask, then stopped as he concentrated on keeping himself calm. His emotions were not suited to this body. He had to do what he could to maintain some level of control.

  He stood and walked around the cave, trying not to think of the smell and the noise the aliens created right before the end, trying to let his mind assimilate the things he’d learned about the Habers. He stopped, looking at a glowing wall.

  Well, okay then, he thought. Put everything in order. A pod, manned by some poor Terran, is captured by the Habers as it enters the Tau Ceti System. They establish contact and touch the guy and learn about the Terrans. And meanwhile they’re suffering attack from some other race, from some other star system—my God!

  He turned quickly, facing the Old One. “How many more crystals do you have? And are they all from the same time?”

  “We, we have many crystals,” the Old One said. “And there are some being made right now, on other planets that are undergoing this same change.”

  “How long has this war been going on?”

  The Haber showed yellow tinged with blue. “War?”

  This could get tough. “These unnatural deaths recorded in these crystals.”

  “There is nothing unnatural about death. There is life, which is change, and the final change, which is death.”

  “Yes,” Markos said, “the act of dying is very natural. It is a natural change. War has little to do with the process of dying or the process of living, though. War is not a natural process—it’s a process started and maintained by free will.

  “This series of changes—each one has some things in common. The change is always the same, you never survive it, and it is not natural. The creatures themselves are the change you don’t survive.”

  “Yes.”

  “That is war.”

  The Haber showed lemon yellow tinged with blue.

  “Never mind. What are these crystals doing here? How did they get off the planet where they were made?”

  The Haber explained about the device. Each scouting party, landing party, and colony had a set of crystals. A matched set remained on the homeworld. The attached device transmitted the changes the Habers made in the crystal, where they were duplicated in the matching one on the homeworld.

  “These crystals were given to us, us so that we, we could change on Gandji enough to understand them.”

  Mutate toward an aggressive Haber? It would sure answer a lot of questions. Gandji as a huge test tube, each Haber a virus capable of mutating toward the answer they need to survive the change. From what Markos had seen, they would never really understand it.

  But the children he had with him should understand.

  He looked at them, their faces poised, silent, waiting with the patience of a Haber.

  They were loyal, aggressive, and only part Haber: A Haber who could deal with the change.

  And that was why the Old One had risked everything, including compromising his own views on life by eating. It was to ensure the ten children got back to Homeworld.

  “Come on,” he told them all. “I understand now. We’re going home.”

  7

  The rocks the Old One had changed provided the light they needed as they made their way through the twisty tunnels into the depths of the mountain. They had left the cavern behind and needed to be careful of their footing; the floor of the tunnels left a lot to be desired. Even with the light the rocks provided, the going proved tiresome and slow.

  The tunnel suddenly ended, emptying into a large underground cavern. Markos could make out the g
lint of polished metal a little over ten meters away. He turned to his left, then to his right, then stared up into the blackness trying to judge the size of the cavern. It had to extend at least fifty meters over his head and kept on going into total darkness. He stopped generating light, finding it easier to see without the local interference.

  He had a good idea as to where they were, what they stood before, and what they were doing there, so he waited for the Old One to explain. He, for once, was in no rush.

  The ten children stood by the Old One, motionless, waiting. One child, a little larger than the others, stood a stride closer to Markos.

  The Old One walked forward and stopped before the metallic shape. He touched it with his palms, and the dimensions of the shape became obvious as it began to glow with a soft, dull green light.

  It was a large wedge-shaped ship. They were standing before it, looking at it head-on. Its was divided into two identical hulls, joined at the stern by a bridge. The underside of the ship was flat, resting on the cavern floor. Viewed from above, Markos figured, the ship would have looked like a bottom-heavy H the crossbar lowered to join the two hull sections.

  Even though he’d figured the ship had to exist and he had been relatively certain of where the Old One was leading them, Markos was still awed by it. This piece of metal was no product of an agrarian, nontechnological civilization, that much was for sure. He knew that the technology needed for the development of space travel, especially for faster-than-light space travel, hadn’t been mirrored in the Habers’ existence on Gandji. But then their existence on Gandji had never mirrored their civilization.

  Gandji was their test tube, a place where the race could regress, leave their advances behind, mutate toward a more aggressive type of creature. He had no idea of how long they’d lived on Gandji, how far a Haber like the Old One had already regressed, but he knew their plan had been doomed to failure. It probably would have failed completely if it weren’t for the humans.