The Eternal Enemy (12 page)

“No, my friend. Not War. It's closer to Peace.”

“Peace?”

Alpha suddenly appeared at the passageway. There was yellow tinged with blue in his eyes. “Markos?”

“What's wrong?”

“You should come out and see for yourself.”

Markos rose to his feet.

He reached the front arch in full stride, then froze in his tracks. The streets were filled with thousands of Habers. Their multiple eyes, protected beneath the transparent outer coverings of their faces, were trained on him, flashing green at his appearance.

“What the hell? What's going on?” Markos asked.

“You said later,” the Old One said from behind. “It is later. They, they wait to bear the changed ones.”

Markos fought the metallic, bitter taste as he stared out over the sea of faces. They stood there like an anxious army, or a group of starving Terrans waiting for their names to be called for the food dole. They waited in streets, overflowed into alleys and doorways of buildings, every face turned to him, every group of eyes radiating tiny pulses of green.

“They, they have waited a long time, Markos. They, they have been ready since our, our original group left for Gandji, and from before that.”

Did these creatures have any idea what they were doing? What they were asking? He wasn't ready to accept the responsibility for changing a significant portion of the Haber race.

They thought that linking up with him would stop the war? That by giving birth to a generation of changed ones everything would be okay?

He was willing to fight for them and let the children fight for them. He was willing to teach them all how to fight. And when he'd been on Gandji, he'd been willing to be a flow-bridge for the entire population.

But he couldn't be a flow-bridge for them now. This wasn't Gandji, and he knew about the war and what was really going on. First this city, Peace, Markos thought, and then the others will follow, one by one, spreading the corrupt seed of aggression through a whole race that had conquered this primitive emotion millennia ago.

“Translate for me, Old One. I want to talk to them.”

The Haber flashed red and worked his way forward so that many Habers could see his eyes.

“I will not create the changed offspring you desire. Not unless that is the only answer. We are all involved in this change—a change my ancestors knew well. Our word for it is
war
.

“War is fought in strange ways. If you resist the change and fight, or if you give in to the change and die, it is still war. We'll need more than a generation or two of changed offspring to resist this change.

“Fighting, resisting the change, is all-consuming. We would need a great number of changed Habers if war were fought on Gandji alone. Or on any other planet. We could possibly win in these small confrontations by sheer number. But war isn't fought like that. There are no rules to war.

“We can't just fight in the fields, in the streets of a city, on some planet's plains or valleys. We must learn to think in terms of fighting whenever and wherever possible. And in the most efficient way possible. Thinking like this is an all-consuming problem.”

He stopped and looked deeply into their glowing eyes, hoping to see some colors of agreement or understanding. If they understood, they showed no signs. They remained in the streets, waiting.

He turned to the Old One. “Forget it. Just tell them to go home. Tell them the answer is not more children.”

The Old One stared at Markos with confused colors sparkling beneath his face.

“Just tell them!” he screamed. His pulse rate soared, and his skin felt as if it was pierced by thousands of tiny needles. The metallic taste in his mouth made it difficult to talk anymore. His eyes glowed a pure-white light, the light of anger and frustration. “And you!” he said, shouting at Alpha. “Remain here.”

He turned and strode away, back into the depths of the building.

How did they expect to survive? They understand so little. If there had been a Terran anywhere on this planet, Markos would have sought him out for companionship. Even if the only Terran had been Van Pelt. He wanted to get into his cabin, crawl under the sheets, and let the massager bunk do its work on his body. He wanted to climb into the geltank and slip quietly beneath its surface and put his mind on hold for a few hours.

But by the time he reached the common room, he had started to calm down. He knew the Habers in the city weren't people. They were Habers, pure and simple. Markos dropped into a chair, forgetting to make his body hard, and suffered with the pain. He looked up, staring at the ceiling as if hoping to find an answer there.

His children and the Old One stood silently, waiting for Markos to say something, to do something, to give them the guidance and instruction they wanted and needed.

Terrific, Markos. The more involved you get, the worse it becomes.

Part Two

CATHY STRAKA

10

The
Paladin
traced a long, slow orbit around Alpha Indi. Cathy Straka sat in the command chair of the control center watching the viewscreens that covered the bulkheads, ceiling, and deck. A bored, tired look was on her thin, pointed face. She looked drawn, haggard, and was aging far too fast for a woman in her thirties.

In every direction she looked, Straka saw black space studded with points of light. Sitting in the captain's chair was like sitting in a chair floating through space, unprotected and unobstructed. Just Straka and the stars.

The ship's exterior cameras supplied the computer with holographic images, and the computer re-created the images to scale, giving anyone sitting in one of the chairs the feeling of being surrounded by the depths of space, as if the bulkheads weren't even there.

“We should have gone to Earth,” Jackson said. “This idea of yours is ridiculous. We don't even know he's here.”

Straka turned slowly and carefully as if afraid of spooking the skittish man and said, “He's here.”

“He is? Where?”

“Be patient, Jack. He'll show.”

They were on a platform that had four chairs, each facing a different quadrant of space. Before each chair was a console with controls. At one end of the platform a narrow ramp led back to the door, though with the screens on, the door was invisible.

Jackson shook his head and rose to his feet. He turned around full circle, staring out into the lonely blackness, searching for a sign of motion that didn't belong. He walked up the ramp to the door.

Straka continued to scan the surrounding space, waiting. He would show up, all right. That murderous freak was here, somewhere, hiding in Alpha Indi's system. He would show. It was only a matter of time.

Jackson opened the door, and light streamed in. Straka squinted against the light, glancing at Jackson's outlined figure. “Why don't you check the tau translators?” she said to Jackson's back.

“Check them yourself,” Jackson said, disappearing behind the closing door.

Straka was plunged into blackness and the depth of space again. She shrugged, shaking her head. “Suit yourself,” she muttered. “I don't care if they don't work. We'll just never see Earth again.”

Which was fine with Straka. It was to her advantage to stay as far away from Terra as possible. By now NASA 2 had probably assumed that the mission had been a failure. Since Van Pelt had never radioed their safe transition out of tau-space when they'd arrived at Tau Ceti, NASA 2 had no way of knowing if the ship had been destroyed or if something in the translators had malfunctioned and stranded them.

Sure, Straka thought. The
Paladin
was destroyed, had never even made it to Tau Ceti. Everyone on board had been obliterated. Even me.

She leaned back and let loose a loud, horsey laugh.

Those poor earthbound slobs, she thought. I've got their ship, their crew, and there's no way for them to stop us, even if they knew what we were doing. And there's no way they can. No word from us since we left the Solar System. They haven't the slightest hint of what's happened.

And the crew. Christ. They think we're taking care of Markos so that we can go home. And why shouldn't they? It's a carrot that keeps them in line. Let them think what they want. At least there's some semblance of discipline.

She smiled as she pictured returning from space, years, decades overdue, after having stolen NASA 2's one and only f-t-l ship. Fat chance.

She laughed again.

Following the alien ship had been the easiest part of her plan. Every ship burns fuel, even if it doesn't use a reaction-drive propulsion system. It leaves some waste behind. It leaves a trail. One molecule per cubic meter of space or one atom per cubic kilometer of space—what difference did it make? It was only a matter of quantity. A careful, painstaking scan of local space surrounding Tau Ceti had found the trail. It had been thin, spotty in places, but it had been there.

The difficult part of her plan had been convincing the crew that their lives depended on following it. Once they were relatively certain that Markos was headed in the general direction of Terra, they agreed without argument.

Straka had been certain that Markos was aboard that alien ship. What alien on Gandji had enough sense to run?

Just by the very existence of the alien ship, Straka realized that other planets had to be populated by these soft, amoebalike humanoids, these poor excuses for biological life. Markos had somehow gotten them to take him someplace safe, someplace where he thought Straka wouldn't follow.

But Markos hadn't figured Straka correctly. Straka really wanted to follow. She convinced the crew to share her ambition, but that hadn't been easy.

“We've got to find the little freak,” Straka had said.

“Let's just go back,” Jackson had said. “I'm willing to take my chances.”

“Really? How naive.” Straka had paced, adopting one of Van Pelt's command tricks. “They'll be real glad to see us now, won't they? Or at least they'll be glad to see the ship.”

“I don't get it,” Kominski said. Ever since Kominski had been inside the one geltank that had malfunctioned, he hadn't been right. Kominski's round face glistened with sweat, eyes open wide, mouth hanging open as he tried to decide if there was more to say.

“Okay, comrades, I'll lay it out for you in detail, then,” Straka had said. “First, Van Pelt blew our directives by not radioing our safe arrival. Then he took it upon himself to start ripping up the native population. We all went along with him, remember?”

Katawba, a tall, angular man, nodded.

“Everyone except Markos, who deserted. But Markos's desertion was technically the right thing to do. We should have all deserted or mutinied instead of following Van Pelt like we did.”

“So then we're in trouble?” Kominski asked, his face showing the depth of his confusion.

Straka laughed. “Trouble? Brother, that's just the tip of it. How do you think those chair-bound officials waiting for us back on Terra are going to feel about this? You think they'll take it in their stride?

“Sure, why not. Can't you see them? It's only normal that they spend years and years and hundreds of billions building an f-t-l ship, only to have it violate their prime directives and never establish radio contact. Sure, they'll be overjoyed to see us. They might even throw us a party before frying our brains.”

“Yeah, right,” Kominski said.

“And it gets worse. Lots worse.”

“How?” Martinez asked. His smooth olive skin was wrinkled with concern and confusion.

“To start with, there's a witness to all that's happened here on Gandji. A traitor.”

“Markos Dressler,” Katawba said.

Straka nodded. “Markos Dressler.”

Kominski swallowed.

Wilhelm stayed on the edges, watching, listening. Wilhelm had handed over the command position to Straka. Command had never interested him, and if Straka had a plan and a desire to take control, it was all right with him.

“What do we do, then?” Martinez asked.

“We grab him. No witness, no problem.”

“I don't know …” Jackson said.

“Do you want to see home again?”

Jackson nodded.

“Then we've got to get our hands on Dressler. There's no other way. Without him we'd have to blame this whole mess on Van Pelt, and we'll never make that stand without Markos's help. And don't forget, Markos went nuts and killed the Captain. If it comes to it, we can kill Markos and say we tried to stop him, but we were too late and Van Pelt was dead.”

“No problem,” Maxwell said. “Only, where
is
he?”

Straka shrugged. “We'll find him.”

“I'm not sure. Maybe we should just go back and forget this idea,” Jackson said.

“What's the
matter
with you, Jackson? Open your eyes! We're free now—the first really free human beings ever. You don't want to lose that yet, do you?” Straka asked. “There's no one to stop us. No one!”

“Well …”

“We'll have to find him,” Maxwell said.

“Don't worry,” Straka said. “He's got to be hiding out in one of these villages. We'll just eliminate places for him to hide. When he makes a run for it, we'll grab him.”

And they had tried. They had set out to destroy villages and settlements on Gandji in hopes of flushing out Markos. They had destroyed the second one when the alien ship had fled Gandji.

Straka had cursed bitterly, eyes narrowed to tight slits, mouth drawn into a cruel, thin-lipped frown. She'd stared at the screens for longer than necessary as her mind churned, trying in vain to figure out a way to get the alien vessel to reverse its course.

She had known that Markos presented no threat. The chances of Markos's ever returning to Terra were slim, or none. But she still needed to capture Markos alive. She had assisted Markos on some tests when they'd first landed on Gandji, and if the tests were anything close to what Straka thought, her future life depended on picking Markos's brain for the answer.