The Eternal Enemy (32 page)

He tried to relax.

“Markos?”

It was Straka, at the doorway. Several hours had passed since the Old One had come to his cabin, and Markos had done no thinking in that time. He had just remained facedown on the bunk, breathing every few minutes, letting his body metabolize a few molecules of food at a time.

He could hear Straka walking into the cabin.

“Markos? What's going on?”

He remained silent, wishing Straka would just leave.

Straka touched his back, right where his shoulders had been before he'd been changed. He felt Straka's fingers probe his skin for signs of life.

“What is it, Markos? What's wrong?” Straka asked.

Markos rolled his head so that he could talk. “Leave me alone,” he said.

“What's bothering you?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Not until you tell me what it is.”

“Leave,” Markos asked.

Straka took a step back. “What is it? Is it something you learned from the Hydran? Is that it?”

“Please, Cathy, I don't want to talk. Do you understand?”

“Frankly, no. We don't have the time or the manpower for you to indulge yourself. If you want to hide in a corner and lick your wounds, let me know and we'll drop you off someplace of your very own.

“This is supposed to be an offensive move on our part. We're supposed to be figuring out what to do about the Hydrans. Play your games when this is over. Not now, when we need you.”

“Get out, Straka.”

“Markos, please!”

“Get out!”

Straka stormed out of the room. Markos turned his head back down into the bunk. He could hear Straka's muttered curses bounce off the bulkheads through the passageway.

Straka really hadn't understood, Markos thought. She'd been wrong. This wasn't a case of self-indulgence, he thought. There are too many creatures, too many planets involved. How the hell were they going to wipe out the Hydrans, anyway?

The others on board the ship would just have to leave him alone until he managed to accept what had to be done and had some clear idea as to how to do it. This wasn't like planning a battle skirmish, or even like getting the Terrans to fight for him. This was something else entirely.

He figured he'd never be considered some kind of hero or savior. He knew history would view him as a mass murderer. That's probably how the Habers would see him.

When he was ready to face them all, he got up. There was a shift in the underlying feeling on board the ship, an undercurrent of anxiety. Markos could feel it in his cabin, isolated from the others, separated by passageways and bulkheads. The crew knew something was wrong, and they knew better than to verbalize their fears. But he could almost smell the upset.

He walked deliberately through the wide passageways, heading for the bridge.

He passed Wilhelm along the way.

“Hey,” Wilhelm said. “You all right?”

“No,” Markos said, and he kept walking. He listened for Wilhelm's footsteps, but he didn't hear him move. He walked down the ramp onto the bridge and saw the planet as a disk, Epsilon Scorpio a larger disk in the distance. His men were sitting at their controls, checking the ship's status every few moments.

“Are we ready to go?” Markos asked.

De Sola wheeled around, surprised by Markos's appearance. “We can be in a few minutes.”

“Good. We're leaving.”

“For where?” Jackson asked.

“I'll let you know, Jackson. Give me a few seconds.”

“Sure,” Jackson said. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

McGowen sat in the weapons chair.

“Make sure all your weapons are ready to fire. Understand?”

McGowen flashed red.

“Engines are powered,” Jackson said.

Straka appeared in the doorway and walked down the ramp. “What's going on?”

No one responded.

“Lay in a course for Pi Hydra.”

“Why?” Straka asked.

“Later. McGowen, train your heavy weapons on this planet's surface.”

McGowen's half-Haber face registered the shock as he realized what Markos had in mind. Markos saw it, acknowledged it, and felt sorry for him. “Locked in?”

McGowen flashed red.

“Jackson, get ready to get us out of here. No need to risk being hit by exploding debris.”

Jackson looked at him, dumbfounded.

“You heard me,” Markos said.

Jackson entered the power requirements to the interface. “Ready.”

“You can't do this, Markos,” Straka said.

“Why not? It's the only solution.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.

“I'll explain later. Fire, McGowen.”

“With all due respect, Markos, I can't. Not until you explain.”

“I'll throw the switches myself,” Markos said, moving toward the command chair.

“Wait.” It was the Old One.

“Wilhelm told me, me something was wrong. What is going on?”

“Stay out of this, Old One. You wouldn't understand,” Markos said.

“I, I would understand, Markos, and I, I will,” he said with force. His eyes emitted blinding light, and Markos's grip on the arms of the command chair loosened.

“Shut down the systems,” the Old One said to the crew. “And then meet me, me in the rec area. There is much to discuss.”

They followed the Old One willingly enough—as soon as Markos had moved away from the switches that could activate the weapon systems. No one questioned the control the Old One had exhibited, and no one questioned Markos's obedience.

They were silent, some sitting on the deck, some sitting in chairs. Straka's watch, those who had heard Kominski's laughter on lasing down the line of Hydrans, had talked little since then. There was a strangeness in the air, as if Markos were on trial, and the crew were the jurors, deliberating on a verdict without knowing the crime or hearing the evidence. Each felt that something was required of him, and yet none knew what it was.

Markos knew that this feeling had been created by the Old One.

“Is it really necessary to destroy the planet, Markos?” the Old One asked.

Markos said nothing.

“Are there no alternatives?”

Markos stared at the stress patterns in the metal plates of the deck.

“You owe us all an explanation. We cannot be party to such mass destruction,” the Old One said. “We have not lost the ability to reason. Please explain it to us so that we, too, can understand what must be done.”

“Please, Markos,” Straka said.

There was no pleading in her tone, no whining, no demand. Just a little more of a request, strengthening the Old One's request. Markos looked at Straka; he expected her to look away for some reason, as if she shared in his guilt. She continued to look at him.

“I'll tell you,” Markos said, “and you'll want to give up. You won't like what you hear.”

He waited then, giving each of them time to decide, but their expressions remained neutral. They were waiting for him to get it out in the open.

“Okay,” he said. “The problem is genetic. We're not really at war,” he said. “There is no war.”

“What?” Jackson asked.

“They expand by instinct. They don't think of it in terms of conflict. Which means there's no way of communicating with them, much less negotiating. So we have to wipe them out. All of them. They don't understand what it is they're doing. To them this expansionism is life.”

“But it's wrong,” Straka said.

“No,” Markos said. “I only wish it were. It's not wrong because there's no morality there. To them what they're doing is morally correct. It's just living life.”

The Old One seemed to shrink a little under that piece of information. He sat down on the deck and stared at a spot directly before him.

“So what are we supposed to do? Run around the Galaxy and blast every Hydran we run into?” Jackson asked.

Markos said nothing.

“You can't be serious,” McGowen said.

“You're nuts,” Jackson said. But Markos could tell from his voice, from the colors in his eyes that Jackson didn't think he was at all insane. Jackson was just trying to negate the awful truth.

“There has to be another answer,” Straka said.

Markos looked at him incredulously. Of all people, Straka should have known better. “Why?” he asked. “There doesn't have to be another answer.”

“There does.”

“Why?” Markos asked.

“Because this one is totally unacceptable,” Straka said.

The crew mumbled their agreement.

“Fine,” Markos said. “I'm all for another answer. You think I like this? You think I have the stomach for mass murder?”

No one said anything for a few long moments.

“We have to face this,” Markos said. “If we don't, they'll find us. We can run—we can run for a long time, but understand this: Sooner or later it's going to be them or us. There's no peace making, no negotiation.”

Straka shook her head violently. “I can't believe that. There's got to be another way out of this. If we all talk it through, we're bound to come up with something better. We can't just go around slaughtering them.”

“I don't like it any more than you do,” he said. “But you've all got to realize that until they're dead, every last one of them, no other race will be safe. Once their second wave of expansion starts, they'll spread like a cancer and take over every planet worth inhabiting.”

“That'll take millennia,” Straka said.

“Sure. Let's say it takes billions of years. What's the difference? You still don't get it. It's a
genetic
problem.”

Straka froze, her eyes suddenly lit with green, scintillating, dancing.

“What, Cathy? What is it?” Markos asked.

“You said it yourself—it's a genetic problem. We have to find a genetic solution,” she said.

His body went into shock as he realized the truth of what he'd almost done to a planet, almost done to an entire civilization, twisted though it was.

He opened his mouth to tell Straka that she was right, that he'd been wrong, that if a genetic solution could be found, the answer could be lived with by all. He sat there, though, the thoughts of what he'd almost done paralyzing him.

The crew looked at Markos and saw the answer in his face.

They had found an alternative.

It had taken two days, with the Old One helping, Straka searching alongside Markos as they had done in the old days aboard the
Paladin
before the change. They found the molecule that, when properly introduced into the Hydran genetic molecule, would block their expansionist instinct. Then they developed a tiny virus whose waste products were this blocking molecule. The virus had a unique behavior pattern: In all but the reproductive cells, the virus replicated itself quickly enough to make it highly contagious, but within the reproductive system, it united with the genetic molecule. This meant that the first generation born after infection would be less expansionist.

Markos was withdrawn and moody throughout their search. He went through the motions of Haber life, but he had lost some spark and drive. Straka figured he'd lost it on the bridge, giving McGowen the order to fire. She worked hard at trying to draw Markos out of his shell as they worked side by side, but she knew there were limits. Markos had withdrawn to some little island of safety inside his mind.

“Maybe this isn't the answer,” Markos said, watching the chemical interactions take place through Terran instruments with his changed eyes.

“It's the answer, all right,” Straka said.

“How can you be sure?”

“Desperation,” she said.

Markos looked at her, and she couldn't even begin to unravel the emotions that played through Markos's eyes.

They brought the answer to the crew. They showed the group the vial that contained the virus they had made and explained how it worked. “It multiplies at an enormous rate. It should spread itself across a planet in a year or two. It attacks the Hydrans on a genetic level. The waste products it produces are the chemicals needed for blocking the ‘overbreeding' instincts.” Markos said the words without emotion in his gravelly voice.

“We'll try it out on our prisoner to see if there are any side effects. I doubt there will be,” Markos added.

The Old One stood by, the silent observer once again.

Straka had never been able to get a grip on what went on inside the Old One's mind. She wondered what he was doing there with a half-Terran crew. Markos had told her about how they'd met in the Gandji village, how the Old One had arranged for Markos's flight from Gandji, how he'd befriended him, but none of that really helped her understand that strange Haber way of thinking.

“Markatens, we'll need your help,” Straka said.

Markatens rose to his feet.

Markos said, “Release the Hydran from the paralysis. The rest of you line the bulkheads with your lasetubes drawn, ready to fire should the Hydran try anything stupid.”

They followed Markos, Straka, and the Old One from the rec room to the lab. With lasetubes in hands they formed a large circle. Markatens approached the creature, touched its body, and slowly released its joints. He stepped back quickly, joining the others in the circle.

The Hydran emitted a strong odor.

“Fear,” Markos said. “Be careful.”

But Straka knew the creature had intelligence enough to recognize the futility in trying to escape or overpower them. She watched as it slowly rose from the table, awkwardly getting its three legs over the side, placing its feet on the deck. It moved with a grace that was both beautiful and horrifying. With each motion it made, Straka flashed back to the chase, to lasing those two Hydrans in the back, seeing those alien bodies topple to the ground as if in slow motion. She saw the neatly sliced-up Hydran lying on the ground beside this one, the line of unknowing Hydrans being lased down one after the other, presenting themselves in a mockery of many friendly Habers.