Barry Longyear - The Last Enemy

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THE LAST ENEMY [086-066-5.0]

by: Barry B. Longyear

Synopsis:

No synopsis available

Barry B. Longyear

PO Box 100,

New Sharon, Maine 04955

Tele. (207) 778-6739

For Jude, Jannettja, Tony, and Sophie;

Fay, Mike, and Jeremy,

And Jean.

Battles won, victories in progress.

A tribe is no more

Than a thought

Chaining the thinker

To eternal war with those

Fettered to thoughts

Of a different sort.

Hissied-do'timan, Meditations on Blood

CHAPTER 1

Miati Ki hides in the rubble above us at the lip of the dry strea

bed. I see only its right boot and the top of its energy pack. The sun

is hot and the heat radiating from the desert sand and boulders flails

my face and steals my breath. Only the dense humidity remembers that

this was once a jungle. There are no birds, no flowers, no trees.

Everything beautiful and gentle that once flew or grew here left this

part of the Shorda countless lives ago. Still, the stinging greenflies

have survived. They will outlive us all. Pina is eating the last of its

share of the rations we captured. As it took its share of the rations,

Pina made a joke, holding it to its lips. "This is the fruit of the

Irrveden, for which the Mavedah fought, that we eat at the second

repast." I laughed with the others at the words of the repast ceremony,

from times when there were formal repasts, tables, and food. Back

before any of us were born. When I was very young, before my parent's

death, Yazi Avo would recite the ceremony at meals, when there were

meals. I laughed, but Pina's joke made me want to cry. I hold to my ear

the little receiver I keep in my pocket. Its screen is broken, but it

still produces audio. The Mavedah station at Mijii Heights still sends,

which means the eastern flank of the Front's invasion of the Shorda is

still stalled. The music is that rapid effervescent confusion of human

and Drac folk music we call zidydrac and the humans call mancho. The

recording was made before the war. I scan for the Amadeen Front's

mobile station, or one of the others. Sometimes I can get the Black

October station, but not today. Nothing new supporting the rumors of

another attempt at a truce. Even if a truce should take place it would

be only a matter of days before The Rose, Black October, or some other

uncontrollable faction of the Front violates it, throwing us all back

into war. Still, there would be a day, possible more, without death.

Ki's hand makes signs to us. First the fist, one finger pointed down,

then all three fingers together followed by a fist. Chaki Anta is back.

There had been an explosion at the bunker. We all heard it, saw the

smoke and dust carried by the wind over the lake. Qat Juniki told us

about it before it died. A human had come out of the bunker, his hands

above his head, and Chaki Anta took the man's surrender. The human's

hands were held as fists. "I saw the wire," said Juniki. "I told the

man to open his hands before he came any closer. I told him in English.

I told him again. When he opened them, the world vanished." A walking

bomb with a dead man's switch. Such a human way of killing. Juniki

thought Chaki Anta had been killed, but now Anta is back. As I turn off

the receiver I am relieved. Anta is an old fighter, a survivor of many

raids and battles. It helps me to know that not everyone dies in this

war. My relief is mixed with dread, for when Anta comes back, our

killing and dying resume. We will soon move into a fight. No one says

any of this but it is in everyone's eyes. We swallow the last of our

ration bars. I see Pina take a touch of happy paste with its tongue.

Its eyes close as the drug spins Pina away on a transitory cloud of joy.

I look at my ration bar and wonder why food is so scarce but happy paste

is everywhere. In the end we will probably die of malnutrition within

the mist of a spittle dream. We looted the ration bars from the humans,

but they are good to eat. They are viyapi rations the humans looted

from us. Some of the human rations are good, too. I like the

containers of fruit and the candy bars, but they are rare. There is

something in plastic envelopes called scrambled eggs and ham that even

the humans refuse to eat. For that reason, of course, scrambled eggs

and ham are all that they have left. Their rations, like ours, are left

over from the war. Chaki Anta slides and stumbles down the dust of the

stream bank, followed by Ki. Anta's face is deep ochre, an old scar

along the left side of its forehead. Although our commander smiles with

its mouth, its deep yellow eyes betray all of the dead they have seen.

Anta nods as it points toward the east with its battered energy knife.

"Only a few left in that bunker at the foot of the bluff. I heard

firing coming from inside. They were not shooting at me or at anything

outside the bunker." Its brow climbs in an expression of hopeful

possibility. "I think they were fighting among themselves." His cold

smile becomes a cold grin. "We will get Taaka Liok a present and end

them this time." Chaki Anta's eyes narrow. "We are the Twelve."

"The

Front Twelve," we mutter back more out of habit than pride. Our

eagerness drowned in oceans of blood years ago, buying presents for

Taaka Liok with our blood. My whole life in the Mavedah has been spent

serving at the pleasure of this mysterious warmaster, who in turn serves

at the pleasure of the Denvedah Diea. I glance down at the helmet in my

hands. It carries on its once sand-red surface the scars of thirty

years of death. Only five of those years are mine. The sensors and

readout still work, but the voice link is scratchy. I can do without

the voice link. Hand signals are silent, instant, clear, and do not

send out electro-magnetic pulses for eager probes to pick up. Besides,

I prefer to dedicate my hearing to my immediate surroundings. That is

where the threats to my life lie. The helmet is military issue, of the

Tsien Denvedah back in the war. It is twice as old as I am. The names

of seven Mavedah soldiers are scratched in the surface exposing the dull

brown fiber beneath. Ritan Vey Ada Nitoh Lioseh Akiva Ivat Mikotath Sed

Tura Riwis Achavneh Enot Fal. We all know the stories of the great hero

Ritan Vey, once second warmaster of the Tsien Denve of the Ninth

Shordan, conqueror of New Aetheria. Only a few of us remember Enot Fal.

Fal's first day after training saw it crushed beneath the treads of an

Amadeen Front tank in the attack on Stokes Crossing in the Southern

Shorda. I had no helmet of my own, so I claimed Fal's. I wonder who

will get the helmet after I am gone. It is irrational of me, but I am

afraid to scratch my own name into this pathetic monument. Besides, the

seven names already there are burden enough to carry. We are the Front

Twelve, Anta had told us long ago. Tsien Siay. The pride of the Okori

Sikov. There are only five of us left now. Ragged, tired, and thin

from meager rations. We were twelve at the beginning of the battle six

days ago. When the last of us falls, perhaps there will be another

twelve to replace us. Children, ancients, and fools. Onward marches

the grand Mavedah. I slip my shoulders into the straps of my energy pack

and adjust the piece of plastic foam between the pack and the small of

my back to ease the chafing. Something I learned from a dead human. I

glance sideways to see if my few remaining comrades somehow detect the

treason that echoes in my thoughts. Anta is positioning its energy

knife in the harsh sunlight to absorb that last bit of energy before we

go. Miati Ki is strapping on its equipment, most of which was salvaged

from dead Amadeen Front soldiers. How can we be so different from the

humans, yet so alike? We can use the same weapons, wear the same rags,

eat the same food, scratch the same rashes and slap at the same

parasites. After decades of close horror, we even speak each others

language. But, breathing the same air -- that is something that demands

death. Varo Pina and Skis Adoveyna are waiting for the order, their eyes

tired and yellow, staring at the top of the bank. I can see that Pina

already sees its own death. I want to touch its hand, to tell Pina that

we will survive, but my friend would reject my words. My friend Varo

Pina knows it must die. It has talked about nothing else for days. I

think it wants to get done with the experience. "I am calm about

death," Pina once said to me. "Waiting for death is the strain." Once,

in the dust of memory, Pina and I loved. Neither of us conceived. The

humans have us there. If a Drac is certain it will be dead or otherwise

unable to care for its young, it cannot conceive. To humans, though,

the prospect of death and deprivation seems to drive them into a fertile

frenzy. We are told that it is a primitive survival mechanism to

preserve the species. They also live longer than Dracs, barring

traumatic intervention. I no longer have those feelings for Pina, and

Pina has no feelings left for me. I wonder if any of us have any

feelings left for anything. Without speaking, Chaki Anta puts on its

helmet and signals Miati Ki and me to take the front. I do not

hesitate. Instead I take my energy knife, climb the bank, reach the

lip, and begin crawling through the rubble, checking automatically for

remote sensors and probes. It has been a long time since any of us saw

a working remote or probe, but we stay cautious. There are still

scanners and missiles. Humans also have eyes and those big ears. I note

the position of the sun. By the time we reach the bunker it will be

behind us, burning our backs but glaring into the eyes of the humans.

I can see the bunker by peering through a crack in the ruin of a

stone wall. The heat radiating from the wall washes my face. The

fortification is to my front, the bluff farther on and more to my left.

To my far left is a low hill. To my right stretches the lake named

Sharing in both Drac and human languages. The lake was named a long

time ago, before the war, back in a fantasy time when Dracs and humans

were supposed to have lived and worked together. "Yazi Ro," the voice

link scratches into my ear membrane. "Keep moving." My head is filled

with so many minds, but my body follows Anta's orders as though it has

its own will. I crawl from behind the broken wall, around a pile of

still smoking wreckage, until I reach the body of one of the Twelve's

fallen. A primitive projectile caught the Drac beneath its left eye.

The back of its head is missing exposing an ochre goo that was once a

brain. What do you leave behind, comrade? A parent? A child? Did you

have someone who loved you? Does anyone care how you died? that you

died? for what you died? What did you die for, my nameless comrade? If

I meet my own death this moment, I am at a loss to say for what I died.

I am an automation; a creature that responds to orders. Perhaps I die

for glorious habit. There must be a grander way than that to record me

in my line's archives, if they still exist. The language Dracon,

however, is suited more to facts than fantasy. There are few ways to

express an event except with truth. To spin dreams the language English

was designed. Here lies Yazi Ro, dead because it couldn't go no mo.'

Pooped, perhaps, from a penchant for proclivity. Yazi Avo, my parent,

taught me my English. Avo once said that if there is ever to be peace,

we must first talk. I laugh at this now. All either species knows how

to do with words is to wound. My parent had a crippled foot, mangled in

an Amadeen Front raid when it was not even half a year old. I look at

the body of my comrade. The young one, barely an adult of five years,

was given to the Twelve just before the battle to fill out our number.

Young, but a good soldier, nevertheless. I saw its knife take down at

least three humans before the bullet found its mark. A strange way to

measure occupational proficiency. Two paces beyond the nameless Drac is

a nameless human who must have been dead for quite awhile. I cannot

tell if it is male or female. Its skin is swollen and black, the eyes

crusted with thirsty greenflies, their swollen iridescent bodies like so

many droplets of jade. Human dead turn black when they lie in the sun

for a few days. The odor is beyond description. I make a wide path

around it. To the human's side I see the white flash of an anksnake

beneath the body, out of the direct sun, feeding on the corpse's guts.

They only go for decaying flesh, so I am in no danger from the snake.

But it might have startled me. Had I cried out, or raised up, or used

my weapon, that would have been the end for all of us. But I do not

draw attention to myself and must pay attention to the instant. Again I

face the bunker. It is an ugly fire-blackened shelter of poured stone.

It has rounded corners, gun ports, and a huge hole blasted into its left

front. To the right of the hole a deep red rose is painted, the sign of

the Amadeen Front. The three remaining weapon ports are spaced evenly

to the right of the hole. Between the bunker and my position is a field

of rubble. I see a dark shape just for an instant. It runs from in

front of the bunker to a position among some rocks part way up the

bluff. I am not certain, but more than one human seems to be there. I

glance to my left and wait until I catch a glimpse of Ki forty paces

away. Ki turns its head toward me for a moment and I raise my hand and

point. Ki looks forward, sees the rocks, and nods. It begins bearing

toward the left and the rocks, while I continue toward the bunker. So

many times have I faced death to do more death. And after the effort

and sacrifice there are still more humans to kill, more comrades to

watch die, more fire to burn, more things to destroy. The bunker ahead

of me is part of a village that exchanged hands four times this year

alone. How many hundreds or thousands of lives has this ruined heap of

debris cost? I cannot even guess. And for what reason? It sits

astride a road crossing with surfaces impossible to traverse by wheeled

vehicles that no longer function. My knee strikes a small rock which

clatters into a larger rock. I freeze. Motionless, no breathing,

willing my heart to quit its pounding. I'm almost afraid to move my

eyes for the notice their motion might draw. Still my gaze quickly

searches the ground between me and the bunker. Broken walls, rubble,

twisted towers of metal. I can see nothing threatening. The pebble had

not made a loud noise, but if the humans have a listening post out or a

sensor buried nearby, the noise would be loud enough. Without looking

at it, my right hand steals down the length of my weapon one finger's

breadth. It reaches the power switch, and I energize my knife. Neither

the switch nor the weapon powering up make a sound, but I can feel the

power pulse. I am grateful I took advantage of the time in the sun

waiting for Anta's return to add to the charge. The touch gauge shows

seventy three percent. My voice link crackles in my ear, startling me.

It is Miati Ki reporting to Chaki Anta. "Anta," Ki whispers to the old

fighter. "There are four of them in those rocks behind and to the left

of the bunker. Their field of fire covers almost all of the ground in

front of Yazi Ro." The words, once I allowed myself to understand them,

made my skin writhe. Another crackle, then Chaki Anta's voice. "Ki,

have they seen you?"

"No, but they see Yazi Ro. They are staring at Ro

this moment, weapons trained. I think they wait to see the rest of us

before they open fire."

"What weapons?" asks Anta. "Two rifles and a

captured energy knife. I cannot see what the fourth has."

"Stay in

place, Ki," answers Anta. "I'm coming up on your left with Pina and

Adoveyna." By the breath of a kiz, I am fisher's bait! I fight down the

urge to bolt and run. It seems insane. As the battle started there

were hundreds in this sector. Now it has come down to four humans and

five Dracs? Is this when I die, when it is all but over? "Stay in

place, Ro," comes Anta's voice. "Give no sign that you are aware of the

humans in the rocks."

"As you order, Anta." Fine words from my leader

and a terribly brave response, but I've already given a sign by

signaling Ki. How do I take that back? Perhaps no human saw it. Or if

one of them did, perhaps that one mistook my gesture for something else.

"Look, the Drac is saying hello." A mind in fear takes comfort where it

may. I swallow against the moisture in my mouth. Human mouths grow dry

with fear. Dracs fairly drool. I occupy my mind trying to figure out

which is worse. To drool or not to drool, that is the question. My grip

on my weapon has my fingers aching, but I cannot relax them in fear of

the movement. I need to void. I know it is only the fear and I force

the feeling away. Only the urge to void goes. The fear stays. There is

no more communication on the voice link. With patience that threatens

to tear my neck muscles, I turn my head so very slowly to my left, my

eyes straining to see around the left frame of my visor. It takes

forever, but once more I can see where Ki had been concealed. Instead of

Ki, however, there is Pina. It is crawling very rapidly toward the

rocks. Anta must have already passed. Adoveyna follows Pina without a

pause. Will they take down the humans before the humans become

impatient waiting for me to make my move? It is said that some humans

pray to gods. I feel the lack. My view of Adoveyna is lost as it crawls

behind some rubble. I slowly turn my head to face the bunker but I stop

as I see something above and far behind where I lost sight of Skis

Adoveyna. The small hill is little more than a support for shattered

stumps and the remains of a few smashed dwellings, a thin smoky mist

rendering everything in shades of gray. Earlier in the day the rise had

been roasted and pulverized. Still, there was something that shouldn't

be. A fifth human? More? Had I seen a piece of wire or cloth waving

in the slight breeze? A stray beam of light reflected from --- "Anta,"

I whisper into the voice link. "Anta, to your far left, up on that

hill, I saw movement."

"Where?" it asks, but before I can answer, the

kow-kow sounds of a human rifle shatters the silence. The sounds are

soon joined by Pina screaming into the link and the humans in the rocks

opening up with the energy knife, the broad swath of its blade coming

right toward me. Someone screams, "Kill them!" Quickly I roll until a

large block of cut stone is between me and the knife, still giving the

humans on the hill a view of me. Two of Anta's remaining knives fire at

the rocks beneath the bluff while the third fires irregularly at the

hill. I turn, place my back against the stone block, aim my own blade

toward the hill, and press the trigger. I feel the tremendous energy

pulses as they warm my hands. When I am certain the humans are at least

down, I jump up and turn to run toward the bunker. A deafening

explosion erupts in front of me, blinding me for a moment, filling my

lungs with choking dust and gasses. Before I open my eyes or check to

see if I have all of my limbs, I realize that the fourth human in the

rocks has a missile launcher. My eyes open and the sky above is gray

with dust and smoke, cut with the green glowing blades of energy knives

and the white streaks of pulse weapons. As the deadly silence ends,

returning my hearing to me, the feeling comes back to my body. The

first of it is a skull-cracking pain in my head, a stinging tingle all

across my skin. I cautiously lift my hands to feel my head, grateful to

find that it is still covered by my helmet. I sit up, then kneel as I

pick up my weapon. It is still charged and operative. Without thinking,

I climb to my feet and spring forward, the breath coming hard in my

lungs as I braid my way among the broken stones and twisted metal. A

loud kang sound from a piece of metal near my head catches me by

surprise and I recoil from it, roll to my left, and come up aiming my

blade at the bunker. There are two, no five flashes from the dark

opening. The ground around me erupts with geysers of stone dust as

shattered bits of metal buzz around me. An energy flash from behind

comes close enough to sear the flesh on my left shoulder. There is at

least one more human with a knife. I throw myself into a slight

depression, whirl about, and fire my knife at the hill once more. Twice,

three times, and I see my blade catch an energy pack. There is a

blinding blue light, then nothing but a steaming hole in the ground.

There doesn't seem to be anyone left firing from the rocks or the hill

and I roll to my right, jump up, and wash the bunker opening with my

knife. After I release the trigger, I squat behind some wreckage and

check the hill as I touch the knife's charge indicator. Still nothing

on the hill and my weapon is at forty-nine percent. I glance a little

more to the right, and look at the rocks. They are black where before

they were reddish tan. I see no movement. "Anta?" I call into my voice

link. There is nothing but static. "Anta? Ki? Pina? Adoveyna?" I

get to my feet and try again. "Tsien Siay, report!" They cannot all be

dead. We have been at this far too long, endured too many things. If

the human demons that spawned this hell have any sense of justice, all

of the Twelve cannot be dead. With my chin I switch the sensor in my

helmet to read thermal input. Looking at my visor I see a bright orange

place on the hill where I laid on my blade causing the human's energy

pack to go up. There is another bright orange place among the rocks

where the second knife was. When it went up, the four humans went with

it. Below the rocks there is a dimming orange dot, the cooling body of

a dead human. In the rubble field below, where my comrades were hiding,

there are another four orange dots, dimming, as the heat leaves their

bodies. Before feelings crush me, I remind myself that the lack of an

exploded energy pack sign means that in all probability, their knives

still work. I must disable them before I leave. I am alone. For a

moment I am confused about what to do. Should I rage and throw myself

into the monster's mouth to avenge my dead comrades? Do I cower in

terror, hoping that no one will notice me? Do I surrender and trust to

the good intentions of the Amadeen Front? Do I simply abandon this

place, go back to Lurack and say, "Mission accomplished, Ovjeta.

Everything is dead." --- I hear a sound from the bunker and I whirl

around, my knife at the ready. The heat sensor shows two beings dead in

the ragged opening. Further inside are at least six older dead and deep

inside are two hot live ones, very close together. I realize I am

standing in full view of the bunker, and I squat down, amazed that I am

alive. Perhaps the two humans who are alive are wounded. For some

reason they didn't take me out when they could. I want to call Anta's

name again, see the bodies of my comrades with my own eyes. I rebel at

relying on a mere instrument to tell me my comrades are dead. But what

would be the purpose? Then, what was ever the purpose of any of it?

How can a being tremble in fear of losing its life one moment and care

not a dot the next? I stand in full view of the bunker, my weapon held

at my side, and walk toward the opening, hardly curious at the form my

death will take. At the opening I step over the lip of the hole torn in

the wall and walk in. I pause inside and look around. It is still.

After six days of battle, there is something obscene about so much

silence. It allows too many things to be felt. They stand before me in

a row: fear, sadness, outrage, emptiness, and hate. How I long to rest

my head upon my parent's lap and beg Yazi Avo to quiet the buzzing in my

brain. I take a breath; exhale. Another. It is not the moment before;

that moment when I had living friends and living enemies. It is not the

moment to come, when whatever it is that I must do has already been

done. It is this moment. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember

something comforting --- something perhaps even useful --- from the

Talman. How little of the book I remember. My parent tried to teach me,

but it was killed by the Front long before I completed my first year. I

keep the golden cube of my parent's Talman suspended from a chain around

my neck, but I rarely read it. After all, it was the masters of the

Talman Kovah who proved that this war cannot end. No adulthood rites, no

presentation before the family archives, not for Yazi Ro. Not for any

of us condemned to Amadeen. Two humans are dead on the dusty cement

floor at my feet. The older of the two caught the slice of my energy

knife through the upper right quadrant of his head. The younger one is

almost a child the way humans reckon such things. She was cut in two

through the chest. Bodies. Nothing. Two more corpses upon a mountain of

dead. There is a golden pendent on a golden chain around the neck of the

young one. I expect it to be a cross, that sign of the human prince of

peace. I see, instead, the cube of a Talman taken from some dead or

captured Drac. My rage paints everything in reds and blinding whites.

Instinctively I touch the trigger on my knife and watch as her head

rolls free from her torso. I take the chain from the stump of her neck

and look at the cube. It carries a line sign, but I do not know it. I

look around inside the concrete and steel structure. Nothing but the

mounts remain of the crew served weapons that had been bolted to the

floor. There are scraps of cloth hanging over the weapon ports. Human

curtains. They are made from the tan, white, and red camouflage cloth

the humans use. There are chairs very similar to Drac chairs, and a

table very similar to the one I ate from before my parent, my siblings,

and my home were destroyed so very long ago. The inside is blackened

and chipped from weapons firing. I am numb from fatigue and from the

pains in my head. I wonder how many human homes and lives I have

destroyed. Some things are beyond counting. Something strange about the

scene makes me pause. The chipping took place after the fire. The

blackening is from burning, probably ignited by an energy knife. The

chipping is caused by bullets. The Twelve had no rifles. The rifle

fire had to have come from inside. Anta had said the humans might be

fighting among themselves. Perhaps that is why so many of them were not

in the bunker when we attacked. I take another deep breath, and as I do

so I vaguely remember the sensor. I look at it again and the orange

dots are now larger, the walls of the bunker reflecting warm from the

sun and the energy weapons. Two of the humans are still alive, and the

only thing to be served on Amadeen is death. Against the back of the

firing gallery is a room. In it are six of the human beds, raised on

legs, and draped with cloths. Three of the beds have bodies tossed

across them. Three more bodies are crumpled on the floor near them. The

ones on the beds carry knife wounds, the slashes and dismemberment

unmistakable. The ones on the floor carry bullet wounds. Another room

to the left off the gallery is for food preparation. Nothing alive in

there. The ones alive are hiding beneath the bed on the far right. I

place my weapon between my knees and hold it while I remove my helmet.

The room smells foul, the human blood sickeningly sweet. Cement dust is

in the air causing light filtering through cracks in the bunker to make

dustbeams. The place is filled with greenflies, already feasting upon

the pools of red human blood. Strange how the insects have an equal

affinity for yellow Drac blood. The Talman says that only form changes,

nothing ever dies. It looks like a lot of death to me. I look at the

bed beneath which the two humans are hiding. There is a rifle on the

tattered sheets, the stock shattered. The readout on my sensor shows

one of the humans to be too small to be an adult. Of course, there are

also very small humans called dwarfs and midgets who are just as deadly.

Still, one of them might be a child. Prisoners? By the bloody book, why

burden myself with prisoners? It is so much less complicated if they

simply die. Would they take me prisoner, or would they render me into

muck and thank their bloody gods. Perhaps they will, instead, kill me.

It is time to ride the monster. I hook my helmet onto my weapons belt,

the weight off my neck making my head feel light. Holding my knife in

my right hand, I place my left beneath the end of the bed. "Now is when

you must kill me," I whisper. I flip the bed over and bring my knife up

to bear. All I can see is a single form. A human female from what I

can see of her back. She is curled into a lump. She is not armed.

"Get up," I order in English. "Get up and face me." She doesn't comply.

Instead she shakes her head back and forth, a human sign of resistance.

"Get up," I repeat. I reach down to grab her shoulder, my knife pointing

at her head. Just before I touch her, I hear a baby cry. So easy to

have a soft heart. So easy to say, here is a parent and child. Take

pity, Ro. What has a mere baby done to you? Have mercy. How many Dracs

have had their wombs ripped open, their barely formed children dangled

by their umbilicals before the still living eyes of their parents? How

many humans have smashed the heads of how many Drac children upon rocks

and exchanged money bets upon how far the blood splashes? With all of my

strength I grab her shoulder and throw her onto her back, her baby still

clutched in her arms. I lift my knife to cut them both in two, then I

see the baby. It is a Drac baby only a few days old. The woman's eyes

stare at my face. Tears make her eyes glitter in the half dark. She

knows she is about to die. She knows the baby is about to die.

"Please," she whimpers. "Please." What about the dead, I want to ask

her. What about all of the dead? And how did you acquire a Drac

infant, woman? Whose womb did you slit? Filthy, hairy, foul smelling

thing, what right do you have to ask pity from me? I say none of it. I

gesture toward the infant with my knife and say something very stupid.

"It is not human." She shakes her head. "No," she answers. "It's

mine." Mine. It's mine. I lower myself until I am sitting cross-legged

on the floor, my knife across my knees. A howl begins from inside me,

from deep beneath the core of my soul. It expands until it fills every

crack and crevice of my being. When the pressure is more than will can

contain, it explodes from my mouth. A bellow, a scream, a cry. I cry

for them, the human female and the abandoned Drac infant. I cry for the

Twelve, for my parent and siblings. I cry for the Planet Amadeen, and

for one of its many weary soldiers, Yazi Ro.

CHAPTER 2

"Its name is Suritok Nan. Its parent told me just before it died.

Fourth in its line, but its parent told me none of the line names. No

one will be able to piece them together now." We sit outside the bunker

on the rubble, the woman cleaning the face of the Drac child on her lap.

I sit watching her, my mind far from a decision about her continued

existence. Her skin is smooth and the color of mud, the hair on her head

short, black, and curled. She too has ear flaps and that bulb of a human

nose, all of those fingers. The Drac child's skin is the color of

sunlight, its face smooth, hairless, and puffed with birth fat. I can

see, though, that the woman only sees a child; that the child only sees

a parent. It is something I cannot even imagine existing, but there it

is. I look away. The woman and the child are not the only things that

have been left undone. I must find the bodies of my comrades, take

their Talmans, destroy their weapons. "Nan's parent," continued the

woman, "it didn't even have time to tell me its own name before it died.

The Talman it carried was gone." She moves her shoulders and lets her

gaze fall. "Stolen, probably," she continues. "You can get over a

hundred tags for a Talman and chain back on the Dorado." A hundred tags.

Tags are script money issued by the Front. According to captured

humans, a hundred tags is enough to buy a melon. So much for eleven

thousand years of wisdom. I look at the Talman and chain I had taken

from the girl I beheaded. They are still in my hand, a bit of human

blood on it. Perhaps this was the one taken from Nan's parent.

Probably not. I look again at the woman's face. Why should a human be

so concerned about the heritage of a Drac infant? Perhaps her show is

for my benefit. She thinks I might let her go. Her and her Drac child.

After all, I let her live. So far. Perhaps she will do whatever she

thinks will induce my compassion. Humans lie, and sneak, and trick: all

skills we have learned from them along with butchery, cruelty, and

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THELASTENEMY[086-066-5.0]by:BarryB.LongyearSynopsis:NosynopsisavailableBarryB.LongyearPOBox100,NewSharon,Maine04955Tele.(207)778-6739ForJude,Jannettja,Tony,andSophie;Fay,Mike,andJeremy,AndJean.Battleswon,victoriesinprogress.AtribeisnomoreThanathoughtChainingthethinkerToeternalwarwiththoseFetteredtot...

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Barry Longyear - The Last Enemy

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