Barry Longyear - Enemy Mine

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The Dracon's three-fingered hands flexed. In the thing's yellow eyes I could read the desire to have those

fingers around either a weapon or my throat. As I flexed my own fingers, I knew it read the same in my

eyes.

"Irkmaan!" the thing spat.

"You piece of Drac slime." I brought my hands up in front of my chest and waved the thing on. "Come

on, Drac; come and get it."

"Irkmaan vaa, koruum su!"

"Are you going to talk, or fight? Come on!" I could feel the spray from the sea behind me-a boiling

madhouse of white-capped breakers that threatened to swallow me as it had my fighter. I had ridden my

ship in. The Drac had ejected when its own fighter had caught one in the upper atmosphere, but not

before crippling my power plant. I was exhausted from swimming to the grey, rocky beach and pulling

myself to safety. Behind the Drac, among the rocks on the otherwise barren hill, I could see its ejection

capsule. Far above us, its people and mine were still at it, slugging out the possession of an uninhabited

corner of nowhere. The Drac just stood there and I went over the phrase taught us in training-a phrase

calculated to drive any Drac into a frenzy. "Kiz da yuomeen Shizumaat!" Meaning: Shizumaat, the most

revered Drac philosopher, eats kiz excrement. Some thing on the level of stuffing a Moslem full of pork.

The Drac opened its mouth in horror, then closed it as anger literally changed its color from yellow to

reddish-brown. "Irkmaan, yaa stupid Mickey Mouse is!"

I had taken an oath to fight and die over many things, but that venerable rodent didn't happen to be one

of them. I laughed, and continued laughing until the guffaws in combination with my exhaustion forced

me to my knees. I forced open my eyes to keep track of my enemy. The Drac was running toward the

high ground, away from me and the sea. I half-turned toward the sea and caught a glimpse of a million

tons of water just before they fell on me, knocking me unconscious. |

"Kiz da yuomeen, Irkmaan, ne?" My eyes were gritty with sand and stung with salt, but some part of my

awareness pointed out: "Hey, you're alive." I reached to wipe the sand from my eyes and found my

hands bound. A straight metal rod had been run through my sleeves and my wrists tied to it. As my tears

cleared the sand from my eyes, I could see the Drac sitting on a smooth black boulder looking at me. It

must have pulled me out of the drink. "Thanks, toadface. What's with the bondage?" "Ess?"

I tried waving my arms and wound up giving an impression of an atmospheric fighter dipping its wings.

"Untie me, you Drac slime!" I was seated on the sand, my back against a rock.

The Drac smiled, exposing the upper and lower mandibles that looked human -except, that instead of

separate teeth, they were solid. "Eh, ne, Irkmaan." It stood, walked over to me and checked my bonds.

"Untie me!"

The smile disappeared. 'We!" It pointed at me with a yellow finger. "Kos son va?"

"I don't speak Drac, toadface. You speak Esper or English?"

The Drac delivered a very human-looking shrug, then pointed at its own chest. "Kos va son Jeriba

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Shigan." It pointed again at me. "Kos son va?"

"Davidge. My name is Willis E. Davidge."

"Ess?"

I tried my tongue on the unfamiliar syllables. "Kos va son Willis Davidge."

"Eh." Jeriba Shigan nodded, then motioned with its fingers. "Dasu, Davidge."

"Same to you, Jerry."

"Dasu, dasu!" Jeriba began sounding a little impatient. I shrugged as best I could. The Drac bent over

and grabbed the front of my jumpsuit with both hands and pulled me to my feet. "Dasu, dasu, kizlode!"

"All right! So dasu is 'get up.' What's a kizlode?"

Jerry laughed. "Gavey 'kiz'?"

"Yeah, I gavey."

Jerry pointed at its head. "Lode." It pointed at my head. "Kizlode, gavey?"

I got it, then swung my arms around, catching Jerry upside its head with the metal rod. The Drac

stumbled back against a rock, looking surprised. It raised a hand to its head and withdrew it covered

with that pale pus that Dracs think is blood. It looked at me with murder in its eyes. "Gefh! Nu Gefh,

Davidge!"

"Come and get it, Jerry, you kizlode sonofabitch!"

Jerry dived at me and I tried to catch it again with the rod, but the Drac caught my right wrist in both

hands and, using the momentum of my swing, whirled me around, slamming my back against another

rock. Just as I was getting back my breath, Jerry picked up a small boulder and came at me with every

intention of turning my melon into pulp. With my back against the rock, I lifted a foot and kicked the

Drac in the midsection, knocking it to the sand. I ran up, ready to stomp Jerry's melon, but he pointed

behind me. I turned and saw another tidal wave gathering steam, and heading our way. "Kid" Jerry got

to its feet and scampered for the high ground with me following close behind.

With the roar of the wave at our backs, we weaved among the water- and sand-ground black boulders

until we reached Jerry's ejection capsule. The Drac stopped, put its shoulder to the egg-shaped

contraption, and began rolling it uphill. I could see Jerry's point. The capsule contained all of the

survival equipment and food either of us knew about. "Jerry!" I shouted above the rumble of the fast-

approaching wave. "Pull out this damn rod and I'll help!" The Drac frowned at me. "The rod, kizlode,

pull it out!" I cocked my head toward my outstretched arm.

Jerry placed a rock beneath the capsule to keep it from rolling back, then quickly untied my wrists and

pulled out the rod. Both of us put our shoulders to the capsule, and we quickly rolled it to higher ground.

The wave hit and climbed rapidly up the slope until it came up to our chests. The capsule bobbed like a

cork, and it was all we could do to keep control of the thing until the water receded, wedging the capsule

between three big boulders. I stood there, puffing.

Jerry dropped to the sand, its back against one of the boulders, and watched the water rush back out to

sea. "Magasiennal"

"You said it, brother." I sank down next to the Drac; we agreed by eye to a temporary truce, and

promptly passed out.

My eyes opened on a sky boiling with blacks and greys. Letting my head loll over on my left shoulder, I

checked out the Drac. It was still out. First, I thought that this would be the perfect time to get the drop

on Jerry. Second, I thought about how silly our insignificant scrap seemed compared to the insanity of

the sea that surrounded us. Why hadn't the rescue team come? Did the Dracon fleet wipe us out? Why

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hadn't the Dracs come to pick up Jerry? Did they wipe out each other? I didn't even know where I was.

An island. I had seen that much coming in, but where and in relation to what? Fyrine IV: the planet

didn't even rate a name, but was important enough to die over.

With an effort, I struggled to my feet. Jerry opened its eyes and quickly pushed itself to a defensive

crouching position. I waved my hand and shook my head. "Ease off, Jerry. I'm just going to look

around." I turned my back on it and trudged off between the boulders. I walked uphill for a few minutes

until I reached level ground.

It was an island, all right, and not a very big one. By eyeball estimation, height from sea level was only

eighty meters, while the island itself was about two kilometers long and less than half that wide. The

wind whipping my jumpsuit against my body was at least drying it out, but as I looked around at the

smooth-ground boulders on top of the rise, I realized that Jerry and I could expect bigger waves than the

few puny ones we had seen.

A rock clattered behind me and I turned to see Jerry climbing up the slope. When it reached the top, the

Drac looked around. I squatted next to one of the boulders and passed my hand over it to indicate the

smoothness, then I pointed toward the sea. Jerry nodded. "Ae, gavey." It pointed downhill toward the

capsule, then to where we stood. "Echey masu, nasesay."

I frowned, then pointed at the capsule. "Nasesay? The capsule?"

"Ae, capsule nasesay. Echey masu." Jerry pointed at its feet.

I shook my head. "Jerry, if you gavey how these rocks got smooth"-I pointed at one-"then you gavey

that masuing the nasesay up here isn't going to do a damned bit of good." I made a sweeping up and

down movement with my hands. "Waves." I pointed at the sea below. "Waves, up here." I pointed to

where we stood. "Waves, echey."

"Ae, gavey." Jerry looked around the top of the rise, then rubbed the side of its face. The Drac squatted

next to some small rocks and began piling one on top of another. "Viga, Davidge."

I squatted next to it and watched while its nimble fingers constructed a circle of stones that quickly grew

into a dollhouse-sized arena. Jerry stuck one of its fingers in the center of the circle. "Echey, nasesay."

The days on Fyrine IV seemed to be three times longer than any I had seen on any other habitable

planet. I use the designation "habitable" with reservations. It took us most of the first day to painfully

roll Jerry's nasesay up to the top of the rise. The night was too black to work and was bone-cracking

cold. We removed the couch from the capsule, which made just enough room for both of us to fit inside.

The body heat warmed things up a bit; and we killed time between sleeping, nibbling on Jerry's supply

of ration bars (they taste a bit like fish mixed with cheddar cheese), and trying to come to some

agreement about language.

"Eye."

"Thuyo."

"Finger."

"Zurath."

"Head."

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The Drac laughed. "Lode."

"Ho, ho, very funny."

"Ho, ho."

At dawn on the second day, we rolled and pushed the capsule into the center of the rise and wedged it

between two large rocks, one of which had an overhang that we hoped would hold down the capsule

when one of those big soakers hit. Around the rocks and capsule, we laid a foundation of large stones

and filled in the cracks with smaller stones. ' By the time the wall was knee high, we discovered that

building with those smooth, round stones and no mortar wasn't going to work. After some

experimentation, we figured out how to break the stones to give us flat sides with which to work. It's

done by picking up one stone and slamming it down on top of another. We took turns, one slamming and

one building. The stone was almost a volcanic glass, and we also took turns extracting rock splinters

from each other. It took nine of those endless days and nights to complete the walls, during which waves

came close many times and once washed us ankle deep. For six of those nine days, it rained. ; The

capsule's survival equipment included a plastic blanket, and that became our roof. It sagged in at the

center, and the hole we put in it there allowed the water to run out, keeping us almost dry and giving us a

supply of fresh water. If a wave of any determination came along, we could kiss the roof goodbye; but

we both had confidence in the walls, which were almost two meters thick at the bottom and at least a

meter thick at the top.

After we finished/ we sat inside and admired our work for about an hour, until it dawned on us that we

had just worked ourselves out of jobs. "What now, Jerry?"

"Ess?"

"What do we do now?"

"Now wait, we." The Drac shrugged. "Else what, ne?"

I nodded. "Gavey." I got to my feet and walked to the passageway we had built. With no wood for a

door, where the walls would have met, we bent one out and extended it about three meters around the

other wall with the opening away from the prevailing winds. The never-ending winds were still at it, but

the rain had stopped. The shack wasn't much to look at, but looking at it stuck there in the center of that

deserted island made me feel good. As Shizumaat observed, "Intelligent life making its stand against the

universe." Or, at least, that's the sense I could make out of Jerry's hamburger of English. I shrugged and

picked up a sharp splinter of stone and made another mark in the large standing rock that served as my

log. Ten scratches in all, and under the seventh, a small x to indicate the big wave that just covered the

top of the island.

I threw down the splinter. "Damn, I hate this place!"

"Ess?" Jerry's head poked around the edge of the opening. "Who talking at, Davidge?"

I glared at the Drac, then waved my hand at it. "Nobody."

"Ess va 'nobody'?"

"Nobody. Nothing."

"Ne gavey, Davidge."

I poked at my chest with my finger. "Me! I'm talking to myself! You gavey that stuff, toadface!"

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Jerry shook its head. "Davidge, now I sleep. Talk not so much nobody, ne?" It disappeared back into the

opening.

"And so's your mother!" I turned and walked down the slope. Except, strictly speaking, toadface, you

don't have a mother-or father. "If you had your choice, who would you like to be trapped on a desert

island with?" I wondered if anyone ever picked a wet freezing corner of Hell shacked up with a

hermaphrodite.

Half of the way down the slope, I followed the path I had marked with rocks until I came to my tidal

pool that I had named "Rancho Sluggo." Around the pool were many of the water-worn rocks, and

underneath those rocks, below the pool's waterline, lived the fattest orange slugs either of us had ever

seen. I made the discovery during a break from house building and showed them to Jerry.

Jerry shrugged. "And so?"

"And so what? Look, Jerry, those ration bars aren't going to last forever. What are we going to eat when

they're all gone?"

"Eat?" Jerry looked at the wriggling pocket of insect life and grimaced. "Ne, Davidge. Before then

pickup. Search us find, then pickup."

"What if they don't find us? What then?"

Jerry grimaced again and turned back to the half-completed house. "Water we drink, then until pickup."

He had muttered something about kiz excrement and my tastebuds, then walked out of sight.

Since then I had built up the pool's walls, hoping the increased protection from the harsh environment

would increase the herd. I looked under several rocks, but no increase was apparent. And, again, I

couldn't bring myself to swallow one of the things. I replaced the rock I was looking under, stood and

looked out to the sea. Although the eternal cloud cover still denied the surface the drying rays of Fyrine,

there was no rain and the usual haze had lifted.

In the direction past where I had pulled myself up on the beach, the sea continued to the horizon. In the

spaces between the whitecaps, the water was as grey as a loan officer's heart. Parallel lines of rollers

formed approximately five kilometers from the island. The center, from where I was standing, would

smash on the island, while the remainder steamed on. To my right, in line with the breakers, I could just

make out another small island perhaps ten kilometers away. Following the path of the rollers, I looked

far to my right, and where the grey-white of the sea should have met the lighter grey of the sky, there

was a black line on the horizon.

The harder I tried to remember the briefing charts on Fyrine IV's land masses, the less clear it became.

Jerry couldn't remember anything either -at least nothing it would tell me. Why should we remember?

The battle was supposed to be in space, each one trying to deny the other an orbital staging area in the

Fyrine system. Neither side wanted to set foot on Fyrine, much less fight a battle there. Still, whatever it

was called, it was land and considerably larger than the sand and rock bar we were occupying.

How to get there was die problem. Without wood, fire, leaves, or animal skins, Jerry and I were destitute

compared to the average poverty-stricken caveman. The only thing we had that would float was the

nasesay. The capsule. Why not? The only real problem to overcome was getting Jerry to go along with it.

That evening, while the greyness made its slow transition to black, Jerry and I sat outside the shack

nibbling our quarter portions of ration bars. The Drac's yellow eyes studied the dark line on the horizon,

then it shook its head. "Ne, Davidge. Dangerous is."

I popped the rest of my ration bar into my mouth and talked around it. "Any more dangerous than

staying here?"

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Barry Longyear - Enemy Mine

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