by Darrell Bain
Lyda would forever remember the running, disorganized combat through the narrow defiles among boulders far too high to see over. It remained in her mind as a series of brutal hand-to-hand combats with fanatical men and women, interspersed with hurried retreats and attempts to set ambushes, then more struggles with knife and spear; all mixed together with constant battle cries, screams of pain and grunts of exertion that echoed and bounced eerily around the lunar landscape like the sounds of a riot by inmates in a crazy house.
For the first time, she was sorry she hadn't told her people she was armed with a gun; to fire it now might send them into a panic from not knowing who possessed a weapon from earth. Twice, she was forced into direct combat, once with a woman, the second time with a man. She killed the man by using her spear like a quarterstaff, a trick the martial arts instructor had taught in one of the classes. The woman was cagier; she stayed out of range and waited on reinforcements. Lyda had to attack before another enemy showed up. She very nearly lost her life by underestimating how quick the woman was with either hand; she was also big and strong, and had a longer reach. Only a fanatical bit of strength called up from some unknown reserve enabled Lyda to catch the woman's knife arm and gradually force it away from her throat as they rolled up against the edge of a boulder.
The woman also underestimated Lyda. Her slim curved body hinted at feminine weakness, the least of her attributes. Lyda saw the certainty of approaching death in the woman's eyes. She would remember that look forever as she gradually turned the knife back toward the woman's chest, then used the weight of her body and the strength of her arm to sink it home.
For a moment, Lyda couldn't move; she simply lay on top of the bloodied corpse trying to get her breath and energy back. The struggle had taken just about all she had left in her. The sound of scampering feet nearby finally got her upright. She yanked her knife free as she did and almost attacked one of her own people, a man named Marvin, she remembered; steady and reliable if not brilliant.
“Miss Brightner! Hurry; we're at the pass. Oh God, you're hurt!"
Lyda's cheek felt raw from being scraped against the boulder and blood had made a red swath down what remained of her pants from a wound in her thigh. She vaguely remembered plucking a crude arrow from her leg, luckily one without a barbed point. An idiotic thought crossed her mind about it being a good thing the flint wasn't workable; otherwise, the arrow would still be stuck there.
“Can you make it?” Marvin hurried forward to give her a hand.
Lyda took one step, then another. The muscles in her thigh were still intact enough to walk. “I'm okay. Let's go."
She followed Marvin, wondering where everyone else was. Then she remembered that three of the rearguard lay dead among the rocks, and others had been scattered in the fierce fighting. She stumbled on, exhausted almost to the limit of her strength. Others joined her and Marvin as they moved forward through an ever narrowing passage. She thought they had made it when she saw the three bowmen, Jenny among them, guarding the site of the only access into the valley. She knew that's where they had to be when she noticed one of the others was Tom. They were all perched up high and using smaller boulders and a few shrunken trees that had managed to find root in the scant soil for cover.
“Where's Tsing?” Was the first thing she called up to Jenny.
“He said he was going forward to help bring the last of us back here. I haven't seen him since,” Jenny called back down without taking her eyes off the passageway Lyda and her group had just come through.
Lyda took her eyes off Jenny for a moment, then heard a scream of surprise. She looked back up to see her struggling with a spearman, trying to fend him off with her bow. Tom was just pulling his spear from the bowels of another attacker. The third bowman tumbled off the perch as she watched. He hit with a dull thud as Lyda searched frantically for the source of the new threat. She saw it when a dislodged stone bounced down the rock wall. Halfway up was a crack between adjoining boulders which a few of Mao's soldiers had found by accident and followed to the top. Two men jumped to the ground from there, landing in front of her. She grappled with the first, trying to get a hand loose and draw her gun; firing it wouldn't matter now.
Lyda turned a knife thrust and tried to knee the man in the groin. He grunted but it didn't slow him down. She couldn't tell where the other man was, but knew he was close. Suddenly, she thought she was going to die. Her mind surged with bitter protest. A hard blow to the kidney sent a flaring pain through her body and sapped her remaining strength like a sudden debilitating fever. Her antagonist pushed her away and she fell, hitting her head on a rock. The scene above her whirled dizzily. She tried to rise but her muscles felt like jelly. She realized she was going to be too late anyway. A spear held by two brawny arms was raised high. As it started its downward plunge, a body threw itself on top of her.
Tsing! She saw his face for one brief moment before the spear went into his back. The point went all the way through his body. It's bloody tip pinked her left breast. She saw Tsing's mouth open and close, once, twice as his eyes widened. Then they closed, too.
Lyda tried to scream but had no air in her lungs. The man yanked his spear loose and pushed Tsing's body off her with his foot. He raised the spear high and plunged it down again. Lyda managed to roll over just enough so that its tip splintered on the hard scrabble she was laying on. Then the spearman got a surprised expression on his face and silently collapsed into a heap beside her. The remainder of Jenny's crew had subdued the rest of the opposition and she had put an arrow through his neck.
Lyda could barely walk as someone helped her up to a ledge, then over to where the valley came into view. It was barely discernible through her tears. Tsing had truly loved her. He had died for her. She was sorry now that she hadn't been able to grant him what he had wanted most in this world before his death: her own love.
* * * *
By late that evening, Lyda had a strong force defending the pass and was trying to get the survivors organized. Far too many had lost their lives and it was mostly the best among them. She grieved for Tsing but tried not to do it in public. Too many others had lost loved ones for her to cry in front of them. Later, she thought. I'll cry later when I'm alone. Even so, she had a hard time holding back the tears; it made her realize that for all the changes she had noticed in herself, she was still a woman and could still feel deep emotion. That was comforting, in some small way.
* * * *
The next morning as they were settling into the lush valley, the aliens came with their transports and their mechanical beasts, still looking like misshapen spiders, and still just as relentlessly intent on rounding up every human being still alive.
* * * *
Lyda thought the spider mechs were less tolerant of resistance to being herded into the transports this time. She moved among her people, encouraging them to go where the mechs directed while trying to avoid them as long as she could herself. The mechs speared several people with their mandibles when they tried to resist or run away. Before long, they were all driven into the bowels of the familiar big transports. She thought at first she would try to see if Mao was on this ship, and if so, shoot him dead, but she never got a chance to act on the idea.
The crowding was more severe this time, as if the aliens were deliberately trying to ratchet up the pressure. Lyda did her best to keep the two children near her from being crushed. She could offer little help under the circumstances but she did the best she could. She never knew whether she was successful or not, because whatever was operating the ship did something with a blinding red light. It began on one end and swept over the packed compartment in a slow wave that put everyone to sleep. Lyda saw its progress and how the people slumped and fell as it passed over them. She had just enough time to get herself and one nearby child into a reasonably comfortable position before she lost consciousness. She never knew when the transport left the planet.
* * * *
Lyda awoke to the most terrif
ying experience of her life, a trial of fear that she was never able to properly define as real or imagined. All she knew was that the aliens were playing with them again. There was no possibility of feeling concern for anyone else at the moment. It was all she could do to keep her own sanity.
She thought she was still on the transport because of a vague sense of other people around her, but the atmosphere had changed. There were no discernible boundaries to the confinement era. For as far as her mind could reach, there were only terrifying images that could have come from the deepest dregs of a truly insane subconscious, worse than the worst nightmares she had ever heard of or imagined. Her first reaction was to scream and try to run. When that proved impossible, her mind tried to retreat into itself and become catatonic, immune to influences from the outside world. No, no, no! she cried, rejecting that kind of oblivion, but finding nowhere else to go. She tried to run but it was impossible and there was no place to escape to even if she could. She batted at the air, trying to fend off the horrible projections. Projections? Goddamn, it's the aliens doing this. It isn't real, it isn't real! Over and over, she shouted the words to herself, and from that reservoir of courage she had found within herself again and again, she quit fighting and began attacking. Whether she was walking or running or not going anywhere, she had no idea. All she knew was she had to face this terror and beat it down or she would go forever insane—and to fight meant going toward the terrors, not away from them.
Trembling and shaking, heart pounding as if it would burst from her chest, Lyda made her mind and body override the terrified reaction of her lizard hindbrain still reacting to ancient terrors. She came closer to the indescribable projections. They beat at her like all the demons of perdition, damnation and madness, infinitely worse than the terrors of every Halloween haunted house and horror movie that ever existed. She closed with the horrors, merged with them, fought and conquered them with sheer courage and determination; then at the very moment of Lyda's triumph, she again lost consciousness.
* * * *
When Lyda woke the second time, she was alone, and in an entirely different environment. It was clearly artificial, but whether it was another ship or a city on some planet was impossible to determine. The gravity never varied, nor was there day or night. What was striking was the beauty of the place. It was a fairyland of colorful avenues and glittering buildings with open storefronts stocked with all manner of food and clothing. Residential quarters were also invitingly open and sported heated baths and soft beds, along with many other items designed for comfortable living. Lyda didn't find out about the available pleasures until later. She was so happy to be able to bathe and find clean, comfortable clothing and all kinds of delectable food, that she spent many hours, probably running into days had she been able to measure them, before she was sated.
Lyda wandered the city by herself at first but gradually, other people began appearing. All of them were as fascinated and pleased with the luxuries as she was, but she couldn't help wondering what the catch was.
Lyda had intended to ask others when she encountered them whether they had undergone the same nightmarish ordeal in the transport as she had, but the first time she tried, her voice froze as tightly as her mind. Neither she nor anyone else she ever met was able to talk about the experience. To her, it remained somewhere back in the recesses of her brain, a hidden icon she could call up and use as a reference to compare to anything else bad that might ever happen, but never a thing to talk about. She didn't think anything could possibly be worse than that horrendous experience, but it was something not designed for communication to others. She suspected that everyone who survived had probably had to face their own individual brand of fear and horror but there was no way to really tell.
The people she did meet were as varied as from any polyglot city on earth, though all had been hardened and changed to a degree by the struggles since first being captured by the aliens. As usual, Lyda tried to help those she could to cope with the new environment, while being wary of persons who had evil intentions. She quickly found most of them could be separated into two broad categories; those who began assuming the sybaritic comforts now available for the taking were their due for surviving the appalling conditions of the past, and the ones like her, who accepted the eminently desirable amenities, but refused to believe they were available for no other reason than to make them feel good.
The city was like all past habitats the aliens had thrust humanity into in one aspect. Lyda could find no other person she had met in the past. After the first “day” or two, she did find company.
The first individual she met and one she gravitated to almost immediately was a man with skin the color of rich caramel, dark hair and Polynesian features. He turned out to be from Truk, one of the Pacific Islands she didn't recognize. He spoke broken English at first, but picked up the nuances and increased vocabulary even quicker than Tsing had.
When they first met, coming out of adjoining clothing “shops” at the same time, he gave her his full name, then laughed.
“Don't even try to pronounce it; you probably can't. Just call me Tepa; that's a nickname my parents gave me when I was a kid. Something from a television program."
Lyda kept her distance and decided to see where he stood right away. “I'm Lyda Brightner. The aliens came this time just after I led the people I was in charge of to what I hoped would be a haven from Mao's army. Do you know anything about him?"
“Mao Tse Tsung? Sure. Chinese revolutionary of the last century.” He frowned, then snapped his fingers. “I was just going to ask what in hell Mao's army was, but I can guess now. There was someone by the name of Mao in our transport. Even before other ... things ... happened, someone yelled ‘Mao, you son of a bitch!’ and stuck a knife between his ribs."
“Good,” Lyda said, dismissing Mao from any further consideration. She took in Tepa's appearance. He was wearing a wraparound of brightly colored cloth like the tapa lava-lavas the Polynesians used to make from pounded bark. It was decorated in geometric figures of an odd but pleasing design Tepa told her later was also an original characteristic of the casual tropical clothing.
“I take it he gave your group a hard time?"
“Mine and everyone else's he could subdue. If he's dead, forget him. I like your outfit, by the way."
Tepa laughed merrily again. “The climate in this place is almost tropical. Why not dress like it? You've done well, yourself."
Lyda was wearing pants and undergarments of soft cloth she had gleaned from the shop. When she pulled them on, they immediately adjusted away small irregularities into the most comfortable clothing she had ever worn. Her top was a green blouse with rolled up sleeves, which fastened with tabs that gripped even better than Velcro, but loosened easier. Somewhat incongruously with her other clothing, she still carried a backpack, but she had found a new one with self adjusting straps and a lower portion that fastened around the waist and provided an easily accessible pocket on each hip. She stored her pistol in one of them; the other was empty as yet.
“Thanks. It is nice to have new clothes. I'm afraid my old ones were at the end of their useful life."
“The food and hot water here isn't bad, either. Um, may I ask why the backpack when everything we might need is so readily available?"
“I don't mind you asking. I like to keep a few goodies on me at all times. The damned aliens may dump us on a deserted island the next time, or a worse wasteland than the desert where I landed the first time."
“Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe you're smarter than I am. I'll bet you have a jacket in that pack, too, huh?"
“Yes, and a water bottle and some non-perishable food."
“You know, I think I'll copy your idea. First though, may I suggest we go find a place to sit and compare histories? And if we meet others on the way, perhaps ask them to join us; assuming they're compatible, that is?"
“All right,” Lyda agreed. She could sense nothing threatening in Tepa's manner or attitud
e; in fact, she realized that she could tell almost with certainty he was a good person and had survived the aliens through intelligence and congeniality toward others, rather than through more violent means. She had the feeling her mind power had increased to another level. As a test, she reviewed all she had learned about this new place in seconds and cataloged it in her mind under good, bad, and probable danger with effortless ease. Her mind had indeed gained power with this change; presumably her body had too, but she left that for later.
On the way to one of the little parks that always sported a self-cleaning and heated pond, they ran across a middle-aged woman. She declined to come with them, mumbling something about going to eat. Lyda caught the tinge of an unstable mind. She wondered, then concluded it was because of an experience similar to the one she had undergone on the transport. The woman had survived her terrors, but not without being scarred by them.
She and Tepa sat down together on one of the comfortable benches. Two other people were cavorting in the pool with their new clothes laying in a heap beside it. They looked up and waved, then went back to playing.
Lyda spoke first. “This is all nice, but it makes me wonder what it's for. Not a reward for surviving so far, surely?"
“I don't think so,” Tepa said. “You telling me what you're carrying in your pack gave me a wake up call. There must be danger here; we just haven't found it yet. Unless..."
“Yes?” Lyda prompted.
“I went into one place with real comfortable seats and beds. There were screens in front of the chairs and on the ceiling above the beds. As soon as I was seated, I started experiencing images of wonderful pleasures waiting on me, just about anything you could think of. They passed like a continuous slide show in my mind. I saw one that looked particularly interesting and thought I'd like to try it. Immediately, I was transported ... well, not physically transported, but I may as well have been because it became impossible to tell reality from simulation. I won't go into what happened except to say it was so incredibly satisfying that I'm afraid others who discover similar places will become addicted.” He stopped talking and gazed thoughtfully into the distance, as if seeing into the future—or perhaps remembering the ecstasy he had experienced in that room.
