The Eternal Enemy

by Michael Berlyn

  By changing the swirling colors to visual output, the crew found they could handle the rest of the strange instrumentation well enough. Watching those screens had been like trying to watch thirty Habers in a heated debate.

  The intercom clicked on. “Ready to launch?”

  “No. Give us a few seconds to check out the systems,” Straka said.

  She would let Wilhelm do the actual piloting from the seat beside her. She would handle the weapon systems.

  Kominski stood by, armed, deflection belt strapped around his chest, lasetube by his side. He would be the first one out of the ship when it landed. He had demanded the honor. Straka feared that Markos may have gone a little too far in altering Kominski. It was spooky the way he’d changed instantly.

  Markatens sat on the deck, calmly relaxed, dropping in and out of his meditative cycle.

  “Everyone ready to go?” Straka asked.

  They all flashed red.

  “Good. If there’s a way to get out of this thing alive, we’ll find it. No heroes, please. We’ll be outnumbered a few billion to one, if what the Paladin’s sensors say is true.”

  “We’re too far away to give them much credence,” Wilhelm said.

  “So much the better. But even if there are only two Hydrans on the surface, don’t be a hero. Understand?”

  Kominski nodded. Markatens flashed red. “We’ll be cool,” Wilhelm said.

  Straka pressed the intercom button. “We’re ready to go, Markos. How about you?”

  “We’re ready.”

  Markos’s voice was even more distorted over the intercom. Each time Straka would start getting used to the way it sounded, something would happen to point it out to her again. And that would bring back the memories of her half-insane chase across four and a half years of space. Her lying to the crew. Her desire for everlasting life. How she had used and abused the trust the crew had given her.

  “Old One? Can you hear us?”

  “Yes,” the Old One said.

  “Release the ships for launch,” Straka said.

  “They are released,” the old Haber said.

  “Okay, Wilhelm, this is it. I sure hope you know how to fly this thing as well as you say you do.”

  “No sweat,” Wilhelm said. “If it moves, I can fly it.”

  Wilhelm settled his hands over the strangely shaped armrests and touched the control plates to his left. By leaking electrons and capturing them, he activated the necessary switches to put the ship into motion.

  “We’ll be in a stable orbit in about thirty minutes,” Wilhelm said.

  “What’ll you bet the place is crawling with Hydrans?” Kominski asked.

  “Let’s hope they’re not even there,” Straka said.

  “I hope they are,” Kominski said.

  “I think I liked you better before you became so enthusiastic,” he said to Kominski. He turned to Straka. “Spacey, isn’t he?”

  “The more Hydrans I kill, the better I’ll like it,” Kominski said. “Haven’t you got any idea what they’ve done to our people?”

  “Our people,” Wilhelm said softly.

  “The thing is, Kominski, that if we don’t find any down there, then there’s a chance the Habers living on this planet are safe,” Straka said.

  “Oh, yeah. Never thought of that.”

  “Swift,” Wilhelm said.

  “Pay attention to the controls,” Straka said.

  “Sure,” Wilhelm said, knowing full well there was nothing to do for quite a while.

  This was no time to be arguing, picking on each other, getting on each other’s nerves. Things were going to get hot and heavy, and very soon. Straka had to keep these two cooled out. Markatens wasn’t a problem. He looked like he didn’t even know what was going to happen. Well, Straka realized, he probably didn’t. The less he knew, the better.

  Straka sat back and watched the planet grow in size on the screen. There was little else to do until they arrived. She patted the belt around her waist and prayed it worked properly. She touched her lasetube by her side, brushing it with her fingertips just to make sure it was still there. She decided it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to pray a little, to offer her atonement for some of her past ill deeds.

  But as she thought about it, she realized she had no idea who she should be praying to. Or what. When she’d been a Terran, there was always God. And now God didn’t seem to be the same thing. God wasn’t like what Straka had learned about in school, or from her parents. God seemed to be something entirely different.

  To her, God looked like the primary rule in the Universe, a physical law or set of laws, a spiritual path for life. That was what the Habers understood.

  Change.

  But how in all hell could you pray to Change?

  22

  Wilhelm piloted the ship through the atmosphere as if it were a screamer—small, tight, and maneuverable. Without the fear of G forces crushing them, blacking them out, he could whip the ship around like an appendage of his body. He flew over the equitorial region, the area where the Habers had originally settled.

  Straka watched the planet through the screens, trying to pick up signs of civilization—buildings, machinery, small villages. If the Hydrans had landed on this planet, she should have been able to spot some signs of Hydran life. There should have been some small villages at least.

  A few hundred kilometers in from the western coastline, Straka spotted a settlement. She had Wilhelm return to the site and hover a kilometer overhead while they examined the structures below through the screens.

  “What do you think?” Straka asked.

  “It’s definitely not Haber,” Wilhelm said. “At least not like those we saw on Gandji or Aurianta.”

  “Let me see,” Markatens said. Straka made room for Markatens, and he peered into the screen. “No,” Markatens said. “It’s definitely not a Haber settlement.”

  The settlement appeared as a series of concentric rings. The innermost one looked like a domed structure. The other rings showed no distinct internal structures from that altitude.

  “I wish we had a bomb,” Kominski said. “We could drop one right on the center of the inner dome, and then we could move on to the next one.”

  “Sure, Kominski. That would take us only about a hundred thousand years to do, too. After all, the Hydran Empire couldn’t be that big, right?” Wilhelm asked.

  Kominski moved his head away from the screen and walked away.

  “What is it with him?” Wilhelm asked. “A little gung ho?”

  “Why, Wilhelm,” Straka said. “I never knew you were such a master of understatement.”

  Wilhelm laughed.

  “I no longer understand him,” Markatens said. “And I am concerned over his welfare.”

  “Don’t be,” Straka said. “He knows how to take care of himself.”

  Straka looked into the screen and tried to figure out the best course of action. Their task could be relatively simple if the Hydrans acted anything at all like Terrans. They would have to land—that much was for certain. And all they had to do was capture one or two live, uninjured Hydrans. Sure, Straka thought. Nothing to it. Just swoop down on them and steal one out of its crib.

  If a Hydran ever left that settlement, alone and unarmed, then there’s a good chance we can pull this off without any extreme danger. If the Habers were already wiped off the face of this planet, and if the planet was definitely Hydran-owned, as it appeared to be, then there was no reason for the Hydrans to remain armed and in large groups.

  Sure. That’s all well and good, Straka thought. That’s if they think like Terrans. Which I doubt. All we know for sure is that they kill Habers like there’s no tomorrow.

  “You see anyplace you like a lot?” Straka asked Wilhelm.

  “There’s a place about a kilometer to the north,” he said, pointing to a spot on the screen. “We could try that.”

  “All right. Kominski? Markatens? This is it. We’re going down there. Now remember what our di
rectives are. And please—no heroics.”

  They all flashed red.

  “Weapons ready,” she ordered.

  They flashed red again.

  “Let’s go, Wilhelm.”

  The ship dropped downward like a stone. Straka activated the ship-to-ship radio and told Markos they were going down. They had landed by the time Markos replied.

  “We’ve got you,” Markos said. “We’re five miles straight up. Holler if you even think you need help.”

  “Right,” Straka said, then broke off communications. “Let’s move.”

  They ran for the bay. The door was half open by the time they got there. From the top of the ramp Straka felt the chill of the planet’s atmosphere creeping in, smelled the rotting heaviness in the air. She made her body hard and activated her belt.

  They leaped from the ship to the ground, and the bay door closed behind them. This area of the planet was rocky, with huge boulders and strange-looking broken hills surrounding them. The ground was muddy—thick and difficult for walking. There was little vegetation in the immediate area, and what little there was seemed to be dying. It was near midday, with Epsilon Scorpio high in the sky, offering little warmth. They were chilled to the bone.

  Straka looked around, carefully searching for signs of life—Hydran, Haber, or native.

  The air was still, and a thin ground fog hovered half a kilometer away to the south, just a meter or so off the ground. “Key yourselves for the smell,” Straka reminded. “When you catch that, get ready.”

  They spread out into an expanding square for ten meters, trying to spot a lone Hydran or two, hoping against hope their job would be easy. Within a few minutes of scouting they had determined that either no Hydrans still occupied the nearby settlement or they all occupied it, with none of them straying from its safety. In either case, none were around the immediate area.

  “Which way?” Straka asked Wilhelm.

  Wilhelm pointed to the south, into the ground fog. “Single file?”

  “Yes.”

  They started out toward the settlement. They had to get a prisoner. If her group failed, Markos’s group would land and try to finish the job. They were up against far too many unknowns for Straka to feel anything but anxious about the whole encounter. Too damned many unknowns. And if they failed, failure would be permanent.

  “There,” Markatens whispered. “Look.”

  He pointed to a spot east of the settlement, off to the left. A small group of Hydrans were walking away from the settlement. “Let’s circle around,” Straka said.

  “I don’t see why,” Kominski said. “Let’s just charge them and get this over with. These belts work, and that alone should be enough of a surprise for us to—”

  “No,” Straka ordered. “No direct confrontations unless absolutely necessary. We’ll circle around and try to head them off.” She sighted a course down the path the Hydrans were taking. “All right, follow me.”

  She set off through the muck.

  Nothing in life is ever as simple as it seems, Straka thought. Markos says he wants our help to fight a war, we agree, and look at us now. The Hydrans were bad enough in the crystals, but we had some distance from them then. There’s a feeling of safety in the back of your mind when you’re reading one of those, no matter how real they may seem. All that’s in the back of my mind now is fear.

  From their intersecting path Straka couldn’t see much detail of the Hydrans’ bodies. She could see their three body sections and their black, shiny exoskeleton, if that was what it was, and their strange three-legged gait. She couldn’t tell if they were carrying weapons yet. Three legs, she thought. A horror in hand-to-hand combat.

  They were making good progress through the swampy ground, leaving the rocky, boulder-strewn terrain behind, moving into a wetter area. This was a place Straka would be glad to leave. There was nothing about the area to make her feel comfortable, and she would have found it hard to ever consider herself at home here. The Habers who had lived here must have done some severe adapting.

  They reached the spot where they wanted to be without detection and settled in for the short wait. The Hydrans would be along in a matter of seconds. Straka turned and checked each of her crew, making sure their bodies were hard, that their lasetubes were still in their hands.

  If Straka had adrenaline, it would have been pumping. As it was, her mind was tense and uneasy over the upcoming confrontation. Her body was relaxed, ready to go into overdrive as soon as needed.

  When she turned back to face the Hydrans, she saw them clearly. The six creatures were practically identical, and none of them had the white markings Straka had been cued to look for. Those with the white markings had mowed down anything in their paths that moved.

  They might not be armed, Straka thought.

  The Hydrans were fifteen meters away, approaching slowly.

  “As soon as they walk past, we’ll move,” she whispered.

  The Hydrans continued their approach.

  When the first two had walked past Kominski, he leaped up from the brush and lased them down. The smell was incredible. All hell broke loose.

  The two farthest away started to run at an incredible speed through the wet ground, the three legs working like a horse’s at full gallop. They exuded an overpowering stench that Straka recognized from the crystals. Markatens and Wilhelm had thrown themselves at the other two aliens, the ones trapped in the middle.

  Straka’s laser blast caught one of the fleeing Hydrans in the back, and it crumpled to the ground. The other one kept running, and Straka realized she would have to set off after him or run the risk of the entire encampment being alerted to their presence. She hoped Kominski would help Markatens and Wilhelm if she didn’t get back immediately.

  The ground pulled at her feet like suction cups. Running was a difficult task, though a necessary one. The alien had a healthy lead. Straka just hoped she could get off a good shot. Overtaking and capturing him was out of the question. The Hydran seemed to be gaining more and more ground—she made a mental note to report their speed to Markos. If she ever saw Markos again.

  They were rapidly approaching the Hydran settlement. Straka realized she would have to lase the creature now or run for her life. If the Hydran made it inside those walls, the rest of them would probably pour out of the place armed and angry.

  She stopped and aimed the tube, making her entire body as rigid as possible. She activated the tube and swung it in a tight arc. The Hydran’s body toppled.

  She then did something distinctly human. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  She hurried back to the others, to see how they had done. Between the three of them they should have been able to capture both of the creatures.

  The smell and cold and murky scenery were no longer noticed as she made her way back. The way her feet made sucking noises, the way her vision was sweeping over the electromagnetic spectrum, the way she felt after killing those two Hydrans—none of it mattered. She would have time to think about those things later in the safety of the mother ship. The important thing now, the only important thing, was finding the others and making sure they were alive.

  She felt like she’d been walking a long time—too long a time—and realized she might have missed the others. She was afraid of shouting to attract their attention; she might end up attracting the Hydrans too. How far had she run? It couldn’t have been this far.

  Nothing around her looked familiar. As she stood there, she realized there were no real landmarks, that the swampy vegetation looked pretty much the same, that it was just one, big, overgrown area. Panic started to creep into her mind, and she tried to stop it. If it got the better of her, she’d be finished.

  I’ll just walk straight ahead, like I was doing, she thought. Maybe it was farther than I thought.

  She kept her lasetube in her hand, ready to raise it to the firing position at a moment’s notice. She walked, trying not to think about where she was, what she was doing there, while still keepin
g her mind painfully attuned to her surroundings and the changes in them.

  She walked another twenty meters when she saw them, sitting on the trail. She felt a smile emerge as she saw the group, glad to see them alive, glad to find them at all. Her eyes leaked green.

  “Did you get them?” Kominski asked.

  Straka flashed red. “I had to chase one for a while. I was afraid he was going to get away. These bastards can really move.”

  “How fast?” Wilhelm asked.

  “About a half again as fast as we can. What happened here while I was gone?”

  No one said a word.

  “Where are the Hydrans? You didn’t let them get away, did you?”

  “No,” Wilhelm said.

  “Well? Where are they? What happened?”

  No one answered.

  “I lased one of them,” Kominski said.

  That figures, Straka thought. “What about the other?”

  “He’s back in the swamp,” Wilhelm said, motioning with his hand to an area off the trail.

  “Alive?” Straka asked.

  “We think so. Through no help of Kominski, though.”

  “Can’t we kill it? We could stay and find some more of them to fight,” Kominski said.

  Straka shook her head. “I’m going to take a look at it. It had better be alive, Kominski.”

  “God, ’Minski, I thought you’d killed enough for one day,” Wilhelm said.

  “Killing Hydrans isn’t really killing,” Kominski said.

  Straka took a few steps off the trail in the direction Wilhelm had pointed. When she saw the first corpse, she understood why Wilhelm was upset. Right beside the corpse, lying flat on its back, was the second Hydran. Little hairs around its neck moved as air rushed in and out of its body.

  The dead Hydran had been lased four times—once longitudinally, once laterally, and twice on the diagonal. Like slicing a pie, Straka thought. Kominski is sicker than ever.