The Eternal Enemy

by Michael Berlyn

  Wilhelm.

  Wilhelm wasn’t there anymore. But his spirit, his soul, his essence had been so real, so tangible, as solid as anyone’s had been just a few moments before. It had felt solid, and when he’d broken contact with the others, Markos had expected to see Wilhelm standing there among them. It hadn’t been a conscious thought, but the feeling of his being there had been so strong, so real, that his mind had played a horrible trick on him. He had forgotten Wilhelm’s death. A quick scan of their faces had shown Wilhelm’s as missing. Markos saw the realization dawn in the rest of their eyes.

  “The pain is gone,” Straka said. She turned to the Old One. “I’m sorry for what I said. I feel him now, and I understand a little more.”

  The Old One flashed red.

  “Well? I believe we have some planning to do?” Markos said.

  30

  Markos’s ship, H-4, was the last to land. It fell to the ground with a bone-jarring crash, a landing designed to take no time. They needed to take the Hydrans by surprise as much as possible. He and Jackson ran for the bay door even as the last reverberation of the landing traveled through the ship’s hull.

  Belts switched on, bodies hard, lasetubes in hand, they leaped to the planet’s surface. The others were already engaged in a fight.

  The ships had settled on a smooth section of land, one of the Hydran launch sites. The prisoner had been to the area where the Terran was kept, and this mental image provided them with an accurate picture of the area. Thanks to a quick linkup before leaving the mother ship, each crewmember shared this picture of the launch complex.

  Markos was repulsed by how the Hydran thought of the imprisoned Terran. Virtually every Hydran on the planet knew of him, and some traveled great distances to see him. The image this Hydran had of the Terran was distorted, though, transmitted by word of mouth. It had never seen the Terran itself, so there was no way of knowing just how he was being kept. But there was no doubt that the lost NASA 2 pilot was still alive.

  Hydrans were pouring out of the surrounding buildings. The landing party was formed into a small group, lasing down the advancing Hydrans in rapid bursts. Markos and Jackson made their way to the group as quickly as they could.

  A quick flash of greeting, a quick flash of encouragement, and they were off, heading toward the largest building. They moved in wedge formation, a wedge with a laser’s cutting edge. Markos was on the left flank, directly behind Straka at the point, slicing creatures in half, severing heads from torsos, amputating legs from bodies, slicing, slicing, feeling nothing inside but a need to get this horror over with.

  The Hydrans may have been blameless, but they were totally without conscience. He was doing what had to be done. And yet he knew deep down that lasing them down would be another good reason to get the mission over with as quickly as possible and settle into a quick, quiet, meditative death.

  A glance over his shoulder showed the rest of the wedge intact, with hundreds of Hydrans swarming over the Haber ships. Let them pry at the seams, scratch at the hull, he thought. They won’t do any damage.

  Straka was leading them directly for the building that housed the Terran. Markos had to turn his attention to the post as Straka brought them closer to the building. Hydrans were starting to amass a defense of sorts—if a wall of Hydran shell and flesh could be considered any kind of serious defense, Markos thought. Those crew-members near the front of the advancing wedge helped lase as many bodies as possible.

  When they reached the doorway, it was blocked by Hydrans, most of them dead. Markos stepped over them, on them, around them as if they had always been there. The floor of the building was slippery with their dark blood. Lasers were not always the clean weapons you wanted them to be, he realized. They didn’t always cauterize the holes they made, nor did they always make neat incisions.

  There was a slight reddish tint to the light in the hallway, and Markos adjusted his eyes to shift the spectrum slightly. The walls were ornate, though not artistic. It was aesthetically unappealing to him, and he had no idea if the uneven surfaces were supposed to be functional or decorative. The floors were not level, but they were covered with something—it was impossible to even hazard a guess with the soles of his rock-hard feet.

  Hydrans in the building constantly tried to stop them and accomplished nothing but adding to the piles of corpses scattered about. Markos had learned a lot from the prisoner Straka had taken. The Hydraris in this complex were of a different social level, the elite of the race, those individuals directly concerned with the race’s expansion, with the colonization of space. They did research to determine the most efficient ways of ensuring the race’s survival.

  The ceiling was higher than Markos was used to. He glanced upward and was amazed at the complexity of the building’s structure, but had to turn his attention back to their constant advance almost immediately. They were nearing the room occupied by the Terran—this was no time to let his mind wander.

  Straka stood before the door, a thick slab of metal slightly recessed from the wall. Fewer and fewer Hydrans were advancing on them, but Markos had no idea why. Perhaps their ranks were thinning, perhaps this area was taboo for them, perhaps for some other reason. He was just glad for the break in the slaughter.

  Straka pushed, pulled, then tried to slide the door open. After a few seconds she placed her palms flat against the metal and the door slid to the side.

  Straka walked in, and Markos and De Sola followed her a step into the room. It was larger than they had expected. The ceiling was on the same level as the ceiling in the hallway, but the floor was sunken down several meters. They stood on a stairway, waiting for the rest of their party to occupy their defensive positions. Jackson nudged him on the shoulder to signal that it was safe for the leading edge of the group to enter further, that their rear was being properly guarded, and Markos signaled this to Straka.

  The room was free of Hydrans. Markos had no trouble recognizing bits and pieces of Terran equipment, no doubt salvaged from Pod 3. It looked horribly out of place in this room, serving an alien purpose for an alien race.

  The geltank sat off the floor, raised on a small platform that put its base even with the top of the stairs. Even from that distance, Markos could see what rested inside the tank.

  He was sorry they had risked so much, that Wilhelm had lost his life just for this. He wanted to cry.

  They approached the tank no longer feeling like heroes. For the person in the geltank it was too late.

  They were certain it had once been a human being, though the resemblance was only minimal. The thing in the tank swiveled its head from side to side, an action that was distinctly Hydran. Its flesh was gray and sagging, a mask of infections and sores. Markos made the mistake of looking into his—its—eyes.

  The man was clearly insane.

  Markos absorbed some of his surface-level hardness and saw Straka and De Sola do the same.

  “What’s your name?” Straka asked.

  The man in the tank did not respond. He continued to sweep his mad gaze over the crew in the chamber. “Cathy? Let’s go, okay? There’s nothing we can do for him.”

  “What are you saying?” she shouted, wheeling around. “We have to help him.”

  “It’s too late for him,” Markos said. “Whatever he is now he will remain. There’s no need to change him into anything. He’s so insane, there’s no hope.”

  Straka looked back at the distorted human form in the tank.

  “But we have to do something,” Straka said.

  “There’s nothing to be done.”

  “He’s right,” De Sola said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving yet,” Straka said. “Not until I’m sure.”

  Straka walked closer to the tank. The man in the tank was not a pretty sight. Straka placed her hands on the outside of the geltank while the others watched and waited from a distance, still on the stairs. She took her hands away from the tank, and Markos could see the tinge of yello
w in her eyes, reflected off the shiny surface of the tank.

  “Are you from Earth?” Straka asked. “Do you understand me?”

  The creature in the tank started squealing, making high-pitched sounds, totally alien to human speech patterns. He seemed frightened beyond the limits of human tolerance.

  “Come on, Straka! Let’s go. He’s so far over the edge, there’s no way of reaching him. There’s nothing we can do for him now.”

  Straka turned and looked at Markos.

  “Let’s go. Before this place is swarming with more Hydrans hell-bent on suicide,” Markos said.

  Straka took one last look at the man they had come to rescue and then turned her back on him, walking back to the steps. “I wish I knew what happened to him,” Straka said softly.

  “He did what he had to do to survive,” Markos said. “He adapted.”

  “There were some strange chemicals in the tank. I couldn’t recognize them.”

  “Forget it. It’s over. Let’s get back to our ships and get off of this poor excuse for a planet.”

  Straka nodded, then made her body hard. Markos and De Sola quickly followed suit. They walked to the entrance, and then Markos stopped. Before De Sola or Straka could say anything, Markos lased the thing inside the tank.

  31

  The Paladin circled the Hydrans’ planet, its bridge unattended, its defense systems on automatic. The eight wedges had been reattached to its hull, its configuration once again complete and powerful. The ship circled the planet orbit after orbit, waiting for a pair of hands to set a course. The Paladin performed the only task that had been set for it and cared nothing about the origin of the hands that issued the order, the motive of the order.

  The crew occupied the rec room, their rescue attempt hours old, discussing the questions and issues, the discussion more tangential than paths of light in a mirrored room. Each crewmember had his own course of action, his own goals to guide him, and a vested interest in the outcome of the discussion. Markos was starting to appreciate the way the crew split, rejoined, then scattered again as another point was brought up. The strong Haber part of him found a pattern there, a pattern he could appreciate, a symmetry to the discussion not unlike that of a kaleidoscope.

  Like shards of brilliantly colored glass, ideas would mingle; overlay each other, changing the true color of the problem; rotate; then burst apart into their individual idea-colors as a new set of ideas took their place. It was a pleasing experience and it calmed him, removed him enough from the immediate tension of the discussion so that he could wait for the outcome.

  He listened to the way the crew said things, paying little attention to the ideas themselves. Their differences were apparent enough in the way the discussion flowed. As long as things did not get out of hand, there was no need for him to really participate.

  “I want to go back to Terra,” Jackson was saying, and Markos decided to pay attention.

  “How long do you think you’ll last looking like that?” Straka asked.

  “Long enough for them to pump your mind dry, then take you apart piece by piece to find out just what the hell you are,” De Sola said.

  “Once I explain who I am and what happened—”

  “They’ll believe you?” McGowen asked. “Be serious, Jackie. They’ll take one look and assume the worst.”

  “Probably not,” Martinez said. “By the time we’re done seeding all the Hydran planets with the virus, hundreds of years will have passed on Earth. There’s no telling what it will be like, or if we’ll be remembered at all.”

  “I don’t care. I want to go home,” Jackson said. There was a quiet determination in his voice that Markos easily recognized.

  “It’s your life,” Straka said. “Now, me, I want to do some exploring. Get into H-one and do some real traveling. Take a few thousand years to check out this sector of the Galaxy.”

  “Nothing too big, eh, Cathy?” McGowen asked. “Just stick to the immediate neighborhood? Is that the idea?”

  The crew laughed, easing some of the tension.

  Once they had finished seeding the rest of the Hydran-owned planets, they were free to do what they pleased. The way the crew was talking, the seeding would be over soon enough, too. Then Markos would keep his part of the bargain: He would touch and change them permanently, giving them the potential to live forever. With a future that stretched out farther than any of them could conceptualize, there was nothing they couldn’t do.

  “I’m going back to Aurianta,” McGowen said. “There was more beauty there than anyplace I’ve ever seen. It’s probably more beautiful than anyplace I could find in a hundred thousand lifetimes of searching.”

  Aurianta, Markos thought. It would be nice to have the breathing, living planet beneath my feet again. I miss it, and I’m tired of the lifeless metal of this ship.

  “Yes,” the Old One said. “It will be good to be home again, to be able to complete the task I, I started many years ago.”

  “What task?” Katawba asked.

  “Dying.”

  “What are you planning to do, Markatens?” Straka asked.

  “Speculating seems premature at this point,” he said. “Live my life, die when the time comes. Perhaps do some exploring in between. It is impossible to plan.”

  “Just like a Haber,” Jackson said.

  “Yes,” Markatens said. “What else are any of us?”

  Indeed, Markos thought. What else? They were no longer human, but as Haber as any naturally born Haber could be. The phenotypical change was easier to see, and its effects had been immediate. But the genotypical changes Markos had made were still incomplete and would change them in far subtler ways through the rest of their lives. Straka and even Jackson would find their behavior modified over years, just as McGowen had found his modified by Alpha.

  “And you, Markos?” Straka asked.

  “Solitude is what I want. I need time to get back in touch with who and what I am. My life over these last years has been dedicated to stopping the Hydrans. Once we’re through with the seeding, I’ll have time to sit and listen to myself, to the wind. I’ll have time to die.”

  “Have a good time,” Jackson said.

  “Thank you, Jackson. I will,” Markos said.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1990 by Michael Berlyn

  Cover design by Barry Imhoff

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-7302-1

  Distributed in 2014 by Open Road Distribution

  345 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com