The Best of Joe Haldeman

by Joe W. Haldeman

  So when in the first light I saw land, the emotion I felt was speechless apprehension. We'd been paddling eleven days. We must have gotten turned around; we couldn't have covered the distance in that time. I stared at it for half a minute before Brenda mumbled something about it being too early to take a break.

  Then Gab also saw the faint green line on the horizon, and we chattered on about it for a while, drifting. As it got lighter we could see the purple cones of distant volcanoes, which put my subconscious to rest.

  The volcanoes simplified navigation, since I could remember what their relative positions had been on the way out. It looked as if we were going to land 10 or 15 kilometers west of the mouth of the river that led to the base. The question was whether to alter our course off to the right, so as to land closer to the river, or go straight in and walk along the beach. We were safer on the water but terminally tired of paddling, so we opted for the short approach.

  It was little more than an hour before the canoe landed with a solid crunch. We jumped out and immediately fell down. No land legs. I could stand up, but the ground seemed to teeter. For some reason it was a lot worse than it had been on the outward trip. There had been a little more wave action this time, which could account for that. It might also account for the good time we made: some sort of seasonal current.

  Using the spears as canes, we practiced walking for a while.

  When we could stagger pretty well unsupported, we gathered our stuff and started down the beach as quickly as possible. It would be a good idea to find the weapons and dig them up before dark.

  Eventually we were making pretty good progress (though when we stopped the ground would still rock back and forth). The musty jungle actually smelled good, reassuring. We ate the last of the smoked snake while hungrily discussing the culinary miracles waiting for us at the base. There was enough food there to last twelve people for more than a year, a precaution against disaster.

  We reached the mouth of the river before midday. But when we paced off from the rock to where the weapons were supposed to be buried, we got a nasty surprise: someone had already dug them up. Humus had filled the hole, but there was a definite depression there, and the ground was soft.

  Dejected and frightened, we paced on to the next site, and it had also been dug up—but we found three of the exhumed fuel cells lying in the brush. The Plathys wouldn't know how to install them, of course. Even if, as now seemed likely, they had been watching us when we first buried them, they wouldn't have been able to find the hidden studs that had to be pushed simultaneously to open the camouflaged weapons. Even if they somehow got one open, they wouldn't know how to screw in the fuel cell and unsafe it.

  We went back to the first site on the off-chance that they might have discarded the weapons, too, since ours weren't superior, in conventional capabilities, to what they would normally carry. That turned out to be a smart move: we found a club and a spear snarled in the undergrowth, still in good working order. (They'd been crafted of Bruuchian ironwood, and so were impervious to moisture and mold.)

  We armed the two and confirmed that they worked. There were probably others hidden more deeply in the brush, but we were too tired to continue the search. We'd been pushing for most of a day, burning adrenaline. The two weapons would be enough to protect us while we slept.

  ~ * ~

  Gabriel

  Brenda woke me up delightfully. I was having an interesting dream, and then it wasn't a dream.

  I had the last guard shift before dawn. Scouting the perimeter of our site for firewood, I almost stumbled over a slow lizard, about a meter long, and fat. Skinned and cleaned him and had him roasting on a spit by the time the women woke up.

  After breakfast, we spent a good two hours searching the area around the weapons pit, spiraling out systematically, but didn't find anything further. Well, it was good luck we even had the two weapons. We were considerably better with spear, knife, and club than we had been when we landed, but probably not good enough for an extended trek through the mainland. Packs of hungry carnivores, even if no Plathys waited in ambush.

  Combing the other site did find us two more fuel cells, which should be plenty. Each one is good for more than an hour of continuous firing when new, and none of them was half used up. We could even afford to use the weapons to light fires.

  So we started off in pretty high spirits. By noon we weren't quite so springy. One long sleep isn't enough to turn night creatures into day creatures, and though walking is easier than paddling, our leg muscles were weak from disuse. There was a bare rock island in the middle of the broad river; we waded out to it and made camp. That consisted of laying down our furs and collapsing.

  Brenda usually takes the first watch, but she couldn't keep her eyes open, so I did odds-and-evens with Maria, and lost. And so I was the one to see the first Plathy.

  I was gathering driftwood for the, night's fire. I'd been concentrating my watch on the nearer bank, the one we'd come from. No telling how long the Plathy had been looking at me, standing quietly on the other side.

  Our side was relatively open; compact stands of bamboolike grass every 20 or 30 meters, with only low bushes in between. The other bank was dense jungle, which was why we avoided it. The Plathy was making no special effort to conceal himself but was hard to see in the dappled shade. I continued picking up wood, studying him out of the corner of my eye.

  He was an adult male, carrying a spear. That was bad. If he had been a child he might have been on his Walk North, accidentally stumbling on us. An adult had no reason to be here except us, and he wouldn't be here alone.

  I didn't recognize him. If he wasn't from the Camchai family, that probably meant they had enlisted the aid of other families, so we might be up against any number. But I couldn't be sure; even in social situations I often got individuals mixed up. Maria was good at telling them apart. I took an armload of wood back to the camp and quietly woke her up and explained what was happening. She walked over to the other side of the island, casually picking up sticks, and took a look. But he was gone.

  We had a whispered conference and decided to stay on the island. They would have a hard time rushing us; the river bottom was too muddy for running. And their spears couldn't reach us from either bank.

  She's taken over the watch now. Enough talking. Try to sleep.

  ~ * ~

  Brenda

  What a terrible night. Nobody woke me for my afternoon watch turn, so I slept almost until dark. Maria said she hadn't awakened me because she was too nervous to sleep anyhow, and explained about Gab seeing the Plathy.

  When the sun went down we lit the fire, and Gab joined us. We decided to double the watch—two on, one off, one person with a crazer watching each bank. Maria curled up by the fire and tried to sleep.

  They hit us about an hour before midnight, coming from Gab's side, the near bank. He called out and I ran over.

  Spears falling out of the darkness. We had the fire behind us, and so were pretty good targets. Crazers don't make much light; we had to fan them and hope we hit someone. All the time running back and forth sideways, trying to spoil their aim. Maria woke up and I gave her the club crazer, then retired to the other side of the island, under Gab's orders: watch for an "envelopment." But they weren't that sophisticated.

  No way to tell how many we killed. The spears came less and less frequently, and then there were rocks, and then nothing. When dawn came, pieces of four or five sliced-up Plathy bodies lay on the shore, any number having been washed downstream.

  I wish I could feel guilty about it. Two weeks ago, I would have. Instead, I have to admit to a kind of manic glee. We beat them. They snuck up on us and we beat them.

  ~ * ~

  Maria

  We burned both crazers down to quarter charge. A little more than half charge on the two backup cells. But I don't expect any more attacks like last night. They aren't dumb.

  So much for the First Commandment. We've
demonstrated high technology. Some of them must have survived, to go back and tell others about the magic. But we had no choice.

  From now on we'll have to assume we're being followed, of course, and be triply careful about ambush setups. That won't be a real problem until the last day or two, traveling with thick jungle on both sides of the river. Why did we have to be so cautious in siting the dome?

  Well, it may turn out that we'll be glad it's where it is. What if they follow us all the way there? If they try to encircle the clearing and wait us out, the jungle will get them; we won't have to do a thing. Plathy skills work fine down on their friendly island, but up where the dome is situated a hunting party armed with clubs and spears wouldn't last a week. Free lunch for the fauna.

  We have to push on fast. Islands like this one will be common while the river is wide and slow. We'll be fairly safe. When the jungle closes in on both sides, though, the river will become a narrow twisting cataract. No island protection but its noise might confound Plathy hearing, make it harder for them to ambush us.

  At any rate, this is the plan: each day on the plain, cover as much ground as possible, consistent with getting a few hours of sleep each night. Rest up just south of the jungle and then make a forced march, two days to the dome.

  Maybe this haste is unnecessary. If the Plathys were their normal, rather sensible selves, they'd cut their losses and go home. But now we have no idea of what's normal. They may harry us until we kill them all. That would be good for the race, leaving it relatively uncontaminated culturally. Bad for us. A few more engagements like last night and we won't have enough power in the crazers to make it through the jungle. Might as well stand by the river and sing blood songs to the hungry lizards.

  ~ * ~

  Gabriel

  Five days of no contact, but I can't shake the feeling we're being watched. Have been watched all the way. Now an afternoon and night of rest on this last island, and Maria wants us to push all the way to the dome.

  Physically, I suppose we can do it. The terrain isn't difficult, since a game trail parallels the water all the way up. But the game that made the trail are formidable. They gave us plenty of trouble when there were twelve of us. And theoretically no Plathys.

  (I wonder about that now, though. Surely someone was watching us back when we buried the weapons. How long had they been following us? They claimed that they never go to the mainland, except for a few brave Walkers, and of course they always tell the truth. About what they remember, anyhow.)

  I haven't recorded anything for a long time. Waiting for my state of mind to improve. After the night of the attack I ran out of hope. Things haven't improved but I'm talking to myself to stay awake for the rest of this watch. I think Brenda's doing the same thing. Sitting on the other side of the island staring at the water, mumbling. I should go remind her to pay attention. But I can cover both banks from this side.

  Besides, if they're going to hit us, I wish they'd hit us here. Clear fields of fire all around. Of course they won't; they learn from their mistakes, Maria says.

  I'm being paranoiac. They're gone. The being-watched feeling, I don't know. Ever since Derek got it I've been a—I've been . . . loose in the head. Trying to control this—this panic. They look to me for strength, even Maria does, but all I have is muscle, jaw muscle to keep the screams in. When that one swam by us headed for the mainland I knew we were deep in shit.

  Derek had religion. We argued long nights about that. What would he be doing now, praying? "Nuestro Senor que vines en el cielo, alabado sea to nombre. . . ." Good spear repellent. I miss him so.

  Nobody will ever find this tooth with its feeble beep transmitter. When they come back and find the dome empty, that will be the end of it. Not enough budget for a search through obviously hostile territory. Not enough resources on this planet for anybody to want to exploit it, so no new money to find our teeth. We'll pass into Plathy legend and be forgotten, or distorted beyond recognition.

  A good thing for them. If there was anything of use here, we'd be like the Eskimo anthropologists Maria talks about, recording the ways of a race doomed by the fact of recording. So maybe the Plathys will have another million years of untroubled evolution. Maybe they'll learn table manners.

  I'm afraid of them but can't be mad at them. Even after Derek. They are what they are and we should have been more careful. Maybe I'm becoming a real xenologist, at this late date. Derek would say I'm trying to compose myself into a state of grace. Before dying.

  It infuriated me that he always had answers. All I ever had was questions.

  So two days' push and we're safe inside the dome. Food and cube and books and spears bounce off. Maybe I've read too much, written too much; the pattern seems inescapable. We're at death's door. Capital Death's Door. If we make it to the dome we'll break the rules.

  Calmate. Calm. Maybe I'm projecting, making patterns. Here there's only real things: cause, effect, randomness, entropy—your death is like the falling of a leaf, Derek said; like the leaf falling, it's a small tragedy, but necessary. If everything lived forever the universe would fill up in short order.

  Mustn't blather. Reality, not philosophy. We rest so we can be alert. If we're alert enough we'll beat the jungle. Beat the Plathys that aren't there. It's all in my head. For the next two days take the head out of the circuit. Only reflex. Smell, listen, watch: react. React fast enough, you live.

  Only I keep thinking about Derek. He never knew what hit him.

  ~ * ~

  Brenda

  Gab asked me to watch both banks for a while so he could give love to Maria before it got dark. Hard to watch both banks when I want to watch him. Men look so vulnerable from this angle, bouncing; a new perspective for me. I've never been an audience except for watching on the cube. It's different.

  Admit I'm jealous of her. She's fifteen years older than I and shows it. But he wants her for his last one. That was obvious in his tone of voice. At some level I think he's as scared as I am.

  If he thinks this is his last one he doesn't know much about women. Maria will let me wake him up when our shift is over.

  If I can wait that long. I've watched him sleeping; he has the refractory period of a twelve-year-old. To be exact, I know from observation that he can do it twice and still get an erection in his sleep. No privacy under our circumstances.

  Funny friendly sound, don't hear it like that while you're doing it—what was that? Something move?

  Just a lizard, I guess. Nothing now. We've been seeing them the last two days on the jungle side, around dusk and in the firelight. They don't come in the water. What's going to happen tomorrow night, no island, no fire? Don't want to die that way, jumped by a pack of dinosaurs. Nor have my head bitten off by a sentient primitive. I was going to be a grandmother and sit on the porch and tell doctor stories and die with no fuss.

  Why won't they attack? I know they're out there, waiting. If they would only come now, I could die that way. I remember the feeling, fifty or a hundred of them against the three of us and our two crazers. Not a fair fight, perhaps, but God it did feel good, holding our own, epinephrine from head to toe. This waiting and worrying. Light the fire.

  Stack the wet wood around to dry. Gives me something to do while they're finishing up. Being quiet for the sake of my sensibilities, or theirs. Just heavier breathing and a faster rhythm of liquid sounds. I've followed that unspoken code, too; we haven't been all three together since the water hole. She's had him seven times since, to my four. To my knowledge. Why am I keeping score? They were made for each other. Iron man, iron woman.

  I was in love once or twice and know, this is something else. Not just sex; I've been that way before, too. Hysteria is part of it, but not in the old-fashioned womanish sense, the womb taking over. This is a certainty-of-death hysteria, to coin a category. It's different from just fear. It's like, it's like—I don't know. As if you had never tasted water before, or seen colors, and suddenly here is a cold s
pring or a rainbow. Minus the joy. Just something primal and unlike anything before. Does that make sense? We've been in danger God knows constantly for how long? Not the same. There was always hope. Now we're two days away from total sanctuary and for some reason I know we won't make it.

  I remember from psych class a lesson about people who seemed to know they were going to die. Not sick people; soldiers, adventurers, whose sudden violent death seemed to resonate backward in time—they told their friends that somehow they felt that this was it, and by God it was. You can call it coincidence or invoke pragmatic causality—they were nervous and therefore careless and therefore died-but here and now I think there's more to it. Once I'm safe inside the dome I'll publish a retraction. Right now I feel my death as strongly as I feel the need for that man inside of me.

  ~ * ~

  Maria

  Somehow we lived through that one.