"No, Uncle."
"You tell Zammis to kick that doctor out of there and to come back to the cave, hear?"
"Yes, Uncle." Ty smiled. "Is there anything you need?"
I nodded and scratched the back of my neck. "Toilet paper. Just a couple of packs. Maybe a couple of bottles of whiskey—no, forget the whiskey. I’ll wait until Haesni, here, puts in its first year. Just the toilet paper."
Ty bowed. "Yes, Uncle, and may the many mornings find you well."
I waved my hand impatiently. "They will, they will. Just don’t forget the toilet paper."
Ty bowed again. "I won’t, Uncle."
Ty turned and walked through the scrub forest back to the colony.
I lived with them for a year after Zammis regained its health and we all stood before the archives to witness Zammis recite line and book. Soft sleeping pallets, vids, tutors, health jetahs, and a chef. Too soft, too easy, too far from what Shizumaat called the universe. I moved out and went back to the cave. I gathered the wood, smoked the snake, and withstood the winter. Zammis gave me the young Ty to rear in the cave, and now Ty had handed me Haesni. I nodded at the child. "Your child will be called Gothig, and then," I looked at the sky and felt the tears drying on my face. "And then, Gothig’s child will be called Shigan." I nodded and headed for the cleft that would bring us down to the level of the cave.
THE LAST TESTAMENT
PROLOGUE
The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are. contemplating the same one at the same moment!…Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?.
If Aakva is a great fire circling our universe, and if Aakva’s Children are still more fires but at great distances, is it not possible that they circle other universes? And those other universes, might they not contain their own living beings? For these answers, I would suffer much. To meet those beings, see them, touch their thoughts. I would exchange my life.
The preflight literature of every race of which we know posits the existence of otherworld races, and describes the expectations all placed upon their first encounters with other races. The perfection of individual and society all could envision, but none could achieve, each race hoped to find in another.
The encounters happened, each race finding in the other little more than a distorted reflection of itself. Intelligence and stupidity, aggression and suffering, insight and blind allegiance-the universals of life and reality-replaced the hope with cynicism as each race fought for its own advantage by creating rules, tactics, and institutions intended to enclose and defeat the goals of those who were perceived as threats.
Against the stronger powers, the technologically and militarily inferior races formed coalitions, becoming by combination stronger powers themselves. Inside the coalitions, the members intrigued and plotted for control. Outside of the coalitions, the great military and economic powers warred and expanded.
The coalitions rapidly evolved to become the present system of federations known as the United Quadrants. In the area of the Galaxy encompassed by the Ninth Quadrant Federation, only a few of the great powers had not become members of the federation. Of these, the two strongest in numbers, wealth, and military might were the United States of Earth and the Dracon Chamber. Between them, these two powers ruled three hundred worlds.
Late in the Twenty-first Century neither Dracs nor humans speculated in giddy wonder about alien races. They were at war.
ONE
The learned student has much to contribute to the game. However, the hard truths, the ones that cannot be manipulated, will be told to us by the players.
The players have seen and felt the metal; the students have only theorized about it.
Joanne Nicole sat in the mud of Planet Catvishnu and watched through the haze and drizzle as the distant speck took form, growing to become the bat-winged blackness of a Drac assault lander. It flew low and slow over the denuded landscape like a bloated carrion-eater picking and choosing among countless dead.
She looked at the remains of her command. Soldiers. They sat in holes, leaned against rocks, unmindful of the wet chill of the air and the dark grey of the overcast. She almost smiled as she looked back at the approaching lander.
The Dracs only needed, one. The forty-odd scraps of demoralized humanity waiting in the mud for that ship could hardly fill a quarter of the craft’s capacity. Forty-odd future prisoners of war; the remainder of a defensive command of twenty thousand.
There was no way of knowing, but millions of civilians must have been slaughtered, as well. The reports that had managed to get through said that Catvishnu’s cities on all six continents were but smoking ruins.
A figure splashed to a halt next to her. "Major Nicole; they’re coming."
"What?"
"They’re coming." The figure pointed toward the lander.
"I see them."
The figure squatted until Joanne Nicole could see its face. Sergeant Zina Lottner; code clerk.
"We finished the search. There’s nothing down there the Draggers can use." She held out a silver card. There was dried blood on her fingers.
"I found this in your quarters."
Joanne Nicole took the invitation from the sergeant. The lovely little card sparkled. Amidst the mud, filth, and blood, the card looked obscenely clean, bright, happy. She opened the card and read the raised lettering inside.
The Officers and Ranks of
HEADQUARTERS COMPANY
181 ST FORCE DIVISION, III CORPS,
PLANET CATVISHNU GARRISON, USEF
Cordially Invite
MAJ. JOANNE NICOLE
to the
Sixteenth Annual Celebration
of the
Noraanka Dima
to be held at
1930 HOURS, 21 FEBRUARY 2072
(2651 HRS. 9/9 LOCAL TIME)
in the
MAIN AUDITORIUM
STORM MOUNTAIN
She closed the card. "Lottner, why did you bring me this?"
"I don’t know. I thought you might want…" Lottner stood, facing the approaching Drac lander. "I saw what was left of your gown. It must have been beautiful."
Joanne Nicole dropped the card into the mud and stepped on it with her boot. Lottner stood silently for a moment, then turned and splashed slowly down the muddy slope.