But, unlike these blessed creatures, these sorrowfully predatory homaroids, my own sins would not be shed like their exoskeleton but would stay with me unto my final breath, dooming my eternal soul to ascend without a second chance for redemption. Like all humans, I had only one pass at life; one chance to live, and must die with the consequences of my mistakes.
As I’d had to live with my failure to keep my faith.
With these morbid thoughts in mind I must have dozed momentarily. I was started awake by a slight noise beside me and spied a large slithering centipede who, having taken advantage of my inattention, was chewing at one leg of the slumbering Ttch*lok.
I lashed out with my foot, bringing the suit’s armored heel down square in the center of the ’pede’s back. Its legs kicked as it coiled about to tear at my foot with its sharp mandibles. Several of the pede’s appendages tore futilely at the underside of my leg, the piercing spurs on each of its many limbs failing to find purchase in the metal.
I came erect, keeping my foot squarely on its back, holding the creature in place. With a shock I saw that the pede’s mandibles were actually peeling small slivers of my suit’s armor away with each bite. A line of little scratches marked where it had been nibbling.
I placed all of my weight on the pede’s back and brought my other foot down hard on its head, feeling its crown crack in a satisfying shock that ran up my leg as the gore from its innards splattered in all directions. One more spasm and then it lay still under me, dead at last.
With a feeling of disgust I lifted the thing with both hands and tossed it into the night. I heard the nocturnal predators scramble toward it and then listened to the sounds of a scuffle as they battled over the choice parts.
Then the night was silent once more.
I dozed no more that night but stared at the damage my inattention had caused to Ttch*lok’s leg. I had failed in my mission, just as I had failed my flock.
I think I cried then as well.
In the morning I noted some stirring of my charge and, when I looked closer, I saw that there was some movement of his sensory organs. The eyes swiveled toward me, staring blankly. The feelers writhed aimlessly. Was Ttch*lok returning to consciousness, I wondered?
As yet there was no movement in his limbs: Apparently the muscles had not been released from the protective slumber that God had provided to protect him against damage to the still unhardened integument.
After a few moments the eyes closed and the feelers stopped their movement. I prayed that all was well.
Ttch*lok moved no more that afternoon.
To my testing hand the shell appeared to be as firm and solid as his original had been. Few of the insectoids bothered us now. They had learned that they could not penetrate our hard armor. Nor did the crawlers come near. Apparently they had only been attracted by the heat and the smell of the softening fluid and, now that those were gone, had no interest in us.
I was certain that the predators still awaited outside, although I could not see them. Perhaps, I thought in a haze of sleeplessness, I could rest my eyes for a moment, just a moment.
I dreamed of myself as the new messiah of this world, with Ttch*lok as my prophet. I dreamed of the two of us carrying the word of a life free from fear, a life that blessed the sanctity of intelligence for the precious gift that it was, a thing to be guarded and protected. I dreamed of hordes flocking to hear the Word and sharing a true communion of souls, of life and spirit.
But then the dream turned to nightmare as the hordes, misunderstanding our message, fell upon each other, clawing and fighting and tearing and eating at each other in a frenzy, the mass of greenish-gray bodies a massive blur of hideous movement.
I saw my disciple pulled down into the mass and rendered into pieces, surrendering himself in this most intimate of communions.
And then they reached for me.
I started awake to feel something lifting my arm and lashed out, thinking this was still the dream, or maybe fighting some new predator come to call. It was only when I opened my eyes that I realized how wrong I was.
The new Ttch*lok had come fully awake and was standing over me, his huge strength claw grasping my arm while his back legs held my body in place.
A shock of fear went through me: Did this reincarnation retain any knowledge of our relationship? I wondered if he could sever my arm with his claw’s sharp edge, an edge that had not yet been dulled with use? I wondered if our friendship and his discovery of faith was among the eighty percent of memory that was lost.
If so then I was surely doomed.
Anxious moments passed with no change to the tableau as my fear grew, for I now remembered how ravenous any homaroid must be after the softening; desperate to replace the energy that had been lost and anxious to consume me and thereby gain whatever knowledge I possessed.
So much did I fear my own rendering at the hands of this horrific creature that I nearly fainted, slumping in the hard suit that surely would be no protection against that huge, sharp claw.
His eyes swiveled this way and that, seeking to make sense of the surroundings. Ttch*lok had been so deep in his pre-sloughing stupor (Was it only four days ago?) that he surely could not remember how we had come to be in this tight overhang.
Finally his eyes came back to focus on me. He reached across and grabbed my other wrist, lifting both wide. “My friend,” he said in flawless Italian, “we are reborn.”
And with those words he let me go and raced from the place where I had held my vigil, past the rock I had rolled into place, and across the remains of the creatures that I had tossed outside. I had never seen one of the homaroids move so swiftly.
Seconds after he had disappeared into the brush there was a piercing scream and some thrashing sounds. I stumbled out and saw Ttch*lok, or whoever he was in this reincarnation, stuffing the remains of one of the smaller homaroids into his orifice. His strength claw had neatly decapitated the little creature with a clean cut.
The prey had become predator.
I saw no more of Ttchiok, although I searched the vicinity until darkness fell. I did find evidence that he had hunted vigorously in the short time since emerging: severed armor lay near and far, all cut with that fierce and powerful claw, all emptied of their contents. Apparently he had an understandable drive to replace the energy lost during the softening and was hunting with a vengeance. I waited through the night for him to return, hoping that he had retained enough of civilized memories to come back to his friend and mentor. I was disappointed; I had failed again.
I stayed awake as best I could, waiting against hope for his return. I must have dozed frequently, for the day went by much faster than it should. During my waking moments I recalled my dream and puzzled over what it might mean.
Had I been wrong in taking Ttchiok from his proper place and secreting him here in the wilderness? Perhaps the ethos of this place was not my own, was not the smooth, disciplined structure humans had evolved over the centuries and which now was contributing to the lack of resolve in our spiritual lives.
Perhaps the rough edges of this barbarous place held a new level of understanding, one built upon the absolute certainty of rebirth, of the knowledge of what true communion contained for the individual.
Had I prevented the emissaries from sharing Ttchiok and carrying his soul back with them? That possibility worried me more than I cared to think about.
But then I recalled his words upon awakening from his rebirth. “I am reborn,” he had said. A modicum of the faith had remained in him and I knew that he would carry it forward. Even if he fell prey to something larger and more ferocious perhaps some part of that faith would be passed along.