The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (36 page)

“Damage report! Someone tell me what’s going on!”

One engineer responded from his computer station. “Our
starboard engine system is hit! Both engines are failing!”

“Get them the hell back online!”

“Sorry, Commander, but we’re at fifty percent capacity! We
have no choice but to try and land!”

A pasture on Somoresh was rapidly filling the viewscreen.
They hadn’t been traveling that fast, so an impact wouldn’t be disastrous, but
it was still going to hurt the
Hanyek
.
Grinek decided to say nothing and allow the crew to try and save the vessel,
which convulsed more rapidly each second. He closed his eyes, not praying to Fox’Lo
or Bar’Hail but instead to the circuitry inside his vessel. How could such a
state-of-the-art machine be the death of him? And on the planet that was to
earn him his glory!

A death-tribute flashed in his mind: a broadcast on Kotara
announcing that a minor commander named Grinek had died in a shuttle accident,
the Imperium covering up his true cause of death to avoid embarrassment. Few
would read it. Few would care. What kind of legacy was that?

“Three seconds!” An engineer shouted. Grinek crouched in a
crash position, his eyes not wanting to open and see the ground reach up to the
craft. “Three…two…” The countdown did not prepare Grinek for being catapulted
across the room, his body smacking the steel floor. He slid across it, pain
splitting from all sides, until he struck the viewscreen. Luckily, his legs
bore much of the brunt of the impact, and when the
Hanyek
came to a halt, he felt only a little sore.

There were groans on the bridge. Crew members gradually came
to and returned to their stations only to find them rebooting or demolished.
The lights were flickering; the viewscreen had a huge gash in it. By this time,
however, Grinek only noticed these things on a miniscule level. His focus was
instead on vengeance against the
Colobus
survivors. If they hadn’t been destroyed, they were likely crashed nearby. And
that meant they were perfect lambs for the slaughter. There was still a pistol
strapped to his side, and Grinek felt it needed to be used.

Annel, the comms officer, worked her way to her feet.
“Commander, I suggest we begin—” Grinek marched past her and pried open
the doors of the bridge. Bloodlust consumed him; he did not care about the
crumpled bodies in the hallways or the sparking electronics systems. There was
going to be a reckoning very shortly, and some unlucky travelers were going to
be the first humans to die on Somoresh.

***

His head spun, but Two Mountains had accepted that to be the
norm. David was helping him out of the enclosure, leading him by the arm. There
had been a bang on his head, but he didn’t feel too injured. As the creatures
and warriors gathered outside in the pasture, Two Mountains passed a fire and
what looked like sparkling snakes. The flying enclosure he’d just been in was
definitely not a living being, but it definitely had veins running through it.

His stomach groaned. How he longed to be home, in his
enclosure, with Snowy Island and his daughter. One of these flying
things
could get him there in no time,
he thought. But it didn’t appear that was going to happen. He would never sleep
the same again with these outlanders fighting nearby. If the Chiefs believed even
half of what he told them, there would be enough stories to last Hedda for
generations.

Nikrun
appeared
from behind the carcass-that-flew, holding a lightning club. He said something
to his friends, and they seemed almost relieved, shouting with what seemed like
joy. It was an emotion Two Mountains had not experienced all day.
Spontaneously, his warriors joined in with the joy as well, howling and
whooping. David explained more thoroughly what had happened: he made a bird
with his hands and then a whooshing sound as he pointed to the ground.

“The blackbird’s been knocked out of the sky?” Two Mountains
asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
 
David, who looked only mildly pleased, muttered something that sounded
like
wersafe
. Two Mountains took that
as a yes. Perhaps they’d finally defeated the Kotarans.

One ecstatic warrior bent down and gave Two Mountains his
hand in thanks. Two Mountains clasped it and bowed, a sign of thanks.

“We’ve vanquished these Kotarans, whoever they are,” the
warrior said.

“Yes, we have,” Two Mountains agreed. “Now all we have to do
is learn more about these people.” The warrior smiled and crept off elsewhere,
leaving Two Mountains to regard his outlander companions. Messengers of God or
not, they were going to have to do their next round of talking in front of the
Chiefs. Perhaps they would explain the flying enclosure, the fighting stars,
the talking talisman.

Two Mountains noticed a sizeable herd of the four-footed
duexi
mammals had gathered nearby, no
doubt curious what all the commotion was. His stomach growled just at the sight
of them. Ah yes, he was going to slay one of the fat animals right then and
there. Just one of the beasts could feed their entire party. Two Mountains
searched the grass for a spear.

Suddenly there were flashes of green.

The
Hanyek
had
landed less than a kilometer from the downed operations ship, close enough so
that Grinek could see smoke and the shape of the vessel at the other end of the
pasture. He quickly worked his way out of an exterior hatch and slid down the
side of the
Hanyek
, landing softly in
the grass. A crewman was calling after him, asking him if he needed
accompaniment, but Grinek wasn’t worried about that for the moment. He believed
he could take care of the Earthman problem himself.

Luckily, the prairie grass was tall enough so that all
Grinek had to do was hunch down and he could avoid being seen. Working his way
through the reeds, hopping in the direction of the downed vessel, he lost all
sense of tiredness or hunger. This was the end, after all. He was running on
adrenaline.

The ground he covered in just a few minutes was amazing.
Soon he was close to the downed Earth ship, which had attracted a herd of some
large local mammals. Grinek could hear the voices of the Earthmen and the
Bauxens and could even hear some laughing. Were they glad they survived? Or
glad because they saw the Kotarans had crashed as well? Their situation was
almost comical in its irony.

Grinek panted, catching his breath before he charged in. He
felt himself warmed by the ship’s fires, and he felt supremely protected by the
reeds and the grass. For a moment he considered whether to ambush them from
there or run out and terrify them. A fat, ugly Bauxen made his decision for
him, walking around the ship and coming into view. Grinek aimed and fired
without thinking a moment longer.

The Bauxen went down, and Grinek continued firing. None of
the shots might hit, but they would scare the Earthmen, to be sure. He heard
yelling and screaming and confusion. Chaos. Perfect, completely perfect!

He rushed out of the weeds and propelled himself around the
wrecked trawler. The Earthmen, a Bauxen, and the Nyden were already fleeing
into the woods; the natives ran for cover behind the crashed ship. The Bauxen
tripped, and fell to the ground, allowing Grinek to see that there was a
Kotaran rifle in the grass that had been left behind in the confusion.

Grinek walked up to the Bauxen, the green alien’s hands up
in a motion of surrender.

“I am Prince Duvurn Dedro!” the scum sputtered in English.
“I have never done anything against Kotarans! Please!”
 
Duvurn was already known to Grinek, and
though the Kotaran wanted to kill the pathetic man, Grinek considered that he
might make a profitable hostage. The Earthmen, however, were criminals. Grinek
walked over the Bauxen, who had started sobbing, and went pursuing the figure
he thought he recognized as Nicholas Roan.

***

Grinek. That’s who was chasing them.

The butcher of Earth, Bauxa, and Aaron’s Planet.

The alien was mad, firing wildly into the woods, scorching
stumps and trunks left and right. Roan wished he hadn’t left that rifle behind.
There was no chance to grab it, not without risking his life. It was funny how
things had turned out: a few minutes ago, in the air above Aaron’s Planet, he’d
wanted to kill himself in a suicidal charge. Now he wanted nothing more to
live.

Leaves and branches crunched behind Roan. Grinek was close.
Roan cursed his legs, cursed being a human, cursed his height. Another bolt
shot past him. Roan believed the man had better aim, and now he was probably
just toying with him.

“Nicholas Roan!” came a voice, confirming it was indeed
Grinek on his tail. There was a laugh, an ugly caw of a laugh, from behind.
“You remember me, don’t you? Acknowledge me, my old friend!” Another laugh, and
a bolt crashed into a tree trunk very close to Roan. All the tricks of evading
pursuers went through Roan’s head—ducking and rolling, turning and
fighting, getting behind cover—but none of them seemed like the best
option.

A branch at eye-level ended Roan’s contemplation. He whacked
into it and fell to the dirt.

Bootsteps were close behind. Roan turned to look, and he
could make out a dirty boot coming at him. One of them connected with Roan’s
chin and snapped his body back and against a tree trunk.

A clammy hand grabbed his face. Grinek knelt behind him as
he pushed Roan against the trunk. Roan felt the Kotaran’s breath, hot and foul.
His eyes burned as the alien’s twin nostrils pushed air into them.

“I’m going to break your neck and leave you for the
vultures,” the Kotaran murmured. “How does that make you feel?”

Roan said nothing, because he couldn’t. He was in a similar
situation a month ago, with the captured Kotaran holding his neck in a
chokehold. This current situation elicited a different feeling. Then, he was in
a room of people he knew would help him out. Now, he was alone in the woods.
Without a weapon. And in the clutches of a mad beast.

Grinek pushed harder on Roan’s throat. Something was
definitely being crushed inside.

“Look into my eyes, Nicholas Roan.”

Where were a Kotaran’s
genitals? Did they hurt when they were hit?

Was this a rock?
Grinek doesn’t have any lock on my arms.
It was a rock.

Grinek lifted him from the ground and propped him upright
against the tree.

“When I arrived at this planet, Nicholas Roan…”

Kel. Why did you
leave, Kel?

“…I took so much pleasure in destroying your ship—”

Roan swung the rock in his left hand. It struck the right
side of Grinek’s snout, shattering the teeth on that side. Some even flew into
Roan’s face. The shock of the blow was enough to make the yowling Grinek
release Roan. He pushed the Kotaran back and rolled away. Flight had once again
taken over.

“I not finished!” Grinek yelled, his English deteriorating.
In fact, he yelled something in Kotaran right afterward, as he apparently
decided Earth’s language was no longer suitable. Roan zigzagged through tree
trunks, hoping they would act as shields, and headed for the edge of the trees.

***

Blood and a sharp pain pulsed through the right side of
Grinek’s snout. He was sure he’d swallowed a tooth. “Gods burn you!” he
screamed at the Earthman, uttering an oath he’d always assumed to be
metaphorical in nature. If there were any gods, then for the grace of Kotara
they’d shoot down a volcanic flame now to smite Roan. But in their absence,
Grinek would have to do all the smiting himself.

Roan was running through the trees as if he was navigating a
maze. Now, when Grinek wanted to fire a shot into his back, he couldn’t. There
wasn’t going to be anymore toying around with this one. Vultures were going to
be feasting on his corpse soon, and it didn’t matter if it had been felled by a
laser or Grinek’s hands.

***

Roan came out of the tree line into a clearing—more of
a covered tunnel, made up of a canopy of vines and branches hanging several
meters above the ground. Lounging about was a large gathering of animals, the
same kind that had been milling around the crash site. They reminded Roan of
elephants, or at least elephants he’d seen in pictures and holofilms. These
elephants were much shorter, about as tall as a human, and with two tusks
drooping down from their lower jaw. Each one was fat, and Roan knew he wanted
to be anywhere but a place where a bunch of heavy animals could soon be
rampaging.

He searched for a way out of this labyrinth of
animals—each one chewing its cud, oblivious to the human—when Roan
stepped in something soft and mushy. The shit threw him off balance, tossing
him to the ground near the flat feet of one of the creatures.

***

Amid the silver backs of the strange mammals arrayed before
him, the same kind he’d seen near the crash site, Grinek noticed Roan had
tripped and fallen. Grinek curved through the creatures, which formed some kind
of obstacle course hiding his prize. It didn’t take him long to find the
Earthman, desperately attempting to get to his feet. Perhaps the gods did
exist, because they were presenting Grinek with so good a reward.

The Commander threw the gun down. Death would come for
Nicholas Roan through the Kotaran’s bare hands. He grabbed the surprised
Earthman by his jacket and thrust him against the hide of one of the creatures.
Though the mammal made a mournful call, Grinek paid no attention to it.

“How does it feel to die on Somoresh, the cradle of all
civilization?”
 
Grinek asked, not
bothering to speak in English. The Earthman, surprisingly, looked more angry
than terrified. “You will die where your ancestors came from. Unfortunately,
they had to spawn Earthmen like yourself. No matter. I think your species is
not long for this galaxy.”
 
Grinek
gave the man’s neck another firm squeeze.

“You understand?” Grinek said in the Earthman’s language.
“You die here.”

“I d-don’t know if it’s a g-godless universe or not,” Roan
gasped. Grinek was dismayed, because he thought he’d crushed this man’s vocal
chords. “But I know a hideous creature like yourself is a mistake, whether you
came from god
or
nature.”

Grinek kneed the man in the stomach. He let him crumple to
the ground. The mammalian creature began lumbering away, and its mournful
baying was accompanied by that of the other animals nearby. The herd was
starting to move.

“Science wonderful, no?” Grinek asked, his English once
again fading. “It determines how we live and die. In one way I jealous you,
Nicholas Roan. You see the great unknown of nothingness before even
I
. Isn’t that the most wonderful
exploration of all?”

***

Something was coming up his throat. Roan barely held it in,
trying desperately to retain his composure in death. This, he felt, must be the
end. Once, his dad had shown him a history book and it featured pictures of
executions in times past, the condemned man kneeling perpendicular to the man
with the axe. Roan knew that’s how he looked now.

Kel. Aaron.

He shut his eyes.

***

Nothing should have disrupted Grinek as he delivered the killing
blow, but his senses picked up disturbing things: the baying of the mammals,
which started with the two bipeds’ intrusion into their space; the ground rumbling
beneath his feet; even the vibration of his communicator in his pocket, which
he hadn’t paid attention to since leaving the
Hanyek
.

One animal, then two, ran past him. Then four more. Grinek
turned his head to the right to see a stampede of animals, a wall of tusks and
baying and fat feet, moving like a train in their direction. Grinek knew about
fight or flight, and he turned to do the latter option, finding that Roan had
been just a few seconds faster than him, running with the herd through the
canopy tunnel.

There was some part of Grinek that wanted to live, and some
part that wanted to pull Roan down with him. For a few moments, Grinek seemed
like he had that chance, as the man’s jacket was well within his reach. But his
vision was blocked only for a second when Roan’s headgear, his cap, flew off
his head while running. Grinek slowed for only a second, but Roan had gotten a
lead, and not only that, he’d jumped in the air.

Grinek saw him catch one of the low-hanging branches of the
canopy. Roan’s feet were dangling, and they were easy to grasp. One pull and
the Earthman could be brought down. Grinek reached his hand out in the air,
struck Roan’s leg, and clutched the man’s boot.

A pair of tusks speared him in the back. Grinek still held
onto the boot, and willed his arm to stay there. But then came the pain. It
shot up through his arm, coursed through his muscles, went straight on into his
head. He roared. His grip slackened.

He flashed back to years ago, when that rebel struck his arm
with a hatchet.

And then his grip gave out. Grinek found himself falling,
falling to the hard ground, done in by the mindless charge of animals that
thought of him only as an obstacle to their run.

***

A hand clasped his foot, and Roan cried out, but the hand
soon unhinged itself. Roan reflexively glanced at his feet and saw Grinek
tumbling down. In a millisecond he was swallowed up by the stampeding
elephants, themselves soon obscured in a whirlwind of dust. Roan swung his body
in the air, locking his feet over the branch, which was shaking and creaking.
He held himself there, praying it was strong enough to hold him.

It wasn’t. The branch snapped and Roan hit the grass, the
wind rushing from his body. An elephant’s flat feet were thumping closer, and
Roan put his hands over his head.

The creature swerved out of the way and joined the rest of
the herd, now stampeding far away. It was the last in the line, leaving a trail
of dust and grass floating in the air.

For the first time since they’d left Bauxa, Roan relaxed,
letting his muscles turn to jelly. He lay down on his back and looked out at
the sky, visible just beyond the canopy of branches and ferns above him. Still
a milky white overcast, with clumps of grey. Same as it was during the day. Yet
even through the clouds, and even through the canopy, there was a hint of a
faint sun. He closed his eyes and let the thought of it bring him warmth.