The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  "My turn," said the program. "What was the nature of the crime for which you were exiled to Earth?"

  "I can not tell you, program."

  "Can not, or will not?"

  "Rather than serve, I made a servant of the Flame that lived within me, program, the Flame that gave me my life, that taught me to Move. Does this enlighten you?"

  "No. What is the flame?"

  Sedon took a long breath, considering. A distant surprise touched him when he realized that even now, in this far distant, alien world, he found himself reluctant to breach the vows of silence he had taken as a young Dancer, uncountable eons past. When fifteen seconds had passed without reply from him--Sedon was used to it by now--the program repeated, "What is the flame?"

  "In the beginning was the Flame, and the Flame was life. We who came after saw the Flame, and rejoiced, and Danced in its beauty." He said the words in shiata, adding in French, "It was called the Dance of the Flame." The program was, apparently, willing to accept that as an answer, for it returned to his question regarding the Elite:

  "A PKF Elite is a cyborg; a normal human, modified with machinery and transform viruses. They are created at Peace Keeping Force Spacebase One at L-5, in free fall. Surgeons implant new eyes, remove the skin, and implant a pair of small lasers within the index fingers. After the skin has been removed, the last surgical operation places a fine web of superconductors immediately beneath the skin, to distribute heat evenly across the Elite's surface in the event the Elite is fired upon with an energy weapon; the skin is then regrown, though the regrown skin is far stronger than the original envelope. Transform viruses--diseases designed to cause benign changes within the body--speed the Elite's neural reactions by sixty to seventy percent. An enhanced-strength transform virus makes the muscles in an Elite's body four to five times more efficient--makes the Elite four to five times stronger. A second nerve network grows around the network the Elite is born with, and is connected to a battle computer implanted at the base of the Elite's skull. Carbon-ceramic filaments reinforce all points where muscle, ligament or cartilage attaches itself to a bone. The bones themselves are regrown with a new carbon-ceramic base. Early Elite," the program said, "were quite heavy. Recent advances in design and implementation of the Elite upgrade have reduced the weight penalty significantly, so that an Elite is generally only thirty to forty percent heavier after the upgrade than before. My turn. You worshiped the flame?"

  "Program, I do not think I can tell you. The Flame is a thing of living creatures, and though I speak to you of it in words, you will know nothing of what I mean."

  "You do not wish to answer the question?"

  It was the fourth time the program had asked that question, in exactly those words. Each time, Sedon had noticed, the guard standing at the door had tensed slightly. An important question then, the question which would, if answered negatively, set in motion the mechanism by which they intended to kill him. Sedon let a sigh escape him, and sat forward in the bed. His right foot came up beneath him, toes flexed for traction against the bed and the smooth cloths that covered it. "Program," he said sincerely--he did not know if the program could discern changes in tone of voice--"I wish to answer all your questions. But there are areas of discussion where I must speak to a man or woman who breathes and lives. Else my answers are merely words."

  And Sedon exhaled, slowly, until his lungs were nearly empty of air. He fixed his gaze on the Elite's diaphragm, a spot immediately beneath the point where the Elite's ribs joined together. Stillness descended upon him.

  The Elite, standing by the doorway, six hours into his shift, relaxed visibly upon hearing Sedon's answer.

  And Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon, to his knowledge the last living Dancer anywhere in the Continuing Time, Moved.

  Late on Tuesday, March 29th, Christine Mirabeau, a woman with the general appearance and personality of a bulldog, the highest ranking Peaceforcer in the System, walked at Mohammed Vance's side through the laser-scored corridors of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force Detention Center on the outskirts of Amiens, near the edge of the Somme River in northern France.

  During the course of that long evening, Vance's voice never rose above the volume appropriate for two old friends engaged in an intimate conversation.

  The evening began at the cell in which Sedon had been kept, two floors beneath the ground.

  A holo appeared, life size, of Sedon and du Bouchage, the Elite who had been guarding him. "The recording will play back at quarter speed," Vance informed the Commander of the PKF Elite. "I had the Elite standing guard within the doorway rather than without; we were concerned at first for the patient's safety, for the possibility of suicide. It occurred to me that this placed the Elite in a certain danger, but I felt it minimal. Until this--thing-- happened I would never have dreamed that any man could kill an Elite cyborg with his bare hands."

  "I understand the mistake."

  "I take full responsibility for the decision. Command, begin holo."

  Sedon's form flows upward from the bed, moves toward the Elite standing by the doorway. "Freeze image. Notice his hands and feet when he leaps. All four are evenly in contact with the frame of the bed, significantly improving his velocity when he launches himself toward du Bouchage."

  The image resumes; Sedon slams into du Bouchage at the doorway. The Elite is just becoming aware that something is happening; Sedon slams into the larger, heavier Elite, and with both hands and a knee flattens du Bouchage's palm against the doorpad. The image freezes. "You will see here, he does not even attempt to harm du Bouchage until after he has placed the man's hand against the surface of the doorpad. First things first. Elapsed time from the moment Sedon began to move to the moment that du Bouchage's palm is pressed quite flat against the surface of the doorpad, less than one half of a second. The language program was still controlling the holocams, and did not pass control to the security manager until nearly the full half second had passed. The computerist who wrote the language program should be placed in front of a firing squad. By the time the security manager had received the image and decided what to do with it, the door was curling open. Du Bouchage's battle computer comes into play now, not quite half a second after first movement by the prisoner." The lasers in his fingers light; one of them scores Sedon slightly, rakes down the side of one leg. Sedon strikes du Bouchage in the solar plexus with two fingers of his right hand. "You can see in the holos, Sedon's fingers are probably broken here; but that blow is most likely what stopped du Bouchage's heart." Sedon's next blow, with the palm of his left hand, strikes du Bouchage at the side of the temple and bounces du Bouchage's head against the side of the doorway. "The autopsy revealed a slight fracture in the carbon-ceramic laminae. Du Bouchage is probably unconscious at this point; his battle computer takes over." The computer makes the correct decision, to take him away from the source of the danger, pushing backward, through the opening door and out into the corridor.

  Vance stepped through the doorway after Sedon's image, gesturing. "Sedon follows him. His reaction time is, at least, equivalent to du Bouchage's. He is not as strong, however; one of the doorways that briefly stopped him, a level up, would not have stopped a determined Elite. He attempted to force it and then used a variable laser to cut through it." Vance touched a dented place on the wall, a second before the image of du Bouchage's skull struck it. "If du Bouchage was not unconscious before, he is now." Sedon is so close to the Elite that the Elite's fingertip lasers are of little use; the battle computer gathers Sedon to du Bouchage, attempts to squeeze him to death. Sedon allows du Bouchage to gather him in, makes sure his hands are left free, and strikes six times, in remarkably close succession, at the sides of du Bouchage's neck, an expression of savage enjoyment on his face. "The impact of one of those blows, probably the first, severed du Bouchage's spinal column as though he had been hung. Du Bouchage is now unconscious, his heart has been stopped, and his spinal cord severed. This does not stop the bear hug; the battle computer reroutes through the
two main trunks of the secondary nerve network. It is difficult to tell from the recordings, but either the fifth or sixth blow to the neck damaged the two trunks of the secondary nerve network sufficiently that the battle computer lost control of du Bouchage's body. Total elapsed time from the moment Sedon first moves, three and two tenths seconds. Sedon is damaged in the encounter; slight laser score on one leg, broken fingers, probable broken ribs. Let's go upstairs."

  They walked up, following Sedon's insubstantial, too-solid-appearing holograph as it fled up the stairs.

  "It takes him twelve seconds to reach B-1. Given that he was sedated when he was brought here, how he knew to head upward--how he even knew he was underground--is anybody's guess. But as you see, he does not hesitate. The alarm has been sounded by the time he reaches B-1, and he meets Elite Officer Pailletin at the top of the stairs. Officer Pailletin is, unfortunately, armed with a variable laser." Pailletin is tall, even for a PKF Elite, perhaps ten centimeters taller than Sedon. He crouches slightly, variable laser rifle cradled in his arms, and fires at Sedon as Sedon exits the stairwell. Sedon rolls beneath the beam, comes out of the roll with the heels of both of his feet striking Officer Pailletin's kneecaps. "You can see here, Sedon breaks his left ankle delivering the blow; Elite kneecaps are quite strong. He breaks neither of Pailletin's kneecaps." Pailletin falls, and in the fall Sedon takes the variable laser from him. Midway through his fall, before striking the floor, Pailletin's right foot touches the ground; he leaps backward, firing with the laser in his right fist as he moves away from the source of danger. The laser strikes Sedon in the shoulder, wounding him significantly; the recording shows that the collar bone in his right shoulder is sliced in half. "If Pailletin were a younger Elite, with a pair of finger lasers rather than only the one buried in his fist, he might have killed Sedon here. Unfortunately he has only the laser in his fist--"

  --and Sedon now has the variable laser; he retreats into the relative safety of the stairwell, and fires at Pailletin's face until he has destroyed Officer Pailletin's optics. Once Pailletin can no longer see, Sedon ignores him and, with a broken ankle and separated collar bone, proceeds upward to ground level, his speed of movement not appreciably diminished. "Total elapsed time since reaching B-1, eighteen and three quarter seconds. He is delayed slightly at the stairwell entrance; the security program has locked the door. He attempts to force it, fails--possibly because of his damaged collarbone--and uses the variable laser to cut the door apart. Total elapsed time since his attack upon du Bouchage, thirty-four seconds, almost exactly."

  The cafeteria had been cleaned. Vance noted with grim amusement that a pot of coffee was set up on a sideboard, with perhaps a dozen cups, cream and sugar.

  "Three PKF Elite on duty," said Vance, "seven PKF soldiers, two doctors, and a nurse. Many of them were at breakfast; it was 8:37 a.m. when Sedon broke free. The recording of him in the cafeteria is--" Vance paused, apparently at a loss for words. "--extraordinary. He killed five soldiers, both doctors, and the nurse in not quite eleven seconds. Two of the soldiers shot at him; neither came close. He did not spill a drop of blood.

  "Then he went looking for De Nostri."

  Elite Commander Mirabeau followed Mohammed Vance down the hallway to the quarters where Samuel De Nostri had been sleeping. "De Nostri is awake, but just barely; forty-eight seconds after his initial movement, Sedon finds the corridor leading to the Officer's quarters.

  Sedon opens three doors, moving down the hallway and looking inside each one; at the fourth door he meets up with De Nostri, as De Nostri is emerging to find out the nature of the emergency. "What Sedon does now," said Vance, in a voice immeasurably grim, "shows clearly that he has been thinking--learning, under immense stress--during each of his prior encounters with the Elite."

  Sedon's first two shots are directed at De Nostri's hands. He destroys the laser in De Nostri's left hand, brings the beam across and holds it on De Nostri's right hand as De Nostri charges him. He is successful; by the time De Nostri gets close, both of his finger lasers are dead. Standing in the hallway with the two insubstantial forms, the Elite charging down upon the standing form of Sedon, Vance said quietly, "De Nostri is shouting as he draws close, a tedious obscenity that will be edited from the final recording. We must," said Vance precisely, "in the future, teach Elite to avoid opening their mouths in combat. Sedon does what I would have done in the same circumstances--"

  --and standing motionless, fires directly into De Nostri's mouth.

  "Had De Nostri kept his mouth shut he could conceivably have killed Sedon. But the shot into that open, bellowing orifice vaporized his tongue, and I imagine the pain was immense. De Nostri stopped moving."

  The holo vanished, left Vance and Mirabeau together in the corridor. Vance shook his head in plain disgust. "I doubt you need see the rest of this. Sedon blinded him, and then spent fully three and a half minutes playing with him. I have seen dead Elite," he continued, "but I have never seen anything like what our 'dancer' did to Officer Samuel De Nostri. Once he breached the skin he fired bursts from the laser into the breach, and slowly cooked De Nostri from the inside out. Not quite five minutes after attacking Officer du Bouchage, the prisoner burned through the Detention Center's front doors, walked out, walked down to the banks of the river, and leapt in."

  "Walked."

  "A calculated insult, Christine. He spat in our faces. Even Trent had the grace to run."

  "That was?"

  "A day and a half ago. We haven't found him yet."

  On the semiballistic, on their return to Capitol City, Christine Mirabeau watched, from one end to the other, the recording Vance had edited together from the Detention Center's fixed holocams.

  When it was done, when the steam rising from Samuel De Nostri's body had faded from the holofield before them, Elite Commander Christine Mirabeau said quietly, "He has to die. He has to die soon."

  "I will find him," said Vance, the deep voice slow and inexorable, "and I will kill him with my own hands."

  "I wish you luck, my friend." Mirabeau's tired, careworn features were even colder and more distant than usual. She was an embattled woman, undermined by the Secretary General, loathed by the Ministry of Population Control, occasionally besieged by treachery within the ranks of the PKF itself. Her use of the word "friend" was no mere figure of speech; she liked Mohammed Vance a great deal. On occasion she even found reason to trust him. "More luck, Mohammed, than you had catching Trent. More luck than any of those young Elite had attempting to kill Sedon with their bare hands."

  "I will rip his heart from his chest."

  Christine looked at Vance's profile with a certain degree of real curiosity. "You know, Mohammed, I do not think I have ever seen you angry before."

  Mohammed Vance did not reply, but sat with his back ramrod straight, eyes fixed on emptiness as the semiballistic descended back into the atmosphere, shaking slightly with the increasing turbulence of its descent, down toward Capitol City and the waiting Earth.

  * * *

  Summer: 2075

  A Blast From The Past II

  * * *

  12.

  When he had finished reading McGee's notes, only a few hours before dawn, William Devane sighed irritably. It was no more believable this time than the first.

  But he did not understand why the story was so compelling. Finally he shut his handheld off, hung up his robe, and went back to bed.

  It was near sunrise when he got to sleep.

  And dreamed.

  There is something deep inside, something important hiding in the mist of ancient memory. The memory that is called for is dim and distant, the remembrance of something another person did long ago. The memory management routines that are the kernel of William Devane's identity come into play, inspecting the call to determine its urgency. There is a finite amount of storage available within Devane's brain, and it reached full long since. He survives as a sane being only by constantly forgetting the trivial details of his life, by archiv
ing and flushing most long-term memory and retaining only data pertaining to current conditions. Any call to deep memory is dangerous, and the deeper the memory, the more dangerous the call; the older the data, the less likely it is to have relevance to survival in the current world. The management routines have nearly decided to ignore the call--

  But the call persists. The sleep period is half over by now; if the work is to be done by the time Devane awakens, it must begin now. The decision is made to retain current skills, as well as the bulk of recent memory, and temporarily remove all data prior to that time from near-term memory. The process is slow, as it requires the inspection, deletion, compression and archiving of vast amounts of information. Dawn is nearly upon him before sufficient near-term memory has been freed to allow the call to deep memory to proceed.

  Memories cascade through Devane's dreamtime awareness. The cold English castle where he spent most of the fourteenth century a.d. A woman with red hair, and a harp, and children. His children. The battlefield at Camel Hill, in 527, where he took the worst wound of his incredibly long life. Rome, at its height, and the long summer of Egypt...

  All too recent. Back...

  The millennia with his People, wandering up and down the coast of Europe.

  And before that...

  Late the next morning, as the sun hung high over southern Ireland, Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan opened his eyes to the first moments of full consciousness he had experienced in over fifteen hundred years.

  He sat up in bed slowly, and then rose and walked across the cold, buffed wooden floor to the stairway that led out, to the top of his home; and up through the hatchway and out onto the lookout.

  He stood naked in the sunlight atop a small hill, staring out at the world, looking out over the green fields of grass, at the blue sky and the half dozen cars flying within his field of vision, at the cows wandering lazily across the far pastures. He watched the world with a wonder so vast it was almost terror, an awe that so filled him he feared his heart might burst.