The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  When he awoke again it was morning.

  He lay on a field with bodies piled all around him. The grass, heavy with dew, dampened his cheek. The smell of blood hung sweet and fragrant in the misty air.

  A boot nudged him, rolled him over slowly. He stared up at the great gray sky. A vast pain pulsed in his skull, a throbbing like the end of the world.

  "E's alive." A rat-like countenance peered down into the injured man's upturned face. "Leave 'im that way?"

  A deeper voice said wearily, "Aye. That's Divane, the Irish fellow what Arthur dragged down here to die with 'im. Pick 'im up, he can die back to the camp as well as here."

  Divane. The man considered that as several pairs of hands strained and lifted him free of the ground.

  A fair enough name.

  He saw no reason not to keep it.

  * * *

  43.

  When Dvan was at last done, late Monday, the fourth day after beginning his tale, there was for a very long time no sound but the gentle sighing of the ventilators, the almost inaudible creaks of the great house as it rotated on its axis. Denice watched Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan, the relic of fifty thousand years, standing like a statue before her. "What is left is of little enough importance. I had no memory of who I was; I knew only that I did not age as other men. I adapted, learned to hide my differences, to make no close friends, take no family. I lived through the discovery of steam power and the printing press, the telephone and the automobile and the computer and air flight and space flight, nanotechnology and genegineering and the Net. Now that I remember, it amazes me that my people and yours could have taken such divergent paths; we never touched nanotechnology, and only dabbled in genegineering until we had conquered death by aging.

  "But we were engineers and builders the likes of which you cannot imagine. In the worship of the Flame we built wonders the likes of which your people have never even attempted."

  Robert said quietly, "You say 'your' people, as though you were not one of us. You are to my eyes a man, like other men."

  Dvan turned on Robert with a suddenness that brought Denice up on her bed, crouched and ready for movement. Robert had not stirred but suddenly he was no longer a small Japanese man with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. In his expression lived something ancient and deadly.

  "You," said Dvan with chilling precision, with a degree of contempt so devastating Denice would not have believed it possible had she not seen it, "are our children. The New Human Race. The descendants of heretics, of criminals and those who followed them. Mutated as the Flame People would never have allowed themselves to be mutated, selected by evolution for your inclination to violence, a people who have made violence an art and death a passion and the Kill a religion; aye," said Dvan, "you are our children. And you are completely insane."

  * * *

  44.

  Most of a week passed before Denice could move again without pain. Even with modern medicine, even in the one third gravity of her room, her knee ached every night. The bruise on her hip was minor, and soon faded; the broken left forearm was the worst of it, but she put no strain on it, and with the aid of nanoviruses that were crafted to help the bone knit, toward the end of the week she was able to punch with either hand almost equally well. Half an hour with the punching bag made her left forearm throb; but though it hurt, the ache grew less with each passing day, and the pain did not prevent her from striking if she needed to.

  She threw herself into her recovery with a vengeance. Jimmy was far enough along in his own recovery that she saw no need to help him further; with Robert's help, she focused on herself, and on her own needs. She spent most of every other day in the gym, working out until she was exhausted; gave herself the in-between days to let her muscles heal and grow. On those days she swam, in the zero gravity swimming pool, or audited the Net for news of the Rebs, or Sedon, or Ripper.

  Chandler's people were busy, looking for a line on Sedon, and having no more success, apparently, than the PKF. Somewhere in San Diego, they all knew that much; but where exactly was anyone's guess.

  She spent hour after hour sitting silently in her room, watching the stars wheel by in her floor.

  The Electronic Times, June 17, 2076: Today's polls place Douglass Ripper, Jr., eight points ahead of Sanford Mtumka; thirty-six percent of the respondents in our poll stated that, if the election were held today, they would vote for Ripper over any of the other candidates in the race.

  Ralf the Wise and Powerful said simply, "The major media is not allowed to say so, but assuming no significant changes in the external situation, Ripper will win. He's gaining ground, slowly but very surely. On Thursday the Ministry of Population Control will announce that China has, once again, failed to meet its population reduction target; when that happens, Zhao Pen will lose another point to two points of support, and Ripper will pick most of that up. It will give him very nearly a ten point lead. No candidate for Secretary General has, in modern times, failed of election with a lead of such size. Assuming Ripper isn't caught in bed with a troop of dead Boy Scouts, he is a prohibitive favorite to be, come next January 1st, the new Secretary General."

  "Dead Boy Scouts? Is that a joke, Ralf?"

  "I have been working on my sense of humor recently."

  "Why?"

  "I'm re-coding anyway," said Ralf simply. "It gives me something to do while Ring destroys me."

  "What will you do about Dvan?"

  Denice grunted, winced and released the weight she'd been planning to use for curls. Too heavy for an arm broken so recently. She answered Robert while removing five kilos from the barbell. "Well, I don't need a servant. And his dislike of you is irrational." She shook her head. "It bothers me."

  Robert sat a few meters away, twisted into an improbable position on the mat, breathing deeply and slowly. "He threatened to kill me if I attempted to continue teaching you."

  Denice put down the barbell. "When?"

  Robert had to kick twice to get his foot free; abruptly a vaguely mushroom-looking shape unfolded into a human being. He took a deep breath that turned into a yawn, said drowsily, "About a week ago."

  "I see you're terribly worried."

  Robert shrugged. "Short of killing him outright, what would I do about it if I were?"

  "That's a point."

  Robert gestured to her to join him. She sank down on the mat before him. "Are you ready to talk?"

  "Yes."

  His eyes were half-lidded. "Where are we with each other?"

  "I don't know, Robert. I want to--not be whatever it is you are. But I killed those men in Los Angeles, and--I can't describe to you how it felt. I still have nightmares about it."

  "I know how it felt. You enjoyed it."

  Denice bowed her head. She whispered the words. "Oh, yes. And the Flame Dvan talks about, I've felt that too; and it's as strong as the Kill; and I have no more idea how to handle it."

  "I have a feeling," said Robert slowly, "that there is nothing I can say to you in this area that will be relevant to what is happening with you. So I will not try. But if you need me--to kill Sedon; for instruction; to come rescue you off some building somewhere--" She looked up, and her eyes met his. "--I will always be here."

  Thursday they had dinner with Chandler again; Dvan, and Denice, Robert and Jimmy. Dinner was strained; Jimmy was unhappy, felt that he was being ignored, and didn't care who knew it. Denice was briefly sorry that she'd gone to the trouble to make herself up for dinner; nobody seemed to notice. Chandler finished early and excused himself, and Jimmy left shortly after that, after inviting Denice to come swimming with him.

  Denice said quietly, "In a bit."

  Jimmy stopped in the doorway, watching Denice, and Robert, and Dvan, sitting together around the low dinner table. Denice could feel the hurt and anger radiating away from him; she said nothing, and Jimmy turned and left without speaking.

  Dvan spoke as the door rolled shut behind Jimmy Ramirez, in that unlikely, gentle Irish voice. "You've
been avoiding me, lass."

  "What would you like to be called?"

  The question seemed to throw the huge man; he hesitated a moment. "William will do. It's a name I'm used to, at any rate."

  "William, you can call me Denice."

  Dvan blinked. "What?"

  "My name is Denice. You've called me all sorts of things since I met you, and most of them offend me. Call me Denice."

  "Very well," said Dvan slowly. "Denice. I can do that. If I've offended you, lass, forgive me; I mean no harm. I know what you can be--though I had not thought it possible for a woman to Dance the Flame--but I don't know what you are." He hesitated, grinned abruptly, and the Irish lilt strengthened. "Having been William Devane these last fifteen centuries gives me an interesting perspective; I've got to see your people from the inside out. I've been struggling with things since I remembered, not quite a year ago now. William Devane is a sexist, I think you'd call him. Call me. But that part of me that calls itself Dvan barely recognizes you as a person, Denice. You're a Dancer, or perhaps a Keeper, or possibly just a breeder. And when I think in those terms--and it's hard not to, for the identity of the Shield Dvan is more deeply rooted in me than that of the William Devane of the last fifteen centuries--when I think in those terms, I can see no way to approach you and ask for your help."

  "What do you want my help for?"

  Dvan glanced at Robert; Robert stared back, impassively. Dvan drew a breath. "First, to kill Sedon. It may be I can do it myself, and it may not; but with your aid, and the aid of your AI friend, I do not think I can fail."

  "You didn't mention Robert."

  Dvan shrugged. "I saw no need to. I doubt there is any skill he possesses that I do not."

  Robert murmured, "Aside from tact, you mean."

  Dvan struggled with it. "If I were you, I would not speak that way to me."

  "You mean," said Robert easily, "if you were an abomination, the descendant of heretics, you would know your place?"

  Dvan seemed to consider it. "Well," he said finally, "something like that." He pointed at Robert and said, "You recognize this weapon."

  A flechette gun, small and round, sat crouched in the palm of the big man's hand.

  For a long moment Denice's brain insisted that it had to be something else; she'd been watching him, watching his hands, and hadn't seen him palm the weapon. Clearly Robert hadn't either.

  Robert sat frozen, motionless, every trace of humor drained from him. His hands were together in front of him, in plain view. "That's a really good trick," he said. "Some day you must show me how to do that."

  "It's a flechette gun, night face."

  Robert gazed at Dvan, unblinking. "Yes, yes, I know."

  Denice had no time for anything complex; she froze his medianis nerve and threw. The bones in Dvan's left wrist shattered, the skin ripping open, blood spraying away. The flechette gun bounced up, spun out of Dvan's nerveless grip as Robert Dazai Yo rose to his feet, plucked the gun from the air and took two steps back and aimed.

  Dvan looked from Denice to Robert Yo, and back to Denice, and then down to the small broken object that lay on the floor at his feet. His left wrist was open to the bone, and his blood dripped steadily down his fingers to the floor. He bent and, with the hand Denice had left whole, picked up the small black item.

  She had thrown a makeup key at him.

  "If we're going to work together," said Denice, "and I think we're probably going to, you can't threaten my friends."

  Dvan nodded slowly. "I see." Blood pooled on the floor at his feet. "What now?"

  Robert Yo spoke softly and slowly, with a gentle rhythm unlike anything Denice had ever before heard from him or any other human being. The words echoed in her ears as they came forth, rolled slowly through the corridors of her mind. They were spoken in shiata:

  "Rho! Etra shivat elor ko'obay k'shia, vata elor ko'obay shiebran."

  Dvan's features, pale already with shock, whitened perceptibly, with what emotion Denice did not know.

  Looking at Dvan over the flechette gun's sight, Robert smiled, a slow friendly smile that lit his features and made him seem suddenly a young man, and said simply, "Enshia, ensitra."

  * * *

  45.

  I am the Name Storyteller.

  In 2309, in the Oz Circuit, on the planet Tin Woodman, a night face named Shiva Curiachen conquered an addiction to electric ecstasy.

  This, in shiata, the tongue of the Old Human Race, is Shiab' Rosad, the Dedication of Nightways:

  Rho! Etra shivat elor ko'obay k'shia, vata elor ko'obay shiebran. Enshia, ensitra.

  The Dedication can vary by one word, the last:

  Rho! Etra shivat elor ko'obay k'shia, vata elor ko'obay shiebran. Enshia, denestra.

  The difference in meaning between these two apparently slight variations is immense. Depending upon inflection, the first Dedication, ending in ensitra, is a vow of either fealty or, as often, common interest. In the days when women were rarely taught the discipline, the word ensitra was almost always translated as "brotherhood."

  The second version of the Dedication--Enshia, denestra--is a sacred promise to destroy the person at whom the Dedication has been directed.

  In 2309, the night face Shiva Curiachen, the first Shiva of United Earth Intelligence, translated the Dedication of Nightways into English. Though other translations have been attempted, some of them more literally accurate, it is generally recognized that, of the known English language translations, Curiachen's translation comes closest to capturing both the meaning and the feeling of the Dedication of Nightways.

  Sitting motionless in the middle of Christ's Burden Boulevard, with a thermos filled with Lipton Instant Iced Tea with Lemon, in a small Tin Woodman town called Six Flags Over Jesus, Shiva Curiachen said these words to the King of Corona:

  "Behold! We are the countenance that is turned to the cold eternal darkness; the face that is turned to the shadows of night. In nightways I am your doom."

  And indeed he was.

  But that is another Story, for another time.

  * * *

  The TriCentennial Summer

  Don't sing of how you love me

  Don't take me to that show

  Don't tell me you're the Chosen One

  Cause I don't want to know

  Don't take me to no party

  Don't dance with me tonight

  It's all the same with you, my love

  You're holding me too tight

  --Mahliya Kutura

  Independence Day

  In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united states of America,

  When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds that have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.--

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--

  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--

  That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it...

  --Opening to the American Declaration of Independence; July 4, 1776 Gregorian.

  Once there was a thief, and the thief was God.

  --First line in the Exodus Bible, first published 2312 Gregorian.

  * * *

  46.

  Among human historical figures, I think there is no sentient being more like Ifahad bell K'Ailli than Trent the Uncatchable. Both were responsible for the spread of very basic concepts among their people; both, despite their undeniable accomplishments, were not
orious cheats and frauds.

  Ifahad the Mighty was born into the midst of what was later called the Domè Rebellion. The sleem empire conquered the Domè around 6200 B.C.; three and a half centuries later, during Ifahad's early childhood, the Domè rebelled.

  The rebellion was well underway before Ifahad's voice carried any weight among the Domè. That first rebellion lasted eighty years before failing. Toward its end, as Ifahad's power among the Domè grew, Ifahad the Mighty invented Hiding. If you are human--and if you are reading this account in French, English, Mandarin, Spanish, Anglic, or Tierra, it is likely that you are--then it will be difficult for you to understand how revolutionary the Domè, in modern times called the K'Aillae, found this concept. The K'Aillae are more like us than most alien species; which, at times, seems only to serve to highlight those areas in which we do not think alike.

  An example of this comes from one of the first human translations of the works of Ifahad bell K'Ailli. It was titled Proud Vengeance: The Writings of Ifahad. K'Aillae were alternately amused and offended by the title. Their strongly worded suggestion for change resulted in a second edition with the title Sensible Vengeance: The Writings of Ifahad.

  The K'Aillae are a practical people: when Ifahad introduced the concept of Hiding to the K'Aillae, responses were mixed. His explanation--that Hiding involved running away when defeat was certain, avoiding the enemy for an unspecified period of time, and then coming back and fighting again at a later date when victory was possible--did not arouse contempt among the Domè so much as puzzlement. The K'Aillae had, before meeting humans, no word for "coward;" but they had many for "crazy." Most of them were used on Ifahad.

  Even after Hiding had been explained to them, K'Aillae were generally unable to grasp the concept. Only Ifahad's own clan, the K'Ailli, followed him into Hiding, which is why today there are no Domè, only K'Aillae.

  Trent the Uncatchable ran away. That running away could be not simply a strategically reasonable response to overwhelming military superiority, but in fact among the most successful of all forms of resistance, was a concept many humans of his time had difficulty understanding--at least until it was demonstrated.