Whatever Gods May Be

by George P. Saunders

  Mystified, Zolan waded through the water back to the platform stairs, keeping his eyes focused on the Birdog. Then, something else caught his attention. For all of a sudden, the water beneath him disappeared in an instant, as if a giant suction device had vacuumed it away. Zolan watched it retreat several hundred feet out, until his eyes came to rest on a new horror.

  The wave, Zolan guessed, was at least a hundred feet high, and it extended the whole length of the coast line in all directions. A low moan, like an approaching locomotive, roared in Zolan's ears, and he could feel the ground beneath him start to tremble.

  Horrified, Zolan looked at the Rover and screamed.

  "Rover: Can you hear me? Get out of here. Emergency launch!"

  He didn't really expect a response; the ship was still in a shut-down mode. Zolan hauled himself up the stairs, forgetting about the Birdog and the rats. He knew that he should try to get as far inshore as possible, but the thought of leaving his ship was anathema.

  A second later, and Zolan found himself in the air. He was being held by his waist belt, so could not turn around and identify his daring abductor But even as he hung dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, buffeted by cold rain and wind, his sole interest still lay with the Rover below.

  Twisting once violently, Zolan caught sight of his kidnapper. It was the Birdog, holding him gently in her giant mouth, and a moment later, he realized what she had done.

  Far below, the killer tidal wave slammed against the cliffs, smothering the beach and forcing water up the rock face. Zolan could hear the Birdog whine unhappily; he did not know that she was crying in worry for her pups in the cave. Fortunately, the waters began to recede before they reached the Birddog’s home.

  As the voice had promised, her loved ones had remained safe.

  The Birdog continued circling above the cliffs, as Zolan looked down, no longer struggling against the Birdogs hold. Even before the waters departed from the beach completely, he realized that the Rover Starglide was gone forever.

  * * *

  His power was growing, surging over the world like a massive rug about to cover all of what had previously offended him. He was suddenly in many places at the same time and could see all things everywhere. The feeling was absolutely delightful.

  Still, that underlying dread and worry prickled him constantly. The dangers facing him were almost inconsequential, but he knew too well that, if not contained, they could blossom into a contagion that would destroy all that he had worked for.

  But, unlike other times before, the King had planned ahead. There would be no slip-ups now. All peril points were well guarded to provide for any possible contingencies. Like now, for example.

  The ancient enemy was approaching him, slowly, innocently, inexorably. The Anointed One, the Chosen, the Messiah; the enemy had many names, and had confronted Him many times in the past, though unlike the present situation, with arrogant superiority and a self-awareness of power that the King could not have possibly resisted, and indeed had never succeeded in doing thus far.

  Ironically, it was this new, previously unbefore seen meekness - and obliviousness - in the enemy that filled the confident King with both delight...and fear. The female was dying, he could feel it already, and was furthermore unclear as to who or what she was exactly. The King, of course, had no doubts that she was the ancient foe who had confronted him countless times in the past, in countless forms and guises.

  But why the deception? the King wondered with mild frustration. Why had the enemy, this time of all times, returned with little or no foreknowledge as to what it was...and from whence it came?

  It didn't make sense. And for that reason alone, the King was worried and fearful.

  Well, regardless, he would nip the problem in the bud before such questions might be answered to his own disadvantage. The she pig Valry was nearby now, floating through the cave right into his hands. And this was a source of great happiness, for there was no way that the King could see, that the hated one of goodness could escape his clutches...

  Following this last, important detail, the King knew other pressing matters were soon to beckon. There was one last battle to fight. But this was more the icing on the cake for the King. Mankind, without its docile defender to holiness, would have to fend for itself. Not even the infuriating obstinacy of the pig-helping Stingers would save humanity now.

  This last thought gave the King special joy indeed.

  For after the vermin Man was wiped clean of the planet, he would then have the leisurely joy of planning the slow extermination of the alien insects who dared to violate his right to tyranny.

  * * *

  The innocent one from the sky was safe now.

  The Birdog had done well.

  Strange, she thought suddenly; her powers had increased --yet they were only powerful enough to save others -- and not herself.

  Death was near. Or maybe something worse.

  He was here more horrible - and beautiful - than any Redeye could hope to be. She could feel his presence, like a cold wind, and now a name had come to mind. She had told the one called Rzzdik (she preferred Zolan), the stranger from the Ball what his name was. He was coming after her. He would get her.

  The Resistor.

  Valry screamed, then opened her eyes.

  She was feeling very dizzy, and the pain racking her body threatened to force her back into unconsciousness, but even so debilitated, Valry could determine that something was happening around her that was not linked to her injuries. Fighting for focus against the thin, beams of light lazing down, Valry raised her head in one gargantuan effort and glanced around herself.

  There was no mistake.

  She was... moving.

  Valry's hands instinctively clutched at the ground. Even that didn't feel right. Pushing herself up to her knees, she looked around the river cavern. Suddenly, her face wrinkled into an expression of revulsion and pain. Hugging herself miserably, she just stared at the scaly tissue beneath her.

  A jagged wave of agony cut into her chest, making her collapse again to the spongy flesh she had been resting on. Chills attacked her next, intensifying the firebrand in her lungs. She cried out to the darkness around her, and was vaguely surprised to hear the name she spoke.

  Zolan. Help me.

  But the only response that came back was a low, dull bellow from the thing she lay upon. The slug neither slowed nor speeded up its pace at Valry’s cry, nor had it really answered the dying girl in its own language. It had accepted her presence aboard its back indifferently; it neither had the interest or the capability to communicate with her. Moaning periodically, it continued on its mysterious way through the river, ignoring Valry as completely as a dog would a resting flea.

  Shock and trauma were taking their toll, and in the next few minutes, Valry could do nothing more than clutch onto the slug's flesh and fight for breath. Even this exercise became too exhausting, and Valry at last gave way to a semi-conscious hysteria.

  Suddenly, the slug came to a complete halt. Its dim intelligence examined the source of its apprehension, and made it groan with panic. Quickly, it swam towards the embankment, anxious to get its mass on top of a solid surface. The slug's dull instincts could not inform it that it was heading into the very maws of the danger it had earlier detected. Valry continued to doze and rave above, oblivious to the slug's new course towards land.

  No sooner had the slug come to rest against the slimy rocks, than its soft skull was abruptly crushed. It had not even seen the blow coming and its body twitched for one split moment before quieting forever.

  A low chuckle echoed against the wet rocks making the clammy grotto more icy than before. It was suddenly stifled as a confused growl pierced the air.

  From the opposite direction of the unholy laugh, the pursuing vampire's eyes beamed through the blackness, staring at the now quiescent slug and the feast resting on the dead animal's back. Ordinarily, it would not have taken the time to ponder why the slug had died so sud
denly, or why now the food which it had been following for hours was abruptly so accessible. Ravenous instincts should have prevailed, but the injured Redeye was now distinctly hesitant to make a move.

  For it realized that there was something else in the cave. Snarling uneasily and salivating with starvation, the vampire moved slowly forward. Its vision was unhampered, so seeing in this murky environment was not a problem, but still it could detect nothing to substantiate its own feelings of disquiet.

  At last, the gnawing famishment could not be ignored. The vampire dismissed its fear and gave way to its compulsive passions. It leaped over to the slug's prone body and extended a grizzled claw out to touch the girl.

  An almost gentle pressure weighed down on the vampire's shoulders, as if it was about to receive a loving massage. The Redeye only had a moment to be puzzled by this mysterious violation, for quickly the pressure became something different and permanent. Bone and flesh cracked as the damaged vampire was twisted into a pretzel, its arms and legs dangling in a dreadful picture of asymmetry.

  Only a wheeze of wonder escaped the fetid lips as the vampires body was then raised into the air and cast into the cold river, sinking to the bottom like a rock.

  The chuckling of moments before resumed and grew louder. Valry continued to sleep, only rolling her head from side to side and curling up into the warmth of the slug's corpse. She was not even aware of being picked up and carried.

  Nor did she feel the blood being drained from her neck with precision care and adoration. Valry never awoke. She could not hope to know that she would never awake again as a human being.

  * * *

  Once, a very long time ago - on a much different Earth - John Phillips had visited the parched, drought-ridden wastelands of Ethiopia. He would never forget the scenes of utter devastation and hopelessness which prevailed there; the statistics were consistently deplorable, with hundreds of victims perishing on a daily basis, and more than half of these being children. Pestilence and famine had been the biggest killers, and their power had never seemed to diminish even with the intervention of imported medical facilities and food relief.

  Phillips had been profoundly affected by his visit; never again did he believe he would witness so much suffering in a single place, or amidst a single race of people. Insanely remote from his imagination was the possibility that he might one day finish his life in a similar manner as the tortured, malnourished souls he had pitied from a sympathetic, yet naturally removed, distance so many centuries back.

  Yet now, a million years later in the twilight of Mankind's existence, Phillips was no longer a detached observer to tragedy; he was a full-fledged participant, and he had the further dubious distinction of being the sole representative to a civilization that was at least partially responsible for its own ultimate demise.

  Phillips no longer felt sorrow or remorse for the inevitable doom that lay ahead for his people - or for himself. At first, when Thalick had found the Challenger, and subsequently urged he and his daughter to join the tribe, Phillips was stunned, and even outraged, that the gentle, weakened descendants of his own species were slowly being devoured by the Redeyes and the plague-dispensing Dark. Those early days with the tribe marked a point of catharsis for John Phillips; instilled with a new purpose for living, he threw himself into the monumental endeavor of instructing humanity and working on a possible cure to the sickness which thrived off of it. In the Stingers, he found strong and willing allies, but as the years passed and the tribe continued to disintegrate from Redeye assaults and Dark-related illness, Phillips recognized the futility in his endeavors.

  As the Thelericks had understood for thousands of years before his arrival, the prognosis for Mankind's survival dictated that a postponement to doom was all that could be struggled for. There was no cure to the Dark; and there were not enough of them to effectively discourage the persistent vampire from further sieges. All the Stingers could do, along with Phillips' assistance, was to keep the tribe moving away from the ever-growing numbers of Redeye hoards which migrated and shadowed its every move.

  Perched on top of the Stinger Green-Belly, Phillips now surveyed the new valley which he and the Thelericks had led the tribe to several days earlier. It was a rocky place, divided by a three-fingered stream that finished abruptly where the desert began. On one side of it, a strange, twisted forest of rubber-like vegetation crawled over rolling slopes that later sprouted into thousand-foot mountains directly north. Canyons and passes delved into the surrounding cliff walls, which from a strategic standpoint, held excellent potential for defensive planning against any foreseeable enemy from the desert. Gigantic blocks of volcanic stone spotted the valley floor, some rising over twenty feet high, and these, too, could be exploited advantageously for defensive purposes. Rising two hundred feet above the desert boundaries, the valley was actually part of a gradual slope that later formed a chain of snow-capped peaks that fed the descending streams and forest perimeter. With the promise of so much camouflage, coupled with a high-ground superiority, the valley was far more than just an insulated sanctuary for the tribe; if necessary, it would serve as a final battlefield in which a protracted retreat would be possible for at least a week.

  These logistical handicaps had not been overlooked by the thoughtful Stingers; indeed, while the tribe was only halfway across the desert, several Thelerick scouts had painstakingly reconnoitered hundreds of miles of this lower hill chain in search of a proper base camp. Ideally, the Stingers should have urged the tribe further into the mountains, where the higher elevations assured substantial safety from potential vampire threats.

  But so exhausted and sick had the people become, that to push on further after coming out of the desert barely alive, would have killed many more with the ambitious climb upwards. Thus, the lower foothill regions where the streamy valley was located was decided upon as the tribe's new home.

  For a week now, it had proved to be a benevolent sanctuary. But the earthquake of only hours earlier had transformed the place into a living tomb, once again shattering all hopes for Phillips that his people could enjoy at least a modicum of peace and life. He stared at the rock rubble around him, listening to the cries of those trapped beneath tons of smashed stone which the Stingers were attempting to remove. For all of his concern with the tribe, though, Phillips' main concentration was devoted to what he had seen drop from the Dark a few minutes earlier.

  Phillips was perhaps the only creature on Earth to realize the configuration of the falling star had been that of a spacecraft - though where it could have come from, he could not even guess at as yet. He was not pleased that his daughter had accompanied Thalick in the investigation, and had he the opportunity, he would have refused her the privilege entirely. Had the earthquake not inflicted so much damage to the tribe, he might even have saddled one of the Stingers for the journey himself.

  With this last thought, Phillips doubled over in pain, and was forced to lower himself to a sitting position on the Green Belly's back. The cancer within him was a sober reminder to Phillips that his movements and activities had to be kept at a minimum. It had been just as well, he concluded, that Valry had gone with Thalick instead of himself to find the UFO; realistically, Phillips knew that he never would have survived the endeavor.

  Barking out feeble orders to the men and women around him who had escaped injury from falling rock, Phillips paraded around on top of Green Belly for the next hour, offering words of comfort where he could when a new victim and friend was dug out from beneath the scattered debris.

  The Stingers were kept busy administering emergency doses of venom to those who had sustained brutal damage, but for all their efforts, the earthquake toll had summed up a devastating twenty dead, with twice that many wounded. Among the dead, Phillips was especially bereaved to discover, was his little attendant Marma. The old woman had taken care of him for several years now, and he had grown to depend upon her for almost all of his needs.

  Phillips sobbed openly, as he
saw one of the Stingers lay her corpse out alongside the other bodies recovered.

  Another hour passed before three of the Stingers completed the mass grave a mile out in the desert. By the time they returned, the tribe for the most part had already forgotten about the disaster, and were already involved with ripping the precious Fuzzy apart that Thalick's hunting foray had produced.

  Phillips remained aloft on Green Belly, alternately looking at the Fuzzy ceremony and to the slopes beyond where his daughter and Thalick had disappeared. He was worried for Valry, though he knew that she was under the finest protection on the planet, and he could not dispel the feelings of anxiety he experienced each time he thought back to the Dark's maniacal behavior and the thing it had deposited earthward a few hours earlier.

  The air in the valley had become distinctly more muggy since the Dark storm, and though the temperature had risen a few degrees, Phillips felt chilled and frightened. There was something different about the world around him now, and the strangeness of it made him uneasy.

  A low breeze whined terribly through the valley. Phillips found himself listening to it. And there was a voice. Phillips went white, and his eyes blinked in animal terror.

  Phillips was about to scream, before several screams interrupted his own. Opening his eyes, he looked around himself at the tribe and Stingers. All the people were running and yelling heading for the protection of the nearest Stinger, and grabbing on to a comforting leg or claw. Their eyes were turned toward the sky.

  The sky blackened. The breeze which had moments ago carried the menacing voice on its breath had evolved into a lashing wind storm, and Phillips was now forced to cover his head with his torn blanket to shelter his eyes from the racing dust.