The Last Dancer

THE LAST DANCER
A Tale of the Continuing Time
DANIEL KEYS MORAN

This is a work of fiction. None of the characters in it are real people
and any resemblance to anybody, living or dead, is a coincidence.
It is the author's intention that this work should be freely downloadable,
copyable, and shareable in electronic format. It may not be reproduced,
shared, or transmitted for a fee by any party to whom the author has not
contractually granted permission. The author retains all other rights.
Copyright (c) 1993 by Daniel Keys Moran

Dedication:
For Holly. I love you.
And Goodbye To....
My friend Richard Sommers, who died as this edition of the book was
being typeset. I knew him fifteen years, and have never known a more
optimistic, nor perhaps better, man. Just being in his presence made me
feel better about myself and about the world around me. I keep
expecting to hear the phone ring and hear that gruff voice on the other
end of the line, saying "Hello, groovy" -- which was what he called
almost everyone, because in his heart he knew everyone was. I miss
him.

"What the head makes cloudy, the heart makes very clear."
-- Don Henley, The Heart of the Matter

THE LAST DANCER
A Tale of the Continuing Time
There are no longer "dancers," the possessed. The cleavage of men into
actors and spectators is the central fact of our time. We are obsessed
with heroes who live for us and whom we punish... We have
metamorphised from a mad body dancing on hillsides to a pair of eyes
staring in the dark.
-- Jim Morrison

Prolog:
The Dancer
In the last hour of sunlight the Dancer fled through the forest covering
the base of the mountains.
The trees were tall, emaciated things of some pale wood, with dull,
silver-white leaves. They spread themselves thinly but evenly, and in
the shadows of approaching night the Dancer could see no more than
fifteen or twenty paces ahead at any moment. The winds blew cold,
growing colder, dropping down below freezing even before the sun had
set. The Dancer barely noticed except to wonder, briefly, if it might in
some way slow the Shield who pursued him.
If the Shield was Marah, perhaps. But the Dancer suspected Marah was
dead, and if so, the Shield pursuing him was Dvan. Dvan might well
notice the cold; he was no Dancer.
But he would not permit it to stop him.

The Dancer ran faster as the slope of the ground began to rise,
whipcord muscles moving gracefully beneath the sheath of his skin.
One way or another it would all be over soon.
From behind him came a shrill scream, the cry of the kitjan. Closer
than it had been. The Dancer's neural system, vastly more sensitive
than any normal human's, registered a twinge of pain. The kitjan was a
terrifying weapon; the Dancer's companions, four of the eight, had died
in agony at its touch, and if the Shield chasing him got much closer he
would be the fifth. He picked up speed, pushed his amazing body to its
fullest, demanding more speed, and getting it. He wove through the
shadowed trees, pushing aside the barrier of the cold night air. His
breath came smoothly, drew the air, the life-giving oxygen, through his
nostrils, warming it, and then deep into his lungs.
The trees thinned around him as he moved higher up the mountainside,
and the slope grew steeper. Now and again as he climbed he used his
hands to help himself along.
Above the cover of the trees, the huge chain of mountains became
visible again. He moved upward through a long ravine, the sides of the
ravine rising away on either side of him. It was shadowed here, but not
shadowed enough; from nearly any point outside the thickest part of the
forest, the Dancer would be visible now. This was the point of greatest
danger, where, for long moments, he would be in plain view.
A lucky shot; at that distance it could be nothing else. The kitjan
whiplash touched the Dancer, held him for an instant. Nerves fired at
random; every superbly trained muscle in the Dancer's body spasmed at
once. He fell in midstride and struck the ground hard, rolling limply,
tumbling back down slope.
He ended in a crevice beneath an overhanging, ice-scoured boulder.
The Dancer lay on the cold hard ground, fighting the unconsciousness
that crept in on him. He monitored his heart, found it had ceased
beating at the kitjan's touch. He restarted it, inspected its operation
briefly to ensure that it would continue beating unattended. Spasms

ripped the muscles of his abdomen, made breathing impossible. The
Dancer concentrated on the abdominal muscles, and