The Last Dancer | Page 2

well before he was
in danger of losing consciousness from anoxia had regained control of
his breath. His eyesight cleared slowly of its own accord. The Dancer
lay on the frozen ground, waiting. The kitjan screamed once, twice,
while he waited there. The first shot came nowhere near him; the Shield
had not seem him clearly when he fell. The next shot came closer, sent
another wash of wracking pain through the Dancer; more of the
unlikely luck that had felled him in the first place.
It was dark now. Once, long ago, before the Dancers had learned to
control the temperature of their bodies, that lack of visible light would
have meant little; the Shield saw body heat as well as any Dancer. Now
that darkness might well make the difference between life and death.
Lying motionless at the base of the boulders, looking down the
mountain, the Dancer saw the first flicker of motion among the
thinning trees, of the Shield closing in. The Dancer let his heartbeat
slow, let the blood move sluggishly through his veins. He felt it first in
his hands, as his body temperature dropped slowly toward freezing,
toward the ambient temperature of the world around him. At last he
moved, rolled carefully into a crouching position. He could not feel his
extremities well. He moved cautiously now, not certain how close the
Shield might be, up through the ravine, through what little cover
existed above the tree line.
To the cave.
There was little enough inside besides the cache of hardware from the
ship. The cave was small, and even though the Dancer had not been
there in a very long time he found the device he needed quickly: a key
meant to be held in the palm of a man's hand.
In the darkness the Dancer felt for the studs on the surface of the key,
and moved his thumb to cover the oval stud which would bring him
safety.
Behind him, at the entrance to the cave, Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan said
quietly, "Good-bye, Sedon."

The kitjan found him while Dvan was still speaking. The Dancer never
heard his name uttered. In the moment of his death as the air left his
lungs in a desperate, convulsive scream, the Dancer's thumb spasmed
on the stud controlling the stasis bubble.
They were above the tree line; Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan unslung the ancient
laser from across his back, and with it set the side of the rock face near
him to glowing. He sat outside the entrance to the cave, with the
mirror-surfaced stasis bubble at his back, and waited. In the hours
before morning it grew deadly cold from the arctic wind coming down
off the nearby glaciers. Dvan shivered so badly that even with his
glowing rock, lased regularly to a cherry red, he was not certain he
would survive the night. His clothing was cured leather inlaid with fur;
crude, warm enough most of the time, but perhaps not for tonight.
He did not sleep that night. He wasted no time thinking about the
Dancer; Sedon was dead. The stasis bubble might postpone the moment
of death, but Dvan was content that his work was done. The sort of
medical technology necessary to save a Dancer touched at close range
by the kitjan existed nowhere on this planet, and had not for a long,
long time.
The night wore on forever. Once Dvan nearly slept, but found himself
jerking awake to the conviction that blazing red eyes hovered out in the
darkness beyond the glowing slab of stone, watching him; the
red-furred beast that had led him to Sedon, the spirit sent by the
Nameless One--but when he shook himself fully awake the eyes were
gone.
When dawn finally came, the morning sun lighting the peaks of the
mountains around him, Dvan looked around, fixing the place in
memory, the relationships of the peaks to one another. It took some
time, imprinting the image into deep memory, but at length he was
satisfied; though eons might pass between visits, he would know this
place again.
After a while he got up and stretched to relieve his stiffness, and
headed back down the mountain.

Thirty-seven thousand years passed.

Summer: 2075
They had themselves a party
To wash away their cares
They busted up the furniture
Said they would take back what was theirs
Said they would take back what was theirs
--Mahliya Kutura, Independence Day

1.
"Jasmine."
The voice echoed through the cool empty gym like God calling from a
cheap pay phone.
The woman who called herself Jasmine Martinez slowly exhaled the
breath she had been holding, released her toes, and sat up. She had been
doing stretches for the muscles in the backs of her thighs, sitting with
her legs straight in front of