Michael McCollum - Who Will Guard the Guardians.pdf - Michael McCollum - margozap

With

Catherine McCollum

Immortality must be purchased for a price.

Perhaps that price is too high.

The dream came again, once more full of greens and reds, and children's faces. There were

hundreds of them! Some wore ugly, teasing, taunting, hating faces. Others were beautiful. Their

peaches-and-cream complexions were split by broad smiles as the faces' tiny owners laughed and

shouted with joy. Others were indistinct faces, while still others stared at her with sad, longing

eyes...

Fria opened her eyes with a start, frightened to discover that she had not been sleeping after all. She was

lying in a large meadow of yellow wild flowers that had somehow escaped her goats and sheep. She had

been staring up at the cloud-strewn sky when she had drifted off to ... where? She shivered at the

thought. The doctors of so long ago had warned her about hallucinating. Hallucinations, they had told

her, would be the first sign of the impending end. When she began to see things that were not there, that

would be hard evidence that all human beings are mortal, even Fria and those like her.

Nothing, it seemed, is forever.

She sat up and then quickly got to her feet. For the first time in many minutes, she could again hear the

faint hum of wild bees and the quiet whisper of the wind blowing across the hillside. Exasperated, she

bent down to brush the yellow pollen from her long woolen skirt, before turning and starting up the trail

that led toward the top of her mountain. As she left the meadow, a dark shape burst from the

underbrush to trot beside her.

Her dog was a nameless mongrel of uncertain parentage, one of the periodic houseguests who drifted

into her life, stayed awhile, and then drifted out again. She sighed, and spoke for the first time in several

hours. The dog pricked up its ears at the sound.

"Hopefully it is too late for her to come tonight," Fria mused. "Help me gather in my sheep and I'll share

my supper with you!"

By the time she had penned the sheep, milked her two goats, and shooed the chickens back into the old

shed, there were three new dogs sitting in front of her stoop. They were thin and scraggly. One had half

its ear gone and was marked by the diagonal line of a long healed scar across its muzzle. The scar gave

the animal a mean look that the wagging of its tail belied.

Ever since the Destruction, dogs had not been kept much as pets. That unhappy time had apparently

severed the age-old bond forever. Any stray canine that wandered into the village at the foot of her

mountain was more likely than not to end up in the community stew pot. Save for the few relics like

herself, no one now alive remembered the time when dogs had been "man's best friend."

Fria noted with a pang that the collie mix among the strays was a pregnant bitch. She shivered beneath

her woolen shirt, hoping that they would be gone before the bitch's time came.

Inside the stone house, it was cold. It was always cold. She did not mind, for the cold was her

preservative. She could barely remember when being warm had been one of the natural conditions of

life. The house was also dark as the light of day faded outside. She cured that problem by lighting an oil

lamp. As usual, what few furnishings she had were well hidden by the clutter - tattered and yellowing

books, scattered sheets of foolscap with scrawls of lumpy, homemade ink on them, her lounging cats. At

the thought of her cats, her eyes sought out Pounce's customary position.

The cat's tail could be seen protruding from beneath an impromptu tent of old magazines. Pounce was

the one constant in Fria's life, and she loved the animal dearly despite the cat's lazy, ungrateful attitude

toward life. Pounce was also the last link she had to the long departed world of her youth.

"Here, Pounce!"

The tabby's head lifted slowly from the pile of magazines, as though to reproach Fria for disturbing her

sleep. Pounce yawned, seemed to debate with herself on whether rising to her feet was worth the effort,

and then arched her back as only a cat can. She walked to the edge of Fria's ancient desk and waited.

Fria reached out to scratch behind the cat's ears. After a short pause, she was rewarded by the deep

rumble of Pounce's purring.

"You're slowing down, cat. Can you finally be getting old after only 400 years?"

Fria chuckled at her feeble joke and wondered what the villagers would say if they had overheard it. At

the thought of the village and its inhabitants, the smile faded from her lips.

Fria did not tolerate people and allowed herself very little contact with others. She deemed the villagers

to be irritating fools, and had little reason to believe the rest of humanity was any better. Occasionally

they would send pilgrims up the long trail to the top of the mountain. They would bring offerings that she

would grudgingly bless. Once, long ago, she had tried to help them. However, the effort had been

fruitless.

Like the houses of the village, her home was without electricity. This had not bothered her for a long

time. One large room held a fireplace where she cooked and spent most of her time. A small bedroom

in the rear was separated from the main room by a ragged woolen blanket hung from the ceiling. A

sleeping loft completed her domicile.

Fria ate her meal sparingly and gave most of it to the dogs that waited patiently outside. After the collie

mix had gulped down a bowl of curdled goat's milk, Fria found herself scratching the base of the bitch's

ears. She could not figure out why she cared. Maybe it was because she remembered what dogs had

been like before...

She brought her thoughts back to the present with a start. She'd let her grasp on reality slip again. She

knelt over the bitch, running her hand over its distended belly. A tiny lump moved beneath her fingers.

She pulled her hand away as though it had rested on a hot stove. The sudden movement caused the

collie to yelp and run for its companions.

"Sorry," Fria said, sighing. She turned to go inside and then glanced back at the dogs, tears welling in her

eyes. "At least you have each other."

Fria's evenings were long and restless and sleep was hard to find. Sometimes at night, she would sit by

the fire and stir the coals, staring at the burning brightness until her eyes hurt. Fria's need for sleep had

declined over the years and what little rest she did get was increasingly filled with nightmares. She would

often toss and struggle on her small straw bed until she was covered in cold, clammy perspiration.

Tonight she lay half-asleep on her bed. The long dead faces were just beginning to form as the cold fear

began to build inside. A dull thudding seemed to burst inside her head. She forced herself awake, then

bolted into a sitting position. The sudden movement made her dizzy. Fria sat at the edge of the bed, her

hands pressed tightly to her head. The pounding noise refused to end. The barking of the dogs was

undercut by a muffled voice that floated to her above the din.

Fria found the candle by her bed with trembling hands. She stumbled to the fireplace where a red glow

of dying embers still lingered. She doubled over, touched the candle tip to the embers, and was

rewarded by a pale, yellow flame. The pounding at the door had become more insistent. Her heart

thumped almost as loudly as the noise. She could feel her pulse in her throat as she pulled the door

open. In the faint light, she saw a frail little creature pushing awkwardly at the surrounding dogs.

"Get these animals away from me!" The wraith screamed as it kicked at the dogs.

Fria hesitated. Before she could respond, the figure pushed past her and deposited itself in front of the

fireplace. Fria fought the wind and forced the door closed before turning. The figure removed its wet

cloak, revealing a young girl with wet blond curls, a pale pinched face, and fair coloring. The girl

dropped her cloak in a heap at her feet, turned, and returned Fria's stare. The girl took a step closer,

disbelief on her face, as she lifted her hand to touch Fria's face.

"You're not old at all," she said before emitting a short, sharp bark of a laugh. "Why you aren't even as

old as my mother!"

Fria pulled away and brushed quickly past the girl. She placed the candle on the table and threw a log

on the fire. In seconds, it had burst into yellow flame. She turned to the girl and pointed toward the fire.

"Stand in front of the hearth and remove your clothes."

The girl hesitated, her eyes wide with fear.

"Now!"

The girl walked across the room, past the clutter, moving in concert with the emerald cats' eyes that

stared unblinking from the shadows. "This is where you live?"

Fria ignored the question and watched intently as the girl, her fingers numb with cold, struggled with her

laces.

"What is your name, girl?"

"Amber," the girl said as she halted the struggle with her wet clothes and smiled shyly at Fria. "I've come

a long way. I am cold and hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"

"Later!"

"I'm awfully hungry. I stopped in the village. When I told them I was looking for you, they turned away."

She hesitated as she noticed the flare of anger in Fria's eyes. She gulped loudly before continuing. "You

were expecting me, weren't you? I mean, you knew I was coming? The elders said you knew!"

Fria nodded angrily. "I knew all about it. Stop dawdling and disrobe!"

Amber had removed her sodden dress and stood before Fria in a loose fitting camisole. Her lower lip

quivered and she shook her head in a curt negative. Fria lifted the candle to where it was even with

Amber's eyes and leaned forward until their noses were mere inches apart.

"Now that you are here there can be no refusals. I must be sure. Your life depends on it."

The girl whimpered as she lifted the soaked camisole over her head. The firelight reflected off her body

in flickering shadows. Fria grabbed the girl by the shoulders and spun her around. The tattoo was

precisely where it should have been. The number bore the crisp, machine-produced look of an

Examiner. No human hand could have forged it. And if that wasn't sufficient, the number tallied with the

simple, unbreakable code that Fria had used when she gave out the chrome and steel Examiner boxes a

dozen years earlier.

The girl had been rightfully chosen, rightfully marked.

After the verification was over, Fria stepped back and let her eyes rove over the rest of Amber's body.

What she saw was a young girl on the verge of womanhood. The signs of incipient puberty were

everywhere, from the slight swelling of the hips, to a hint of breasts to be. Fria let her eyes drop to the

bare triangle between Amber's legs. She was reminded of another girl four centuries earlier who had

shyly covered herself as other hard eyes had surveyed her.

She was reminded of what she had lost.

"Don't get dressed. Lay your clothing on the hearth to dry. You will find a blanket to wrap yourself up in

the loft. After that, I'll give you food."

With that, she turned her back as the girl followed her instructions. It was not until she heard the soft

scrabbling of bare feet on straw in the loft that Fria began to shake.

Fria recognized that her mood would allow her no further sleep. She waited silently for Amber to eat her

fill, and then saw her bedded down. She waited until a quiet, regular breathing could be heard from the

loft before wrapping a wool blanket tightly around her shoulders and stepping out into the moonlit night.

The mountain air was cold - uncomfortably so, even for her - yet the tiny stabbing pain that accompanied

each inhalation seemed to clear her head and calm her emotions.

She did not walk far. Four centuries of residence among the high crags had taught her feet the path to

the outcropping of granite that overlooked her meadow of flowers. She was barely conscious of her

progress, or of the dark shadows of the dogs that followed closely behind.

Fria found her perch and pulled her knees to her chest, drawing the blanket about her. Below, the field

of flowers rippled eerily in the moonlight, as though it was some far sea whipped by storm winds. She

lifted her eyes to the sky. The stars seemed steel hard points of radiance, as chilly as the wind around

her. She was filled with sadness as she caught sight of a star that moved slowly from west to east in

violation of nature's order.

There had been a time long ago when fathers held their children aloft and pointed out the moving lights

that were the great space stations, the jumping off places for the far planets. No longer. Now the sight

of the sky derelicts only served to remind people of The Destruction. Few stargazed as a result.

Fria was different. She had long ago ceased to fear the sky. Now it held only a pleasant sadness for

her, a wistfulness for that which might have been. The old memories spilled forth in abundance. In many

ways, they were clearer than those of the year just past. She shuddered at the thought. The ability to

recall your childhood (but not your morning) was one of the first symptoms of creeping senility.

Her clearest early memories were of her father telling her stories of the time before The Troubles; the

time when man's future had seemed unlimited, the time before the aliens came. In those days, it had

seemed as though humans had finally tamed their warlike nature as they spread throughout the solar

system. Their settlements dotted the surface of Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and the moons of Jupiter and

Saturn. Their mines scarred the surfaces of fiery Mercury and frigid Pluto. Their orbital cities grew rich

and prosperous. Only the far stars were left for conquest and humanity was thinking about mounting the

effort.

Then the aliens came.

Their interstellar ships were wolves among Earth's interplanetary sheep. Only when they came up against

fixed planetary defenses did they show any vulnerability. Even then, however, humanity was able to

achieve little better than a standoff. The best computers Earth possessed gave space-going civilization

less than two centuries to live if nothing were done to change the odds.

Something was done. Human weapons research was easily on a par with that of the aliens. Only in the

development of interstellar craft was humanity behind its tormentors. The solar system's leaders decreed

a punitive expedition be launched to carry the battle to the aliens' home star. The expedition would take

nearly a century to cross the black gulf of space, far too long for anyone then alive to survive the voyage.

To provide the expedition with crewmembers, a crash program of research into drastically extending

human life span was begun.

The scientists worked for twenty years while Starship Vengeance was slowly assembled in orbit. A

decade after Fria's birth, they found their answer. It was not a perfect answer by any means - more than

a million laboratory animals had died in the experiments - but it was an answer, of sorts

If the subject was female and on the verge of sexual maturity ... if she possessed a rare factor in her

blood ... if these and a hundred other parameters were exactly right, then it was sometimes possible to

extend the human life span to half a thousand years or more. The first success had been Pounce, the cat,

for a few years the most famous "person" on Earth.

Then had come the human volunteers. Grisly experiments established that the chances of success were

less than one in a hundred. In the end, however, fifty little girls emerged from the treatment tanks after

more than two years of therapy, each ready to take the war to the enemy.

The enemy never gave them that chance.

Fria fidgeted uncomfortably on the rocky ground. The dogs had wandered off to scavenge food for their

hungry bellies. A dim light in the east hinted at dawn. She would have to face the girl soon. She shut her

eyes and tried to keep the memories from washing over her. The mere thought of Amber triggered a

mental picture of herself at the same age. She had been so happy, so blissfully ignorant of the

consequences of The Treatment. She had long since forgiven her parents. After all, how could they have

known what immortality would be like? She could not very well blame the twelve year old Fria, either.

That little girl had been far too young to have any real opinion in the matter. If only...

"No!" screamed aloud as she forced herself to her feet. What was done was done, and wishing would

not change it. She turned in the first, gray light of dawn and started back up the hill to her house. Amber

would be waking shortly, and if her appetite of the previous evening were any indication, she would want

breakfast.

Fria stirred a boiling pot of corn meal and listened to the sounds of the various animal inhabitants of her

mountain greeting the new day. Two blue jays fluttered through the trees in front of her house, chirping

Michael McCollum - Who Will Guard the Guardians.pdf

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