Read Online The Eternal Enemy by Michael Berlyn - Free Book Online

turned, then ran to him. While he explained what was required of them—silence, obedience, and self-discipline—the Old One started eating. He started eating everything he could find. Markos was astonished by what the Old One was doing.
    â€œI, I am too close to death to lead you home. I, I do not have the necessary energy for the journey. My, my life must be sacrificed in this manner so that you and your children can see home. This is all important for those, those waiting for us, us. They, they wait for our, our return to understand the change.”
    Huh? What was that all about? Markos wondered. But there wasn’t time to go into it now. The Old One had just nonchalantly turned and walked out of the village. He was heading toward the mountains. Markos quickly ordered the children to follow the Old One, and they all set out through the grassy plain.
    The evening was cool, the wind spiked with an icy chill. Mendils shrieked their mating calls in the darkness. The stars were coming out, filling the night sky of Gandji like thin, high clouds. The farther he walked, the worse Markos felt.
    Maybe they should have stayed in the village. He was abandoning those left behind to certain death. They would just sit there, waiting for the Terrans to come and kill them. Markos was sure that would happen, and that bothered him deep down. He shouted for the Old One to stop, then walked past the children to talk with him.
    â€œWe can’t go. I was wrong. We can’t leave the others behind in the village. I can’t let these outsiders take your planet away from you without giving them a fight.”
    â€œThey are not outsiders. They belong here just as much as we, we do. You are still of them. You understand them. Do not let your concern over the ones left behind cancel what you have accomplished.”
    â€œI still feel the need to stay and get the ones in the village at least well hidden,” Markos said.
    â€œAnd the others? In all the other villages?”
    Markos looked at the ground by his feet.
    â€œWe, we must leave now and go home. These children are important. They are the answer for the change we, we cannot understand.”
    Markos knew there was something more here he wasn’t grasping, something the Old One wasn’t explaining.
    â€œCome,” the Old One said. “Or everything here will be wasted.”
    He turned and walked off through the grass. The children waited by Markos, waiting to be told what to do. He motioned for them to follow the Old One, then followed as well.
    They left behind a narrow trail of flattened grass. The children were silent, and Markos checked on them every few kilometers to ensure they were all right. He needn’t have worried; they made him proud by their composure and self-control.
    They stopped frequently to rest, to let their bodies catch up with them. Markos left the Old One alone. He felt awkward after that exchange they’d had minutes after having set out. He hoped the Haber knew what he was doing.
    Just before dawn the Haber stopped. The mountains towered before them, still a half day’s walk. They had left the plain and were in rocky ground, with small hills and cliff faces directly before them.
    â€œHow much farther?” Markos asked, exhausted.
    â€œWe, we are close now.”
    The old Haber left the small group and walked up to a wall of rock. He touched it with both palms, then he became rigid, immobile; a few seconds later a cave mouth appeared in the rock around the place he was touching. Markos couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. It had been a solid wall of rock and then, an instant later, there had been a cave mouth there. He was going to ask what the Old One had done, how he had done it, but he saw how much that had taken out of him. He seemed to have gotten smaller, lost some body mass. The Old One waved them all inside.
    Once into the darkness, the Old One bent down and lifted a small rock. He clenched it