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

in his fist and then opened his hand. The rock was glowing, shedding a weak light. He handed the rock to one of the children and repeated it until all held glowing rocks. They each could have generated light from their eyes, but Markos knew that there was a blinding-threshhold: Their eyes’ photoreceptors would be blinded by their eyes’ cold-light generators if they generated too much. When Markos had flashed light from his eyes, he’d been momentarily blinded, and regulating the intensity of the light was a skill he was still developing.
    The light from the rocks was strong enough for them to walk safely into the cave. Markos didn’t recognize the cave—this wasn’t the place where he’d awakened after his death. He was apprehensive, but only for an instant. They were all in the Old One’s hands, and they would have to take their chances.
    They were safe. Or as safe as they could be on the planet with Straka in control of the Paladin .
    The Old One uncovered food stores and they all ate. The cave was large, with walls that gave off a soft, sickly-green light. The floor was dank and cold, but the air was fresh enough. Water dripped down cracks in the walls, slowly but incessantly dropping into little puddles on the floor every few seconds.
    They ate tubers and other roots, as well as some vegetation that the Old One needed to modify before they could eat it. Markos watched what the Old One did with his hands this time and was even more confused and amazed. That’s what they must have meant by “touch and change,” he thought. God, I’m glad they didn’t do that to the crew.
    â€œHow do you do that, Old One?”
    â€œHere. You will understand more once you see this.” He handed Markos a large, irregularly shaped crystal.
    Markos had never seen anything quite like it before. It had a symmetry that was not immediately apparent. He turned it over in his hands, felt the coolness and solidity of it, and was impressed with its beauty. “It’s very nice,” Markos said, “but what has this got to do with what I asked?”
    The old Haber flashed yellow, and Markos shook his head. What did the Old One want him to do? The crystal was nice, refracting the dim green light in the cave into some beautiful colors, but it was only a crystal.
    He handed Markos another one.
    Markos turned the crystal over as if searching for a seam or an opening, feeling with his strange hands for something hidden on its surface. It was smooth all over, as though it had been polished or grown artificially. Other than that, he discovered nothing else about it.
    â€œIt’s very nice,” Markos said. “Prettier than the first.”
    â€œYou do not understand. I, I will have to teach you how to use them.”
    â€œNever mind about these,” Markos said. “Tell me how you did that to the cave entrance.”
    The Old One flashed the same lemon-yellow color again, then grabbed Markos’s hands, cupping them around the crystal. “Touch and change it, Markos. Penetrate the crystal’s surface and find what’s been changed inside.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œThe crystal has been changed. There are unnatural dislocations in its structure. They create colors that are very complex. You can detect these changes, understand them, and then understand the colors.”
    A book?
    The more he learned about these creatures, the less sense they made. After having seen that artifact so close to Tau Ceti and finding Gandji circling the star, peopled by these creatures, everyone on board the Paladin had been bothered by the inconsistency of their culture.
    If this crystal really was a book, then they could have a technology. Still, there was no explanation for where it had gone, or where it was now. And if they did have technology, why did they just sit and wait for Gandji to be destroyed? If they couldn’t or wouldn’t fight, why