The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

“I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision,” said Scott, moving to unzip the tent for them. “This meeting is over and Miss Bierce?” “I know, Everly,” she sighed, heaving herself up. “Don’t let the flap hit me in the ass on my way out. Let me tell you something.” “Bierce,” said Eric warningly, but Crandall, grinning, said, “Let her talk, man.” “Sooner or later, you are going to have to say something that people won’t want to hear,” Amber said. “And if you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be in charge.”

“Nicci, look at this,” said Amber, reaching out to pat her sister’s hip. “Look what he’s doing.” Nicci rolled away from her. “Is he building a starship?” she mumbled. “No, but—” “Then I don’t care. Leave me alone. I’m sleeping.”

Meoraq had not moved more than his eyes or his spines in all this time, but at that, he suddenly stood up. He took two steps, unhurried, and slapped Scott right out of the air even as he was leaping away. He caught him before he hit the ground, pulled him close, then said quietly, “Lizard?” He said it strangely, softening the z and rattling on the r, but he said it and it was easy to hear because no one else made a sound. Meoraq tipped his head to the side in that way he seemed to think was threatening and said, once more in lizardish, that no one sent him anywhere and if S’kot or any other human (he said that oddly as well, drawing out the ooo-sound and hammering a hard T on the end) thought otherwise, he would…something. The word he used was not a familiar one and in this context could have meant anything. Whatever he said, he sounded like he meant it. And then he tipped his head even further on its side and asked if S’kot understood him. “Yes,” said Scott at once, his eyes huge. Meoraq asked if he was sure. S’kot apparently heard nothing but hisses and grunts (he exaggerated the animal quality of these sounds; Scott flinched hard both times) of a lizard when Meoraq spoke. “I…” Scott rolled his eyes wildly back at Amber, waxen-faced. “Say something, for God’s sake! What does he want?” “What does he want?” Amber huffed out an angry, humorless laugh and rubbed a final time at her unwounded mouth. “He wants a fucking apology, Commander.”

This was all that Scott could stand. “Goddammit, Bierce, you are not in charge! You don’t have people here and you don’t give orders to any of mine!” Meoraq caught Amber by the shoulder as she began an answer and moved her firmly aside. He advanced, and kept on advancing as Scott retreated, until he’d backed the human up right against the machine’s shining carcass. He put his hand on the hilt of his samr and leaned over, face to ugly human face. “What are your orders, S’kot? Do you walk with me or go to Gann?” Scott glared at him, deeply colored in parts of his face and very pale in others. A paradox, like his mouthparts, which were tightly pressed together and yet trembled. “Someone, say something.” “You’re a dick,” said Amber, somewhat less than obediently.

“I am a tachuqi. A lone tachuqi. One only man-height, with no beak or talons, ha! I am just such a lamed and feeble enemy and you have come this close to me. Take up your spear.” She looked around, as if thinking it would present itself, then closed her hands hesitantly around empty air and bent her knees in a clumsy warrior’s stance. She eyed him with suspicion and uncertainty in equal parts and then lunged for him. He kicked as a tachuqi kicks, leaping up and driving his leg outward, even sweeping his foot downward in the slashing motion that would disembowel if he had the beast’s killing talon. She tried to dodge—she also finished her lunge, stabbing her imaginary spear into his side as her dying act in a move that he knew his training masters would roar with delight to see even as they beat her for her suicidal stupidity—but his boot caught her fully on the chest and knocked her hard to the ground. He bent, his hand hooked to make a tachuqi beak, and gripped her firmly by the throat. “You are dead,” he told her. “Get up.”

“Can you teach me that?” Amber asked at last, still avoiding his eye. Meoraq snorted. “Yes. Come to me as soon as you can present the signet of your father’s House, proving you are a son born to the warrior’s caste and we shall begin the seventeen years of training. Don’t talk at me like an idiot. We don’t have time to waste in foolishness.”

Meoraq reached out and caught at her leg before she could flee. He rubbed his brow-ridges, cursing himself and all the words he could not make, because there was no way to tell her that it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t either that fierce eruptive will of Sheul or the shameful temptation of Gann, but this…this nameless thing that was neither fire nor clay but as constant as the wind, sometimes a storm and sometimes only a breeze, was always with him. No, it was not sex, but it had to be something that made him look for reasons to sit with her, to speak with her, even to fight with her if that was all there was, because even the most tedious and foul chore of curing a damned animal hide could become something to look forward to if he was with her. And it wasn’t sex, but he wished it was; it wasn’t sex, but if it had been, even that could be good, could even be glorious, just because it was with her.

Never mind. Regardless of the wife he would be given when and if he returned from Xi’Matezh, he was Sheulek now. He was the master of his clay at every hour and in every temptation. He was Uyane Meoraq, a Sword and a true son of Sheul, and no slave to the lure of any female. He was his own man, and even if one were to drop this instant at his feet— A heavy body struck up against his back and, with a sharp cry and a failed grasping hand, Amber tumbled over his shoulder and landed heavily half in and half out of his lap. Her knee knocked him in the snout as she thrashed to right herself. He swore, grabbing at her with one hand and his injured face with the other, and heaved her off onto the ground. “Mind where you put your feet, damn it!”

Meoraq studied him as the humans around them offered their own promises, bargains and pleas. Their voices meant nothing to him. There was a blackness inside him and he thought that if he closed his eyes and let it out, he might open them again to find an hour gone and every human dead, and that was, in this moment, a very fine thought.

He looked past her, loudly flattening his spines. “I have not invited you back.” “It’s raining,” Eric said on the stair. “Excellent. Keep me informed. Get out.” Meoraq continued to stare until Eric and the others turned around and tromped back upstairs. “Raining,” he muttered, and prodded at the heat stones.