Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (4 page)

“Perhaps
I have hu-man, I truly had never thought of it in that manner. I do what I do now for my honor.”

“Do you have family
,
D
rababan
?
Do you mind if I call you
,
Dee?
”

“No
,
I would not mate for fear of what would happen to my family should it ever be found out that I had not let go of my previous beliefs.”

“Have you ever thought of just stopping?” I asked

“Stopping?”

“Fighting
,
I mean, not believing.”

He nodded imperceptibly, “I have not, M
iiiik
e
, for what would there be left for me? To stop would be
su
icide, and suicide opposes eve
rything that the Crava
ra
tar stand
for.”

“Maybe we have more in common than you think
,
D
ee
. How long have you been a
warrior
?” I asked more for the sake of conversation than a true desire to know. He might be the enemy and more
than likely my killer
,
but some
how it was more comforting having him right in front of me than elsewhere, you know the old saying keep your friends close and your… well you know the rest. But there was something else about D
ee
he was for a lack of a better term, a religious being. He believed in a higher entity than himself and he tried even under
the
circumstances to live to tha
t standard
. He didn’t realize like me that we were both failing miserably.

“Ten years
,” he answered
,
breaking my thoughts.

“Ten years?” How have you not gone insane? I shouted to myself.

“
One hundred twenty-eight
lives I
have sent
to a better place.”

“Is that how you get to sleep at night, with the belief that you have bettered your victims
’
lives?”

“These fights
,
M
iiik
e
,
are going to happen whether I am involved or not. I am not the butcher your
Durgan
was. Was it not advantageous to all life that you defeated
him
? How many of your species
’
women did you save? I do what I do because this is my lot in life. I have mourned for the majority of com
batants I have felled, but some
were equivalent to
that monster you defeated and for them I feel nothing except sadness for their souls which will spend all of eternity in Drespenden

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure Drespenden was his version of hell. Damn
,
a theologian would have a field day studying this species, in so many ways our existence mirrored theirs. Life was life no matter what the form.

“You are truly an enigma
,
D
ee
.”

He cocked his head in the universal gesture for ‘Huh?’
.

“You are by far one of the most spiritual beings I have encountered in mine or
your
civilization, yet you are a supreme killing machine, maybe I meant dichotomy. I don’t know
,
D
ee
.
Y
ou
come to me as a friend to see how I am doing
,
but in less than a week you will be trying to kill me.”

“Not trying
,
M
iiik
e
.”

He said it with such conviction, how could
I
not believe him
?
I was
his
next
victim
and I believed it with all my heart.

“I will mourn for you
,
M
iiik
e
,
as I have not mourned for any
one else I have faced in the
arena
, but the outcome will still be the same. You are an honorable being, you are a
spiritual being
,
whether you believe it or not
.
Y
ou are an intelligent being, but you will be the
one hundred twenty-ninth
name I will write on my
tibujarar.”

“Tibu
—w
hat?”

“Tibujarar it is sort of a journal warriors use to keep record of those they have met and defeated in battle. It is an honor to be entered into a tibujarar, it is a sign of respect.”

“Too bad I won’t be around to take part in the festivities.”

D
ee
looked at me with which could only be described as a blank look. How could they be so far up the evolutionary scale and not know what sarcasm was? Man
,
too bad they hadn’t attacked Boston first they wouldn’t have made it any
f
a
rther
, I quipped.

“Is something humorous
,
M
iiike
?”

“The whole fucking thing is kind of humorous
,
D
ee
. First
,
I got a date with the hottest girl in college, who actually liked me. Then we go to this hippy concert, which really isn’t my thing, then I get picked up by aliens, which is rather humorous in
its
own right. But then
,
D
ee
,
it gets really hilarious
.
T
he girl I start having true feelings for becomes a prize and I have to fight for her, but not in the traditional way. No
,
you see
,
I have to at the same time not only preserve my life and the lives of my charges but kill other humans, and not because they are my enemies but merely because they have the unfortunate circumstance of being in the fighting arena with me. So I win some fights
,
kill some people, fear the worst and begin to fall in love with another woman, not because I’m truly in love but I am
afraid for
my own mortality and the false comfort of another is still better than no comfort at all. In the mean time
,
a full scale invasion is being planned against
my home
and everything
that I know
,
love and cherish is
threatened
. And when all seems darkest a light shines at the end of the tunnel and I am in one fell stroke able to save myself and my ‘harem’ as it w
ere
. So
when
I finally get to touch down to my home
,
I realize that my mother has died and my father is on the verge of coming apart because of her death and my disappearance. My best friend has set up some sort of militant camp in the mountains of Colorado
;
I go to see him because I am trying to get away from one woman who loves me
for all the wrong reasons
and one who loathes me for what I have done and become, I go seeking out my friend. I am treated like the returning Helen of Troy, my presence is suspect, I am an outsider on my own planet. How is that possible? My friend proceeds to shoot me in the back
,
no less and
send
s
me to France. Who does that? Isn’t there a more hospitable place I could have gone? Say like the Sahara? Then I come to find out I am no more wanted in that country than I was in my own. The French can’t wait to give me up. But what can you expect, they’ve been giving up now for close to a hundred years
,
it must be something inherent in them. So then I find myself back on board the USS Planet Earth Destroyer, to fight the man voted most likely to be a sociopath in his high school yearbook. By some grace of God
, I side-
step death to be faced with the ultimate weapon of death
—
you
,
my friend. So you see
,
I either find humor in the whole thing or I crawl into a corner and await the inevitable.”

“My friend?”

I couldn’t help but smile
.
A
pparently
,
D
ee
had ‘tuned out’ my entire diatribe except for two words, which I more intoned as another witticism than of anything regarding substantiated meaning. Shit
,
maybe sarcasm was finally going to work in my favor for once rather than something that was going to lead to trouble like my mother always said.

“Sure
,
my friend
,” I said
. “You’re the closest thing to
it
here. You talk to me without the pretense of gain. I know that you are here to gather more information for
you
r
tiburajar, but I also know that you
,
like me
,
are an outsider, you can never ‘fit in’ to your own society, whether it be from
your masters or your own people.
Y
ou are an outcast for what you believe in and now for what you do. Sure you may be revered and awed by those who you claim to know, but they are far more impressed for what you do for them, whether it is to fatten their pockets
or
for the thrill of your ‘entertainment’, it will never be for what you think you stand for or what you believe in your heart. When you die
,
D
ee
,
nobody will mourn your passing
.
A
nother will take up your spot and carry forth your torch of destruction. D
ee
pondered this for a moment and abruptly stood.

“We will talk more of this matter later
,” he said
gruffly. And with that he turned and walked out of my room.

“Well
,
you had better make it soon
,
D
ee
,
I don’t think I have that much time.”

With what appeared to be a glint in his eye (
wa
s I imagining it?) he answered,
“Perhaps.” And with that he left me to think as I no doubt left him the same
way
.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Beth slept fitfully at best, the slightest sound waking her. But with the approaching light of day
,
she could not sit in the open no matter how much her fear was rooting her to that spa
ce. “
Get up
,
Beth.
”
Trying a verbal approach to motivation. She knew staying put was tantamount to suicide
,
eventually whoever was tailing her would discover they had passed her up in the night and begin
backtracking
methodical
ly
. But moving also had its own inherent dangers
.
W
hat
if she moved up on her
attacker while he was sleeping
?
She didn’t feel like she would be much of a match for anyone over the age of ten. Tired, hungry, scared
,
and alone
,
she felt she would more than likely just give up rather than face another confrontation. Now she knew what
Mike
meant when he had told her that he had just wanted to give up. But he hadn’t, he had faced all sorts of
horrible
odds and still plodded on.