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Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive .. |
Title: Eden's Serpent
Author: Taryn Eve
Author's e-mail: [email protected]
Fandom: Enterprise
Rating: PG
Category: Gen
Series: Mythology
Summary: A character study of Malcolm Reed.
Comments: I attended a lecture David Brin gave about science fiction and science 12 years ago, and it gave me the idea for this story. Thanks to downinnewyork for the challenge. Tara challenged me to write a present tense story, with the abstract of instinct, with Malcolm alone, and element of animalism. :S I ended up writing my favorite story.
Beta reader(s): downinnewyork
Archived to Reed's Armory on 04/20/2003.
He slides through the waist high grass, seeking an end to the sea. There is no magic transporter to move him faster, to span the endless stretch of grass as swiftly as a ragged heartbeat. Gasping for breath, he wipes the sweat from his forehead, and flings it away like tears he does not need.
A gurgling cry rings out behind him. Crouching, he dashes deeper into the coarse grass, so rough to the touch. It seems to want to cling to him, to catch him for itself.
There is no time for second guessing what happens next. Unsteady smiles on tawny furred faces hound his steps.
A growl zings through the air, sending a bolt of chills down his spine. They are closing in on him.
Every dog has its day...and the sun is setting.
Strangers in a strange land, and the mission goes on. He hopes that the others made it to the shuttlepod after his diversion, but the sky has not split with the noise of lightning ascending.
His empty fingers clutch the grass. Losing the phase pistol makes his hands feel naked. The burns from the explosion of the mini-reactor mark his arms. Stigmata for the Warp Age.
He cannot blame his hunters for their anger. Killing their god, their deus very much machina, has a price. Taking matches from a baby, he thinks. They didn't know what they were doing with the technology they had inherited.
His foot collides solidly with a rock, and he tumbles into the grass, almost impaling himself on the hard stalks.
A roaring fills his mind. His hands come away from his temple, sticky with blood.
Smearing it on his shirt, he looks up at the sky, blue as eternity at that moment. Clouds, white and fluffy and uncaring, sail over him, and he sees the silvery glint of the shuttlepod's belly, already distant. The sighing of the wind through the sea green grass breaks the silence, and he realizes that his pursuers have fallen behind.
He thinks of his sister, and his hungry need to be her knight errant when he was a child. How can he save anyone, weaponless and weak as he is?
Dizzy, he sits up, and flexes his fingers. They hurt, but they tell him he is alive.
Rising to his feet, he scans the perimeter. No sign of the enemy. The burning village is far behind. The scans from orbit he remembers had proven the settlement to be an oasis on the prairie.
Five seconds later, he drops to the ground as an arrow splits the grass where his back had been. Snatching the arrow, he breaks into flight once again.
He has weapons. One arrow, his hands, his feet, and his mind.
Always his mind.
Alien war cries banshee through the air.
He is, of course, surrounded now. He is the fox; there are no safe havens on a hunting ground.
Stopping in his tracks, he holds up the arrow.
He has killed a god today. Tomorrow, these children will have the freedom to think for themselves for the first time in generations.
Seas of jade green eyes approach him.
He snaps the arrow in two. For once, he is no dragon slayer. Instead, he is a force for knowledge, despite its price. Looking up at the single star in the sky, he knows that the mission started long ago will continue. From Adam and Eve to Enterprise, humanity has named the wonders they have encountered. Their orders speak of first contacts, but there shall never be a final contact. And someday, perhaps these alien children will leave the safety of their grasslands, to touch the stars.
Malcolm Reed is Eden's serpent.
He smiles as the howls fill the twilight sky.
~the end~