“Sometimes the civilizations become too vulnerable to criminals. Or the inhabitants become too dependent on the technology and lose whatever virtue they might have had. Anyway, the message says that no technological civilization, anywhere, has been known to get old. Nothing lasts more than a few centuries—
“The oldest known civilization lasted less than a thousand years.”
Frank frowned. He wasn’t buying it. “
“They said they were looking for a place to start again. Where they came from is a shambles.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It says that maybe, if we know in advance, we can sidestep the problem. That’s why they left the warning.”
“Great.”
“If they survive, they say they’ll come back to see how we’re doing.”
We were both silent for a long while.
“So what happens now?” Frank said.
“We’ve reclassified everything. It’s top secret again. I shouldn’t be telling you this. But I thought—”
He rearranged himself in the chair. Winced and rotated his right arm. “Maybe that’s why they called it
“I think so.”
“There was something else about her—”
“Yeah—the bad news,” I said. “When she gave it, nobody would listen.”
CATS IN VICTORY
David Barr Kirtley
Lynx awoke before dawn. He got out of bed, brushed his whiskers, and licked his fur clean. He dressed in boots and a tunic, then donned his rucksack and set out into the dusty streets. The sun was just beginning to peek up over the thatched rooftops. Most of the other catmen of the village were still asleep.
Lynx hiked west, out of town, through the foothills and into the wasteland, where he wandered amid the stark beauty of the stony plains, winding arroyos, and towering plateaus.
He loved walking here, and today he’d secretly resolved to explore as far to the west as he could. His parents would disapprove. Like all the adults of the village, they harbored a vague mistrust of the wasteland, maybe due to the strange mechanical artifacts that they said were sometimes discovered beneath the sands. But the more time Lynx spent out here, the more he felt that such misgivings were baseless.
All morning he climbed hills, clambered over fields of boulders, and strode between pillars of stone. Finally, around mid-day, his westward progress was blocked by a narrow canyon that stretched as far as he could see in either direction. The canyon floor was forty feet below, and the walls were too sheer to climb, so Lynx turned north, skirting the cliff edge and searching for a way across.
Finally he came to a place where a giant tree had grown up from the canyon floor beside the near wall. The tree was dead now, but its pale, branchless trunk would provide easy access down into the canyon. Though there was no telling whether—
Wait. What was that?
He thought he saw movement, below.
A few hundred yards away, the canyon wall was broken by a wide, low cavern. A figure detached itself from the darkness and wandered down onto the sand. Lynx ducked, then slowly raised his head again as the figure came to a halt.
As far as Lynx knew, nothing lived out here except lizards and birds. But this figure was the size of a catman, and walked upright.
Then the thought came to him: A dogman.
Here? Impossible. But it had to be. He knew he should flee, get help, but . . .
The dogmen were almost extinct. This might be the only chance he’d ever get to see one. And he should make sure it was really a dogman, before he alarmed the whole village.
He dropped his rucksack and kicked off his boots. He paced, flexing his hand and foot claws. Then he dashed to the edge of the cliff and leapt onto the tree. His claws dug into the wood, and he hung there a moment, then scrambled down the trunk and dropped lightly to the canyon floor.
He sneaked toward the cave, ducking behind one boulder, then another, then another. A strong breeze blew into his face, and this was good, for the wind would muffle his footsteps and carry his scent off behind him.
He lay down and crawled on elbows and knees until he was just a dozen yards away from the mysterious figure, then peeked around a rock.
Yes. A dogman. It was burlier than any catman, and Lynx could make out its grotesque floppy ears. It wore a grungy tunic and a heavy broadsword. Then the creature turned its head, and Lynx glimpsed its profile—a flat face with saggy jowls and wrinkled folds of flesh around the eyes. A horrible, misshapen creature. An abomination.
Lynx began to crawl backward, then paused, as he spied a second figure emerging from the cave.
This one was . . . not so terrible. A female, slender, perhaps as young as Lynx. Her snout was white, her large eyes banded with brown, and her long, silky ears hung past her shoulders. She too wore a sword, a rapier.
In Lynx’s imagination, dogmen had always been ugly and fearsome and . . . male. He wondered about the female. What was she to the hulking beast beside her? His ally? His wife? She had a sweet look to her, or was that deceptive? Had she ever killed a catman?
Suddenly the big male straightened and poked his nose in the air, sniffing loudly—once, twice.
Lynx felt a prickle of terror. While he’d been distracted, the breeze had shifted, and he was now upwind of the dogmen.
The male roared, “Catmen!” and whipped out his sword. He turned and stared straight at Lynx, who leapt up from his hiding spot and sprinted away, dodging around boulders and vaulting over ditches. Behind him came heavy footfalls and throaty growls as the male chased him, gained on him. Lynx spotted the tree, his escape.
The female cried, “No! Stop him!”
Lynx ran to the tree, sprang onto it, and scuttled upward. The male bellowed and leapt after him, and Lynx heard the swoosh of the broadsword, then the thunk of metal on wood. The whole tree shuddered as the sword struck just below his feet.
He climbed out of reach. The female dogman shrieked in despair, and the male let loose a frustrated howl.
Lynx fled the canyon, as the dogmen’s terrible barking rose up from below him and echoed in his ears.
It wasn’t until much later, when he was far from that place, that he noticed any pain. Then he found that he was missing a few inches off the end of his tail. Blood pooled there, and fell in thick droplets to the sand.
Night had fallen by the time Lynx got back to the village. He headed straight to the temple, raced through the main doors, and burst into the antechamber.
A scribe sat at a small wooden desk and scribbled in a ledger with a quill pen. When he saw Lynx’s agitation, the scribe stood. “Can I help you?”
Lynx gasped for breath. “I have to see Father Cougar.”
The scribe stared disapprovingly. “Father Cougar is delivering the evening service.”
Lynx said, “There are dogmen! Living in the wasteland. Hiding in the caves.”
“Dogmen? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure! They chased me, with swords.” Lynx held up the tip of his tail, which was clotted with blood.
The scribe grew alarmed. “All right. Wait here.” He hurried over to a pair of heavy wooden doors, then slipped through, closing the doors behind him.
Lynx stepped forward and pressed his ear to the wood. Father Cougar’s booming voice filled the other room. Lynx could only make out some of the words, but he grasped the essence of the sermon. Father Cougar was
