Orson Card - Earthfall

Meanwhile, Fusum had figured out how to answer Elemak's request in human speech. "I'd like to help you but the crazy man has the axe."

Vas looked at him coldly. "Very good decision, rat boy," he said. "I don't much care whether your brains end up on the floor or not."

"Actually," said Elemak-again in digger language- "he'll kill you as soon as he kills me, and then he'll say that you were the one who hit me with the axe and then he struggled with you and got it away and killed you with it."

Fusum glared at him and answered, stubbornly, in human speech so Vas could understand him. "The axe is already bloody. He's already killed somebody outside the ship."

"Who did you kill, Vas?" asked Elemak. "Anyone I know?"

"Obring," said Vas. "I took his throat out. After I smashed into his heart."

"How appropriate. To shatter his heart as he shattered yours." Elemak laughed. Not because he didn't believe Vas would kill him. On the contrary, he was quite prepared to believe that Vas would try, and given the fact that Elemak was in a weak position, sitting on the floor with no particular leverage, there was a good chance Vas would fell him with a blow before he could attempt any kind of response.

"It's funny to you?" asked Vas.

"And sad, of course. Poor Sevet. Once I'm dead, she'll be back to having to make do with your clumsy occasional efforts at lovemaking."

"I'll kill her, too," said Vas.

"And then who? Everybody else, for instance? You're doomed, Vas. You should have been more clever. You should have bided your time."

"I've already bided my time long enough."

"You should have made it look like an accident. Or better yet, you could have made it look as though you tried to save my life. Take us one at a time, not all at once with an axe. And you have Obring's blood on your clothes. Very clumsy, Vas. They'll have to kill you for it, you know. Can't very well let a murderer run loose."

"You'll be dead first," said Vas.

"Oh, definitely. That'll make you feel much better as they-what, strangle you? Drown you? Maybe Shede-mei has some drug that will carry you off painlessly in your sleep. You can dream of me as you croak out your last breath."

"I'm not afraid to die," said Vas.

"That's too bad," said Elemak. "Because I am. Do you know why? I'm afraid there might be a life after death. I'm afraid I might have to go on living, only without this very comfortable body. What if I'm reincarnated? What if I come back with a body like... yours?"

He said this last with as much loathing as he could muster. It had no effect.

"I'm not going to let you goad me into taking an un-considered move," said Vas. "I know you're sitting there imagining ways to take the axe away from me before I can smash your head in with it. But why should I aim for your head? There are your legs, spread out like the limbs of a tree. I can chop through a five-centimeter branch with a single blow-think I can do as well with your ankle?"

"No, I don't think you can," said Elemak.

"You think you're quick enough to stop me? From a sitting position, you arrogant fool?"

"I don't have to stop you," said Elemak.

"Good thing," said Vas. "Because you can't."

"But Meb can," said Elemak, "He's standing behind you with a very large mallet, and I think he's planning to drive your head down into your shoulders like a spike."

Vas didn't even bother to turn around. "As long as you're conjuring up demons to frighten me with, why not have it be Nafai? He's the only real man around here anyway. I'm not afraid of Meb."

"I quite agree with you," said Elemak. "Meb is only frightening when he's behind you with a mallet. Most of the time he's a worthless little digger turd. But Meb, it won't work. You can't drive his head down into his shoulders, not a soft little head like Vas's. It'll burst open like a melon first. Splash all over the room."

"Don't fantasize about my head," said Vas. "It's your legs that are going to go." He raised the axe above his head.

"If it's any consolation to you," said Elemak, "Meb's been sleeping with Sevet, too."

Vas hesitated, not swinging the axe, not striking the blow, Elemak went on talking. "Your poor wife is apparently lonely enough to settle for anything that pretends to be male, even Meb, who isn't brave enough to smash you from behind after all. What's the mallet for, then, Meb? A cure for rectal itch?"

Meb looked back at him with loathing. Elemak knew that he just hated being taunted and manipulated.

"Oh, Meb," said Elemak. "Just swing the damn thing and have done."

So he did. Meb turned out to have a much stronger swing than Elemak had expected. But Elemak was right about the splashing. It got really nasty, especially after Vas hit the floor and Meb kept right on pounding on his head with the mallet, three, four, five times, until the head was pulped and bits of brain and bone were spattered all over the room. Of course, as soon as Meb calmed down and could look at what he had done, he threw up, as if somehow Vas's head had exploded all by itself and not because he mashed it. But Elemak didn't much worry about Meb. It was Fusum who fascinated him, as he picked bits of Vas's brains off his naked body and ate them.

"Don't get a taste for that, Fusum," Elemak said in digger language.

"Not much different from peccary brains," said Fusum. "I already have a taste for those."

"If you ever harm a human, Fusum, I'll cut you into tiny pieces."

"Even Nafai?" asked Fusum, taunting him.

So Fusum had picked up on the conflicts within the human community-even with Nafai up the canyon most of the time, trying to teach the skymeat how to farm.

"Especially Nafai," said Elemak. "He's mine."

Meb had stopped throwing up. "What were you saying? I heard you mention Nafai."

"Oh, Fusum and I were just saying what a pity it was that the one useful act you will ever perform in your life was wasted on Vas."

"Wasted?" asked Meb. "I killed my friend to save your life and you call it a waste?"

"I would have stopped him before he touched me," said Elemak, He didn't know whether it was true, but he was fairly sure Meb would believe it. "And as for Vas being your friend-I'm not going to weep for you. Not with the smell of Sevet still on you from last night while he was on watch."

"Shows what you know," said Meb, "Last night I didn't have time for Sevet. After all these months of pestering, I finally gave in and let Eiadh make love to-"

Meb didn't finish his sentence. He found himself pressed against the wall with the axe handle strangling him.

"I know it's a lie," said Elemak. "But if I ever thought that it was true, you'd end up praying for me to do for you what you did for Vas. A quick finish. It'd be too good for you, Meb."

"I was joking, you ass," said Meb, when he could speak again.

"Don't waste my time with your apologies," said Elemak, "Not when we have to explain Vas's death to the people I can hear coming up the ladderway right now."

"What's to explain?" said Meb. "I saved your life."

"Ah, but why was Vas trying to take it? And why did you so sweetly care?"

"He was trying to kill you because you were humping his wife," said Meb. "And I cared enough to stop him because you're my older brother and I love you."

"Is that your best performance, Meb?" asked Eiadh as she strode down the corridor toward them. "Lucky for you that we left Basilica before you could humiliate yourself by trying to act in public." Volemak, Oykib, and Padarok came to the door with her, all carrying tools that would have made pretty convincing weapons if they hadn't been in the hands of such gentle, peace-loving souls. "What's all this mess?" asked Eiadh. "Where's Vas?" Then she saw the body on the floor, the ruined head still crookedly connected to the shoulders. She recoiled. "What have you done?" she whispered to Elemak.