The Eternal Enemy by Michael Berlyn

though he was ready this time for what they expected, he wanted them to ask him directly. And he knew, sooner or later, that they would seek him out.
    Eating still presented a problem—he wasn’t sure he wanted to extend his life. He hadn’t yet come to grips with eating on those terms. It was taboo for an adult Haber, and he needed to know what they thought of him before deciding anything else. They would tell him.
    A flash of sparkling emerald caught his eyes. The standard Haber greeting. There were two of them, side by side.
    â€œHello, Markos,” the larger, younger one said.
    Markos returned the greeting with his eyes, adding a little orange to the edges of his.
    â€œAre you ready to help us, us now?”
    â€œYes,” Markos said.
    â€œPlease, Markos, have some food,” the older of the two said, holding out what looked like an edible tuber.
    â€œThanks,” Markos said.
    And in return, he held his hands out to them for the thing they wanted. They approached, touching him lightly at first, then more firmly as the physical bond occurred, as the chemicals started to flow into his body.
    He needed to shout his joy but knew better.
    It was the first time he’d felt pleasure coursing through his new body. He’d never even thought that possible. He soared, his spirit lifting, blanketing the whole planet. And as their genetic material flowed into and through him, Markos realized how constant his pleasure could be. He could walk across the plains, greeting countless pairs of Habers.
    He would be a different kind of flow-bridge for them, the flow-bridge for which they had been waiting.
    His first generation would be strange. He shaped them in his mind’s eye before returning the genetic materials. And if these mutations weren’t the right ones, there would be others. And there might even be enough time, Markos thought. Enough time to create new ones, others more suitably equipped to deal with the change.

5
    He sat in a small village, surrounded by Habers. The huts were simple, one-room dwellings, formed out of the native grass. His children were newly born, more Haber than Terran in appearance. The two sets of Habers who had birthed them had found the children were more like Markos than themselves and had left them in his charge. He was proud of them and the role he’d played in their births, in the changes he’d made to them as the flow-bridge.
    The children had more human musculature, though the muscles themselves didn’t resemble their Terran counterparts beyond function. They were a little larger at this stage of their development than a normal Haber child would have been—about ten centimeters taller than Markos.
    Their coloring was odd. They had the normal furlike skin that all Habers had, but there were streaks of color that shone through the brown-gray covering. They were beautiful to watch as they moved, expending energy, getting to know their world and their people.
    They played noisily, pushing and pulling each other, knocking each other down, playing as though they were normal, Terran children.
    The Habers took this aberrant behavior the best they could.
    One old Haber seemed genuinely pleased, as if watching this group of young, changed Habers fulfilled a lifelong dream. He stayed by Markos’s side everywhere he went, and Markos took to calling him the Old One.
    The Old One was different from the other Habers he had met. His eyes were denser, more crystalline spheres within them, and his skin was a little browner than the others. Markos felt at home, comfortable and accepted, his human past no more than a thin memory recalled with a pleasant feeling of pain, a dull throb, a melancholy reminder of what he had been. The Habers never brought up his past, and he felt no need to either.
    Adult Habers, those who wanted to mate, arrived daily in small groups. They waited with inhuman patience, watching the sunset with rapt attention, staring at the colors