Free Gojiro by Mark Jacobson Page B

back up again, hides that herp’s eggs perfect. Termites never catch on. They only see the puncture, not the purpose behind it. In this world, a zard got to take what glitches is given him.”
    That kind of talk was always going on in the monster’s dream. Not that the youngest zardplebe, less than five weeks on the Rock, would think of joining in. It wasn’t a junior’s place to address his seniors. He was not fit, physically, mentally, or morally. All his basic equipment was installed, he was wired and ready to go, but the most vital juice wasn’t flowing through him. He hadn’t yet leaped into the Black Spot.
    That was the crux: the Black Spot. The nexus of Knowing! Gateway to all Zardic Life! The fixing solution of Identity!
    Without a plunge to the Black Spot a zard was not a Zard, couldn’t take his place in the Endless Chain. Without the rush of the sacred viscous over his novice leathers, his biologies were nothing more than colorcoded chutes and ladders of DNA, a pointless arrangement of blood and sinew. The Black Spot alone possessed the Big Switch, infused all the standard issue with the Identity of the Bunch.
    “Think it’s gonna hurt?” one zardplebe asked from the bottom of the juvenile’s tangle.
    The others shook their heads; they had no idea what the Black Spot had in store. “I heard that if you look on the Spot before you’re ready, then you never become an Initiate,” one plebe whispered. “You turn into a buzzy dragonfly or a scuzzfurred goat munching on grass.”
    “Dee-gusting,” the others retched, shaken at the thought.
    This chatter only served to make that particular zardplebe of Gojiro’s dream more anxious. The youngest and most withdrawn of the group, he’d always been on the outskirts of the clique. The others seemed so much slicker, more prepared to accept the mantle soon to be bestowed. Identity? What could it entail? Who was he to seek it? His apprehension grew as, one by one, his former playmates suddenly broke from their bellydown and went four-on-the-floor over Craggy Ridge. Hours later they would return. They didn’t look any different, but they were. Their callowness was gone, you could tell it from their carriage. Now they basked amongst the Initiate, discoursing on topics the youngest zardplebe could not decipher.
    By and by a strange incident occurred. A giant silvery bird came out of the sky and set down in the calm waters off where that youngest zardplebe sat. A seaplane! The door opened and out came bipeds, three of them. The fat one, sweat seeping through his soldier suit, was wiping his red jowls with a fluttery handkerchief. The second was smaller, with bushy eyebrows and a sweep of rich brown hair. Elegant in his tropical suit, his gold watch gleaming, his cultivated comportment did not seem affected in any way by the hot and unremitting sun. Then there was that other one. The one in black. Six and a half feet tall and ramrod straight, he had the severe look of the most ascetic missionary. He stayed apart from the other two, walking several steps behind. The meager surf lapped over his canvas shoes, not that he seemed to care. He was looking around, his long neck swiveling so as to ensnare the whole horizon, a special intensity to his scan.
    What’s he looking for? the youngest zardplebe wondered, looking at the dark flamingo of a man. How white his skin was, the color of bone left to bleach in the sun. And his eyes! They were as black as the starless night.
    Then they were screaming at one another, the three bipeds. The zardplebe couldn’t make out the words, just the frenzy. Suddenly, the fat soldier, more agile than he looked, hurled himself at the man in black, knocked him into the water. The debonair one tried to intercede, to no avail. Finally some other soldiers, a half a dozen of them, pulled the men apart. The fat soldier’s shirt was ripped, his hat was gone, his balding head shining in the afternoon glare. The man in black had a cut above his