Daniel Kaysen's short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Interzone and Chizine, among others. His 2005 story The Jenna Set appeared in Rich
Horton's anthology Science Fiction: The Best of the Year. His lo-fi website can be found at this link.

"Now," said our Captain, "you're going to want to pay attention to the next speaker."
     "Yeah, right," I whispered to Steve. It was a law of army life that whenever you were told to listen up and listen hard it was some pointless shit about health and safety.
     "For a start," said our Captain, "she's from G-block."
     That shut me up. We'd never seen anyone from G-block, not up close. G-block was where the ballet dancers were.
     "You were saying?" whispered Steve.
     Before I could answer, our visiting speaker walked on from the wings. She was skinny as a marathon runner, but she held herself too well to be an athlete.
     "Ms Jackson is from the ballet company," the Captain said, as if we didn't know. "So listen hard to what she has to say." He had the same imploring expression he used when he introduced the Padre, don't give this one a hard time.
     But he'd misread his audience. She was from the ballet company. She had our full attention.
     She thanked the Captain, who retired to the side of the stage, and then she walked up to the podium.
     "Hot," I whispered to Steve. She was wearing combat trousers and a loose sweatshirt, the world's least sexy outfit, but she still looked good. That's the dictionary definition of hot.
     "Soldier, stand up," came a voice from the podium.
     She was looking right at me.
     Maybe it was a trick of the light.
     "Me, Ma'am?"
     "Yes, you," she said. "Stand up."
     I stood. All the rest of the guys shrank back in their seats. Everyone dreads a fierce civilian. They don't know the rules of engagement.
     "Who's your friend, soldier? The one you whispered to."
     "Private Steven Mason, Ma'am."
     I was hoping she wasn't going to ask what I'd said to him. I would have to pretend I was talking about how hot it was here in the briefing hall. I couldn't see it working.
     But instead she asked a question that I didn't see coming.
     "Could you kill him?" she said.
     "Kill Steve? No, Ma'am."
     "Then why are you here?"
     "Sorry, Ma'am? Why am I here?"
     "If you can't kill your friend, why are you here?"
     What was this?
     "It may be different in the civilian world, Ma'am, but here we try not to kill our friends."
     I expected some laughs for the rest of the guys. I didn't get any.
     I did get a glare from the Captain, though. That was something.
     "But the theatre you're going into is not your typical theatre, is it soldier?"
     "No, Ma'am."
     "Are there rules of engagement in that theatre, soldier?"
     "No, Ma'am."
     "Will the Geneva Convention apply?"
     "No, Ma'am."
     "Will military law apply?"
     I paused. We'd been asked that question before, and it always sounded like a trick, but they had told us the right answer enough times that finally I had to believe it.
     "No Ma'am, military law won't apply."
     "So what's the only law that will apply, soldier?"
     "The law of the jungle, Ma'am." They had told us that many times.
     "That's right, soldier. In the theatre you are going into the only law that applies is the law of the jungle. And what is the law of the jungle?"
     I opened my mouth to speak but I realized I didn't know the answer. I had two choices, try to wing it, or admit I didn't know. I winged it. "The law of the jungle is every man for himself, Ma'am."
     "Wrong answer, soldier. Sit down."
     I sat.
     The people around me edged away. Even Steve.
     "The law of the jungle," she said, "is not every man for himself, it is every group for itself. And if the well-being of the group demands that you kill your friend, then so be it."
     I don't mind being wrong, but I hate it when the right answer turns out to be such bullshit. I put my hand in the air.
     Steve covered his eyes.
     "You have a question, soldier?"
     "Yes, Ma'am."
     "Is it a good one?"
     "Yes, Ma'am."
     "Are you going to ask me what's the point of going into theatre if you're going to degenerate to such savagery that you would kill your friend just because the will of the group demands it?"
     "Um, yes, Ma'am."
     "Have you heard of human sacrifice?"
     I saw a program on it on television once. But I couldn't see the relevance to this discussion.
     "Yes, Ma'am."
     "That is the law of the jungle, soldier. There are Gods in the theatre you are going to, and they will sometimes need placating. They like human sacrifices. Your friend Private Mason may be the one who draws the short straw to be the victim. You may be in charge of his preparation and sacrifice. Could you do that, soldier?"
     Could I do that?
     I glanced at the Captain next to the podium. He was nodding at me, to say yes.
     Was this all a trick to get me kicked out of the unit?
     I could have sat there all evening trying to work out what to say, but Steve saved me. "Just say yes," he whispered.
     "Yes, Ma'am. I could do that."
     "Good. Because there is a fair chance that the Gods will demand a human sacrifice in theatre, and any one of you may be the man charged with the preparation of the victim. The victim may be your friend. If you can't live with that, then it's time you left this unit. Does anybody here feel they would be unable to perform that action?"
     No-one moved as much as an eyelid.
     "Good."
     I knew that ballerinas danced even though their feet were bleeding. I knew that most of their waking hours were pain. So I always figured they were tough. But I never guessed they were this tough.
     "Now, the reason I was asked to address you was not because of the possibility of human sacrifice. I have been asked to address you because there is a strong probability that you will be required to dance, in the theatre you will be going to. If that is indeed the case, I will be your teacher."
     "What?!"
     I hadn't meant to say it out loud.
     "Stand up, soldier." She sounded weary.
     I stood up.
     Bring back the Padre, I thought. He was never like this. He was much easier to handle.

#

     It was the Padre who had told us all our families were dead.
     Well, he actually told us our families were probably dead, but we read between the lines.
     He also told us that he was available for one-to-one sessions, if we wished to explore what the news meant in the context of our faith.
     We none of us had a faith. No-one went to see him.
     Then the psychologist came to tell us about the stress reactions we could expect, following the news that our families, our friends, our enemies, in fact everyone in the outside world, were all probably dead.
     Denial, anger, blah blah blah. It all washed over me. This unit doesn't have families, at least none that we're close to. And we don't have friends outside the unit, not really. There were very few people in the outside world we would grieve for.
     Next the chief medic came to tell us about the science of it. For once we listened. It was kind of interesting. He said it was a virus, transmitted by droplets -- that's coughs and sneezes and touching door handles, as well as sex and blood and rock'n'roll. The virus had a six-week incubation period when the infected were symptom-free. Then came the week-long death.
     Because of the easy transmission and long incubation, the best guess was that one hundred percent of the civilized world were infected, including us.
     Ninety nine percent of the infected died.
     The one percent that survived infection all shared one physical characteristic -- an almost complete absence of body fat.
     The chief medic said that normally scientists would have been able to work out why those with low body fat did not succumb, but sadly science is an occupation that tends towards body fat, so all the scientists were dead.
     No more scientists. No more government, either.
     No more almost everyone. Only a very few made it.
     Fate works in mysterious ways.
     Anorexics survived, bulimics didn't. Ballet dancers lived, opera singers died. Runners still ran, while shot-putters lay in their houses, dead and unburied. No-one could lift them.
     Most of the army was dead, apart from the elite units who were at the very peak of physical condition. Ours was such a unit. Even the Padre, even the psychologist, even the medics. We're all muscle.
     Ours was a freak survival, of course.
     The dentists and the sweet-makers, the preachers and the porn stars, the burglars and the police. All dead. There would be no-one playing Father Christmas in the shopping malls of the country, not this year, not ever. But it didn't matter. There were no more functioning shopping malls, not now. They had no staff, they had no customers, they had no security. There was no-one to stop the skinny looters that came.
     It was a good time to be underweight.
     But then came the secondary diseases of apocalypse. Typhoid, cholera, dysentery. Plague even made a comeback.
     The skinny looters died in the streets. The long-distance runners, the models, the terminally ill, the old, the undernourished, the homeless. All dead.
     It was a good time to be a fly, or a rat, or a carrion crow.
     That is what the chief medic said.
     It was pretty much as close to the end of world as we could imagine. The one hope for the civilized world was: us. Us and the ballet company, who had moved into G-block. The elite unit Adams and the ballerina Eves. The straight male dancers would be Adams too. The gay ones would be shamans.
     Then our Captain took the stage. He told us we had enough supplies to feed us and the ballet company for less than two months. After that we would need new food supplies. And although we were heavily armed and free from body fat we were still human. We were still susceptible to the secondary diseases of apocalypse. We would not be risking raids on the warehouses of our ex-civilization. We would not take chances with plague.
     "Gentlemen, we are going to make a new start. We will be flying into the deepest forest. I hope you like squirrel meat."
     We were going to be about 200 people in all. That sounded like bad news for the squirrels.
     "And we will start farming," the Captain told us. "Gentlemen, we will be self-sufficient, or we will be dead. And if we die, the civilized world dies with us. That will not happen on my watch!"
     He paused to allow us to cheer.
     Instead there was silence. I broke the hush by asking him what kind of standard living we might expect.
     "Think Stone Age, with tents," he said.
     "What's the good news?"
     "No more taxes," he said.

#

     No more taxes, but dancing apparently. If the prima-ballerina wasn't winding me up.
     "Not ballet, Ma'am? No offence."
     "Not even in my worst nightmares do I see you performing ballet. Remember, we are going to be regressing. No electricity means no music. Perhaps one or two of you have acoustic guitars or harmonicas, but they will age and rust and break. In a decade your musical diet will consist solely of the beating of drums made of cow-hide and tree-bark. Your entertainment will be dancing to that sound. And it won't just be your entertainment, it will be your religious observance as well. And you will be religious. In twenty years time you will believe in rain gods, earth gods, fertility gods. Now is the time to get used to it."
     "Ma'am, with respect, I will never believe in rain gods." I had done a course on short-range weather forecasting. I knew all about fronts.
     "But your life has never depended on rain before. Soon it will. In twenty years time you will do everything in your power to make it rain. You will rain dance with the rest of us, to the sound of the drums. You will dance for rain and you will dance for the health of the crops and you will dance for sexual fertility. If times are hard you will make human sacrifices too. And times will be hard. Now sit down, soldier."
     I sat.

#

     The Captain wanted to see me, after.
     I wondered if he was going to kick me out of the unit. If he did, it meant death. How long could I survive in a town of rats and crows? I could head for the country but what did I know of farming? As part of my training I was taught how to live in the wild for a period of a week. I knew my way round berries and birds and fish. But I came out of that training experience gaunt and shitting water. I wouldn't survive a fortnight.
     If he was kicking me out, then I was dead.
     I walked into his office. She was there.
     They offered me a seat. I knew then I was going to be given a lifeline.
     "Ms Jackson has a proposition for you," said the Captain. "I'm pulling rank. I've told her that you accept. Is that correct?"
     "Yes, sir," I said. "I accept. Can I ask what the proposition is?"
     "Marriage," said Ms Jackson.
     "Yes Ma'am," I said. "To anyone in particular?"

#

     The Padre came into the office then and Ms Jackson -- Sophie Elizabeth, as it turned out -- and I were married right there.
     We vowed the usual things.
     And then the Padre did it all again. This time the Padre married Sophie and the Captain.
     The ratio of women to men was one to two. Bigamy was the future. Bigamy and squirrel meat.
     "You and I will have alternate nights," said the Captain. "When the time comes."
     "Yes sir."
     "But," said Sophie, "that time is a long way away. So don't get too excited."
     "I'll try not to, Ma'am."
     I waited for her to tell me to stop calling her Ma'am. She didn't.
     "Dismissed," said the Captain.
     I saluted them all, even the Padre.

#

     That night I tried to work out what relation the Captain was to me.
     "Husband-in-law?" suggested Steve.
     "Great," I said. "That's great. Of all the in-laws in all the world I have to get him. What if the kid I think is mine is really his?"
     "Then you have to salute it, I guess. I reckon your wife's kid's going be tribal chief or something."
     "Whatever happened to democracy?"
     "The virus, remember?"
     "Oh, yeah."
     We opened another couple of beers and went and sat on the steps to watch the guards patrolling the hangars. The hangars and the fuel were better guarded than the food. If the helicopters were sabotaged then we would never make it to the forest.
     If we never made it to the forest then civilization would die out. It was up to us to pass it on.
     "What are you going to teach your kids?" Steve asked me.
     "Soccer. Soccer and the songs of the Rolling Stones, before they went shit. In fact, maybe I'll tattoo my kids with the offside rule and the words to --"
     But I couldn't decide which Stones song I'd want to preserve. Bugger. Jagger and Richards didn't have a chance. But then again it seemed like nothing had a chance, not really. My grandchildren would talk a prehistoric language I didn't understand. They would do things I couldn't imagine.
     "My grandchildren will probably eat me, one hard winter," I said to Steve.
     "Bad idea. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease."
     "What?"
     "The human form of mad cow disease. Cannibalism's a good way to get that."
     "But they won't know! Maybe that's what I'll tattoo on them: don't eat human flesh."
     "But they won't be able to read."
     "Then I'll tattoo a sign on them: teeth biting on a person, and a big cross meaning NO."
     "Where are you going to get the ink for this tattoo?"
     I tried to think of an answer to that. I couldn't.
     "Fuck you," I said.
     We watched the guards circling the hangars.
     I hate losing arguments with Steve.
     "Everything's going to be fine," I said.
     And as I hate losing arguments I willed myself to believe it. In fact, I thought, my life might even be better. I'd be different soon. I'd be a farmer and a squirrel-hunter and a husband and a dad. I would grow rusty and old in peace. I would watch the phases of the moon, and find lost sheep. I would sing "Wild Horses" to my children as they went to sleep. That's what I would pass on. That Rolling Stones song, and the offside rule. And my wife would wear bearskin lingerie, on the nights when she was mine. I would be revered, as the father of the tribal chief. I would never have to kill again and --
     But then I remembered the lecture.
     "Steve, was she serious about human sacrifice?"
     "Probably."
     The night turned cold.

#

     After an hour it began to rain. We weren't under shelter but we didn't move.
     "You think it's a sign?" I said. "You think the Rain God's pleased with us? You think everything's going to be alright?"
     "Sure," said Steve. "Sure."
     "Good."
     Silence. Just the drumbeat of rain on roofs.
     "You really sure?" I said.
     He said nothing.
     The drums grew louder, the rain grew harder, soaking us.
     Steve still said nothing.
     "Well, I'm sure," I said.

#

     After a few more minutes, Steve had enough and decided to back inside. I tried to talk him out of it, but he said he had to get dry.
     In the end, I let him go.
     I stayed, of course. There are Gods that bear grudges, and have long memories, so I stuck it out, under the drums.
     I figured that if Steve didn't get it, then that was his problem, not mine. A man can't look after his friends forever, not when there's Gods involved. Gods trump men, every time.

#

     So I stood in the downpour, reverent, smiling, thanking my lucky stars.
     Thinking: bring on the dancing girls.

© 2006 Daniel Kaysen