As we pulled away from the burning buildings, she said quietly, "I want to say something."
"Go ahead. You can't hurt my feelings. I don't have any, anymore."
"I didn't like you when you set this up. I didn't like your briefing. I didn't like the way you handled this mission. Understand this, Major Anderson, or whoever you are-I don't like you. I don't want you in my district. I don't want to ever have to deal with you again. Is that clear, Major Anderson?"
"That's real clear, Colonel. You'll be glad to hear that we're in total agreement. "
"Thank you, Major."
"You're welcome, Colonel."
The van was waiting for me at the edge of the airfield. I tossed the torch in the back, climbed into the driver's seat, and headed back toward Family.
A maiden who had a third breast
always kept her hand close to her chest,
and I promised her well
that I never would tell.
(Write me privately. Name on request.)
47
Recriminations
"Everything is connected to everything else. That's why it's so hard to keep a secret."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I turned off onto the canyon road.
Three klicks up, there was a sharp curve. Hidden in the bend, out of view of anyone who might be coming down the road was a roadblock of two schoolbuses.
Betty-John, Birdie, Big Ivy, and a handful of teenagers were there. All of them were carrying weapons. I pulled the torch out of the back of the van and joined them.
Birdie had listened. Good.
She came up to me and asked, "How did it go?"
"We got almost all of them."
"What about the children?"
I nodded. "There were seven of ours that I recognized, and three more from I don't know where." I named the ones I knew; Birdie didn't look happy. "Colonel Wright is taking care of them tonight in Santa Cruz."
Betty-John asked, "What happened to the renegades?"
I said it without emotion. "We didn't take any prisoners."
"Good," she said. She started to turn away, then she turned back to me. She looked haggard and broken. "You were right, Jim. "
"I would have rather been wrong."
"What I'm trying to say is that I should have listened to you before."
"Yes, you should have." This was hard for her, and I wasn't making it any easier.
"I-I'm so sorry. I should have believed you, but-I never thought-well, I'm sorry, that's all."
I knew what I was about to say and I wasn't going to stop myself from saying it. "I'm sorry too, B-Jay. Because sorry isn't enough. It never is. I'm the expert on sorry. I can't find Tommy. Alec's dead. Holly might as well be. You want to know something? I'm more angry at you than the renegades."
"I'm trying to apologize-!" she blurted. "Do you have to beat me up too?"
"Yes, I do! Goddammit! Because I don't have anyone else to take it out on!"
She started to protest, then she realized what I'd said, and stopped herself. "Go ahead," she said. "Let it all out. Let me have it then."
I hesitated-
"Go on . . . "
-and then I couldn't help myself. I let it out. I let it all out. "You narrow-minded, thoughtless, stupid, inconsiderate, self-centered bitch! My kids are dead! And how many others? They'd be alive tonight if you'd have just listened to me. We could have had the fences up by now! All I wanted was to save the kids, but everything had to be done your way. You had to analyze it, you had to have meetings about it, you had to think it over! And then you had the gall to tell me that I was acting paranoid and psychotic! Well, look who paid the price!"
She looked shaken. "Is that all?"
"No! You got what you asked for! This is it, lady! Dead children all over the street! The children paid for your stupidity!"
The tears were streaming down her face now. "Is there anything else you have to tell me, Jim?"
How could she stand to listen to me like this? I'd have decked me. I should have stopped, but I couldn't. I had to say it. "I hate you, B-Jay. I'll never trust you again."
She was sobbing. She choked and said, "Go on, Jim. You're the only one who'll tell me the truth. I betrayed Family. You're right. I don't deserve anyone's trust. Not ever again." She was crumbling before my eyes.
In the middle of my anger, I wanted to grab her and hug her and tell her that it wasn't true, she was still worthy of our love and trust and respect. But God, I hated her so much! I wanted to kill her. I wanted to get even with somebody. Anybody.
Poor B-Jay.
She'd done her best. She just didn't know. If only she'd listened to me-the confusion was driving me crazy!
I didn't know what I was feeling any more. "I don't have anything else to say."
B-Jay turned away from me, she fell into Birdie's arms and started crying. Birdie gave me a foul look. Big Ivy cocked her rifle loudly and glared at me. I turned away from them all.
Big Ivy came up to me. "You're an asshole," she said.
"Tell me something I don't know."
"Don't you think she feels bad enough?"
I wheeled around to fix her with an angry stare. "Don't handle my case! You don't know what I had to do tonight. You don't know anything! At least B-Jay can cry it out now. I can't."
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, after all . . ." Birdie started to say.
One of the teenagers called. "Douse your lights! Everybody!" He held up a walkie-talkie. "Lookout says there's a van coming." B-Jay pulled away from Birdie, wiping her eyes. "Everybody: positions!"
I walked around one of the buses and stood in the blind part of the curve. I unshouldered the torch and waited.
It wasn't long.
We heard the engine growling down the canyon. We heard a screech of tires. We saw the beams of the headlights
It was a minibus. It came barrelling around the curve too fast to stop. The driver saw the roadblock too late and tried to turn. The van slid and skidded and slammed sideways into one of the buses, knocking it into the second bus.
Almost immediately the van tried to back up-I laid down a swath of flame across the rear.
The door to the van popped open and the driver hopped out, holding his hands in the air. He was only a boy.
"Lie down on the ground," I ordered. He threw himself flat. I stepped away from the tree I'd been hiding by. I waved toward B-Jay. Someone switched the headlights of one of the buses on. Other people were moving out from the bushes now, their guns pointed at the van.
"Come out slowly," I ordered, "with your hands over your heads."
There was no response.
I went to the van and puiled open the door and peered in. They hadn't been wearing their seat belts. There were six of them. Two were unconscious. Delandro was cradling Jessie in his arms. Marcie had a rifle pointed toward me. Frankenstein looked like he had a broken arm.
I pointed my torch at Marcie. "Drop it, stupid. Or this whole van goes up in flames."
She looked to Delandro. He nodded. She put the rifle down. "Everybody out," I said. "Hands over your heads." I turned and called to Birdie. "We're going to need a couple of stretchers!" B-Jay came up to me then. She peered at the renegades as they climbed out of the van. I made them lie down on the pavement next to their driver.
"Which one is their leader?" she asked. I pointed at Delandro with the torch. "I'm going to burn him," I said.
B-Jay stepped in front of me. "No, you're not," she said.
"B-Jay-he killed my kids."
"He's going to have a trial first."
I stared at her. "You've got to be kidding! After what he did today-?"
"I'm not an animal, Jim! Sure I want revenge-but not so badly that I'm willing to throw away what little humanity I have left! I haven't fallen as far as you yet!"
I lowered my torch. I stepped close to her. I said, "I know these bastards. You go ahead. You think you can have a trial? You try and I'll tell you exactly what's going to
happen. You won't be able to. You're going to end up giving them back to me. And then I'll burn them. I can wait."
Betty-John didn't answer. She started directing the cleanup operation. I went back to my van and tossed the torch in the back. I drove back to Family alone.
Skydiver Daniel McDopp
used to masturbate right from the top.
Whenever he fell,
he jerked off like hell.
He was good to the very last drop.
48
Jason Makes a Choice
"For every action, there is an equal but opposite critical analysis."
- SOLOMON SHORT
I finally went to see Delandro in his cell. After several private centuries of indecision, I went to see him.
I didn't know what I wanted to say to him-and I did. A thousand different speeches raced through my mind. I discarded them all as being inappropriate.
Part of me wanted to say, "How? How did we end up like this? I almost believed in you. I wanted to believe in you!"
I knew what he would say. "Good for you, James. You get to be right again. You're running your righteousness machine." And if I believed that, then he would be right again-and I didn't want to give him that opportunity to be right, because I was as tired of his self-righteousness as I was of mine.
What I wanted, very honestly, was revenge.
Total revenge. He had to see it for himself-that he had failed and I had won.
But of course, that was just me wanting to be right again. It was a neat little trap Jason had constructed around my mind. There Was no way out of it. I couldn't be right without automatically being wrong.
I guess what I really wanted was an apology for the damage he'd done to me.
Except he'd say that nobody can damage you except yourself. Everything he said put the blame on me and took it off him. All he was, was the delivery boy. It was my fault for accepting the package.
I unbuckled my gunbelt and left it with the guard. She unlocked the steel door and let me enter.
Delandro was laying on his bunk, his hands on his stomach, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I've been waiting for you," he said.
There was a chair. I sat down facing him. "You have a speech prepared, don't you?" I shook my head.
"No?" He hadn't moved. Now he turned his head and looked at me. "You're not telling the truth, Jim." And there was that great, warm grin again. He laughed. "You do have a speech prepared, pobably several speeches. And you've probably rehearsed them all. But you've decided not to deliver any of them. Is that the truth?"
"You've always been good at reading minds, Jason. Why should I argue with you?"
"You didn't come down here just to gloat," he said. "I trained you too well for that."
"Why am I here then?"
"Jim," he said, shaking his head. "Don't pretend to be stupid. Someone might believe it. You're here because you need to be complete with me before tomorrow. You know what's going to happen in that courtroom and you know what's going to happen afterward. And you know who's going to have to do it.
"You're going to kill me tomorrow, Jim. But you want me to forgive you first. Or you want me to beg for my life. Or you want me to give you some justification for killing me. Too bad. I'm not going to cooperate. You have no power over me, except what I'm willing to give you. I give you nothing."
I replied very quietly, "But I can give you something."
"Ah," he said. "Now, we get to the offer." He sat up opposite me. His eyes were still the most penetrating blue I'd ever seen. "Go on." He scratched his neck distractedly. I knew that gesture.
"I can give you a choice," I said. "The same one you gave me. You can live or you can die."
"You have a contribution you can make to the war effort. You know things about the worms. The army needs to know what you know. An arrangement can be made. You and your people will still be prisoners, but you'll live. Or . . ." I shrugged. "We'll have a trial."
"And you'll kill us."
"Do you want to live or die?"
"My survival mind wants to live, of course-but I think I'll choose to die. That way, there is nothing you can do except serve me again. You can carry out my wishes for me, Jim. You see, I may be confined, but I'm still in control. You can't even have revenge."
"In other words, you're not going to let me be complete, are you?"
He shook his head. "No. Why should I?"
"I don't know. I thought-I guess I was wrong, but for a while, I believed you were so enlightened that you loved all humanity."
"No. I never said that. I never did."
"My mistake," I acknowledged quietly. I met his gaze again. "Now, let's talk about your mistake."
"Yes?" He waited.
"It's the way you handle your . . . enrollments. You give people a choice between life or death. But you never had the authority to do that. You didn't have a real contract with the people you captured. The agreement was invalid. I never asked you for the opportunity. I never gave you the right to give me the choice between life or death. You assumed an authority you never had."
Delandro asked, "Do you want me to respond to that?" I nodded.
"I never had to ask your permission. I already had the authority. I was acting on behalf of the young god."
"That authority isn't recognized here," I said. "As long as this is a planet of human beings, you're under the authority of the government of human beings."
"And I don't recognize that authority."
"Too bad. Because that still leaves the question of disposition unresolved. What are your fellow human beings to do with you?"
"Jim, there's only one possible outcome for tomorrow's hearing. You know it and I know it. We both know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. If you want, I'll even write out your dialogue for you."
"No thanks."
"My choice has already been made," Jason continued calmly. "It was made at my first Revelation and everything I have done has been the continuation of the process that began on that day. I serve the new gods. Whatever I have said and done has been part of that service."
"Your gods can't help you here," I said. "Not in this court. Like it or not, you're going to be judged by the members of your own species."
"The human race is incapable of judging itself-and I promise you that there are no human beings on this planet who can judge our actions, because we are no longer operating in a human context. We are beyond your experience. You don't realize it yet, Jim, but your authority has become irrelevant to the future."
"This is getting tiresome," I said.
"You can leave," Jason replied.
"I came down here to try to save your life. Not because I have any affection for you. I don't. But I want to know what you know about the worms."
"I don't want you to save my life. And if you want to know what I know about the worms . . . well, there's only one way you're going to learn it."
He studied me calmly. He's just a man, I told myself, but I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it. I'd seen him in the circle. I'd seen him at the Revelation.
"There's so much that you don't know, James. You shouldn't have fled the Revelations. You'd understand. You can no more fight the Chtorr than you can fight yourself. There is no victory down the path you follow."
I stood up. It was time to go. "It's over, Jason. Ended. You failed. The Tribe is gone. The children are dead. The babies are dead. The new gods are dead. All of them. Every one."
Jason stood up and looked me straight in the eye. His eyes were the sharp blue of the noonday sky. He came very close to me. "Jim, look at me. I'm not the man you think I am. I never was." He was unbuttoning his shirt.
"You need to know this. I see so much that is so far beyond your understanding. . . ." He stepped back so the light could hit him fully.
And then I saw.
There was fine pink fur all over his chest. He glistened with purple and orange patterns. I stared at him, horrified.
The fur was
thickest in a line up his belly, all the way up from his groin to his breastbone; it thickened and stretched across his chest like a great red tree. It was almost beautiful. Jason shucked out of his pants and I could see how the fur was spreading down the inside of his thighs. He turned around and I could see that it was growing across his back. I saw pink and white strands peppering his hair as well.
"Touch me," he commanded.
Despite myself, I reached my hand out. The fur tingled like worm fur.
It was worm fur.
He turned around to face me again. "Jim-I can see you with my eyes closed. I can smell you and taste you. You smell of salt and fear and blood. You taste of loneliness. I can hear what you're thinking. You radiate in colors that you don't even know you have."
He stopped and looked at me oddly for a moment, peering curiously at a spot behind my eyes. And then he started laughing. "You really don't know, do you? You really are a victim."
And then he stopped himself and said, "You're right, Jim. I'm not human any more. I've transcended humanity. I've grown beyond it. I would have shared this gift with you, Jim. I wanted to, but you wouldn't let me, would you? You never understood how we all loved you. No. Because you won't let yourself be loved, by anyone. You're doomed to go through life putting turds in your own punch bowl and wondering why everything tastes so shitty. You poor damned fool, I feel so sorry for you, for what you've lost. You're a Judas, Jim. You've betrayed the living gods."
There was a lot I could have said to that, but I couldn't find the words. What I said instead was almost simplistic by comparison with Jason's vision. I just shook my head and said, "You made a terrible mistake when you attacked Family."
Jason was rebuttoning his shirt, tucking it back into his pants. He looked up at me with a hard expression. "I keep my word, Jim. I told you once, that if you ever broke your word to me, you would regret it bitterly. And that is exactly what has happened. No matter what you do in the future, you will always know that you broke your word. And you will always know that you had reason to regret it. There are people dead today who would not be dead had you kept your word."
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