Grief in Greel came pouring out in a long song. He ate all of the group leader that was left, and as he became one with his predecessor, he faced death.
Memory so clear that life was circumscribed by it. Fighting on, against terrible weapons. Facing heartless enemies and giving back no ground. Standing firm as melting armor and screaming troops assigned an agonizing doom.
And soft sweet breath of peace.
Death ran through him, as it must, and made him stronger. He faced it and faced it down, and sang a new song of rebirth on its far side while all his family sang harmony.
Too many fools had been less than they could, group leader used to say. So Greel said it now, and delight came among the gathered throng, laced with melancholy.
Everyone who missed their dead embraced, and the honored Sister ReScree eyed him, then got up on her four feet and keened.
He did, too.
Such an invitation was not to be denied. Such an honor was granted few soldiers. He would breed tonight, in the honor of the dead—of all the dead, but especially in honor of his beloved group leader, whose soul was now inside him.
He would be honored by the womb of ReScree, and all their eggs would be heroes of the blood.
He couldn’t cry enough for joy, or sing enough for vengeance upon the slugs. The day would come when all his offspring would go forth from this sad ball of bloodied home, into the black universe, hunting the terrible, soulless slugs who’d put a memory in Greel’s heart worse than a glittering blade.
The memory of Dresser would be among those memories that the children carried. Greel’s get would have his every memory of violation more terrible than death.
If he had eaten an enemy honestly, and then found so awful a taint remaining in him, he might have found some way to refuse ReScree, despite the honor.
But this thing in his head had not come to him through hungry victory, or by way of the jaws of strife. And refusing would dishonor his dear departed group leader, and make an end to Group Leader Greel, whom he’d just become.
He wanted life too much. He wanted ReScree too much. So only the children would know what had truly happened to him, what was real and what was not.
And if the mighty Sister chose, then ReScree would eat his head when the breeding deed was done.
If she ate him, then the guilt inside him would be hers to bear.
If he pleased her, and she let him live as the previous group leader had lived, then he would be twice honored among the people. At least until the children hatched. And then?
Only time would tell.
History was only truth, and truth would come with time. When the children hatched, they would seek out slugs with all the hatred that Greel had in his heart for the phantom in his soul. They would make a crusade against this most hideous enemy that lodged within a hero’s heart and hung there like a ghost.
If ghost this were, this Dresser in his mind, haunting him, then that ghost would beget ghost upon ghost in the minds of all the children of the people, for millennia.
He knew this truth to be unshakable, when ReScree’s four legs brushed his own. He knew ecstasy such as only one in a thousand soldiers ever knows.
And he knew risk beyond reason, the helpless risk of passion, when only his mighty sister’s forbearance would say if he would live to fight another day.
In such an embrace, even life was less than the chance to give the gift of life.
As his body grew great and strong, and then exploded in upon his nerves, and then spent itself within her, he understood all of life’s mysteries.
It was a gift beyond all other gifts, an honor beyond comprehension, that Greel had come to this moment, where an open womb invited him to true immortality.
He closed one last time on his destiny, and waited, unable to move even an antenna, barely breathing.
If she chose to destroy him, now, to take his flesh and use his sustenance to nurture her brood with him, nature had decreed that he could not resist, even if he wished to try.
But Greel didn’t wish to try. He was a soldier, but now he was a father of a generation. And he knew that there was no honor as great as this, which had come to him partly because of all he’d suffered.
So maybe the ghost of Dresser, the slug, would go into the children’s souls and wreak havoc, and maybe not.
ReScree got up heavily, all his juice dripping out of her, and turned to face him. Her eyes were as bright as suns. Greel could see himself, his chin propped upon the ground, reflected back from the facets of those eyes: tiny Greels, as many as her womb would spawn, spent, helpless, a thousand husks of a thousand heroes waiting to live or die.
ReScree raised herself up on her hind legs. She pawed the air above him.
And she began to sing.
While ReScree was telling him all her stories, life was fuller than a great, round abdomen of promise, and he had no shame that he begged for his life and took it when she offered the favor.
After all, he had bred her, but now there were within him all the former group leaders who thought that they, too, could do as much. Each wanted their turn. Each promised life for memory of life, as long as Greel’s strength held out.
Later, when the dawn was nearly come, the mighty Sister left him. Exhausted, shriveled, and nearly dead of ecstasy, Greel lay by himself out under the blue canopy of the encampment and stared at the sky beyond.
Had he done a dreadful thing? Was he dishonored? Was his taint a disease that would spread and make heroes into cowards?
Was he himself a coward?
Had he accepted honors under false pretenses? Had he begged for his life because life was full in him, yet, or because the alien thing in him had not the grace or the wisdom to know how to die?
Not even ReScree’s passion had killed him. Was this a great moment in history, or the worst? Had he sown seeds of rebirth, or of his own people’s destruction?
He’d soon find out. He was group leader, now. He’d found the strength of his predecessor and the strength of a hundred predecessors in the sacrificial meal. He’d survived through all, despite all. Despite even the ghost within him.
ReScree had looked upon his virile heroism and found him good. She had taken him to her, and granted him another season. So he was in some way worthy of the favors granted.
History is only what it is, never what it isn’t. And Greel was now a father of history.
A father.
So few ever became one.
He wanted to sing, but he was spent and sad and full of doubts and fears once again. There was this creature in his head again. In his heart again. In his soul again.
Sergeant Dresser of the slugs.
And the creature wanted to destroy all his children.
This Dresser, this slug whose blood he could not remember sucking, whose flesh he could not remember eating, was all inside him like a fever.
This Dresser, this thing inside him, was more powerful even than his just-departed group leader, insistent and demanding, wanting him to get up and go out into the night, beyond the blue perimeter, where it could begin its evil work.
Unthinkably evil was that work. The thing called Dresser wanted to keep Group Leader Greel’s children from being born. Even more horridly, it wanted to keep this planet from being cleaned, from being food, from being home.
It wanted everything that Greel did not want. It wanted slugs everywhere, triumphant slugs with the blood of the people on their shoes. It wanted a universe where only slugs lived.
Dresser wanted to exterminate the people altogether. Dresser was appalled and repelled by the most tender rituals of antiquity. Dresser didn’t believe in immortality. Dresser only believed in death.
And the thing called Dresser that was lodged within Greel’s heart and soul was strong. It wanted to use him for its perverse desires. It had been lying in wait for him, all this time.
Now it was clawing at him. Now he was weak. And it knew his every thought. It knew he was weak. It was chanting to it
self, deep inside him.
Take command. Take control.
No.
Take command. Take control.
Greel had done that. He was group leader now. He had become a father.
Take command. Take control. Report, quick. Get out of here. Get up. Reconnoiter. Get into the transport. Into the power station. Into the ships. Check out the hardware. Find the weak spots. Warn the guys.
No.
Sleep.
No.
You’re dead, you damned bug.
No. I am reborn.
You’re dead. We grew you in a tank.
No. No. No.
Greel almost screeched in fear, then. But suddenly he couldn’t move. He was imprisoned within himself.
His body was not his own.
Fear came up from his belly and tried to swallow him whole. He nearly lost his battle with Dresser, with the evil within him.
And he called for help, silently, within his heart and within his soul.
Help.
He couldn’t give up. He couldn’t find the strength to resist. He couldn’t bring death home with him, he who had so recently brought life to his mighty sister.
He wanted, suddenly, to die. He wanted Dresser to die with him, then and there. He held his breath. He tried to stop his heart.
He would die before he destroyed his own children. He wished that ReScree would come back and find him. He could convince her to kill him, if he could not find the strength to stop his heart.
He slowed it. He counted its beats. Heart, stop. Body, die.
Die and take the evil with you.
Die, die . . . die . . . die . . .
Once more, he called for help.
And his group leader heard him, as group leader had always done. The group leader whose brain he had so recently eaten had been through many trials, including death. He did not want to die again, so soon. And before his time, another had fought on distant shores and eaten many alien minds and hearts, and died and died again. He, too, wanted to live, to fight this enemy and destroy this threat.
So all the ancients within Greel’s stomach now rallied and, making their desires known, began to fight against this devil spirit.
The survival of all their children was at stake.
Life as the people knew it hung in the balance.
A society can do no greater good than provide for its children. Food for the children was here. Life for the children was here. This planet was a womb in the making.
They could not let it go. They could not pick up and leave. They could not do anything but fight for all their children and their children’s children who would be born here and go from here among the stars.
Take command. Take control.
Help.
All the spirits of his ancestors spoke in Greel’s heart. They harangued his weakened soul. Greel must fight the invader.
Take command. Take control.
Help.
He had special wisdom. He had the black wisdom of the enemy within him. ReScree had spared him to lead the fight.
And fight he would. Take command. Take control. Death was an earned reward, to be achieved in glory and heroic deeds.
Death was no refuge from the truth.
If Greel had not been possessed by the ghost of his enemy, he would have remembered that.
So Greel could not die now, in shame, fear, and anguish.
He must fight through to the end of the battle against this most horrid of enemies.
And when the fighting was done, and the worlds made safe for the children of the people, when every threat was countered and all the food was eaten—then the children would all remember the nature of the slug enemy that, by luck and fate, had become a story known to Greel.
Group Leader Greel had wisdom enough inside him, now, from feasting upon his kind, to understand that the spirit of Dresser was a gift, not a curse.
And though only his own heart and his own souls knew what special truth he had discovered, that truth would make the people strong enough to destroy this enemy forever. The children were at risk.
Therefore, Greel had no choice.
Despite his labors of the night, despite his captivity, despite his honors and his feasting, he pushed himself to his feet. Time to go inside. Get new armor. Appoint a new section leader in his place. Choose new weapons.
Time to plan a sortie against this enemy. As soon as the mourning time was done, they must strike.
Before the slugs struck them.
On his four feet, Greel wavered. A strange hesitation overtook him.
He managed three steps, then four, toward the open door of the unit home. Then he collapsed, exhausted.
His antenna ached beyond measure. His heart was sore. He had given his all in ReScree’s embrace.
No matter how urgent, he could not begin his offensive now.
He had to sleep. He had to wait. He had to digest. To recover, if he could.
Sleep. Sleep.
But sleep was a shiny place of peace, and between him and it was all his guilt.
He wanted to go back to the ceremonial ground, but he couldn’t move. He wanted to sort out the confusion in his head, but he couldn’t sing. He wanted to find ReScree and warn her that perhaps the children might not be . . . as other children.
But he couldn’t even do that.
He was too tired. He was too weak. He was too guilty that he had coupled with a sister when he knew he was infected with . . .
With what?
He wasn’t sure. He was too tired to be sure of anything. Not even all the wisdom of the former group leaders within him could help him, now. His trials were beyond even their experience, and their souls were already merging with his.
Greel was too tired to do any more.
He was safe, back with his people. He needed to sleep, pass away the memories and let wisdom absorb itself into him. Sleep. This was the way of it after feasting the dead, and breeding the living. He couldn’t put off his body’s needs much longer.
He should have realized that he was too tired to do anything more.
When he was rested, this phantom would be nothing but a false memory.
There would be no doubt, when he was rested, that he was a group leader and greater than any group leader before him.
Had he not triumphed over the slug enemy? Escaped the hideous doom of a death without ceremony, without rebirth in the bodies of his peers?
Was he not, now, Group Leader Greel, consort of ReScree, and forgiven for risking himself to a nameless enemy grave?
He lay there, helpless and torn within himself, on the ground, until ReScree sent orderlies to help him inside.
He pretended to the sleep of heroes. It was due him. He’d forgotten, somehow, that eating the family brought a great lassitude.
The ceremony always made the great ones weak. That was why children were born from the frenzy, why breeding was ritualized at the time of death.
Otherwise, how would there be more people?
Otherwise, how would the best survive?
And if there was truly an evil within him, then that evil would be absorbed by the wisdom of time itself, as evil was always absorbed.
He didn’t need to be afraid for his children.
Only for himself.
Dresser was so goddam happy to be out of the bug encampment that if he’d had lips, he’d have been whistling. The whole mission was a real screwup. A gut-twister. Enough to make you forget you’d volunteered.
He was angry at everything. He flailed at the thick jungle with his armor-plated arms and blasted helpless trees with his bug weapons as he drove his one-bug recon vehicle through the jungle at breakneck speed.
Whenever he depressed the firing stud on his bug-style armored jeep’s control panel, little globes of force spat out of the muzzles of the two forward guns. The globes coming out of the barrels looked like bubble stuff fired from a giant air gun—until they began to do their lethal tricks.
He was carving a
few new paths to nowhere, but the bugs wouldn’t ask any questions he couldn’t answer. And he had to get a handle on the capabilities of these bug weapons, if not an understanding of the science behind them. He couldn’t make a damn thing out of bug science.
It wasn’t easy to get at technical intel here. There were bug science types who were born with hardware affinities, and all sorts of inherited information from bug techs who’d come before them. But Greel wasn’t one of them.
His body was a shooter’s body. It thought like a soldier, not like a scientist or like an engineer. When something didn’t work, it got a replacement unit from supply. At best, it could cannibalize pieces of fried equipment. . . .
Wrong word.
The bug orgy, complete with other bug friends as the main course of the dinner, still made him queasy when he thought about it.
Anyway, when he thought about stuff like that, this bug body got all excited and the bug personality started to give him trouble.
Greel, stay asleep. You need the rest. You fucked your little bug heart out, and now you’ve got to do a bit of on-site perimeter recon. After all, you’re the specialist in slug—in human behavior.
You bet he was.
Greel’s close encounter with the slugs—with the humans— had helped him get one mother of a promotion.
Dresser geared the jeep up into its fastest mode, and then had to back off before he crashed himself into a tree. These jeeps were wheelless, and they had two sets of clutches; four pedals in all.
He tried not to think about the details. When he didn’t think about that extra pair of feet, they seemed to know what to do just fine. Muscle memory, he’d been told by the techs, would help him out at times like these.
And it did. His guys had done lots of homework. He wasn’t blaming them. He was doing pretty good.
He steered the jeep toward the bug “road,” and onto it.
He hoped to hell he knew where he was going. He was almost sure he did.
You had to give credit to the DR&E guys who thought up this mission. Directorate of Research and Engineering had really topped out on this one. All you had to do, to handle the normally delicate stuff of infiltration bug style, was sort of curl up in the back of your head and let the bug body do its thing.
This bug body came complete with an autopilot that did bug stuff whenever bug stuff was appropriate.
Battlestations Page 27
