"But if I could change it back with the wave of a magic wand, I'm not so sure I'd be too quick to lift it. Before the infestation, we were sheep, waiting to be gathered into a herd and led to the slaughterhouse. Now-? Well, some of us are learning how to be wolves. And you know something? It's not so bad being a wolf. I like it. And I think a lot of other people do too. It's not just the excitement, although that's a good fringe benefit; it's the feeling of being alive. We're finally part of something that matters. Yes, sometimes I'm overwhelmed at the size of the job in front of us, but at least this way, life is finally something you have to live to the fullest-or not at all. Considering the long-term prospects for the species, I think we're much better off learning how to be wolves."
Her eyes were shining brightly as she said this. She had an almost unholy intensity. She reached over and put her hand on mine; the pressure of it was a hot red force. "Listen to me. This infestation might yet prove to be one of the very best things that's ever happened to the human race. It's forcing us to care about our lives on such a grand scale that for the first time, millions of people are actually thinking about our ecology, our planet, our ultimate goals. Yes, you're right about that, Jim. Even if the Chtorrans were to disappear tomorrow, we will never be able to go back to the way it was before. We'll never be able to be complacent again. This infestation is going to transform the species, and I think it's going to be a transformation for the better. You and I-and all our children, unto the umpteenth generation-all of us are going to have to live our lives as if they really do matter."
For a long moment, there was silence in the van. I didn't know if I agreed with Willig or not. I hadn't realized that there might be people in the world who felt the way she did. It was an eye-opening surprise.
I had to think about this for a while.
Part of me was terribly afraid that she might be right.
In her own way, Kathryn Beth Willig, a grandmother of six, who had enlisted in the United States Army at an age when most women were starting to think about retirement, had crystallized the thought that had been bothering me since the day I'd seen my first worm.
This was exciting. This was fun. I was enjoying the war.
I got up from my chair then: I popped the hatch of the rollagon and dropped down onto the crunchy red kudzu. The fruity smell of it was almost strong enough to cover the horrible afterburn of last week's gorps. Traces of the deadly gorpish odor still hung faintly in the air, and probably would for weeks to come, but I barely noticed. The grove of shamblers looked taller and darker than I remembered.
The other van was waiting only a hundred meters away. I waved halfheartedly at them. Marano flashed her lights. Then I turned away and stared again at the distant shamblers. What was going on over there?
What Willig had said was disturbing.
You aren't supposed to enjoy a war. War is everything wrong justified and rationalized and wrapped up in the flag to make it barely palatable-but underneath the patriotic plans, the diagrams and maps, it's all insanity. It's the abandonment of morality in the hot adrenaline rush of hate and vengeance; it's the last word of the illiterate, the ultimate breakdown of communication.
I knew all the speeches. All the explanations. All the nice words. War is a cruel reptilian scream drowning out the last gasps of reason. It's the sacrifice of rationality on the altar of selfrighteousness. Goddammit-I knew the litany of pacifism as well as anybody. And I thought I hated war.
This was the most horrifying moment of the entire invasionthe realization that I loved what I was doing.
And rushing close behind that hideous truth came the flaming white rush of another mirror-shock of recognition, just as terrible. Everything I had been holding back came flooding in and hit me all at once-I nearly buckled under the impact.
In the days before this war had begun, I had been a fat and selfish teenager, angry and resentful and a pain in the ass to everyone around me. Now… well, I wasn't fat anymore, and I wasn't anywhere near as selfish. I had lost fifty pounds, and I had learned to watch out for others' needs. But-that was all I could be proud of. I had also become the kind of person I had once despised. I had grown the same cruel veneer of sullen nastiness that I used to fear in others.
I knew the truth. I just wouldn't admit it to myself.
Beauty is only skin deep; but ugly goes down to the bone-the same viciousness that I used on the worms, I had learned to use on the people around me, and I had learned the act so well that it wasn't an act anymore; it was me, all the way down to the little fascist at the core that actually enjoyed every hot flush of rage. I had turned into a vicious, dangerous man, unable to express compassion, affection, or tenderness without distrusting my own motives. I had become exactly like all the bullies who used to torment me in the school yards of my childhood; the only difference between what they had been and what I was now, was that my brutality had a much more horrifying vocabulary-I had overwhelming firepower. And I'd already demonstrated more than once that I wasn't afraid to use it-on human beings too, if necessary. I'd left my share of dead bodies behind, black and bleeding in the dirt.
Dannenfelser's nasty remark had been right. The Mode Training hadn't brought me to a state of enlightenment; the effect was precisely the opposite. It let me justify and rationalize and excuse all of my various perpetrations against other human beings. It hurt so bad I had to laugh. Did the Mode Training help? Yes, it did. I got to stop feeling uncertain about what I was doing.
I didn't stop doing the bad things; I just stopped beating myself up for doing them. Yes, Jim, you really are a self-righteous, inconsiderate, short-sighted asshole. Stop worrying about it and use your talents where they'll do the most good. Put on your jackboots and trample away. We have a planet to save.
Shit.
We were so busy saving the fucking planet, we were turning into bigger monsters than the Chtorrans.
No. Not we. Me.
I was a fucking monster. A killer, a pervert, a moral retard, and a deranged psychopath. And those were my good points.
I didn't know what anybody else was feeling, but I knew where I was. I was sitting in the middle of a Chtorran jungle feeling terribly alone and sorry for myself. My throat hurt from the pain of choking back the hot red anger. I didn't dare risk letting it out. If I did, I might start raging, and I didn't think I would be able to stop.
The part that hurt the worst was the knowledge that I had done it to myself. I had raged at everybody around me until I had chased them all away. The pain of my solitude was a vast echoing roar-a mocking silence. There was only the sound of my own thoughts to taunt me.
But Willig was wrong about one thing.
This war was not the single most important event that had ever happened to me.
Elizabeth Tirelli was.
And I had never told her so.
If it was possible for my mood to turn even darker, that one thought was the single thing that would have done it. I wanted to climb right back into the van and call for an immediate pickup. I wanted to head straight back to Houston, find her, wherever she was, pull her out of whatever meeting or briefing, grab her and tell her. And get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me. And help me get better.
I wouldn't, of course. I was too professional to do that. First, we had to finish this mission-this wild, reckless adventure that I had flown off on, that nobody had authorized, which would probably discover nothing at all, and would only end up adding more fuel to the emotional firestorms raging at home.
If I got killed here, she'd never know.
Best not to get killed then.
Almost immediately the mechanical part of my mind popped out an answer. I could put an Event-of-Death message into the network. That would do…
Right. But the thought of writing it made me queasy. I sat down on the bottom step of the van and put my head in my hands. Maybe Willig was right about the war. If it hadn't been for the Chtorrans, I'd still be a fat and selfish teenager-no matter how old I grew. But if it hadn't been for the war, I would never have met Lizard.