"To wound him," Meredith said automatically.
"And why?"
"Because… a dead soldier… is just a dead soldier. But a wounded soldier puts stress on the enemy's infrastructure. He has to receive first aid. Then he has to be evacuated. He requires care. A dead soldier makes no immediate demands on the system, but a wounded man exerts a rearward pull. Enough wounded men can paralyze—"
"Exactly. And that's it, Merry."
"But… how long until it wears off? When are they going to be all right?"
Taylor strengthened his grip on Merry's arm. Merry, it doesn't wear off. Christ, if it did, we would have fielded it in a heartbeat. The effects are irreversible. It's a terror weapon too, you see."
Meredith felt sick again. With a deeper, emptier, spiritually dreary sickness.
"But… you said they might be able to understand us?"
Taylor nodded. "It makes no difference to recovery. In fact, that's the worst part, Merry. You see, if the Japanese are using approximately the same formula we came up with, Lucky… Colonel Heifetz and the others have not suffered any loss in intelligence, or in basic cognitive recognition. What the weapon does is simply to destroy the victim's control over his voluntary muscles. There's some collateral deterioration on the involuntary side, as well, but basically you can focus the damage. See, that's the beauty of the weapon — the victims remain fully intelligent human beings, even though they are physically utterly incapable of controlling their basic bodily functions. They cannot even tell their eyes where to look. But they still process what their eyes happen to see. That way, by presenting your enemy with a mature, living intelligence, you rob him of the excuse to lighten his load with conscience-free euthanasia — you're not killing a thing. You'd be killing a thinking, feeling human being who lost the use of his body in the service of his country." Taylor snorted. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
Meredith did not understand how Taylor could speak so calmly.
"Merry. You need to pull yourself together now. We need to help them as best we can. And then we've got to get back into the fight."
Meredith stared at the scarred, scarred man as though he were crazy. What on earth was he talking about? Help them? How? And what would be the point of getting back into any fighting now? If this was all that was waiting at the end of it.
"Count your blessings," Taylor told him. "If that escort bird hadn't gone down… well, that's war, Merry. Some die, and others live. Luck of the draw."
"I can't," Meredith said. Again, he had no clear idea as to what it was he could not do. But he felt panic seizing him. "I just can't function. I give up."
Taylor's hand came up like lightning. He slapped Meredith so hard across the face that the younger man reeled and almost fell. Dazed, he could taste blood in his mouth. It was a far better taste than the vomit and snow had left behind.
Taylor caught him with both hands this time. The grip was noticeably weaker under the bandaged paw. He held Meredith upright, pinning the younger man's arms flat against his sides.
"Merry. Please."
Meredith tried to bond himself to reality. But this was a world out of horrific medieval paintings.
"Merry, I need you now," Taylor said. "You're a very brave man, and you've proved it time and again. I need you to be brave now. Because, if you can't handle this, think of the effect it's going to have on the others."
"All right," Meredith said slowly, emptily. The slap had jarred him, and he was still unsure of everything, but in a different way.
"Merry," Taylor begged, "we can't give up. You don't see it, but I do. They're all going to want to give up now, and we can't let them. It's up to us."
Meredith did not understand what Taylor was talking about. Who was going to give up? And to give up what? "We won't give up," Meredith said flatly.
"That's right. We're not going to give up. Now listen to me." Taylor's voice took on the cold, clear tone it always had when he needed to give complex instructions under pressure. "I want you to go back to our ship. You go back there and get on the horn. Call Manny—" Taylor caught himself. For a moment, the two men looked at each other with eyes that met yet shared nothing. Then Taylor regrouped: "Call the assistant S-4. He'll be at the support site in Gold. Tell him to off-load every available wing-inground except the fuelers and get them down here to Silver. And I want the regimental surgeon on board, with every immediately available physician's assistant and medic. Call the assistant S-4 first. It's going to take him the longest. Then call Second Squadron over at Platinum. They're the closest. Tell the commander I want his scouts down here double-quick. Use the top-end secure. Explain that we have casualties. The scouts need to search each troop's local assembly area, just in case anybody else is lying out in the snow like that captain."
"Captain Sturgis," Meredith offered. He had known the officer slightly. An overgrown kid with a habit of bringing his sex life a little too close to the flagpole.
"Yes," Taylor said. "Sturgis. Anyway, get going. Get them moving. And prepare yourself, Merry. Please. I know you're with me. You just have to hang tough. Because we're going to have panic from here to Washington."
"All right," Meredith said. And, for the first time, there was a glimmer of capability in his voice. He realized that he was going to make it. He would do his duty. He just needed a little more time. "Anything else, sir?"
Behind the scars and grime on Taylor's face, Meredith imagined that he saw a look of defenseless gratitude. A very brief revelation of the weakness Taylor felt himself.
"No," the colonel said. "You just get that much done. Then stay on the net to take care of any necessary damage control. I don't think the enemy have picked up on the other squadrons, or they would've hit them too. It's going to be all right, Merry."
"Yes sir."
Taylor finally let go of Meredith's arm, and turned back toward Heifetz's M-100.
Captain Horace "Hank" Parker had been through an interesting day. While he had deployed to Mexico, the assignment had come too late in the intervention for him to see any real combat, and today marked the loss of his battlefield virginity. He had done his best, sensing that it was somehow inadequate — especially in the presence of Colonel Taylor, a man he held in awe. He could not help being jealous of the easy camaraderie between the S-2 and the commander, and he had felt very much like an outsider at first. He knew very well that Taylor would have preferred to have Heifetz himself on board, instead of his far less experienced assistant.
Still, he had done his best, always doubting himself a little, but somehow avoiding major errors. A few hours into the battle he had relaxed, experiencing the odd sense that modem combat was almost identical to playing games in an amusement arcade in a shopping mall. All screens and images and numbers. You racked up the most points on the board, and you won. It had been surprisingly difficult to picture a real flesh-and-blood enemy out there.