A Season For Slaughter Part 8

Here, meaning was pushed, pulled, bent, squeezed, and ultimately mangled to mean whatever we wanted or needed it to mean. Even people became the simplest of objects in this domain-one mote thing to be manipulated, pushed and pulled, by language.

The horror of it was that this domain of language was the only domain of thought available to human beings. Creatures of language, we could not think, we could not interact, we could not communicate without also trapping ourselves in a domain of subjective meaning that defeated rational and objective thought before it even had a chance.

What pa.s.sed for human intelligence was little more than a primordial soup in which nascent thoughts struggled to survive and evolve, barely dreaming of someday fluttering out into the air or staggering up onto the land. What pa.s.sed for human intelligence was a process so flawed it was pitiful-and yet, at the same time it was admirable when you considered all of what it had managed to accomplish in its comparatively brief history; in spite of the built-in prejudices of organic life. The accomplishment was even more astonis.h.i.+ng when you realized that all of the separate engines of human intelligence were made out of meat.

The network of Harlie units, however, all interlinked together, was a different kind of symbology, not just a different world-a whole different paradigm, one without organic survival as an overriding concern; without the fear of death affecting judgment and vision, distorting and skewing all perceptions and results. It was an environment in which ideas could roam free and unbound, evolving, expanding, developing into grand and intricate structures of concept and detail; b.u.t.terflies and dinosaurs of electric wonder; beings in the ecology of thought.

Only-who was there to start the process? Who was there to ask the initiating question: "Consider a b.u.t.terfly. Or a dinosaur." Who was G.o.d?

Where was G.o.d in that universe?

I was terribly afraid that the new ecology of thought was empty. That would be the real disaster.

The computer beeped. The six months of patterns displayed on the screen had been made by only three worms.

Three worms?

Then where had the fourth worm come from?

The question gave me an uncomfortable chill. After a while, I remembered why.

The shambler tree is not a tree.

It is a colony of tree-like creatures and many symbiotic partners.

The tree part of the colony is a ficus-like aggregate of multiple interwoven trunks, forming a semi-flexible latticework of pipes and cables arching up to a leaf-festooned canopy. Additionally, every part of the shambler is almost invariably covered with symbiotic vines, creepers, and veils so thick that it is impossible to tell which is the actual shambler tree and which is the symbiotic partner.

At this point in time, the average height of observed shambler trees is between ten and twenty meters; occasional individuals have been doc.u.mented as tall as thirty-five or forty meters. It may be possible that shamblers are capable of reaching even greater heights, but so far no specimens have been observed. Considering the relative youth of the Chtorran infestation, it is considered likely that, if allowed to develop unmolested, shamblers of much greater height could be possible.

Shambler colonies invariably produce leaves in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, making it difficult to identify a shambler individual based on appearance alone. Leaf appearance seems to depend on the tree's age, the height of the limb bearing the leaf, and the ultimate function of that limb-trunk, b.u.t.tress, canopy, or crutch. Generally, however, we can say that shambler leaves tend toward black and purple shades, although silver, ocher, pale blue, icy white, and bright red are also common; the colors also vary depending on what kinds of tenants have taken up residence among the trunks, the vines, the branches, and the canopy.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 8.

Badgers "Love and death are ant.i.thetical. One can be used to cure the other. "

-SOLOMON SHORT.

Two hours later, we rolled up short of the shambler grove and stopped.

Every camera and scanner on both vehicles popped out and swung around to focus on the silent trees. They stood motionless in the dry summer afternoon. The distant horizon was clear and blue; the morning breezes had blown away most of the pink haze, and we could see all the way out to forever. Contrasted with the desolation of the blood- and rust-colored landscape, the ominous foreboding of the deep and empty sky was oppressive. I wondered what was hiding behind it.

Inside the vans, we studied our screens and sweated. The long-range lenses revealed only s.h.i.+mmering waves of heat coming off the ground; the images s.h.i.+vered like melting reflections, but nothing else moved out there. Even the wind had crawled off into a corner somewhere and died.

We sat. We waited. We considered the situation.

I popped the hatch long enough to sniff the air. Then I sealed it again, returned to my console, and stared at my screens one more time. I leaned back in my chair, stretching my arms up over my head and interlocking my fingers. My vertebrae cracked in an exquisite spinal knuckle-crunch that reverberated all the way up to my fingertips. Then I exhaled and leaned forward again, letting the air out of my lungs like a deflating balloon. The screens in front of me remained unchanged. They glared like little neon accusations.

Finally, Willig swung down from the overhead observation bubble and perched opposite me. She was a chubby little thing, all scrubbed and pink. In an earlier age, she would have been too short, too old, too fat, and too compa.s.sionate to be in the army. Now it didn't matter. There were jobs to be done. Anyone who wanted to work was welcome. But Willig's appearance was a lie; the woman was all business.

She wore her gray hair in a severe crewcut, and underneath her uniform she was turning into a block of solid muscle; if you got between her and the result she was committed to, you were likely to discover that the single most deadly human being on the planet was a ninja grandmother.

"Coffee?" she asked.

"I'd love some coffee," I replied. "But what's in the thermos?"

"Greenish-brown stuff." She poured me a cup anyway.

I sipped. This blend of ersatz was the worst yet. I grimaced and shuddered.

"Awful?" She was waiting for my reaction before pouring a cup for herself.

"It tastes like elephant p.i.s.s. And the elephant was either sick or promiscuous."

Willig, despite her grandmother-from-h.e.l.l demeanor, didn't flinch. I had to give her credit for that. She just blinked and said sweetly, "I had no idea you were such an expert on the taste of elephant p.i.s.s. Where did you study medicine?" She poured herself half a cup, sipped, considered. "I vote for promiscuity. If the elephant had been sick, there would have been more flavor."

"That's what I like about you, Willig. You never let a joke die a natural death. You badger it unmercifully until it waves a white flag and surrenders."

"Badgers? Badgers?" she said sweetly. "We don't need no stinking badgers."

"You know," I said slowly, as I wiped greenish-brown stuff off my s.h.i.+rt with a disintegrating napkin, "I could have you court-martialed for playing with a loaded pun like that."

She sniffed. "If you aren't going to court-martial me for the coffee, then you certainly aren't going to get me for an innocent little joke."

"Innocent little joke? That's three lies in as many words." I put the mug in the holder next to the console and leaned back in my chair to think; it squeaked warningly.

"Okay, Captain." Willig dropped into the empty chair at the second station, and her voice became serious. "What are we looking for?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I don't even know if it's important. I hope it is-because that would justify our being out here. But I also hope it isn't-because if there's something going on that we don't understand, then we're at greater risk than we know."

"But you do have an idea, don't you? A wild guess?" she prompted.

"Yes and no. I have suppositions. I have possibilities. I have a pimple on my a.s.s that needs scratching. What I don't have is information. Whatever I do, I'm not going to rush into anything." To her look, I added, "I'm not going to make any guesses. It's too easy to be wrong. This d.a.m.n infestation keeps changing so fast, we can't a.s.sume that something is impossible because we've never seen it before. I think we know just enough to know how much we don't know. So before we do anything, I want to squirt a report back to Green Mountain. Just in case."

"Just in case," she echoed.

"Right."

"We are sending in probes? Aren't we?"

"Maybe." I scratched my beard. I hadn't shaved in two weeks, and my beard was just getting to that itchy-scratchy stage I hated. "But a probe might trigger the tenants, and that's what we don't want. It's the worms I need to see."

"Want to call down a beam? Sterilize everything. Then we go in and look at the bodies." She swiveled and tapped at her console. "There's two satellites in position right now. We could call for triangulation, flash them twice at the same time; they'd never know what hit them."

"I've been considering that too. But beams do something weird to the worms'

metabolism. Sometimes they blow up. They definitely lose their stripes. I'd like to see the pattern of stripes on these worms before we take them out."

"What's so important about the stripes?"

"I don't know. n.o.body does. But almost everybody believes they must mean something."

"Do you?"

I shrugged. "The dead worm we saw. It had three little white stripes in its display.

That's new. Green Mountain has nothing about white stripes. So maybe this is a clue. Maybe it isn't. I don't know. It's in the domain of I-don't-know that discoveries get made."

"I'm sorry," Willig admitted. "This is starting to get beyond me. The only stripes I know how to read are the ones on an officer's uniform."

"Don't worry. That's the only stripes you need to know." I held out my coffee mug for a refill.

"You are a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, aren't you?"

"I'm hoping if I die, I won't have to make the decision. You or Siegel will."

"Then you'd better tell me about the stripes," she prompted. I knew what Willig was doing. I didn't mind. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to describe it to someone else. Even if that person doesn't understand what you're saying, the mere act of rephrasing the dilemma, explaining it in simpler terms, might trigger the insight necessary to break the mental logjam.

"You've never seen a living worm, have you?" I began. "Pictures don't do them justice. Their colors are so much brighter in person. The fur changes hue while you watch. Sometimes it's brilliant, sometimes it's very dark; but it's always intense. Most interesting of all, the patterns of the stripes s.h.i.+ft and ripple like a display on a billboard-or like the side of a blimp. Usually, the stripes settle into semipermanent patterns, they don't move around a lot, but if a worm is agitated, the patterns start flas.h.i.+ng like neon. If the worm is angry or attacking, all the stripes turn red. But it varies a lot. We don't know why."

Willig looked puzzled, so I explained, "You know that worm fur isn't fur, don't you? It's a very thick coat of neural symbionts. Well, now we know that the symbionts react to internal stimuli as well as external. One of the reactions is manifested as a change in color. Some people think that the colors of a worm's stripes are a guide to what the worm is thinking or feeling."

"Do you?"

I allowed myself a shrug. "When a worm turns red; I let it have the right of way."

Then I added thoughtfully, "It is possible. But if there's a pattern, we haven't discovered it yet. But that's why Green Mountain keeps collecting pictures of worms and their patterns. The lethetic intelligence engines keep chugging away at them, looking to see if there's any correlations between patterns of stripes and patterns of behavior. So far, red means angry. I don't think that's enough yet to qualify for a n.o.bel prize."

"So we're sitting here and waiting because you want to see the stripes on the sides of the worms."

"Right."

"And you're hoping that the worms will oblige by coming out of their holes so you can take their pictures from the safety of the van."

"Right."

"And if they don't... ?"

"I don't know. I don't even know that any of this has anything at all to do with that dead worm we found." I shrugged in frustration. "But this is the weirdest thing in the neighborhood, so we start here."

"Uh-huh," Willig said. "What you're really doing is wondering whether you've protected yourself sufficiently."

"No, I'm wondering whether I've protected the rest of you. I'm not worried about myself."

"Oh?"

"Don't you know? I'm already dead. According to the law of averages, I died four years ago. At least six times over."

"For a dead man, you're still pretty lively."

"It only seems that way," I admitted. And then, after a moment, I added another thought. "Sometimes I think that as I get older, I get smarter. Then I realize, no-I'm not getting smarter, I'm just getting more careful. Then I realize I'm not even getting more careful. I'm just getting tired."

Willig nodded knowingly. "That's how you get to be my age."

"Mmph," I acknowledged. "I doubt very much that I am ever going to be your age. Not unless I seriously change my life-style." I frowned at the idea. "In fact, I don't think anyone is ever going to reach your age again. I think the infestation is going to keep us all permanently r.e.t.a.r.ded at the age of sixteen-frightened, desperate, and lonely."

Willig shook her head. "I don't see it that way."

"I'm jealous of you," I said. "You're from a different world. You're old enough to remember what it was like before. I'm not. Not really. All I remember is school and TV and play-testing my father's games. And then it was all over-" I stared bitterly into the cup of ersatz; the stuff looked almost as bad as it tasted.

"You want to know the truth?" Willig laughed. "I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but being in the army and fighting this invasion is the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. I finally feel like I'm making a difference in the world. I'm having fun.

I'm getting to do things. I'm being trusted with responsibility. People don't tell me I'm not qualified anymore. I'm playing in the big game now. This war is the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't have it last one day longer than necessary, but I will be sorry when it's over."

"Willig," I said. "Let me give you the bad news. Or, in your case, the good news.

This war is never going to be over. The best we're ever going to achieve will be an armed stalemate. From the moment the first Chtorran seeds entered the atmosphere of this planet, we've been in a death-struggle. As long as there are Chtorran creatures on this planet-and I have to tell you, d can't conceive of any way that we can eradicate the Chtorran infestation-the death-struggle will be a daily fact of life."

Willig nodded. "I know that." Her tone became as serious as I'd ever heard her use. "Now let me tell you something. Before this war, ninety percent of the human race-no, make that ninety-five percent-were living like drones. Zombies. They ate, they slept, they made babies. Beyond that, they didn't have any goals. Goals? Most of them didn't think more than two meals ahead. Life wasn't about life; it was about food and money and the occasional f.u.c.k and not much more. At best, it was about getting to the next toy. At worst-well, we had ten billion professional consumers who were consuming the Earth. Not as fast as the Chtonans perhaps, but fast enough.

You want to talk about the quality of life before the infestation? Okay, some of us had good food and clean water; we had dry beds and a warm place to s.h.i.+t. We had three hundred channels of entertainment and music. Our work was piped in too, so we never had to go out if we didn't want to. Do you think that was living? I don't. It was existence, about as empty and hollow as human life can be. For most of us, the challenges were too small. There was nothing to test us, there was nothing at stake, so there was nothing to live for either. We endured, we waited-and we ran to the television every time a really interesting crisis or plane crash occurred, because at least that gave us the vicarious thrill of partic.i.p.ating in something meaningful.

"Yes, I know there's been a lot of dying," she said. "More than any one person can comprehend. Yes, I know that most of the survivors are so crazy with grief and guilt and loneliness that suicide is the leading cause of death on this planet. And yes, I know that the world is full of zombies who don't have the courage for suicide, and walking wounded who can't cope with the fact that survival isn't an a.s.sured right anymore.

"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 s.h.i.+ning 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.