A Season for Slaughter watc-4

by David Gerrold

  "Don't you dare say it." I cut her off quickly. "No. We. Cannot. Just. Be. Friends."

  She laughed at that, only a little giggle, but a laugh nonetheless. "You're right. We can't be friends. And we can't be enemies either. What's left?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  "Me neither."

  After a long long minute, I said, "The really stupid thing, the thing that makes no sense at all, is that I'm sitting here loving you and hating you at the same time. I hurt so bad, and I want to hurt you back-and at the same time, I want to hug you so fucking much-because it'll make both the hurt and the hate go away-" I looked into her eyes. "I'm so stupid. I really fucked up everything, didn't I?"

  She nodded with such sadness in her movements that my heart just stopped and withered in my chest. There were tears rolling down her cheeks now. I didn't try to stop her when she reached over and gently put her hand on top of mine. Her thumb crept around and underneath and nestled itself comfortably in my palm.

  She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Everything is fucked, Jim. There aren't any right answers. There're only convenient scapegoats."

  I didn't reply to that. I didn't know what to say.

  "You go out there-" She brushed ineffectively at her hair. "You go out there-most of the time you're alone, or with inexperienced kids, and there's no real backup for you, but you go anyway, and you never complain about it. You just go out and you do your very best, and then you come back in and nobody congratulates you or thanks you or even says, 'Attaboy.' Nobody ever tells you what's going on, or if what you're doing is important or even making any difference at all. And then they blame you for being angry and impatient with them."

  "Don't try to excuse me, Lizard. Please. No rationalizations. I was wrong and we both know it."

  "I don't care about right and wrong anymore, Jim. You're all I have left." Her voice cracked. "I was sitting out there feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I'd just kicked my puppy. I don't think any of us have much longer and-oh, fuck it, Jim," she wept. "I don't want to die alone!"

  I couldn't answer. I was caught in my own flood of emotion. I started crying myself. I couldn't help it. I was as afraid as she was. I reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed sobbing into my lap, and all I could do was hold on to her as tightly as I could and wonder how I was going to manage.

  How were any of us going to manage anything anymore?

  All life feeds on death. Everything that feeds, feeds on the death of some other process, even if it is only the entropic decay of stars, the heat death of the universe.

  At the lowest, lowest level of the biological food chain, the simplest life forms that exist on this planet-anaerobic bacteria, mold, algae, fungi, lichens-are continually breaking down the dead matter and waste products of other life forms. Death is their food. In turn, they too become food to sustain the various plants that live on the next rung up the chain. In turn, the plants become food for animals. The food passes up the chain. In turn, everything excretes, everything dies, and once again every thing becomes food for the processes of decay. The biological decay processors are all around us.

  As simple as they are, these creatures may be the most important of all in any ecology; these are the agencies that make life possible-because they gather otherwise unavailable energy and put it back into the food chain. They make it accessible to the rest of us.

  It is here, on this-the lowest of all biological levels-that the Chtorran colonization must have first manifested itself.

  By replacing Terran decay processors with Chtorran decay processors, an adequate food supply can be developed and ensured for the next level of the Chtorran food chain. The Earth processes would be quietly and efficiently displaced without anyone knowing until it was too late.

  —The Red Book,

  (Release 22.19A)

  Chapter 35

  Using God's Voice

  "The reason why the battle of the sexes will never be won is because fraternization with the enemy is so much fun."

  -SOLOMON SHORT

  Lizard stood on the balcony, looking down at the acrid blue seas below. "I didn't think I was going to like being a passenger," she said. "Now I remember why I became a pilot. I like seeing the world from high up. I like seeing beyond this hill, beyond the next hill, beyond the edge of the sky."

  Despite my… dislike… of heights, I came and stood with her. The Bosch was only twenty meters above the ocean, moving steadily south along the eastern coast of the continent. Despite her complaints about time and schedules, Captain Harbaugh had slowed the great airship's speed to a gentle drift, so that we-and all the other passengers too, I suppose-could enjoy the tropical red sunset from our balcony. The long purple rays of dusk stretched eastward toward the approaching night. Our shadow was a great dark shape moving on the water, and we could see the first faint glimmerings of phosphorescence on the hot foaming surface of the waves.

  Lizard reached over and took my hand. She held it tightly while she spoke. "I never had a honeymoon," she said. "Robert and I married while we were both still in college. We couldn't afford a honeymoon. Neither of us had any real family. We promised ourselves that we'd put some money aside and we'd give ourselves the first real vacation that either of us had ever had. We planned. Oh, God, how we planned. We looked at travelogues and brochures and books and videos. We dreamed of Paris. And not just Paris. We dreamed of Tahiti, Australia, Rome, Greece, Mexico, Egypt-we wanted it all. We wanted to make love in all the world's most romantic places. You don't mind my telling you this, do you?"

  I shook my head.

  She pulled away anyway. She dropped my hand and turned quickly from the railing. She'd never talked about any of this before. It probably still hurt too much.

  She went back into the cabin and sat down on the edge of the bed, wiping her nose, then let herself fall backward onto it as if she were as exhausted in body as she was in spirit. She sniffled and put her arm across her eyes. I followed her back in and sat down next to her, but I didn't try to touch her. She still had too much need for distance.

  "And then," she said abruptly, "I got pregnant with little Stevie and that was the end of that. All the money we had put aside for our special honeymoon-and it wasn't really very much-had to go for baby bills. We didn't mind, not really, but in a way, we did. I mean, how can you not be disappointed? I'd even begun learning French. Oh, we were thrilled about the baby, of course, but we knew it would be years before we'd ever have the chance again to realize our plans." She exhaled softly, not quite a sigh, not quite a moan. "I miss them so much," she said. "I'd trade Paris in a minute, and all the other places too, if I could just have one more day with them both…"

  After a moment, she rolled up on her side to look at me. Her eyes were wet. "I'm sorry," she said.

  I levered myself around to face her; not too close, but close enough. An arm's length. "For what? For missing people you love? Don't apologize. I miss…" I stopped. I didn't know exactly who I missed.

  She reached over and took my hand in hers again. Her smile was strained; her voice had an edge of sadness. "I shouldn't be comparing. I shouldn't be thinking of what's gone. I'll never see either of them again." And then she started to sob.

  For a moment, I just watched her as she cried. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me again, I wanted to hold her and cling to her as if she were life itself, but that would have been taking advantage of her vulnerability at this moment. I held back. She didn't need my help for this. She knew how to cry. And she needed to cry by herself. When she needed to be held, she'd reach for me.

  I looked around, looking for the box of tissues. She'd be needing them soon. There, on the headboard; I stretched and reached-and she suddenly gulped and grabbed me and fell into my arms. "Hold me, dammit!" she wailed, and I knew I'd miscalculated again. She'd wanted me to grab her and hold her from the very first. Damn! How was I supposed to tell? How is any man ever supposed to know what a woman wants if she won't say so? It's
true. Women's brains are not the same as men's. Women don't think like men. I wondered if that realization drove women half as crazy as it did men. No wonder we spent so much time trying to explain to each other what we really meant.

  I held her as tightly as I could while she gulped and choked and sobbed into my chest. I could feel my shirt getting soggy. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, how much I loved her, but I couldn't. Not yet. She wasn't holding me because she wanted me; she was holding me because she wanted someone else, and he wasn't here. Neither of them were here, and she needed to cry and have someone hold her and pat her and tell her, "It's okay, baby. Let it out. Just let it all out." And I loved her so much, so goddamned painfully much, that I would do this for her, just so I could hold her, even though I knew she'd never be able to return the same feeling for me

  Abruptly, she stopped. She looked up at me, her tears streaking down her cheeks in dirty rivulets. Her mascara had become a dark map around her eyes. "Oh, God, Jim. I'm so sorry. What am I doing to you? I'm using you-" She rolled away from me and bolted for the bathroom.

  "I like being used-" I offered, but it was a halfhearted attempt. I didn't know if she'd heard me or not.

  I sat up on the bed and tried to think. My head was full of noise. This was stupid. I got up and went to the bathroom door. "Lizard?" I said. I knocked politely. "Please?"

  She came out almost immediately. She had splashed a little water on her face and was still wiping it off. She looked a little more composed now. As if she'd made a decision. "We should stop," she said.

  "I-I-" I felt as if she'd shoved a hand grenade down my throat and pulled the pin.

  "No," she stopped me. She put a finger across my lips and said, "It's not because I don't love you. It's because I do. I love you so much, it hurts. I love you so much, I'm hurting you every day. And that's wrong. I don't want to hurt the people I love. Not anymore. Please, Jim, not anymore."

  I grabbed her arms and held her still. "Stop it," I said. "Stop it, right now."

  She tried to shake free. She tried to pull away. She tried to turn her face away from me.

  I used the voice. "Stop it, Lizard."

  It worked. The voice always works. It's the voice of God. When you speak in the voice, you're not simply imitating God-you'r being God. It's one of the things you learn in the training. When people hear the voice of God, they listen. She shut up and listened.

  "I love you," I said. "You know that. That goes without question. You love me too. I know that. There's nothing you can say or do that will ever convince me otherwise." I took a breath. "But if the fact that we love each other isn't a reason or an excus or a justification for staying together, then neither can it be reason or an excuse or a justification for staying apart. It's totally irrelevant to the issue. You said so."

  I stared into her eyes. She was listening intently. I could onl assume that she wanted to hear what I had to say. "Yes, we have arguments. Really good ones. Yes, I hurt you sometimes. Yes, you hurt me sometimes. But I love you in spite of it, or because of it; it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you're never going to stop hurting the people you love, it's always going to be a part of life. And you're going to be hurt in exchange. But the alternative to being hurt is to become a zombie, without feelings, without relationships, and without anyone ever to hold you close in the middle of the night when everything else gets too hard to bear. I'm not willing to be a zombie-and neither are you. Because the next step is to be one of those glassy-eyed naked men and wome walking in herds through the streets of San Francisco.

  "Listen to me, Lizard. I know about Robert and Stevie. I doesn't hurt me to see you cry because you miss them. It make me proud of you for remembering what was special about the world before. I'm not jealous. How could I be? Do you know how much I love you? If I had the power to put the world back the wa it was before the Chtorrans came, I'd give you that gift right now. I'd do it in a minute, even if it meant I'd never see you again. But I can't and you can't and no one can, and we're stuck with things just the way they are. And we're going to hurt a lot, each and every one of us. But even if there weren't any Chtorrans, we'd all stil be hurting a lot; only we'd be doing it in different ways; because that's the condition of being human. At least, that's the way I've always experienced it. Well, I'm willing to accept that as the price of admission. And having done that, at least I'm going to choose the hurts that feel good. Do you hear me? I'm not willing to lose you for a stupid reason. If you want to give me up, you're going to have to come up with something a whole lot better than the bullshit you just offered."

  Amazingly she listened to the whole speech in silence. Some people listen to the first sentence only and then wait politely while they mentally prepare their reply. Lizard didn't do that. She listened to every word I said. And when I was finished, she didn't argue. She didn't say anything. She just lowered her eyes, and then her head, and leaned silently into me. She rested her head against my chest.

  I didn't move. I waited. I wanted to see if she would put her arms around me. She didn't. I felt so damned frustrated. All I wanted was just one little signal that it was all right to touch her again; but she wasn't going to give it to me. I wondered if she was through giving, if the whole thing had become so irrevocably damaged that it could never be repaired.

  I made a decision. I had to know. Slowly, gently, I reached my arms up around her. I didn't pull her toward me, I didn't even hug her. I just put my hands on her shoulders in a comforting way and waited in wretched silence. She felt so warm and she smelled so good, and I ached so desperately to know what she was thinking or feeling. Did she still hate me?

  She sniffled quietly and brought one hand up between us to wipe her nose. She looked at me bleary-eyed and shook her head sadly. "I can't ever win an argument with you, you know that?"

  "Huh?"

  "Oh, I can teach you. I can give you information you never had before, Jim-but I can't ever convince you of anything. You have always been so headstrong in your pursuit of what's right that all that anybody around you can do is cooperate or get out of your way." She leaned against me again, resting her head against mine, and put her hands on my shoulders. She sighed and finally let her body relax against mine. "It's so hard to be your friend. Harder to be your lover. But it's harder to let go altogether. I can't do it. I don't have the strength to let go anymore. I'm so tired." She glanced up at me. "You're going to have to be strong for both of us. I'm just going to hang on until you decide to give me up."

  "I'll never give you up, you know that."

  "I know." She looked so sad as she said it that I almost changed my mind.

  I tilted her chin up so she was looking me straight in the eye. Her sea-green eyes were wet and shining. "Lizard-will you marry me?"

  From this perspective, it is now clear that the most advantageous method of colonization is to start at the very bottom of the food chain, replacing the Terran processes of decay with Chtorran processes of decay-thus capturing the basic building blocks of the Terran food chain and transforming them into a source of energy for the Chtorran ecology.

  The Chtorran ecology can now begin to assemble itself layer by layer without any overt or direct attacks on any Terran life form. The ecology of the host planet becomes progressively weaker while the colonizing ecology becomes progressively stronger.

  —The Red Book,

  (Release 22.19A)

  Chapter 36

  Chocolate and Babies

  "It only takes one person to make a marriage work-it takes two to really fuck it up."

  -SOLOMON SHORT

  For the longest time, she didn't answer. Her silence lasted several centuries—during the whole of which time I agonized that I had taken advantage of her vulnerability, that I had said a terribly wrong thing, that I had finally, irrevocably, made myself the kind of fool that even she couldn't forgive-because no matter what she said in reply, yes or no, nothing between us could ever be the same again.

  At last, Lizard sn
iffed, wiped her nose, wiped her eyes, smiled a little, looked up at me, shook her head, and said, "You don't have to do that. I won't lock you out again."

  "Listen. I didn't ask you to marry me because I'm afraid of losing you. I asked you to marry me because right now you need me even more than I need you. I needed you to help put me back together after I was captured by the Revelationists. Now it's your turn-and my job is to hold you together."

  "Why bother?"

  "Because if I give you all of my strength, then you can be strong for the rest of us."

  "But I'm not strong anymore, Jim. The best I can do is pretend."

  "That's good enough. Nobody can tell the difference anyway. Fake it till you make it."

  "Jim-" She tried to insist.

  "Listen to me, sweetheart. It's always pretend-for everybody. We're all just little kids in grown-up bodies walking around saying, 'Huh? How did this happen?"'

  She smiled in spite of herself. "Dr. Foreman trained you too well. You refuse to lie down and stay dead."

  "I'm too mean to die-or too stupid."

  She put her hand on my cheek and let her smile widen into a warming dawn. "You're not stupid," she said gently.

  "Okay, then it's settled. I'm mean. Listen-" It was time to be serious again. "I know what's important. You are-and the work you do. Those people out there depend on you. They love you-almost as much as I do. They trust you and they need you. You can't let them down."

  Her eyes were watering again. The hardest thing in the world is to keep your mouth shut and listen to somebody say good things about you-especially when you know it's true, but you've never let yourself believe it before.

  She tried to pull away, but I wouldn't let her. She needed to hear this. "You say you need me-okay, I'm here." I took her hands in mine and she had to turn and face me again. I blinked back my own tears and swallowed past the hard lump in my throat and somehow managed to get the rest of the words out. "Lizard, my beloved-I will never abandon you again. I will never hurt you again. I'll be here for you night and day, to hold you and make you laugh and love you and give you whatever strength I can, so that you can go out in the world and inspire everybody else. That's the most important job that I can do-and just so you'll know that you'll always have your source of strength right here where you need it, I'm going to marry you. That way you can't lose me. Even if you try."