“You only just joined Rat yourself.”
“People talk outside their armies,” said Wiggin. “And I
listen. Always your father. Like your father was some kind of
prophet. And I thought, I bet his mother’s glad he isn’t under his
father’s influence anymore.”
“My mother wants me to respect my father.”
“She just doesn’t want you to live with him. He beat you,
didn’t he?”
Zeck shoved Wiggin. Before he even thought of doing it,
there was his hand, shoving the kid away.
“Come on,” said Wiggin. “You shower. People see the scars.
I’ve seen the scars.”
“It was purification. There’s no way a pagan like you would
understand that.”
“Purification of what?” asked Wiggin. “You were the perfect
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son?”
“Graff’s been feeding you information from their
observation of me, hasn’t he! That’s illegal!”
“Come on, Zeck. I know you. If you decide something’s
right, then that’s the thing you’ll do, no matter what it costs you.
You believe in your father. Whatever he says, you’ll do. So what
have you done wrong that makes it so you need all this
purification?”
Zeck didn’t answer. He just closed down. Refused to listen.
He let his mind go off somewhere else. To the place where it
always went when Father purified him. So he wouldn’t scream.
So he wouldn’t feel anything at all.
“There it is,” said Wiggin. “That’s the Zeck he made you
into. The Zeck who isn’t really here. Doesn’t really exist.”
Zeck heard him without hearing.
“And that’s why you have to get home,” said Wiggin.
“Because without you there, he’ll have to find somebody else to
purify, won’t he? Do you have a brother? A sister? Some other
kid in the congregation? Or … oh, I know. It’s your mother, isn’t
it? Do you think he’ll try to purify your mother?”
Zeck really was tuning out everything Wiggin said, yet
something must have gotten through, because now, at Wiggin’s
cue, he started thinking about his mother. And not just any
picture of her. It was his mother saying to him, “Satan does not
give good gifts. So your good gift comes from God.”
And then Father, saying, “There are those who will tell you
that a thing is from God, when it’s really from the devil.”
Zeck had asked him why.
“They are deceived by their own desire,” Father had said.
“They wish the world were a better place, so they pretend that
polluted things are pure, so they don’t have to fear them.”
He couldn’t let Father know what Mother had said, because
it was so impure of her. Can’t let Father know.
If he whips Mother I’ll kill him.
The thought struck him with such force he gasped and
stumbled against the wall.
If he whips Mother I’ll kill him.
Wiggin was still there, talking. “Zeck, what’s wrong?”
Wiggin touched him. Touched his arm. The forearm.
Zeck couldn’t help himself. He yanked his arm away, but that
wasn’t enough. He lashed out with his right leg and kicked
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Wiggin in the shin. Then shoved him backward. Wiggin fell
against the wall, then to the floor. He looked helpless. Zeck was
so filled with rage at him that he couldn’t contain it. It was all the
weeks of isolation. It was all his fear for his mother. She really
wasn’t pure. He should hate her for it. But he loved her. That
made him evil. That made him deserve all the purification Father
ever gave him—because he loved someone as impure as Mother.
And for some reason, with all of this rage and fear, Zeck
threw himself down on Wiggin and pummeled him in the chest
and stomach.
“Stop it!” cried Wiggin, trying to turn away from him. “What
do you think you’re doing, purifying me?”
Zeck stopped and looked at his own hands. Looked at
Wiggin’s body, lying there helpless. The very helplessness of
him, his wormlike, fetal pose, infuriated Zeck. He knew from
class what this was. It was blood lust. It was the animal fever that
took a soldier over and made him strong beyond his strength.
It was what Father must have felt, purifying him. The smaller
body, helpless, complete subject to his will. It filled a certain
kind of man with rage that had to tear into its prey. That had to
inflict pain, break the skin, draw blood and tears and screaming
from the victim.
It was something dark and evil. If anything was from Satan,
this was.
“I thought you were a pacifist,” said Wiggin softly.
Zeck could hear his father going on and on about peace, how
the servants of God did not go to war.
“Beat your swords into ploughshares,” murmured Zeck,
echoing his father quoting Micah and Isaiah, as he did all the
time.
“Bible quotations,” said Wiggin, uncurling himself. Now he
lay flat on the ground. Completely open to any blows Zeck might
try to land. But the rage was dissipating now. Zeck didn’t want
to hit him. Or rather, he wanted to hit him, but not more than he
wanted not to hit him.
“Try this one,” said Wiggin. “Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
“Don’t argue scripture with me,” said Zeck. “I know them
all.” “But you only believe in the ones your father liked. Why do
you think your father always quoted the ones about hating war
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and rejecting violence, when he beat you the way he did? Sounds
like he was trying to talk himself out of what he found in his own
heart.”
“You don’t know my father.” Zeck hissed out the words
through a tight throat. He could hit this kid again. He could. But
he wouldn’t. At least he wouldn’t if the kid would just shut up.
“I know what I just saw,” said Wiggin. “That rage. You
weren’t pulling your punches. That hurt.”
“Sorry,” said Zeck. “But shut up now, please.”
“Oh, just because it hurt doesn’t mean I’m afraid of you. You
know one of the reasons I was glad to leave home? Because my
brother threatened to kill me, and even though I know he
probably didn’t mean it, my guts didn’t know that. My guts
churned all the time. With fear. Because my brother liked to hurt
me. I don’t think that’s your father, though. I think your father
hated what he did to you. And that’s why he preached peace.”
“He preached peace because that’s what Christ preached,”
said Zeck. He meant to say it with fervor and intensity. But the
words sounded lame even as he said them.
“The Lord is my strength and song,” quoted Wiggin. “And
he is become my salvation.”
“Exodus fifteen,” said Zeck. �
�It’s Moses. Old Testament. It
doesn’t apply.”
“He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my
father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
“What are you doing with the King James version anyway?”
said Zeck. “Did you learn these scriptures just to argue with me?”
“Yes,” said Wiggin. “You know the next verse.”
“The Lord is a man of war,” said Zeck. “Jehovah is his
name.”
“The King James version just says ‘the Lord,’” said Wiggin.
“But that’s what it means when the Bible puts it in small caps
like that. They’re just avoiding putting down the name of God.”
“The Lord is a man of war,” said Wiggin. “But if your dad
quoted that, then he’d have no reason to try to control this
bloodlust thing. This berzerker rage. He’d kill you. So it’s really
a good thing, isn’t it, that he ignored Jesus and Moses talking
about how God is about war and peace. Because he loved you so
much that he’d build half his religion up like a wall to keep him
from killing you.”
“Stay out of my family,” whispered Zeck.
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“He loved you,” said Wiggin. “But you were right to be
afraid of him.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” said Zeck.
“I’m not worried about you,” said Wiggin. “You’re twice the
man your father is. Now that you’ve seen the violence inside you,
you can control it. You won’t hit me for telling you the truth.”
“Nothing that you’ve said is true.”
“Zeck,” said Wiggin, “‘It were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he
should offend one of these little ones.’ Did your father quote that
very much?”
He wanted to kill Wiggin. He also wanted to cry. He didn’t
do either. “He quoted it all the time.”
“And then he took you out and made all those scars on your
back.”
“I wasn’t pure.”
“No, he wasn’t pure. He wasn’t.”
“Some people are looking so hard to find Satan that they see
him even where he isn’t!” cried Zeck.
“I don’t remember that from the Bible.”
It wasn’t the Bible. It was Mother. He couldn’t say that.
“I’m not sure what you’re saying,” said Wiggin. “That I’m
finding Satan where he isn’t? I don’t think so. I think a man who
whips a little kid and then blames the kid for it, I think that’s
exactly where Satan lives.”
The urge to cry was apparently going to win. Zeck could
hardly get the words out. “I have to go home.”
“And do what?” asked Wiggin. “Stand between your mother
and father until your father finally loses control and kills you?”
“If that’s what it takes!”
“You know my biggest fear?” said Wiggin.
“I don’t care about your fear,” said Zeck.
“As much as I hate my brother, what I’m afraid of is that I’m
just like him.”
“I don’t hate my father.”
“You’re terrified of him,” said Wiggin, “and you should be.
But I think what you’re really planning to do when you go home
is kill the old son of a bitch.”
“No I’m not!” cried Zeck. The rage filled him again, and he
couldn’t stop himself from lashing out, but at least he aimed his
blows at the wall and the floor, not at Wiggin. So it hurt only
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Zeck’s own hands and arms and elbows. Only himself.
“If he laid one hand on your mother,” said Wiggin.
“I’ll kill him!” Then Zeck hurled himself backward, threw
himself to the floor away from Wiggin and beat on the floor and
kept beating on it till the skin of the palm of his left hand broke
open and bled. And even then, he only stopped because Wiggin
took hold of his wrist. Held it and then put something in his palm
and closed Zeck’s fist around it.
“You’ve done enough bleeding,” said Wiggin. “In my
opinion, anyway.”
“Don’t tell,” whispered Zeck. “Don’t tell anybody.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” said Wiggin, “except
try to get home to protect your mother. Because you know your
father is crazy and dangerous.”
“Just like me,” said Zeck.
“No,” said Wiggin. “The opposite of you. Because you
controlled it. You stopped yourself from beating the little kid.
Even when he deliberately provoked you. Your father couldn’t
stop himself from beating you—even when you did absolutely
nothing wrong at all. You are not alike.”
“The rage,” said Zeck.
“One of the soldierly virtues,” said Wiggin. “Turn it on the
Buggers instead of on yourself or your father. And especially
instead of me.”
“I don’t believe in war.”
“Not many soldiers do,” said Wiggin. “You could get killed
doing that stuff. But you train to fight well, so that when a war
does come, you can win and come home and find everything
safe.”
“There’s nothing safe at home.”
“I bet that things are fine at home,” said Wiggin. “Because,
see, with you not there, your mother doesn’t have any reason to
stay with your father, does she? So I think she’s not going to put
up with any more crap from him. Don’t you think so? She can’t
be weak. If she were weak, she could never have produced
somebody as tough as you. You couldn’t have gotten your
toughness from your father—he doesn’t have much, if he can’t
even keep himself from doing what he did. So your toughness
comes from her, right? She’ll leave him if he raises his hand
against her. She doesn’t have to stay to look out for you
anymore.”
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It was as much the tone of Wiggin’s voice as the words he
said that calmed him. Zeck pulled his body together, rolled
himself up into a sitting position. “I keep expecting to see some
teacher rush down the corridor demanding to know what’s going
on.” “I don’t think so,” said Wiggin. “I think they know exactly
what’s going on—probably watching it on a holo somewhere—
and maybe they’re keeping any other kids from coming along
here to see. But they’re going to let us work it out on our own.”
“Work what out?” said Zeck. “I got no quarrel with you.”
“You had a quarrel with everybody who stood between you
and going home.”
“I still hate this place. I want to get out of here.”
“Welcome to the club,” said Wiggin. “Look, we’re missing
lunch. You can do what you want, but I’m going to go eat.”
“You still planning to limp on that left ankle?”
“Yes,” said Wiggin. “After you kicked me? I won’t have to
act.”
“Chest OK? I didn’t break any ribs, did I?�
�
“You sure have an inflated opinion of your own strength,”
said Wiggin.
Then he stepped into the elevator and held the bar as it drifted
upward, carrying him along with it.
Zeck sat there a while longer, looking at nothing, thinking
about what just happened. He wasn’t sure if anything had been
decided. Zeck still hated Battle School. And everybody in Battle
School hated him. And now he hated his father and didn’t believe
in his father’s phony pacifism. Wiggin had pretty much
convinced him that his father was no prophet. Hell, Zeck had
known it all along. But believing in his father’s spirituality was
the only way he could keep himself from hating him and fearing
him. The only way he could bear it. Now he didn’t have to bear
it anymore. Wiggin was right. Mother was free, now that she
didn’t have to look out for Zeck.
He unclenched his fist and saw what Wiggin had stuffed into
it to stanch the bleeding. One of his socks, covered in blood.
*
Dink saw how Wiggin walked with his food tray and knew
something was wrong. And it wasn’t just because his tray was
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double-loaded. Who was he getting lunch for? Didn’t matter—
what mattered was that Wiggin was in pain. Dink pulled out the
chair beside him.
“What happened?” he asked as soon as Wiggin sat down.
“Got lunch for Zeck,” said Wiggin.
“I mean what happened to you,” said Dink.
“Happened?” Wiggin’s voice was all innocence, but his eyes,
lasering in at Dink’s eyes, were telling him to back off.
“Suit yourself,” said Dink. “Keep your dandruff to yourself
for all I care.”
The conversation at the table flowed around them after that.
Dink joined in now and then, but he noticed that Wiggin just ate,
and that he was careful about how he breathed. Something had
injured his chest. Broken rib? No, more likely a bruise. And he’d
been favoring one leg when he walked. Trying not to show it, but
favoring it all the same. And he was saving lunch for Zeck.
They’d had a fight. The pacifist and the genius? Fighting each
other? That was stupid. But what else could it have been? Who
else but a pacifist would attack somebody as little as Wiggin?
Half the soldiers were gone from the table by the time Zeck
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