Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

“But why? Why would they do it?”

He shrugged. “We still know nothing about them, and we may never understand all their motivations. Still, I can think of some practical reasons. Surely they know that some humans survived and still survive in tribal groups. If you wanted to keep the population down and ensure only the strongest survive, that’s one good way to do it.”

“But why not just wipe every survivor out? They could do it in a moment and you know it.”

“True, but I don’t think they want to. Why? Again, if we understood them maybe we could find a way to at least hurt them. Maybe we’re good lab animals, or maybe pets. It might be as simple and cold-blooded as that. Sheer sport. Or it might be that they want a sampling of only the strongest and best for their own use. Whatever the reason, I don’t know any way of asking them and getting an intelligent answer.”

The rains came at that point, making it useless to keep talking. She didn’t really feel like talking anymore, either. For the first time on the trip she needed something more from Harker, and she made it perfectly clear to him in the rain.

“You were right about the cloning,” Kat Socolov told Harker in the morning, after they had examined the remains of the fight. “I looked at the pattern on the big toe of both of them and it’s identical. So is just about everything else I could find. I also examined them as much as I could. I wish we had a medical doctor along or could get these two to an autopsy room. Neither of them have any grinders at all. All canines. And the tongues are smooth and extremely long. The whole mouth structure suggests that they can eat only meat. Ten to one they can only digest meat. They’re not only bred to be killers, they have to kill.”

He said nothing to that, but he did have a wider concern. “I wonder if anybody here is still human? That’s only one variety, I suspect, but what about the others? They preyed on somebody. Were the prey bred, too? This is getting more complicated than we figured.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There’s so much we just don’t understand of all this.” She came over close to him and said in a lower, softer voice, “Thank you for last night.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Anytime.”

“I don’t want you to take it any way but one, though. I—I just needed it. It was pretty strange, really. It happened once after I heard that my father died, but that was the only other time. It’s a strange reaction.”

“It’s a human reaction,” he assured her. “It’s nothing to feel guilty about. It’s just a part of being human. This is greater stress than even I ever thought I’d be under, and I always thought I was a gutsy type of guy. I can even see it getting to N’Gana, and I always thought of him as an organic machine.”

Again they said nothing for a bit, then she asked, “That woman Marine you talked about. Bambi something or other?”

“Yeah? What about her?”

“You ever do it with her?”

He thought that an odd question, but he answered it anyway. “No, of course not.”

“She doesn’t like men?”

“Oh, I think she likes men all too much. And almost anybody and anything else when off-duty. No, she’s an enlisted soldier. Officers and enlisted may have respect for one another, or contempt, but they don’t get personal. There’s good reasons for that. Nobody can sleep their way up the chain of command, nobody can use sex to force someone else to do what they don’t want to do, and, on a different level, you don’t want to have a personal relationship if you can help it with anybody you might have to order into possible or probable death.” He sighed. “I wish I had her here, though. She was damned good at her job.”

Even though it was a part of his life, it was hard to think that he was separated from her and his old shipmates by almost three years, even though it had been only a matter of weeks to him. The realization made their isolation on Helena seem even more acute.

They walked over to check on the two wounded men. Father Chicanis was actually recovering rather well. He was in considerable pain, but nothing major had been damaged that could not be repaired. He was certainly functional. The same could not be said for Mogutu, whose abdomen had been penetrated by those barbed claws. Under normal battle conditions, he would already have undergone surgery and been put in a tank, recovering perfectly, but these weren’t normal conditions. They had nothing with which to diagnose his wounds, and no physician to do anything about them anyway. All they had was some powerful painkillers and sterilizers, and precious little of those.

“It is a mercy that he remains unconscious,” the priest commented. “Feeling my arm, just thinking about what he must feel with those wounds is chilling. There has to be a great deal of internal bleeding. Those poor creatures were designed for quick killing; they hadn’t the strength or sheer power for a real fight. They pounce and by their ferocity and those claws and teeth they became killing machines. What a terrible life they must have had. I hope that God gives them the peace and joy they were denied here.”

Colonel N’Gana was taking Mogutu’s condition hard, but he was the consummate professional. “Father Chicanis here insisted on going back out to the little terrors and giving them last rites,” he said, shaking his head in wonder.

“You disapprove, Colonel? You do not believe in such things?” The priest knew the answers before he asked the questions.

“They were animals. I don’t risk anything to pray over dead vicious animals, no. And, frankly, I’m not certain what I believe in any more. At least, that’s partially true. I don’t know if there’s a God, Father, and I’m not certain I’d like a God who could create a universe so full of misery. I never could quite accept your idea of God, anyway. It never made any sense. If such a God were wholly good and the epitome of perfection, why does everybody keep rebelling against Him? Such a God is also the father of evil.” He looked down at the unconscious Mogutu. “Now, evil is something I believe in. I’ve seen it, heard it, smelled it, fought it. Most people haven’t believed in evil for a thousand years or more. Everybody’s misguided or misunderstood. You think of those things as victims. Perhaps, but they did not evolve, even unnaturally, from a state of grace, Father. They were designed as instruments of evil.”

Father Chicanis sighed. “I am sorry you feel that way, Colonel. To me—well, the basic genes that were used to create them could have been from my own family. I do not believe that a creation of evil who has no choice can be held to a moral standard they cannot comprehend. That is the key difference between the devil and his minions and those poor creatures. The devil and his followers chose their path. A god of love is not a god of rigid order and discipline, a dictator creating sycophants. Worship, love, all that is of value is meaningless if it is not freely given. And if it is to be freely given, then the option not to give it, to reject it, must be present. No, Colonel. Those who choose evil define it. That is the key.”

N’Gana shook his head sadly. “And in the meantime, in your universe, creatures of evil kill men of good and all’s right with the cosmos.” He paused a moment. “We must leave him to die, you know. Or kill him out of mercy lest he awaken and die in agony.”

The priest looked stricken. “Colonel! We can’t just abandon him! What were we just talking about? I’ll not accept a choice like that!”

“Then you can stay with him if you like. We cannot bring him. I’m not sure how we’re going to get across this river yet, but we must do it and do it today. We’re sitting ducks here and the stakes are too high. The remains of Sparta are just over there, and beyond them the hills, and then Ephesus. Ephesus has what we are here to get, but it is also one anchor base of the Titans. The sergeant understood, as I did, that the mission was the only thing that mattered. He’s a liability to that mission now, and he can be of no help to anyone. The best we can do to honor his gallantry is to complete the mission. Still, I will not leave him here to die in agony. He deserves better than that. So, either one of us stays or he is mercifully sent to his reward, whatever and wherever that is. I’d rather not spare anyone, and I can’t spare the others, but the choice is yours.”