Damon Knight - Orbit 16

“I told you to kill them all.”

“I did.”

“But you just said—”

“Let’s keep illogic logical, okay? I’m not omnipotent. I killed everybody who lost his head. Hey. Ha ha ha! Anyhow, you can’t expect me to personally rout them from their holes. They might catch me. And then they’d do me like Mussolini.”

“They’re too desperate to think of revenge.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” I said. “Homo sap is never that desperate.”

Mattu: “I ask the question, my queen. Why shall the Valenians continue?”

Valene: “The question is important?”

Blacky: “It is.”

Valene: “Elaborate, Mattu.”

Mattu: “It is all in desire. Man wants to live. The horse, the cow, the creature that moves on his belly, the one who lurks in his lair desires to remain living. Every living thing on Earth desires this, save for the Valenians.”

Blacky: “Does Mattu want to live?”

Mattu: “What price glory? I am not pure Valenian, which is why the ancient queen preserved me. I provide the piece of soul found lacking in Valene. I have a conscience. For this reason, my life needs a reason.”

Blacky: “Queen Valene, Mattu is like man. Long ago he suckled his young. Maybe this is the creator of conscience in all creatures who possess it.”

Valene: “How so?”

Blacky: “The sharing of self is always by choice. Once made and done with, it is irrevocable. Do we automatically love that which takes a portion of us with our blessing? And if we love, doesn’t that put our feet on the dual road of morality? If we never love, the question of good or evil doesn’t concern us.”

Mattu: “The Valenians love, but the question of good is not in their heads.”

Blacky: “The Valenians don’t love. They want. There is a difference. Any hedonist is well acquainted with it.”

Valene: “Hedonism, then, is the epitome of evil?”

Blacky: “The epitome of evil is heedlessness.”

Mattu: “We digress. The option for the Valenians can be death, for we don’t care. Everyone cares but us.”

Valene: “Care is the epitome of good?”

Blacky: “You will sacrifice me on an altar if I say yes. If care is the highest good and the Valenians don’t care, then the Valenians represent the lowest evil.”

Mattu: “You forget that they don’t care.”

Blacky: “I could go mad with this conversation. It isn’t sensible that an insult isn’t always an insult. I can call the Valenians bastards and they take no offense and lick my beautiful black body because the sight of my blackness gives them a charge. Mattu, what do you feel when you look at my opaque hide?”

Mattu: “I am half and half. I like in many ways. First, my teeth itch. Long ago I was pure carnivore. Second, my id stirs. Your brilliance is in contrast to my whiteness. You are so black. Come, let me lick your face.”

Blacky: “Watch the teeth.”

Mattu: “Why stand on your hands in our presence? It is not the way of your kind.”

Blacky: “Yes, it is. It’s called rationalization. You can’t possibly love me for my goddamn color, therefore you love me for my acrobatic ability.”

Mattu: “Having a conscience, I know a smell when I smell one. You are on the road to insanity, mad with a great madness.”

Blacky: “Hell, honey, I’ve been on that road since the day my mama dropped me among the boll weevils.”

The Great I: “On your pointy head.”

A thought came and went in my mind, came and went, came and flew, came and crawled away, came and reeled before me, staggered, fell. I made it mine. It was evil and treacherous and absolutely essential for my survival.

Dalia and I went to Africa and chased jungle bunnies. That tribe we had watched a few weeks ago, they were fresh out of girls. Being a girl myself, it teed me off. Why the hell do men hunger for the taste of woman? You frail mice, you just want somebody you can take advantage of. That way you don’t have to apologize for your poor performance.

I once knew a woman who was so scared of getting pregnant that she spent years running from her old man. Finally he got sick and tired of it and had a vasectomy. After about a year of puzzling it all out, the wife got it into her head that she didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore. She went after that man of hers with a vengeance. You know what? He went limp as custard. Permanently.

Now that the women were gone, the tribe of natives were using up each other. They drew straws that day, and the loser of the duel furnished dinner to the rest.

I waited until they were all fed and then I killed them and I cried as I did it.

Mattu: “The Valenians existed before man. Perhaps this means we have rights above man. Yes. Squatters’ rights. But rights mean nothing to us, which places us back where I started. Desire is the purpose.”

Blacky: “Listen to him, Queen Valene. Mattu is good and sensible and full of peace.”

The Council Chamber was empty when I killed her. I had brought a rock with me from my last trip with Dalia, and I took it and held it behind me and sneaked up on her. She turned and saw me.

“Mama mama mama mama—”

“Why call her?” I cried. “She can’t help you. She’s been dead for years.”

“You remember her.”

“So?”

“She’d look at you with her fierce eyes and you’d go hide in a corner.”

“I’m sorry I have to do this,” I said. “Lay down and don’t fight. Make it easy for me.”

“I’ll come back to haunt you. I’ll never let you rest.”

“Like hell.”

I brained her. I knocked Blacky with that rock. It was because of her big mouth. She should have been on my side.

There were about two million people still alive, was my guess. I wouldn’t kill any more, as there was a need for them to build up their numbers again. In ten thousand years, the children of Valene would need food. Man would make his old societies new, he’d commit self-rape, and when Valene came she would win again. I hoped I did it right. All my teachers had told me the blacks were intellectually inferior, so I left mostly blacks alive. The brains were all gone. I hoped those niggers wouldn’t be waiting for Valene with a pack of superweapons, come the resurrection.

I couldn’t find Blacky. I hunted for her.

“Nigger, where are you?”

Everyone who has ever lived leaves a footprint somewhere.

“Nigger, you’re around, I know.”

Maybe her mealy mouth had deposited an echo in a crevice.

“I can’t hear you, nigger.

“Are you good and dead?

“Did I really get rid of you?

“Hey, collard greens, I cut the mustard this time, didn’t I?”

A mattress sinks and stays sunk alter a body lies on it for a time. Blacky didn’t weigh much and had left no indentation. Clothes? She wore none, but I hunted anyway. No jewelry of Blacky’s lay in the shack. No shred of her body was stuck on the furniture. No hair was caught in the nest; I know because I crawled through every one of the holes. Talk about getting sucked! That sucking was finally taking hold. My skin was a fraction of an inch thicker. The nest was prepping me, coating me for the big trip halfway to yonder.

“Have you seen Blacky?” I said to Mattu. “And I just want a simple answer without a lot of philosophy wrapped around it.”

“How can I have seen her when you murdered her?”

“I’m glad Valenians don’t care. If they saw her, they’d want her, but they can’t see her and they won’t hold it against me.”

“I’m a Valenian and I care.”