A Day for Damnation

ONE

THE CHOPPER looked like a boxcar with wings, only larger. It squatted in the middle of the pasture like a pregnant sow. Its twin rotors stropped the air in great slow whirls. I could see the tall grass flattening even from here.

I turned away from the window and said to Duke, "Where the hell did that come from?"

Duke didn't even look up from his terminal. He just grinned and said, "Pakistan." He didn't even stop typing.

"Right," I said. There wasn't any Pakistan any more, hadn't been a Pakistan for over ten years. I turned back to the window. The huge machine was a demonic presence. It glowered with malevolence. And I'd thought the worms were nasty to look at. This machine had jet engines large enough to park a car in. Its stubby wings looked like a wrestler's shoulders.

"You mean it was built for the Pakistan conflict?" I asked.

"Nope. It was built last year," corrected Duke. "But it was designed after Pakistan. Wait one minute-" He finished what he was doing at the terminal, hit the last key with a flourish, and looked up at me. "Remember the treaty?"

"Sure. We couldn't build any new weapons."

"Right," he said. He stood up and slid his chair in. He turned around and began picking up pages as they slid quietly, one after the other, out of the printer. He added, "We couldn't even replace old weapons. But the treaty didn't say anything about research or development, did it?"

He picked up the last page, evened the stack of papers on a desk top, and joined me at the window. "Yep. That is one beautiful warship," he said.

"Impressive," I admitted.

"Here-initial these," he said, handing me the pages.

I sat down at a desk and began working my way through them. Duke watched over my shoulder, occasionally pointing to a place I missed. I said, "Yeah, but-where did it come from? Somebody still had to build it."

Duke said, "Are your clothes custom made?"

"Sure," I said, still initialing. "Aren't everybody's?"

"Uh huh. You take it for granted now. A computer looks at you, measures you by sight, and appropriately proportions the patterns. Another computer controls a laser and cuts the cloth, and then a half-dozen robots sew the pieces together. If the plant is on the premises, you can have a new suit in three hours maximum."

"So?" I signed the last page and handed the stack back to him. He put the papers in an envelope, sealed it, signed it, and handed it back to me to sign.

"So," he said, "if we can do it with a suit of clothes, why can't we do it with a car or a house-or a chopper? That's what we got out of Pakistan. We were forced to redesign our production technology." He nodded toward the window. "The factory that built that Huey was turning out buses before the plagues. And I'll bet you the designs and the implementation plans and the retooling procedures were kept in the same state of readiness as our Nuclear Deterrent Brigade for all those years-just in case they might someday be needed."

I signed the envelope and handed it back.

"Lieutenant," Duke grinned at me, "you should sit down and write a thank-you note to our friends in the Fourth World Alliance. Their so-called `Victory of Righteousness' ten years ago made it possible for the United States to be the best-prepared nation on this planet for responding to the Chtorran infestation."

"I'm not sure they'd see it that way," I remarked.

"Probably not," he agreed. "There's a tendency toward paranoia in the Fourth World." He tossed the envelope into the safe and shut the door.

"All right-' he said, suddenly serious. "The paperwork is done." He glanced at his watch. "We've got ten minutes. Sit down and clear." He pulled two chairs into position, facing each other. I took one and he took the other. He took a moment to rub his face, then he looked at me as if I were the only person left on the planet. The rest of the world, the rest of the day, all of it ceased to exist. Taking care of the soul, Duke called it. Teams had gone out that hadn't and they hadn't come back.

Duke waited until he saw that I was ready to begin, then he asked simply, "How are you feeling?"

I looked inside. I wasn't certain.

"You don't have to hit the bull's-eye," Duke said. "You can sneak up on it. How are you feeling?" he asked again.

"Edgy," I admitted. "That chopper out there-it's intimidating. I mean, I just don't believe a thing that big can get off the ground."

"Mm hm," said Duke. "That's very interesting, but tell me about James McCarthy."

"I am-" I said, feeling a little annoyed. I knew how to clear. You dump your mind of everything that might get in the way of the mission.

"There-" pointed Duke. "What was that?"

I saw what he meant. I couldn't hide it. "Impatience," I said. "And annoyance. I'm getting tired of all the changes in procedures. And frustrated-that it doesn't seem to make a difference-"

"And ... ?" he prompted.

"And..." I admitted, "...sometimes I'm afraid of all the responsibility. Sometimes I just want to run away from it. And sometimes I want to kill everything in sight." I added, "Sometimes I think I'm going crazy."

Duke looked up sharply at that, but his phone beeped before he could speak. He pulled it off his belt, thumbed it to life, and snapped, "Five minutes." He put it down on the table and looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well... I'm not sure if it's even real or not. . ." I weaseled. Duke glanced at his watch. "Come on, Jim-there's a chopper waiting for us. I need to know if you're going on it or not. What's this `crazy' stuff about?"

"I've been having... episodes. . . ." I said.

"What kind of `episodes'?"

"Well, dreams. Sort of. I don't know if I should even be telling you this. Maybe I should plug into Dr. Davidson-"

"Yes, you should be telling me this!" Duke looked annoyed and impatient now. "'Cause if you don't, I'm going without you." He started to rise.

I said quickly, "I've been-hearing things." Duke sat back down.

"And," I continued, "-I've been remembering things. Mostly when I'm asleep or dozing. But it's things I've never heard or seen before. And-this one is the most confusing; you know how most people dream in pictures? Well, last night, I dreamed in sound. A symphony. It was cold and ghostly. It sounded like it was coming from another world, or another plane of existence. I thought I was dying. I woke up in a sweat, it scared me so."

Duke studied me like a father. His eyes were sharp. "Dreams, huh? That's what's been bothering you?"

I nodded.

He didn't say anything immediately. He looked away, out the window, then looked back to me. "I have dreams all the time," he admitted. "Nightmares actually. I keep seeing all the faces of all the people-" He stopped in the middle of the sentence. He dropped his gaze and looked at his hands. His huge old battered hands. I wondered if I should say something. Abruptly he looked back up at me, and he was Duke again-and he'd left several volumes unsaid. "But I don't let it stop me. Jim, do you hear what I'm saying?"

"Uh huh. It's just-"

"What?"

I was embarrassed to admit it. "It's just that I'm afraid of going out of control," I said. "It's almost like there are voices-I think if I could just make out what they're saying, I'd know the answer and everything would be all right. But I can never quite make it out. It feels like distant whispering." There. It was out. I waited for his reaction.

Duke looked troubled. He looked as if he couldn't find the answer he was looking for. He looked out the window at the chopper again. When he came back at me, his expression was unhappy.

"By all rights," he said, "I should ground you pending a medical exam. Except, I can't. I need you for this mission. That's the way this whole damn war is being run. There's not a one of us that doesn't deserve a couple of years of R and R. But we'll never see it. Instead, we'll just keep getting kicked from one crisis to the next and we'll have to take care of our sanity at the stoplights." He studied me sharply. "Do you think you're crazy?"

I shrugged, "I don't know. I certainly don't think I'm normal."

Abruptly, he grinned. "Now-that's normal! Nobody's normal on this planet, Jim. If you're aware of that, you're not crazy. It's only when you start insisting that you're sane that we're going to lock you up."

I blinked and hesitated-and then I got the joke. Sanity. If you thought you had it, you probably didn't. The evidence that you have it is that you wonder if you do. You can go crazy thinking about that one too long.

"Jim-" Duke said, "put all that aside for the moment. What are you here for? What's the job?"

"I'm here to kill worms. The job is to stop the Chtorran infestation of the Earth. By whatever means possible."

"Good," Duke said. "Now, let me ask you another question. Do you have to be sane or fit some standard of `normality' to do that job?"

I thought about it. I looked at the answer inside my head. Obviously not. "No," I said.

"Good. So you see, it doesn't matter if you're crazy or not. There's only one thing I need to know. Can I count on you today?"

Now it was my turn to grin. "Yes, you can count on me."

"Absolutely."

"Absolutely." And I meant it.

"Good," he said. "Grab your kit and let's go."

I didn't move. There was one more thing. "Uh-"

"Something else?" He looked concerned.

"Um, not really. Just a question-"

"Yes, what?"

"Um ... Duke-who do you clear with?"

He looked startled. He turned away from me while he picked up his phone and his traveling kit. Then he turned back to me and said, "I check in with the boss from time to time." He jerked a thumb toward the ceiling-and beyond. "The man upstairs." And then he was out the door.

I followed him, shaking my head in wonderment. The universe was full of surprises.