Ralph Peters (58 page)

"
He's moving
,"
Parker said.

They all bent down over the monitor, each man's stale breath sour in the nostrils of his comrades.

Yes
. It was unmistakable. It was definitely a man, in uniform, and he was moving. He was lying on his back, making jerking, seemingly random gestures at the sky.

"
What in the name of Christ?
"
Taylor whispered.

The unintelligent, wasted movement of the man's limbs came erratically. But he was unmistakably alive, although the snow was beginning to bury him. The man's movements reminded Meredith of something, but he could not quite place it.

"
Get us down on the ground
,
goddamnit,
"
Taylor roared.

It seemed to Meredith that Taylor had just realized what was going on. But the old man seemed to have no intention of sharing his knowledge.

"
Yes, sir,
"
Krebs's voice came back through the intercom, just a second late. The old warrant officer's voice seemed to tremble, astonishing Meredith, who had grown used to Krebs's theatrical toughness.

The sensors on the M-100 were very efficient, and although they were still several kilometers from the thrashing soldier's location, Meredith could already begin to make out the exact contours of the body, even the more pronounced facial features. He almost thought he recognized the man.

Suddenly, he realized what the man's unfocused pawings reminded him of: a newborn infant.

"
Get a grip on yourself, Merry,
"
Taylor said gently.

Meredith shook his head and wiped his eyes. He could not bring himself to look at Heifetz again. Or at any of the others.

"
I'm going to be sick,
"
he said.

"
That's all right,
"
Taylor told him. The old man's voice labored to steady him.
"
Just go outside. It's all right to be sick.
"

Meredith did not move. The smell of human waste hung thickly in the ops cell of Heifetz's M-100. Meredith closed his eyes. He did not want to see any more. But, behind
his eyelids, the image of the last several minutes grew even grimmer.

"
I'm going to be sick,
"
Meredith said again. He could feel the
"
tears searching down over his cheeks for a streambed, seeking out the lowest hollows and contours of flesh.

Taylor took him firmly by the arm.

"
Don't let it beat you,
"
he said.
"
I'm going to need you, Merry.
"

"
I can't,
"
Meredith said,
"
I just can't,
"
although he had no clear idea of what it was he could not do.

"
It's all right.
"

"
My God.
"

"
I know.
"

"
Oh ... my God,
"
Meredith said. He felt another wave of nausea. But it was not quite strong enough to set him in motion.

"
Let's go outside for a minute.
"
Taylor said.
"
We'll both go.
"
He spoke as though he were addressing a good child in a bad hour. Meredith could not understand it. Not any of it. And he could not begin to understand how Taylor could be so calm.

Unwillingly, Meredith looked around again. It was a little better now. When they had lugged the young captain's snow-dusted body into the shelter of Heifetz's M-100, they had found Lucky Dave and the crew spilled over the floor like drunkards, eyes without focus, limbs twitching like the bodies of beheaded snakes, mouths drooling. The smell of shit had soaked out through their uniforms, and they made unprovoked noises that seemed to come from a delirium beyond words. Taylor had immediately put Meredith to work, untangling the men's limbs, repositioning them onto their bellies so they would not choke on their spittle.

"
What
is
it?
"
Meredith had demanded. It took all of his willpower to assist Taylor in repositioning the stricken soldiers. It was especially difficult with Heifetz.
"
What is it?

"
I'll tell you later,
"
Taylor had said patiently.
"
Just help me now.
"

Meredith had set his hands upon his fellow officers and the crew NCOs with the combination of trepidation and
over
-
resolute firmness he might have employed with plague victims. Yet, these men were unmarked by evident disease. The warmth of their skin seemed normal. Nor were there any signs of wounds, except where one NCO had tumbled forward, breaking his nose. The man snorted blood like an ineptly shot animal as they laid him down properly.

Then Meredith needed to stand, as the nausea grew stronger. He saw Lucky Dave's eyes, and for a moment he thought they were staring at him. But it was only a trick of angles and light. There was no recognizable human expression on Heifetz's face. Only an unintelligent confusion of muscles.

"
Let's go outside,
"
Taylor repeated. He held Meredith firmly by the upper arm, and he steered him as carefully as possible over the closely aligned bodies.

The bloody-nosed NCO began to grunt loudly and rhythmically. Meredith recoiled, as if a corpse had bitten him. But Taylor had him in a close grip. He directed the younger man toward the rear hatch.

"
Watch your step, Merry,
"
he said.

The clean, cold air cued the sickness in Meredith's stomach. He stumbled down onto the snow-covered earth and began to retch. Taylor loosened his grip slightly, but never quite relinquished control of Meredith's arm.

When he was done, Meredith scooped up a handful of clean snow and wiped his mouth. He chewed into the cold whiteness. The regimental surgeon had counseled the men not to use snow to make drinking water, since the regional pollution had reached catastrophic extremes. But Meredith instinctively knew that anything was cleaner than the waste remaining in his mouth.

"
It's all right,
"
Taylor said.

Meredith began to cry hard. He shook his head. He knew that something was terribly, horribly wrong. None of his experiences offered a frame of reference for this. He could not understand what his eyes were seeing. He only knew that it was hideous beyond anything in his experience, without having any conscious understanding of why.

"
What
happened
?
"
he asked, begging for knowledge.

"
Quietly,
"
Taylor said.
"
Speak quietly.
"

Meredith looked at the colonel. The cold made the old man's scars stand out lividly. But the sight of Taylor's ruined face was nothing beside the inexplicable condition of the men inside the M-100.

"
Why?
"

"
Just speak quietly.
"

"
Why?
For God's sake, what's the matter with Lucky Dave? Is he going to be all right?
"

"
Merry, get a grip on yourself. We have work to do.
"

"
What's going
on?
"
Meredith demanded, his voice almost a child's.

"
You have to keep your voice down. They might hear you. Let's not make it any worse for them.
"

Meredith looked at Taylor in shock. It had never occurred to him that the ruptured behavior of the men they had found might include consciousness of the speech of others. It was too incongruous. The men had obviously lost their minds. Their eyes didn't even focus. They were shitting and pissing all over themselves.

"
Listen to me,
"
Taylor said quietly. The snow was beginning to decorate his shoulders.
"
I think they hear us.

I think they hear every word. They just can't respond.
"

Meredith stared at the devastated face in front of him, not really seeing it.

"
Listen to me carefully, Merry,
"
Taylor began.
"
Ten years ago, when you were off studying your Russian, I was involved in some unusual programs. Between L.A. and our little jaunt down to Mexico. We were working like mad
,
trying to come up with alternative technologies for a military response to the Japanese. The M-l00s are one result of all that. But there were a lot of other projects that didn't make it all the way to production. For a variety of reasons.
"
He shook Meredith by the arm.
"
Are you all right? Are you listening to me?
"

Meredith nodded, with the acid aftertaste of vomit and snow in his mouth.

"
We tried everything we could think of,
"
Taylor said. He shook his head at the memory, loosening snow from his helmet.
"
Some of the ideas were just plain crazy. Nonsensical. Things that couldn't possibly have worked. Or

that needed too much development lead time. But there was one thing
...
"

Meredith was listening now. Hungry for any information that would explain events that his mind could not process. But Taylor kept him waiting for a moment. The colonel stared off across the whitened steppes, past the waiting M-100 that had brought them to this place, past another ship half-buried in the snow, to a faraway, indefinite point that only Taylor's eyes could pick out.

"
It was out at Dugway. You had to have every clearance in the world just to hear the project's code name. Some of the whiz kids out at Livermore had come up with a totally new approach. And we looked into it. We brought them out to Utah, to the most isolated testing area we had, to see what they could do. They didn't care much for the social environment, of course. But once we turned them loose, they made amazing progress.
"
Taylor paused, still staring out through space and time.
"
They came up with a weapon that worked, all right. Christ almighty, we could've finished the Japs within a year. As soon as we could've gotten the weapons into the field. But we just could not bring ourselves to do it, Merry. I mean, I think I hate the Japanese. I suspect I hate them in a way that is irrational and morally inexcusable. But not one of us . . . not
one
of the people that had a say wanted to go through with it. We decided that the weapons were simply too inhumane. That their use would have been unforgivable.
"
Taylor looked down at the snow gathering around their boots and smiled softly.
"
I thought we were doing the right thing. The scientists were disappointed as hell, of course. You know, the worst soldier I've ever known has a more highly developed sense of morality than the average scientist. Anyway, I really thought we were doing the right thing. I guess I was just being weak.
"
He shook his head.
"
It looks like the Japanese have made fools of us again.
"

"
But...
what
was
it?
"
Meredith asked.
"
The weapon?
"
Taylor raised his eyebrows at the question as though further details really were not so pertinent.
"
It was a radiowave weapon,
"
he said matter-of-factly.
"
Complex stuff to design, but simple enough in concept. You take radio waves apart and rebuild them to a formula that achieves a desired effect in the human brain. You broadcast, and the mind receives. It's a little like music. You listen to a song with a good beat, and you tap your foot. A ballad makes you sentimental. Really, sound waves have been manipulating us for a long, long time. Well, the boys from Livermore had been screwing around with jamming techniques for years. Same principle. They started off small. Learning how to cause pain. The next step was to focus the pain. And so on. You could cause death relatively easily. But that was too crude for men of science. They went beyond the clean kill. And we developed . . . well, compositions, you might say, that could do precisely focused damage to the human mind.
"
Taylor looked at Meredith.
"
Think back to your military science classes, Merry. And tell me: is it preferable to kill your enemy outright or to incapacitate him, to wound him badly?
"

"
To wound him,
"
Meredith said automatically.