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Betty-John didn't answer. She started directing the cleanup operation. I went back to my van and tossed the torch in the back. I drove back to Family alone.

Skydiver Daniel McDopp
used to masturbate right from the top.
Whenever he fell,
he jerked off like hell.
He was good to the very last drop.

48

Jason Makes a Choice

"For every action, there is an equal but opposite critical analysis."

- SOLOMON SHORT

I finally went to see Delandro in his cell. After several private centuries of indecision, I went to see him.

I didn't know what I wanted to say to him-and I did. A thousand different speeches raced through my mind. I discarded them all as being inappropriate.

Part of me wanted to say, "How? How did we end up like this? I almost believed in you. I wanted to believe in you!"

I knew what he would say. "Good for you, James. You get to be right again. You're running your righteousness machine." And if I believed that, then he would be right again-and I didn't want to give him that opportunity to be right, because I was as tired of his self-righteousness as I was of mine.

What I wanted, very honestly, was revenge.

Total revenge. He had to see it for himself-that he had failed and I had won.

But of course, that was just me wanting to be right again. It was a neat little trap Jason had constructed around my mind. There Was no way out of it. I couldn't be right without automatically being wrong.

I guess what I really wanted was an apology for the damage he'd done to me.

Except he'd say that nobody can damage you except yourself. Everything he said put the blame on me and took it off him. All he was, was the delivery boy. It was my fault for accepting the package.

I unbuckled my gunbelt and left it with the guard. She unlocked the steel door and let me enter.

Delandro was laying on his bunk, his hands on his stomach, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I've been waiting for you," he said.

There was a chair. I sat down facing him. "You have a speech prepared, don't you?" I shook my head.

"No?" He hadn't moved. Now he turned his head and looked at me. "You're not telling the truth, Jim." And there was that great, warm grin again. He laughed. "You do have a speech prepared, pobably several speeches. And you've probably rehearsed them all. But you've decided not to deliver any of them. Is that the truth?"

"You've always been good at reading minds, Jason. Why should I argue with you?"

"You didn't come down here just to gloat," he said. "I trained you too well for that."

"Why am I here then?"

"Jim," he said, shaking his head. "Don't pretend to be stupid. Someone might believe it. You're here because you need to be complete with me before tomorrow. You know what's going to happen in that courtroom and you know what's going to happen afterward. And you know who's going to have to do it.

"You're going to kill me tomorrow, Jim. But you want me to forgive you first. Or you want me to beg for my life. Or you want me to give you some justification for killing me. Too bad. I'm not going to cooperate. You have no power over me, except what I'm willing to give you. I give you nothing."

I replied very quietly, "But I can give you something."

"Ah," he said. "Now, we get to the offer." He sat up opposite me. His eyes were still the most penetrating blue I'd ever seen. "Go on." He scratched his neck distractedly. I knew that gesture.

"I can give you a choice," I said. "The same one you gave me. You can live or you can die."

"You have a contribution you can make to the war effort. You know things about the worms. The army needs to know what you know. An arrangement can be made. You and your people will still be prisoners, but you'll live. Or . . ." I shrugged. "We'll have a trial."

"And you'll kill us."

"Do you want to live or die?"

"My survival mind wants to live, of course-but I think I'll choose to die. That way, there is nothing you can do except serve me again. You can carry out my wishes for me, Jim. You see, I may be confined, but I'm still in control. You can't even have revenge."

"In other words, you're not going to let me be complete, are you?"

He shook his head. "No. Why should I?"

"I don't know. I thought-I guess I was wrong, but for a while, I believed you were so enlightened that you loved all humanity."

"No. I never said that. I never did."

"My mistake," I acknowledged quietly. I met his gaze again. "Now, let's talk about your mistake."

"Yes?" He waited.

"It's the way you handle your . . . enrollments. You give people a choice between life or death. But you never had the authority to do that. You didn't have a real contract with the people you captured. The agreement was invalid. I never asked you for the opportunity. I never gave you the right to give me the choice between life or death. You assumed an authority you never had."

Delandro asked, "Do you want me to respond to that?" I nodded.

"I never had to ask your permission. I already had the authority. I was acting on behalf of the young god."

"That authority isn't recognized here," I said. "As long as this is a planet of human beings, you're under the authority of the government of human beings."

"And I don't recognize that authority."

"Too bad. Because that still leaves the question of disposition unresolved. What are your fellow human beings to do with you?"

"Jim, there's only one possible outcome for tomorrow's hearing. You know it and I know it. We both know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. If you want, I'll even write out your dialogue for you."

"No thanks."

"My choice has already been made," Jason continued calmly. "It was made at my first Revelation and everything I have done has been the continuation of the process that began on that day. I serve the new gods. Whatever I have said and done has been part of that service."

"Your gods can't help you here," I said. "Not in this court. Like it or not, you're going to be judged by the members of your own species."

"The human race is incapable of judging itself-and I promise you that there are no human beings on this planet who can judge our actions, because we are no longer operating in a human context. We are beyond your experience. You don't realize it yet, Jim, but your authority has become irrelevant to the future."

"This is getting tiresome," I said.

"You can leave," Jason replied.

"I came down here to try to save your life. Not because I have any affection for you. I don't. But I want to know what you know about the worms."

"I don't want you to save my life. And if you want to know what I know about the worms . . . well, there's only one way you're going to learn it."

He studied me calmly. He's just a man, I told myself, but I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it. I'd seen him in the circle. I'd seen him at the Revelation.

"There's so much that you don't know, James. You shouldn't have fled the Revelations. You'd understand. You can no more fight the Chtorr than you can fight yourself. There is no victory down the path you follow."

I stood up. It was time to go. "It's over, Jason. Ended. You failed. The Tribe is gone. The children are dead. The babies are dead. The new gods are dead. All of them. Every one."

Jason stood up and looked me straight in the eye. His eyes were the sharp blue of the noonday sky. He came very close to me. "Jim, look at me. I'm not the man you think I am. I never was." He was unbuttoning his shirt.