A Matter For Men Part 4

Shorty braked to a stop, stood up in the jeep and rang a big triangular dinner bell. "Come and get it, Chtorrans! Dinner is served! Nice fresh human-not dangerous at all! Come and get it!"

I waited till he was through. "I a.s.sume that means I was too slow."

"Too slow-? Of course not. You just move too long in the same place."

We tried again. This time he drove straight at me. The jeep bounced across the field, the asbestoid worm in hot pursuit but never quite catching up. I planted my feet solidly and counted slowly. Not too soon, now...

I missed again.

This time Shorty got out of the jeep and strode back to the target. He pulled a fifty-casey note out of his pocket and stapled it to the cage. "There," he said. "I'm betting fifty C's that you can't hit it." He started back to the jeep. "You know, you really ought to learn how to run faster. Make the worms earn their lunch. We don't want any fat Chtorrans on this planet, do we?"

"We don't want any at all," I said.

"That's the idea," he grinned. "I thought you forgot. Want to try it again?"

"Yeah. This time I'll get it."

He hooked a thumb at the target. "I've got fifty caseys says you won't-prove me wrong." He gunned the engine and jolted off. While he circled, I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. Obviously I was waiting too long to fire-but Shorty had said not to fire too soon or the Chtorran would have time to veer off.

On the other hand, if I held off too long I might not get the chance to fire at all.

Hmm. The best time to shoot had to be at just that moment when it was too late for the Chtorran to change course. But when was that? How close did a Chtorran get before the bloodl.u.s.t took over? Fifty meters? Twenty-five? Hmm, think of a stampeding elephant. Call it fifteen meters....

Hey, wait a minute-! This torch had a range of almost seventy. What was Shorty trying to pull? I could burn worms long before they got close enough to chomp me!

I waved at him and tried to attract his attention, but he only grinned and waved back. He started heading toward me. Fast. He was beginning another run.

Well, I'd show him. I reset the range of the flamer to maximum. This time I'd fire as soon as the target got close enough. I wouldn't wait one second longer than necessary.

I focused on the wire-mesh worm, estimated its range, waited till it bounced across an invisible line and squeezed the release. The flame whooshed out with a roar, startling me with its intensity. The asbestoid worm disappeared in a ball of orange fire. Oily black smoke rose from it.

Shorty leapt from the jeep, howling. I cut off the torch hastily. But he wasn't mad at all about his fifty caseys-not even angry about his singed eyebrows. He just ran over and pulled the plug on my battery pack.

"Now you're thinking like a worm-burner," he said. "Fire as soon as they get within range."

I glowered at him. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

"What-? And let you miss the excitement of learning how to outthink a Chtorran? That's what the lesson was all about."

"Oh," I said. Then, "Can we try it again?"

"Uh, I think not." He was feeling the damage to his eyebrows. "At least not until I get a longer towline for that target."

We never did get the longer towline, what with preparations for the big burn and all, but it worked out all right anyway. A couple more days of shooting at the target-Shorty wore his asbestoid pajamas-and I was ready for the real thing. At least Shorty and Duke were willing to take the chance. I wasn't as sure. I'd heard that worms could be as long as four meters and weigh as much as nine hundred kilos. Or more. Maybe those were exaggerations-I'd find out for myself soon enough-but I'd been brought up to worry.

It's a family tradition. Good worrying is never wasted.

Well, I'd certainly done enough this time-and just in case I hadn't, I was doing a little extra in the jeep. Just to be on the safe side.

Duke noticed it, of course. We were both in the second car. "Relax, Jim. It's not white-knuckle time yet."

"Sorry," I said, trying to grin.

"We won't be there for hours." He leaned back against the seat and stretched his arms. "Enjoy the morning. Look at the scenery."

"Uh, shouldn't we be on the lookout for worms?"

"We are."

"Huh?"

"Shorty's in the first jeep. Louis and Larry are in the last one. You don't know what to look for-that's why you're in the second. And I have more important things to think about." He folded his arms behind his head and appeared to go to sleep.

"Oh," I said.

I was beginning to get it. In this man's army, you don't worry unless you're ordered to-and if I want you to have an opinion, I'll give you one.

In other words, this was not the army I had thought I was joining-the Teamwork Army. That was dead and gone. I don't know why I hadn't realized. This was something else altogether.

SEVEN.

WHITLAW TALKED about the army once.

One of the girls-one of the older ones; her name was Patricia-had been complaining about how her draft board had rejected her choice of "needed skill." (Well, Creative Anarchist had been pretty far out. I couldn't blame them.) "I might as well join the army and be a wh.o.r.e," she said.

"Mmm," said Whitlaw. "With an att.i.tude like that, you probably wouldn't be a very good one."

The cla.s.s laughed, but she looked miffed. Insulted, even. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, you might not be acceptable to them. Morale is very important in the army these days."

"Morale-?" The girl seemed astonished. "They're only a bunch of sweat-pushers-! What about my morale? I'm a political scientist!"

"Not in here, you're not." Whitlaw sat down on the edge of his desk, folded his arms and grinned. "And, obviously, not to your draft board either. Maybe a little honest sweat is exactly what you need to appreciate its value."

She sniffed proudly. "But my work with my brain is much more valuable than their work with their bodies."

"Wrong," said Whitlaw. "Your work is valuable only when it's needed. And you're only valuable when your particular skill is scarce. It takes time to train a biological engineer or a quantum mechanic or even a competent AI hacker-but if we had a hundred thousand of them, how much do you think a single one would be worth?"

She didn't answer.

"The only reason we haven't trained that many is that we don't need them. If we did, our society could produce them in two to four years. We've proven that time and again. Your grandfathers proved it when they needed computer programmers and engineers and aeros.p.a.ce technicians and a thousand other specialties to put the first man on the moon-and most of those specialties had to be invented as the needs arose. By the end of the decade, it seemed as if they were as plentiful as sweat-pushers; in fact, some of them actually had to start pushing sweat to survive when the s.p.a.ce program was cut back."

"But that was . . . just economics," she insisted. "It's the education that makes a person valuable, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Whitlaw looked at her blandly. "How do you define value? Can you fell a tree? Or milk a cow? Do you know how to operate a bulldozer? Can you lay bricks?"

"Of course not-"

"Then by some standards, you're not valuable at all. You're not a survivor type."

"But-that's manual labor! Anybody can do that."

Whitlaw blinked. "But you can't?"

She looked surprised. "Why should I have to?"

Whitlaw stopped. He eyed her curiously. "Haven't you read any of the a.s.signments?"

"Of course I have, but I'm talking about the real world now." Whitlaw stopped in mid-turn toward his podium. He looked back at her, a startled expression on his face. "I beg your pardon." The cla.s.s groaned-uh oh-we knew what was coming.

He waited until her mouth ran out of momentum. "Let me explain something to you. In the whole history of the human race, in all the time since we first climbed down out of the trees and stopped being monkeys and started learning how to be people, in all those years, we have managed to maintain what pa.s.ses for modern civilization for only a very short period. I mark the beginning of modern times with the first industrialization of electricity. That makes the-ah, you should pardon the expression-current era less than two centuries long. That's not a long enough test. So it still isn't proven that civilization isn't a fad. I'm betting on history-it's got the track record. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? What you think of as the real world is actually a very unreal world, an artificial environment that has come into existence only by the determination of a lot of sweat-pushers looking for a way to make their lives easier, and by the good will of the universe-and the latter condition is subject to change without notice. That alone guarantees that this "-he lifted his hands wide to take in the room, the building, the city, the world -"is just a temporary condition. Certainly on a cosmic scale it is." He brushed his white hair back with one hand. There was fire in his voice as he added, "Listen, you're capable-that's not the question. You just refuse to acknowledge your own capabilityand that's your problem. Did you know that in the Soviet Union today there are more women bricklayers than men? And it's been that way for at least fifty years. No, your only excuse is that you're not trained for it. And that's also the reason why you wouldn't be a good wh.o.r.e-you don't know how to be. But you could be, if you had the training. The fact is, you can be anything you choose if you have the training-and you would if it meant the difference between eating or starving."

"I'm sure I could," she said. "I could learn to milk a cow, if I had to-"

"I'm sure you could too. It'd only take a few minutes." He eyed her. "Or longer."

"-but then what?"

"Then you'd milk cows, of course!"

"But I don't want to milk cows!"

"Neither do I-but if the cow has to be milked, someone has to do it! That's what makes it a needed skill. Listen-" He turned to the rest of us now. "Too many of you sitting in this cla.s.sroom have been separated from those very necessary skills for too many generations. It's given you some very peculiar ideas of your own importance. Let me relieve you of that foolishness right nowmost of you have to depend on too many others for your survival, and that makes you vulnerable. It wouldn't be a bad idea to learn a few of those basic skills, because as far as the society you live in is concerned, it's the training that's valuable, not the individual.

"Right now, most of our laborers in the army take a lot of pride in what they're doing-believe it or not. So what does it matter that some of them were sixth-generation welfare recipients? They're not anymore! Now they're taxpayers, just like the rest of us. And the skills they learn in the army may be enough so that they'll never have to go back on welfare again. And at least they can see the physical fact of what they're accomplishing-most of us never do. I don't. I doubt you'll remember a tenth of what I tell you a year from now-and you don't know how frustrating that is for me to realize-but they can point to a new park or a reclaimed building and say, 'I did that.' And that's quite a feeling. I know! This country benefits from their labor, you and I benefit -and most of all they benefit, because their lives are enriched. They gain skills, they gain pride and they regain their self-respect, because they're doing a job that makes a difference!"

Whitlaw stopped and took a breath. I found myself wondering again about his limp, where he had gotten it. He covered it well. I hadn't noticed it until someone else pointed it out to me. He looked at the girl whose comment had sparked this discussion as if to say, "Do you get it?"

She made a mistake. A little one, but it was enough. She sniffed.

Whitlaw's expression froze. I'd never seen him looking so angry. He said quietly, "You know something? If you were a wh.o.r.e, you'd probably starve to death."

n.o.body laughed. n.o.body dared to.

Whitlaw leaned in close to her, his face only inches away from hers. In a stage whisper, he said, "You've been ripped off. You've been allowed to turn yourself into an egocentric, selfish, spoiled brat-a self-centered, empty-headed, painted little c.o.c.k-tease. You think the sanct.i.ty of your genitals is important? You're already a wh.o.r.e and you don't even know it!"

"You can't talk to me that way-" She started to rise-but Whitlaw didn't back away. He leaned in even closer. There was no room for her to rise, and she fell back in her seat. "Listen, I've seen you. You shake your t.i.ts and simper and expect the football team to fight for the privilege of sitting next to you in the cafeteria. You pout at Daddy and he hands you his credit cards. Someday you'll make a deal to screw twice a week and some poor sucker will give you a house and a car and a gold ring to wear. If that isn't whoring, I don't know what is. The only difference between you and a licensed courtesan is that he or she gives honest service."

"Hold on there-!" One of the fellows in the back of the room stood up suddenly. He was red in the face. He looked ready to punch Whitlaw. I didn't know whether to be scared for him or Whitlaw.

"Sit down, son!"

"No! You can't badger her like that!"

"How would you like me to badger her? Sit down!" Whitlaw turned to the rest of us, not bothering to look and see if the fellow had followed instructions or not. "How many of you think I'm out of line here?"

Most of the cla.s.s raised their hands. Some didn't. Not me. I didn't know what to think.

"So get this! I don't care what you think! I've got a job to do! And if that means. .h.i.tting some of you broadside with a shovel, I'll do it-because it seems to be the only way to get your attention! Listen, dammit! I am not a babysitter! Maybe in some of your other cla.s.ses they can pour the stuff over you like syrup and hope some of it will stick; but in this cla.s.s, we do it my waybecause my way produces results! This cla.s.s comes under the authority of the Universal Service Act-and it's about growing up!" He poked the girl harshly. "You can go home and complain to your daddy if you want-I know who you are-and he can go and complain to the draft board. Mean old Mr. Whitlaw is picking on Daddy's little girl! They'll just laugh in his face. They hear three or four of those a week. And they love them-it proves I'm doing my job." He leaned in close to her again. "When things get uncomfortable, do you always run to Daddy? Are you going to spend the rest of your life looking for daddies to defend you against the mean old Mr. Whitlaws of the world? Listen, here's the bad news-you're going to be a grownup soon! You don't get to do that anymore!" He reached out and took her chin in his hand and pointed her face back toward him. "Look at me, Patricia-don't hide from it! There are tigers outside-and you are fat and plump and tender. My job is to toughen you up, so you have a chance against them. If I let you get away with this bulls.h.i.t that you run on everybody else, I'd be ripping you off of the opportunity to learn that you don't need it. That you're bigger than all of that 'sweet little Daddy's girl' garbage. So leave it at the door from now on. You got that?"

She started to cry. Whitlaw pulled a tissue from his pocket and dropped it on the desk in front of her. "That racket won't work in here either." She glared at him, then took it and wiped at her eyes quickly. For the rest of the session she was very quiet and very thoughtful.

Whitlaw straightened and said to the rest of us, "That applies to the rest of you too. Listen, this is about service. Most of you are operating in the context that the obligation is some kind of ch.o.r.e, something to be avoided. Do you know you're cheating yourself? The opportunity here is for you to use the resources of the United States government to make a profound difference for yourselves and the people you share this planet with. And we'll be talking about specifics later in the course. You just need to get one thing-this isn't about you serving others as much as it's about you serving yourselves." He stumped to the back of the room and faced the entire cla.s.s. We had to turn in our seats to see him. His face was flushed, his eyes were piercing.

"Listen," he said. "You know about the Millennium Treaties -the final act of the Apocalypse. I know what you've been taught so far. In order to guarantee world peace, the United States gave up its right to have an international military force. We lost a war -and this time, we had to take the responsibility for it, Never again would an American president have the tools of reckless adventurism at such casual disposal-it's too dangerous a risk. The Apocalypse proved that.

"So what we have instead is the Teamwork Army-and what that means to you is that your service obligation is no longer a commitment to war, but a commitment to peace. It's an opportunity to work not just here, but anywhere in the world, if you so choose, attacking the causes of war, not the symptoms."

Abruptly, Whitlaw stopped there. He shoved both his hands into his jacket pockets and returned to the front of the room. He stood there with his back to us, peering at his notes on the podium. He stood like that long enough for the cla.s.sroom to become uncomfortable. Some of us traded nervous glances. Without looking up from his clipboard, Whitlaw said quietly, "Paul, you have a question?"

It was Paul Jastrow, in the back of the room. How had Whitlaw known that? "Yeah," said Paul, standing up. "I've been reading here"-he held up one of the texts-"our situation is like that of Germany at the end of World War One, right?"

Whitlaw turned around. "In what way?"

"Well, we're being punished for starting a war. So we're not allowed to have the kind of military that could be used for starting another war, right?"

Whitlaw nodded. "One thing-in our case, it isn't a punishment. It's a commitment."

"Yeah," said Paul. "I hear you-but the terms of it are the same, no matter what you call it. We don't have a real armynot one that carries guns." He looked angry.

"Only the domestic service, of course," Whitlaw noted. "But essentially, you're right. So what's the question?"

"I'm getting to it. It's this 'Teamwork Army'-" He said it with disdain. "It sounds an awful lot like what the Germans had after World War One. They had all these work camps and youth groups and they drilled with shovels instead of rifles and they did public works and all that kind of thing. And all that was really just a fake, because when the time came, these guys put down their shovels and picked up rifles and turned into a real army again. And we know how that turned out."

"Yeah," said Whitlaw. "So?"

"So-what about our so-called Teamwork Army? I mean, couldn't they be turned back into a military force?"

Whitlaw smiled. For some reason, it made him look dangerous. "Yep," he said, looking straight at Paul.

"Well-?" asked Paul. "Well what?"

"Was that intentional?"

"I don't know." Whitlaw's tone was casual. Perhaps he really didn't know.

"Well, doesn't that mean the Teamwork Army's a fake?"

"Is it?" Whitlaw asked. "You tell me."