“Once again they cauterized that crimson flood; and on the wall-screen before they switched it off and left with her amputated limbs, I saw but could scarcely believe that even now her heart was beating, however unevenly. And I know that you’ll forgive me, Doc, if I tell you that by then I was wishing it would stop. I wanted it done with—wanted her dead—because I knew that Sue would want it, too….
“Time passed…
“I have some vague recollections of partial consciousness, of being awake again, if only for a hazy moment or two, and of seeing renewed roach activity in Sue’s bubble. But as for what was happening in there: this time I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t bear to; I convinced myself that it was all a bad dream that I could simply turn away from, and lapsed into a period of delirious praying, raving, cursing and what have you.
“Just as well, I suppose, because when I came out of it and looked at her—and was actually able to understand what I was looking at—I saw that they’d taken her other leg, too. There was only half a woman on that table now. But…what the hell? They’d returned Sue’s arm! Limp and white as a piece of marble, it was just lying there beside her trunk, along with some other bits and pieces that I believed I recognized as the s-s-samples that they’d taken earlier.
“It was all there on the table in Sue’s bubble room: everything that had been a beautiful girl; well, except her legs and butt. And nothing of beauty left any more, only a lifeless grey mutilated trunk with slack breasts, a dead face and glazed fish eyes. But at least she was dead now, and I was able to speak to God again and thank him sincerely this time.
“Oddly enough, I was able to laugh a little, too. In fact I laughed quite a lot. I laughed so hard it hurt my ribs and then I knew I had to stop. So what do you reckon, Doc? I was maybe a little crazy? Maybe even now, just a touch crazy? But it’s okay, Doc, it’s okay. In fact my state of mind is the very last thing you need to worry about, because I can see everything perfectly clearly now….
“So where was I? Oh yes:
“And then…and then—
“—Finally they came for me, and it was my t-t-turn.”
Dr. S, urgently: “Jim, we…well we sort of know the rest of it, don’t we? So if you want to stop now—”
Goodwin, his voice grating: “No, you don’t know the rest of it. No, I don’t want to stop now! I want you to know everything about these fucking monsters so you’ll finally know what’s coming! And it’s not just them who are the monsters; we’ve been the monsters, too. But that was in our time—when we were the dominant species—and now it’s their time. I want you to understand how it works, that’s all, want you to make the connection on your own if you haven’t already done so. The fish fights the hook, Doc. The tree fern hurls its javelins, and even the lowly bramble has its thorns.”
Dr. S, baffled: “Fish? Brambles? Tree ferns? Fighting?”
Goodwin, as if uninterrupted: “Well, and so did I: I fought back. But when it comes down to survival, when it’s the hunter-gatherer—whether he’s a man-like ape with a club or an alien with superior technology—when it’s him against whatever else is out there and he’s hungry…then it’s always the dominant, more advanced guy who wins. Don’t you see that?”
Dr. S, very concerned now: “Jim, you’re not making too much sense. And I really do know the rest of it. Those terrible creatures were experimenting on you, seeing just how much it would take to kill you. Why, just looking at you I can see…I mean it’s pretty obvious…God, I didn’t mean to say any of that!”
Goodwin, cutting in, quite obviously abstracted but calmer now: “Oh yes, I fought back. They weren’t going to slice up my kidneys, my liver and brain—weren’t going to suck out my bone marrow and cut off my arms—not without a fight, they weren’t! But as it worked out those things weren’t what they were after. They’d found what they’d been looking for in Sue; they weren’t any longer interested in what they’d already rejected, only in what they’d kept and what I had still got.
“And now it was my turn, and they came for me: the three of them, their torture machine, their wall screen monitor and all. But I was waiting for them.
“The first one in—the moment he came skittering through that wall—I was up off the floor, launching myself at him. I hadn’t been drinking their drugged water; I was weak and dehydrated, but I was desperate too and full of fury! That first one in, I grabbed at his most vulnerable parts: his slimy, swiveling eyes-stalks under their blue chitin cowl. And how I yanked on them, hauling on them just as hard as I could!
“And oh, I hurt him—did I ever hurt the bastard! Stinking blue goo spurted from the sockets where I’d almost wrenched his stalks out, and all the while he was hissing and whistling like steam from a pressure cooker. Damn, but I really hurt that ugly fuck! Oh, yes. Yes I did…
“And then he and his pals hurt me.
“Cattle prods? I thank God I never worked on a ranch in the days before we synthesized beef! And as for tasers: you think I could be a cop and use one of those things? Not likely, not any more…not even if I had my legs…and not even if we stood a chance of winning this one. Because now I know what ‘hurting’ means.
“I suffered, Doc. I mean I really suffered. They shocked me and shocked me, needled me and needled me. They didn’t need to, because I was down on the floor, writhing around in agony after the first prod. But they did it anyway, because I’d hurt one of theirs. So in a way I suppose they’re pretty much like us: they don’t turn the other cheek. Or if they do, it’s only to cut and cauterize, ha-fucking-ha!”
Dr. S, consolingly yet very nervously: “Oh, Jim…Jim…Jim!”
Goodwin, his motorized adjunct whining into life, the sound of his tractor in motion: “So you see, Doc, you knew the how of it and the what of it, but you didn’t know the why. And to tell the truth neither did I till I got mobile again and was able to visit the restricted archives and read the documents we rescued from the wreck of the Starspike Explorer. I had friends on that ship or I wouldn’t have bothered, wouldn’t have been interested. But as it works out…well the way I see it, what was written in those documents was very relevant. In fact it explained just about everything that I’ve been trying to explain to you.”
Dr. S, warningly: “Don’t get too close to that window, Jim! You’re doing great with those controls but you haven’t got them down pat just yet and we’re nine stories high up here!”
Goodwin: “I just want to look out, that’s all. Look out on what I used to look down on from the shuttles and UES IV. Used to, yes, but look at me now. Earthbound—stone cold sober and yet ‘legless,’ ha-fucking-ha!—nine stories up at Space Central HQ, looking out over the entire complex. I can’t see nearly as far as I used to, Doc, not even from up here, but since reading those Starspike Explorer documents I sure understand a hell of a lot more! Have you read that stuff, Doc?”
Dr. S: “Why, yes, as a matter of fact. The investigation is ongoing and has been for a long time, but I was called in from the beginning to do a psychological study, a posthumous assessment of…of—”