Valentine couldn't find the proper words, so he resorted to a quiet yes.
They sat side by side, staring off into the warm palette of the coming sun.
"You have questions for us. You have an inquisitive mind."
"Sometimes I sense the Reapers. They say there are others like me, but I've never met one. Is that something Amu did? When I was invoked as a Wolf, one of the men said that I'd been 'turned all the way up.'"
"Some bodies are more ready for the change than others; the genes are there to do more. Your family had an aptitude, I understand. But as to this sense-I cannot say."
"'I cannot say' isn't the same as 'I do not know.'"
"In the earlier war, before you wrote your histories, we tried a great many modifications to humans. Some we shouldn't have. Vestiges of those live on. It could be that."
Ryu let that sink in a moment before he continued. "Another possibility is that you could be a genetic wild card, a leap in natural selection brought on by the new stresses on your species. If I knew for certain, I would tell you."
Valentine felt like a bug under a light. The Lifeweavers were strange sort of leaders. They didn't inspire the Hunters to die for them, for all that they helped in their own secretive way. They just happened to be on the same side of a war-a very old one, in the case of the Lifeweavers. "You use us," Valentine said, and then thought that the fact had sounded like an accusation.
"Yes, we do. Do you know why? When we fell under the first onslaught of the Kur, we were in panic. We had no aptitude for fighting. We needed a weapon, something flexible and powerful, a species we could both use to attack with and hide amongst. A sword and a shield all in one. Your race fit the bill, as you say. In a span of nine planets, you were the material that best answered our need: cunning, savage, aggressive, and organized. You are a unique race. The deadliest hunter in the world is a tiger, but put five of them together and they still hunt no better than a single tiger. A beehive is a miracle of organization, but three beehives cannot cooperate. Army ants make warfare, plan campaigns, and make slaves of their captives, but do all this on group instinct and could never work together with an ant from a different queen. In microcosm, that is what we found on the worlds we explored: individual greatness or collective ability, but never both. You humans, you are tigers alone and army ants together, able to switch from one to the other with ease. You're the greatest warrior species we have ever encountered."
"Considering all that, the Kurians beat us pretty handily."
"They had surprise on their side. Had we known they were coming, we might have been able to warn you in time. Unlike Kur, we had no friends in your various governments; we did not wish to reveal ourselves to you. Perhaps it was a mistake, but we felt your society needed a chance to develop on its own. We had no idea Kur could organize such an effort, had bred such a variety of what you call Grogs, or that so many of your so-called leaders were willing to sell their species for some iteration of thirty pieces of silver. Ah, here is the dawn. Let us enjoy it."
The sun tinted the clouds above and trees below, renewing the world in its warmth. Its welcome touch restored him; Valentine felt ready for whatever challenge Ryu might put in his path.
They sat together in silence. When the shining orb separated from the horizon, Ryu turned and sat facing Valentine.
Valentine tried to pierce the psychic disguise, to see the J real shape of the Lifeweaver beneath-a grotesque mixture of octopus and bat-mrough sheer force of will, but Ryu did not change.
"David, you've proved yourself as a Wolf. It may not seem that way to you right now, but we mink well of you. Amu's Wolves succeed through hearing and smell, speed and endurance. My Cats are different. They depend on stealth and surprise, and a certain amount of pure daring that we cannot give but only encourage. To become a Cat, your body will undergo some difficult changes, and there is a risk. Perhaps you remember a Wolf or two who could not adapt."
"Yes," Valentine said, remembering a cabin mate who had thrown himself off a cliff in the confusion brought about by the Wolf invocation. After Val's own invocation, the tiniest noise and movement made him jump, before he learned to soften his new senses. It was too much for some.
"It is a hard, lonely life, often without even the comradeship of your fellow soldiers. You lived once in the Kurian Zone. Are you willing to go back? Perhaps to disappear, nameless and unavenged? Every year there are Cats who do not return."
"Ryu, I've heard enough stories about the Cats to know all this. The only time I ever knew I'd made a difference was when I got Molly and her family out. If there's any way I can help the people in the lost lands ... I'll take the risk."
"Good words. But are they enough? Is there another reason? A personal one? Forget about your father, your fellow men and women, the Carlson family, or the graceful Alessa. Forget all that's happened with your old captain. You don't have to prove anything to us. Are you going to do this because you want to?"
Valentine sat back a little, perplexed. "Ryu, if that's the case, you should count me out. My desires are at the bottom of my list of why I'd like to do this. Of course, I agree with her about what we need to hunt."
"Forget about the Twisted Cross for now. I want to know what's in you."
So do I. "It's because of my parents, and for my people, that I want to do this. You talk about what an amazing species we are, like we're some kind of work in progress. We're a species that's either headed for extinction or permanent branding as livestock. Whatever potential you saw in us is going to waste as long as the Kurians are here.
"Sir, given my druthers, I'd like a house with a lot of books in the woods on a lake where I could fish in peace. I volunteered for this life, and I've sought responsibility because somebody has to, or there's not going to be a future for any of us. So if you're looking for a samurai mentality, dedicated to its own perfection in deadly self-annihilation, it's not me."
"Nothing more? David, do you like to kill?"
Valentine's heart stopped for a moment, then restarted with a thud that bounced off his ribs. How far into his mind could Ryu see?
"The old Cat took your tongue?"
"I can't-," Valentine said.
"David, how did you feel when you knifed that sentry on the bridge, when you killed that policeman in Wisconsin, the one who disparaged you as an 'Injun.' What did you feel when you strangled that man in the Zoo?"
"How-?"