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Changes Two: Categorical Imperative
Posted By: Mark Boone<markboonejesusfreak@yahoo.com>
Date: 28 February 2003, 3:33 am
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“I wake up in the morning and I ask myself is life getting better, should I blast myself?”
--from “Changes,” by Tupac Shakur.
Kai ehn nuktos. “And it was night.” The scholar raised his eyes from the ancient Greek text and felt again the force of that simple phrase. Those words always got him, and often gave him shivers. For a moment he wondered who had written those words: a man, or a Spirit, as some of the old stories said.
The scholar looked out the window. It was, indeed, night. And if the news stories were any less than badly exaggerated, night had likely come for all humanity. “Darkness,” as Faramir had said to Eowyn during the last battle for Middle-Earth, “inescapable.” The scholar thought about the ancient Greek text. It was the story of a man who had come to save men from themselves. If ever a man was needed to save men from something other than themselves, now was that time.
And 6:00 was time to go to the pub. He picked up his cane, left his house, and then walked two blocks west and one block north. He arrived at “The Red Dog” and went in. Tuesday evening the local rugby club was always in the pub after their afternoon training session. The scholar was too old for rugby, and hadn’t played for several years, but there was a fond camaraderie shared by all rugby players, both practicing and non-practicing.
The scholar also observed several UNSC Marines sitting at the next table. Warriors were sitting at the next table. Warriors were sitting at the rugby player’s table also, mused the scholar as he sat down with them. But it was not quite the same.
These rugby players played the metaphor of war. On a grassy field they did battle and one man’s strength was thrown up against another’s; and beneath a wide open sky, whether it contained a beating sun or a drenching rain, the rugby players would do their job and would fight and struggle and match strength for strength and endurance for endurance; it would go on for every day of training and every game until each player had overcome first, not the enemy, but himself, and then, if all went well for him, the enemy.
But it was only a metaphor. These men at the next table, these UNSC Marines, these men knew the meaning of war, real war, real blood-red war. Not like rugby. Rugby players played for fun, or for health, or for themselves. These men fought for life and death. After a rugby game the opposing teams would join each other at the pub in the great tradition of rugby and drink beer together while singing songs about naked women. Well, not always about naked women. There were other rugby songs heard in the pub after a game; really only a few were about women; most were about battle.
But these Marines played for keeps. Their manner, from their voices to their movements to the looks in their eyes, indicated that they were battle-hardened. That meant that these men had probably seen their fellow warriors fall in the field and never get up again. It was not like rugby. I wonder if rugby players would make good marines thought the old scholar as he sat down at the rugby player’s table and ordered his usual pint.
The conversation strayed from talk of last Saturday’s game to the usual “hooker” jokes that only those who knew rugby understood. Suddenly the old scholar realized that he was no longer listening: the conversation from the Marine’s table had been holding his attention for several minutes. They were talking about someone...special...someone who had survived some ordeal that no human should have been able to survive. Intrigued, the scholar began to scrutinize the Marines and listen closely to their words.
“How did they find him” said a deep-voiced Marine.
“They were following the Covenant army through the hills because they didn’t any air support for quicker transport. Just as soon as they heard from a Pelican, they noticed some Covenant blood in the dirt. They had the Pelican wait so they could take a look 'round” responded a skinny Marine.
A third one interjected, “How many Covenant again?”
“Five in combat, twenty or thirty or more in an avalanche, and maybe ten or twelve when the Spartans showed up.”
Someone commented about the person’s family. Someone asked what he was going to do next. Someone answered that it had barely been two weeks since he’d been rescued by the Spartans, and since he was a hero he could pretty much do anything he wanted to. Someone asked where they had taken him now.
“There, in the corner” was the answer. The scholar had lost interest with the rugby players’ conversation entirely and, observing that the young man in the corner looked extremely...simply lost, the scholar stood up and walked to the young man’s table in the corner and asked if he might join him. The young man paused for a minute then, as if realizing for the first time that he had been spoken to, answered “yes.”
The scholar asked him if he drank. He said that he had never tasted alcohol in his life. He randomly commented that the people at that table over there—he indicated the Marines’ table—had brought him here because they didn’t know what to do with him. The scholar summoned a waiter and ordered a wine cooler for the boy.
The “boy’s” eyes flashed with fierce anger and he looked the scholar in the eye for the first time and quietly but very firmly said “I am not a boy.”
The scholar was used to such attitudes in the young, but he had never seen it displayed with such intensity. He begged the lad’s forgiveness, pointing out that he still addressed his own son, now in his forties, as “boy.”
Needing to change the subject, the scholar told the young man that he had overheard the Marines telling his story, and asked if the young man would mind telling him his plans for the future.
“There is nothing left to live for. I’m thinking about killing myself” said the young man simply and, judging by his eyes, honestly.
“Look,” the scholar said after a long pause, “I don’t know if there is a God or if we’re going to survive this war...but I do know that there is always a call to something higher than I am...call it duty.”
There was another pause. Then he said to the young man, “Don’t kill yourself. If you have nothing else to hold onto in life...you always have duty.”
The young man cussed at him and asked him who he was to tell him what to do. “Have you seen what I’ve seen?” he said. “Do you know what it’s like...” he began to mutter but the wine cooler was affecting him slightly, and his lack of sleep was affecting him, and he didn’t see much point in arguing with the old man.
“I am Proffessor Allen from New Oxford University’s branch in the Sigma...never mind that.”
The young man interrupted in a voice that suggested maybe he was only trying to appear interested: “What do you teach?”
The scholar was quick to grab onto the mere possibility of interest in the young man. “Philosophy right now, but I study a little history too, and a little literature, and the old religious writers...most of the liberal arts. I like mathematics and science too, but I never seem to find the time to study them.”
The young man remembered the plasma lightning and the purple needles. “We need science,” he said.
The scholar noticed that the young man was thinking of something else and tried to get the conversation back on track: “Do you know the story of the Alamo?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Look,” said the scholar, “the Alamo was where several hundred Texans died defending their new country against the Mexican dictator Santa Anna. They all died, but they killed untold numbers of the enemy. Most estimates are in the thousands.”
“Wow. That’s just great” said the young man sarcastically.
“Look,” said that scholar, “those men had no hope. But they still had duty. Now, you tell me, was it worth it what they did? They bought freedom for their people, and added another state to the USA. Yes or no, was it worth it?”
The young man could see that the scholar was too stubborn to be deterred by anything less than an honest response. “Yes” came the answer after several seconds.
“They only had duty. There was a philosopher a long time ago, Immanuel Kant. He said that duty was the only true form of right and wrong, the only ethic to live by. He elevated duty almost to a religious state. Look...I don’t know what you’ve been through, I shudder to imagine...but I know that life is never over until your duty is done. Don’t stop. You have your duty to live for. Don’t kill yourself.”
He’d said what he wanted to say, and it was 6:45. Time to go. “Good-bye,” said the scholar, “and may God be with you.”
He was halfway to the door when the young man stood and said loudly, “And if there is no God?”
Loudly the scholar replied, “Then may you and your own strength be with you, and perhaps it will be enough.” He sighed, turned around, and walked home.
The young man finished the last gulp of wine cooler and thought. His duty to live for...
Duty hurt. The man who was young in years but old in mind, now a Marine, a Lieutenant in fact, several months later was found on a battleground fighting to recover his senses after being thrown to the ground by a frag grenade’s powerful blast. As he was struggling to return to full consciousness, as if in a dream a memory of an ancient film floated to his mind across the darkness. What brought this remembrance to him now, he did not know, but he beheld a mighty lord of men, a king, a warrior, handing a sword to a boy and saying “This is a good sword...there is always hope...”
Lies. There was not always hope. He forced his eyes open and saw the dirt of the trenches. He forced himself to his feet, muscles straining and the load on his back forcing him to exert the full extent of his willpower. There was not always hope. Not on this side of the grave. Perhaps on the other side of the grave. On this side there was only duty. Only duty kept him on his feet.
Another grenade—plasma—went off nearby, and the ground shook. Good. That meant the enemy was not aware of their precise location. The battle was over, the ground lost, and the warrior was engaged in the task of leading what was left of the men under his command back to safety. What was left of the men under his command was a broken, bleeding, probably dying body of a UNSC Marine—a Sergeant—draped across his back. Hell had it been in the field that afternoon, and now the retreat was one agonizing step, through smoke and between little flames on the ground and among human body parts, after another—all carrying the weight of the last breathing member of his command.
The warrior reached the Warthog. The last one on the planet, most likely. The battle had gone very badly. But the warrior had personally broken the neck of a Jackal a few minutes ago, so for him it almost seemed worthwhile.
He strapped his dying Marine into the passenger seat and began to drive towards the rendezvous point, thinking about what he had read two days ago, just before the battle. The categorical imperative, said Immanuel Kant, was to act in such a way that you can will that the maxim of your action be taken as a universal law for all mankind. That was simple in this universe. In Kant’s universe, there would have needed to be deliberation sometimes. Now the only relevant categorical imperative was mere survival: the survival of the human race. If it ever came to a choice between different human lives, he would choose whichever one would eventually keep the most humans alive for the longest amount of time. If that meant that the warrior sacrifice himself, so be it. Death would surely be restful, and the warrior now knew how badly duty hurt. So far, however, duty had not yet called him to lay down his life. But duty still called, and very waking moment was an agony. And yet, knowing that he was doing his duty, he was almost happy. At least he was content: all he could do was all he could do. That was enough.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blue streak come from out of the tall grass on the right side of the road. It landed on the windshield and sparkled. With movements as swift as human bodies are capable of, the warrior abandoned the Warthog. He fell on the packed earth, and it would have hurt if his terror hadn’t been so distracting. There had not been a chance to save the other man in the vehicle, and the categorical imperative decreed that the warrior at least save himself. When the plasma grenade went off two seconds later the warrior saw his dead comrade fly into a tree, his ruined body plastered against the trunk. The Warthog landed on a screaming Grunt. Ah, that was always nice. Egad, there were at least three more up ahead. It was dusk, however, and in the failing daylight his dusty clothes were fairly well hidden, though the smoke on the wind certainly helped. His fall had also carried him partially behind a small bush. He probably had a few seconds to crawl into the grass before they spotted him. The wind was knocked out of him, but duty forced him to move. He lost consciousness by the time he collapsed several feet into the grass, all of the oxygen gone from his brain.
The warrior came to seconds, maybe a minute, later, and heard the Grunts barking at each other. His prostrate body was perpendicular to the dirt road. There was one at...6:00...one at 3:00...two or three at 12:00. They were looking for him, and the 3:00 Grunt was heading in the right direction.
How far could a man go? Broken ribs, certainly; no sleep for more than 36 hours, no food for at least 24, no water since noon, and now it was dusk. But a man could go as far as duty called him. Especially with Grunts. The 3:00 one would go first, and then he would see to the rest if he still had anything left in him. The 3:00 Grunt was definitely going down. It was wenty feet away, he estimated.
Crawl forward, now, about five feet, and slowly get up on knees. Move mostly when they speak. Good. It was ten feet from the warrior’s original position; the 3:00 Grunt was now...his mind raced through the Pythagorean theorem...between eleven and twelve feet away. Now to watch the silhouette of the creature’s head as it swiveled back and forth looking for him. When it was about 1 foot from his original position, the warrior moved with lightning speed, as the 3:00 Grunt’s head was just beginning its swivel in the counterclockwise direction.
The combat knife plunged deep into its brain and reached the thing’s vocal cords. Only a gurgling sound escaped its dying lips: how useful to have studied alien anatomy for the past several months! He ducked beneath the grass again. He had no more strength left for fighting; what he had was a pistol. The Grunt who had originally been at 6:00 was approaching, having heard the gurgling sound. Pistol cocked...two times magnification...ready, aim, fire: the Grunt was down with one shot to the head and one that must have hit the methane tank he breathed out of.
The last two had heard, and were coming towards him. He summoned some endurance, and crawled through the tall grass. Grunts were not very smart, so he picked up a rock, aimed at a random spot on the road twenty or so yards away, and threw it. The two Grunts ran into the open. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. Blast! No more strength, and now no more bullets. The gun was cast aside. The Grunts had realized that they had been fooled, and were now scanning the grass for him. The warrior lay low.
Then he remembered something. Was it just sheer luck that he was between them and the Warthog? If only he could get closer to it, maybe he could escape with his life. No more strength, no more bullets. Nothing left but mind. Intellect might serve. The Grunts were slowly walking into the grass again and heading more or less in his direction. The warrior tried to remember what he had seen in the past few minutes as he lay in the grass. There was a cliff on one side. He could be seen scaling it, so the Grunts would certainly know that he wasn’t there. The dirt road was opposite the cliff. They would see him there, too, and they knew it. There was a muddy trickle of water coming down the cliff and running across the road up ahead, just a few feet from where the warthog had landed. If he splashed across it, they would hear him. Surely they now suspected that he was crawling in the opposite direction, back the way the Warthog had come, through the grass between the cliff and the road. Let them keep thinking that.
War is a mind-game. They had fallen for the oldest trick in the book, chasing a noise that was in the opposite direction of where he was. They would not fall for the same trick twice in a row. That could be turned to his advantage. If he made a noise a second time, for a split second they would look at it, and then they would proceed in the opposite direction. So he hoped. It was a bit of a gamble, but it was all he had left, and he took it. He slammed his hand down into the dust right where he was, and was pleased to see that it sounded rather like a large rock landing.
A viewer from the air would have seen the two Grunts instantly look in the direction of where the warrior lay, then as if they were very sneaky turn around and run in the opposite direction randomly firing needlers into the night.
The warrior crawled to the Warthog, which was still good, and crawled in and drove away. Seven Marines waited for him at the Pelican, the only survivors of yet another failed defensive campaign. Hours later in space the warrior watched as the planet they had lost that day was glassed by the Covenant.
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