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Rachel yelled.
She was right. What Cassie had done was insane. But it wasn't wrong. And
I just kept thinking, as idealistic and naive and even dumb as Cassie's
actions might have seemed, did I want to undo them all now? Did I want
to destroy the meaning of her sacrifice?
Cassie had given her life, making an absurd, hopeful bet on peace. If I
gave one order... her bet would be wasted. If I gave the other order, we
might all die.
"I guess sometimes you have to choose between smart, sane, ruthlessness,
and totally stupid,
insane hope," I said, not even realizing I was speaking out loud.
"You can't just pick one and stick with it, either. Each time it comes
up, you have to try and make your best decision. Most of the time, I
guess I have to go with being smart and sane. But I don't want to live
in a world where people don't try the stupid, crazy, hopeful thing
sometimes."
I looked at Rachel, towering above us all. "Rachel, I'm not going to
give any orders. Each of us has to decide for ourselves right now."
I looked at Karen again and then turned away. I walked back to the
caterpillar. I plucked up the stalk of the plant, and carried it
carefully away into the forest.
Tobias joined me a few minutes later. And then Ax. And Marco.
Rachel didn't come, not at first.
But after a while there she was, human again.
We looked at her, wondering.
"Cassie was my best friend," she said, gritting her teeth to control the
tears. "I'm not going to be the one to call her a fool."
Rachel reached out her hands to take the stiffening, drying chrysalis.
"I'll carry her," she said. "I'll keep her safe."
Cassie
For a long time, I was gone.
Unconscious.
Unaware.
A worm in hibernation. The limited caterpillar mind not even functioning
at its very limited level.
It was like I was dead, only there were still these faint, far-off
dreams. Wisps of dreams, really. Nothing to hold on to.
Faint images of people and places. My parents, most of all. Not that I
knew what those vague faces meant.
I was changing, but I didn't know that I was changing. I didn't even
know that I existed.
I was inside a hardened shell. Hanging from
the bottom of a leaf. I was becoming one of the miracles of nature.
I was living through nature's own morphing.
Slowly, so slowly, I became aware. I stirred and shifted and my own
movement woke me up.
My dried, stiff sack of skin began to crack open like an egg. It split,
and I felt a new, strange sensation. The first new thing I had felt for
a long time.
Air!
Now things seemed to be happening very quickly. I was pushing,
squirming, trying to get out. Impatient.
I pushed and suddenly . . .
I could see!
In an explosion of awareness, I knew who I was. I was Cassie! And I
could see again!
Colors! Like some lunatic artist run nuts, spraying everything in
brilliant, iridescent, glowing, insane colors!
Compound eyes, I told myself. Then I laughed, because I still knew the
term. I was back. I was me again.
But not the human me.
Compound eyes. And now, antennae that unfolded from the stickiness of
the chrysalis and smelled all the delicious smells of the world.
I pushed further, harder. And little by little, I emerged from the
chrysalis.
Then, at last, I unfolded my wings. They were limp and damp at
first, but I held them out to dry and harden.
They were made up of millions of tiny scales, almost like the skin of a
reptile. But these scales glittered with color.
It was funny, I suppose, because I was seeing color the way a butterfly
does, which is very different from human sight. To my fractured,
compound eyes, I seemed to be a dazzling ultraviolet and red. But human
eyes would see me quite differently.
Where my mouth should have been, there was a long, coiled proboscis. My
life's work would be to flit from one beautiful, glowing flower to the
next. To uncoil my proboscis and drink nectar from the heart of the
flower. And, as if by accident, carry grains of pollen to the next flower.
I had been a caterpillar. Now I was a butterfly. I had eyes. I had
wings. I would not live out my life as a slug.
Had I cheated Aftran the Yeerk? Had Karen known about caterpillars and
butterflies? Maybe not. In which case Aftran would not have known, either.
I could almost have been happy. But now, awake again, alert, aware, all
my human memories came rushing back.
How long had I been this way? What awful
agony would my parents have endured? And my friends, did they even
know?
I tested my wings. Sunlight had dried them.
I was what I was. A butterfly. I would live a short life in a world of
flowers.
I wanted to cry, but my butterfly instincts told me I had work to do.
Flowers, loaded with pollen, waited for me to help them live.
Jake
I was sitting in science class, listening to some hopelessly complicated
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