"You mean you don't want our friends to succeed in torturing a sick world?"
"I don't like pain," she said. "There's something clean, positive and challenging about killing. I'd like to kill. But pain seems so pointless. If you can stop them, go ahead. I'll help you."
He was exhausted and in fever. "Joel won't let me."
"Then—kill him," she said.
He knew it was all useless, tired, stale, unrewarding. It was done. He was nothing, and the girl was less. The Pack would succeed and a tortured world would die of a greater famine because he had failed all down the line. And he blamed himself for making a mistake that actually was unimportant. For a moment, he had trusted the girl.
"You can kill him." Julie turned back and faced him. "How much do you think those Broadcasters can really control human beings? We aren't fighting wars because we don't want to. We've finally seen what war can do and we're scared. We've retreated. The human race is hiding just like you are now."
Danniels laughed.
She lunged forward, tense. For a moment he thought she had actually stamped her foot. "It's true, you fool! Doesn't the actions of these men prove it to you? They are going to risk destroying the planet. If pacifism really controlled them do you think they could do that?"
He mumbled something about Wolf Pack members.