A Season For Slaughter Part 29

Worse than we can imagine."

There was silence in the room for a long long moment. Then Lizard began speaking again. "Our flight path will take us directly across the Carabinani infestation. We're going to use that as a dry run to see how the worms react to our presence in their sky.

"Our past experience with lighter-than-air craft suggests that the gastropedes perceive dirigibles and blimps as some kind of gigantic sky-Chtorran. Perhaps they perceive the craft as an angel, perhaps even a G.o.d. Who knows? But if the j.a.puran worms are anything like their North American counterparts, and we see no reason why they shouldn't be, their initial reaction will be one of frenzy and confusion. After a short period of panic, they'll go into rapid sessions of communion, two, three, four at a time. Later, as they break out of these sessions, we'll see them spending a lot of time focusing their attention upward. An airs.h.i.+p seems to have the same effect on them as a hundred-meter vision of the Virgin Mary appearing over Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday would have on the Roman Catholic ma.s.ses: awe and fear, wors.h.i.+p and ma.s.s hysteria. You might consider for yourself how you would feel if you were part of the crowd when such an event occurred. Whether you believe or not, you would not be unmoved.

"We're going to take advantage of this phenomenon. As some of you already know, the outer skin of the Hieronymus Bosch is the most extravagant large-scale video-display surface ever a.s.sembled. Not even the Matsus.h.i.+ta building in New York has this scale of display electronics. We're going to experiment with a variety of different patterns and color combinations across the sides and belly of the s.h.i.+p.

We're going to test their responses every way we can. We'll hit them with the colors that their eyes respond to best; we'll project rhythms and sounds; we'll generate intricate cycles of moving patterns to see what kinds of reactions they manifest. We want to see what kinds of behaviors the various displays will trigger in the Chtorran nervous systems. We have a whole program of cyclical displays: fractals, chaotics, mathematical formulas, random harmonies, musically derived images, everything that the Detroit labs could come up with. We're going to see if we can hypnotize the entire camp into some kind of paralysis. The Carabinani infestation will be our first test. It'll be a place where we can allow ourselves to take a few risks without penalizing our later mission over the j.a.puran camp.

"There are briefing books in the pockets of your chairs. You can take them out now. You'll notice that they're fairly thick doc.u.ments. And yes, you are expected to be familiar with every single page of these doc.u.ments."

An aide tapped my shoulder; Dan Corrigan, one of Lizard's a.s.sistants. He was holding out a set of briefing books with my name taped to the cover. I thanked him and broke the seal on the package.

I flipped quickly through the volumes. These were the master doc.u.ments. They included most of the decision-level information. A lot of the ecology stuff was material I had written, and I felt good about that; but it was the section on mission equipment, scientific as well as military, that brought me up short. It was filled with surprises. I hadn't realized that industrial nano-technology had progressed this far.

Obviously, a lot of this stuff had been in the works long before the Chtorrans had arrived, but was only now losing some of its Most Secret status. I turned the pages in amazement. Some of these probes were smart enough to play grand-master chess.

This was more fun than a Christmas wishbook. I wanted to study these spec sheets in detail.

Lizard was still talking. Reluctantly I closed the books and turned forward again.

"Now, let me talk to you a little bit about the services available here on the Hieronymus Bosch."

This remark was met by appreciative laughter and a spattering of applause, as well as a few salacious remarks.

"Yes, this is a luxury vessel," Lizard admitted with a wry expression. "And yes, the boys and girls who escorted you to your cabins are only too happy to show you just how luxurious it can be. And yes, you've all earned the right to enjoy yourselves.

Considering the job you've done and the job that you're going to have to do in the days to come, it would be cruel, stupid, and ultimately futile to tell you not to partake of the pleasures available to you. This is an airborne garden of earthly delights, and you are all very human. So..." She stopped and looked slowly around the room again. This time I thought I saw her glance ricochet off me, but I still wasn't sure.

"So what I'm going to say to you is this. Please be responsible for your behavior.

This isn't a brothel, and you are not a bunch of fraternity boys celebrating Easter weekend: You have work to do, a lot of it. I'm going to expect you to get it done with your usual dedication and spirit. Don't let yourself be diverted from your mission. Have your fun after you've done your day's work. Not before. Not during.

Not instead of. I don't want to have to issue orders that we will all find uncomfortable. Please be responsible for your behavior and I won't have to. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your cooperation. That is all."

She stepped down from the dais, headed straight up the aisle, and out the rear door of the lounge. The tugboats scurried after her. I loved her, but I hated her professional personality. It was so d.a.m.ned impersonal.

I was so angry at being ignored that I thought about buzzing Shaun right then and there, so she could catch us in the act when she returned to the cabin.

I didn't do it, but I thought about it.

But then I remembered Randy Dannenfelser's smirking face, and that was the end of that thought.

If the plague-causing germs exist in a reservoir of Chtorran life forms, then obviously they cannot be as dangerous to their hosts as they are to humans and other Terran species. In fact, the germs may even provide significant benefits to their natural hosts by their presence.

Another possibility exists-that the plaguecausing germs might not be found residing in a reservoir of Chtorran hosts at all, but instead may exist only as spores, or some other form of encysted structure, until such time as they are delivered to an appropriate environment for growth-such as a human bloodstream.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it just pushes the question back another step without resolving it at all. If the Chtorran germs exist as spores, where were they before they were spores? And how did they get from there to here?

At this point, we have not only not answered our question about the establishment of the Chtorran ecology; we have demonstrated that all of our earlier hypotheses about the initial processes of the colonization are flawed and unworkable.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 33.

The Brief Longing "Here's everything you need to know about men and women. Men are bullies.

Women are snakes. Except when it's the other way around.''

-SOLOMON SHORT.

It was a good thing that the Hieronymus Bosch was filled with helium, not hydrogen. We'd have vaporized it. The argument in cabin A-4 wasn't just heated; it was scalding. It was the kind of argument that gets measured on the Richter scale.

It wasn't the words. There were almost no histrionics at all. It was the pa.s.sion underneath the words. We had never been so brutal and so hateful with each other.

Lizard stormed into the room like an iceberg caving in the side of the t.i.tanic. Her expression was hard and unbreakable. "All right, Captain," she said. "From here on, it's strictly professional between us. I'm General Tirelli. You're Captain McCarthy.

You sleep in that room. I sleep in the other one. I'd have had you put somewhere else, but all the other cabins were a.s.signed by the time you decided to rejoin us."

She held up a hand. "No, don't speak. I'm not through. To be perfectly frank, I didn't want you here. You walked out on me when I needed you the most. I can't depend on you-"

"Then why am I here?"

"Uncle Ira wants you here. I don't."

"That's not what Uncle Ira said."

"Uncle Ira was wrong."

"I doubt that very much," I snapped right back. I could feel my anger rising, but I was going to live up to my promise if it killed me. I swallowed hard. "Uncle Ira doesn't make stupid mistakes."

Lizard caught the difference in my tone and stopped and stared at me. "Okay,"

she admitted. She took a breath and lowered her voice too. "Yes. I wanted you here when I wanted you here. But Uncle Ira was working with old news. Now I don't want you here. I've changed my mind."

I shrugged and walked toward the balcony. I hit the panel to open the windows.

"What are you doing?"

"You don't want me here. I'm leaving. I'm jumping s.h.i.+p. Don't worry about me.

I'll find my way back to Panama City."

"Don't be stupid, Jim."

I shrugged. "I can't anyway. The windows are locked until our speed drops below forty klicks. I'll have to wait until sunset and jump out then. Is that okay?" She didn't answer. "Or do you want me to throw a chair through one of these? I think I still remember how."

She shook her head. "Always with the smart remarks. And you wonder why no one gets along with you."

"Wait." I held up a hand. I counted to one- She was studying me curiously. "What?"

"I promised Uncle Ira-"

"He told me what you promised."

"He did?"

"I told him not to bother sending you. He said it was too late, you were on your way. I told him I'd send you back. He told me to work it out with you when you got here. So this is what I'm doing. I'm working it out. I'm General Tirelli, you're Captain McCarthy. I sleep in there. You sleep in there. End of discussion."

"Is that it? I don't get a chance to apologize?"

"I'm sure that your apology will be wonderful, Jim. You've spent a lifetime learning how to apologize correctly. You can apologize better than any ten people I know. You could give cla.s.ses in how to apologize. But I've seen your act. I've heard all of your apologies. Over and over and over again. I've seen the performance, Jim.

I'm bored with it. There isn't anything you can say to me that I haven't already heard, and none of it is going to make a d.a.m.n bit of difference anymore."

"I love you," I said softly.

"I love you too," she replied, but her tone was unchanged. "So what?" She folded her arms across her chest and looked impregnable. "That only works in the movies, Jim. It doesn't change what I've decided. Just because your hormones get along with mine doesn't mean I have to disconnect my brain for the privilege."

I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were getting very white. My grip was tightening on the back of the chair. I could almost feel myself swinging it through the nearest window. I didn't think Captain Harbaugh would approve. I knew that Uncle Ira would be unhappy.

"I made a promise," I said. My throat hurt so badly, I could barely get the words out. My voice was trembling. "I promised Uncle Ira that if he let me have this chance that I would do whatever I had to do to work things out with you. And he led me to believe that's what you wanted too."

Her tone was still too sharp. "If you expected me to be waiting I'or you with open arms-"

"I expected you to shut up and listen," I snapped right back at her. I surprised myself. "I heard what you had to say. Now it's my turn."

Amazingly, she shut. It was an effort, but she shut. She kept her arms folded, she bit her lip, she looked at the rug as if it were the wrong place to be, she turned around as if looking for a new place to stand, then stepped over to the wall and stood with her back against it, still with her arms folded across her chest. She looked at me with eyes like ice and waited.

I took a breath and tried to remember what I had been about to say. I tried to recreate the mood; my voice was strained as I began. "... All the way here, I kept trying to imagine what I could say to you or what you might say to me. I couldn't imagine that you were going to be happy to see me. But neither did I imagine that you were going to be deliberately hostile. But I did think that you would listen to what I had to say. And now the joke's on me. Because I can't think of a single thing that I need to tell you. You don't want to hear my apology. You don't need to hear what I promised Uncle Ira. And there's nothing else for me to tell you. And even if I could think of something else, you don't want to hear it anyway. It wouldn't make a difference, so why bother to say it? So I'll get off at Amapa and catch a plane home.

Thanks for the vacation."

I thought I was through. I started to turn away; but abruptly, one more thought occurred to me. I turned back to her. "Y'know-" I added softly, "I thought I had something to offer to this mission. I earned the job of science officer. Instead I got footprints on my back. And yeah, I got mad. But Uncle Ira told me that you really did value my services and that you had a field promotion planned. Okay, yes, I was an idiot. A complete jerk. An a.s.shole. I'm sure you can add a whole bunch of other names that I can't imagine; you always were better at swearing than I was. But I still thought I could make a valuable difference here. Now you're telling me that I can't even do that. So there really isn't any point in my staying."

The whole thing was getting very clear to me now. I faced her directly and spoke as evenly as I could. She met my gaze dispa.s.sionately.

"I always thought that you were the one person I could depend on, no matter what. I've depended on your strength and on your maturity and on your wisdom from the first day I met you. I admired you so much. I thought that you knew how to make everything work just the way it should. You were one of my role models, the way you handled yourself and the people around you. I wanted to be like you. And every time you spoke to me, I felt like I was being honored. And every time you told me I had done good, I felt like I'd been kissed by G.o.d. I'd have done anything for you. Not just because I love you, but because... just because you're you. And even after we started sleeping together-I was so f.u.c.king amazed. The more I knew you, the better you got. And the harder I had to work to keep up with you. To be worthy of you.

"And then you brought in Dwan Grodin, and I thought you had lost confidence in me. I can't tell you how hurt I was. I was so demolished that I blew it. I lost all control. Suddenly, I wasn't good enough for you anymore. I went into the bathroom and cried until I lost my lunch. I haven't cried like that since I don't know when.

"And then Uncle Ira, who was apparently suffering only a mild case of death, came back and explained that you hadn't lost faith in me, that you were just as angry as I was, and I realized just how completely stupid I had been. So, yes, I got on the plane thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you and I could sit down and talk to each other that maybe, just maybe, you might understand and forgive.

"Now here I am discovering that you don't want to understand, you don't want to listen, and you don't want to forgive. And after all my work trying to put myself back together, I'm being ripped apart all over again. And the one person I most need to talk to about this is you-and you're not here for me anymore. And I can't tell you how much this hurts."

"Are you done?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," I said.

"For someone who doesn't have anything to say, you sure have a lot to say." She shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry that you're hurting. This isn't easy for me either.

I'm sorry, Jim. I tried, I really did. But we can't just keep putting the pieces back together over and over. It's the same thing every time. Having a relations.h.i.+p with you is like dancing with a time bomb."

She started talking in a voice so filled with fatigue and weariness that it hurt just to listen to her. "You think it's been hard for you?" Her face was drawn and haggard.

"How do you think it's been for me. Every time you pull one of your stunts, everybody looks to me. They look at me in the cafeteria. In the hallways. In the briefings. I know what they're thinking. 'What does she see in him? How does she put up with it? Why can't she control him?' Every time you blow up, you call attention to yourself, and that calls attention to me. They all start wondering, s she going to defend him again?' You're undermining my credibility. No. The damage is done. You've destroyed it. Everything I've worked so long to accomplish; my entire career-it's all in shambles, Jim."

Her words were like bricks; hard lumps of pain that she piled slowly, laboriously, one on top of another. I felt like that fellow in the Edgar Allan Poe story who was walled up alive. Only the bricks in this wall were the bricks of my own anguish.

"You've become a spoiled brat, because you know that Mama's always going to be there to pull your nuts out of the fire. But every time I do, I spend a little bit more of my credibility, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, until I don't have any credibility left anywhere. I don't have any more favors to call in. I'm bankrupt. I'm without authority. You've not only demolished yourself, Jim-you've brought me down with you. Do you know how badly you screwed up? We almost had Operation Nightmare canceled because you were the science officer. I had to agree to replace you. Only the fact that you wrote the briefing books on the infestation kept you from being jettisoned altogether.

"And the h.e.l.l of it is that everybody knows it. There are no secrets anymore, Jim.

You're an open book. You and I-we're a G.o.dd.a.m.n soap opera. Everybody talks about us. I hate that. I don't want people knowing the details of my private life. I don't want people knowing who I sleep with or when or what we do in bed. I don't want everyone peeking over my shoulder. I want my d.a.m.ned privacy back."

She had been standing with her arms folded, her back firmly against the wall; now she let herself sag backward against it in sheer weary exhaustion; her arms fell emptily to her sides.

"We're not even good drama anymore, Jim. We're just another sitcom that should be canceled and forgotten. These people have been preparing for this operation for almost two years, and your little stunt almost flushed all that work down the toilet."

There was real regret in her voice. "They're so p.i.s.sed at you, Jim, that you don't have to jump out of one of those windows. You're likely to get thrown out. Haven't you noticed that n.o.body has spoken to you yet? n.o.body's even nodded h.e.l.lo?

You're being shunned. Even if I wanted to try to find a way to work with you, I couldn't. If I tried to tell these people to respect your authority, they'd laugh in my face, and I'd lose the last little shred of credibility and control that I have. I am not in a good position for a commanding officer."

She looked across the room at me. Her eyes were incredibly sad. And then she said the worst thing of all, the part that nearly killed me. I'd rather have been dragged naked across the floor of h.e.l.l than hear what she had to say next.

"I would have resigned. But if I had, then for sure they would have canceled this operation. So I took a long walk and I had a long talk with myself and I realized that you've cost me too much. I can't afford you anymore. And yet, here you are, I can't even get rid of you. I don't want you here. I really don't. I want to do my job. I want to get this mission over with, and I want to go home. And if the President will let me, I want to emigrate to Luna or to one of the Lagrange colonies. Both L4 and L5 are being officially reopened. They're going to try to make them into genetic sanctuaries." She shook her head with heavy resignation. "The fallback plan is that if worse comes to absolute worst, that's where humanity will end up. In s.p.a.ce. Chased off our own planet. But at least some of us will survive." Then she added in a voice so quiet, I had to strain to hear her, "I don't really care if I survive or not. I just want to go someplace where I can work without hurting so much."

Even with all the pain she'd handed me, I felt sorry for her. I wanted to go to her and comfort her. I wanted to drop to my knees and beg her forgiveness. I wanted-It didn't matter what I wanted. Anything I wanted was irrelevant. I sank down onto a chair and buried my face in my hands. There was nothing I could do. I'd already done too much. Anything I might try to do now would only worsen the situation.

And then she surprised me. She let out a wail of anguish that brought me up sharply. I stared at her in astonishment. She sank slowly down against the wall until she was just sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up close in front of her chest, and her hands hanging limp in front of her knees. She looked lost and broken. She turned her face up to the ceiling and let out a long exhausted groan of despair.

"This mission's a waste of time," she moaned. "We're losing the war. We've already lost. You don't know this. n.o.body knows it yet. Dr. Zymph only told the President last week. The Chtorran infestation will hit the critical bioma.s.s threshold in less than thirty-six months. Maybe sooner. That's the point at which we stop trying to control pockets of infestation and start trying to preserve pockets of protection.

Have you seen the latest maps? The little pink pockets aren't winking out, Jim. The green ones are. We're losing. We're dying. It's all coming true. Everything we've been warning against. It's all happening, step by horrifying step. And there's nothing you or I or anyone can do to stop it anymore. Oh G.o.d, I'm so afraid. I don't want to live like this and I don't want to die. I don't want to be here anymore and I don't want to be me. And all these brave young men and women, these good, kind children, they keep looking to me for their inspiration. I'm so tired of lying and pretending..."

Abruptly, she looked across the room at me. "Say something."

I didn't move. I didn't even look up.

"Jim-say something. Tell me a joke. Anything. The one thing I always loved about you was that you never quit. You always can find something to say that's right for the moment. Say something to me now."

I stood up. "Uh-uh, I can't. If you're quitting, then so am I. You were the only thing that kept me going."