A Matter for Men watc-1

by David Gerrold

  "Um, I doubt that last," he said. "I don't think they're capable of choking. With a mouth arrangement like that, they wouldn't have a swallowing mechanism that could so easily kill them. It would be self-defeating. I'd guess that the arrangement of the teeth is so they can get a good hold on their prey and, if nothing else, get one good bite out of it-like Louis."

  "Have it your own way, Perfessor-but I watched him eat the cigar, and that's the way he used those teeth."

  "But, Jimbo-that doesn't make sense. What happens to the little bastard who gets stuck to a tree?"

  "He eats or dies," I offered. "Remember what you learned in school: `Mother Nature doesn't give a shit.' "

  "Um," Ted said, shaking his head. He continued paging through the photographs. "How did you shoot this one?" He was staring down the wide-open mouth of one of the millipedes.

  "Which one? Oh, that. I shot that through a pane of glass. There's a spot of grease smeared on it; he's trying to bite it off. The focus isn't so good because of the grease, but it was the only way I could look down his mouth. They learned real quick that they couldn't get through the glass, so they stopped lunging at it when I held up a finger. That's why the grease. Here, this one's sharper-this was before he scratched the glass."

  Ted peered close. "Hand me that magnifying glass, will you? Here, look-what do you make of this?"

  "Hey! I didn't notice that before-a second row of teeth!"

  "Mm," said Ted. "I wonder if he ever bites his tongue."

  "Those are molars!" I said. "See? They're not as sharp. The first row is for cutting; these are for grinding. And look-do you see anything farther back?"

  "Uh, I'm not sure. It's awfully dark down there."

  "We can digitize this and bring up the resolution, but doesn't that look like a third row?"

  "I can't tell. It could be."

  I looked at him. "Ted, maybe these things have teeth all the way down their throats. That's why they can eat so much, and so many different things. By the time the food reaches the stomach, it's been ground to pulp. They'll still need strong stomach acids, but now the food has a lot more surface area exposed to the action of the enzymes."

  "Well, this makes them a little more . . . believable." Ted grinned. "I find it very hard to trust any kind of creature that eats tennis shoes, wallpaper and baseballs, not to mention bicycle seats, clotheslines and Sergeant Kelly's coffee."

  "Ted, give me a break. Please."

  "All right-they wouldn't drink the coffee. That's probably what the Chtorrans use in that corral fence to keep them from getting out-Sergeant Kelly's coffee grounds."

  "Oh, no," I said. "Didn't I tell you?" He looked up. "What?"

  "You should have guessed. What's the one thing the millipedes won't eat-the one organic thing?"

  He opened his mouth. He closed it.

  "That's right," I said. "Used food. No creature can live in its own excrement-those are the things its metabolism can't use. And that's what the worms put between the double walls of their corral. As soon as the millipedes sense it, they back away."

  "Wait a minute, boy-are you telling me the worms are going around gathering up millipede droppings for fence insulation?"

  "Not at all. I didn't say anything about millipede waste. I just said it was waste"-he opened his mouth to interrupt; I didn't let him-"and it's not terrestrial waste either. Remember we were wondering why we never found any worm droppings? This is why. Evidently, the worms have been using it to keep their `chickens' from escaping. The worms and the millipedes must be similar enough so that it doesn't make any difference. What a worm can't use, neither can a millipede. The tests on the droppings from the enclosure and the specimens we've got here show a lot of similarities. Mostly the differences are dietary, although a lot of the special enzymes don't match up. If I had more sophisticated equipment, I'd be able to spot the subtler differences."

  Abruptly, Ted's expression was thoughtful. "Have you written any of this down?"

  "I've made some notes. Why?"

  "Because I heard Duke talking to Dr. Obama about you-about us. He wants Obie to send us to Denver."

  "Huh?"

  Ted repeated it. "Duke wants Obie to send us to Denver. With the specimens. On Thursday."

  I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. Why should Duke do any favors for us?"

  Ted perched himself on the edge of the table. The three millipedes looked at him with patient black eyes. I wondered if the mesh of their cage was strong enough. Ted said, "Duke's not doing us any favors. He's doing it for himself. We don't belong up here and he doesn't want to be a babysitter. And after what happened with Shorty-well, you know."

  I sat down again. I felt betrayed. "I thought ... I mean . . ." I shut up and tried to remember.

  "What?" asked Ted.

  I held up a hand. "Wait a minute. I'm trying to remember what Duke said." I shook my head. "Uh uh-he didn't say anything. Not about this. I guess I just thought I heard-" I stopped.

  "Heard what?"

  "I don't know." I felt frustrated. "I just thought that we were going to be part of the Special Forces Team."

  Ted dropped off the table, pulled the other chair around and sat down opposite me. "Jim boy, sometimes you can be awfully dumb. Listen to your Uncle Ted now. Do you know where these Special Forces Teams came from? I thought not. These are-or were-top-secret crack-trained units. So secret even our own intelligence agencies didn't know they existed. They were created after the Moscow Treaties. Yes, illegally-I know-and you used a flamethrower last week, remember? It saved your life. Guess what the Special Forces were for-and a lot of other innocuous looking institutions. Too bad you slept through history, Jim, or you'd understand. Anyway, the point is, these men have lived together and trained together for years. And they're all weapons experts. Have you ever seen Sergeant Kelly on the practice range?"

  "Huh? No-"

  "Well, you should-or maybe you shouldn't. You'd be too terrified to complain about her coffee. These people think and act as a family. Do you know what that makes us? Just a couple of local yokels. We're outsiders-and there's nothing we can do that will change that. Why do you think Duke gave us this labpractically shoved it on us? Because he wants an excuse to send us packing. And this is it. He'll be able to say we're too valuable as scientists to be risked out here in the field."

  "Oh," I said. "And I was just beginning to like it here."

  "Better than Denver?" Ted asked.

  "I've never been to Denver."

  "Trust me. You'll love it. It'll be just like civilization. Jim, do you really want to stay here, where the odds are seven to one that you'll end up in a Chtorran stewpot? Or didn't you know that?"

  I didn't answer right away. At least now I knew why Ted had been so cooperative these past few days. But I still felt as if a rug had been yanked out from under me. I looked across at Ted. He was peering into my face, still waiting for my reaction.

  "Damn," I said. "I wish you weren't always so ... ubiquitous." He shrugged. "So what? You'll thank me for it in Denver."

  "I know. That's the annoying part!"

  FIFTEEN

  THE THURSDAY chopper was pushed back till Saturday, so we had four days left-if we were going. They still hadn't told us. Ted said that was the army way. If they told us, we'd only worry about it. This way, we didn't have anything to worry about.

  I worried anyway-and made the best use I could of the time. I borrowed the helmet camera and set it up in front of the millipede cage. I digitized the image, fed it into one of the computers-and I had an activity monitor. The program counted the number of pixel changes per second, noted the scale of change, the time and the temperature. As it built up information, it correlated trends, fit them into curves and made them available for display on continually updating graphs.

  The bugs did not like heat. Temperatures above twenty-five degrees Centigrade made them lethargic, and higher than thirtyfive degrees they refused to move at all. Generally they seemed to prefer a ten-degree en
vironment, although they remained active at temperatures as low as freezing. Lower than that, they would curl up.

  I repeated the tests under different lighting conditions. The bath house had been rigged with two bare twelve-hundred-lumen plates; when I replaced them with outdoor lamps, some of the vari-temp, night-into-day lights for hydro- and aeroponics, the millipedes curled up as if to shield themselves, regardless of the temperature. Clearly, they did not like bright light.

  But I wanted to measure their activity levels through a full range of lighting conditions, charting the curve all the way from pitch dark to bright sunlight-and through a complete range of temperatures too.

  We borrowed the air conditioner from Dr. Obama's office-we didn't dare try to take the one from the mess hall-and Larry found a spare heater for us somewhere. Between the two I was able to achieve most of the test temperatures I wanted. I rewrote the program, put the lights on a rheostat with a photodiode to measure the lumens and connected everything to the computer.

  The result was a two-dimensional data-base demonstrating the millipedes' reactions to a variety of environments.

  But it was inconclusive. The bugs liked low temperatures and dim lights. They tolerated high temperatures. They didn't like bright lights at any temperature. That didn't make sense. It was too simple. Did they come from a dark planet? There wasn't enough data.

  So I repeated the whole series of tests another dozen times, but now with the lights tweaked to a different color each time. This left me with a three-dimensional graph-now I was nine times as certain that I didn't trust the results. There was a funny anomaly at the low end of the spectrum. I knew it meant something, but I was more confused than ever.

  I was still sitting in front of the terminal, leaning back in my chair, arms folded across my chest, staring at the screen and waiting for inspiration to strike me, when Ted bounced in. "Okay, Jimmy boy! Pack your comic books! It's time to go."

  I didn't even look up. "Later. Not now-"

  He grabbed my chair from behind and pulled me back away from the terminal. "Come on-Obie wants to see us."

  "About what?"

  "Huh? Have you forgotten? Denver, remember? It's a large city in Colorado ... next to a mountain?"

  "Oh, yeah." I said, "I can't go."

  "Huh?"

  "I'm not done." I leaned over to the terminal and touched a button. The screen started cycling through the pages of my report and over a hundred different three-dimensional graphs. There were cross sections too. I pointed. "Look at that activity curve, Ted! It doesn't make sense. These things look like they should be nocturnal-but their behavior pattern with light and temperature variations says they're not. And look at the way it spikes on the spectrum tests-what does that mean?"

  Ted pulled me to my feet. "What it means is congratulations!" He pumped my hand heartily. "You've just won a free trip to Denver!"

  "-But the job is incomplete!"

  "It's good enough! You don't have to interpret it! They have real brains in Denver. They'll take one look at what you've done and have the answer for you in no time. You'll probably get a nice footnote in somebody's report." He placed one hand in the middle of my back and shoved. "Now, move! The chopper's already on its way-yes, it's a day early; Larry's bringing packing crates-is your data disked? Here, take it. Let's go!" We were out the door and on our way before I even had a chance to punch him.

  We tumbled into Dr. Obama's office like a small stampede. We were both out of breath and flushed. Dr. Obama barely glanced up as Ted snapped a precision salute. I realized what he had done and hastily followed suit, only not as precise.

  Dr. Obama almost smiled. She said, "I see you've heard." She handed across two envelopes. "Well, we might as well make it official-here are your orders."

  We read them together. I finished first and looked up. "Thank you, ma'am." And then I added, "I think-?"

  She nodded. "You're right. I'm not doing you a favor. Denver isn't going to be any more pleasant, but you'll find that out for yourselves. You'll both want to be real careful."

  "Ma'am?" I asked.

  "I mean, don't screw it up-you're going to be playing in a much bigger game. There are worse things than being eaten." She looked unhappy. She said, "I suppose I should wish you luck and tell you I'm proud of you. But I won't. I'm not proud of you, and you're going to need a lot more than luck. Let's have no illusions. I didn't want you up here, either of you, and I'm going to be glad to have you out. This is no place for untrained replacements. But I'll give you this much. You did your jobs-and you were appreciated. You're both intelligent. Wherever you end up, you should do fine"-she looked at Ted, she looked at me-"each in your own inimitable style." She glanced at her watch. "The chopper's already on its way. You have less than an hour. Pack your specimens and be in front of the mess hall at twelve-thirty. Duke is driving you to the helipad. There are metal cages for the bugs and an insulated box for the eggs right outside. Try not to get sent back."

  "Yes, ma'am. Thank you." I started to rise.

  "Don't be so quick-there's one more thing. Jackson, would you excuse us a moment? Wait outside. And, ah-this time, would you please not eavesdrop?"

  "Huh? Who, me?" Ted looked puzzled as he stood. "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am."

  "Yes, I'm sure you don't," Dr. Obama said quietly as the door closed after him. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small flat lockbox the size of a paperback book. "I have a ... personal favor." She lowered her voice, "There's a Lieutenant Colonel Ira Wallachstein attached to Project Jefferson. Would you please deliver this to him?"

  "Certainly, ma'am-"

  "I want you to personally place it in his hands."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "If for any reason that's not possible, take this out to an open field and punch the date into the lock. Then walk away quickly. Thirty seconds later, it'll self-destruct. Any questions?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Repeat it back to me."

  I did so and she nodded in satisfaction. "Good," she said. "Thank you. That'll be all."

  The helipad was a kilometer down the mountain. It took five minutes to drive there. Duke was tight-lipped all the way. What was it about the Special Forces anyway that they didn't-let you in unless you were terminally nasty?

  Ted was stretched across the back. I was sitting in the front, half-turned toward Duke. "Uh-Duke?"

  "Don't talk." He said it very flatly.

  I shut up. And wondered what was eating him now. Abruptly, Duke said, "Listen, both of you-you've both taken the oath and you're both entitled to wear the Special Forces insignia. I would prefer that you didn't."

  "Sir?"

  Did Duke look annoyed? The expression flashed so quickly, I wasn't sure. He said, "What you need to know is this: if you wear your insignia, you will attract the attention of people who will ask you questions that you are not prepared to answer. That could be very embarrassing for you. Or worse. Got that?"

  I started to say, "I don't understand-" but Ted poked me in the ribs. Hard. "We got it," he said.

  I looked at him. He looked back at me. I remembered what we had talked about the day before. "Oh," I said.

  We pulled up at the helipad then-actually just a large clear space next to the road, bulldozed flat and surrounded by automatic lights and plastic markers. The chopper was nowhere in sight yet. Duke glanced at his watch. "Looks like we're a little early."

  "Or they're a little late." That was Ted. He hopped out of the jeep and walked off a way to admire the view.

  "Duke," I said. "I want to thank you."

  He looked at me skeptically. "For what?"

  "For lying to me."

  "Eh?"

  "I went and reread my contract. I'm `scientific personnel attached to the military, specifically exempt from military duties and functions.' I'm not in the army at all."

  "I never said you were. I didn't lie to you, McCarthy. You told me your contract requires you to obey your immediate superiors and I agr
eed with you." He grinned. "I just didn't tell you that neither Dr. Obama nor myself are in that chain of command. Except by courtesy. Legally, you're an independent agent."

  "Um," I said. "Well, thank you for fooling me."

  "I didn't fool you. You fooled yourself. What I said was this: `If the mission is military, every man is a soldier.' That has nothing at all to do with your contract. You could have stood your ground as a `scientist,' and there wouldn't have been a thing I could have done about it-except, you would have never seen a worm. That's all. Either way, you still get sent to Denver-but this way, I'll shake your hand and mean it." He held out his hand.

  His grip was firm. I looked at him and his eyes were bright. Almost smiling? No, it must have been a trick of the sun. I looked away, embarrassed.

  The chopper appeared in the distance then and Duke sat up in his seat to see it better. "By the way," I asked, "if neither you nor Dr. Obama has the authority to give me orders, who does?"

  Still peering into the distance, he said, "That's in your contract too.

  "No, it isn't," I said. "There's not a word about where I fit into the chain of command."

  He looked at me then and grinned. "That's what I meant. You're your own man-all civilian attached personnel are. But we try to keep you from finding out, else you're hard to put up with. I can't give you orders, only recommendations. Same for Dr. Obama and every other officer. Take a look at your papers on the way up. You're carrying pinks, not yellows; you're a free agent, responsible only to the team or task you're assigned. But, ah, don't get cocky. You still have to earn the right to talk to a Special Forces man."

  We could hear the chopper now, a distant blurring in the air.

  Duke was already getting out of the jeep. "Come on, I'll help you with your gear."

  By the time we had unloaded the last of it, the chopper was already overhead, engines screaming and stirring up clouds of choking dust with their downdraft. It was one of the new Huey Valkyrie 111's; with jet-assisted flight, its range was more than two thousand miles-at least, that's all the army would admit. Privately, it was said to be a lot more. The landing gear flexed and gave as the copter settled its weight to the ground, but its rotors continued to strop the air. The thundrous roar of the jets muted temporarily to an impatient whine. We picked up our bags and ran for it.