"Oh no-" I felt suddenly weak. I wanted to sit down. I had a sick feeling in my gut. Live worms aboard a chopper-?
"The chopper went down in the mountains," Duke said. "There were no survivors." He studied me for a moment-as if he knew what I was thinking-then he swiveled to face the window and the dark night outside.
I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what. I felt like I'd been opened up with a machete and my guts were spilling out on the floor.
Duke said, "If it makes it any easier, they think it had something to do with the altitude."
"No," I said. "It doesn't make it any easier."
I went to the water cooler and filled a plastic cup. I wasn't thirsty, but it was something to do.
Behind me, Duke said, "There's a bottle of Scotch in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. Pour two."
I handed Duke his drink, found a chair, and sat down across from him.
"I screwed up," I said. "I should have followed my instincts. I looked at those worms and I wanted to detonate every pellet in the spider. I wish I had. Instead, I followed orders."
"That's right," said Duke. "Make it Denver's fault. To err is human. To blame the other guy is even more so. I'm glad to see you're taking it so well."
I ignored his comment. I was still putting the pieces back together. I said slowly, ". . . I follow Denver's orders because I like to think they know what they're doing. But they don't-they really don't. And we both know that!" I was being careless, I knew it, but Duke didn't react or try to stop me, so I plunged on. I wanted to get it all said before I ran out of steam. "It's crazy, Duke. They're so insulated from the front lines of this war that all they've got left are their theories and speculations-and they're making policy based on those theories. When that filters down here, to our level, we have to make life and death decisions based on those policies and hope that it's appropriate! And sometimes it is! They get it right just often enough to keep us trusting them."
Duke said, "I've heard this all before, you know. None of it is original. Every lieutenant goes through it." He glanced at his watch. "You're right on schedule."
He was being flip about it, but he was right. Of course. Again. I felt embarrassed. I didn't know what to say. I flustered.
I looked at my drink. I took a belt of it. "Duke-" My voice cracked. I was out of anger-I felt drained. I said, "Duke-I'm losing it. Really. It's all meaningless voices now. I mean, I don't know that I can follow anyone's orders any more. I mean-if nobody else knows what they're doing either, Duke-and I'm the guy who ends up being responsible, then I'm the guy who really has to be sure. And I know that I'm not. So I follow orders-not because it's the safest thing to do, but because I can't think of anything better! And that still doesn't work. People still die-and it's still my fault. I didn't even know that chopper crew! I didn't even know their names-"
"Wolfman. Wein."
"-whatever. They're still dead and it's my fault. No matter how you slice it, it still stinks!"
"And-" prompted Duke.
"And I don't like it!" I finished lamely. I wished it had been a little more profound, but at least this was the truth.
Duke had listened to my outpouring in silence; he had remained carefully blank the whole time. Now he looked up at me with a peculiar expression on his face. "I'll tell you something, Jim." He took a breath. "What you like is unimportant. I know you don't even like hearing that, but it's true. Whether you like it or not is ultimately irrelevant. The job still has to be done. And mistakes are always going to be made-again, like it or not."
He hesitated for a beat, as if considering his next sentence. He looked into his cup thoughtfully; his eyes were shaded. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. "I know it's frustrating. It's always frustrating. It's always going to be frustrating. You think I haven't been there? This is Pakistan all over again-only this time I know how deep the brown sauce is. You want to know what's really crazy? Almost all of our procedures are derived from a war that was lost twelve years ago. That's crazy. But-" he shrugged, "-it always comes back to this. The job still has to be done,"
"I don't know-" I said. "I mean, I don't know if I can do this job any more." I didn't look at him when I said it.
"Jim, don't be stupid." Suddenly, there was a hint of metal in his voice. "Don't you think we've all gone through this? I have. Shorty did. It's part of the responsibility. You get to make mistakes. You can't help it. It's part of being human. Now, I'm going to tell you the other part. You don't get to use your mistakes as an excuse to quit."
"I'm sorry. I don't see it that way."
"Then you're missing the obvious. If we discharged every mail or woman who ever made a mistake, we wouldn't have an officer left in the United States Army. Myself included."
"Yeah, but my mistakes kill people-"
"So do mine," he said quietly. His eyes were hard. "You think you have a monopoly on that one?"
I didn't answer. I'd already proven myself a fool. Why compound it?
Duke put his cup down on the desk next to him. "Listen, Jimthe truth is, a mistake is just one more opportunity to put in the correction. It's not a club to beat yourself with. It's just something to learn from. The only real failure is quitting. That's where you waste lives. Those pilots-Wein and Wolfman-they knew the risk. They were willing to take it."
"They trusted my judgment-"
"So-? So do I. So what?"
"But what if next time, it's you-?"
Duke shrugged. "It could just as easily be you too, Jim. I have to trust you. You have to trust me. It's part of the job. So what? I mean, so what about it? Do you want to feel sorry for yourself, or do you want to get on with the job? You do want to kill worms, don't you?"
"Don't be silly-"
"Well, then-this is where you learn to pick up the pieces and keep going. Consider it part of your training to be a captain. This is the part where you accept the responsibility for the decisions that hurt."
"But, it hurts-" I knew it was stupid even as I said it, but I said it anyway, "-and I don't know what to do."
"Nothing," he said. "There's nothing to do, Jim. Just hurt. Until you stop hurting. You don't even have to dramatize it. You can spare me the weeping and wailing. I've seen weeping and wailing. And better than yours."
Then he added quietly, "I know you're hurting, Jim. I'd worry about you if you weren't. What you need to know is that it's all right to hurt." His eyes were surprisingly compassionate.
I felt-grateful. But I was too embarrassed to meet his gaze. I said, "Thanks," and looked away quickly.
Duke asked, "Is that it? Or is there anything else you want me to know?"
I shook my head. "I think that just about covers it." I finished my drink and wondered if I should get myself another. I deserved to get drunk tonight. Except-I knew it really wouldn't help. This was something I was just going to have to work through by myself. One day at a time. Damn. I was getting too rational for my own good. "
"All right-" I sighed and slid my chair over to another terminal. "I guess I'd better start mapping another operation. At least, we've proven we can get them out of the ground alive-"
Duke said, "Hold it, Jim. I haven't given you the bad news yet." I lifted my fingers from the keyboard and looked over at him. "It gets worse?"
He nodded. "We're being pulled out."
"The whole team?"
"No. Just you and I. There's a chopper on the way. It'll be here in an hour."
"Where are we going? Denver?"
"Oakland."
"Oakland?!! What the hell is in Oakland?"
"The Gertrude Stein memorial plaque-" Duke said. He levered himself to his feet. "-Among other things. You've got an hour to pack. Be on the field at z3:3o. We'll be briefed in the air."
I looked at the terminal display again. "But-" I said, hopelessly, "-I wanted to go to Lake Hattie!"
"If it's any consolation, Jim, so did I." He crumpled his cup and tossed it at the wastebasket as he left the room. The cup misse
d the basket and bounced into a corner.
I scooped it up and popped it in. Damn.
SIX
THE CHOPPER was an hour late, and it was another hour before we got off the ground. Then there was a spring storm over most of Utah, so the pilot chose to detour south. It would be daylight before we touched down in California.
And the only reading matter aboard was the briefing book. It was incomplete and took only twenty minutes to finish. It was all background, nothing about our assignment, and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. The infestations were spreading faster than our ability to burn them out.
There was one interesting footnote, however. Oakland had two worms now, but they didn't really know what to do with them because they didn't know how to interpret their behavior. The note said they needed a worm expert, someone who knew the creatures in their normal habitat.
I pointed out the use of the word "normal" to Duke. He snorted too when he saw it.
"Not if I have anything to say about it," he added. He closed his eyes again and appeared to go back to sleep.
I envied him. I can't sleep on airplanes. I can doze, but I keep waking up suddenly. Any little noise, any little bump or bounce, any change in engine sound and I'm instantly alert, wondering if everything is all right. I get off airplanes exhausted.
I stared out the window at the distant flashes of lightning. The storm was a nasty one. The cloud banks towered like the walls of a canyon-a gigantic one. The moonlight gave them an eerie blue sheen. Every few seconds, one or another of the towering masses would crackle and flare and light up the whole sky. Beautiful-and terrifying.
I wondered about the people below. Did anyone still live out there?
We were a planet of scattered survivors, all scranblivg like inad to stay alive long enough to get the crops in. Somewhere between seventy and ninety percent-there was no way to know for sure-of the human race had died in the first three years. There was no way to know how many had been lost to the plagues and how many to associated disasters and aftereffects. I'd heard a rumor, unconfirmed, that the suicide rate was still climbing.
I wondered about that too. When you've lost everything and have nothing left to live for-I wondered how close I was-
It was a long flight....
Eventually, the sun tinged the horizon behind us and we began dropping toward Oakland. I was on the wrong side of the ship to see San Francisco. I was disappointed in that-I wanted to sec how bad it looked from the air. They said the city was still iii pretty grim shape. I'd seen pictures, of course, but it wasn't the samc. Besides, my dad had died in San Francisco
Well, disappeared anyway....
There was a car waiting for us on the ground, but we were delayed by the inevitable decontamination baths-no telling what bugs were still floating around-and then had to wait again until our vaccinations could be updated.
It was another hour before we were in the Jeep and on otir way south. We didn't have a driver-the car knew the way without one. There was the standard taped welcome on the screen, which Duke and I both ignored, and a thermos of te
The jeep delivered us to the Special Forces officers' billet-formerly the downtown Oakland Holiday hin. "Probably because they couldn't find worse," Duke explained. There were no humans on duty here either-just a couple of terminals, a bell-cart and a mindless robot, noisily polishing the lobby floor. We had to step around it to get to the desk.
The terminal beeped and clucked, checked our ID, issued us key-cards and wished us a nice stay. It also called us "Mr. and Mrs. Anderson."
Duke wasn't amused.
"It must have heard what you said-" I pointed out. We were following the bell-cart down the hall. "You know, all these machines talk to each other. They compare notes."
Duke gave me a withering sideways glance. I shut up. One day I would learn-Duke did not appreciate whimsy. "Clean up quickly," he said.
"No sleep-?"
"You'll sleep in October. There's a war on, remember?" Right.
A hot shower and a shave later-the second-best substitute for six hours sleep, (the first-best being eight hours sleep)-Duke handed me hardcopy orders. "There's a colloquium at ten hundred about the worms. You're already cleared through. I want you to specifically see if anyone knows anything about nesting habits. They've already got the disks of yesterday's mission. Find out if they've seen them. I think we're seeing another shift in behavior. Oh yeah-and be polite. The science boys are starting to chafe at the presence of the military."
"Right. "
As interested as I was in the Chtorran ecology, I still would have preferred the sleep. With luck, I could sleep in the session-as long as they didn't put me in the front row.
The Oakland Control Section of the United States Ecological Agency was hidden behind a long range of rolling hills. The jeep whined as it rolled up the winding slope. As it came over the top, I saw that most of the buildings below were hardened inflatables. They were large and roomy and blandly amorphous. A platoon of twenty shining robots was mowing the lawns around the buildings. Lawns! I didn't know whether to laugh at the extravagance-or be annoyed at the waste of energy. But the grass was green and lush looking.
I showed my credentials to the gort at the entrance-it scanned them with an evil-looking eye; these machines weren't designed for friendliness-and then passed me through. I still hadn't seen another human being yet.
The jeep headed toward the largest of the domes. It rolled right into the building and delivered me to a tall set of double-steel doors and an armed sergeant in a glass booth. The glass looked thick and the sergeant wore a grim expression.
The jeep beeped. Something clicked. The red lights went on above the doors. Surveillance cameras swiveled to look at meand so did other devices that weren't cameras.
Maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought.
The sergeant looked up, saw I was an officer and saluted perfunctorily. Then he directed me to approach the booth and stand on the white platform in front of it.
After he finished scanning me, the sergeant let me take two steps forward to state my business. He studied his screens for a moment, nodded and hit a button. The red lights went off, the surveillance cameras swiveled back into their housings-so did the other devices-and I relaxed. Somewhat.
The sergeant touched another button and the steel doors groaned and slid apart, revealing a bright-lit maze of doors, passageways, stairs, halls, catwalks and elevators. There were conduits and pipes everywhere, all brightly colored and labeled with large stenciled letters and numbers. It looked like they'd forgotten the interior walls of the building.
I looked to the sergeant with what I hoped was a questioning expression.
The sergeant nodded-obviously he'd seen the expression before-and pointed to a door. He directed me down a long featureless corridor-follow the red stripe on the floor-and into an anteroom, through the double doors and
A lady in a white coat looked up from her desk and greeted me with a frown. "You're-?"
"McCarthy, James Edward, Lieutenant, Special Forces."
She looked back to her terminal. "You're not on my list-"
"I just arrived in Oakland two hours ago="
"I'll have to double-check this-" She was already reaching for the phone.
I said the magic words: "-and I'm in the Uncle Ira Group." She replaced the phone neatly on the hook. "Right." She slid her chair back and stood up. I saw that she needed a cane to walk. "Follow me, please-"
Through another set of double doors, and down another corridor-why bother with security, I wondered; just paint out all the stripes and nobody will be able to find anything-and into a small angular theater, already darkened. The seats were stacked in steep rows overlooking a curtained wall. A young-looking woman in a lab coat stood at the podium. I saw a lot of uniforms and lab coats and grim faces. I looked for a place in the rear of the room, preferably a
comfortable one
"There's one down here, Lieutenant-" the woman at the podium said. She looked familiar.
I threaded my way down toward the front row. Damn. "Oh-it's McCarthy. I thought I recognized the Special Forces." Now I knew her. I smiled back-weakly. Her name was Fletcher-but she'd once introduced herself as Lucrezia Borgia. I didn't know her first name. As I took my seat, she said, "Good to see you again, Lieutenant."
The man sitting in the next chair glanced at me curiously. I flushed with embarrassment.
"All right," said Dr. Fletcher. "Let's get back to work. Dr. Abbato at the Cairo Institute has raised an interesting question about the gastropedes-and their place in their own ecology-and that's opened up a very interesting, and perhaps very fruitful, line of research. I think you'll find today's demonstration very-" she allowed herself a smile, "-enlightening."
I propped my elbow on the chair arm and my chin on my knuckles, and tried to look awake.
Dr. Fletcher had close-cropped dark hair. She had high cheekbones and wore thin-rimmed glasses-and she had that professional look, neither plain nor pretty. She looked competent. I guessed it was the crisp way she handled herself.
"Dr. Abbato has posed the question-what kind of ecology could produce creatures like the Chtorran worm? What is the home planet like? That's where he began.
"All right-these are today's answers:
"Heavier gravity, we know that. The musculature of Chtorran creatures, the strength of their shells and skeletons, the rigidity of Chtorran plant stems-we are assuming that Chtorr had a minimum gravity of 1.1 Earth normal and a maximum of 1. 5. That latter figure is probably a little high, but we're giving ourselves a margin for error.
"A thicker atmosphere, of course, but we have no way of really knowing its makeup. Chtorran plants and animals are extraordinarily good at extracting oxygen from this atmosphere, so we are allowing the assumption that the Chtorran air has somewhat less free oxygen.
"We do think that the Chtorran primary is a red star. Very old. Perhaps very close to final collapse. Chtorran plants seem to prefer red light, the redder the better, and Chtorran eyes seem to work best in the red end of the spectrum.
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