"Now, let me put that in plain English. It is very likely that some of these people may stand between you and the worm to keep you from burning it. Don't hold your fire. Take them both out.
"What we are dealing with is a Tribe. Their identity is completely and totally derived from the worms. They perceive the worms as gods. Their gods must be destroyed if we are to destroy the Tribe. Yes, you have your hand up?"
A tall black man stood up. "Sir? How are we going to handle prisoners?"
I met his gaze coldly. "Easy. You're not taking any."
"Sir?"
"Lieutenant, are you familiar with Paragraph Twelve?"
"Uh, yes sir. It specifies the conditions under which the military may invoke the Termination Act."
"That's correct."
His expression turned thoughtful. I could see him realizing the impact of the moment. Very likely, he and his companions would be executing enemies of the human race tonight-including a number of two-legged ones. He didn't look happy. "I got it." he said. He sat down.
"Thank you. Any other questions?" There were none.
I checked my watch. "Forty minutes. It'll be close. Colonel Wright says I can depend on each and every one of you. Good. Follow your orders and you'll do fine. Colonel?"
She shook her head. "I have nothing to add. It's your show, Major."
"Thank you. All right, move out-"
She nodded to me, and we followed the troops out to the choppers.
I have written some limericks quite fateful,
malicious and vicious and hateful;
but I've torn up the jokes
that would sicken most folks,
and humanity ought to be grateful.
45
Agreements
"Purity is almost always toxic."
-SOLOMON SHORT
There were eight Jeeps in all. Each one had a torch mounted on its nose. Each one had a man with a grenade launcher and two more with AM-280's.
The rifles were a viable weapon against the worms only from head on. You needed to drop down as low as possible and shoot upward through the mouth. The bony brain case of the creature was not as thickly shielded from below. It was possible to destroy the cerebral cortex with a well-aimed shot. The laser-sight of the rifle made a well-aimed shot possible. It was not recommended for those of dubious courage.
There was a full wing of twelve choppers. Every qualified person on the base wanted to be in on this mission. Colonel Wright, concerned about unpleasant surprises, had authorized the expansion of the mission. I wasn't unhappy about that.
The choppers unloaded the ground teams and the Jeeps at the landing site, then moved off to wait until we were in position. They would come in from the sky with spotlights and skyball flares. It was going to be very bright here, very soon. Colonel Wright was also on the phone to Denver, trying to get a solar mirror pointed our way on short notice. It would give us a tiny local sun.
Mine was the last Jeep to move into position. Colonel Wright looked to me. "It's your show, Major. Give the word."
I picked up the microphone. I said, "Thunder and lightning." The Jeeps rolled out. The lights were off. We crept along the winding road as quietly as we could, moving to our advance position.
The Jeep lurched ahead, picking up speed. I could hear the other machines moving into position now too.
I picked up the microphone from the dash, and thumbed the PA channel to life. Every speaker on every vehicle blared as I spoke, "We have you surrounded. Do not attempt to escape. We have you surrounded."
The walkie-talkie squawked. "Sir? Don't fire! They've already surrendered."
"Huh?" Colonel Wright and I exchanged a glance. "Everybody hold your position," I ordered. I motioned to my driver. "Move in."
The camp was an old dude ranch. There were a couple of battered buses here and nothing else. There were five teenagers and twelve sleepy children standing in the headlights of two Jeeps.
Suddenly, there were choppers overhead-their spotlights came on, stabbing the ground, illuminating the night
I climbed out of the Jeep. I pulled a torch out of the back and shrugged into a harness. Colonel Wright watched as I did so. "You think that's going to be necessary?"
"I don't trust anyone." I squinted against the glare of the spotlights. Lord, those choppers were loud. And they were raising dust. "Send the choppers out. Have them start searching the roads."
I walked over to the kids. I recognized several of the children from Family. They were huddled together in a frightened, trembling group; none of them was over ten years old. The other children, the ones from the Tribe, stood arrogantly apart. Tommy wasn't in either group.
The children from Family were too frightened to be coherent. I went down on one knee in front of little Crystal. "It's all right, sweetheart. We've come to take you home. Do you know where any of the others are?" She shook her head. She didn't know.
I gave her a quick hug, then straightened. I pointed, "You, Corporal, get these children out of here." I knew what I was going to have to do next and I didn't want them to see what was going to happen.
I waited until the kids from Family were herded away, then I strode over to the other group. I grabbed the tallest of the teenagers; a skinny boy with a big nose and a weak chin; and yanked him forward. He looked scared. I pushed my goggles back off my eyes so he could see my face. "Jeffrey-yes or no: Do you remember me?"
He blanched. "Uh, yes."
"I'm going to give you a choice. Live or die?"
"Live. "
"Good, Jeffrey. Where's Delandro?"
"I don't know. He didn't come back."
"I know that somebody came back, Jeffrey. Where did they go?"
"I can't tell you! I gave my word!" He was shaking.
"You made an agreement?"
"Yes, sir!"
"You have an agreement with me. Which one are you going to keep?"
I unholstered my pistol. I knew that there were men and women looking at me. I knew what I was about to do.
"Jeffrey," I said. "I'm going to blow your fucking brains out."
"Please, Jim-" He started crying.
"I don't want to do it, Jeffrey. Turn around." I placed the cold metal gun barrel against the back of his head. "Talk to me, Jeffrey."
"They'll kill me."
"I'll kill you if you don't."
For a moment I thought he was going to break. Then he sniffed. "I'm sorry-I can't."
"I'm sorry too." I squeezed the trigger. The top of his head disappeared. He toppled forward into the dirt. The other Tribe children stared in horror. I knew I was a monster. I didn't care.
I stepped sideways and pointed my pistol at the next teenager, a pear-shaped girl with a dirty face. She looked angry. Somebody grabbed my arm and whirled me sideways-it was Colonel Wright. "For the love of God! What are you doing?!" I came up with my pistol in her face-"Don't get in my way, Colonel!"
"These are children!"
"Don't you believe that for a second! I've seen these monsters in action. That one-" I pointed at Jeffrey's body, "that one is personally responsible for the deaths of seven men and women, four of them members of the United States Arrny."
She opened her mouth to say something. She realized my pistol was still pointed at her. She looked at me coldly and stepped aside. "There's going to be a hearing."
"I look forward to it. I know Paragraph Twelve."
"Yes. I understand you're an expert on it!"
"While we're arguing here," I said, "the Tribe leaders are getting away." I turned back to the girl. "Sandra, I'm going to give you a choice. Live or die."
"Die." She looked triumphant. She turned around and offered me the back of her head. "Go ahead, asshole," she said. "Do it."
I closed my eyes. God forgive me. I did it.
I stepped sideways to the next teenager.
Before I could offer him the choice, he pointed-toward the barn. I reached behind me and motioned one of the Jeeps forward. Its headli
ghts peered into the gloomy darkness of the huge old structure. There were rotting piles of hay tumbled here and there. An ambush?
I pulled the boy away from the others. They were glaring at him angrily. "Watch him," I said to Colonel Wright. "He wants to live."
I stepped over to the Jeep pointed at the barn. "Stand by with that torch. Everybody else," I called, "keep a sharp eye out." It didn't make sense.
Delandro wasn't stupid. Neither was Jessie or Marcie. They wouldn't hide in the barn.
There might be something in the barn. There might not be. Probably, the only thing in the barn would be what Delandro wanted me to see. No, there was something else going on.
Then why had the boy pointed?
I turned and looked at him. He wasn't shaking any more. He had a hint of a smile.
He'd been told to point.
Delandro had been prepared for this.
He'd told the boy to point at the barn. He'd even told the first two children to die-to make it look like a real confession. And of course, they would-to protect Orrie.
It was that goddamned survival mind. Delandro had taught them that their identity was Orrie. They would die to save that identity. Their survival minds had given them death. The deaths of those two children was only to validate the lie. This boy's information was given credibility by the deaths.
Delandro had known what I would have to do. He'd outthought me.
Or had he?
He wouldn't have planned this so carefully if he were trying to escape. There was something here he was trying to defend.
Why?
He cherished his mobility. It was his only defense.
Obviously there was something here that wasn't easily movable.
I had a hunch. . . .
I tried to remember what the layout of this place was from the Eyeball frames.
There was a main lodge building, two clusters of bungalows, a swimming pool, and the barn.
They wouldn't have had a lot of time. They hadn't expected to still be here tonight. They thought they would all be on their way to the peninsula.
I lowered my night goggles over my eyes again and dialed for infrared. There was nothing, not even on the distant hills. There was some residual warmth in the buildings. The barn showed some interesting hotspots, but they were too small even to be children.
I wanted to go into that barn and look, but not until I knew the trap that had been set. I had the eerie feeling that I'd already walked into it, that it was just a matter of time until I realized how completely caught I was.
I turned to Colonel Wright. "Have your teams search every building. Then torch them."
I knew they wouldn't find anything though.
No, I had to look at this from Delandro's point of view. Or Jessie's. She'd probably made it back and set this up. Or Marcie. That was it. Marcie.
She'd know exactly what kind of weaponry I could call down on them. She wouldn't dare meet it head on. Her only hope was to find some weak point.
Where would we be vulnerable? And then suddenly, I knew.
This was a decoy. We were supposed to spend half the night searching this place, then give up and go home.
I turned to Colonel Wright. "I'm taking six of the Jeeps. I know where the renegades are." I pointed to my driver. "Call the choppers. Tell them to stand by to return to the landing site. But whatever they do, don't approach it."
I rounded up four squads and we scrambled.
The trip back down the mountain was faster than the trip upexcept for the last half mile, when we crept again.
"All right," I said to the radio. "Everybody hold your positions until the sky lights up, then come across the landing fields fast and drop a wide spray of concussion grenades!"
"Got it!"
"Stand by," I whispered to my driver. "When the lights come on, I want everybody ready to head on down. Fire on sight. Take no prisoners!"
I signaled Colonel Wright. "Any time, ma'am."
"Check."
I dialed my night goggles up to maximum. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like there was something moving around down there on our landing site. I'd guessed right. They were going to booby-trap our pickup.
Well, we'd handle that.
Suddenly, the sky lit up with sunlight. The west coast solar mirror, fifty kilometers across and 1,600 kilometers above the surface of the planet, had just been turned to create an artificial spot of daylight on the west coast of California.
Our landing site was nearly as bright as day.
There were four worms there. And nearly every adult member of the renegade band. And two truckloads of Claymore mines. They had enough of them to knock down a fleet of choppers.
Almost immediately, the choppers were zooming in overhead. The renegades were already running for the ditch at the south end of the field and diving into it. Most of them wouldn't make it.
As the choppers passed overhead, they began dropping sprays of concussion grenades. They popped in the air like fireworks. They went off like popcorn, scattering bright flashes in all directions.
The ground began to explode--
The Claymores had been triggered. Each one triggered the ones around it. It was a chain reaction. The bombs spewed fragments. Two of the worms were shredded where they stood. A third was writhing in pain. The fourth was racing up the hill toward the lead Jeep. I nudged my driver. We started moving down to meet it. I grabbed the controls of the torch.
But the girl in the lead Jeep was already working. She brought the torch around and aimed it at the beast. The flames licked out and it exploded and died.
We went down to the field and torched the worms there. Most of the renegades were dead. Their own bombs had killed them. Some were injured. I invoked Paragraph Twelve again. We caught the last few survivors at the bottom of the ditch. They were too stunned to put up any resistance.
I was almost disappointed. This was too easy.
I walked down the hill. I had the survivors lined up. There were five of them. I gave each one a choice. Live or die. "Where's Delandro?" They chose to die. I wasn't surprised. Paragraph Twelve.
Neither Jessie nor Marcie was among them. Too bad. The last one tried to tell me that it was his choice to die.
"Uh-huh," I said. "Dead is still dead." I pulled the trigger. God help me. It was getting easier every time.
Here's the tale of Benjamin Sneed:
Where others were two'd he was three'd;
and when they unmasked it,
(three balls in his basket),
he was voted "Most Likely to Breed."
46
The Secret of the Barn
"Expect the worst. You'll never be disappointed. "
-SOLOMON SHORT
I drove back by myself. I needed to think. Halfway back to the Tribe's camp, I made a decision. I counted to ten. It still felt right. I picked up the phone and made a call. "Birdie, Jim. Don't ask questions. Just listen-" I hoped that for once, she would believe me.
Colonel Wright was already waiting for me in front of the barn. She hadn't burned it yet.
Most of the other units had moved out. The children had been loaded onto one of the buses and also moved out. We had passed it on the road.
Colonel Wright was standing in front of the huge open doors. "I think you ought to see what's inside here."
I strode inside.
There was a corral made up of hay bales. The walls of it were eight feet high. I had to climb up a stairway of bundles to look into it.
There were five little worms in the corral, the smallest worms I'd ever seen, small enough to hold in your arms like a baby. And something else.
The floor of the corral was dark and wet with blood.
There were some fragments of clothing scattered about, but it was impossible to identify it as anything more than scraps of cloth. Here were the missing children.
The baby worms looked up at me and trilled. "Prrt?" they asked. One of them made as if to climb up the hay, but it was sti
ll too unsure of itself. I realized I was smiling. Baby creatures-of any species-are adorable. Even worms.
How old were these? A week at the most.
This was what Delandro was willing to abandon here. His liabilities. He could always raise more worms, he didn't need these. And he could always find food for them. No, they'd abandoned this place by the time we got here.
But he-or Marcie-had known what I would think; that the renegades considered the worms too valuable to abandon. Except they were wrong.
I knew one thing. If a fanatic is willing to give his own life for a cause, he sure as hell isn't going to have much regard for anybody else's.
I unshouldered my torch. "Everybody out. Once this barn goes, you'll have less than thirty seconds."
Colonel Wright looked at me. "We could take these specimens back with us . . . ?"
I shook my head. "They've already been imprinted. We'd get nowhere with them."
"Imprinted?"
"Uh-huh. You'd better get out of here now." I waited until she was gone. I looked at the baby worms one more time. I said, "I could almost learn to like you little sonsabitches-if only you didn't have such lousy eating habits."
And then I burned them.
They died quickly. I was glad of that.
The fire leapt up the walls and exploded. The roof of the barn was just erupting into flame as I came dashing out the door. I turned around just as it hit the flashover point. A moment later, the top fell in.
I turned to Colonel Wright. "Thanks. You done good, lady. Let's go."
"Will you be wanting anything else, Major?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. Can you have a mobile reconnaissance van waiting for me?"
"Any particular reason?"
"There's still one worm unaccounted for. I want him."
She nodded. "Find him fast. Burn him." After what she'd seen here, she didn't need a lot of convincing.
"And the Tribe leaders," I added.
She frowned. "I thought we got them."
"There's at least four of them that weren't among the dead or missing. I don't think they got back here. I don't think they were planning on coming back." I climbed into the Jeep beside her. She eyed me sideways. She knew that there was a lot more going on here than I had told her, but she wasn't going to ask. She turned forward again and put the Jeep into gear.
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