There were tears in my eyes. My voice cracked. "One life I can cope with, Lizard. I didn't pull the trigger on that little girl. And Shorty gave me permission; he told me to pull the trigger on a man being attacked by a Chtorran. Those people in the auditorium, they were in the way. The renegades-I was mad with rage. I mean, I had a . . . a justification, every time. An excuse. I don't have one this time. This time, it's a cold-blooded decision." I looked to her for help.
There was none forthcoming. Lizard said, "Now, do you understand the president's problem?"
I wiped my eyes. "I think so. A little bit."
"Right. You've got it, Jim. It's her decision, but you have to be responsible for your part of it. Now, are you willing to do that?"
"I'm willing to be responsible."
"Would you be willing to drop the bomb, if it were your decision?"
"I don't see any other alternative," I said.
"That's what we're here for," Lizard said. "Not to talk her into it, but to find a way out of it. And-failing that-then our job here is to be responsible for the decision that we do have to make."
"It's that inevitable?"
She didn't have a chance to answer. The stocky naval officer came storming back in, looking very angry. "The goddamn phones have been disconnected!" he said.
The president was just coming back into the room. "And for very good reason," she said. "Some people can't be trusted not to use them." She fixed him with the cookie jar stare. "Even when they've given their word that the proceedings of the session are top secret!"
The officer turned red, but didn't respond.
The president smiled grimly. "If you'll all resume your seats, we can continue."
When writing these verses of mine,
I start with a clever last line,
then work backward from there,
toward the opening pair,
with the hope it'll all work out fine.[4]
61
The Nuclear Family
"Always be sincere. Even if you have to fake it."
-SOLOMON SHORT
"There's a question I need answered," said the president. She glanced around the room. "I'm not sure that any one of us knows the answer, but we need to consider it before we go any further. "It's the moral question. It's the question of humanity."
I looked at the other men and women sitting around the table. Some looked unhappy. Others were puzzled or uncertain. One or two were making marks on their notepads. A few were studying their hands or their shoes. Where had I seen-? Oh, yes. It was called "reality evasion." When circumstances are confronting, our first reaction is to want to avoid confrontation.
"Wake up!" shouted the president. She'd seen it too. She was angry. "Whatever other considerations we may have discussed today, this is the one that has to be handled. This is the one that historians will focus on."
General Wainright said wryly, "If any."
The president looked at him. "I'm sure you meant that as a joke, General, but that is the issue here. How far are we willing to go to guarantee the survival of the human species?"
"As far as we have to, Ma'am. You've seen the contingency plans. Lunar evacuation, sterilization and recolonization if that's what it takes. Whatever it takes, Ma'am."
The president held up a hand. "General, I respect your commitment. As a matter of fact, not ten minutes ago, I was on the phone to the head of the Space Agency, authorizing the necessary mobilizations for reopening both LS projects and reestablishing the Lunar colonies."
Wainright looked surprised-and pleased.
"I tell you that now because I want you to let go of that long enough to participate in this discussion. All right?"
The general grinned. He was looking too satisfied to take note of the implied criticism.
The president turned back to the rest of the room. "Now then, here's where I want your advice. We're looking at the use of nuclear weapons on the Chtorran camps. The evidence of the video is that there are human beings living in the Chtorran camps. Living there peaceably. And that implies that they are in cooperation. Human beings and worms.
"It implies communication," she concluded.
The president turned to the tall dark-haired woman. "Dr. Zymph? Would you elaborate?"
Dr. Zymph straightened her notes in front of her. She studied them for a moment, then looked up again. "The question is this. What is the nature of the human-Chtorran relationship? Now that we know that communication is possible--0n whatever level it occurs-we have to reconsider all of our actions in that light.
"The possibility of communication reopens the opportunity for negotiation. Or does it? Do the Chtorrans recognize human beings as sentient or not? Would they recognize a human government? Would they make a treaty with us? Could we deal with their human intermediaries? It all hinges on the nature of that humanworm relationship.
"We need to consider the possibilities here. Is it a true partnership? A symbiosis? Is it a master and slave relationship? In which case, who are the masters in that camp? Or is it, as some have postulated, a circumstance of one species using the other as cattle?
"There is evidence to support all of those possibilities. None of it is compelling. It may be that the relationship in that camp is still in a state of flux. It may be that all of those possibilities exist to some degree or other. Or it may be some kind of relationship that we cannot comprehend because it is beyond our experience . . ."
"Excuse me, Ma'am." That was General Wainright again. He spoke in a soft southern drawl. That was a danger sign. It was a thin cover for his sarcasm. Usually, his demeanor was crisp. He said, "Y'are gonna answer some of these questions, aren't you?"
Dr. Zymph did not look annoyed. She merely looked back at him with a pleasant expression. "As a matter of fact, no, I'm not. We don't have the answers. Yet. What we have are some very good guesses based on some very bad evidence. That's the problem. We have to make our recommendations based on less than acceptable information."
The general leaned back in his chair. I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or satisfied that he'd trapped Dr. Zymph into admitting something. He said, "Well, with all due respect-could we cut to the chase?"
Dr. Zymph pushed her notes away. She looked upset. "The issue is this, General. We don't know what we're doing here. If we nuke that camp, we may be throwing away our opportunity at establishing a detente of some sort."
"Doctor," the general looked fierce. "There will be no detente with worms. This is a war. They are the enemy. If we talk detente, we might as well talk surrender-and walk willingly into their stewpots. Or have you forgotten? The worms are responsible for the deaths of over seven billion human beings-more than three quarters of our species is gone. Do you think that they now have some pressing reason to respect the rights of the rest of us? I doubt it a lot!"
Dr. Zymph waited till he ran down. Then she said, "As a matter of fact, so do I."
The general leaned back in his chair looking satisfied. I noticed that the President was holding a pen between her two hands, looking from one to the other. She was making no sign to interrupt.
Dr. Zymph said, "General, I have not lost sight of the larger context. However, we need to notice that something is going on here that does not appear to fit into that context. Is it possible that we are seeing the beginnings of a new context?"
"Well, Ma'am, when you figger that one out, let me know. We'll be just as happy to nuke the recontextualized worms as we are to nuke the old-fashioned kind."
When the laughter died down, Dr. Zymph turned to the president. "I'm through," she said quietly. "Are you clear on the question?"
The president nodded. She looked to the rest of us. "Is everybody else clear on the question? What is the nature of that human-Chtorran relationship? It very definitely affects the decision that we have to make here. Let me translate that into military language for General Wainright. Are those humans in those camps our enemies or our allies?"
She looked across the table at Colonel Ti
relli. "Elizabeth," she said. "I believe you have some information on that. I think now would be a good time to bring that out."
Colonel Tirelli stood then. "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you." She addressed the room. "As you know, we've had the devil's own time trying to infiltrate worm zones. We've sent in a number of telepaths. We've lost them all." I wondered if Ted had been one of those.
She continued, "The bulk of our information about the human/Chtorran interface has come from captured renegades. Most of them have been so psychotic that communication has been next to impossible. We do know that there is an interface, though: It has been directly observed by one of our best agents." She stepped back and put a hand on my shoulder. "This is Captain McCarthy. He's spent the past year observing the worms in a wide variety of habitats. He has had personal experience with the renegades."
I noticed that General Wainright's aide was punching something into his clipboard. After a moment, he handed the clipboard over to the general, who studied it a moment and then raised his hand.
"Excuse me, Colonel . . ." He was holding up the clipboard. "But I can't find Captain McCarthy in the computer."
"Of course not," said Lizard. "I took him out."
"You what-?" The general's voice rose angrily. "Those files are supposed to be tamper-proof."
"Yes, they are," said Lizard. "That's why I took all record of Captain McCarthy out of them. I couldn't trust them. Captain McCarthy's role has been so secret that we wouldn't even trust our own security."
Somebody started to say something to that. Lizard cut him off. "I'm not going to defend that. We do know that the renegades have pirate terminals. We do know that they have access to ordnance. I suspect that's how we've been losing our telepaths. The only thing that may have protected Captain McCarthy's life is the fact that we've kept him out of the data banks."
General Wainright was still working with his clipboard. He said abruptly, "It says here, that a Lieutenant James Edward McCarthy was killed in battle fourteen months ago. Is this the same man?"
"As a matter of fact, yes."
"It also says here that he may still be alive, but a deserter. Is that correct?"
"If you'll look, I put that note in myself. That's part of Captain McCarthy's cover. We had no way of knowing who had access to that file. We had to give him what cover we could. Other than that, there has been no direct contact between Captain McCarthy and the agency since that time. He let us know when he wanted to come back in."
General Wainright looked unconvinced. "What is it you're trying to get at, General?"
"I'm not trying to get at anything, Colonel. All I want is some validation for this man's credential. Obviously, this is Captain McCarthy. He's not dead yet. But is he what you say he is-one of your agents--0r is he a deserter who will say whatever you need to have said to prove your point?" He added. "No offense intended, of course."
Lizard smiled. Her smile was deadly. "And none taken. You can't insult me. However, you do insult the intelligence of this body if you suggest that they can be so easily gulled." Lizard indicated the room.
The president interrupted then. "General, please-I respect your commitment to the truth. But this isn't producing results. I want to hear what Captain McCarthy has to say. We can question his judgment, intelligence, sanity, and moral character afterward." Her eyes were twinkling. "That's the way we always did it in Congress, and that's the way we will do it here."
She said to Lizard, "Colonel? You may continue."
Lizard poked me. "Stand up." She continued, "Captain McCarthy was assigned to routine reconnaissance in California. That was a cover. His real purpose was to infiltrate a renegade Tribe. As intended, Captain McCarthy allowed himself to be captured and taken prisoner. He was given the choice of collaborating or dying. He chose to collaborate. That is, he pretended to collaborate. Part of what he had to do to win the trust of the renegades was to teach them how to access classified information and how to use restricted military ordnance." Lizard held up a hand to cut off General Wainright who looked ready to explode. "Sir, if you please-McCarthy knew what he was doing. He didn't reveal any information which had not already been compromised. If that band of renegades didn't know it, they would have known it soon enough-as soon as they plugged into the Chtorrans' communication network."
The president interrupted then. "Elizabeth, would you also explain about that. I think some of the people here may be unfamiliar with that phenomenon."
Colonel Tirelli nodded. "It has been demonstrated that the worms do have some form of communication. When we began using P-beam weapons against Chtorran infestations, they began using shredded metal particles in the construction of their domes. P-beams were used only on the east coast, yet we began seeing metal foil shreddings in worm construction all over the country within three weeks. By six weeks, it was standard. Somehow, information spreads from infestation to infestation, but we don't know what the mechanism is yet. We don't think it's through the human interface, because we discovered P-beam defenses in huts whose Chtorran inhabitants had no human contact at all.
"I need to return to the subject of the human-Chtorrarr interface. Captain McCarthy here has actually seen the Chtorrans and humans communicating. He will describe the process, and how it's initiated. Jim?" She shoved me forward.
"Uh-" I began. "It's more than communication. It's a relationship. You don't just talk to a worm . . . you, uh, marry it." There were some snorts from some of the senior officers around the table.
"Shut up, Willy!" the president snapped. "He's telling you why your boys haven't had any results. You'd do well to pay attention. Go ahead, Captain."
"Thank you, Ma'am," I said. "What I saw was difficult at first to understand. The Tribe I was with-I use the word Tribe because that's what they were-they had a chief who focused their energies, he made the decisions for them. He was as charismatic as a movie star. It was like he glowed in the light.
"And they had a witch. That's the only word I can think to describe what she did: it was some kind of mystical aura. Jason was the focus for the energy, but Jessie was the real power source. I think she was the one who really understood what was going on, but she didn't have the personal magnetism Jason did, so Jason was the leader, but she was the-what do you call it, manager?"
The president smiled grimly. "In politics, we call them handlers. Go on."
"Anyway, I only saw her do this once, but she acted as a kind of Earth Mother or goddess or midwife. She took Jason into the barn. Everybody waited. I didn't know what was happening. When he came out, he was carrying a worm baby. There was a lot of celebration and cheering then. This was the smallest worm I'd ever seen. It was about the size of a large cat. He was feeding it pieces of raw meat. I got the sense that the creature was being imprinted with his identity.
"At the point at which the cub was willing to follow Jason everywhere, we knew the imprinting was complete. It was then introduced to the rest of the worms in the tribe. They treated it with curiosity, but it was a detached curiosity, as if they didn't know who it was. But that was only at first. Over the course of the next few weeks, they become as familiar with it as if they were all lovers. I noticed that there were many times when all of the worms would retire together into their own chamber. They would writhe together for a while, as if they were making love, and then they would go torpid together.
"But it wasn't torpidity. There was something else going on. It was some kind of communication linkup, I don't know the mechanics of it . . ."
"We're already studying that," said Dr. Zymph. "Go on."
"Well, that's pretty much it. At my first opportunity, I slipped away from the band."
"This was when?" interrupted General Wainright. He was blustery and had a red face.
"Five months ago," I said.
"How come we didn't have this information sooner."
Lizard put in. "It took a while for Captain McCarthy to reestablish communication in a way that would not compromise his cover. Gentlemen, Captain McCar
thy is officially dead. He knew that if he showed up on the network again, he would be risking his life if he ever again came in contact with renegades."
"I'd like to hear that from Captain McCarthy," the general said. "I've already heard from you, Colonel Tirelli." He looked at me expectantly.
"Uh, well-sir, because of the nature of the circumstances, I didn't have certainty on the nature of the human-worm interface. The only communication I saw at first was a combination of hand signals, whistles, and one-word commands. At first, it appeared to me that the worms were being trained like very intelligent dogs. It wasn't until later that I realized that what I was seeing was a mutually beneficial partnership."
"These were the ones who attacked Family?" he asked.
"Uh-" How did he know about that? "-Yes, sir."
The general looked skeptical. "And was Captain Duke Anderson there too? I'm not clear about his participation. It says here, he's on the permanently disabled list; but I've also got a death certificate for him. I fail to see how . . ."
"Uh, I had to impersonate him, sir." I looked around the room; how best to explain?
Lizard said quickly, "Captain Anderson is deceased. But the Captain Anderson identity was deliberately left active in the files so that Captain McCarthy could access it at will, without arousing suspicion."
Oh? I turned to look at Lizard, trying very hard not to reveal my surprise. That explained a lot.
"Captain Anderson was a friend of McCarthy's," Lizard was saying. "And, uh-this was one of his last requests, that we use his codes to provide McCarthy this cover." She was lying, it was a little too obvious, but it was a nice lie. I liked it. "As it happened, there were certain clearances that Captain McCarthy needed in the field and this was the best way to provide them."
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