"You're not through yet." I poked him. "You have to assign acting command."
He turned back to the distant cameras. "I appoint Captain James Edward McCarthy acting commander in my stead… uh, until such time as higher authority either… uh, approves or changes that action." He trailed off.
I faced the cameras. "Witnessed and notarized by Captain James Edward McCarthy. United States Army, Special Forces Warrant Agency, assigned to the North American Operations Authority for the duration."
I turned back to him. He was motionless, staring at the ground in front of him. He stood shamefacedly aware of his disgrace. "Give me your weapon," I said.
He didn't move.
I took a step over and pulled his pistol out of his holster, checked the safety, and jammed it into my belt. He flinched visibly as I did so.
I knew I'd done a terrible thing. This man had dedicated his entire life to his service. It was the sole measure of his identity, and I'd stripped it from him. He was so desperate to live, he'd given up his only reason for survival. Maybe he was a good peacetime commander, maybe he was good at maintaining equipment and organizational discipline, and maybe wartime required a different set of skills-this war did, anyway. Well, maybe he could find counseling somewhere. There were supposed to be some pretty good counseling programs running on the supermachines. I felt bad for him, but I didn't feel bad about what I'd done.
"Can we go now?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, a lot kinder than he expected. "Let's go." I took him by the arm and started walking briskly back toward the tanks.
"Huh-?" He jerked his arm away from me and stared. "What are you doing? What about the carrion bees and the ribbon clerks and the purple haze?"
I shrugged. "If you'd read your briefing book, then you'd have been able to recognize that this particular herd of shamblers is mostly untenanted. The giveaway is the leaf patterns. Those silvery leaves are the way they reflect light and attract the attention of lookee-loos. Lookee-loos are tenants looking for a home. These shamblers must have lost most of their tenants when the area was dusted. They must have gone dormant to survive, and they're just now waking up."
Major Bellus looked flustered and angry and confused. "But what about the gorps?"
"The smell is stale. They were here a week ago, rutting. The shamblers are following their scent trail. You should smell them ripe-they'll blister your eyeballs. I'm not kidding. We got a guy named Willie Rood who tried it. He took off his hood. He's still in the hospital waiting to grow new eyes."
"But-what about the… ?" He shut up, abruptly.
"If you'd read your briefing book, you'd have known that we were never in danger. Had there been a real threat, I wouldn't have followed you out into the open fields." I added thoughtfully, "Not even to stop you."
He was red-faced now. "You son of a bitch. I'm going to bust you for this."
"No, you're not. Everything you said and did out here was recorded-and monitored. I expect we pulled a very handsome rating this afternoon."
He looked around wildly. His eyes focused on the cameras on the top of the tanks and froze there. "It was a trick!" he shouted. "It doesn't count."
I shrugged. "The record speaks for itself."
He looked back at me, accusingly. "You too. They recorded you too."
"I'm well aware of that," I said. I couldn't help myself, I gave a Bugs Bunny sideways eye-flick to the cameras. "In the meantime, as far as I'm concerned, you're a civilian now. The fact that I'm taking the time to explain this to you is merely a matter of courtesy. Furthermore, I am now officially informing you that as acting commander of this operation, I will not tolerate any further interference with this mission, nor will I tolerate any actions that endanger the lives of my men. If you say one more abusive word to me, I'll put you under military arrest. You'll go bact to base in a sleepytime bag. I'm sure they'll wake you up in time for your trial."
He paled at that. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the enormity of what he'd done was finally getting to him. His shoulders sagged. It was over. He was broken. The kindest thing to do now was to end it quickly. I turned my back on him and headed toward the lead tank.
"What's he doing?" I whispered into my mike.
"He's following," Smitty's voice was soft in my ear.
"How's he look?"
"Like hell. That was nasty."
"Yes it was," I agreed. I didn't say anything more. I trudged the rest of the way back in silence.
Maybe I should have said something else, something about how I regretted doing it; but I didn't, it would have been a lie.
Satellite mapping has established an evolving pattern of severest infestation occurring primarily in broad belts across the semitropical zones of the planet, but with major incursions arising in tropical and temperate zones as well.
Again, however, we must caution against drawing any conclusions from this patterning. The present policy of heavy military assaults against the severest pockets of contamination have been directed primarily at the elements of infestation closest to major human population centers and areas of important resources-especially those in the temperate regions of the globe. As a result, we have little information on how rapidly a mandala settlement might establish itself in a temperate zone.
The tropical and semitropical occurrences may represent the preferred climates for Chtorran species, or they may be atypical, or they may be a compromise; we just don't know.
Our best assessment of the situation at this time is that the Chtorran infestation is able to survive and expand through a wide variety of climates and terrain.
—The Red Book
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 5
The President's Woman
"It's not who wins or loses-it's how you place the blame."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Lizard didn't have to say a word. I could see it on her face. When she came in, I was lying in the tub, letting the water jets churn the bubble bath into a mountainous froth. I was almost fully submerged. When I saw her expression, I let myself sink all the way under.
It didn't work. She reached in after me, grabbed me by the hair, and yanked me up.
Then she kissed me. Hard. But just as I was starting to get enthusiastic, she broke away.
"Huh? Why'd you stop?" I spluttered water all over the front of her uniform.
"Because I'm so mad at you, I could strangle you."
"Then why'd you kiss me in the first place?"
"Because I love you-and I don't want you to forget it. I'm about to give you hell." She started peeling herself out of her clothes.
I watched with naked interest. "If this'is hell," I said, "I'll take seconds."
"I haven't started yet," she said. "And don't you start either." She slapped my hand away and stepped into the tub at my feet. I sat up to make room for her. "Turn the bubbles up," she said.
For a moment, neither of us said anything. She needed to stop being General Tirelli for a bit, and I needed to… enjoy the view. There are a lot of good things to say about a beautiful, intelligent redhead without any clothes on; only some of them are still illegal, and the others are politically incorrect. I'd have to content myself with lascivious thoughts.
Part of me wanted to be worried about the hell she was about to deliver-but somehow I couldn't summon the energy. Maybe I was too comfortable, maybe I was too pleased with myself. But I had drifted into a curious state of mind. In the Mode Training we'd talked about this condition. Foreman had called it the domain of perfection-that state of consciousness where it is finally all right with you that the universe and everything in it exists just the way it does.
"The universe is perfect," Foreman had said. "You're the one who's added your judgments to it. If you accept that the machinery is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, then you can begin to let go of all those things you've added that are driving you crazy. Living in perfection allows you to operate in the universe without having to argue with it."
The first time he'd said it, it hadn't made any sense to me. Sometimes it still didn't; but after I'd begun to experience the domain a little bit, I started to see what he was talking about. I hadn't realized how much time I spent arguing with reality. After a while, you learn to just let things be, so you can get on with the real job.
Anyway, I still felt good about what I had done to poor Major Bellus. It was appropriate, and I wasn't going to defend it. And besides, Lizard's kiss had been an important signal; her way of saying, "Don't go crazy on me."
Still-if she shattered me, and she was the only person on Earth who still had the power to shatter me, because I loved her so much-I knew I'd cry. I'd bawl like a baby, naked and unashamed. I'd rather die than lose her. Sometimes the simple knowledge of Lizard's love for me was the only thing that held me together. Sometimes, she said, she felt the same way.
Despite the knife-edged performance of crispness that she demonstrated to the rest of the world, despite the performance of angry purposefulness that I liked to affect, we both knew how fragile each other really was. She knew most of what I'd been through. I knew some of what she'd had to do. You don't ever harden; not really-you just learn to keep on going, even while the inner wounds are still dripping on the floor. Most of what we did together was patch each other up so we could keep on going.
If I had wanted to worry about it, I could have generated quite a knot of tension inside me; if I worked at it hard enough, I could have turned it into a full-grown anxiety. Then, when she bawled me out, we could have an argument. We could scream and fight and yell at each other for a good twenty or thirty minutes-all the time waiting to see which one of us was going to be the first to break. That was the game. Then the winner had to tell the loser it was all right. Then the loser got to make love to the winner. It was a fun game, whether you won or lost.
And tempting too.
Or… I could skip the argument altogether and just break down in tears and go straight to the apology. That might work. Then she'd have to hold me and comfort me, and then after a while, we'd make love, and it would be fantastic, and then when we were both feeling better, she'd give me that mothering look, and I'd feel sheepish and embarrassed, and I'd apologize for being a jerk, and she'd make it all right again, and then maybe we'd make love again; so it would all work out all right, no matter what. I was already getting an erection.
I looked across at her; my expression must have given away what I was thinking-or maybe it was the little pink island in front of me-because she cut straight to the point. "Forget it, sweetheart. First we have to have the argument."
"Aw, shit. Can't I just apologize for all my sins and get right to the redemption?"
"No, you can't. First I have to say what I have to say," She looked serious. "Sorry, but it's the President's orders."
"Urk." I sank back down into the water. "Okay… "
"Well," she began. "The good news is that your timing was perfect. You caught the dinner hour audiences on the east coast and the afternoon audiences on the west coast. Hawaii caught it just before lunch. Australia had it for breakfast. Your overall rating was very good, and you. should see a handsome profit off this little caper. It's about time we had some comic relief in this war."
"Uh, really? How'd I look?" I asked.
"Not bad, actually. You're really coming along. The Training makes a big difference. You were very convincing. I almost believed you myself. Except I read your briefing books, so I knew better; but you did fool a couple of the Joint Chiefs."
"Huh? You were with the Joint Chiefs of Staff?"
"Mm-hm," she noted offhandedly. "I was briefing them on the Brazilian situation. Hand me the shampoo. Thanks." After a moment, she added, "We all agreed that it was a terrific show. Especially the punch line. Great punch line. You're going to be in a lot of officer-training textbooks." She squeezed out a dollop of shampoo. "You looked like you were having a lot of fun out there. Were you?"
She was going on too long, and she was getting too effusive in her praise.
"Okay," I said, interrupting her. "You've made your point. Tell me the bad news."
"The bad news?" She scrubbed at her hair for a long luxurious moment, ignoring me the whole time; I was starting to feel very uncertain. Finally, she looked across at me through the suds. "The bad news is that it was a political disaster."
"How bad?"
"The worst." She rinsed her hair, shook the wet strands out of her eyes and explained. "The nation of Quebec is very sensitive to insults. The Canadian Confederation is likely to take their side. The Mexicans aren't too happy either. The President has been receiving notes all evening. She's more than a little pissed. This whole thing is turning into a major diplomatic uproar."
"'Splain me," I said. "I'm feeling a little stupider than usual."
"The Qwibs were feeling left out. We were using their valuable resources, and they weren't getting enough glory."
"They want glory? They can have my share."
She ignored my comment and continued. "We wanted a… demonstration of their importance. We wanted to show how valuable they were to the war effort, something that would play well on the evening news. Major Bellus was invited to join your mission so he could look good; he was the fair-haired boy of the prime minister. We thought it might help his administration in next month's election. We assumed that you would keep him out of trouble. It was a nice easy mission. Nothing could go wrong, go wrong, go wrong-" She shook her head and sighed. "If you wanted to make some noise, why didn't you just toss a hand grenade into the House of Representatives? At least you would have gotten a medal for that."
"You know I don't like firecrackers," I said. "Besides, I didn't have any."
"Well, you've outdone yourself this time, sweetheart. This little stunt is turning into the biggest international incident since the Vice President called the Russian premier a bimbo. The President wants your butt chewed."
"She can have better than that. She can have my resignation. The day that politics becomes more important than the safety of my men, I quit. And if politics is more important than winning the war, well then, you can tell her for me that-"
"Shut up," Lizard explained. "I already told her you'd resign, and she told me not to accept it. But you still have to have your butt chewed. This is an official butt-chewing. If you have anything to say, you'll wait until I finish."
"Then can I chew on your butt a little?" I leered suggestively.
"We'll talk about that later. Let me see that trick where you lick your eyebrows with your tongue and I'll consider it." She started shampooing her hair again. I waited patiently.
"So what's happening?" I finally asked. "Am I being officially reprimanded?"
"No," Lizard said. "Just yelled at. What you did was stupid, embarrassing, uncalled for, disrespectful, insubordinate, dangerous, contemptible, and creates a bad impression of the officer corps in the enlisted ranks."
"I know that," I said.
"I know you do. I'm just repeating what I was told to tell you by the President; she said it in the presence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
It felt as if she were hammering a stake into my heart. "Is that all?" I blurted stupidly. If there was more, I had to know the worst.
"No. They also said you were a damn fool, grandstanding in front of the cameras, and acting without regard to consequences."
"And-?"
"And-you want more? They said you were a disgrace to the uniform, prancing around out there like a goddamned fairy. Quote, unquote. There was quite a bit, Jim. Are you sure you-want to hear it all?"
She had finished hammering in the stake: Now she was twisting it. I held up a hand. "No, it's all right. I get the picture. Just tell me one thing. Was Bellus's resignation accepted?"
"Considering the circumstances, no."
"Shit."
"But… considering all the circumstances, it was felt to be in everybody's best interests if Bellus were to retire anyway. So; yes, his resignation has been ac
cepted."
"Fine. Then you can chew my butt all you want. I don't have anything to be sorry about."
"You embarrassed the United States."
"No, I didn't." I said it firmly.
She looked at me sharply. "You're sure about that?"
"Absolutely. I took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. When I was assigned to the North American Authority, I made a larger commitment to serve and defend the ecology of Planet Earth. I've done nothing to dishonor either of those oaths. What I did may have been reprehensible, petty, and disgraceful-but it wasn't irresponsible. I did not violate either of my commitments."
"Okay," she said.
"Huh? Is that it?"
"I just wanted to hear you say it. I knew you felt that way. I told them so. But I like hearing you say so."
"Oh," I said, puzzled.
It must have shown on my face, because she reached over and patted my cheek. "General Wainright wasn't very happy with you, or with me, but I said that you were my officer and that I stood behind you a hundred percent. I told him that if he acted against you, you'd resign. At first, he was all for it, but I told them that if you were allowed to resign, then I would have to consider; it a vote of no confidence in my own ability, and I would have to' resign too. General Wainright didn't like that, but he's no dummy. If I turn in my commission, the President will want to know why."
"But what about the Quebecois?"
Lizard made a face. "They buttered their bread. Let them lie in it. They sent an unqualified officer on a dangerous mission, and he showed up unprepared. We're not staging publicity stunts here. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should never have agreed to this stupidity. The major endangered the lives of everyone on that mission because he didn't listen to your advice."
"I'll bet Wainright didn't want to hear that."
"What he said was that your responsibility was to take orders, not give them. So I politely reminded him of the time that General George Armstrong Custer ignored the advice of his Indian scouts and how that turned out. He got the point. The lesson that you provided out there today was too damned valuable to punish you for, but I had to call in a lot of favors to make it stick." She began rinsing her hair. "And by the way, you didn't hear a word of this. The President wanted me to yell at you, so I'm yelling at you. Don't do it again." She turned around in the tub. "Scrub my back, please."
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