"Anyway-" I shook my head in resignation. "The point is, nobody should have to be an unwilling transmitter of his own death. If the corps can peep, they can make the effort to rescue. If they won't make the effort to rescue, they're not entitled to peep. The Supreme Court said that if a military officer abandons the support of a mission, then the person in charge of the mission is free to act on his own recognizance and take whatever steps he considers appropriate, including the disconnection of communications. You're legally entitled to lock them out."
"I'm beginning to get the picture," Willig said.
"That's right. Shreiber's refusal to give us guidance on this makes it legal for me to break the uplink. I'm acting under the authority granted me by Article Twenty, Section Twenty. It's not quite the same as an iron cap, but it'll do. Goddamn! They're so stupid. This could be the biggest and most important find of the year, and they're pissing it away for politics!" I flung myself back in my chair and glared at nothing in particular.
Willig didn't reply. She waited patiently, and without further comment.
"So, yes-" I admitted, after a long uncomfortable silence. "In answer to the question you didn't ask, breaking the link is a spiteful act. But at least this time I have the rules on my side." I reached up and grabbed the VR helmet, pulled it down, and pushed my head angrily into it. "Siegel, I'm taking back control. Let's go see what's at the bottom of this hole."
Shambler colonies are known to be a primary vector for the spread of the red kudzu; the red kudzu in return provides the covering shelter of its own foliage to the shambler colony. But this is a particularly uneasy partnership, and one that must be precisely balanced, or it will prove fatal to one associate or the other.
Generally, the kudzu vines envelop a shambler colony like a cloak; the large red leaves help to protect the tree and its tenants from the direct rays of the sun and from the harsher attacks of wind and dust-but the red kudzu is beneficial only to shamblers large enough to support it; otherwise, it is so voracious a species that, given the time to become sufficiently established, it will overpower and destroy any shambler too small or too weak to resist its inexorable advance. It can overwhelm a young colony so completely that it cannot move, cannot feed, cannot survive. Eventually, the kudzu will even topple the shambler.
But the young colony is not totally helpless. Several of the shambler's tenants, the carrion bees for example, will-if hungry enougheat the leaves of the red kudzu faster than it can grow. Millipedes traveling with the shambler colony also like to chew on the roots of the red kudzu. The combined efforts of the shambler tenants can keep the red kudzu enough in check that a young colony will not be immobilized or overpowered by it.
What is particularly interesting about this relationship is that it is not completely beneficial to either member, suggesting that it is not so much a partnership as it is an armed stalemate, occasionally degenerating into allout warfare should either side demonstrate sufficient weakness.
Is it possible that this condition is common in other Chtorran symbioses, and if so, what can we do to exploit the precarious balance between members? What can we do to permanently topple this and other Chtorran relationships? Additional research in this area is urgently recommended, as it could offer the most profound results in proportion to the effort expended.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 13
Descending
"By all means, take the moral high ground-all that heavenly backlighting makes you a much easier target."
—-SOLOMON SHORT
The deeper we went, the thicker the walls became, and the sturdier the valve-doors; probably a response to the atmospheric changes down here, as well as additional protection for the greater pressures we were experiencing.
I wished I could cut through the surrounding walls of the channel to see how they were constructed. My best guess was that the walls were as multiply redundant as the doors, and that the fleshy shaft we were in was only the innermost layer of a whole set of nested organic pipes.
The repeating valve-doors allowed a step-by-step shift to a drastically different environment. The beauty of the design was its overall simplicity. No single door had to maintain the integrity o the entire system, and the progression of atmospheric changes was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, but the cumulative effect of moving through all those valve-doors was to step into a world vastly changed from the one we had left.
There were other things growing on the walls now, unidentifiable objects, manifestations of the Chtorran ecology that even H. P. Lovecraft would have had trouble describing. Some of them were shapeless purple masses, looking like homeless goiters. Others were tangles of pallid noodles, limp as dead spagheva and dripping with bluish goo. Here and there, thick nets of creepers hung from the ceiling of the tunnel; if they were there to stop intrusions, they weren't effective against the sliding advance of Sher Khan. The prowler moved steadily forward and down, through the next door and the next and the next.
For a while, we moved through a tunnel that was lined with cup-like projections.
"The walls have ears," reported Siegel grimly; he was immediately promised an early defenestration-as soon as we found an appropriate window. A little farther on, the fleshy cup-like flowers gave way to thick pink protuberances. "Anyone want to say that the walls have tongues?"
"They don't look like tongues to me," said Willig slyly, without additional explanation. There were guffaws on the channel, mostly from the crew in the other van.
Either way, the imagery was disturbing; the urge to joke was fading fast. "Anyone for stoop-tag?" Siegel asked lamely. Nobody responded.
"Stay on purpose," I reminded them. The prowler continued pushing through the seemingly endless series of valve-doors.
"Hold it," Siegel said sharply. "We're getting our feet wet."
"Let's do a lookaround," I ordered. "Siegel, you do it." I popped my head out of the helmet long enough to take a sip of water. "How long have we been at this?"
"Three hours," said Willig.
"No wonder my back hurts—-ouch! My kidneys are floating. I'll be right back. Will you update the stereo-map?"
"It's working now," said Willig. She was already typing.
"Geez, I've gotta pee so bad, my back teeth are singing 'Anchors Aweigh."'
"You shoulda joined the Navy."
"No thanks. I saw what happened to the Nimitz."
I headed to the back of the van, locked myself into the head, and started to lean against the wall; I realized I was suddenly dizzy, turned, and sat down instead. My whole body ached, partly with the strain of the vicarious descent into Chtorran hell, and partly with the emotional strain of being cut off from all support; not just cut off from Lizard, not just cut off from Science Section, but cut off from the entire network. I felt dizzy from the conflicting realities. And I felt so alone, it hurt.
Emptying my bladder relieved only part of the pain. I wondered if this was what it felt like to get old. That thought made me smile grimly. I had never expected to live even this long. I was already a lot older than I believed. And I didn't expect to last much longer. I knew the odds. In fact, I already had my epitaph picked out: "Something he disagreed with ate him."
When I came back, I didn't feel much better. Emptier, yes, but I ached all over. Willig must have seen me twisting my shoulders around painfully in a futile attempt to loosen them up; after I sat down again, she came over and stood behind me and started massaging my neck and back. "Just relax and let it happen," she said. "And stop thinking dirty thoughts."
"Sure… after a remark like that?" But I sat quietly while she worked the knots out of my shoulders.
"Christ, you're stiff. What have you been doing? Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?"
"No. Just two rollagons, twelve troops, and a spelunking prowler."
"And a Brazilian mission. And General Wainright. And that toad, Dannenfelser. And what else?"
"And
a broken heart. Don't be so nosy." I clicked my communicator on. "Marano?"
"Still clear. The only thing moving in this landscape is a fluffball the size of a whale. It's pretty impressive. You should have a look."
"Thanks, but I saw the one that rolled into Alameda last year. They were hosing down whole city blocks when that thing collapsed."
"Alameda? I didn't think there was anything left over there."
"Not a lot, but don't let the governor of California hear you say that. McMullin-Ramirez was born in Alameda and is determined to rebuild the place-if necessary, as the new state capital." Another thought occurred to me. "Hey, if that fluffball looks like it's going to come anywhere near either of the vans, flame it. If we start getting a lot of fluffballs, we'll lock down the prowler and get out of here. We can reestablish a satellite linkup later. But I'm not going to risk getting snowbound again. Once was enough, thank you."
"Ten-four, Cap'n." She clicked out.
"Siegel?" I called. "What say you?"
"We've got a puddle down here. Put your helmet on."
I pushed my chair forward-Willig moved in with me and kept right on massaging-and pulled the VR helmet down over my head again. After the usual moment of dizzying disorientation, I was back inside the prowler's point-of-view.
The tunnel here was ankle-deep in a thin soupy fluid. It was dripping off the walls.
"What do you think?" asked Siegel. "A leak in the pipes? Or is this intentional?"
"I dunno. Wait a minute." I pushed the helmet up again.
"The stereo-map?"
Willig let go of my shoulders and sat down again at her station.
The map popped up on the screen in front of me. It looked like a cone-shaped bedspring, small end down.
"All right, here, look at this," said Willig. "The tunnel spirals downward and in. Now, if we extrapolate similar tunnels from each of the other shamblers in the grove, we get this-" She touched a button, and at least a dozen other curving lines appeared in the display. They all curled down to meet at a point below the exact center of the grove. Willig marked the point with a question mark, then put a flashing red arrow on the screen, labeled, "You are here." The arrow was very close to the question mark.
"There's gotta be something at the bottom," she said, "and it's taking the resources of the whole shambler herd to support,it."
I made a thoughtful clucking sound while I studied the diagram. "That's a fascinating idea. Log it. If you're right, I will take you out to dinner."
She was a professional, but she wasn't too professional to flush with happy embarrassment. She went back to work, and I pulled the helmet back down over my head again. "Siegel? How's the prowler holding up?"
"It's a little sticky down here, but nothing we can't handle. Confidence is at eighty-five. We've got eleven hours' power left before we have to pull out. No problems."
"Okay. Then let's get to the bottom of this thing, once and for all. Let's go."
The prowler pushed through the next valve-door and—
The suggestion has been made that we use the Chtorran ecology against itself, and it merits considerable attention because it is consistent with the best practices of the past hundred years of Terran agriculture and bio-control, using one organism to nullify another.
Consider, for instance, Chtorran land-coral; very much like its ocean-dwelling namesake, large colonies of Chtorran land-polyps will produce bizarre concretelike accretions. At first, they appear to be little more than hardening tumbleweeds, but over time, as the polyps grow and their accretions accumulate, the resulting structures can build up into labyrinthian land-reefs of considerable size. As has been observed in Mexico, Nicaragua, Kenya, Madagascar, China, and Brazil, land reefs can be immense.
The reef structure consists of countless densely packed clusters of skeletal-like limbs and fingers. Stronger and sharper than Earth the Chtorran variety reflects a dazzling spectrum of color; the most prevalent shades ire (of course) red, orange, and ocher; but streaks of violet and bone and marble-pink can also be found.
Land-reefs have been discovered as high as thirteen meters in some tropical areas, and as long as two kilometers; higher and broader reefs are certainly possible; the structural strength is there. Whatever limits there may be be for the size and sprawl of Chtorran land-reefs, we haven't seen them yet.
The importance of the reefs is that they are very nearly impassable to human agencies. Bulldozers have trouble with even the smallest infestations. Tank treads jam up quickly with fragments of the brittle, bone-like accretion. Explosives are only minimally effective; flamethrowers as well; so the idea that a natural barrier of Chtorran coral could be established to create a self-maintaining boundary enclosing a Chtorran-infested area is an obvious one-if we can't penetrate this wall to get in, then neither can the most voracious elements of the Chtorran ecology penetrate it to get out.
Additional investigation is recommended.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 14
Authority
"You can open more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. "
-SOLOMON SHORT
—the phone rang.
"Goddammit! I told you to break all connections."
"Sorry, sir. I left the time and position channel on."
"Shit." I clicked open the voice line. "McCarthy here."
A familiar voice-very familiar-and very official sounding. "Captain, do you recognize my voice?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Scramble this line immediately."
The bottom of my stomach fell away, but my hand reached out to the keyboard and tapped the scramble button.
Lizard's voice cut angrily into my ears. "All right, what the hell is going on?"
"Nothing's going on."
"The hell you say. I just got my ears roasted by Dr. Zymph. nfter she calmed down, she was only furious. Apparently, you're sitting on top of a major anomaly and you've cut the uplink."
"Security," I said.
"Bullshit."
"Okay, try this. Article Twenty-Twenty. I'm putting on an iron cap."
"All right, all right, all right-" she said hastily. "Wait a minute. Let's start over. I know you're angry-"
"Don't handle me."
"Shut up and listen, that's an order. I know you're angry at me-"
"No, actually, I'm not. I love you."
"-but this is a mistake. What did you say?"
I repeated it very slowly. "I. Love. You."
"That's another discussion."
"I just wanted you to know that."
"Stop trying to distract me."
"I'm not trying to distract you. I just have a different set of priorities here."
She sighed. Loudly. She took another breath. I could picture her deliberately composing herself before continuing. I could see it as clearly as if I were sitting across from her. First, she'd smile just a hint. And she'd flush just a little bit. Then, embarrassed for allowing even that much personal sentiment to pull her off purpose, she'd cover it by brushing her hair back, as if in annoyance-but really, she'd be cherishing the moment. She had the softest, reddest hair in the world-then she'd give her head a quick shake as if to empty it of all superfluous thoughts, and then she'd refocus her expression as she got clear about her purpose again. And when she was ready, her voice would be smooth and controlled.
I was right. Lizard's tone was gently velvet when she resumed. "Okay, what's going on?"
"I called for assistance and was denied. Specialist First Class Martha Dozier refused to put me through to Dr. Zymph. Instead, she connected me to a Dr. Marietta Shreiber in Oakland. Dr. Shreiber wouldn't say so in so many words, but she gave me the very distinct impression that I am out here alone; that no backup at all is available to me. Apparently, since that little mixup with Major Bellus, somebody has decided that I'm not a very good team player, so the team is going to play without me, and I can sit out here and play with myself."
"
I see," she said.
"I'm being set up to take a fall, Lizard. If anything goes wrong out here, I'm the one whose pants are down around his ankles. I have the right to a security blanket."
"I appreciate the visual imagery of your language," she said, dispassionately. "But your metaphors are starting to… um, get personal." After a momentary hesitation, she added, "If you really think that's the situation, Jim, then you're better off operating in public. So everybody can see how carefully you go." "No, I don't think so."
"Reopen the channels, Jim."
"I can't do that."
"That's an order, Captain."
"And under Article Twenty, Section Twenty, I have the authority to refuse that order. We've got something out here, something big. I don't know how big or how important, but nobody's ever seen anything like this before. Maybe it's the next phase of the infestation, maybe it isn't, but whatever it is, it's mine. I didn't cut the channel. Somebody above me did. I'm just making it real."
"Jim-"
"Lizard, listen to me. I called for backup. It was denied."
"You'll have backup. I'll see to it."
"Not good enough."
"Say again?"
"I said, that's not good enough. Backup was denied me."
"I said I'd restore it."
"You don't understand. I should be able to expect immediate assistance as a matter of course, without regard to rank or politics. This arbitrary withholding of support demonstrates that support can be withdrawn without reason at any time. Therefore I can't depend on it. Therefore I'm out here alone. So why the hell should I give the home office or anyone else a free ride on my ticket?"
"You're not out there alone. I'm here."
"That's the part that's not good enough," I said, hating myself for saying it even as the words fell out of my mouth. "Am I going lo have to call on you every time I need assistance in the future? If you have to keep stepping in on my behalf, that weakens both of us. I need to be able to depend on the whole chain of command."
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