"Go on," said Siegel, impatiently.
"The big red blubbers are egg-factories. All the other things are the support systems. The little flecks are the freeze-dried nuclei, duplicated by some kind of organic copying mechanism-and not just the simple nuclei alone; there also has to be the instructions included on what kind of egg to grow around each nucleus and what kind of nurturing that egg is going to need to hatch. I'll bet that some of these other organs are here to act as incubators to hatch the eggs and nurture whatever creatures pop out of them. That tunnel we came down-it isn't an entrance, it's an exit. That's the birth canal."
"Worms come out of it?"
"Everything comes out of it," I said, shuddering at the thought.
I sank back in my chair, stunned at the size of the realization. "This hole hasn't been here for six months; it's been here for six years at least. Probably longer. These groves-all over the world-this is how the infestation started. If we had known, if we had realized-" I felt suddenly helpless.
"We've gotta burn these things wherever we find them." Siegel spoke with determination. "Maybe we still have a chance-"
"It's too late," I said. "These womb-nests are only landing vehicles, the last part of the transportation process. You can grow Chtorran babies in it, but once they leave the nest, they'll grow their own babies." I realized how defeatist that sounded, and added perfunctorily, "You're right, though, we should burn these wombs, at least to slow down the infestation every way we can. But we should study them too. There might still be things growing in the raspberry Jell-O that we haven't met yet."
"What about these little slugs?" Willig asked. "Are they baby worms or not?"
"I dunno. They're a little small, but that might not mean anything under these circumstances; we're at almost double atmosphere down here. And they don't have any fur either. Without its fur, a worm is both blind and catatonic; and these guys seem kind of lively. But-"I shrugged"—maybe there are things that need to be taken up to the surface, and these little fellas are the taxis. If that's all they are, then it doesn't matter if they live or die, does it?"
"Guess not."
"But… if they are worms, then this is our opportunity to study their breeding patterns. Dr. Zymph thinks that our best chance of defeating them is to find some agent, biological or chemical, that will interrupt their reproductive cycle. The problem is, nobody really knows how they breed. We know they hatch from some kind of large leathery eggs; but we've never actually seen a worm laying eggs. In fact, we still haven't been able to identify the worm sexes. That's assuming that they have different sexes. We can't tell."
"As long as they can tell," said Siegel. "That's all that counts. Hey, Captain?"
"Yeah?"
"Not to change the subject, but how do you think worms fuck?"
"I don't know. When we get back, ask Dannenfelser if you can watch." I didn't add the other thing I was thinking. If we got back. We had some astonishing recordings here; the virtual-reality playbacks were priceless. We had extensive evidence of a significant and previously unknown part of the Chtorran infestation. We were monitoring manifestations and behaviors previously undreamt of. This would eventually help us target potential hotspots before the terrain maps turned pink. We'd be able to identify and neutralize mother-nests before they began spewing their cargo of hungry red children.
All we had to do was survive the pink storm and get back to base. I tried to reassure myself. How hard could that be? After all, this vehicle had been designed to withstand assaults like this. On the other hand… I hadn't survived this long by underestimating the voraciousness of the enemy.
Only this time, it wasn't the Chtorrans I had to be most concerned about. The human enemy was proving to be the difficult one. What if somebody back in Houston didn't want us to get home?
"Hot Seat," April 3rd broadcast: (cont'd)
ROBISON:… What's The Core Group, Dr. Foreman?
FOREMAN: The Core Group is that set of people who are committed to contextual shift. Many of them are graduates of the Mode Training. Not all.
ROBISON: Ahh, Modies. I see. So now we have it. Your followers-people who you have personally brainwashedhave a secret plan for preempting the direction of the United States government. (holding up a sheaf of papers) I have here an article by a Dr. Dorothy Chin, one of your-failures, I guess. What do you call people who get up and walk out?
FOREMAN: People who got up and walked out.
ROBISON: Right. Well, Dorothy Chin is one of your disenrollments, a person who quit the Mode Training because, in her words, it was "political indoctrination masquerading as a motivational resource seminar, using various techniques of advanced brainwashing to demonstrate, prove, and enforce a monstrous, mechanistic, monolithic, self-perpetuating, behaviorist view of human conduct; thus justifying in the minds of its practitioners the assumption of rights and powers hitherto reserved for God and governments." According to Ms. Chin, your secret goal is to supplant the purposes of the people's lawfully elected representatives with your own unauthorized agenda, and you're doing that by systematically enrolling key members of the administration, both houses of Congress-both political parties, various members of the media, and most dangerously, key members of the United States Armed Forces, all branches.
FOREMAN: Your paranoia is showing, John. I think it's time for you to have your medication checked again.
ROBISON: So you're denying that there's a Core Group?
FOREMAN: Not at all. But your interpretation of what it is and what it's meant to be is so deranged that I can't help but wonder if you're deliberately misconstruing the nature of the group so you can look like a crusader for truth, or if…
ROBISON: -or if what?
FOREMAN: Or if you're just stupid. Frankly, I have to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. The Core Group isn't a group. It's an idea.
ROBISON: But there are people who are members of The Core Group, aren't there? And these people are some of the most important and well-respected people in the country. In the world. Correct? And isn't this all part of the Modie master plan?
FOREMAN: (sigh) The Mode Training has been part of the military's basic ethical instruction series since the time of the Moscow Treaties. Before the plagues, over six million people had participated in one of the seven different forms of the training that were offered through the auspices of the federal government, including just about every single man and woman who ever put on a uniform, whether it be Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Space Corps, or the United States Postal Service; and at least another twenty million civilians participated in Mode-sponsored seminars.
ROBISON: And you got paid a royalty on every enrollment, didn't you?
FOREMAN: Sorry, the Mode Foundation collects the royalties, not me. I'm on salary from the Mode Foundation; that salary is determined by the Board of Governors. Nice try, but your information is wrong there too. The point is that there's nothing weird or unusual or bizarre or illegal or unethical about the training or anything connected with it, nor is there anything wrong or disgraceful about the fact that an educational foundation earns a profit. Why shouldn't we be capitalists? Our success demonstrates that the training works. People want to live powerfully, and they take the training to give themselves the tools they need. According to the Foundation's records, you did the basic training yourself while you were in college.
ROBISON: Yeah, I did a lot of stupid and crazy things then. I was even a Republican once. So what? I learned better.
FOREMAN: The Mode Training has changed a lot since you did it, John. At the request of the President of the United States, we've developed an advanced course, specifically to empower people to deal with the circumstances and pressures of the Chtorran infestation. It is out of this course that the idea of The Core Group was created.
ROBISON: You admit then that key people in government are joining your so-called Core Group?
FOREMAN: And more are joining every day. It's not a crime to commit yourself to
the future. Right now, we've got four separate courses running in various parts of the country. We've got over two thousand people in direct training, and six thousand more telecommuting. But it's not just what you call "key people," John. A surprisingly large number of our trainees are what you, in your ignorance, would call ordinary people. But they're not ordinary. The commitment to excellence is never ordinary. These are people from all walks of life who want to be a part of the process of real-world transformation.
ROBISON: So then you do admit that the purpose of this group is to exert influence over the government?
FOREMAN: No. Any idiot can take over a government. Even you could do it. I'm committed to something a lot larger than temporary authority. I'm committed to making a difference in the world.
ROBISON: But you and your group need power to do that, don't you?
FOREMAN: The Core Group isn't a group, John. It's an idea. Anyone who's committed himself to enlarging the vision of what's possible in the universe is automatically a part of The Core Group. There has always been a Core Group for humanity; and it has always consisted of the kind of people, whether they know it at the time or not, who are willing to challenge the perception of what is, so that they can build what will be.
ROBISON: Nevertheless, Dr. Foreman, a group exists of people who have completed the Mode Training, and who identify themselves as The Core Group, and this group is currently active in influencing various branches of the federal government, including the executive branch, both houses of Congress, the military, and even members of the media. Isn't that correct?
FOREMAN: (nodding) The Mode Training is for successful people. It's for people who know how to produce results and who want to learn the technology of consciousness so they can create breakthroughs in personal effectiveness.
ROBINSON: Spare us the enrollment jargon, Doc-just answer the question.
FOREMAN: That is the answer. We've had a lot of high-level people in the course. There's nothing sinister about the fact that the technology works. So does brushing your teeth every day. Why should cultural transformation be so threatening to you?
ROBINSON: I think Dr. Chin is right. You're crazy and you're dangerous. What are you going to do with all this transformation?
FOREMAN; Do you know the old saying? When it's time, for railroads, you get railroads. When it's time for airplanes, you get airplanes. When it's time for zillabangs, you get zillabangs. What are zillabangs? I dunno. It isn't time for them yet. But I do know it's time for transformation-and what we're going to do with it is became a different kind of human species. And I don't think we have a lot of choice in the matter, because if we don't transform ourselves into more powerful, more effective species, the Chtorrans going to transform us into an extinct one…
Simply infecting one or two individuals in a population is not enough to guarantee that a plague will take hold, even a Chtorran plague. A determined vector is required, not a casual or accidental avenue of introduction. Only a carrier that guarantees repeated access can make a plague inevitable.
What is needed, for example, is a Chtorran equivalent for the flea or the mosquito. Before the plagues can occur; before the pernicious diseases can begin, a vector of strong opportunity first has to be established.
At this writing, the most likely candidate for the mechanism of transmission is the ubiquitous stingfly-a voracious biting "insect." The stingfly starts life smaller than a gnat, but can grow as large as a dragonfly if it has sufficient access to food.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 20
Nightfall
"The dog was nature's first attempt to make a neurotic. Practice makes perfect."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Outside, the pink storm covered the countryside with a thick blanket of silence and dust. In this neighborhood, the stuff would be gooey by morning, and by the end of the day tomorrow, it would be a hard and brittle crust.
In the gullies and arroyos where the muck pooled in thicknesses a meter or more, the congealed masses would be almost unbreakable. It could be a year or more before the stuff degraded or eroded or was finally washed away by rains, but in the meantime, the sugary slabs would serve as caches of quick protein for any hungry young worm fresh out of its shell. This was purely a Chtorran treat; an Earth-creature would break a tooth or a jaw trying to bite off a piece of this rock candy.
Inside the rollagon, we monitored the doings under the earth. We had more than enough to keep ourselves busy.
We sent the prowler crawling up and down the walls of the womb-nest, tasting, smelling, touching, measuring, recording, canning, exploring, and sampling everything it came across. We took specimens wherever we could. Our needles poked and pierced; we cut slices off the walls, slivers from all the organs. We prodded and thumped and did everything short of provoking the nest into uproar. The inhabitants-embryonic members of the Chtorran ecology-barely reacted. Apparently, the activities within the womb-nest were sufficiently insulated that the tenants above could not be triggered into swarming by the prowler's actions below.
Willig sat quietly at her station and watched the threedimensional map of the chamber grow toward completion. Siegel and I took turns monitoring Sher Khan's steady progress; we fed Willig the raw data for her map. Reilly and Lopez shuttered the overhead bubbles and retired into the back to try to get some rest. They woke up Locke and Valada and fell into the still-warm bunks. Valada cursed softly; Locke just scratched himself and went looking for caffeine.
Pink twilight turned into ruddy dusk. Ruddy dusk became a velvet-black well. Inside the womb-nest, things turned restlessly in their amniotic sleep. If the pink blanket above was having any effect down below, it wasn't immediately obvious.
"Captain-?" Valada called me over to her work station. Exhausted, I got up from my chair and went forward to peer over her shoulder. "What've you got?"
She pointed to the display on one of her monitors. Several of the gray slugs were trying to ooze their way up a tunnel. "I think you're right about these little guys being taxis to the surface. They've been trying to get up that slope for an hour now."
"Okay, but where are the passengers?"
"I've been working on that too." Valada brought up a new set of images. "Look, this is from another part of the nest." The gray slugs were chewing remorselessly at the edge of one of the red blubbery organs. They wasted as much as they ate. Parts of it spilled wetly around them. "Some of it sticks to their sides," Valada said. "But-notice how they just gulp down their food without even chewing? I'll bet you that a lot of the eggs survive the trip through their intestines untouched. The slugs get up to the surface, they take a crap, the eggs hatch in slug-shit, and the next generation of critters is free to run amuck."
"That's usually the case with next generations," I muttered thinking of something else. "I'll give you half a point-"
"Only half a point?" she protested.
"You missed the obvious one. After we have a chance to scan one of those little bastards, I'll bet you anything that we'll find that some of the eggs have already hatched in the slug's belly-and whatever things have hatched out of those eggs will be happily munching away on slug innards."
"Ugh," said Valada, wrinkling her nose.
"I agree. But nature doesn't waste. Especially Chtorran nature. If the slugs are just taxis, then once they get to the surface, their job is over, right? What do they do then? Wait to die? That's wasteful. Use them as food for something else and nothing is wasted, not even the squeal. I'll be real interested to see what's inside one of those things."
She nodded her agreement. "We should bring back the prowler. It's got three in the freezer."
"You're right." I gave her an approving pat on the shoulder and headed forward to the driver's compartment. The cockpit. The so-called bridge. With Siegel in the back, it would be the quietest place in the van. I needed to think.
Everything up front was locked down and secure; but even on standby it was still an a
ctive command center. All seven of the screens across the front panel were still brightly lit, still showing the status of the vehicle and its occupants. I stood for a moment studying the mission boards. We were in pretty good shape, considering. Either Willig or Siegel would be watching duplicate displays in the back of the vehicle; if anything occurred that needed human intervention, they'd catch it immediately.
I placed both hands on the back of the pilot's chair and leaned my weight against it. Without really concentrating on it, I began doing various stretching exercises to work the kinks out of my back. I hurt all over-my head, my back, my legs, my feet-I was getting old before my time. I didn't feel lucky anymore. I didn't feel like I was going to survive the war. As a matter of fact, I didn't feel as if anyone was going to survive the war.
And yet… the irony of the situation was that even as the remainder of the human race stood in horror before the doom that crept across the skin of our planet, we still were able to detach ourselves emotionally from our fear so we could appreciate the beauty and the wonder of the amazing Chtorran ecology. I hadn't yet met a scientist or a technician who didn't marvel at the workings of the machineries of infestation.
I couldn't explain it. I wasn't sure I even understood it. But I felt the same admiration myself. The more I saw of Chtotran life, the more astonished I was by its intricacy. All the different pieces of it fit together in ways that beggared description. The relationships here went beyond mere symbiosis as we knew it on Earth. When two Chtorran species joined, they became a totally new kind of plant or animal. In fact, none of these creatures were truly independent beings. Yet, rather than being hampered or limited by their partnerships, they were enhanced and expanded.
Could the neural cilia exist independently of the hairless slugs? Could the slugs survive without the awareness granted by the neural functions of the symbionts? Maybe, maybe not-who knew? But put the two species together, and you get worms, large and hungry and ferocious, and equipped with the sensory equipment to track their prey across kilometers of rugged terrain.
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