A Season For Slaughter Part 20

Chapter 21.

Playback "The trouble with picking up cats is that they always run to the bottom."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

Willig, the unrhymable, shook me awake gently. "Captain McCarthy?"

"Huh-? What?" Trying to sit up, I banged my head on the upper bunk. I rolled out sideways, still rubbing my forehead. "What time is it?"

"It's seven-thirty. Nothing was happening, so we let you sleep."

"I wish you hadn't-"

"You needed the rest."

"'Scuse me? The army I'm in, captains get to give orders to corporals."

"Add it to the list of charges at my court-martial. I'd have let you sleep longer, but-"

"What happened?"

"Nothing yet. We got the prowler recharged and reloaded. I thought for sure the noise would have awakened you. We got it back down the hole at six-thirty in the ayem. The LI took it all the way down without any problem. We've already got half the wideband probes on-line. Siegel is placing the rest."

"But-?"

"We've got something moving topside. It's still below the horizon-"

"How's the dust?"

"It stopped coming down some time last night. The day is clear. Visibility out to the edge. The landscape looks so pink, you almost expect to see the Emerald City in the distance."

"And?" I prompted. I was already heading forward.

Willig followed. "We've got dust plumes in the distance. a.n.a.lysis suggests three separate objects."

I tapped Locke out of the chair at my station. "Let's have a look."

Locke pointed from behind my left shoulder. "There, and there-"

"I see."

"Is that worms?"

"It's consistent with worms," I acknowledged. "But it could just as easily be jeeps or humvees. Or crazy bikers. Or bandits."

"Uh-uh," said Willig. "No sane person would go out in this s.h.i.t."

"Well, that narrows it down to only two billion survivors. There aren't any sane people anymore."

"You know what I mean."

"Ever hear of renegades?" Willig stopped arguing.

"But," I added, "the odds do favor worms. This is a worm neighborhood, not a human one. Have you got a track on them?"

Locke reached past my shoulder and tapped a b.u.t.ton. "Here's the map, here's the overlay. See? They're tacking back and forth, but always moving steadily northeast.

They'll be here within the hour."

"Good," I said. "That gives me time for breakfast." I pushed away from the console and swiveled to look at Willig. "I'll have bacon and eggs, eggs over hard, bacon crisp, a large orange juice, white toast with soft cream cheese and strawberry jelly. Grapefruit sections in syrup. And peel me three grapes."

"You'll have what the enlisted men are eating," Willig said. "It's brown. It's gooey.

And there's no shortage of it."

"Well, it was worth a try." I turned back to Locke. "How long have you been on shift?"

"Only an hour."

"Okay, you go topside and man the turret. If Reilly's awake, put him in the other bubble. Charge the weapons. We'll use cold rockets and tangle-sprays. Until it settles, the pink stuff is still fairly explosive."

"You want to put a spybird up?" Willig asked.

I thought about it. I scratched my head. I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled it. I smoothed my hair. I scratched my cheek. I needed a shave. My b.u.t.t itched. I wanted a shower. I looked up at her and said, "Nah. We'd probably lose it in the dust, and we may need it later. Let's just sit tight. Siegel? Anything happening in the nest?"

Siegel didn't answer immediately. He looked like he was searching for the right words-and failing.

"What?" I asked.

"Uh-something kinda weird. I don't know how to explain it."

"Don't panic. Everything's kinda weird. Let me see the playback-" I reached overhead and pulled the VR helmet down. I dropped back down into cybers.p.a.ce with surprising ease. Today the Chtorran nest didn't seem quite so alien; I didn't know if that was good or bad.

The view was of the same nest of slugs, or maybe it was a different one. They still looked like hairless baby worms. But I'd seen a baby worm fresh out of its sh.e.l.l; it had been born-hatched?-with hair. So, whatever these were, they had to be embryonic or... something.

"Okay," said Siegel. "Here's the playback-"

In front of me, reality shifted and flickered; the time readout said we were looking back less than an hour. There were more slugs in the pile. It was bigger.

"We were planting probes," said Siegel. "One of them slipped. Well, just watch."

The probe was shaped almost like a slug itself, only hardsh.e.l.led. It was a flat, rounded ovoid, looking something like a streamlined beetle. It didn't have the intelligence of a prowler, it was a simple-minded thing, but it was sufficient for the job at hand.

In the view ahead, one of the probes was trying to crawl over the ma.s.s of squirming wet creatures when it disturbed the equilibrium of the heap, and a number of the slugs started sliding wetly down. Immediately all of the slugs began screaming, a shrill, high-pitched, piercing chorus of noise. As they did, the pile broke apart into several smaller conglomerations. A scattering of individual slugs squirmed across the fleshy floor of the nest. All of them were moving faster now, writhing and wriggling with nasty agitation. Some of the organs of the nest began reacting to the noise and the excitement, resonating with their own tremblings and blubbering sounds. This only increased the discomfort and agitation of the slugs.

"Now, watch this-" said Siegel. "Watch the two on the right."

The slugs were squealing like piglets separated from their sow. The two on the right were the most annoyed. One of them accidentally b.u.mped into the other; both of the slugs reacted with intense visceral anger. They faced each other, both retracting back and bristling with goose-b.u.mpy-like protrusions. One of them attempted to rear up; the other attacked, biting furiously. The first one squealed in pain, then it too began biting; the two of them rolled and tumbled, biting and screaming, writhing across the soft floor like eels. The pallid slugs had amazingly large mouths. Our scans of the prowler's first three specimens showed they had no teeth, only hard-ridged gums. It wasn't hard to believe that they might in fact be baby worms. The ferocity of the fight before us would be evidence enough for most people.

"Here we go now," said Siegel. "This is the amazing thing." The two slugs careened like a pinwheel, suddenly slamming into a red blubber and ricocheting off into another agitated cl.u.s.ter of siblings. Immediately the cl.u.s.ter of slugs exploded with anger, each of the individual creatures transforming into the same kind of enraged creature as the two who had triggered the chain reaction. Each of the slugs attacked whatever slug was closest to it, sometimes forming a daisy chain of attackers, sometimes clumping, forming and re-forming new cl.u.s.ters of churning furies. Within seconds, every slug in the jumble was part of the fray. The thick blood spattered, then it flowed, finally it puddled.

A few seconds more and the pattern of the fight solidified. Every slug was attacking, every slug was biting, every slug was furiously eating. Those slugs that were too severely wounded, or overpowered by multiple attackers, soon stopped moving and were quickly devoured. Soon the furies began to slow, shortly the fighting stopped altogether, replaced instead by an orgy of voracious feeding, gorging, and mindless chewing. Eventually, the original jumble began to re-form again, this time with fewer, but much fatter, members. Of the missing brethren, only a few dark patches remained. The remaining slugs were still uneasy, but we could see that they were quieter now and would soon resume their former, less agitated state.

Siegel returned the display to now-time. "Pretty scary stuff, huh?"

"I've seen committee meetings that were worse," I said, but not too convincingly.

Siegel was right. These creatures had a ferocity that belied their blobby, amorphous innocence.

"What do you think?"

"Interesting defense mechanism," I said. "Whenever you're distressed, eat someone." My voice was a lot calmer than my stomach said it should have been.

"So? Do you think these are baby worms?" Siegel asked.

I hesitated before answering. "I don't know," I admitted. "I've seen baby worms.

They had hair. These don't. Maybe these are some kind of transitory phase." I popped off the VR helmet and began thinking out loud. "The babies I saw had been tamed by a renegade family. They already had three adult worms, but they wanted more. I think they wanted to start breeding them. I've always wondered how that would have worked out-who would have ended up controlling who.

"But I was with them when they found a fourth worm, a baby just hatched. It was a very important event to them. They said it was a completion. Later, when I had the chance to come back with appropriate armament, they had a whole nest of little worms. I never did find out where the babies came from or how these people were taming them. No, that's not right-I do know a little bit about the taming. There's an imprinting process. I think it's done when the worms all cuddle up together and go into communion, but that still doesn't answer the question of how a human can tame a worm, let alone live with it."

"But you know it's possible, you've seen the proof of it," Siegel said.

I nodded thoughtfully. "I know it's possible. I just don't know how they did it. I can't imagine someone climbing down into a shambler nest and pulling a few of these babies out. And I can't imagine taming a worm after it's started to grow. But that's the question about the renegades that needs to be answered. I'm convinced that the process has to be a simple one, and it involves being there when the worm first hatches. Maybe it's something as basic as just being there to feed it and pet it and mother it and rub its nose in the puddle whenever it leaves an opinion on the carpet.

That's how you tame humans. Most of them, anyway." After a reflective moment, I added, "If that's really the case, then I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more renegades in the future."

Siegel didn't answer. The thought clearly disturbed him. Willig, however, realized exactly what I was thinking.

"So you think renegade behaviors are inevitable?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "We know that humans can survive in a worm camp, and we know that worms can apparently be tamed enough to live in partnership. Or vice versa. But what the mechanism might be-well, we're not likely to find out unless General Tirelli's Brazilian mission succeeds. On this continent, we don't study worm camps, we burn them. And renegades especially."

"You don't agree?"

"On the contrary-I very much agree. I think we should burn every G.o.dd.a.m.n renegade we find. But I sure would like to interrogate a few of them first, that's all.

The problem is-after a while, they don't use human logic anymore. There's no common ground for communication. They won't or can't reach back to who they used to be. I don't know."

Siegel interrupted then. "Captain... ?" His voice was very low.

"Yo?"

"Main screen."

I looked. The view showed the top of the distant hill. The dust plumes had resolved. Three worms were paused at the crest, looking down at us. They were studying the rollagon like three ravenous travelers looking over a very short dinner menu.

The stingfly exists primarily in a permanent swarm over a Chtorran nest. Often the swarm is so thick that the sky turns gray and grainy. The amount of light actually reaching a viewer on the ground is visibly diminished.

An unprotected human being in a large mandala nest, would probably be covered with stingflies. Without adequate protection, these voracious "insects" could inflict so many bites on a person's naked skin that he would be a b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s within minutes.

Indeed, it is even possible that within an hour, most of the blood would be drained from the unfortunate victim's body.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 22.

In Deep "Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

I didn't say anything for a moment. It wasn't that I couldn't think of anything to say-there wasn't anything that needed saying. But Willig was looking at me expectantly, and even though I couldn't see the expression on his face while sitting at my console, I knew that Siegel was impatient for a decision too, for some course of action. The others as well would be wanting some rea.s.surance that their captain hadn't flaked out.

"Okay," I sighed. "Siegel, check to see how thoroughly we're glued in. If we have to plow our way out of here-"

"We're in pretty deep," he said. He didn't sound happy. "I ran some rough checks last night and another set just before you woke up. It's pretty gummy. We're hip-deep in muck."

"Give me the short version."

"I think we're sinking."

"You can't break free?"

"I've been trying all night. Whatever I do, it just makes it worse. This stuff is-I dunno what it is. It's not mud, it's not sand, it's not anything. It flows like liquid, unless you try to move, then it sits like concrete. The treads can't get a grip on it.

Sorry, Cap'n, but this machine isn't going anywhere for a while."

"Right. We're snowed in. We've got three worms outside. And we can't call for help. Now tell me the bad news."

Siegel didn't answer. The silence on the channel stretched out uncomfortably.

A nasty thought popped into my head. Willig looked at me sharply as I levered myself up out of my chair. I climbed forward into the c.o.c.kpit, to get a firsthand look at Siegel. I checked out Locke and Valada at their stations too. Lopez was still sleeping. I reached over and switched off the comlink. "Okay," I said quietly to Siegel. "I give up. What aren't you telling me?"

Siegel looked puzzled. "That's all there is, Captain."

"Then I don't get it. You guys aren't stupid. You know what trouble we're in.