A Season For Slaughter Part 27

Chapter 30.

Hieronymus Bosch "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

The airship was the size of a nightmare-and the same color too. She had been painted to look like a king-worm, and the resemblance was horrifying.

My first glimpse of her was an accident. I was looking out through the chopper window, admiring the lemon-and-rosecolored afternoon as we coursed over Panama City, when I spotted something red and purple glittering under stadium floodlights, looming huge against the skyline. My brain translated the image immediately into worm. Except it couldn't be-it was larger than the buildings that it sat beside. It sprawled across an open field, dwarfing everything around it like a set of precision miniatures.

My brain struggled for an instant with the disparity of images. The differences of scale refused to resolve, and for a moment I couldn't focus my eyes properly. What was I looking at anyway? King-worms didn't go out of their nests, so it couldn't be a king-worm. And those weren't houses; they were airplane hangars. And, oh my G.o.d!

That's the Hieronymus Bosch, isn't it? She was incredible!

I wanted to say that she was beautiful, but I couldn't. Nothing painted those colors could be beautiful. Nothing that looked like that belonged on this planet.

Except this one was ours. She was brighter and louder and more impressive than any Chtorran that had ever slimed its way out of a sh.e.l.l. I couldn't help but feel proud of her. And her mission.

She had been built by Amazement, Inc., back in the days when there were enough millionaires in the world to make luxurious lighter-than-air travel a profitable fantasy.

Once upon a long-lost time, there had been a three-year waiting list for vacation bookings on this ship. It had always been one of my private dreams to put aside enough money for a luxury air cruise.

Since the Chtorrans had come, a.much higher proportion of the Earth's population had become millionaires, some by multiple inheritance, others by skillful application of the reclamation laws. But it hardly mattered. Labor inflation had eaten up most of the gains, and scarcity of goods had taken care of the rest. Some luxuries remained possible-coffee and chocolate to name twobut it was the idea of luxury that had become impossible. Unfashionable. Somehow shameful in the midst of all this dying.

Before the Chtorrans, this ship had been called the Fantasia. An airborne confection, she had carried three hundred pa.s.sengers at a time in astonishing grandeur. She had sailed extravagantly across Europe and the Atlantic, up and down the Americas, over to Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and then back across. Alaska and the great northwestern wilderness, across Canada to New York and Boston, then to Ireland and Europe again. Once upon a lovely time, she had drifted across the skies of summer like a city in the clouds. All summer long, from May until September, she had floated above the cares of a simpler, less terrible world.

Now... she was the Hieronymus Bosch, and she had been converted into an enormous airborne science lab for Operation Nightmare.

She was a great flat ellipse, containing three separate lifting frames. Her primary airframe was constructed around a long keel of carbon-doped polymers and woven ceramics; it was flanked by two additional outrigger frames, each almost as long and almost as thick in diameter. All three airframes were linked together inside a gigantic pressurized skin. From nose to tail, her primary airframe was 350 meters long. Her flanking frames were each 300 meters long. She was 30 percent longer than the legendary Hindenburg, and with her outrigger gasbags full, she had more than four times the lifting power. She had twelve near-silent linear-array coldthrust engines, and could easily maintain a cruising speed of 200 kilometers per hour. She'd been clocked as fast as 250 on several occasions when the weather was right and her captain had been daring.

She was also the perfect ship for this operation. She could hover over a Chtorran mandala camp for days, even weeks, allowing the observers within her to drop thousands of probes and cameras and testing devices of all kinds into the settlement.

For the first time, we would be able to observe the day-to-day life of a worm camp.

Once planted, the remotes would continue to relay information for months. We even had probes that would attach themselves to a pa.s.sing worm, burrow into the creature's skin, and transmit a continual stream of tracking information and other data. Operation Nightmare represented our best opportunity ever to discover the social structure of the Chtorran gastropedes.

We would photograph and listen to and sniff and taste and feel and measure everything we could, from the smallest microorganisms to the largest king-worms.

We expected to discover aspects of the infestation that we had never known before.

Once and for all, we would determine if the worms were sentient beings or not. We would monitor what they ate and what they excreted. We'd count their teeth and measure their belches and sniff under their arms. Our nano-probes would get into their blood and into their intestines and into their brains; not just the worms, but every creature in the infestation. We'd monitor the comings and goings of every host and symbiont in the settlement, tracking their patterns of behavior, their relationships, their interactions; everything and anything that might give us a clue to understanding who and what they really were.

Would our presence disturb them? We didn't know. We expected it would, but we had a theory about that too. The airship had been painted to resemble a gigantic worm; we hoped the gastropedes below would see it as a kind of sky-G.o.d watching over them. We'd seen the phenomenon several times before. Blimps that were painted in stripes of pink and red and purple produced the most amazing reactions among gastropedes on the ground. The Hieronymus Bosch had also been strung with a brand-new active-crystal lighting system across the entire surface of her external skin; she was capable of generating and. displaying brilliant high-resolution images in 120 fps (frames per second) real-time. The effect was nothing less than dazzling. She was her own traveling fireworks display.

I'd seen pictures, I'd seen animations of what to expect, I'd even walked through simulated realities, but it was true-no simulation could ever prepare you for the reality of seeing something that size in person. We just kept dropping closer and closer to her, and that great purple expanse just kept looming larger and larger, until my brain refused to accept that there was actually an object that size in the world. She was as wide as a football field was long and three and a half times longer. She was a flaming storm cloud come to rest on the land.

And then the plane b.u.mped down onto the runway, and I was gaping up at her.

We taxied along her entire incredible length. We rolled and rolled and just kept rolling-and all the time she loomed inescapably over us, a gigantic crimson presence-under an orange sunset. We finally came to a halt opposite the nose of the great ship. She was at least a kilometer away, and she still filled our field of vision. I pulled myself away from the window reluctantly, and only after the door of the plane had popped open, letting in the wet heat of the tropics. I shuffled after the other six pa.s.sengers toward the door.

The yellow-edged afternoon had seemed bright and frosty seen from the blue sky.

Now, as I stepped down the ramp and into the muggy heat, I realized how deceptive that appearance had been. The full weight of the morbid equatorial atmosphere descended on my lungs, and I sagged under the enveloping onslaught of hot, moist air. The sweat started rolling down my body even before I knew how hot I was. I hoped the shuttle-bus was air-conditioned. There was a shuttle-bus, wasn't there? I mopped my forehead with the back of my wrist; it came away wet. Maybe I could stand in the aircraft's shadow. I squinted off toward the horizon, but I didn't see anybody coming. Bad planning on somebody's part.

I wondered what I was supposed to do next. Was I supposed to go to the terminal and check in, or go directly to the Bosch? It looked as if we were several klicks away from everything. But even as I stood there, frowning and squinting into the brightness, a raucous horn beeped behind me. I turned around to see a battered and old unpainted Jeep bouncing toward us, crossing the gra.s.s between the runways. It was driven with reckless speed by a wild-eyed black girl. She brought the car to a skidding stop, sliding wildly across the wet dirt. She looked like she was only twelve years old, and for some reason I thought of Holly. She would have been twelve by now.

"Who's McCarthy?" she called. I lifted a hand.

"Over here."

"Let's go," she ordered. "They're waiting for you."

The other military travelers were looking at me curiously. I ignored them and tossed my duffel into the back of the Jeep. "That's Captain McCarthy to you," I corrected.

She grinned. "Sorry, bub, I'm not in your army. I'm just a taxi driver. Get in."

I shrugged and climbed into the front seat of the Jeep. "Aren't you supposed to pick up anyone else?" I jerked a thumb toward the others still waiting beside the small air-taxi.

"Nope." She jerked the wheel so hard, we nearly span out across the gra.s.s, and then we were grinding and bouncing across the muddy expanse between the grounded plane and the quiescent airship. From this perspective, the Hieronymus Bosch looked like a great naked slug wallowing in a muddy pit. As we approached, she began to look like a wall, a shadow, a sky, and finally a ceiling over the entire Earth. She was an awesome presence. I wondered if meeting G.o.d face-to-face would be this enormous an experience.

The Jeep swerved and arrowed straight for the airship's forward entrance; it was an indistinct blaze of light in the darkness ahead. Between the unbroken asphalt beneath and the great suspended ceiling above, we were in a strange unlimited s.p.a.ce.

The rest of the world disappeared into a narrow strip of light at the distant horizon.

The sun was gone, and we were rocketing through an indefinite twilight gloom. After the incandescence of the yellow Panama afternoon, I could barely see; I was grateful for the cooling shade; and then I realized that the ship's air conditioners were blowing a wall of cold air around the whole area under here. Of course-she had power to waste; her top surfaces were all solar fuel cells; she had thirty-five thousand square meters of them on her upper skin. As we rolled closer to the bright oasis of the entrance, the dark presence above us became brilliantly lit. Banks of gleaming overhead lights directed us toward the welcoming lobby, where a grand glittering staircase wide enough for a marching band? * led upward into the huge pink belly of the beast.

The Jeep came sliding to a halt directly in front of the staircase, where several of the ship's officers were standing around a portable console that looked like a music stand-but my eyes were drawn to the one person wearing the colors of the United States Army. General Tirelli. Lizard. She looked so crisp and military, even in a shapeless jumpsuit, that you could have sliced bread with her.

I climbed out of the Jeep slowly. How should I greet her? I wanted to grab her and hug her gratefully, but something about the way she stood and the look on her face warned me not to. I wasn't sure what I should do. I covered by reaching around and grabbing for my duffel. The girl was already pulling away; the bag caught on something in the Jeep and I almost lost it. I must have looked spectacularly ungraceful.

I straightened myself up and saluted. "General Tirelli? Captain Harbaugh? Captain James Edward McCarthy, reporting for duty. I apologize for any delays or inconveniences my tardiness may have caused."

I was tired, unshaven, and dirty. I hadn't bathed or changed my clothes in three days; my combat fatigues were stained with sweat and mud and pink dust up to my chest; and I looked haggard and very unmilitary. If I smelled as bad as I looked, then I was probably in violation of several clean-air ordinances; I couldn't tell from the inside, my olfactory nerves had long since given up. Captain Harbaugh was looking at me as if she wanted to hose me off before letting me board her airship.

General Tirelli returned my salute with one of her own, a careless wave of her hand. Captain Harbaugh only returned it with a frown. She was wearing a communication headset, and she was clearly annoyed. Her disdain was unmistakable. Lizard's expression was unreadable, but equally dark. I lowered my eyes and looked away. The lump in my throat hurt and I didn't know what to say.

The best I could do was wait for instructions. I looked to Captain Harbaugh.

Captain Anne Jillian Harbaugh was a tall woman with a commanding presence.

She was taller than Lizard; she was statuesque. She was clearly not a woman to argue with. She had thick auburn hair and large hazel green eyes. She looked European, but she obviously had a trace of Hispanic in her ancestry too. She was probably beautiful, but at the moment, her countenance was so severe that her picture could have been used as a birth control device. She said, "We were supposed to be on our way six hours ago. I don't know if I can make up the lost time in the air." She glanced over at General Tirelli. "He'd better be worth it."

I looked to Lizard hopefully; but her gaze was neutral. She held out her hand expectantly. "Your orders, Captain?" I pa.s.sed them over. My heart was thumping unexplainably. I felt dizzy with a rush of confused feelings-feelings for Lizard and feelings of displacement and exhaustion; I'd spent most of the day in the air.

She accepted my papers without looking at them. "Get aboard." To Captain Harbaugh, she said, "He's worth it." Captain Harbaugh hmpfed noncommittally. She nodded to a steward. "Show Captain McCarthy to his quarters. Miller, get the console. Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."

Unfortunately, the more we know about the life cycle of the stingfly, the more we realize that it cannot possibly have been the primary vector for the spreading of the first devastating plagues. This is a particularly troubling realization, as it demonstrates that there is a large gap in our knowledge of the processes at work.

Nevertheless, the reasoning leaves us no other conclusion.

Before the stingfly can begin its pernicious career as a vector, it has to have established and stabilized itself into its own ecological niche-but the stingfly's complicated life cycle cannot be initiated and maintained until all the other support species are themselves available, especially gastropedes, wormberries, and the bacteria that thrive in the gut of the stingfly maggot.

If the stingfly is the only agent of transmission for Chtorran diseases, then the introduction of the plagues into the Terran bioma.s.s did not occur until the stingfly was established, and the stingfly could not have been established until its support species were present and established.

Therefore, before the first plagues occurred, the gastropedes and other Chtorran species had to have already been present. But the earliest evidence of the presence of gastropedes occurs only after the appearance of the first plagues, and not even on the same continent.

Let us consider the alternative possibility. If the stingfly was not the initial agent of transmission, then some other Chtorran life form must have served the purpose of introducing Chtorran plague bacteria and viruses into human bloodstreams.

Call it Agent X. Whatever its nature, it had to be able to operate in a pre-Chtorran ecology. This means that the causative germs for all of the plagues had to be readily present in the environment. They'had to be available over a large enough area to ensure that Agent X would have sufficient access. Only in that circ.u.mstance could the initiation of infectious germs into a susceptible human population occur-only in that way could it occur often enough to trigger the spreading waves of infection that were actually observed.

So where did the causative microorganisms originate? Were they already present in Agent X, functioning as symbionts or parasites? This doesn't seem likely-there are too many separate disease germs to be accounted for. So the question remains, where did Agent X pick up the infecting disease germs?

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 31.

Earthly Delights "The const.i.tution guarantees every citizen-the right to make a d.a.m.n fool of himself, in public or in private, however he or she chooses."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

The entire staircase came rising up after us. Captain Harbaugh pushed past me, already snapping orders into her headset, Lizard following in her wake.

"Uh, General- "Later-" she said curtly. "There's a mission briefing in the main lounge, half an hour from now. You have just enough time to clean up. I'll see you in my quarters afterward." And then she was gone.

I stopped and looked around. We were in a grand lobby, at least an acre across.

Two stewards waited beside a reception desk. Several other attendants were visible too, talking on headsets or working at terminals, probably taking care of the myriad routine matters a.s.sociated with any large operation. A few people glanced in my direction, then turned away again with deliberate nonchalance. It wasn't exactly my greatest entrance. I was as out of place here as a warthog in a beauty pageant.

Despite the fact that this was now a military vessel, most of the original fittings remained. The atmosphere was one of quiet, understated elegance. Everything was s.p.a.cious-there was s.p.a.ce here to waste. Pale walls, high ceilings, mirrors, hanging screens; colored lights, feathery drapes, and a thick, m.u.f.fling carpet, all made for a relaxed and stylish environment without serious weight penalties. Just about everything aboard this vessel was made of woven ceramics and lightweight foamed-polymers. You could transport a herd of elephants in the hold of this ship if you had a mind to.

"This way, Captain. I'll take your duffel."

The steward was only a teenager, but so soft-spoken and respectful, he could have been any age at all. He wore close-fitting shorts and a knit pastel T-shirt. His name tag identified him as Shaun. He had fine sandy hair that he wore in bangs, and a wide friendly grin. But he was almost too pretty to be a boy. I wondered if he was gay. "Is everybody on this crew under the age of sixteen?" I asked.

Shaun smiled politely. Evidently, he'd been asked this question a lot. "I think the captain is over twenty-one." Abruptly, there was a gentle b.u.mp from beneath our feet; almost unnoticeable. "Oh," he said, gesturing me to follow. "You'll want to see this." He was as proud as if he had built the Bosch himself. His demeanor was friendly and refreshing. He made no mention of my appearance, but he was visibly impressed and more than a little intrigued by the undeniable evidence of my recent battle experience. I had the weirdest sensation of having been plucked abruptly out of one world and dropped haphazardly into the next, without instructions, program book, or score card. I was feeling not just dirty, but disconnected and confused. So much had happened, was still happening Shaun led me to the starboard observation deck. It ran the entire length of the vessel; it was an astonishing exercise in visual perspective. The corridor simply stretched away and vanished in a distant blur. The decking underneath was light and bouncy; the observation decks also doubled as jogging tracks.

There was a railing along the outer wall, except it wasn't a wall; it was an endless length of hardened gla.s.s, four meters high, angled outward, and so transparent, you could almost believe there was nothing there at all. It was like standing on a balcony, or a mile-long shelf. You could lean over and look straight down at the ground below.

"On the cabin level, there are private balconies. You'll have to keep the windows closed when we're cruising faster than ten kilometers, but Captain Harbaugh usually tries to arrange a half hour of slow cruising at sunset, so you can use your balcony then. Most people find it very romantic. I don't know if we'll be able to do much of that this trip. I guess once we're on-site, though, you'll be able to keep the windows open as much as you want."

"We'll be over a major Chtorran infestation. Caution mandates that we keep the windows closed and maintain integrity."

"Oh, here we go," he said. "We're away."

Whatever he had felt had been too gentle for me to notice, but I stepped closer to the window and peered down. We were already airborne. The afternoon heat fell away beneath us as we floated slowly up through the crisp tropical sunlight. We lifted silently over the patterned quilt of Panama, a baked terrain of rumpled yellow and brown fields, cl.u.s.ters of pale buildings with red tile roofs and blue-green swimming pools, scattered industrial installations, and even the occasional gla.s.s tower. Everything was bordered and cut by narrow black ribbons that wound off into the distance. Tiny vehicles trundled slowly along the roads.

"How high are we going to go?"

"I'll have to check. It's a matter of ballast, air pressure, wind currents, weight, and fuel- "But usually... ?" I prompted.

"Usually, the captain stays within a half kilometer of the ground. She says she likes to pick the right height for enjoying the view." He hesitated, then he added, "Sometimes we go higher. It sorta depends on the scenery. Sometimes it shoots."

"Mm. That's a cheerful thought."

"If you're ready, I'll take you to your cabin now."

I followed him back through the corridor to a high-ceilinged, sprawling lounge.

"Is this the main lounge?"

"No, this is The Wine Cellar." To my confused look, he explained. "That's the name of this bar. It's sort of a joke. It's the only bar below the main deck. The main deck is one flight up, and the main lounge is impossible to miss, it's almost directly above us. But the forward lounge has the best view. The aft lounge is nice too.

There's a slidewalk that runs the length of the ship: The cabin level is above that.

This way, Captain-"

He led me up a wide flight of stairs to the most lavishly appointed deck of the airship. In the days when she was still the Fantasia, she had offered the finest accommodations in the world. Her cuisine was five star, and her service was unmatched anywhere. All the cabins were three-room suites, or larger. s.p.a.ce was not at a premium here.

Even though she had been legally requisitioned by the North American Operations Authority, and was now officially an Authority warship, she was still staffed and operated by the employees of Amazing, Inc. Lizard had explained it to me once. The corporation had over 650 million caseys invested in this airship and they were extremely reluctant to relinquish her to the Authority under any conditions. Aside from the fact that they would be losing millions of dollars of business, they didn't believe they'd ever get their airship back again. They found a friendly judge, one who stayed bought, and papered the walls with restraining orders, injunctions, and show-cause orders. None of them would have stopped the ultimate seizure of the vessel, but c.u.mulatively, each and every piece of paper served to delay the takeover until it could be processed through the already-clogged judicial calendar.

Eventually, the Authority got the message. The paper-making machinery was not going to be turned off. They compromised by contracting to purchase a seven-year lease on the airship's services, at 85 percent of pre-Chtorran rates, payable in chocolate, gold, coffee, oil, or dollars. Hardly much of a compromise. More like highway robbery. But the Authority needed the ship for Operation Nightmare. So they paid.

In return, they got the largest, most luxurious flying hotel this side of Luna City.

Amazing, Inc., kept control of their a.s.set and maintained their operation, selling directly now to a single customer. The corporation supplied all crew and support services, consistent with their previously established standard, the Army picked up the bill, and Congress reexamined the tax code with ominous intent.

In sheer dollar outlay, the entire operation was a colossal expenditure, impossible to justify; but in terms of morale and manpower, it was the most cost-effective solution possible. It spared the North American Operations Authority the headache of learning how to support, maintain, and fly the airship; not to mention the additional headache of finding, training, and keeping qualified ground crew, flight crew, stewards, chefs, and ancillary staff. Eveni more important, it let the military and scientific teams concentrate more of their energies on the mission than on the maintenance of the transportation.

Flying aboard her, with her uncompromisingly good menu, was like having an on-site R-and-R. The boost to morale she provided to everyone who journeyed aboard her, or supported her, or even saw her float by overhead, was justification enough. It was like saying, "See, not everything worthwhile is gone. See, good things are still possible."

The accommodations, of course, remained first-rate. There was no need to cut up or subdivide her expansive suites to accommodate more pa.s.sengers, because there weren't going to be more pa.s.sengers. Weight was the determining factor here, not s.p.a.ce; the limit was three hundred pa.s.sengers, regardless of how much room each was a.s.signed; and there was more than enough s.p.a.ce aboard this airship for each and every one of them.

Everything inside the Hieronymus Bosch was big. How could it not be? The one thing an airship has is plenty of room. You can have as much as you want, as long as you don't fill it with anything. The Bosch, according to the brochures I'd seen, had some magnificent theaters, ballrooms, and gymnasiums. At one point, the designers had even considered a swimming pool, but the weight penalty had ultimately proven prohibitive. If her pa.s.senger load could have been reduced to 125, it might have been possible; but then the cost of a ticket would have been three times as much. Oh, well... I wasn't paying for it anyway. I could afford to complain.

Shaun led me down a long corridor on the starboard side of the main level to a door with a star on it. "I hope you don't mind, we had to put you with General Tirelli." He unlocked the door with a plastic card.

"Uh, I don't mind."

"She's in the big bedroom. I've already put your gear in here." He pointed toward the other bedroom on the opposite side of the suite's living room. I followed him in.

If this was the small bedroom, I couldn't imagine how big the main bedroom was.