A Season For Slaughter Part 30

I went to my room and closed the door behind me. I threw myself sprawling across the bed and stared vacantly out the angled windows at the red-tinged sea below.

Now, let us approach the same question from the other direction.

The first stage of the Chtorran colonization had to have occurred covertly. We have already demonstrated that its presence had to have remained undetected for years, thus giving it the time it needed to feed and grow and reproduce, establishing itself, spreading and preparing the later stages of its developmentall of this without having to perform any direct or overt actions against any other part of the Terran ecology.

Therefore, the first stage of the Chtorran colonization had to have occurred in a biological arena that is easily accessible, simple, and out of sight.

Let us consider such an arena of biological activity-a simple natural process-that occurs all around us, everywhere on the planet at all times; a process that can be easily tapped into by an invading ecology because it is at the lowest possible level of the food chain. Is there such an arena?

Yes. It is called decay.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 34.

After the Anvil "There's a lot to be said for thinking with your d.i.c.k. The average p.e.n.i.s is a lot more likely to stand up for what it wants than the average man."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

I woke up with a start. "Huh-?"

The knock repeated.

"Jim?"

"Go away."

Instead, the door slid open. Lizard stood there, but she didn't enter. I rolled back on my belly and stared out the window.

"What?" I rumbled.

"Nothing," she said. Her voice sounded strange. Stranger than usual.

"What? Was there a knife you forgot to twist?"

"Jim. Please don't do this."

I rolled over on my back again and stared at her. The sunlight was slanting sideways through the room and catching her in its golden rays. Her hair flamed like molten copper, her skin glowed from within, she looked like a haloed angel. It hurt just to look at her.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know." She stood there for a long, uncomfortable moment, looking uncertain and confused. Her gaze wandered all over the room, focusing first on the far window, then on the ceiling, then sliding back down the wall to rest on me for only the briefest of instants, before it flickered quickly away again.

"I just don't want to be alone," she admitted.

I shrugged. "Being with me is better than being alone? Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Jim-when you want to be, you can be an incredibly kind and compa.s.sionate man."

"After all the things you said to me, I think you're looking in the wrong place for compa.s.sion. You'd probably be better off with a vibrator."

She flinched, but I had to give her credit; she held her ground. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"Yes, you did. You wanted to get even. I hurt you. Over and over and over again.

And you saved up all the hurts and then you did a Vesuvius all over me. I was so f.u.c.king blind. Everything you said was true-and I deserved your anger. But don't deny it, Lizard, you wanted to hurt me as much as I hurt you. Well, you succeeded.

I don't think I've ever been hurt this badly in my entire life. So if you'll please just go away and leave me alone-"

"I'm scared. I'm alone. And I want someone to hold me. And you're the only person-" She came halfway into the room and stopped.

I sat up and stared at her. "I don't believe this. And you tell me that I'm self-destructive? What the f.u.c.k is going on here? Only a little while ago you were telling me that you never wanted to see me again. You told me that there are some hurts so bad that you can't ever forgive them or forget them. Well, that's what you just did to me." Abruptly I held up a hand to stop her from answering-and to stop myself from going on.

What was I doing? The one thing I wanted most in the world was to be the man in Lizard Tirelli's arms... in Lizard Tirelli's bed. I liked looking up into her eyes. I liked making her laugh. I liked making her gasp and sigh and giggle. So why the h.e.l.l was I pushing her away so hard?

"What?" she said.

I shook my head. I couldn't talk. I choked on my own unspoken words. I swallowed hard and coughed and slapped my hand against my chest. Lizard went quickly to the bar; she came back with a fizzing gla.s.s of cold mineral water, pushing it firmly into my hand and guiding it carefully toward my mouth. I couldn't refuse it; I drank without tasting. The water poured down my throat like so much cold sand, but when I finished, I could speak again. I reached over and put the gla.s.s on the table next to the bed and looked up at her.

I caught my breath and began slowly. "I know what's at stake here-for everybody.

But especially for you and me. Maybe that's why I'm so angry about everything.

Because it's all out of control, and I'm just as terrified of losing as you are. Most of all, I'm scared of losing you. Sometimes I get so G.o.dd.a.m.ned scared I can't even breathe. I start shaking so bad I think I'm dying."

Just talking about it was giving me the nervous jitters. I took a careful breath and moved on to the next thought. "Look, I came down here to Panama because I had the stupid idea that maybe you and I still had a chance. And then I got on this G.o.dd.a.m.n flying nightmare, and all I've gotten is one f.u.c.king body slam after another.

The only person who's said one nice word to me is the cute little steward-and he's being paid to do that."

"The one with the nice a.s.s?"

"I didn't notice."

"You must have. They all wear tight shorts."

"Well, then they probably all have nice a.s.ses. Yeah, okay, Shaun has a nice a.s.s.

Good legs. Cute smile. But he isn't you. And I don't want s.e.x. Certainly not a mercy f.u.c.k-and certainly not one that has to be paid for. All I wanted, from the moment I arrived, was to sit down with you and have one of those moments where we just sit and talk to each other, saying everything we have to say until there's nothing left that needs to be said. Well, we finally had that talk and I'm still waiting for the paramedics to arrive."

At that, she reached over and laid a hand on my shoulder, lightly, as if she were afraid to really touch me. Her perfume was intoxicating, hallucinogenic. It gave me visions and ideas that hurt so badly, I shuddered. I closed my eyes against the seductive clamor of it; then I opened my eyes again and very gently I lifted her hand off.

"No, don't apologize," I told her. "That's my specialty."

She smiled sadly. There were tears at the corners of her eyes. I couldn't stand it.

Just looking up at her this way made my throat hurt. I could feel my own eyes beginning to well up.

She started to reach for me again, I lifted a hand to ward her off. She stopped in midmotion; so did I. Then I lowered my hand and let her reach across the intervening light-years to brush my hair back, smoothing it gently.

After a moment, she pulled her hand back and waited for me to react.

But I couldn't. Not yet.

"Look, Lizard, I guess I came down here thinking that you wanted the same thing I did. I didn't know that you felt the way you did, so I had this expectation that we could try to make things better. That's all I wanted-but what you hit me with was one of those 16-ton Acme Anvils, the kind with the really superlative sound effects, and the card with it said, 'That's all, folks!' "And now"-this hurt the hardest to say-"you come in here and you want nothing more than to sit here and be with me, maybe even hug me a little-and you're driving me f.u.c.king crazy, because if I give in, or if I let you give in, is that going to change anything? No. Not out there in the real world.

They'll still hate me and you'll still find me a liability. And I'll still be a stupid a.s.shole-"

"You're not stupid."

"Yeah, but I'm still an a.s.shole. You told me that you're better off without me. And you were right, Lizard. You were so right. You were so much better off without me that I can't even say it without the tears running down my cheeks; maybe the whole f.u.c.king world will be better off without me. That's how I feel right now, and I can't possibly imagine anything that would be big enough to change that. So I don't dare try to be close to you now, do I? Or one of us will say or do something really stupid and then-then we'll... well, you know what'll happen."

She nodded. She straightened up and looked out the window. She didn't know what to say or do. At last she gave up trying and sat down on the bed next to me, but not very close. "I don't know. I ache all over. And when I ache all over, I'm used to coming to you and getting one of your world-famous back rubs. I guess I was hoping that we could just-"

"Don't you dare say it." I cut her off quickly. "No. We. Cannot. Just. Be.

Friends."

She laughed at that, only a little giggle, but a laugh nonetheless. "You're right. We can't be friends. And we can't be enemies either. What's left?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Me neither."

After a long long minute, I said, "The really stupid thing, the thing that makes no sense at all, is that I'm sitting here loving you and hating you at the same time. I hurt so bad, and I want to hurt you back-and at the same time, I want to hug you so f.u.c.king much-because it'll make both the hurt and the hate go away-" I looked into her eyes. "I'm so stupid. I really f.u.c.ked up everything, didn't I?"

She nodded with such sadness in her movements that my heart just stopped and withered in my chest. There were tears rolling down her cheeks now. I didn't try to stop her when she reached over and gently put her hand on top of mine. Her thumb crept around and underneath and nestled itself comfortably in my palm.

She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Everything is f.u.c.ked, Jim. There aren't any right answers. There're only convenient scapegoats."

I didn't reply to that. I didn't know what to say.

"You go out there-" She brushed ineffectively at her hair. "You go out there-most of the time you're alone, or with inexperienced kids, and there's no real backup for you, but you go anyway, and you never complain about it. You just go out and you do your very best, and then you come back in and n.o.body congratulates you or thanks you or even says, attaboy.' n.o.body ever tells you what's going on, or if what you're doing is important or even making any difference at all. And then they blame you for being angry and impatient with them."

"Don't try to excuse me, Lizard. Please. No rationalizations. I was wrong and we both know it."

"I don't care about right and wrong anymore, Jim. You're all I have left." Her voice cracked. "I was sitting out there feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I'd just kicked my puppy. I don't think any of us have much longer and-oh, f.u.c.k it, Jim,"

she wept. "I don't want to die alone!"

I couldn't answer. I was caught in my own flood of emotion. I started crying myself. I couldn't help it. I was as afraid as she was. I reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed sobbing into my lap, and all I could do was hold on to her as tightly as I could and wonder how I was going to manage.

How were any of us going to manage anything anymore?

All life feeds on death. Everything that feeds, feeds on the death of some other process, even if it is only the entropic decay of stars, the heat death of the universe.

At the lowest, lowest level of the biological food chain, the simplest life forms that exist on this planet-anaerobic bacteria, mold, algae, fungi, lichens-are continually breaking down the dead matter and waste products of other life forms. Death is their food. In turn, they too become food to sustain the various plants that live on the next rung up the chain. In turn, the plants become food for animals. The food pa.s.ses up the chain. In turn, everything excretes, everything dies, and once again every thing becomes food for the processes of decay. The biological decay processors are all around us.

As simple as they are, these creatures may be the most important of all in any ecology; these are the agencies that make life possible-because they gather otherwise unavailable energy and put it back into the food chain. They make it accessible to the rest of us.

It is here, on this-the lowest of all biological levels-that the Chtorran colonization must have first manifested itself.

By replacing Terran decay processors with Chtorran decay processors, an adequate food supply can be developed and ensured for the next level of the Chtorran food chain. The Earth processes would be quietly and efficiently displaced without anyone knowing until it was too late.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 35.

Using G.o.d's Voice "The reason why the battle of the s.e.xes will never be won is because fraternization with the enemy is so much fun."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

Lizard stood on the balcony, looking down at the acrid blue seas below. "I didn't think I was going to like being a pa.s.senger," she said. "Now I remember why I became a pilot. I like seeing the world from high up. I like seeing beyond this hill, beyond the next hill, beyond the edge of the sky."

Despite my... dislike... of heights, I came and stood with her. The Bosch was only twenty meters above the ocean, moving steadily south along the eastern coast of the continent. Despite her complaints about time and schedules, Captain Harbaugh had slowed the great airship's speed to a gentle drift, so that we-and all the other pa.s.sengers too, I suppose-could enjoy the tropical red sunset from our balcony. The long purple rays of dusk stretched eastward toward the approaching night. Our shadow was a great dark shape moving on the water, and we could see the first faint glimmerings of phosph.o.r.escence on the hot foaming surface of the waves.

Lizard reached over and took my hand. She held it tightly while she spoke. "I never had a honeymoon," she said. "Robert and I married while we were both still in college. We couldn't afford a honeymoon. Neither of us had any real family. We promised ourselves that we'd put some money aside and we'd give ourselves the first real vacation that either of us had ever had. We planned. Oh, G.o.d, how we planned. We looked at travelogues and brochures and books and videos. We dreamed of Paris. And not just Paris. We dreamed of Tahiti, Australia, Rome, Greece, Mexico, Egypt-we wanted it all. We wanted to make love in all the world's most romantic places. You don't mind my telling you this, do you?"

I shook my head.

She pulled away anyway. She dropped my hand and turned quickly from the railing. She'd never talked about any of this before. It probably still hurt too much.

She went back into the cabin and sat down on the edge of the bed, wiping her nose, then let herself fall backward onto it as if she were as exhausted in body as she was in spirit. She sniffled and put her arm across her eyes. I followed her back in and sat down next to her, but I didn't try to touch her. She still had too much need for distance.

"And then," she said abruptly, "I got pregnant with little Stevie and that was the end of that. All the money we had put aside for our special honeymoon-and it wasn't really very much-had to go for baby bills. We didn't mind, not really, but in a way, we did. I mean, how can you not be disappointed? I'd even begun learning French.

Oh, we were thrilled about the baby, of course, but we knew it would be years before we'd ever have the chance again to realize our plans." She exhaled softly, not quite a sigh, not quite a moan. "I miss them so much," she said. "I'd trade Paris in a minute, and all the other places too, if I could just have one more day with them both..."

After a moment, she rolled up on her side to look at me. Her eyes were wet. "I'm sorry," she said.

I levered myself around to face her; not too close, but close enough. An arm's length. "For what? For missing people you love? Don't apologize. I miss..." I stopped. I didn't know exactly who I missed.

She reached over and took my hand in hers again. Her smile was strained; her voice had an edge of sadness. "I shouldn't be comparing. I shouldn't be thinking of what's gone. I'll never see either of them again." And then she started to sob.

For a moment, I just watched her as she cried. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me again, I wanted to hold her and cling to her as if she were life itself, but that would have been taking advantage of her vulnerability at this moment. I held back.

She didn't need my help for this. She knew how to cry. And she needed to cry by herself. When she needed to be held, she'd reach for me.