A Season For Slaughter Part 32

"Do you think you can reach it?"

"Never mind. I'll lick the spoon."

"Then it's a deal?"

"Okay, it's a deal." She pried herself loose from my embrace and levered herself to her feet.

"Where are you going?"

"To use the phone and the bathroom, in that order. We're going down to Medical now, while I'm still giggling. Because if I stop laughing, I'll talk myself out of it. You, go take some vitamin E."

This is no longer an untested hypothesis. On the contrary, at the time of this writing, we have developed significant evidence that the capture of the Terran food chain is not happening at the top. It is happening at the bottom. The mechanism is understood and the components are becoming known. A number of Chtorran molds and fungi have been identified; and so have the creatures that feed upon them. As is to be expected, most of these forms are quite aggressive within their ecological niches.

Of particular interest is the "cotton-candy" or "manna" plant; the Chtorran agent responsible for the great pink storms of sugary dust that have blanketed many of the infested areas of the western United States, Mexico, North Africa, the Russian steppes, parts of China, India, and Pakistan.

The "manna" plant, as it is now known, is a deceptively harmless-appearing fungus-like form. It grows rapidly, and it is completely edible. A field that is green with gra.s.s on one day may suddenly on the next day be filled with large pink bulbs like puffball mushroomssome of them as huge as basketb.a.l.l.s or water melons. By the end of the third day, the puffball bodies will have begun to shrivel. By the end of the fifth day, nothing will be left of the manna plants but dust. This process may occur over and over again during the course of a season. It will seem comparatively harmless, and on a small scale, it is.

-The Red Book, (Release 22.19A)

Chapter 37.

Red Status "Not all lawyers know when they're lying. Only the good ones do. The best can conceal even this fact."

-SOLOMON SHORT.

We were in luck. Lizard was only a day and a half away from the peak point of her cycle. Dr. Meier gave Lizard a shot of something to tweak her hormones, and three hours later she harvested six eggs. That wasn't quite enough time for the vitamin E in my system to have taken full effect, but Lizard had a better way to tweak my hormones, and responding to her skilled handling, I rose to the occasion magnificently. Uncle Ira would have been proud of me, I discharged my duty without complaint.

Very shortly, the three of us were watching the miracle of life. Even in a petri dish, it's still romantic-although all three of us were in agreement that the old-fashioned way of starting babies had certain ancillary benefits not to be overlooked.

After that, Dr. Meier did a little sorting, a little centrifuging, a little scanning, and the next morning proudly informed us that we had three little boys and three little girls safe in the freezer. She'd already made arrangements to ship them back from our Amapa stopover. We weren't the only ones on board who had abruptly decided to preserve a bit of our genetic heritage before going deeper into Brazil. Apparently, there were quite a few others who had their own misgivings about the safety of the mission, but Dr. Meier wouldn't elaborate on how many; it would have violated confidentiality. There was also quite a bit of paperwork involved, mostly inheritance rights (under the Baby Cooper laws) in case we invested any money in these eggs.

On the way out, Dr. Meier said one other thing. "Oh, you might want to be careful for the next few days. That shot I gave you, General Tirelli-well, you're still fertile.

You could pop another egg and-"

"Uh-" Lizard and I exchanged a glance. "Why didn't you tell us this last night?"

"I see." Dr. Meier's smile froze. Her expression went abruptly professional. "If you'd like, I can do something about that."

Lizard looked to me quickly; her lower lip trembled uncertainly, then she shook her head. "No. If I've caught, I've caught. We'll go all the way with it."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She slid her hand quietly into mine. I held it tightly; I felt her squeeze back. "We want a baby. We were planning to start one as soon as this mission was over anyway. So what if we start it a month early?"

Dr. Meier looked at us both. "Well, then congratulations." She shook our hands and ushered us out quickly. She didn't look happy.

Outside, in the hall, I stopped Lizard and turned her to face me. She misunderstood my intention and folded herself into my arms for a heartfelt kiss, which was a better idea than mine anyway. My heart melted, and I forgot most of what I had planned to say. I just held her close and let the moment envelop us.

When I finally came up for breath, I looked into her shining eyes and spoke the obvious. "Mmm, I like kissing you."

"Better than boys, huh?" She touched my nose with her fingertip.

"Geez-one lousy little troop of Boy Scouts, and you never let me live it down.

Yes," I added. "Better than boys. Okay?"

"Okay." She lowered her lips to mine again.

After another century or two of mushy stuff, I broke apart from her abruptly and asked, "Hey, what was all that about in there?"

"All what about?"

"Dr. Meier's look. She wasn't very happy with the idea that you might be pregnant."

Lizard glanced away for a second; when she looked back to me, her expression had shifted to a more thoughtful one. She hooked her arm in mine and started guiding me down the corridor. "If I take maternity leave, it puts a big hole in the organizational chart."

"Huh?"

"Can you spell power vacuum?"

"As in Wainright?"

"As in Wainwrong," she sighed. "That's Dr. Zymph's name for him." She pulled me out of the corridor through the mission hriefing room and into her private office.

She closed the door behind us and hit the red security panel, automatically locking the room and sweeping for bugs. "Sit down, Jim. We need to talk."

My heart b.u.mped. "Serious talk?"

"Serious talk," she confirmed. She squeezed my hand. "It's all nght, sweetheart.

This is a what-you-need-to-know discussion. I need to background you." We sat down together in a quiet corner. She thumbed her communicator to life and spoke softly into it. "Log it. Upgrade Captain James Edward McCarthy's clearance to Double-Q, Priority Alpha, Red Status, no inhibitions, as of this moment. Out."

"Red Status?"

She nodded. "Unless you have the clearance, you can't even know that the category exists."

"Wow," I mouthed.

"Right," she said. "This is all burn-before-reading stuff." For a moment, she looked tired. "Now I'm going to have to find a way to add you to my permanent staff. That'll make it easier on both of us. I'll talk to Danny Anderson about it. He might have some ideas. Maybe we can resurrect your field promotion-"

"Uh-uh," I said, a little too quickly.

"What's the matter?"

"I, uh-I'm not sure that I should-I don't know if I want it anymore."

"I see." She looked at me with narrowing eyes. She laid one hand on top of mine.

"What's the problem?"

"Nothing, uh-could we change the subject?" There was a hard burning sensation growing in my chest.

"No, we cannot change the subject. I'm your commanding officer. I might also be carrying your baby. You and I made some promises to each other last night. No more bulls.h.i.t."

I couldn't look at her. My eyes were watering. I lowered my gaze to the floor and tried to wipe them surrept.i.tiously. She reached over with one soft hand and tilted my face upward again. "What is it?"

I shook my head, but I still managed to get the words out. "I can't-I can't order anybody else to their deaths. I never had to do it before. I won't do it again."

"I see." After a moment, Lizard got up and walked to the window. She stood there staring out of it, watching the land pa.s.s by below. I studied my boots. They needed a shine. When I looked up, she was still gazing out the window, but she was wiping at her eyes too.

"What's the matter?" I said.

Her voice was quiet, but strained. "I don't want to give you the speech," she whispered. It was obviously hard for her to speak. She turned and looked back at me. Her eyes were starting to redden. She put her hand up against her cheek so the heel of her palm almost covered her mouth. She shook her head, almost in helplessness. "It isn't fair. It's nasty and it's manipulative, and I'm sure you've already heard it a million times. Oh, h.e.l.l." She came back and sat down opposite me again.

"It's part of the job of command," she began slowly, "to make those kinds of decisions. It's a terrible burden, and if you didn't feel every death as a personal blow, you couldn't be trusted with the responsibility-"

I opened my mouth to object. "That sentiment is putrid. It guarantees you'll have nothing but crazy commanders. No, find some single-minded psychopath who doesn't feel the pain and point him at the enemy. He'll be a much better hero than I could ever be."

"Shut up, sweetheart. Listen to me." She laid a fingertip across my lips. "I've never had to order anyone to their deaths. Not like that. I've never had to sacrifice some of my troops to protect the rest. I hope to G.o.d I never have to. It's the worst kind of command decision an officer ever has to make.

"I-I saw the pictures of your mission. Your rescue-I watched it live. I was so mad at you, but I watched it anyway. No, don't ask how we tapped into the feed; there's still a lot that you don't know. Anyway-" She took a breath and tried again. "When the shambler tenants went off, part of me was hoping that you'd be killed-because then that way, at least, there would be finality. I could stop worrying about you. And at the same time, the rest of me was praying to G.o.d that you'd survive so that I could wring your neck for being so G.o.dd.a.m.n stupid as to go out there in the first place. And when those three soldiers were killed, I didn't care. Not in my heart of hearts, I honestly didn't care, because I was so glad that you were all right. I told myself it was a small enough price to pay. That's when I knew how much I wanted you back.

"And when I yelled at you-I tried to tell myself that I was mad at you for walking out on me, for being stubborn and pigheaded, for not reopening the channel, and most of all, for losing those lives-but I wasn't. I was mad at you for risking yours.

Anger is a good cover, but it isn't always the truth. I was yelling at me too, for being so stupid as to want you so badly that I would willingly except the sacrifice of three other human beings in exchange for you. And then I felt even worse for feeling that way, and for a while I thought I had to get you out of my life any way I could hecause we couldn't possibly be good for each other, and then I didn't know what I felt. But even while I wanted to kill you, I still felt bad for you because I knew how awful you must be feeling-"

"You couldn't know what I was feeling. If you've never had to give that kind of order-"

"I know," she admitted. "I know. You're right about that. But now it's your turn to listen to me, sweetheart. You wouldn't have been trusted with the responsibility of those lives, except that somebody above you, some officer, thought that you were able to handle it. I'm that somebody. I'm the officer who authorized it. Every time you went out, I stood behind you. I still do. So it was my order too. I share the responsibility."

I didn't know what to say to that. I looked away from her for a moment. Was she trying to make me feel better? Of course she was. But was she telling the truth? G.o.d!

Why did I doubt everything that anybody said to me? I had to believe her. If our relationship meant anything at all Besides, I wanted to believe her. I took a deep breath. It still hurt. "I don't think you can forgive me, Lizard. Because I can't forgive myself."

"There's nothing to forgive. You did your job."

"I'm not suited for this job."

"That's where you're wrong."

"Huh?" There was something about the way she'd said it. I looked up sharply.

She nodded. "You need to know this. Your apt.i.tudes and abilities are constantly being monitored and a.n.a.lyzed. That's so the military can know how best to place you."

"Well, sure-everybody knows about the Personnel Placement Policy. There's a lot of LI processing involved in it. But I never put much faith in it. After all, look where they put Dannenfelser."

She made a face. "Believe it or not, Dannenfelser is exactly what General Wainright needs. No, listen to me. The process is much more sophisticated and thorough than you suspect. It's not just a question of matching skills to tasks. It's also a matter of matching emotional suitability as well. If someone can't handle stress, you surround him with people who can-he's protected, so is the job. Here's why I upped your clearance. You are what the psych section calls an alpha personality.' That means that you're able to handle large responsibilities. You're not afraid to make difficult decisions. Yes, you agonize about them-but you do it afterward. That's your way of double-checking yourself that you made the right decision at the time.

"That's why you keep getting promotions. You produce results. And that's why you keep getting sent into impossible situations. Because you discover things that other people don't. There aren't a lot of people in the world who can do what you do. You walk into dangerous places, you look around, and you come out again and report not just what you saw, but what you noticed. You're a natural synthesist-you learn, you theorize, you teach, you make a difference. And that's why you can be forgiven the deaths of those three soldiers. That was their job-to protect you and whatever it is you realized by being there."

I considered her words. I'd always known that I was good at what I did. I'd never realized that anybody else had noticed, or even cared. I got up and crossed to the window. It was my turn to look out at the dark green roof of the forest below.

Amapa was already visible on the horizon, a splash of white carved into the distant hills. We'd be docking in less than an hour.

I took a breath. What I was about to say would not be easy. "If what you say is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, then I can't do the job anymore, Lizard.

Because that would mean other people are going to have to risk their lives to protect me in the future. I can't have any more deaths on my conscience. Three is already too many. Of all the deaths I've ever caused, I don't know why, but these three are the worst."

She followed me to the window and put her arms around me from behind. She hugged me gently, then released me and began gently ma.s.saging my shoulders. She did that when she wasn't sure what she wanted to say. I didn't object, I liked the attention, but I also knew that she was monitoring my mental state by the tension in my shoulders and neck.

"Turn around," she said. I did so.

She took my hand and placed it on her belly. "Feel that," she commanded.

"Feels good," I said. I slid my hand lower.

She moved my hand back up to her belly. "Don't start. At least not until I finish saying what I have to. I might be pregnant, Jim. I hope I am. And if I am, then we're going to be responsible for bringing a new life into the world and raising it to be the best kind of person we can. But what happens if Dr. Meier tells us that this child is damaged or defective somehow? What if amniocentesis shows that it's a Down's syndrome baby or-I don't know. But what if it's not perfect?"

I let my hand fall to my side. "It will be."

"I know, but what if it isn't? Then what? What's our responsibility as parents?"

I made supportive noises. "We'll talk it over. We'll see it through. We'll handle it."

"We'll abort it," she said with certainty. "As parents, we take responsibility for this life. And if it can't be a good life, we'll also take the responsibility for ending it, won't we?"

I hated this conversation. It made me feel queasy. But I managed to nod my head yes.

"That's right. When you take responsibility for another person's life, you also have the responsibility to end it too, if that's appropriate." She stared into my eyes until I wanted to cry; there was a lot of that going on this trip; but I couldn't break away.

"Jim," she added, in an even more serious tone. "What if I was injured? What if I was in a coma, with no hope of recovery? Brain dead. Would you tell Dr. Meier to pull the plug on me?"

"Lizard, please-"

"Would you tell her?" she demanded. "Or would you let me he a living vegetable, wasting away in a hospital bed, year after year after year?"

"I hope to G.o.d I never have to-"

"I hope to G.o.d you never have to either! But if you did-?"

"If I did have to, then yes, I'd pull the plug on you, yes-and then I'd go home and put a bullet through my brain. I couldn't handle it-"