The Paymaster's office could handle the necessary paperwork. The advantage to using the U. S. Army brokerage is that the commission is held to a scale rate, and your taxes are paid automatically. These particular investments, though, fell under the Resource Incentive Program and no taxes could be assessed on reinvested funds-so almost all that cash got put to work and Uncle Sam's share was limited to the handling charge. I set up a recycling trust with instructions that any and all future bounty payments were to be automatically invested in the same areas, authorized and confirmed, signed off and put the whole thing out of my mind. Alan Wise be damned.
I finished by dropping a quick note into my mother's mailbox letting her know that I had named her as beneficiary.
I logged off-realized I was already late to Dr. Fletcher's session-and headed down to the lab section. I slipped quietly into the back of the theater; all the chairs were filled so I found myself an inconspicuous place on the side to stand. There were a lot more uniforms in the audience than last time. This must be important. There was a lot of brass present.
Down below, Tiny was already hard at work. The worm's claws moved thoughtfully over the controls of the problem. This particular puzzle had a lot of interlocking rods and sliding blocks. It was almost too complex to visualize.
According to the outline Fletcher had sent me, these problems were designed by a computer program and could be manufactured to almost any degree of difficulty. So far, they had not come up with a problem that Tiny could not solve. The longest the worm had ever taken had been six hours.
Right now, an overhead clock showed the elapsed time was seventeen minutes. According to the agenda, this was supposed to be an "easy" problem.
The chime sounded, the cage popped open-and Tiny grabbed the rabbit. A white rabbit. Seventeen minutes, thirty-seven seconds. The rabbit did not have time to squeal.
Dr. Fletcher touched her controls and the panel with the puzzle slid closed. She said, "I know that many of you have seen our earlier demonstrations, you know what Tiny is capable of. If we were to give it this puzzle again, Tiny would remember exactly the sequence of moves to open it, and would probably take no more than thirty seconds. Now-" She typed something into her keyboard, waited, frowned, typed again and looked up.
"Our second specimen," she continued, "was captured near Superstition Mountain in Southern Arizona last month. It was close to death from dehydration and hunger. That area is not particularly kind to the gastropedes. We've found a number of their carcasses in the area. We think they wander down from the northern part of the state; there have been sightings in the high country. Had this one not been so weak, capture would have been out of the question, as the creature already massed nine hundred kilos. As it was, two men were killed and three others injured-and the creature was almost destroyed. We call this second specimen `Lucky'." She added, "We think that Lucky may be a female-but we aren't certain." She touched a control and another panel in the chamber below slid open. "I am now going to introduce Lucky to the chamber."
There were audible gasps when Lucky appeared. According to the briefing book, this was the biggest worm in captivity. The beast slid into the chamber like a bus filling a row of parking places.
The two worms goggled their eyes at each other, chirruped and trilled. They circled each other like boxers
"We believe this is a ritual behavior," said Fletcher. "Perhaps a kind of meeting dance."
The two worms suddenly leapt at each other and writhed together like snakes, turning and tumbling across the floor of the chamber. First one, then the other, was on top. It looked almost like a combat to the death.
"The first time we put them together," Fletcher noted, "we thought they were trying to kill each other."
Suddenly, the two worms froze in position. They were wrapped rigidly around each other. They held like lovers at climax; their bodies were as tense as steel.
"We call this state communion. It is as close to a sexual behavior as we have yet seen in the gastropedes." She looked like she wanted to add something else, but was holding back. "The length of communion tends to vary. So far, our experience has been that the more often two worms are exposed to each other, the shorter any individual episode of communion will be. We have four worms we're working with here. We've found that the first exposure is usually the longest. We have some theories about this, but none that we're willing to discuss at this point, let alone endorse." She glanced down into the chamber. "Ah, I see that they're complete-"
Lucky and Tiny were disentangling. They curled and chirruped, rolled sideways, trilled and broke apart.
Now Fletcher opened the passage to Tiny's cell and the smaller worm slid obediently into it. She remarked, "As I've said before, we have not tamed the worms. The creatures appear to cooperate, yes; but we rather think that they're learning the routine of our operations more than anything else. Even a kitten can learn to identify a refrigerator as the source of milk."
Fletcher checked that the passage was clear, then closed the panel behind Tiny. Lucky was now alone in the chamber. It twitched its hands impatiently-the same gesture that Tiny had used the first time I'd been here. The big worm slid up to the panel that concealed the rabbit puzzle and waited.
"You want to notice what Lucky's doing now," said Fletcher. "Every time we change the puzzle, we also put it behind a different panel. Lucky already knows exactly where this one is going to appear."
Lucky looked up at the glass then and issued a rapid, highpitched trill. There were chuckles in the auditorium. "That's as clear a hurry-up as I've ever heard," someone remarked. Lucky repeated its cry, then returned its attention eagerly to the panel.
"What you're seeing now," said Fletcher, "is a very clear indication that the worm has learned not only to anticipate, but to actually enjoy these tests."
She opened the panel for Lucky then. The puzzle had been reset, this time with a spotted black-and-white rabbit. The rabbit was trembling in the cage.
Lucky burbled in delight and moved immediately to the panel. It unfolded its arms from its upper back, reached forward over its eyes, and began to work the knobs and switches of the puzzle with a swift deliberation. There was no uncertainty in the animal's movements.
Almost immediately, the puzzle chimed and the glass case popped open. There were gasps in the auditorium. Fletcher looked satisfied. So did Lucky. The worm grabbed the rabbit and popped it into its mouth. Again, the wet slobbery crunching.
Fletcher opened the passage to Lucky's cell, waited to see that Lucky was returning to its cage, closed the panel, and then closed the curtains of the theater. She paused for just the briefest moment, as if studying her notes, then looked out over her audience. The scientists looked excited. The soldiers looked grim. I could understand both reactions.
"There you have it," Fletcher said. "A very clear demonstration that the worms do communicate." She added, "I want to stress the importance of what you've seen here. Without this demonstration, a very good case could be made that a large part of the behavior of these creatures is instinctive and ritualized. We now have proof that they're capable of a lot more. How much more, we're still investigating.
"We do know that the communication between the two specimens-the transmission of information about the puzzle-occurs in the communion state. When the worms have visual and auditory access to each other, but are prevented by physical barriers from achieving communion, the transmission of information does not occur. It only occurs in the presence of communion.