"Now what?" Lizard wondered.
I didn't answer.
The worms had watched the entire dance without reaction. Now, they slowly turned their eyes toward each other. They almost looked ... uncertain-as if they were waiting for the emperor's reaction before they allowed their own
Only ... which one was the emperor?
One by one, the worms were turning their attention toward the largest-and most patterned-worm in the group. It had narrowed the apertures of its eyes; it looked like it was brooding thoughtfully. Caesar Augustus? Or Caligula?
Abruptly, its eyes bounced open. And then it moved.
Ponderously, majestically, it flowed forward. Straight toward us. And then all the worms flowed forward.
They surrounded the chopper-and began to examine it. All fourteen of them. They scratched and tapped and thumped the hull of the ship.
The chopper pitched and bumped ominously.
TWENTY-SEVEN
LIZARD WAS on the radio immediately, "Houston! We've got a problem!"
Colonel Danny Anderson replied immediately, "Go ahead, ELDAVO."
"We've got worms. More than a dozen of 'em-" Lizard screamed, "-and they're reading the label on this package. Canned people!" She yelped again as something rocked the chopper.
I scrambled out of my seat and crawled back looking for the rocket launcher or the freeze gun. Maybe I could hold them off until the blimp arrived.
There were scrabbling sounds at the door. Something was scraping across the roof The chopper bumped as if something else were pushing it from behind. It lurched so hard I stumbled against the wall.
Duke was moaning! He was waving his arms, trying to get up. He was mumbling and reaching- "Torsh-whah mah torsh?" A pair of giant black eyes was peering in at him through the left side bubble.
I didn't think. I grabbed the shelterfoam gun and sprayed the window. Did the worm look surprised? Did it back away? I didn't see. I turned and sprayed the other bubble.
I crawled over to Duke, pushing him back down onto the deck. "Stay still," I commanded.
"Huh-? Whuh-?"
"Stay still! That's an order, Captain!"
"Yessuhm-" And he lapsed back into unconsciousness.
As I scrambled back to Lizard, she tossed me a sidewise glance. "Gave yourself a little promotion, huh?"
"So court-martial me. Where's the goddamn blimp?" I looked at the clock. "They're overdue."
"I don't know-"
"We're eight minutes away," boomed Colonel Anderson's voice from the radio. "Keep your pants on."
"Why-?" I snapped back. "Will that taste better to the worms?"
"Listen up, Lieutenant!" Colonel Anderson had his father's same angry tone. "Anchoring a blimp is tricky. How you feel about it is irrelevant. It's going to take the same amount of time whether you're calm and rational or panicky and screaming. So it's up to you-how do you want to play it?"
Something in the rear of the chopper creaked ominously. It sounded like a Kevlar strut crackling under pressure. Something else went thump against the door. The door bulged. A piece of shelterfoam spronged off and ricocheted off the opposite wall.
I turned back to the radio. "That's real reasonable, Colonel, sir-but you don't have several tons of worm trying to climb into your ship. We do."
"I'm aware of your problem, Lieutenant. But we don't have any more time to talk about it. You'll have to have your little hissy-fit after we pick you up."
A worm was staring at us through the windshield-but it didn't push through. It just goggled its eyes and blinked. Sput-phwut. A second worm slid up beside it.
I opened my mouth to reply to Colonel Anderson-and then shut it. I realized how stupid I was about to be. I was going to argue for my right to be terrified and upset. The worms were still only inspecting us. If they'd wanted to come in, they would have. Time enough to scream then. "Go ahead," I gulped.
"We've got you on our horizon now. Stand by-" There was a pause. "Nope. There's still too much schmutz in the air. We'll have to do this on instruments." Another pause. "All right, we're dropping the crab. I'll give you the video-"
Lizard reached out and switched on the main display. She punched through the channels quickly. A bright clear image came up on the screen.
We were looking down from the blimp. A round, spidery-looking robot-it had a lot of arms and legs and attachments-was dangling from four lines that looked too, slender to support it. It was caught in the spotlights of the blimp, and it flashed with spotlights of its own. The only indications of motion were the pale and luminous clouds sweeping past below.
Lizard touched her controls again and a second screen lit up to show the view from the crab's camera. There were pink trees swinging wildly below us.
I leaned forward to peer out the front windshield. "Shouldn't we be seeing them soon?"
Lizard asked the radio, "Can you eyeball us?"
"Not yet. Stand by. We'll give you the computer-scan. Channel three."
Lizard punched up a third display screen. The image was plasticlooking, without detail; the blimp's computer had compiled all its sensory data-sonic, infrared, radar, visual and who knew what else-into a single three-dimensional portrait. The landscape looked rippled and uneven; the computer had painted it a dull orange. A wide depression angled diagonally through the image; we were sliding toward it.
There! Just left of center-that bright white object! That was us! A tiny gunship half-buried in a furrow of red. There were dark shapes crawling all over it. I wished I hadn't seen that.
Lizard studied it for a moment, then pointed back over my shoulder. "The blimp'll be coming in from that angle. You'll see them first from the turret."
I climbed back to the turret and pulled myself up into it. I pulled the shutter back-
-and I was suddenly staring into the large round eyes of a large round worm. It blinked. I blinked. It blinked again. I made a face at it. It blinked a third time. I shined my flashlight at it. It blinked. But it didn't attack.
Why not-?
What was going on here?! "Shoo!" I shouted. "Shoo!" The worm blinked at me again.
"Goddammit! Get out of my way-! You big fat hairy bag of pustulant pink pudding!"
The worm backed away from the turret.
I blinked. In surprise. I didn't know my own strength.
I swiveled around quickly. The worms were all over the chopper-and all around it on the ground. They were huge dark shapes in the night, moving quickly and silently across the pale glow of the dust drifts. The lights of the ship struck highlights off the powder crusted on their sides.
Another worm raised itself up to peer at me-one of the biggest. It leaned its weight against the chopper-and pulled us sideways! Lizard yelped. Duke moaned. I heard it over my own scream. The worm loomed ominous and black outside the turret. It swiveled one eye high and the other eye low to look at me from a very cockeyed angle. It only wanted to study me. It was curious!
These were not ordinary worms. They weren't hungry.
I'd never met a worm before that wasn't crazy with hungeror rage. This was a whole new mode of behavior. We were going to have to rewrite the book.
We'd always assumed that the worms were like the millipedes-so much a victim of their own hunger that everything was perceived as food. But these worms were-beyond that.
How did that happen? How much food did a worm need to eat to be satisfied?
How much did it take to stuff a worm? Seattle? North Dakota? Or maybe the answer was all around me. First, you bury California under two meters of cotton candy powder, so the worms are surrounded by food. Then let them out for a walk, so every time they take a step they get a mouthful. The issue of hunger is taken care of.