"I am not your son-" I warned.
"Whether you apologize to me or not is unimportant. But I certainly think you owe an apology to your mother. You're being rude in her house."
A half dozen possible replies flashed through my head, most of them having to do with the inhabitants of my mother's bedroom. I discarded all of them as being unworthy.
I opened my mouth. I closed it. I realized that whatever I said would only make it worse. The situation was a zero-sum game. I could apologize and be wrong, or I could remove Mr. Wise from the door and leave-and be wrong. It was a question of how wrong I wanted to be. I knew I sure as hell wasn't going to apologize. I only apologized to people I liked.
I started to turn away. The hell with it. I turned back. I said, "Listen-I didn't mean to infer that you don't know anything. You may know quite a bit about your field-but you don't know anything about my field. I know the Chtorran ecology. I just spent three days buried up to my ass in it and three weeks in a hospital recovering. I know what we're up against. You can tell me anything you want about anything else, but I've seen the worms. I've seen what they can do. I've seen-"
And stopped in the middle of my tirade. And realized something.
Three days buried in pink dust-and I hadn't seen the most obvious thing!
Those worms-every single one of them-from the first worm that Duke and I encountered to the congregation that clustered around the chopper to worship the blimp-those worms were the first ones I'd ever seen that had not immediately attacked a human being on sight.
I turned away from Alan Wise and my mother and my anger and walked out onto the terrace again. I held up my hand as a signal for them to leave me alone.
What if he was right-?
Not about all that political crap-but what if he was right about the worms? What if the truth was, they were not hostile?
I picked up my beer and carried it to the balcony rail. I looked out toward the Santa Cruz mountains. Were there worms up there? I wondered.
Look-I told myself-every worm I've ever encountered, I've had a torch in my hands and I've burned it. And that was because all the worms I'd ever seen-until the episode in the dust-had been hostile.
But then-I'd always had a torch in my hands. The episode in the dust was the first time I hadn't. And that was the first time I saw nonhostile worms.
Could it be that the worms were somehow sensing and reacting to my own hostility-?
It was a fascinating idea.
-If I could meet a worm in a situation with no hostility in it, would it still attack?
There was no way to test it. No, check that. There was no safe way to test it.
We'd made up our minds that the worms were a threat-so we were burning them. What if the worms were only a threat to us because we were a threat to them?
The other factor in that equation, of course, was the bunnydogs. Based on the evidence I'd seen so far, you could make a very good case that the bunnydogs controlled the worms. If so, then we knew that the worms could be controlled. Now if we could find out how
I needed to talk about this with Dr. Fletcher. "Jim-" That was my mother. "Are you all right?"
I turned around. Alan Wise was standing behind her. They both looked concerned. Mr. Takahara had discreetly absented himself. I nodded. "I'm fine. I really am. It's just-I just realized something very important." I looked past her to Alan Wise. "You were the catalyst. Something you said. It triggered an idea. Thank you. And-" What the hell, Lizard said it was the one thing I was good at. "-I'm sorry I flew off the handle, I really am-"
"Apology accepted." He waved magnanimously. He was still a jerk, but at least I didn't have to hate him for it any more.
I turned back to my mom. "I need to get back to Oakland-"
"Without eating-? You just got here!"
"Won't it wait?" Alan asked.
"Um-this is really important."
"Well, so is dinner. There's something Alan wants to talk to you about. I specifically invited you so he could-"
We started off with fresh tomato juice, pate, and a spinach salad-where had she found spinach? Obviously, somebody had spent some money on this meal. This was important.
So I praised every course, and waited for the punch line. Had he finally proposed-? Was that what this was about? And who was Mr. Takahara?
Alan kept his dinner conversation polite. Apparently my earlier outburst had given him a healthy fear of the United States Army-or at least of my commitment to it.
He was also talking much more obliquely than before. "Listen, Jim-I wasn't kidding about the money to be made. For instance, do you know what July dollars are selling for right now? If you had bought July dollars last December, you could turn them over for a thirty percent profit right now. The market is galloping. It's a whole new ball game-and it's the best one yet. Now that the banks have been reorganized, this country can show a profit on the inflation of its currency. And thirty percent is a very healthy rate. It's good for us. It guarantees a lot of economic growth."
I shrugged. "I guess you're right, Alan. I don't really know that much about economics."
He nodded at me enthusiastically. "That's the point. If you were to start turning your caseys into future dollars, you could double your money every eighteen months."
"So-?"
He looked over at my mother. She looked at me. "Dear-" she said, "-don't they pay you some kind of bounty for every Chatorran you kill?"
The punch line.
The United States government would pay one million caseys for every worm killed, ten million for every one captured alive. I'd collected two bounties as an individual and was owed a third. As a member of a team, I'd participated in 106 others. Last I'd looked, I was worth 9.2 million kilocalories. So what? What was I going to do with it?
My mother had an idea.
I looked at her. I looked at Alan. I was incredulous. "I don't believe this. That's what this is all about?"
Alan held up a hand. I held back. "Jim-wait a minute. Hear me out."
"No-" I said. "Absolutely not. Not half an hour ago, you were telling me you didn't even believe the worms were a threat. Now you're asking for the money the government pays for killing them. Excuse me, but that feels a lot like hypocrisy-" I could feel my tantrum shifting into high gear.
Alan said, "Jim! I didn't know that was the source of your money. I apologize-"
I looked at him. "Really?"
"Really. I apologize. I was out of line before. I didn't know-" He looked a little desperate. "-You had every right to get angry with me. If you have nine million caseys in bounty money, I guess that's proof enough you know what you're talking about."
"How did you know it was nine million? I never said how much I had-"
"Your mother told me you had a credit account. She didn't tell me where it came from. I'm sorry, Jim. Really."
Two apologies. The man was desperate. I sat down again, curious.
Alan looked to my mother. "'Nita, honey-would you serve the coffee now?"
My mother nodded and left the table. "Coffee? Real coffee?"
"No expense has been spared for the number one son." He grinned nervously, then allowed himself to relax a little. "I'd like to offer you an opportunity, Jim. I'd like you to listen, if you will."
I shrugged. "I'll listen, but I'm not lending any money-"
Mr. Takahara cleared his throat politely. We both turned to look at him.
"If I may," he said. "The opportunity is actually mine to offer. Mr. Wise-" he bowed modestly, "-invited me here tonight specifically to meet you."
"Sir?"
"I am not going to ask you to lend me any money, young man. I already have all the money I need. May I tell you how this works?"
"I said I'd listen... ."
He took that as an assent. "My company is bidding on a major reclamation project-I can't tell you what-but it's one of the biggest ever. Now, I don't know if you know anything about the Reclamation Laws, but they're very strict. You cannot just set up a company and start bidding."