"See anything?" I asked.
"It says, `Disregard previous egg.' " He replaced it on the table. "I can't tell."
"You know what these remind me of?" I said. "Ant eggs."
"Ant eggs?"
"Uh huh. They have that same kind of almost-translucency. And their shells are soft too. Look, see how they bounce? What does that suggest?"
"Handball?"
I ignored it. "It means we can begin to learn something about how they evolved. Birds and reptiles have hard-shelled eggs-it's for extra strength and water retention. This might indicate a lower level of development. Insects or amphibians."
"Worms are a little bit of each?"
"Maybe." I picked up the egg again. "On the other hand, maybe the Chtorran atmosphere is humid enough so that moisture retention is not a very important survival factor. And this shell seems to be awfully thick, almost cartilaginous. That might provide the protection the embryo needs, particularly if Chtorr does have a higher gravity than Earth. That's what some of the fellows around here think. It would explain the Chtorrans' extreme strength and mobility." I frowned and held the egg up to the light. "I don't know. The shape of an egg and the texture of its shell should tell you things about the conditions it's meant to hatch under-and that should give you clues about the nature of the parent and the offspring. But I don't know how to begin to figure this one out. My brain hurts-there are too many questions. Like, for instance, how come if these millipede things are so incredibly voracious they aren't interested in the eggs?" I pressed the egg to the mesh again. "It doesn't make sense."
"Maybe they can tell it's a Chtorran, and they're afraid of it even before it hatches."
"Sorry, I can't imagine these creatures passing up a free meal. There must be something about these eggs that's distasteful."
Ted blinked. "Wow! An egg with its own defense mechanism." He looked up. "What are you planning to do with them?"
"I was thinking of rigging up an incubator."
Ted whistled softly. "Jimmy, I've got to admire your . . . bravado. Or something. You're either the smartest damn fool around here-or the dumbest. It's not enough you have to rescue Chtorran eggs from the incinerator; now you want to hatch them. When Duke hears about this, he's going to have a fit."
I hadn't thought about Duke. "Why? What's wrong with the idea?"
"Oh, nothing; it's just that the purpose of this Special Forces operation is to kill worms, not breed them."
"Not entirely," I insisted. "You and I were sent up here to study the Chtorrans."
"That doesn't mean we have to make pets of them."
"And how else are we going to get close enough to study them? Do you know a better way to observe one long enough to learn anything? On a hunt, as soon as you see a worm, you burn it. No, the only way we're going to be the scientists we were sent up here to be is to put some worms in a cage and watch to see what makes them tick-and if we can't capture a live one, then we'll have to grow our own."
"Simmer down, I'm on your side. I think. It's just that I don't think the idea is going to be very popular around here; this isn't a P.O.W. camp-and that's another thing; even if you do hatch a few worms, where are you going to keep them?"
"We'll think of something," I mumbled. I was trying to think of something.
"We?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. We. Remember, you're an exobiologist too."
"Oh, yeah-I forgot." Ted looked unhappy. "But I think this is one of those times when I'd rather be a botulinus tester." He said, "I mean, raising the worms is going to be the easy part-"
"Huh?"
He clapped me on the shoulder. "Jimbo, put the bugs to bed. I'm going to talk to Duke."
"Want me to come along?"
"Uh, better not. Duke's had a ... rough day. I think I can be more tactful. You just tuck 'em in for the night and leave the rest to me."
"Well ... okay."
I left the millipedes in the mess hall for the night, with a canvas draped over the coop and a sign that said DANGER! On it. The eggs were slightly more difficult, but I borrowed Ted's electric blanket and put them in a cardboard box with it draped across the top as a makeshift incubator. To keep the eggs from drying out, I lined the box with a layer of plastic, then a layer of towels, and then sprayed it all with warm water-enough to keep the towels damp, but not soggy. It was just a guess. I'd have to work out something more permanent in the morning.
I had trouble falling asleep. I couldn't help it. Someone was screaming in my head, Shorty's dead!
I kept telling myself that I had barely known him; I shouldn't be feeling it this hard. But I hurt all over, and-oh, hell, I couldn't help it; I started crying again.
I was still awake, just lying there, aching, when Ted came in. He didn't turn on the light, just undressed in the dark and slipped into his bed as quietly as he could.
"What did Duke say?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh, I didn't know you were awake."
"I'm not. Not really. What did Duke say?"
"Nothing. I didn't talk to him."
"You were gone an awfully long time."
"Yeah," he said. "I'll tell you in the morning. Maybe." He rolled over and faced the wall.
"Ted," I said, "Shorty died because I wasn't fast enough, didn't he?"
"I don't know," he mumbled. "I wasn't there."
"It's my fault, isn't it?"
"Shut up, will you?"
"But-"
"It'll all be settled tomorrow. There's going to be a hearing."
"A what?"
"An inquest, stupid! An inquest. Now, go to sleep, damn you!"
TWELVE
THE INQUEST was held in the mess hall. Duke, Hank, Larry, two of the other men from the mission (whose names I still didn't know) and myself. Dr. Obama, doubling as medical officer, sat at the head of the table. She had a yellow, legal-sized pad of paper in front of her, covered with precise little notes. Ted sat just to her left with a transcriber terminal; his job was to answer the machine's questions about sound-alike or mumbled words. I was at the opposite end-with sweaty palms. Dr. Obama was looking very quiet and when she finally did speak, I had to strain to hear her. "All right, Duke," she said. "What happened?"
Duke told her, quickly and efficiently. He left out nothing, but neither did he waste time on elaborate descriptions. Dr. Obama showed no reaction throughout, other than an occasional nod, as if she were ticking off each of Duke's facts on a mental checklist.
"We followed procedure all the way," concluded Duke. "That's the annoying thing. If there were only something I could identify as a mistake-some error in judgment, even my own, that I could find-at least we might learn something; but I've been over this thing a hundred times, and I just don't know. We did everything by the book. . . ." He hesitated. "Maybe the book is wrong." He fell silent, spreading his battered hands out on the table before him; they had been scrubbed unnaturally clean for this hearing. "I have no explanation how we missed those worms."
Dr. Obama was thoughtful. She didn't look at Duke at all. At last, she cleared her throat slightly and murmured, "It seems we have several areas of investigation here." She shifted the pad of paper in front of her and read from it: "First, where were the Chtorrans hiding that they were undetectable to the Mobe sensors, as well as to Duke, Larry-"
Ted murmured something, his fingers suddenly moving on the terminal keyboard.
"Eh? What's that?" Dr. Obama looked annoyed.
"Last names," whispered Ted. "The record requires it." "Oh." Dr. Obama went blank for a moment, trying to backtrack her train of thought. "Uh-" She looked at her yellow pad again. "Where were the Chtorrans hiding that they were undetectable to Captain Archibald `Duke' Anderson, Lieutenant Lawrence Milburn, Corporal Carlos Ruez and Observer James McCarthy-who else was inside the hut?"