"No, you're not. Everything you said and did out here was recorded-and monitored. I expect we pulled a very handsome rating this afternoon."
He looked around wildly. His eyes focused on the cameras on the top of the tanks and froze there. "It was a trick!" he shouted. "It doesn't count."
I shrugged. "The record speaks for itself."
He looked back at me, accusingly. "You too. They recorded you too."
"I'm well aware of that," I said. I couldn't help myself, I gave a Bugs Bunny sideways eye-flick to the cameras. "In the meantime, as far as I'm concerned, you're a civilian now. The fact that I'm taking the time to explain this to you is merely a matter of courtesy. Furthermore, I am now officially informing you that as acting commander of this operation, I will not tolerate any further interference with this mission, nor will I tolerate any actions that endanger the lives of my men. If you say one more abusive word to me, I'll put you under military arrest. You'll go bact to base in a sleepytime bag. I'm sure they'll wake you up in time for your trial."
He paled at that. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the enormity of what he'd done was finally getting to him. His shoulders sagged. It was over. He was broken. The kindest thing to do now was to end it quickly. I turned my back on him and headed toward the lead tank.
"What's he doing?" I whispered into my mike.
"He's following," Smitty's voice was soft in my ear.
"How's he look?"
"Like hell. That was nasty."
"Yes it was," I agreed. I didn't say anything more. I trudged the rest of the way back in silence.
Maybe I should have said something else, something about how I regretted doing it; but I didn't, it would have been a lie.
Satellite mapping has established an evolving pattern of severest infestation occurring primarily in broad belts across the semitropical zones of the planet, but with major incursions arising in tropical and temperate zones as well.
Again, however, we must caution against drawing any conclusions from this patterning. The present policy of heavy military assaults against the severest pockets of contamination have been directed primarily at the elements of infestation closest to major human population centers and areas of important resources-especially those in the temperate regions of the globe. As a result, we have little information on how rapidly a mandala settlement might establish itself in a temperate zone.
The tropical and semitropical occurrences may represent the preferred climates for Chtorran species, or they may be atypical, or they may be a compromise; we just don't know.
Our best assessment of the situation at this time is that the Chtorran infestation is able to survive and expand through a wide variety of climates and terrain.
—The Red Book
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 5
The President's Woman
"It's not who wins or loses-it's how you place the blame."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Lizard didn't have to say a word. I could see it on her face. When she came in, I was lying in the tub, letting the water jets churn the bubble bath into a mountainous froth. I was almost fully submerged. When I saw her expression, I let myself sink all the way under.
It didn't work. She reached in after me, grabbed me by the hair, and yanked me up.
Then she kissed me. Hard. But just as I was starting to get enthusiastic, she broke away.
"Huh? Why'd you stop?" I spluttered water all over the front of her uniform.
"Because I'm so mad at you, I could strangle you."
"Then why'd you kiss me in the first place?"
"Because I love you-and I don't want you to forget it. I'm about to give you hell." She started peeling herself out of her clothes.
I watched with naked interest. "If this'is hell," I said, "I'll take seconds."
"I haven't started yet," she said. "And don't you start either." She slapped my hand away and stepped into the tub at my feet. I sat up to make room for her. "Turn the bubbles up," she said.
For a moment, neither of us said anything. She needed to stop being General Tirelli for a bit, and I needed to… enjoy the view. There are a lot of good things to say about a beautiful, intelligent redhead without any clothes on; only some of them are still illegal, and the others are politically incorrect. I'd have to content myself with lascivious thoughts.
Part of me wanted to be worried about the hell she was about to deliver-but somehow I couldn't summon the energy. Maybe I was too comfortable, maybe I was too pleased with myself. But I had drifted into a curious state of mind. In the Mode Training we'd talked about this condition. Foreman had called it the domain of perfection-that state of consciousness where it is finally all right with you that the universe and everything in it exists just the way it does.
"The universe is perfect," Foreman had said. "You're the one who's added your judgments to it. If you accept that the machinery is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, then you can begin to let go of all those things you've added that are driving you crazy. Living in perfection allows you to operate in the universe without having to argue with it."
The first time he'd said it, it hadn't made any sense to me. Sometimes it still didn't; but after I'd begun to experience the domain a little bit, I started to see what he was talking about. I hadn't realized how much time I spent arguing with reality. After a while, you learn to just let things be, so you can get on with the real job.
Anyway, I still felt good about what I had done to poor Major Bellus. It was appropriate, and I wasn't going to defend it. And besides, Lizard's kiss had been an important signal; her way of saying, "Don't go crazy on me."
Still-if she shattered me, and she was the only person on Earth who still had the power to shatter me, because I loved her so much-I knew I'd cry. I'd bawl like a baby, naked and unashamed. I'd rather die than lose her. Sometimes the simple knowledge of Lizard's love for me was the only thing that held me together. Sometimes, she said, she felt the same way.
Despite the knife-edged performance of crispness that she demonstrated to the rest of the world, despite the performance of angry purposefulness that I liked to affect, we both knew how fragile each other really was. She knew most of what I'd been through. I knew some of what she'd had to do. You don't ever harden; not really-you just learn to keep on going, even while the inner wounds are still dripping on the floor. Most of what we did together was patch each other up so we could keep on going.
If I had wanted to worry about it, I could have generated quite a knot of tension inside me; if I worked at it hard enough, I could have turned it into a full-grown anxiety. Then, when she bawled me out, we could have an argument. We could scream and fight and yell at each other for a good twenty or thirty minutes-all the time waiting to see which one of us was going to be the first to break. That was the game. Then the winner had to tell the loser it was all right. Then the loser got to make love to the winner. It was a fun game, whether you won or lost.
And tempting too.
Or… I could skip the argument altogether and just break down in tears and go straight to the apology. That might work. Then she'd have to hold me and comfort me, and then after a while, we'd make love, and it would be fantastic, and then when we were both feeling better, she'd give me that mothering look, and I'd feel sheepish and embarrassed, and I'd apologize for being a jerk, and she'd make it all right again, and then maybe we'd make love again; so it would all work out all right, no matter what. I was already getting an erection.
I looked across at her; my expression must have given away what I was thinking-or maybe it was the little pink island in front of me-because she cut straight to the point. "Forget it, sweetheart. First we have to have the argument."