"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
"I'll get back to you."
"Randy-thank you."
"I haven't done anything yet. And even if I do, I don't want your thanks."
"You're really going to make this hard on me, aren't you?"
"Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't?"
"You're bigger than spiteful and petty revenge?" I offered hopefully.
He thought about it. "No, I don't think so. I'm just the right size for spiteful and petty revenge. The fact that I'm doing this doesn't change anything at all between us. After she's found, you and I are back to normal." And then he clicked off.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Shreiber came storming into my tent, her hand out, her fingers snapping. "All right, where is it?"
"Where's what?"
"The goddamn telephone."
I tried to play stupid. "What goddamn telephone? You didn't give me one."
It didn't work. "I know you have a phone. I know you got it from that little fairy, Shaun. I know you called Dannenfelser. You homos think you can get away with anything, don't you?"
Is that what I looked like when I said those things? Suddenly I hated Dr. Shreiber. Suddenly I was ashamed of myself. Suddenly I wanted to kill her.
"The phone?" she prompted.
"Go to hell."
"After you, Alphonse," she said, hitting my arm with the hypo spray. I went out so fast, I didn't even have time to tell her what I thought of her.
In the larger, most intensely settled, central areas of the mandala, our probes found that almost all of the main corkscrew tunnels spiraled down to very large central chambers. These chambers were invariably filled with a thick, organic liquid.
The older the chamber, the larger it was and the more syrupy the fluid within; dark and soupy, it generally demonstrated the texture and consistency of motor oil, although occasionally the substance was found as thick as molasses or tar. The purpose of these chambers and their reservoirs of syrup is apparently to provide a resting place for gastropedes that have grown too large to be mobile.[6]
Apparently, the reservoir chambers serve as "dying rooms" for the eldest members of the Chtorran family. When a gastropede begins to mass three or four thousand kilos, it ceases to be an ambulatory object and becomes instead a landmark, an enormous sac of hungry pudding. When a gastropede approaches this threshold volume, the sheer effort of moving itself starts to become so energy-intensive that it cannot consume enough biomass to maintain itself; so instead, it retires to a suitable reservoir chamber. The syrup in the chamber provides buoyancy and nutrients, enabling the creature to survive in some comfort a while longer.
During this period of "retirement" the elder gastropede is continuously tended by the smaller, younger members of its family. The elder emits a steady rumbling harmonic, which apparently serves as the fundamental note for the entire family, and perhaps every other creature living in the nest.
Although we have only limited observational evidence, we believe that when the creature does finally die, the syrup undergoes a transformation, as do many of the microscopic creatures living in it. Various small creatures in the chamber even demonstrate a swarming behavior. The total effect is to break down the body of the dead gastropede into reusable materials for the benefit of all the other organisms that depend on the mandala host.
During this time, the chamber is sealed from the outside, as the process of putrefaction is quite noxious and likely to infect other parts of the nest.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 78
Dwan
"A postal worker can lose anything but his job. This explains the quality of the service."
-SOLOMON SHORT
I must have been out all day. By the time I fluttered back up to a state resembling consciousness, sunset was a horizontal lattice of red light slanting through the trees. The effect was eerie. Clouds of dust filled the air and made it difficult to breathe. Overhead, choppers were clattering like hovering tornadoes. I wasn't in my tent anymore. I was on the ground. People were rushing around me. People I didn't recognize. Unfamiliar uniforms. I levered myself up onto my elbows. We were in a scorched clearing, the stink of cordite in the air, an absolutely perfect circle-instant landing field, carved by a daisy-cutter dropped from a chopper. This one was filled with military gear of all kinds soldiers, spiders, machines, prowlers, crates of equipment, pallets of ordnance.
"What's going on-?" I tried to ask, but no one would stop to talk to me. I grabbed at every passing figure. "Help me-" I cried. "Someone help me." I was ignored. I began screaming
"We're being evacuated, calm down," someone said. "You're going out on the next chopper, don't worry." In the distance, I could hear the sound of gunfire and the muted roar of torches. Acrid smoke was wafting up over the treetops. And then I heard the other sound, a many-voiced sound, all purple and red, and chirruping in anger. The battle was getting closer.
"We're being attacked!" I cried.
"It's all right," somebody said. "We're holding the line. You're perfectly safe. You're going out on the next chopper. We're just waiting for a daisy-cutter. They overran the other clearing."
And then I was alone again, waiting. Somehow I dragged myself up into a sitting position and looked around. I was tied to a stretcher. There were stretchers on either side of me. I couldn't identify some of the bodies; they had already been bagged. Two stretchers down, though, I saw Shaun-either dead or unconscious. He didn't look good. Something had broken him up pretty bad.
"Lie d-down," said a thick voice from behind me.
I turned to look. "Dwan!"
She was still wearing her hurt and angry expression. "You sh-shut up, Mr. Shim McCarthy. You j -just sh-shut up and stay d-down." Her anger muted her stutter.
"Dwan-listen to me. I'm sorry. I was a stupid jerk. I was wrong to say what I did. I wasn't mad at you, I was mad at myself and I said some cruel and angry things. You understand me, don't you? You know that people sometimes do things they don't mean because-well, because they're confused. Can you understand that?"
She blinked at me, confused. She shook her head. "You are n-not a very n-nice m-man."
"What was your first clue?" I asked. She looked puzzled. The joke was beyond her.
"Listen to me," I said. "I need your help. Lizard needs your help. General Tirelli."
"I d-don't w-want to help you," she said. "I d-don't like you."
"I'm sorry that you don't like me. In a minute, I think you're going to like me even less-and I don't have any way to make it up to you."
"I d-don't understand you."
"I'm talking to the massmind now," I said, staring directly into Dwan's face. "I know you're using her. I know that you've been peeking out through her body since the day you implanted her. There's no way you could have given her an augment without also giving her an implant. She doesn't know it, though, does she? But I do-"
"You're c-crazy," said Dwan, but her tone was so different, I knew it wasn't her speaking.
"Dwan called me Jimbo. Only one person in the whole world ever called me Jimbo, and now he's part of the massmind, and now the massmind calls me Jimbo. Ted, I know you're in there. Stop wasting all our time and help me."
Dwan opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. For a moment, she just grinned at me blankly. A string of drool came from her thick lips. This was the real Dwan-Dwan without strings. Maybe there never had been a Dwan, only a meat puppet too stupid to live without help. Oh God, that was a dreadful thought! I hoped it wasn't true. Although I didn't know which was better, being just smart enough to know you're mentally disabled or being so unconscious that you couldn't tell. For some reason, I wanted Dwan to have consciousness, so I could beg her forgiveness. That might let me feel a little less terrible. And then I realized I was still being selfish. Oh, hell-even trying to rescue Lizard was a selfish act. So what? Was there anything in the world that wasn't selfish? At least this way I was putting my selfishness at the service of humanity, wasn't I?