Psychotic overwhelm. Too much, too fast. The information floods in and keeps on flooding. Sound and touch and sight; the operator tries to keep up with it; abruptly it overwhelms him-his ability to process overloads; he loses contact with reality, both the real and imagined; he goes into convulsions, seizures, epileptic frenzies. Sometimes Virtual Reality was also Virtual Insanity. Even death was not unknown. Intensity was fatal. I'd never seriously considered the possibility that it could happen to me. I'd always assumed that it only happened to people who were emotionally or mentally unstable…
And that was a thought to consider too.
"We have to go back in," I said. "We have to get samples. We have to bring the prowler out-"
"Siegel's already working on it. He's filtering the audio and simplified most of the video. He's only waiting for your go ahead."
I nodded. "Go ahead and start. I want to wash my face and then I'll peek in over his shoulder." I climbed out of my chair and went to the back of the vehicle. I locked myself in the head and splashed some cold water in my eyes. I still felt nervous and jittery. My heartbeat was racing and my breath was ragged. I felt like a caffeine tester. I felt like hell-and I wanted it to stop. I sat down on the toilet and put my head between my hands. I counted slowly to ten, then to thirty, and finally all the way to a hundred. It helped, but only a little. The aftershocks continued to resonate throughout my body.
After a while, I got up and washed my face again. I looked at myself in the mirror and wished I hadn't.
I came out of the head still feeling weak. I popped the rear exit of the vehicle and looked out at the bright surrounding afternoon. The sky was pink.
Although it has become convenient to say that many of the puzzles of the Chtorran ecology simply cannot be understood in Terran terms, that position is insufficient to our need to comprehend the dangers that our planet is facing. We cannot afford to excuse our ignorance, with contextual limitations.
What will be required in this most important of all scientific endeavors will be the expansion of our personal horizons to include perspectives that we otherwise might overlook, either deliberately or accidentally, either because of our own prejudices or those already built into our cultural environment.
Far example, in this book, we have been repeatedly referring to the growth of the Chtorran ecology on this planet as an invasion or an infestation. It might be equally accurate, and perhaps much more useful, to step outside of our own involvement in the matter, and call it a colonization.
Let us examine the mechanisms of this process from the perspective of the agency that most stands to benefit by the successful implementation of the Chtorr on Earth, and see what insights we can derive from that model.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 16
Pink Storm Rising
" 'Tis far far better to be pissed off than pissed on."
-SOLOMON SHORT
A mountain range of pink, ominous and bright, was painted like a wall across the whole western half of the sky.
How could anything so beautiful and so peaceful looking also be so terrifying? It loomed up over the horizon like a massive smoky fence dividing this world impassively from the next. Silent and huge, it was a dreadful, towering cloudbank. Rosy and fluffy, a cotton-candy tidal wave, it rolled up into the blue forever, the crest already toppling downward toward us. The yellow sun dipped darkly down behind it; soon it would disappear completely, leaving the rusty Mexican landscape shrouded in warm gloom.
What the hell?
What was wrong with Marano? Why hadn't she warned us-? I turned to yell-
Where the hell was the other van? The slight rise where it had been parked was empty.
I gaped stupidly for half a minute before I comprehended-then I started running and screaming. I was halfway up the hill before I stopped, out of breath and so pissed I could have ripped apart a whole nest of worms with my bare hands. The flattened vegetation showed where the rollagon had come crushing down and around in a great wide loop, before heading back out toward the pickup point.
I stood there, panting angrily, then realized that I wasn't accomplishing anything this way, turned and headed back toward the command vehicle. I swore the whole long distance back.
Willig was standing just outside the vehicle, staring up the slope in me. So was Siegel. He had the safety off on his flamethrower, and he looked very worried.
"Where's the backup vehicle?" I demanded.
They shook their heads dumbly. "Didn't Marano contact you?"
"Last contact was half an hour ago. I didn't realize she was overdue until after you-" Willig didn't want to finish the sentence. She didn't want to embarrass me by referring to my momentary disability.
I waved the thought away and pointed at the sky. "See that?" They both nodded.
"In half an hour, we're going to be up to our armpits in pink." I started hammering orders. "Siegel, recall the spybirds, lock down the prowler, and set up a satellite link; we'll resume the operation from base." My headset beeped to life. "Locke, charge all the air tanks in case we have to breathe out of a can for a while. Lopez and Reilly, up topside in the bubbles-full-security lookout. Everybody prepare to move out. Willig, call for emergency pickup. Come on, let's move! Everybody scramble." I climbed up into the rollagon after them and dogged the hatch with a pressurized whoosh.
Willig was the first to report. "Captain, I can't raise the network."
"Say again?"
"The satellites are refusing to recognize our ID."
"That can't be."
"I can't even get a weather scan." She sounded frantic.
"Let me try." I dropped down into my chair and started typing. I recited a steady stream of commands into my headset.
Sorry. This ID is not valid.
Shit. That didn't make sense. I tried again-this time with my personal account number.
Sorry. This ID is not valid.
For a moment, I sat staring, unbelieving. The message on the screen in front of me was incomprehensible. It was a door slammed in my face.
"The son of a bitch," I breathed softly. "He cut us off."
"Who did?"
"The late Randy Dannenfelser."
"Huh? When did he die?"
"He starts tomorrow." I called forward, "Siegel?"
"Prowler's on standby. But I can't set up a satellite link."
"Not surprised. Okay. Plan B. Valada, how's our food and water situation?"
"We're good for two weeks."
"More than enough."
"Uh-oh. I don't like the sound of that."
"Willig? What's the wind velocity?"
"Forty klicks."
"Shit. We'll never outrun it. Okay. Anchor this thing. Make it airtight. You know the drill. Go!"
While they worked, I turned back to my keyboard. Hm. I wondered. It had worked once, a long time ago. What were the chances it would work again? Slowly, I typed in Captain Duke Anderson's ID number and password. I fully expected it to be rejected, but-
The screen lit up in connect mode. "I'll be damned."
"Huh?" Willig glanced over my shoulder. "How'd you do that?"
"Magic," I answered. "Go away, you'll spoil the spell." I folded my arms across my chest and thought for a moment. I had to think about this. I couldn't request any information about this sector. Whatever else Dannenfelser was, he wasn't a fool. He would have installed watchdog programs to monitor all requests. If I'd been doing it, I'd have clamped a security lid on the whole sector.
And I had to be careful what I uploaded too. Any messages originating from this area would be suspect. I couldn't contact anybody in the military directly. Those communications would probably all be monitored and therefore would be directly accessible to Dannenfelser. He wasn't stupid. If I tried contacting anybody I knew, I'd probably be putting them directly on his little list.