ROBISON: Yeah, I did a lot of stupid and crazy things then. I was even a Republican once. So what? I learned better.
FOREMAN: The Mode Training has changed a lot since you did it, John. At the request of the President of the United States, we've developed an advanced course, specifically to empower people to deal with the circumstances and pressures of the Chtorran infestation. It is out of this course that the idea of The Core Group was created.
ROBISON: You admit then that key people in government are joining your so-called Core Group?
FOREMAN: And more are joining every day. It's not a crime to commit yourself to the future. Right now, we've got four separate courses running in various parts of the country. We've got over two thousand people in direct training, and six thousand more telecommuting. But it's not just what you call "key people," John. A surprisingly large number of our trainees are what you, in your ignorance, would call ordinary people. But they're not ordinary. The commitment to excellence is never ordinary. These are people from all walks of life who want to be a part of the process of real-world transformation.
ROBISON: So then you do admit that the purpose of this group is to exert influence over the government?
FOREMAN: No. Any idiot can take over a government. Even you could do it. I'm committed to something a lot larger than temporary authority. I'm committed to making a difference in the world.
ROBISON: But you and your group need power to do that, don't you?
FOREMAN: The Core Group isn't a group, John. It's an idea. Anyone who's committed himself to enlarging the vision of what's possible in the universe is automatically a part of The Core Group. There has always been a Core Group for humanity; and it has always consisted of the kind of people, whether they know it at the time or not, who are willing to challenge the perception of what is, so that they can build what will be.
ROBISON: Nevertheless, Dr. Foreman, a group exists of people who have completed the Mode Training, and who identify themselves as The Core Group, and this group is currently active in influencing various branches of the federal government, including the executive branch, both houses of Congress, the military, and even members of the media. Isn't that correct?
FOREMAN: (nodding) The Mode Training is for successful people. It's for people who know how to produce results and who want to learn the technology of consciousness so they can create breakthroughs in personal effectiveness.
ROBINSON: Spare us the enrollment jargon, Doc-just answer the question.
FOREMAN: That is the answer. We've had a lot of high-level people in the course. There's nothing sinister about the fact that the technology works. So does brushing your teeth every day. Why should cultural transformation be so threatening to you?
ROBINSON: I think Dr. Chin is right. You're crazy and you're dangerous. What are you going to do with all this transformation?
FOREMAN; Do you know the old saying? When it's time, for railroads, you get railroads. When it's time for airplanes, you get airplanes. When it's time for zillabangs, you get zillabangs. What are zillabangs? I dunno. It isn't time for them yet. But I do know it's time for transformation-and what we're going to do with it is became a different kind of human species. And I don't think we have a lot of choice in the matter, because if we don't transform ourselves into more powerful, more effective species, the Chtorrans going to transform us into an extinct one…
Simply infecting one or two individuals in a population is not enough to guarantee that a plague will take hold, even a Chtorran plague. A determined vector is required, not a casual or accidental avenue of introduction. Only a carrier that guarantees repeated access can make a plague inevitable.
What is needed, for example, is a Chtorran equivalent for the flea or the mosquito. Before the plagues can occur; before the pernicious diseases can begin, a vector of strong opportunity first has to be established.
At this writing, the most likely candidate for the mechanism of transmission is the ubiquitous stingfly-a voracious biting "insect." The stingfly starts life smaller than a gnat, but can grow as large as a dragonfly if it has sufficient access to food.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 20
Nightfall
"The dog was nature's first attempt to make a neurotic. Practice makes perfect."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Outside, the pink storm covered the countryside with a thick blanket of silence and dust. In this neighborhood, the stuff would be gooey by morning, and by the end of the day tomorrow, it would be a hard and brittle crust.
In the gullies and arroyos where the muck pooled in thicknesses a meter or more, the congealed masses would be almost unbreakable. It could be a year or more before the stuff degraded or eroded or was finally washed away by rains, but in the meantime, the sugary slabs would serve as caches of quick protein for any hungry young worm fresh out of its shell. This was purely a Chtorran treat; an Earth-creature would break a tooth or a jaw trying to bite off a piece of this rock candy.
Inside the rollagon, we monitored the doings under the earth. We had more than enough to keep ourselves busy.
We sent the prowler crawling up and down the walls of the womb-nest, tasting, smelling, touching, measuring, recording, canning, exploring, and sampling everything it came across. We took specimens wherever we could. Our needles poked and pierced; we cut slices off the walls, slivers from all the organs. We prodded and thumped and did everything short of provoking the nest into uproar. The inhabitants-embryonic members of the Chtorran ecology-barely reacted. Apparently, the activities within the womb-nest were sufficiently insulated that the tenants above could not be triggered into swarming by the prowler's actions below.
Willig sat quietly at her station and watched the threedimensional map of the chamber grow toward completion. Siegel and I took turns monitoring Sher Khan's steady progress; we fed Willig the raw data for her map. Reilly and Lopez shuttered the overhead bubbles and retired into the back to try to get some rest. They woke up Locke and Valada and fell into the still-warm bunks. Valada cursed softly; Locke just scratched himself and went looking for caffeine.
Pink twilight turned into ruddy dusk. Ruddy dusk became a velvet-black well. Inside the womb-nest, things turned restlessly in their amniotic sleep. If the pink blanket above was having any effect down below, it wasn't immediately obvious.
"Captain-?" Valada called me over to her work station. Exhausted, I got up from my chair and went forward to peer over her shoulder. "What've you got?"
She pointed to the display on one of her monitors. Several of the gray slugs were trying to ooze their way up a tunnel. "I think you're right about these little guys being taxis to the surface. They've been trying to get up that slope for an hour now."
"Okay, but where are the passengers?"
"I've been working on that too." Valada brought up a new set of images. "Look, this is from another part of the nest." The gray slugs were chewing remorselessly at the edge of one of the red blubbery organs. They wasted as much as they ate. Parts of it spilled wetly around them. "Some of it sticks to their sides," Valada said. "But-notice how they just gulp down their food without even chewing? I'll bet you that a lot of the eggs survive the trip through their intestines untouched. The slugs get up to the surface, they take a crap, the eggs hatch in slug-shit, and the next generation of critters is free to run amuck."
"That's usually the case with next generations," I muttered thinking of something else. "I'll give you half a point-"
"Only half a point?" she protested.
"You missed the obvious one. After we have a chance to scan one of those little bastards, I'll bet you anything that we'll find that some of the eggs have already hatched in the slug's belly-and whatever things have hatched out of those eggs will be happily munching away on slug innards."