"What makes you so sure?"
"Because nobody told us. That's why."
Valada looked like she wanted to throw her helmet at me. Instead, she hung it on the hook next to her seat and shook her head in frustration and anger. "This is fucked," she said. "You know that? Really fucked."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know any more than you do. And I'm not going to speculate." I put one hand to my ear and pointed toward the ceiling with my other.
Valada looked unconvinced. Siegel mouthed a silent "Oh." Lopez said something in Spanish, too rapidly for me to translate. Something about cojones, something about la verdad. I wasn't sure.
I looked around the inside of the aircraft; it was a stock model, not quite military, not quite civilian, not quite government-issue, and not quite anything else either. Nondescript. I tossed my helmet aside and put my feet up on the cases in front of me. Abruptly, something occurred to me. I looked up at the wall behind me-I thought I'd seen a telephone there! And it wasn't a military phone either! It was a civilian line!
I plucked it out of its holder and punched in my ID number. Amazingly, it worked. I got an immediate dial tone. I hesitated, my finger poised over the buttons. Who to call first-?
Lizard didn't answer. And no, I didn't want to leave a message.
Dammit. Who else? Dannenfelser? Not a good idea. Tempting, but not a good idea. Oh-I punched for Marano. She answered almost immediately. "Marano here."
"This is McCarthy," I said quietly, but also very intensely. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Captain!" She almost shrieked in my ear. "Where are you?"
"We're in the air." I glanced at my watch. "We should be home within an hour. Where did you go?" I demanded.
"We got the special withdrawal signal-" She sounded confused.
"What special withdrawal signal?"
"Huh? Didn't you get it?" Her puzzlement was sincere.
"Slow down," I said. "Tell me what the signal contained."
"A coded message-it came over the red line. Do not acknowledge, maintain total radio silence, do not attempt to communicate, just head toward these coordinates as fast as you can for immediate pickup."
"We didn't get any signal," I said, "for the simple reason that it was never sent. We were deliberately-" I stopped myself before I said anything else. Civilian lines were supposed to be secure, but nobody really believed it. "Uh, look-" I said. "There must have been a mixup. I'll straighten it out when I get back. Don't worry about it. And, uh-" I tried to sound casual. "You probably shouldn't talk to anyone about this until I do some investigating, okay?"
"Yessir, I'm just glad everybody's all right-" And then she realized what she'd assumed. "Uh, everybody is all right… ?"
I hesitated. I didn't know how to say it.
Marano understood the hesitation. Her voice went soft. "How bad?" she asked.
"Bad," I said. It was hard to get the words out. "Reilly bought it. And-and Willig too. And Locke."
"Oh, no-"
There was a long silence on the line. Finally, I had to ask, "Lydia-are you still there?"
She sniffed and managed to say, "Yes, I'm here. I'm sorry-"
"Don't be. Uh-we'll talk. Okay?"
"Okay," she said. She sounded as bad as I felt.
"Over and out." I clicked off.
I sat in my chair, frowning at the phone for a long long time; then I punched up Lizard's number again, and this time I left a message, just a short one. I didn't want to say all that I was really feeling. Not where my troops could hear. So I just said, "I'm on my way home. We have a lot to talk about. Um-I love you. Please… be there for me. I need you. A lot." I hung the phone up and sat there alone for the rest of the rough trip in.
When the stingfly grub is large enough, it releases its hold upon the stomach lining of its host encysts itself into a hard indigestible pellet, and allows itself to be flushed through the system and excreted. Shortly after excretion, usually within a day, it hatches into an adult stingfly.
Stingfly grubs will spend only three to four weeks in the gut of a healthy gastropede. In order to retain the ability to digest foliage, both Chtorran and Tenan, the gastropede must continually reinfect itself with stingfly eggs. This symbiosis is obviously beneficial to both partners; the gastropede becomes a more efficient consumer of its environment, and the stingfly and its host bacteria thrive as a result.
But this symbiosis is clearly more important to the stingfly than it is to the gastropede, because the gastropede can survive without the stingfly larvae in its gut, but the stingfly cannot reproduce without a host. This means that the wormberry must be an important part of the gastropede diet, otherwise the stingfly could not have become so dependent on this avenue of infection.
As a result of our initial studies, the destruction of wormberries has been suggested as a way to control the spread of stingflies-and possibly gastropedes; but additional experimentation is strongly advised here before any pilot eradication programs are initiated. It is equally possible that without the nutritional support of the stingfly grubs and their symbiotic bacteria, gastropede appetites could become dangerously amplified, representing a much greater danger to resident populations in or near infested areas.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 28
Houstin
"Everything in moderation. Especially moderation. "
-SOLOMON SHORT
The chopper hit the ground with a bang and the door popped open almost immediately. I recognized the technique. The pilot was pissed about something and wanted us off his airplane right now. The landing left my kidneys hurting, and I came down the steps with a foul expression on my face.
Dannenfelser made a serious mistake. No, not waiting for me at the bottom of the ramp. I was so tired that I would have walked right by him without even noticing he was there-but he opened his mouth. That was his mistake.
I'm sure it must have been something terribly clever that he meant to say. I don't know, he didn't get the chance to finish. I just grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him backward against the nearest waiting vehicle. "You fucking son of a bitch! You goddamned traitor to the human race! You'd sacrifice the truth if it let you pay off a grudge!" His eyes were as wide as soft-boiled eggs. His face was as drained as a dead man's-except for the blood running out of his nose. I didn't even remember hitting him in the face. I just kept slamming him up against the damned van, again and again and again.
When they finally pulled me off him, he slumped brokenly to the ground. I had to give him credit for one thing, though-he never whimpered. He just wiped at his nose and tried to get back to his feet, waving off help. "No problem, no problem-"
I felt shocked at the damage I had done, and frustrated at the same time. I wasn't finished. I wanted to bang his head against a wall for a while. I wanted to listen to the sound of his bones crunching. The fury that filled me was a flush of rage and ecstasy. It was very satisfying and to hell with the goddamn consequences. I'd have a lot to say at my court-martial.
Abruptly, I noticed that my hands were bleeding; my knuckles were dripping. I'd cut them when I'd broken the window of the van with Dannenfelser's head. I shrugged off Siegel's and Valada's grip. "It's okay,'' I said. "I'm done." And then, I added, "For now, anyway." Two of Dannenfelser's friends were helping him away. They looked as shocked as he did.
"My God, look at your hands," Valada said. "Let's get him to medical."
"No," said Valada. "I've got the first-aid kit from the chopper." She was already dabbing at the backs of my hands with a stinging cotton swab. "You're lucky," she said. "When you fell down the ramp, you only skinned your knuckles. A little shpritz from the spray can and they'll be fine."