"The point is, sweetheart, that when you accept the responsibility for another person's life, you are also accepting the responsibility for their death-if that's appropriate."
"I know that."
"No, you don't. Not as an officer. Certainly not yet as a combat officer. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
I let go of her and waited. "All right," I said. "Tell me."
"You need to know this. You need to hear it from someone who's been there. When a soldier takes his oath, he's committing himself to do whatever is required of him by his superior officers. He's accepting your control over his life. He's acknowledging that the job is more important than his personal survival. Your job as an officer is to make sure that his service is used wisely and appropriately. And if the job does require the ultimate sacrifice from him-and you hope to God that it never will-if that sacrifice furthers the larger goal to which we're all committed, then that's part of the job too. And in fact, Jim, if you extend this line of thought all the way out, once you accept the responsibility for that soldier's life, then if you don't make that sacrifice where it's required, you're betraying the commitment, yours as well as his."
"I wasn't raised in a military home," I said slowly. "I don't think that way, Lizard. I hate that kind of thinking-I hate the justifications in it. I hate the callousness and the waste of life. I hate myself for having to think that way, and I think other people hate it too. I don't want to be hated anymore."
Lizard didn't answer immediately. She looked troubled; perhaps she was trying to decide how to proceed. At last, she cleared her throat and said, "I know you, Jim. I know what you've been through-with Shorty, and Duke, and Delandro, and all the others." She took my hands in hers and held them for a moment, looking at them as if studying and memorizing them, before glancing back up to my eyes. "Everything you've ever done, sweetheart, has been the right thing to do at the moment you did it. Based on the information you had available to you, you couldn't have justifiably done anything else." She stepped in close to me, and her voice became as candid as it had ever been; the moment was one of the most intense and intimate we had ever shared together. "I cannot possibly imagine you doing anything that would truly justify hatred-not from me, not from anybody. Anger, yes. Hatred, never. Remember that. Remember what I told you the very first time we made love. I don't go to bed with losers-and I certainly don't marry losers or failures, let alone bear their children."
I swallowed hard. If it had been difficult last night for Lizard to listen to the good truths I had to tell her, it was damn near impossible for me to listen to this. I wondered if the lump in my throat would ever go away.
"Let it in," she said. "You are a good man, and you will accept your responsibilities. I've seen you do it too many times not to have total confidence in you for the future." And then she added, "I love you. I'm going to marry you. I'm going to bear your son. I'm going to make you unbearably happy-"
"Actually, I was hoping for a little girl-with red hair as shiny as yours-" But then, abruptly, I choked on my own words. What she had said hit me with the impact of an onrushing wall. I gulped down my joyous embarrassment and let the tears of happiness well up in my eyes and pour down my cheeks. I managed to laugh and choke at the same time. "Oh, shit. Here I go again."
I glanced quickly at my watch. "We have a little time left before we dock. Why don't we, ah, get a head start on some of that unbearable happiness?"
General Elizabeth "Lizard" Tirelli's expression broadened into a lascivious smile. She winked and said, "Come on. I'll race you to the bedroom."
Most of the real growth of the Chtorran manna plant occurs in the topsoil, before the plant's fruiting body appears.
When a manna plant breaks apart, its spores are spread as easily as dust. Most of those spores will be eaten by Terran as well as Chtorran life forms, but a small percentage will always survive to begin the next generation.
Eventually, the surviving spores will find themselves in conditions suitable for growth, and they will begin feeding on the processes of decay that are present in all topsoil. When the growing fungi reach a critical size, they will mushroom up through the surface to spread spores of their own. The manna plant is one of the most widespread of all Chtorran species. Manna puffballs are a common sight on fields and lawns in most of the infested parts of the world.
Occasionally, however, large masses of manna plants will appear all at the same time over a large area. The triggering mechanism for this event is still unknown. It may be a response to a change in soil conditions, temperature, population density, or some combination of all of these conditions. It may also be a reaction to some kind of chemical triggering agent released by some other Chtorran plant or animal.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 38
Amapa
"Any man with a prosthetic charisma is undoubtedly a liar in other respects too."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Amapa was a place of nasty surprises.
While the Brazilian ambassador and his entourage were debarking through the forward ramp, a service crew was loading additional instruments, probes, and supplies through one of the aft access bays. Once aboard, several of the service crew disappeared into an inaccessible maintenance corridor and were not seen again.
Shortly after that, a minor problem developed in one of the starboard ballast assemblies, and Captain Harbaugh postponed lift-off until the maintenance team could double-check the rigging. After waiting impatiently in the lounge for fifteen minutes, Lizard tapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go," she whispered.
"Huh?" I looked up from the copy of Newsleak I was leafing through. The federal government had finally concluded its case against the Manhattan Twenty, a Japanese-American conglomerate that had bilked thousands of investors out of billions of plastic dollars with a phony reclamation plan for Manhattan Island. I had been looking through the pictures of the defendants to see if either Mr. Takahara or Alan Wise was there. Neither was.
I assumed that Mr. Takahara was too smart to get caught, and Alan Wise had probably been thrown back because he was too small. Sooner or later, I'd have to put a query into the network and find out what had happened to Mr. Wise.
"Come on," she repeated. There was an edge of impatience in her tone.
"Go where? I'm not through with the article." I held up the magazine so Lizard could see. The pictures of the real Manhattan reclamation project were both extraordinary and inspiring.
Lizard didn't even look at the magazine. She just bent down lower and whispered something amazing in my ear. What was equally amazing was the fact that I could still blush. I must have turned so red I could have stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue.
I managed to gulp out a yes, forgot the magazine, staggered to my feet, and slobbered hungrily after her. I was lucky I didn't step on my tongue. But instead of turning left toward our cabin, she turned right, looked both ways, and pulled open an access door to a service bay. I followed her up a ladder, down a Spartan passageway, and into-
I recognized Dr. Zymph immediately. She looked tired, but determined. The first time I'd seen her, I'd thought she looked like a truck driver; she still looked like a truck driver, but now she was one who'd just driven from New York to San Diego and back without stopping to pee. Beside her stood Uncle Ira—General Wallachstein; still bald, still grim, and probably still carrying the same grudge. He was wearing a plain non-military jumpsuit.