When I came back, I didn't feel much better. Emptier, yes, but I ached all over. Willig must have seen me twisting my shoulders around painfully in a futile attempt to loosen them up; after I sat down again, she came over and stood behind me and started massaging my neck and back. "Just relax and let it happen," she said. "And stop thinking dirty thoughts."
"Sure… after a remark like that?" But I sat quietly while she worked the knots out of my shoulders.
"Christ, you're stiff. What have you been doing? Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders?"
"No. Just two rollagons, twelve troops, and a spelunking prowler."
"And a Brazilian mission. And General Wainright. And that toad, Dannenfelser. And what else?"
"And a broken heart. Don't be so nosy." I clicked my communicator on. "Marano?"
"Still clear. The only thing moving in this landscape is a fluffball the size of a whale. It's pretty impressive. You should have a look."
"Thanks, but I saw the one that rolled into Alameda last year. They were hosing down whole city blocks when that thing collapsed."
"Alameda? I didn't think there was anything left over there."
"Not a lot, but don't let the governor of California hear you say that. McMullin-Ramirez was born in Alameda and is determined to rebuild the place-if necessary, as the new state capital." Another thought occurred to me. "Hey, if that fluffball looks like it's going to come anywhere near either of the vans, flame it. If we start getting a lot of fluffballs, we'll lock down the prowler and get out of here. We can reestablish a satellite linkup later. But I'm not going to risk getting snowbound again. Once was enough, thank you."
"Ten-four, Cap'n." She clicked out.
"Siegel?" I called. "What say you?"
"We've got a puddle down here. Put your helmet on."
I pushed my chair forward-Willig moved in with me and kept right on massaging-and pulled the VR helmet down over my head again. After the usual moment of dizzying disorientation, I was back inside the prowler's point-of-view.
The tunnel here was ankle-deep in a thin soupy fluid. It was dripping off the walls.
"What do you think?" asked Siegel. "A leak in the pipes? Or is this intentional?"
"I dunno. Wait a minute." I pushed the helmet up again.
"The stereo-map?"
Willig let go of my shoulders and sat down again at her station.
The map popped up on the screen in front of me. It looked like a cone-shaped bedspring, small end down.
"All right, here, look at this," said Willig. "The tunnel spirals downward and in. Now, if we extrapolate similar tunnels from each of the other shamblers in the grove, we get this-" She touched a button, and at least a dozen other curving lines appeared in the display. They all curled down to meet at a point below the exact center of the grove. Willig marked the point with a question mark, then put a flashing red arrow on the screen, labeled, "You are here." The arrow was very close to the question mark.
"There's gotta be something at the bottom," she said, "and it's taking the resources of the whole shambler herd to support,it."
I made a thoughtful clucking sound while I studied the diagram. "That's a fascinating idea. Log it. If you're right, I will take you out to dinner."
She was a professional, but she wasn't too professional to flush with happy embarrassment. She went back to work, and I pulled the helmet back down over my head again. "Siegel? How's the prowler holding up?"
"It's a little sticky down here, but nothing we can't handle. Confidence is at eighty-five. We've got eleven hours' power left before we have to pull out. No problems."
"Okay. Then let's get to the bottom of this thing, once and for all. Let's go."
The prowler pushed through the next valve-door and—
The suggestion has been made that we use the Chtorran ecology against itself, and it merits considerable attention because it is consistent with the best practices of the past hundred years of Terran agriculture and bio-control, using one organism to nullify another.
Consider, for instance, Chtorran land-coral; very much like its ocean-dwelling namesake, large colonies of Chtorran land-polyps will produce bizarre concretelike accretions. At first, they appear to be little more than hardening tumbleweeds, but over time, as the polyps grow and their accretions accumulate, the resulting structures can build up into labyrinthian land-reefs of considerable size. As has been observed in Mexico, Nicaragua, Kenya, Madagascar, China, and Brazil, land reefs can be immense.
The reef structure consists of countless densely packed clusters of skeletal-like limbs and fingers. Stronger and sharper than Earth the Chtorran variety reflects a dazzling spectrum of color; the most prevalent shades ire (of course) red, orange, and ocher; but streaks of violet and bone and marble-pink can also be found.
Land-reefs have been discovered as high as thirteen meters in some tropical areas, and as long as two kilometers; higher and broader reefs are certainly possible; the structural strength is there. Whatever limits there may be be for the size and sprawl of Chtorran land-reefs, we haven't seen them yet.
The importance of the reefs is that they are very nearly impassable to human agencies. Bulldozers have trouble with even the smallest infestations. Tank treads jam up quickly with fragments of the brittle, bone-like accretion. Explosives are only minimally effective; flamethrowers as well; so the idea that a natural barrier of Chtorran coral could be established to create a self-maintaining boundary enclosing a Chtorran-infested area is an obvious one-if we can't penetrate this wall to get in, then neither can the most voracious elements of the Chtorran ecology penetrate it to get out.
Additional investigation is recommended.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 14
Authority
"You can open more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. "
-SOLOMON SHORT
—the phone rang.
"Goddammit! I told you to break all connections."
"Sorry, sir. I left the time and position channel on."
"Shit." I clicked open the voice line. "McCarthy here."
A familiar voice-very familiar-and very official sounding. "Captain, do you recognize my voice?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Scramble this line immediately."
The bottom of my stomach fell away, but my hand reached out to the keyboard and tapped the scramble button.
Lizard's voice cut angrily into my ears. "All right, what the hell is going on?"
"Nothing's going on."
"The hell you say. I just got my ears roasted by Dr. Zymph. nfter she calmed down, she was only furious. Apparently, you're sitting on top of a major anomaly and you've cut the uplink."
"Security," I said.
"Bullshit."
"Okay, try this. Article Twenty-Twenty. I'm putting on an iron cap."
"All right, all right, all right-" she said hastily. "Wait a minute. Let's start over. I know you're angry-"
"Don't handle me."
"Shut up and listen, that's an order. I know you're angry at me-"
"No, actually, I'm not. I love you."
"-but this is a mistake. What did you say?"
I repeated it very slowly. "I. Love. You."
"That's another discussion."
"I just wanted you to know that."
"Stop trying to distract me."
"I'm not trying to distract you. I just have a different set of priorities here."