"I'm sorry you feel that way."
I shrugged. "I'm sorry too. But I don't see what else I can do."
Lizard thought for a moment. "Would you accept an apology from Dr. Shreiber? Or even from Dr. Zymph." She was still trying to find a way out of this dilemma.
"Dr. Shreiber obeyed an order that was totally out of line. She should have told Dannenfelser to go fuck himself, but she didn't. And even if she apologizes now, the damage is still done. Besides, she can't apologize without admitting she made a grievous error; They'd pull her certification. Be real. She can't do that. She's safer going with the program."
"Dr. Shreiber is one of Dr. Zymph's most trusted assistants. She knows what's at stake. If Dr. Zymph asked her-"
"No. Even if she did, it still wouldn't work." I shook my head angrily. "It won't work, Lizard. Because it wasn't Dr. Shreiber's decision to cut me off, or Dr. Zymph's. That came from higher up. Uh-uh. The integrity of the whole support policy has to be reaffirmed now; not just for me, but for every poor dumb schmuck out here on the end of a phone line. I'm really sorry, sweetheart, but I have to take this stand."
Lizard didn't answer immediately. The silence stretched out so long that I began to wonder if she'd broken the connection. "Lizard?"
"I'm still here."
"Nothing to say?"
She sighed in slow exasperation. "This is going to make things a lot worse for you, Jim."
"I can handle it if you can."
"That's the problem. I'm not so sure I can."
"Say again?"
"This is about you now, not us. I won't go down with you."
"I see," I said.
"There're things happening," she said. "I can't talk about them-not even on a scrambled channel. I wish you'd trust me on this."
"Are you asking me as my commanding officer or my lover?"
"Yes," she said.
After a long hesitation, I said, "I really wish I could do this for you, Lizard. But… I won't do it for you as my commanding officer, and I can't do it for you as my lover. Because-as much as I love you, I don't really know where I stand, do I?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"When General Wainright ordered my replacement as the science officer on the Brazilian mission, did you stand up for me then?"
"Jim-I can't talk on this channel. I can't tell you what you need to know. I can only ask you to trust me."
"That's the one thing I can't do. Our relationship has been damaged too."
"I see."
"I can't do this, Lizard. I want to, but I can't. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she said. The edge in her voice was heartbreaking.
"Good-bye-" I broke the connection.
This time, I ordered Willig to cut the time and position channel too.
When we first began cataloguing the various pieces of the Chtorran infestation, most of the plants we observed had very dark leaves, allowing them to absorb most of the light that hit them. The predominant colors were dark purple, blue, black, and of course, red. This suggested to us that they had evolved under a very dim sun, or on a planet that was at a considerable distance from its sun, or some combination of the two factors.
Since then, as our gathering and cataloguing techniques have improved, we have discovered many new species of Chtorran plant life with much lighter-colored foliage than we previously believed possible. We are now seeing foliage in shades of light magenta, lavender, pink, and even pale blue. We are also seeing a much greater tendency toward color variegation in individual species; intricate patterns of white, orange, yellow, pink, and the softer shades of red are not uncommon.
Several possibilities for this are currently under consideration:
First, we suspect that the seeds of various Chtorran species may have been disbursed haphazardly across the surface of the Earth, without regard for climate or season. The overall distribution of the forms we have catalogued so far shows no recognizable pattern or plan; we may be seeing many of these species out of their appropriate zone. Certainly, we are seeing them in abnormal relationships to seasonal changes.
A working hypothesis suggests that the darker flora may represent the kind of plant life available in the polar to mid-temperate regions of Chtorr-those areas that receive the least direct light from the planet's primary. Plants with lighter-colored leaves, especially those tending toward the red end of the scale, may represent tropical or equatorial species, where the need to reflect away excess light and heat is more immediate.
A second possibility, not inconsistent with the first, is that we are only now beginning to see second- and third-growth forms; specifically, that many of these lighter-colored species could not establish themselves until their partner-species had first established an ecological beachhead.
At present, the evidence remains inconclusive
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 15
Discovery
"I have to dream big. I only have time to get half of it done."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Willig didn't say anything. She just shook her head to herself and kept on working.
"I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself," I said. "I didn't say a thing."
"You were thinking too loud."
"Sorry. I forgot. I'm not being paid to think." She swiveled back to her station and busied herself with some routine task.
I glowered at her back, but it wasn't Willig I was angry at. I was angry at myself. Of course… it would still be very easy to just reach out and flip the red switch over. I even let my fingers slide halfway toward it before I stopped myself. No. I couldn't.
I reached up sadly and pulled the VR helmet back down over my head; a moment later, I was back inside the alternate reality of cyber-space, peering out through the acute eyes of the prowler.
The machine had been waiting just inside the final valve-door. Even after my eyes focused, my mind still couldn't resolve what I was seeing. "What the hell's wrong with this thing-?"
"Nothing," whispered Siegel. "Wait. It takes a minute."
I superimposed a scale-grid over the display. That helped, but only a little. It wasn't that the chamber below was so big, as much as the fact that it was so full.
As the tunnel sloped down, it opened up completely. The walls of it fell away, widening outward to became a great bowl-shaped arena. The cables and tubes that lined the tunnels came bursting out in great spaghetti-like torrents, falling into the bowl and spreading out around it in a spiraling nest of arterial feed lines. Many of them were slowly but visibly pumping.
Spread throughout the cavern, on the walls, the ceiling, the Iloor, and even on the various structures that mushroomed up from below, we saw a dizzying spread of Chtorran life: all the different organs we had seen on the tunnel walls during our descent, plus inany more completely new to us. Most of them were enveloped in basket-like tangles of creeper-vines, or held in the grasp of Ktructures that looked like nets of blood vessels.
We moved forward into the chamber.
The prowler swung its head back and forth, scanning and rniffing and recording. We watched it all through cybernetic eyes. We were awestruck at the vision. There was too much to see. It was beyond our ability to visualize or identify or catalog. Everything was moving at once-pulsing, oozing, throbbing. It was madness, horror, fecundity, and virulence. All the various organs-long, fat, wet, floppy, sprawling, tangled, dripping-they clamored and scrambled. It was an organic nightmare. The great shallow space of the room was filled with living objects, a frenzy of shapes, sizes, and colors. For a moment, I thought I'd tumbled into a hallucinogenic nightmare. The intricacy and variety of life within this chamber had a staggering sudden impact.