I leaned forward and switched one of the displays to monitor the status of Sher Khan. We were going to have to bring the prowler back. Its sample bays were getting full, and its fuel cells were going to need recharging soon. We could reload it with wide-band remotes and send it back down into the nest. Once released, the probes could install themselves, and we'd get a much more detailed view of the nest.
I glanced at my watch. It was still early. If we worked through the night, we could probably do the turnaround before dawn. If anything interesting was going to happen in that nest as a result of the pink storm, we should get the bigger probes in place as quickly as possible. And I didn't want to run the risk of putting Sher Khan on emergency power to get it out of the nest; the margin was too small. Okay-I made up my mind. We'd pull it out now.
I leaned against the chair one more time, trying to get the vertebrae in my back to crack, but either I was all cracked out, or too tightly knotted. The best I could do was give myself an uncomfortable cramp.
I limped back into the main cabin of the van. "Siegel, plant the rest of the probes and bring the prowler home. Once you get it started up the tunnel, let Reilly or Locke monitor the climb out. Put the samples in the freezer, reload the beast with an EMPgrenade and as many wideband remotes as it can carry, then send it back down. Let Valada handle the on-board operation; she or Reilly can take it down the tunnel. You or I will take over when it gets into the inner chamber. I want the first of those probes in place before dawn. Got it? Good. Let's move."
Willig glanced over to me. "Got time for an argument first?"
"Only a short one," I said. I grabbed the overhead support and hung from it, half looming over her. "You have three minutes. Go."
"Don't need it," she answered. "I think it's a mistake to pull the prowler out now. What if something important happens down there?"
"I thought of that. If something important happens, we'll catch it on the probes. But if we don't get the prowler out now and recharge it, and something happens, we risk losing not only the prowler, but all its samples too. I think it's safer to do it now. I don't think anything's going to happen tonight; not while the storm is at its thickest; tomorrow, I'm not so sure. Once the dust settles, that's when the eating starts. I'd like Sher Khan to have a full charge before then."
"Okay," she said. "Argument's over." She turned back to her station. "I've charted a path back. Mostly solid ground; the dust shouldn't be too deep; but there are one or two places where it might get a little tricky, and there's that erosion gully that might make for a misstep or two. Whoever brings it back will be working blind. We'll be better off letting the LI engine handle it. Let the operator sit back and enjoy the ride."
"My thought exactly," I said. I gave her my best grin. "The secret of being a brilliant commander is to let your troops have brilliant ideas. Set it up."
She was already doing so. She didn't even glance up from her keyboard and screen. "What time should I wake you?"
"You putting me to bed?" I asked.
"You were already on your way. When I put you to bed, you'll know it."
I stumbled to the back of the van and fell into the bottom bunk. And suddenly, I was alone again-and feeling everything that I had been resisting for hours.
It all rushed in on me at once. Everything was buzzing. My head, my heart, my hands. My whole body was vibrating. I touched the vein in my neck. My heart rate was uncomfortably accelerated. How long had I been running myself at this intensity? A day? A week? A lifetime? I didn't remember the last time I had allowed myself to relax. I couldn't even do it now. I lay in the bunk and trembled. I knew this feeling well, anxiety rushing toward panic; desperation, frustration, and the razory feeling of terror. My mind was racing. I was afraid to let myself relax, afraid that if I did let go, I would also be letting go of life; that the exhaustion would so overpower my control over my own body that there would be nothing left to hold me together. I would just evaporate. I would simply topple into unconsciousness and disappear forever. The bottom would open up underneath me and I'd drop down into oblivion. Not death-but the step beneath it.
I sat up abruptly. Too fast-it made me dizzy. I put my head between my hands and started counting slowly. Waiting for the dizziness to pass. Waiting for my body to calm down. Only it wouldn't. Couldn't. My gut was knotted like the mass of writhing Chtorran creatures beneath the shambler grove. What was gnawing at me so intensely that I wanted to break out of this cabin, pop the door, and go running naked out into the dust?
Did I even have to ask?
Everything we were doing-it was only valuable if we could get safely back. Would we be able to do that? How thick was the dust outside? How fast would it congeal into goo? Would we be buried in it? Or just find ourselves so stuck that we couldn't get out? The vehicle might be glued to the landscape by tomorrow. Would they pick us up if we tried to call for a chopper?
More important, would anyone look at the data that we'd gathered?
Or was my name so poisoned now that they'd flush away our samples without looking at them, simply because my name was attached?
What was General Wainright doing? What did Dannenfelser have planned for me next? And what would Dr. Zymph have to say? Nothing printable, I'm sure.
Most important of all, what would Lizard do? What could I say to her? What could I do to make it better?
I'd gone too far three times in a row now. I had this dreadful feeling
I lay back down on the bunk again. I was buzzing more ferociously than ever. What had I done the last time I had felt this crazy? I didn't know. I couldn't remember ever having been this crazy-no, that wasn't right. I had been crazier than this. Much crazier. But this time, I wasn't enjoying it.
"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know."
And then I heard Foreman's voice in my head. "I got it. You don't know. But if you did know… what would you know?"
"No," I said. "I really don't know."
"I hear you," he replied, laughing. "But if you really did know… what would you know?"
Despite myself, I laughed. Last time, I'd felt so terribly trapped and desperate, I'd written over a hundred limericks, some of them so awful that even I was embarrassed to read them.
Writing limericks hadn't cured my craziness; it had only channeled it into a more socially acceptable behavior. That was the joke. Dr. Davidson once told me that there is no real sanity. All that anyone ever learns to do is fake it so well that other people don't find out the truth.
Limericks. Dumb idea. Still-it was something to do. Something to distract me.
What could I rhyme with Marano? Nothing. I'd have to try the first name.
Sex as performed at Miss Lydia's is usually quaint and fastidious, and even the price is said to be nice, except, of course, when it's hideous.
Sooner or later, I was going to have to find a second rhyme for Willig.
I fell asleep before I could think of one.
The stingfly is a perfect example of parallel evolution. The creature is the Chtorran equivalent of the anopheles mosquito. It is smaller, faster, and much more voracious, but it is the functional equivalent of its Terran counterpart.
The stingfly bites its victim, it injects an anticoagulant, it sucks blood (or whatever body fluid serves the purpose of blood in Chtorran organisms), it picks up bacteria and viruses, and it delivers them directly to its next target.
The stingfly has an extremely rapid metabolism. Because of its small size and rapid growth, it must feed again and again throughout the day. In a twenty-four-hour period, the stingfly is capable of biting and infecting as many as a hundred different individual animals, both Chtorran and Terran. The stingfly appears to be the primary mechanism for the spread of Chtorran microorganisms.