There was silence in the room for a long long moment. Then Lizard began speaking again. "Our flight path will take us directly across the Carabinani infestation. We're going to use that as a dry run to see how the worms react to our presence in their sky.
"Our past experience with lighter-than-air craft suggests that the gastropedes perceive dirigibles and blimps as some kind of gigantic sky-Chtorran. Perhaps they perceive the craft as an angel, perhaps even a god. Who knows? But if the Japuran worms are anything like their North American counterparts, and we see no reason why they shouldn't be, their initial reaction will be one of frenzy and confusion. After a short period of panic, they'll go into rapid sessions of communion, two, three, four at a time. Later, as they break out of these sessions, we'll see them spending a lot of time focusing their attention upward. An airship seems to have the same effect on them as a hundred-meter vision of the Virgin Mary appearing over Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday would have on the Roman Catholic masses: awe and fear, worship and mass hysteria. You might consider for yourself how you would feel if you were part of the crowd when such an event occurred. Whether you believe or not, you would not be unmoved.
"We're going to take advantage of this phenomenon. As some of you already know, the outer skin of the Hieronymus Bosch is the most extravagant large-scale video-display surface ever assembled. Not even the Matsushita building in New York has this scale of display electronics. We're going to experiment with a variety of different patterns and color combinations across the sides and belly of the ship. We're going to test their responses every way we can. We'll hit them with the colors that their eyes respond to best; we'll project rhythms and sounds; we'll generate intricate cycles of moving patterns to see what kinds of reactions they manifest. We want to see what kinds of behaviors the various displays will trigger in the Chtorran nervous systems. We have a whole program of cyclical displays: fractals, chaotics, mathematical formulas, random harmonies, musically derived images, everything that the Detroit labs could come up with. We're going to see if we can hypnotize the entire camp into some kind of paralysis. The Carabinani infestation will be our first test. It'll be a place where we can allow ourselves to take a few risks without penalizing our later mission over the Japuran camp.
"There are briefing books in the pockets of your chairs. You can take them out now. You'll notice that they're fairly thick documents. And yes, you are expected to be familiar with every single page of these documents."
An aide tapped my shoulder; Dan Corrigan, one of Lizard's assistants. He was holding out a set of briefing books with my name taped to the cover. I thanked him and broke the seal on the package.
I flipped quickly through the volumes. These were the master documents. They included most of the decision-level information. A lot of the ecology stuff was material I had written, and I felt good about that; but it was the section on mission equipment, scientific as well as military, that brought me up short. It was filled with surprises. I hadn't realized that industrial nano-technology had progressed this far. Obviously, a lot of this stuff had been in the works long before the Chtorrans had arrived, but was only now losing some of its Most Secret status. I turned the pages in amazement. Some of these probes were smart enough to play grand-master chess. This was more fun than a Christmas wishbook. I wanted to study these spec sheets in detail.
Lizard was still talking. Reluctantly I closed the books and turned forward again.
"Now, let me talk to you a little bit about the services available here on the Hieronymus Bosch."
This remark was met by appreciative laughter and a spattering of applause, as well as a few salacious remarks.
"Yes, this is a luxury vessel," Lizard admitted with a wry expression. "And yes, the boys and girls who escorted you to your cabins are only too happy to show you just how luxurious it can be. And yes, you've all earned the right to enjoy yourselves. Considering the job you've done and the job that you're going to have to do in the days to come, it would be cruel, stupid, and ultimately futile to tell you not to partake of the pleasures available to you. This is an airborne garden of earthly delights, and you are all very human. So…" She stopped and looked slowly around the room again. This time I thought I saw her glance ricochet off me, but I still wasn't sure. "So what I'm going to say to you is this. Please be responsible for your behavior. This isn't a brothel, and you are not a bunch of fraternity boys celebrating Easter weekend: You have work to do, a lot of it. I'm going to expect you to get it done with your usual dedication and spirit. Don't let yourself be diverted from your mission. Have your fun after you've done your day's work. Not before. Not during. Not instead of. I don't want to have to issue orders that we will all find uncomfortable. Please be responsible for your behavior and I won't have to. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your cooperation. That is all."
She stepped down from the dais, headed straight up the aisle, and out the rear door of the lounge. The tugboats scurried after her. I loved her, but I hated her professional personality. It was so damned impersonal.
I was so angry at being ignored that I thought about buzzing Shaun right then and there, so she could catch us in the act when she returned to the cabin.
I didn't do it, but I thought about it.
But then I remembered Randy Dannenfelser's smirking face, and that was the end of that thought.
If the plague-causing germs exist in a reservoir of Chtorran life forms, then obviously they cannot be as dangerous to their hosts as they are to humans and other Terran species. In fact, the germs may even provide significant benefits to their natural hosts by their presence.
Another possibility exists-that the plaguecausing germs might not be found residing in a reservoir of Chtorran hosts at all, but instead may exist only as spores, or some other form of encysted structure, until such time as they are delivered to an appropriate environment for growth-such as a human bloodstream.
The problem with this hypothesis is that it just pushes the question back another step without resolving it at all. If the Chtorran germs exist as spores, where were they before they were spores? And how did they get from there to here?
At this point, we have not only not answered our question about the establishment of the Chtorran ecology; we have demonstrated that all of our earlier hypotheses about the initial processes of the colonization are flawed and unworkable.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 33
The Brief Longing
"Here's everything you need to know about men and women. Men are bullies. Women are snakes. Except when it's the other way around.''
-SOLOMON SHORT
It was a good thing that the Hieronymus Bosch was filled with helium, not hydrogen. We'd have vaporized it. The argument in cabin A-4 wasn't just heated; it was scalding. It was the kind of argument that gets measured on the Richter scale.
It wasn't the words. There were almost no histrionics at all. It was the passion underneath the words. We had never been so brutal and so hateful with each other.
Lizard stormed into the room like an iceberg caving in the side of the Titanic. Her expression was hard and unbreakable. "All right, Captain," she said. "From here on, it's strictly professional between us. I'm General Tirelli. You're Captain McCarthy. You sleep in that room. I sleep in the other one. I'd have had you put somewhere else, but all the other cabins were assigned by the time you decided to rejoin us." She held up a hand. "No, don't speak. I'm not through. To be perfectly frank, I didn't want you here. You walked out on me when I needed you the most. I can't depend on you-"