She nodded with such sadness in her movements that my heart just stopped and withered in my chest. There were tears rolling down her cheeks now. I didn't try to stop her when she reached over and gently put her hand on top of mine. Her thumb crept around and underneath and nestled itself comfortably in my palm.
She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Everything is fucked, Jim. There aren't any right answers. There're only convenient scapegoats."
I didn't reply to that. I didn't know what to say.
"You go out there-" She brushed ineffectively at her hair. "You go out there-most of the time you're alone, or with inexperienced kids, and there's no real backup for you, but you go anyway, and you never complain about it. You just go out and you do your very best, and then you come back in and nobody congratulates you or thanks you or even says, 'Attaboy.' Nobody ever tells you what's going on, or if what you're doing is important or even making any difference at all. And then they blame you for being angry and impatient with them."
"Don't try to excuse me, Lizard. Please. No rationalizations. I was wrong and we both know it."
"I don't care about right and wrong anymore, Jim. You're all I have left." Her voice cracked. "I was sitting out there feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I'd just kicked my puppy. I don't think any of us have much longer and-oh, fuck it, Jim," she wept. "I don't want to die alone!"
I couldn't answer. I was caught in my own flood of emotion. I started crying myself. I couldn't help it. I was as afraid as she was. I reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed sobbing into my lap, and all I could do was hold on to her as tightly as I could and wonder how I was going to manage.
How were any of us going to manage anything anymore?
All life feeds on death. Everything that feeds, feeds on the death of some other process, even if it is only the entropic decay of stars, the heat death of the universe.
At the lowest, lowest level of the biological food chain, the simplest life forms that exist on this planet-anaerobic bacteria, mold, algae, fungi, lichens-are continually breaking down the dead matter and waste products of other life forms. Death is their food. In turn, they too become food to sustain the various plants that live on the next rung up the chain. In turn, the plants become food for animals. The food passes up the chain. In turn, everything excretes, everything dies, and once again every thing becomes food for the processes of decay. The biological decay processors are all around us.
As simple as they are, these creatures may be the most important of all in any ecology; these are the agencies that make life possible-because they gather otherwise unavailable energy and put it back into the food chain. They make it accessible to the rest of us.
It is here, on this-the lowest of all biological levels-that the Chtorran colonization must have first manifested itself.
By replacing Terran decay processors with Chtorran decay processors, an adequate food supply can be developed and ensured for the next level of the Chtorran food chain. The Earth processes would be quietly and efficiently displaced without anyone knowing until it was too late.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 35
Using God's Voice
"The reason why the battle of the sexes will never be won is because fraternization with the enemy is so much fun."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Lizard stood on the balcony, looking down at the acrid blue seas below. "I didn't think I was going to like being a passenger," she said. "Now I remember why I became a pilot. I like seeing the world from high up. I like seeing beyond this hill, beyond the next hill, beyond the edge of the sky."
Despite my… dislike… of heights, I came and stood with her. The Bosch was only twenty meters above the ocean, moving steadily south along the eastern coast of the continent. Despite her complaints about time and schedules, Captain Harbaugh had slowed the great airship's speed to a gentle drift, so that we-and all the other passengers too, I suppose-could enjoy the tropical red sunset from our balcony. The long purple rays of dusk stretched eastward toward the approaching night. Our shadow was a great dark shape moving on the water, and we could see the first faint glimmerings of phosphorescence on the hot foaming surface of the waves.
Lizard reached over and took my hand. She held it tightly while she spoke. "I never had a honeymoon," she said. "Robert and I married while we were both still in college. We couldn't afford a honeymoon. Neither of us had any real family. We promised ourselves that we'd put some money aside and we'd give ourselves the first real vacation that either of us had ever had. We planned. Oh, God, how we planned. We looked at travelogues and brochures and books and videos. We dreamed of Paris. And not just Paris. We dreamed of Tahiti, Australia, Rome, Greece, Mexico, Egypt-we wanted it all. We wanted to make love in all the world's most romantic places. You don't mind my telling you this, do you?"
I shook my head.
She pulled away anyway. She dropped my hand and turned quickly from the railing. She'd never talked about any of this before. It probably still hurt too much.
She went back into the cabin and sat down on the edge of the bed, wiping her nose, then let herself fall backward onto it as if she were as exhausted in body as she was in spirit. She sniffled and put her arm across her eyes. I followed her back in and sat down next to her, but I didn't try to touch her. She still had too much need for distance.
"And then," she said abruptly, "I got pregnant with little Stevie and that was the end of that. All the money we had put aside for our special honeymoon-and it wasn't really very much-had to go for baby bills. We didn't mind, not really, but in a way, we did. I mean, how can you not be disappointed? I'd even begun learning French. Oh, we were thrilled about the baby, of course, but we knew it would be years before we'd ever have the chance again to realize our plans." She exhaled softly, not quite a sigh, not quite a moan. "I miss them so much," she said. "I'd trade Paris in a minute, and all the other places too, if I could just have one more day with them both…"
After a moment, she rolled up on her side to look at me. Her eyes were wet. "I'm sorry," she said.
I levered myself around to face her; not too close, but close enough. An arm's length. "For what? For missing people you love? Don't apologize. I miss…" I stopped. I didn't know exactly who I missed.
She reached over and took my hand in hers again. Her smile was strained; her voice had an edge of sadness. "I shouldn't be comparing. I shouldn't be thinking of what's gone. I'll never see either of them again." And then she started to sob.
For a moment, I just watched her as she cried. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me again, I wanted to hold her and cling to her as if she were life itself, but that would have been taking advantage of her vulnerability at this moment. I held back. She didn't need my help for this. She knew how to cry. And she needed to cry by herself. When she needed to be held, she'd reach for me.
I looked around, looking for the box of tissues. She'd be needing them soon. There, on the headboard; I stretched and reached-and she suddenly gulped and grabbed me and fell into my arms. "Hold me, dammit!" she wailed, and I knew I'd miscalculated again. She'd wanted me to grab her and hold her from the very first. Damn! How was I supposed to tell? How is any man ever supposed to know what a woman wants if she won't say so? It's true. Women's brains are not the same as men's. Women don't think like men. I wondered if that realization drove women half as crazy as it did men. No wonder we spent so much time trying to explain to each other what we really meant.
I held her as tightly as I could while she gulped and choked and sobbed into my chest. I could feel my shirt getting soggy. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, how much I loved her, but I couldn't. Not yet. She wasn't holding me because she wanted me; she was holding me because she wanted someone else, and he wasn't here. Neither of them were here, and she needed to cry and have someone hold her and pat her and tell her, "It's okay, baby. Let it out. Just let it all out." And I loved her so much, so goddamned painfully much, that I would do this for her, just so I could hold her, even though I knew she'd never be able to return the same feeling for me