I let my hand fall to my side. "It will be."
"I know, but what if it isn't? Then what? What's our responsibility as parents?"
I made supportive noises. "We'll talk it over. We'll see it through. We'll handle it."
"We'll abort it," she said with certainty. "As parents, we take responsibility for this life. And if it can't be a good life, we'll also take the responsibility for ending it, won't we?"
I hated this conversation. It made me feel queasy. But I managed to nod my head yes.
"That's right. When you take responsibility for another person's life, you also have the responsibility to end it too, if that's appropriate." She stared into my eyes until I wanted to cry; there was a lot of that going on this trip; but I couldn't break away.
"Jim," she added, in an even more serious tone. "What if I was injured? What if I was in a coma, with no hope of recovery? Brain dead. Would you tell Dr. Meier to pull the plug on me?"
"Lizard, please-"
"Would you tell her?" she demanded. "Or would you let me he a living vegetable, wasting away in a hospital bed, year after year after year?"
"I hope to God I never have to-"
"I hope to God you never have to either! But if you did-?"
"If I did have to, then yes, I'd pull the plug on you, yes-and then I'd go home and put a bullet through my brain. I couldn't handle it-"
"No, you will not kill yourself. Whatever happens, Jim, you will handle it and you will survive it and you will report back to Uncle Ira or Dr. Davidson, or whoever else you have to, exactly what you saw and noticed and discovered. Because that's what you're good at. That's why you're here. Promise me that, Jim."
"Promise me! If you love me, promise me that one thing!" She stared into my face. "If you don't make me that promise, I won't warry you."
Somehow I got the words out quickly. "I promise," I said. "I won't kill myself. Not for that reason anyway."
"If you break that promise, I'll dig you up and slap your face." She meant it too.
"Lady," I said, "you're almost as crazy as I am."
"Crazier," she corrected. "I'm the one who's marrying you and helping you pass along your genetic heritage."
I pulled her to me, laughing only a little bit. I needed a hug. And besides, she smelled good. I let my fingers trace their way up through a lock of her beautiful red hair. "Okay, sweetheart, I promise you. If I have to prove how much I love you by killing you, I'll do it. But what's the point of all this?"
"The point is, sweetheart, that when you accept the responsibility for another person's life, you are also accepting the responsibility for their death-if that's appropriate."
"I know that."
"No, you don't. Not as an officer. Certainly not yet as a combat officer. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
I let go of her and waited. "All right," I said. "Tell me."
"You need to know this. You need to hear it from someone who's been there. When a soldier takes his oath, he's committing himself to do whatever is required of him by his superior officers. He's accepting your control over his life. He's acknowledging that the job is more important than his personal survival. Your job as an officer is to make sure that his service is used wisely and appropriately. And if the job does require the ultimate sacrifice from him-and you hope to God that it never will-if that sacrifice furthers the larger goal to which we're all committed, then that's part of the job too. And in fact, Jim, if you extend this line of thought all the way out, once you accept the responsibility for that soldier's life, then if you don't make that sacrifice where it's required, you're betraying the commitment, yours as well as his."
"I wasn't raised in a military home," I said slowly. "I don't think that way, Lizard. I hate that kind of thinking-I hate the justifications in it. I hate the callousness and the waste of life. I hate myself for having to think that way, and I think other people hate it too. I don't want to be hated anymore."
Lizard didn't answer immediately. She looked troubled; perhaps she was trying to decide how to proceed. At last, she cleared her throat and said, "I know you, Jim. I know what you've been through-with Shorty, and Duke, and Delandro, and all the others." She took my hands in hers and held them for a moment, looking at them as if studying and memorizing them, before glancing back up to my eyes. "Everything you've ever done, sweetheart, has been the right thing to do at the moment you did it. Based on the information you had available to you, you couldn't have justifiably done anything else." She stepped in close to me, and her voice became as candid as it had ever been; the moment was one of the most intense and intimate we had ever shared together. "I cannot possibly imagine you doing anything that would truly justify hatred-not from me, not from anybody. Anger, yes. Hatred, never. Remember that. Remember what I told you the very first time we made love. I don't go to bed with losers-and I certainly don't marry losers or failures, let alone bear their children."
I swallowed hard. If it had been difficult last night for Lizard to listen to the good truths I had to tell her, it was damn near impossible for me to listen to this. I wondered if the lump in my throat would ever go away.
"Let it in," she said. "You are a good man, and you will accept your responsibilities. I've seen you do it too many times not to have total confidence in you for the future." And then she added, "I love you. I'm going to marry you. I'm going to bear your son. I'm going to make you unbearably happy-"
"Actually, I was hoping for a little girl-with red hair as shiny as yours-" But then, abruptly, I choked on my own words. What she had said hit me with the impact of an onrushing wall. I gulped down my joyous embarrassment and let the tears of happiness well up in my eyes and pour down my cheeks. I managed to laugh and choke at the same time. "Oh, shit. Here I go again."
I glanced quickly at my watch. "We have a little time left before we dock. Why don't we, ah, get a head start on some of that unbearable happiness?"
General Elizabeth "Lizard" Tirelli's expression broadened into a lascivious smile. She winked and said, "Come on. I'll race you to the bedroom."
Most of the real growth of the Chtorran manna plant occurs in the topsoil, before the plant's fruiting body appears.
When a manna plant breaks apart, its spores are spread as easily as dust. Most of those spores will be eaten by Terran as well as Chtorran life forms, but a small percentage will always survive to begin the next generation.
Eventually, the surviving spores will find themselves in conditions suitable for growth, and they will begin feeding on the processes of decay that are present in all topsoil. When the growing fungi reach a critical size, they will mushroom up through the surface to spread spores of their own. The manna plant is one of the most widespread of all Chtorran species. Manna puffballs are a common sight on fields and lawns in most of the infested parts of the world.
Occasionally, however, large masses of manna plants will appear all at the same time over a large area. The triggering mechanism for this event is still unknown. It may be a response to a change in soil conditions, temperature, population density, or some combination of all of these conditions. It may also be a reaction to some kind of chemical triggering agent released by some other Chtorran plant or animal.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)