"We have recordings of their conversations," Ice said. "We knew from the start that it would be suicide to try to take out the demons where they nest. Studying their habits, finding their weaknesses, and exploiting them are the only intelligent methods."
Ukiah nodded at the soundness of this.
"By doing statistical modeling," Mouse said, "we've identified certain patterns in their behavior."
"The number of the beast is six-six-six," Ether said with bright eyes.
"Um, yeah." Mouse was momentarily derailed. "What that means is that the demons usually perform any function in a collective of six."
"Unless a demon is trying to pass as a human—then they go solo," Ether inserted.
Mouse bobbed his head to agree that this was true. "Six of these collectives gather into nests for a total of thirty-six individuals typical for any one nest. And each geographic area will have six nests, arranged in a hexagonal figure."
"So any one occupied area will have two hundred and sixteen demons," Ice said. "And we can't take on that number by ourselves."
This was news to Ukiah. While Hex acknowledged that he was most comfortable as six individuals, Ukiah suspected that the adherence to the multiples of six was totally unconscious. With their memories of the Ontongard, the Pack assumed they knew everything they needed to know about their enemy without realizing there were things that the Ontongard didn't know about themselves. "You mapped the nest locations and noticed a pattern?"
"There seems to be some variation to that which might be caused by geographic anomalies." Mouse rearranged the silverware, stealing some from those near him, to form a six-sided figure of forks and knives. "Normal hexagon." He placed a saltshaker at one point, and then dimpled the lines of that corner. "One with a body of water, highways, or whatnot in the way."
"Mouse, I'm sure he knows all this," Ice said.
Apparently there were some drawbacks to pretending to be a perfect being.
"Well, I just want to make sure all our assumptions are sound," Mouse said. "This has all been guesswork."
Ice sighed and waved his hand, inviting Mouse to continue.
"Well, we experimented on burning them out of a nest to see how they chose nest sites." Mouse removed the saltshaker and reformed the hexagon. "We discovered that we could predict where they move to. Their movement is very simple and organic, and we created a computer program to mimic it. If you burn one nest, they'll abandon all the surviving nests except one to maintain the hexagonal shape and yet avoid the area of the destroyed nest." Mouse shifted the hexagon around the point that once held the saltshaker. "They always keep the nest farthest from the burn, rotating it in this manner."
Ice made a noise of disgust. "Destroying them would have been faster if we could have done a full assault on the nests."
"Their senses are very keen, so laying traps for them once they're settled in is nearly impossible," Mouse said. "Also there's the slight problem of getting into a nest after they establish it. But by being able to predict where they'll move to, we can prep a nest, bugging all the rooms and wiretapping the phones."
"The bugging devices are useless," Ice said. "They don't talk to one another. We think they have some type of telepathy that allows them to act as units without premeditating their actions."
"They do," Ukiah said.
"But they do use the phone," Mouse said. "We think there's a limited range to their telepathy, which the nests fall within. The only time they use the phone is to communicate with demons not at one of the nests."
"When we firebombed one nest, the other five nests reacted instantly," Ice said. "We did a hit-and-run operation and still barely escaped. They definitely have some type of ranged telepathy going on."
"They're very insectlike," one cultist noted. "Like bees in a hive making honeycombs, they exhibit the same behavioral patterns again and again. I'm not even sure that you could term them intelligent in the same manner that we classify humans."
"Let's not get into the intelligence fight," Ice snapped.
"They don't spend a lot of time talking on the phone," Mouse continued. "When they do, it's in a mix of English and demon tongue. What seems to happen is that they need to talk about something that doesn't have the equivalent English word available, and they switch into demon tongue until an English word will yank them back out. Because of their switching back and forth, we've been able to create a dictionary of sorts."
"But the conversations are cryptic," Ice complained. "It's more like they're dictating notes to themselves than having actual dialogue. Never any chitchat: How's the kids, what's the weather like."
Because in truth,Ukiah thought, the telephone acts more like an artificial neuron, connecting two halves of the same brain, than a device that two very different people use to communicate.
Schrцdinger Five chose that moment to climb up his leg, all needle-sharp claws extended.
"Ow! Schrцdinger!" Ukiah caught the kitten before he could wreak more havoc. "What? Are you hungry? Here." Ukiah offered a bit of his baked cod to the kitten, which it needed to sniff cautiously for a full minute before deciding it was fit to eat.
The cultists had gone silent. He looked up to find them watching him with nervous intent. Letting him live, he suddenly realized, was a supreme act of faith and courage for them—they knew what a Get was capable of. His existence had balanced completely on the well-being of the kitten. They watched now—with bated breath—to see if they'd been wrong.
Blissfully ignorant of his importance, Schrцdinger rumbled into a tiny, contented purr.
"I'm not one of them." Ukiah carefully selected another bite of fish for the kitten.
"You are too gentle to be one of them." Ice was a man whose vision was limited by his belief. He knew evil, recognized it at a distance. But his universe contained only two types of good: human and angel. He had seen Ukiah as wholly human until proved otherwise—but that left only angel. Apparently, though, common sense was warring with his beliefs; he sounded dubious even as he confirmed that Ukiah wasn't a "demon."
"You recorded their conversations." Ukiah distracted him back to the Ontongard.
"Yes." Ice delayed saying more by taking a bite of his cod and chewing it thoroughly. After carefully choosing his words, he continued. "The conversation gives us glimpses of their plans, but it's like a large jigsaw puzzle, flung out onto the ground and then partially obscured. We've been picking up the pieces, turning them this way and that, trying to fit them together and usually failing."
"Actually, part of the problem is that there are several puzzles all mixed together." Mouse seized the analogy.
"We think." Ice cautioned Mouse with a look, "for example, they suddenly moved a seed nest to Buffalo. We saw it as an opportunity to learn more, and followed. The demons there did extensive land surveys, apparently testing the stability of the area. They killed several key employees of the local electric company. They infiltrated a truck dealership. They secured warehouses in the middle of nowhere and shipped in extensive supplies of cable and wire. There were only thirty-six demons, and we raided the nest when we knew it was practically empty. We were hoping for written plans, records, anything that would give us an idea what they were planning. Nothing."
Because the Ontongard's ability to pass on perfect memories negated the need for written plans.
"They referred to Buffalo with a word we haven't been able to translate," Mouse said, and then he cleared his throat and attempted the word, a rough guttural bark.
"No," Ether said. "It's more . . ." She got the pronunciation right and Ukiah recognized the word: Landing site/invasion point.