She nodded. "Go!"
She hit the release. The door banged outward
A very surprised-looking worm reared up and back and away. "Chtorrrrr!"
Lizard stepped in spraying-the worm disappeared behind a cloud of cold steam. "Get out of the fucking way!" I screamed. She stepped back-
The steam cleared just enough for me to see the worm dropping down into a charge
What did they say in the comic books? "Eat cold death, you purple slime!" I squeezed the trigger.
The rocket streaked forward with a high-pitched scream and a cold white smell. The wall behind me crackled. I could feel the burning chill on the back of my neck.
There was a muffled FWOOMP!
The worm's body puffed up for just the briefest of instants. It froze in surprise-and then it simply stopped and collapsed where it was. Within seconds, tiny white ice crystals were forming all over its fur.
And then there was silence.
"Did you get it?" Lizard peered out cautiously.
The body of the creature was trembling and twitching. A dark ichor was flowing from the creature's mouth and there was the faint sighing sound of air escaping from somewhere.
"Get that door closed!" I leapt forward and grabbed the handle-the door was stuck in its hinge!
Lizard grabbed too. "Goddam worm pulled it out of shape-"
"Keep pulling!"
The door came unstuck with a bone-rattling BANG! It swung shut with a slam and we tumbled backwards on the floor.
"Oh, God-we did it!" Lizard was laughing. She sat up and looked at me. "We really did it-didn't we?"
I gulped air and nodded. I held up a hand-
"It's one thing to bomb them from the air-" she marveled. She was almost delirious. "But it's quite another to meet one face to face! Oh, God-!"
I was gasping too hard to speak. I pointed at the door. She followed my glance. "Oh, no-"
The hatch had a hole in it large enough to stick your head through-and you wouldn't have to remove your helmet first either.
"Shelterfoam?"
She managed to shake her head. "No good. The hole's too big. There's no support. We need a patch-" She looked around the cabin
"No. You stay there with the freezer! Dust that hole and keep it dusted!" I scrambled to the back of the ship to a place where the frame had bent. Several of the floor panels had popped off in the crash. I'd had to shelterfoam the hull back here.
I scooped up the largest of the panels and the shelterfoam canister and headed back toward Lizard. As I passed Duke, he reached out and grabbed me-`Wha's 'oing on?"
"It's all right, Duke." I patted his arm, tried to disengage his fingers.
"My legs 'urt. M' legs. Feel all red. Burr'ng."
I pried his hand loose. "I'll be right back. Hang on." He didn't hear me. He kept on moaning.
"All right-dust it again!" I screamed at Lizard. She loosed a fine spray of liquid coldness at the hole in the door; she directed it all around the edges.
"All right! All right!" I screamed to stop her. I sprayed the edges of the hole with shelterfoam-it crackled against the frigid surface of the hatch. I waited ten seconds, then sprayed again, outlining the break three times over. I slapped the panel over it and held it in place, bracing myself for maximum pressure. "How long does it take for this stuff to harden?"
"Fifteen minutes-half an hour. I'm not sure."
"Terrific. Grab that canister. Spray the hatch. The hinges. The handles. Everything. Outline it."
"Right."
She had to work around me, but she was thorough. By the time she finished, the foam over the break was already hardening. Gingerly, I took my hands away from the panel I was holding. It stayed put. I took the canister from Lizard and gave it another spritz around the edges. Good.
I turned around and looked at her. She was giggling. She pointed at the door. "I always wanted a window-"
"Huh?" I turned back to the door. The patch had a glass window in it. And a warning: CAUTION. DO NOT OPEN THIS PANEL WHILE-The rest was obliterated.
I was too tired to laugh. I pointed toward the front of the ship. "Call whatsisname. Tell him we're okay. And-" I lowered my voice, "-tell him Duke's in pretty bad shape."
She searched my face. "As in `Duke's on the roof and we can't get him down'?"
"Yeah-better start preparing him."
I pulled off my O-mask and goggles, and climbed into the back to see what I could do for Duke. He was still moaning about his legs being red and burning. I pulled back the blanket and looked. The terramycin had done its job. The pink strands were gone from his legs-but the purple and red strands were longer. It was worm fur! But-why? How-?
Duke's whole body was hot. The console said his temperature was 102. His face was dry. His skin was red and cracked. His eyes were puffed up so badly, I was sure he couldn't see out of them, but he turned his face toward me and managed to croak something. I didn't understand. I had to put my face closer. "What-?"
"Ho ... go ho ... tay ho. . . ."
"Home? Right, Duke. We're on our way. Just hang on a little longer, okay?" I squeezed his arm in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture, but he writhed at my touch. "I'm sorry-just hang on, Duke. A little longer. Danny's coming to get you. Your son-"
He turned his head away from me.
There was nothing more I could do for him. I climbed back down to the front of the ship. Lizard was just signing off. She nodded to me. "They're rigging a crab and a zip line."
I grunted and sank down into my seat. "Everything okay back there?" she asked.
"Yeah," I replied. I wasn't very convincing.
She reached over and patted me. "You're doing fine, McCarthy. Hang on just a little longer."
I looked at her sourly. "That's what I just told Duke."
"Sorry," she said.
"We're gonna lose him. I know it-"
"Jim-"
"I am tired of all this dying!" I said. "I hate it! I just hate it!" I could hear the raggedness in my own voice and how loud I sounded in the cramped cabin of the chopper, and abruptly I realized just how close I was to the edge.
I turned away from Lizard and buried my face against my arm, trying to create even a small private space for my frustration. I motioned behind me for her to just keep her distance and please not say anything. "No-just leave me alone for a while. Okay?"
"Sure. Okay."
The chopper was cold. There were tiny patches of frost on the walls where the freezer had sprayed-and ice crystals. It smelled of cotton candy and shelterfoam. There was a faint pink haze in the air, but it wasn't strong enough to cover the smell of our sweatand the other smell too. The smell from the back of the ship.
We sat in silence. We listened to the eternal sound of the Chtorran ecology eating. We watched its myriad tiny forms scuttling across the windshield of the chopper. There were a lot less of them now. They probably didn't like the light and had gone elsewhere. The only critters left were the ones that didn't care.
One of the pink furballs was humping right across my field of vision. Almost mechanically, I picked up my camera and began photographing it. The creature had a tiny puckered mouth and it vacuumed up everything in its path. Maybe this was a larval worm. I wondered if I'd live to find out. I wondered if this would be my legacy-these pictures.
"Hey-" I lowered the camera and looked at Lizard.
"What?"
"I just realized. Duke's only a captain. How come Danny's a colonel?"
"You want the truth?"
"Yeah!"
"Do you know much about what happened in Pakistan?"
"Not a lot, no. That was a long time ago."
Lizard sighed. "Fifteen years is not a long time ago."
"I was only nine years old," I protested.
"I was in high school," Lizard replied. "Anyway, did you ever hear of the Rawalpindi Incident?"