Lizard followed my stare. "Can you freeze them?" she asked.
I shrugged. "That's what I'm planning on-but that's not the problem. I'm worried about worms finding us. They're next in line at this cafeteria." I pointed at the millipedes. "See those? Those millipedes are the nastiest little monsters you can imagine. They'll attack anything that was ever remotely organic. They're as insatiable as an author at a free lunch, and they're almost impossible to kill. They bite like journalists, and they're as deadly as lawyers. They run in swarms and they can denude a forest in a week. They can strip a. horse in minutes. Do you want to hear more?"
"`And my point is ... ?"' Lizard prompted.
"That," I said, "-is worm food. Those are Chtorran delicacies. Maybe it's their equivalent of lobster. The worms just pop them in their mouths and chew. Does that give you some idea about the personal habits of the worms? That's what I'm worried about. A worm could peel this chopper open real easy.
"And-" I added, "if that's not enough, we are effectively defenseless. Duke's torch is still lying somewhere out there in the dust-and even if we had it, it wouldn't be safe to use. Neither can we use grenades or bazookas-nothing that might ignite the dust. All we have is the freezer-and that is of very limited usefulness as a weapon against a worm. Believe me. I've tried it three times. No more. It is not recommended for people who are planning to die in bed. The first time I tried it, I didn't know any better. The second time, I figured it was just a matter of technique. The third time, I began to suspect it was impossible and stopped trying. "
"Are you through, Perfessor?" she said.
"I'd be interested in hearing any suggestions you have to offer," I said. "I just wanted you to be clear about the problem."
"First of all-" Lizard gave me a knee-weakening, blue-eyed stare. "-I think you're making up problems that you don't have yet. The last worm we saw was forty kilometers on the other side of the mountains." She jerked a thumb westward.
"Right. That was the last worm we saw. How about all the ones we didn't see? Are you willing to bet your life that there aren't any worms in this neighborhood? I'm not." I jerked a thumb at the window. "Not a meter away from us, you have the clearest crosssection of the Chtorran food chain anyone has ever seen. That's a Chtorran smorgasbord out there. There are worms around. We just haven't seen them yet. But we will."
She looked skeptical.
I said, "A worm has a better sense of smell than a shark. We know that they are attracted to human beings. We don't know why-but we do know that a Chtorran gastropede will head for the strongest human scent it can detect. We've found this out the hard way. They've also learned to recognize the smells of our machinery. Like trucks and choppers. They'll home in on those scents too. I didn't want to say anything about this earlier-because I didn't think we were in a heavily infested area-but the millipedes prove that we are. This chopper is a goddam neon sign. It says FREE LUNCH to any worm in the vicinity." I realized I was getting a little too vehement and lowered my voice. "Sorry. I got excited." Lizard didn't say anything. She was staring out the window.
I felt I ought to apologize, but-I'd promised I wouldn't do that any more-I shut my mouth.
But silence didn't work either. It just accentuated the feeling of discomfort. "Listen-" I said. "We do have one thing in our favor. The dust. Maybe it's so thick, it masks our scent. That's a very strong possibility. Really. In which case, we might not be in that much danger. We'd only have to worry about a worm finding us by accident. . . ."
"Like that one-?" Lizard asked slowly. She pointed forward. I looked. I pointed the flashlight.
Something large and dark and red, with two huge black eyes like the headlights on an oncoming subway train, was peering in at us through the windshield. Its eyes shrank in the sudden light. "I really wanted to be wrong," I said.
The worm cocked its eyes at us diagonally-a listening pose. It opened its mouth slowly and touched its mandibles to the glass. It was testing the surface.
"Oh, God-let it hold."
The glass creaked in its frame. But it held.
The worm backed away from the window then and ran its fingers curiously over the surface. Its claws scrabbled politely across the glass, tapping and examining. I held the light steady. I was afraid to move it-or even turn it off.
The worm was huge. Four meters long. The dark purple and red stripes on its sides were definite enough to be visible even under the fine coat of pink dust caking its fur.
The monster put its face close to the glass again. We stared at it. And it stared back at us.
I hoped to God it wasn't hungry.
TWENTY-FOUR
AND THEN the worm backed away from the window and was gone. There was darkness beyond the window. Where was it? "Don't move," I said.
"I couldn't if I wanted to."
For a moment, there was silence. I wondered if this was the same worm that Duke and I had seen before. I couldn't tell-and it didn't really make much difference, did it? Then, from the side of the chopper next to Lizard, there came a gentle tapping, scrabbling sound.
The worm was still examining the ship.
Lizard's eyes went wide. This was worse than seeing what the creature was doing.
The sound moved down the length of the chopper. Slowly, ever so slowly, the worm tapped and scratched its way toward the hatch. When the scrabbling sounds reached the door of the chopper, they hesitated. It was as if the worm could tell that there was something different about this piece of hull. The examination went on for a long long time. I thought of a rabbit in a cage
"I, uh-want you to know something. .." Lizard said quietly. Our attention was on the noise at the door.
"What's that?" I asked.
It almost sounded like a knock. Or like a dog scratching to get in.
"I meant it, what I said before. About you being kind of cute." Now it was rattling the door handle!
"I know," I said. "Thank you."
Go away, goddammit! There's nobody home!
"No-listen, what I really wanted to tell you-" Lizard's voice was strained, "-I can fuck better than I can fly. You can tell Duke that-if you get the chance......"
The rattle at the door stopped.
I said, "I, uh-wanted to find that out for myself. . . ."
There was silence again. Lizard and I listened painfully. Had the worm given up and gone away?
No. The scrabbling resumed farther back down the hull. Lizard gasped. She blurted quickly, "Me too."
The worm was at the tail of the ship now. I said, "When we get back to Oakland.. ."
She said, "Okay......"
Something went bang. The chopper lurched forward. Lizard yelped. Duke moaned.
And then there was silence.
"It went away ... ?" she whispered.
"Wait," I cautioned.
The silence grew louder.
"Turn on the outside lights," I said. "All of them."
"Is that safe?"
"It knows we're here. There's no reason to hide any more. We might as well see what we're in the middle of."
She leaned forward slowly and touched a button on her console. The landscape beyond the window blazed suddenly bright. The ground glowed pink. The chopper's headlights were still under the dust-the light was reflecting upward through the powder. It created an eerie luminescence, a faerie landscape. A deep furrow led out of the trees, through the pink dunes and directly toward the chopper. The track of the curious worm. Where was it now?