"I didn't sleep last night. I couldn't. I needed someone to talk to. I wanted to talk to you. I even got up once and went looking for you. I got as far as your door. I almost knocked. And I didn't-I don't know why. Yes, I do-I was scared. See, I didn't know if I did wrong yesterday or not. I wanted some ... help. But all I could hear was Shorty's voice saying, `Figure it out yourself.' Like he did with the manuals. So I didn't knock. And besides, I saw the light was on under your door. And I thought I heard voices. And I didn't want to interrupt anything-"
Duke started to say something, but I cut him off. "No, I want to finish this. Then you can talk. I didn't go right back to my room. You know the hill behind the camp? I went up there and sat by myself for a while. And-I let myself cry. At first I thought I was crying for Shorty, only after a while, I found out I wasn't. I was crying for myself, because of what I was realizing. And it has nothing at all to do with Shorty being dead."
I realized I was trembling. My hands were trembling on the table. I thrust them between my legs and held them there with my knees pressed together. I felt very small and very cold. I looked at Duke and said, "What I realized was that-even if Shorty hadn't told me to do what I did-I still would have done it, done the same thing."
Duke was genuinely surprised. "You would?"
I swallowed hard. It wasn't easy to speak. "Duke, it was the only thing to do. That's why I've been so ... crazy. I'd been trying real hard to convince myself that I did it because Shorty told me to-only I knew I hadn't. There wasn't time to think about it-it just happened. I didn't remember what to do or what I'd been told. I just did it-without thinking." I was looking down into my lap now. "Duke, I've never killed anyone before. I never thought I'd ever have to. All I knew was that it was something I never wanted to do-and then, yesterday afternoon, I found out that I could do it-and do it easily. And I've been going crazy ever since trying to explain it to myself. I keep looking for a way to make it all right. I keep saying that it was the circumstances, except that I know it wasn't the circumstances at all. It was me! And now-after this inquest-I can't even have it be a mistake! It was me. I did it. Nobody else. And I have to live with that now-that I can kill people." I added, "It's not really something that I want to know."
Duke was silent a moment, just studying me. I studied back. His face was craggy and weathered, his skin was sun-darkened and crinkled with use. His eyes were sharp and alive again and boring straight into mine. I stared right back.
Abruptly, he said, "All right, you've got your lab."
"Uh-thank you!"
"Yeah, I'll see how you feel in a week. Where did you want to set up this zoo?"
"The new bath house."
Duke looked at me sharply. "Why?"
"It's obvious. It's the only building in camp that's suitable. It's got concrete walls and very high small windows. Nothing could escape. At least, not easily. Nobody's using it because the plumbing was never completed; we could bring in portable heaters and fix up the interior any way we need."
Duke nodded. "That's exactly where I would have chosen. But I would have chosen it for you because it's a good safe distance from the rest of the camp. You'll have to clear out the stuff that's already in there. Tell Larry what you'll need in the way of special equipment, or if you need anything built. He'll find some men to help you."
"Yes, sir-and thank you."
He lifted his hand the barest distance from the table, a wait-a-minute gesture. "Jim?"
"Sir?"
"This is no party. Make your results count. Those specimens were awfully expensive." When he looked at me, his eyes were shinier than I'd ever seen. He looked haunted.
"I know," I said. It was suddenly very hard to speak. "I-I'll try."
I left quickly.
FOURTEEN
AN HOUR after I started cleaning out the bathhouse, Ted showed up with a sour look on his face. I told him what I wanted to do and he pitched in, but without his usual repartee of puns, wisecracks and pontifical observations. Usually, Ted radiated a sense of self-importance, as if he were coming straight from some very important meeting. He always seemed to know what everyone else was involved in. But this morning he seemed chastened, as if he'd been caught with his ear to the keyhole.
After a while, Larry and Carl and Hank joined us and the work moved a lot faster. They didn't speak much either. There was a Shorty-shaped hole in all our lives now and it hurt too much to talk about it.
There was a lot of work to be done. It took us half the afternoon just to clear out the lumber and other supplies that had been stored in the concrete-brick bunker, and the rest of the day to make the place millipede-proof. There were vents to be covered with mesh and windows to be sealed, and we had to install doors too; the latter had to be wrapped with wire mesh, and we had to mount metal plates on the bottoms too, just in case.
The final touch was provided by Ted, a brightly painted sign which stated in no uncertain terms:
THE BENEDICT ARNOLD HOME FOR WAYWARD WORMS
TRESPASSERS WILL
BE EATEN!!
No bugs, lice, snakes, snails, toads, spiders, rats, roaches, lizards, trolls, orcs, ghouls, politicians, lifers, lawyers, New Christians, Revelationists,
or other unsavory forms
of life allowed.
Yes, this means you!
Visitors allowed only at feeding time.
Please count your fingers when leaving.
-Ted Jackson,
Jim McCarthy,
Proprietors.
The interior of the bath house was divided into two rooms. One had been intended as a shower room; the other would have been for changing clothes and drying off, a locker room without lockers. We decided to use the locker room for the millipedes and the shower room for the eggs-if we had to choose one or the other to put in a tile-lined room behind two solid doors, it had to be the eggs because of the potential danger they represented. An escaped millipede would be far less serious than an escaped Chtorran.
We installed two large work tables in each room, connected the electric lighting and heaters, built a special incubator for the eggs and a large metal and glass cage for the millipedes. Sergeant Kelly was happy-she had her mess hall back-and so were we; we had a lab.
By suppertime, we were seeing our first results. We determined that the millipedes were omnivorous to a degree that made all other omnivores look like fussy eaters. Primarily, they preferred roots, tubers, shoots, stems, flowers, grasses, leaves, bark, branches, blossoms, fruit, grain, nuts, berries, lichens, moss, ferns, fungi and assorted algae; they also liked insects, frogs, mice, bugs, lice, snakes, snails, toads, spiders, rats, roaches, lizards, squirrels, birds, rabbits, chickens and any other form of meat we put before them. If none of the above were available, they'd eat whatever was handy. That included raw sugar, peanut butter, old newsprint, leather shoes, rubber soles, wooden pencils, canned sardines, cardboard cartons, old socks, cellulose-based film and anything else even remotely organic in origin. They even ate the waste products of other organisms. They did not eat their own droppings, a viscous, oily-looking goo; that was one of the few exceptions.
After three days of this, Ted was beginning to look a little dazed. "I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything they won't eat." He was holding one end of a typewriter ribbon and watching the other end disappear down a millipede maw.
I said, "Their stomachs must be the chemical equivalent of a blast furnace; there doesn't seem to be anything they can't break down."
"All those teeth in the front end must have something to do with it," Ted pointed out.
"Sure," I agreed. "They cut the food into usable pieces, particles small enough to be dissolved-but in order to make use of that food, the stomach has to produce enzymes to break the complex molecules down into smaller, digestible ones. I'd like to know what kind of enzymes can handle such things as fingernail clippings, toothbrush bristles, canvas knapsacks and old videodisks. And I'd like to know what kind of stomach can produce such acids regularly without destroying itself in the process."