I looked at Lopez, I looked at Siegel. They saw the look on my face and they both nodded grimly. Agreement.
"We'll need authorization."
Siegel and Lopez exchanged a quick glance. Meaningful. You tell him? No, you tell him.
"Excuse me-?" I asked. I looked from one to the other.
"You're not going," said Siegel. He sounded embarrassed.
"Uh, there must be something wrong with my hearing. It sounded like you said-"
"I'm sorry, Captain. But you're really not needed. And… I think I'd prefer to handle this one by myself."
"Did General Tirelli tell you not to let me-?" They both shook their heads too quickly. "You're lousy liars."
Lopez leaned across the corner of the table and spoke to me, low and intensely. "She didn't have to speak to us. We already had this discussion among ourselves. You've done your share. And it's killing you. A bite at a time. You're more valuable up here."
"No," I said. "I have to go with you."
"Listen to me, Captain," Siegel was speaking like a lieutenant now. "It's time to let it go."
I turned slowly and stared into his eyes. He held my gaze. A lifetime of meaning. The command had passed. We both knew it. He was right.
The reactions flooded up in burning waves. I felt so angry, I wanted to kill him. He'd pushed me aside. Rejected. Old. Unneeded. Unwanted. All the emotions flashed like road signs.
But-he was right. We all knew it. It wasn't my job anymore. And there were all the other reactions too. Relief. Gratefulness. Gratitude that it was him and not me-gratitude that this time I wouldn't have to give the orders.
Finally, Siegel nodded in gentle confirmation and broke the moment.
I let out my breath. I leaned forward over the video table, looking at the display again, but not really seeing it, looking off, looking back. They waited politely beside me, waiting for me to speak. At last, I shrugged and scratched my head and said more easily than I'd expected to, "Well… you'll still need authorization."
"You'll talk to the general?"
I nodded. "She's already expecting me."
Siegel put one big hand on my shoulder and patted gently. Lopez put a smaller hand, but just as hard, on my other shoulder. It was a moment of farewell camaraderie, and I hated them both for it. I hated them almost as much as I loved them. We'd been through too much together. It wasn't fair that they should go on without me-and at the same time, it was. If I'd done my job right, teaching them, training them, coaching them, then this was the payoff. It still hurt.
I swallowed hard. "I guess… I'd better go see the general." I straightened up from the table, turned around, studied them both. "If you guys fuck up and get eaten by worms, I'll never speak to either one of you again."
"That's fer sure," grinned Siegel.
Lopez followed me to the door of the observation bay, catching up to me just inside the corridor. "Y'know, for a gringo, you're not half bad. Your general's a lucky lady." And then Lopez surprised me. She stood up on her tiptoes to give me a good-luck kiss that left us both blushing.
Some evidence exists to suggest that many of the Chtorran forms may be much more unstable than previously thought. One of the most curious and puzzling of all biological phenomena is that of the "exploded" millipede.
Periodically, a millipede will be discovered that seems to be bulging right out of its own exoskeleton. The shell segments are pushed apart, sometimes even discarded, and fatty protrusions have expanded aggressively outward. From one day to the next, these swellings will increase at a cancerous rate; the growth is almost visible to the naked eye. Sometimes the creature is able to survive for a while in this condition, but death usually occurs within a week or less. In some cases, the creature's exoskeleton gives way suddenly, and the creature simply "explodes"-not violently; the impact is less than that of a water balloon; but it is still noisy and forceful enough to startle unprepared observers.
It is possible that this condition is a Chtorran disease-some cancerous condition that affects only millipedes; perhaps it represents some failure of the millipede to adapt to Terran conditions. It is equally possible that it represents a failed attempt by the millipede to metamorphose into something else. In either case, the mechanism by which millipedes may be exploded is worthy of further investigation, as it may point to ways to disable not only this species, but other related ones.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 63
Authorization
"The mere fact that a story might be true should not discourage one from telling it."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Lizard was in the conference room. Alone. Sitting at the table and working her way through a stack of reports. She looked up when I entered.
I didn't say anything. I just crossed to the front of the room. I went to the podium and started putting pictures on the screens. The horror of Coari. Click. Click. Click. I filled the walls with them. Over and over and over again. Lizard watched me without emotion.
Only one screen remained blank. I put the last set of images on the empty screen behind me.
Japura. The corral. The little brown girl in the pink dress. Live.
I left the pictures flashing on the walls larger than life, then I went to the table and sat down across from her.
She studied my face. She looked at the pictures behind me, the horrors of Coari. She turned slowly and looked again at the pictures at the front of the room.
She put down the report in-her hands and cleared her throat. "All right," she said. "You've made your case."
"Thank you," I said.
"You didn't have to do this, you know. The pictures, I mean."
"Yes, I did. I didn't want you to have any doubts."
She lowered her eyes. Then raised them again. "I don't have any doubts," she said. "Not where you're concerned."
"I'm not going," I said conversationally. "Siegel says he doesn't need me."
She accepted the information without comment, only a nod. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"
She shook her head. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it, rethought her words, and tried again. "Yes, I have the authority to stop you from going down into the nest. No, I wouldn't use it. Because if I did, I'd lose you anyway. I'd lose your trust and your respect. I'd lose everything about you that I cherish and need the most. Your independence."
I realized abruptly that she was using her professional voice on me. And I didn't know if she was lying or not. It didn't matter. I wanted to believe her. That was enough.
"Thank you," I said. "Thank you for your honesty." I couldn't think of anything else to say. I pushed my chair back and rose to my feet. "I, uh-"
"Yes?"
Oh hell. The words poured out of me. "I was wrong to think about going. I was thinking selfish. You need me. The baby needs me. Siegel is right."
"Yes," she said. "Lieutenant Siegel is a lot smarter than you give him credit for."
"When this is over," I said. "If you still want to go to Luna… I'll go with you."
She smiled quietly. Sadly. "We'll see what happens when this over."
I nodded and headed for the door.
"Jim?"
"Yes?"
"Would you please turn off these pictures before you go."
The appearance of a mandala encampment is misleading. The elaborate patterns of domes, corrals, and gardens are only the topmost level, a two-dimensional representation of the intricate three-dimensional nest that lies beneath.
Underneath the surface expression of the mandala lies a vast network of tunnels and chambers dug deep into the earth, sometimes for hundreds of meters down. The level of architectural expertise demonstrated throughout the entire complex is nothing less than astonishing. Were it not for the precedents set by terrestrial colony creatures (ants, bees, and termites), a strong case could be made that the superb design and planning of the mandala nests are conclusive evidence of the Chtorran intelligence that we have been seeking for so long.