I looked up. The speaker was another one of those crankylooking officers I had been running into ever since getting off the chopper.
"Yes, sir. It is."
"By whose authority?"
"Special Forces."
He shook his head. "Sorry, soldier. Not here. This operation is regular army." Somehow, the way he said it, he meant the real army.
I looked at his bars. "Major," I said, "I was given orders to stand right here and wear this helmet and carry this rifle. I was told to do this because there is a large, purple and red, man-eating caterpillar in the cage under that curtain. The theory is that if that creature should somehow break loose, I"m supposed to stop it."
The major put his arm around my shoulder and led me off to a corner of the stage. The curtain was still closed. "Son-" he started to say warmly.
"Don"t call me "son." I"m an officer."
"Lieutenant," he said stiffly, "don"t be an a.s.shole. I want you off this stage-and the other j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. too." He pointed to the rifleman on the other side of the stage. I hadn"t exchanged more than two words with him. All I knew about him was that his name was Scott and he stuttered.
"I"m sorry, sir. I can"t do that."
"Listen to me, stupid. Under the terms of the conference charter, this is supposed to be an entirely civilian operation. The military is only to provide supplementary aid and keep a very low profile. I am ordering you off this stage."
"Yes, sir. Would you put that in writing, sir?"
He hesitated. Then he said, "Listen to me-the gla.s.s walls of that cage are laced with doped silicon monofibers. Do you honestly think that creature is likely to break through those panels?"
"It doesn"t matter whether I think it"s likely or not, sir. Would you put those orders in writing?"
"Who"s your commanding officer?" he scowled.
I could have kissed him for asking. "Uncle Ira," I said.
"I see...... He said it slowly. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "Those are his orders, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well"-he had to say something-"lock those safeties on. I don"t want any accidents."
"Yes, sir."
"All right. Thank you. Resume your post."
I went back to the side of the cage. As soon as the major left the stage, I flicked the safeties off again.
A few minutes later, Dr. Zymph walked through. She took one look at me and another at the other lieutenant on the other side and frowned. She disappeared into the wings of the stage for a moment, and when she came back, she came straight toward me. "Lieutenant?"
I flipped the goggles up. "Ma"am?"
Apparently she didn"t recognize me from yesterday, not with the helmet on. Just as well. She said, "Would you mind standing in the wings where the audience can"t see you?"
"I thought you said these things were dangerous."
"I did and they are. But I want you out of sight. Please?"
I thought about it. "Sure. No problem." I moved off. She went and spoke to Scott on the other side and he did likewise.
Dr. Zymph waved to an aide-it was Jerry Larson from Molly Partridge"s office. I wondered what he was doing here. He gestured to someone else offstage and the stage lights shifted to a dimmer, redder color, and after a few tests with some sophisticated light sensors, Dr. Zymph was satisfied. She nodded to Larson and he and another aide began undraping the gla.s.s case with the Chtorran in it.
Without thinking, I flipped my goggles down over my eyes and switched the laser beam on. The red light of the stage turned gray. The beam appeared as an eerie bar of flickering luminescent color.
They were undraping the other side first, so I didn"t see the Chtorran-only the reactions of those who were looking toward it. Their faces were pearly green. Their expressions were stiff. They looked like zombies. I wondered how the rest of the conference would react when the main curtain went up. And then the last of the drape came off the gla.s.s case on my side and I could see the Chtorran too. It was a bright silvery worm. Its color was beautiful in the adjusted image of the goggles. It glowed.
Almost instinctively, I brought the rifle barrel up. The flickery beam played across the Chtorran"s soft fur. Immediately-as if it could sense the beam, somehow-it turned to look at me. Its great lidless eyes focused on me with dispa.s.sionate interest. The same look it had given the dogs.
Was this the last thing Shorty had seen?
I lowered the beam. I didn"t know if the creature could sense it or not, but I didn"t want to irritate it. The Chtorran continued to study me. It unfolded its arms and pressed them against the gla.s.s. Then it moved forward and pressed its face-if you could call it a face-against the cold surface. Was it tasting?
It slid even further forward then, lifting a third of its bulk up the side of the cage. It leaned on the gla.s.s. The frame creaked ominously.
"Don"t worry, it"ll hold," someone behind me said. I didn"t turn to look. I just brought the beam back up and held it on the Chtorran"s belly until it slid back down again.
"Trrlll . . . " it said.
Dr. Zymph walked up to the cage then, ignoring the Chtorran, and bent to inspect the front of the platform supporting it. She looked worried. She lifted the edge of the dust ruffle and peered at the supports. She called Larson over and the two of them bent together to look. "I thought I heard it creak," she said. "Does that look correct to you?"
He nodded. "We"re okay." He looked at his watch. "You"d better get started."
"Right." She stood up then. "Everybody please clear the stage." She raised her voice and repeated the command. "If you"re not wearing a red badge, you"re not authorized to be here." She came over to my side of the stage and peeked out through the edge of the curtain. She nodded, satisfied.
"Counting the house?" I asked.
"Eh?" She looked at me, as if surprised I could speak. "Just checking the seating arrangements." She picked up her clipboard from the stand where she"d left it, gave a thumbs-up signal to Larson on the opposite side of the stage and stepped out in front of the curtain.
They must have hit her with a spotlight then, because I could see it from this side as a bright spot shimmering in the folds of cloth. Her shadow was a silhouette in the center. She switched on her microphone and began to speak. We could hear her clearly backstage. "I don"t suppose I have to make much of an introduction this afternoon, even though this is something of an unscheduled event. But after the, ah, heated discussions of yesterday as to just how dangerous the gastropedes may be, we thought it best to bring our one live specimen out for display and let you judge for yourselves."
The Chtorran was looking at me again. I wished it would turn around and look at the fellow on the other side. He was meatier than I.
"Now, before we open the curtain, I want to caution all of you against taking any flash pictures-and we also request that you please try to be as quiet as possible. We"re going to bring the lights all the way down and put a spotlight on the gastropede. We"re not sure how it will react to a large audience, so we"re going to keep it dazzled by the light. For this reason, it"s imperative that you not make any unnecessary sounds."
The Chtorran was fascinated by Dr. Zymph"s voice. It kept c.o.c.king its eyes back and forth, trying to locate the source of the sound. If it had any external ears, I couldn"t see them. I wondered if that suggested a higher-density atmosphere. That would certainly go with a heavier gravity. Sound waves would be more intense-experientially louder. The creature"s ears could be a lot smaller. But would its hearing be better or worse on Earth? Or maybe it didn"t need ears. Maybe it could hear with its whole body. Maybe it could even see with its whole body.
"All right, now-" Dr. Zymph was saying, "-remember to keep very very quiet. Can I have the curtain opened, please?" It slid open like the doorway to a hanger. A single pink shaft of light streamed directly in, widening as the curtain opened. The Chtorran turned to look at it. I could hear gasps from the darkness beyond.
Dr. Zymph didn"t say anything. The Chtorran"s presence was statement enough. It unfolded its arms and began exploring the front surface of the cage, as if trying to reach the light.
I touched the contrast k.n.o.b on my helmet and the shaft of the spotlight faded. The audience appeared beyond it in a dim green gloom. I turned the k.n.o.b another klick and the bright parts of the image faded further; the darker areas brightened again. I could see the whole auditorium now. The audience was very upset and restless. I could see them whispering excitedly to one another. I could hear them rustling in their seats.
The Chtorran slid forward, lifting the forward third of its body up against the gla.s.s. I heard sudden gasps. The creature must have heard them too-it hesitated and stared, trying to focus on the s.p.a.ce beyond the light. It remained poised in that position. This was the third time I had seen a Chtorran reared up like that; what did the position mean in Chtorran body language? Was it a challenge? Or a prelude to attack?
I looked at the audience again. I could pick out faces in the first few rows. There was Lizard, sitting at the far end of the front row. I didn"t recognize the fellow with her; he looked like the same colonel I had seen her with the day before. Next to him was Fromkin, wearing another of those silly-looking, old-fashioned frilly shirts. All of them looked odd, painted in shades of pale green. While I watched, an aide came up to Lizard and bent to whisper something to her. She nodded and got up. The colonel got up with her. Fromkin waited a moment longer, then followed them off to the side of the auditorium. I knew that exit. That was the door Wallachstein had hustled me through.
The Chtorran slid down from the gla.s.s then. It turned around in its cage, exploring the length and breadth with its oddly delicate hands. It looked at me, and then it turned and looked at the guard on the other side. Did it understand why we were here? It must have. It brought its gaze back to me again. I was afraid to look it in the eye. It turned to study the audience. It peered out through the spotlight, blinking. It blinked and blinked again. I couldn"t hear the sput-phwut through the gla.s.s. It kept blinking and I wondered what it was doing. It looked as if its eyes were shrinking. It peered out at the audience again and this time it acted as if it could see them through the spotlight.
There were other empty seats in the auditorium now, most of them near the ends of rows. I didn"t see anyone else I knew, only a couple that I recognized. There was that constipated fellow Ted had been talking to. And Jillanna. Was it my imagination, or was her face shining a little brighter than those of the people around her?
The Chtorran slid forward again, this time with a more deliberate motion. It slid forward and forward, lifting more than half its length up against the front of the gla.s.s. I held my beam directed against its side.
In the audience, a couple of people were standing nervously, pointing. A few were even backing up the aisles. I wondered how close we were to panic. Dr. Zymph"s silent presentation was more effectively terrifying the members of the conference than anything else she could have done. A movement caught my eye. Dr. Zymph was picking up her clipboard and stepping back away from her podium. Was she pointing to someone on the opposite side of the stage-?
I heard the cra-a-ack of the gla.s.s before I knew what it was. I turned in time to see the Chtorran falling forward through a shower of gla.s.s fragments. They glittered around it like tiny sparkling stars. In one smooth movement, it poured through the gla.s.s and flowed down off the stage and into the shrieking audience. It hit the front rows like an avalanche.
I sliced my beam across to follow-hesitated half a second as I realized I"d be shooting into a crowded auditorium-then pulled the trigger anyway.
The Chtorran reared up, a struggling woman in its mouth. It dropped her and whirled around-I could see that there were several other people pinned beneath it. I fired again. Where the beam touched its side, I was digging out great gouts of flesh-but I wasn"t even slowing it down! I couldn"t tell if the other rifleman"s beam was working or not-I didn"t think so. I could see that he was firing too-there was a line of b.l.o.o.d.y black divots across the Chtorran"s silver back, but it was ragged and uneven. He was having no more effect than I was. The Chtorran whirled and swung and pounced. It rose and fell and rose again, its eyes swiveling this way and that, its maw working like a machine. Even from this distance, I could see the blood spurting. The creature raised up high again, another victim in its mouth. The other rifleman dropped his gun and ran.
The auditorium was a screaming madhouse now. The green-lit mannequins streamed toward the exits. The crowds were piling up at the doors in great knots of struggling bodies, jamming and trampling. The Chtorran noticed them; its eyes angled first one way and then the other. It dropped the body it was holding in its maw and moved. The Chtorran leaped across the rows to land among the screaming people, flattening them to the floor or pinning them against their seats. It flowed up the aisle. It picked the people up and threw them, or pounced upon them as it had the dogs-but it wasn"t eating! It was in a killing frenzy!
I didn"t know what I was doing. I ran forward, dropping off the edge of the stage-almost losing my balance-catching myself and racing toward that silver horror. I angled the blue-white-crimson beam at it and pulled the trigger, pulled the triggertrying to slash a line across the Chtorran"s flesh, trying to carve the beast in half. There were people lying all around it. Most were motionless. A few were trying to crawl. I stopped worrying if they were in my line of fire. It didn"t matter. Their only hope was if I could stop this creature quickly.
I skidded on something wet and sprawled sideways. I could see my beam slicing sideways across the wall-Oh, G.o.d! This is it! But the Chtorran wasn"t even turned toward me. Yet.
I scrambled back to my feet. The Chtorran was terrifyingly close. It had swung around and was working its way back down the aisle again. I saw now, in dreadful clarity, exactly how it killed. It raised the forward part of its body high and brought it directly down upon its victim-this time, a member of the Chinese delegation, a slender young man-no, a girl! She couldn"t have been more than sixteen. The creature pinned the screaming girl to the floor with its gnashing maw; then, holding her down with its black, peculiarly double-jointed arms, it tried to pull away-but its mouth was like a millipede"s, with rows and rows of inward curving teeth. It couldn"t stop eating! It couldn"t stop chewing something once it started-not unless the object was deliberately pulled out of its mouth! That"s why the creature held the bodies down when it backed away-so it could pull free.
The effect was to rend the body as thoroughly as if it had been pulled apart by a threshing machine. The Chinese girl screamed and jerked and twitched and then was still. The Chtorran lifted up then and began to turn-and I could see that there were human entrails hanging from its mouth. There were bodies on the floor around it-they were badly ripped and mauled. They had died horribly.
I touched my beam to the creature"s shoulder. The arms were anch.o.r.ed against a hump on its back. If I could keep it from holding the people down, it wouldn"t have the leverage to pull back and free. It would be stuck with the one victim! I squeezed the trigger hard and dug gobbets out of the Chtorran"s silver body. But the hideous arms kept moving! And the creature started swiveling toward me I kept firing! The Chtorran"s side was an exploding ma.s.s of flesh. Suddenly the arm collapsed-the limb fell useless, hanging and waving. It jerked and twitched erratically and black blood spurted from the wound. In the h.e.l.lish view of the helmet, I could see the steam as pinkish vapor rising from its silver body. The rest of the world was a gray and green and orange backdrop to this horror.
I couldn"t see the other arm to shoot at it; the Chtorran"s body blocked my shot. I touched the beam to its eyes and squeezed the trigger! Again and again! The rifle dug against my shoulder as it shrieked, as it roared. One of the Chtorran"s eyes disappeared, replaced by a b.l.o.o.d.y hole. The whole mound of flesh burst like jelly.
The Chtorran raised up then, up and up and up, revealing its darker mottled belly-was it going to throw itself at me?-and then it screamed! An agonizing, high-pitched howl of rage! "Chtorrrrr! Chtorrrrrr!" Without thinking, I skittered back, my feet slipping on the b.l.o.o.d.y carpeting of the auditorium. A row of seats had been broken from their anchors by the weight of the creature and there were people from the row behind pinned under them. The monster didn"t notice. It broke its scream and focused. It looked at me and knew. For one single terrifying instant the two of us-human and Chtorran-shared a communication that transcended words! I knew it like a shout of rage and pain: Kill! The moment broke.
And then it came toward me. It arched its body forward and poured itself across the seats, flowing toward me like a river of teeth.
I stabbed the beam into its other eye and fired-tried to fire. Nothing happened-out of ammo-the empty clip popped up and out and clattered on the floor. I fumbled with a second magazine, sliding it into place even as I kept moving backward.
When I squeezed again, the creature"s other eye exploded in a vaporous cloud.
It didn"t slow the creature down! Even blind, the Chtorran could still sense its prey! Did it smell my terror? I was screaming now, a wordless rage of profanity, a wall of obscene fury that I flung against the horror! I had moved beyond my terror, was in a state where every action happened in slow motion, so slowly I could see the spurt of every droplet, the flex of every muscle, but even so could not move fast enough to escape the charging death.
The Chtorran reared again, and this time it was close enough to strike. I stabbed the beam into its mouth and carved it into b.l.o.o.d.y jelly. I squeezed the trigger hard and dug a screaming gory line straight down the monster"s front and up again. The silver fur was streaked with red and black.
The Chtorran towered over me, shuddering with each punch of needles from the rifle, one arm hanging useless, the other grabbing, clutching frantically-its eyes were scarlet pudding, its mouth was twitching teeth Somewhere in that jerking ma.s.s of flesh, there was a brain, a control center-something! I squeezed again and the second empty clip popped up. I grabbed my belt for another magazine -and then the Chtorran toppled forward onto me and I went out.
THIRTY-FIVE.
SOMEBODY WAS calling me. Uh uh. Go away.
"Come on, Jim. Time to wake up." No, leave me alone.
She was shaking my shoulder. "Come on, Jim."
"Leemea lone-"
"Come on, Jim."
"What"re you want-?" She kept shaking me. "Come on, Jim."
I went to brush her hand away. I couldn"t move my hand. "What do you want, G.o.ddammit?"
"Come on, Jim."
I couldn"t move my arm! "I can"t move my arm!"
"You"re connected to an IV. If you promise not to pull it loose, I"ll untie your arm."
"I can"t move my arm-!"
"Do you promise not to pull the IV out?"
"Untie me!"
"I can"t do that, Jim. Not until you promise."
"Yes, yes, I promise!" I knew that voice. Who was she? "Just untie me!"
Somebody was doing something to my arm. And then it was free. I could move it around. "Why did you wake me up?"
"Because you have to wake up."
"No, I don"t. Leave me alone."
"Uh uh. I have to stay with you."
"No, I want be dead again. The Chtorran killed me-"
"No, he didn"t. You killed him."
"No. I want to be dead. Like everybody else."
"No, you don"t, Jim. Ted wouldn"t like it."