A Day for Damnation

TWENTY-THREE

WE GOT the call at twenty-two hundred hours.

The radio beeped. Lizard leaned forward and flicked it on. "This is ELDAVO."

"All right, here's the scoop. The blimp is on its way. They left Portland an hour ago. They've got a full rescue and medical team aboard. They should be over you by midnight. They're homing in on your beam."

"What about the dust?"

"They're aware of the problem. We all are. There isn't an engine running in the Sacramento Valley today-at least none that were left exposed. But Portland has the most experience with this kind of problem-you can thank Mount Saint Helens for that. They've already got the necessary technology on the shelf."

"I'll send a thank-you note to the volcano," Lizard said.

"They'll be monitoring the air all the way in. When they start hitting ten particles per million, they'll shut down the jets and drift with the wind till they're overhead."

"Drift?" asked Lizard skeptically.

"That's right. But they've jury-rigged a cold-rocket assist for local guidance. They can maneuver, and you won't have to worry about the fire danger. If they have to, they can fly on canned air for a short distance-at least far enough to get out of the pink if they head out over the ocean. It's all been thought out."

"I've heard that one before," Lizard said. "How are they going to hold their position over us?"

"They'll fire grapples into the ground and moor themselves. Then they'll lower a basket and pull you up."

"Listen-" said Lizard. "We've got a problem with that."

"What's that?"

"We're in the middle of a feeding frenzy here. Once we pop the hatch, we have maybe thirty seconds. If that. We've got a millipede swarm."

"We know about the millipedes. You're not the only ones down in the dust. We've been getting reports that would curl your hair."

I leaned forward at that. "How bad is it?" I asked.

"You don't want to know."

"Yes I do," I insisted.

"We think we lost Redding. All communications are down. We can't get anything into the area. You think you got it bad? The Northern California Eyeball scan shows nothing but pink desert-and there were some tall buildings in Redding."

"Redding?" But that was eighty kilometers north of here. A terrible suspicion was creeping coldly up my spine. "Just how extensive is the dust?"

"The whole northern half of the state is out. Everything. It's all been brought to a halt. Sacramento took another five inches this afternoon. "

Lizard and I exchanged a glance. From Redding to Sacramento? "You'll see it from the blimp. If the wind holds up, you might be in Oakland-or Sacramento-by tomorrow afternoon."

"Any more good news?" Lizard asked.

"The Dodgers blew it in the eighth."

"Thanks." She signed off, turned and looked at me. "So. No lobster tonight either." Then she noticed my expression and asked, "What's that about?"

"Nothing," I said. I climbed out of my seat and headed toward the back of the ship to look at Duke's medi-console. He was stable, but...

I pulled back the blanket to look at the pink fur on his legs again. The fur was noticeably longer. There were red and purple strands too.

Lizard squatted down opposite me; she searched my face. "Nothing, huh?"

"All right," I admitted. "I'm worried about Duke. He smells pretty bad-and I don't know what's going on with his legs. That fur is growing. Even if we could get him out of here tonight, we'd still be a long way from the kind of care he needs. And you heard the man. Tomorrow afternoon."

She picked up the medi-console and studied its display. Duke was on the last red ampule. There was no more glucose. I'd been waking him up periodically to give him sugar water laced with blue-series antibiotics. It was the best I could do. I couldn't think of anything else.

I knelt down for a closer examination of the pink fur on Duke's legs. It was growing out of his blackened skin like grass creeping back toward ground zero. Tentatively, I let it brush the palm of my hand. It was tingly. I pressed it gently flat-the tingly sensation got stronger.

"He's waking up-" said Lizard.

I straightened up again and took the console from Lizard. The display said Duke was still sound asleep.

"No he's not-" I looked back at Duke's legs. I stretched over and touched the fur again; I stroked a long length of it. The mediconsole display went crazy. It said Duke was running up a hillno, having a heart attack-no, it wasn't sure. PLEASE WAIT. It couldn't interpret. INCREASED NERVOUS ACTIVITY. And again, PLEASE WAIT.

I pulled open the medical supplies and studied the color-coded chart inside. There it was.

Terramycin.

I looked at Duke's legs again.

But it was such a long shot. It was a very stupid risk to take. "What are you thinking?" asked Lizard.

"I'm thinking of doing something stupid," I said.

"How stupid?"

"It's never been done before." I popped the plastic ampule out of the kit. "That's worm fur growing out of Duke's legs. This stuff should kill it. Most of it, anyway. Remember the worm in Denver? That's what happened to it."

She frowned unhappily. "I don't know what to tell you, McCarthy. I'm not a doctor."

"I'm not asking your permission. I know more about this than you do. This is one I have to call."

"You're right," she agreed.

"I know." I closed my eyes. Please God ... let me be really right. I clipped the ampule into place on the feeder.

The medi-console beeped. TERRAMYCIN? it Queried. I touched the CONFIRM button.

There was nothing to do now but wait.

We covered Duke up again and climbed back to the front of the chopper. The copilot's seat was beginning to get uncomfortable. It creaked as I sank into it. I picked up a flashlight and studied the bugs on the window again. I couldn't identify even half the creatures I saw. But the ones I could identify were enough to terrify me.

"The real problem," I said, "is I don't know how we're going to get him out of here. I don't know how we're going to get us out of here. I don't think it's safe to open that hatch." I pointed the flashlight toward the top of the windshield. The beam illuminated four red-bellied millipedes slithering down its curved surface even as I spoke. One of them curled itself around to point its eyes downward. It peered curiously at us, irising its eyes open and shut in confused blinks.

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.