A Matter for Men

FIFTEEN

THE THURSDAY chopper was pushed back till Saturday, so we had four days left-if we were going. They still hadn't told us. Ted said that was the army way. If they told us, we'd only worry about it. This way, we didn't have anything to worry about.

I worried anyway-and made the best use I could of the time. I borrowed the helmet camera and set it up in front of the millipede cage. I digitized the image, fed it into one of the computers-and I had an activity monitor. The program counted the number of pixel changes per second, noted the scale of change, the time and the temperature. As it built up information, it correlated trends, fit them into curves and made them available for display on continually updating graphs.

The bugs did not like heat. Temperatures above twenty-five degrees Centigrade made them lethargic, and higher than thirtyfive degrees they refused to move at all. Generally they seemed to prefer a ten-degree environment, although they remained active at temperatures as low as freezing. Lower than that, they would curl up.

I repeated the tests under different lighting conditions. The bath house had been rigged with two bare twelve-hundred-lumen plates; when I replaced them with outdoor lamps, some of the vari-temp, night-into-day lights for hydro- and aeroponics, the millipedes curled up as if to shield themselves, regardless of the temperature. Clearly, they did not like bright light.

But I wanted to measure their activity levels through a full range of lighting conditions, charting the curve all the way from pitch dark to bright sunlight-and through a complete range of temperatures too.

We borrowed the air conditioner from Dr. Obama's office-we didn't dare try to take the one from the mess hall-and Larry found a spare heater for us somewhere. Between the two I was able to achieve most of the test temperatures I wanted. I rewrote the program, put the lights on a rheostat with a photodiode to measure the lumens and connected everything to the computer.

The result was a two-dimensional data-base demonstrating the millipedes' reactions to a variety of environments.

But it was inconclusive. The bugs liked low temperatures and dim lights. They tolerated high temperatures. They didn't like bright lights at any temperature. That didn't make sense. It was too simple. Did they come from a dark planet? There wasn't enough data.

So I repeated the whole series of tests another dozen times, but now with the lights tweaked to a different color each time. This left me with a three-dimensional graph-now I was nine times as certain that I didn't trust the results. There was a funny anomaly at the low end of the spectrum. I knew it meant something, but I was more confused than ever.

I was still sitting in front of the terminal, leaning back in my chair, arms folded across my chest, staring at the screen and waiting for inspiration to strike me, when Ted bounced in. "Okay, Jimmy boy! Pack your comic books! It's time to go."

I didn't even look up. "Later. Not now-"

He grabbed my chair from behind and pulled me back away from the terminal. "Come on-Obie wants to see us."

"About what?"

"Huh? Have you forgotten? Denver, remember? It's a large city in Colorado ... next to a mountain?"

"Oh, yeah." I said, "I can't go."

"Huh?"

"I'm not done." I leaned over to the terminal and touched a button. The screen started cycling through the pages of my report and over a hundred different three-dimensional graphs. There were cross sections too. I pointed. "Look at that activity curve, Ted! It doesn't make sense. These things look like they should be nocturnal-but their behavior pattern with light and temperature variations says they're not. And look at the way it spikes on the spectrum tests-what does that mean?"

Ted pulled me to my feet. "What it means is congratulations!" He pumped my hand heartily. "You've just won a free trip to Denver!"

"-But the job is incomplete!"

"It's good enough! You don't have to interpret it! They have real brains in Denver. They'll take one look at what you've done and have the answer for you in no time. You'll probably get a nice footnote in somebody's report." He placed one hand in the middle of my back and shoved. "Now, move! The chopper's already on its way-yes, it's a day early; Larry's bringing packing crates-is your data disked? Here, take it. Let's go!" We were out the door and on our way before I even had a chance to punch him.

We tumbled into Dr. Obama's office like a small stampede. We were both out of breath and flushed. Dr. Obama barely glanced up as Ted snapped a precision salute. I realized what he had done and hastily followed suit, only not as precise.

Dr. Obama almost smiled. She said, "I see you've heard." She handed across two envelopes. "Well, we might as well make it official-here are your orders."

We read them together. I finished first and looked up. "Thank you, ma'am." And then I added, "I think-?"

She nodded. "You're right. I'm not doing you a favor. Denver isn't going to be any more pleasant, but you'll find that out for yourselves. You'll both want to be real careful."

"Ma'am?" I asked.

"I mean, don't screw it up-you're going to be playing in a much bigger game. There are worse things than being eaten." She looked unhappy. She said, "I suppose I should wish you luck and tell you I'm proud of you. But I won't. I'm not proud of you, and you're going to need a lot more than luck. Let's have no illusions. I didn't want you up here, either of you, and I'm going to be glad to have you out. This is no place for untrained replacements. But I'll give you this much. You did your jobs-and you were appreciated. You're both intelligent. Wherever you end up, you should do fine"-she looked at Ted, she looked at me-"each in your own inimitable style." She glanced at her watch. "The chopper's already on its way. You have less than an hour. Pack your specimens and be in front of the mess hall at twelve-thirty. Duke is driving you to the helipad. There are metal cages for the bugs and an insulated box for the eggs right outside. Try not to get sent back."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you." I started to rise.

"Don't be so quick-there's one more thing. Jackson, would you excuse us a moment? Wait outside. And, ah-this time, would you please not eavesdrop?"

"Huh? Who, me?" Ted looked puzzled as he stood. "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am."

"Yes, I'm sure you don't," Dr. Obama said quietly as the door closed after him. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small flat lockbox the size of a paperback book. "I have a ... personal favor." She lowered her voice, "There's a Lieutenant Colonel Ira Wallachstein attached to Project Jefferson. Would you please deliver this to him?"

"Certainly, ma'am-"

"I want you to personally place it in his hands."

"Yes, ma'am."

"If for any reason that's not possible, take this out to an open field and punch the date into the lock. Then walk away quickly. Thirty seconds later, it'll self-destruct. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am."

"Repeat it back to me."

I did so and she nodded in satisfaction. "Good," she said. "Thank you. That'll be all."

The helipad was a kilometer down the mountain. It took five minutes to drive there. Duke was tight-lipped all the way. What was it about the Special Forces anyway that they didn't-let you in unless you were terminally nasty?

Ted was stretched across the back. I was sitting in the front, half-turned toward Duke. "Uh-Duke?"

"Don't talk." He said it very flatly.

I shut up. And wondered what was eating him now. Abruptly, Duke said, "Listen, both of you-you've both taken the oath and you're both entitled to wear the Special Forces insignia. I would prefer that you didn't."

"Sir?"

Did Duke look annoyed? The expression flashed so quickly, I wasn't sure. He said, "What you need to know is this: if you wear your insignia, you will attract the attention of people who will ask you questions that you are not prepared to answer. That could be very embarrassing for you. Or worse. Got that?"

I started to say, "I don't understand-" but Ted poked me in the ribs. Hard. "We got it," he said.

I looked at him. He looked back at me. I remembered what we had talked about the day before. "Oh," I said.

We pulled up at the helipad then-actually just a large clear space next to the road, bulldozed flat and surrounded by automatic lights and plastic markers. The chopper was nowhere in sight yet. Duke glanced at his watch. "Looks like we're a little early."

"Or they're a little late." That was Ted. He hopped out of the jeep and walked off a way to admire the view.

"Duke," I said. "I want to thank you."

He looked at me skeptically. "For what?"

"For lying to me."

"Eh?"

"I went and reread my contract. I'm `scientific personnel attached to the military, specifically exempt from military duties and functions.' I'm not in the army at all."

"I never said you were. I didn't lie to you, McCarthy. You told me your contract requires you to obey your immediate superiors and I agreed with you." He grinned. "I just didn't tell you that neither Dr. Obama nor myself are in that chain of command. Except by courtesy. Legally, you're an independent agent."

"Um," I said. "Well, thank you for fooling me."

"I didn't fool you. You fooled yourself. What I said was this: `If the mission is military, every man is a soldier.' That has nothing at all to do with your contract. You could have stood your ground as a `scientist,' and there wouldn't have been a thing I could have done about it-except, you would have never seen a worm. That's all. Either way, you still get sent to Denver-but this way, I'll shake your hand and mean it." He held out his hand.

His grip was firm. I looked at him and his eyes were bright. Almost smiling? No, it must have been a trick of the sun. I looked away, embarrassed.

The chopper appeared in the distance then and Duke sat up in his seat to see it better. "By the way," I asked, "if neither you nor Dr. Obama has the authority to give me orders, who does?"

Still peering into the distance, he said, "That's in your contract too.

"No, it isn't," I said. "There's not a word about where I fit into the chain of command."

He looked at me then and grinned. "That's what I meant. You're your own man-all civilian attached personnel are. But we try to keep you from finding out, else you're hard to put up with. I can't give you orders, only recommendations. Same for Dr. Obama and every other officer. Take a look at your papers on the way up. You're carrying pinks, not yellows; you're a free agent, responsible only to the team or task you're assigned. But, ah, don't get cocky. You still have to earn the right to talk to a Special Forces man."

We could hear the chopper now, a distant blurring in the air.

Duke was already getting out of the jeep. "Come on, I'll help you with your gear."

By the time we had unloaded the last of it, the chopper was already overhead, engines screaming and stirring up clouds of choking dust with their downdraft. It was one of the new Huey Valkyrie 111's; with jet-assisted flight, its range was more than two thousand miles-at least, that's all the army would admit. Privately, it was said to be a lot more. The landing gear flexed and gave as the copter settled its weight to the ground, but its rotors continued to strop the air. The thundrous roar of the jets muted temporarily to an impatient whine. We picked up our bags and ran for it.

Ted was up the ladder first. I bumped into him as he did a sudden stop in the door. The pilot was an impeccable-looking redhead in jumpsuit and major's insignia, Army Air Corps. I wondered if she was friendly. She looked through us as we climbed aboard with the specimen cases. "Secure those boxes in the back, then get out. I'm in a hurry." No, she wasn't.

"Uh-" I said, "-we're coming with."

"Forget it-I don't carry passengers." She booted my duffel casually out the door.

"Hey!" I yelped, but she was already turning to Ted.

He was unbuttoning his pocket. He handed her our orders. She didn't even bother to look, just snapped, "I said, `Forget it.' " Ted and I exchanged a glance

Duke called up, "What's the matter? What's going on?" and I shouted back, "No problem. We're just going to have to find some other transportation, that's all. Come on, Ted-I'll get the eggs, you unstrap the cages."

"Hold it, Charlie!" she barked.

"Just hold it yourself!" I barked right back. "We have a job to do too!" It worked. She stopped-but only for a moment. "You'd better read our orders," I said, very calmly.

She took them from Ted and scanned them quickly. "Pinks!" she snorted, handing them to me. "Doesn't mean a thing. Those are just advisories."

"Right," I said. I kept my voice innocent as I carefully refolded and pocketed our papers. "We're advised to deliver these specimens. And you're advised to take us."

"Uh uh." She shook her head. "Nobody told me about it. I'm only taking those." She pointed at the cages.

"No way." I cleared my throat and prayed that my voice wouldn't crack. "If we don't go, they don't go. Duke, hand me that duffel?"

She looked at me, then really looked. I glared right back. She had very bright blue eyes-and a very dark expression. She flicked her glance briefly over Ted, then back to me again. I was already stowing my bag. She said a word, a not-very-ladylike word, then, "The hell with it-I don't care! Fight it out with Denver. How much do you turkeys weigh?"

"Seventy-three kilos," grunted Ted. He didn't look happy. "Sixty-four," I said.

"Right." She jerked her thumb at me. "You sit on the left." To Ted: "Secure that box on the other side. Both of them. Then belt up." She didn't even wait to see; she pulled the door shut behind us with a slam, secured it and climbed forward again. She checked to see that Duke was clear-I just had time to wave; he nodded back-and punched us up into the air.

The mountain dropped quickly, then angled off and slid sideways as we described a sharp sweeping turn. The acceleration pressed me against the wall of the cabin. We had hardly leveled off-I had to trust my eyes for that; my stomach was no longer speaking to me-when the jets cut in and a second press of acceleration forced me deep into my seat. The cabin tilted steeply and my ears popped as we climbed for height.

There was nothing to see out the window except clouds; the stubby wing of the copter blocked my view of the ground and the bulge of the jet engine was not enough to hold my interest. The scenery in the distance, what little of it I could see, was too far away to be impressive.

I realized the pilot was speaking to us: "-be in the air a couple hours. If you're hungry, there's a ration box plugged into the wall. Don't eat all the chocolate ice cream."

Ted was already rooting around in it. He came up with a couple of sandwiches and a container of milk. Grinning hungrily, he went forward and plopped into the copilot's seat.

The redhead eyed him. "You got a certificate?"

"Well, no-but I am licensed." He gave her what he probably hoped was a friendly smile; it came out as a leer.

"Jeezus! What is it with you guys? Go sit in the back with the rest of the passengers."

"Hey, I'm only trying to be friendly."

"That's what stewardesses are for. Next time, take a commercial flight."

"And, uh-I wanted to see how this thing flew," he added lamely.

She did something to the control panel, set a switch and locked it in place. "Okay," she shrugged. "Look all you want. Just don't touch." Then she unstrapped herself and came aft. The tag on her jumpsuit said L. TIRELLI.

"What's in the boxes?" she asked. She nudged the insulated one with her foot.

"Eggs," I grunted. "And in here?"

"Bugs," I said. "Big ones."

She looked disgusted. "Right. Bugs and eggs. For that they cancel my leave. Oh, yeah. I always get the good ones." Still muttering, she turned her attention to the ration box. "Damn! Clot-head took all the chicken." She pawed through the remaining sandwiches sourly.

"Uh-I'm sorry," I offered.

"Forget it. Everybody's an asshole. Here, have a sandwich." She picked one at random and tossed it at me before I could say no. She took another one for herself and dropped into the seat opposite. "What's so special about your bugs and eggs?"

"Uh-I don't know if I'm allowed to-" I looked to Ted. "Are we top secret?"

"What've you got-more Chtorrans?" To my startled look she said, "Don't worry about it. It's no secret. I carried a live one into Denver a month ago."

"A live Chtorran?"

"Uh huh. Just a small one. They found it in Nevada, dehydrated and weak. I don't know how they caught it. I guess it was too sick to fight back. Poor little thing, I felt sorry for it. They didn't expect it to live, but I haven't heard if it died."

Ted and I looked at each other. "Some scientists we are," I said. "They don't tell us anything."

"Well, there goes our big claim to fame," he added. "We thought we had the only live specimens around."

"That's a pity," she said, around a mouthful of sandwich. "But don't worry about it. They wouldn't have let you take the credit anyway."

"Thanks for the encouragement."

She wiped at her mouth with a napkin. "Don't thank me. It was free. Worth exactly what you paid for it. I'd have done the same for anyone."

She started to go forward again, but I stopped her. "What's the L for?"

"Huh?"

I pointed at her name tag. "Oh-it's Liz. Short for Lizard."

"Lizard?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I come by it honestly. You'll find out."

"I think I already have."

"Just eat your sandwich," she said. "You're getting skinny." And then she climbed forward and back into her pilot's seat. Ted smiled hopefully, but she just jerked her thumb rearward and paid him no further attention.

He sighed and came back, and strapped himself into the chair where she had been sitting. "Whew!" he whispered. "I remember her. She bumped into the Titanic once and sank it."

"Oh, I don't know. I think she's terrific!" I didn't think she had heard me, but the tips of her ears turned pink. At least, I think they did.

Ted merely grunted, curled up sideways in his seat and went to sleep.

I finished my sandwich and spent the rest of the trip thinking about a tall spiky anomaly at fifty-nine hundred angstroms. I wished I had a terminal so I could study the data first hand instead of in my memory. Something about the millipedes' behaviorsomething so obvious I couldn't see it-was staring me right in the face. It was frustrating as hell-because I couldn't not think about it! It was a bright red vision, a blood-colored room with a table in the middle, and sitting on the table, a cage full of skittering active millipedes. Why? I leaned my head against the window and studied the clouds and thought about rose-colored glasses.

The chopper banked then and the sun flashed in my eyes, leaving a brilliant afterimage. I put my hand over my eyes, closed them and watched the pulsating blob of chemical activity on my retinas. It was white and yellow for a while, then it was crimson and it looked like a star-I decided it was Chtorr, and wanted to blow it up. After a while, it started turning blue and faded away, leaving me with only its memory and another dozen questions about the possible origin of the Chtorran invasion. I also had a niggling suspicion about something. More than ever, I wanted to get back to a terminal.

The chopper banked again and I realized we were coming in toward Denver. And Major Tirelli was about to demonstrate a "stop and drop."

She'd brought us straight over the Rockies without bothering with a descending glide path-and now that we were over the city there wasn't room for one, at least not without a long swing over eastern Colorado to shake off ten kilometers of altitude. So instead, she cut in the rotors, baffled the jets down and let us fall. The technique had been developed eight years earlier, but never used; the army had wanted a way to boost men and supplies quickly over enemy territory, never coming low enough to be in range of their portable ground-to-air missiles. It was one more thing to be grateful to the Pakistan war for. Even if your nerves forgave you for such a landing, your stomach never would.

"Wow," gasped Ted when he realized what she was doing; we'd been dropping for several decades, even though my watch insisted it was only two and a half minutes. "Either she's a real hot shot, or somebody wants to see us in an awful hurry."

"Both," she called from up front. She was downchecking the auto-monitor.

Ted looked embarrassed; he hadn't realized she could hear us. She got on the radio then to warn them we were dropping in. "Stapleton, this is Tirelli. Clear the dime-I've got that high-pri cargo and I'm putting it right where I said I would."

A male voice answered immediately. "Negative, Tirelli. Your priority's been double-upped. They need the chopper for some brass. Veer off and drop it next door on Lowry. There's a truck waiting for you on north zero-six."

"Oh, hell," she said. But she began cutting in the jets, firing short bursts to bring us around and slow our descent. The deceleration was sideways. And bumpy.

"By the way," added the radio. "Tag your auto-monitor for inspection. We lost some of our remote metering just before you voiced in."

"Naw, that was me. I was downchecking."

"Damn it, Liz! You're not supposed to do that in the air."

"Relax, Jackie. You had me on your scopes. I saw the beeper. You didn't need the telemetry or the inertial probe anymore. And I'm in a hurry."

"Liz, those systems are for your safety-"

"Right. And worth every penny of it." She grinned. "I can't talk anymore, Jackie. I'm gonna drop this thing." She switched off the voice circuit. The auto-monitor continued to flash.

"Uh," I said, "maybe I don't understand-"

"You're right," she cut me off. "You don't." Without taking her eyes off her controls, she explained, "The excuse I gave him was a blind. What I'm really doing is cutting the control monitors. I don't want him knowing I'm not using noise abatement-it takes too much power from the engines."

"Oh," I said. "But what about the people below?"

"I try not to think about them," she said. And then added, "Would you rather be a considerate spot of red jelly on the runway-or rude and in one piece?"

"I see your point." I shut up.

"Besides," she continued, "anyone who lives that close to an airport deserves it-especially now, when half the city is empty." The copter was caught by a crossdraft then and we slid sideways. For a moment I thought she'd miscalculated and we were going to miss the runway, but she did nothing to correct our descent. Then I caught sight of the truck and realized that she'd even outthought the wind. We were being blown toward our landing spot.

A moment later we touched ground easily. It was the last easy thing in Denver. Even before the jets whined down to a stop, a ramp was slammed into place and the door was being pulled open.

It popped outward with a whoosh of pressurized air and slid sideways. Almost immediately, a hawk-nosed major with red face and beady eyes was barking into the cabin, "All right, Liz, where are the-"

And then he caught sight of me and Ted. "Who're you?" he demanded. He didn't wait for an answer, but snapped at Major Tirelli, "Dammit, Liz, there wasn't supposed to be any deadheading on this flight!" He was wearing a Sony Hear-Muff with wire mike attached. "Hold a minute," he said into it.

"We're not deadheading," Ted said. He blinked at us, annoyed.

Ted poked me. "Show him the orders."

"Orders? What orders?" To the mike: "Stand by. I think we got a foul-up."

I pulled the papers out of my jacket pocket and passed them over. He took them impatiently and scanned them with a growing frown. Behind him, two middle-aged privates, obviously tapped for the job of carrying the specimen cases, peered at us with the usual mixture of curiosity and boredom.

"What the hell," he muttered. "This is a bloody nuisance. Which one are you?"

"I'm McCarthy, that's Jackson."

"Right. McCarthy. I'll remember you." He handed our orders back. "Okay, grab your cases and lug them down to that cruiser." He turned and ducked out. "You two are dismissed. They sent their own flunkies." He had all the charm of a drill press.

Ted and I exchanged a glance, shrugged and reached for the boxes. Major Tirelli finished her power-down, locked the console, and squeezed past us toward the door.

As we stumbled down the ramp after her, I noticed that the two privates had parked themselves in the V.I.P. seats of the wagon, leaving the service seats for us. The major-already I disliked him-was standing by the hood, talking to an unseen someone. "Yeah, that must be it.... Well, find someplace to bed them down until we can figure out what to do with them-I don't care where.... What? ... I don't know. They look like it. Wait, I'll find out for sure." He glowered over at us. "Are you boys fairies?"

"Oh, honey!" Ted gushed at him. "When are you going to learn? The word is faggot! Don't they teach you anything at those fancy eastern schools?" Before I could react or step away, Ted had hooked his arm through mine. "Jimmy, we've got a lot of consciousness-raising to do here."

"Ted!" I jerked away and stared at him angrily.

"Yeah, they are," the major was saying. "Put them somewhere out of the way. Let's not give our Fourth World friends any more ammunition. . . . Right. Out." He looked at the two privates. "Move it! Make room there for Major Tirelli!" To us, he just growled, "Stash those in the back! You'll have to crawl in with them; there's not enough room up front." He planted himself beside a weary-looking driver.

I scrambled in behind Ted and tried to make myself comfortable-Hah! That bus hadn't been designed for comfort. There must have been an army regulation against it. We bounced across the field toward a distant building.

"What was that all about?" I hissed at Ted.

Ted half-shrugged, half-grinned. "I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Not to me!"

Ted reached over and patted my arm affectionately. I glared at him. He said, "Jimbo, take a look around you. It's a beautiful day. And we are back in civilization! Not even the army can spoil that!"

"I'm not a fairy!"

"I know, dear-but the major was looking for a reason to dislike you and I didn't want to disappoint him. Wow! Look at that sky! Welcome to Denver!"