A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 29 The Bald Man

The first thing I wanted to do was climb into a hot shower, dial it up to something just short of scalding, and let the steam rise up around me forever; no, make that the second thing. The first thing I wanted to do was find Lizard and see if she was still talking to me; but when I got back to the apartment, she wasn't there.

But the bald man was.

What struck me first about him was how shiny his head was. He was totally hairless. Tall and thin, he had a big nose and bright blue eyes made larger by his glasses. He wore an Army uniform and a familiar smile. And he was sitting in my chair-my comfortable chair-nursing a soda. He switched off the TV and stood up when I entered.

The last time I'd seen him was at the meeting where the President had authorized the use of two nuclear devices against the Colorado infestation. He'd looked familiar then too.

I didn't ask, "How did you get in?" The answer was obvious. He had four stars on his shoulders and an Uncle Ira insignia. Instead, I asked, "Where's Lizard?"

"She asked me to talk to you first."

"I see. Who the hell are you?" I was certain I knew his voice; it gave me eerie shivers. The last time I'd spoken to this man it had been bad news too.

"You don't recognize me, do you, Jim?"

"If I had, would I have asked?" I dropped my cases on the floor and shrugged out of my jacket. "You know, there are rules about invading people's private quarters-even for generals."

He tossed me a key. "Here. You can give this back to General Tirelli. Or just leave it on the desk there."

I decided not to stand at attention. Whatever trouble I was in, I probably couldn't make it any worse by making myself at home in my-our-own apartment. I started to pull off my boots, hesitated out of misplaced courtesy, then decided what the heck, he was here by his own choice, and pulled them off anyway. The olfactory result of three days in the same pair of sweat socks was worse than I had anticipated. For a moment I thought a gorp had crawled in and died. I peeled off the grungy socks and threw them into the fireplace, then padded barefoot into the kitchen, hoping to escape-but my feet insisted on coming with me. I grabbed a Coke from the fridge. "You want a refill?" I asked with hostile courtesy.

"I'm fine, thanks." He'd followed me into the kitchen. He rinsed out his glass and put it in the sink. "Jim," he said. "Don't run an attitude on me. This is serious."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"I'm your fairy godmother," he said. He wasn't joking.

"I've had enough to do with fairies today, thanks-"

"I'm Uncle Ira. "

"Bullshit. Uncle Ira's dead-I was there." It seemed like ages ago, but the memory was still terrifyingly real. The worm had been on the stage. In a glass case. The glass had broken. The worm had surged out into the auditorium. Into the audience. I shot out its eyes, first one and then the other. It had nearly killed me. Uncle Ira had been in the front row. He had been one of the first to die. Or had he?

Uncle Ira had been tall and thin, with dark curly hair and round glasses and bright blue eyes and a big nose and

"Oh God." The chill came sleeting up my spine. "It is you." The hand grenade went off somewhere behind my heart, and my brain went into overload, and about two nanoseconds later I started shaking. I felt like I was fainting. I put both hands on the edge of the sink and held on hard, waiting for the feeling to pass-it just got worse. I stared at the empty glass. My reality had been fragile enough; now it was crumbling. My throat was so dry, camels would have died in it. "Who else is still alive?" I managed to ask.

He shook his head. "I'm the only one."

"And even if you weren't, you'd still say you were. Everybody lies about everything."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Look at me, Jim."

I pulled away and kept staring into the sink. "This is another shell game, isn't it? A shell within a shell within a shell."

"Remember the political circumstances of that conference? Most of the Fourth World delegates didn't even believe there were such things as Chtorrans then. They weren't there to cooperate with the United States. They were there to loot us; each of those delegates had an agenda. You saw them. I know you remember-you lost your temper and stood up to argue with Dr. Kwong in front of three thousand people. They knew we had a secret operation. They knew I was connected to it. So we faked my death when we released the worm. It lent credibility to the whole operation, and it gave us a chance to bury the real Uncle Ira operation so deep it didn't exist anymore."

"You mean the Uncle Ira operation I've been a part of-" Abruptly, the meaning of his words sank in. I looked up from the sink and stared at him, aghast. His eyes were incongruously sad. "It's only a cover, isn't it?" I said. "There's a deeper level."

"Yes, there is." He said it without emotion.

"And you're here to enroll me, aren't you? That's the way these things usually work. Or kill me, right?"

He shook his head. "No. We're not going to kill you."

"I suppose I should be relieved. But I'm not." I added, "You know, I always knew there was something going on. I just didn't know what it was. But I could sense things. Patterns. They didn't make sense. There was a level of relationships that I could never quite figure out."

"It's the best place to hide a secret. Inside another secret. When somebody finds the first secret, they're so pleased to have found it that they don't think to keep looking to see if there's more. The same way that the Special Forces serves as a blanket for the Unlimited Infantry, where you accidentally started, the UI covers the United Intelligence agency, where you accidentally ended up. That's what Uncle Ira really stands for, by the way. United Intelligence. And yes, the agency is really a cover for… an operation that doesn't exist and doesn't have a name. I don't exist. I have no authority. There's no budget. I have no office. And I serve under nobody's command."

"But you sit next to the President," I said.

"When I'm needed, yes," he confirmed.

"And Lizard?"

"She's a general in the Special Forces."

I realized I had my hand over my mouth. I was gripping the whole bottom half of my face in astonishment. I forced myself to lower my hand back to the counter. I picked up my Coke again and pushed past General Ira Wallachstein-yes, now I remembered his name-into the living room. He followed me silently.

I looked around for a place to sit. In my own home, I didn't even trust the furniture anymore. "You know, I wondered about it when we moved into this underground apartment. Why did we have to move into a security installation? What was so important that we had to live in, a class-A shielded bunker? Here we are in a radio-clean environment. No emissions. No leakage. You can't even use a portable phone in here. Everything is shielded wires, and every signal is coded and monitored or stopped at the door. I couldn't help but be curious. Why are we so important? So now I know. And I feel like a jerk. You've been using me. Lizard too, right? I've been just a-a utensil. Haven't I?"

He didn't answer fast enough. He looked like he was searching for the right phrase. I took it as assent.

"I see. Well, thanks for the enlightenment. I guess I'll go and pack-"

"You're already packed."

I stopped; I was already halfway to the bedroom door. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're already packed," he repeated.

I opened the bedroom door. There were three fat suitcases and a duffel bag on the floor. I turned around to face him. "I'm being thrown out?"

"Actually…" he began.

"You son of a bitch. You couldn't even let me save enough pride to leave on my own, could you?"

"If you'd let me finish-"

"Okay." I put my hands up in the air. "Go ahead. Tell me I'm a jerk. That's how these things usually play."

"Shut up, stupid," he said tiredly. "And listen. First of all, I don't know what kind of a bug you have up your ass, but ever since you completed the Mode Training, you've become one of the most self-centered, self-destructive shitheads I've ever met. No, no-don't bother taking a bow. You've earned the trophy on this one. You have the uncanny knack of being able to find shit, no matter where you are, just so you can step in it up to your armpits. Even worse, you manage to spread it around to everybody on your side so we can all enjoy it. You are a goddamn loose cannon. I can't begin to tell you what you've fucked up. You don't even give us a chance. If you'd sit down and wait once in a while and trust the people you work for-well, never mind. Frankly, you're more trouble than you're worth. Even Lizard thinks so." The last one hurt. The others, I hardly noticed them; I'd heard worse. But to hear that Lizard had abandoned me emotionally as well as physically

I sank into a chair. I fell backward into it. Hadn't I already had enough today? Why did I have to have this on top of it? I felt myself choking up. I stifled the sob before it came out. I could feel my face tightening; I put my hand over my mouth to cover my expression.

"Ah," he said, perceptively. "Is that what it takes to get your attention? I have to kick you in the balls?"

"Oh, fuck you." I would have come out of the chair swinging, but I remembered something somebody said about it being bad manners to strike a superior officer. Instead I let myself say everything I was feeling. It was just as deadly. "How come you're always willing to protect me after the fact, but never before or during? How come people keep promising me responsibility and then taking it away before I get a chance to prove I can handle it? I worked my ass off on the briefing books for Operation Nightmare. I've got whole chapters in The Red Book. I'm the worm expert. There's nobody who's been inside as many nests as I have. There's nobody who's-aw, hell, I shouldn't even have to tell you this. You should know it. I'm it. I'm the guy who earned the job as science officer on the mission. All of a sudden, General Wainright is playing politics, and who gets tossed to the lions first-?"

"You started it, Jim, when you took down Bellus."

"I didn't take him down. He did it to himself. I told him to read the briefing book. Instead he spent three nights getting stoned on Chtorran pink. We shouldn't be having this argument, General. I should be testifying in the asshole's court-martial. He endangered the lives of my men! Where the hell is the commitment to excellence in this fucking army? Where's the intelligence in the United Intelligence agency? And where the fucking hell is the umbrella that everybody else seems to have, but is never quite big enough to keep me dry too when it starts raining shit?" I was pacing now. I didn't even remember standing up again. I stopped. I was looking at the suitcases in the bedroom and it was almost too much to bear. My throat tightened impossibly. "I thought she loved me. I really did." I looked back to Wallachstein. "Which of us was the whore? Me or her?"

"Neither," he said quietly.

"Then why did she just let me go like she did?"

"She didn't just let you go. If you'll remember, you walked out on her without giving her a chance. If you'd waited, if you'd given her the opportunity to talk to you before you lost your temper, you'd have heard what we were planning."

"What?" I asked, suspiciously.

"We were going to promote you to colonel. Not here. In the field. Away from General Wainright. We were planning to create a whole new specialty branch underneath you. Your job would have been to train and lead field operatives. There's nobody who knows contact procedures like you do. We wanted to see how much of that knowledge you could share before the law of averages caught up with you."

"Why didn't you tell me this before? Why didn't she tell me this?"

"Because, asshole, you never shut up long enough to let anyone else get an edge in wordwise. You never give anyone else any credit for having the brains to know what's appropriate. You just start screaming. You may know your worms, but you sure as hell don't know people."

"Yeah, well, if I know so goddamned much, how come nobody's listening?"

He snorted and shook his head. "You really are tunnel blind, aren't you? Let me tell you something. Every time you file a report, it gets wider circulation than The New York Times best-seller list. Summaries of your reports are required reading for everybody above the rank of captain, and anybody who has even minimal contact with areas coded yellow or higher. For your information, I read your reports raw; they're the first thing I read every day. And I'm not the only one. You don't know how widely read you are, and you don't know how highly regarded are your insights on the infestation."

"Nobody ever told me this."

"We didn't want it to go to your head. You're already unbearable enough already."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"The only thing wrong with your writing is that you have too much anger and not enough gosh-wow. But considering what you've been through, I can make allowances. When you stick to the subject and keep your opinions out of the way-well, yes, I'm telling you the truth."

"Wow," I said. I was more than a little stunned.

"Yes, wow. Your passion for anything Chtorran is legendary. But it's also your own biggest weakness. It makes you impatient, and when you get impatient, you get crazy. Most of us are only human, Jim. We need to sit down and talk things over before we make a decision. We'd appreciate it if you'd wait to lose your temper until after we've had that chance." He pointed to the cases I'd dragged in with me. "Are those your autologs?"

I nodded.

"You don't know how many people want to see what you found in that nest. Are you willing to trust me with them?"

"You ordered our pickup, didn't you? Because you wanted those logs."

Uncle Ira shook his head slowly. "I'll be honest with you. I don't know who ordered your pickup. I'm still checking into it." In explanation, he added, "I'm not the only one who wants those logs."

"So that's why Dannenfelser met us at the chopper-"

"Mm-hm. It wouldn't surprise me if he ordered it himself."

"Sure, he's probably trying to cover his ass," I said. "But it won't work. Too many people know about this mess. Is he going to be court-martialed?"

"If you insist, yes. But it'll probably be a double ceremony. You beat him up pretty bad. He has witnesses. You press charges, so will he. It'll get ugly."

"Fine," I said. "Let's do it."

Wallachstein looked very annoyed. "You know, the two of you deserve each other. That's what he said too."

"I want it on the record what he did-! I want some goddamned justice." I could feel my voice rising again.

"You don't want justice, you want revenge."

"Whatever! I've earned it. Let's set a court date right now. Go ahead, there's the phone."

"Sorry, Jim. It's not going to happen that way."

"Huh?'

"Listen to me." Wallachstein rubbed his nose. He didn't like having to say what he was about to say. "General Wainright and I… had a little talk. He really doesn't like you."

I shrugged. "It's kinda mutual."

"He's from the old Army, Jim. He doesn't understand you any more than you understand him. But like it or not, we need him to make the system work, so the rest of us can do our jobs. I want you to respect that."

"You're talking as if I still have a future." I said it skeptically.

Uncle Ira nodded slowly. "General Wainright is putting a leash on Dannenfelser. I'm putting a leash on you."

"Is that the price? I can keep my career if I turn in my self-respect."

He looked annoyed and tired and frustrated. "I remember we had this same problem communicating last time. Sometimes I don't know why I bother. Sit down." He sat down opposite me and lowered his tone. I started getting a very queasy feeling as he spoke. "What the hell is it with you anyway? And I don't mean just this thing with Bellus and Dannenfelser. I mean everything. You think I haven't been watching you for the past few years? Do you honestly think I don't know what you've been through? Do you think I don't care? Christ, I wasn't kidding when I said I was your fairy godmother. You don't know how many times I've moved the scenery for you. The Uncle Ira group takes care of its own. You just don't know it. All I want from you is a little goddamned cooperation."

"I thought I was cooperating-"

"Oy," he said, putting a hand to his head as if he were in deep spiritual pain. He shook his head to clear it. He looked up at the ceiling as if in silent communion with God. After a moment, he looked back at me with a sad and helpless expression. "You know, even God has a bad day once in a while. But you-you're making a whole career out of it. You've always been angry and self-destructive, but for the past three months, you've been setting new records." He was dead serious now. "Something is up with you, Jim. We thought if we gave you some space to sort it out by yourself, you'd be okay. We hoped that would work because nobody had the time to hold your hand and help you through this and you've actually been pretty good at sorting yourself out in the past; but this time it isn't working. So this is it. Bottom line. I'm only telling you once. It ends here. Today. Right now. This minute. Whatever you've got going on, handle it. Do you understand? Handle it or get out of the way."

"You think it's that easy?" I asked. "You can just tell someone to be sane and that's it?"

"I wish it were," he said. "Everything would be a lot easier. You asked me if you were a tool. Yes, you are. You happen to be an extremely valuable tool, for more reasons than I care to explain right now. Believe me, I really hate losing a good tool. But no matter how valuable you are, if I can't depend on you in a clinch I have no choice but to bounce you and get someone else who may not be as good; but who I can count on not to be so crazy that he drives the people around him into therapy."

"My bags are packed and sitting in the bedroom," I said skeptically. "That's a pretty clear signal, isn't it? I'm being thrown out."

"Your bags are packed so you can leave immediately. If you want to go to Panama City and join the operation, I have your orders right here." He pulled the papers out of his coat pocket, then looked at his watch. "You have just enough time to catch your flight. If you don't want to go to Panama City, I have a billet for you in Idaho, filing reclamation waivers. It's your choice."

"What does Lizard want?"

"Don't be stupid. Why do you think I'm here? You think I'm doing this for you? It's for her. She wants you in Brazil; otherwise she never wants to see you again."

I was already on my feet. "I'll take it-"

"Wait a minute," he said. "I mean it about cutting out the bullshit." He rose up in front of me, stepped in close, and put his hands on my shoulders. "You're not stupid. You've had access to a lot of Most Secret material. You know what's going on. The infestation hasn't abated-it's only pausing to assimilate its conquests; when it starts to expand again, it'll be the beginning of the end. We don't have the resources to resist anymore. Operation Nightmare is the last scientific mission. There won't be any resources for anything else if this fails. This is our last best chance to find a weak link in the Chtorran ecology. And we have to find it quickly.

"We're in the middle of a raging population crash. The best thing I can say about public morale is that it's uncertain. The government is pulling back everywhere. People are retreating to fortress cities. And everybody is crazy. That's not just a cliche, Jim. I mean it; nobody is untouched. We're all walking wounded. Some of us are just a little more obvious than others. The intersection between the collective and individual traumas is producing catatonics, berserkers, libertines, and lord knows what else. I can't tell you to get sane; there's no such thing as sanity anymore. All l can do is tell you to pretend. Act sane. Control your craziness. Take it elsewhere and express it in ways that won't undermine the war effort. I promise you, if you find a way to kill the worms, you can have all the dogs, chickens, and Boy Scouts you want to fuck. Just remember what the first priority is."

"That's never been the question," I said. "I've always known what my job is. When I get angry, it's because I'm not sure that the people around me know what their jobs are."

"I don't care why you lose your temper. I just want you to stop. Can you do that?" His expression was piercing. His bright blue eyes were inescapable.

"I'll talk to Lizard," I promised.

He studied me for a long moment. "I don't know if I believe you."

"I don't know what to say to be convincing, or how to say it so you'll be convinced. I got your message. I'm an asshole and you want me to stop. I don't know if it's possible to stop being an asshole. And if it is possible, I'm damned sure that it's not possible to do it overnight. But if you're asking me what kind of an effort I'm willing to make-well, I'm willing to commit myself totally to doing whatever I have to do to make the biggest damn difference I can in the goddamn war against the goddamn worms. And if that means swallowing my goddamn pride and if it means getting down on my knees right here in front of you and begging for the chance to go to Brazil, I'll even do that too. Not just for Brazil, but for Lizard. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. She's the only good thing that's ever happened to me. I'd rather die than live without her. So, yes, I'll do what you want. Anything. I promise; I'll find a way to handle my anger without clobbering other people with it. I don't know how, but I will." I took a breath. "Is that good enough for you?"

It was.

He handed me my orders. "Don't let me down. I broke my cover for you. Make me right."

I nodded. Somehow, it seemed inappropriate to thank him. But I didn't know what else to say. I felt suddenly embarrassed. It was going to be harder to go back to Lizard than it would have been to go to Idaho. I shrugged halfheartedly, a gesture of acknowledgment and thanks and whatever else I was feeling, and started for my suitcases.

"You only need the duffel," he said. "Leave the others. The gear you'll want in Brazil is already on its way."

"You thought of everything, didn't you?"

"There's a car waiting downstairs. Your flight leaves in thirty minutes. You have just enough time to wash your feet. And there are clean socks in the bottom drawer."

"Aren't you going to wish me luck?" I was starting to feel good again.

He shook his head. "If you need it, then I'm sending the wrong man."

"Hot Seat," April 3rd broadcast: (cont'd)

ROBISON:… So of course, if everyone would just sign up for the Mode Training tomorrow, we'd all be saved from the evil Chtorrans.

FOREMAN: Pay attention, John. You're hearing what you're hearing. You're not hearing what I'm saying. If there is a way to save ourselves; we need to turn ourselves into the kind of people who are committed to doing that, whatever it takes. What we're finding in the Training is that a lot of the decisions that have to be made are very difficult decisions. They challenge some of our most fundamental assumptions about what is appropriate behavior for a rational human being.

ROBISON: So you're not even sure that we can save ourselves from the giant purple man-eating worms, are you? You're just another opportunist, another phony, preying on the moment.

FOREMAN: The underlying assumption of your show, John, is that your idealism has been betrayed-by con men, by charlatans, by people with their own agendas, probably by just about everybody you've ever trusted. That's why you're so skeptical, and rightfully so, about The Core Group and the Mode Training and anything else that dares to speak to the higher aspirations of humanity. You've been conned and cheated too many times, beaten up, beaten down, manipulated, dominated, pushed around, taken advantage of, bruised and hurt and left bleeding in the dust-and you've made up your mind not to ever let it happen again, by God. Isn't that correct? It's all right, you can nod your head. Well, guess what? So has every other human being on this planet experienced the same kinds of betrayals. We're all angry. The honest ones admit it. We've all been conned and cheated, and we all share the same enraged feelings about hypocrites and abusers that you do. Most of us aren't as good at voicing them as you are, and that's why you pull such high ratings. Your job is to be spokesman for the , anger, and you do it very well. The bad news is that you're like the watchdog who can't tell the difference between a hand raised to strike you and a hand raised to pat you on the head. You bite them both, just to be safe.

FOREMAN: (continuing after commercial)… The Core Group is not an organization or an institution. It's an informal network of people who are connected only in their dedication to a common goal. The Core Group is an idea, an attitude, an approach, a commitment, an operating context, and a technology for achieving results. The underlying assertion is that when we as individuals align our separate purposes all in the same direction, like individual magnetic particles lining up toward a common pole, we can make an amazing difference on the planet. When enough individuals align, when the direction of the entire human species is aligned, then miraculous results are not only possible, they're inevitable.

ROBISON: (long pause) Okay. You've stated it clear enough. So what's this magical alignment supposed to produce? What's the goal?

FOREMAN: Thanks. I thought you'd never ask. When we created the distinction that there is a Core Group, the immediate goal was to create the political will to resist and repel the Chtorran invasion of the Earth. That was six years ago. Later, when we realized the scale of what we were dealing with, we realized we'd been shortsighted. We re-created our purpose and committed ourselves to the survival of humanity, and as much of the Earth's ecology as we could save, regardless of the circumstances. Today we know a whole lot more about the processes at work, and we've expanded our goal again. We've committed ourselves to the survival of Gaia as an ecological system, and ourselves as the responsible part of that whole.

ROBISON: Mm-hm. But it sounds like you've forgotten about the Chtorran infestation altogether. You're not building weapons, you're spewing jargon.

FOREMAN: On the contrary. We're recognizing the scale of the infestation may be beyond our immediate ability to resist and repel. It may have always been beyond our ability. We need to be clear about what's doable. But in one respect, we're lucky that this infestation did not happen sooner in our history; at least now we have the ability to move large parts of our genetic heritage offworld and safely beyond the reach of the infestation. We have more than sixty low-orbit shuttles operating and another thirty on the assembly line. We have at least six lift-offs from Maui every day. Every single flight takes another part of the seed bank into space. We're supplying Luna and the two Lagrange stations almost faster than they can receive cargo. Luna City is doming three more craters, just to turn them into biospheres. Both of the Lagrange installations are inflated, hardened, and airtight. Offworld emigration is reaching nearly a hundred a month, and by next year at this time, it will be up to a hundred a week. By moving into space, we're taking the high ground. We're giving ourselves an impregnable fortress from which we will eventually be able to counterattack in strength. And if it takes a thousand years for us to discover a weakness in the Chtorran ecosystem, we'll find it and we'll exploit it. This is our planet. I promise you, we are going to preserve and protect and restore what is most precious and special about this world.

ROBISON: Hmp. (standing on his chair and holding his hand up high) Save your watches, folks. It's getting deeper. (stepping back down) I'm sure glad I'm not wearing new shoes. They'd have been ruined. You sure know how to pile it up, Doc. I mean, that all sounds terrific, but as far as I'm concerned it's another wheelbarrow load of four-dollar jargon. Why don't you just come right out and say it, that we're in a full-scale retreat? That your science boys haven't been able to do much more than count the teeth on a worm from the inside and then tell us that it's dangerous.

FOREMAN: We're not in retreat-

ROBISON: Right. It's a strategic evacuation. But even that doesn't wash. There's at least a billion species left on this planet. Do you think you can save them all? I doubt it. And what about those of us who get left behind? What do we become? Worm food?

FOREMAN: Nobody's being left behind. You're assuming that some of us are abandoning all of us. That's not the case, all of us are making it possible for some of us to operate out of a safe harbor. Consider it insurance. We're making it possible for humanity to survive the very worst-case scenario…