A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 51 Serenade

Then she exploded.

"Now, let me make this excruciatingly clear!" she said such sudden anger that every person in the room was startl, immediately to attention. She pointed vehemently at the alarm display spread across the video table. "That is the enemy. Down, there! If you have any hatred, any enmity, any negative thoughts toward anything that isn't big and red and Chtorran, then you are betraying the mandate of this mission and the oath you took when you enlisted." To Johns and the people around him, she said "I'm not asking you to love MeCarthy. Frankly, he's not very lovable, and loving him isn't an easy job. But I am ordering you to work with him and I am ordering you to treat all of your coworkers with the same respect and courtesy that you'd want in return." I felt sorry for Johns. It wasn't all his fault, but he was bearing the brunt of it. It was obvious that he'd gotten the message. He looked close to tears. Apparently he'd never been bawled out like this before.

And General Tirelli still wasn't through. She turned around include everyone in the cargo bay. There was absolute silence. The work had stopped. "Let me make this clear to each and every one of you." She spoke in precise clipped tones that only served accentuate the depth of her anger. "I am sick and fucking tired all this goddamn infighting, politicking, backbiting, and position scrabbling. I'm sick of it in Houston. I'm sick of it here. It does not serve you. It doesn't serve us. And it doesn't serve the people who sent us-so this is the end of it. It stops right here and right now." She looked back to Technician Clayton Johns specifically. "From this moment on, everything you say and everything you do had better be in the service of this mission, or I'll have you up on charges so fast you'll think Einstein was wrong about the speed of light. And that goes for the rest of you-and everybody else on this goddamn airship. Is that clear? It is? Good." And then in a surprisingly calm tone of voice, she turned to Captain Harbaugh. "Do you want to add anything to that, Captain?"

Captain Harbaugh gazed studiedly at General Tirelli. "Goddamn?" she questioned. "Goddamn airship? I'll have you know that the pope himself blessed this vessel."

"Really?" Lizard looked genuinely surprised.

"Last year, in Rome." Captain Harbaugh was obviously pleased with herself.

"I apologize," said Lizard. "I got carried away."

"No problem. I enjoyed watching you work. You're very good." Captain Harbaugh turned to the rest of us and added quietly, "What General Tirelli said goes for me too. You're guests on this vessel. I expect you all to behave appropriately." Then she looked calmly to me and spoke as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. "Captain McCarthy? Please-what is your assessment of the situation?"

"Uh, I'm not a captain anymore, ma'am. I'm retired."

"I know that, yes, but you're still entitled to the honorific. If you please?"

"Yes, well-" I cleared my throat, I looked back at the video table. It dominated the darkness. We all looked like ghouls in its ghastly green light. The glowing display had changed significantly in the last few moments. Something was clearly happening below. The worms were surging up out of the ground. Our presence had to be the trigger. I cleared my throat a second time. "Um, our science officer has been studying this map longer than I have." I nodded across the table to Dwan. "I think it might be more valuable to hear what she has to say."

Captain Harbaugh looked to Dwan. "Lieutenant Grodin?" Lizard caught my eye and nodded very slightly. Good.

Dwan looked startled. I'd caught her off balance; she hadn't expected that from me. But she began stammering out words, clumsily at first, then as she regained control, her phrases became more carefully constructed. "J-just in the't-time we've been talking, I've b-been m-monitoring changes in the nest. We're almost d-directly over the center of the m-m-mandala now-that's the central arena d-down there."

Captain Harbaugh nodded. "We're sky-anchoring now." She meant that the airship's computer would hold us at our present mooring and position for as long as we wanted it to. Satellite reconnaissance had revealed that the center of this mandala, like the center of the Japuran mandala, had been cleared to form a large open area; the Purus mandala also looked like it was being similarly shaped. Whatever the process was, it was generic.

Nobody was sure exactly what purposes these huge clearings served, but the presence of such a clearing at the exact center of each mandala suggested considerable importance. The Mission Design Team-Lizard had brought me in to work with them, between the various postponements-had decided almost from the very beginning that the airship should take up its position directly over the center of the mandala. Whatever significance the arena Ir.rd for the worms might serve us equally well.

Dwan Grodin continued. As she spoke, she sprayed spittle. She couldn't control it. The rest of us pretended not to notice, even though the spray made the display on the video table sparkle where the drops hit. "S-s-since we came into view, the gastropedes have been m-moving s-steadily toward the center of the's-settlement. M-m-most of them seem to be g-gathering in the arena. M-milling around uncertainly. B-but-this m-might be important-even b-before our approach,'s-something unusual was happening." She scuttled sideways around the table, shuffling like a little troll. She stretched and pointed. Someone handed her a hand-laser, and she fumbled with it until she got the beam to light. "There-that's the m-most visible example. S-see? Th-that was a cluster of n-nests and corrals. N-now, it's b-been d-disassembled. We d-don't understand why, but the same thing is happening all over the settlement. We think that this m-m-mandala is-or was until we appeared-b-b-beginning the next phase of its expansion. Now, with the g-g-gastropedes g-gathering in the arena, we d-d-don't know what's going to happen, I m-mean with the't-transformation of the nest. We've d-disturbed it. We know that the g-g-gastropedes are going to react violently to our presence in their sky, we d-don't know what the aftereffects will b-be," She slopped talking, grateful that her effort was ended. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

Lizard looked vaguely unhappy. Dwan hadn't really said anything we didn't already know. This was precisely what I had told her. Dwan didn't have the insight necessary to the job. Captain Harbaugh was also dissatisfied. She turned back to me. "Do you have anything to add to that?"

"I had a thought…" I started to say: "It's pretty far out, but…"

"Go ahead, Jim," Lizard said quietly.

"Well…" I rubbed my nose. I wasn't sure I liked the idea, but I was committed now to expressing it. Actually, it almost made sense in the darkness of the observation bay. I turned back to Captain Harbaugh. "When were you planning to illuminate the airship?"

"Whenever General Tirelli recommends it." She looked to Lizard.

Lizard looked to me. "You're the assigned expert. What's your advice?"

For just the briefest instant, I wanted to ask who was on first. "Well," I said. "I was just thinking about what was going to happen when we turn on the display."

"Th-the w-worms w-will g-g-go c-crazy. Y-you should know th-that," said Dwan. She was still unhappy with me.

"Do you want us to hold off?" asked Captain Harbaugh.

I rubbed my cheek with the palm of my hand. I needed a shave. I was feeling very uncomfortable and very much on the spot. "No, there's no reason to. You can do it anytime now. Look at the display; the worms know we're here. As dark as it is, they can still see us clearly. They're gathering in the arena. They're waiting for us to do something." The video table showed the view of the large central clearing directly underneath the airship. The worms were pouring into it from all over the mandala. They couldn't have been more eager if somebody had been giving away free puppies. They were turning around and around. They were all staring upward.

Even though the arena was already filled, more and more worms were arriving every moment. I pointed toward the open cargo access. "Listen to that. They're singing to us." From below, a gauzy trilling was becoming increasingly noticeable; it floated upward through the open observation bay like a bad smell. Several people at the table shuddered.

"So? What's your p-p-point?" asked Dwan. Her tone of voice suggested that she thought this entire conversation was a waste of t-t-time.

"The singing," I said. I stared right back at her. "What is it?"

She wasn't flustered. She knew the answer. She'd read it in the briefing. She'd read it in The Red Book. Release 22.19A. "We know all about the's-singing. We exp-p-pected it. It's a…" She struggled with the words. "It's a-a reflex ph-phenomenon."

"What if The Red Book is wrong?" I asked.

I looked across the table at her. I didn't like myself for what I was about to do, but I had to do it. I had to make the point. I was going to send another message to General Wainright. Lizard was frowning; this scene was making her unhappy, but she made no move to stop me. She understood what I was doing-and the answer was more important than manners.

"Y-you wrote th-that p-part of th-the b-book," Dwan accused. She looked betrayed.

"And now I'm saying I might have been wrong. I've had second thoughts. So now, without referring to the book, you tell me what the singing is-what you think it is."

"W-well, th-the's-singing th-that we're hearing n-now is a-a-anticip-patory," Dwan began hesitantly. "They d-don't know what we are, b-but th-they're reacting to our sh-shape. Wh-when th-the lights g-go on, the w-worms w-will all g-go crazy. They'll see this airship as a v-vision in the sky of the b-biggest and m-most b-beautiful w-worm in the entire universe. And that w-will't-trigger a r-religious f-frenzy."

"A religious frenzy?" Captain Harbaugh raised an eyebrow.

I nodded. "That's what it looks like."

"Wh-what else would you c-call it?" Dwan stammered. "A giant v-vision of G-god appears in the sky and th-the c-crowd g-gets hysterical."

"That implies that the worms have enough intelligence to have a perception of God," I said. "And we know they don't. The worms have less smarts than chimpanzees. So, if it isn't a reaction to a vision of God, what is it?"

"It's-" Dwan stopped as she realized what I'd said. She looked stricken. Her expression crumpled and tears welled up in her eyes. She recognized immediately the flaw in her logic. "I-I'm sorry," she gulped. "I w-wasn't th-thinking." She'd made a mistake, and the pain of failure was an emotional blow beyond her ability to cope. I felt like a heel for embarrassing her in public.

"Go on, Jim," Lizard prompted.

I glanced away from Dwan. I wanted to go to her and explain that it wasn't her fault; it was my mistake, not hers; that's what I'd believed too when I wrote that part of the book. But-I'd have to do that later. I turned to Lizard and Captain Harbaugh. "See, this is what I've been thinking about for the last two days-and the more I think about it, the more right it feels. There's no such thing as one Chtorr. They don't exist as individuals. They exist as a song. The song is the identity, and the nest is the place where the song lives. The worms are just the instruments that the song uses." I looked from one to the other, letting the idea sink in.

Some of the crew around the display tables looked skeptical. Well, I'd already admitted up front that the idea was pretty far out. I glanced over at Dwan; her face was absolutely blank, she was searching her data banks for equivalent processes in nature.

Captain Harbaugh put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward to study the display. She looked intrigued. She nodded thoughtfully. "Yes," she said, almost to herself. "The same way language uses human beings."

Lizard's expression was darker, but she too was considering the idea; perhaps she was already seeing some of the ramifications. "Okay," she said, carefully laying it out for herself. "So, what you're saying is that the worms are just component parts-"

"Right."

"So… to them, the song would be the experience of God."

"Yes, that's exactly it. To a worm, the nest-song is God. And each and every worm knows that he or she or it, or whatever, is part of that God. And each and every worm knows that each and every other worm in the nest is also part of that same God. So when they look up in the sky and see us…" I left the sentence unfinished.

"I think I'm beginning to get it," said Lizard.

Captain Harbaugh looked back and forth between the two of us. "You're going too fast for me. Can I have the annotated version?"

"Sorry," I said. "Let me recap. See, here's the mistake we've been making. We've been thinking that when the worms look up and see a big purple airship in the sky, they're reacting to it as a vision of God, like it's an angel or visitation, and that therefore the songs are some kind of prayer. But that's a human perception. It could only be true if the worms were like humans and had minds of their own. But they don't. The worms don't have minds. So the question isn't simply what are they reacting to. They're reacting to a big worm, yes-but what do they intend? What could they possibly want from the sky-worm?"

"Amplification," said Dwan. Everybody turned to look at her. "More's-singing," she said. "Th-they w-want our super sky voice added to th-their song. They w-want enlargement."

"Right," I said. I licked my finger, drew a brownie point in the air for Dwan, then pointed at her, clicked my tongue, and winked in a you-got-it gesture. She nearly wet her pants with happiness.

I looked to Lizard and Captain Harbaugh. "That's my thought exactly. I think we should sing with the worms. I think we should take their song, digitize it, sample it, do a real-time analysis, expand it, synthesize a bigger voice, and feed it right back to them. At this height, if we want them to hear the song in sync, we'll have to do some forward projection to allow for the time delay. But that's part of the program."

"How long will it take to set up?" asked Lizard. She had ajr expectant look in her eyes.

"Well, actually, I wasn't planning to suggest it until after we saw what happened here. I was hoping to test it, but I was really thinking in terms of the Japuran mandala-"

"Yes, I know," said Lizard. She repeated her question. "How long will it take to set up?"

"It's all ready to go," I said modestly. "I spent most of the afternoon working out the algorithms with the Houston LI. The program is on-line and ready to run. All we have to do is activate it."

"I thought so," she smiled.

"And then what?" asked Captain Harbaugh. "What will that prove?"

I spread my hands wide. "In itself, nothing. But here's the second part of the experiment. We've got thousands of hours of worm songs stored and sampled and collated. The LI engines have extracted a lot of different patterns. There seem to be certain connections of harmony and rhythm and flavor, and we've tentatively assigned cmotional meanings to some of them. I was thinking-" I glanced around the table. Everybody was looking at me. Everybody was listening. "I was thinking that maybe this is how we can establish some kind of communication with them. We can start by echoing, but let's go beyond that. Let's broadcast other songs back to them. Let's see how they react to the sounds of different nests. Let's see what kinds of responses we can get from them. Maybe we might even find some song or set of songs that turns the worms peaceful-or that we can use against them. I don't know what we'll find. But it's certainly worth trying, isn't it?"

Lizard and Captain Harbaugh exchanged a glance. Each in her own way was thinking about the possibility. They moved away from the video table to discuss it in private. Lizard nodded at me to follow.

"Heisenberg?" said Captain Harbaugh. There was a whole conversation in that single word.[5]

Lizard shrugged. "We already knew that our presence was going to disturb the worms. There was no way we were ever going to get a neutral observation of a pure nest."

And I added the second half of that thought: "So if we're going in disturb them anyway, why not really disturb them? Why not do it for a purpose?"

Captain Harbaugh thought about it. "What about the Brazilians?" she asked.

We all looked at each other. Good question.

"We're supposed to consult with them," Lizard said.

"If we do…" I said reluctantly, "they'll veto the exercise. Remember the mandate of the mission. We're not supposed to interfere with the mandalas in any way."

"Mm," said Lizard. "There's that."

We all looked at each other some more. Frustration.

"Well-" I suggested, "maybe we could fudge it a little."

"How?"

"Suppose we tell them that we're concerned about the possibility that the gastropedes are, uh, reacting badly to our presence-I mean, just look down-and that we're afraid that they'll panic or something. And, uh, hurt themselves. Or the nest. And that, uh, we're prepared to broadcast their own songs back to them, because, uh, we think it'll have a calming effect."

Captain Harbaugh and General Tirelü looked at each other thoughtfully. "What the hell. It might work," said Lizard. Captain Harbaugh thought about it some more, then nodded her agreement. "It's your call," she said.

Lizard turned to me. "If we do this, my ass is on the line. What's the worst that could happen?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea. Define worst." And then I added, "Nothing we do is going to hurt us. The worst that can happen is that we'll hurt the worms."

"Hm," she said, smiling gently. "There is that." I knew that was Uncle Ira talking. "Hmm," she said again-and I relaxed. From the tone of her hmm, I knew she was going to talk herself into it. Sure enough, she said, "I think we have to take the risk. I think you're on to something, Jim. And this may be our only chance to find out. Set it up. I'll go talk to the Brazilians."