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.