By the third day, we were starting to get some good data on some of the families and tribes and nations within the mandala. We started naming the nations first-AMERICA, RUSSIA, ENGLAND, FRANCE, MEXICO. We named the tribes after cities-NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO, DENVER, HONOLULU, LONDON, LIVERPOOL, BIRMINGHAM, MANCHESTER, PARIS, NICE, BREST, MARSEILLES, MOSCOW, ST. PETERSBURG, KIEV, LA PAZ, TIJUANA, MAZATLAN, ACAPULCO. We named the families within each tribe after suburbs-HOLLYWOOD, BEVERLY HILLS, BURBANK, MANHATTAN, BROOKLYN, YONKERS, NEW JERSEY-until our memories failed us and we had to dial up the world atlas for more names.
CAROLYN JANE BENSON was from the BROOKLYN family of the NEW YORK tribe. NASTY JOHN ROBISON was from the NEW JERSEY family. Chris Swett had tried to point out that New Jersey was not a suburb of New York City, but Benson had simply replied, "Don't tell that to anyone who lives in Manhattan."
I replied to that one. "Nobody lives in Manhattan anymore."
"They will again," Benson said. "They will."
By now, we were starting to get a little desperate on worm names. We were giving them names like RED HAT, RED QUEEN, RED SQUARE, BIG BEAR, FAT BUTT, HUMPALONG, SNUFFLES, STEAMBOAT, BALLBUSTER, CHICKEN LITTLE, and THE WELL OF LONELINESS-or just THE WELL for short. THE WELL was a particularly interesting worm, something of a loner. It was an extremely large purple beast, and it nested at the far end of one of the southernmost tendrils of the mandala. Apparently no other worms nested with it, and that aroused our curiosity. We'd never observed a reclusive gastropede before. Periodically, THE WELL would wander into the mandala, munching its way through the gardens and corrals. On one visit, it devoured ten bunnydogs in succession-unfortunately, they were tagged ones. We lost the channels to ENZER, CARROLL, ROBERTS, MOEHLE, POWERS, GANS, NASH, MURPHY, FARREN, and HAYDEN, all in a single meal. Robin Ramsey, the accounts manager, swore a purple-and-red streak for twenty furious minutes. "Those goddamn, son-of-a-bitch, cocksucking probes are too shit-fucking expensive! And too goddamn hard to motherfucking put in bloody place!"
"Don't mince words, Robin," Brickner said calmly. "Tell us what you really think."
She just glared at him, then stormed out incoherently. Benson decided to rename the worm VERY WELL in recognition of its impressive appetite.
We didn't see Robin again until the end of the day. No one wanted to tell her that CAROLYN JANE BENSON, NASTY JOHN ROBISON, DUPA T. PARROT, and GOJIRA had, between them, just wiped out WILL, MARSHALL, HOLLY, SID, MARTY, KIRK, SPOCK, SCOTTY, SULU, CHEKOV, PICARD, RIKER, DATA, TROI, TASHA, and THE GREAT BIRD.
Oh, and WESLEY too.
We are now seeing the development of many new Chtorran forms, variants that have probably always been possible, but could not occur until the conditions necessary for their appearance became established.
Of particuiar interest is the discovery of gastropedes of reduced proportions. These miniature gastropedes, or "mini-Chtorrans," have been observed ranging in size from one to three meters. With the exception of their diminutive dimensions, they are mature Chtorrans in every respect, even demonstrating fully striated displays of color banding that identify their service to specific nests within the mandata.
These miniature Chtorrans can be found only in very large, very well-developed mandata settlements. They are apparently a natural biological dysfunction that occurs when a Chtorran infestation becomes so dense that the surrounding territory cannot sufficiently feed all of the settlement's members.
Perhaps what we are seeing here is evidence that the Chtorran ecology is self-regulating, that it knows its own limits, and that when it reaches a natural boundary to its expansion, it shifts from a context of expansion to one of assimilation. Perhaps these mini-Chtorrans are actually the final and mature form of the gastropede in a stable Chtorran ecology. However, the ultimate verification of this thesis is impossible without first realizing a large-scale extermination of the remaining Terran ecology.
—The Red Book,
(Release 22.19A)
Chapter 62
"You're not going."
"Upset causes change. Change causes upset."
-SOLOMON SHORT
-and then the horror closed back in again. The new pictures were the most monstrous of all. All the names just faded back into unreality. Meaningless. As if by naming things, we could somehow understand or control them. Or take away their power to hurt. How stupid we'd been.
It was like smashing headfirst into a wall of pain.
-I broke away from the wall of monitors and turned back to the video display table where Lieutenant Siegel and Sergeant Lopez waited silently and respectfully for me.
Siegel indicated the map of the distant mandala. Several places were highlighted. "Here," he said. "We've located five sites." lie looked twitchy. He didn't look like the same Kurt C. Siegel of two weeks ago, who was ready to jump out of the rescue pod to go after Corporal Kathryn Beth Willig. This Siegel was unnerved. He'd seen something-maybe something about the map, or something about the mission, or maybe just something about the responsibility of deciding who lives and who dies-I didn't know what it was, but it worried me. It wasn't good to have doubts about the job. I could testify to that.
He realized I was studying him, and he looked across at me intently. "Something wrong?"
I shook my head slowly. "I don't know." And then, to his quizzical look, I had to explain. "I mean, I don't know anything anymore. Everything just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?" He didn't understand. I sighed, I shook my head. "I'm sorry," I confessed, "I'm really losing it, aren't I?"
"We all are," said Lopez. "It's the mission. It's the worms. Everybody's crazy."
"I wish you were right." I reached across the corner of the table and clapped her roughly on the shoulder in a gesture of masculine camaraderie.
She returned the stroke, patting me on the shoulder with a gentle, almost feminine grace. "Hang in there, boss man. You got a good lady lookin' out for you. She needs you to stay sane enough to look out for her too."
"It's that obvious, huh?"
Lopez shook her head. "Let's go to work, huh?"
I nodded, gratefully. "What's on the plate?"
"Five sites," repeated Siegel.
"Assessment?" I asked.
"You first," Siegel said. He punched up pictures from all five locations. "Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon."
I trade places with Lopez. I move around to the same side of the table and look at the pictures. They blur. Little boys like bunnydogs, pink and furry. Shocking erections. Fat women. Swollen. Pregnant girls with thick legs and thick lips and bloated breasts. All naked. Bunnymen humping on them like desperate monsters. Imps and demons. Where are the older boys? Where are the men? More pictures. Women like apes-three hundred kilos-enormous and strong. Little brown men like withered gnomes, grinning and ferocious. Eating, chewing the flesh off a human leg bone. Little red people. They look almost human. I can't tell what they are anymore. They chatter at each other in Indian languages, and the LI runs translations underneath. I want to vomit.
I reached past him and clicked off four of the images. "Infected. Infected. Infected. Infected."
"Alpha?" he asked.
We studied the pictures together. People. Mostly children. Thin. Clean skins. In a corral. Prisoners? We can't tell. The mood is different. Whatever was happening in the other sites, it hasn't happened here. Not yet.
"Colombians?"
Siegel nodded. "They're new. This corral was empty two days ago."