"Okay," said Siegel. "Here's the playback-"

In front of me, reality shifted and flickered; the time readout said we were looking back less than an hour. There were more slugs in the pile. It was bigger.

"We were planting probes," said Siegel. "One of them slipped. Well, just watch."

The probe was shaped almost like a slug itself, only hardshelled. It was a flat, rounded ovoid, looking something like a streamlined beetle. It didn't have the intelligence of a prowler, it was a simple-minded thing, but it was sufficient for the job at hand.

In the view ahead, one of the probes was trying to crawl over the mass of squirming wet creatures when it disturbed the equilibrium of the heap, and a number of the slugs started sliding wetly down. Immediately all of the slugs began screaming, a shrill, high-pitched, piercing chorus of noise. As they did, the pile broke apart into several smaller conglomerations. A scattering of individual slugs squirmed across the fleshy floor of the nest. All of them were moving faster now, writhing and wriggling with nasty agitation. Some of the organs of the nest began reacting to the noise and the excitement, resonating with their own tremblings and blubbering sounds. This only increased the discomfort and agitation of the slugs.

"Now, watch this-" said Siegel. "Watch the two on the right."

The slugs were squealing like piglets separated from their sow. The two on the right were the most annoyed. One of them accidentally bumped into the other; both of the slugs reacted with intense visceral anger. They faced each other, both retracting back and bristling with goose-bumpy-like protrusions. One of them attempted to rear up; the other attacked, biting furiously. The first one squealed in pain, then it too began biting; the two of them rolled and tumbled, biting and screaming, writhing across the soft floor like eels. The pallid slugs had amazingly large mouths. Our scans of the prowler's first three specimens showed they had no teeth, only hard-ridged gums. It wasn't hard to believe that they might in fact be baby worms. The ferocity of the fight before us would be evidence enough for most people.

"Here we go now," said Siegel. "This is the amazing thing." The two slugs careened like a pinwheel, suddenly slamming into a red blubber and ricocheting off into another agitated cluster of siblings. Immediately the cluster of slugs exploded with anger, each of the individual creatures transforming into the same kind of enraged creature as the two who had triggered the chain reaction. Each of the slugs attacked whatever slug was closest to it, sometimes forming a daisy chain of attackers, sometimes clumping, forming and re-forming new clusters of churning furies. Within seconds, every slug in the jumble was part of the fray. The thick blood spattered, then it flowed, finally it puddled.

A few seconds more and the pattern of the fight solidified. Every slug was attacking, every slug was biting, every slug was furiously eating. Those slugs that were too severely wounded, or overpowered by multiple attackers, soon stopped moving and were quickly devoured. Soon the furies began to slow, shortly the fighting stopped altogether, replaced instead by an orgy of voracious feeding, gorging, and mindless chewing. Eventually, the original jumble began to re-form again, this time with fewer, but much fatter, members. Of the missing brethren, only a few dark patches remained. The remaining slugs were still uneasy, but we could see that they were quieter now and would soon resume their former, less agitated state.

Siegel returned the display to now-time. "Pretty scary stuff, huh?"

"I've seen committee meetings that were worse," I said, but not too convincingly. Siegel was right. These creatures had a ferocity that belied their blobby, amorphous innocence.

"What do you think?"

"Interesting defense mechanism," I said. "Whenever you're distressed, eat someone." My voice was a lot calmer than my stomach said it should have been.

"So? Do you think these are baby worms?" Siegel asked.

I hesitated before answering. "I don't know," I admitted. "I've seen baby worms. They had hair. These don't. Maybe these are some kind of transitory phase." I popped off the VR helmet and began thinking out loud. "The babies I saw had been tamed by a renegade family. They already had three adult worms, but they wanted more. I think they wanted to start breeding them. I've always wondered how that would have worked out-who would have ended up controlling who.

"But I was with them when they found a fourth worm, a baby just hatched. It was a very important event to them. They said it was a completion. Later, when I had the chance to come back with appropriate armament, they had a whole nest of little worms. I never did find out where the babies came from or how these people were taming them. No, that's not right-I do know a little bit about the taming. There's an imprinting process. I think it's done when the worms all cuddle up together and go into communion, but that still doesn't answer the question of how a human can tame a worm, let alone live with it."

"But you know it's possible, you've seen the proof of it," Siegel said.

I nodded thoughtfully. "I know it's possible. I just don't know how they did it. I can't imagine someone climbing down into a shambler nest and pulling a few of these babies out. And I can't imagine taming a worm after it's started to grow. But that's the question about the renegades that needs to be answered. I'm convinced that the process has to be a simple one, and it involves being there when the worm first hatches. Maybe it's something as basic as just being there to feed it and pet it and mother it and rub its nose in the puddle whenever it leaves an opinion on the carpet. That's how you tame humans. Most of them, anyway." After a reflective moment, I added, "If that's really the case, then I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more renegades in the future."

Siegel didn't answer. The thought clearly disturbed him. Willig, however, realized exactly what I was thinking.

"So you think renegade behaviors are inevitable?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "We know that humans can survive in a worm camp, and we know that worms can apparently be tamed enough to live in partnership. Or vice versa. But what the mechanism might be-well, we're not likely to find out unless General Tirelli's Brazilian mission succeeds. On this continent, we don't study worm camps, we burn them. And renegades especially."

"You don't agree?"

"On the contrary-I very much agree. I think we should burn every goddamn renegade we find. But I sure would like to interrogate a few of them first, that's all. The problem is-after a while, they don't use human logic anymore. There's no common ground for communication. They won't or can't reach back to who they used to be. I don't know."

Siegel interrupted then. "Captain… ?" His voice was very low.

"Yo?"

"Main screen."

I looked. The view showed the top of the distant hill. The dust plumes had resolved. Three worms were paused at the crest, looking down at us. They were studying the rollagon like three ravenous travelers looking over a very short dinner menu.