Lizard looked at him. "General, I've said everything I have to say to the President of the United States."

"You might be able to fool her!" blurted the colonel. I was sorry I wasn't going to be allowed to hit him. "That old grandmother's just a flunky for the Agency anyway."

"She's the commander in chief! By the highest law of this land. Maybe that's something you don't understand," Lizard said. She turned to the general. "This man-" She jerked her thumb at the colonel, "-is dangerously close to talking sedition! If you don't report him, I will!" Her eyes were blazing. She turned and stalked down the hall. I hurried to fallow after.

As we stepped into the elevator, I glanced back to see if they were following. They weren't. The elevator doors slid shut and Lizard burst out laughing.

"Huh? What's so funny'?"

She was punching the top button. "Everything. The worms are in the suburbs of Denver. General Wainright wants to drop the bomb-so do we-and we're at each other's throats because neither side wants to be left holding the bag if it doesn't work."

"Do we want to drop the bomb?"

"No," said Lizard. "We don't. It's just the only thing left that we haven't tried. After that, all we have left are fallback plans, and the president has authorized those too. We might have to abandon the whole planet."

"Huh? How-?"

The elevator doors opened and we came out into the security cage. Lizard put her palm on the clearance panel and the doors slid open. As we took the escalators down to the parking garage, Lizard explained, "If we have to, we can evacuate to the moon and the LS stations-by the way, Alpha was eighty-five percent complete when the plagues hit; it won't be too big a job to make it livable. It already holds ten percent atmosphere. We just have to send up enough gas to bring it up to livable pressure. It's doable. We know that there are still a hundred and eleven survivors in the Lunar stations. I don't know how they're hanging on, but they are. We can learn a lot from them. We estimate we can salvage maybe ten to fifteen percent of our ecology, plus germ plasm of maybe another ten or fifteen percent. Figure we'll lose the rest. We've already begun to evacuate the World Ecology Bank. We may do that if we evacuate the planet or not."

"How many people?" I asked.

"About five hundred thousand. And sperm samples from ten million more. The species' genetic heritage will be saved."

"But not the species."

"Not the species, right. Not unless we figure out some kind of sterilization that local flora and fauna can survive. Dr. Zymph isn't optimistic. Anything strong enough to kill Chtorrans would take out humans too. Here's the car."

I got in. "Where are we going?"

"Dinner, remember?"

"Why me?"

"Because," said Lizard, "it's very simple. I want you where no one else can get their hands on you. You know too much. Worse, you don't know what you know."

She started the car then. The motor whined up to inaudibility and we slid up and out into the Denver night. Lizard laughed abruptly. "The general was right. We did let that infestation get bigger than manageable. But not for the reasons he thinks. The nuclear option wasn't the only one. We've got five other alternatives to take out that camp. And the president knows those alternatives too. However, yes, we did cook that conference. We always do." She stopped grinning. "We didn't just cook it, we boiled it-right down to the essentials. We don't have time any more, Jim. We don't."

I nodded.

She fell silent. "What do I know?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I intend to find out."

"Remember this place?" Lizard asked as we came down the ramp ofl'the freeway.

"The Marriott-Regency? How can I forget? Only the last time I was here, there were fireworks and lasers."

"Sorry, we don't do that any more. There's a war on."

"I can see that."

The place looked like a tomb. The huge pyramid looked somehow shrouded. Then I figured it out. There were no exterior lights. No fountains. No celebrations. This building used to be a pcm. Now it was a hulking dark monolith. There were individual room lights on, but somehow they served to make the building seem even more deserted, more lonely.

We coasted up the service ramp and into the interior lobby. At least there was still a valet to park the car. As I got out, I noticed now stark the interior looked.

"We took the plants out," Lizard said before I could ask. "They got infected. Plant diseases. Viruses. They turned purple. Or red. They turned into Chtorran things. They were pushed out of their pots. " She took my arm and guided me toward the escalator. Last time I'd ridden this escalator, it had been with Ted and Marcie and a Colonel who looked like a buffoon. Marcie was dead. Colonel Buffoon was dead, and I didn't know where Ted was. He was probably dead too. Lizard was saying, "It was too disheartening. This was supposed to be the nerve center of resistance and we wouldn't even protect our own green plants. We're losing Denver, Jim. It's just a matter of time."

One thing was still the same, the buffet where I'd met Foreman. I noticed that the selection wasn't quite as lavish as I'd remembered. The salmon was canned, not fresh. And instead of human waiters there were robots trundling back and forth.

"We kept the chef when we took over the facility," Lizard said. "It's good for morale to have good food available. It's comforting. Or as Foreman says, 'It's like getting back to Mama's tit."' She handed me a plate. "Here, Chtorr into it."

"Chtorr into it?"

She shrugged. "Chtorran jokes. What can I say?"

"Don't say anything." I was staring at the canned peaches, the fresh cottage cheese, the warm bread, the cold sliced roast beef, the pickles, the sausages, the scrambled eggs, the . . .

I lowered my plate.

"What's the matter?" Lizard asked.

"This is unreal. Last night, I was a thousand klicks away from here, trying to make a meal out of hard salami and stale sourdough. I got my brains fucked out by a hallucination. This morning I had my van blown up. Then I helped strafe a worm camp. I came back and was debriefed by the president of the United States. Suddenly, I'm back in civilization staring at a hotel buffet. And I'm told that it's good for morale."

I turned to face her. There was no one else around us. It didn't matter, I would have said it anyway. "Colonel, I must be in some kind of culture shock. Three weeks ago I did something that should have put me in front of a firing squad. I've been running from it ever since. Suddenly I'm here-and it doesn't make sense. It isn't real."

She put her hand on my arm. "Jim . . ."

I shook it off. "No, let me finish. It wasn't real out there. It wasn't. Every time I took a breath and smelled Chtorr in the atmosphere, it wasn't real. Every time I looked at the hills and saw purple or pink or blue or red, it wasn't real. I've been crazy. I still am. I've been walking around saying, 'This can't be happening. This isn't happening. Please let me wake up.' Only, it is happening. And now I'm here, looking at this buffet, and you take it for granted that there's all this food. I've been out there, Lizard. This isn't real. This is artificial. I don't know how long you can keep pretending here, but I know that this is not real. This is the pretense. It is happening. And . . . I don't feel right anywhere."