41

Day of Blood

But what if she was right?

What if I had fallen off the deep end?

That's the problem with being crazy-you have to take other people's word for it, because it doesn't look crazy from inside. I strode up the street. Some of the kids were playing a game, the object of which seemed to be to see how much noise you could make while moving a soccer ball up and down the road. I crossed to the park to get out of their way. I could smell honeysuckle and pine and roses.

Maybe I should trust B-Jay. I didn't want to leave here; I liked it here.

But it was a trap. There was no place to run to. If someone was determined enough to come over the hiking ridge, they could surprise the whole village. A pride of Chtorrans could sweep the length of the peninsula in minutes.

What would it take to make this place safe?

We could mine the hiking ridge, we could bury booby traps the whole length of it. But that still wouldn't be sufficient. Nothing short of blowing up the isthmus would work. And we couldn't do that, because all of the service cables for the phones ran through the isthmus, as well as the power cables that fed electricity to Santa Cruz. Somewhere out there were five great turbines, churning silently in the ocean current.

What else could we do? We could evacuate.

Betty-John wouldn't even consider it.

And she was right. Where else in the world could she find facilities like this?

No, the only alternative was to move everyone to the south end of the island and establish very tight security, constant patrols, and hold regular classes and drills for every person on the island. We should start teaching the teenagers how to use grenade launchers and torches.

But B-Jay didn't want the kids growing up in a police state. "That kind of stuff creates an atmosphere of fear and paranoia." Behind me, I could still hear the children screaming and hollering. They sounded happy. B-Jay was right, they didn't need fear and paranoia.

But was I wrong? They needed to be safe! That was where the argument had started. Dammit. I couldn't get it out of my head. The sentences replayed themselves in endless loops.

And all I wanted was for us to be safe!

I knew what was happening inside my head.

It was that survival mind that Delandro had talked about. The mind is a computer. It wants to survive. It will do whatever it perceives as necessary to survive. There are no limits to what it will ask for. The more you think you have to protect, the more vigorously you will try to defend it.

It's neither good nor bad, it's just the way the mind works. And I wanted to protect my kids.

I realized I was walking down to the hiking ridge again. I wanted to see if any more of the worm lines had been disturbed. I wanted to see what else I could do. Every problem has a solution. There had to be one here.

Behind me, the screaming grew louder. And suddenly took on a shrill sound. I whirled around to look.

The children were shrieking and scattering in all directions. I heard it before I saw it.

"Chtorrrr! Chtorrrrrr!"

Three Chtorrans broke out of the park, a squad of men and women running with them!

Huh-?

And even before I asked, I knew what had happened.

They'd come over the ridge and gone straight into the park. Not down the street, they'd have been seen immediately. They used the park as cover and went to the heart of Family.

The Chtorrans plowed into the children like bulldozers. I yelled. I started running toward them-

-then zigged into the park and started heading for home. And the Jeep.

The alarm went off as I was running. It was a flat double-note wail, rising and falling. I hurtled down a grass slope, over the little Japanese bridge that crossed the brook, and up the opposite side. There were children standing confused, trying to figure out what the siren meant.

I pointed ahead. "Run for home! Get out of the park! Get out of the streets! Do it as fast as you can!" Where were my kids?

As I came charging out of the park, I saw Holly standing in front of the house staring down the street. There were sounds of rifle fire coming from the village. Dammit.

I scooped her up in my arms and went charging through the front door.

"You have to hide, sweetheart. This isn't a game anymore!"

"No, Daddy! No!"

I went down on one knee and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen to me, I love you! And you have to hide!" God forgive me. I shoved her into the closet and locked the door. I grabbed my torch and ran.

The Jeep whirred to life and leapt forward. I swung it around in a tight turn, going up over the curb and ripping out a bush as 1 hcaded south. I would meet the Chtorrans at the plaza. The rifle tire had stopped now. But I could still hear that dreadful purple screaming.

As I headed toward the south curve, one of the Chtorrans came Ilowing around to meet me. It stopped in amazement. It hadn't expected to see a Jeep coming barrelling down toward it. I stood on the brakes and came screeching to a halt a hundred meters away from it.

"Come on, you big red slug! Come to Poppa! I'll give you a one-way ticket to hell!" I was standing on the seat now, just hulling the torch tanks onto one shoulder. I unlocked the safeties and double-checked the charge. "Come on, you slimy red bastard! "

The worm cocked its eyes at me, one high, one low. It chirruped a question. It hesitated. It probably wanted to back up, but it didn't dare. It had been sent this way as a scout.

Its behavior was atypical. This was no ordinary worm. The wild worms would have screamed and charged. This one could recognize the threat I represented to it. This one wanted to survive. The question came up in the back of my head: did Chtorrans have minds too? Or was it only the tame ones?

"Come on, you bastard!" I challenged it again. It was still out of range. I couldn't drive and fire the torch at the same time. The worm couldn't attack. It was a standoff.

It couldn't last. Sooner or later, the others would come around that curve. I didn't think I could burn three worms at once.

I heard footsteps behind me. Before I could turn and look, Little Ivy was sliding into the driver's seat of the Jeep. "Move over," she said.

I grabbed hold of the top of the windshield and braced myself. "Go slow," I said.

She eased the Jeep forward. The Chtorran began backing up. She increased our speed. I steadied myself and braced the torch. I would only get one shot here.

The worm reared up abruptly, issuing its challenge. "Chtorrrrr! Chtorrr!" Then, it came down flowing.

I burned it before it hit the ground. The jet licked out and touched the purple and red horror. The flames exploded around its body. The creature raised up again, whirled in the air and came down writhing and twisting across the road. Its screams were horrible. It was like watching a man die!

And then it wasn't alive anymore, just a burning thing, greasy and rubbery and sending huge clouds of black smoke into the air. "All right, let's go!" I pointed to the road beyond the worm. Little Ivy backed up so she could go around it-and saved our lives. The grenade carved a hole in the street where the Jeep had been. I saw the flash-was slammed down in my seat by the concussion-felt the Jeep lift off the ground, then drop back-felt the gravel and pieces of road spatter down from the sky.

Four men and three women were just running around the curve. Two Chtorrans were moving with them. They were a perfect skirmish line. For a moment I could only admire the military beauty of the operation. Humans and Chtorrans together-the effect was devastating.

Then-moving automatically, I was standing again with the torch-I was still too dazed from the grenade to be conscious. They saw me and scattered sideways.