A Season for Slaughter watc-4

by David Gerrold

  The major disadvantage to this reproductive strategy is that it denies the emerging creature access to pareirtal nurturing. Assuming that these animals are capable of at least a primatelevel of intelligence, a corresponding need for imprinting, bonding, and tribal learning is irnplied. This means that the gastropede society must provide another mechanism for civilizing the young and teaching them appropriate social interactions within the mandala nest.

  Critics of this theory argue that it is bad strategy to discard the natural advantages of mother-child bonding.

  Proponents counter that the resultant bonding-gap explains the high number of feral individuals that have been found in areas around mandala settlements.

  Other adherents to this theory argue that the continual tending of the queen, the act of communion with the mother, all the surrounding grooming and singing activities of the smaller members of the nest, serve to imprint the young while they're still inside the parent's body. Additionally, it is believed that the gastropede and the jeflypig are closely related forms-as closely related as humans and chimpanzees-and that therefore they must have similar reproduction strategies.

  The only physical evidence to validate this thesis is the violently chewed remains of a retired gastropede found in a scourged nest. It should be noted, however, that other explanations for the death of the creature are also under investigation.

  —The Red Book,

  (Release 22.19A)

  Chapter 80

  Purple Butter

  "A man's best friend is his dogma."

  -SOLOMON SHORT

  Abruptly, somebody grabbed my shoulder and pulled me rudely away from Dwan. Dr. Shreiber was screaming in my ear, "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Don't interfere with me, Doctor-"

  She was already fumbling for her all-purpose hypo. This woman had one cure for everything anesdotize the patient.

  I decided not to waste time explaining. I grabbed her leg and yanked, then hammer-slugged the side of her head. I missed badly; she rolled away from me, kicking back at me. Dwan was screaming in panic. I had the disadvantage of not being able to rise, but I had the advantage of my rage. I grabbed Dr. Shreiber's foo~ and pulled, yanked her toward me, chopping sideways with one hand at her belly-missed again-the woman was good; but while she was trying to lever herself into position for a kick, I managed somehow to lift myself up and pull her down under me.

  The position was wrong, but I didn't have a choice, I knee-dropped onto her solar plexus before she could kick me in the recreation zone. The pain in my leg was horrendous; like the sound of a bomb going off inside my body. I couldn't rise up, I was sprawled on top of her. She was either going to go for my eyes or my ears, or pop me up off of her and rip out my testicles. I had no advantage-not surprise, not strength, not training. I grabbed her windpipe and squeezed. It would have been very easy to rip it out-but I didn't want to kill her. Now I had her, but I couldn't let go. I couldn't continue and I couldn't stop. Oh, shit.

  "Dr. Shreiber," I said, gasping around the pain. "We're going after General Tirelli. Dwan is acting as terminal. Let me pull Lizard out, and you can do anything you want. You can lobotomize me. Try to stop me and I'll kill you. I'll feed you to your own worms. What's it gonna be?" I gave her throat a squeeze.

  She gurgled her response.

  "What? I didn't understand that." I eased up just a little bit. She said it again. I still didn't understand it, but the emotion behind it was unmistakable. I was going to have to kill her. Shit.

  Dwan was still screaming. "The worms! The w-worms are coming!"

  I forgot Dr. Shreiber. I grabbed Dwan's hands and pulled her close. I slapped her face. "It can't hurt you! You're a prowler." Dwan's expression crumpled, but she blinked and realized she was safe with me. "It c-can't get to me, c-can it?"

  I grabbed her hands again. "Stay with it, Dwan. You're doing fine. No, it can't get to you. But you can get to it. You're stronger now. Just follow my instructions. Will you do that?"

  Dr. Shreiber started to say something. Without looking at her, I shoved one hand down over her mouth.

  Dwan looked scared. She looked paralyzed. I knew exactly what was happening. The virtual-reality experience was confusing her. She wasn't sure where she was or who she was. It was too real. Overwhelmingly real. In a moment, she'd go into overload-

  I squeezed her hands. Hard. "It's me, Jim. Remember? I'm right here. It can't hurt you."

  "I'm's-scared, Shim."

  "it can't hurt you!"

  "I c-can't d-do this anymore."

  "Yes, you can."

  "N-no, no, I c-can't."

  "Dwan! You can do this. I promise, you can do this."

  Dwan's expression crumpled, and she began to cry. "Please d-don't make me!"

  Shreiber protested from beneath me. "Stop hurting her!" Without thinking, my hand curled into a mallet and slammed the side of her head. Hard. I held my fist in front of her eyes so she could see it.

  Dwan was blinking at me. Suddenly wide awake and terrified. "You have to do this, Dwan!" I said. "It's very important. It's for Lizard."

  Sobbing, Dwan shook her head. She choked and gasped for breath. A gamble. I slapped her face-not hard; but hard enough. "If you don't do this, Dwan, I'm going to hurt you, very hard. I will hurt you worse than the worm. The worm can't hurt you, Dwan. I can. I'm a lot meaner than the worm, remember that!"

  Abruptly, she stopped crying. She stared at me- hard. "You's-son of a b-bitch," she said thickly.

  I ignored it. "Where are you?" I demanded.

  "I'm in the c-corridor. The w-worm is staring at me. It's chittering. I think it w-wants to rear up, b-but there's no r-room."

  "All right, good-now, listen carefully. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about your teeth. You have big mean grinding teeth, don't you?"

  "Uh-yes, I have manda-manda-manda-balls," Dwan said.

  "Okay, good. I want you to use your manda-balls. I want you to chew the worm up as hard as you can."

  "Chew the w-worm?"

  "You can do it. Lieutenant Siegel would want you to do it. Do it for Kurt, okay? Just chew the worm up. This is all the bad worms in the world, and you can chew him up just like a cookie. Just leap forward and start biting. He can't hurt you, but you can kill him. Go ahead, now. Ready? One, two, three-"

  Dwan's expression tightened in concentration. Her mouth worked ferociously. She looked like she was biting into something horrible. She looked like she was sucking and spitting. Wet gurgling noises came from her throat. She squinched up her face in a horrible grimace; her eyes were tightly shut.

  "Pretend it's a banana." I said

  For a moment, I couldn't tell what she was doing. I thought that she was choking or sobbing. Then I realized that she was laughing, giggling. "It tastes like b-butter," she said. "Only p-purple. It's all hairy inside."

  "You're inside of it?"

  "Oh, yes. It't-tried to eat me, so I c-climbed down its throat and chewed m-my way all the way to the b-back. I th-think it's d-dead." She laughed. "I c-came out the other end. That was f-fun. Can we do it again?"

  "If we find any more worms, yes-first we have to find Lizard."

  "She's right here."

  "What!"

  "The w-worm was trying to g-get her out."

  "Out? Where is she?"

  "She's c-caught way up in the c-corridor. It's all twisted's-sideways and b-bent. She's jammed in."

  I didn't want to ask. I had to. "Is she alive?"

  "I c-can't tell. I have to g-get closer."

  "Okay. Now, listen. I want you to be very, very careful. Can you pull the walls apart?"

  "Yes, b-but-I'm afraid she'll f-fall."

  "Go slowly, Dwan. Take your time."

  "It's.okay. I th-think I c-can do this."

  Dr. Shreiber levered herself painfully up. "Is she warm?" she asked. She pushed at me in annoyance. "Okay, McCarthy, you've won, goddammit. Now, let me up. Let me do my job." I had to trust her. I rolled my weigh
t off her.

  "I th-think so. She d-doesn't look very g-good."

  "Is she conscious?" Shreiber.

  "Yes. I c-can hear her. She's crying, I think."

  Crying? That's a good sign, isn't it?

  "Sh-she's really j -jammed in there," Dwan reported. "I'm g-going to't-try pulling some of these p-panels out of the way." After an endless moment, Dwan reported back. "Sh-she sees m-me."

  Dr. Shreiber said to Dwan, "Think real hard, Dwan, have you got any medical supplies inside you?"

  "Uh-no. I have some water though. And a nipple-feeder."

  "Can you reach General Tirelli?"

  "I'm g-getting there. Yes. I c-can reach her n-now. She's t-talking to m-me."

  "What's she saying!" I demanded. My heart was pounding.

  Dwan frowned with the effort. "'It's about f-fucking t-time. G-get m-me th-the h-hell out of here!' And she wants a drink of water."

  "Okay," said Shreiber. "Give her a little water, but only a little-" She pushed me gently aside. "You, lie down. Let me handle this part." She took Dwan's hands in hers.

  I fell back on my stretcher, relieved. Lizard was found. Lizard was alive. She was going to be rescued. Everything was going to be all right now!

  I lay back and let tears of relief flood my eyes.

  Gastropedes have been observed tracking and feeding on caribou herds in Alaska, buffalo herds in Wyoming, and cattle herds as far south as Texas. There are unconfirmed reports that Chtorrans may even be capable of herding humans.

  This leads naturally to a most perplexing question. If the gastropedes are predators in their natural state, then what is their natural prey?

  Some have suggested that we are the natural prey of these creatures; that they have been specifically tailored for the job of clearing the neighborhood before the new tenants arrive. Certainly, this is a possible explanation.

  But even if we accept that thesis as a condition of the infestation, it still does not answer the original question. The gastropede has been demonstrated to be both voracious and fecund. Even the most severe predator-toprey ratio requires a multitude of prey animals to support one family of predators, and we simply have not seen any Chtorran life form to fill that niche.

  So the question remains: what is the natural prey of the gastropede?

  —The Red Book,

  (Release 22.19A)

  Chapter 81

  The Last Flight Out

  "Life doesn't mean anything. People do."

  -SOLOMON SHORT

  She was weak, but she was alive. She looked like hell. She was bruised. Her red hair was matted and her face was dirty. There was blood caked on her forehead. She was hungry and thirsty and her voice was so hoarse, she was barely audible. She looked like the survivor of a mine collapse-but she was alive. And the first thing she said as they brought her stretcher down out of the wrecked airship was, "Where's Jim?"

  "He's all right," they told her, but that wasn't good enough. She insisted on being brought straight to me. They lay her stretcher next to mine, and while Dr. Shreiber tried to clean her face, tried to tend her wounds, she turned her head and stretched her hand out to me. I reached for her at the same time. Our fingertips barely brushed. I stretched over as far as I could and I grabbed her hand in mine. Lizard squeezed back as hard as she could. I could feel her trembling, but it didn't matter. She was alive. We just held on to each other, thrilled and amazed, lost in each other's eyes, laughing and weeping and trying to talk all at once in an impossible flush of joy, relief, and sorrow.

  "I was so scared," I gasped. "I was afraid I'd never see you again. I was afraid I'd never get a chance to tell you how much-I love you."

  "They told me-" She stopped to swallow. It was hard for her to speak. "-They said it was you who rescued me."

  "It was really Dwan," I said. "And Randy Dannenfelser. And even Dr. Shreiber. Sweetheart, don't talk. We're both alive and we're getting out of here and that's all that counts. We're going home!"

  She nodded her acquiescence and just lay there resting, looking up me and smiling in happy exhaustion. "I love you," she mouthed. She was so beautiful, it hurt.

  Dr. Shreiber wrapped a silver med-blanket tightly around Lizard. "We're pulling out now. Hang on, okay? You're going to be fine."

  But when they came to take her stretcher to the chopper, Lizard refused to go.

  "No, no-" She protested frantically. "-I have to stay with Jim." She wouldn't let us be separated again. "I'm a general, goddammit!" she rasped. "And that's a goddamn fucking order!" She wouldn't calm down until Dr. Shreiber guaranteed we'd both be on the same flight out.

  In the distance, the sounds of battle were getting closer. The choppers were roaring overhead in a constant stream, and there was a steady bombardment of explosions and flames just beyond the treetops. "Okay, okay!" said Dr. Shreiber. "But let's get out of here-" And for once, I agreed with her. Things were getting a little too purple.

  They lifted the stretchers and ran. We bumped across the clearing. A Navy Dragonfly EVAC-ship came whispering down to meet us, stirring up dust and pebbles. The chopper was playing music-Bach! "Little Fugue in G Minor" on industrial synthesizers! First Lizard, then me-both stretchers were shoved roughly into the ship. We looked at each other and grinned. The stretcher bearers climbed in with us and lashed us down. Two torchbearers and a corpsman climbed in after. The corpsman leaned forward and patted the pilot's shoulder twice. "All clear. Let's go."

  The pilot flashed a thumbs-up signal. The engine whined. The music swelled. The chopper jerked up into the air. And we were away.

  AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID GERROLD

  • I suppose the first question to ask is the obvious one. Why do the books in the Chtorran cycle take so long to publish?

  Because they take a hell of a long time to write. They're work. If I had known just how hard this series was going to be, I certainly would have thought twice about the investment of years it was going to demand.

  On the other hand, it's a very exciting challenge to work on a canvas this large. I've always wanted to read an epic scale science fiction novel. This is the story I wanted to read, but no one eIse was writing.

  • Do you have a clear ending in mind? Are you working toward a specific resolution?

  Absolutely. It may take a while to get there though. There's a lot of story between the beginning and the end. And I keep discovering new things that I want to spend time with. The good news is that there is a definite end. I know exactly where the story has to go. The bad news is that we have to go through a lot of hell to get there.

  Somebody asked me once why I had given my hero such a big problem, why was I making things so tough for him? Wasn't that unfair? And he was right. It is unfair-but so is life. Fairness is a concept invented by human beings. Nature doesn't believe in it.

  And I'm not sure fairness is all that dramatic in a story. What's a fair problem? One that's just your size? How interesting is that? How heroic do you have to be to solve a little problem? What's interesting is when you tackle a problem that's bigger than you are, and then force yourself to grow big enough to handle it. The biggest heroes in life are the ones who take on the biggest challenges. In fact, it's the challenge that makes them so big. I think that's how you define how big a person you are-by how big a challenge you're willing to accept.

  This is an important part of what the series is about. Where do heroes come from? Heroes aren't born. You have to grow them. What I'm doing here is following the process of on-the-job training for a hero. I don't think it happens easily. Jim McCarthy starts out just like anybody else; he's an angry, resentful, almost-untrainable young man who still hasn't recovered from his own adolescence; but as we follow him through the books, we can see what he's learning and how it's affecting him. You can't push a human being through these kind of events and have him come out the other side unchanged; so this story is really about the process of human transformation. It's a lifelong process.

  • How many books will there be
in the series?

  All of them.

  At this point it looks like there will be at least seven. This is the longest damned trilogy I've ever written.

  • Do you know who the Chtorrans really are?

  Actually, it's more accurate to ask, "Do you know what the Chtorr really is?" And, yes, the answer is yes. In fact, I've already said what it is in this book. The Chtorr is the invading ecology.

  What you're really asking is, "Where's the intelligence in this invasion?" And the only answer I can give you is, "By now, it's everywhere."

  However, I promise to explain it a lot more carefully in the next book, A Method For Madness.

  • Will we have to wait another three years for A Method For Madness?

  Oh, God, I hope not.

  At this point, there's more than 50,000 words of book five written, but I have no idea how long it will be. It's going to be u very difficult book to write.

  A Matter For Men was 155,550 words, A Day For Damnation was 144,500 words, A Rage For Revenge was 180,600 words, and this book, A Season For Slaughter, is 222,000 words, so it's almost a third longer than the longest previous book.

  • Can you give us a little preview of A Method For Madness?

  Um, sure. Okay. The chopper crashes, they get captured by worms and turned into worm slaves, everybody grows pink fur and goes crazy, we find out that the worms are really four-sexed insects with a shared consciousness, Jim gets brainwashed by the worms and kills Lizard and her baby, then he kills all the other babies in the camp, and then after he's rescued he's put in an insane asylum, but he breaks out and adopts a baby worm of his own and becomes a deranged renegade.

  • You're not serious.

  I guess you'll have to wait for the book, won't you?

  • The sequence in this book about Daniel Goodman and Lester Barnstorm-is that based on a real experience? Did you have a specific producer in mind?

  No, not at all. I suppose some people are going to imagine a specific producer, and I can't stop them from doing that, but Lester Barnstorm is not based on any real person, living or dead.