A Day for Damnation

TWENTY

"WHERE?" SAID Lizard.

"There. Up near the top."

"I don't see anything."

"Keep looking. It was just a flicker-right there. As if something's moving on top of the dust."

We stared and waited. Nothing.

After a moment, Lizard said, "Well, I don't see it."

"I'm sure of what I saw." There was an edge of anger in my voice.

"Yes, I'm sure you are," she replied quietly. "Last time you were that sure, you disrupted a conference."

I ignored the knife between my ribs. "And I was right, wasn't I?"

Lizard shrugged. "Being right is rarely a victory."

"Huh?"

"Never mind." She anchored one foot on the console, grunted, and swiveled her seat to the back again. "If there's really something out there, we'll see it soon enough."

I muttered something unprintable and grabbed the flashlight. I climbed past her to check on Duke again. The medi-console said he was stable. He looked a little less gray. I wished I'd taken more pre-med courses. I wasn't sure how to interpret any of this.

"Uh--Colonel?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know anything about first aid?"

"A little."

"Come here and listen. Duke's breathing sounds funny."

She came to the back and squatted down next to Duke. She listened. Then she smiled. "His breathing's fine."

"But that wheezing-"

"He's asleep," she said. "He's snoring."

"Are you sure?"

Lizard looked me straight in the eye. "I know what a man's snoring sounds like."

"Uh-right. Thank you." I picked up the flashlight and went to the back of the tail to look and see if I could see anything out of the rear bubble. The cotton candy seemed a little more translucent there. I could feel my face burning.

How long would it be till we really started getting on each other's nerves? I wondered if I could get angry enough to kill her. I was afraid I might find out.

I climbed into the bubble seat, folded my arms across my chest, and faced the back.

What is it about women anyway? Why do they all seem to think that life is about challenging men? And then they wonder why the men are so touchy-

I was staring at it for several minutes before I realized what I was seeing. I came out of the chair so fast, I bumped my head on the Plexiglas. "Holy shit!-Owww!"

"Are you all right?" Lizard called.

"No-"

"What happened?"

"I bumped my head-" I could still feel the ringing. "Come here!"

"Why? You want me to kiss it?"

"I want you to see something. Come here!" I started coughing then, and couldn't think of anything for a minute. Every paroxysm was agony. I forced myself to stop, I don't know how.

When I opened my eyes again, Lizard was looking up at me with a concerned expression. She was holding out a bulb of water. I took it gratefully. "Thanks."

She came climbing past Duke with a sigh. "All right, what do you want me to see?"

I pointed at the window. "There is something out there."

She looked. She frowned. She looked confused. Then her eyes widened.

The entire surface of the bubble was alive.

It was still a solid pink mass-but we could see something through the pink. It was like looking through a layer of suds. There was something flickering behind it; the whole surface was flickering.

It was a seething movement, but the eye couldn't resolve a pattern. As we watched, the movement grew more pronounced than ever. The flickerings became scratchings.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. But it's getting bigger."

"Bigger? Couldn't you have chosen another word?"

"How about closer?"

"Not much improvement." She folded her arms around herself as if she were cold. "It's getting lighter in here, isn't it?" she offered. "Could it be the wind-blowing the dust off?"

"I wish it were. But I doubt it."

I moved as close to the window as I could and still keep my eyes focused. Something was moving the pink powder around-the way it shifted and swirled, it looked like thousands of tiny little shapes, all moving and scrambling at once.

And then it resolved-"Unh," I said.

"What-?" she asked.

"Look close."

She leaned into the bubble, staring. Her eyes widened in horror. "Bugs!"

The entire surface of the bubble was flickering and swirling and seething. We were looking at the bodies of millions and millions of frenzied insects.

"They're feeding on the powder," I said. I dropped back into my seat. I was starting to feel itchy.

Lizard dropped out of the bubble and scrambled forward. I could hear her stopping at the ports. "They're all over these windows too!" She checked the front of the ship. "They're all over us!"

I levered myself out of the seat and went forward to join her. She was staring at the window. Because this part of the chopper was buried deeper in the drift, the seething movement was still limited to the very top of the windshield. It wasn't as clear yet as it was at the tail, but it was clear enough.

Lizard shuddered. She couldn't tear her eyes away from that flickering pink wall. "They're all over us!"

I tried to imagine what the chopper must look like from above. A large pink sugary lump in the middle of a pink snowdriftcovered by a billion crawling insects, nature's perfect little machines, all of them feeding. I could imagine them working at the powder, their tiny mandibles flashing. I could imagine them chittering and scraping and jostling-

I grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen to me! Is this ship airtight?"

"It should be- Oh, my God! The compartment-!" She looked to the floor.

"Does it seal?"

"Uh-yes, it should."

"Good. Now, we've got to find every other possible breachevery leak, no matter how small, has got to be plugged-"

"Plugged?"

"What? Is there an echo in here? When those bugs eat down far enough, some of them are going to get in. That's a feeding frenzy out there! They're going to be coming in hungry! You and I and Duke are the only things edible in this larder. What have you got that'll keep them out?"

"Uh, I don't know. Wait a minute-let me think."

"Come on-I thought these choppers were stocked for every emergency. "

Abruptly, Lizard stiffened. She looked at me hard. "I suspect that this one isn't in the book. The army hasn't had much reason to bury choppers in cotton candy, so we don't really know what happens when bugs eat them out." She looked angry. That was a good sign. "Obviously," she continued, "you and I have been given the opportunity to research the subject."

"Terrific!" I said. "What an opportunity! What'll we try?" Lizard looked at the floor of the chopper, frowning. She let her gaze travel slowly toward the back. She looked like she was using her X-ray vision to inventory each separate cargo compartment.

Abruptly she said, "Shelterfoam!" She was staring all the way back. "You'll have to move Duke-"

"What's shelterfoam?"

"It's in case you crash somewhere and need to build a shelter-especially in cold weather areas. First you inflate a big balloon, then you spray it with shelterfoam. You wait a half hour for it to harden, cut a door, and move in. It's like living in a pumpkin. We used it as quick-fix housing in Pakistan." She pointed. "Put Duke all the way in the back. He's lying right over the compartment I need to get at."

Duke moaned when I moved him, but he didn't awaken. The console suggested that I give him another bottle of glucose and I did.

As I settled him in, I noticed that the pink luminescence in the tail of the ship was growing stronger. I glanced up at the bubble. The morning sun was pouring directly down on us; I could see it as a brighter spot beyond the seething pink. I could even feel its warmth.

The layer of powder on the hemisphere of Plexiglas was growing noticeably thinner beneath the hungry insect-things. This cotton candy stuff was incredibly transparent to light. I could see the swarming bugs as darker bits ceaselessly churning and swirling. I wondered what they were.

But I didn't want Duke to wonder about it if he woke up and saw them. I pulled the shutter closed.

Lizard was busying herself with the shelterfoam. She wasn't paying any attention to me. So I took a moment to apologize to Duke. I peeled open a sani-pak and started cleaning his face with a moist towel. "I'm sorry, Duke," I whispered. "I'll get you out of here, I promise-" I wiped the dirt from his forehead.

"McCarthy..." he mumbled.

"Yes, Duke?"

"Shut up."

"Yes, Duke!"

But he was asleep again. I didn't care. He was going to live-I knew it!

I scrambled forward to tell Lizard. "Duke's going to make it!"

"How do you know?"

"He growled at me. He told me to shut up."

Lizard grinned. "Sounds like good advice. Here-" She thrust a tank into my arms. "The weak spots will be mostly under the floor, where we hit. Especially where we broke the keel. You'll need to empty each compartment, then foam it. Just point the nozzle and press."

"Does this stuff make fumes?"

"No, it's jellied Styrofoam. It's safe. You do the cabin, I'll get under the controls. I want to open the floorboards and get the nose-wheel compartment. If the bugs get in there, they could get into the circuit-pipes or the hydraulics or underneath the insulation. You ever spray for cockroaches?"

"Yeah."

"Then you know." She looked over my shoulder and lowered her voice. "Better pay special attention to the tail. You might just want to make a big cocoon back there."

I followed her glance. Duke. I realized how helpless he was. "Yeah. I see your point."

"Any questions?"

"No. "

"All right, let's go to work."

"Uh-"

She stopped. "Yes?"

"I just had a thought, Colonel." She waited patiently.

"What if these bugs eat Styrofoam too?"

"Will you stop thinking-" she said. "You're scaring the hell out of me."