A Day for Damnation

TWENTY-EIGHT

WE WERE left with only the lights of the chopper and the crab. The worms were dark shapes in the night again.

The blimp was a darker shape overhead-not seen, just barely sensed.

The worms were moving again.

They circled and shrieked and raged at the sky. They raged at each other. They raged at the chopper. Something bumped us-hard. Duke began to moan again. I wondered if the worms were going to vent their fury on us.

A long dark shape flowed over the chopper just a few meters away from me. It startled me so badly, I tried to leap back in the turret and banged my head on the Plexiglas. The chopper creaked with the weight of its passage. The hull crackled and complained. Oh, God

The monster poured down the opposite side and charged at the largest worm in its path. I wished for a spotlight. It shrieked and leapt. It attacked the other worm in a raging fury. The two great beasts wound themselves around each other like serpentine wrestlers and rolled across the powdery dust in a furious tangle. The smoke rose around them.

They broke apart once, then wrapped themselves up in each other again and wrestled off into the darkness, quickly disappearing in the ever-present haze.

I'd never seen that before. I'd never seen a worm attack another worm.

All around the chopper, suddenly all the worms were attacking each other. Or, at least, trying to.

They rushed at each other, then jumped away. They circled warily, all the time shrieking and moaning and making low, rumbling sounds. They were hellbeasts. They were terrifying.

Two by two, they paired off, writhing into the gloom. It didn't look like an attack any more-it looked like a ritual of some kind. It looked like-communion. The worms were withdrawing into each other's embraces-as if no one single one of them could figure this out by itself, as if they had to pool their brainpower.

And then suddenly, all the worms were gone. And there was silence.

Stillness.

Nothing moved. Even the dust seemed frozen in the air.

The bunnydogs had disappeared. The millipedes were gone. There was nothing but the pale pink dust again.

"Is it over?" asked Lizard.

"I don't know." I made myself let go of the turret handles I'd been gripping. My fingers ached with the sudden release of tension. My chest hurt again.

"What were they doing?"

"I don't know-but let's get out of here now. Quickly! Before they come back!"

Even as I spoke, the crab was scrabbling up the side of the chopper. It poised itself next to the turret and pointed two spotlights and a double-eyed camera at me. One mechanical claw snapped upward in a crisp salute. Automatically, I started to salute back, then pulled my hand down in embarrassment. The crab bobbled its lights as if it were laughing-and waved. I glared back.

"That's cute, McCarthy. Real cute!" Lizard called from up front. She could see me through the crab's eyes-the video was relayed. "Just what I need," I said. "A crab with a sense of humor. I'm going to kill the operator." I dropped to the cabin floor

"All right," Lizard was saying, "get your ass out of the way-and Duke's too. I'm going to blow the turret."

I pulled Duke as far forward as I could-I had to ignore his moaning; there was nothing else I could do for him now-and fitted a clean O-mask over his face. Then I climbed up front again to join Lizard. She was just unlocking the trigger. I handed her a mask and hung my own around my neck.

"All set?" she asked the radio.

"You may fire when ready, Grisly."

There were three switches. Lizard flipped the first one. A quietly mechanical voice said, "The explosive bolts are now charged. You have three minutes to arm."

I glanced out the front of the chopper. Two of the worms were returning. They were moving solemnly back into our arena of light. They looked ... thoughtful.

I pointed silently.

Lizard looked. She glanced sideways at me. "Will they move?"

"I don't know."

"Well, think-what could be worse?"

I didn't answer. I shook my head. I couldn't think of worse any more. We'd already gone beyond my capacity to imagine worse. Lizard flipped the second switch. The mechanical voice said, "The explosive bolts are now armed. You have three minutes to fire."

Two more worms returned. Their eyes were blinking steadily, a sure sign of interest. I started to point

"I see 'em," Lizard said, without looking up. "Put your mask on. We're getting out of here." The screen in front of her with the radar scan from the blimp was showing a ragged circle of cigar shapes closing in on the chopper again. All the worms were returning.

Lizard started pulling her mask on. She paused and grinned sideways at me. "Don't forget. You owe me a lobster dinner, buddy-"

She threw the third switch.

The turret blew off the back of the chopper with a BANG! Almost immediately, a swirl of dust came filtering down through the hole. I started scrambling back. The crab was positioning itself over the escape hatch. Its lower eyes peered into the chopper, swiveling forward. Then, two of its claws dropped the fourth and last line into the cabin. Someone had painted ANCHOR ME on the grapple at the end of the line. I grabbed it and hooked it under one of the seats.

"Zip line's on its way down," said Lizard.

I looked up and saw something dropping from the sky. It was illuminated by a single red beacon. The crab stepped back out of its way. The object-it was a gurney basket and a couple of harnesses attached to a cable-rider-banged onto the roof of the ship. The crab grabbed the gurney basket and fed it down through the turret, then the harnesses.

I pulled the basket forward. "Come on, Lizard. I need your help." Duke's moans were louder now. We lifted him as gently as we could into the basket. I checked the seals on the medi-blanket while Lizard strapped him in, then I hung the console in the slot provided for it.

The crab was lowering three connector cables into the cabin. I snapped the first to the head of Duke's basket. I tossed a harness at Lizard and grabbed the other for myself. "The cameras-" I said.

"I've got all the recordings right here," Lizard said, patting her flight bag. She passed the second connector cable through its handles before snapping it onto her harness. "They're safe."

I finished shrugging into my harness and connected the third cable. "All right," I said. "Duke first, then you. I'll bring up the rear.

"Sorry, Lieutenant," she said. "The captain is the last to leave the ship. You go second."

"I'm going to cover your rear," I insisted.

"You'll wait until after dinner-and that's an order. All right-" she said to the crab, "-let's have a little help lifting this basket." The cables began to retract. The basket pulled back, then upward toward the turret as the cable continued tightening. We guided it carefully up through the opening. I climbed up after it, then turned and pulled Lizard up after me. Then I started shivering. The night air was cold.

There were worms all around the chopper, sitting and watching us. Their black bulks were huge in the gloom. I couldn't tell how many there were, but there were more than fourteen of them now, that was for sure. There could have been thirty or fifty. I couldn't tell. But I could hear the sounds of their eyes blinking.

Sputph-wut. Sput-phwut.

Lizard steadied herself on my arm, then leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "Thanks," she said. She turned to the crab and gave a thumbs-up signal. The crab returned it with one mechanical claw.

And then the worms screamed again! "Chtorrrrr! Chtorrrrrrr-!" -and swarmed in toward the chopper. One of them flowed up the front of the craft-the chopper's windshield cracked under its weight. It kept on coming anyway. It was on top of the ship now, pouring toward us.

-the crab swiveled all its spotlights and hit it with its brightest glare. The worm recoiled, blinking. The crab scuttled toward it, waving all its arms and legs and everything else-all its cameras, lights and attachments-in as threatening a manner as possible. The worm backed away, uncertainly.

-and then suddenly, the cable-rider was screaming up the line, yanking us with it! Duke screamed at the jolt as the basket leapt upward; he must have been in incredible pain. I gasped in surprise, and Lizard yelled like a kid on a roller coaster. The chopper dropped away below us. It was an oasis of pink light in a sea of ink.

I could see that more of the worms were swarming up onto it now. The crab retreated before their onslaught. It clamped itself to the line and followed us up. A worm grabbed for it and missed.

And then the chopper was too far below to see anything else clearly.

I glanced upward. The blimp was an ominous hole in the night. Its lights were still off and we were hurtling toward a gigantic darkness. A square of yellow warmth opened directly overhead. The color of the light was startling. After two days of nothing but pinkness, it looked alien.

The square expanded, it became a hatch-we rose up through it and suddenly we were inside the blimp-first the basket, then me, then Colonel Tirelli.

There were men and women in jumpsuits to pull us aboard, to swing us away from the hatch, grab us and disconnect the cables from our harnesses. They were applauding and cheering. It was all a blur of faces and hands. I couldn't hear. I couldn't focus my eyes. They were too wet.

Someone was helping me out of my harness and O-mask. I kept blinking in confusion. All the light-all the noise-all these people! It was too dazzling!

And the room-it was huge. We could have put the chopper in it and we'd still have room for a dance floor. I saw the dust-covered crab come lifting through a great hole in the floor. The last of the line came up after it.

The hole closed up and a man with a headset said, "AZ is aboard and the hatch is closed. Retrieval is complete." There was more cheering at this. Even I was cheering now-between paroxysms of coughing. I was having trouble breathing again.

"Release the mooring harpoons," the man with the headset said. "Let's go to Oakland." He grinned at me. "The lieutenant wants a lobster."

I looked at Lizard and blushed. She winked at me.