A Day for Damnation

THIRTY-ONE

THE NEXT time Dr. Fletcher came in, I was more coherent. She picked up the console and studied it. Did all hospital personnel do that automatically?

"How am I?" I asked.

"You're fine," she said. "And I can say that with authority, because I am your personal physician. Only the president and movie stars get better treatment."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and put her hand on mine. "The truth is, all medical personnel in the science section were moved over to help with the emergency. But, even if that weren't the case, you'd still be under my care. You are not so much a medical case as a scientific one."

"Because I had the worst exposure to the dust?"

"You were one of the first," she said. "So if any weird effects were going to show up, we'd expect to see them in you first."

"And ... ?"

"And I am disappointed to tell you that the dust is about as benign as a Chtorran life-form can be. The death toll is expected to remain below three thousand."

"Disappointed?"

"Mm hm. I was hoping you'd be an interesting case. Too bad. I guess I'm just going to have to go back to my worms."

"Worms? Plural?"

"Uh huh. We've got two more live ones." "Dr. Fletcher?"

"Yes?"

"Have you ever put any of them together?"

"They're in the same tank, why?"

"Do they -I don't know how to phrase this-do they roll around together like they're making love?"

She looked surprised. "How do you know about that? We've only had them together for a few days. The whole thing is still very secret."

"You haven't seen the videos we brought-?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "In all my spare time? In case you hadn't noticed-"

"Right. Sorry. Well, we saw the wrestling behavior when the blimp arrived. The worms got frantic. At first I thought they were attacking each other, but they weren't. They came back. They looked ... confused-but I wouldn't even begin to guess what was going on."

"Mm," she said. She looked like she was considering something.

"I want to see your worms," I said.

She nodded. "I want to see your videos. As soon as you're ambulatory again, okay? I'll set it up." She stood up to go. "There's a wheelchair in the closet if you want to get out of bed. Please ask a nurse to assist you. Don't be proud."

"Thanks. What room is Colonel Tirelli in?"

"She checked out three days ago. But Captain Anderson is upstairs and you can visit him any time." She remembered something. "Oh-you have messages, quite a stack of them. Please read the priority ones first. And I think your mother wants to visit you. Handle that, all right?" And then she was out the door.

After a while, I buzzed for assistance and got myself bathed, shaved and transferred to a wheelchair. I found my way up to the twelfth floor without too much trouble.

Duke was still in an oxygen tent.

He looked dreadful. He looked like the guest of honor at a Texas barbecue. I couldn't look and I couldn't look away. His face was swollen. His eyes were blistered shut. His skin was blackened and peeling. His arms looked wet and putrefying. And he smelled bad.

I almost fled in horror. Human beings should not look like this.

Human beings should not smell like this. But I didn't know how to put the wheelchair in reverse, and the little voice in my head was already bawling me out for being a coward. I steeled myself and stayed.

I rolled around to the foot of his bed and picked up the mediconsole.

Duke was on maintenance. He was beyond consciousness. For that I was grateful. There was not a lot to say. And I wasn't sure I could talk to him yet. Not with him looking like something out of a horror show. This wasn't Duke. I couldn't rectify this monstrous piece of meat with the man I had spent so much time with.

I didn't see how he could ever be human again. He might live. But his life was over. I don't know how I knew. I just knew it. My mind brought up memories. Duke had taught me almost everything I knew about how to be a military man. He'd made it very simple, he'd boiled it down to two words.

Be certain.

"Here's how to know if you're certain," he'd said. "Can I rip your arm off if you're wrong? If you can't give me an unqualified yes, then you're still not certain.

"That thing that you ignore-that thing that you let yourself be unaware of, or unconscious of, or uncertain about-that's the thing that's going to kill you. So your job, whatever it looks like, is really this: you have to know everything about everything that you have to deal with.

"There are no accidents, Jim. If you get killed, the game is over. You lost."

Simple.

Except... what would you call lying in a hospital bed looking like a bride's first roast?

Duke had screwed up somewhere. He'd trusted me. It didn't matter what Colonels Tirelli and Anderson said. This was my fault. I wished I could wake him up long enough to ask him to forgive me.

Except I knew he wouldn't.