A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 56 The Code of the Nest

Finally, I switched off the video and all the screens went blank. I cleared my throat.

The audience focused their attention forward again.

"We played the wrong song," I said very quietly. I looked around the room. "It was my mistake," I admitted. "But-" I considered my next words very carefully, knowing that the mike in front of me was live. Everything I had said was going directly into the network; everything I was about to say as well.

"But," I continued, "if we had to make a mistake-if I had to make a mistake, then this was the right mistake to make. What happened in the Coari mandala taught us something that we wouldn't have known for sure any other way." I looked over to Lizard. She nodded supportively, and I went on. "I would hypothesize that every nest has its own distinct song. The havoc that broke out below was the purest demonstration of that. We introduced an alien song into this nest. Some of the worms accepted it as their own. Some of them did not. I think the video speaks for itself. The mechanics of the phenomenon are… going to have to be studied for a while. Uh-I have a couple other things to say about this, and then I'm going to sit down and let someone else present their information.

"First, if every mandala nest has its own distinct song, then it seems to me that the limit of the possible expansion of any mandala is that point where its territory begins to approach that of any other mandala. Based on what we've seen here, a war between neighboring nests would be…" I shook my head, "… unimaginable. Umm. We still have a few working monitors on the ground at Coari. And we've got spybirds circling over what's left of the mandala. The, uh…" I hesitated uncomfortably. I really hated having to say this. "… The, uh, massacre is still going on."

There were murmurs of disbelief. I nodded in reluctant confirmation and put the pictures up on the walls.

As much as each and every one of us hated the infestation for what it had done to us, our planet, and our civilization, we still had a profound respect for our enemy. Maybe it had something to do with the inherent sanctity of all life, wherever it occurred. Maybe it was our curiosity, and maybe it was our anthropomorphic identification with all living creatures, and maybe on some level, it was even affection. Whatever it was, this wanton and possibly even needless destruction had had a devastating effect on us all.

As curious as it sounded, we actually respected the complexity and wonder of this fabulous ecology-this incredibly fecund and intricate construction of partnerships and symbioses that had swept across our planet. We would kill it any way we could, but we would not do so without regret. We knew our enemy well enough now to respect it. We killed it-and grieved for it simultaneously.

The pictures said it all, but for the benefit of those who were following these proceedings on the network, I added the briefest of annotations. "The surviving worms are destroying everything. Each other. The huts, the corrals, the gardens. Everything in the tunnels underneath. They haven't stopped. They've been going at it all night, all morning. A human mob might have burned itself out in an hour or two. The worms… just keep going. Everything in Coari is just… madness.

"I said yesterday that I thought the nest song was the way that the worms tuned and programmed themselves. Well… this may be the real proof of it. The Coari worms are acting as if they've all been simultaneously reprogrammed to be insane. I don't think that the killing and destruction will stop until the last Coari worm dies of exhaustion. I won't even try to guess what will happen to the Coati mandala after that, whether it can regenerate or not. We can't even guess what's going to be left. Um-" Once again, I looked to Lizard. Once again, she nodded to me to continue.

"Um-this is the hard part, and I apologize in advance for…" I stopped. I forced myself to take a long cool drink of water. Lizard had taught me that trick. She'd learned it from Dr. Zymph. When in doubt, take a drink of water. But only if you can keep your legs crossed for four hours at a time. You never know how long a meeting is going to run.

I took a breath and faced the audience again. "What I'm about to show you is particularly gruesome. It involves human beings. If anybody can't handle this, I urge you to leave the room now. The same caution applies to anyone following these proceedings on the network. This is very disturbing footage." I waited. Nobody moved. Of course not. They never did. I sighed and punched up the next set of images. And the sound as well.

There were gasps of horror and shock. There were cries of, "Oh, God, no-" and, "For God's sake, turn it off!" Somebody was crying. There were distraught moans throughout the room. I let it run. We had done this. We needed to see the consequences. I had done this. I had to confront it, here and now, in front of God and the world. People had died because of what I had ordered.

I might try to mitigate the deaths of all those worms by saying it was the right mistake to make. That was acceptable. Just barely. But there was no way I could justify this.

Lizard had detonated two nuclear devices over the Rocky Mountain mandala. Knowing that there were humans living in the camp, knowing that they would be incinerated, she still flew that mission. She volunteered for that mission. It was an act of war. We believed that the people living in a Chtorran nest were renegades. We believed that they had renounced their humanity. We believed that they deserved to die.

But regardless of what we believed, all those deaths still hurt. And Lizard had cried in my arms for days afterward. She had nightmares for months. Sometimes she still did. Sometimes I still did.

But now, today, this minute, I was finally beginning to understand some of the pain she must have felt, must still be feeling now. She, at least, had been authorized by her government to destroy that nest. I had no such authorization. Yesterday, I had wanted to destroy this mandala. Would I have wanted to do it if I had known that there were people living in it? Would I have wanted to do it if I had known the destruction would occur like this? Would I make this same decision again-?

The worms came pouring into the corrals, all mouths and fury. They slashed and swallowed. The little brown people were helpless before them. The children screamed in terror. Their mothers tried to shield them. The men tried to fight. All in vain. They all died. The furious worms engulfed them all. The flashing blood. The gore-

The pictures moved across the walls in silent condemnation.

I stood at the podium and hung my head in shame and disgrace.

I waited for the inevitable outcry, the pointing fingers, the hurled accusations and condemnations.

None came. The horror was too overwhelming.

Only Lizard stood. She came slowly to the front of the room. She approached me with such tenderness, I could have cried. She put one hand gently on my shoulder and whispered softly, "You couldn't have known, Jim."

"I should have known," I said. "I'm supposed to be the expert. Remember?"

She squeezed my arm; she left her hand resting on my shoulder. "I know what you're feeling," she said. "I can't tell you it's not your fault. I know you won't believe me. I can't tell you anything that will change anything at all. I can only tell you… that I share your hurt."

I let myself look at her finally. Her sea-green eyes were filling up with tears. The empathy of this woman for my pain was incredible. In the middle of this incredible hurt, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. She reached over with one gentle hand and wiped my cheek with her thumb. "Shh," she said. "It's all right. You're not alone."

I reached up to my shoulder and put my hand over hers. "I don't deserve you," I said.

She smiled at the memory. We'd had this conversation once before. "No, of course not. I'm a gift. So are you." She still remembered her lines too. After a minute, she asked, "Do you want to continue?"

My throat hurt. It was hard to speak. But I nodded. Yes. I have to continue. I have to finish this. I said it with a nod because I couldn't get all the words out.

"Okay," she whispered, and went back to her seat. Sometimes I wondered about other people. They made decisions about vital things-it never looked like it hurt. Uncle Ira, for instance. How did he handle his pain? If he didn't feel pain, then he wasn't human and he didn't deserve to be in a position of such responsibility. And if he did feel pain, then how in God's name did he keep it from showing in everything he did?

Then again, on the other hand, I had to remind myself… everybody's crazy. We've all been crazy since the infestation began with the first plague so many years ago. Crazy and getting crazier every single day.

"These pictures…" I began. "As horrifying as they are-" I stopped and tried again. I took a breath. "Let these pictures serve as the last necessary demonstration of the only way that worms and humans can coexist. Let every human being on this planet who thinks that peaceful accommodation is possible look at these pictures tonight. And let them shudder as we shudder now. Search your consciences tonight, long and hard, and ask, 'Is this the future I want to give my children?'

"As far as I'm concerned, this video ends that discussion once and for all."