And then Duke was there, standing over me, offering me a hand. I thanked him as I pulled myself to my feet. He glanced around at the three burning worms. "You want to remember you're a guest here and leave something for the rest of us?" And then he was away, pointing and directing the rest of his team to fan out.

I looked at the three worms myself. "Babies, huh?" And shook my head. I didn't know if I wanted to meet Mama or not. Larry's team was already moving to the far side of the dome. My team was moving into position, but uncertainly; several of them were staring at me and the still-burning carca.s.ses. They looked stunned. I clicked on my microphone. "G.o.ddammit! Move out! Haven't you ever seen a man burn a worm before?" I started striding toward the back of the but. "Burrell! Get your a.s.s in gear!" I wondered how badly mine would hurt tomorrow from that hard landing. I wasn't going to worry about it now. I hit the breakaways on my chest, kicked out of the drop harness and kept going.

I planted myself directly in front of the back wall of the dome. I gave it a lot of room. I checked the charges on my tanks. Still half full. Good. More than enough.

I glanced around behind me. Amy Burrell, white as a sheet, was fifty feet away. She held her rifle in a death grip. But she was ready. I looked at the wall again. Nothing. I checked the rest of my team. They were ready too.

My mike was still on. I switched channels and said quietly, "Apple."

"Baker," said Larry.

"Charlie," said Duke. "Hold your positions."

I looked at the rear wall of the dome. It was blank and featureless.

"All right," I barked. "Bring me a freeze machine. On the double."

The freeze machine was a large plastic crate filled with styrofoam doodles. Inside the doodles were two tanks of liquid nitrogen and a spray nozzle. They'd been dropped after everyone else was down safely. We had two of them.

If we hadn't wakened the Chtorrans with our arrival, we would have used the liquid nitrogen instead of the torches. Gottlieb and Galindo wheeled up one of the kits. Riley and Jein were just unloading the other. They touched the release and the crate popped open with a thump.

"I'll take the kit. Michael, you cover me with the torch." Gottlieb grinned as I pa.s.sed it over to him. He loved the excitement.

The nozzle for the freeze machine was lighter than the torch, and I didn't wear the tanks on my back. It was Galindo's job to move them-if we had to move. I wore a pair of insulated gloves so thick they could have been used in a boxing match. I closed the faceplate on my helmet again and I was ready.

The back wall of the dome remained unchanged.

Duke's voice whispered in my earphones. "You okay, McCarthy?"

"I'm fine. But when this is over, my a.s.s is going to hurt."

"You did good."

"I know," I said. And then I added, "Thanks."

There was silence for a bit, so I asked, "What happened with the blimp?"

"I don't know. I didn't have time to ask. We came over the edge and the wind shifted. But Ginny did her job. n.o.body hit the water."

"When we get back, I'm going to buy her flowers."

"Do that. Better yet, buy her a bottle. It looked like a quick save." He was silent a moment, then asked, "Jim, how long do you want to wait?"

"At least a half-hour. Remember what happened to that team in Idaho."

"Right." Duke said, "There was a lot in that report to worry about."

"You mean the tunnel they found?"

"Yeah. If the worms are changing their nesting behavior . . ." He didn't finish the sentence; he didn't need to. The job was already difficult enough.

I studied the wall some more. There was no evidence of a hidden exit.

"Do you want to send in the Robe?" asked Larry. The blimp had also dropped a meter-high mechanical walker-a more sophisticated version of Shlep, the Mobe, only it didn't have Shlep's good looks or personality.

"No," said Duke.

Larry argued for it half-heartedly for a few moments, then trailed off. Duke didn't reply. I couldn't see either of them. There was just me and the wall.

"Jim?"

"Yeah, Duke?"

"You want to switch positions?"

"Naw, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"All right."

The wall was unchanged. Something very small and loud buzzed around me. A stingfly? It was too fast to see. I waved it away with one gloved hand.

"Burrell? Time check."

"Twelve minutes, thirty seconds."

"Thank you."

I could feel myself sweating. I was starting to feel clammy inside the insulated battle-suit. I wished the fourth G.o.dd.a.m.n worm would quit waiting and come on out already.

"Come on, worm! I've got a nice cold bath for you! Just the thing for a hot summer afternoon!"

There was silence. Something hooted.

I found myself growing drowsy. I shook myself back awake; I stamped my feet, jumping back and forth from leg to leg for a moment.

I squeezed the trigger, just a touch, and let loose a cold cloud of freezing steam. It put a chill into the summer air and a cold pain into the eyes. Water droplets crystalized and pattered on the ground. That would keep me awake for a bit.

We'd been freezing worms for a month now. It was still a new technique. I didn't like it. It was more dangerous. And you still needed a backup man standing by with a torch, just in case.

But Denver had this idea that if you could freeze a Chtorran, then you could map it internally, so we'd been freezing them and sending them to the photo-isotomography lab in San Jose. I'd seen the process once. It was impressive.

You take a frozen Chtorran, you put it up on a big frame and you point a camera at one end. Then you start taking thin slices off of it, taking a picture of the cross section after each slice. You do this with the entire worm. Then you give the pictures to the computer.

The computer gives you back a three-dimensional map of the internal structures of the Chtorran body. Using a joystick and a screen you can move around inside the map and examine specific organs and their relationships to each other. We still didn't know half of what we were looking at, but at least we had something to look at now.

The process had been successfully completed with four gastropedes of varying sizes. We didn't know why, but they seemed to be from four different species. Denver was going to keep freezing and mapping worms until the discrepancies were resolved.

"Duke," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Why do you think the fourth worm always waits so long to attack?"

"Beats the h.e.l.l out of me."

"Yeah. Well, thanks anyway."

"No trouble at all, son. If you don't ask questions, how will you ever learn anything?"

The wall in front of me began to bulge.

I studied it offhandedly. Odd. I'd never seen a wall do that. It bulged a little more. Yes, the dome was definitely being pushed out of shape. I raised the nozzle and pointed it directly at the center of the bulge.

"Duke, I think we got something. Burrell, pay careful attention now. I'll show you how this is done."

The dome began to crack ominously. The crack suddenly st.i.tched up from the ground and across and then down again, and then the outlined piece began to topple outward "CHTORRRRRRR!! CHTORRRRRRRRR!!".

This worm was the largest of them all! Was there no limit to their growth? Or was this the adult form?

It came sliding toward me like a freight train. I pulled the trigger and screamed and released a cloud of icy steam and a deadly spray of freezing liquid nitrogen. It spread out in sheets, enveloping the Chtorran. For a moment, it was hidden by the clouds and spray, and then it came plunging through, its fur streaked with white and icicles.

"Hold your torches!" I shouted, but it kept coming! And then, in a single startling instant of terror, the Chtorran raised itself up and up and up! The worm was three tons huge! It towered above me, crackling, wreathed in shining ice and silvery burning steam! And in that moment of deadly cold confrontation, I thought for sure that this was finally it-this brilliant beast of h.e.l.l was about to topple down across me! This final frozen fury would be its last revenge! And then, instead, the momentum of its upward thrust continued and it began to slowly teeter sideways, farther and farther, until at last it toppled and came crackling and crashing down across the ground like a mountain of collapsing, shattering ice.

I could smell the cold like a knife within my brain, across my eyes. The pain of it was exquisite! The Chtorran was a fallen chimney. It lay shattered on the ground. Its fur was erystalizing in the sun, the ice was streaked along its sides in sheets and sprays and icicles. Something inside the creature exploded softly with a m.u.f.fled thump-and as if in answer, one of its arms broke quietly off and slid and clattered to the ground.

How many more?

I turned away from the shining carca.s.s and looked to the mountains climbing away to the north and west. How many more were out there? This was the twentieth I'd killed. But I didn't feel joyous-I felt only frustration. The job was taking too long!

The noise of the choppers pulled me back to the present. The first of the landing craft were already dropping down over the hill. They'd be bringing the rest of my science team and our equipment.

The security squad was just following the Robe unit into the but. Not until they'd searched every room and tunnel would anybody else be allowed to enter. It was fine by me. I'd seen my share of worm huts. They were starting to look all alike to me.

For just a moment I felt tired. I didn't feel my usual exhilaration. I didn't even feel satisfied.

"Jim?" That was Duke, an ever-present voice in my ears, in the middle of my head.

"I'm fine," I responded.

"Good. Check out the corral, will you?"

"Right." I secured the freeze machine and headed around the dome. It didn't matter how I felt. That was irrelevant-I still had a job to do. I looked up at the corral and I remembered a little girl in a torn brown dress -and suddenly the feeling pa.s.sed. And I knew why I was here. Because there was no place else that I would rather be. There was nothing else for me to do but this! It was perfect. The job was going to be done, and suddenly it was a beautiful day! I started toward the landing site to pick up the rest of my team.

Just one thought remained.

There has to be a better way!

notes.

Footnotes

1.

An EMP-grenade will cook or curdle any living matter within a radius of (CLa.s.sIFIED). A single charge will yield as many as (CLa.s.sIFIED) usable pulses. There is also the tendency of the flash to destroy all unshielded electronic gear within the larger radius of (CLa.s.sIFIED).