David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

Larry waved and turned to Hank. He unfolded the remote panel on the man's back and armed Shlep. The Mobe's bright red warning lights began to blink; it was now unsafe to approach. If its sensory apparatus detected a large heat-radiating body close by, the EMP-charge on its back would flash, instantly roasting everything in the dome and probably a good way beyond-like a microwave oven, but faster.

EMP stands for Electro-Magnetic Pulse; it's a burst of widespectrum high-energy radio noise. [1] An EMP-grenade will cook or curdle any living matter within a radius of (CLASSIFIED). A single charge will yield as many as (CLASSIFIED) usable pulses. There is also the tendency of the flash to destroy all unshielded electronic gear within the larger radius of (CLASSIFIED). Very wide spectrum. From radio to gamma. Very high energy. Linearly amplified.

It probably would have been simpler to just toss a grenade into the but and duck, but Duke wanted to capture this shelter intact. We needed to learn everything we could about the Chtorrans. The EMP-flash would kill them without destroying them or the dome.

Larry waved again and Duke snapped, "All right, everybody down." This was probably the most dangerous part of the mission -we had to lie down in the grass to minimize the effects of stray radiation from the flash, but the position left us vulnerable because we couldn't use the flamethrowers if we were surprised.

Hank lay down with the remote panel and sent the Mobe rolling forward. He had his eyes pressed into the stereo sight and was looking solely through the eyes of the Mobe now. Beside him, Larry kept uneasy watch. The other two men had stretched a protective flash-foil in front of all four of them-the remote antenna stuck up beyond it-but the Mylar struts were refusing to stay anchored and the men were having to hold them up by hand. The rest of us were far enough back not to need foil, but we stayed down anyway.

The Mobe was in the dome now. Again we waited. The minutes ticked off with deliberate hesitation. The only motion was Hank's hands on the Mobe controls. He was murmuring as he worked and Duke was listening to his comments on a disposable (it would have to be) earphone. I couldn't hear what he was saying.

Hank stopped disgustedly and said something to Larry. Larry stood up, swearing softly. Hank turned back to his panel and did something, then sat up. The others let the flash-foil collapse. The Mobe was coming out of the but now, operating on its own guidance. Had it flashed? No, the red warning blinker was still going. Hank hit the remote and disarmed it; the light went out. The rest of us stood then, brushing ourselves off and checking our weapons.

The Mobe said there were no worms in the hut-but Duke never took a machine's word for anything. Mobes had been fooled before. Maybe the worms were cold-blooded, or perhaps they didn't give off much heat while they were torpid. Larry was going in to see.

The supposition was that at this time of day the worms should be slow and Larry should be able to burn them before they came fully awake and active. We wanted that shelter, and any piece of worm we could get. So he was going to try to scorch them lightly-enough to kill, not enough to destroy. It was tricky and dangerous and not recommended for those who wanted to die in bed. But if they were in there, Larry would get them. If not ...

Well, that was why the rest of us were waiting outside with torches.

Larry put on his 0-mask then, stooped and entered, the man with the grenades right behind him. Insurance. The grenades had suicide fuses. I didn't envy either of them. They bent low inside the "foyer" and disappeared to the right of the spirit wall.

Silence. And again we waited. A bee-or something-buzzed around my right ear and I brushed at it in annoyance. A drop of sweat trickled from my armpit down my side. The insect buzzed again.

I studied the plants around the base of the dome through the binoculars. They were scraggly clumps of something that looked like midnight ivy, mixed with something else that looked like sweet basil-or black marijuana. Both were a deep, intense shade of purple, almost black and almost impossible to see clearly. The coloring of the ivy must have shaded off into the ultraviolet because it seemed oddly out of focus in the bright sunlight-as if each curling leaf were outlined with hazy red neon. The ivy was streaked with fine veins of white, the basil stuff was spattered with red. We were close enough for the cloying scent to be annoyingly pungent. I assumed it was a product of the basil stuff. At closer range it would be overpowering.

At last Larry and the other man reappeared, angrily pulling off their masks. Larry's face was white. "It's empty!" he shouted. "There's nothing here!"

Duke said, "Damn," and kicked at a rock. "Shorty, keep an eye out. McCarthy, come with me." Then, abandoning his carefully staked-out position, he stalked toward the dome. I followed, struggling to keep up.

"How long has it been empty?" Duke asked.

Larry shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. You know as much about their nesting habits as I do. But it smells warm...... Duke shoved past him and ducked into the doorway. I started to follow, despite myself, then stopped-my mouth was dry. I stared at that dark hole of an entrance as if it were death. I couldn't take another step. And yet-I wanted to, more than anything. I peered cautiously, but couldn't see beyond the foyer. The interior was unlit. I took a step forward, tried to convince myself to make it two

Abruptly, Duke exited, straightening and almost bumping into me. He shot me an absentminded look of annoyance, then turned to Larry. "Check the enclosure. See what's in it. Post lookouts on the other side-but keep in sight of each other." He turned back to me. "You. You're supposed to be a scientist. I'll give you ten minutes to inspect the inside of that nest. Then I'm going to burn it."

"Huh? But we're supposed to-"

"Never mind what we're supposed to. That thing is full of eggs! You think I'm going to leave them here to hatch?"

I didn't bother to answer. The question was rhetorical. I bent and entered the worm hut.

The spirit wall was more than just a baffle behind the door. It joined the roof low enough to force me into a crouch, forming a circular cross section and becoming two inward-curving passageways, one to either side, that followed the wall of the dome-how far around, I couldn't see; the ends were lost beyond the curve. The passages were ramped upward; the floors were made of the same material as the walls and the roof, only the floors seemed spongier.

I crouch-crawled into the branch on the right; that was the way Duke had gone. The passage led up and around through ninety degrees of arc and opened onto a circular room eight or nine meters in diameter and just tall enough to stand in. The leftward passage opened up in the wall opposite.

I had a flashbeam, but it wasn't necessary here. There was an opening two meters across in the center of the roof. Light streamed in through this, as well as fresh air, but the temperature wasn't as cool as I had thought it would be inside. In fact, it was almost stuffy. There was a strong, stifling smell about the nest, somehow familiar; a sickly sweetish odor, but I couldn't place it easily. . . .

The room seemed smaller than I'd expected and the ceiling was lower than it had appeared from outside-of course, those upward-sloping ramps-this was the top part of the dome.

Was there a bottom section? There had to be. Or was it all foundation? There were several openings in the floor, all of them ominously dark. I stood there, hesitating. I was a scientistsupposed to be a scientist; at least that's what it said on my pay vouchers-but that didn't keep me from being afraid. I stood there indecisively and sniffed-that odd-flavored smell....