David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

"Oh," I said. "And I was just beginning to like it here."

"Better than Denver?" Ted asked.

"I've never been to Denver."

"Trust me. You'll love it. It'll be just like civilization. Jim, do you really want to stay here, where the odds are seven to one that you'll end up in a Chtorran stewpot? Or didn't you know that?"

I didn't answer right away. At least now I knew why Ted had been so cooperative these past few days. But I still felt as if a rug had been yanked out from under me. I looked across at Ted. He was peering into my face, still waiting for my reaction.

"Damn," I said. "I wish you weren't always so ... ubiquitous." He shrugged. "So what? You'll thank me for it in Denver."

"I know. That's the annoying part!"

THE THURSDAY chopper was pushed back till Saturday, so we had four days left-if we were going. They still hadn't told us. Ted said that was the army way. If they told us, we'd only worry about it. This way, we didn't have anything to worry about.

I worried anyway-and made the best use I could of the time. I borrowed the helmet camera and set it up in front of the millipede cage. I digitized the image, fed it into one of the computers-and I had an activity monitor. The program counted the number of pixel changes per second, noted the scale of change, the time and the temperature. As it built up information, it correlated trends, fit them into curves and made them available for display on continually updating graphs.

The bugs did not like heat. Temperatures above twenty-five degrees Centigrade made them lethargic, and higher than thirtyfive degrees they refused to move at all. Generally they seemed to prefer a ten-degree environment, although they remained active at temperatures as low as freezing. Lower than that, they would curl up.

I repeated the tests under different lighting conditions. The bath house had been rigged with two bare twelve-hundred-lumen plates; when I replaced them with outdoor lamps, some of the vari-temp, night-into-day lights for hydro- and aeroponics, the millipedes curled up as if to shield themselves, regardless of the temperature. Clearly, they did not like bright light.

But I wanted to measure their activity levels through a full range of lighting conditions, charting the curve all the way from pitch dark to bright sunlight-and through a complete range of temperatures too.

We borrowed the air conditioner from Dr. Obama's office-we didn't dare try to take the one from the mess hall-and Larry found a spare heater for us somewhere. Between the two I was able to achieve most of the test temperatures I wanted. I rewrote the program, put the lights on a rheostat with a photodiode to measure the lumens and connected everything to the computer.

The result was a two-dimensional data-base demonstrating the millipedes' reactions to a variety of environments.

But it was inconclusive. The bugs liked low temperatures and dim lights. They tolerated high temperatures. They didn't like bright lights at any temperature. That didn't make sense. It was too simple. Did they come from a dark planet? There wasn't enough data.

So I repeated the whole series of tests another dozen times, but now with the lights tweaked to a different color each time. This left me with a three-dimensional graph-now I was nine times as certain that I didn't trust the results. There was a funny anomaly at the low end of the spectrum. I knew it meant something, but I was more confused than ever.

I was still sitting in front of the terminal, leaning back in my chair, arms folded across my chest, staring at the screen and waiting for inspiration to strike me, when Ted bounced in. "Okay, Jimmy boy! Pack your comic books! It's time to go."

I didn't even look up. "Later. Not now-"

He grabbed my chair from behind and pulled me back away from the terminal. "Come on-Obie wants to see us."

"About what?"

"Huh? Have you forgotten? Denver, remember? It's a large city in Colorado ... next to a mountain?"

"Oh, yeah." I said, "I can't go."

"Huh?"

"I'm not done." I leaned over to the terminal and touched a button. The screen started cycling through the pages of my report and over a hundred different three-dimensional graphs. There were cross sections too. I pointed. "Look at that activity curve, Ted! It doesn't make sense. These things look like they should be nocturnal-but their behavior pattern with light and temperature variations says they're not. And look at the way it spikes on the spectrum tests-what does that mean?"

Ted pulled me to my feet. "What it means is congratulations!" He pumped my hand heartily. "You've just won a free trip to Denver!"

"-But the job is incomplete!"

"It's good enough! You don't have to interpret it! They have real brains in Denver. They'll take one look at what you've done and have the answer for you in no time. You'll probably get a nice footnote in somebody's report." He placed one hand in the middle of my back and shoved. "Now, move! The chopper's already on its way-yes, it's a day early; Larry's bringing packing crates-is your data disked? Here, take it. Let's go!" We were out the door and on our way before I even had a chance to punch him.

We tumbled into Dr. Obama's office like a small stampede. We were both out of breath and flushed. Dr. Obama barely glanced up as Ted snapped a precision salute. I realized what he had done and hastily followed suit, only not as precise.

Dr. Obama almost smiled. She said, "I see you've heard." She handed across two envelopes. "Well, we might as well make it official-here are your orders."

We read them together. I finished first and looked up. "Thank you, ma'am." And then I added, "I think-?"

She nodded. "You're right. I'm not doing you a favor. Denver isn't going to be any more pleasant, but you'll find that out for yourselves. You'll both want to be real careful."

"Ma'am?" I asked.

"I mean, don't screw it up-you're going to be playing in a much bigger game. There are worse things than being eaten." She looked unhappy. She said, "I suppose I should wish you luck and tell you I'm proud of you. But I won't. I'm not proud of you, and you're going to need a lot more than luck. Let's have no illusions. I didn't want you up here, either of you, and I'm going to be glad to have you out. This is no place for untrained replacements. But I'll give you this much. You did your jobs-and you were appreciated. You're both intelligent. Wherever you end up, you should do fine"-she looked at Ted, she looked at me-"each in your own inimitable style." She glanced at her watch. "The chopper's already on its way. You have less than an hour. Pack your specimens and be in front of the mess hall at twelve-thirty. Duke is driving you to the helipad. There are metal cages for the bugs and an insulated box for the eggs right outside. Try not to get sent back."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you." I started to rise.

"Don't be so quick-there's one more thing. Jackson, would you excuse us a moment? Wait outside. And, ah-this time, would you please not eavesdrop?"

"Huh? Who, me?" Ted looked puzzled as he stood. "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am."

"Yes, I'm sure you don't," Dr. Obama said quietly as the door closed after him. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small flat lockbox the size of a paperback book. "I have a ... personal favor." She lowered her voice, "There's a Lieutenant Colonel Ira Wallachstein attached to Project Jefferson. Would you please deliver this to him?"

"Certainly, ma'am-"

"I want you to personally place it in his hands."

"Yes, ma'am."

"If for any reason that's not possible, take this out to an open field and punch the date into the lock. Then walk away quickly. Thirty seconds later, it'll self-destruct. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am."