“Good,” Chien-Chu replied. “Nothing attracts resources like success. If you need something, let me know. You have a hypercom. Use it sparingly-but use it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Commander…”
“Sir?”
“Go get something to eat. You look like a skeleton.”
The so called Dead Bug Lab was a step up from the grubby room that Margaret and her scientists had been forced to share deep in the bowels of the Lucky Fool mine. According to signs neatly stenciled onto duracrete walls, the large, rectangular space had once been the home of the 321 ^ st Aerospace Fighter squadron’s in-service training facility. And, thanks to the fact that the team was already present when Foley and the rest of the survivors of Operation Cockroach arrived, they had been able to hang on to the precious square footage. Power was flowing from a portable reactor, running water had been restored, and there was little to no chance of a cave-in. The bugs could attack, of course-but that was true anywhere.
So Margaret was sitting in her tiny office when Dr. Howard Lothar stomped in and dropped a head onto the surface of her metal desk. “There it is,” he said triumphantly. “Just like I said.”
“There what is?” Margaret wanted to know, as the dead Ramanthian glared at her. “And how many times have I told you? Put something under body parts. They leak.”
Lothar continued as if Margaret hadn’t spoken. “See the growth on the back of this specimen’s head? That’s called a stroma-or a fruiting body.”
One of the problems associated with supervising scientists, but not being one herself, was that there were frequent occasions when Margaret didn’t have a clue as to what they were talking about. “I’m sorry, Howard,” she said. “Please go back and lay the necessary groundwork, so I’ll know what you’re talking about.”
Lothar sighed. Then, in the manner of an adult instructing a child, he gave a minilecture. “We know that some Ramanthians are dying from the equivalent of a human skin disease. For a host of reasons I won’t bore you with, it’s my hypothesis that after arriving on Earth in large numbers and spreading out across the globe, they came into contact with a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateris. Probably in the equatorial jungles where our friend Ophio finds its way into carpenter ants and forces them to leave the forest canopy for the vegetation lower down. Then, having taken control, it compels its victim to bite onto a leaf.
“The ant dies,” Lothar added, “but continues to hang there, as the fungus grows inside of it. Eventually, a stroma like this one breaks through the anterior surface of the ant’s head. A couple of weeks later, spores begin to fall-each one of which can infect a new host. And that’s what happened to Marvin,” Lothar added, as he patted the head. “Although it’s my guess that the Ramanthians unknowingly made Ophio ’s task easier by flying their troops hither and yon all over the world. Who knows? Marvin could have been infected right here rather than down south somewhere.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret said doubtfully. “I’m not a scientist-but don’t parasites and their hosts coevolve? Plus, the Ramanthians just arrived.”
“You’ve been listening to Woo,” Lothar said accusingly. “She thinks the bugs brought the parasite with them. But that, like most of the stuff she says, is pure bullshit. I admit that the odds are stacked against an Earth parasite having the capacity to exploit an off-planet host, but it appears that Ophio is very resourceful. And I can prove it.”
“Really? How?”
“I took spores from a stroma produced by a specimen named Larry and used them to infect Marvin. He did everything a carpenter ant would do except clamp onto a leaf. He is, or was, a sentient with a very complex nervous system. So the course of the disease was different. Marvin experienced some pretty bad seizures before he died. I enjoyed that.”
Margaret was horrified. She knew her team had requested and been given control of Ramanthian POWs for study-along with the bodies of dead bugs found here and there. But the methods Lothar had been using were way over the moral/ ethical line. And she was responsible for allowing it to happen. “I hope you’re joking.”
“Hell no, I’m not joking,” the scientist replied defiantly. “ What? You’re feeling all gooey about the scum who took our planet, killed my wife and millions of your fellow citizens? Have you forgotten what they did to your daughter on Jericho?”
Margaret hadn’t forgotten. And she wondered where her daughter was. “I understand, Howard. I really do. But if we aren’t careful, we’ll wind up just as bad as they are.”
“So, shoot me,” Lothar said tightly, as tears began to stream down his cheeks. “I would do it myself if I had the guts.”
Margaret got up, circled the desk, and put an arm around Lothar’s shoulders. “What you need is some rest. Come on… I’m giving you the day off.”
“What about the fungus?” Lothar demanded stubbornly as he wiped the tears away. “We can weaponize it. I know we can. All we need is a large supply of Ophio.”
“I’ll work on it,” Margaret promised.
“And Woo? Will you tell her to shut the hell up?”
Margaret remembered the way Woo occasionally sobbed in the middle of the night. “No, Howard. I won’t tell Woo to shut the hell up. Actually, I think you two have a lot in common. But I will instruct the entire staff to follow up on your research.”
That seemed to do the trick as the tension went out of the scientist’s shoulders, and he allowed himself to be led away. The head, which was leaking goo onto the surface of Margaret’s otherwise-clean desk, was understandably mute.
As usual, there was a line out of Foley’s door, down a hall, and around a corner as Margaret barged into his office. The officer in command of the brigade’s nonexistent air force was seated in the guest chair. Margaret nodded to him and smiled pleasantly before dropping Ralph’s head onto the desk with a muted thump. The increasingly smelly object was sealed inside a bag and stared out through foggy plastic. “Sorry to interrupt,” Margaret said, “but I need to speak with you before Ralph here begins to rot.”
The pilot looked appalled-and Foley was annoyed. Because even though it wasn’t perfect, the line outside his office was part of an effort to make himself accessible. Something that was very important in an organization that was quasi-military at best. So line jumpers were a problem. Yet the head, combined with the fact that it was Margaret who had been toting it around, was an irresistible draw. Foley made eye contact with the pilot. “Would you excuse us, Major? If you would be so kind as to wait outside, we’ll resume our conversation in a few minutes.”
The pilot left, Margaret took his seat, and Foley frowned at her. “This had better be good, Margaret… Especially after the way you lied to the guards as you and your team left the mine. I didn’t order you to set up shop at this location, and you know it.”
“No, you didn’t,” Margaret agreed unapologetically. “But what if we had remained there? Where would we be now?”
The challenge was obvious. As was her meaning. Margaret and her scientists would have been dead had they remained in the mine. Foley winced. “That hurts.”
“Sorry,” Margaret replied. “It wasn’t my intention to be judgmental. But I felt compelled to defend my actions.”
“And you did,” Foley observed ruefully. “So what’s with the head?”
“The head is part of an experiment,” Margaret replied. “A morally questionable experiment. But important nevertheless.”
Having said that much, Margaret went on to repeat what Lothar had told her. She finished by saying, “So, here’s where the matter stands now. We have a weapon. One the planet gave us. All we have to do is use it. And if we do so quickly enough, it’s possible that the Ramanthians will be forced to withdraw. But odds are that they’re working on a defense. So we’ve got to hurry.”
Foley looked at the head and the space black eyes that seemed to bore into him. His thoughts were churning-and he felt a growing sense of excitement. What if Margaret was correct? What if they could force the bugs to withdraw from Earth? That would be a victory so important it could change the course of the war. “But
