Suddenly the ground below was rockier. The clusters of huts vanished like a dream-as abruptly as if the worms themselves had drawn a border. No more of those crimson horrors poured out of the ground. No more paced the chopper's shadow. The last of them fell behind us and disappeared beneath the Scorpions' wrath.

A few miles farther and the festering red landscape vanished too. The hills gave way to green and brown again. There were pine trees here-and redwoods and sequoias.

For a moment, there was silence in the plane. Only the steady chuff and screech of chopper blades and the muted whine of jets filled the cabin, and that wasn't a sound any more; it was merely a presence, constant and unpleasant.

Lizard made a sound then-something like a growl, something like a shriek. It started low and quickly rose. It was a release of tension, a controlled scream like the whistle of a steam engine. Her face was tight

And then she stopped and took a breath. And took us higher.

I TURNED around and looked at Duke. He looked away. He wouldn't meet my eyes. Goddammit. He did this every time we came up against the wall-every time we were reminded just how badly we were losing. He wouldn't share the pain, he kept it bottled up instead. He scared me when he got like this.

"Goddamn worms." He said it bitterly.

I knew he'd have to go off somewhere to be by himself for a while-and then he'd be okay again. Until the next time. But until he had that chance, he would be bitter. And he'd take it out on the rest of us.

My own reaction

I felt drained. Every mission only put me more in touch with the total hopelessness of the job. This one was the worst. I didn't know what I was doing here.

The worms confused me. I was horrified by them-and at the same time, I was fascinated. I wanted to know everything I could about them. I was attracted by the horror-and paralyzed by it.

And there was another feeling too, a darker more disturbing one. All that I could sense of it was an occasional hot red flash of memory-as if there was something I once knew, but had since forgotten; and yet the resonance of the experience still echoed in my head.

Whenever these feelings came over me, so did a profound disgust for my own species. Human beings were turning into something even more monstrous than the invaders.

It was all the killing.

I knew that there were people who looked at me with horror now-because there was death in my eyes. I could see it in Duke's face too. All of us who had met the worms head-on-we all wore the same expression.

We were killing machines. The only difference between us and the worms was that the worms didn't have a choice. We did. We chose to kill. We would even kill ourselves if it would hurt the Chtorrans.

I felt the pressure in my chest again.

The chopper bumped me out of my brooding. We were picking up speed. I looked at Lizard. Her face was military blank. Except for that one moment of screaming release, she was a perfect soldier machine; a pilot-thing, not a human being.

I wondered if she had ever been a real woman, then discarded the thought. Her face was set like steel. I couldn't imagine her laughing, or having a good time, let alone anything more intimate. She wore her body like armor and the effect was inhuman, almost repelling. I couldn't imagine her naked-nor could I see her trusting another human being enough to open up to him. No, she was just another monstrous machine. We all were now.

She was checking her flight plan. "All right, that's the worst of it. We'll let the navy finish cleaning this up. I want to look at Red Bluff before we turn back. Then we'll come back down the coast and look for sea sludge."

"Don't you have skyball overflights?" Duke asked. His voice and expression were normal again-hard and clipped.

"We did-but something's been knocking them down."

"And you want to go looking for it?" I asked. There was incredulity in my tone.

Lizard ignored me. She said to Duke, "We don't have enough skyballs left to schedule regular patrols. We won't until Lockheed starts shipping again."

"How about satellite eyeballs?"

"They can give us pretty good resolution, but they can't get under cloud cover. And they're not mobile on the scene. We need to find out what's going on."

Lizard thumbed her radio to life. "All right, ducklings. This is Banshee-6. You done good. I'm turning east. Fall in behind and keep your eyes open."

"Roger, dodger."

The horizon angled crazily as Lizard tilted the ship eastward. We were over crumpled hills again.

"This area looks green-" Lizard pointed. "But it's red on the map. We're spotting worms in these woods every day now. The governor has pulled the whole lumber industry out."

She added bitterly, "We're going to lose the northern half of the state. It's too wild to control. You won't get anyone to admit it officially, but it's just a matter of time. It's going to be a bitch just to hold the road open. We're running traffic in convoys now and it seems to work, but I don't know what it'll be like in two years. Hell, we don't even know what the worms will be like in two years." And then she added in a quieter tone, "Or even humanity, for that matter. Shit." She flew on in silence.

I looked at Duke. He was leaning forward, staring out of his bubble. All I could see was his back. He had his face in his hands. What was he remembering? He'd probably never tell.

I turned back to my window and stared out at the ground too. This pervading despair was infectious.

The hills were leveling out now. The slopes were lush and green and heavily forested. Some of the trees looked like they had a white sheen to them. I couldn't figure out what it was.

"Time to turn north again," Lizard said and banked the chopper to the left. I wondered if we were close enough to see the 1996 meteor crater, now called Red Lake. That was supposed to be around here somewhere. As we angled around and dropped into our new course, I strained forward to look-but the northern horizon was hidden by a line of pink clouds.

I looked back, but I couldn't see the Scorpions any more. I climbed forward and sat down in the copilot's seat. "Are the other choppers still with us?"

Lizard glanced at her controls. There was a screen in the center of the dashboard. She tapped it. "See those red dots. They're five minutes behind us. Don't worry about it, they're just making a wider turn. They'll catch up with us up here-" She tapped the screen. "If we have the fuel, we'll take a look around Redding too."

"Oh, I see. Thanks."

"Sure."

"Can I ask you something, Colonel?"

"You can ask anything you want. I don't promise I'll answer."

"It's about Denver. . . ."

Her tone was guarded. "Go on."

"Well ...I remember thinking that the Special Forces people were all so-well, ruthless."

"Mm hm," she said. "That's what it takes to win a war."

"I know that now," I said. "In fact, sometimes I think we're not being ruthless enough. But that's not my question. What I want to know is-well, you were one of the first people there to be kind to me. In your own gruff way. Do you mind if I ask why?"

"I don't really remember-" She hesitated, frowning at the approaching wall of clouds. "Maybe I was having a bad day." Then she shrugged. "I used to take in a lot of stray puppies before I found out they all grew up to be sonsabitches." She glanced over at me. "Any other questions?"

"Uh, no-thanks."

Next time, I'd leave well enough alone.

The sunlight had turned a peculiar shade of pink-the sky was a funny bright overcast. "Are we heading into rain?" I asked.

"No." Lizard looked puzzled. "The forecast is for bright sun and strong winds off the ocean." She glanced at her instruments. "That's not moisture, whatever it is. It's too dense."