Here's an interesting newsletter -- forwarded from a Gerrold fan. 
 It's of interest in that it gives an insight into the 'real' life of a 
well-established author.  (See paragraph "personal news.")  Gerrold has 
also published a "How to write SF/Fantasy" book which might be of some 
interest.  (See paragraph "Worlds of Wonder.")

I wonder at the value of publishing parts of a WIP here and on the 
website.  Is the tease factor worth the risk?  Or is there a risk, for a 
well-established author?

Scribite!

kent graham

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gerrold [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 6:31 AM
To:
Subject: Chtorr Newsletter (At last!)

You are receiving this because you requested updates on the progress of 
The War Against The Chtorr series by David Gerrold.  If you are 
receiving this by mistake, or if you do not wish to receive further 
updates, e-mail us at [log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> with the word "unsubscribe" as the 
subject or even "piss off Gerrold!" and we will remove your name from 
the list.  We apologize for the inconvenience.  We hate spam as much as 
you do.  

In this newsletter:

 

·       Over 250,000 words finished on A Method For Madness!

·       There will be a 6th Book!

·       The Man Who Folded Himself is back in a brand new edition!

·       The Martian Child is now out in trade paperback!

·       The Quote Book of Solomon Short!

·       Preview chapters of A Method For Madness attached to this letter!

 

Hello, Justin.A.Graham!

Yes, it's been a over a year since I've written and sent one of these 
newsletters reporting on progress with The War Against The Chtorr.  I 
apologize for that.  Mea culpa, my bad, and I will go have myself 
flogged - as soon as I can find a red-haired dominatrix who owns a 
chocolate store.  (I'm not even going to try to explain why it's taken 
so long.  But if you're reading this, it means we finally figured out 
how to get mail-merge working in Office XP.  If you're not reading this, 
don't worry about it....)

Welcome to the New Folks!  We receive as many as a hundred requests a 
month from folks asking for information about the next book.  I don't 
have time to answer all the e-mails and I apologize for that.  Please 
forgive.  That's why we started this occasional newsletter - so I could 
respond to all the e-mails and keep folks informed.  I hope you'll find 
it worthwhile;  if not, let me know and I'll remove your name from the 
list.  (If you're getting multiple copies, please let me know about that 
too.)  To those of you who've been around for a bit, thanks for your 
patience as well as your enthusiasm. 

As a way of saying thanks to everyone, I'm including a special preview 
of book five at the bottom of this newsletter.  Some of these chapters 
were posted on my website, but I think this is more than anyone else has 
seen yet.  We will have more preview chapters in future newsletters. 

Progress on A METHOD FOR MADNESS:  Since last year I've had three major 
writing spurts.  The total number of words finished is now more than 
250,000 words, not counting all the stuff that will go between the 
chapters.  So this is already the biggest book in the series, and 
there's still as much as 50,000 words left to write. 

In this book, Jim gets to go deep down inside the Amazon mandala, not 
just what's on the surface, but what's underneath as well.  And then, 
later on, he gets to discover what's under Manhattan as well.  The 
parallels and contrasts between the two sequences promise to be spooky.  
But of course it's also a lot of work.  Even though two-thirds of it is 
already written, I'm exhausted just thinking about the parts left to 
write. 

So it looks like A Method For Madness could grow to 300,000 words or 
more.   Oh yes, and there's also this one sequence where Jim finally 
explains what's really going on with the worms.  That's worth a couple 
of "Yikes!"  It brought me out of my chair a couple of times as I 
realized some additional implications of the invasion.  So I've given up 
trying to predict when it will be done.  As long as I'm this 
enthusiastic, I'm just going to let it keep growing.  It will probably 
be the equivalent of three ordinary novels.  I hope you won't mind.

Publishing Plans:  A Method For Madness will be published in hardcover, 
but no date has been set yet.  If I can finish the book before the end 
of summer, it will be published next year.  Tor Books has also bought 
the rights to reprint the first four books, along with the fifth book.  
Right now, they're talking about publishing A Matter For Men and A Day 
For Damnation as one volume, and A Rage For Revenge and  Season For 
Slaughter as a second volume.  They haven't said whether they will do 
paperback or hardcover.  If you want hardcover editions write to Tor 
books and let them know.  I figure that if they know that there are 
several thousand folks ready to buy hardcovers that's enough to justify 
the expense.  (Tor Books, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010-7703.)  
Don't put my name on the envelope or they'll forward it to me as fan 
mail.  In fact, don't even tell them I told you to write. 

Book Six!  The big news, of course, is that Tor has also written a 
contract for book six in the series, A Time For Treason, so that's the 
book I'm going to start on as soon as I finish A Method For Madness. 

 
The Man Who Folded Himself:  The first publisher of this book called it 
"the last word in time travel stories" and a lot of readers seemed to 
agree.  It's now considered a classic novel of science fiction and 
BenBella Books has just published a trade paperback edition with a very 
nice introduction by Robert Sawyer, and a very nice afterword by 
Goeffrey Klempner.  It's a handsome package and BenBella even has some 
autographed copies for sale on their website.  
(http://www.benbellabooks.com.)  We'll also be at Westercon in Seattle. 

The Martian Child:  This is the novel-length version of the story that 
won the Hugo and the Nebula awards in 1995 - the nearly-true story of my 
son's adoption.  The book is now available in trade paperback and it is 
highly recommended by my publisher, my son, and the bank that holds my 
mortgage.  The Martian Child might be a little hard to find in 
bookstores, so I recommend ordering it online.  Some of the reviewers 
weren't as warm to it as I'd hoped (It's been called everything from 
charmingly neurotic to relentlessly honest to embarrassingly earnest.  
Go figure.), but quite a few readers seem to have taken it to heart.  
See if you can spot the references to the Chtorr in the book.  Meanwhle, 
Sean just turned nineteen and he's showing dangerous signs of turning 
into a human being, so somebody must have done something right.

The Dingilliad:  Leaping To The Stars, the third (and final, I think) 
book in the Dingilliad series was published last April to generally 
favorable reviews.  It was a tricky book to write because I was juggling 
about six different watermelons.  (I did drop one, at least I think I 
did, but I won't tell you which one, because nobody else seems to have 
noticed.)  The first two books, Jumping Off The Planet and Bouncing Off 
The Moon, are out in paperback.  You can order all of them at Amazon, of 
course.  All three are also available in one volume, from the Science 
Fiction Book Club as The Far Side Of The Sky.  Reviewers and readers 
continue to compare the books favorably to the classic Heinlein 
juveniles, which is a nice compliment, but a little inaccurate.  Yes, 
there's a Heinlein flavor, but it's only a spice.  I like to think that 
there's a lot more Gerrold than Heinlein in these books.  Read them for 
yourself and let me know what you think.  (By the way, a favorite 
character from the Chtorr series has a very nice chapter in Leaping To 
The Stars.)

Worlds of Wonder:  Writers Digest Books asked me to do a book on how to 
write science fiction and fantasy, so I took all the best lessons I'd 
learned from Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Samuel R. Delaney, James 
Blish, D.C. Fontana, A. E. Van Vogt, and others, and compiled them into 
Worlds of Wonder.  It's gotten some good reader reaction;  if you want 
to know more about writing, or more about how I approach writing, pick 
up a copy.  (The Science Fiction Book Club published World of Wonder as 
a recent selection, but didn't send me any copies.  If anyone has a copy 
of the Book Club edition they'd like to donate or trade, let me know 
please.)  And yes, there's a Chtorran chapter in this book too.

Personal News:  In the past twelve months, I've had a (minor) relapse of 
my pneumonia, a severe bout of food poisoning, a computer-hacker attack, 
a hard disk crash, and a motherboard failure.  Plus both my dog and my 
Dad died within three weeks of each other.  And if that wasn't enough, 
we ran into a bad batch of chocolate.  Sheesh!  That was when I went out 
into the back yard and shouted at the sky,  "Enough already - go pick on 
someone who deserves it!!"  The following week, I got strip-searched 
three times on a weekend air trip.  I have hired a lawyer and we are 
filing a lawsuit against God for malfeasance.  More about this later. 

The Tip Jar:  It costs us more money than we expected to maintain the 
website and do these newsletters.  (We're working on bringing our costs 
down shortly.)  If you find the website useful, or would just like to 
make a donation to the Keep-David-Gerrold-Working-On-The-Damn-Book-Fund, 
you can log onto www.paypal.com <http://www.paypal.com/> and 
pledge/tithe/donate/subscribe/contribute whatever you feel like to 
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>.  (Part of 
this will go to cover some recent unexpected medical expenses.  Don't 
panic, I'm fine now, but the dog needs orthodonture work.)  It'll help 
us continue the website and do some other useful stuff. 

Sales:  Almost as a joke, we printed up a little hand-made book 
compiling all the known quotes of Solomon Short.  Every time we put it 
up for sale at a convention, it sells out.  And one person at a recent 
convention was quite outraged that I hadn't made copies available to 
folks on this list.  My bad, I'll go and have myself flogged, as soon as 
I can find a red-haired dominatrix who flies a chopper and owns a 
chocolate store.  (If you fit three out of four of those qualifications, 
send me a resume.) 

Anyway, if you're interested, we have available for sale:

The Quote Book Of Solomon Short.  (All the quotes by Solomon Short from 
the first four books, plus a few pages of quotes from book five.)  This 
is a 32-page, self-printed book, nothing fancy, but a lot of fun, and 
every copy is autographed.  $12.  Shipping/handling is $6.  (They go for 
twice as much on eBay.)

We've also put together a package of three Star Trek scripts for $50:  
"The Trouble With Tribbles", "More Tribbles, More Troubles", "Blood And 
Fire" (unproduced TNG episode.)   You can drop a check in the mail to 
David Gerrold, 9420 Reseda Blvd. #804, Northridge, CA 91324-2932, or you 
can pay by credit card by logging onto www.paypal.com 
<http://www.paypal.com/> and making payment to [log in to unmask] 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.  Individual scripts are $20 each.  
Shipping/handling is $6.

Auctions:  Occasionally, folks write to me asking where they can find 
copies of my books.  When we cleaned out the garage, we found a lot of 
extra copies.  So we're putting them up for auction on ebay.  There are 
hardcovers, first editions, galley proofs, paperbacks, stuff you might 
have given up all hope of finding.  We're getting to the end on some of 
these items, so you'd better move fast.  Our next round of auctions 
starts on Monday.  Go to eBay and search on "Gerrold." 

THANK YOU!  Okay, that's all the important news this time out.  Thanks 
for putting yourself on the newsletter list.  Thanks again for your 
enthusiasm and interest.  And thanks most of all for your patience. 

 

 

David Gerrold

[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>

 

 

 

A Method For Madness
(selected preview chapters)

 

2

Speed Bumps

"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment."

--Solomon Short

The chopper jerked in the air. The pilot pulled the machine around in a 
tight turn, nearly sliding us sideways out the open door. Lizard grabbed 
for me--a reflex. She clutched at my arm only for a moment, then pulled 
herself up, swearing like a longshoreman. Angrily, she began untying the 
restraints that still held her firmly in her stretcher.

We tilted hard then and I stared straight down at another chopper just 
dropping down out of the air, landing in the red-stained jungle below 
us--in a clearing carved by a daisy-cutter bomb, dotted with scattered 
tents and crates of supplies and the wreckage of the Hieronymus Bosch. 
The aircraft became the instant center of a scrambling cluster of 
soldiers and civilians.

We tilted again, righting ourselves this time, and I saw another 
chopper, orbiting the camp opposite us. Its guns were firing away at 
something in the distance. I became aware of the sounds--red and purple 
screeches, punctuated with the thudding blasts of explosions, both near 
and far.

"What are you doing?" Lizard demanded of the pilot.

"Orders. We have to orbit and provide covering fire until the chopper 
behind us gets off the ground. Then he'll provide cover for the next 
one. And so on." He grinned back at us. "Sit back and enjoy the ride. 
You'll get the best view of the war yet. I guarantee you." The pilot was 
a stocky kid with a ruddy complexion. He looked like he was having a 
terrific time. Probably, he was. Copilot was pointing at something and 
shouting. Behind us, the two gunners were launching cold-rockets, one 
after the other, with alarming enthusiasm.

Lizard and I exchanged a glance. It was amateur night. She looked 
annoyed as hell. Frustrated beyond words. I was sure she would have 
preferred to fly us out herself. The other passengers in this lifeboat 
looked equally unhappy. We'd lifted off with four GI's, two 
torch-bearers, and a corpsman. I wondered what they'd been through. The 
torch-bearers looked exhausted. The others just seemed terrified--as if 
they'd had a glimpse down the mouth of hell. Probably they had. The 
corpsman had his eyes closed and was reciting his prayers.

We circled around the evacuation camp and I caught a glimpse of the pink 
skin of the Bosch sprawled across the jungle canopy. It stretched out 
for acres. Parts of it still ballooned upward like gigantic bulging 
breasts and stomachs and arms. Other parts sagged like the shrunken skin 
of a corpse. Here and there, metallic bones shone through, poking 
brokenly upward. I saw red maggots crawling across the body--

"All right, we're clear," the pilot called. I looked down as we banked 
and saw the other chopper lifting off. The next one came dropping down 
behind it.

Lizard had climbed forward, to stare past the pilot's shoulder. Now, she 
reached forward and grabbed his shoulder. "What are you doing?" she 
demanded. "You're heading south!"

"Wanna get a better look," the pilot said. "Never seen worms up close 
before." He pointed ahead. "Look--!"

By now, I had loosened the bonds on my stretcher, and dragged myself 
halfway forward too. Despite the splints, my knee still twinged with 
fire every time I moved. Behind me, the corpsman made cautionary noises 
about my leg. I told him to stuff it.  After what I'd just been through, 
this was luxury.

Peering ahead through the clear dome of the vehicle, I could see what 
had excited the pilot. A fantastic river of huge scarlet bodies poured 
through the jungle. Thousands of Chtorran gastropedes from the Japuran 
mandala were pursuing the great sky-god that had passed across the roof 
of their world. Their song was audible even over the steady thwup-thwup 
of the chopper's blades and the droning roar of its engines. The two 
young men in the cockpit seemed fascinated, almost to the point of being 
stupefied.

Lizard was shouting at them. "Don't be stupid! Don't you know the 
Chtorran ecology is hostile to aircraft engines!"

"Relax, honey," the pilot said. "You're in good hands. Let the men 
handle this." Gently, he disengaged her hand from his shoulder. "I'll 
drive."

Copilot pointed downward. "Let's get close-ups--"

"Right. They'll be worth a fortune. What do you think Newsleak will pay?"

Lizard was unfastening something from her collar. One of her stars. She 
reached around and held it up in front of the pilot's eyes. She waited 
until she was sure that he had focused and recognized it. "My name is 
not 'honey,'" she said. "It is 'General Tirelli, sir!' And you will turn 
this fucking ship around and head north for Yuana Moloco, right now, or 
I will drag you out of that seat and fly it myself. That is a direct 
order. Acknowledge it now!"

I had to give the kid credit. He didn't flinch. "Sorry, ma'am. I have 
standing orders to do a photo reconnaissance. You may be a general, but 
my commanding officer is an even bigger son-of-a-bitch." He brushed her 
hand away. "You can threaten me all you want, but I'm still flying this 
rig, and if you interfere with my piloting again, I'll file formal 
charges against you the minute we touch down."

Lizard was tired and weak. Otherwise the expression on her face would 
have put him into the hospital. Or perhaps she knew she couldn't win 
this argument. I crawled laboriously forward. "Who gave you those 
orders, Captain?"

It was the use of the word Captain that got him. He said, "Standard 
operating procedure for all Chtorran operations requires--"

"In North America, yes," I agreed. "But not here. The general was right. 
There's lumps in the air. Some of them big enough to hurt. What do you 
think brought down the dirigible?"

He didn't answer. Not right away. He busied himself with buttons and 
knobs for a minute, pretending to be checking something. Suddenly he 
spoke in a whole other tone of voice, "Listen--every other goddamn 
son-of-a-bitch in the world is getting a chance to burn these mothers. 
And every other goddamn son-of-a-bitch in the world except me is getting 
rich off them. This is my chance to make some money, and not you, not 
anybody, is going to stop me. Understand?"

I lowered my voice. "I got it. Loud and clear. Just one more question. 
Is it worth dying for?"

He shook it away. "I know what I'm doing," he said. "I've logged nearly 
a hundred hours in the simulator."

I looked at Lizard. "Oh, god," I said. "He sounds like me."

She was too frustrated to appreciate the joke. Wearily, she repinned her 
star onto her collar. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around 
me--taking care not to bump my knee. She was tired and her hug was 
feeble, but it meant the world to me. We pulled ourselves closer 
together and she rested her head on my shoulder. "Luna," she whispered. 
"We're going to Luna."

"Why not one of the L5's?" I whispered back. "We'd have Earth-normal 
gravity."

"We can get a better salad on the moon. And there are no steaks on the 
L5's yet."

"Good point. We'd better go before you start showing. Can you arrange it 
in the next three months?"

"How fast can you pack?"

"I'm already packed. I have everything I want right here."

"As soon as I can get to a phone--"

The chopper lurched then. Both Lizard and I glanced forward, but the 
pilot seemed unconcerned. "Speed bump," he explained.

Lizard's expression said it all. She didn't believe him. She saw me 
looking at her and smiled reassuringly.

"Problem?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Just my overworked imagination." But she held up a 
hand for silence while she listened intently to the sound of the 
engines. I couldn't hear anything; they sounded fine to me, but Lizard 
narrowed her eyes at something.

She leaned forward again. "What's that gleebling noise?"

The pilot replied in a laconic drawl. "Gleebling is normal for these 
frammis-whackers. If it were a greebling noise, however, then we'd have 
something to worry about."

Copilot added, "'Gleebling' means 'good evening' in the Drunk-to-English 
dictionary."

Lizard ignored them both. "What does the FADPAC[1] <#_ftn1> say?"

Both pilot and copilot looked up. Lizard looked too. The voice monitor 
was off.

"You assholes. Where'd you learn to fly? Disneyland?!" She reached up to 
switch the unit on--

The pilot slapped her hand away. "I'm flying this bird, lady!"

"Not very well!" she snapped right back.

"I don't need a voice yammering in my ear--"

"Well, you got one now! Me!"

"Get in the back where you belong, goddammit!" He turned half-around in 
his seat, like an angry parent preparing to swing at an errant child.

Lizard had already unholstered her pistol. Now, she clicked the safety 
off and pointed it directly at his head. "Turn. The. Monitor. On."

He froze.

Copilot reached up slowly and switched on the systems analysis unit. 
Immediately, the familiar synthetic-female voice of "Fay" began 
reporting, "Number 2 engine reserve deterioration 6 percent."

Instantly, the pilot reached up and tapped the yellow panel of the 
device. This would give him a more detailed report. "Gas particulate 
limits exceeded. Non-recoverable performance loss."

"What the hell--?"

"You've flown through something. That was the bump we felt," I said. 
"Possibly a hovering cloud of stingflies. They're invisible. They follow 
the worms."

"I never heard of that--"

"Gee, that's too bad," I said sympathetically. "In that case, maybe we 
won't crash.  God grants dispensation if you have a good excuse."

He didn't answer. He was suddenly busy with his controls. So was the 
copilot. I looked to Lizard. She was watching them both intently. 
Absent-mindedly, she reholstered her pistol. She began offering 
suggestions. Suddenly, the argument was over and the three of them were 
working as a team, discussing their options. I couldn't understand a 
word of their techno-jargon, but it was clear that all thoughts of the 
photo-mission had been forgotten.

"North?" asked the copilot.

"North," confirmed the pilot. Already, he was swinging the bird around. 
He looked scared. I actually felt sorry for him. His delusions of 
immortality had just been shattered.

As if in confirmation, the chopper lurched again. It was a barely 
noticeable bump, but the blood drained out of their faces. Immediately, 
the voice of Fay was reporting, "Combined engine performance is now 86 
percent. And dropping." A moment later, she added, "Pressure failure in 
the primary set."

"Shit!" said Lizard. "What's the run-dry time on this bird?"

"We've got active-magnetic bearings." The pilot was studying a 
performance projection. "We should be able to make it back--if we don't 
hit anything else."

Lizard looked to me. Her expression said it all. What else do we have to 
worry about?

I shook my head and shrugged.

Something above us chuffled. The rotors? Almost immediately, smoke began 
pouring out behind us. One of the gunners started screaming. Fay began 
yammering. Pilot and copilot were both suddenly very busy. Lizard 
shouted instructions. We lurched and bumped. I looked out my side of the 
chopper. I could see the smoke streaming away into the distance. There 
were burning flecks of something churning in the greasy black trail.

"Aww, God, no--" the pilot cried. He was fighting his controls.

Lizard shouted at him, she grabbed his shoulder, and pointed forward.  
"There!"  A wide black streak of water cut through the dark shimmer of 
the jungle;  on both sides, the forest canopy sparkled with orange.  
"Head for the river!  Keep away from the trees."

I glanced back. Both the gunners looked pale. The passengers were 
wailing. The wind grabbed the bird and pushed us sideways. Either it was 
the wind--or we were whirling out of control--

The jets were suddenly louder. Roaring! We lurched and bounced across 
the sky. I bumped my head against the roof of the cabin. Then we caught 
the air again and came swooping down and up in a wild roller-coaster 
ride through a dizzying starboard turn.  We banked over and around and 
finally down toward a dark canyon of trees. Too far! -- Abruptly, we 
pulled hard left and up!  Things went skittering sideways out of the 
bird, tumbling downward into the jungle.

The pilot was fighting for control and trying to follow the course of 
the water, swearing and yelling all at the same time. Copilot was 
hollering maydays into his mike as fast as he could, yammering like a 
monkey. The river straightened suddenly and just as improbably so did 
we, racing lower and lower toward the inky surface.

"Slow down!" Lizard shouted. "Watch for a sand bar--"

"I'm trying! I can't control her! The goddamn intelligence engine is 
fighting me--"

"You're fighting it," she corrected. "Ease up! It's trying to compensate 
for your panic!"

By now, we were perilously close to the black water below. We skated 
over shallow stretches of mud and sand and dark eddies with broken trees 
and branches sticking dangerously up out of them. Our reflection 
shimmered across the depths, flickering in and out of existence as we 
crossed the occasional sand flat. The spars in the water stretched up 
toward us like fingers.

Suddenly, we were stalling, sliding. We bounced! Sheets of water sprayed 
away from the chopper. We bounced a second time--a third! Something 
spanged against the bottom of the ship and we spun around, slipping 
sideways and turning, then abruptly came crashing to a sudden, jarring 
stop as something crunched in through the front window, shattering the 
Plexiglas in all directions, thudding up against the framework, catching 
the chopper in a tangled grip, holding us sideways and pulling us 
downward toward the wet stinking river. The water splashed and flooded 
upward into the cabin. The rotors shrieked and slammed to a sudden halt 
in the tangle of branches; they exploded in a fury off the top of the 
ship. The aircraft hissed and crackled. Foam began flooding up and over 
everything, cascading down the outside of the ship in thick white sheets.

We'd collided with a tree that had toppled into the river. The chopper 
was caught. And sinking fast.

 

 

3

The River

"That which does not kill us, often hurts us badly."

--Solomon Short

We lurched, we slipped--and then for a moment, we held where we were, 
with the water half into the aircraft. Both my legs were submerged and 
caught. "Goddammit! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" I started screaming. "This 
isn't fucking fair! Why can't I ever land in one of these things the way 
the designers intended?" I couldn't believe myself. We'd just fallen out 
of the sky--again--and I was making jokes. I must be in worse shape than 
I thought. "Lizard--!"

"I'm right here. I'm okay--" We were teetering at a precarious angle. 
She had to pull herself around so she could get herself into my field of 
view. "Can you move?"

"I'm caught, I think." I craned around. "Are we all right?"

"We will be." She began tugging at something under the water. I couldn't 
see what she was doing.

Behind us, one of the gunners was missing; a bloody smear and broken 
branches marked where he had been. The other one was moaning 
uncontrollably and clutching his gut. He was bleeding profusely; 
apparently, his weapon had crunched backward into him at the moment of 
impact. Two of the GI's were trying to free the third from where she was 
pinned by a broken limb. The fourth was nowhere to be seen. The corpsman 
looked dazed. He was still holding his kit on his lap. I didn't see 
either of the torchmen. I wondered if I'd been unconscious.

"What about the pilot?" I asked.

Lizard glanced forward. I followed her look. The chopper had skipped 
across the surface of the river, bouncing and splashing until it was 
brought to a sudden halt by a tangle of sharp branches. A broken spar 
had punched not only through the Plexiglas windshield, but also through 
the pilot's chest as well, impaling him in his seat. The branch was 
thicker than my leg and blood was flowing down its length. The pilot was 
still making sucking gurgling sounds. Even as we looked, they rattled 
into silence. I felt sorry for him--and angry at the same time. If it 
hadn't been for his arrogant stupidity--

The copilot was still mumbling into his headset. "Mayday, mayday, we're 
going down--we're going down."

Everything smelled peppermint. Drifts of foam blew past us, they whirled 
away in the river current. More of it dropped thickly into the cabin. It 
was supposed to be non-toxic, but I'd heard stories of people drowning 
in it. The chopper bumped and settled a little bit lower in the water. 
It rose up to my groin and I thought of something else to worry about. 
"Are there piranhas in this river?" I asked.

"I hope to God not," Lizard said. "I think your stretcher is pinned. Can 
you feel anything?"

"My toes are cold," I said.

"Can you wiggle them?"

I wiggled. "I think so."

"All right--" She climbed over me to the corpsman. She pulled his kit 
from his hands and started rummaging through it. She came up with a 
nasty-looking knife and climbed back to me. "I'm cutting loose the straps."

"Hurry," I said, as the aircraft settled again, pushing the water up to 
my waist.

She didn't answer. She was feeling around in the darkness. She took a 
breath and disappeared into the water beneath me. I glanced backward. 
The two GI's were grunting and groaning, pushing at the branch that 
pinned their companion. She was moaning in pain. Every time they moved 
the branch, even a little, the chopper lurched and sank deeper into the 
murk.

"Stop that!" I said.

"Fuck you," they explained. They kept pushing. The chopper creaked 
ominously.

"You're sinking the ship--"

"We've gotta get her out!"

Lizard came up, took another breath, and disappeared beneath my legs 
again. I could feel her hands as she felt her way down the stretcher. I 
wondered what happened to her gun.

One of the torch-bearers stuck his head in the door above me. "I can't 
find him," he said. "I can't find him!" He leaned his weight on the edge 
of the door frame, pulling that side of the chopper lower. The water 
crept up my belly. "I've looked all over. I can't find him!"

"Who?" I asked. I looked around. The injured gunner had disappeared.

The torchman didn't answer. A gobbet of foam dripped heavily onto his 
head, tufting like a whipped cream topping. He looked up in annoyance, 
then dropped away from the door. The foam kept dripping into the cabin 
like industrial-strength icing. It covered everything with a 
slippery-greasy film. Islands of it floated everywhere. Where was 
Lizard? The branches in the front of the aircraft cracked and the 
aircraft teetered abruptly. Oh god--what if she got pinned underwater? 
The river was up to my chest--

Lizard surfaced next to me, gasped for breath. "Almost--" she said. 
"Just a little bit more--" And vanished again. I glanced behind me. The 
trapped woman was screaming; her eyes were white with terror. The water 
was up to her chin. Her two friends were screaming in rage as they 
pushed futilely up at the tree. As hard as they pushed up, the tree 
pushed harder down.

The woman yelped for air. The chopper rocked alarmingly and the water 
swept coldly over her face; it receded for a moment, then swept in 
again. She gasped and choked and coughed. We lurched and sank another 
six inches--the water climbed toward my neck. It felt like we were going 
all the way down this time. The woman clawed vainly for air.  The water 
frothed around her. I felt her rage. It wasn't fair. And I was terrified 
that I was seeing a preview of my own death.

One of the men was screaming in frustration, pounding against the tree, 
kicking it as hard as he could. He pushed at it with renewed vigor. It 
didn't do any good. The tree was levered into the chopper like a 
crowbar. If we went anywhere, it would be down. The other man gulped for 
air and ducked down into the black water to press his mouth against the 
woman's, trying to ferry oxygen to her, one desperate gasp at a time. 
She was too panicked too cooperate. She must have struck at him. He came 
up, his nose bleeding profusely, his face scratched by her claws.

Just as I began to wonder again where Lizard was, she surfaced, took 
three quick gasps of air, and disappeared again. The water edged up 
toward my chin. A fat glob of foam drifted past; part of it caught on my 
cheek. I brushed it away. Something tugged at my legs. It rasped and 
scraped and then--just as the aircraft tilted deeper into the 
water--whatever was holding me broke free. I leapt backward and up, 
scrambling toward the open hatch, my leg screaming on fire, me screaming 
for Lizard. She came up gasping, reaching for me, climbing in the same 
direction. We pulled each other toward the hatch.

The others were coming too. The chopper kept on tilting and suddenly the 
five of us were swimming in a metal hole. We pulled ourselves up onto 
the frame of the door, scraping roughly over the edge, even as the 
machine sank away beneath us. The two GIs were dragging the stunned 
corpsman with them. One of them was retching.

I didn't see the copilot. I didn't know if he'd gotten out. The water 
was rushing into the open hatch of the chopper now, trying to push us 
back down into it. I almost lost my grip, but Lizard grabbed me by the 
ass and pushed hard! "Thanks--" I glubbed around a mouthful of stinking 
brackish water.

And then we were in the river itself, with dark water swirling all 
around us. We half-swam, half-staggered across a sandbar, then into a 
deeper rushing channel. I sank for a moment, touched bottom, pushed hard 
and came back up, coughing, choking, and spitting. My boots weighed me 
down. The aluminum splint on my leg reduced my mobility. I kept 
sinking--and thinking isn't this a stupid way to die!  Rescued and then 
drowned.

Lizard grabbed me by the arm and pulled. We struggled in the water, 
bouncing painfully off a sunken tree, scraping across the pebbled bottom 
of the river, and then suddenly ending up on our knees, puking our guts 
out on a sodden stretch of mud and sand and decaying vegetation. Lizard 
pounded me on the back until I begged her incoherently to stop. I 
collapsed face down on the ground, rolled over and looked at the sky and 
listened to my heart pound. The sky was still blue--deep and dark and 
brilliant, it blazed with pink tufts of clouds. A reminder of our 
precarious position. But we were still alive.

I turned my head to the left and saw only water. To the right, I saw the 
corpsman and one GI. I didn't see the other one. Hadn't he made it?

Gasping, Lizard collapsed next to me. "Stay with me, Jim--I need you." I 
was racked with spasmodic coughs and she was nearly paralyzed with the 
exhaustion of her struggles.  Both of us gulped for air. We lay in the 
mud and concentrated on our breathing. Periodically, she would reach 
over and touch me, my hand, my leg, my shoulder. Periodically, I reached 
over and touched her too, reassuring myself that she was still alive, 
still with me. I couldn't believe it.

Finally, we helped each other sit up. I looked at her--it was like 
looking at a mirror.  We were both so scared for each other.  Lizard's 
hair hung in wet strings, and there were tears running down her muddy 
cheeks, but we laughed with unembarrassed relief. "What is this--?" I 
asked. "Our third or our fourth air crash?"

"Third," she said. "And we've got to stop meeting like this. The FAA is 
getting suspicious."

Maybe we should have been more worried about the others. But first we 
were being selfish. We were taking care of ourselves. After all we'd 
been through--everything of the past few months as well as the past few 
days--we'd earned it. We'd both been hurt in the dirigible crash, both 
been trapped.  I'd broken my knee, Lizard had been pinned in the 
wreckage, and I'd had to pull a gun on one officer and brutalize a 
retarded woman to get Lizard rescued by a remote-controlled prowler, 
just moments before a gastropede the size of a bus reached her.  And 
then I'd had the hubris to think that we were finally safe, that we were 
finally getting out of the goddamned Amazon basin--

There's no such thing as winter in the Amazon.  It sprawls across the 
equator like a rumpled green bedspread with insects. There are only two 
seasons in the Amazon: hot and wet. During hot, much of the basin is 
under water.  During wet, more of the basin is under water.  Before the 
Andes were born, the river drained to the west;  after plate-tectonics 
had done its work, there was a ten-thousand kilometer barrier all the 
way down the western side, in some places six kilometers high, so the 
river puddled up across the entire continent until it finally drained 
east.  In some places, the river is so wide, you can't see the opposite 
shore.  In most places, everything squelches when you walk.  Some people 
think the Amazon is beautiful. 

Upriver, a bump in the black water outlined where the chopper had sunk. 
The current flowed over it like a drape. Nearby, part of a rotor blade 
stabbed up out of the water like an errant flagpole.  Everywhere, the 
haze of gnats and buzzing insects.

The other torch-bearer--not the one who'd poked his head into the 
chopper, but the other one--was dragging something out of the water, a 
bright red box. Two other boxes were floating in the same shallow 
eddies. Survival and rescue kits. The copilot was sitting alone on the 
sand with a fourth box. He was holding his gut, rocking himself, and 
crying.

"Can you walk?" Lizard asked me.

"I don't know, they wouldn't let me try. Dr. Shreiber had me tied down 
and doped up and probably under guard as well. I don't even know how bad 
my knee is. I never even saw an X-ray. I can tell you it hurts like 
hell, despite the local anesthetic."

"We need to get to higher ground." She stood up to wave.  She shouted 
weakly at the others. "Here! Over here! He needs help walking."

 

5

Survivors

"Everyone is innocent until proven stupid."

--Solomon Short

Somehow, we gathered ourselves into a group.  There were six of us; the 
GI, the torch-bearer, the corpsman, the copilot, Lizard, and me. The 
copilot had gone silent; he looked brittle and nasty, as if he'd been 
betrayed.  As if he blamed Lizard for the crash.  The corpsman was still 
in shock; he mumbled and staggered and had to be guided by the arm. The 
torchman's expression was hard and uncomfortable; I recognized the look. 
He was expecting the jungle to erupt in purple horrors any minute. If 
he'd been part of the drop-team defending the evacuation site, he had 
ample justification to wear that look. The GI's expression was 
unreadable, withdrawn; but he kept looking at me nastily. I knew he 
resented me for the death of the woman in the chopper.

Lizard looked beautiful to me. She was dirty and she stank of the river 
and her uniform clung wetly. Her hair was a stringy tangle of mats, her 
face was pale, and she looked weak. She moved slowly, as if every step 
was an effort, and her voice was hoarse and cracking. She was gorgeous.

Sitting up painfully, using only my arms, I tried to pull myself 
backward, higher up the shore, but my leg twinged with every movement. I 
wondered what further damage the crash might have done. Maybe the 
corpsman would be able to do something, but I doubted it. I was afraid 
to trust his judgment just now. The others stood around, waiting for 
someone to make a decision.

As weak as she was from her own ordeal, trapped three days in the 
wreckage of the dirigible, Lizard somehow found the strength to take 
charge. First, she ordered the GI and the torchman to carry me up to 
higher ground. The GI scowled resentfully; he didn't like me--he barely 
touched me, he didn't even want my arm across his shoulders. He held 
himself away, guiding me mostly and not letting me put any weight on 
him; but the torchman was bigger and better able to shoulder most of my 
weight anyway. He practically carried me. My leg screamed the whole way.

Everything stank. The air was humid and full of ripe unfamiliar smells. 
The heat of the sun turned the day into a steambath. The sweat rolled 
off us in dirty rivulets.  There wasn't much ground that was really 
higher, but we found a spit of land that was a little less muddy than 
the rest and slogged up onto it.  Lizard had to lean on the copilot for 
strength, but she walked most of the way herself. The corpsman trailed 
along behind us, mumbling like a madman.

The torch-bearer lowered me carefully to a piece of ground that looked 
dryer than the rest, and Lizard sank wearily down next to me, breathing 
hard. I was worried about her; she looked like she was reaching the end 
of her strength. She noticed me worrying and reached over to pat my 
shoulder in reassurance, but the way her hand slipped away at the end 
betrayed her exhaustion. She didn't have the same reserves of energy the 
rest of us did. She'd already used hers up before being loaded onto the 
chopper.

"Listen," she said. "I know we're all hurting. But we've got to--" She 
stopped to cough. I didn't like the sound of that. "--we've got to get 
the emergency kits out of the river before they wash away." She was 
amazing. In spite of everything she'd been through, she was still able 
to think and act like a commanding officer. She directed the GI and the 
torchman and the copilot to gather up all four of the red emergency kits 
and drag them over here to our temporary camp. The corpsman wandered 
around for a bit until she ordered him to sit down in one place and stay 
there. Surprisingly, he did. Despite the seriousness of her condition, 
she still had the presence of mind to watch out for the rest of us.

After the kits were secured, she sent the GI and the torch-bearer out 
again, this time on a quick lookaround to see if anyone else aboard the 
chopper had survived, or if any other usable gear or weaponry had 
somehow escaped the sinking of the machine. We didn't really expect 
there to be any other survivors, we probably would have seen them by now 
if there were; but we didn't have a confirmed death on the other GIs or 
the other torch-bearer and we had to give them every chance possible. 
They headed downriver first.

Lizard and copilot--his name was Kruger and he acted resentful--took 
immediate stock of our survival gear. She wouldn't let me help, she was 
afraid I'd cause further injury to my knee. Instead, she made me wrap 
myself up in a mylar heating blanket and wait. I grumbled, but I 
followed orders and switched the blanket on.  Despite the heat of the 
day, I was shivering.  That wasn't good.

Working together, the two of them quickly inflated three raft-tents and 
the communications buoy. Three silvery balloons puffed themselves full 
and rose straight up into the sky, lifting a long Mylar tether after 
them.  I watched as they dropped away upward, until they disappeared in 
the high blueness. The tether was more than a kilometer in length with 
the balloons spaced equidistantly at the one-third, two-thirds, and 
topmost points.  The topmost balloon had a transponder-beacon visible to 
satellites and skybirds, and the skins of the balloons were 
corner-dimpled to give them brighter-than-normal signatures; they'd 
reflect radar and laser beams directly back to the sender, showing up on 
anyone's display screen as an urgent hot spot.  The buoy hung high and 
invisible in the air above us, broadcasting its silent pleas for help.  
Lizard grabbed a military-issue clipboard from one of the kits and 
switched on the GPS; within thirty seconds, its display showed our 
location 40 klicks northwest of the Japuran mandala. 

Tiny flying insects filled the air;  we waved them away from our faces, 
the effort was useless.  They were in our eyes and mouths and nostrils.  
We had no idea whether they were Terran or Chtorran. There wasn't 
anything we could do about them anyway.  The afternoon air dripped with 
humidity. Our clothes refused to dry out. They stayed wet and stuck to 
us like clammy parasites. Everyone's boots squelched with every step. 
And all of us were sweating.  We'd need salt tablets.  And we'd need to 
boil water, lots of it, to avoid dehydration.

Lizard popped open cylinders of hot bullion for each of us; copilot had 
to help the corpsman drink, but at least he was conscious. The soup 
tasted more like medicine than soup--probably because it was more 
additives, vitamins, and antibiotics than anything else--but it had a 
strong restorative effect anyway.  We were all of us beginning to feel a 
little better by the time the torchman and the GI returned.

I was lying just inside one of the tents, with the flaps open so I could 
see out.  Lizard had ordered me into it over my protests, and then she'd 
settled down to rest just outside the entrance, watching while Kruger 
fiddled with the comm-link. He seemed to be having problems with it, but 
he was uncommunicative. He'd gone sullen again.

Lizard stood up shakily as the others approached, wiping her hands on 
her hips.  They were alone. "We've got food," she called, holding up a 
couple of bullion flasks. She was genuinely worried about them.

The GI didn't answer. His expression told the whole story. He brushed 
past her to the opposite side of the camp. He crawled into the far 
raft-tent--where the corpsman still sat in shock--and pulled the flap 
shut behind him.

Lizard looked to the torchman with a question on her face.

He grunted. He was a big man; he looked like a football player. He took 
one of the flasks, popped the top open and began drinking, without even 
waiting for the soup to heat. He drank half the contents before he 
lowered it. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "We found one of his 
buddies," he reported. "Floating face down. The river got him. Couldn't 
even get to him to pull him out. The kid took it bad." He nodded toward 
the tent. "He's real shaky. He lost his whole team, one right after the 
other. And he's never seen action before. So that's gotta be real 
rough." He sucked his teeth and spat. "He'll get over it. We all do. 
And...at least, he has confirmation." He turned and stared out at the 
oppressive green wall of vegetation, searching it with his eyes one more 
time. "My buddy just...disappeared." 

His buddy.  The other torchman.  The one who'd appeared for just an 
instant, shouting,  "I can't find him.  I can't find him.  I've looked 
all over, I can't find him." 

The river stank of decay. Parts of it were shallow and sluggish, while 
only meters away, deeper water swept by with alarming speed. Anything or 
anyone caught up in the rushing current would have been swept away in an 
instant.  I wondered if I should say anything.  Would it help?  Would it 
make a difference? We'd lost the pilot, both gunners, three GIs, and one 
torch-bearer. Did it matter?  I didn't really feel like talking.  I was 
beginning to itch all over.

 "What about yourself?" Lizard asked. "Are you okay?"  She sank down to 
the plastic mat in front of the tent again.

He finished the can of soup in one gulp and crushed the empty container 
in his hand. He tossed the can at the river and then squatted down 
opposite us. "I'm doable," he said curtly, looking at us both.

There was something about the way he spoke--I studied him carefully, but 
I couldn't see anything wrong. Nevertheless, his tone gave me serious 
hesitation. I looked to Lizard, but either she was too weak to notice, 
or she'd noticed and was giving no sign. "Thank you, Sergeant...?" she 
said/asked.

"Brickman," he said, looking from Lizard to me and back again. 
"Everybody calls me Brick. I'm a burner. One of the best. You don't have 
nothin' to worry about." He glanced to copilot and the communications 
gear. "How long till they pick us up?"

Without looking up from his screens, Kruger shook his head. "I don't 
know. I can't get through. All the channels are busy. I can't read 
anything. It's all coded. Something's going on. I can't even get a phone 
line." This was the most he'd said to anyone since the crash.

"But the thing keeps transmittin' till someone picks up the 
signal--don't it?" Brickman asked.

Copilot grunted in confirmation. He turned his attention back to his 
displays.

Lizard added, "We'll get out. Probably tonight. At worst, tomorrow."

The corpsman came crawling out of the other tent then. We all looked at 
him with open curiosity. He was a thin man. He blinked in confusion, 
turning around slowly, running a hand through his hair and scratching, 
as if trying to remember where he was and how he'd gotten here. After a 
while, he stopped. He saw us and waved half-heartedly.

Abruptly, he remembered his job. He picked up his medkit from in front 
of the tent and staggered over to us with a vague expression on his 
face. He gave each of us a pressure injection of vitamin soup; then he 
looked at my leg, frowned, examined the splints, and injected more of 
the same local anesthetic that had let me come this far without 
screaming. Then he stumbled back to the other raft-tent and crawled back 
in. We had no idea if he had actually been conscious or just walking 
through the motions. 

Lizard looked to Brickman. "Do you know any first aid?"

"A little, maybe."

"The corpsman could probably use some attention--"

The torchman shook his head. "Best thing to do is let him sleep it off."

"No, that's not  the best thing to do," Lizard corrected. "He might have 
suffered a concussion."

"He doesn't look all that hurt to me."

"Are you a doctor?"

"I been in combat. I seen guys go bugfuck before. He's not hurt. He's 
just stunned. Tomorrow he'll have one helluva headache, but he'll be 
doable."

"Hmf," said Lizard. Clearly, she didn't share his views. "How'd you get 
out in one piece?"

"Didn't." The torchman explained, "I sorta jumped. Soon's we got low 
enough. Figured I'd have a better chance. I was lucky. I guessed right. 
I hit the river hard though."

"Can I ask you something?"  I rolled up on one elbow so I could look out 
of the tent easier.  "Do you have any trouble with kryptonite?"

"That's the crunchy stuff, right?"  The brick shrugged. "A little 
ketchup, some Tabasco, it's fine." I couldn't tell if he was joking or 
serious.  Abruptly, his expression grew harder. "We got worms nearby. I 
can smell 'em."

If he could, he was a better man than I--but I didn't want to voice any 
more opinions on the Chtorran ecology. They wouldn't be pretty and I 
didn't think they'd be popular. And I might be right. Lizard was looking 
directly at me; she saw it in my face. She didn't say anything either.

"Listen," the brick said. "All I've got is this one torch. And it's only 
half-full. It's pretty banged-up, but it still works. I tested it. But I 
don't think it's gonna be enough. The worms'll come for us tonight. They 
like to hunt in twilight, sometimes mornings. I think we should get 
outta here. Let's push these raft-tents into the river. We'll have a 
better chance."

Lizard shook her head slowly. "Not yet. If we can get through,"--she 
nodded toward Kruger--"they can have a chopper here in an hour. Maybe 
less."

"Eventually. Probably. Yes," Brickman agreed. "But look at the time. 
What if we can't get through? If I read the map right, we're right in 
the path of the whole Chtorran column. If we get on the river, we can 
float downstream for a hundred klicks and then call for help."

"Do you know these waters?" I asked.

"No. Do you?"

"That's my point. This isn't Disney World. As good as our maps are--and 
we've got some pretty good maps in that clipboard--there's a lot they 
don't show.  There could be rapids, whirlpools, waterfalls, hostile 
tribes, panthers, water snakes, insects, crocodiles, piranhas--who knows 
what else? And that's only the Terran stuff. We don't know what kind of 
Chtorran bugs and critters are waiting downstream. I've seen tenant 
swarms. We couldn't survive an attack."

Kruger glanced up from his screens. He looked hostile. "That's another 
question. What brought us down--?"

"Tempting fate," I said, without thinking.

"Hey! Mathewson is dead," Kruger shot back bitterly. "What do you want 
from me?"

Before I could answer, Lizard put her hand on my arm. "Just answer the 
question, Jim. Okay?"

I met her glance. She was asking me to be compassionate. We were all in 
this together. She was right. I shook my head sadly. "I don't know what 
brought us down. But it was nasty."

"Take a guess...?" Lizard suggested.

I shrugged helplessly. "Flutterbys probably. But I wouldn't bet on it."

"Flutterbys? What's that?" asked Kruger. "Some kind of insect?"

"No. They're not like anything on Earth. They're metallic, kind of. 
They're as tough as mylar. They could probably tangle your rotors or 
clog your jets."

"They fly?"

"They float in the wind. They like to travel in swarms, but not always. 
They look like long silvery ribbons, but they're parasites. They land on 
cattle and suck like leeches. Then they breed. They can be pretty ugly. 
If it was a swarm, you'd have seen it on the radar. Maybe--this is just 
a guess--maybe we hit a few stragglers following the worms. Or maybe.... 
" Another thought, even less appealing, struck me.

"Or maybe what--?"

"Maybe the flutterbys are attracted to machinery somehow."

"How?"

"I don't know. But you should see them moving through the air. They 
ripple in perfect sine waves. They weave through the air at incredible 
speeds...thirty or forty klicks. And we know that they're attracted to 
certain kinds of rhythmic sounds. Anyway, that'd be my best guess." I 
rubbed my leg uncomfortably.  It didn't hurt, it itched. 

In the distance, something chirruped with a bright red sound. Brickman 
stood up suddenly; he'd been rummaging through the P-rations. Now they 
lay forgotten at his feet while he listened to the echoes