It was a makeshift conference table at best, but it would have to do.

"I've just finished a full transmission to Captain Hastings of the events that have just occurred here," said Corporal O'Connor. He swiveled and turned a switch. "He's waiting to join the conference. Permission to let him in?"

Grant nodded.

"Permission granted," said Kozlowski. "We'll need all the input we can get."

Captain Hastings bid his regrets at the turn of events. His voice sounded even more subdued than usual.

"Now then," said Grant. "We've got a situation on our hands. I'd like to say, why don't we just give it another try with the perimeter extension harpoon. However, after what we've just been through, I don't think so."

"It's possible we're going to have to," said Kozlowski. "But that doesn't mean we can't explore other possibilities. Dr. Begalli ... you seem to be the resident expert on the present situation with the aliens. What's your prognosis?"

"Clearly our projections were quite accurate," said the man, after scratching his large nose. "There is a genetic offshoot of the aliens, and the originals are attempting to eradicate them. Only we never anticipated this kind of scale ... Or that it would hinder our actions to this degree."

"Not quite true," said Kozlowski. "We've got the technology. It's just not working as well as we would like."

Begalli's ferretlike eyes flicked back and forth over those assembled. "Despite our feelings of loss and frustration, I cannot forget just how correct my projections were about the recessive gene. Something that was quite unlikely. Naturally we're sorry for the loss ... But after years and years, my science seems to be correct." He tapped his finger emphatically. "What we all want is in that hive. It's the answer to our dreams ... Maybe, ultimately even to the whole alien conflict."

"Why would you say that?" said Henrikson.

"We came here to get the queen mother royal jelly and we've got to do that. Do you know how much we've been working with in these last two decades? About two hundred gallons' worth, that's all. Our tank here can go up to well over two thousand gallons, and I'm sure we can fill it. With that amount to work with, all kinds of possibilities will open up.

"We can learn something, I suppose, from this red and black alien business. Still it's all academic curiosity. There are no practical applications yet. With the jelly, those applications may be possible."

"Oh. Like what?"

"The key to the genetic control of the aliens! It could be in the queen down there and her royal jelly! Sorry, Mr. Grant, but there's a lot more at stake here than money for your company, and hyperspeed for the armed forces." He tapped the table emphatically. "Why do you think the red aliens are attempting genocide on the blacks?"

"Isn't it the same old story? They're different?"

Begalli shook his head. "You've got to have a certain amount of intelligence to be bigoted. The xenos aren't that smart. No. It's because on a very real level, theexistence of difference threatens each other.

"Eradication is programmed into the species. I would daresay that in hives every once in a while red eggs are laid—and immediately destroyed by the queen or the queen's guards. When we removed the queen from the black hive and killed her guards, it probably allowed time for these freakish red eggs already laid to develop and grow ... And then escape and build their own hive."

"Look, this is all very interesting," said Kozlowski. "But how is it going to get us past thewar going on down there, and into the hive, where we can do our job? And get out with our butts intact, I might add!"

"Yes," said Grant ruminatively. "A definite priority."

"Let's look at it this way then," said Begalli. "What we have here is warfare on a grand scale. Each of these alien races would like to eradicate the other. Annihilate. This mission is deeply embedded in their chromosomal structure." He shrugged. "Now if we just tilt that warfare in the favor of the blacks, that would be to our definite advantage. We don't want mutant jelly. We want the black jelly, the stuff we know something about and can use."

Hastings's voice crackled over the radio. "I got lots of great weapons up here, folks. If you want, we can just nuke the red hive."

Begalli nodded. "Excellent! That might just work."

"How?" Grant asked.

Kozlowski nodded. "Well, it would kill off the red queen mother for one thing and with her any psychic control of her drones. Which would send the red army into disarray."

"More than that," said Begalli. "Without that control, instinctively the red army would retreat toward their hive. Equally instinctively the black army would pursue!"

Grant snapped his fingers. "Leaving the black hive wide open!"

"That would be the theory, yes ... It's the best choice, in my opinion," said Begalli. "We'd still have to deal with the black guards, and they will be bigger and fiercer. But they would be limited in number. What we're facing out there is a problem of sheer oppressive volume."

Grant smacked the table. "Yes. We're going to have to do it, I think! Opinion, Colonel?"

"Sure. Why not. At the very least we're going to kill a lot of bugs!"

"Captain. How soon can you have those warheads ready?" said Grant.

"Couple of hours," came the voice.

"Excellent. We can accomplish this well before nightfall," said Kozlowski. "Get started, Captain. We can always postpone till morning if necessary."

"I don't think that will be necessary," said Hastings. "I'll get right to it."

Grant was nodding, his face intent. "One more thing, Colonel. I'd like to come with you when you go into that hive."

"What for?" said Kozlowski. "You're a civilian. You're not trained for this kind of work."

"I feel responsible here. I feel a moral obligation. You need extra people. I can aim a gun and shoot it. I—"

"Okay," she said.

"I want—" He blinked. "What?"

"I said you can go. There's a spare suit about your size down in the holding tank in the locker room. We'll go over the situation here in a few minutes, I'll brief you on a few things you'll have to know ... And then you can suit up."

Grant's mouth flapped for a moment like a fish out of water.

"It'll be good to have you along, Grant!"

Henrikson and Begalli excused themselves to start preparations for the next assault.

"All right, people," announced Kozlowski. "Now that we've got a plan, let's chew over some details."

She felt charged again.

Those bugs were going to pay.

Big time.

 

Kozlowski was letting him go along!

A few minutes after the hour-long meeting, Daniel Grant was making his way down to the locker room, brain buzzing with the "briefing" that he'd just received. He felt beat up with facts and instructions, as though somehow Kozlowski had put him through a brief but intense boot camp under the whip of Drill Instructor Koz herself. Not fun!

Not that he wasn'tsincere about wanting to go along.

He just hadn't really expected for her to agree to his volunteering.

Well, nothing for it now, old man. You're in for the full nine yards now. Play it out, do your job, and this will turn out fine! Just fine!

He entered the familiar smell of the locker, particularly ripe now from the recent press of ripe bodies that had just passed through.

Where was it that Kozlowski had said the spare suit was? Oh, yes, over in the cabinet yonder.

No lock, no latch.

Sabotage was the last thing on Grant's mind, he was so preoccupied with the lessons he'd learned about alien killing.

He opened the door and saw the suit, and reached for it.

What he did not see was the alien egg pod sitting in the shadows.

22

The thing stood like an obscene, fleshy orchid bulb.

Grant smelled it before he saw it.

That now-familiar, intense acidic blast of stench.

As he reached for the suit, his foot stubbed against the growth. It gave like a stink cabbage.

He looked down.

At first, he didn't want to believe his eyes.

Then he saw the tangle of talons, wiggling at the opening of the bulb, like the beginnings of a sand crab, emerging from its shell.

He froze.

He'd seen alien larvae before, of course. He'd seen them prey on test animals plenty of times. Only they had been behind thick glass at the time ... Now this one was mere inches from his face.

It hissed at him, and began to come out faster, bending the petals of its deadly flower as it came.

"Screeeee!"

It launched.

Directly for his face.

Sheer desperation somehow prized the freeze lock off his muscles. Off to his right was a hanging suit. He reached out, grabbed it, and pulled it between himself and the face-hugger.

It bounced off it and flopped onto the floor.

Grant had just enough time to let off a yelp and take a step away from the thing before it animated again, leaping up toward him as though its legs were spring-loaded. As though his face were metal and the thing were a magnet, it headed straight for his eyes.

He reached out and caught it.

The talonlike claws tore at his skin. The pain shot up his arm, causing him to throw the thing down. It hit the floor, but it had clearly discovered its mission. It jumped around and was about to leap back up at him, when a blur flashed off to the left and a suited foot kicked it square in its crabby ass.

The thing hit the wall like a hockey puck smacking the sidelines, sluiced along the floor.

A rifle went up, tracked, sighted.

Energy sizzled out.

The blast smacked it like the finger of God, smushing a demon. Some of its acid came out, bubbling a small hole in the floor ... But most was consumed in the incendiary blast.

He stepped back, his legs hit a stool, he sat down hard.

"Thanks," he said.

"Just my job," the person said, with bite.

He looked over to his savior.