He t
old her. She was giddy. "I knew it. I knew you could do this."
"We haven't done anything yet. Chances of this thing succeeding are still one in a thousand."
"Not with you leading it."
"I won't be leading it. Victor is."
"You're outfitting him. You're the general, he's the field commander. How are you getting them out of China?"
"The Chinese military is helping. They've confiscated a few Formic transports and retrofitted them for human flight. They'll fly them out of the country in twelve hours. Then they'll catch a shuttle to Luna in Kokkola."
"Where's that?"
"Finland."
"I'm proud of you."
Someone had turned on music out in the warehouse. It sounded like a party was heating up.
"Will I see you tonight?" she asked.
He shouldn't see her. Sooner or later they'd be discovered. It had been nice to have a little company, but there was no need to string her along. That would be cruel.
He must have still been high on adrenaline and endorphins because he said, "There's an Italian restaurant in the East Side called La Bella Luna. Meet me there three hours from now."
"But that's a public place."
"Come hungry," he said. "Their house lasagna may be the best thing I've ever eaten."
He disconnected and went out into the warehouse. He didn't know the song, but he didn't care. He took Dr. Benyawe by the hand, spun her once, and then led her onto the floor with the others. He had never tried dancing in Luna's low gravity, but apparently Benyawe had. Lem could barely keep up with her.
*
"Not much for dancing?" asked Imala.
Victor looked up from the terminal screen in the dusty storage room he had been using as an office. "I'm rewatching the vids from inside the ship. When the Formics cut open that pilot."
Imala made a face and came in and sat on a box. "Why look at that again?"
Victor turned back to the screen. "I don't understand it, Imala. They eviscerate him and then dig around inside him as if looking for something."
"Maybe they're not looking for anything. Maybe they're reaching in to make sure his heart has stopped beating."
"Maybe."
"You can't find meaning in this, Vico. There might not be meaning, not that a human mind can understand anyway."
"What's inside the human abdominal cavity?"
"You're not giving up on this, are you?"
"Come on. You went to college. What's inside a man in this region?" He drew a circle in the air above his stomach.
"I don't know. Your large and small intestines mostly."
"What else?"