"Higher up you've got your stomach, liver, duodenum--"
"What's a duodenum?"
"I don't remember exactly. I only remember the name because it sounds funny."
"What else?"
"Gallbladder, diaphragm, kidneys, pancreas. Does it matter? If they were looking for one of those things, they would have pulled it out."
"Good point. The fact that they came out empty-handed suggests they were looking for an organ that wasn't there." He considered a moment. "And really, they can't possibly know our anatomy anyway. Not this quickly. The only anatomy they truly know is their own."
"You're saying they were looking for one of their organs? That doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does," said Victor. "Maybe they have a critical organ that serves some vital purpose for them, and they want to see if we have it too."
"Such as?"
Victor shrugged. "Could be anything. Maybe it's the organ that lets them communicate mind to mind."
"We don't know for certain that they do that."
"They communicate somehow, Imala. And it's certainly not by talking."
"Has this ever happened before? Has anyone else ever witnessed the Formics do this? Eviscerate people and dig around inside them, I mean."
"Why?"
"How many Formics would you have to cut open to see if they have kidneys like ours?"
He understood her meaning. If the Formics were looking for an organ, they would only have to look inside one person to see if they found it.
Imala pulled her box close to the terminal, and they searched the nets together. They quickly found dozens of gruesome images of eviscerated people all over China.
"These images were posted at different dates," said Victor. "Some at the start of the war, some as early as this morning."
"That throws your theory out the window," said Imala. "If they were looking for an organ, they would have stopped eviscerating people a long time ago because they would have known early on that we didn't have it."
"Unless the different Formics scattered around China aren't talking to each other and they don't know what the other Formics have or have not discovered."
Imala stood. "That's what I'm telling you, Vico. This is a pointless circle of speculation. We can't possibly know what's in their heads."
Victor leaned back in his chair. "But if we could understand them, Imala, if we could get in their heads, maybe we wouldn't have to fight."
"I don't think it matters, Vico. They don't seem like the negotiating type."
Victor didn't have a response to that.
Imala leaned against the wall. "Are you ready for this? The MOPs? The cocoons? The ship?"
Victor took a breath and leaned forward in his chair. "If something happens to me, there's a message here on this terminal I want you to send to my mother in the Belt. It's all programmed in. This one here. Just double tap it, and away it goes."
"You can write her a different letter and send it yourself when this is over."
"I mean it, Imala. Promise me you'll do that. That's all I ask."
"Nothing's going to happen to you, Vico. That's my promise to you. I won't let anything happen to you."
"That's a promise you can't keep, Imala."