Minutes to Burn Page 27

  He recognized the sour taste in his mouth. Combat juice, they used to call it, the saliva that flooded one's tongue along the sides. Some water had collected on a frond, and he poured it over his mouth and chin, drinking. Crouching to rest by a tree, he plucked a granadilla from the mud and split the shell with his thumbs, scraping his bottom teeth along the lining of the skin to get at the meat.

  Once he no longer felt his heart moving in his chest, he rose and faced the dead creature. He grabbed her back legs and tugged, and the large body slid easily in the mud. She was surprisingly light given her size. She'd had a good fighting build-large body surface in proportion to bulk, low weight to leverage her strength.

  It had taken him nearly an hour to get out there; it would be at least three more pulling the thing back to base camp. He began the trek, clenching the back legs between his biceps and sides and dragging the corpse behind him. The wings crumpled up under the body, their slick-ness helping him move it through the mud.

  Time passed in a crawl. He heard rats rustling around him, and when he glanced back he saw them there, feeding on the head and the tender flesh of the neck in droves. At first he paused and shooed them off, but eventually he grew too tired. As long as they didn't take the head off altogether, he no longer cared.

  At one point, he noticed the red top of Tucker's thermite grenade, half-buried in the mud. He picked it up, stuffing it into a pocket, before returning to the body.

  The body caught in bushes and branches and more than once between tree trunks. He'd have to back up and reroute, his breath coming like fire from his lungs, his face pounding with the heat.

  The creature's legs wore blisters under his armpits and along his biceps and the ridges of his palms, but he dragged his kill onward with the dull, plodding determination of a machine, afraid to rest in case the pain set in.

  When he reached the edge of the forest, a vicious fatigue overcame him. The creature's head was still there, lolling behind the body, but one of the eyes had been eaten out, an antenna chewed down to a nub. His knees almost buckled when the body caught the friction of a band of rocks, but he had come too far to drop now, so he pulled on toward the flickering light of the fire.

  They watched him approach with large horrified eyes. Derek rose from the log, but the rest couldn't move. Cameron took a halting step back. Szabla's mouth was wide-open, and Justin looked as though he'd just swallowed something live. Diego slid from the log onto his knees.

  They didn't even dare to blink as Savage pulled the mangled body into the ring of logs around the fire and released it, his arms going to knots and his legs cramping the instant he stopped. Rather than thumping to the ground, the creature's legs stayed right where he'd let go of them, sticking out like the arms of a wheelbarrow. The body stretched before them on the grass like a dropped buffalo, the fire reflecting off its shiny cuticle.

  Savage moved slowly to face Derek. "There's your fuckin' proof," he said.

  Turning his back, he staggered to his tent.

  Chapter 45

  John Mako's voice betrayed his annoyance, sounding sharp and tinny as it echoed through Derek's transmitter. "This better be something goddamn important, Mitchell, to pull my tired ass out of bed again," he barked. "You're a fully functional half-platoon of Navy SEALs. I send you on a mission that involves mostly equipment hauling and ass-wiping, and you've all been calling in every five minutes with your panties in a knot."

  Surprise flickered across Derek's face. "Who else has been-?"

  "Though it's probably a big surprise to you and that pain-in-the-ass scientist-" Mako continued.

  From his crouch by the creature's body, Rex gave a big, smiling, beauty-pageant wave. The others were arrayed around the fire, the larva snuggled along the base of one of the logs. Cameron stared at the body, drowning in something like disbelief.

  "— there are more important things on my desk and in the world than you and your cataclysmic troubles getting a couple of satellite dishes nailed down to some shit-stripped island in the middle of the goddamn Pacific."

  Derek's face was pale, his voice wavering. "We lost Tucker, sir," he said.

  There was a long pause. "You lost Tucker? How the fuck did you lose Tucker?"

  "There's something here on this island, sir. A…a creature of sorts. We're concerned there are more."

  A longer pause. "Mitchell, let me talk to Kates. Cameron, that is."

  Cameron rose to her feet and clicked on. "Yes, sir."

  "Is this aboveboard, Kates?"

  Cameron cleared her throat. "Yes, sir. It is. We seem to have run into some kind of a… what appears to be a large insect, sir, and I-"

  "A large insect? "

  "About nine feet tall. Sir, I know it doesn't sound… " Cameron sat back down on the log. She looked at Diego and he raised one eyebrow until it disappeared beneath the shaggy line of his bangs.

  "And this large insect ate Tucker? Is that what happened?"

  Derek blinked hard a few times. "Yes. Sir. We really need…we really need that extraction. Sir."

  "Or the large insects might eat you."

  "Well…" Derek looked at the enormous body slumped beside the fire. "Actually, there's no longer…we don't know…it's quite compli-cated. Sir."

  "Indeed," Mako replied. "Perhaps you can comprehend some com-plications with which I'm contending on this end of the wire, soldier. The army's deploying two more battalions this week to deal with out-breaks along the Peruvian border. Colombia's a mess from the southern border through Bogota, we're down to our last task force, and I have NATO, the UN, the OAS, and my own lovable superiors leaning on me to provide more manpower from Mexico to Chile. That's not even bringing domestic problems into the equation. To say that our air assets are one hundred percent committed is something of an understatement. In light of this, you'd like me now, at three thirty-seven in the fuckdamn morning, to call the Commander of Naval Special Warfare Group One and ask him to redirect a helo from the mainland to the Galapagos Islands so that a half-platoon of reserves don't get devoured by giant bugs. Is that about the gist of your request?"

  Derek's lip twitched. Szabla stood with one foot on the corpse like an old-style game hunter while Diego and Rex examined it. She turned and headed for the tents.

  "Yes. Sir."

  "Mitchell, I have two words for you, and they're not especially pleas-ant. Would you like to hear them?"

  "No, sir."

  "I didn't think so. I don't know what kind of peyote you've been smoking down there, but I don't like having my chain yanked unless it involves soft lighting and Vaseline. Don't be surprised to find yourself waylaid with a Page Thirteen when you limp your sorry ass back to base. Do I make myself clear?"

  Derek opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The others exchanged frustrated glances. Cameron stood. "Sir," she said. "This is not a joke."

  "Listen, Kates-"

  "No," Cameron said. "You need to listen." Tank drew back his head, eyebrows raised. "This is a real threat," Cameron continued. "There is a large organism here that appears to be predatory. We have no weapons, and we're stranded on the island. You need to take steps to assure our safety, and we need orders in the meantime."

  Her transmitter hummed with silence. "First of all," Mako finally replied, "you watch your goddamn tone when speaking to a superior. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Now, I don't know what the fuck is going on down there, but I will arrange for an extraction. We'll untangle this mess when you get back. In the meantime, Dr. Rex Williams is still running the show-I can't over-turn a direct order from Secretary Benneton. Do I make myself clear? Mitchell?"

  "Yes," Derek said. "Sir." Mako clicked out.

  Four flares protruding from her back pockets, Szabla reemerged from Rex's tent, holding two tripods. She threw one tripod on the grass and turned the other upside down, spreading its legs. About an inch thick, each leg was a hollow aluminum cylinder tapering to a strong steel-alloy point. She began to unscrew a l
eg from the tribrach.

  "What are you doing?" Rex said. "Those are my tripods."

  The tripod leg came free and Szabla tossed it to Tank. He caught it in front of his face. "Not anymore," Szabla said.

  Once detached, the legs were good weapons-metal spikes that could be used as blunt or stabbing instruments. Szabla disassembled tripods until each soldier was armed with a spike. Rex glanced at the large body near the fire pit and elected not to protest.

  "LT?" Cameron said. One foot resting on a log, Derek stared at the forest from the depths of a stupor. Cameron snapped her fingers sharply. Derek turned slowly, his eyes finding focus. "Weren't you about to send a buddy pair to search through the farmhouses for weapons?" Despite her efforts, irritation found its way into her voice.

  "What? Yeah. Yes." Derek jerked his head at Szabla and Justin. "Go search through the farmhouses for weapons."

  Szabla tossed the flares on the ground and rose slowly, studying Derek. Another log gave way in the fire, sending a sprinkling of embers into the air. "Is that order coming from you, or from Cameron? Because last I checked-"

  "It's coming from me," he snapped. "Get moving. And steer clear of the forest."

  Swinging the spike at her side, Szabla headed toward the road. Justin removed a fresh solar cell from his shoulder and snapped it into his elbow light, but did not turn the light on. Cameron tossed him a spike, and he followed Szabla into the darkness.

  Using Cameron's transmitter, Rex updated Donald on the day's events. After a lengthy discussion, the two scientists decided to speak the following day when Donald heard back from Samantha. In the mean-time, he promised to contact Secretary Benneton and continue to pres-sure the navy for an early extraction for the soldiers, and appropriate support for the scientists, should they choose to remain on the island to study the animals.

  Diego had busied himself with the radio again, keying Morse on the handset in hope of someone's picking up the signal. He looked up when Cameron stood over him. She pointed to the radio. "Hope you're asking Santa for guns in addition to a boat."

  "Plenty of guns in Puerto Ayora, just no bullets," Diego said. He keyed the handset, alternating long and short breaks. "But there's plenty of TNT from the ejercito." He looked up sternly. "Only if we need it to protect ourselves."

  Backpack slung over one shoulder, Rex walked over, exhaling heavily as he sat on the wet grass beside Diego. The others were talking over by the fire, but only the murmur of their voices was audible. "What do you think?" he asked, jerking his head toward the creature's corpse. Green hemolymph oozed from a crack in its cuticle.

  Still fiddling with one of the knobs on the radio, Diego turned to him, his eyes glazed. "I don't know what to think. The brownish-green cuticle clearly serves the purpose of camouflage, so my guess is it doesn't stray far from the forest. Even with its exoskeleton, direct sun exposure would dehydrate it rapidly. It resembles a mantid, and appears to hunt like a mantid, but the proportions are off."

  Rex smiled. "Yes, they are."

  "No, I mean the thorax is more slender and upright. The raptorial legs are overly developed, as are the grasping hooks and leg musculature. Do you see the strength through the claws and legs?" Diego shook his head. "Like a gorilla."

  "That's how it climbs-its size rules out its relying on surface adhe-sion like an insect."

  "This isn't an insect," Diego said, setting down the radio handset.

  "You mean we can't just burn palo santo branches for repellent and call the exterminator?"

  Diego laid his hands on the exoskeleton. "The cuticle's tough, almost impossibly hard, even over the abdomen. My guess is it's female, as the wings don't extend past the tip of the body."

  Crouching, Cameron glanced at the wings. "So that's how you tell, huh?"

  Diego leaned over and, lifting one leathery forewing, tugged at the delicate transparent underwing beneath it. It slid out smoothly, the fire-light playing through it and casting a yellow glow. Diego had to stand up and walk backward as it continued to unfurl. "The surface area of the wings has increased exponentially in relation to the body."

  "Can it fly?" Cameron asked.

  Diego released the underwing and it slid slowly back beneath the pro-tective tegmina of its own accord. "Even given the exponential increase in wing size, I doubt it could bear this much weight aloft." He sat back down, rubbing the ends of his fingers with his thumbs. "It's a different organism, almost as though something took a mantid's basic features and reshuffled them." He looked at Rex. "What do you think?"

  Rex paced around the body. "Three-segmented ectothermic quadro-pod, filiform antennae, mandibulate mouthparts, tegmina and hind-wings, seemingly asocial. Physically, it's distinctly terrestrial as an adult, even though the larvae are aquatic. I assume those are its larvae."

  Diego smoothed his mustache with his thumb and index finger. "I would agree. Even if it can breathe underwater like the larvae, it's not at all suited to aquatic movement."

  Coos issuing from its body, the larva inched over to Derek. Absent-mindedly, he ran a hand over its abdomen segments. "Listen to that," Rex said. "And now to this." Placing his hands on the adult creature's back, he pressed down. A hissing filled the camp as air escaped the hockey puck-sized holes along the abdomen segments. "The sounds from both the larva and adult come from the spiracles. They must feed an internal respiratory organ, as we discussed."

  "How the fuck?" Diego shook his head. "How the fucking fuck?"

  Rex pulled seven water-sample jars from his backpack and set them on the ground in a line before Diego. They were each neatly labeled, with the time, date, and source location. Rex reached for an elbow light and turned it on, running the lens behind the row of jars so they each lit up in turn with a blood-red glow. The others glanced over, intrigued by his theatrical presentation. Sensing Rex was about to convey something useful, Cameron signaled them over. Derek sat on the nearest log, while Tank and Savage stood.

  "What appears to be different about these samples?" Rex asked.

  Diego studied them, puzzled, as Rex ran the light back across them. "Nothing."

  "Exactly. However, the three on the end aren't taken from the ocean. One is your lagoon sample, I took one from a clear puddle in the road, and this is the one from the natural basin near the lava tube."

  "I saw you," Diego said. "But that's impossible. They're all tinted red from dinoflagellates. But dinos are generally pelagic. How did they get from the ocean to the highlands?"

  "Well," Rex said, pleased with himself, "dinos can go into a dormant, sporelike state, which allows them to survive extreme conditions, like dehydration and low temperatures. They're most highly concentrated in the waters off the southeastern point of the island-the water that gets shot through the blowholes. My guess is that the spores get blown around in the wind streams and settle all over the island through the garua mist. The little landlocked pools have a decent amount of salinity from the blowholes and the mists, which permits the spores to bloom again. This means the virus, contained in those dinoflagellate spores, could reach animals from the highlands to the coast. I think it found a susceptible species. Galapagia obstinatus."

  Diego shook his head, his face drained of color. "How?" he asked.

  Rex reached into his bag and pulled out the segment of the sun-damaged mantid ootheca that Frank had kept in his tent. It was pep-pered with parasite wasp holes. Holding it up, Rex closed one eye and peered through one of the holes, telescope-style. "UV damage kept the ootheca from hardening enough to prevent parasitic wasps from drilling through the shell. The virus probably invaded the ootheca later through the wasp holes, acting on the developing mantid nymphs that weren't eaten by wasp offspring, and altering their genetic composition before they hatched."

  Diego picked up a jar, turning it in his hand. "How do you know these dinos are infected?"

  Rex pursed his lips. "We don't. They look normal under a standard lens, but we can't definitively determine whether they're infected without running a
gel, and we don't have the equipment here. But we do know that they were infected two months ago when Frank pulled the samples and had them shipped to us."

  Diego handed him back the jar. "But we don't even know what the virus does to begin with. It could merely be a plant virus. You're com-pletely hypothesizing."

  "A new virus appears on the same island we discover a massive living aberration… I just can't help thinking they've got to be linked, either through direct or shared causation."

  Diego shook his head. "This animal could be an ordinary mutation."

  Cameron looked at the jagged moons of the mantid's mandibles, flickering darkly in the firelight.

  "I don't know about that," Rex said.

  "Why not?" Diego looked up, his eyes alight. "Evolution doesn't progress slowly and evenly-it progresses in sudden and giant leaps. The Cambrian Explosion, the Permian and Cretaceous Extinctions-all blinks of the eye." He paused, pulling his hair back to band his ponytail more tightly. "Think of the reptiles dying out during the Mesozoic Period, the graptolite's rapid decline after the Ordovician Period, the sudden evolution of complex Metazoa. The fossil record has always shown punctuated equilibrium-mass extinction and abrupt origination." He pointed to the mantid corpse. "Speciation like this can take place in a geological instant."

  Cameron looked over at Rex, unsure of what to make of Diego's sud-den tirade. Rex cleared his throat before speaking. "A geological instant is hundreds of thousands of years."

  Diego looked down at his pants, stained with mud and torn at one knee. "Well, it just got shorter."

  A piece of charred wood collapsed in the fire, startling them both. Diego crouched over the dead, slumped mantid. He reached out and stroked the waxy cuticle covering the abdomen. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

  Rex nodded. "Beautiful, yes. And fearful."

  A whistle from the darkness indicated Szabla and Justin's return. A few seconds later, Justin stepped into the light, carrying a shovel. A length of rope looped over one shoulder, Szabla appeared next. A ham-mer protruded from her back pocket.