by David Coy
It didn’t have to wait long.
Bill Habershaw was a sprawler. As he entered the first stages of a sleep, he stuffed the thin cotton sheet between his bare legs, stretched out his arms and swung one leg completely out into the wet air.
The just-right temperature of his skin was like a flashing beacon to the parasite. Its sensors saw the exposed patch of flesh through the open door as if it were lighted from within. The creature rocked its head back and forth to establish the distance and trajectory, froze as it built up some motive force, then sprang, raising a little divot of debris, at the spot of heat-light.
Not even a million years of evolution can ensure a perfect launch each time, and a slight miscalculation caused the parasite to glance off the door jam with a click and fall, spinning onto the hard, seamless floor of the entryway. It slid on the tips of its claw-like legs with the sound of a stiff brush, bounced off one of Habershaw’s boots—and flipped over.
Had Habershaw been awake, he would have heard the creature’s hard legs scratch at the smooth floor for five minutes as it arched, squirmed and struggled to right itself.
The parasite’s anterior, grasping legs were more like curved claws than legs. Jointless and as sharp as needles, they had but one purpose—and walking on slick surfaces wasn’t it. Its prize in sight, it fixed the distance and angle. But when it jumped, the hard spurs on its back legs slipped, and the kick achieved nothing more than a noise like the brief whisk of a broom. Unable to jump with the slick floor under its spiny feet, the creature paced back and forth, turning this way and that, keeping its pointed head oriented toward the patch of exposed skin above.
Finally, it stopped and waited.
Hours later, Habershaw flopped, and flapped a corner of the sheet onto the floor, as if laying a white road up to his naked thigh, not a centimeter from the parasite’s proboscis.
Keeping its pointed head fixed on the target, the parasite inched forward and started upwards, digging the tips of its forelegs into the porous material.
When it got within striking range, on the firm substrate of sheet and cot, it leapt the remaining distance to his leg.
Habershaw felt the impact of body and claws like the scratch of a brush. In fact, he dreamt of it as exactly that, and in the dream, saw Joan tossing her brown-handled hair brush down on him for no reason at all. “Hello,” she said evenly.
When the parasite landed, tiny sensors on its abdomen saw, like an x-ray, through Habershaw’s skin to the underlying veins and arteries. Not satisfied with its present position, it crabbed quickly sideways to the back of Habershaw’s leg and found there a rich deposit of pulsing fluid. A million generations of success told it time was short. The parasite wasted none of it.
It clamped down with its needle-like forelegs, digging them deep into Habershaw’s flesh. A microsecond later, it pushed its pencil-shaped head against Habershaw’s leg. A thin paste of skin-softening enzyme oozed from the tip and parted the epidermis just enough for the snout to start its penetration. Stiff, rear-pointing hairs locked the piercing head in place as if screwed in.
Habershaw groaned and came partially awake, leaving behind the dream in which he had just rolled onto the biting bristles of Joan’s hair brush.
“Dammit!” he yelled and twisted, reaching for it.
His fingers found the creature, instead, and puzzled over it, tapping and rubbing over it.
“What the hell . . . ?”
He shot up out of bed and reached for the light switch. Keeping his leg bent, he twisted around and squinted down at the thing attached to it.
Goddammit!”
The parasite continued to press its head into his flesh, the enzyme reducing the skin to a thin fluid around the point of entry. The pain of the sharp claws and piercing head began to radiate out of the area like flame. He slapped at it once to knock it off, but the blow sent a shock of pain up his leg.
“Shit! Joan!”
Habershaw started for the bedroom, walking stiff legged, with his arms out wide.
“Joan!”
She almost ran into him as she stumbled into the shelter’s narrow hallway.
“What!”
“What the hell is this?” he said turning around and pointing with a trembling finger.
As Joan bent down to look at it, she felt a flush of revulsion. She knew exactly what it was almost instantly.
“Jesus,” she said, her face scrunching up. “It’s the thing the cat dragged in.”
“What’s it doing! Never mind! Just get it off me!”
“It’s attached itself to your . . . leg.”
“Pull it off! It hurts like hell . . . ”
She forced herself down close again and squinted at it. The light wasn’t too good on it so she turned him by the arm until it came into full light.
The head was now fully buried in Habershaw’s leg, and the hard, black forelegs sunk in his flesh made it look as if the organism were stitched on. Thin lines of blood ran from the points of entry and down his leg.
“I don’t think I can. At least not here like this. Head for the kitchen; I need more light.”
With his arms out and the leg held stiff, Habershaw rocked his way down the hall toward the kitchen. Joan followed along and flipped on the light switch and hurriedly cleared the remaining things off the table. The table was small and built into the floor, but she thought it would hold him. She tapped the table with her hand.
“Lie down.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here. Where else?”
Trying not to bend the leg, Habershaw eased down onto the table as if he were doing a push up on it. When he settled down, she pulled the lamp down by its shade until the cord reached the end of its travel.
She leaned down and scrunched up her face at the attached creature. She touched it lightly with the tip of a finger. When it didn’t spring off and attach to her face, she gently took ahold of it between thumb and forefinger and rocked it a little. The flesh moved back and forth as she wiggled it, and Habershaw winced. The thing was stuck fast. The consistency of it reminded her of a dried red pepper and made her scowl with disgust.
The parasite felt the disturbance, but waited.
“Gad . . . ” she said, puzzled.
“What is it?”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes! Pull the damn thing off!”
“You’re not gonna like this.”
“What?”
“It’s really, really stuck.”
“What’d you mean, really stuck?”
“It’s got its feet and head in your . . . leg . . . like.”
“How many?”
“Most of them.”
“Grab it and pull, dammit.”
The large rear legs seemed to be the most likely handles. She leaned in again, pinched one with the tips of her fingers and pulled.
Once the parasite adhered to the host, the value of the large jumping legs forever ended. A layer of cells at the juncture of leg and abdomen released an agent that weakened the tough tissue at that very point. The leg came cleanly away in Joan’s hand like a loose tooth, trailing a single sticky thread. “Jeeez . . . ”
She put the leg on the table and took ahold of the other one, knowing the result before she pulled.
She held the other leg up and looked at it with a scowl, then put it gently down across the other one as if the two belonged together.
Habershaw’s voice was strained. “What happened?”
“Nothing. The big legs came off is all. There’s nothing to grab onto now.”
She swallowed and quickly rubbed her fingers together to clean them.
“So it’s like a tick, then, right? It’s stuck to me like some kind of tick thing?”
“That says it all.”
Habershaw rubbed his face with one hand. “It hurts . . . ”
“I know . . . ”
“Heat it with a flame. Get the little torch out of my tool bag and burn it. See if that’ll make it let go.”
/>
“Are you sure? Maybe we should get you up to the doctor?”
“No! Just . . . just do it. It’ll work. Go get it. It’s in one of the side pockets.”
She hustled down the hall to the rear entryway. When she got there, the first thing she saw was the door still ajar. She leaned out and cautiously pulled it closed, trying to touch as little as possible. Habershaw’s ratty old tool bag was against the wall next to his boots. After eyeballing it carefully and shifting it around with her foot to make sure nothing was hiding around it or in it, she squatted down and found the little burner.
When she got back to the kitchen, Habershaw, groaning, was up on his elbows with his face in his hands.
“You okay?”
“Hell, no.”
“Okay, how do I light this thing?”
“Give it to me.”
The torch was small with a single burner head attached to a pipe bent like an elbow. Habershaw opened the valve with his thumb, then pressed the striker. With a piezoelectric snap, a cone-shaped blue flame appeared at the nozzle. He handed the lit device back to her. The flame buzzed softly.
“Don’t burn me.”
“I’ll try . . . ”
Joan looked down at the thing and brought the flame slowly toward its posterior.
As she tipped the point of the burner down, the creature sensed the intruding heat and the danger of it. The flame raised the slightest brown blister, then instinct told it to retaliate. The hollow tips of each of its grasping claws released a drop of an alkaline chemical stronger than lye in a quick spurt.
Habershaw thought Joan had burned him with a torch ten times the size of the one in her hand. He screamed. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
“What!”
Habershaw jerked as if shocked, his leg vibrating like a tuning fork.
“You’re burning me, dammit!”
“I’m not even near you! Look!”
She held the torch where he could see it. He buried his head in his hands and continued to vibrate.
“It’s stinging me! Ooooow . . . ”
“Do you want me to put something on it? Some cool water? Maybe that would help.”
Habershaw shook his head. When Joan rested her hand on his back, she could feel the tension in his whole body.
“Don’t touch it.”
“I guess it’s not gonna come off without a fight.”
“Fuck . . . ”
“Maybe I could just yank it off with pliers.”
“What? And tear my leg off with it?”
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t.”
“Just relax,” he said. “Just relax.”
It sounded odd coming from him. His voice was so tight she could have strummed it. She sat down in one of the wire and plastic chairs and buried her face in her hands.
“We have to get you to the doctor, Bill.”
“No! To hell with that.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so!”
“That makes no sense!”
“No!”
“Why!”
“Because I can’t!”
Joan just stared.
“Your contract? Is that it? Your contract with Smith?”
“I can’t, that’s all.”
Joan closed her eyes tight and shook her head. He’d given himself no leave at all. No vacation, no sick leave, no nothing. All for the sake of his early retirement. “You have no sick leave either?”
Habershaw just stared into the dingy wallpaper of the shelter’s kitchen.
“You have no sick leave?” she repeated.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine? It’s not fine—it’s stupid.”
She rubbed her hands over her face then sighed into them. She pressed herself up out of the chair and moved to the sink to draw water into a scratch-dulled plastic glass. She took a drink and offered the remainder to Habershaw. ”Here.”
He took a swallow.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said again.
“I do.”
“What?”
“Leave it alone. It doesn’t hurt so much as long as you leave it alone. Maybe it’ll just fall off in a day or two.”
Joan snorted at the absurdity.
“And what if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll worry about it then.”
“It’ll get infected for sure. I can tell that. We’ve had no immunizations for anything on this ball. There’s no telling what it’s putting in you.”
“We’ve got some antibiotics and some pain killers. I’ll take those.”
Joan looked out the window and could see the faint pink cast of pre-dawn light on the horizon and hated it. She hadn’t slept enough and felt cheated because of it. She felt a bubble of indigestion from the stress of this shit and of having not slept enough. She wished she could go back to bed for a while. “Okay. It’s stupid, but if that’s what you want, okay.”
Habershaw twisted around and slid off the table, holding his leg out as if it wouldn’t bend. “I’m gonna get ready for work."
"You’re crazy.”
“Fine. So I’m crazy.”
Habershaw limped down the narrow hall to the bathroom. It was too late to go back to bed so Joan turned on the coffee maker and started on the lunches, working without thinking. A moment later, she heard the water running in the shower. She couldn’t understand how in hell he was going to be able to operate the equipment with that thing on his leg. But she knew enough not to argue with Bill Habershaw. It was useless.
By the time she had the first of the lunches packed, the tip of the sun was just coming up over the black jungle to the east. She could already feel its heat as it soaked through the thin walls of the shelter, softening it like wax.
She left the lunches on the wobbly counter and walked mechanically toward the bathroom. When she passed Habershaw in the hall, they didn’t say a word.
She showered and dressed in a clean set of full cottons. She would have put on shorts, but the thought of nasty parasites lurking around made that an impossibility. When she came out a few minutes later, Habershaw was leaning against the sink, drinking coffee
Squinting into the hot sunlight now streaming through the window, Joan poured herself a cup and took a drink. She looked at Bill, all pale and staring into his cup, and felt a gush of the feminine instinct to nurture. She put her hand on his forehead.
“You’re not warm, but you feel clammy. How is it?”
“Okay. It stings when I walk is all.”
“Do you want a cool compress on it for a while?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the lunches.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I should go.”
“Where will you be?”
“On the dozer against the east perimeter. What’s your day look like?”
“Hot and sweaty with lots of crates and boxes and shit in it.” Habershaw tried to smile, then poured the rest of his coffee down the sink, rinsed his cup and put it back in its place.
“I’ll see you tonight. I’ve got my phone.”
“I’ll take mine, too.”
“Lavachek’ll be there anyways.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s a big help,” she said sardonically.
“Aw, he’s all right.”
As she left the shelter, she took her phone out of the rack by the door and put it in her shirt pocket. She was wary and scanned the ground ahead and under the truck as she approached it. She opened the driver’s door and stood back to look under the seat, one hand tucked protectively between her legs. When she noticed that both windows were rolled up, she realized how silly it was to check the inside.
She watched Habershaw walking across the field to the shuttle, lunch bag in hand, his limping figure casting a long shadow in the morning slant-light. She wondered if he’d make it through the day, then decided that if there were any way he could, he would. That was Habershaw. There weren’t many like him. He’d fi
nish his contract without a single complaint—Hell be damned. Some part of her admired that quality in spite of herself. After all, she had as much at stake as he did; everybody wanted retirement. Like it or not, she’d have to make the best of it for now.
He is what he is. Me, too, I guess. We’re just slaves like everybody else.
She got in the truck and headed for the landing. She touched the slender phone in her pocket just to be sure she had it.
* * *
When Habershaw got to the shuttle, Greg Lavachek and a new guy named Francis Magee were already on board. There was no way to hide his gimpy leg, especially when he climbed the steps into the passenger compartment. Bending his knee sent a stinging pain up the back of his leg, and he had to fight not to keep the leg straight. He howdied both men as he passed and tried to act normal. Lavachek gave him a long look.
“What happened to your leg?”
“Twisted it.”
“Twisted it?”
“Yep.”
“How the hell’d you twist your leg?”
“Fuckin’ your wife upside down.”
“That’ll do it,” Lavachek said with a chuckle.
“Yep. Gotta watch that upside-down fuckin’.”
Magee grinned and Lavachek and Habershaw confirmed the grin with a quick glance each at him. New guys were supposed to grin at any attempt at humor from the senior guys. It was almost a law and the cornier the humor, the bigger the grin had to be.
Habershaw took an isle seat and sat down heavily with the leg outstretched. It stuck way out in the isle, and he hoped nobody would stumble or fall on it. He strapped himself in and tried not to move the leg.
“You gonna be able to work with that thing like that?” Lavachek asked.
“Yep.”
“Looks pretty sore.”
“It ain’t.”
“How you gonna work the foot controls with that leg sore like that?”
“Shut up about it.”
Lavachek was Habershaw’s Oiler. It was an apprentice position. The only way to become an Operator was to start as an Oiler just as Habershaw had. It had taken him ten years to move from Oiler to Operator. The only way to learn how to operate was if the Operator let you practice. If your Operator was a bastard, you could spend your entire contract doing just maintenance and getting no practice. Pissing off your Operator was another way not to get any practice. “Just askin’,” Lavachek said sheepishly.
