by David Coy
The undersides of leaves were one of her favorite places for arthropods. You had to lift a lot of them, but the rewards were great if you had the patience. She started one leaf at a time, lifting them gently and checking carefully. She’d lifted only a few before she saw the first one, clinging to the leathery leaf's thick vein. It was long with the texture of a dried pepper. Its hooklike legs and long snout were damned interesting. She grabbed it with the tongs and wrested it off the leaf. She was amazed at how tenaciously it clung. When it came off, completely limp, it seemed to be lifeless. She dropped it in a jar.
Within an hour she’d used up nearly all of the jars, the cotton bag bulging with the number of them. In her search, she’d passed over many multiples of most of the samples she’d already collected. She’d found organisms on nearly every plant and in every pile of detritus. What she hadn’t seen were colonial insects; ants, termites, things that nested. She was sure she would find some eventually. She hadn’t seen any vertebrates either; snake forms or mammalian-likes, nothing that scampered or cheeped. It was odd not to have seen something else, something bigger and non-buggy, but it was an alien environment, after all. There had been reports of them. They’d turn up eventually.
A broad smile transformed her face, coming on her like an autonomic response she had no control over. She looked around her and into the thick tangle of jungle.
I haven't even scratched the surface.
She headed back to the lab feeling like a kid in a candy store. It wasn’t hard science; she knew that, especially under the circumstances. But it was going to keep her busy for the next period doing what she liked best. And she’d already found something very, very interesting.
She lined up her samples on one of the benches in neat rows and stood back and looked at them. She shook her head in disbelief. She leaned in and scanned the translucent vessels.
“Wow,” Joe said walking up behind her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Wow.”
“Where’d you catch 'em?”
“I didn’t catch them. I took them,” she sniffed. “I took them at the jungle’s edge. All from the ground to about two meters.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Do you see it, Mr. Devonshire?”
“Which one?”
“Well, all of them. Don’t you see? Each one of these organisms is uniquely different from the next in some way. Well, I take that back. Some are fairly close in some way. But a good number of them could easily be a unique class of organism. See?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
She picked up one of the jars by the lid and looked at the creature inside it. She shook it a little and the disk-like organism stirred. She read the label.
“I found this one with its mouth parts stuck in stem as tough as oak. Count the legs.”
Joe bent down and counted.
“Twelve?”
"Twelve."
“Body segments?”
“Two?”
“Very good. No thorax, no middle. It’s got an exoskeleton and twelve little legs. No wings.”
“Okay.”
She picked up another one, the one that looked like a dried pepper with hooks. She opened the lid and poured the inert organism into a stainless steel tray. She picked up its limp form and held it in her hand and nudged it around.
“Is it dead?”
“No. It’s asleep. A lot of them are like that. Strictly nocturnal and in a state of torpor during the day.”
“Why is that, do you think?
“I’m really not sure. You would expect a certain number of organisms to be more active at night. But that jungle is still and quiet as death right now. There may be daytime predators we haven’t seen yet, something from which they all hide. Or not. I really don’t know. Now, look at this one.”
“Right . . . ”
“It’s got eight legs and very little exoskeleton. But look at the joints in the big legs. Clearly like Terran arthropods, almost like a grasshopper. And I’ve seen variations of that head on bugs on Earth and several other planets, too.”
“So each one of the things here could represent a separate class of organism, not just a different species.”
“And within each class, many orders and within each order many families and species. I bet of the sixty samples I’ve got here, we could classify out at least fifteen separate classes of organisms.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow. Here’s a question. Of these two, which one is the insect?”
“Neither.”
“You’re smarter than you look, Mr. Devonshire.”
She dropped the limp form back into the bottle. It crumpled and folded up in the bottom like it were made of rubber.
“So you’re saying there’s quite a lot of bio-diversity here?”
“Oh, yes,” she snorted.
She handed the bottle with the organism in it to him.
“It may be too soon to give this animal a Latin moniker, but how would you like to give it a colloquial name, Mr. Devonshire?”
“Me?”
“Sure. Someone’s got to do it.”
“Well, I guess I could.”
He looked at the bug and thought about it.
“Anything I want?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said smiling a big magnanimous smile.
“Pepper Bug, then,” he said self-consciously. “Pepper Bug.”
“Pepper Bug?”
“Pepper Bug.”
“Okay. Great.”
She took the jar back and scribed the name on the label framed in quotation marks.
“There, one down, a jillion to go. How are you doing with your tests?”
“Fine. I’ve got most of the media ready for culturing. I think I’ve got enough.”
“Lets take a look.”
She walked over to the bench he was using and saw the neat rows of Petri dishes and a rack of test tubes filled with blood. It looked okay, surprisingly. She wanted to ask him about his procedure but saved it. It didn’t matter.
“Good,” she said. “Good job.”
There was so much to do. She placed a call to the clinic just to see if she could get an answer. Still nobody home. She tried Applegate’s shelter again, too. Nothing. Her last call was to Joan Thomas. They talked, and Rachel agreed with her that if Applegate didn’t show up by noon, they’d do well to put in a missing person's report. It probably wouldn’t mean much, but at least they could say they’d done it. Joan was worried about her. Rachel wasn’t so sure yet. She was pissed that she hadn’t shown up; but until they had a better idea of where she was, she wasn’t going to worry much more about it.
She booted her pad and called up the blank inventory templates. There were two separate types: the full adult set and the smaller kiddy set. She’d use the latter, the Short Forms, for her inventory, such as it was. She lacked the time and equipment to conform to the requirements of the Long Forms. She read the short ones from top to bottom. There were no requirements for serum studies, animal or long-term tests. That was fine, because she wouldn’t be able to do them. There were no validation studies required either, and the sign-offs by the health rep were perfunctory. She wondered who had sucked who to get these forms into common practice. They were useless. They were nothing more than affidavits with some boxes to fill in. They were so lame, she could have filled them out with what she had now, fudged a little, and would have been done with the damn things.
No. She’d do what was required, do a good job and try to enjoy doing it. The damned forms were secondary at this point. Maybe she’d fill them out on some rainy day when she had nothing better to do.
She put her samples aside, went for some more jars and headed back out. She could take another fifty or so samples easy before lunch. That would be fun.
She wanted to take a better look at the stuff on the ground, comb through the litter some and see what turned up. She brightened again as she got closer to the jungle.
Five meters in was about far enough, she fi
gured. She squatted down on a pile of decaying vegetation, leaves and bark piled up under a large tree. Something darted away with a peep! Too fast to see. She went after it, hoping to see something other than an insectoid life form but couldn’t find the thing or its trail.
She’d just started to dig in the pile of vegetation when she unearthed the worm. It was long, almost as long as her boot, and as thick as her thumb. It resembled a centipede and had the same hook-like pinching mandibles. It was shiny and reddish-brown with a single bright yellow strip running its length.
“Aren’t you the pretty one.”
She grabbed it with the tongs just at its mid-section. Immediately, the thing twisted violently around, legs and tail flailing so hard against the tongs, she was afraid it would shake out of her grip. She had been around creeping, crawling things her whole life but, in spite of herself, this item really gave her the willies. It twitched with such virulent life, part of her was tempted to smash it flat, but the scientist in her saw it as a real prize. It clamped onto the tongs with those mandibles with an audible click and immediately she saw a drop of pale fluid form at the tips against the steel tongs and run down it in a thin line.
“Oooo . . . I want some of that.”
She carefully switched hands so she could unfold a container using her right hand and her teeth. She finally got it open and started to work the tail end of the centipede into the jar. She got it in about halfway and thought that when she let go, she could shake it the remainder of the way. When the tongs released, however, the organism scrabbled up out of the jar and launched itself into the air off the lip of the jar.
“Whoa!”
It came right at her face, and she fell backwards in an attempt to dodge it. She landed on her backside and rocked all the way back.
The centipede had landed just at the neckline of her cottons and scrabbled inside.
“Aaaa!”
She shot upright and froze.
She felt its stiff, cool texture against her skin as it ran down the inside of her shirt. When it got to the waist line, it twisted and turned over, and she could feel its sharp legs scratch her midriff as it moved around the inside of her waist.
“Oh, shit . . . ”
It stopped running just at her belly, but it continued to move, squirming slowly. Then it stopped completely.
She’d had many bugs and creeping, crawling things on her, in her hair, in her shoes; it wasn’t unusual in her kind of work. But the thing in her shirt now really scared her.
It inched forward in little squirts of stiff movement. She knew exactly where it was and was confident she could grab it with her hands and crush it in her clothes. What she didn’t know was whether or not she could kill it before it bit her. She was fairly sure the juice she’d seen coming from the tips of its pincers wasn’t soda, but venom. She weighed the options. She could try to open her jumpsuit and let it out, but she’d have to move to do that. In its agitated frame of mind, that probably wasn’t such a good idea.
It moved again, this time pressing its head against the seam of flesh and elastic waistband.
“Oh, God . . . ”
It squirmed and scratched and started down. She couldn’t stand the idea of it going into her panties.
With an animal grunt, she grabbed the spot with both hands and squeezed hard. She felt its body crack and spurt wet against her skin. As she held it there, mashing frantically at it with her hands, she felt a fiery sting, right where the head would have been.
“You nasty bastard . . . you nasty . . . bastard,” she said with a crooked smile.
With another grunt, she moved her hand down and squeezed again, clamping quickly at it time and again between her thumbs and forefingers.
A hot glow radiated from the spot on her lower abdomen.
She clamped at it until she was sure it was dead, then slowly let go. She opened her suit, dropped it off her shoulders and pulled it down around her ankles. The forked tail was sticking up out of her panties. A pale and wet, multicolored stain bled through. She pulled the waist band away and lifted the crushed and lifeless thing out. Then, she squatted down, picked up the container and dropped the crushed thing in it.
“Gotcha anyway . . . ”
She stood up and pulled her panties down a little farther and saw the two little puncture wounds where it had bitten her. She’d known they would be there.
“Got me, you fucker . . . ”
Choking back panic, she numbly pulled her suit back on, hefted her pack and bag and started back to the lab. She’d just have to wait and see.
She didn’t have to wait long.
By the time she got to the jungle’s edge, her hands had started to tremble uncontrollably and her lower jaw was vibrating as if she were freezing to death, but she wasn’t cold.
A feeling of visceral sickness overtook her and she retched, her mouth and head trembling and straining with the effort of it. She wanted to lie down, to lie down and rest and be told she’d be okay if she just rested.
It was hard to do her kind of work and not experience firsthand the weaponry nature had to offer. But she never thought she’d die in the field. Now she was sure she would do just that.
“Help . . . ”
She staggered across the clearing, losing more control of her motor functions with each step. A few steps farther, and she dropped the bag, her fingers no longer able to hold it.
She had to get to the clinic. Maybe there was something there. If she could make it to the clinic, maybe she could give herself an epinephrine. It might be there. If she could do that, she might live. It would boost her heart, dilate her veins and increase her metabolism. It might keep her from going into deep shock. It might save her.
The steps leading to the clinic door were nearly impossible to climb. Her legs were weak and trembled like a foal’s. At the door, she saw the red emergency knob, but it suddenly blinked out of focus and vanished in a bloom of soft pink. When it came back, she jammed her vibrating hand against it and pushed. She heard the klaxon, but the sound was like a distant little buzzer. The door opened, and she staggered inside and stumbled to the shelves and cabinets against the wall. She had no idea where to look and began to throw open drawers one after another. Most were empty, one or two had cotton swabs. One had a box of gloves. She looked in the shelves and the glassed-in cabinets, staggering and working her way along the wall.
Nothing. Nothing here . . . I’m going to die . . .
Then she saw them. In a cabinet, on the bottom shelf was a worn and scuffed package of epinephrine pens.
The cabinet was locked. She rattled it in frustration then raised her foot with the help of her hand and kicked out. She heard the sound of breaking glass and fell backwards onto the floor. She staggered to her feet and made it to the cabinet, hearing the crush of glass, like a distant crackle, under her boots. She reached past the broken glass and pulled out the package.
Her hands were trembling so badly, she could barely hold the package. She got it to her mouth and tore at the plastic wrapping with her teeth, her head and hands working more or less in unison.
One of the pens came free. She worked it around with both hands, her eyes trying to focus, her mind trying to figure out which end had the needle. She found the arrow, turned it, jabbed it into her leg and pressed.
She fell to the floor.
The last thing she saw were the skinny legs of Joe Devonshire running toward her.
* * *
When she awoke, she was lying flat. It took her a moment to realize she was on the floor looking up at the bank of lights in the ceiling. The light hurt her eyes, and she turned away from it. Her head was slightly elevated on something; and when she turned, she felt the coolness—of what? A button against her cheek? She reached up and touched something clammy on her forehead—a damp cloth.
Joe was sitting with his legs crossed a few feet away, his hands crammed in his lap and his shoulders hunched up.
“What happened?” he asked.
She had to work up some moisture in her mouth before she could speak.
“Centipede . . . centipede bit me,” she whispered. “Get me an epinephrine. Hurry.”
“You’ve already had one.”
She swallowed a dry swallow and remembered.
“How do you feel?”
“Water . . . ”
He popped up and came back a moment later with a container of water. He held the plastic tube to her lips and let her drink. She sucked the water down until the tube gurgled against the bottom.
“Thanks,” she breathed.
She felt like she’d been through a bout of severe influenza. She ached all over, deep in her muscles, deep in her bones. She moved her arms and slowly drew up her feet. Her muscles felt stiff and leathery like jerky.
“I didn’t know what to do so I just let you sleep. I thought it was heat stroke.”
She remembered the fitful, ugly dreams-visions that had darted through her head like ragged, injured crows.
“I wasn’t exactly sleeping.”
“You looked like you were, anyway.”
“How long was I out?”
“About an hour I’d say. Maybe longer.
“An hour?”
She’d saved herself, she was sure, by a margin of seconds. If she hadn’t injected herself, she would have passed out, gone into shock, and died. There was no doubt in her mind; the creature’s poison was deadly and killed in minutes.
“It’s a big fucker like this,” she said weakly, holding open her hands to show him. “It’s the color of chocolate. The one that got me had a yellow stripe. I killed it. It’s in one of my containers.
“A real bio-hazard, huh?”
“One down . . . “ she said weakly. “And a jillion to go.”
18
The point-to-point navigation seemed to be working. As long as she picked out a tree or plant in the distance that was somehow unique, and remembered its features, she could keep it easily in view, even if she got off course a little.
Her blind was working, too. She could tell because she was still alive. She looked like nothing more than an odd, dome-shaped-plant-something with an appendage that occasionally stuck out front. She’d seen several creatures that were obviously predatory, floating under her, even in the shallows. One, a creature much like a crocodile, but much longer, cruised past and paid her no mind whatsoever. This pleased her immensely.
