Fragment

by Warren Fahy

  Red and yellow scales bloomed over the roof in Quentin’s monitor. The lichenlike growth visibly spread in polygons that changed color and shape, seeming to feed voraciously on the layers of white paint, gray primer, and steel. Each hexagonal tile was bisected by a half-hex “fin” angled to catch the sun. Sunlight turned these sail-fins green as they fluttered in the wind. A permanent cloud of angry bugs swarmed where the jungle was relentlessly swallowing Section One, like antibodies reacting to a wound.

  “This crud turns red on iron, yellow on acrylic, and white on paint, man.” Quentin shook his head in admiration and pulled off a bite of a Zagnut bar. “I think it’s actually eating the lab,” he mumbled.

  “Some bacteria eat metal, gold, even CDs,” Andy said. “Bacteria probably ate the limestone in giant caves—in addition to your teeth, Quentin.”

  Quentin shrugged. “It’s photosynthesizing, too.” He clicked two keys and zoomed in as he tore off another chew. “See those scales—the ones catching the sun are tinged green. Henders lichen eats whatever it can get, man,” he said with his mouth full the entire time.

  Andy frowned. “The maximum growth rate of lichens is about one to two centimeters per year.”

  “This stuff’s growing a million times faster than that,” Quentin mumbled.

  “Not a million times,” Andy objected.

  “OK, I was, like, exaggerating?”

  “The point is, it isn’t lichen, Quentin! It’s some kind of freaking superplant, like Japanese dodder or something. Everybody keeps calling it lichen.”

  “Well, you’re the one who called it lichen!”

  Briggs put his hands on his hips and watched them in amazement.

  “Yeah, I know, but I was wrong, OK?” Andy snarled. “It’s pissing Nell off that everyone keeps calling it that!”

  “OK, so what’s she calling it, then?” Quentin ripped away another bite of candy with his teeth.

  “Clover.”

  “Oh yeah, like it’s clover?” Quentin sputtered, laughing.

  “Excuse me, boys!” Briggs yelled. “It’s not the moss or lichen or clover or whatever the FUCK you want to call it that’s worrying me right now.” He pointed a finger at the roof. “You see those vines?” He stabbed a finger at Quentin. “Scientists aren’t supposed to exaggerate! And quit eating that thing!” Briggs grabbed the last half of Quentin’s Zagnut bar out of his hand and hurled it across the lab.

  Quentin shrugged with a chill-dude look at Briggs as the NASA technician zoomed the camera in on one of the plantlike organisms on the roof. It looked like translucent fern fronds sprouting from a glass vase.

  “Yeah, they just started popping up on the roof the last few hours,” Andy said.

  “Mmm, can’t be vines, though,” Quentin said.

  The translucent stalks of the stretching fronds were coated with sticky green transparent eggs. A Henders wasp landed on one of the vines and ate a few of the eggs with its posterial maw. Then it flew toward the camera, triggering the whizz of the auto-focus as it switched to macro mode. The bug deposited an egg stuck to its leg onto the lens and flew away. The egg immediately sprouted five tiny translucent “fronds.”

  “Wow! There’s their life cycle, folks.”

  “They eat the clover,” Andy said, recognizing the species. “These things usually come out at night. Looks like they use the bugs to spread their eggs.”

  Briggs pointed at the screen. “Look at that!”

  The fern-shaped fronds of a larger “plant” unrolled. Their five finger-pads smoked as they pressed down on the roof directly over them.

  Briggs pointed: five spots of white paint bubbled in a ring on the steel ceiling. The spots matched the pattern of pads on the fronds.

  “That’s what’s eating through the hull in Section One.” Briggs was looking at Quentin. “OK, genius?”

  “Whoa. The lichenovores must use acid to dissolve the lichen off the rocks, man. Bitchin’!”

  “Lichenovores?” Andy said.

  “OK, how about clovores, then?”

  “Better. Hey, wait a minute! Nell said those things might manufacture sulfuric acid!”

  Briggs shook his head. “What? OK, that’s it!” he snapped, closing his eyes. “Attention, EVERYBODY!” he shouted. “It’s time to pack up your hard drives and your Nerf balls and your iPods and Abba Zabba bars and Incredible Hulk action figures and whatever else you brought along, because we are ee-vack-you-ating. Got it? That means you, cowboy!”

  “Hey, why are you singling me out!” Andy protested.

  “Because you’re handy,” Briggs shot back. “Now MOVE YOUR ASS!”

  “Because I’m ANDY?”

  “Come on, Andy, damn it,” Quentin urged.

  “Is that what he said?”

  “Don’t be so sensitive.”

  “But is that what he just said?”

  “What else would he say, after one look at you?” Quentin laughed.

  12:07 P.M.

  “We’ve tried drones,” Nell said, “but they can’t see through the canopy. We tried remote-controlled chopper-cams, but they just attract swarms.”

  “We tried Crittercams,” Otto said. “You saw how well that worked.”

  “Even with the brief glimpses inside the jungle that we’ve had, Mr. Pound, we’ve been able to distinguish as many as eighty-seven distinct species,” Dr. Cato said, “some of them quite large. Of the specimens we have been able to capture, many have eyes similar to those of a mantis shrimp. That means they see colors we can’t imagine, and their ability to track fast-moving prey is equally super—”

  They heard the chop-chop of a Sea Osprey’s dual rotors reverberating through the walls very nearby.

  Pound swung around nervously to peer through the window.

  The NASA XATV-9 rover touched down on the slope with a jolt to its shock absorbers, rattling the lab.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Cato.” Pound smiled, and heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m going to have to pull rank on you. We’re going in. You’re welcome to come along, of course, as well as any of your team. I’m sure the President would appreciate all of your input.”

  The tether detached from the roof of the rover as it backed up the hill on monster tires and halftracks to link up with the extending docking-tube of the lab.

  Nell grabbed Pound’s arm. “You can’t go in there!”

  Pound pulled his arm away, gently. “I’m afraid we have to, Doctor.”

  “This place slaughtered thirteen people and a dog in less than a minute.”

  He smiled. “If that wasn’t a hoax for a TV show.”

  “Don’t you get what those bugs, as you call them, can do?” Nell said.

  But Pound had already turned and was heading for the hatch.

  She followed him. “This is an entirely alien ecosystem, at least a dozen new classes of animals. Just one of these species could probably knock the legs right out from under any common eco system, Pound. You have no idea how dangerous these species are!”

  “That’s precisely why we need to find out what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Sure, but this island’s been sitting here for half a billion years! What’s the rush?”

  Pound turned to her, a patronizing arch in his eyebrow. “Thanks to SeaLife, everyone on Earth knows where this island is, Nell. And if these bugs are half as dangerous as you think, they could be used in biological warfare.” He smiled with chill condescension. “I’m sorry, but it’s my job to think about those things.” He turned and continued walking toward the docking hatch. “So you don’t have to!” he threw over his shoulder.

  Nell watched him, incredulous. “Wait! Ham, seriously—don’t do it !”

  The docking vestibule slowly extended to the hatch of the rover.

  “Tune in on channel one, we’ll beam the camera feed back to you,” Pound called as a technician pulled the hatch open.

  At the same moment, Andy entered through the hatch at the other end of Section Four and immediately waved his
arms. “Hey, wait! Let me go!”

  “If he’s going, I’m definitely going.” Quentin pushed in behind Andy. “I know this island’s topography better than anyone!”

  “OK, you’re both in,” Pound decided. “Dr. Cato, want to come along? And really get a look at this island? You’re welcome!”

  Dr. Cato glanced at Nell and was alarmed at the horrified look on her face. “I don’t think so, Mr. Pound. I think I’ll just catch a ride back to the Enterprise.”

  “Wanna come along, Nell?” Andy said. “I’m sure we could use a botanist.”

  Nell gripped his hand as he passed her. “You shouldn’t go, Andy!”

  “I never get to go,” Andy groaned. “Besides, we’ll be safe in that thing. NASA built it.”

  A sense of foreboding overwhelmed her, and she clung to his hand.

  “It’s too upsetting, I understand, Nell. You stay here,” he said. “But this time I’m not getting left behind!” He pulled away.

  “All aboard who are going aboard!” Pound shouted, and he thrust the hatch open.

  Andy followed the others who entered the docking tube.

  They closed the hatch just as Andy reached it.

  “Hey!” he yelped.

  The hatch opened.

  “Just kidding,” Quentin told him. “Get in.”

  “That isn’t funny!”

  “Yes, it is.” Quentin laughed.

  As Andy crawled into the docking tube a lab technician secured the hatch behind him.

  Briggs opened the hatch from the section below and entered Section Four, his face grimmer than usual.

  He noticed Nell at the far end of the lab. She looked grief-stricken, for some reason.

  Briggs then noticed a skinny scientist next to him who was examining a drill-worm in a specimen chamber. “You brought drill-worms in here?” he growled.

  “You mean Rotopodiensis taylori?”

  Briggs looked at the young scientist’s name badge: Todd Taylor.

  “Uh, no. I mean the things that drill through rubber, silicone, and maybe even acrylic, like your little terrarium there.” He clicked the wall of the specimen chamber with a fingernail, and the drill-worms inside immediately leaped at the noise, startling young Taylor.

  “Listen up!” Briggs yelled as he walked down the aisle toward Nell. “We have to evacuate StatLab! Section One’s already compromised and Section Two is a lost cause.”

  “We can’t go yet,” Nell protested.

  Briggs faced her. “Why not?”

  She pointed out the window as the rover charged down the slope.

  “Great,” grumbled Briggs. “Just what we needed…”

  Otto switched to channel one and brought up Zero’s video feed on the screen as the rover barreled straight toward the jungle.

  “Check it out,” Otto yelled. “We got front row seats to Henders Island!”

  12:11 P.M.

  Zero had both his video cameras trained through the bubble window of the XATV-9. The rover crew leaned forward instinctively, grabbing handholds.

  “I don’t think we should just blast in like this,” Andy shouted.

  The driver paid no attention. If anything, he seemed to accelerate.

  The XATV-9’s cowcatcher grate bashed into the forest. It wedged open the trees at its edge, throwing the five men forward against their shoulder harnesses as the towering sections of the cactuslike trees snapped apart and thudded over the roof, spraying blue fluids.

  “No worries. That’s ten-inch-thick acrylic,” the driver assured them. “These windows are designed for submarines.”

  “That’s good, ’cause we’re about to punch through into the first corridor,” Quentin muttered as trees continued to fly apart around them.

  “Slow down!” Andy yelled.

  The rover muscled forward, its massive tires and rear halftracks digging in and thrusting them through the dense undergrowth. They heard branches snap and thud against the sides and roof. Sagging clusters of berries dropped from the trees and splattered turquoise, yellow, and magenta juice across the bubble windows as the rover finally started to slow down.

  Knocking aside the last few branches, the rover finally broke into an open corridor inside the jungle and came to a stop.

  “How’s this?” asked the driver.

  Quentin grinned. “Perfect.”

  The tunnel lined by trees extended in a long arc toward them and curved out of sight in the other direction. The rover had pierced an elbow of a winding corridor.

  A tornado of creatures chased one another through the tunnel from right to left, curving around a banked corner in front of them and launching down the corridor to their left before swerving out of sight around a forked bend.

  As the torrent of animals whipped past the rover’s windows, some snatched berries or eggs off tendrils that hung down from the dense canopy. Others became ensnared in the tendrils, which reacted like tentacles, jerking their victims up into the treetops.

  “Want to listen in?”

  “Yeah!” Quentin said.

  The driver pressed a button on the dash that turned on the outboard microphones.

  Over the speakers came a deafening drone of insects. The sound was punctuated by hoarse shrieks, anguished screams, and bloodcurdling howls that sounded like a haunted house ride.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” the driver muttered. He turned and looked at the others.

  “Hey!” Andy pointed up the corridor to the right.

  A wave of badger-sized animals pounced with astonishing speed after a pack of fleeing Henders rats.

  The rats jumped thirty feet through the air down the corridor and landed right in front of the rover. Changing direction, they stayed one step ahead of the badgers, who hammered into the bank of earth right behind them.

  One of the yellow-striped badgers tripped on a fallen branch. It was attacked by rats that doubled back, swiftly followed by a wave of disk-ants and wasps coming up from the rear. A deadly gang-fight instantly ensued.

  As the badger struggled to shake off its attackers, a dog-sized animal with a head like a grouper and a crown of eyes plunged out of the trees directly across the corridor from the rover and devoured them all with bone-crunching jaws. The retreating grouper shook its head and threw off a few rats, which skittered over the ground and were immediately buried by a swarm of what looked like mouse-sized barracudas with twenty rippling legs, and a platoon of disk-ants hurled into the fray.

  The fractal explosion of violence left the human beings inside the rover speechless.

  Bugs smashed into the right hemisphere of the front window, building up a coating of pulpy blue slime that other creatures tried to eat quickly before being attacked.

  It was a perpetual street riot, Zero thought, as he tried to suck it all into his lens, his heart pounding. He could die after this—if he survived it—and ascend to photographer Valhalla.

  12:13 P.M.

  The scientists watching the video feed from the safety to StatLab fell silent.

  Nell’s awe overcame her fear as she contemplated the alien world unfolding on the high-def monitor. The rhythms of carnage and regeneration were so obscenely accelerated it was like watching a war inside a maternity room.

  We don’t belong here, she thought. Nothing from our world belongs here.

  12:14 P.M.

  Pound looked pale. “Just what are we looking at, gentlemen? Please cut the damn sound!”

  “Sure thing,” the driver agreed.

  The others stared with open mouths at the hurricane of death and birth swirling outside.

  “Uh, yes, OK, this is completely alien animal life,” Quentin said. “I mean, it has DNA, RNA, basic cellular components, it uses ATP as an energy currency just like other organisms on the planet, all right? But these animals resemble nothing science has ever seen. Instead of a vertebrate design, we’re talking about a segmented endoskeleton that looks like a vestigial exoskeleton. The bugs here have exoskeletons like most of the insects on the planet,
but their body plans have a radial symmetry that is totally alien. The plants are not only photosynthetic but heterotrophic—carnivorous, actually—and they all have copper-based blood.”

  “They can’t be plants if they have blood, Quentin,” Andy protested. “Some of the larger forms appear to be photosynthetic organisms that are firmly rooted in the soil, but they’re not really plants.”

  Quentin pointed. “Even these things that look like big palm trees, Mr. Pound, have copper-based blood. I don’t know how they pump it up so high, but I think they must have hearts—really big hearts. If so, then we’ll definitely know they’re not plants.”

  “We think they might actually be related to the disk-ants and the other bugs,” Andy said.

  “Did you say ‘alien’?” Pound’s head was swimming. “You mean this stuff came from another planet?”

  “No, it’s alien but it came from this planet,” Andy said.

  “How can that be?”

  Quentin had a fixed grin on his face as he gazed up and down the corridor outside the window. “We think Henders Island is all that’s left of the supercontinent this stuff crawled out on more than half a billion years ago.” He shot a quick glance at Pound. “It’s been evolving separately ever since.”

  “Holy shit, everything’s dropping eggs and babies,” the driver exclaimed. “Look at ’em crawling on the glass there!”

  A disk-ant rolled across the curve of the window, dropping miniatures that rolled away from it to gorge on splattered blue blood.

  “Every Henders organism we’ve studied can breed at birth,” Quentin said.

  The driver nodded his head, impressed. “Born ready,” he said.

  “Some are born pregnant,” Andy said. “They mate in the womb.”

  “Now, that ain’t right.” The driver looked back at Andy angrily.

  Jumping like supercharged frogs or grasshoppers, a wave of guinea pig-sized animals with coffee-brown pelts and leaf-green stripes on their haunches swept down the corridor.