by IGMS
"Just caught you a spidery thing."
"What about rats?"
"No. But we've seen droppings. Could be rodent."
"We have one loose in the lab. That's what we're looking for."
"I'll be right there."
"No." She didn't want him to see her like this, wobbly and baggy-eyed and smelling of a sickroom. "No. Keep looking there. I might need more than one."
"Sure."
"Thanks." Elizabeth disconnected, then grabbed a test swab and ran it all around Jasmine's wound. She took a quick spot biopsy and a blood test for good measure. Then she doused it with antiseptic and threw on a bandage. "Hold that in place," she ordered Jasmine. "So how do you catch rats on the farm?" she asked Holly.
"You get a cat. If you're on Earth."
"We're not on Earth. I need gloves."
"You're not seriously going to try catching it by hand? You didn't see how fast it was. Almost like it disappeared and reappeared over by the wall. And it'll bite through gloves." Holly seemed to be standing on a diagonal, so slanted she might fall.
But no. It was Elizabeth who was tilted. "You go flush him out. I'll catch him."
"Sure. And then I'll build us a ship to fly back home." She pulled out her com. "Nathan?" she said, when her husband answered. "Gather up all our pest traps . . . no . . . we need them here. Right now . . . yeah . . . and bring bait."
Elizabeth crept up to the cabinet where the rat specimen had disappeared and pressed her head against the wall, trying to see in to the space between the wall and the furniture.
A slight scraping noise caught her attention, and Elizabeth swung around, bashing right into someone who'd been standing directly behind her.
For more than a year she'd seen the same twenty-four people, day in and day out. Their faces had become tiresomely familiar. But now she screamed as she stared into the raven-black eyes of a man she'd never met. His lip curled as he raised a pistol right at her chest, so close she could feel the pressure of the barrel against her skin.
She scrambled away from the intruder, tripped into Jasmine's cot, and sprawled right across her.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
The man smiled cruelly, extended his gun arm straight out, and sighted along the barrel. "Does it matter who I am? You have five seconds to run."
"What do you want?" she asked, her whole body quaking.
"I want you to get off me," Jasmine groaned from beneath her. "You're crushing me."
Elizabeth staggered to her feet, keeping herself between Jasmine and the gunman. He had eyes so black they swallowed his pupils. A tattoo of a snake on one temple. Had he come on a ship? One that had landed covertly out of range on the opposite side of the planet? Or had he been hiding among them all these months? "Whoever you are, whatever you're here for," she begged, "there's no need for the gun."
"Elizabeth?" Dustin's voice faltered. "Who are you talking to?"
All the breath fled from her lungs. She rubbed her eyes. The man stood still, smirking at her. "Over there, by the cabinet," she said. "You don't see anyone?"
"No one's here but us," Dustin said.
She'd hallucinated a man.
He wore all black, with silver buttons on his shirt. Gel slicked down his hair. The recently-fired smell of the gun hung on him like cologne. No way she could have imagined something so detailed.
"Great," Holly said. "I hoped you'd figure it out before it came to this. Now we're in for it."
The man with the gun shifted it slightly to rest on Holly.
"Shh," Elizabeth hissed.
Holly sighed. "Maybe you should lie down for a bit. Nathan and I will trap the rat."
"He's not real," Elizabeth said aloud. "He's not real." But all she wanted to do was run.
"I'm very real," he responded. She felt the shot before she heard it, a tearing pain in her chest. She gasped for air and pressed her hands to her heart. Everything around her went black.
She blinked awake and lay staring at the cold white ceiling of the biolab. For a moment she couldn't remember anything. Then with a rush it all came back. She pushed herself up in the cot. "Is everyone okay?" The gunman was gone. Dustin, Jasmine, Mirek, and Blanca all lay in cots crammed together in the front room of the biolab.
"Shhh," whispered Holly.
The ragged pain of her gunshot was gone, but the memory dangled before her eyes. She fumbled with her shirt, pushing it away to see the wound. Nothing. She unbuttoned the top. Nothing.
"He shot me," she said to whoever would listen. She had to find confirmation.
It was Holly who responded, again in a whisper. "No he didn't. He didn't shoot you, because he's only in your mind. Now be quiet. We just set the traps in the other room."
Traps. Yes. They'd trap the rat and she'd produce the antivenom. And then everything would go back to normal.
"Dustin's having a hard time breathing," Holly said. "I put him on oxygen, but it's not working that well. What should I give him?"
Elizabeth stood up and made her way to Dustin's bed. "Give him a mild pulmonary stimulant, but watch him. If it gets worse, we'll have to put him on the ventilator." She prayed it wouldn't get worse. If the toxin caused lung paralysis, she had no idea what to do. "We need to get the rat."
"And then magically produce an antivenom soon enough to do any good? I thought it took weeks."
"With the Liang immuno-accelerator method, it shouldn't take more than twelve hours to get the first viable antibodies, which should be good enough to halt the damage until we can produce a full strength antivenom. We just need to keep everyone alive until then."
"Oh, is that all?"
"Can we inject a couple of your drabs?" Elizabeth asked. They hadn't yet domesticated any big livestock. A wild animal would be too hard to handle. That left the drabs -- species 27 in her catalogue. Ugly gray birds who acted like lazy chickens. "It might take a few. I've never done this before." And the Liang method would eventually kill them. A nobler death, at least, than the frying pan.
"I suppose we don't have much choice."
"No choice," echoed a voice behind her. She whirled on the raven-eyed man. "No choice but to run," he said, pointing his pistol at her again.
"Get out of my head!" she screamed as she pushed away his gun and stormed out into the fresh night air, telling herself she wasn't running away.
"Elizabeth?" Edwin stood across the way, near Dustin's module, the headpiece of his hazmat suit held under his arm.
Only then did she realize she was still cursing the gunman, rather loudly. She bit down on her lip, but Edwin was already running toward her.
"What's wrong?" he asked when he reached her.
"What's wrong is that your boyfriend's going to die," the voice behind her taunted.
She heard the shot, smelled the blood, and closed her eyes. It's only an illusion. Only an illusion. When she opened her eyes, there stood Edwin, frowning. The gunman had disappeared into the night.
Two hours and still the traps hadn't caught the rat. Dustin's labored breathing reminded her that soon even the ventilator might not be enough. For a while she'd feared that maybe the rat had escaped, but heat sensors picked him out in the back room, far brighter than he should be for so small an animal. They couldn't gas the whole module, for fear of overdosing the rat. She had to do something. But the gunman leaned against the opposite wall, casually sharpening a knife, and she found it hard to think.
Edwin stepped deliberately between her and the gunman, blocking out her view.
"You don't have to stay here," she whispered.
"I know."
She tried to smile. It was much easier with him blocking out all but the sound of the knife on the whetstone.
Then it dawned on her. "What kind of bait did you use?" she asked Holly.
"BX14."
"That has synthesized protein, right?" She scrambled for a scalpel. "Let's give him what he really wants." She grabbed some topical anesthetic cream, pulled up her pant leg, and rubbed it in
to the skin of her thigh. Then she positioned the scalpel.
Edwin's hand caught hers. "What are you doing?"
"Tempting it."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"It wants our flesh, apparently. Jasmine tasted pretty good."
"That's disgusting," Jasmine wheezed from her cot. The results of the tests around her bite had shown no evidence of venom. Only blood. So the rat could choose when to inject. This would be a fascinating report. If she ever got the chance to write it.
Edwin pried the scalpel out of her hand. "You might be right about the bait. But let's use a drab."
"I don't like drabchicken. What makes you think the rat will?"
"If it doesn't, I'll be the bait. You just be the doctor."
She nodded, throat tight.
The drabchicken bait worked.
The rat-thing was fast, banging against one side of the trap and then the other, without seeming to actually cross the distance between. She couldn't get a good look at it, but what she saw were flashes of eyes like a lemur and lots of sharp bits: teeth, claws, tail. Elizabeth put on her gloves.
"Better to just leave the whole project behind and get away while you can," the gunman whispered in her ear.
She jerked away from him, but refused to look at where his illusion stood. Her hands trembled, so she grabbed the table with all her strength and held on until the storm of adrenalin dissipated enough for her to remember what she was doing. The rat. She had to focus on him.
They assumed the creature would eventually tire out. Not so. She rigged a tranquilizer and broke three needles before getting a syringeful into the rat. When the creature finally slowed, she reached in and grabbed it, one hand behind its head to prevent him from biting her, one on its hairy body. A thick coat, soft as a mink's, thin teeth, nothing fanglike. She swabbed the mouth. No identifiable venom. No obvious venom sacs. Before she could ask Holly to set up a microscan, something crawled out of the rat's forest of fur and onto her glove. On instinct she moved to swat it away, but stopped herself just in time. Polished yellow-brown thorax, hardly more than a centimeter long. Whiplike tail longer than its body. Wicked stinger. Thin pincers -- four of them -- twirling tentatively against her glove.
"Can anyone else see this?" she asked.
Edwin leaned forward. "Ugly critter."
So it was real. "Get me a jar, a beaker, something," she motioned urgently with her free hand.
Edwin and Holly both proffered beakers. She scooped up the specimen and covered the top with her glove.
She counted the legs. Eight. "Arachnids have venom," she declared.
Edwin nodded. "He certainly looks the villain."
Elizabeth laughed for no reason she could name.
The milking wasn't so bad after all. Tiny electrical pulses got the venom dripping in no time. She diluted it, checking the database at least five times to make sure the concentration was right, while the gunman paced near the door, blocking their escape.
The first drab they injected pressed herself against the bars of its cage, squawking in panic, pecking at the metal that held her in.
"Calm down, honey," soothed Holly, to no avail.
She pecked and pecked and beat her tiny wings against the air, then clucked three times, beak up to the sky, and dropped dead.
Holly petted the ugly gray head and sniffled as Elizabeth diluted the venom even more. There could hardly be any left in the solution. On the second drab, she picked her spot more carefully, nearer what she hoped was the main concentration of lymphatic tissue in this species. It took longer: nearly ten minutes of nail-biting normality before the drab began squawking pitifully and tucking itself into the corner.
"Do you really think driving my chickens insane is necessary?" Holly asked, brow furrowed.
"Yes."
This one didn't die. Her breathing accelerated. Her thrashing woke everyone but Dustin. Eventually the drab fell into an exhausted heap and whined like no bird Elizabeth had ever heard. They injected a third, just in case something went wrong. Elizabeth sank into the nearest chair. "We'll dilute it again and give them another injection in a few hours."
"You should get some sleep before then," Edwin told her.
"Yes," hissed the gunman. "Sleep. Innocent, helpless sleep." He leaned toward her, his now-sharpened knife glistening. She jerked away, knocking over the chair as she rose, stumbling against one of the tables. Something shattered behind her. The urge to run turned to a crushing pain in her lungs as she tried to smother it.
"If I stay here and fend him off," Edwin asked, "will you be able to sleep?"
"You can't fend him off," she snapped. "He's in my mind."
"Then put me in there with him."
If only he knew how much time he already spent in her mind.
She woke with an oxygen mask strapped uncomfortably over her mouth. Edwin stood above her. "Holly needs your help," he said, somewhat sheepishly. "She administered the second dose. Nearly gave the poor drabs a heart attack. She wants you to do the third."
This dose, smaller than the others, had little effect. The immuno-accelerators appeared to be doing their job.
"This might actually work," Holly declared. "I didn't think it would."
"Thanks for your confidence," Elizabeth grumbled as she checked Dustin and Mirek, both on the ventilator now, but stable.
"Oh, and I found that." Holly pointed at another beaker near the empty trap. "I shaved the rat, to make sure he wasn't carrying any other pests. He was. I transferred the rat to an aquarium, just in case there's more."
Elizabeth edged dizzily over to the small beaker. Another arachnid: same brownish-yellow legs, only two pairs of pincers, and a body swollen round with . . . blood? She put the whole beaker under the viewer and magnified, then magnified again until the tiny mouthparts clarified themselves. Right at the center protruded a serrated hypostome. Perfect for digging into skin and not letting go. Perfect for sucking blood from its unwitting host. Perfect and hideous and beautiful. Tears of wonder clouded her vision.
"What's wrong now?" Holly asked, leaning over her shoulder.
"Nothing," Elizabeth replied. And for the moment, nothing was.
"Wouldn't it be wiser to sleep?" Edwin cajoled. "You have a few hours until you can extract."
"No, no." Elizabeth pulled off the tangled oxygen mask, the cord of which kept wrapping around her as she moved. Without it, her words wheezed, but she didn't care. "If I'm right, the males and females show distinct anatomical forms. The males are the ones with the venom."
"The scorpion-looking one," Edwin clarified.
"Yes. But scorpions are predators. These . . . they're more like parasites. But predatory." She wasn't sure she was explaining this well. She could hardly distinguish between what she was saying and what she was just thinking. "The females are hematophagous. Like . . . like ticks."
"Yes," Edwin said gently. Probably just trying to pacify her. "Maybe the oxygen mask would be more useful if you put it on."
"It's amazing. Look," she beckoned. He sighed and put his face down into the viewer, where the blood-fattened arachnid lay full and passive. "See that dorsal tubule?"
"Tiny thing?"
"Yeah. I think it's a feeding tube."
Edwin rubbed his arms as if to slough off imaginary vermin. "You think she has a million babies around here somewhere?"
"Haven't found any. I think it's for her mate. Offspring too, probably. Here's my hypothesis: the females suck blood from the host, and then feed it to the males. Like some nineteenth century woman doing all the cooking." She laughed, robbing herself of what little air she had. She gasped and put the oxygen mask back to her face.
Edwin frowned at her.
"I've rarely seen males and females with such distinct forms. It's possible they're two different species, but I don't think so."
"And maybe when this is all over, you can do some proper research," Edwin said. "But now you need to rest."
"No. It's better this way." How could s
he explain this rush of dizzy energy she'd twisted from the heart-pounding fear? Adrenalin: the wonder drug.
"The venom attacks the fear centers of the brain," she said, flipping Dustin's brain scan at him, then her own. "It stimulates the fight or flight instinct. Even in our non-native brains. This is huge. Whole xenobiological theories hinge on this. Interplanetary species interactions is a mostly undiscovered field. And this . . . this is amazing. Their venom acted on the drabs much the same way it did on us."
"Think the drabs saw visions of wild foxes?"
"You laugh, but I bet they did. They were clearly frightened. It's brilliant. Look at these figures." She pointed to the screen with fingers jittery from all the hormones rushing through her. "These are their calorie consumption rates at rest."
Edwin whistled. As an engineer, he didn't have much biological background, but he had a scientific mind. "Wow."
"Yeah. They'd need a nearly constant source of blood to sustain themselves. But their venom kills, destroying any source of blood they find. So they latch onto a healthy host." She gestured to the naked mink-rat, sleeping now, its little feet twitching even in slumber. "A host whose blood they can suck at leisure, and whose own crazy metabolism would demand a lot of food and fast-replicating blood cells. Then these little critters help the rat hunt."
"So, our arachnid friend ventures out and stings the potential prey, then returns to his rat?" Edwin asked, almost excitedly. "And when the toxins begin working, the prey runs itself to exhaustion, while the rat gives easy chase?"
"And then has a nice long feast. Perhaps over several days."
Edwin shuddered. "Great way to die."
"Meanwhile, our arachnid friends are feasting on this ever-replenishing blood supply." Tears flooded her eyes. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Well," Edwin faltered. "I'm not sure that's the word I'd use."
They extracted blood from the drab exactly twelve hours after they began the process.
Elizabeth was seeing double now: dizzying rows of test tubes where she knew there to be only three, Edwin with four arms akimbo, two gunmen growling in impatience, two fingers on two guns. The pincer-waving arachnids in her viewer disappeared and reappeared among the sheets of blackness that rippled in front of her eyes. She kept dropping things. Her thoughts ran circles around themselves. But between her and Holly, they isolated the antibodies and formulated the antivenom.
