Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

"It's like an oversize variation on the ootheca we found in Frank's camp. The one he sketched." Rex raised his fingers, running them along the hard line of his jaw. "Why only eight chambers? Why not two hundred fifty-something?"

"I don't know." Diego shook his head. "It looks like this animal, whatever it is, has fewer offspring, but places more resources in them. Better equips them to survive."

A slick green head emerged from the chamber, wiggling and pulling a tadpole-like body out behind it. It was weakened and stunted. Writhing in its membranous sac, it lowered slowly on its thread. Spellbound, they watched it descend. The larva managed to break its head and thorax free from its sac, but its prolegs were still pasted to its abdominal segments. One of its true legs was misshapen; the others looked shriveled and use-less.

It was sure to die.

"That's it. That's our thing we have back at the camp," Justin said, as if the thought hadn't occurred to anyone else. Shaking off a shiver, Tucker took a step back, his hand instinctively digging for the hard metal cylin-der of the thermite grenade buried deep in the cargo pocket of his cammy pants.

"It's hatching like a mantid," Rex said, rolling the fuel bottle between his hands. "But mantid nymphs don't look like this. They're usually just smaller versions of adults."

"I found this, too," Szabla said, holding out the mandible from the forest floor.

Diego examined it. "It's one of the larvae's sawing mouthparts. A mandible." Even the meager light left a sheen on his forehead. He glanced back up at the ootheca. "There are more of them," he said, his voice colored with both excitement and concern.

"If there's one larva for each chamber, that means there are eight of them," Rex said, stepping forward and touching a finger to the side of the egg sac. "At least from this ootheca. We have one locked safely in the cruise box at camp, the one whose mandible Szabla found, this one hatching, and there's presumably another that didn't make it." He pointed to the corner of the cave where several mouthparts lay.

Cameron crouched above the half-buried pieces, raising a mandible to the light. It was already covered with ants. "They must not be edible, these parts," she said. "There are two mandibles here-probably from the same animal."

The larva squirmed on its thread, emitting a pained, high-pitched squeal as the air rushed through its spiracles.

Tank held up four fingers, raising his eyebrows. "He's right," Szabla said. "Assuming this is the only ootheca, we got four more of these things out there."

Savage burst into the lava tube just as the larva squirmed free of its thread, dropping to the ground. Diego touched a finger to his lips, and Savage joined the circle wordlessly, watching the larva attempt to crawl. Its squealing was high-pitched and sharp, like air leaking slowly from a balloon. The larva managed to squirm forward a few inches, leaving a trail in the dirt behind it. Its skin was still moist and tender.

Rex absentmindedly handed Savage the white-fuel bottle as he stepped forward to get a closer view of the larva.

"Jesus, we should… help it or something," Derek said. He looked around frantically.

Savage unscrewed the cap of the fuel bottle, stepped forward, and poured a trickle of white fuel up the length of the larva's body. It squirmed at the touch of the liquid.

"Goddamnit," Diego said. "What the hell are you…?" He crouched over the larva, running a hand gently along the soft, pliant hairs. "Thank God. It seems to be all right."

Pulling the matches from the pouch on his cammies, Savage flicked a match across the striker with his thumb, shooting it at the larva. It landed on its back, igniting the white fuel. The larva's spiracles emitted a screech as the small flames spread, burning down into the still-unhardened cuti-cle. It struggled forward as the fire attacked its body.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Rex yelled.

Derek turned and seized Savage by the shirt, but Savage was watching the larva die and didn't react. The shrieks brought Derek's attention back to the larva, and he released Savage and crouched over the dying animal. Diego was on his knees, his hands opening and closing impotently. Cameron stared at the ground. She could feel the sweat hammering through her pores, her heart pounding in her fingertips.

The larva writhed in place, unable to scrape itself forward any farther, the flames eating away small holes in its body. The screeching was weaker, and the clicking noise became audible beneath it. A pasty material foamed from its mouth.

With a last squeal, the larva shuddered and died, curling up. The fire dwindled, leaving behind only a blackened husk. Thin, fragile bones pro-truded from holes in the cuticle-a slender snake of a vertebrate and what looked like a parallel series of large, curved wishbones. Diego and Rex had been right about the internal skeleton.

"What the fuck was that about?" Derek screamed, his voice echoing down the shaft.

"You said we should help it," Savage said. "I did."

Diego rose. "You've just destroyed what could be a one-of-a-kind specimen," he barked. His hand sliced through the air, fingers splayed."! Cono tu madre!" he cursed.

Her breath hitching in her chest, Cameron stared at the far wall of the cave, where a line of ants were streaming up and carrying away tiny pieces of the ootheca.

"That thing was gonna die anyways," Szabla said.

Rex turned on her angrily. "That's your logic? Brilliant. Fucking bril-liant. You're like eight-year-old boys lighting ants on fire with magnifying glasses, pulling wings off butterflies."

"He might have just done us a favor," Szabla said, smacking Savage on the chest with the back of her hand.

"We don't know that these larvae are dangerous."

"I'd rather not find out."

Rex turned to Derek, his eyes hard and angry. "They're your troops, under your command. It's your job to keep them in line."

Derek looked at the burnt little corpse, his eyes loose and unfocused. "We do not just kill whatever we want to. It isn't natural."

"Bullshit!" Savage yelled, the veins in his neck bulging. His fingers were white-knuckled around the shaft of his knife. "Natural," he growled. "What the fuck is natural anyway? Anything we want. Anything we are. Everything we make is from the earth and our own primitive brains. Nuclear missiles, Agent Orange…" He flipped his knife in the air and caught the blade end expertly between his thumb and index fin-ger. "… knives. They're all natural. Don't be so arrogant to think other-wise. So don't you give me this natural shit when you only kill things that are ugly, all right? Because I've killed 'em all. Women, children, babies. I could tell stories that would make your heart jump out of your fuckin' body. And you know what? It's all the same. There is no natural. There are no rules."

Derek started to speak, but Savage raised the blade and pointed it at him, inches from his eye. "That's a blood lesson, LT. Learn that."

They gathered in the clearing outside the lava tube except Savage, who stood staring out into the forest, one foot resting on a gnarled tree root that rose out of the ground like an arm from a grave. He raised a wedge of plantain to his mouth, thumbing it against the side of his Death Wind.

He was a good distance off from the others as they circled, speaking in lowered voices so that he wouldn't hear them. Cameron watched Derek with concern, her mind reeling with all she'd just witnessed. She wondered why Derek didn't order Savage over.

The forest blurred before Cameron's eyes then focused, pinpoint sharp. "I hate to sound like a broken record here," she said. "But we have one objective, and that's to fulfill the mission. No more, no less. Any-thing that doesn't help us meet that goal is irrelevant."