Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

"Yes, sir."

"Now, I don't know what the fuck is going on down there, but I will arrange for an extraction. We'll untangle this mess when you get back. In the meantime, Dr. Rex Williams is still running the show-I can't over-turn a direct order from Secretary Benneton. Do I make myself clear? Mitchell?"

"Yes," Derek said. "Sir." Mako clicked out.

Four flares protruding from her back pockets, Szabla reemerged from Rex's tent, holding two tripods. She threw one tripod on the grass and turned the other upside down, spreading its legs. About an inch thick, each leg was a hollow aluminum cylinder tapering to a strong steel-alloy point. She began to unscrew a leg from the tribrach.

"What are you doing?" Rex said. "Those are my tripods."

The tripod leg came free and Szabla tossed it to Tank. He caught it in front of his face. "Not anymore," Szabla said.

Once detached, the legs were good weapons-metal spikes that could be used as blunt or stabbing instruments. Szabla disassembled tripods until each soldier was armed with a spike. Rex glanced at the large body near the fire pit and elected not to protest.

"LT?" Cameron said. One foot resting on a log, Derek stared at the forest from the depths of a stupor. Cameron snapped her fingers sharply. Derek turned slowly, his eyes finding focus. "Weren't you about to send a buddy pair to search through the farmhouses for weapons?" Despite her efforts, irritation found its way into her voice.

"What? Yeah. Yes." Derek jerked his head at Szabla and Justin. "Go search through the farmhouses for weapons."

Szabla tossed the flares on the ground and rose slowly, studying Derek. Another log gave way in the fire, sending a sprinkling of embers into the air. "Is that order coming from you, or from Cameron? Because last I checked-"

"It's coming from me," he snapped. "Get moving. And steer clear of the forest."

Swinging the spike at her side, Szabla headed toward the road. Justin removed a fresh solar cell from his shoulder and snapped it into his elbow light, but did not turn the light on. Cameron tossed him a spike, and he followed Szabla into the darkness.

Using Cameron's transmitter, Rex updated Donald on the day's events. After a lengthy discussion, the two scientists decided to speak the following day when Donald heard back from Samantha. In the mean-time, he promised to contact Secretary Benneton and continue to pres-sure the navy for an early extraction for the soldiers, and appropriate support for the scientists, should they choose to remain on the island to study the animals.

Diego had busied himself with the radio again, keying Morse on the handset in hope of someone's picking up the signal. He looked up when Cameron stood over him. She pointed to the radio. "Hope you're asking Santa for guns in addition to a boat."

"Plenty of guns in Puerto Ayora, just no bullets," Diego said. He keyed the handset, alternating long and short breaks. "But there's plenty of TNT from the ejercito." He looked up sternly. "Only if we need it to protect ourselves."

Backpack slung over one shoulder, Rex walked over, exhaling heavily as he sat on the wet grass beside Diego. The others were talking over by the fire, but only the murmur of their voices was audible. "What do you think?" he asked, jerking his head toward the creature's corpse. Green hemolymph oozed from a crack in its cuticle.

Still fiddling with one of the knobs on the radio, Diego turned to him, his eyes glazed. "I don't know what to think. The brownish-green cuticle clearly serves the purpose of camouflage, so my guess is it doesn't stray far from the forest. Even with its exoskeleton, direct sun exposure would dehydrate it rapidly. It resembles a mantid, and appears to hunt like a mantid, but the proportions are off."

Rex smiled. "Yes, they are."

"No, I mean the thorax is more slender and upright. The raptorial legs are overly developed, as are the grasping hooks and leg musculature. Do you see the strength through the claws and legs?" Diego shook his head. "Like a gorilla."

"That's how it climbs-its size rules out its relying on surface adhe-sion like an insect."

"This isn't an insect," Diego said, setting down the radio handset.

"You mean we can't just burn palo santo branches for repellent and call the exterminator?"

Diego laid his hands on the exoskeleton. "The cuticle's tough, almost impossibly hard, even over the abdomen. My guess is it's female, as the wings don't extend past the tip of the body."

Crouching, Cameron glanced at the wings. "So that's how you tell, huh?"

Diego leaned over and, lifting one leathery forewing, tugged at the delicate transparent underwing beneath it. It slid out smoothly, the fire-light playing through it and casting a yellow glow. Diego had to stand up and walk backward as it continued to unfurl. "The surface area of the wings has increased exponentially in relation to the body."

"Can it fly?" Cameron asked.

Diego released the underwing and it slid slowly back beneath the pro-tective tegmina of its own accord. "Even given the exponential increase in wing size, I doubt it could bear this much weight aloft." He sat back down, rubbing the ends of his fingers with his thumbs. "It's a different organism, almost as though something took a mantid's basic features and reshuffled them." He looked at Rex. "What do you think?"

Rex paced around the body. "Three-segmented ectothermic quadro-pod, filiform antennae, mandibulate mouthparts, tegmina and hind-wings, seemingly asocial. Physically, it's distinctly terrestrial as an adult, even though the larvae are aquatic. I assume those are its larvae."

Diego smoothed his mustache with his thumb and index finger. "I would agree. Even if it can breathe underwater like the larvae, it's not at all suited to aquatic movement."

Coos issuing from its body, the larva inched over to Derek. Absent-mindedly, he ran a hand over its abdomen segments. "Listen to that," Rex said. "And now to this." Placing his hands on the adult creature's back, he pressed down. A hissing filled the camp as air escaped the hockey puck-sized holes along the abdomen segments. "The sounds from both the larva and adult come from the spiracles. They must feed an internal respiratory organ, as we discussed."

"How the fuck?" Diego shook his head. "How the fucking fuck?"

Rex pulled seven water-sample jars from his backpack and set them on the ground in a line before Diego. They were each neatly labeled, with the time, date, and source location. Rex reached for an elbow light and turned it on, running the lens behind the row of jars so they each lit up in turn with a blood-red glow. The others glanced over, intrigued by his theatrical presentation. Sensing Rex was about to convey something useful, Cameron signaled them over. Derek sat on the nearest log, while Tank and Savage stood.

"What appears to be different about these samples?" Rex asked.

Diego studied them, puzzled, as Rex ran the light back across them. "Nothing."

"Exactly. However, the three on the end aren't taken from the ocean. One is your lagoon sample, I took one from a clear puddle in the road, and this is the one from the natural basin near the lava tube."

"I saw you," Diego said. "But that's impossible. They're all tinted red from dinoflagellates. But dinos are generally pelagic. How did they get from the ocean to the highlands?"

"Well," Rex said, pleased with himself, "dinos can go into a dormant, sporelike state, which allows them to survive extreme conditions, like dehydration and low temperatures. They're most highly concentrated in the waters off the southeastern point of the island-the water that gets shot through the blowholes. My guess is that the spores get blown around in the wind streams and settle all over the island through the garua mist. The little landlocked pools have a decent amount of salinity from the blowholes and the mists, which permits the spores to bloom again. This means the virus, contained in those dinoflagellate spores, could reach animals from the highlands to the coast. I think it found a susceptible species. Galapagia obstinatus."