Edward Lee - Slither

The sergeant and the corporal looked at each other.

The major turned at the door. "I realize that may sound like an unorthodox measure, but it's all in the interests of the mission's ultimate success. Will that be a problem, Sergeant?"

"No, sir. No problem at all."

(III)

"I thought you were going for another swim with Annabelle," Nora posed when Loren ducked into the head shack.

"Yeah, but not till later in the afternoon." He walked in, then looked enthused. "Wow, where'd you get that?"

"Your pretentious blond friend almost stepped on it in the shower earlier."

"Hey, just because I worship her body doesn't mean she's my friend."

.You a betting man?"

"Sure."

"Okay, I'll bet you that before this shoot is over, she's putting overt moves on you."

"You're high," Loren said. "And I'll tell you something. I'm pretty sure she and Lieutenant Trent have something going on."

Nora laughed at the worktable. "You're so perceptive, Loren. What a bright light you are."

"Why do I detect unremitting sarcasm?"

"She and Trent have been doing the naked pretzel since the first night."

The surety of her words stunned him. "Really?"

"Yeah, and she wants to make Trent jealous-she loves games. She has no identity unless she's the center of male attention. That's why she'll be coming on heavy to you soon. Accept it. And don't be a dope. Don't feed her atrocious ego and utter lack of character by responding like a -horny mutt."

Loren's head rose in an arrogant pose. "Hey, just because I'm a few years younger than you doesn't mean that you know more about human romantic behavior."

"No, but the fact that I'm a woman does. I'm betting that she puts hard moves on you and you fall like a house of cards. You'll be absolutely convinced that she's crazy about you. Too chicken to bet?"

"You're on," he said, grinning. "Loser buys dinner at the winner's choice of restaurants."

Nora shook on it. "Now let's stop yacking about that ultraboobed peabrain and take -a look at this."

Loren sat down at the worktable, eyeing the footand-a-half-long worm. "You killed it?"

"No, it was already dead from the seepage at the bottom of the shower stall. Trent sprays it down with bug spray every day since we found those first motile ova." She slid the microscope over to Loren. "And I'm pretty sure we were right last night. This worm here is the same species as the tiny ones from the lobster. Which means we weren't seeing things last night. It's a species that grows at an exponential rate."

Loren's eye lowered to the scope. He went silent for several minutes. "There's no doubt. The pore scheme in the coelum is identical, and so are the mucoid ducts in the parapodal bands." He shook his head in studied amazement. "There's nothing else I've ever seen that's even remotely like this. This size? Good God."

"This is a species that the helminthology community is unawareof," Nora pointed out.

"We've discovered a new annelid." He took his eye away long enough to grin at her. "We get to name it ourselves."

"Yeah, but it's still a rip-off when you think about it."

"What do you mean a rip-off? It's every zoologist's dream to get credit for discovering a new species of animal life."

"Sure, Loren. But look at the fact of the matter. If a paleontologist discovers a new fossil, he makes a fortune. Somebody discovers a new enzyme, a new bacterium, a new friggin' fish-you name it-they make a fortune and they become famous in their field." Nora snorted. "We discover a new worm, and nobody will care."

"Yeah, and we won't make jack shit. But so what? We'll be the stars of the next issue of The American Journal of Worms… for about a month."

All of a sudden the new find seemed almost more trouble than it was worth. But Nora could still retain some level of excitement in their next step. "This one's big enough to dissect. You want the honors?"

"Damn straight."

"Start cutting, Doctor."

Loren got up for the case of exam and dissection implements, as something occurred to Nora. "One thing," she said. "We can't tell the others anything about this."

"You're right. They'd overreact in a big way."

"We'll just tell them the worm is typical and nothing to worry about. Any other way would be-"

Loren laughed. "Can you imagine Annabelle's reaction if she thought there was an undiscovered parasitic worm out here--that doubled in size in twenty minutes? And that they were in her lobster! She'd have a cow!"

"I'd love for her to have a cow, and every other conceivable farm animal," Nora remarked. "But I'd be more worried about Trent. He'd have an army quarantine crew out here."

Loren sat back down and unzipped the dissection kit. With forceps he readjusted the body of the worm across the stage, then applied stage clips. The case contained cutting instruments called microscalpels, which looked nothing like typical scalpels. Honed needles composed the blades, some made of steel, some made of hard resins. The kit also contained intricate pipettes, probes, and section lifters. "Yeah, this one's plenty big enough," Loren muttered. "Let's see what's going on in here…"

Nora waited.

"Same mucoid ducts that we saw on the parapods of the ovum," Loren observed.

"Mucoid ducts in the coelum mean it's a skinbreather-like an earthworm," Nora said, cruxed.

Loren daintily cut some more. "Plus gill sacs connected to the secondary dorsomentral channels. So we were right again. It can breathe air and also process oxygen when it's in seawater. Like lungworms and snakeheads. And it's definitely not a Polychaeta." He pushed the microscope over to Nora, frustrated. "I can't even guess what the family is on this thing."

Nora changed the numerical aperture and upped the light field. With microshears and a teasing needle, she peeled back the layers of the worm's coelum-its outer musculature that served as skin as well as the main sensory organ carrier. "This looks like a roundworm but demonstrates features of other nematodes and an nelids. No evidence of triphasic rhythm fibers. Part land rover, part free-range seaworm, but the outer physicality smacks of what we thought last night. Roundworms. Pink from oxygen saturation-"

"The Trichinella family."

"Um-hmm, and that's impossible because no Trichinella, nor Trichina, exists without triphasic rhythm."

Loren laughed, if a bit nervously. "When we discover a new species of worm, we sure do pick doozies."

Nora wasn't laughing. "Plus motile ova, plus chitinpenetrating digestive enzymes." She didn't say anything more, but jacked the microscope to its full 400x magnification. "Damn, what I wouldn't give for an SEM, or even just a scope that cranked to a thousand or fifteen hundred."

"Tell me about it."

Nora went silent again, then slid the scope back to Loren. "Tell me what you see."

Loren looked. "Muscular symmetry that looks both radial and spiral," he declared.

They both sat a minute, saying nothing. Only experts of their kind knew the ramifications. "This can only mean its motile ova are bifunctional. A mutator. Like-"

"Like a fair share of Trichinosis species. And if we're right, then these things can easily infect humans… I'm going to check the midlevel striations now." He cut some more, then said, "My hands are full. Get something to gently raise the stage clip, will you?"

The kit lay on the other side of Loren, so Nora looked around for a pen or something small to lift the clip. Damn… There was nothing near her. She slipped her finger in the key pocket of her swimsuit, but the only thing in it was that small, corded metal strip she'd found the other day. This'll have to do, she thought, and used it to raise the stage clip.

"What's that thing?" Loren asked, obviously seeing it under magnification.