Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

Nadia noticed none of these things. Her attention was fixed on the fiberglass cages on the rolling iron racks against the south wall. The cages were four by two by two feet each, three to a tier, two tiers wide for a total of six. The front panels were sliding glass doors with keyed locks. Without the aid of a human hand, nothing was getting in or out of these cages.

In the corner of each cage and rigged to a series of digital thermostats, a lamp holding a one hundred and fifty watt infrared bulb glowed, ensuring that the thermometers read 86.5 degrees, twenty-four hours a day, year round.

'They can't get out. Have a closer look.' He waved her on.

Nadia stepped forward cautiously, looking back at him with huge eyes. 'Oh-my-gosh, this is so crazy. If my mom saw these she would die!'

'Yes, let's not surprise her then, shall we?'

Nadia stepped closer to the only cage with some activity. Inside, perhaps eighteen inches from the girl's face, his largest female was peering over a natural wooden branch siliconed to the wall. Half of her nearly six feet stretched up, her head raised as if in prayer to the invisible sun. She moved like a levitating wand, the muscles along her neck and mid-body holding her steady, exposing the cream-colored belly and vertical slashes that swept up and back like tiger stripes before fading into the iridescent black velvet scales that covered the rest of her fist-thick girth.

'That's Shadow, my largest female.'

Shadow's forked tongue waved lazily, testing the air as she moved closer to the heat-radiating patch of fuzziness that was the girl.

'Holy shit!' Nadia put a hand over her mouth. 'Is she going to bite me?'

'No, she's just checking out the action. Snakes have very poor vision, so what she's seeing now is just your general shape. They don't have ears, so when you see her tongue moving like that she's tasting the air, so to speak, sensing vibrations.'

'So she can hear my voice?'

'She might feel it. And in the wild, they sense vibration on the ground, approaching animals.'

'What are they, boa constrictors?'

'They are a type of constrictor, but not boas. A very rare species called Boelen's, or black pythons. They're found only in the mountains of Papua New Guinea.'

'Where's that?'

'Near Australia, at the end of the Indonesian Archipelago. They're heavily protected and somewhat illegal to export from their native country, and very illegal to import into the US.'

'What'd you do? Smuggle them?'

'One of the curators at the San Antonio Zoo is a friend of mine. Dr Hobarth sold me these wild-caught specimens at a reduced rate, off the books, so I could try to reproduce them. Captive-bred babies are more stable, free of the parasites you get with wild caught animals.'

'People buy these? How much?'

'Wild caught, not much. Too hard to keep. But assuming the babies are healthy and eating, which is the hardest part, to get them eating once they hatch, they'll go for eight to ten grand per head.'

Nadia gaped at him. 'Ten thousand dollars? For a snake?'

'And each female may produce six to twelve eggs. I'd have to split the proceeds with the zoo, of course.'

'That's . . . that's a lot of money,' she said. 'Why snakes? Is this like your job or something?'

'It used to be. When I turned sixteen, my first job was working in a tropical fish and reptile store - Dr Hobarth owned the shop while he was finishing his Ph.D. By the time I got out of high school, I had thirty-five or forty snakes in my bedroom. King snakes, milk snakes, rat snakes, boas, pythons, a couple of iguanas and a monitor lizard. My mother was very patient with me. I used to do shows for elementary schools, give talks at the Humane Society. I reproduced some of them, sold the babies for a few hundred dollars here and there. Sold off most of my collection to pay for college. I always wanted to keep Boelen's, but I could never afford them. Then I sort of came into a little money, and here they are. They are my favorite species.'

'How do they . . . you know . . . ?' Nadia blushed.

'What?' He knew but he wanted to hear her say it.

'Do it.'

'Snakes aren't all that different from people. Once their primal needs are met - food, shelter, the right climate - they just hook up. It's survival, so they aren't too picky, as long as they are healthy. They cross paths, the decision is practically made for them. The actual physical part is a little different. With snakes, the boys have two.'

'Shut up!' Nadia said. 'Two? That's so gross!'

'Yeah, well, you do with what Mother Nature gives you, I guess.'

'Then what?'

'Then they wrap their tails around each other in a twist. Sometimes the male uses his mouth to hold the female by the neck. They sit like that for a few hours or a few days. Then they separate and move on.'

'What does your wife think?'

'She's not afraid of them, but I think she sees them as some juvenile part of me that won't grow up, you know? Like I should be too old for this kind of creepy-crawly kid stuff. Maybe she's right.'

'She won't be complaining when you buy her a new car with the money from the little kiddy snakes, right?'

'No, she won't. Do you want to hold one?'

'Do they have poison?'

'No, pythons are not venomous. They constrict their prey before swallowing them whole.'

'Is she going to constrict me?'

'No, she is very tame and she would never try to eat you because you're much too large.'

'What does she eat?'

'Rodents, birds.'

'Like rats?'

'Or chickens. But I've got them on rats now.'

'Ew! Where do you get rats?'

'Pet stores.'

'Isn't that kind of mean?'

'Everybody's got to eat.'

She watched the snake. 'Are they slimy?'

'No, those are the amphibians. Snakes are smooth, not slimy.'

'She is sort of beautiful.'

'Here.' Conrad unlocked the door. Shadow did not flinch, even when he picked her up, supporting her body like a garden hose draped over his forearms. He went slowly, more for Nadia's benefit than the snake's.

Nadia screwed up her courage as the serpent stretched out and raised her head, her tongue flickering gently, moving toward his face. The snake rested her neck against his shoulder and began slithering over his back while her tail hung semi-loose over his arms and waist.

'I can't believe I'm doing this.' Nadia set her hand on the snake's back and did not recoil at the first touch. 'She's so smooth. Like velvet.'

'Boelen's have exceptionally smooth scales, very delicate skin. See the iridescence there, the way it makes little rainbows in the light?'

'Yeah.'

'Boelen's survive in the higher elevations because her black scales absorb heat.'

'What's that on her lips?'

Shadow had come around his other shoulder. On her top lip, the vertical scales were thicker, the black grill of a sleek new car.

'Those are called pits. She senses heat with them. For hunting. '

Nadia let the snake slither forth, feeling the muscled length settle on her arms. Conrad stepped from under the snake's body and allowed the full weight to hang on her.

'Oh my God. She's amazing.'

'Yes, she is.' He could see that she was proud of her bravery.

'Thank you for showing me this, Conrad. This is really, really cool.'

'My pleasure.'

She was like the camp kids that came to the Humane Society. They started the hour crying and cowering in the corner. By the end they were fighting each other to be next in line while their parents stood stiffly at the back of the room, eyes accusing him. Except with Nadia there wasn't much fear to begin with.

'Hey, Conrad. What are those?'

'What?'

'There, in the box thingy.' She pointed. 'The white stuff? Is that her poop?'

'Uh, maybe.' Snakes defecated white calcified urates, like hardened marshmallows. 'Those are kinda big to be - hey, wait.'