Merovingen - Fever Season Part 28

Moving down the food chain, we come to the smaller 'reptiles and amphibians.' Here the rule is, if it has teeth, it will usually bite. Nature has been a bit kinder to humans here-the poisonous ones advertise themselves with bright, vivid colors. The three most often fata! are: THE BLOOD-SKINK: about ten to twenty centimeters long, and a vivid ruby red in color, the blood-skink is normally shy except in summer (mating season). Both s.e.xes fight, both are poisonous. The venom is a neurotoxin acting on the autonomic nervous system.

THE ASP: named for Cleopatra's pet, this is actually a legless lizard patterned in brown and bright yellow. It lives in the center of reed clumps. It is normally shy but will bite if disturbed, frightened, or captured. The venom is, like that of the Indian krait, a catalyzing enzyme; it causes euphoria and vivid hallucinations, and death is usually due to heart-failure.

THE KOBRA: this is a true snake, rarely exceeding ten centimeters and pencil-thin. In color it is a vivid emerald green. It is most often encountered because it has.climbed up onto a raft or boat to sun itself; it is incredibly quick, and can strike and be over the side almost before the hapless swampy has realized it was there. The venom is a respiratory system depressant; death is caused by asphyxiation.

APPENDIX.

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A variety of other toothy denizens can be an indirect cause of death via infection of the wound.

WHO'RE YE CALLING VERMIN?.

Along with cats, rats and mice went to s.p.a.ce, made it to Merovin, and unlike the human colonists, throve. How they got here is uncertain; legend has it that they are all descen* dants of a shipment of lab animals whose cages broke during an earthquake. This may be at least partially true; there is a heavy preponderance of albinism among them; also about twenty percent of the population are piebald (Wistar) rats. The indigenous critters to look out for are as follows: SKITS: about the size of a large mouse, these things look like an unholy mating of crab and shrew; they have sharp hairy snouts with lots of teeth, a h.o.r.n.y carapace, a long, hairless tail, and a voracious appet.i.te. They are found in the swamp and in town, both. They are omnivorous, and the main reason why no sane swampy will try to store food; if more than ten a.s.semble to chow down, it kicks off a feeding frenzy among them. If stored food attracted a swarm (a feeding group of a hundred or more) to a raft, the inhabitant stands a real good chance of ending up on the menu, literally nibbled to death.

MUDSUCKERS: the Merovingen leech; they will attach themselves to the unfortunate who happens upon them and will create a nasty sore before realizing that they've latched onto something inedible and drop off.

NARKS: the Merovingen c.o.c.kroach; similar in habitat and indestructibility, they look rather like a silverbit-sized insect that couldn't make up its mind whether to be a spider or a beetle.

In addition, a number of the smaller lizards have made themselves at home in the ca.n.a.ls and buildings of Merovingen. They're mostly shy and harmless; many of them actually provide a service of eating insects and insect larvae.

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For the most part, Merovin insect life finds humans unpalatable; the one thing a swampy or ca.n.a.ler DOESN'T have to deal with is mosquitoes and flies, or the local equivalent. This is the one bright spot in an otherwise unpleasant existence.

MEROVINGEN OCEANOGRAPHY 101 OR "WHOSE FAULT IS IT?".

Merovingen has an overall climate much like that of Northern California, rather than New Orleans, which it otherwise resembles in continental placement. This is caused by the cold arctic current which flows down the coastline. . . .

What is wrong with that statement? you have five minutes.

Right. Cold arctic currents do not flow along eastern coastlines in northern hemispheres. Such currents would have to flow against the Coriolis forces.

Nevertheless, the current is there. And the reason is tied in with why Merovingen sits in such a geographically active area.

Not too far off the coast (geographically speaking) is what should (if the G.o.ds did not play with loaded dice) be a mid-oceanic ridge. It is a very young and very active ridge, and may someday grow up to be a continent if it is very, very good. It extends all the way up to the arctic circle and down three-quarters of the way to the antarctic before fading out. It has been the source of some wonderful displays just off the Faiken Islands of the eternal antagonism of fire and water. It also is high enough that it literally cuts the arctic current in half, with one half taking the proper Coriolis flow past the Faiken Islands-and the other half forced down along a surprisingly deep right valley (the Suvagen Rift Valley), trapped between itself and the eastern coast of the continent where Merovingen is. The current is forced all along that coastline until it gets itself untangled near the equator, and joins the warm upwelling off the Sundance which is behaving the way a current should. This warmed current travels up the opposite APPENDIX.

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side of the ridge, meeting the cold current right at the Strait of Storms-which is why the Strait has so many storms. Being young and active, as well as out of place, this ridge is blessed with a number of fracture and fault lines, one of the largest of which runs-.

You have five minutes. ...

Give yourself a gold star. Precisely underneath Merovingen.

Now since it's pretty hard to ignore a voicanically active ridge that is high enough to divert a major arctic current from Coriolis flow, a number of terms come to mind to describe whoever was in charge of the geologic survey of the area. "Criminally negligent" is one; I'm sure the inhabitants of Merovingen have a few more. Be that as it may, it would be difficult to have picked out a less suitable site for a major city, much less a s.p.a.ceport.-But we knew that already.

The. one advantage this arctic current confers is that it is extremely rich in the Merovin equivalent of plankton. And where there is plankton, there will be fish. Lots of fish. Which makes the fisheries off Merovingen second only to those off the Faiken Islands (which are rather like Greenland- cold, barren, and boring-thanks to the other half of that arctic current). And bad as Merovingen is, it is at least a far more interesting place to live than anywhere in the Faiken Islands.

Provided you don't mind the house rearranging itself a couple of times a year.

SUNDANCE OCEAN FLOOR.

* s'-. Sundance Ocean'.-'- MAJOR EASTERN OCEANIC CURRENTS.

(affecting climate) N.

EASTERN HEMISPHERE.

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WESTERN HEMISPHERE.