Minutes To Burn Part 10

--------------------- usk had thickened the air by the time Diego steered El Pescador Rico,a converted twenty-two-foot fishing boat, to the waters just off Cor-morant Point on Floreana. Already, he saw a herd of pigs bickering on the soft, white-sand beach, and he felt his stomach drop as he realized what the pigs were fighting over.

He pulled the Zodiac from its withered repose near the stern and heaved it in the water, engaging the dive bottle of compressed air secured on its transom. As the launch inflated, he debated pulling his speargun from its mount on the polished wood but decided that reload-ing it after each shot would take too long. Kicking off his loafers and tossing his rifle ahead, Diego leapt over the side of his boat into the Zodiac and headed for sh.o.r.e.

In the water ahead, he noticed a shadowy ma.s.s, and he cut hard to avoid hitting it. As he pa.s.sed, the dark shape took form as two turtles- a small male mounted on top of a female, clinging to her with his flip-pers as she paddled to keep them afloat.

Diego cranked the throttle, landing the Zodiac hard on the beach. The pigs acknowledged him with grunts as he splashed toward them through the surf, yelling and cursing. The turtle nesting ground, the twenty-meter stretch of sand that crested the top of the beach, was trampled and uprooted, the pocked and mounded sand resembling the site of an archaeological dig. Snorting and rooting into the sand, the pigs were enjoying a lavish feast of eggs and hatchlings. Whatever eggs may have remained buried in the nests were surely crushed.

A spotted sow gobbled up a soft, pale-green sea turtle hatchling as it struggled toward the surf. Diego took off the top of the sow's head with his first shot. He hit two pigs dead in the chest with his next shots before missing, and they spit blood, their legs stroking the air like broken pis-tons as he paused and regarded the width of the herd.

When he stepped, his feet pulled from the sand with a sucking noise. Inland, a scattering of rocks gave way to low scrubby brush, broken only by the path leading back to the lagoon. The mineral crystals in the sand gave the beach a subtle, green cast that, with the darkening sky and the carnage ahead, made the events unfolding around Diego seem dreamlike.

He felt his chest tighten with grief and rage and he fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded even through the spray of blood, the wet and wounded snorts, the wriggling bodies that layered the sand. Pieces of hatchlings lay discarded on the beach, flippers and heads and peels of flesh dusted with sand. Halfway through the carton of bullets, Diego realized he was crying. He cursed the pigs as he fired, cursed the yolk and sh.e.l.l dripping from their sticky snouts, cursed their curled tails protrud-ing from holes and their forked feet trampling the sand. Then he cursed the farmers who'd left them behind to roam the island. Despite the crack of the rifle, the pained squeals, and the stench of death emanating from the blood-drenched sand, the pigs refused to spook. They remained, rooting and chomping and falling dumbly, torn through with bullets.

There were at least ten pigs dead or wounded, but their numbers seemed inexhaustible; every time a pig dropped, two more seemed to spring from its shadow, running tight, excited circles in the sand. Seem-ingly oblivious, a large turtle was bedded down in the middle of the ruckus, continuing to lay her eggs, even as a piglet ate them right out of her body. Diego took aim with a blurry eye and fired, but the hammer clicked down on nothing. He dug through the carton, found it empty, and cast it aside. The turtle squeezed out another egg, directly into the waiting mouth of the piglet. c.o.c.king the stock of the rifle back over one shoulder, his scream an echo from the pit of his stomach, Diego charged into the fray.

CHAPTER 17.

--------------------- amn stirred in the night, feeling oddly uneasy. It had been hard adjusting to living on a deserted island, just he and Floreana. He had caught himself talking to one of his cows again today, and though he had laughed it off, it was increasingly difficult to deny that it was very lonely on Sangre de Dios.

He rolled over on the mattress, resting his hand on his wife's rounded belly. The bloque de hormign walls of the small house were slightly aglow with the embers from the fireplace. He lay on his back, staring at the soft orange tint of the ceiling for a few minutes, counting the cracks and try-ing to wipe the feeling of discomfort from his mind. The cut on his index finger had healed, leaving a smooth strip of a scar.

Floreana murmured something in her sleep, her hand moving to rest atop his, though she didn't wake. He leaned over and kissed her softly on her temple, damp with sweat. It used to be cooler up in the highlands, but ever since the large hurricanes that damaged the skies, it had grown hotter, even in the night. He still made fires, but only for cooking and light.

Ramn stood and crossed to the sink, his feet bare on the dirt floor. The door rattled slightly in the wind, loose against the frame. He doused a towel under the spigot and returned to his wife's side, lying beside her and gently wiping her forehead. The feeling of unease returned, and finally he sat up in bed, staring around the small room. The fire was dwindling now, but a few stubborn coals persisted, staring out at him like demon eyes.

He looked at the small stack of firewood in the corner, the ax leaning on its side, the humble wooden table, the black hole of the window. Something caught his eye in the window-a tiny glowing point, one of the embers reflected back into the house.

His breath caught in his throat, but he let it out evenly, not wanting to make a sound. He felt blood go to his face in a rush. There should have been nothing outside that window, only an open field.

Beside him, Floreana nuzzled into her pillow, and the pinpoint reflec-tion shifted slightly, as if whatever was out there had tracked her move-ment. Ramn's mind ran back through the countless stories he'd heard over the past few months, and he pictured the tall, thin creature he'd seen that night in the gara.

He fought the darkness, straining his eyes to distinguish the outline of the thing in the window. He'd never believed in monsters, not even as a child, but right now in the night, his beliefs seemed far away.

The last ember died, and Ramn waited for the darkness to ease all through the room. His eyes adjusted, and he saw it just barely-a large triangular head, tilted slightly to one side. The ember had been reflected back in one large, gla.s.sy eye, an eye that now seemed riveted on him and his sleeping wife. Ramn held his breath, praying his wife would not stir. He shifted his eyes to the ax in the corner, careful not to turn his head, gauging its distance from the bed. He looked back at the window, losing himself in the liquid black eye.

The thing turned its head slightly, taking in the room in a long, slow sweep, then pulled back, fading into the darkness.

Ramn waited a moment, then let his breath out sharply. He ran a hand across his chest and it came away slick with sweat. Beside him, his wife rolled to her side, facing away from him. He leaned over and kissed her softly between the shoulder blades with trembling lips.

He lay quietly for a few minutes, but every time he almost drifted off, he'd snap to, his eyes on the window. Finally, he rose and retrieved the ax from its recline in the corner.

He fell asleep with the blunt edge of the ax head pressed against his cheek.

CHAPTER 18.

--------------------- 26 DEC 07 MISSION DAY 2.

t dawn, the ootheca began to squirm. The individual chambers wrig-gled until the ceiling of the lava tube looked alive.

A crackle echoed down the shaft as the ootheca strained and trem-bled. A small bright-green head pushed through the papier-mche-like egg case exterior, making use of the special exit valve in the chamber. Encased within a membranous sac, it wiggled forward like a worm, a thin body following.

Rather than dropping to the ground, the larva eased slowly down, suspended by a fine silk thread produced by a gland in its abdomen. As it descended, other larvae began to break free and fall as well-writhing, slime-covered packages dropping from the roof of the cave. They were visible through their translucent surrounding membranes. Three of them clumped together, dangling from their lifelines and spinning in the air.

Blood pressure pumped into the first larva's head, causing the mem-brane to split. It wriggled, shaking off the nursery-cowl and falling to the ground. About two feet in length, the larva resembled an enormous grub or caterpillar. With a fat, curved eruciform body composed of a long abdomen and smaller thorax, and a well-developed head, the larva was smooth and cylindrical. It had six true legs-tiny, pointed exten-sions, each one ending in an apical hook. The true legs were paired, each set protruding from one of the three segments of the thorax-the p.r.o.notum, mesonotum, and metanotum. The abdomen was also seg-mented, into nine parts, but instead of true legs it featured prolegs, fleshy stumplike appendages. The larva used its overgrown prolegs to inch along in something like a crawl.

Most startling about the larva's appearance, however, was its head, which seemed oddly animated due to its size and the precise placement of its features. Unlike most larvae, which had cl.u.s.ters of ocelli rather than true eyes, it had large gla.s.sy eyes, one on each side, and a mouth that darted in a line beneath a sloping b.u.mp of a nose. Though the tho-rax was a mere half foot to the abdomen's ten inches, the head took up a full eight inches of the larva's length.

Three thin gills quivered on each side of its head as it breathed. Two antennae, each segmented into three parts and terminating in a long fila-ment, extended from the top of the larva's head. A pair of spiracles on each abdominal segment permitted it to draw air.

Heads began to poke from the other membranes as the larvae shook themselves free, scrabbling with their tiny true legs and puncturing the sacs. Once loose, the prolegs waved in the air like blunted human hands. The larvae landed and eased forward, rippling their bodies and gripping the ground with their prolegs.

Up in the ootheca, a runt larva flailed partially out of its chamber, air squealing through its cuticle. Wriggling forward in its sac, it tried to pull its lower body free. The other larvae gazed up at the squawking runt, their heads instinctively going on point.

With a final, struggling shriek of air, the runt pulled itself free of its chamber. Even through the membranous sac, one true leg caught in the ootheca and tore off with a wet ripping sound. The runt flailed as it descended slowly on its mucuslike strand, air rushing irregularly and audibly through its spiracles. It managed to push itself partially free of its sac, but two of its true legs remained pasted to its side. Its cuticle, like that of the other larvae, was almost transparent, a soft, green sheath stretched over the network of hemolymph and organs pulsing beneath.

The other larvae, crawling with slow awkward movements, gathered beneath the descending runt, watching expectantly. Wriggling its remaining five true legs, the runt neared the circle of its siblings. The mouths of the other larvae peeled open, each revealing two opposing dark mandibles. The mandibles were heavily sclerotized, pointed and arced like jagged moons. At first conforming with the head, they were now spread, exposing a front labrum and lower labium, fleshy and flap-like, that worked together like toothless gums. The runt fell into the ring of the larvae's upturned faces, air screeching through its spiracles as their mandibles began to saw through its still-fragile cuticle.

The larvae fell on it ravenously, sawing and nipping as it writhed and squealed and slowly died. They concentrated on the plump abdomen, fighting over the richest mouthfuls. When they finished, their faces were covered with a moist sheen, the greenish paste of the dead larva's insides.

They crawled away from the kill once they finished eating. The runt's body was almost entirely gone; only a portion of its head and the sharp mandibles remained. The larvae eyed one another suspiciously, like box-ers in a ring, but they all were of equal strength. There would be no more meals without a fight.

Overhead, one of the ootheca's chambers remained stubbornly closed, devoid of movement within.

A first larva struck out for the forest, pushing through the wall of ferns at the mouth of the lava tube and turning its head from the sun-light that a.s.saulted its eyes. The air was filled with alarming sounds-the call of a yellow warbler, the howl of a feral dog, the wind rustling through the leaves. The fronds fell back into place around the opening, again enclosing the other larvae in darkness. A second larva resolutely followed, the other four trailing behind.

With their prolegs and rippling contortions of their abdomens, they crawled off in different directions, disappearing into the lush vegetation. Fronds rustled around the last larva, then stilled.

The forest was quiet.

CHAPTER 19.

--------------------- ven compared to Guayaquil's, the airport at Baltra was in bad shape. One of the runways was decimated with cracks and fissures. Cameron stretched her legs as the C-130 came in evenly on the one remaining strip of intact pavement and eased to a halt.

The flight had been smooth. Difficult getting out of Guayaquil, but once they'd been airborne, it had been an easy hour-and-a-half glide over miles of blue ocean. The pilot would rest, fly back to Guayaquil, and return to pick them up in five days.

The tension within the squad seemed to be even worse. Szabla was furious that Derek had breached protocol by ordering Cameron to bunk in with her and Justin, and Justin had made things worse by cracking threesome jokes all night. At four-thirty in the morning, Savage had woken the entire hall screaming from the depths of some nightmare, and Derek had had to kick in the door to see what was wrong. It had taken two of them to awaken Savage. Tucker had gotten the sweats in the middle of breakfast, and after one look at him, Justin had removed the morphine Syrettes from his trauma bag, wrapped them in a sock, and hid them at the bottom of the weapons box.

At least Juan seemed to be getting along with everyone-at the Guayaquil airport, he'd greeted the squad with a half bow, telling them how pleased he was to be along on their mission. Szabla had scooted over, letting Juan sit beside her for the flight.

Derek had been quiet since takeoff, standing by one of the windows and gazing out across the water. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all.

Rex had filled the uncomfortable silences on the flight, providing a geology lesson and pointing out the window at the islands as they pa.s.sed. Born of volcanic eruptions-fierce plumes of magma shot through the earth's crust-the Galpagos, he said, had spent much of its ten-million-year existence in flux, its islands undergoing a continual process of reshaping and reforming through eruptions and earthquakes. Rising from the Galpagos Platform, a basaltic submarine plateau some two hundred to five hundred fathoms beneath the sea, the islands were arranged chronologically, aging as they moved east. The shadowy ghosts of islands past lurked beneath the waters east of the current island chain, victims of erosion and the erratic movement of the earth's crust.

Espanola and Santa Fe, the oldest existing islands at 3.25 million years, were less volcanically active than their westernmost cousins, Fer-nandina, Isabela, and Sangre de Dios, which at seven hundred thousand years still experienced marked fits and growing pains. Because the islands were formed of basalt, a low viscosity magma that flowed and spread easily, the volcanic peaks rose less steeply than their continental counterparts, whose silica-laden andesite magma permitted more coni-cal protrusions. The product of gentle, effusive eruptions, the Galpa-gos were broad and mildly sloping islands that resembled the domed backs of the tortoises for which the archipelago was named.

The islands floated amidst seven oceanic currents, which carried with them marine life from as far away as Antarctica and Panama. The conflu-ence of these currents, warm and cold, northern and southern, gave the archipelago a climate uncharacteristic of the equator. In most aspects, Rex pointed out, the Galpagos were anomalous: the lumbering reptiles; the smattering of penguins and flamingos among the more traditional pelagic birds; the albatross that clattered their way through their elabo-rate mating dance and threw themselves from cliffs to become airborne.

Cameron had listened to Rex intently, but she'd thought the others seemed bored.

The sun in Baltra was much more intense than in Guayaquil. Their faces slick with sunblock, the soldiers exited the plane. Cameron felt the heat of the concrete through her boots. A Minutes to Burn electronic bill-board flashed 2:50 on the runway. Two Kfirs were parked on the far edge of the ap.r.o.n, where they sat in the hot sun, still linked to tow trac-tors-Israel had been kind to the Ecuadorian army.

Two French soldiers met them on the tarmac, their uniforms adorned with UN tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. One of them jogged out to direct the taxiing plane. Szabla conversed with the other in French and gestured to the squad to follow them inside.

The terminal was all but deserted. A flat open building with visible rafters and three-quarter-height walls composed of large porous brown slabs. The west wall had fallen over, but since it wasn't directly connected to the ceiling, it had dragged nothing else down with it. It left an open block of air, looking out over low, scrubby vegetation. Dirt had blown in, scattering across the concrete floor. The emptiness, in addition to the barren landscape and abandoned souvenir shacks, made the place seem haunted. The squad walked silently through the building. A wooden sign with grooved white lettering hung on the nearest wall: Bienvenidos, Parque Nacional Galpagos, Ecuador. To its left was a crudely painted blue map of the archipelago. Poorly drawn pictures of turtles, iguanas, and an impos-sibly elongated flamingo hung on the walls. A thin film of red dust cov-ered everything.

Cameron stepped forward, kit bag slung over one shoulder. An enor-mous cardboard cutout of a short, stubby penguin lay on the ground, the beady black eyes staring up at her dumbly. Savage put his foot on its beak. Setting a boot on one of the dilapidated benches, Cameron glanced at the old jitney terminal behind the airport. Just beyond it, a metal dolphin with chipped blue paint had fallen on top of a tortoise sculpture, giving the distinct impression that it was humping it.

Savage flipped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it, taking in the scene around them. "This place is a f.u.c.king zoo," he grumbled.

The French soldiers went behind the disused TAME ticket counter and Szabla waved the squad over. "Let's get our s.h.i.t down on the mani-fest and head out of here."

The soldiers lined up and filled out the information, each listing name, rank, and company, completing a Park form, and showing the French soldiers military ID. Savage dawdled over by the wall, gazing at the cardboard cutouts. He put his cigarette out in a tortoise's eye. Tank and Derek loaded the gear onto a dolly they'd found in a back closet.

The two-mile road to the Itabaca Channel was split with scarps, earth-quake wounds where the ground had cracked and then clamped shut again. They'd have to heft their gear over felled telephone poles and wires to get to the dock. Cameron gazed at the strip of water. It was apparent that the channel had been created by water filling the crack of a seismic fault.

Rex tapped her shoulder with the clipboard, and she took it from him. He pointed to a small, flat-bottomed panga moored at the dock. Stretched out on the pontoon, a man slept in the shade afforded by the makeshift ramada of palm fronds that he'd propped overhead using two fishing poles. His hat was over his face, Huck Finn style. "The seismolo-gists at the Station said they'd have someone waiting," Rex said. "I arranged it a few weeks ago." He smiled, pleased with himself. "The roads across the channel are a mess, so we're going to have to take the panga around the island to Puerto Ayora."

He noticed Tucker mishandling a comms box and scurried off. The others had already headed out behind the airport and circled up, waiting for them. Cameron finished at the clipboard and handed it off to Sav-age, the last one left. He took it with some hesitation, and when Cameron glanced back, he was still standing over it, an uncomfortable expression on his face. He stared at the form, chewing the end of the pen. He set the pen down and followed Cameron, but the French soldier called out in heavily accented English, "This not eez complete."

Cameron backtracked and checked the forms. Though he'd written his basic information in the manifest, Savage had left the complicated Park form blank. He took out another cigarette, coughed into his fist, and put the cigarette away.

"You gotta do this s.h.i.t," Cameron said. "We don't want a ha.s.sle."

Savage shrugged. "f.u.c.k it." He raised a hand and ran it over his ban-danna. His face softened a touch, and Cameron thought she caught a glimmer of vulnerability in it.

"Move it!" Derek yelled from outside.

Savage cleared his throat. "Just a touch rusty, that's all," he said.

Cameron looked at his handwriting more closely. She glanced from his dyslexic scrawl to his face and picked up the pen. "Come here," she said. "I'll help you."

CHAPTER 20.

--------------------- amantha lay back on her bed, resting her legs straight up the wall. Lagging behind a guided tour of the facilities, a four-star general paused at the slammer window, double-taking at Samantha's posture. He stopped, crossing his arms in disapproval. Out of the corner of her eye, Samantha saw him looking at her. Thrashing around on the bed, she feigned a seizure, rolling her eyes and moaning. The general quickly turned and scurried away.

She sat up on the bed and rubbed her face. Suddenly, she recognized her children's laughter down the hall, and she rose and crossed to the window, waving as her three kids made their way toward her.

Iggy, her six-year-old, led the charge, running toward the slammer. Adopted from an orphanage in Kaliningrad, he had almost white hair which he wore in a bowl cut, his bangs a straight line across his forehead. His smooth cheeks were accented with nearly perfect circles of rosy red. Kiera limped behind him, still having trouble with her new prosthetic leg, which she'd only had a few weeks. She was growing so quickly, it seemed she was always adjusting to a new prosthesis. Maricarmen, the nanny, hurried behind the two older children, holding Danny, the three-year-old, on one hip.

Danny was emitting a long, steady moan, his voice garbling with each of Maricarmen's footsteps. He finally stopped and giggled explosively. Iggy reached the window first and banged on it. Samantha held her hand flat against the window, pressing it against the outline of his. "Hey, baby," she said. "I'm sorry I missed Christmas. But you have a ton of gifts to open the minute I get out."

Down the hall, Kiera tumbled over. A pa.s.sing soldier stopped to help, but Kiera got up herself, adjusting her prosthesis and picking her back-pack up off the floor.

Maricarmen set Danny down and he ran to the window. Iggy had to pick him up so that he could see over the sill. Samantha kissed the gla.s.s, then realized that probably wasn't such a good idea and wiped her lips.

"I brought the air ticktacktoe!" Iggy cried, setting Danny down. He unrolled a thin, transparent plastic board against the window, and it clung in place. He pulled out a magic marker and made an "X" in the middle. Samantha pointed to a slot, and he penned in an "O."

"How are things going, Maricarmen?" Samantha asked.

Maricarmen rolled her eyes and ruffled Danny's hair. "He's no eat-ing," she said, with her distinctive accent. "I make him peanut b.u.t.ter, but he refuse. And Iggy's no brushing his teeth."

Kiera reached the window and leaned against the gla.s.s. "So that's where my shirt went," she said.

Samantha gazed down at the NVME T-shirt. "I think the blond one's a cutie."

"Mom!" Kiera rolled her eyes. "You are so embarra.s.sing."

"You'll have to buy marshmallow fluff for the peanut b.u.t.ter," Saman-tha continued to Maricarmen, "or else he won't-"

A lab technician approached and knocked on the gla.s.s. "Sorry to bother you, Sammy, but I wanted to let you know we finally got the shipment. Everything looks fine. Oh-and there's new gloves for the hood lines. Latex hands bonded to neoprene sleeves. Less slippery. Also, Tim's having problems with the Machupo rats. He can't get a safe handle on them."

"No!" Samantha said. "You can't use those gloves. We had them once before-"

"Mom!"

Samantha pointed at a slot, and Iggy penned in another "O." "And the latex separates from the sleeves. They leak like h.e.l.l. Send 'em back and tell admin that their insistence on lowest bidder is going to have someone vomiting blood."

"Gross," Iggy said. "Your turn."

Maricarmen picked up Danny again, and he yanked on her necklace. Samantha turned back to her. "Brush. And pick up that glittery kid's toothpaste that comes out shaped like an elongated star on the tooth-brush." She tapped the gla.s.s to get the lab tech's attention. "Tell Tim to grab the rats by the tail and lower them onto a wire cage. When they pull away, their necks are exposed and it's the perfect scruff-grabbing angle."

Kiera pulled a folder out of her backpack. "I brought the flashcards. I'm sending them through the pa.s.s-through box," she said.

Beside the window was an autoclave that could be opened from both inside and outside the slammer. One side always remained sealed. Inside, extremely strong UV killed off any germs. Before an object was moved out of the slammer, it first had to sit in the box under UV light for fif-teen minutes, then be sprayed down with disinfectant for further decon-tamination.