Minutes To Burn Part 20

"Where?" Donald's voice conveyed his exasperation.

"Scripps Inst.i.tute. Right in La Jolla, California." Buck p.r.o.nounced the "J" hard in "La Jolla" and gave the end of "California" a western spin-Californ-i-ae.

"Excellent. Thanks very much."

"No s.h.i.t off my back. Oh, and Doc?" Buck shot a puffy jet of cigar smoke across the radio. "It's Captain Tadman."

CHAPTER 35.

--------------------- ell Iggy that peanut b.u.t.ter will get it out, but he shouldn't go to bed "chewing it to begin with." Samantha shifted on the small bed, cradling the phone to her ear with a shoulder. "No, you can't go to the NVME concert, Kiera. Because you're...how old are you again? Well, there. See-that's much too young to be going to a concert."

She gazed at the ceiling, having memorized each line, crack, and b.u.mp over the past two and a half days. She should have made sketches of the ceiling the last time she was in the slammer; she could have wiled away her hours now a.n.a.lyzing the changes in the plaster.

Donald had called to let her know he was sending her thermopro-teaceae pulled from a deep sea core, of all things. Evidently, they'd sur-vived being archived and refrigerated at Scripps, which she supposed made sense-they could endure temperature extremes, sometimes thriving in environments of up to 113 degrees Celsius. Donald sus-pected that the thermoproteaceae were infected with the same virus as the dinos. Once the sample arrived, she'd hand it off to Tom so that he could get it under the lens for comparison.

She was wearing scrubs now, finally having changed out of her chil-dren's clothes.

"Are you remembering to take your meds?" she continued into the phone. "Uh-huh. And aren't you getting report cards or something soon? After the break?" Her face softened with empathy. "I know, I know, honey. English does suck."

Someone banged on the window. Samantha sat up, nervously straightening her hair once she realized it was Dr. Foster. It was a losing battle-her hair stood up in tangles where she'd been resting her head on the pillow. He made her simultaneously buoyant and insecure, a mix-ture of emotions to which she was unaccustomed. She was unsure if she needed buoyancy and insecurity in her life. She pulled on a surgical cap to hide her crazy hair and scurried to the window, speaking rapidly into the phone.

"There are plenty of fourteen-year-olds in day care. Oh. Well, just pretend you're the teacher's a.s.sistant or something. Maricarmen will get you over to the college to pick up your microbiology a.s.signment. Good. If there are any problems, make sure she calls me. All right, sweetie. Tell your European brothers I love them." She snapped the phone shut and faced Dr. Foster with a smile.

"Kids?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I have two myself." Samantha nervously adjusted the surgical cap, and Dr. Foster looked at her with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Getting ready to scrub in?"

She worked her lower lip between her teeth for a minute, gathering her thoughts. "Look, Martin, I wanted to say...well, I don't really date. It's not that I don't want to. It's more that I don't know how. And, well, I could save you the time of finding out how badly I'm gonna botch-"

He held up his hand and she stopped, mouth open. "There's a s.p.a.ce suit through the crash door," he said. "Suit up-I need to show you something."

She was into the s.p.a.ce suit in ten minutes, and then she was free from the slammer, shuffling down the long, white hallway by Dr. Foster's side. She knocked over a tray of folders with a puffy hip, and Dr. Foster stopped to pick them up for her. For the rest of the way, he guided her, a hand resting softly on the small of her back.

She turned to him, awkward and mushy in the s.p.a.ce suit. "Romantic, isn't this?" she said sarcastically.

"Yes," he replied. "It is."

They reached another slammer unit, and he pointed through the large plate gla.s.s barrier. A woman whom Samantha recognized as the flight attendant lay on a bed near the window, weak, pale, and dotted with fad-ing bruises, but very much alive. Samantha could tell, even from her pres-ent state, that she was an attractive woman. Gorgeous blue eyes paired with flowing blond hair gave her a s.e.xy, if somewhat unsophisticated, look.

The woman tried to pull herself up to a sitting position, but couldn't. She turned slightly, her swollen face looking through the gla.s.s at Saman-tha. She reached out a hand, touching the window, and Samantha raised a glove and rested it on the gla.s.s near hers, feeling her eyes tear up.

"She's not out of the woods yet, but I think she's going to pull through, she and the pilot," Dr. Foster said softly. "The t.i.ters have decreased substantially. She wanted to see you."

The insides of the flight attendant's lips were stained with dried blood.

"Tough little blond, huh?" Samantha murmured. She blinked back the growing moistness in her eyes, staring at the woman's thin arm extending to the gla.s.s. "Maybe I should've been a stewardess. More job security." She leaned forward until her mask b.u.mped against the win-dow. "Are there any openings on your airline?" she asked.

The woman shook her head, confused. "What?" she mouthed.

Samantha smiled. "Nothing." She turned to go, but Dr. Foster gently grasped her elbow, turning her back to the window.

The woman was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling beneath a thin hospital gown. A tear spilled from her eye and ran sideways down her cheek to the pillow. She opened her mouth, her lips forming sound-less words.

Thank you.

CHAPTER 36.

--------------------- is boots hooked up on one of the logs and his hands resting in the gra.s.s, Savage began a series of decline push-ups. Tucker watched him, his thumb working away on his thimble like a small piston. Justin paced loose, meandering circles around the fire.

Diego and Rex had set out several hours ago to circle the coast and collect water samples. Despite Justin's advice, Tank had escorted them to try to walk the remaining stiffness from his back. The scientists had planned to concentrate on the southern coast, where the cold Peruvian Oceanic Current would have carried the infected dinoflagellates to the island from the deep-sea core holes.

At the base of the log, the larva curled around Derek's ankles. "What if it gets hungry?" Derek asked.

"If it starts crying," Savage grunted between push-ups, "you can always breast-feed."

Accordioning its segments, the larva squirmed up onto the log. It raised its thorax, its true legs spread in the air, and angled its head toward Derek. He looked back. They gazed at each other for a few moments, exchanging information in some wordless tongue. The larva made the cooing noise, just once, then lowered its thorax. Its prolegs pulsed and tensed, moving its body forward into Derek's lap. He raised his hands, allowing the larva to ease across his thighs.

Szabla stood up brusquely. "I don't like this. I don't like it at all."

Derek rested a hand on the back of the larva's head. "It's fine, Szabla. Sit down. Sit down."

Szabla sat.

Cameron watched the larva in Derek's lap, noting just how much they were juxtaposed like mother and child. She looked away, scratching her nose. "Requesting permission to check on the Estradas," she said.

"Who the f.u.c.k are the Estradas?" Szabla asked.

"Ramn and Floreana."

"Who the f.u.c.k are Ramn and Floreana?"

Cameron turned to Szabla, unamused. "I'm not requesting permis-sion from you." She turned back to Derek, but he was lost again, gazing down at the larva. "Well? Derek?"

Derek looked up. "Huh?"

"Can I go?"

"Where?"

"To check on the Estradas?"

"Why do they need checking?"

"I don't know, I just thought I'd..." Her voice trailed off, leaving an awkward silence. Justin tried to catch her eye, but she refused to look over at him.

"The woman is pregnant," Justin said, turning to Derek. "It might be wise for someone to look in on her." He bit an edge of nail off his thumb, spitting it aside.

Derek shrugged. "Fine," he said. He nodded without looking at Cameron. "Go."

Again, Cameron found she had some trouble with Ramn and Flore-ana's Spanish. She asked Ramn to repeat his question and listened extra carefully.

"Why did I come?" Cameron repeated to make sure she'd gotten the question correct. Her Spanish wasn't great, but since she didn't have Diego to translate like last time, she had to forge ahead with it. She shrugged. "I suppose to check up on you." She turned to Floreana. "To make sure you were okay." She pointed to Floreana's stomach, and Flo-reana smiled. "Are you all right?"

Ramn smiled and walked over to his wife, leaning over to embrace her from behind. She set down the small blue quilt she was st.i.tching and smiled. "I'm happy," she said.

"Are you still worried about getting off the island?"

Ramn reached around his wife, laying his hands on her stomach. "Once she gives birth to our son, then we will worry about getting off the island." His eyes saddened. "Our island."

"What are you going to do for work? When you leave here?"

"I don't know. I'll find something." Ramn took a deep breath and sat down at the table, sliding his hands along the rough, wooden surface. "There are things that matter and things that don't." His eyes traced over his wife lovingly-her crow's feet, the dark wave of her hair, her full stomach. "It's simple."

Cameron started to sit down, then decided not to. "Well, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you're taken care of," she said.

Floreana's smile was beautiful. She noticed Cameron's eyes drop to the baby quilt. "Do you have children?"

"No," Cameron said. She smiled curtly, backing up to the door. "No," she said again.

"Perhaps you could stay for some-"

"That's all right," Cameron said. "I really should get back." She nodded once and left before Floreana could protest.

CHAPTER 37.

--------------------- erek walked down the two-hundred-yard stretch of dirt road toward the watchtower, the st.u.r.dy balsas rising overhead, the forest looming behind him like a broad, slumbering beast. He climbed the makeshift ladder and reached the top of the wobbly structure, a decrepit open shack with an overhang about fifty feet up.

He faced south toward the darkening blue of the ocean, leaning heav-ily against one of the shack walls, which groaned under his weight. A big wave rolled in, disappearing from view beneath the cliffs of Punta Berlanga, and then he saw the five distinct sprays of the blowholes shooting up in the air. They misted, dissolved. He wondered if the slight moisture he felt against his cheeks was the water from the blowholes reaching him up here, kilometers away.

His eyelids felt heavy, almost leaden. He fought them open, and his vision blurred. He let it, taking in the island like an Impressionist land-scape. Since the mission's start, he'd hardly slept at all. He nodded off and almost toppled from the tower, awakening at the last moment and grabbing the wall. Adrenaline pounded through him.

He needed to sleep. Climbing slowly down the ladder, he headed back to base and ducked into his tent early.

The humble fire fought the dusk. The larva rustled in the gra.s.s, no longer needing to seek shade. Rex and Diego had been a.n.a.lyzing its movements, seeing how it responded to light and touch. They'd already grown accustomed to its gentle, lethargic movements-there was some-thing almost hypnotic about them.

Savage dumped an armful of firewood near the pit. He noticed Szabla way off down the dirt road, staring at something against the base of a tree at the forest's edge. He ducked through the alley of balsas onto the road and walked up to her.

"Look," she whispered, pointing. "A praying mantis." The mantid was about eight inches tall, standing in a patch of weeds by a thick gnarled root. "She's a big one, huh? I almost didn't see her there. I was just watching these finches."

A few finch chicks hopped among the rocks, searching for grubs and beetles. The mantid regarded them with interest.

"Growing up, we called praying mantises 'soothsayers,'" Szabla said. "My mother said they point the way home for lost children."

One of the finch chicks hopped close to the patch of weeds. With a movement too quick to see, the mantid lunged forward, crushing the chick in its front legs.

Szabla's smile faded.

The mantid's head lowered beneath the squawking beak and the chick was still. The mantid continued working on the chick, turning it with its legs. It pulled back into the weeds on its spindly legs.

"Back home," Savage said, letting his hand come to rest on Szabla's shoulder, "we called them 'Devil Horses.'"

The dirt around the fire pit was growing scorched, dark sediment set-tling over it like snow. Cameron toyed with the ring around her neck, rubbing the top of the sapphire with a fingernail. Tank tried to stretch his lower back, then sat on the log next to her and rested a heavy forearm across her shoulders.

The larva munched the back of the log on which Diego sat. The harsh, steady sounds of its mandibles grating the wood filled the air.

Szabla, Savage, and Tucker sat across the fire from it, clearly uncomfort-able. The base of the log between Diego's feet splintered, then gave way, and the larva's head poked through, its jaws working around a mouthful of wood. Diego reached down and gently stroked its head.

Its appet.i.te seemed nearly insatiable-Diego and Rex had been experimenting with it for the past hour, feeding it everything from cac-tus pads to palo santo branches. They still had not determined whether it was carnivorous, but it had shied away from a full-grown land iguana, which Rex had attempted to feed it despite Diego's protestations. Now, swollen with food, the larva sprawled along the edge of the rainwater-filled cruise box near Tank's tent.

Derek emerged from his tent into the dark tropical night, rubbing his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot, the rims red.

"Thought you were trying to get some sleep, LT," Cameron said.

Derek took a swig from a canteen. He rubbed his eyes, then ma.s.saged his temples with the heels of his hands. "How do you know I didn't?" he asked.

"I don't know," Szabla said. "Your charming disposition."

A sudden splash caused Cameron to turn to the cruise box, and she realized the larva had scaled one of the sides and fallen in. Diego was up in a flash, leaning over the open cruise box. The others crowded around him as he reached into the murky waters.

"Is it all right?" Cameron asked, surprised by the concern in her voice.

Rex pushed through the others to Diego's side, staring down into the cruise box. The larva squirmed along the bottom, wriggling like an eel as Diego tried to grab it.

"Wait," Tank said, pointing. "Look."

Rex grabbed Diego's arm, pulling it back. Derek signaled Tank to step back to let the firelight through. The larva's thrashing slowed. "Pull it out," Derek said. He looked worried, almost upset. "Pull it out."

"No, wait," Diego said. "It's breathing. Look." He pointed to the larva's gills, which fluttered underwater. "Holy s.h.i.t. The gills must feed an air bladder, or versatile lungs of some sort."