Micro

Erika Moll pushed her way out through a spray of plant stems, dripping wet. “Well,” she said. “It’s probably a Metromenus. A ground crawler, it doesn’t fly. Don’t disturb it-it’s a carnivore, it’s got jaws, and I’m sure it’s got a nasty chemical spray, too.”

They didn’t want to get drenched with chemicals or become the beetle’s next meal. They stopped talking and became very still while the beetle poked along, evidently hunting. Suddenly the beetle charged forward, running remarkably fast, and seized something small in its jaws, which struggled, thrashing around. In the darkness they couldn’t see what the beetle had caught, but they could hear crunching sounds as it chopped up its prey. They got a whiff of something sharp and very nasty.

“We are smelling the beetle’s defensive chemicals,” Erika Moll commented. “It’s acetic acid-that’s vinegar-and maybe decyl acetate. I believe the bitter stench is benzoquinone. The chemicals are stored in sacs in the beetle’s abdomen, and may circulate in the beetle’s blood, too.”

They watched the beetle move off into the night, dragging its prey. “That’s a superior evolutionary design. Better than ours, at least for this place,” Erika added.

“Armor, jaws, chemical weaponry, and lots of legs,” Peter said.

“Yeah. Way more legs.”

Erika said, “Most animals that walk the earth have at least six legs.” As she knew, those additional appendages made maneuvering over rough terrain easier. All insects had six legs, and there were close to a million named insect species. Many scientists suspected that another thirty million insects were just waiting to be named, which made the insects the most varied life form on earth, apart from microscopic organisms such as viruses and bacteria. “Insects,” Erika said to the others, “have been incredibly successful at colonizing the land areas of the planet.”

“We think they look primitive,” Peter said. “We think fewer legs is a sign of intelligence. Because we walk on two legs, we think it makes us smarter and better than an animal that walks on four or six legs.”

Karen pointed to the underbrush. “Until we face this. And then we want more legs.”

They heard a scratching sound and a rotund shape emerged from under a leaf. It looked like a mole, and was rubbing its nose with both hands briskly. “This sucks,” it said, spitting dirt. It still wore its tweed jacket.

“Danny?”

“I never agreed to be half an inch tall. Okay, size matters. I already knew that. What are we going to do?”

“For starters, you could stop whining,” Karen said to Danny. “We have to formulate a plan. We have to take stock.”

“Take stock of what?”

“Our weapons.”

“Weapons? What’s the matter with you two? We don’t have any weapons!” Danny said, starting to shout. “We have nothing.”

“That’s not true,” Karen said calmly. She turned to Peter. “I’ve got a backpack.” She jumped off the twig and grabbed the pack on the ground, lifted it up. “I took it just before Drake shrunk us.”

“Did Rick make it?” somebody asked.

“You bet,” came a voice from the darkness, somewhere to their left. “This doesn’t faze me. And neither does the jungle at night. When I was doing research in the field, in Costa Rica-”

“That’s Rick,” Peter said. “Anyone else?”

From above, there was a thwap! and the splatter of water droplets. And Jenny Linn slid down a leaf and landed at their feet.

“You took your time,” Karen said.

“Got caught on a branch. About ten feet up. Had to work myself free.” Jenny sat cross-legged on the ground, and immediately jumped to her feet. “Whoa. Everything’s wet.”

“It’s a rain forest,” Rick Hutter said, emerging from foliage behind them. His jeans were drenched. “Everybody okay?” He grinned. “How you doing, Danny boy?”

“Fuck off,” Danny said. He was still rubbing his nose.

“Oh come on,” Rick said, “get into the spirit of the thing.” He pointed to the moonlight, streaking down through the canopy of trees overhead. “We’re talking science studies! Isn’t this the perfect Conradian moment? An existential confrontation of man facing raw nature, the real heart of darkness unfettered by false beliefs and literary conceits-”

“Somebody tell him to shut up.”

“Rick, leave the guy alone,” Peter said.

“No, no, not so fast,” Rick said, “because this is important. What is it about nature that is so terrifying to the modern mind? Why is it so intolerable? Because nature is fundamentally indifferent. It’s unforgiving, uninterested. If you live or die, succeed or fail, feel pleasure or pain, it doesn’t care. That’s intolerable to us. How can we live in a world so indifferent to us. So we redefine nature. We call it Mother Nature when it’s not a parent in any real sense of the term. We put gods in trees and air and the ocean, we put them in our households to protect us. We need these human gods for many things, luck, health, freedom, but one thing above all-one reason stands out-we need the gods to protect us from loneliness. But why is loneliness so intolerable? We can’t stand to be alone-why not? Because human beings are children, that’s why.