Micro

The truck, shiny and moving up the cliff, its six legs working, must have seemed like something tasty or interesting. A mynah coasted in and plucked Erika out of the driver’s seat. Packs and gear flew out of the truck as it tumbled down the cliff and bounced out into sheer air. And then it was gone.

The mynah landed, carrying Erika Moll in its beak. The bird slammed her several times against the cliff, whipping its head back and forth to kill its prey. The bird then took off, carrying the corpse. Immediately it got into a squabble with another mynah, and they fought with each other over the remains of Erika Moll, and tore the body apart in midair.

It wasn’t over. Rick had gotten his hands on the harpoon, and he looked around: where was Karen? She was lying on the ground, out in the open, underneath a mynah. The bird, which had an unusual black streak on its bill, had landed, and was staring down at Karen. It seemed to be trying to make up its mind about her. Was this thing edible?

“Karen!” Rick shouted, and threw the harpoon at the bird.

The harpoon, a thread of metal, went into the bird’s feathers. Not very far. The bird shook itself, and the harpoon dropped to the ground. The bird studied Karen.

She crouched, trying to make herself look small and unappetizing.

“Over here!” Rick shouted, and started running, hoping to distract the bird.

“No, Rick!”

The mynah cocked its eye at Karen when she spoke. It lunged for her and picked her up in its beak, threw its head back, and swallowed Karen in one gulp. Then it flew off, wings thundering.

“Damn you!” Rick yelled at the mynah. He waved the harpoon at the bird, which had become a fluttering speck in the distance. “Come back with her!” The flock in the trees chattered and roared. Now he couldn’t tell which of them had eaten Karen. “Come back! Come back for a fair fight!” He jumped up and down, waving his arms, shaking the harpoon.

He felt like crying. He would have done anything to get the mynah bird to come back, the one with the streak on its bill. He couldn’t give up now.

But then he remembered something he’d learned about birds. A bird does not have a stomach. It has a crop.

Chapter 33

Edge of Tantalus 31 October, 10:15 a.m.

Karen King was curled up in a fetal position inside the crop of the mynah bird, holding her breath. The muscular walls of the crop pressed in on her, clamping her in place so that she couldn’t move. The walls were slimy, slick, and smelled foul. However, there were no digestive juices in the crop. It was simply a bag for storing food, before the food was passed down into the rest of the digestive system.

She knew the bird was flying, because she felt the regular thump-thump of the bird’s pectoralis muscles, driving its wings. She got her arms around her face and pushed outward, and managed to open a space for her nose and mouth.

She took a breath.

The air smelled horrible, with an acid stench of rotting insects, but at least it was air. Not much air, though. Almost immediately it became stifling hot and she began to pant. A wave of claustrophobia came over her. She wanted to scream. With an act of will she tried to calm herself. If she began to scream and struggle, she would use up the air quickly and would suffocate. The only way to stay alive was to stay calm, move sparingly, and try to make the air last as long as possible. She straightened her spine and pushed her legs out. This stretched the crop and opened up a little more space. Even so, she was running out of air.

She tried to get her knife in her hand, but she’d tucked it down deep in her hip pocket. She couldn’t reach the knife. The muscular walls of the bird’s crop held her arm back.

Damn. Gotta get that knife.

Right then she vowed to hang her knife around her neck, in the future. If there was a future…she drove her right arm downward, fighting against the rubbery walls that surrounded her. She forced her fingertips into the pocket, and let her breath out with a whoosh, gulped in nasty air, and coughed. Her fingertips closed on a bottle in her pocket-what was this? It was the spray bottle. Filled with beetle spray. Rick had filled it.

A weapon.

She grimaced, and dragged the bottle out.

At that moment, the bird maneuvered in flight. The crop tightened, the muscles squeezing the breath out of her lungs with a whoosh. A sensation of weightlessness came over her, a sense of falling. Then came a lurch and a bump. The bird had landed. She lost consciousness.

The mynah had returned to the same spot where it had caught Karen, looking for more food. It stared at Rick Hutter, cocking its head.

Rick recognized the black streak on its bill. The same bird. It had eaten Karen; no way of knowing if she was still alive. But she might be. He waved the harpoon in front of him and advanced toward the bird. “Come and get me, you cowardly bastard.”