Minutes to Burn

"And what do you usually do with this 'virus reservoir?'" Diego asked. He closed his eyes, clearly not wanting to hear the answer.

"If we can, we exterminate it." Samantha's voice was soft through the transmitter.

Rex stood up, removed his dirty Panama hat, and poured water from a canteen over his head. It dripped down the jagged wisps of his bangs, running across his stubbled face. "We had hoped to observe them for longer," he said. "It's quite an… quite an amazing thing happening out here." The wind sucked through the watchtower in the distance.

"Let's not be hasty," Donald said. "There still might be some way around killing them all. I'd like to confer with Samantha and the other virologists here and check back in a few hours. In the meantime, we're still doing our best to get you pulled off that island."

Donald and Samantha clicked out. The group sat around the dead fire, staring at one another across the ashes. Rex raised his hands, then let them fall into his lap.

"I don't want to exterminate this species," Diego said.

"It's not a new species," Rex said. He stood, running his fingers through his wet hair. "They're just manifestations of the virus." The oth-ers looked puzzled. "You've heard the expression that a chicken is merely the egg's way of making another egg?" No one looked like they had, so Rex continued. "Well, the mantid is just the virus's way of making more virus. These are sick animals. Infected and altered."

"This is how evolution works," Diego snapped. "Through sickness. Through mutation. It's a natural virus. These are all natural processes."

Savage leaned close to Diego, almost singeing him with the end of his cigarette. "I don't give a shit about natural," he growled. "Murder is nat-ural. Eating one's young is natural. Don't pull that shit on me again. You're so worried about killing the right animals in the right places. Pigs are bad, but lizards are good. This tree belongs here, this bush should be pulled up. It's all bullshit. Who cares whether these things are natural or not? We're assessing risk here. Us or them."

A flight of birds erupted from the Scalesia canopy, flycatchers and petrels, rising in crazed, looping circles. "But we could be…we could be terminating a species here," Diego said. "Many species."

"This island isn't ready for them," Rex said. Diego was shaking his head, so he stepped forward, addressing him softly. "You actively elimi-nate other feral animals-puppies, kittens, goats. These mantids are the ultimate introduced species-they could devour all the other animals, become just as damaging as pigs. Worse. We have no idea how they'll impact the ecology here. We might want to think about-"

Derek rose abruptly. "Nobody's making a move without my approval," he said. When he unclenched his hands, Cameron noticed the marks his fingernails had pressed into his palms. "Nothing is to happen unless I give the order. Is that clear?"

Suddenly, the ground bucked underfoot and Derek went down. A thin crevice opened up, snaking its way through the field parallel to the road. A few of the Scalesias at the forest's edge snapped, their branch-heavy tops smashing into the ground. Szabla and Justin's tent flapped up in the air, pinned down only by two strainers staked deep in the grass.

Szabla fell, landing on her back so hard her breath left her in a grunt. A hurricane lamp was smashed by a rolling cruise box. One of the logs by the fireplace dislodged from its muddy base and spun toward Szabla. She was sucking air, trying to pull herself up, but Cameron reached her first, grabbing one boot and yanking her clear just in time.

A large balsa by the road snapped at its base, plummeting down with a fierce whistling. It smashed into a lava boulder, splitting it with cracks. It lay on its side, palmate leaves riffling in the wind, gray bark standing out against the green of the pasture.

Rex watched the waving trees in the forest through the L of his thumb and index finger. A massive shudder shook the ground as a shelf of rock and silt sheered off the steep eastern coast nearly a kilometer away, then there was silence. Dust and dirt swirled in the air, refusing to settle. Derek pulled himself up and trotted to his tent, Diego scurrying after him. The others rose, dusting themselves off.

Derek stumbled from his tent, holding the larva along the length of his arms. "Set it down!" Rex barked. "Don't handle it."

Derek placed the larva hastily on the grass, and Diego examined its soft underside. "It appears to be unharmed," Diego finally said.

An aftershock caused them to brace themselves, but it quickly passed. Savage reached over, wiping a smudge of mud roughly from Szabla's cheek.

"Well, that's a fucking relief," he said.

Chapter 52

Derek sat silently on a log, holding the larva in his lap and gazing at its glassy eyes as the others reassembled the camp, doing their best to ignore him. The scorching sun had finally begun to work its way to the water.