Minutes to Burn

She had not been trained to kill animals. Only other men, men with weapons and harsh accents. Combatants. Maybe she found killing the larva difficult because they were not political or malevolent, because they did not wish her harm or know how to wish at all. Or maybe it was because she was participating in the elimination of a life form-a task so vast, momentous, and irrevocable that she seemed to lose herself in the scope of its ramifications. At the very least, she found it simultaneously ironic and natural that it should give her greater pause than ending a human life.

The larvae were extraordinary, and literally unique. But the price they would exact were they to continue to exist was immense. The distorted thing Floreana had birthed refused to leave Cameron's mind even for a second; she carried it in every moment, a second, vicarious pregnancy on top of her unsettled own.

To the east, Cameron saw where a sheet of land had fallen away in the most recent earthquake, the forest ending suddenly in a cliff. She sat down on the edge, letting the spike clatter on the rocks beside her. Banging her heels against the precipice like a little girl, she kicked loose some pebbles, which spiraled down several hundred yards. She lost sight of them before she could see them splash in the water. The blood rushed into her legs in pins and needles. They'd been walking since sunrise, and the nonstop activity of the past few days was taking its toll.

The thought of the squad's rebellion filled her with shame and self-revulsion. Though she knew she'd been right in opposing Derek, she hadn't yet forgiven herself for it. The emotions playing through his face as he'd looked at them. Loss, confusion, fear tinged red with anger.

Justin sat behind her, his stomach against her back, his legs outside hers. Tank plopped down next to her and rested one of his paws on her shoulder.

"I'm gonna kick both your asses if you keep babying me like this," she said. "I'm fine, you know. Quit touching me."

Tank withdrew his hand, and Justin made to strangle her from behind, but she caught a pressure point under his elbow, and he released his grip quickly.

"Ouch!"

"Yeah, ouch. There's more where that came from, too." A breeze brought them the scents of the forest. "I'm feeling a little hopeless looking for these things," she conceded. "Needles in haystacks."

"We should head back," Justin said. "Help them with the hole."

Despite her earlier complaints, Cameron leaned back slightly into her husband.

Before them, the water stretched clear and endless to the horizon. It whispered against the base of the cliff beneath Cameron's feet, stirring in swirls of white, frothy bubbles. Fronds dipped in the breeze next to them, bowing politely.

"You're pregnant," Tank said. "Aren't you?"

Cameron sucked her bottom lip. It was salty from the air. "When did you know?"

He shrugged. "When I picked you up at your house."

They sat quietly for a few moments.

"I won't let anything happen to you," Tank said.

His voice was low and steady as ever, but something in it made Cameron bite her lip to keep back the emotion. After a moment, she reached for his hand, but Tank hesitated and looked at Justin, as though he'd been caught doing something wrong.

Justin nodded at him, as if to say, go ahead.

Tank's hand was large and warm-it enveloped hers easily. Cameron leaned between the two men, letting herself feel calm and safe, if only for a moment.

Tank pulled his hand back and the three sat again in silence. The blue-footed boobies plunge-dived to the waters and popped to the surface. American oystercatchers hopped along the rocky coast, their bright-red bills and yellow eyes standing out against the dark lava.

"In another life," Tank said, "this would be a beautiful place." He leaned back on his hands, the red skin of his scalp visible through his thin, bristling hair.

Cameron looked from the stunning view to the spike lying beside her, the end still stained with the larva's fluids.

"Yeah," she said. "It would."

Chapter 61

The sky drained quickly of color. Derek murmured and dozed in fits, the leaves soft against the side of his head. He was back outside his house The Night Of, his legs weak and fluid beneath him, knowing something was dreadfully wrong. The house had looked like a church, a demonic church.

Panic had seized his guts, gripping him like a cramp, but he'd fought it off, refusing to run, refusing to lose his head. The front door hadn't been hot to his touch, not hot as he'd imagined it would be. It had swung open slowly, uncreaking, a coffin standing on end. He'd managed to choke out his wife's name once, and then again. When she'd answered, her voice had been light and airy, like silk afloat on wind. "In here," she'd called. Her voice had seemed to issue from the dining room.

He'd staggered through the kitchen, knocking over a chair, leaning on the countertop to gain his balance. The knife block had been on its side, a black slit where the largest blade should have been.