Minutes to Burn

Unfurling her wings from her sides like massive capes, she spread them wide. Their span was enormous, and as they dried, they would con-tinue to stretch and grow; only this benefit had driven her to brave the sun. Already, the new cuticle stiffened around her, a living suit of armor. Her body unfolded to the air, the mantid rested, growing stronger and harder in the sun.

Soon, it would be nightfall.

Chapter 72

As Cameron finished setting the trip wire, a shriek echoed up the road. She wasn't sure whether it was the mantid or a wounded animal, but it sent a chill from the depths of her bowels all the way up her spine.

Using herself as bait, Cameron would attract the mantid. The mantid would be drawn from the forest, heading for Cameron along the open stretch of the road. About a third of the way down, the mantid would trip the first wire. The det cord would explode, detonating the blasting caps and, in turn, the TNT. All the trees on the corresponding side would fall simultaneously. The explosion would either freeze the crea-ture or startle her forward. If she froze, she'd be crushed by the toppling trees, and if she started forward, she'd trip the second wire and the whole trap would go. The trees would fall from both sides, pounding the ground along a hundred-yard segment of the road.

There would be gaps-that was certain, since the Abatis was gener-ally used as a roadblock, not a killing trap, but that was a risk Cameron would have to take. She was fairly confident that the trees falling at criss-crossing angles would crush anything beneath them. Once the wire was tripped, no matter which direction the mantid moved she didn't stand a good chance.

The trap had a number of situation-specific advantages. Most impor-tant, it expanded the danger zone drastically; if the mantid moved any-where along the guessed route, she stood a good chance of getting killed or maimed. A compact little boar might find its way through an Abatis, but not the long, wiry mantid. If Cameron had elected to rig a smaller booby trap, she would have had to predict exactly where the mantid would step, and that had already proven difficult. The Abatis also had the advantage of drawing the prey into a known area, cutting down the variables one faced when dealing with a free-roaming adversary.

Cameron walked the path she hoped the mantid would take, careful not to get too close to the forest at the northern end of the road. She saw the first thin trip wire gleaming in the sunlight and stopped, letting it rest across her stomach. Ducking under, she counted ten steps to the second trip wire, which she also cautiously avoided.

The Abatis was ready.

She strode down the road to the trail just beyond the watchtower. She still had time to wash off.

The water reminded her of Justin. It always had. When he swam, his entire body moved with a grace usually reserved for porpoises and rays. For fear of revealing his hiding place to the creature, she had resisted the urge to go and check on him, though she wanted to desperately. As long as his heart rate stayed low, he shouldn't bleed out. And he was resting, maybe even sleeping, cool beneath the surface of the earth. He'd have to wait until after the Abatis was detonated.

Cameron sank all the way beneath the surface, the water closing over her head with a gulp, and then she was drifting, alone and lifeless and free. The teal water was so clear that when she opened her eyes, it was as if she were looking through a mask. She rinsed herself off, wiping the virus-laden smudges from her clothes and skin.

The sand on the bottom was brilliantly white, ribbed like desert dunes. Mini-cyclones swirled, the white grains glimmering as light swept through them. Ahead, a series of vesicular lava rocks unfolded like the vertebrae of a sunken creature.

Just beyond them, Cameron saw an outline of something large, majestic. She swam toward it in awe, breaststroking underwater. It rip-pled into view, a magnificent and rare coral head, standing alone before the wall of the reef. As Cameron approached it, she saw that it curved around, encircling an underwater lagoon. The walls would keep growing upward, eventually forming an atoll.

Small patches of the coral were bleached, destroyed by UV sunlight, but for the most part the underwater life had rejuvenated since the last El Nino. Within the ring was a fantasia of color and movement. Shiny green sea urchins dotted the white surface of the walls, flicking into view behind drifting strands of seaweed. A jewel moray shot from a dark hol-low, narrowly missing a darting minnow. A blue parrot fish grazed, its small mouth emitting bubbles as it nibbled along a notch of coral. A marine iguana tirelessly navigated the surface, its small legs churning, tail undulating.