Minutes to Burn

Placing his hands on the larva's back safely behind the head, Diego elevated it slightly. Its prolegs wiggled in the air, searching for a hold. Cameron laughed and Tank couldn't help smiling. He walked over to the cruise box that had filled with rain and splashed some water over his face.

"We found it at the fringe of the arid zone," Diego said. "It's partial to shade, so it's probably disposed to the forest. The cuticle seems more papery and fragile at the back of the thorax-probably UV damage. My guess would be it worked its way down from the forest under cover of the palo santos."

"If its straying so far from the forest is anomalous," Rex said. "What was it doing?"

Diego didn't have an answer. The larva stopped squirming momen-tarily, regarding Derek's boot with an almost human curiosity.

"Should we name it?" Cameron asked, only half joking.

"Why all this ha-ha-look-how-cute-shit?" Szabla said, regaining her composure. "That thing could be dangerous. It could be whatever all this shit is about-all these superstitions. Could be what took out that scientist friend of Rex's."

"He wasn't my friend," Rex said slowly, still spellbound by the larva. It rippled forward over the grass, using the stumps of its prolegs for traction. It gazed up with its oversize eyes, its mouth working as if it were chewing something.

"I hardly think this thing is capable of killing a human being," Derek said. "We don't even have evidence that anything's actually happened here. No proof. Only stories. Even that guy with the ax-"

"Ramon," Cameron said.

"Yeah, Ramon. Even he couldn't show us anything concrete."

"So it's just a coincidence that weird shit is going on here, people are disappearing, and we discover this Caterpillar-That-Ate-New-York-City motherfucker?" Szabla said.

Diego cleared his throat and started to speak. "I don't think-"

"Plus it'll metamorphose," Szabla continued. "Could hatch God-fuckin'-zilla all we know."

"And we have an obligation to see that it does metamorphose," Diego said.

"Maybe it's an alien," Tucker said. "Or from the inner earth or some-thing. Up through the earthquake cracks."

"Or maybe there was a radioactive spill somewhere," Szabla said, raising her hands and wiggling her fingers. She snorted. "This isn't Them."

Rex pressed his lips together, suppressing a smile. "I'd guess it's a mutation or an entirely new species."

"Big fuckin' mutation," Savage said.

Rex shrugged. "With the state of the ozone layer, who knows? Life on this planet has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to function successfully within specific parameters of solar radiation. When those parameters are drastically altered, it's a DNA free-for-all." He coughed once into a fist. "The larva's size indicates some kind of hydro-static skeleton. Without one, it would collapse into a formless puddle."

"How can that be?" Diego asked. "An internal skeleton?"

"Look at the size of it," Rex said. "How can it not be? It also must have an advanced respiratory system, some kind of mutated breathing apparatus. It could never have grown to this size relying entirely on tra-cheae to attain oxygen. Maybe primitive membranous lungs?" He glanced nervously at the three gills quivering behind the head of the larva.

"How do you know this shit?" Tucker asked. "All of a sudden, you're the Professor from Gilligan's Island."

"You forget, big boy, I'm an ecotectonicist. Though I happen to loathe the life sciences, I am extensively trained in them." Rex flashed a quick, insincere smile. "I know everything."

Savage rose, picking up a stick and stepping toward the larva. He leaned forward, jabbing at the larva's head. It backed away from him, shaking its head as if it had a bad taste in its mouth.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Diego said, yanking the stick away from Savage.

"Oh. Playing mommy, are you?"

Derek's face was flushed. "Cut the shit, Savage."

"What's with the Florence Nightingale routine? That thing could be dangerous."

"My point," Szabla said. "My point exactly."

Diego spoke to Szabla in an even, steady voice. "Larvae represent the feeding stage of an insect's development. The weight and size increase is usually confined to this part of the cycle. You know it can't hatch some-thing inordinately larger than itself. You know there are rules."

When Szabla looked up, the intensity in her eyes was startling. "That's a three-foot-long insect." She pointed at the larva, which had curled up in a ball, burying its small head beneath the coils of its body. "Don't talk to me about rules."

"Loathe as I am to admit it," Rex said. "She does have a point. This phenomenon, scientifically speaking, breaks all the rules. Insects don't grow to this size. All assumptions have to shift, including those about its harmlessness or menace." The brim of his Panama was low, almost hiding his eyes. "This must've been what Frank got himself into before he disappeared. But why a sketch of a mantid? Mantids are hemimetabolous."

"Translation?" Tank said.