Minutes to Burn

Justin caught up to Cameron, crouching before her. He rested a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

"I'm fine," she said. Between gasps, she wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of dirt across her chin. Sweat darkened her blond hair along the temples.

The others were out of their tents now a good distance behind them, mulling around and glancing over at them. Diego had set up the radio again and was clicking his way through an SOS.

"Morning sickness?" Justin asked.

The grass felt slick and cool beneath her hands. "Where am I without this?"

"Without what?"

She gestured blindly behind her at the base camp. "I never realized how much I need it," she said. "Orders, mission objectives, chain of command. Heat-'n-Serve priorities. They keep things simple. You do your job, and that's all you have to focus on. No mess." She pushed her-self back into a sitting position and spit out a gob of saliva. Justin waited for her to catch her breath.

"The teams have always kept things neat for me. Kept them in control. Locked away behind a starched uniform." She laughed, a short stutter that died quickly away. Off behind them, she could hear Tank taking a leak against a tree. "I'm an adult, and I hardly know how to think for myself."

Justin rested a hand on her cheek and she let him.

When she spoke again, her voice was soft with fear. "How can I have a baby if I don't even know how to think for myself?" She shook her head. "I can't. I can't have this baby."

Justin brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away.

"Doesn't this upset you?" she asked, her eyes fierce and daring.

Justin swallowed hard. "Only one thing upsets me."

"What's that?" Cameron said.

He rose, letting his hands slap to his thighs. "That you never asked what I wanted."

Chapter 40

The larva made its way through the thick vegetation, pulsing along with ripples of its abdominal segments. Its remarkable head pivoted slowly from side to side, its large, round eyes taking in the surroundings.

The larva had fared well in its brief time in the forest, surrounded by an inexhaustible supply of vegetation. The previous day, it had acciden-tally felled a large Scalesia after eating its way through the base, but it had escaped unharmed. Remaining close to the ootheca had proved advanta-geous, as its fellow broodmates had spread out rather than remaining nearby and competing for food.

Overlying the epidermis and basement membrane beneath, the larva's cuticle was beginning to flake where it scraped the ground. Its cuticle was loose all around so that it shifted within it when it moved.

The larva was growing. It would soon molt.

The cuticle split behind its head, and it began to wriggle forward. The small hooks on its prolegs anchored to the substrate to keep the cuticle from moving with it. The larva continued to struggle forward, stretching against its own skin and gulping air, broadening itself. The split in the cuticle widened, and the larva pulled itself through the top of its old body, its tiny true legs scrabbling on the ground. Its new exoskeleton was an even more vibrant green.

The new skin was wet and tender. It had not yet hardened, nor had the muscles firmly attached to it. It needed to remain immobile until its new cuticle hardened.

The larva tensed at the quiet scrape nearby. Limbs stiff with age, the feral dog broke from his hiding place in a patch of ferns, lunging at the larva. The larva curled into a protective ball, but not before the dog's mouth closed over its head, its teeth piercing the top of its thorax. The dog swung his head once and the small green body flapped in his mouth like a doll, rotating under the captive head with a sickly crunch.

Drawing his kill up in a bunch between his legs, the dog slid to his belly and began gnawing on the larva's rich tissue. As he worked his way through the head, the dog bit into the larva's mandible. The pointed end pierced the dog's gums, coming free from the head, and he let out a series of yelps.

Backing up and shaking his head, the dog thrashed until the mandible fell to the forest floor. He mouthed the larva, pulling it away through the underbrush. The larva's abdominal segments dragged on the ground behind it, kicking up a trail of rocks and dirt.

"What in the Jesus Fuck was that?" Justin whispered to Szabla, the dog's yelps vibrating in his ears.

Szabla held up a hand to quiet him. Aside from the usual sounds, the forest was silent. "Dog," she said. "Sounded like."

Justin raised the canteen and shook it, allowing the last few drops to fall into his waiting mouth. They'd been surveying the forest for the bet-ter part of the morning. Since Rex had headed off with Derek and Cameron to set the third GPS unit near the lagoon, he'd charged Justin and Szabla with locating suitable bedrock within the forest.