'What the fuck is it?' Derek asked, his voice wavering. He rocked a little on his feet.
Diego leaned forward again, mumbling as if to himself. 'An arthro-pod of some sort, probably an insect. Eruciform larva, a caterpillar, maybe. Distinct head, aristate antennae, three pairs of true legs off the thorax, multi-segmented abdomen.' He reached out a hand but drew it back quickly when the larva's head turned to track its motion.'! Cono la puta madre!'
Cameron could not tear her eyes from the thing's head. The wide saucers of the eyes connoted an innocence and gentleness she had seen before only in mammals. The cooing sound issued from the larva again, a soft click moving beneath the surface of the sound.
'Impossible,' Diego said. 'Insects have no lungs, no vocal cords. They only make stridulating noises, from rubbing their legs or wings together. It must be pushing air through its cuticle, or scraping its seg-ments together. It must be… ' He stared at the larva's open mouth, the sturdy stocks of the mandibles.
'It's soothing,' Derek said. 'The noise.'
'It has holes in its sides,' Cameron said, pointing to the oblong spiracle openings, one on each side of each abdominal segment. 'Maybe the air's coming through those.'
She yanked a thorn tree up by its roots, protecting her hand with her shirt. Holding the bottom toward the larva, she shook it before its face. The larva's head moved slightly side to side as it eyed the dangling roots. Its segments seemed to contract and then spring, launching its head toward the thorn tree. It got its mouth around the base of the thin trunk and began munching. Cameron watched in amazement, the larva pulling its front segments up off the ground as it ate its way up the stalk toward her hands. She released the tree before the larva got too close. It finished the trunk on the ground, then looked at her again.
'Is it dangerous?' Cameron asked. 'It looks kind of…I don't know…'
'Personable?' Diego offered.
'Something like that.'
Diego reached out a hand and touched its terminal segment. 'I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. But it doesn't have stingers, claws, or spines, and there's no warning coloration. Its mandibles are strong, but that's common in larvae. It has glands posterior to its labial mouth-parts, probably to expel silk for a pupation chamber. It appears to be herbivorous, but it might be an opportunistic carnivore. The size is alarming, but I'd guess it's not danger-'
The larva turned its head in response to his hand, and he pulled his arm quickly back out of reach.
'Convincing, Doc,' Derek said. 'Real convincing.'
'Will it metamorphose?' Cameron asked.
'I would guess so,' Diego replied. 'It is distinctly larval. Maybe a large butterfly, or…'
'A tree monster?' Cameron finished. They all watched the larva for a few moments. 'Do you think there are others?' she asked.
Diego shrugged, nodded, shook his head. 'I have no idea. I've just never…I've never. I suppose there could be just this one, but I have to believe that it's a species of sorts, that it has a… that there are others. But we can't take a chance…if we never see it again, it could be…could be tragic…an opportunity like this…' He slid his lip to one side, chewing it.
'What are we going to do with it?' Cameron asked.
Diego rose from his crouch and scratched his head, his elbow pointing out like a flag. 'I don't want to move it, but if we leave it, we could easily lose track of it. And even though we haven't seen any, there could still be feral dogs roaming the island. It could get killed. We need to make sure we at least have an opportunity to examine it. We could return it afterward, right where we found it.' He looked at them sheepishly, as if waiting to be contradicted.
Finally, Cameron glanced over at Derek. 'Do you think it'll fit in your bag?'
The others' faces reflected Cameron's thoughts. Tank, Rex, Tucker, Sav-age, and Szabla sat on the logs near the fire pit, flabbergasted. The larva crawled on the soft grass to the side of Derek's tent, and Diego stood over it, guiding it back toward the circle of logs. Derek stood, ghost-white and gaunt, staring into the dark stretch of the forest to the north.
'You gotta be shittin' me,' Savage said.
Tucker cleared his throat loudly, bringing up a mouthful of phlegm. 'There's no way.'
Tank stood up, then sat back down. 'Fuck,' he said.
'What the…I don't…What is…I'm a…' Szabla stopped, evidently realizing she wasn't making any headway. She was deeply flushed.
'Kinda cute, ain't it?' Cameron asked.
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.
