'Yes,' Rex said. 'I can ask Donald to.'
'We don't have time to wait,' Cameron said. 'In the meantime, what do you know?'
'Well,' Diego began slowly, 'we'll have to continue to assume these animals have behavioral traits in common with the mantid the virus infected and altered.'
'And?' Cameron urged. Derek stood silently beside her.
'They don't hear as humans do. They can only detect ultrasound, which filters to them through a slit on the mesothorax, so they generally need movement or vibration to sense prey. They tend to be stationary hunters. They await their prey, taking advantage of camouflage and their lightning strike.'
'So if we move to pursue it, we'd be the ones at a disadvantage?' Cameron asked.
Diego nodded.
'We might have to risk that,' Justin said.
Cameron waved him off. 'We'll argue later. What else?'
'They need the shade,' Rex said. 'They're hesitant to leave the forest understory during the day. Especially to hunt-they have a hard time in the hot sunlight. I'd imagine that's truer now than ever before, given the UV. But at night, they'll roam anywhere. They'll also be attracted to light at night, like most insects.'
'How about the eyes?' Cameron asked. 'Will blinding it help?'
'I'm not going to help you figure out how to maim this animal,' Diego said.
'You bet your ass you are,' Szabla said.
'We need this knowledge,' Cameron said. 'We'll decide later if and how we're going to deploy it.'
'Yes,' Rex said. 'Blinding it will help. And taking out a single eye will compromise its depth-of-field perception. Their antennae are also strategically essential.'
Szabla took a breath and exhaled deeply. 'Couldn't we poison it? Use some venom from indigenous snakes or something?'
They looked at Diego. 'There is one poisonous snake here,' he said reluctantly. 'But it's a sea snake and quite rare.'
'Anything else that could harm it? Or that it'd be afraid of?'
'Well, aposematically colored insects-red and black ones-often sequester unpalatable substances from their host plants, so animals seek to avoid them. But I don't know. If we're basing this assessment on the physiology of mantids, we have to remember mantids have iron digestive systems. They can eat anything-paint, rubber, lighter fluid. In lab, I even saw one eat an insect straight from a cyanide jar.'
Rex nodded. 'I'd guess we'd need something stronger than snake venom.'
'So how would we kill it?' Szabla asked. She glanced down at the spike at her side. 'I mean, how'd you take it, Savage?'
Savage told them.
'What's so funny, Szabla?' Cameron asked.
'Nothing. It just figures,' she said. 'It just figures.'
'If there is another,' Rex said, 'let's hope it's a male. They're smaller, and they tend to be less aggressive. It's too bad they're such a solitary order. If it was a bull seal, we could just round up a bunch of females and it'd come running.'
'Could we lure it with bait?' Cameron asked.
Rex grimaced. 'Well, we've just figured out why we haven't run across any feral dogs or goats since we arrived. And even though mantids are known for eating prey larger than themselves, I'd guess a cow would be too large. It could kill one, probably, but would have a hard time eating it.'
'Sea lions?' Tank asked.
'They've wisely retreated off the island to the tuff cones,' Rex said. 'Plus we'd have a bitch of a time dragging one up near the forest. I'd say the only reasonably sized prey is us.' He smiled. 'I volunteer Savage.'
'Anything else you can think of?' Cameron asked. 'Anything at all?'
'They'll only eat live bait,' Savage said. They all looked at him, surprised. 'I've seen one eat a deer mouse. Started with the whiskers. Ate its whole face off before it got through to the brain and killed it.'
'Imagine that,' Justin murmured. 'An insect eating a fucking mam-mal.'
Cameron looked to Rex, hoping to gauge the accuracy of Savage's story. He nodded. 'I once saw one devour a gecko from the tail up. Hard, tireless mastication-combing the flesh, grinding the bones. Took over an hour. The gecko was alive for at least half of it.'
Justin was pale. 'Let's hope there aren't any more adults.'
'Let's keep busy while we're hoping,' Cameron said.
'We'll sweep the forest at first light.' Derek swayed on his feet, then caught himself.
'Why not now?' Cameron asked.
'You want to go trekking through a predator's natural environment in the dark with bright lights to attract its attention? Use your goddamn head, Cam. We'll wait for first light, then see if there's another adult kicking around.'
'If we locate it, are we cleared to kill it?' Szabla asked.
'Yes.' Diego started to protest but stopped as soon as Derek held up a hand.
'But none of you are to lay a finger on any of these,' Derek contin-ued, walking over to the larva and picking it up. 'I'll be keeping him with me tonight. Safely locked in a cruise box. Szabla, since you have so much excess testosterone to burn, you can stand first guard.' He disappeared through the flap of his and Cameron's tent.
'We're assuming that there's only one lineage of mantids, but remem-ber that's only an assumption,' Rex said. 'We have to be observant of the wildlife, see if we notice anything else that appears abnormal.' He pressed his fingertips to his closed eyes. 'We'll need to keep our eyes peeled for the four remaining larvae as well. Bring them back and keep them under observation.'
'How do you know they haven't metamorphosed already?' Justin asked.
Savage raised the spike and pointed to the enormous slumped corpse beside the fire pit. 'We'll know soon enough,' he said.
Chapter 48
Floreana woke up screaming.
Ramon was on his feet instantly, as if he'd levitated out of bed. Floreana's screams had a different timbre to them, high-pitched and lined with panic. Her thighs were wet and sticky; her water had broken.
She was gasping for breath, the large sphere of her belly heaving with her respiration. Crying her husband's name over and over, she tore at the sheets, balling them in her fists. Ramon knelt beside her, resting his fore-head on her sweaty temple, trying to soothe her with his voice.
'Already, carinito?' he asked, his voice shaking. 'How close? How close?' He took her hand and her nails left red lines down his palm.
The sheets around her had darkened with sweat. He spread her legs and looked, but he couldn't see the baby's head. He wanted to be pre-pared when it first showed so that he could support its neck and squeeze below his wife's vagina to make sure her flesh didn't tear.
'The blanket,' Floreana gasped. 'Do you have the blanket?'
Ramon held up the soft blue quilt she had finished the day before. 'Right here, carinito. Right here.'
Floreana arched her back and shrieked. Her elbows were shoved back hard into the mattress, her hands gnarled, dangling from her limp wrists like claws. 'It's not right,' she groaned. 'This is not right.'
'It's okay,' he said. 'Everything's okay.' He hoped she wouldn't notice the panic lurking beneath his eyes, the rush of blood in his cheeks.
Her eyes rolled back until he saw just moon slivers of brown beneath her upper lids. She began to seize.
Ramon fell on her, careful to keep his weight off her belly. She bucked and jerked, thrashing violently. One of her knees popped up and caught him on the side of the head, and his vision went momentarily blurry. He rose and took a step back. Her face was a mask stretched tight across her skull. Her arms rattled beside her like snakes.
