“I might have, but something is telling me I didn’t really.”
“You know that our single bug turned into two, and later four and eight.”
“Ah, no, I got as far as two.” Harley looked at Nayar, trying to determine just how worried he was. It was so difficult for him to read the Indian engineer’s expressions and manner. Christ, no wonder we keep having problems with an alien environment and its inhabitants—we can barely understand people from a different continent!
“Oh, it’s much worse now. Given a geometric progression every hour, it might be several hundred or a thousand…not that they are truly individuals.”
“How the hell are they doing it? What are they using for food or fuel or extra mass?”
“It appears they are eating the terrarium itself, or possibly the flooring underneath it.”
“Okay, I need to take a look at this, then.”
They were still two hundred meters from the Temple. As Harley had expected, and hoped, the population was quieting down for the “evening.” Rhythm and regular schedules—astronauts required those for productive work in space. Hell, for productive work at home! If only the damn habitat would accommodate them…this permanent twilight was tiring everyone out.
Not that that was the only reason. “Vikram, earlier you were talking about the Woggle-Bugs communicating. I never heard how.”
“Jaidev discovered that the first pair, even the first four, seemed to be arranging themselves in obvious patterns. Things that had a mathematical element. It was as if the creature or creatures were searching for some shape we would recognize, then respond to.”
“Well, obviously you’ve recognized something. Did you make any kind of response?”
“I was not part of the team.”
They reached the Temple. The first thing Harley saw was that the ground floor was almost deserted. Several Houston types were clustered in the far corner, talking or sharing meager food.
Then Harley saw Gabriel Jones, curled up asleep on the floor…he hoped.
Only then did he see the terrarium—“Oh, shit.”
It had been tipped over. The composite shell was still intact, but the thing was now wide open. And a smear of Woggle-Bugs stretched from the former spot on the floor—which had been eaten away as if by termites—right out the front, where it spread and appeared to seep into the ground.
And no one seemed to be paying attention! “Vikram!”
“I know, I know.” The Bangalore leader was looking over Harley’s shoulder. Now he began shouting orders in Hindi. “Get Jaidev down here now!”
“What will Jaidev do?” Harley said. “For that matter, what do we do?”
“We treat this as a chemical spill,” Nayar said.
“In spite of the apparent intelligence of these creatures…”
“Yes! I’m afraid if, unchecked, they’ll overrun the habitat in a week!”
Harley agreed completely. He just wanted to know that Nayar was on board for an extermination.
Jaidev and his fellow magicians arrived from the upper levels, skidding to a halt like cartoon characters when they saw the upended terrarium. Harley noted that Xavier Toutant was with them. “How did this happen?” Jaidev said. “I was down here half an hour ago and it was fine!”
“How many bugs were there then?” Harley asked.
“Too many. I had the feeling they were going to overrun their habitat in a few days. But not this!”
Xavier said, “You don’t suppose they did this themselves?”
“No,” Nayar said, and Jaidev nodded in agreement. “Not unless someone suspended the laws of physics for these bugs. They have insufficient mass to gain leverage.” He turned to Harley.
“Someone tipped this over.”
“Who would be fucking stupid enough to do that?” Xavier said.
Harley didn’t have to think long. “Camilla,” he said. “This is probably what Chitran’s message was when she said that this girl was killing all of us.” He was growing numb from the repeated blows to his perceptions and well-being. Spilled Woggle-Bugs = my death? Impossible.
Yet…possibly not. “Okay,” he said, “even if it’s too late, we need to clean this up. Good-bye, bugs. Do we have anything?”
“Too bad we don’t have the RV,” Jaidev said. “We could drain gasoline from its tanks, douse the creatures, and burn them.”
“Do we know for sure that we don’t?” Weldon had the inventory of gear from both groups. Harley looked at Nayar. “We should find out what we have in the way of weapons.”
“We can probably synthesize something, too,” Nayar said. “Poisons, other chemicals.”
Jaidev rubbed his face. He had not slept for two days, Harley realized. Now he was being asked not only to keep performing his Keanu Temple magic, but to do so for the group’s survival. “We’ll get to work.”
“Thank you,” Harley said. “Meanwhile, Shane Weldon is out there somewhere, looking for Camilla. Xavier, can you find him for me?”
Xavier nodded and took off without a word.
“Okay, everyone,” Harley said. “You have your orders.”
Within moments he was alone, watching the spreading stain of the Woggle-Bug infection.
Before long, Sasha joined him in his vigil. “What in God’s name—?” He explained what had happened. “Should you be sitting this close? What if they’re infectious?”
“Then they got me an hour ago. Can’t infect me twice, can they?”
“How should I know?” she said. She sat down next to him.
“Well,” Harley said, “if they can infect me, they can infect you. Shouldn’t you be getting some food or sleep?”
“Doesn’t seem right, with you sitting up like this.”
“You aren’t going to try to talk me into going to bed?”
“I’ve learned one thing, Harley, and that’s not to try to talk you into things.”
“You really do know me, darling,” he said. His tone was sarcastic, but he realized he had let down his guard.
And so did Sasha Blaine. She touched his shoulder. “Our timing really sort of sucks, doesn’t it? It would have been fun to, you know, meet normally.”
“Yeah. But on the bright side, we’ve packed a whole lifetime of adventure into a week and a couple of days.”
“There’s that,” she said. “You know, in spite of that cynical, bitter exterior, you are pretty much a glass-is-half-full guy.”
He laughed. “Not exactly. Do you want to know what kind of things go through my head at a time like this?”
“Do I?”
He pointed to the growing smear of multiplying Woggle-Bugs. “If we manage to kill every one of those things,” he said, unable to keep from smiling, “do they all come back as Revenants? I’m hoping that there’s some sort of personality threshold the Woggle-Bugs don’t reach. Maybe they’re all one big entity…when a few of them die, it’s like, I don’t know, skin cells that flake off a human.” Keep trying, he thought. Eventually you’ll convince yourself—
Xavier Toutant appeared in the entrance. Seeing Harley with Sasha, he marched directly toward them. “Xavier, you look like a man with a message,” Harley said. In fact, he looked worn out and troubled.
“Mr. Weldon’s on his way back. Said to alert you.”
Oh, shit, he’s got Camilla. Harley immediately pictured the unpleasant scene in which he ruthlessly interrogated a nine-year-old girl.
But when Weldon arrived, he didn’t have Camilla. He was escorting a naked adult male who was moaning, weeping, and wheezing, an unholy trinity of unattractive activities.
It was Brent Bynum.
DALE
Building a raft—that worked fine. They wound up using one entire side of the shed, which was large enough to easily hold the four humans. Removed from the structure, the material proved to be light, like balsa. “I think it’ll float,” Zack said, in that bright, chirpy way that made Dale Scott want to drown him.