She should not judge them. She had the toys, or at least the toy makers, as clients. It was easy for her to feel indifferent to them.
Boris came into the room, holding a land scorpion, one hand behind the animal’s head, the other on its tail. It was alive and twisting in his grip, trying to find a way to bite him or pinch him with its large front claws.
“Shit,” said Arkady. “How did that get in?”
“I told you someone had been here.” Boris stopped and displayed the creature to them. Jason looked horrified. Maggie, who must have been listening, extruded her head and neck. In a smooth motion, she rose on her legs, and the cluster of lenses she had instead of a face turned toward Boris.
The scorpion was about half a meter long, wide, flat, shiny, dark purple, and still twisting in Boris’s grip. The mouth, with mandibles and fangs, was in continuous motion. Ash felt a little queasy. Damn! The things were ugly! She was pretty certain this species was poisonous. Arkady would know.
“Get me a pair of shears,” Boris said.
Ash went to the kitchen, where Irina and Alexandra were still talking. “We have a problem. I need shears.”
Alexandra found them. Ash took them to Boris.
He knelt carefully and placed the animal on the floor, holding it with one hand. With the other hand, he took the shears and cut the scorpion’s head off, then stood quickly. The many-legged body thrashed around, and the head jittered on the floor, its mandibles still opening and closing.
“It was under the bed in the room that Jason picked as his bedroom,” Boris said.
“What is it?” Jason asked in a tone of terror.
“One of the many species of land scorpion,” Arkady said. “Many have poisonous bites. This species would not kill you, but it would make you sick.”
Boris took one of the glasses on the table and used it to scoop the head up. “The body is not toxic. The fangs and the venom glands are in the head. Keep the rest as a souvenir, if you want.”
“I have dramatic images,” Maggie said. “That is sufficient. Our viewers will be horrified and disgusted.”
“How did it get in?” Arkady asked again.
“I want to take a closer look at the head,” Boris said, and went into the kitchen.
Alexandra and Irina were in the living room by now, watching the twisting, scrabbling, headless body with interest.
“Edible?” Baby asked.
“Wait,” said Ash.
“Hungry,” Baby complained.
“Have another stick of chow.”
“Not tasty.”
“Life is hard,” Ash told him.
“Do not understand.”
“Eat your chow.”
The scorpion’s body was slowing down though it still thrashed.
“I hate drama,” Alexandra said.
“That is why you are a chef now, rather than a cop,” Arkady told her.
“Yes, but it doesn’t explain why I work for you.”
“Money,” Arkady said.
Boris came back, carrying the scorpion’s head on a cutting board. He set the board on the table and Maggie leaned down to record it. He’d cut the head open. Some kind of dark matter, the brain most likely, was inside. In the middle of it was a tiny silver bead. Barely visible silver wires radiated out from it.
“Most likely it is a nano machine,” Boris said. “It was injected into the circulatory system and migrated to the brain, then built itself. The animal has become an organic robot. It was planted on us as a spy.”
Ash felt queasy. She had no trouble with ordinary robots, such as Maggie, who was recording the split-open head. But the idea of taking a living being and turning it into a robot bothered her. Even cockroaches, which had come to Venus with humans, deserved their own lives. The technology used to enslave bugs could be modified for other animals or humans, though that was illegal, of course.
“How did you know to look for it?” Arkady asked Boris.
“I looked at the security recordings. It was there though only in glimpses. I don’t think there are any more.”
“My images are excellent,” Maggie said. “This will add drama to our story.”
“Is it the CIA?” asked Jason.
“I believe so,” Boris answered. “We live in their shadow.”
“Well, if Boris thinks there are no more, we can enjoy the rest of the evening,” Arkady put in.
“Can Baby eat the body?” Ash asked.
“No,” said Boris. “We don’t know what else might be in it. I’ll toss it in the garbage.”
“Sorry,” Baby said.
Boris carried the head and body out. Ash drank more raspberry brandy.
“We grow the raspberries in greenhouses, along with other fruit,” Arkady said. “Our crops may fail but we always have brandy.”
Nothing more happened that evening or night. Ash slept badly, waking from time to time to listen for the rustling sound of a scorpion. She turned on the lights once but saw nothing except Baby sleeping in his cage.
The next morning, they drove on. The rain stopped, and rays of sunlight broke through the cloud cover, lighting patches of the forest. There were lots of cone-shaped flowers. A group of large herbivores fed on one. Similar animals on Ishtar Terra were called forest cattle though they didn’t seem especially cowlike to her, being larger than any cow she had ever seen, even in images from Earth, and green. A crest of hair went along their backs, and their large mouths had four big tusks. There were half a dozen of them around the bright red flower, ripping into it. Petals coated their muzzles and dripped from their mouths like blood.
Boris braked.
“Look to the right,” Arkady said to the radio. “More megafauna.”
“I would not call them charismatic,” Jason replied over the radio.
“They are two meters high at the shoulder, and they can be dangerous,” Arkady said. “If you don’t believe so, I can let you off here.”
“No,” said Maggie. “I need Jason.”
The trucks moved on. Ash had been on this route before, a loop that went from fortified lodge to fortified lodge, till it returned to Petrograd and dinner at one of several luxury hotels. A hospitality firm based in Venusport had built them and ran them, making sure that the tourists had a reliably luxurious experience.
“This is National Geographic,” she said to Arkady. “Can’t you show them something different?”
“We are thinking about that. But not today.”
She set down her camera and drank tea. As usual, it was strong and sweet. She felt tired because of a bad night’s sleep but mostly good. Baby was next to her in his cage, hunched up, his eyes closed. Was there anything cuter than a sleeping pterosaur?
There were more pterosaurs flapping in the trees, and bipeds scurrying through the undergrowth. Early in the afternoon, the clouds broke apart, and rays of sunlight slanted into the forest. A herd of forest cattle—twenty or more—crossed the track in front of them, forcing them to stop and wait till the loutish herbivores finally moved on. But they saw no large predators.
“Apex predators are always rare,” Arkady said when Jason complained. “And this is not Earth in the Jurassic.”
They reached the next lodge late in the afternoon. It was a concrete pillbox, surrounded by a high fence. Alexandra and Irina did the check this time, stepping on several small land scorpions. There was something lonely about the two women, stalking through knee-high vegetation. They both carried rifles but used them only for poking among the leaves. Beyond the fence was the forest, darkening as daylight faded and denser clouds moved in. Ash took photos, as did Maggie.
They went inside finally and Boris did another search. “My cans are in order,” he announced. “And I have found no scorpions.”
They unloaded the trucks and Alexandra made dinner. This time it was a pilaf and a mixture of spinach and chickpeas.
“Home food,” said Arkady happily.
Heavy rain began to fall outside. Ash watched it through one of the virtual windows. It shone like a silver curtain in the lodge’s spotlights. The low plants around the lodge bent under the weight of water, and a gusty wind made them flutter. Arkady got out plum brandy this time.