"Oh, I got something for you to tug. Tell me the truth. When you're laying peter on Ruth, you think about all them big rednecks who corn-holed you in county detent, huh? Go on, you can tell your brother."
"Fuck you, Slydes!" Jonas yelled and stepped out of the cockpit. He stalked off down the manway and shouted to Ruth. "Hey, Ruth! Downstairs!"
When Jonas and Ruth disappeared belowdecks, Slydes thought, Jesus. it was just a joke. Made him wonder a little, though.
Slydes checked the tide table again, then his watch. Right on the mark. Out in the murk, the island's obscure shape grew larger.
Of course, he had no way of knowing that things weren't going to go quite as smoothly as he thought.
(II)
Nora and Loren sat up late in the head shack, blearyeyed and hot in the harsh overhead light. Night had come to the island like a fog bank. The head shack's metal door stood open, letting in humid air. This late the woods outside sounded like a jungle.
"You were right earlier," Nora said. "There's no sign of a developing organ system." By now her eyes felt welded to the microscope, whose lighting element reminded her of an optical exam. It was giving her a headache.
Loren sat next to her at the table, wielding tiny forceps and wire-thin dissection probes. For several hours now, they'd been examining several of the things they'd found in the shower. "It's not even a complete animal." He looked up a moment from the legged magnification frame under which the specimen lay. "I've never dissected anything like this in my career. It's almost like this thing is just a tumor or a multicelled cyst."
"A multicelled cyst that moves," Nora added.
"About the only thing we do know is it's not a damn froghopper."
A motile cyst? she thought. A nodular cell cluster that has a system of locomotion? "I wasn't imagining it when I saw these things moving was I?"
"No, they were moving pretty damn fast," Loren assured her. "And they had direction volition. When you moved your foot on the shower floor, these things shifted their direction. I'm positive. We all saw it."
Nora sat back in the fold-down army chair. She rubbed fatigue out of her eyes, or was it confusion? It's impossible. It's fucking impossible.
Loren yawned, a fist to his mouth. "Maybe we really have stumbled on something. Maybe this is a previously unknown infantile mite or something."
"Come on, Loren," she objected. "This big? You and I both know that it's impossible for something like that to get this big. It's contrary to insectoid life."
Loren nodded dumbly.
It was the feeling in her gut that bothered her most. She felt tacky in the gritty humidity. Patches of sweat darkened her T-shirt like blotches. "It's able to move at will," she almost droned, "which means it's functionally-motile. But-"
"No parapods, no legs, nothing even close to a monotaxic foot," Loren finished for her. He looked back a moment at the mag frame, then shook his head at the evidence bright before his eyes.
"It looks like it moves on bristles or cilia."
Loren pointed errantly to the specimen. "Come on, Nora. They are cilia, and we both know that. We're looking right at it."
Nora let out a long sigh. "Which means we're looking at something that's impossible." I can't say it, she fretted. Loren would think I was ridiculous. When she looked back at him, he was staring right back at her.
But it was Loren who broke the ice that she was afraid to, afraid because her peers would think she was being absurd. "We were right earlier, weren't we?"
"The thing on Trent's shirt and the things in the shower are the same, and they're not some undiscovered species of mite or sebaceous parasite. We both know exactly what these things are, but neither of us is saying it. It's a motile worm ovum."
Loren nodded, confusion lengthening his expression. "A motile worm ovum the size of a coffee bean. Which doesn't exist."
Indeed, they'd both seen the same thing before, but under electron microscopes, not little 100x field scopes.
Now Nora rubbed her face in the most bewildered frustration. "There's no such thing as a motile ovum this size. They're all microscopic, they're just simple cell clusters with a cilia-based system of locomotion."
"Um-hmm." Loren held another plastic collection vial up to the light, and shook the bean-sized thing inside around. "Well, this ain't microscopic, Nora. So what do we do?"
Good question. "Collect more samples, look for the annelid that these things come from, and report to the college. That sounds like the best bet."
Loren stared grimly. "Sure, but that's ignoring the consequences of something, isn't it?"
"I know. The annelid that these things come from must be…"
"Really big," Loren said.
She gestured her microscope. "On one side of this one, there are some apertures behind the cilia roots. And I'm pretty sure I saw a stylet ring there."
"So did I, and now that we've decided what this really is, why should that be a surprise? Most other forms of motile ova have them, it's the delivery system to the host, and right now we're both wondering if one of these things could infect a human."
Nora nodded wearily.
't'he infection constituents would be incompatible in humans, wouldn't they? And of course the ova themselves would be too. A human immune system would destroy it immediately." Loren blinked. "Right?"
'I think so," she said very softly.
Loren seemed suddenly enlivened. "So let's not freak out. This is actually exciting, it's a polychaetologist's dream. It might be a new species."
'Yeah, that would be great, Loren." But she didn't sound convinced. "But we're still ignoring the size."
Loren looked back down onto the radiant magnifying frame. "It's big, all right." He seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek. "And I mean really big."
CHAPTER SEVEN
(I)
They moored the beaten cabin cruiser at the usual stop just when high tide hit; Jonas, hip-deep in the lagoon, caught the rope Slydes tossed and tied it off to a sweetgum tree.
"It's creepy tonight," Ruth commented as she lowered herself off the back ledge.
"What are you talkin' about?" Slydes asked.
She looked up and around, wading clumsily. "It's just… different. Feels weird. It's my female intuition. We have that, you know. I saw it on that Oprah show."
Slydes climbed off, frowning. Bitch is drunk again, or fucked up on something. The water lay like black glass. No moon roved overhead; more cloud banks were rolling in. Ahead, the island's wall of trees looked like an obscure, dark bulk. Slydes didn't feel quite right himself, but he didn't admit it.
Once ashore, the three of them stood dripping. Ruth's T-shirt clung to her breasts. When she raised a flashlight, Slydes snatched it away.
"I told ya, no fights. There's people on the island tonight."
Jonas seemed aggravated that he was wet. "Any idea if they're camping near the headshacks?"
"No, so that's why we gotta be extra careful." Slydes shirt read ST. PETE BEACH-A QUIET LI FLE DRINKING TOWN WITH A FISHING PROBLEM. "So remember what I tell ya. We get in and out fast as we can. I'll keep watch and Jonas, you get in, grab some product, and leave. Then we come back to the boat. We need to get out of here in a half hour before the tide goes back down too far."
"What do I do?" Ruth asked for instructions.
"You can tweak your titties for all I care. Just don't make any noise. It's past midnight now, and these photographer people are probably asleep. But you never know."
"Any of 'em chicks?" Jonas asked.
"What do you care!" Ruth objected and gave him a hard slap to the arm. Jonas had always had something of a voyeurism problem, and Ruth knew it. He actually had a lot more problems than that, but that was another story.
"Two of 'em, I think," Slydes said.
"And that goes for you, too!" Ruth added, and slapped Slydes.
Slydes latched a big, dirty hand to her face and squeezed her cheeks between her teeth. "Keep your voice down, ya pain in the ass."