"Step on a thorn?"
"No. Some key or pendant or something." Nora put the stringed object on the table. "Somebody dropped it on the trail, and I stepped on it coming back from the beach."
Annabelle felt the ridges on the end. "Oh, this isn't a key and it certainly isn't a pendant. I'm pretty sure it's a jeweler's file. I used to date a jeweler, and he always had something like this around his neck, along with an eyepiece."
"A jeweler's file?" Trent asked, returning. He sat. down with a bottle of water.
"Nora stepped on it." Annabelle passed it to him.
"Hmm." Trent turned it around in his fingers. "And you say you stepped on it, Professor?"
"Yes." Nora applied the Band-Aid to her foot, knowing it would probably fall off within an hour. "On the trail back from the beach. Do you have any idea what it is? I was thinking it must be some kind of key someone was wearing around their neck. Annabelle says it's a file."
Trent raised a brow. "Looks more like an old calibration tool for army PCR radios. There's a slot on the side you stick this in, to change channels." He gave it back to her. You should get a tetanus shot when we get back to the mainland."
Nora got one every year, for her job. A calibration tool, she thought, looking at it. Another boring mystery solved.
'I'll bet some grunt with the missile team dropped that thing here twenty years ago," Trent said.
74,enty years ago? Nora wondered. The tool didn't even look tarnished.
She put it away and forgot about it. In truth, though, the object wasn't a calibration tool, nor was it a jeweler's file. Nora had been right in the first place. The object was-
CHAPTER ELEVEN
(I)
My key! the corporal thought in the worst kind of alarm. When he'd returned to the control center, he reached to his belt where the key's lanyard had been attached but-
It was gone.
I must've tied the damn thing on wrong! he realized.
This was not good. Especially considering the classified nature of this assignment, the key was considered a sensitive access device. The corporal sweated beneath his protective mask. If one of those civilians gets hold of that key, they could get into the command center! The corporal's career would be over. He'd be busted, written up, fined, and probably thrown in the stockade. The entire mission could be compromised…
He stood a minute to compose himself, and think. Maybe… maybe no one will find out, he thought. I won't tell anyone I lost it until the assignment's over. The sarge is coming out on rounds in a minute anyway; I won't even need my key…
It was the only plan he could think of.
A minute later, the door did indeed open, and the sergeant emerged. "Why didn't you come inside?"
"I was just taking a last look around before shift change."
The sergeant didn't question the lie. "Well, come in here. I want you to see something."
The corporal entered and followed the sergeant to one of the old power rooms that they'd converted for their own use. They used several of the rooms to monitor growth rates on some of the hosts.
The one named Howie, the corporal saw behind the quarantine enclosure's protective screen. The kid's body was so bloated that he'd busted out of his shirt and shorts. He shuddered, pouring sweat.
"He's still alive, isn't he?"
The sergeant nodded, and pointed to the vital signs meter. "Yep. Hope the poor bastard isn't feeling anything, but…"
"But he probably is," the corporal said.
"Yeah."
The corporal didn't care.
"Looks like he's about to blow," said the major, coming in behind them.
The sergeant and the corporal both snapped to attention.
"Yes, sir," the sergeant said.
"At ease." The major peered through the glass, intent on the spectacle. "So far the transfections have been close to perfect. And the infection rates from the worms and ova alike are occurring in less than twentyfour hours." The major looked more pointedly at the subject. "Is this a single-ovum infection?"
"No, sir," the sergeant answered. "A multiple gesta tion. He was infected by several ova and three or four live worms."
"Are the recorders on?"
"Yes, sir."
"Should be any minute-"
As if on cue, Howie's body began to buck, his wet skin slapping on the floor. His arms and legs seemed to vibrate, and it looked like his eyes were going to jettison. Then-
His back arched upward; the convulsions trebled. Soon the bloated body began to deflate as Howie's mouth poured forth a slew of live, inch-long worms. More worms-hundreds of them-began to evacuate the colon…
"Beautiful," the major whispered. His eyes glimmered on the scene.
The sergeant and the corporal traded glances. I'm about to puke, the corporal thought, and this guy thinks it's beautiful?
Moments later, Howie lay dead in a pool of shivering pink worms. The worms were peppered with hundreds more immature yellow ova.
The major grinned. "Gentlemen, that's what I call positive reproductive success of a genetically hybridized species. I can't wait for the colonel to see this replay." He pressed his hand to the glass, musing. "Look at all of them, will you? All of that just from one single human host…"
The sergeant winked at the corporal.
"Decon the room," the major finally said. "I want all the worms dead."
"Yes, sir. Should we clean the room for another host?" the sergeant asked.
"Not necessary. With a success rate like this? We'll be leaving very soon."
"What about the one in the next room, sir? The female from the first group."
"Oh yes, the in vitro. Leave her to hang awhile, we'll take readings on her till the very last minute."
"Yes, sir."
"As you were," the major said and left the room.
"He's so happy, you'd think he just got laid," the corporal said when it was safe.
"That's an officer for you." The sergeant took a last look through the glass. Now the worms were massing over the host, to eat.
The sergeant pulled a lever and then the specimen room filled with orange-hued gas, a combination dehydrant-bacticide aerosol. "All in a day's work," he said.
Whatever you say, Sarge, the corporal thought.
cm
"Christ, I feel like I just got run down by a semi rig," Jonas groaned. He dragged himself to the deck, a hand to his head. He squinted past the bow in disbelief. "You're shitting me! It's almost dark."
"No, shit, Sherlock," Slydes remarked from the captain's chair. "We both slept the whole day away."
Jonas scratched his straggly head. "Ain't that the damnedest thing… You sick?"
Slydes made a face. The old cabin cruiser creaked as it pitched slightly in the water. "I feel sicker than a shit- eatin' dog. Don't know what it could be."
"Me neither." Jonas steadied himself on a stanchion cable. His face was pale as cream. "I thought maybe the dope was too strong… but you didn't smoke none. And I've never been seasick in my life. Shit, man."
"How's Ruth? Is she sick, too?"
Jonas mouthed Ruth's name, then jerked his gaze around the deck. "Ain't she up here?"
"Hell no. I thought she been belowdecks with you all day."
.We… fuck! I can't remember! We smoked some of my weed last night at that old shack and got pretty fucked up. Then…" Jonas worked what little brainpower he had. "I came back to the boat but she passed out in the shack."
Slydes grimaced when he leaned up and looked at his watch. "Well, go find her and bring her back 'cause the tide's gonna start coming in soon."
Jonas looked to the darkening island and moaned. "Aw, man, I don't want to go lookin' for her. I feel like shit. Let's just say if she don't show up by high tide, we leave her."
Slydes spat over the side, grimacing at a taste in his mouth like when he was ten and his daddy made him eat some dirty cat litter for talking back to him. "You must've passed those college smarts out your ass the last time you took a shit, Jonas. If we leave her here, she'll get really pissed and turn our whole pot operation over to the cops once she finds her way back to the mainland. We can't leave her, you moron."