Minutes to Burn

Chapter 18

26 Dec 07

MISSION DAY 2

At dawn, the ootheca began to squirm. The individual chambers wrig-gled until the ceiling of the lava tube looked alive.

A crackle echoed down the shaft as the ootheca strained and trem-bled. A small bright-green head pushed through the papier-mache-like egg case exterior, making use of the special exit valve in the chamber. Encased within a membranous sac, it wiggled forward like a worm, a thin body following.

Rather than dropping to the ground, the larva eased slowly down, suspended by a fine silk thread produced by a gland in its abdomen. As it descended, other larvae began to break free and fall as well-writhing, slime-covered packages dropping from the roof of the cave. They were visible through their translucent surrounding membranes. Three of them clumped together, dangling from their lifelines and spinning in the air.

Blood pressure pumped into the first larva's head, causing the mem-brane to split. It wriggled, shaking off the nursery-cowl and falling to the ground. About two feet in length, the larva resembled an enormous grub or caterpillar. With a fat, curved eruciform body composed of a long abdomen and smaller thorax, and a well-developed head, the larva was smooth and cylindrical. It had six true legs-tiny, pointed exten-sions, each one ending in an apical hook. The true legs were paired, each set protruding from one of the three segments of the thorax-the pronotum, mesonotum, and metanotum. The abdomen was also seg-mented, into nine parts, but instead of true legs it featured prolegs, fleshy stumplike appendages. The larva used its overgrown prolegs to inch along in something like a crawl.

Most startling about the larva's appearance, however, was its head, which seemed oddly animated due to its size and the precise placement of its features. Unlike most larvae, which had clusters of ocelli rather than true eyes, it had large glassy eyes, one on each side, and a mouth that darted in a line beneath a sloping bump of a nose. Though the tho-rax was a mere half foot to the abdomen's ten inches, the head took up a full eight inches of the larva's length.

Three thin gills quivered on each side of its head as it breathed. Two antennae, each segmented into three parts and terminating in a long fila-ment, extended from the top of the larva's head. A pair of spiracles on each abdominal segment permitted it to draw air.

Heads began to poke from the other membranes as the larvae shook themselves free, scrabbling with their tiny true legs and puncturing the sacs. Once loose, the prolegs waved in the air like blunted human hands. The larvae landed and eased forward, rippling their bodies and gripping the ground with their prolegs.

Up in the ootheca, a runt larva flailed partially out of its chamber, air squealing through its cuticle. Wriggling forward in its sac, it tried to pull its lower body free. The other larvae gazed up at the squawking runt, their heads instinctively going on point.

With a final, struggling shriek of air, the runt pulled itself free of its chamber. Even through the membranous sac, one true leg caught in the ootheca and tore off with a wet ripping sound. The runt flailed as it descended slowly on its mucuslike strand, air rushing irregularly and audibly through its spiracles. It managed to push itself partially free of its sac, but two of its true legs remained pasted to its side. Its cuticle, like that of the other larvae, was almost transparent, a soft, green sheath stretched over the network of hemolymph and organs pulsing beneath.

The other larvae, crawling with slow awkward movements, gathered beneath the descending runt, watching expectantly. Wriggling its remaining five true legs, the runt neared the circle of its siblings. The mouths of the other larvae peeled open, each revealing two opposing dark mandibles. The mandibles were heavily sclerotized, pointed and arced like jagged moons. At first conforming with the head, they were now spread, exposing a front labrum and lower labium, fleshy and flap-like, that worked together like toothless gums. The runt fell into the ring of the larvae's upturned faces, air screeching through its spiracles as their mandibles began to saw through its still-fragile cuticle.

The larvae fell on it ravenously, sawing and nipping as it writhed and squealed and slowly died. They concentrated on the plump abdomen, fighting over the richest mouthfuls. When they finished, their faces were covered with a moist sheen, the greenish paste of the dead larva's insides.

They crawled away from the kill once they finished eating. The runt's body was almost entirely gone; only a portion of its head and the sharp mandibles remained. The larvae eyed one another suspiciously, like box-ers in a ring, but they all were of equal strength. There would be no more meals without a fight.

Overhead, one of the ootheca's chambers remained stubbornly closed, devoid of movement within.

A first larva struck out for the forest, pushing through the wall of ferns at the mouth of the lava tube and turning its head from the sun-light that assaulted its eyes. The air was filled with alarming sounds-the call of a yellow warbler, the howl of a feral dog, the wind rustling through the leaves. The fronds fell back into place around the opening, again enclosing the other larvae in darkness. A second larva resolutely followed, the other four trailing behind.

With their prolegs and rippling contortions of their abdomens, they crawled off in different directions, disappearing into the lush vegetation. Fronds rustled around the last larva, then stilled.

The forest was quiet.