Minutes to Burn

Chapter 54

It felt odd to Cameron, reconning with Justin. But since Derek was obviously out of the picture for the time being, and Szabla and Savage were standing guard over his tent, it made the most sense for her and Justin to pair up. Tank and the scientists took the western rim of the transition zone, hooking north around the Scalesia zone.

Cameron followed her husband through the dark forest, covering the terrain with slow sweeps of her elbow light. The Estradas' violent deaths and the mutiny had drained her, so she tried to keep her mind on the task at hand. It occurred to her just how odd it was that they were out here to dispose of gentle creatures that crawled in the night. Such a task seemed discordant at a time when her whole body was yearning for softness.

When he'd realized that the entire island was at stake, Diego had yielded to their objectives, finally agreeing to help dispose of the larvae. His advice was simple-the larvae would be attracted to light and humans, and want to keep to the shade. The first larva they'd captured had never made an effort to flee, and it had all but sought Cameron out by the lagoon. It was part of the larvae's strategy to locate other organ-isms to look over them, a strategy that had worked out nicely on an island with few predators.

Diego and Rex had also urged that they all keep an eye out for any other irregularities in the flora or fauna.

Cameron and Justin marched through the foliage, the branches arched like gothic gables, the trunks rising like spires to the vast spread of leaves floating overhead. They were enclosed, the two of them, in a world of vegetation, and it seemed that the canopy above was the floor of another world just out of reach. It was cavernous, the forest, a living stomach dripping with vines and life.

Cameron had the sudden peculiar sensation that she was going to her wedding. Aside from the fact that she was alone with the man she loved and the night hovered ahead of them intimidating and yet unrealized, she did not know why.

She passed the entrance of a cave, more like a deep niche carved into the side of a hill, and noticed movement just inside. She called Justin back and he came quietly. They stepped inside, the light casting shadows broad and fearful.

The cave's wide entrance afforded a view of a cluster of avocado trees just outside-smooth trunks and wide, dark leaves. Rocks and boulders lined the interior. Cameron felt her stomach roiling as they stepped inside. Something flickered in the darkness, and she drew back her spike as Justin fell out to her right. She tried not to imagine what it would be like to batter one of the larvae. She pictured the smooth green head, the sentimental eyes, the soft prolegs that grasped and released, and she felt her mouth go dry.

There was a flash of movement behind a rock. Justin reached the rock first and shoved it over with his boot. Cameron held the spike cocked back over her shoulder like a golf club. A rice rat scurried for the cave entrance.

Cameron lowered the spike, relieved, her arm weak under its weight. She dropped her elbow light, and it dangled from its sling around her neck.

Justin turned to her, concerned. "You all right?" he asked.

She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded. "It's just that…I don't know if I could… they're so much larger than… their faces look so…" She stopped, lowering her head. "I don't know what the fuck is happening to me," she said. "I don't know why I care about this, Flore-ana, any of it." Anger colored her voice; it was proud, almost defiant. "I never used to care."

Justin waited patiently for her breathing to slow.

"I used to be locked on," she said. "All the time, you know?"

"I know," Justin said. "I know."

"But now I feel soft. Emotional." She was trembling. "I broke orders. I led a fucking mutiny. Because of my own…" She made a fist and tapped it against her stomach.

"You stepped into yourself," Justin said. "You made a decision." There were better words for what he wanted to say, but she understood him.

Cameron tilted her head back so that she wouldn't spill tears. "It's so messy though. I feel so fucking messy." Her mouth tightened as she looked at her husband. "Why didn't you?" she asked. "Make the call?"

"First of all, the squad wouldn't follow me."

Cameron digested this for a moment. "And second?"

Justin lowered his hands, his light crossing Cameron's, illuminating the back of the small cave.

"Second?" she asked again.

He raised his eyes, meeting hers. "I don't have your strength, Cam." He shook his head, looking away.

She reached out and laid a finger on his cheek, turning his face to hers. "There are better things than strength," she said.

"Okay, but look at Derek."

Cameron's voice dropped to a whisper. "Look at Savage."

They stared at each other in the darkness of the cave, their lights dan-gling and throwing shadows all about them. Justin moved forward and hugged her tightly, a combat hug, wrapping his arms around her and raising her off the ground as he leaned back. He seemed to slow when he set her down. For a moment, she felt the warmth of his cheek against hers, and her hands were on his shoulders and she pulled back a little and looked at him, looked at him hard. He kissed her gently on the cheek. She turned to face him fully, surprised, and they kissed again, softly, wetly. When the kiss ended, they regarded each other, slightly bewil-dered.

They set down their lights and spikes. The wind whistled outside, reminding them of the peacefulness of the still air all around them. Somewhere, deep in the cave, water dripped.

Justin reached over and ran his finger along the length of her neck-lace, picking up the clasp and moving it to the back as he often did. Then he reached for her cheek, but she grasped his wrist, stopping him.

He splayed his fingers as he pulled back his hand.

She was just about to say something when she heard the noise, a soft cooing with clicks moving underneath it.

"What? What is it?" Justin asked.

At the edge of the cave near the entrance, its head protruding from behind a boulder, a larva watched them inquisitively. Drawn by their sounds and the light, it had crawled into the cave to find them.

It arched upward, its thorax and head curving up from the abdomen.

Cameron leaned over, grabbing for the spike before she lost her nerve.

The larva crawled from behind the boulder, inching for the cave entrance.

"It's moving," Justin said. He stepped forward, knocking the elbow light with his foot. It rocked on the hard floor, its beam rolling across the cave.

Cameron ran over and seized the larva by the terminal segment as it was about to reach the entrance. She dragged it back inside toward the light, its tender cuticle scraping on the rocky floor. Air screeched through its spiracles, and it balled up like a fetus, half-lit in the dark.

Choking on her own breath, Cameron drew back the spike and struck it at the base of the skull. It was knocked into a lengthwise roll, squealing louder than Cameron could have imagined, and something squirted from the hole in its head. Its abdomen loosened and contracted, its mouth hanging silently open and she swung again, hearing something in its thorax give way. It screeched, trying desperately to drag itself away and her vision went blurry, and she was screaming "Die, why won't you die!" and swinging and hacking and pounding, but it still kept struggling even as its head came apart at the top. Its prolegs kept pulsing and air kept screeching through the spiracles, its mouth bent wide with the thrust of the mandibles. Beside herself with revulsion at it and herself, she raised the spike behind her like a spear and thrust it right through the center of it. It shrieked again, flailing, but at last its true legs slowed and then it was quiet, its mouth hanging open.

Her face in her hands, she gasped, fighting down a sob. Swaying in the dancing yellow light of the cave, her shoulders rising and falling in great heaves, the thing impaled before her, she leaned over and vomited so hard she felt her whole chest rising with the effort. Her stomach felt as though it were turning itself inside-out within her throat, a thick cord of drool and regurgitated food spinning from her bottom lip.

She retched until she couldn't bring anything up and then retched a few times more, Justin pressing his palm to her forehead to keep her head up.

Her shoulders slumped with exhaustion, Cameron trudged into camp ahead of Justin, the larva draped across her arms. Sitting by the languishing fire, the others looked up with eyes dark and dreadful.

She dumped the body on the fire and watched the flames eat into it. Her expression had hardened, her face steeling itself with resolve. She stoked the fire with a forked stick.

Savage was crouching just like her on the far side of the fire, and she could barely see the outline of his shoulders and his thickening beard through the flames. For a moment, Cameron imagined she was looking into a mirror and seeing herself lit in fire, but the sensation passed like a warm spell of water in the sea.

"Three more," she said.

They sat silently around the fire until exhaustion finally caught up with them, and they drifted off to their respective tents, one by one, to steal a few hours' rest before the morning recons.

Having cleaned her hands with antibacterial gel, Cameron settled in for first watch, resting the spike across her knees. Diego sat, exhausted, leaning against the base of a log, the radio between his legs. He clicked tediously through his SOS. By now, Cameron knew the pattern by heart.

"Would it help if you told them I'd be willing to run future expeditions here, monitor the island life?" Diego asked, his eyes on the radio.

"I don't know," Cameron said.

His keying the handset was the only noise in the darkness. After a few moments, Diego raised his head. "They would really do it?"

Cameron looked at him blankly.

"Bomb the island," he clarified.

"If they deem it necessary, yes."

"Necessary." Diego laughed a short, sad laugh. "It'll leave this place nothing but barren volcanic rock. A dead hump of stone protruding from the sea, just like it was three million years ago." He clicked the handset. Long short long. "Three million years. Three million years of life taking hold here in minute, painstaking increments." His ponytail swayed as he shook his head. "One third of the plants here are found nowhere else. Half of the birds and insects. Ninety percent of the rep-tiles. These tortoises could be the same ones Darwin himself saw on his expedition. The very same ones."

Cameron did not respond.

"When you look around here," he asked "what do you see?"

Cameron shrugged. "Rocks. Trees."

Diego laughed his sad laugh again. He pointed to a small fern that rose from the matted grass past the fire. "Spores of ferns can resist low temperatures. They were sucked up in the air, probably blown out here all the way from the mainland, and they dropped to the earth with the condensation." He gestured to the Scalesia forest. "The first Scalesia seeds, probably carried over in birds' stomachs, or stuck to the mud on their feet." He spread his arms wide. "Legumes are plentiful here because the empty space between the embryo and external shell makes their seeds like little rafts. Cotton-resilient to long stays in salt water." He raised a hand from the radio, watching an ant work its way along his forearm. "Ants carried here on palm tree logs. Turtles using the pockets of air between their upper backs and shells to float out here, spiders surviving windstorms, dropping to the islands from three thousand meters."

He dropped his hands heavily to the ground between his legs. "You see rocks and trees. I see order and reason and design and beauty." He lowered his head. "Don't let them bomb this island."

"It got to this from bare lava," Cameron said. "It can do it again."

Diego studied her, and she grew uncomfortable under his eyes. Finally, he looked away. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. "Some people never realize how valuable something is until they destroy it."