“Shoot,” I said.
“What happened to all the stuff the rabbots ate? I didn’t see any rabbot pellets and none of them seemed to expand even though they’d eaten all the carpets and under-padding and curtains and the hem of my dress.”
“And a very nice dress it was.” I noticed her cheeks get red. Was she blushing?
“Thank you, but answer the question.”
“I don’t know. It’s a great question. I’ll have to find out.”
“Let me know what you learn,” said Poly.
“Absolutely.” I thought about the challenge of dissecting a rabbot. No, I’d think about that later. Spending time with Poly was more entertaining.
The sounds of kids playing around us had been so much background noise, but that changed when they took on a different tone.
“Mom! Dad! You’ve got to see this!” said a young girl’s voice.
“It’s really cool!” said a boy.
“It’s gross,” said another boy.
Poly and I turned around to see three kids talking to their parents at the table behind us. They were tugging their parents’ hands and shouting. Several of us followed the parents as the kids dragged them to the back of the parking lot near a pair of dumpsters, one blue, one green. Spray-painted on the pavement nearby was a two foot red circle-slash over a stylized black galaxy—the Earth First Isolationist logo. That was not a good omen. The dumpsters were arranged about two feet apart and between them about four feet up toward the back there was something large, white and cylindrical attached with lots of thick white threads. It was pulsing and starting to split longitudinally.
“Look at it! Look at it!” said the girl.
“What is it?” said one of the boys.
“It’s still gross,” said the other.
I knew what it was.
“What is it?” asked Poly. She saw the look of recognition on my face.
“It’s an Orishen pupa about to open,” I said. “Get everyone out of here.”
She started moving people back.
“And call the Orishen consulate,” I said over my shoulder. “Tell them it’s an emergency.”
“I’m on it,” said Poly.
As she’d demonstrated at the Teleport Inn, Poly knew how to handle herself in a crisis. She hustled the kids and the parents away from the dumpsters with a minimum of fuss and didn’t attract even more attention to the vicinity in the process. I kept one eye on the splitting pupa and opened the heavy metal lid on the green dumpster on the left. I was lucky. It was the recycling unit and had recently been emptied. I kept the lid open. Now if only the blue dumpster had what I needed. I opened its lid and saw something that would exactly fit the bill in a clear plastic bag resting on top of piles of food waste. I pulled the clear plastic bag out of blue dumpster, shut its lid and dropped the bag in front of the green dumpster. Next I circled around behind the two dumpsters to get a closer view of the pupa. The pulsing white cylinder was roughly the size of a man but I knew what was coming out of it was nothing human. Orishen nymphs are hungry when they break out of their pupa cases and aren’t as fussy about what they eat as rabbots.
From the back I could see that I didn’t have much time. I pushed on the blue dumpster to separate the two units and put more stress on the cords holding the pupa case. Then I took as much of a running start as I could, slammed into the pupa case with my shoulder and broke it free from its moorings. I let my momentum carry me forward with the pulsing pupa slung over my back until I passed out of the narrow passage between the two units. I turned, hoisted the splitting case above my head, emptied the ravenous nymph into the green dumpster and slammed the lid. For a moment I was afraid I would have to sit on the lid to keep it closed but then I saw that it had a mechanism that rotated a metal bar to seal it tight. I put the now empty pupa case on the ground and locked the lid closed. Meanwhile the green dumpster boomed like a summer thunderstorm from the sound of the Orishen nymph banging on its sides. It was searching for a way out and maddened by hatchling hunger. I checked the near side of the dumpster and let out a sigh of relief when I saw there were several small holes there for inspecting its contents. I wouldn’t have to risk opening the lid to feed it.
I picked up the clear plastic garbage bag I’d taken from the blue dumpster and opened it. It was filled with all the hot dogs that had been on Zesto’s grill too long and had been tossed out earlier in the day. There were at least a dozen of them and the bag had concentrated their charred, meaty aroma. I bent to look in one of the inspection holes at chest height. A multi-faceted Orishen nymph’s compound eye stared back at me and didn’t look happy. I shoved a hot dog through the hole and then another and another. If hot dogs had bones I would have heard them cracking. Orishen nymphs are seven foot tall winged praying mantises with an over-sized heads full of serrated cutting teeth. They have razor-sharp blades on the backs of their arms and legs they use for cutting down prey. On Orishen the pupa cases open in special hatching rooms where the nymph can feed without hurting anyone. It takes at least a week before they’re anything more than eating machines. If I didn’t keep feeding it I wasn’t sure the nymph wouldn’t be able to cut its way out of the dumpster and go for the nearest source of protein, which would be me. I was running out of hot dogs when Poly returned.
“I talked to the Orishen consulate,” she said. “They’re on their way with a containment truck and more food.”
“Great,” I said, wondering how an Orishen pupa ended up behind a frozen custard stand.
“Is there anything more I can do to help?” asked Poly.
“Yes. Please take the empty pupa case and put it in the back of my van.”
“Will do. You can explain later.”
“Gladly. And please bring back more hot dogs from the restaurant,” I said. “I don’t know how long it will take until the team from the consulate arrives.”
Poly took the awkward six-foot pupa case away and returned shortly with two packages of hot dogs which proved to be enough to keep the Orishen nymph’s appetite satisfied temporarily.
The consulate’s team of supra-adults arrived in a few minutes and did a very professional job of moving the nymph from the dumpster to their containment truck. When they were finished and the consulate’s truck turned the corner, Poly stepped close and gave me a big hug. I hugged her back, relieved that a potential crisis was averted with zero publicity and no loss of life. The Orishen consulate would be grateful for my discretion.
Poly kissed me on the forehead.
“My hero,” she said, in a cartoon-y voice.
“Aw, shucks, ma’am,” I said. “’T’weren’t nothin’.”
She made a face then kissed me on the cheek. Thank you, ma’am, may I have another!
“Time to get out of here.”
“To hear is to obey,” I said.
We got in my van.
“Home, please,” I said.
“Seat belts,” it said.
We complied and were off.
Chapter 11
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it's enemy action.” — Ian Fleming
“That was presumptuous,” said Poly with a grin.
“What was presumptuous?”
“Telling your van to go to your place.”
“Of course, how foolish of me,” I said, “I forgot that we have to stop at WT&F first.”
Poly looked puzzled. I took advantage of the lull in the conversation to issue a request to my phone.
“Please call Mike at WT&F.”
“Connecting,” said my phone.
“This is Mike.” He sounded tired.
“How’s it going?” I said. “Are you still at the office?”
“Yeah, I just finished fabbing up the last of the 500 rabbot controllers.”
“Hi Mike,” said Poly, “don’t work too hard.”
“You’re friends?”
“Yes,” said Poly. “He was in one of the Intro to Galactic Language classes I tau
ght at Georgia State last year. Mike’s the one who told me about the part time receptionist opening at WT&F and hooked me up with the temp agency.”
“Hi Poly,” said Mike. “Thanks for your help with the cleanup.”
“My pleasure.”
“Could you stop by my apartment at Ad Astra with one of the deactivated rabbots on your way home?” I asked Mike.
“Sure,” he said, “there are enough of them. What’s your address?” I told him and gave him the courtyard access code.
“Great,” said Mike. “I should be there within half an hour. I need to grab something to eat on the way.”
“See you,” said Poly, “and take good care of yourself.”
“Will do,” said Mike, ending the call.
“Looks like we don’t have to stop at WT&F first after all.”
“Huh?” said Poly, decorously.
“Now we can go straight to my place to inspect the pupa case and dissect a rabbot,” I said. “Do you want to help with the rabbot autopsy or should I take you home first?”
“Count me in,” said Poly. “After what those beasties did to one of my favorite dresses I think I’d enjoy cutting one up.”
“Excellent,” I said, thinking that settled things. Not quite.
“Jack,” said Poly, “Please understand that I’m not concerned with things like the propriety of going to your apartment on a first date. We’re both adults.”
“Okay.”
“I just want to be informed and consulted,” said Poly.
“My apologies. It won’t happen again.”
“Thank you,” said Poly.
“And in the spirit of full disclosure,” I said, reaching into my jacket pocket and pulling out Cornell’s stun phone, “we also need to check this out.”
“What is it?” said Poly.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
* * * * *
When we arrived at the Ad Astra complex my van entered the underground parking garage and dropped us off at the elevator closest to my apartment then went off to its more distant assigned parking spot. I carried the Orishen pupa case. It was the general size and shape of a human body but just an empty husk so it was more awkward than heavy. Poly had my backpack tool bag. She didn’t carry a purse and I wondered where she kept her phone hidden in her chiton-dress. Focus, Jack. I led her toward my apartment through the nearest part of the courtyard.
“Is that the infamous tree where you rescued Spike?” asked Poly, pointing to the pink-leaved banyan-shaped prickly pod tree in the distance.
“The very one,” I said, my voice muffled by the pupa case I was clutching in front of me. It was hard to find a convenient way to carry it. I shifted it to ride on my right shoulder so that I could see where I was going more clearly. It was past 10:00 p.m. and we were currently the only sentients in the park-like central courtyard, unless you counted squirrels. We made it to the entrance to my garden apartment without running into anyone. My phone opened the door then I stepped in and gently put the pupa case on living room floor. Poly followed me inside, closed the door and put my backpack on a small table in the entryway I’d placed there for that purpose.
It was a good thing that I kept the public areas of my apartment tidy on general principles since I didn’t want Poly to think I was a slob. Given my accelerated exit earlier I certainly hadn’t had time to “redd up” the place, as they say where my mom grew up in Pennsylvania.
The main public part of the apartment was a deep rectangle divided into three sections. The front section was the living room where I had a few chairs and couches arranged facing a wall screen on the far left wall that was currently set to show a view of the stacks from the Bodleian Library. In the middle was a dining room with a hand-me-down maple table and chairs for eight I’d been given by my grandmother. The farthest section was the kitchen and breakfast nook. A back door off the kitchen opened into maintenance corridors for the complex, not the outside world. Doors on the right-hand wall led to my bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. In the center of the right hand wall was a deep alcove I used as an office and projects room.
“Make yourself at home,” I said to Poly as I walked back to the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Starbuzz?”
“Tea, please,” said Poly. “Do you have decaf?”
“Sure,” I said. I filled a kettle with purified water from my water cooler and put it on my congruent tech stove’s fast 15,000 BTU star-powered front burner I use for stir-frying. “It won’t take a second.”
I rummaged under the sink and found what I was looking for—a plastic painters’ drop cloth still in its unopened pouch that I’d bought when I’d first considered doing a chameleon tile mood matching mosaic. Assembling mosaics can be messy. I popped the drop cloth out of its pouch and Poly came over to the dining room to help me unfold it and arrange it to cover the dining room table. Then the kettle whistled.
“I’m going to make something from the pupa case,” I said. “Could you please put it on the dining room table?” I asked Poly while heading back to the kitchen to turn off the heat below the kettle.
“Glad to,” she said. “Nice place.”
She moved the pupa case from the living room floor to the dining room table and joined me in the kitchen. I took the tea kettle off the stove.
“Thanks.”
“My place is just an efficiency apartment near Emory furnished in early impoverished graduate student,” said Poly.
“Been there, done that, got the bad back from the futon,” I said, thinking about my garret above the dive bar where I worked when I was studying on Orish. “Until I switched to a silk hammock.”
“A silk hammock? Sounds comfortable. What kind of silk?” asked Poly.
“Orishen pupa case silk,” I said. “It’s amazing stuff, you’ll see.” I waved in the direction of pupa case on the dining room table. “Here, pick your tea.” I found the shoe box on a kitchen shelf that held thirty or more types of loose tea and exotic tea bags I’d collected and held it out to Poly. She picked one of my favorites, a decaf orange pekoe with a hint of grated fire fruit rind, so I did the same. We carried our steaming mugs to the dining room and put them on the far end of the table to let them steep. Every now and then I’d lean down to catch the fragrant steam.
“When were you on Orish?”
“Six years ago,” I said. “I was there as an exchange student. I bought the futon from the Terran student who’d had the apartment before me and was headed home.”
“It was uncomfortable?”
“Very. He must have been studying geology or the galactic equivalent. The futon felt like it was stuffed with rocks.”
“Makes me glad I’ve got a normal box spring and mattress,” said Poly.
“Absolutely. It wasn’t until one of my fellow students, an Orish native, went through metamorphosis and gave me his pupa case that I got a good night’s sleep.”
“You turned the pupa case into a hammock?”
“Yep,” I said, “and I earned it, too. I had to take notes for him for three weeks in all our classes while he was pupating and feeding.”
“That explains why you recognized the pupa case for what it was so quickly.”
“They’re hard to mistake,” I said, “but I have no idea how one could have gotten stuck between two dumpsters behind a Zesto’s.”
Poly took a sip of her tea. “It’s cool enough to drink now,” she said. “What’s the big deal about pupa case silk?”
“It’s incredibly strong, light weight and can stop knives and most bullets,” I said. “It’s natural Kevlar and can even withstand hits from some types of energy weapons.” I brought my mug to my lips and sipped. The tea tasted as good as it smelled.
“So you used it as a hammock?”
“When a friend gives you his pupa case it’s an honor,” I said. “You find a way to use it and a hammock took the least work. It was a lot more comfortable than the futon.”
“Anything is more com
fortable than a futon.”
“I didn’t learn how to do more with Orishen silk until the next semester when I studied their fabrication techniques.”
“Cool,” said Poly. “Do you still sleep in a hammock?”
“No, I’ve been sleeping in a bed since I got back to Terra.”
“Good to know.”
I did a mental double take and changed the subject. It was time to return to the matter at hand, this pupa case. I asked the light above the dining room table to turn on to make it easier to see fine details. The pupa case was about six feet long and a foot and a half in diameter with a single, jagged cut down its center line. Orishen nymphs’ arms and legs have extra-sharp blades on their edges to be able to open their cases but even they find it hard to break through fibers that would stop Sheffield steel blades. The central suture line on pupa cases is made from a weaker, more elastic form of silk that stretches out as the nymph grows. It’s easier to cut when it’s time to hatch.
Before Orishens’ hatchings became a controlled and well organized process, grubs ready to pupate would string yet a third kind of silk, a heavy duty thread, between two walls of rock or two tree branches then curl up in those threads and spin their pupa cases. The third type of thread was distinctive. It was much thicker than silk, more like rope. There were a few bits of more rope-like attachment thread stuck to the pupa case but most of the material that was used to connect the pupa case to the dumpsters didn’t feel like a natural product of Orishen metamorphosis at all. I rubbed a few strands of the odd material between my fingers.
“What is it?” said Poly.
“Here, feel these.” I handed her a short length of what I thought of as remnants of the original thick attachment threads.
Poly slid her fingers along the fibers. “Okay, these feel like silk.”
“Now try these,” I said, handing her a longer section of the odd material that wasn’t thick enough and didn’t feel natural to me.
Poly tested the second sample. “I see what you mean. This feels oily.” She held up the second sample. “And this feels clean,” referencing the first sample.
“Hang on a second.” I crossed to the alcove where I kept my desk and storage for various projects. I rummaged around in the bottom of a cabinet and came back with a pressurized spray bottle half the size of an old-fashioned backyard propane cylinder. It had a weird looking nozzle.
Xenotech Rising: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 1) Page 10