Minutes to Burn (2001)

by Gregg Hurwitz

  "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."

  Chapter 55

  30 DEC 07 MISSION DAY 6

  For the first time in nearly 120 hours, Derek slept. He dreamed of Jacqueline's eyes, enigmatic swirling pools as dark as blood. He could have sworn they were lighter once, that they flickered with some hidden illumination, but maybe that
had been his imagination.

  The Night Of, he'd gone alone to midnight mass. The drive home afterward was peaceful, but the air had choked out of him when his house first loomed in view. It had looked different, imperceptibly yet ter-rifyingly altered. Branches had curled into the sky, skeletal fingers straining toward the moon. Shadows had fallen in chunks and blocks about the yard at all the wrong angles; the yellow paint had grown wan; the front door had gleamed as if afire. He'd known at once that something was dreadfully wrong within.

  He stirred from his sleep, the inside of the tent lit green from the can-vas. His dreams had been painfully vivid. He raised the flap of the tent and peered out, feeling like a captive, which he supposed he was. Tank sat on the log facing the forest. A spike leaned against the log beside him.

  Derek almost stopped breathing when he saw the larva across the fire pit from Tank, its thorax elevated, its head tilted. It must have come from the west, inching into camp under cover of the tall grass while Tank watched the forest. Was it the same one? Maybe they hadn't killed it after all. With quiet, stealthy movements, he crept from his tent to the larva, his eyes trained on Tank's back. Though it was early, the sun had already begun its daily assault on the island; Derek felt it tingling across his cheeks and forehead.

  When he got closer, he could tell that it was a different larva. It was significantly fatter and its eyes were lopsided, the left one a good half inch higher. This larva was over three feet long. It swung its head over, taking in Derek. He saw the gills along its neck flutter slightly, its thin antennae bobbing. Its eyes caught the first ray of the rising sun and reflected it back in twinning prisms.

  Derek closed his eyes and an image flashed out at him from the dark-ness--Jacqueline's head raised high and proud, eyes ablaze like a prophetess's, a smudge of blood across her cheek. Behind her, curtains fluttering in the nighttime breeze.

  When Derek looked at the larva again, he couldn't help thinking of the small, helpless face of his daughter. He inched forward, careful not to alert Tank, and raised the larva to his chest, supporting its weight with an arm along its underbelly. He held it, feeling the smooth cuticle of the head against his cheek. Its prolegs clung to him. Its cool head brushing his chin, he backtracked around the dead fire.

  He almost dropped the larva when he saw Tank looking at him across the ashes of the fire pit. Derek instinctively turned the larva away from Tank, as if to shield it from his glare. He noticed Tank's hand tighten in a fist around the spike at his side, and before he knew what he was doing, he was off and running, clutching the larva to his chest, one hand hooked around its abdomen and one supporting its head.

  He heard Tank shout behind him, but he kept running across the grassy field and into the forest, the branches snapping across his face until it was streaked with blood.

  Cameron and the others were out of their tents by the time Tank returned from the pursuit. "Derek," Tank said, pointing and breathing hard. They stood watching the edge of the forest, as if Derek were going to reappear. Savage cursed under his breath.

  "He has one," Tank said. "A larva."

  "You'd better come clean with me!" Savage snapped, turning to the others. "What the fuck is going on here?"

  The other soldiers looked at one another, deciding who would speak.

  "Derek had an accident with his baby," Cameron finally said. "With his baby girl."

  "What the fuck does that mean? An accident."

  "Look," Cameron said. "It's not important. Let's deal with the problems at hand."

  "This is a problem at hand."

  "There's no need to waste time getting into details. His wife had post-partum psychosis. There was an accident. Derek's fucked up. He has a larva. Let's move on."

  "What else did he take?" Rex asked. "A spike, a flare? What?"

  "Well, I think he had a flare in his cargo pocket," Justin said. "That leaves us three." He looked around, double-checking. "The spikes are all here."

  "All right," Cameron said. She stared at the ascending sun, trying not to squint. Morning already. She turned to Rex. "What's our time frame for metamorphosis?"

  "I don't know, but I'd imagine soon. As Donald said, these things are turning over generations as quickly as possible. We saw that one molt already--they're on wildly accelerated development curves. Could be days. Could be less."

  Justin checked his watch. "We may or may not be here."

  "We could spend all our time today building traps for when the larvae transform, but I still think it's better to strike preemptively instead of waiting around and dealing with a bigger problem," Szabla said. "Let's see if we can round up any larvae this morning. We'll muster at 1300, at which time we can discuss Plan B."

  "So the top order of business is still hunting down the larvae. We've got..." Cameron paused, counting in her head. "Two unaccounted for and a third with Derek."

  "What about Derek?" Justin asked.

  "I'll deal with Derek," Savage said.

  "Don't even think about hurting him," Cameron snapped.

  "You're not his mother," Szabla said. "Not anymore."

  "What's your plan for dealing with him?" Rex asked Cameron.

  "I'm hoping if he has some time, he'll come around. I'll try to contact him by transmitter in a bit. Hopefully, he'll reactivate it so I can reach him."

  Savage smirked. "Think you can take care of business, do you?"

  "Yes," Cameron said, feeling oddly unnerved by his patronizing grin. "I do."

  Szabla tapped the spike twice in the palm of her hand, where it left a streak of dirt. "We can't fuck around with those things metamorphosing. If you see Mitchell and he won't cooperate, you're cleared to use reason-able force." She caught Cameron's eye across the fire pit. "I'm sorry."

  "It won't come to that," Cameron said. "If anything, he'll hide. Pro-tect the larva. Even though he's gone off the deep end, he won't want to start fighting us. He'll just disappear."

  Savage played with his knife, digging something out of the sole of his boot with the tip. "It's a small island," he said.

  "If Derek decided to hide in an elevator, it would take you weeks to find him," Cameron said. "He's a world-class soldier."

  Savage squinted in the sunlight. "Doesn't seem to be playing the part on this little cruise."

  Rex turned to Diego. "We should collect a few more water samples from the coast, hope they're all normal under the microscope." He looked at Cameron with concern. "A microscope analysis is probably not going to be sufficient for the final reckoning, but for now, it'll have to do."

  "The rest of us'll go into the forest," Cameron said. "Szabla, Savage and I'll carry the flares. We only have three, so don't burn 'em unless you mean it. Justin, you and Szabla are the only intact team at this point, so you should recon together and I'll go with Tank and Savage."

  "I'd rather you, Justin, and Tank teamed off," Szabla said.

  "I don't think--"

  "Didn't realize you were the OIC here," Szabla said.

  Cameron bit her lip, debating whether it was worth getting into right now. "You're right," she finally said. "I'm not."

  "Okay," Szabla said. "I pair with Savage."

  "I'm sure you do," Justin muttered.

  "What the fuck does that mean?"

  "What the fuck do you think it means, Szabla? Keep your dick hol-stered."

  Szabla lunged for Justin, but Cameron caught her around the waist and threw her back. Savage seized Cameron's arm, and she grabbed his wrist, stepping back with his momentum and yanking him off balance. As he stumbled forward, she locked his arm by snapping the heel of her other hand to the back of his elbow. She drove him down onto his knees, then his chest, pressuring the elbow so it was almost hyperextended.

  Savage grunted, his cheek against the ground, a swirl of dirt kicking up with his breath. Cameron kept the pressure on to prevent him from reaching for his knife.

  Cameron stepped across Savage's arm, twisting it and holding it firmly between her legs as she faced the othe
rs. Though her hair was hooked behind her ear, it curved forward, forming a point just under the side of her mouth. Szabla started forward but froze when Cameron tightened her hold on Savage's arm.

  "We are not pulling this Lord of the Flies bullshit," Cameron said. "Because it's stupid, because it doesn't make sense, but most of all because we don't have the fuckin' time." She twisted Savage's arm with each phrase, and he strained even harder not to yell, the veins on his neck standing out like fingers. "Are we all clear?"

  The wind sucked across the shed atop the watchtower and it moaned softly in the distance. Tank was up on his toes, arms tensed.

  "We ousted Derek, but that does not mean there are no rules now," she continued. "As former AOIC, Szabla is acting senior officer and we will fall into line under her." They all nodded. Cameron looked down at Savage, as if just remembering him, and released his arm. She pulled him up to his feet. Rotating his arm painfully, he grimaced.

  "Nice move," he said, not insincerely.

  Chapter 56

  Derek carried the larva pressed to his chest, and when he got tired, he bore it on his shoulders, looping it across so he could piggyback it. At first, it seemed uncomfortable being carried--he could feel its seg-ments squirming and readjusting around his neck--but soon it calmed, adjusting to the rough ride.

  He stopped once so that the larva could feed, and it did so energeti-cally, working its way through a newly fallen branch in minutes. Sitting on the hot forest ground, he watched it, amazed by the unrelenting action of its mandibles. When it had finished, he leaned over to kiss its forehead but changed his mind. Pulling himself to his feet, he dusted his hands on his cammies, picked up the larva, and continued up the forested slope.

  There was no plan, at least none he could think of. Keeping the larva safe was his only intention. He'd figure something out before the scheduled extraction tomorrow night; he just had to keep the larva secure until then. They'd want to take it back, study it--that much he knew.

  All the ambiguities of his life took shape in a single goal: preserving the life of this creature. If he did that, maybe he could take back the rest of it. Maybe he could take back what he'd discovered that night. The Night Of.