Asimov's SF, October-November 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Bell wadded the letter and threw it in the trash. “I know what a mud dauber looks like."

  One evening a few weeks later, he found the insect dead. Even in death it looked formidable, with a head the size of a dime, and a body like a smooth, slick walnut.

  For the first time, he dared to touch it. With its legs spread out, it was nearly the size of his hand. He jabbed a pin through its abdomen and stuck it to a small cork. The legs sagged under their own weight. He looked inside the terrarium at the egg case, wondering if anything would hatch from it.

  * * * *

  Months passed, the egg case forgotten. Bell and Seana took turns training the old man. Seana didn't like Cole, and didn't pretend she did.

  In the spring, the eggs hatched. There were a million tiny grubs, just like the original, only smaller. Bell watched them wriggling through the sawdust he'd put in the terrarium.

  "These more of your wasps?” Cole asked.

  "They will be."

  They watched them writhing for several minutes.

  "What do they eat?” Cole asked.

  Bell thought about this for a moment. The adult form of an insect often ate a completely different diet than the juvenile.

  "I have no idea,” he said.

  * * * *

  Feedings could be tricky.

  When Bell was first hired by the zoo, he'd been put in charge of feeding the raptors. Raptors weren't dinosaurs, though, like you'd think, with a name like that. It turned out they were big damn birds. One of them was a golden eagle.

  All went well for the first few days. The golden eagle ate about five rats a week, but it was fed every day. Which would have been fine except that the uneaten rats had to be removed from the enclosure.

  This idea didn't bother Bell until the moment he first went to do it. He stood at the cage door and looked at the big damn eagle, and it occurred to him that he was about to go inside a big damn eagle's enclosure and take out its food. It occurred to him what might happen if the big damn eagle felt suddenly partial to that food.

  He stared at the eagle. He stared at its talons—two-inch daggers strong enough to pierce bone.

  Bell walked down to the zoo superintendent's office. She was unmoved by his concerns.

  "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it,” Bell said.

  She waved that off. “You've got nothing to worry about.” Then she went back to her paperwork.

  "But how do you know the eagle won't attack?"

  "It'll be fine,” she said, not bothering to look up. “Nothing like that has ever happened before."

  A preamble to every scar story he'd heard at the zoo.

  "I'm not going to do it,” he said.

  She looked up from her papers. She sighed. She weighed her options. “All right,” she said.

  The next week he was put in charge of the petting zoo. This was meant as an insult.

  When he complained, pointing out that his particular skill set could surely be put to better utility, she only nodded sympathetically.

  Then she put him in charge of the convicts, too.

  * * * *

  Bell divided the newly hatched grubs into three groups, in three terrariums. In one terrarium, he dropped only fruit. In another, he dropped chunks of bread. In the third terrarium he dropped meat.

  Insects tended to specialize in their diets, so he thought there was a good chance that two of the terrariums would starve. But then at least he'd know what they ate.

  The grubs, however, surprised him. All three terrariums thrived—though the grubs given meat grew fastest.

  Two months later, the grubs all began to spin cocoons. As if by agreement, they all started their nests on the same day.

  * * * *

  That night, as if to celebrate the milestone, Bell committed a budget crime. He stopped at McDonald's for a bite on his way home, knowing that tuna salad was all they had in the fridge.

  He was trapped and doomed, once he'd spent the money.

  "Spend whatever you need to,” Lin said. “Just make sure you tell me about it."

  Lin was the official banker of their marriage.

  "Just tell me about it” was the trap, because if he spent money and told her, she got mad. She might get loud, she might stay quiet. Either way, when Lin got mad, she fed on her own energy like a hurricane, getting louder and madder. The hurricane usually blew until she charged out the door and drove away, still screaming. Hours later, she'd return. Maybe still mad, maybe not.

  One of these days when she came back, Bell would be gone.

  This thought came from an increasingly vocal part of his brain. The part where he'd swept so much crap under the carpet.

  A week after his crime, she dropped a bank statement in his lap while he sat reading.

  They were both reading a lot, these days. The cable company had run out of patience.

  "What?” he asked.

  "It's highlighted."

  Shit. He'd forgotten.

  MCD Store #1635.

  "You didn't give me a receipt for that."

  "Thought I had. Sorry."

  He was sorry. What else could he do? Here, he thought, was where a rational person would let it go. But not Lin.

  She yelled, storm winds building. How, she wanted to know, was she supposed to know how much to spend on the rent and the car and the power company and the phone company and the fucking grocery store when she didn't know how much he'd spent on whatever big important things he needed to spend money on. Like a Big Mac, apparently. She didn't remember him asking if she'd like a Big Mac, too, because he was too busy being a selfish, irresponsible asshole and then hiding the receipt.

  He could tune out the yelling, until she made accusations like that.

  "I forgot," he reminded her. Now he was pissed. This was going to be bad.

  The louder she got, the louder he got. Eventually, she was shrieking at him. A responsible voice inside him grew worried. She was really, really wound up this time. The tiny voice said that he couldn't let her drive off like this. She'd hurt herself. Hurt someone.

  It was a zookeeper voice. The voice that knew you couldn't let the animals run wild, no matter what.

  She took a bathroom break, still yelling, and Bell took advantage of the opportunity to hide her car keys. Deep inside a box of stale Triscuits.

  Sure enough, when she emerged, she hunted for her keys.

  Lin was notoriously bad about where she laid her keys. They could be anywhere.

  She hunted.

  For ten, fifteen minutes, she looked everywhere. Everywhere she might rationally have put her keys. She stopped yelling about Bell and started quieting down.

  The quiet, Bell knew, was deceptive. It did not signal calm. Just quiet. Like a fire that gets into the walls, hidden, until someone opens a door.

  Bell realized he had made a mistake. She would keep looking forever, that was the problem. Sooner or later, he was going to have to tell her he'd hidden her keys. And she'd get worse. Get louder. The storm of the century.

  In some ways, he felt sorry for her. She was kind of crazy, really. More than kind of. Poor girl. But what a bitch. He almost said it aloud.

  In the end, she retreated to the bathroom again, and Bell put the keys in the silverware drawer. Silently, like a cat burglar.

  She came back out, and the silverware drawer was the third place she looked. She had already looked there. Several times. And she knew it. Bell knew she knew it.

  "You fucker,” she whispered, almost choking. Near tears.

  Remorse! He was no match for tears. He melted, moved toward her. He'd been protecting her.

  She whipped the keys at him, catching his left ear as he ducked.

  It was loud again for a while. Bell picked up the keys and opened the trailer door.

  Lin had grabbed her purse.

  "Give them here!" she screamed.

  Bell ignored her.

  He drove off, this time.

  He used up ten dollars of gasoline just driving
in circles. He enjoyed the waste. Enjoyed the drive. Talked to himself.

  When he circled back, at last, he found her shivering on the steps.

  She'd been locked out.

  It was a cold fall evening.

  Remorse, again.

  This was not fucking working.

  Mating is complicated.

  * * * *

  Mammals click.

  Personalities come together, and they click, sometimes. Other times they don't.

  The day after he and Lin un-clicked so badly—the day after he locked her out of the trailer—Bell and Cole sort of clicked.

  Bell couldn't have said what did it, exactly. He was on the roof of the walrus tank, watching the pinnipeds heave their awkward bulk across wet concrete.

  Cole climbed the ladder and joined him. In the enclosure below, two males bellowed at each other, bumped chests.

  The smaller male backed off, retreating to the tank, but the larger walrus followed. It slipped its hulking form into the water and was suddenly graceful. Like a different animal entirely.

  They stared together in silence until Cole said, simply “Well, Goddamn,” and they both cracked smiles.

  "Reminds me of my dad growing up,” Cole said. “Big and mean. Harder to get away from than you'd think."

  Bell cocked an eyebrow.

  "Oh, a real tough guy,” Cole continued. “Beat my ass until I got bigger than him.” Cole smiled war again.

  Bell was unsurprised when Cole showed him a silver flask and asked if he'd like a sip.

  And Bell had a sip. Just one.

  But it was enough to set the stage for a detour, after closing, to a nearby grill with a liquor license. Bell didn't feel like going home to Lin; and Cole didn't feel like going back to the halfway house. He wasn't due for an hour, yet.

  At the bar, Bell lit a cigarette and found himself talking about Lin. He told Cole all about the money problem, and the fight.

  Cole's blowtorch eyes burned as he listened. He looked terrifyingly wise, all of a sudden.

  After two beers, Bell found himself saying out loud the thing he could barely admit to himself, “I wish I'd stayed single, man. I really, really do."

  Just then, a woman wearing fifty pounds of makeup came in, clunked across the floor in square heels. Cole winked at her.

  She said something to the bartender and walked back out.

  Bell watched her go. The setting sun blazed straight in through the door as it wheezed shut. Bell winced and—too late—shaded his eyes. Momentarily blind, blinking, Bell groped for his beer.

  Into this momentary darkness, Cole said, “I crashed a helicopter, in case you wondered."

  Bell blinked. Cole's eyes became visible, twin coals.

  "Huh?"

  "I noticed you didn't ask about my hands. Or why I was in jail. You never ask nobody. It's actually pretty conspicuous, the way you don't ever ask how anyone came to community service. You just give ‘em some shit to do and mark down their hours."

  Bell must have looked troubled. Purple circles rotated in the dark, in his brain.

  "No, it's cool. It's cool you do people like that. Makes ‘em feel normal. But not asking the way you do, it's kinda obvious how bad you want to know, so I'm telling you. I wrecked a helicopter."

  Cole was right. Bell wanted to know. Wanted to know quite badly. Hadn't realized until this moment.

  "All right,” he said, by way of encouragement.

  It took fifteen minutes for Cole to tell about Brazil.

  He was a helicopter pilot, to begin with.

  First in the army, then for the president of a frozen chicken company, then for United Airlines, on contract with Canadian Railways, shuttling engineers from checkpoint to checkpoint. It was the kind of solitary work he enjoyed. The engineers were usually stone tired. Quiet.

  Then he'd crashed his United Airlines helicopter.

  The kind of thing that could happen to anyone; his tail rotor crapped out and he had to autorotate down from eight hundred feet, spinning and yawing with three cursing, pants-pissing passengers. Rolling sideways at the last second, landing sideways, splintering the rotor, rupturing the fuel tank.

  No deaths. The only serious injury was Cole, who remained behind until all three passengers were out and running, safe. Sustained burns over 25 percent of his body, including the splashy scar tissue on his left hand and wrist.

  Bell began to ask a question, but Cole anticipated him.

  "The other hand was something else,” he said. “Something later."

  United Airlines hadn't been cool about his benefits, and the hospital bankrupted him. Could barely afford the surgery that let him use his hands, let alone reconstruction or cosmetics.

  Which was why he started siphoning aircraft fuel. You could make a lot of money on the black market, selling aircraft fuel at half-price.

  A dangerous business, though. No honor among thieves and so on; someone turned him in, and a federal warrant came looking for him.

  The Feds called him while he was in the air. In Virginia, near the coast. On his way to Richmond for a pickup.

  "Put down at Richmond International,” the FBI told him.

  And Cole had flown out to sea, instead. How stupid did those bastards think a guy was?

  Stupid enough, he supposed, to get caught fencing felony amounts of helicopter fuel.

  Cole flew out to sea. Flew into the sea. If the feds wanted him, they were going to have to work for it.

  Bell must have looked at Cole's right hand.

  "The fuel tank ruptured when I hit the waves,” said Cole, draining his beer. “Set the water on fire. I could either surface and tread water in the burning fuel, or stay under and grow gills. Happened when I was twenty-seven. They gave me nine years."

  Bell did the age math, but before he could ask, Cole said, “Oh, I was in and out after that. Assault, mostly. The last one for a bar fight. Guy got his eye socket broken, and the judge gave me extra—those women judges, they're the worst. She said my anger gonna burn me up some day.” Cole smiled war again. “But that already happened, ain't it? Besides,” he said, and took a long swallow of his drink. “Not all that burns is consumed."

  He slammed the empty glass down on the table. “I gotta scoot. If they lock my ass out, I'm fucked."

  Very quickly, Cole was up and out the door. Bell turned and watched him go, and the sun hadn't quite set yet, and Bell's eyes got nailed a second time.

  Blind as a bat, Bell thought.

  Good zookeeper that he was, Bell knew bats weren't really blind, and he said so.

  "What?” called the bartender. Also, Bell thought, a zookeeper of sorts.

  "Bats aren't really blind,” Bell repeated.

  * * * *

  Never get drunk with the convicts, Bell lectured himself.

  It was a bad idea in so many ways. It was unprofessional. Besides, if you got to be drinking buddies with one of them, even going so far as to sip whiskey with him on top of the walrus tank—a firing violation by zoo rules—then what do you do afterward if the convict does something you should report him for? Something else.

  A week after the bar, Bell arrived at work and found Garland, the maintenance chief, waiting at the gate.

  "There's an issue,” said Garland.

  "An issue?"

  "With your friend. He's drunk."

  "Where?"

  "I have him shoveling the camel enclosure. Figured that would keep him out of the way until he sobered up a bit.” Garland paused. “Only I think he's a lot worse off than I thought."

  A headache came rumbling up on heavy treads. Bell sighed.

  Garland looked uneasy, too. It was bad news, Cole being drunk. Especially if Garland had noticed it and let him work anyway. It was like Watergate. A lot of people could wind up in trouble before this was over.

  "I thought I'd wait and see what you wanted to do,” said Garland as they walked uphill through the zoo. “I didn't want to make out a report if it was just ... well."

>   Bell understood. The old man was scary.

  Bell nodded. “I'll handle it."

  At the camel enclosure, Bell called out Cole's name and the old man approached, shovel in hand. He smelled like rum.

  "Yeah?” The question had an edge to it. Like Cole knew he was in trouble. For a moment, looking through the bars, Bell saw something aggressive in his eyes. Something leonine.

  Bell explained how it would go.

  Cole would drop the shovel.

  He would avoid speaking to anyone.

  He would leave by the back entrance. Now.

  "So I'm fucked,” Cole said.

  Bell shook his head. “You called in sick today is all. This never happened."

  He should be firing this guy, Bell knew. Why didn't he?

  He could see it now. He'd tell Cole to get the hell out and not come back, and Cole would go to Koverman and say Did you know I drank whiskey with Bell during work hours on top of the walrus tank?

  "I'm fucked,” Cole repeated. He swayed.

  Bell frowned. There was something that started out to be a long silence. Then Cole whispered, “I'm not going back to jail. I won't do it."

  Bell led him out. “Come back tomorrow,” he said. “Sober."

  * * * *

  It took exactly four weeks for the cocoons to hatch. There was a sound like electric lights going bad, and Bell stepped in the back room. He stared for a long time. The terrariums teamed with strange new life. Each glass box seemed to house a different creature entirely. Strange wasp-things, and things ... not like wasps. Things without names. Some larger, some smaller. Some with wings, some without. All were red and black.

  "Impossible,” he muttered. They couldn't all be the same species.

  His first instinct was to call the university. Then he remembered their note about mud daubers. Screw the university.

  Besides, instincts were for animals. He'd solve this on his own.

  * * * *

  He could figure it out, Bell was certain. He knew a lot about insects.

  He knew insects had been among the first living things to walk dry land; they'd seen the rise and fall of dinosaurs, the birth of flowering plants. Humans weren't the first species to farm, or to domesticate animals, or to war. Those milestones belonged to insects. When humanity began its clumsy, ongoing experiment in agriculture, the Attine ants of South America had already long since perfected it—cultivating vast fungus beds in underground chambers in their nests, seeding carefully tended gardens with the clones of a fungus that traced back more than thirty million years.