Minutes to Burn (2001) (32 page)

Having sat on her shoulder in the hot sun all day, the solar cell was fully charged. Szabla removed it from her shoulder, the Velcro giving with a tear, and snapped it into a clunky, olive-drab elbow light. They'd brought only non-tactical lights; despite its interchangeable lenses, the unit gave a broad, bright signature.

Tilting back her head, she let the rain fall into her mouth. Her cam-mies and tank top were molded against the curves of her body. She was as wet as if she'd just stepped out of a shower, the rainwater pouring over her face, drenching her hair, even pooling in her jungle boots.

She flipped the light and caught it by the end. The sound of the rain was soothing and ineffably exciting. She was oddly aware of each muscle in her body--the ripples of her stomach, the solid curve of her thighs, the divot that split her deltoid when she raised her arm. She jerked her neck to one side, and it cracked all the way from the base. The wet tank top clung to her chest, forced out by the points of her nipples.

She thought about Savage's body, hard and untan. The thin patch of hair across his chest. She'd caught him looking at her a few times, staring at her mouth until she could almost feel it growing hot under his eyes. She bent her head to the top of her biceps, licking the beads of water.

They were salty with the ocean mist, even up here in the highlands. She lowered a hand, pressing it down the slope of her stomach.

She rose suddenly and walked to Savage's tent, ducking inside. He was sleeping peacefully on his Therm-a-Rest. Szabla pulled her shirt over her head, quietly removed her boots, and then stepped out of her pants, one leg, then the other.

Savage's eyes remained closed, his breathing constant.

She crossed naked to the sleeping pad and sealed his mouth, pressing her palm firmly over it. He struggled awake, one hand shooting to his knife like a reflex, but she was already working at his pants and had him out. He was hard from sleep.

His eyes widened as he recognized her, and he froze, blade pushing against the soft flesh of her bruised neck. She sat on him with a shudder, arching her back. She saw herself from far away, her knees pushing into the pad on either side of him, her hand clamped down over his lips, her teeth biting the inside of her cheek. She worked on him quickly, vio-lently, the blade against her throat, her hand pressed over his mouth the entire time.

He was pinned down so tight he couldn't even react to her move-ments, but she felt him building as she came, biting even harder on her cheek as her hips rotated with a mind all their own.

She pulled herself up off him, her throat leaving the blade, and he gasped for air when she removed her hand. His pants loose at his hips, hand still stretched upward holding the blade, he looked around as if trying to figure out where he was, what had happened. She got dressed with her back to him, then turned calmly, amused by his shocked expression. A thin scratch, beaded with two tiny drops of blood, stretched across her throat where the knife had been.

"Thanks, soldier," she said, not untenderly. She ducked through the flap and disappeared into the rain.

Chapter
39

Cameron
shot from sleep, her body drenched with sweat. She ran from her tent, awash in nausea. Derek called after her, but she did-n't stop until she was clear of base camp, falling, her knees pressing in the dewy grass, and then she was heaving, hard and heavy, bringing nothing up.

Derek was two steps out of the tent when Justin passed him, running for his wife. Szabla poked her head through the flap behind Justin. "What the fuck's going on?" she shouted.

Justin caught up to Cameron, crouching before her. He rested a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

"I'm fine," she said. Between gasps, she wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of dirt across her chin. Sweat darkened her blond hair along the temples.

The others were out of their tents now a good distance behind them, mulling around and glancing over at them. Diego had set up the radio again and was clicking his way through an SOS.

"Morning sickness?" Justin asked.

The grass felt slick and cool beneath her hands. "Where am I without this?"

"Without what?"

She gestured blindly behind her at the base camp. "I never realized how much I need it," she said. "Orders, mission objectives, chain of command. Heat-'n-Serve priorities. They keep things simple. You do your job, and that's all you have to focus on. No mess." She pushed her-self back into a sitting position and spit out a gob of saliva. Justin waited for her to catch her breath.

"The teams have always kept things neat for me. Kept them in control. Locked away behind a starched uniform." She laughed, a short stutter that died quickly away. Off behind them, she could hear Tank taking a leak against a tree. "I'm an adult, and I hardly know how to think for myself."

Justin rested a hand on her cheek and she let him.

When she spoke again, her voice was soft with fear. "How can I have a baby if I don't even know how to think for myself?" She shook her head. "I can't. I can't have this baby."

Justin brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away.

"Doesn't this upset you?" she asked, her eyes fierce and daring.

Justin swallowed hard. "Only one thing upsets me."

"What's that?" Cameron said.

He rose, letting his hands slap to his thighs. "That you never asked what I wanted."

Chapter
40

The
larva made its way through the thick vegetation, pulsing along with ripples of its abdominal segments. Its remarkable head pivoted slowly from side to side, its large, round eyes taking in the surroundings.

The larva had fared well in its brief time in the forest, surrounded by an inexhaustible supply of vegetation. The previous day, it had acciden-tally felled a large Scalesia after eating its way through the base, but it had escaped unharmed. Remaining close to the ootheca had proved advanta-geous, as its fellow broodmates had spread out rather than remaining nearby and competing for food.

Overlying the epidermis and basement membrane beneath, the larva's cuticle was beginning to flake where it scraped the ground. Its cuticle was loose all around so that it shifted within it when it moved.

The larva was growing. It would soon molt.

The cuticle split behind its head, and it began to wriggle forward. The small hooks on its prolegs anchored to the substrate to keep the cuticle from moving with it. The larva continued to struggle forward, stretching against its own skin and gulping air, broadening itself. The split in the cuticle widened, and the larva pulled itself through the top of its old body, its tiny true legs scrabbling on the ground. Its new exoskeleton was an even more vibrant green.

The new skin was wet and tender. It had not yet hardened, nor had the muscles firmly attached to it. It needed to remain immobile until its new cuticle hardened.

The larva tensed at the quiet scrape nearby. Limbs stiff with age, the feral dog broke from his hiding place in a patch of ferns, lunging at the larva. The larva curled into a protective ball, but not before the dog's mouth closed over its head, its teeth piercing the top of its thorax. The dog swung his head once and the small green body flapped in his mouth like a doll, rotating under the captive head with a sickly crunch.

Drawing his kill up in a bunch between his legs, the dog slid to his belly and began gnawing on the larva's rich tissue. As he worked his way through the head, the dog bit into the larva's mandible. The pointed end pierced the dog's gums, coming free from the head, and he let out a series of yelps.

Backing up and shaking his head, the dog thrashed until the mandible fell to the forest floor. He mouthed the larva, pulling it away through the underbrush. The larva's abdominal segments dragged on the ground behind it, kicking up a trail of rocks and dirt.

"What in the Jesus Fuck was that?" Justin whispered to Szabla, the dog's yelps vibrating in his ears.

Szabla held up a hand to quiet him. Aside from the usual sounds, the forest was silent. "Dog," she said. "Sounded like."

Justin raised the canteen and shook it, allowing the last few drops to fall into his waiting mouth. They'd been surveying the forest for the bet-ter part of the morning. Since Rex had headed off with Derek and Cameron to set the third GPS unit near the lagoon, he'd charged Justin and Szabla with locating suitable bedrock within the forest.

The forest had a freshness from yesterday's rain. In the cups of leaves, nooks of logs, and footprints in the mud, the rainwater pooled in twin-kling disks. The air was hot and humid, scented so sharply Szabla could taste it in the back of her throat.

Justin moved in the direction of the yelps, thin branches bowing out of his way. Szabla hooked his shoulder with a hand, pulling him to a stop. "I'll take point," she said.

She passed him and started ahead. She couldn't help looking around in wonder at the varied flora--mint with purple flowers, vines with leathery leaves, the occasional white orchid flowering from a Scalesia trunk. A brown finch wove through the tree trunks, making a soft shushing call. Justin imitated it, turning to watch it disappear.

Szabla stopped when they reached an area where the forest floor was disturbed, leaves and dirt kicked up in a recent struggle of some sort. She sniffed the air. "Something smell funny to you?"

"Well, I wasn't gonna say anything, but--"

She cut him off quickly. "Kates. For once in your life be serious."

Justin looked at her sheepishly. "It was such a good setup, though."

Tilting back her head, Szabla inhaled, flaring her nostrils. Justin wrin-kled his nose at the odor. "Something is rotten in the state of Sangre de Dios," he said.

Szabla noticed the shiny stock of the mandible hidden among a mat of decomposing leaves. She picked it up, holding it out in a shaft of light that broke through the canopy. "Looks like a mandible," she said. "From another larva."

Justin stepped forward into a patch of ferns, and one of his legs shot out from under him. There was a whispering sound and then he was gone. Into thin air.

Szabla stood dumbfounded, staring at the ferns and fallen leaves woven together on the forest floor. She approached them slowly, reaching out a boot to test the ground.

Justin's laugh scared her half to death; it was deep, resonant. "I gave the Lion his courage, the Tin Man a heart, but what would you like, dearie?" his voice bellowed, echoing within the ground. "A new set of dumbbells?"

Szabla yanked back her leg, almost falling over. "Justin, knock it off." Her voice was less stable than she would have liked. "Where the fuck are you?"

"I don't know," his voice boomed. "In some kind of cave. I would get up and look around, but I kind of landed on my head."

Szabla swept back the ferns, revealing the gaping entrance to the lava tube, which sloped gently down into a horizontal shaft. Justin blinked against the light. He had only rolled in a few feet. He glanced up, then shot to his feet, scrambling toward the entrance.

The ootheca pulsed on the roof of the lava tube, strung along the thick Scalesia root just above where Justin's head had been. The remaining closed chamber was writhing, wiggling the rest of the mighty egg sac. The cords that had lowered the other larvae were shriveled up; it looked as if the ootheca had sprouted curled wood shavings.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Szabla asked.

"A quiche. Why don't you try it?"

"You scrambled out of there pretty fast for a goddamn quiche."

"Well, you know. The whole 'real men' bit." Justin grimaced. "Looks like we found our larva's happy home."

Szabla started for the ootheca, then thought better of it. "Jesus," she said. "Each of these chambers is bigger than a human womb." She took one last look before ducking back out through the ferns, swearing softly to herself.

With annoyance, Savage watched Tucker pace around the fire pit.

"So why aren't they back?" Tucker checked his clunky Iron Man watch again. "Over twenty minutes past muster, and Justin and Szabla are never late."

Suntan lotion smeared thickly across their burnt faces and necks, the other soldiers stood, even as they dug into their MREs. A few dark clouds had begun to gather. Though they cut some of the glare, they did nothing to stifle the heat. Tank did a deep knee bend and grimaced. Straightening up, he bit his lip, wincing through obvious pain.

Diego had set the larva loose on the mound of firewood. It was con-tentedly working its way through a fresh Scalesia branch that was still weeping from the severed end. It stopped its mastications from time to time to track the movement around it. Rex refilled the hurricane lamps from the sole white-fuel bottle, holding the cap in his mouth.

Tucker stood up and paced abbreviated circles. "Relax," Cameron said through a mouthful of cookie bar. She bent back her front pants pocket and glanced at the digital clock face sewn into the cloth. "It's fine.

They probably stumbled across something."

"Like a complete set of Russell Wright dinnerware?" Rex asked.

"Why aren't you more worried about it?" Tucker said. "You are his wife."