Fragment

12:05 P.M.

Nell led the presidential envoy past workstations where scientists monitored remote cameras.

One screen showed disk-ants rolling down trails; another glimpsed nasty-looking creatures seemingly attacking the camera.

Each monitor Pound looked at seemed to go dead on cue. The scientists observing them groaned as if they had come to expect it.

Pound turned to Dr. Cato. “I really must insis-”

“You may want to video this,” Nell said, patting Pound’s arm. “For the President.”

Persuaded by Nell’s persistence, Pound awkwardly placed a glossy white plastic headband camera over his head and extended the arm of its viewfinder, wondering where his promised cameraman was. He centered the third-eye-like lens on his forehead, then tapped the side, illuminating a green operating light under the viewfinder’s miniature screen.

Three large, vicious-looking yellow-and-black insects shot through a clear tube into the viewing theater.

“Japanese giant hornets,” Dr. Cato said, appreciatively.

“A hunting pack of thirty can slaughter an entire hive of thirty thousand honeybees in less than five hours,” Nell said.

“Their larvae feed them an energy-boosting amino acid that enables them to fly twenty-five miles per hour for sixty miles,” Dr. Cato added.

“Whoa,” Pound said.

“Watch closely, Mr. Pound.” Dr. Cato pointed at the chamber to make sure the envoy didn’t miss it. “A single Japanese giant hornet can kill forty bees a minute. They chop them to pieces with their mandibles. Scouts spray a pheromone to mark their prey. Then they attack as a pack.”

“Their stingers pump venom so powerful it dissolves human flesh,” Nell said. “They kill about forty people a year in Japan.”

“We’ve been upping the stakes lately.” Dr. Cato chuckled.

“Christ! I’ve never even heard of them.” Pound’s eyes were glued to the specimen chamber.

Nell glanced at Dr. Cato. “OK, Steve, let in the Henders wasps.”

High-speed cameras whirred as their motors revved up and locked on two five-inch-long Henders “wasps” that emerged from a tube and hovered vertically on five transparent wings.

Their dragonfly-like abdomens swung forward as they tackled the Japanese hornets in midair.

With their ten double-jointed jackknifelike legs, the Henders wasps ruthlessly sliced the hornets into pieces that fell to the ground still moving.

As the ring of eyes on their “heads” kept watch, the wasps landed on five legs. They dipped their tails to devour the sliced bits with five-jawed maws.

“Yuck,” the Presidential envoy said. “They eat with their butts?”

“They have two brains, Mr. Pound,” Dr. Cato said grimly.

“Like many of the creatures we’ve studied here,” Nell said.

Pound looked confused.

“Is this how every experiment has gone so far, Nell?” Dr. Cato asked quietly.

Henders Wasp

Pentapterus tomobranchiophorus

(and Japanese Giant Hornets, Vespa mandarinia)

(after Wirth et al, Annals of the La Jolla Natural History Museum, vol. 47: 1-112)

Nell nodded, sharing a worried look with him.

Pound fiddled with a knob on his headcam.

“Henders species,” Nell continued, “have not only matched every common species we’ve tested, Mr. Pound-they’ve completely annihilated them.”

The envoy shrugged. “Sounds like we’re talking about a bunch of bugs. Why can’t we just spray a little DDT and be done with it?”

“We’re talking about a lot more than bugs, Mr. Pound,” Nell sighed.

“There are creatures here bigger than tigers, according to Nell,” Dr. Cato said.

“Spigers, I call them, Mr. Pound,” she said. “Eight-legged creatures at least three times the size of tigers.”

“Ham,” Pound said, feeling lightheaded. “Call me Ham, please. Why can’t we see some of those? Spigers? That’s what I really need to see!”

The Trident’s sequestered crew played checkers and sat around the decks, utterly bored. Nineteen days of looking at a beach they could not set foot on was mixing an explosive cocktail of anger, fear, and insanity.

At night, they could see the spy satellites watching them, slowly crossing each other’s paths in a precise and perpetual changing of the guard overhead, like the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Cynthea, Captain Sol, and First Mate Warburton stood on the prow of the Trident. They watched the roaring Osprey pass over the inlet in which they were anchored.

“There he goes,” Warburton exclaimed. “Lucky bastard!” Captain Sol shook his head. “I don’t envy him.” Cynthea peered through her opera glasses at the helicopter carrying the rover until it had disappeared behind the island’s cliff. “Come on, Zero!” she urged, squeezing a crimson-nailed fist. “If you come through for me, you are my lord and master for all eternity, baby!”

Captain Sol and Warburton exchanged wide-eyed looks.