Fragment

12:33 P.M.

The rumble of the rover vibrated the rock and sand, waking the hives.

The low-frequency vibrations triggered pheromone signals inside the purple honeycombed towers that lined the flat bottom of the ravine.

The pheromones stimulated hundreds of drones.

Budlike panels under the drones’ heads popped open. Three translucent wings expanded like blue flowers.

The fanged lamprey-mouths flexed on their abdomens, ready to latch onto passing prey to suck its blood and feed their colonies.

The towering hives were the nurseries of drill-worms. These half-worms were their juvenile form. When they matured, the vampire drones would double in size by growing a new segment shaped like a drill bit with three legs and a second brain and mouth. Then they would leave the hive to hunt in the jungle, drilling through the hard sheaths of the trees.

A mature drill-worm bitten in half could regenerate its other half. Either segment could mate and give birth to polyplike eggs- eggs that multiplied into new hives that budded vampire drones.

The XATV-9 throttled forward across the canyon’s flat bottom, which cut directly across the island’s arid core.

The men observed a gallery of urchinlike cacti, yuccalike trees, and bloated purple towers lining the canyon walls to either side of the rover. The towers reminded Zero of termite mounds or pillar coral.

The driver turned on the outboard mikes again and as the rover passed the men inside heard the sibilant buzz of the purple hives coming to life. Blue swarms emerged, attacking the rover’s windows then retreating to their hives.

The silent men gazed through the rover’s windows down the lush green slope on the far side of the island’s core. The lake in the distance lay still and dark inside the outer ring of the jungle.

“There it is.” Quentin pointed over the driver’s shoulder as they roared down to the green plain at sixty miles an hour, headed straight for the lake.

The rover braked abruptly and stopped at the water’s edge.

A hundred yards to their left rose the outer ring of the jungle, rimming the far side of the lake.

Only thirty feet to their right, an isolated cluster of three tall trees rose on the shore. Two of the three trunks split into three branches, each of which bore crowns of long fronds covered with green clover. Like a broken umbrella, the tallest tree pointed five splaying fronds up into the air. Chains of red berries dangled under the fronds of all three trees, twitching and coiling as they caught bugs lured by the fruit.

“We should not stop,” said Zero.

“We’re safe, don’t worry,” said the driver.

Radio static burst from the speakers, and they heard Briggs’s voice: “We’re evacuating StatLab. Repeat, we are evacuating StatLab! Return-base-”

Then they could hear Nell’s voice over the breaking signal. “We’re los-transmission signal. The com-array-choked-tation- over?”

“Oh great,” Quentin groaned.

“The clover must be eating StatLab’s dish.” Andy turned pale.

Pound frowned. “Are we in danger here, if we can’t go back to the lab?”

The driver shook his head. “We’ll just radio Enterprise. She’ll send a transport. They’ll hook on and take us home.”

“How can they take this thing back to a ship?” Zero asked. “Who knows what’s stuck to it now?”

“They’ll take us to the Philippine Sea,”the driver said.

“They’ll sterilize and quarantine it there,” Quentin said.

“Don’t worry,” the driver said. “They’ll hose this thing down with chlorine dioxide, formaldehyde-hell, the Navy’ll probably scuttle the whole damn ship when this is over, just to be on the safe side. They’re plenty paranoid.”

Pound grabbed the radio mike. “StatLab, proceed with evacuation. We’ll catch our own ride home.”

They heard Briggs’s voice over the radio: “Can’t-Over?”

Pound shouted into the radio. “We’ll get our own ride home, StatLab. Copy?”