Slither - Edward Lee [76]
Nora wasn't laughing. "Plus motile ova, plus chitinpenetrating digestive enzymes." She didn't say anything more, but jacked the microscope to its full 400x magnification. "Damn, what I wouldn't give for an SEM, or even just a scope that cranked to a thousand or fifteen hundred."
"Tell me about it."
Nora went silent again, then slid the scope back to Loren. "Tell me what you see."
Loren looked. "Muscular symmetry that looks both radial and spiral," he declared.
They both sat a minute, saying nothing. Only experts of their kind knew the ramifications. "This can only mean its motile ova are bifunctional. A mutator. Like-"
"Like a fair share of Trichinosis species. And if we're right, then these things can easily infect humans ... I'm going to check the midlevel striations now." He cut some more, then said, "My hands are full. Get something to gently raise the stage clip, will you?"
The kit lay on the other side of Loren, so Nora looked around for a pen or something small to lift the clip. Damn ... There was nothing near her. She slipped her finger in the key pocket of her swimsuit, but the only thing in it was that small, corded metal strip she'd found the other day. This'll have to do, she thought, and used it to raise the stage clip.
"What's that thing?" Loren asked, obviously seeing it under magnification.
"Something I stepped on in the woods. Not sure what it is. Trent said he thinks it's a calibration tool for an old army radio."
"It's got some funny markings on it," Loren told her. "Okay, thanks. Lower the clip now."
Funny markings? She took the metal strip away and decided to look at it under the other microscope. "You're right," she said, focusing. "What are those markings?"
"They're raised, like Braille almost," Loren said back while still concentrating on the next incision. "Reminded me more of a bar code or something. Trent said it was a radio tool?"
"Yeah. But he wasn't certain."
"Looks more like a key to me."
"That's what I thought too," she murmured, and looked more closely at the object beneath the magnifier.
The markings looked like this:
"Forget about that thing," Loren said next. "I just found the stomach process and the enzymatic sac."
"Did you puncture it?"
"Yeah, and guess what? The fluid is sizzling. It's even smoking a little."
The chitin penetrator," Nora said.
Then Loren said, "Holy shit. It's not burning the glass slide, but the stuff melted the tip of my probe."
"Is the probe tip made of resin?"
"No. Stainless steel."
"Strong stuff," Nora commented. But this wasn't terribly surprising. There were a number of invertebrates that possessed highly corrosive stomach enzymes: to burn through the shells of animals they were attacking, and to even burn burrows into coral. "Remember that article we read about the Norwegian lugworm? It released its enzymes all at once and burned a hole through the aquarium's slate floor."
"Yeah, slate, but not steel. This is really tough stuff, Nora."
She could see threads of smoke rising up from Loren's microscope slide. "Can you drip some onto the floor?"
With larger forceps, he kept the dead worm crimped to the slide, then lifted it all off the stage. Careful not to dribble any on his fingers, he tipped the slide. Several drops of the brownish fluid plipped onto the concrete floor.
Threads of smoke began to rise.
"Jesus," Nora said. She grabbed another probe and ran it across the smoking drops. "This stuff is really tough. It's burned some small indentations into the cement."
"We'll have to be very careful getting some more of these things to take back to the college," Loren said.
"I wonder what the preferred habitat is. Water or land?"
"Probably water. Something that gets this big isn't going to settle for beetles and bugs to eat. It'll go after larger crustaceans, the bigger meal ticket."
Like the lobster, she recalled. "When you're out looking for more bristleworms with Annabelle, keep an eye out for more of these. It'd be great to get some live ones to take back."
"I'll find some." Loren