he heard seemed to please him. He looked around as the sec men’s boots hammered
on the steps above and the guy reentered the room. He was holding a tall
drinking glass. Strasser nodded to Kelber, who took the glass, then carefully
opened the box. He tipped the contents into the glass. From where he stood Ryan
saw a flutter of something small and dark, heard a faint clatter as whatever it
was hit the bottom of the glass. Strasser took the glass and gazed at it
critically, holding it up to the naked light set into the ceiling above him. A
satisfied smile slithered across his face. He turned to Ryan and stepped toward
him, still holding the glass up. Ryan caught a flicker of frenzied movement at
the bottom.
“Fascinating insect mutie,” he said. “Some kind of cross between a borer beetle
and a termite. Much the same, I suppose, but this little beauty has certain
characteristics you don’t find in either.”
Ryan stared at the glass. The thing was bigger than he’d thought, maybe as big
as a human thumb, streamlined. He saw a black and shiny carapaced back, and four
horned antennae quivering at the front. The insect scrabbled around in the
glass, its six legs slipping on the smooth surface. It stopped suddenly, facing
him. He peered closer, aware that the nearest guard had thrust the barrel of his
M-16 almost to his left temple. He saw that the labrum flap over the insect’s
mouth hardly concealed mandibles that seemed grotesquely out of proportion to
its size: huge sickle-shaped tusks, almost like horns. The compound eyes, small
though they were, seemed to glitter in the light, their honeycomb of lenses
directed at him.
The insect was quivering gently. Ryan couldn’t get it out of his mind that he
was being studied, noted, categorized. It turned suddenly, rushed at the
opposite side of the glass, launched itself at the transparent walls of its
prison. And fell back, its legs waving wildly. It landed on its shiny back,
rolled on the instant, and became mobile once more.
“Ugly little brute,” murmured Strasser, taking the glass away and staring at it
affectionately. “But… fascinating. Doesn’t like wood at all. Meat eater. But it
doesn’t like dead meat, Ryan. Fastidious. Likes its food in the hoof, you might
say. But the really curious thing is it seems to have a positive yen for human
flesh. We discovered this quite by chance when we popped one into the mouth of
someone who had… displeased me. The insect ate its way out of the stomach. Right
through the entrails. You probably noted its somewhat overlarge mandibles.
Remarkable, don’t you think?”
With a yell Ryan flung himself at the gaunt man, his hands outstretched to claw
and tear and rend at whatever he could grasp.
And the world blazed up in a brilliant flash of light that seared his eye,
exploded through his head, fierce agony lancing through his brain. He reeled,
smashed to the concrete floor by the M-16 barrel rammed into the side of his
head.
Something heavy landed on him. He sought to fling it off but a booted foot
slammed into his head and more pain flooded through him, slashing at his nerve
ends. He found that his arms were suddenly twisted behind him, his legs held to
the floor under some heavy weight. Through a haze of pain and fury and disgust
he heard Strasser’s voice.
“Take the gag out of her mouth and stuff it into Ryan’s.”
His head was wrenched back by the hair and he tried to grit his teeth together
but someone pinched his nostrils tight and involuntarily he gasped open his
mouth. The gag filled it and he dry-heaved, his senses screaming that he had to
have air. He could hear snorted squealing sounds and could only suppose they
emanated from him. The fingers unclasped.
His head throbbed agonizingly. It was as if someone plunged a knife rhythmically
and repeatedly into the soft core of his brain. Suddenly he was lurching
forward, being shoved and dragged toward the wooden block until he was staring
wildly, frantically, up into the rear of the girl.