I shook my head. The floor of the corral was seething. The creatures were oblivious to each other. They raced back and forth across the dirt or curled into balls. They climbed over each other's bodies or just stood and twitched nervously. Or they explored the periphery-several of them were chewing methodically at the walls.
"Look, they're escaping," I said. Larry shook his head. "Watch."
I did so. One of the largest of the millipedes, nearly a meter long, seemed just on the verge of breaking through. He was almost directly under me and chewing with a vengeance; the sound was a sticky, vicious kind of crunching, like sizzling fat or grinding light bulbs. Abruptly he stopped and backed away. He waved his feelers about in confusion, then began to wander aimlessly-until he came to another section of wall. He tested it cautiously. After a moment, he began chewing again, though not as industriously as before.
"What happened?" I asked.
Larry pointed. "He broke through."
I looked closer. Where the millipede had been chewing was a tiny black hole. A dark, pitchy substance was oozing out of it. "This is a double wall," said Larry. "The inside is filled with something they don't like."
I nodded silently. Elsewhere around the edges, other millipedes were repeating the performance of the first one, and there were numerous other holes with hardened plugs of the same dried, pitchy substance to testify to the millipedes' persistence.
"I didn't know centipedes grew so big," said Larry.
"They don't," I answered, suddenly remembering something from my plague-aborted course in entomology. "And they don't have four antennae either. Their mouths aren't shaped like miniature garbage disposals, their eyes aren't so large and they aren't herbivorous-they shouldn't be eating those walls at all. These aren't millipedes."
Larry shrugged. "Well, if they're not, they'll do until the real thing comes along."
"I don't know what these are," I said. "I've never seen anything that even resembles them before. Real millipedes don't have as many legs or body sections. Look how they're segmented-and what are those humps behind the eyes? And what are they doing here?" I indicated the enclosure.
"Isn't it obvious? This is the Chtorran larder. They like their food fresh. They keep it in this corral until they're hungry. Look." He pointed again. "See that? Somebody was having a snack earlier.
I saw a pile of discarded shells and disjointed body sections. I repressed a shudder-these millipedes were nothing more than food for Chtorrans. They were live lunch from the planet Chtorr!
"Hey! These things are extraterrestrial too! The Chtorrans brought them! I've got to catch one!"
He stared at me. "Are you crazy-? Those things might be man-eaters."
"I doubt it," I said. "If they were, they wouldn't be chewing on wood." It sounded good to me.
"They might be poisonous-"
I shook my head again. "Herbivorous creatures never are; they don't need it."
"How do you know they're only herbivorous? They might have a taste for meat as well."
That made me pause-but not for long. "There's only one way to find out. Help me down."
He set his jaw stubbornly. "No."
"Larry," I said, "this is every bit as important as burning worms. Anything we can find out about them will help us destroy them."
"I'm not going to help you get killed."
"Then I'll do it myself-" I took a step upward on the ramp; another one and I was beyond the wall; a third and it began to teeter precariously. Larry took a step back down to stop it.
"Look," I said to him, "somebody's got to do it."
He didn't answer, just took another step downward to counterbalance my weight. I stared at him until he looked away. I took another step up. One more and the ramp began to lower slowly on my side. I took another step and the rate of swing increased.
Larry started to move-too slowly. He said a word and gave up. He adjusted his position to keep the ramp from moving too fast. "Okay," he growled, "but if you get your legs chewed off, don't come running to me."
I grinned. "Thanks,"-then had to grab suddenly to keep from toppling off. The ramp kept swinging-Larry rose above me unhappily-till my end touched ground near the center of the corral with a thump. I found myself balanced in an awkward position and had to scramble around in order to climb down more easily-or up, if I had to. I looked down warily. A couple of the millipedes had already begun inspecting the foot of the ladder, and one of them had even begun to chew on it. But so far, none of them had made any attempt to climb out. If anything, most were moving away from it. Had they learned already to associate the lowering of the ramp with predatory Chtorrans? It seemed likely.
I swallowed and began climbing down. About a foot above the ground, I paused. I held my leg out carefully to see if they would jump or snap at it. One of them rose halfway up as if to sniff, but almost immediately lost interest. I waved my foot above another. He rose up too, and even grabbed hold; I flinched, but held still and waited as he flicked his antennae back and forth across the toe of my boot. After a second, he lost interest too and dropped away. I managed a weak grin and lowered my foot to the ground. "Well, that's one more giant step for mankind." I was breathing a little easier.
The millipedes showed no alarm at my presence. If one did come in contact with my shoes, he either turned away or climbed over them as if I were just one more bump in the landscape. Mostly, they ignored me.
I wondered if it would be safe to pick one of them up with my bare hands, or even with my gloves on. I poked one of the creatures with the tip of the torch and immediately it curled into a ball, showing only its shiny black shell. Okay, so maybe that established they were cowards, but they still had mouths like miniature scrap-metal processors-you know, the kind that can reduce a new Cadillac cruiser into assorted pellets of steel and plastic, none larger than an inch across. I decided to play it safe.
That was when I found out how ill-equipped my sample pouch really was. I didn't have anything to carry them in. A plastic bag? Uh uh, they could go through that in seconds; a creature that can chew its way through wood foam and wood chips isn't going to be stopped by anything less. I wished I'd had the foresight to bring some wire-based netting. Should I risk my canvas pouch? It didn't seem a good idea. I had no guarantee that a captured millipede would stay politely curled up all the way back to base or until I could find a proper cage for it.
I wondered-I was wearing a polymer-asbestoid liner between myself and the torch harness, also a shock vest. The vest alone should be enough-at least I hoped it would-so I began shrugging out of the tanks again.
"Hey!" called Larry. "What the hell are you doing?" "Taking a shower," I called back. Then, "Relax. I know what I'm doing."
He scowled doubtfully, but shut up and looked unhappy. I took off the liner and dropped it to the ground, then I pulled the tanks back on. Two of the millipedes explored the plastic-looking shirt without much curiosity, then wandered away. Good. I hoped that meant they'd found it inedible.
Quickly, I poked the three nearest specimens with the nozzle of the torch. They curled up obediently. I rolled them onto the asbestoid cloth, made a sack out of it and tied it at the top by looping the sleeves around and tying them in a hasty knot. My pouch was beginning to bulge like the belly of a pregnant hippo -and I must have looked every bit as proud. As a sample-collecting trip, this was turning into quite a bonanza. First the eggs; now the millipedes. For good measure, I added a piece of the enclosure wall and some of the pitchy substance that filled it, also a few of the discarded shells and body sections from the recent Chtorran snack.
Larry was visibly relieved when I began climbing out. I think the idea of a man going willingly into a Chtorran larder-even if only to look around-was too much for him. He waited until I was almost to the top and then shifted his weight to seesaw the ramp up from the center and down on the outside.