We dealt with it. Manoeuvre 23, specifically for the elgort. We lured the crazed beast to a tall strong hardwood tree. That’s the most dangerous part, luring it in. We had to climb very, very fast as soon as it smelt us. Once in the tree, as it reared up below, trying to snatch us down with its tooth-filled trunk (a terrible sight in itself), Morituri36 dropped a bursting seed (which I had picked this afternoon, thank goodness) into its maw.
BLAM! Its entire head exploded. We now have meat for many days.
Elgort meat doesn’t need salt to preserve it and it’s naturally spicy; some say this is due to the creature’s anger and intensity in life.
We thank Joukoujou and the Invisible forces for giving us the skill to protect ourselves. Unfortunately, The Forces of the Soil also protected the elgort from whatever creature is stalking us.
ENTRY 7 (21.34 hours)
Today was all pain. In my back and lower belly. The stretching of ligaments. My belly feels like a great calabash of water. This baby will come soon. Really soon. I hope we find the plant first. The trees here are spaced apart, allowing the sun to shine down, so Morituri36 had a good day. He carried both our packs and even prepared breakfast and lunch—mangoes, roasted tree clams, elgort meat, figs and root tea both times. It is days like this where I remember why I married him.
It is night now and we are in a large but low tree with one wide branch to hold us both. We can see the sky. It’s been a long time since we had a night like this. I think the last time was the day that our child was conceived. Not long afterwards was when he started coming down with the junglemyelitis. His ailment will pass; he’s a strong man.
My gut tells me this is the calm before the storm. But maybe I’m just being melodramatic.
ENTRY 8 (04.39 hours)
Dragonflies! Swarms of them. BushBaby42 described these just before she found the plant. We’re close. But the creature is still on our trail. This morning, it left its muddy, smelly droppings right at the foot of the tree as if it wanted us to step right into it. I almost did. It was covered with flies and the mound smelt like the vomit of demons. It was so strong that I nearly fainted with nausea. Morituri36 had to carry me away from the mess. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
Cursed beast, whatever it is. No matter how we try to glimpse it at night, it keeps out of sight as it blasts its angry flowery scent. Biding its time, I suspect. But when the fight comes, it will be shocked when, instead of running, we turn to meet it. We haven’t survived the jungle solely because of luck.
But Morituri36 needs to remember that he is a human being, and that I am a human being, too. When he gets into his moods, he speaks to me as if I’m a piece of meat. As if I’m lower than his servant. He speaks to me the way the Ooni chief speaks to his wives. How dare he? I am carrying our child. I have done as much work as he has. And, junglemyelitis or not, we are in this together. There is no need for insult.
“It dies well beforehand!” he snapped at me earlier today as we inspected a morta. We’d caught it this morning. A morta is a beautiful red bird with a long thin beak. When it dies, its dead body keeps flying aimlessly for days. Strange creatures but not the strangest in the jungle. Morituri36 seemed to think that their carcasses also rotted as they flew.
“Look at it,” I calmly said, despite my rising anger at his tone. The dead morta was still trying to flap its wings. “This is the fifth one we’ve caught! No rot anywhere!”
He just huffed and puffed the way he always does when he knows I’m right. The entry someone uploaded to the field guide was simply wrong and needed to be changed. The fact is that mortas probably don’t fly for that long after they die. Maybe a few hours and that’s it. Certainly not days. If it were days, it would be infested with rot and maggots. But that wasn’t what I wanted to find out most about the morta. I wanted to know what made it fly as a dead creature. Morituri36 and I agreed it had to be some sort of parasite with strange faculties. We just needed to run some tests.
But he wasn’t so interested in answers today. He threw the bird corpse to the ground. “It is because it is freshly dead,” he muttered. “Stupid, stupid woman.” Immediately, the dead bird hopped up and took off. I cursed, watching it go, wondering what microscopic organisms were working the bird’s muscles and how intelligent they could be to do so. They were obviously using the morta carcass to search for food or a special place to procreate.
I wanted to slap Morituri36. How many pockets of information have we lost because of his temper? He and I are south westerners, the people of beads. Amongst our people, we say, “Many beads protect the thread.” He knows this kind of behaviour will not get him far. Maybe one day I’ll push him out of one of the extra high trees he forces us to sleep in every night.
We didn’t talk to each other for hours. Then we started seeing millions of dragonflies.
The land was still spongy and muddy. There were large pools of standing water. The air smelt like wet leaves, stagnant water and spawn. An ancient CPU plant would thrive in a place like this.
The dragonflies must have loved this place, too, but the huge swarms were because of the plant. CPU plants send out strong sine waves. These types of dragonflies are attracted to the electromagnetic waves like moths, mosquitoes, suck bugs and butterflies are to light.
We’d always been plagued by a few of these sine-wave-drinking dragonflies because of the portable we use to type in and upload information (including this audio journal) to the field guide node. Our portable is powerful. Even hundreds of miles from civilisation, we can access the network and communicate with other explorers who wish to communicate. But there is a downside to everything. Large dragonflies zooming around our heads is one of them. The sine waves intoxicate them.
Usually, there are only two or three plaguing us. Now it’s about twenty. They’re like flying jewels, emerald-green, rock-stone blue, blood-red. A few of them are of the species that glow blue-purple. But none of them stays long. They zoom about our heads for a few minutes and then zip off, replaced by another curious dragonfly. Something bigger is attracting them, of course. I can’t wait to see it. We don’t even need BushBaby42’s co-ordinates anymore. Just follow the dragonflies. I hope BushBaby42 is okay.
Field Guide Entry (uploaded at 04:08 hours)
Morta:
The Morta is a bird of the taxomic order of Nnunua which includes most bipedal, winged, pro-spine that lay eggs. Its plumage is a deep red and its long beak is made for snatching termites from termite mounds. The morta’s mating call is a chilling screech reminiscent of a woman being murdered. When a morta dies, its dead body continues to fly aimlessly for days. They are easy prey for flying scavenger beasts. You can find mortas throughout the Greeny Jungle once you get about thirty miles away from civilization. Diurnal when alive. Diurnal and Nocturnal when dead.
ENTRY 9 (22.20 hours)
We cannot sleep. Morituri36 is sitting beside me. For once he’s looking down instead of up. Even he can smell the beast’s scent now. It’s right down there.
The dragonflies are going mad around here. We can see the plant just starting to glow about a mile away, to the north. By the night, it’ll be glowing like a small planet. But the creature is below us. Right at the base of our tree. I hope we make it through the night without a fight. Doing battle in the dark is the worst kind of fighting.
ENTRY 10 (20.14 hours)