Once the insects were safely contained in laboratory condition, Aubrac began to examine them at close quarters. Although none of the team had ever been attacked by one of the thrymes, they were clearly ferocious. Aubrac’s first enquiry was into the creatures’ aggressive nature, or whether its fearsome weapon system was merely for defence:
I have created three test environments, each made of an escape-proof glass container, with a layer of moist soil and leaf-mould at the base. Into this I have introduced a number of different kinds of potential foes or predators, to see how the thryme would get on. The grim results are as follows:
1.
A hawk-like predatory bird, seen by us to hover and dive against small animals or perhaps insects on the ground. The bird we captured for this test was approximately three times the size of the largest thryme. It panicked as it was thrust into the test cell, and was dead within four seconds. We have not repeated this experiment.
2.
A pit viper, at least three metres in length: survived for forty-eight seconds.
3.
A rat: killed within nineteen seconds. It survived so long only by fast attempts to escape.
4.
A giant venomous centipede, with a heavily armoured carapace and one of the most pernicious venoms Dake says he has ever analysed: it vigorously joined the thryme in battle, but survived for only thirty-three seconds.
5.
A large spider, seen to attack birds’ nests and to display ‘huntsman’ tendencies of aggressive behaviour, and equipped with two large sacs of highly effective venom: dead within four seconds.
6.
A huge scorpion, one of the largest I have ever come across: it attacked the thryme with instant relish, but was dead within eight seconds.
More alarming still was the discovery Dr Lei made about the system of venom carried by the thryme. It carried two arrangements of venom sacs: one in the tail, the other in tiny bladders inside its mandible. From the jaw it could envenom both by a bite and in some cases by spitting. This was a fairly conventional arrangement, although the venom was a peculiarly powerful cocktail of proteins, amino acids and anti-coagulants. Lei’s analysis of the compounds was to a large extent frustrated by the discovery that the venom appeared to change its nature from one individual thryme specimen to another, and even then to change its constituents at different times of the year.
The impact of a bite or sting on a human being, as they had seen when Hadimá Thryme had been merely scratched with one of the defensive fine hairs, was a full-scale attack on not only the nervous system but also the blood and cells. Although standard antitoxins alleviated many of the symptoms if applied quickly enough, the venom was so intense that it was almost impossible, at least for a small team working on site, to know if an effective antidote would ever be possible.
However, an extra threat existed, as Aubrac described:
We have established that the really dangerous thryme is the female of the species. There is not much to distinguish male from female by outer appearance alone: the female seems to be slightly larger than the male, although as we have to work with so few specimens it’s difficult to be certain. She has extra joints in her arthropodic shell, and her thorax is wider than that of the male. However, if coming across one of these dark, fast-moving beings in the wild, you would not be able to tell the difference from the superficial appearance. The obvious rule remains: if you see a thryme, keep well away!
The female carries her young in a marsupial pouch inside her jaw — at this stage they are microscopic grubs, or in some cases fertilized eggs. A bite from her could be either a venomous bite, an impregnation of parasitic grubs, or a mixture of the two.
I am now urgently concerned to know whether or not it was a female who infected Hadimá, because Dake tells me he has found traces of fertilized ova inside some of our captives’ bristles. The news from Tumo is that she has made a complete recovery, so let us hope so.
A few weeks after he wrote that journal entry Aubrac was informed by the university on Tumo that Hadimá had suddenly fallen ill, suffering horrific symptoms of poisoning once again. The medical staff at the hospital had been unable to help her, and she died within two hours of feeling the first twinges of pain. No traces of venom were ever found. A post-mortem examination was begun, but her internal organs proved to be massively infested by parasitic maggots. All her major organs had been destroyed in this way. Aubrac immediately ordered that no more examination should be made of her body and that it should be kept in isolation in an hermetically sealed casket. He then arranged for Antalya Benger to travel to Tumo to certify her death. After this, Hadimá’s body was removed from the mortuary and cremated.
Now realizing that the incubation period of the infestation was at least several months, Aubrac instituted a major program of incineration at his research station: every thryme they had ever had inside the laboratory, all the remains of any of the animals tested against the laboratory specimens, any of the soil media used inside the captive thrymes’ cases, any organic thing at all that had had the least, most glancing contact with a thryme . . . everything was incinerated. The glass cases were treated with acid, then broken up and buried.
Staff at the hospital where Hadimá had died were moved into isolation until they could be tested negative for infestation. Fortunately, it transpired that no parasitic invasion to key workers had taken place.
Soon after Aubrac learned of the death of Hadimá Thryme, an unexpected change took place in the weather. Aubrac’s journal again:
We have been getting used to the daily cloudbursts but about three weeks ago they became a thing of the past. We are now afflicted with a steady wind from the east, which is hot, dehydrating and relentless. It has the usual negative effect of an unwavering wind: we are all feeling short-tempered and depressed, we find it difficult to sleep and we are desperate for a change. Every day is now the same.
I have been trying to extract some information from the university about the climate of these islands, but they say that there was practically no knowledge of them before our expedition. All they could tell me was that because of the position — a few degrees north of the equator, with a lot of open ocean around us, to west and north — we are exposed to a prevailing wind known as the Shamal. There are many barren or desertified islands upwind of us. Paneron is the best known.
The relief from the endless mud and humidity was of course welcome at first, but all five of us are alarmed by the effect the sudden drought is having on the thrymes. Whereas until quite recently we would spot them on a daily basis, they remained shy and furtive. The dry weather has critically changed their behaviour.
For one thing they appear to be hungry. They are violently attacking anything alive — two days ago a seagull landed incautiously on the ground close to our base, and in full view of us was almost immediately overwhelmed by a horde of thrymes. There are now hundreds, perhaps thousands of them around us. It is of course impossible to venture out unless full precautions are taken, but because of the clumsy weight of our protective gear, and the hot wind and unbroken sunshine, we keep outside trips to a minimum.
This morning Yute [Yuterdal Trellin, the team’s intercession scientist] had to go across to the storage building to collect some medications and other materials. When he returned there were three thrymes attached to the back of his protective suit, their pincers deeply buried in the protective material. Dake and I managed to get the insects off him, killed them by beating with the paddles we have kept for just such an emergency, then incinerated the bodies, destroyed the suit Yute had had been wearing, and gave him a thorough medical examination to determine if any punctures had been made to his skin. All is well. No one is more relieved than Yute!