Tunnels 05 - Spiral

She immediately moved to the next bed, where a woman lay.
    “One down, five hundred and ninety-nine to go,” Rebecca Two said.

“AND FROM EACH OF THESE egg sacs or pods,” Eddie continued, “more than thirty Styx are spawned. They go through a larval stage, consuming the living flesh of the human host. And when they’ve depleted the host’s ravaged carcass, they burst out, and —”
    “Burst out?” Will asked, looking more than a little queasy.
    “Yes, they rupture it and crawl out in search of more food. In the following days, they need an ample supply of fresh meat in order to fully develop. Once they’ve absorbed sufficient protein, they form cocoons, for the pupation stage. And within a week or two, they hatch out, and a brand-new army is ready to swarm.”
    Drake was frowning. “You say ‘Styx’ are produced. What do you mean, exactly?” he asked.
    “Like me, like Limiters,” Eddie answered.
    Drake’s frown deepened. “After only two weeks? How can a fully formed adult be produced in only a matter of weeks? How can that be?”
    “They possess the intelligence of a fully developed Styx male, but they have no emotional faculties. They have no need of them. They’ve been brought into this world with a single purpose — to kill. And they’re incredibly good at it, because they have no qualms about dying. We call them the Warrior Class. They’ll work their way through the Topsoil population, using whatever weapons are available and slaughtering as they go, until they’re ordered to stop. Or until there’s no one left to kill.”
    There was a shocked silence in the Humvee until Will spoke. “It’s like the ichneumon wasp,” he whispered in horror. If it was possible with his unpigmented skin, his face seemed to have turned even whiter than usual. “I saw this TV program about them once. They lay eggs in a living animal, which hatch out and b —”
    “It’s more than that,” Drake interrupted, turning to Will. “You remember that last time we were in Highfield with your father? When he wanted to catch a glimpse of Celia from the rooftop?”
    “Sure, I remember,” Will said. “In Martineau Square.”
    “Well, I rather glibly made a comparison between the Styx and viruses then. I had absolutely no idea how close I was.” Drake turned to Eddie. “At a guess, when the spawn grows in the host, it assimilates not just its proteins but also some of the host DNA into its genome, doesn’t it? And isn’t that the reason why current Styx physiology mirrors our own?”
    Eddie nodded. “Our scholars believe that there was a Phase in prehistoric times, which brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs. And we most certainly weren’t humanoid in those days. The scholars tell us that the human resemblance came later, after a second Phase during Neanderthal times.”
    Will uttered a barely audible “Wow.”
    “Wait . . . this is all getting a little too fantastic,” Drake said, holding up his hands. “Where’s the proof for all this, Eddie? How do I know what you’ve just told us is true?” he challenged, although not aggressively, as he tried to deal with what he’d just heard. “We’ve only got your word f —”
    Eddie made a move to reach inside his jacket. In a heartbeat, Drake had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at the Styx.
    “You know I’m not armed,” Eddie said, holding completely still. “I want to show you something.”
    “Go on,” Drake said, his gun still on the Styx.
    From an inside pocket Eddie slowly eased out a book, its cover creased and worn.
    “
The Book of Catastrophes
?” Will asked, as he regarded the battered volume in Eddie’s hands, which was bound in some type of ivory-colored parchment.

    “No, this is from long before that,” Eddie replied. “Only a handful of copies of this book survived from the fifteenth century. No Colonist has ever laid eyes on it, and it’s unlikely there’ll be another above grass. I had this particular copy smuggled out of the Citadel for me.”
    Putting his handgun away, Drake shrugged. “So what is it?”
    “Well . . .” Eddie thought for a second. “The Styx title for it means ‘from one comes many,’ There isn’t an exact match in the English language, but I suppose the best word for it would be ‘
Propagation
,’ or better, perhaps, ‘
Proliferation
.’ ” With a finger, he traced the three sides of the inverted triangle tooled into its front cover. “Yes, the
Book of