The Islanders by Christopher Priest Read Free Book Online

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