The Islanders by Christopher Priest Read Free Book Online Page B

Swarms of the thryme were seen outside the station and Aubrac ordered that no one should go outside. He discontinued keeping his journal around this time, because, according to Dr Lei, the entire team realized field work had become impossible.
    They knew they were going to have to evacuate the base, and that it would be only a matter of time before they did. Accordingly, they began dismantling their laboratories and transmitted all their written notes to Tumo University. These included Aubrac’s journal, which is how his record has survived.
    Evacuation presented a serious logistical problem, as any activity at all attracted the attention of the thrymes. The GP vehicle, kept sealed up close to the main building, was secure enough, but transferring to it and loading it up was fraught with dangers. While the team prepared, a boat was despatched from Tumo to pick them up.
    Aubrac’s last message to the university summed up what he clearly felt at the time was the only significant discovery they had made: ‘This island group is uninhabitable,’ he wrote. ‘No one has ever lived here, no normal human being ever will.’
    They went ahead with the evacuation but it was almost a total disaster. Fran Herkker was attacked by two thrymes while trying to enter the GP – in spite of the protection she was wearing she died almost instantly. The team felt they had no alternative but to abandon her body on the ground just outside the base buildings. In the stress and anxiety of making their escape, they had no facilities for burying or cremating her body. Less than an hour later, while the GP was still heading towards the coast, Aubrac himself was attacked by a thryme, which had somehow managed to get inside the vehicle. He died traumatically and with horrifying swiftness. Although the remaining three felt that in the interests of science they should at least attempt to take his body back for post-mortem examination, they quickly decided the danger was too great. Aubrac’s body too was abandoned.
    Dake Lei, Yuterdal Trellin and Antalya Benger survived the journey to the coast and were safely picked up by the ship sent to save them. A few months later, Yuterdal Trellin died suddenly, and his body was found to be infested with parasitic grubs.
    Thus the background story of the Aubrac Chain. Fifty years after the premature end of the expedition, the entire group of thirty-five islands was named after Aubrac, as was the largest island: Aubrac Grande. Other individual islands were named Lei, Benger, Trellin and Herkker. The Archipelago authorities declared the group a nature and wildlife reserve, and entry to the islands was prohibited on an absolute basis.
    That is how the Aubrac Chain might have remained until the present day, if it were not for two unforeseen events.
    The first was the discovery of several colonies of thrymes on some of the more southerly islands in the Serques. Until this, it was believed that the insects were found only in the Aubracs and would be contained there by natural processes. How some of the insects had emigrated, or crossed the sea, no one knew, but it raised the horrific spectre of the insect starting to disseminate throughout the Archipelago, with an all too easily imaginable impact on the lives of millions of people.
    The Serque colonies were eradicated, although thrymes are still encountered on some of the more remote islands. As for wider dissemination, since the Serque discovery colonies of thrymes have been found on other islands and the insect is now habituated throughout most of the tropical zone. By rigorous culls and other precautions, thryme colonies have been effectively contained and controlled. Some islands have succeeded in eradicating the insect altogether, but in most places it has survived at a minimal level.
    In general the thryme is feared more than it is encountered. It is true to say that most people are phobic because of its appearance and speed, its darting gait, the movement of its