Firefly.

"That, too, if necessary. But I am more interested in bones."

"You are also an archaeologist?"

"May we cease fencing?" he asked with irritation. "My name is Cyrano, and I am a forensic entomologist. Geode found the first set, you saw them, Mid sent me to a.n.a.lyze them. You were supposed to have the last set for me. Did you?"

"Geode?" she asked sharply.

"Mid calls me that," Geode said. "Others don"t know."

"So this man is legitimate," she concluded. "Very well, show him the body, Geode." She seemed unpleased.

"It"s in the barn," Geode said.

May returned to her car. "I will call in later. I shall want a full report."

"We all require the fullest information," Cyrano said. "I shall interview you before making my report to Mid."

She got in her car and drove around the loop and away. Cyrano"s lips quirked. "She"s miffed because Mid told me your code name and not her. He just forgot, I"m sure; he"s a busy man. Let"s see that body."

Geode hadn"t liked May Flowers much, but he liked this man. He was a.s.sertive without being pushy, and he had set May back. Geode led the way to the barn.

"Let me pull my lab in," Cyrano said. "I"ll park it behind, where it won"t show from the house. This may take some time."

Geode opened the gate to the barn. Cyrano got in his van, started it, and pulled it carefully through. Geode closed the gate behind, while the van moved on to the barn and beyond. There wasn"t much s.p.a.ce there, but enough for the van. It was entirely hidden from the loop, which was all the average visitor should be on.

He walked up and opened the side door of the barn, which was beside the van. He climbed the wooden ladder to the loft, which had not yet achieved its daytime heat. "Here," he said.

Cyrano ascended behind him. He went to the body, helping Geode uncover it. He hauled the bag out to the uncluttered part of the loft and peered in. He sniffed. "Interesting," he remarked.

Geode nodded, knowing what the smell did. He was getting an erection himself. If only he could have a whiff of that when he was with none!

"Very well," Cyrano said. "I will haul this to my lab in the van and work there. Why don"t you check on me in an hour, when I"ll have a better idea where we stand?"

Geode nodded. This would delay his tour of the property, but couldn"t be helped. The man was doing Mid"s business.

He climbed down the ladder and went out.

* 15 - CYRANO WATCHED THE man go, then made a silent whistle. He had antic.i.p.ated something odd, but this was beyond his expectation. That first sniff had told him: potent pheromones! This man had been treated to biological compulsion such as was normally unknown in the human species. The enclosure of the plastic bag had concentrated it, of course, but the body had been dead for over a day, and stored in this heat. There was almost nothing left of the flesh, so there should have been very little of the chemical remaining. Even that little bit had been enough to give him an instant and almost painful erection. He understood from Mid that it had a similar effect on women. That was remarkable indeed. He had not truly believed it until he sniffed it himself.

What other surprises did this desiccated body have to offer? He would soon find out. He folded the bag, clutched it under one arm, and made his way down the ladder. He carried it out of the little barn and put it in his van. Here in the shade of barn and forest the van would not overheat, and he could perform his initial tests efficiently. He left the sliding door open, and opened the other doors, so as to allow any breeze to refresh the air inside and keep the heat down. He had air conditioning, but didn"t use it unless he ran the motor, and that wasted gasoline, so he avoided it when he could. He brought out a stool and sat on it, using the floor of the van as his operating table. He donned new gloves, set out his kit, and went to work.

He slid the bag off the body and gazed at it. The thing was no more than a skeleton, with a membrane covering it under the man"s pajamas. An incongruous sight, a pajama-clad skeleton! He carefully unb.u.t.toned the top and got it off, then did the same for the bottoms. The whole of the skeleton was now open to view.

The membrane covered all of it. Even where the bone was solid, as on the skull and pelvic girdle, that membrane extended. It completely surrounded the body, bones and hollows and all.

Was it tight? If so, there could be gas trapped inside that would be invaluable for a.n.a.lyzing. He could try to capture a vial of that. He would also clip as much of that membrane as he could and save it. The main thing was the bone, which appeared to be intact. He could perform only the crudest of tests out here, and he was already pretty sure they would not be relevant to this case. This was the most unusual body he had heard of!

His hands went about the routine mechanisms, collecting his samples, but his mind ranged back to the circ.u.mstances of his life which had brought him to this unusual case. He had been a veterinarian, and satisfied with it, but his curiosity about obscurities had gotten him into mischief. For example, when sent to inoculate a herd of cattle against a routine infection, he had wanted to know the pattern of that infection; how had it spread here, what were its dynamics? Could it be controlled better by isolation than by inoculation? Or could the disease itself be modified to become benign? What about the worming? Worms were endemic, but rather than poisoning them in the animals every six months, why not prevent them from ever getting in? Many maladies were spread by insects; surely it made sense to deal with the insects, instead of allowing them free access to the animals. He had constantly to dose horses against the larva of the deer botfly. The female botfly would hover around the horses" legs and glue her yellow eggs on them; those eggs were harmless in that stage, but a few days later, when they hatched and the larvae began to crawl, the horses would rub their legs with their noses, and the larvae would transfer to the mouths and thence to the digestive system for the next stage. That was where the damage started. The cycle could be broken simply by brushing the eggs off with a stiff brush or pumice stone, but it was hard to do because they were firmly glued on and the horses didn"t like to stand still for it-and in any event, another botfly would soon be by to deposit more eggs. So it was easier simply to medicate the horses regularly-but still it seemed to him that it would be better if the botflies never got at the horses in the first place. Prevention was so much better than treatment.

Unfortunately, effective prevention would reduce the need for treatment, and fewer veterinarians would find employment. Cyrano"s notions incited covert hostility. He persisted, but could not make headway against the entrenched att.i.tude. He discovered that the att.i.tude and practice of the average person were firmly anch.o.r.ed in that person"s perception of his self-interest. He lost his position and found it hard to get another; word had spread. He was not charged with anything tangible, and probably others did not even properly fathom their underlying motives, but pretexts occurred and he was unemployable in this profession. He lacked the financial backing to go into practice for himself. But the truth was that his interest in veterinary medicine had diminished, and his interest in insects had increased. He changed specialties, though he was now beyond the flush of youth, and became an entomologist. He could not be blacklisted as a student. But his savings gave out, and he was faced with the prospect of giving up without completing his course of instruction.

That was when Mid entered the picture. Mid offered him money to complete his program, and a position thereafter at an excellent stipend. But there were two stipulations: he must specialize in what Mid chose, and he must become anonymous. He would publish no papers, he would make no headlines; he would work only for Mid.

It seemed not the best of bargains, but also not the worst. He seemed to have no enticing alternative. So he agreed, without complete enthusiasm. He a.s.sumed a new ident.i.ty for his work with Mid: that was when he became Cyrano, the literate dueler. He dueled not with swords but with concepts and microscopes.

Thus he took many more courses than he had antic.i.p.ated, in more subjects. But he emerged with a considerable background in organic matters. His actual degree was in entomology: the study of insects. But had learned a lot about anatomy, human and animal, and forensic procedures.

It seemed that some of Mid"s operations were being sabotaged, but the proof was difficult. Cyrano investigated the death of a prize horse and discovered fly larvae that indicated the animal had not died when or where it was found; it had been poisoned, then transported to another state, where it had supposedly and mysteriously expired. That made the difference; Mid was able to ascertain when and where the deed had been done, and who was in charge of the horse at that point. That person had disappeared, and Cyrano had not inquired further. He was getting to like his employer better, though he had never met him.

Another case involved the death of a person. This appeared to be innocent, an unexpected heart attack, and there had been no investigation, but Mid wanted to know the cause. Cyrano was given four hours with the body, privately, before the cremation. He discovered a pattern of larval development that was unusually rapid. This was inconclusive, he had reported to Mid, but it answered the description of cocaine residues in the tissues.

Mid had made an abrupt and intense quest for cocaine, having several employees involuntarily tested. Cocaine was found. The person involved left Mid"s employ in a hurry and was not heard from again. Cyrano had been given a vacation in Hawaii and a significant bonus: Mid had his ways of expressing favor.

It had been ten years now, and Cyrano"s doubts about working for Mid had long since faded. He had been involved in more interesting challenges than any ordinary employment would have provided. The work appealed to him, grisly as it sometimes was. Where else would he get to run tests on a mysterious human skeleton? Cyrano was now moderately rich himself, thanks to Mid"s generosity, and could afford to retire. He had no intention of doing so. He wanted to continue working for Mid, and he was fully committed. He was loyal to the death.

He heard someone coming. It was Geode. He glanced up. "Yes?"

"You said to check back in an hour."

Cyrano glanced at his watch, which was a fine expensive timepiece, one of Mid"s little gifts. An hour had indeed pa.s.sed; it had seemed like five minutes! But his hands had been busy, and he had his preliminary samples, as well as a perpetual erection that was now no joy at all. He needed a break.

"Yes. I will take this specimen away for further study. But I had better interview the one closest to the living person. I believe she is here?"

The man looked uncomfortable. "It"s supposed to be secret."

"Geode, I"ve worked a long time for Mid. He tells me everything I need to know. He told me you had the body of a man, and were hiding his wife at the Middle Kingdom. I understand the need for secrecy perfectly, and will tell no one of her presence, and you will tell no one that this body ever was here. Not because we care about each other, but because Mid wants it private. You work for him; you understand how he is."

"Yes." Geode was visibly rea.s.sured.

"Bring her out here. I"ll need to talk to her only a few minutes. Then I"ll be on my way, and with luck we"ll never meet again."

"But aren"t you here to exterminate the monster?"

"Indeed I am. But first I have to understand it. Then I will hunt it, and kill it, and take its body away, and your life will return to normal. I prefer to work alone, as I think you do."

"Yes." The man turned and walked toward the house.

Cyrano shut down his operations and moved away from the van. Now at last his erection subsided. What effective pheromones those were! If a perfume company ever bottled them, it would make a fortune, making its lady clients truly irresistible. Fortunately, the effect lasted only while the pheromones were actually being inhaled. But how much worse would it be with the living monster? For it was a monster; Mid had called it that, and what it had done to that body was virtually incredible. There was no residue of flesh at all; all of it was gone, and the surface of the bones had been etched by some powerful reducing agent. Probably the monster could dissolve bone too, but lacked the patience to bother because of the diminishing returns. So it withdrew and moved off, leaving the discards.

What was it? Nothing Cyrano had encountered before, certainly! He knew of no earthly creature that could do anything like this! Dissolving a body and consuming it, all except for the hard parts. No animal operated that way. Except- He stopped still. Except an insect. He remembered his first sight of fireflies, flashing in the dusk, so beautiful. Perhaps it had been that sight that had turned him on to insects, even as a child. He had grown to other pursuits, but that image of the flashing fireflies had always lured him back. Yet part of what had turned him off the subject, for a time, was the way the firefly fed. It used digestive acids to dissolve the body of its prey, then sucked in the fluid. Later he had come to accept the differing ways of other creatures, and to respect them; he was no longer repulsed by such digestion. Was it any worse than putting undigested food into one"s body and breaking it down internally and defecating the residue, as mammals did? So the firefly had become beautiful again to him; he had learned tolerance.

So it was done by earthly creatures. But what kind of a firefly could make a man its prey?

A big one, obviously. A big, biiig one!

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" Cyrano breathed in awe and delight. This case had suddenly a.s.sumed a new dimension!

Geode returned with a woman. Cyrano watched them approach. She was of middle height and slight build, in her thirties, and might have been winsome in her prime but was so no longer. Her figure wasn"t bad, actually; she didn"t run to fat. But the description Mid had relayed certainly fit: she was a mouse, timid, una.s.suming, nondescript. The kind of person no one noticed unless he had to.

But she had information he wanted, so he noticed her, for the moment. She had been close by when the man was taken, and might have some additional hint of the nature of the firefly.

The woman paused, and he saw she was gazing at the colorful dragonflies that hovered in the vicinity. She smiled with pa.s.sing delight, and her face became pretty. Even a mouse might have her moments, he realized.

They came to stand before him. "You are?" he asked her, ignoring Geode, who was similarly easy to ignore.

"Jade Brown. The body is my husband."

"He was a fat man?" For there had been a certain deformation in the skeleton suggesting that.

"Yes, at the end."

"Maybe two-hundred-thirty pounds?"

"Yes."

"Where was he when he died?"

"On the couch in the living room."

"Was a door or window open?"

"No."

"Could one have been opened, then closed?"

"Yes. But I don"t think it was."

Cyrano nodded. He had expected something like this. No huge firefly could have flown in, fed on the man, and flown out. More than a closed door prevented that! "Did you smell anything?"

"The smell-it makes it s.e.xy."

He affected surprise. "For you too?"

"Yes. May Flowers felt it too."

Mid had mentioned that detail, perhaps not realizing its significance. Pheromones that acted similarly on male and female! Who would have believed it! "Even a firefly doesn"t do that!"

"What?" she asked.

He realized that in his excitement he had spoken aloud. "The monster. I think of it as a firefly because of the way it dissolves flesh and consumes it. A big one."

"But fireflies are lovely, like the dragonflies," she protested.

"Not to their prey. If dragonflies started biting us the way the deer-flies do, we"d hate them just as much. Actually, all insects are interesting, once you appreciate their qualities."

"A big firefly," she repeated. "Yes, that makes it easier."

It was time to get back to the subject. "Did you hear anything when your husband was taken?"

"No, I was asleep. I didn"t know he"d come home. He-" She grimaced, and didn"t finish.

"Was there anything on the couch under the body?"

"No. He was just there, in his pajamas. And that smell."

"It seems to me that the pheromones-the smell, as you put it-should have been much stronger when the thing was feeding. It should have suffused the house. You weren"t aware of it?"

She looked embarra.s.sed. "I did have s.e.xy dreams."

"But not enough to wake you?"

"No. And when I woke it wasn"t so strong. Not till I got close to the body."

So the creature didn"t broadcast the pheromones, but used them only at immediate range. Unless her bedroom had been airtight. Interesting. Why should it go to the trouble of developing such a potent all-purpose lure, and then not use it to bring in prey? Something was missing here. "Thank you. I"ll be on my way." He turned and went to the van. It would be a pain, driving with that odor pumping him up in the closed van, but the day was getting hot and he wanted to get the body to a safer and cooler place.

* 16 - NONE WATCHED THE van back out and drive through the gate as Geode held it open. She hadn"t wanted to talk to the man, but she was a guest in Mid"s house, and what Mid wanted, he got. But it had been interesting. A huge firefly? Surely not a flying creature, but something that ate as a firefly did. Did it flash also? A flash that only its victim could see, or maybe smell? For certainly she had not smelled it, not consciously anyway, any of the three times it had raided her house. Four times-there was the racc.o.o.n too. But she had smelled the bodies. If the firefly made them react that way, and what she smelled was only the trace aftermath-well, no wonder they didn"t flee it! Maybe the smell was just a bit of solvent or something, used to dissolve the flesh, and the actual pheromones were there too, a.s.sociated but not the same.

So she had s.e.xy dreams, not even realizing their source. Not that she needed any encouragement; s.e.x was always on her mind. It was hard to believe that other women weren"t the same way, but she had learned long since that it was so. With men it was another matter, of course-except for Geode. Was that an irony, or an opportunity? Had he been turned on the way other men were, he probably wouldn"t have taken this job, and she would not have encountered him. So it was, after all, her fortune. She had access to the man other women didn"t want-and he wanted her as other men didn"t want her, though he could not implement it. Yet.

Geode returned to her as the van disappeared down the drive. "We can go now, if you still want to."

"I just want to be with you," she said sincerely. And that was true. Four times the monster had struck at her house, and she was the only one remaining a.s.sociated with that residence; the firefly was coming for her too. She didn"t dare spend a night alone; all the others had been taken in their sleep, except perhaps the racc.o.o.n, and she wasn"t sure that wasn"t the case there too. She had to be with someone to guard her, and Geode was the one. She had spoken truly when she told him of the peasant girl in the castle. But also when she agreed to try to love him. The notion was thrilling: to love, once more, before she died. Then at least she would die fulfilled.

He walked to the house and fetched his red bicycle. "This is made for off-road cycling," he said. "Wide tires, eleven gears. It will get you there."

She looked at it. "Eleven? But it has five gear wheels on the back, and three on the front. Doesn"t that mean fifteen?"

"They overlap," he explained. "You aren"t supposed to mesh the extremes; it angles the chain too sharply, and makes it wear." He pointed to the largest front gear wheel and the largest rear one, and she saw how they did not align; indeed, the chain would be hard put to it to bridge between them. So he didn"t use the four most stretched combinations. It made sense after all.

She got on the bike, pushed off, and pedaled. It worked! She remembered how to ride. She saw that the brakes and gearshifts were on the handlebars, the front ones on the left, the rear ones on the right. She tried the rear derailleur as she pedaled around the paved loop, and in a moment the chain clunked onto a different sprocket and the pedaling got faster. Then she had to use the brake, because she was going down a slope too fast.

By the time she had completed the loop twice, she had the hang of it. The bike was light and responsive, and the wide tires really held the pavement. She could go anywhere on this little machine! But she was glad she had changed to jeans after May Flowers left, because dresses just weren"t made for bicycles.

She returned to Geode and stopped. "I"ve got it," she reported. "Lead, and I"ll follow."

He led her back toward the barn. Now she was on yellow-brown dirt, the kind that normally torpedoed the thin tires of bicycles. She worried, but the tires held. This thing really was made for off-road travel!

Beyond the barn a path led into the jungle. Geode jogged along it as it wound between the trees. Now she had to go carefully, because the clearance of her handlebars was slight. But the tires handled the leaves and roots of the path as well as they had the dirt, and she kept going. She was keeping his pace, using a fraction of the energy.

He ran on past hanging liana vines and oaks large and small, with cl.u.s.ters of palmettos throughout. Here and there, struggling for light, were little magnolia trees; she recognized their broad leaves. Here there was a green mossy trunk on the ground, there the sandy remnant of some old tortoise burrow. She had lived several years in Florida, but had never really seen the deep forest like this.

The small path debouched into a larger trail, one that might handle a car in a pinch. Geode ran up this one, picking up speed. She followed, pedaling faster now that she had room to maneuver. In fact, she had to change gears so that she wasn"t pedaling uncomfortably rapidly.

They came to a clearing-no, it was a region of small pines-and Geode abruptly turned off and stopped. There was an old bathtub with a red pitcher pump mounted at the end, and beyond it an open pole barn.

She stopped and watched as he brought out a green plastic pitcher from near the pump, dipped it in the tub, and poured water into the top of the pump. As he poured he worked the handle, and after a bit the priming worked and water gushed out of the spout. He pumped water into the bathtub, filling it to the level of its overflow hole.

"What"s that for?" she asked.