Heaven by Ian Stewart

Author:Ian Stewart [STEWART, IAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446560917
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

The Aquiferian sandskater was thirsty. Ordinarily, it could get enough moisture from the shrubs upon which it browsed, but growing an egg required more. Its flukes would have to survive for eleven years in their hideaway beneath a flat rock, and to do that they would need to be kept wet. They would float in mineral-laden water inside the egg, like miniature goldfish in a tiny glass bowl, until the egg’s internal clock decided that it was time for them to find a host. Then the rubbery shell would soften and dissolve, releasing them into the sand. The patch of dampness would attract bush scarabs, which would suck up the flukes along with the wet sand. As the scarab’s digestive system filtered out the sand for excretion, the flukes would burrow into its intestinal linings.

At first they would steal some of the scarab’s intake of food. But as they grew, their needs would become greater, and they would begin to consume the body of their host, starting with its thick deposits of stored polysaccharides, accumulated to carry it through the colder seasons. The flukes would move on to more critical organs, until soon the scarab lay paralyzed on the desert floor and baked in the hot sun. The heat would trigger a metamorphosis in the flukes, and they would emerge from the scarab’s dried-out exoskeleton as a thousand pinprick-sized sandskaters, perfect miniatures of the adult.

This sandskater’s midbody was about the size of a cat and covered in ugly lumps: the creature’s sensory organs, feeding parts, and reproductive attachments. It was held away from the hot desert sand by dozens of spindly legs, with tufts at their numerous joints. The creature was close to term: Its bulbous midbody was taut and bulging, inflated by the egg within. But the egg was still too dry.

The sandskater had stolen water from Aquifer’s ponds before. One final foray, and its egg would be wet enough for burial. The animal had already selected a suitable rock, half concealed by the leeward slope of a dune. It had dug a spiraling entrance tunnel and constructed a suitable birthing chamber. All was ready. A little more water—that was all it now needed.

The sandskater was scared. It could sense water, but it could also sense danger. The pond shimmered seductively as the wind rippled its surface, but the desert surrounding the pond was barren, apparently devoid of all life. The sandskater had already advanced several yards into this no-man’s-land, leaving behind it the relative safety of the scrub. As always, the evolutionary imperatives of reproduction were overriding those of self-preservation. Who dares, wins.

Or loses.

Now, frozen by fear, it had stopped. Nothing is worse than hesitation. Out here, on the bare shore, the sandskater was exposed. It might be taken by a duneglider, an awk, or any of a dozen species of aerial predators. Instinct honed by evolutionary eons compelled the sandskater to take a decision. Fast.

It scuttled toward the pond’s edge, halting as far away as it could while still obtaining water.

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