Author: Hungry Guy
Title: INSECTICIDE
Summary: What lengths will people go to when the situation is dire? 
Keywords: MF Mpov viol tears scfi caution.
Language: english

INSECTICIDE
By Hungry Guy

    It was a bright and cheerful day on the colony planet, Zos, orbiting a Type-G star of the ignominious name, Iefbr14.  In the small city of Asra, one of three settlements on the planet, Dr. Sam Walker glanced out the window of his lab while sample 2408-B-23.5 spun in the centrifuge.  Beakers and flasks full of colorful and foul smelling concoctions bubbled through elaborate glass tube apparatus upon Bunsen burners on one of his lab tables.  Out on the sidewalk along Cics Street, in front of his window, people walked past his lab while they went about their business. 

    The klaxons sounded!  

    Sam ran to the door and flung it open, motioning for people to hurry inside.  Shopkeepers and homeowners along the street did likewise.  Privacy, restricted areas, and confidentiality of proprietary research became meaningless when the klaxons sounded.  Inside Sam's lab, people screamed and children cried.  Mothers covered their children's eyes to the view outside the window.  There were always a few who didn't make it to safety in time. 

    Out of the sky, a swarm of large black insects, similar in appearance to wasps but twice as long as a man was tall, dove from the sky and picked up fleeing people.  Sam turned away at the sight of a child plucked from his mother's grasp out on the sidewalk, knowing that his mother would surely share the same fate a moment later.   

    After sacrificing any sort of social life by working 16 hours a day continuously for the past two years on a planet that had 25-hour days, Sam had recently made a breakthrough.  He was to make a public presentation that night in Idcams Hall.  Last week, he had given his presentation to the Colony Governor and the City Council.  The council members from the other two cities, Cedf and Cemt, were also present.  At the end of his presentation, the politicians all appeared to be equally aghast.  After nearly a week of deliberation, they had agreed to let him present his plan to the people and let each decide for himself. 

    Sam walked onto the stage that evening.  "Ladies and Gentlemen," he began.  "I don't need to detail the horror we live with.  NASA and the United Nations, in their political correctness, have refused to send us weapons of mass destruction that would enable us to defend ourselves from the menace that threatens to exterminate us..."

    A muffled "Harrumph" came from the Governor sitting in the front row with the other politicians.  Prior to departure from Earth five years ago, they had nearly all been elected on a Liberal Democratic ticket.  "This isn't the time for political finger-pointing, Doctor.  Get on with it, please."

    Sam continued, "My point is that we're powerless prey against a powerful predator.  These creatures--these giant wasps--that I have classified Xenohymenopteramaximus do not use us as food; we are breeding hosts to them.  Some orders of ant back on Earth use a similar strategy, herding other insects so to use their bodies as food and incubators for breeding.  Run the MPEG please."

    The lights dimmed and an image filled the large screen behind him.  The scene showed two giant wasps in a large chain-link cage.  A moment later, a pig entered the cage through a small chute.  Immediately, one of the wasps descended upon the pig and wrapped it in a sort of cocoon, leaving only its face uncovered.  Sam said, "The female will use this pig as a host for breeding.  She immobilizes the host as seen here, but instinct seems to direct her to keep the host alive."

    The scene lighting changed slightly, suggesting a change in time, then showed the wasp extend a stinger and impale the cocoon.  The pig, while immobile, was visibly agitated at this.  Sam spoke again, "Some time later, The female extends her ovipositor and injects her eggs into the host."  

    The scene changed again, and showed the other, smaller, wasp do the exact same thing.  "Now the male extends his penis and injects his sperm into the host, fertilizing the eggs."

    The scene changed yet again.  Hundreds of shiny black maggots crawled out of the pig's mouth and also burst out of the walls of the cocoon, then began buzzing around the cage.  After a few moments, there was nothing left of the pig or of the cocoon except for the pig's skeleton.  "This is about 48 hours after fertilization."

    Someone in the audience groaned, and ran out of the auditorium covering his mouth.  

    Sam felt it preferable just then not to remind everyone that this was the same fate that all the people had met whom had been taken by the wasps.  "That first pig was one of our control subjects.  I will now show you a repeat of this demonstration with a pig that was one of our test subjects."

    The same sequence of scenes repeated, only this time a small number of maggots emerged.  Those that did were a sickly pink, and lay dying on the floor.  "These giant wasps share physiological properties and behavior of insects back on Earth.  The test pig was injected with a vector to deliver t-cells primed with a gene sequence to cause the pig to develop a gland that produces an enzyme that acts as an poison, a type of insecticide, that interferes with the hardening of the exoskeleton of the larvae.  I have developed an enzyme that can be applied to human physiology, but is still as deadly to our predators.  The council has funded the production of enough doses for everyone.  But participation will be entirely voluntary.  I open the floor to questions."

    A woman raised her hand, and Sam pointed to her.  She asked, "But how will the wasps know we have this poison inside us?"

    "The wasps won't know.  They're only dumb creatures, after all.  Simple evolution will see to it that wasps that don't use people as breeding hosts will multiply at a faster rate than those that do.  Eventually, evolution will teach them that we aren't a good source of breeding hosts."

    The room was silent for a moment.  Then a murmur slowly filled the room.  Everyone began calling out at once.  "You mean this stuff won't stop them at all them until after they kill more people?  What good is that?" 

    Sam waited for the crowd to calm down.  "Yes.  You're right.  It's not a pleasant solution.   But it's the best we have so far.  It's all we can do with what we have."

    Someone else called out, "So you're saying we're going to poison them with our bodies?  When they learn that we're poison to them, they'll stop killing us?"

    "Yes," Sam said.  "That's the gist of it in layman's terms."

    "That's the worst thing I ever heard!" someone shouted from the back row and stormed out. 

    "Do you really expect everyone to go along with your mad idea?" someone else asked.

    Sam paused.  "No, I don't expect everyone to.  But the wasps will continue to take people.  That's a given.  And the more people who take the enzyme, the sooner the horror will end."

    "But doesn't everyone need to do it for it to work at all?" 

    "It needn't be everyone.  If only one out of every two people takes the treatment, that will tip the evolutionary scale in our favor.  Of course, the more people with the enzyme, the faster the desired evolutionary trait will dominate the wasp population." 

    Someone else called out, "But won't this poison inside our bodies kill us too?"

    "No.  The enzyme is harmless to human physiology.  It's only harmful to insect physiology."  

    "That's what scientists always say!" someone else shouted from the audience. 

    "How do you tell the queen from the drones and workers?"

    "Insect evolution took a different path on Zos than on Earth.  These creatures do not follow the queen-drone-worker mode as do earthly insects.  We still don't know all the details, but there appears to be many females and many males in a given hive." 

    At the end of another hour of questions, heated statements, and unflattering assessments of Sam's family ancestry, not as many people left in disgust as Sam had expected.  He knew that his solution would be unpopular, but it was sound science. 

    Sam continued his research, though at a less aggressive cost to his personal life.  Over the following week, nearly 80% of the population of all three cities took the injections, including Sam. On one particular morning, Sam sat at his computer and scanned the morning's headlines: another scouting-rescue party, five more brave souls, had failed to return after a two weeks. 

    After returning to a more or less conventional workweek, Sam had stopped on his way home to take a swim in the community pool on a warm evening after work.  The pool had been built early in the development of the colony, before the insect menace made itself known.  Safety kiosks, built of steel and concrete, dotted the perimeter of the pool area.  

    After diving into the refreshing cool pool, Sam discovered a minor side effect when he bit his lip and tasted the distinct odor of insecticide with his blood.    

    One advantage of the liberal political climate of the colony was the lack of Puritanical taboos.  In and around the pool, bodies without a single thread of covering filled Sam's view.  Originally of somewhat conservative leanings, it took Sam some time to overcome his modesty.   Sam relaxed as he floated at the less-crowded deep end of the pool, making a conscious effort to stifle any erotic thoughts despite the nudity around him. 

    The klaxons sounded!

    Sam swam to a ladder and climbed out of the pool.  The wasps descended as screaming people ran into the kiosks.  The nearest kiosk was still about five meters away when a wasp flew down between him and the doorway.

    "No!" a young, and very nude, woman screeched from behind him.  He spun around to see her lunge for him with her eyes wide in terror; a wasp was in the motion of grasping at her.  She threw herself at Sam, wrapping her arms and legs around him at the precise instant that the wasp grabbed them both.  

    "No!  No!" she screamed in Sam's ear as the wasp flew high into the sky.  They both held tightly onto each other while the wasp flew toward the hills at a dizzying height.

    A short flight left them, still in the wasp's grasp, upon a narrow ledge of cliffs some distance from the city.  Quickly, the wasp spun a cocoon around their naked bodies and set them down with Sam on his back and the girl face down upon him.  It then spun additional thread, attaching them firmly to the rocky ground.  It then flew off.  

    Screams and crying of unseen people echoed against the cliff wall.   

    Sam panted heavily while the woman cried.  They lay amid shredded cocoons filled with pitted human, and other large animals', skeletons. 

    "I'm sorry," she said at last.  

    "For what?" said Sam.

    "If it wasn't for me, you'd have been safe," she whimpered.  "I didn't want to die alone.  I'm so sorry."

    "My safety was hardly assured with all the wasps in the air at that moment."  It seemed the right thing to say, anyway. 

    Sam struggled against the cocoon.  Though it was soft a moment ago, it had quickly become as hard as plaster.   They were quite immobile.

    "Let's try to roll off this ledge together," said Sam.  "Maybe this cocoon will shatter.  On the count of three: one; two; three."

    They tried to roll, but the cocoon remained utterly still.  "Damn!" said Sam.  "We're fastened down."

    "No-o-o-o!" she cried.  

    "Shhhh," Sam said.  "We'll think of something."

    "But you're that scientist, right?" 

    "Yes, I'm Sam Walker.  What's your name?"

    "Karen.  And I saw your film that night," she cried.  "I know how we're going to die.  Oh, God!  No!"

    "Did you take the treatment, Karen?" he asked.

    "Yes.  For all the good it does me now."   

    Sam had nothing to say to that, so he remained silent.  Hours passed as wasps buzzed around the sky above them, ignoring them.  Karen sobbed quietly in Sam's ear.    

    Night fell in due time, and Sam had become thirsty.  At times, he felt Karen's stomach growling against his, while his growled in sympathy.  Struggling against the hard cocoon proved equally futile with each new attempt.     

    During the night, a gentle rain fell.  Despite the repulsive odor of their combined wastes wafting out from within the cocoon, Sam opened his mouth and let the refreshing water fill his mouth, sating his thirst.  

    Karen tried to turn her head to catch some of the rain, but couldn't turn her face upward enough.  "If you don't hate me by now, would you give me a drink?  Please!" she cried.   

    "I don't hate you," whispered Sam.  Catching some rain in his mouth, he turned to her with his mouth agape.  She pressed her lips to his and drank.

    "More!" she said.

    Their kiss continued even after sating both of their thirsts. 

    ### 

    Karen met Sam's gaze in the morning as Iebfr14 rose over the mountains in the distance.  "This is hardly the best way to start a relationship, love," she said.  "Is there any hope at all?"

    "There's always hope, sweetheart," said Sam.  Though he knew that rescue was as unlikely for them as for any of the previous unfortunates whose remains lay scattered about.  Without vehicles, it would take days for anyone to reach the mountains and climb the rugged cliff faces to get to them; and without weapons, any rescue attempt would end in many more dead rescuers, just as the newspaper reports repeated regularly.

    Sam and Karen awoke to the shrill screams of all the trapped people around them.  The morning sunlight was overcast with a black cloud of insects.  Sam felt their two hearts pound when one of the monsters buzzed down from the swarm and landed on the ledge, straddling them.

    In a split second, it extended its sharp, black, blade-like ovipositor from the end of its abdomen and crouched down, impaling the cocoon from above.  Sam had never before heard such a curdling scream from someone's mouth as came from Karen at that moment.  He stared as its abdomen flexed where it attached to its thorax as it pumped hundreds of eggs into Karen's body.  Sam could feel Karen's belly press tighter against his as her abdomen filled with insect eggs.  After about two or three minutes, it withdrew its ovipositor, now coated with Karen's blood, and flew off.  Karen lay upon him, quaking and shivering.  She tried to speak, but vomited blood upon the side of Sam's head instead.  

    Karen continued to quiver for about an hour until another monster showed up and straddled them.  This, second, was smaller--a male.  It extended its stinger-like penis and, like the female, impaled the cocoon.  Once again, Karen screamed as the creature flooded Karen's abdomen with its insect sperm.  The male spent less time than the female, and was gone in less than a minute. 

    "Karen?" asked Sam.  "Can you hear me?"  

    Karen quaked, turned toward Sam, and made some gurgling noises, spat up more blood, but didn't otherwise answer.

    Sam had thought that the worst was over for Karen, at least until the eggs hatched.  He was wrong.  Shortly later, another male straddled them and impaled them.  

    Yet another male followed the second almost immediately.  Not only did it impale Karen, but also it pushed its penis completely through her body into his.  Sam had never before experienced such severe, burning pain.  It was now his turn to scream such that he had never done before.   

    Then it got worse.  Two males landed above them and began fighting. One beat the other off, and the victor impaled them.  The defeated male returned while the first was thus occupied, and also impaled them.  Blue fluid spewed forth from Karen's mouth and nose. 

    By the time the seventh male had its turn, both he and Karen had lost consciousness.  Sam didn't regain consciousness until the next morning when Iefbr14 rose upon them in their cocoon prison for the second time.   

    Karen was still alive, if you could call gurgling every breath and drooling blood alive.  "Karen?" he whispered.  The effort shot daggers through his chest.  

    Karen groaned and struggled to say, "We should have used protection last night, love.  I think I'm pregnant."  She smiled and started crying, then passed out again.

    The wasps ignored them for the rest of that day.  A gentle rain fell again that night.  Sam was parched of thirst after going nearly a day without fluid.  As foul as Karen's oral emissions seemed, he offered some water to her in their usual manner, of which she took a little.  Thankfully, sleep came quickly in the darkness.    

    In the morning, Karen lay still and didn't respond to Sam at all, though he still felt her heart beating and she continued to gurgle with each breath. 

    During the day, the inevitable came about.  Karen quivered, met Sam's eyes, gasped feebly, and then vomited several pinkish wasp larvae.  A moment later, a pinkish larvae ate its way out the side of Karen's neck before it died, causing blood to gush out of her artery like a burst water pipe.  

    Karen gasped, "Sam, I love you," in a hoarse whisper that became her final breath.  

    "I love you too, Karen," Sam replied.  Karen was now the lucky one.  Sam felt countless larvae eat through Karen's chest and abdomen and continue to eat their way into his.  Still more larvae ate their way through the cocoon into the open air, all sickly pink, and expire.   

    * END *

