Spider Legs (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

Environment

M
ARTHA SAMULES LOOKED
up as the door to Martha's Fish Store opened to admit a solid man. She was in the back, but could see the door without being readily seen, because of the shadow. This was no coincidence; she preferred to have better knowledge of her customers than they had of her, especially when they were strangers. This could make a difference, when trouble threatened.

This man was no stranger; she recognized him. Oh, no! Martha dreaded the coming encounter, for the man was her brother Elmo. They were so similar yet so different. All they ever did was quarrel, yet they couldn't let go of each other. She would have faded to the back room, leaving the store to her hireling Lisa. But Lisa wasn't due to report for another twenty minutes. Martha was stuck for it.

She stood, approaching him. She was determined to keep things positive, this one time, but knew that she would fail as she always did. She forced a smile. “What can I do for you, Elmo?”

“There's been some trouble,” he said gruffly. He walked around the store, gazing at the fish tanks, as if he were a customer. By that token she knew that he was not any more comfortable with this meeting than she was. But that gave her scant comfort, because he was not a shy or evasive man. Something
was really bothering him, and it was bound to bother her in a moment. “I have a meeting coming up. But that's not why I'm here. Mother's in trouble again. She may or may not make it. Will you come?”

It was just as bad as she had feared. She knew she had no reason for guilt, yet he made her feel it. “You know I won't, Elmo.”

“I know how you feel, Martha. But—”

“Oh,
do
you!” She stifled the rest, clinging to her resolve.

“But she is your mother, and she is a human being. She never meant to hurt you, or knew that she was doing it. She may have allowed you to be hurt, but she was blameless in intention. I know it would please her just to see you, even if you don't say a word.” But his eyes remained on the fish, not on her. “Can't you raise enough compassion to let her imagine, before she dies, that—”

“Compassion!” she snapped. She tried to hang on, but knew that she was losing control. She didn't want to make this scene. So she performed an evasive maneuver. “Do you know how many species are killed each year by humans?” Martha asked him.

The big man looked away from a tank of neon tetras and back at Martha. “No,” he said, with a slightly quizzical expression on his face. She knew he was momentarily confused by her tack, not certain what she was up to, and no more eager for a confrontation than she was.

She started to lecture him. “Although it's probably impossible to know how many are killed with any accuracy, because no one knows how many species inhabit the Earth, it is clear that each year two percent of the world's rain forests are destroyed, and at this rate they will be gone in 50 years.” Martha began to ramble a bit, unconcerned with the fact that her brother listened politely but neither cared nor fully understood what she was trying to say.

Since adolescence Martha had had little regard for ordinary folk, but much regard for other creatures of the planet. She saw humans overrunning the world, blithely extirpating thousands of other species, promising to render just about every other creature
extinct in the next fifty years before her fellow humans finally extinguished themselves in a final orgy of pollutive destruction.

“Oh, the environment,” Elmo said, recognizing the theme. “That's not—”

“Humans are destroying the planet,” she yelled at him, as if he were personally responsible. “They pollute. They overpopulate their land.”

“Look, Martha, we've long since agreed to disagree on this. Okay, so you feel for the animals. So do I. Who doesn't? But I believe in the wise use of the resources of the world—”

“Wise use! That's an obscenity! That's the buzzword for unfettered exploitation. It's the obliteration of every species except our own.”

He shook his head. “There may be some that deserve to be obliterated, such as the malaria carrying mosquito or the parasitic blowfly. However—”

“Deserve it?” she demanded. “What can you be thinking of? Nothing deserves extinction!”

But Elmo's mouth tightened. She knew he thought she was a nut on this subject. “Something does.” He said no more.

That aggravated her further. “Animal species are disappearing due to habitat destruction, pollution, and the introduction of exotic species into natural environments where they don't belong. And you think that's all right? Elmo, do you know what an exotic species is?”

“Of course. But I don't care to—”

“Didn't think so. Know how many species could be extinct in the next fifty years?” Elmo started to move away, reminding her of a rabbit with part of its nervous system removed, despite his bulk. Yet he wasn't quite ready to leave. He had never been a quitter; she could say that much for him. He wandered down the rows of tanks, as if searching for a few small fish for his own fish collection. She knew he was actually searching for some way to convince her to come to see their mother. She had to head that off.

“We just got a shipment of beautiful discus fish. Could I interest you in a few?”

“No thank you,” he replied, troubled. “Martha—”

“Did you know that about twenty percent of the world's freshwater fish species are in dangerous decline?” Elmo looked back and listened. His eyes grew wide in frustration. She knew she was treating him like an idiot, considering that he was a local fishery officer who probably had such statistics memorized as a matter of business. But she couldn't stop.

Elmo looked as if he were about to bring up the matter of their mother again.

“That's why I buy my fish only from fish farms so that the natural lakes are not interfered with,” Martha said, more forcefully than the subject warranted.

“Someone's coming,” he said, relieved.

Martha glanced at the door. “That's only Lisa. She works for me.”

Evidently giving up his mission here as a bad job, Elmo moved for the door, passing Lisa, who gave him a quick smile. Lisa thought he was a customer, and it was part of her job description to smile winningly at customers. Sometimes it made a difference in a sale, for she was a pretty girl. Of course the effort was wasted in this instance, but Martha wouldn't tell her that; she was glad he was going.

Yet her emotions were mixed as she heard the door close after him. She always fought with Elmo, and he fought with her. But they were two of a kind, for all that, and he was perhaps the one human being she cared for. Naturally she wouldn't tell him that. If only he weren't such a straightlaced conventional man. Wise use, indeed! Elmo had a fine brain, but it remained firmly in human-chauvinist channels. If only he had seen and learned what she had.

For Martha had observed, firsthand, the extinction of many species of freshwater fish in Africa and Asia, the decline in bird populations in the United States, and the rapid disappearance of the Brazilian rain forests by cutting and burning. She had
watched the Brazilian fires spew out millions of tons of carbon dioxide and monoxide into the air. She had clenched her fists when she had seen the great plumes traveling eastward across the Atlantic. The forests were being destroyed at the rate of a football field every second, or the size of Florida every year. Those weren't mere trees; they were a vital component of the world's system of atmospheric restoration. The rainfall pattern was changing, bringing more deserts, and the globe was warming. When it reached a certain unknown trigger point there could be a drastic change in climate, causing agricultural havoc on land and turmoil in the seas. It had happened before, from natural causes; this time it would be unnatural. The extinction of the dinosaurs had been an extreme example, though not
the
most extreme.

Her most recent trip to Cebu in the Philippines had pushed Martha over the edge. When the forest was completely logged, she found that nine out of ten bird species unique to the island were made extinct. She considered incidents like this as miniature holocausts. Like a hemorrhaging of the earth. Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson, her mentor and hero, estimated that the number of rain forest species doomed each year was 27,000. Each day it was 77, and each hour 3. Human actions had increased extinction between one thousand and ten thousand times over its normal background level in the rain forest.

Martha was continually depressed by the fact that the richest nations presided over the smallest and least interesting biotas, while poorest nations with exploding populations and little scientific knowledge had the largest number of animal species and incredibly intricate, vast ecosystems. If only she could make Elmo see, recruit him to her Earth-saving mission. He was just about the only person she could trust, if he were on her side. But he wasn't. He wasn't against her, exactly; he was just one of the apathetic throng who chose to believe that there wasn't a looming crisis. The absolute fool!

Now, belatedly, it occurred to her that if she had been more
accommodating in the matter of their mother, her brother might have been more receptive to her own interests. She had missed a golden opportunity. Because she was just as pigheaded as he was. What a pity.

CHAPTER 8

Nathan

S
T. JOHN'S, THE
capital of Newfoundland, was a few miles south of Bonavista Bay. It was a port, a commercial and cultural center, and it served a population of 170,000. After Elmo and Nathan reported the grisly death on the schooner
Phantom
to the St. John's police, Elmo had the film in the camera developed.

Nathan paced back and forth around a large oak table in the corner of a mahogany-paneled police conference room. Elmo sat on a chair, resting his large arms on the table in front of him, as they both waited for a meeting with officials from St. John's police department. On the table, spread out in an array of seven photos, were large color prints made from some of the negatives in the camera they had found on the destroyed schooner.

Nathan looked at one corner of the genteel room that contained a brown-lacquered cabinet with oriental panels. “Nice furniture,” he said. In another corner was an all-glass fish tank containing about fifty
Zanclus cornutus
fish, better known as Moorish Idols. On each of these marine fish were two black bars crossing a white and yellow body. Their caudal fins were black. The most prominent part of their anatomy was a long, trailing dorsal fin that protruded many inches beyond the fishes’ tails. Nathan got up and wandered over to the tank.

“Beautiful fish,” he said. “But isn't it kind of strange for a police department to maintain such a beautiful tank?”

“Not for Newfoundland,” Elmo said. “We're all fond of fish here.”

“I always wanted to have a big tank like this at home but my ex-wife always objected,” said Nathan. “She said it was too much trouble. Too much money. Said we didn't have enough room in the house. Why is it that most spouses object to, or merely tolerate, the aquarium hobbies of their husbands?”

“I don't know. But I think you're right. Maybe that's why I never married.”

Nathan smiled faintly, sure that the man had more substantial reasons to have missed marriage, such as the length of his fingers. But of course he wouldn't remark on that. “These Moorish Idol fish are pretty difficult to keep. They're reluctant feeders and never breed in an aquarium. Whoever is in charge of the aquarium must be pretty good with fish.”

“Why thank you,” said a woman who had just walked into the room.

Policewoman Natalie Sheppard and Police Chief Joseph Falow shook hands with Elmo and Nathan. Natalie had anthracite eyes and hair as black as Manchester coal. She was currently out of uniform, wearing a watermelon-colored cotton sweater dress. Nathan wished immediately that he had some pretext to get to know her better. But of course he concealed this, and turned to the other. Police Chief Falow had iron-brown eyebrows, thick sandy hair, and a lanky frame without an ounce of spare flesh. After shaking hands, they took seats around the table. Falow's thick hand pinched a cigarette. His other hand drummed the table top with a pen.

“OK, gentlemen,” Falow said. “Why did you call me? What news have you got for me?” He had a masculine force about him, a great presence born of certainty.

“Take a look at these,” Elmo said to Falow and Natalie. He handed the prints to the officers.

“Look like icebergs,” Natalie said as she held the photos in her hands. Her voice was soft and eminently reasonable. Falow looked at the photos, but withheld judgement. He sat with the ramrod posture of a British brigadier.

“We got these from a camera we found on the
Phantom,
"
Nathan said. “Take a look at the dark area at the lower left.” He rose from the table and pointed at the photos.

“You shouldn't have taken the camera from the boat,” Falow said with irritation. He then looked at the photos. “Looks like a crab or a spider.” Falow spoke in a flat, inflectionless voice as he carefully examined an iceberg photo. “What's this have to do with the deaths on the schooner?”

Nathan said just one word: “Pycnogonid.” He sat with his sneakers angled on the floor like frog's legs. There was a brooding quality about his voice.

“What's that?” asked Natalie.

“Pycnogonid,” he repeated. Now there was a certain thrill of alarm in his voice. “PICK-no-GO-nid. It's a spiderlike marine animal. Pycnogonids occur in all oceans, especially the arctic. They usually dwell on the bottom.”

“How big is it?” Falow asked.

“We couldn't tell just from looking at the photos,” Nathan said. “So we went back out to sea to take a look at the berg firsthand to estimate the scale of the features in the photo. This sea spider is
big.”

Natalie seemed to be listening with rapt attention. Even the air seemed to be holding its breath. Falow stripped off his jacket, and the brown leather straps of his shoulder holster stood out like large suspenders on the starched white of his shirt. They were all beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.

“Today there are more than six hundred different species, and we have fossils of these creatures which demonstrate they also lived during the time of the dinosaurs.” Nathan took a drink of water and continued. “They usually range in size from four millimeters in such forms as the littoral
Tanystylum
to about sixty centimeters in deep-sea species of
Colossendeis.
Little is
known about the deep-sea species, but larger sizes have been hypothesized. . . .” His voice trailed away ominously.

“Don't keep us in suspense, Doctor. How big?” Falow spoke in a powerful editorial voice. He stroked his cheek with great tender fingers. Nathan didn't speak, trying to gather his words. “Get to the point,” Falow said with the temperament of an underfed grizzly.

Well, he had asked for it. “This one was as big as an adult elephant,” Nathan said. “It killed the people on the schooner. Tore them to shreds. We also think it was responsible for the death of an Inuit family a week ago several hundred miles north in Nain on the subarctic Labrador coast.” Nathan went on, blithely ignoring the sudden silence in the room. “We think it will kill again, although there's a slim chance it will leave the coast and go out to the deep sea and leave humans alone.”

“Sounds like a bunch of crap,” Falow said. His cheek muscles stood out as he clenched his jaw. “Is this guy some kind of nut?” Falow turned to Natalie expecting her to say “yes,” even though she knew as little about Elmo and Nathan as Falow did.

“We're not nuts,” Elmo said. “Look at the photos yourself.”

“Those photos are so fuzzy you could see anything you wanted in them.”

“Then look at this,” Nathan said. He withdrew a six-inch spine from his pocket and held it out to Falow, who did not take it. “We found this on the boat. I know it's from a pycnogonid.”

“Hey, how dare you remove more evidence from the scene of a crime?” Falow got to his feet.

“What do you suggest?” asked Natalie. “Can we capture or kill it?” She turned to Falow, who was calming himself. “Whatever we do, we don't want to alarm the public, the tourists, the fishermen.”

“You had better alarm someone,” Nathan said. “It's fast, strong. It has a voracious appetite, and it's smart. It would
probably
be killed if someone fired enough gunshots at its head and brain. The hard part is to catch the creature in the act before it retreats back into the safety of the sea.”

“What do you mean
probably
be killed?” Falow demanded.

“The nervous system of a pycnogonid is composed of a supra-esophageal brain or ganglion and a chain of six ventral ganglia,” Nathan said.

“In plain English, Doctor,” Falow said with a suspicious, sideways squint.

“It has more than one brain,” Elmo said, a cold hard-pinched expression on his face. “Destroy one brain and the others may take control of its body.”

There was a momentary silence. They were beginning to understand the nature of the problem.

“How does it attack?” Natalie asked.

“If we can extrapolate from what we know through observations of smaller specimens, the pycnogonid will grab its victim with its front legs and claws and bring the victim toward its mouth,” Nathan said. “Its triangular-shaped mouth is at the end of a long sucking appendage, a proboscis. It sucks out the body fluids of its victims. It drains them alive. Like a spider.”

“The question now is,” Natalie said, “how should we respond?”

“How about offering a reward for its capture?” Nathan suggested.

Falow stood up and slapped his fist into his other hand with a thud. “That's the worst idea I can think of. It would cause a panic. It would turn into a media event. I can just see the posters now: $1000 Reward For Killer Sea Spider!” Falow paced back and forth for a few seconds. “Looks like we should set some traps and wait to see if it attacks again. Let's just hope the media don't get wind of this. We don't want panic in the streets.”

Nathan nodded. He didn't much like the police chief, but the man was right. Panic would accomplish nothing worthwhile. So it was best to go along with Falow's dictate. But Nathan hoped that his future contacts with the police would be limited to Natalie Sheppard. She seemed reasonable as well as being attractive.