Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 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 *