Read Online World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) by James Lovegrove - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Lovegrove
Tags: Science-Fiction
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stings. Occasionally one of them would charge at one of the other two. A feint. Then another of them would retaliate with a feint of its own.
The hisses they made were now more or less continuous. The noises were raspy and slightly moist, like air escaping from a child’s balloon.
A fourth scroach turned up to join in the fun, and a fifth. The geode was beginning to get crowded.
The scroaches had to be coming from somewhere.
And just like that, Dev came up with a plan.
These creatures struck him as solitary rather than social. When they met up, they found it hard to get along.
Yet to have this many at once in the same place suggested they followed set routes. Feeding trails. They were scavengers who returned again and again to established sources of their yummy slime mould.
Chances were, they might not live in the geode maze at all. They might come from outside.
In which case, if he went in the opposite direction, contrary to the flow of traffic, it might just lead him to freedom.
Dev had to acknowledge that, as plans went, it wasn’t the soundest. It definitely wasn’t a sure thing. He might just wind up straying into a scroach nest – lair, den, whatever the place was called where Ma and Pa Scroach reared their young.
But it was far preferable to staying put in the geode with five – no, six now – hideous, bad-tempered giant insect beasties all spoiling for a fight.
Dev checked the fissure to see if yet another scroach was on its way through.
Then he dived in and wriggled smartly out the other side.
He loitered in this adjacent geode until a scroach emerged from one of the other fissures.
He wormed through that one too.
He went from geode to geode another three times before taking an enforced hiatus. The procession of scroaches had run out. No more of them coming.
Eventually he heard a faint scuttling from the nearest fissure. He bent cautiously to peer in.
The hugest scroach yet pounced from the crevice, forelimbs extended. Where the others were the size of a spaniel, this one was a full-grown labrador.
Before Dev could react, the creature seized his hand. It felt as though his fingers were trapped in a vice.
Dev reared backwards, trying to wrench himself free. The scroach’s pincer was clamped fast. It couldn’t bring its sting to bear yet – it was only part way out of the fissure – but all it had to do was advance a couple of steps and its tail would be in the clear.
Dev ignored the pain of the crushing pressure from the pincer. He also ignored – although this took some doing – the loathsome sensation of being touched by the scroach, the hard, slightly clammy feel of its exoskeleton on his skin.
The scroach pressed forward, nothing but deadly implacability in its myriad eyes. Its mouth parts worked furiously as it let out a string of vicious, menacing hisses.
Dev tried shunting it back into the fissure, but it was strong, and with his hand held tight, he couldn’t get the necessary leverage. The only tactic left was surprise.
Dev stopped pushing and instead pulled .
He yanked the scroach fully out of the fissure. Its feet scrabbled for purchase.
Quick!
Before the scroach could gather its wits and deploy its sting, Dev hauled it off the ground. He seized its tail with his free hand, at the joint just below the top segment.
He swung the monstrous insect against the wall. Once. Twice.
On the third impact the scroach’s pincer opened and let go.
Now Dev whirled it by the tail alone, double-handed, slamming the scroach even harder against the geode’s crystalline growths. He flailed the thing back and forth, this way, that way, and each time it hit the wall the sound was a little crunchier, a little squishier.
Shards of carapace flew. A foul-smelling custardy ichor spattered – the haemolymph that was the scroach’s blood. Slender brittle legs snapped off and fell.
Dev kept smashing and smashing the scroach until just about only the tail was left intact. The rest was a
The hisses they made were now more or less continuous. The noises were raspy and slightly moist, like air escaping from a child’s balloon.
A fourth scroach turned up to join in the fun, and a fifth. The geode was beginning to get crowded.
The scroaches had to be coming from somewhere.
And just like that, Dev came up with a plan.
These creatures struck him as solitary rather than social. When they met up, they found it hard to get along.
Yet to have this many at once in the same place suggested they followed set routes. Feeding trails. They were scavengers who returned again and again to established sources of their yummy slime mould.
Chances were, they might not live in the geode maze at all. They might come from outside.
In which case, if he went in the opposite direction, contrary to the flow of traffic, it might just lead him to freedom.
Dev had to acknowledge that, as plans went, it wasn’t the soundest. It definitely wasn’t a sure thing. He might just wind up straying into a scroach nest – lair, den, whatever the place was called where Ma and Pa Scroach reared their young.
But it was far preferable to staying put in the geode with five – no, six now – hideous, bad-tempered giant insect beasties all spoiling for a fight.
Dev checked the fissure to see if yet another scroach was on its way through.
Then he dived in and wriggled smartly out the other side.
He loitered in this adjacent geode until a scroach emerged from one of the other fissures.
He wormed through that one too.
He went from geode to geode another three times before taking an enforced hiatus. The procession of scroaches had run out. No more of them coming.
Eventually he heard a faint scuttling from the nearest fissure. He bent cautiously to peer in.
The hugest scroach yet pounced from the crevice, forelimbs extended. Where the others were the size of a spaniel, this one was a full-grown labrador.
Before Dev could react, the creature seized his hand. It felt as though his fingers were trapped in a vice.
Dev reared backwards, trying to wrench himself free. The scroach’s pincer was clamped fast. It couldn’t bring its sting to bear yet – it was only part way out of the fissure – but all it had to do was advance a couple of steps and its tail would be in the clear.
Dev ignored the pain of the crushing pressure from the pincer. He also ignored – although this took some doing – the loathsome sensation of being touched by the scroach, the hard, slightly clammy feel of its exoskeleton on his skin.
The scroach pressed forward, nothing but deadly implacability in its myriad eyes. Its mouth parts worked furiously as it let out a string of vicious, menacing hisses.
Dev tried shunting it back into the fissure, but it was strong, and with his hand held tight, he couldn’t get the necessary leverage. The only tactic left was surprise.
Dev stopped pushing and instead pulled .
He yanked the scroach fully out of the fissure. Its feet scrabbled for purchase.
Quick!
Before the scroach could gather its wits and deploy its sting, Dev hauled it off the ground. He seized its tail with his free hand, at the joint just below the top segment.
He swung the monstrous insect against the wall. Once. Twice.
On the third impact the scroach’s pincer opened and let go.
Now Dev whirled it by the tail alone, double-handed, slamming the scroach even harder against the geode’s crystalline growths. He flailed the thing back and forth, this way, that way, and each time it hit the wall the sound was a little crunchier, a little squishier.
Shards of carapace flew. A foul-smelling custardy ichor spattered – the haemolymph that was the scroach’s blood. Slender brittle legs snapped off and fell.
Dev kept smashing and smashing the scroach until just about only the tail was left intact. The rest was a
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