Free World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) by James Lovegrove Page A

about this, then? Help me or I’ll treat you much the same as I did this scroach. Protective gear won’t save you.”
    Trundell gulped and blanched. “I’m not a man of violence.”
    “Nor am I, unless provoked. The evidence for that is, I’d say, pretty conclusive.”
    Trundell glanced around the gore-spattered geode.
    “Fine,” he said. “Your argument is forceful and persuasive. Let’s go.”
    The professor led the way, shuffling through the fissures, Dev close behind. Every so often he paused to consult his tracking device, then carried on.
    “Trundle?”
    “Trun dell .”
    “If you love scroaches so much, how come you’re all togged up in ceramide fibre and tungsten mesh? Don’t you trust them?”
    “I may admire the scroach, but I’m not crazy. They’re temperamental and sometimes unpredictable. Only a fool would get as close to them as I do and not take precautions.”
    “Ever been attacked?”
    “Couple of times. A female tried to sting me once, but her aculeus failed to pierce my clothing. Just. It felt like being rammed hard in the chest with the end of a steel rod. I was bruised for days. I blame myself, though.”
    “You would.”
    “No, really. I didn’t respect her. She was carrying her infant brood on her back, and I plucked one off to take a closer look. I was going to return it, of course, but she couldn’t have known that. Another scroach nearly took a couple of my fingers off with its pincer. Again, mea culpa . Dromopoda alighieriensis is a proud beast and doesn’t take kindly to insults.”
    “You were rude to it?”
    “By its own lights, yes,” said Trundell. “I mimicked the brandishing of its pedipalps incorrectly.”
    “For shame. It waved its arms at you and you didn’t have the courtesy to wave back?”
    “I did, but in order to indicate submission you not only have to copy what the other scroach does precisely but you must do so at a marginally slower rate to denote your inferior status. I freely admit I got it wrong. Also, and this is the real issue, I don’t have chelicerae.”
    “Those being...”
    “Moveable mouth parts. Scroaches use them to signal to one another in addition to their pedipalps. They exhale through special spiracles set just inside their jaws and modify the sound with the chelicerae. I can hiss too, of course, but not with nearly the same range of modulations and frequencies.”
    Dev recalled the extensive rattly hissing he had heard from the scroaches. “You’re saying they can talk to one another?”
    “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
    “Ugh.”
    “Why ‘ugh’?”
    “Because that’s freaky. Insects talking.”
    “No more so than birds chirping or dogs barking, and scroaches are no less intelligent then either of those species. Personally I find it extraordinary and rather beautiful.”
    “Of course you do.”
    “In fact I’m thinking of making it my field of specialism – quasi-verbal communication among alien invertebrates. How they manage to convey aggression, announce the desire to mate, familiarise themselves with their young, share warning messages and so forth, by means of a complex system of principally auditory cues.”
    Dev did not seem to have endeared himself to Trundell by bullying him earlier, but the xeno-entomologist’s passion for his subject, however, was overcoming his nerdy resentment. He just couldn’t help enthusing about his beloved scroaches to anyone who would listen, and in Dev he had a more or less captive audience.
    “We’re familiar with Terran insects who use sound to communicate,” he went on. “The stridulation of cicadas and grasshoppers, for instance, or the sharp air expulsions of the Fijian long-horned beetle and the Madagascan hissing cockroach. But they operate at a relatively low level of sophistication compared with the scroach. They’re either calling to mates, demarcating territory, or trying to repel rivals or predators. That’s about all.”
    “Who needs more than that? I know