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A handful turned to hundreds. Hundreds turned to thousands, and then tens of thousands. Soon they were everywhere, surrounding the vessel like drifting kelp. They slid up and down as the swells passed underneath, creating the equivalent of a psychedelic light show.
Gamay’s got to see this, Paul thought.
He turned to go, but a spitting and popping sound caught his ear. Looking back out over the rail he saw what looked like moths emerging from the water. They took to the air, beating their wings noisily. At first a few, then by the thousands.
They swirled up at some unspoken command, racing toward Paul and the ship from all directions. Paul backed away, swatting at them, closing his eyes and covering his face. He stumbled away like a blind man, pushing through the swarm in search of the nearest door.
Chapter 31
Paul crashed into the bulkhead and opened his eyes. He was surrounded by a swirling cloud of the insects. They hit him like darts from every direction at once, crashing into his back, whipping into his legs, clipping his ears and neck as they flew by. Their wings felt like tiny, sharp-edged knives.
He moved along the deck, keeping close to the superstructure and crushing dozens of the insects with each step. Soon he was slipping on their guts and goo. Feeling his way along, he found a door handle. He pulled it down, yanked the door open, and ducked inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
At least a dozen of the pests rode in on him, while another thirty or forty had flown through the briefly opened door. Shaking the attackers off, Paul smashed and stomped on them, crushing them against the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor.
Gamay and Chantel heard the commotion and came rushing out of the science bay. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Pest control,” Paul replied, stepping on yet another one of the invaders.
“Where did these come from?”
“Outside,” Paul shouted. “From the sea.”
Chantel went to the door, peered through the porthole, and put her hand on the latch.
“Don’t!” Paul snapped.
She stopped.
“There are thousands of them outside,” he grunted. “Millions, maybe.”
“Millions?” Gamay asked, looking at him as if that had to be an exaggeration.
“I didn’t exactly stop to count them,” Paul said. “But they surrounded the ship, like those locusts that swarmed out of the wheat field when we were in Kenya a few years ago. Do you remember hiding in the shed as the sky turned dark?”
Gamay remembered the cloud of insects blocking out the sun and pelting the metal-walled shed like hail. The noise from their wings had sounded like a squadron of World War II bombers flying overhead.
She joined Chantel at the window. The flying creatures could be seen mostly in the cones of light from the upper deck. They were swarming so thickly it was dizzying to watch. Before long they began landing on the window, covering it from top to bottom in layer after layer.
“The glowing water down below,” Chantel said. “When we hit a thousand feet. They must have risen to the surface to hatch. Just like the one we plucked out of the sample jar.”
Paul found his hands burning. His neck felt worse. “Can someone please grab the medical kit?”
As Gamay went for the first-aid case, several of the hidden insects fluttered out of the vent they’d flown into. It dawned on Paul that theIsabellawas running with windows and vents open to let the cool night air in. “Call the bridge,” he suggested to Chantel. “Tell them to button up the ship like we’re going into a storm. Otherwise the ship will become infested with these things.”
As Chantel rushed to the nearest intercom station, Gamay returned with the medical kit. She doused Paul’s hands with antiseptic and then swabbed his neck.
He winced with pain, but didn’t ask her to stop. “Hope these are just bites,” he said. “I don’t want to end up like those whales.”
“If I have to, I’ll lance every bite and inject a sterilizing agent,” Gamay said. “For now, I’ll use an extra dose of the rubbing alcohol and then you can smear this antibiotic cream and this hydrocortisone on them.”
She handed him a pair of tubes.
“This is for poison ivy,” he said dejectedly.
“There’s nothing in here labeled ‘antidote for killer flying fish.’ ”
Paul had to laugh.Of course there isn’t.He squeezed out the antibiotic gel and rubbed it liberally anywhere the stingers or teeth had cut his skin.