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Elliot yelled for Owen. He struggled in the mud toward the young cameraman, his head full of recent trauma and childhood nightmares about being unable to outrun something. The mud pulling at his feet felt more malevolent than it had moments before. Dale thrashed. He’d only been with the show a few months. Elliot strained toward him.
“Get it off, get — Ah!” Dale’s frantic movements flung something into the air: a head-sized mass of red tentacles that pinwheeled, grabbing wildly. Elliot thought for one sick moment that it was red with blood, but he didn’t see any on Dale. The thing splashed into the mud and disappeared.
Hubcap made a bigger splash as he landed by Dale’s side, having leapt from a rock. “Where are you hurt?”
“I, uh,” Dale stuttered, scrambling to his feet and running muddy hands over his helmet. “I think I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? Hold still.”
Elliot got there just after Owen, and the three of them made certain that Dale hadn’t been injured. Owen was less concerned.
“It was a mudsucker,” Owen said, glancing at the undisturbed surface of the mud. “They’re not all that dangerous, though they do look it.”
A local waded over and plunged her arms into the muck. She felt about, emerging moments later with a double handful of squirming tentacles.
Elliot felt Dale shudder beside him. Graham’s camera quietly clicked on.
“Woah, tentacles!” exclaimed Hubcap. “Nothing more alien than that!” He made an exaggerated display of covering his mouth, eyes on Owen. “Shouldn’t have said that, should I? Now’s where you tell us more than we ever wanted to know about squids and octopus.”
Elliot kept an eye on Dale while Owen rose to the challenge. Dale shook himself and found stable footing, then belatedly started wiping mud off his camera case. The case had been shut tight, so no harm was done there either. Elliot breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
“Technically, a tentacle has suction cups only at the end,” Owen was saying. “Squid have two tentacles and eight arms, while octopuses have only the eight arms.”
Elliot joined the conversation. “Isn’t it octopi, not octopuses?”
Hubcap pointed at him in delight. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it turns out that the root of the word is Greek, not Latin, so ‘octopus’ is the proper plural as well.” He paused. “Or maybe it’s Latin and not Greek. But anyway, that’s right.”
“And you’re sure of this?” asked Elliot with a faint smile.
“No!” Hubcap said in delight. “But that’s beside the point!”
Owen waved the woman forward who held the thrashing mudsucker at arm’s length. “We would also be correct to say ‘octopodes,’ but who can remember that?” He used both gloved hands to brush back the wiggly limbs and display the creature’s mouth. It was round and full of teeth.
“Ooh, creepy,” Hubcap said. Elliot stepped aside so the camera crew could get a close-up. He hoped the headcams had gotten a good view of the scare. Unpleasant as it had been, he knew the media people could craft a fine hook out of the footage.
“It works a lot like a lamprey,” Owen said, pointing to the creature’s teeth. “With a serrated jaw for digging into flesh. From what we’ve seen, these guys latch onto live creatures as well as dead ones; they’re probably one of the biggest parts of this ecosystem’s cleanup force.”
“Fascinating,” Hubcap said. “How hard can they chew?”
The woman suggested, “Why don’t you put your finger in there and find out?” She smiled behind her visor.
Elliot could tell Hubcap was considering it when someone further south relayed the suggestion to “Hurry the hell up, and don’t scare away the snakes.”
Owen pointed south. “The scouts have spoken. Let’s be off.”
The local tossed the mudsucker away from the crowd and started walking before it landed. Elliot watched it fly, glad that she hadn’t simply dropped it at her feet. The thing flopped into the mud and quickly burrowed out of sight. Dale muttered and trudged away at his best speed while Hubcap followed Owen southward, peppering him with questions about the springmouth snakes.
Elliot stared at the mud, trying not to think of the last time a cameraman had screamed.
––––––––
They had been filming alongside a space station’s cleanup crew, emptying the force field capture bins and sorting the trash after the bioscanners had filtered out anything organic. This particular day had yielded a wide range of space junk intercepted on its way to the station, from micrometeors to empty fuel canisters to the wreckage of a rich person’s shuttle when it crashed drunkenly before docking. The exciting portion of the day’s filming had been taken care of on the spacewalk. Sorting was the part that came afterward.
Elliot and Hubcap stood with the trio of local professionals, all wearing heavy gloves and poking fun at what they found. Tarja and Graham filmed from close up, while Vic covered everyone from the doorway, and Kareem got wide-angle shots from the crane above.
It had seemed safe at the time. Kareem had proven time and again that his climbing skills were excellent, and no one doubted his ability to keep track of both handholds and camera. He’d done this many times before.
He’d never caught frenzy when high up.
No one noticed at first. Elliot was finding signs that the rich individual had brought an automobile to the space station, and the locals were telling stories about the unnecessary things they’d seen people bring. Then Elliot adopted a serious expression and said, “Oh no. Hubcap, I’ve found your people.”
The robot appeared alarmed for the split second before Elliot held up a chrome hubcap. Then he burst into laughter with the rest of them.
“That was a good one,” Hubcap admitted, shaking a finger at Elliot. “You might have a future in television after all.”
The camera crew tried to stifle their chuckles, so it wouldn’t have to be filtered out. They were all successful except for Kareem. He guffawed loudly from above, his laughter echoing through the sorting bay.
When he didn’t stop, Elliot put hands to hips and looked sternly upward, expecting the cameraman to pull himself together at any moment. Frenzy was far from his mind. They had been told that it was almost a zero risk at this location. But as the laughing fit continued and Kareem’s grip loosened, Elliot realized the truth with dawning horror.
The others saw too. They scrambled in circles — to climb after him, to calm him down, to call for a medic — but he was already sliding off the crane.
Hubcap leapt to catch him, too late. Kareem hit the rubble with a crunch that broke several bones and shattered his camera.
He kept laughing. But it was higher pitched now, screeching and desperate. Turning into one long note.
Elliot rushed forward helplessly while the other humans moved to assess, to sedate, to call for help. Cameras were forgotten. No one had a sedative on them, since it had been unthinkable that they would need it here. They wouldn’t make that mistake again. Hubcap was the first to reach the frenzy kit on the wall, ripping it free with little regard for the stiff latches. He bounded over and skidded to a stop, pulling out an inhalant in very old packaging.
A puff of air escaped as he opened it. Elliot’s worry level ratcheted up when Hubcap confirmed that the sedative was expired.
As Hubcap out-shouted Kareem in telling the locals just what their negligence had done, Elliot heard Vic dash away through the mess. He turned to see her dig into a camera bag and come up with the medical kit that the TV crew always carried. Hubcap met her halfway, still yelling. Elliot got out of the way as the robot returned with a fresh injection stick.
One jab to the thigh, then the waiting period. It wasn’t instant. As far as Elliot was concerned, it really should have been. By the time Kareem’s spasmodic giggles finally lapsed into unconsciousness, the sound of approaching sirens could be heard. Elliot thought numbly that it was a good thing they had already docked with the main station. He didn’t want to think what a long wait would do to Kareem’s injuries. Or how bad they were already.
When the medical professionals arrived, they took care of everything. Kareem was stabilized and whisked off to a lengthy hospital stay with a broken pelvis and collarbone, plus various contusions. To everyone’s relief, the quick action with the sedation had prevented any damage from the frenzy itself.
Legal action, on the other hand, was another story.
Elliot wasn’t kept privy to all the details, but he knew that the space station’s crew faced some harsh penalties, and the entire command chain of the TV show landed in hot water. The team’s reaction to the frenzy was beyond reproach, but according to the overly-strict guidelines for space travel in frenzy-positive areas, mistakes had been made. Never mind the fact that there hadn’t been another case in that region for years. And the fact that operating in handholding pairs, even in the bathroom, with sedatives ready in every room, was infeasible for just about everyone. Those were the rules for places where frenzy was known, and those were the rules that were brought to the table when the government fines were getting laid down.
They almost lost the show right there. They did lose Kareem, who had a long road of physical therapy ahead of him. He wished them well, and they told him the same, then the producers started looking for a replacement cameraman who could travel into space immediately.
The only hirable candidate turnout out to be more inexperienced than anyone was fully comfortable with.
––––––––
Elliot snapped out of his reverie as someone called his name. The sucking footsteps were growing distant. He hurried after his coworkers through the thick mud, his eyes seeking out Dale just to make sure he really was okay. Every time Elliot’s feet slid, he expected to feel something wriggly under his boots. But nothing else surfaced, no one cried out or fell over, and the rest of the slog was blessedly without incident.
Elliot breathed easier when the mire trailed off into muddy sandstone. A glance around showed most of the camera crew looking winded, though the local workers were apparently conditioned to walking through deep mud. Either that or they hid it better. They probably didn’t want to get made fun of by Hubcap.
The robot vaulted up onto a rock with all the energy in the world. “Ooh, those are big ‘uns!”
“Get down, y’idiot!” a local smacked his foot while keeping his own head down below the level of the rock.
“Why?” Hubcap asked, scrambling down. “Surely they can’t bite us from here.”
“You’ll scare ‘em away,” came the answer. “They’re too fast to catch on foot.”
“How many were there?” Owen asked, materializing out of nowhere.
“Three,” said the local.
“Good,” Owen said, waving everyone closer. Elliot shook mud off his feet and took a position next to Hubcap. The film crew was close on his heels, cameras at the ready.
Elliot risked a peek over the rock while Owen talked. There were, as promised, three large snaky shapes colored in dark grays, sunning themselves on an equally dark rock slab. Elliot decided to focus more on the old volcanic patterns in the rocks than on the alarming size of these “juveniles.” The waves lapping at the bottom of the sunning area made for the kind of calming white noise that people Earthside paid good money for.
Owen outlined the new plan, which sounded to Elliot remarkably similar to the old plan. The only difference was the tools.
...Which really didn’t look strong enough for wrangling creatures made of solid muscle that couldn’t be sedated. Elliot resolved to stay to the rear and let the professionals handle it.
“Let’s move out!” Owen said. He led the way, creeping low around the boulders. The rocks were especially rough here, and Elliot found that everything he brushed against either scraped loudly on his armor plates or caught at the duracloth in between. He was so preoccupied with this — and with the awareness that there were cameras filming his every stumble — that he was surprised to look up and see Owen signaling a halt with the ocean just yards away.
The waves were loud. The snakes hadn’t heard them yet. But the creatures appeared to be getting restless, or maybe hungry. One was starting to slither away while another raised its head to watch the first. Elliot was pretty sure he could hear the scrape of scales across rock. Or maybe it was Hubcap’s hands on the boulder he was peering over like an excitable kid.
Owen whispered commands for a pincer movement, then disappeared with a pair of workers holding capture poles. Other workers scurried off in the opposite direction while one stayed put with the TV crew.
“Are these things territorial?” Elliot asked. “Or pack mentality? If we tackle one, will the others go for us?”
“No, they tend to scatter well enough,” the man told him through a mud-smeared face mask. “They mostly seem to hang together because they scare up more food as a group.”
“Okay, good. I don’t want any of them mad at me, much less all of them.”
A grin flashed behind the muddy mask. “No, you don’t!”
A scuffle erupted up ahead, and the local leapt to his feet. It looked to Elliot’s startled eyes like the attack had begun before everyone was in position. The man he’d been talking to vaulted over the rock and dashed to join the two who were hanging on to a capture pole looped around the neck of a thrashing black monstrosity. The other two snakes were speeding away while the rest of the humans scrambled to get their own nooses around the massive neck. The snake kept ducking. Then it dove for its captors.
Elliot yelped at the sight of the springmouth’s jaws unfolding, but the workers kept their cool. The two maintained their grip on the pole, holding the horror away from them by a rapidly shortening distance. The snake was squirming its way up through the noose, and the pole was starting to bend. People were shouting everywhere.
Then two more nooses made it into place, cinching between vertebrae as the snake strained toward its prey. That extra-hinged mouth was terrifying from where Elliot stood. He could only imagine what it must look like up close, with most of the view eclipsed by folded out flesh and teeth. The mouth was more than capable of swallowing anyone present.
But the humans were hauling away at the ropes with all their might — Elliot was startled to see Hubcap up there with them — and the nightmarish jaw soon inched backward, then fell to the side as the creature tried another route of escape.
Elliot glanced around to see only the camera crew keeping out of the action, and even they were easing past the rocks to get a better look.
The creature was trying to wriggle away. Elliot hurried to his feet and raced forward, hoping he’d figure out what to do when he got there.
The thrashing snake figured it out for him. The tail hit him in the hip, sending him sliding off-balance to carom off a spiky rock. He recovered, grateful for the armor, and launched himself back at the tail, determined to pin it down.
The ride that ensued was part rodeo and part wrestling match, and by the time someone else jumped on with him, he’d completely lost track of which way was up. The tail finally settled to “twitchy” status. Elliot maintained his death grip, breathing hard inside his helmet and listening for cues on what to do.
A detached part of his mind wondered briefly whether the new brown streaks across his viewplate were in fact mud. Then he firmly told himself that he didn’t need to think about where the alien snake pooped from. He really didn’t.
“I’ve got the jaws shut,” someone was saying. “Go ahead with the jack.”
The disjointed conversation sounded to Elliot like another contraption was being put into place with some difficulty. Under other circumstances, he would have wanted to be up there in the action, but right now he was content to lie on the rough ground, hugging the gigantic snake’s tail. The world had stopped moving dizzily around him. That was enough.
He couldn’t tell, moments later, if the workers had finished yet when something snapped free and the tail flashed into the air.
Elliot yelped in alarm as he spun skyward for the briefest of moments, then came to rest against a very solid rock.
He lay there with a ringing head while the snake thrashed and spun and hissed, no doubt snapping at all of the little intruders.
Elliot wondered if it could bite through armor.
Then he wondered if his aching head was making him imagine things, since the world was moving again. The rock he lay against seemed to be standing up and poking his chest. He couldn’t tell through his blurred sight and muddy visor if he was seeing a gigantic crab, a turtle, or some bizarre alien monster that had no name. He supposed fuzzily that the camera crew would be able to tell him later.
Something appeared over his shoulder to whack at the turtle-crab-rock-thing, and he figured out that it was one of the capture poles. Other poles joined in, causing the whatsit to retreat back out of his field of vision. He felt hands grab him and pull him to safety, then a stronger pair lifted him like a baby and ran with a familiar stride to a flat spot up the shoreline.