ONE

The bedraggled, half-­clothed group arrived at the Johnson house as dawn began to show the promise of a clear day. Their spirits did not match the lightening sky. Nature was a hypocrite. The arching sky was an inviting, cerulean innocence—“heaven” above. It was hard to remember the glowering blackness of yesterday’s storm. And harder to remember that the innocent morning somewhere harbored the murderous insects imperiling Yarkie.

Peter Hubbard was concentrating on the Johnson living room, trying to clear his mind of the tragedies at the lighthouse. Elizabeth looked young and fragile in the skimpy cotton bathrobe in which she had escaped. She was going around refilling coffee mugs. The man thought how much the room’s simple elegance mirrored the character of the granddaughter who had come out of it.

The chamber was large and square, paneled in pine. The fireplace was of wood, not marble, and it had a wooden mantel, a business-­like shelf without fuss or ornament. It was painted clean enamel white, in quiet contrast to the pewter-­gray walls.

Cupboards held an assortment of milk glass behind square panes. Priceless pieces, Hubbard supposed. Yet, the chairs and sofas had a no-nonsense, homespun look—maple and walnut mixed unfashionably, with seats cushioned in faintly patterned muslins, for utility not show.

The more dramatic contrast was a museum-­quality collection of treasures brought home over generations of overseas sailing and trading. As in other Yarkie homes, the Johnson sideboard held lacquer boxes of Chinese black and gold, along with carvings of ivory and alabaster. A gold-­leafed Buddha head commanded one corner of the room on a fluted column of black marble. A Japanese screen of soft golds and browns brought a distant landscape of rising mists into the New England room.

These were lush notes against the basic austerity; yet nothing seemed incongruous or out of place, for every­thing reflected the actual experience of the people who had lived for so many years in this house, on this island. In the same way, Peter Hubbard mused, Elizabeth Carr held an exotic romantic appeal behind the sober gray of her straight New England gaze. She had grown into an arresting woman; and there was no incongruity, either, in the ardor he saw along with the intelligence in her deep-­set eyes.

Elias Johnson began the necessary discussion. “One thing bothering me is whether we ought to tell the fellows in the firehouse what has been going on.”

Stephen Scott, who had been called to the meeting, surrendered drearily. “I don’t see how we can keep it from them anymore.”

Peter Hubbard disagreed. The men listened to him with quick respect. He had to be their leader now, not Johnson or Scott or the sheriff. He said, through the weariness and distress that creased his gaunt face, “I’d like to wait until we try one more way of getting at the heart of this. It’s a strategy I worked out with Dr. Lindstrom.”

The man’s voice broke on the name of his slaughtered colleague. Elizabeth Carr was wrenched at his obvious desolation. There was no way she could console him. She could only offer the compassion and support of her new understanding, and pray that his “strategy” would bring them all new hope against hope. The only consolation for any of them would be the total destruction of the infernal nest, the utter extermination of the raging insects.

Peter Hubbard was going on slowly, weightily. “I haven’t talked about this before because it introduces a new kind of risk.” His voice grew louder and blunt as he disclosed his plan. “It involves the use of radioactive material.”

The silence of the group’s response was a measure of their unpreparedness.

Hubbard lifted the small red box he had not let out of his grasp. “That’s what I have in this box—a radioactive liquid.” He said quickly, “I can assure you that the amounts to be used are very small, and will be no real threat to any of us.”

The staggered sheriff asked, “You mean, Peter, you’re going to put radioactive stuff in the nest when we find it?”

“No. To exterminate them that way would require a quantity that might be dangerous, and could be spread all over the island if we weren’t entirely successful.” He paused, and resumed, “My thought is quite different.” He tapped the red box. “I plan to use this radioactivity to help us locate the nest . . .”

“How in the world—?” Stephen Scott began. The others shushed him, keen to hear the scientist.

“To explain it briefly, I am going to mix a radioactive salt with food for these roaches here.” Hubbard put a finger on the taped lid of the jar he had saved from the lighthouse laboratory. “I have purposely kept these devils hungry.” He eyed them narrowly. They were hyperactive, though it was morning. He judged they were ready for what he had in mind. “After these specimens have eaten radioactive food, I can follow them with a small Geiger counter I have here. My expectation is that they will head straight for their home base . . .”

“Ingenious!” Elizabeth applauded.

Amos Tarbell asked a sensible question. “How do you know what these damn things will do when you set them free? They might just as easily go for you!”

“Well, look here,” the scientist reminded the group. “These fellows are in one corner with their heads pointing one way, just as we saw in the laboratory.” He rotated the jar as had been done the day before, and the roaches raced across to resume their compass-­pointing pattern. “After all the disturbances at the colony—forest fires, the loss of the fighter roaches we burned last night—I believe these roaches here are ‘magnetized.’ That is, I think the air is carrying unusually heavy pheromones pulling all the strays back to the base.”

“My God, it’s uncanny,” Bonnie Taylor murmured.

Hubbard continued. “They have to regroup, as we would put it. I’d almost say they’re ‘rethinking’ their position.”

Elias Johnson whacked his thigh enthusiastically. “And we follow them right to the hellhole!” Spirits began to rise. “But if the radioactivity is going to be as weak as you say, Peter, how will it destroy the whole population?”

“It won’t!” Hubbard spoke forcefully. “I do have a plan to get rid of them, but let me make it plain right now that no one is going to destroy the nest until I have a chance to study what’s down there and take pictures and recover specimens for the university.”

Protest came from Elizabeth. “How can you do that without getting killed!”

Peter Hubbard gave her a pale smile. “That is my problem, then, isn’t it?”

Amos Tarbell thought again he needed to apologize for ever thinking this man a coward.

Hubbard was adding, “As soon as we’re ready to go, I’d like Amos and Russell to back me up with the dry-­ice tanks. I’ll feed these roaches our poison, take them into the woods in this jar, and let them go up there.”

The sheriff spoke in an admiring tone. “You’re taking a hell of a chance, Peter!”

“It’s the only way,” the scientist answered resolutely. He turned a stern face to the flask containing the experimental roaches. His determined thought was—you traitors are going to lead me right to Big Daddy, aren’t you?

Peter Hubbard understood fully that the only concern of his companions was the destruction of the roach nest. They could not realize the scientific significance of the fantastic discovery he expected was awaiting him somewhere in the Yarkie woods. It would indeed be a major moment for modern biology. If only half of what he suspected was true, there were lessons to be learned in phylogeny, in biochemistry, in the evolution of the nervous system, in insect sociobiology, and more.

Unfortunately, the scientist reflected, he could see no possible way of either containing the Nest, or salvaging it. Something might yet occur to him, but for the present he would have to be satisfied with his current plan simply to take out as many significant specimens as he could.

Hubbard did not see Elizabeth Carr’s admiring eyes on him. She would have liked to reach out and touch him, but the shadow of Wanda Lindstrom’s death stayed her hand. It was not a time for sentiment.

Amos Tarbell was asking, “Peter, what if you let them loose and they get away from you in the leaves or wherever the hell? They’re damn slick and sly.”

“Precisely. The Geiger should pick them up. I expect they’ll be laying down trail signal—including the radioactivity—all the way.” Hubbard did not deny himself the tingle of nonscientific pleasure he felt at the thought that the roaches’ own adaptive mechanisms would be working against them this time.

Stephen Scott held his mug out to Elizabeth for more coffee. “If it will get the cockroaches, I’m all for it! I think it’s a brilliant idea, Peter!” he praised.

“We have another positive element going for us,” the biologist said. “Remember about trophallaxis?—the way one insect regurgitates its stomach contents to feed another, and so on all around a colony? I think these roaches sometimes follow that behavior. If so, our messengers will soon be sharing their radioactivity with all their brothers and sisters. It might take twenty-­four hours to contaminate the whole group, but that would give us a broader signal on the Geiger counter if I should somehow miss the trail of these particular fellows.”

“And help track down strays, too!” the sheriff appreciated.

“Brilliant!” Elizabeth applauded again. The others haggardly smiled their appreciation as Peter Hubbard rose to put his strategy into action.