The last place you ever wanted to hear something skittering by your head was 500 meters beneath the ground. Where flickering yellow overhead lights made a pathetic attempt to keep the dark at bay and rock outcroppings formed shadowy hiding places for anything Nina’s mind could imagine.
Whatever the critter was, it managed to avoid the faint light. Maybe it was a cave spider as big as her head, waiting to brush its long, bristly legs against her. Or a cockroach that enjoyed feasting on human fingers.
Goddamn it, she was a geologist, not an entomologist. She’d tried explaining that to Popov, but the Galactic Mining supervisor just shrugged and replied, “I need someone with an -ist in their title. We don’t have anyone else. You’ll do.”
Barely two weeks on the job, and already, Nina was heading deep into the mines of Odin III, where despite the depths, the air never turned humid, and the faint haze of dust made her sneeze. She’d been hoping the job would involve other people bringing rocks to her, not her going into the mines. Rocks were so much nicer when viewed in a bright office with posters declaring positive sentiments like, “Geologists rock!”
More skittering.
Popov increased her pace.
Nina sneezed her glasses askew.
Probably each “ah-choo!” was drawing the critters closer to her. She didn’t even know what lived in the mines of Odin. Nina was about to tell Popov that she needed to use the bathroom or she’d forgotten to turn off her tea kettle—anything to get out of there—when the taller woman stopped and shone a beam ahead.
Popov barked, “What is that? The miners say they’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Nina pushed her glasses up and peered into the narrow tunnel of light, then stumbled back. Before them rested a human-sized mound of what looked like living sand, a light haze of dust rising off it as it rippled in the light. Nina blinked. The movement was actually hundreds of insects that closely resembled Earth ants as they marched up and down the mound, mandibles the length of Nina’s index finger snapping open and closed.
“Oh crap.” Nina removed her glasses, wiping them clean as she struggled to find words.
Popov barked, “Well? What are those?”
Nina may have been a geologist, but she knew about this particular type of insect. They weren’t going to eat her alive. No, Yarillian rock ants were rock eaters, spreading across the mining planets closer to Earth, but how’d they make it out here to this desolate corner of space that was Odin III? They must’ve somehow snuck into a shipment and hitchhiked across the stars. It had been known to happen.
The insects had no natural predators and reproduced at astonishing speed. They chewed up rock and defecated sand for their nests. The ants could hide in crevices, so even if you thought you got them all, they’d keep coming back. This infestation was only at the beginning, but once a colony got established…
Nina’s eye twitched. “In about a year, they’re going to pack these caves with their nests. You’ll have to burrow through their feces to get to the rock. Mining’s going to be ugly.”
“Then you’ve got less than a year to figure out a way to eliminate them.”
“But—” Nina’s mind blanked. “I don’t know anything about bugs.”
Popov lips tightened. “This is Odin III, we’ve got problems galore. Sometimes you’ve gotta make do. You’re a science-y type. Figure something out.”
Dark hopelessness felt like it swallowed Nina up, as black as the hidden corners of the caves so deep under the planet. Barely two weeks on the job and she was going to fail.
§
One year seemed like a long enough time to find a solution, until you realized that it could take a decade or even longer for supplies to make it all the way out to this corner of the galaxy.
Nina had to figure something out with whatever was available now. In her office, she watched two rock ants skitter in a specially treated glass tank, their mandibles trying to work their way out. She’d tried various chemicals, but those had been ineffective.
Maybe the cats roaming Odin’s streets could hunt the ants? She brought a tabby into her office and showed it the tank. The tabby showed no interest in the ant, but sniffed hard at the energy bar that was supposed to be Nina’s lunch.
“No, go for the ant!”
The cat meowed angrily.
Nina bit into the energy bar—this was her lunch, not the cat’s—then gagged. What the hell was she eating? People lived off that stuff here? A shattering noise brought her to her feet, then onto her chair with a scream as the ants spat out pieces of shattered glass tank and skittered toward her. The cat screeched and leapt onto a high shelf.
She was a geologist! For god’s sake, she wasn’t supposed to study insects!
Except the insects weren’t going for her. Stupid for her to think otherwise; rock ants were harmless to humans. But these were interested in something on the floor. Nina pushed her glasses up and peered at the energy bar on the ground. The ants were eating that so-called edible thing.
Once the bar was gone, the two ants staggered drunkenly, or maybe like they were high on some drug, Nina thought. She trapped them under a glass tank, then for good measure, put a steel crate on top. The cat jumped down to sniff the empty wrapper.
There were rocks galore in her office, but the ants had gone for the bar. The cat did too. What the hell was in it? She needed to conduct more tests, but hope began to fill all those dark places in her mind as she set out for the maker of Odin III’s energy bars.
§
Hans of the town’s only deli wiped his hands on his apron and gave a chuckle. “It’s an old German recipe, a family secret, so I can’t exactly share the ingredients.”
Nina pushed her glasses up. “Alright, fine, then can you make more? A lot more?”
Hans laughed again. “I can make as many as you need! No one ever seems to request them.”
With good reason, Nina thought as she tried to forget the bar’s taste. But she thanked the deli owner. “It’s for an experiment.”
§
Skepticism covered Popov’s words. “We’re going to drug the ants with energy bars?”
Nina nodded and held up her report. Three months of observation, several hundred crates of energy bars, and a helluva lot of cats suddenly hanging around her office. On top of a bunch of drunken ants snoozing in a tank beneath the “Geology Rocks!” sign. It wasn’t the way she envisioned her first big assignment going, but she had answers. And in record time too! “The energy bar are extremely alluring to the ants in addition to having soporific qualities. It’s all in my report. We can lure them out, collect them, and ship them off the planet.”
Popov’s eyes scanned the document. “Are you sure this will work.”
“Trust me.” Nina pushed her glasses up and stood up straight. “I’m a—” A geologist? An entomologist?
“I’m a scientist.”
Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative author whose stories have appeared in publications such as Flash Fiction Online, Escape Pod, Diabolical Plots, Stupefying Stories, and others. Her writing has been recognized on the Wigleaf Top 50 Short Fiction Longlist, and she has become a fan favorite for her finely crafted flash fiction pieces on the Stupefying Stories website. You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.
This link will take you to a unorganized list of Carol’s previous stories on this site. I’m particularly fond of “The View from the Old Ship.” You should read it.
I haven’t read the other installments in this series yet but this one caught my eye (because I love your stories, Carol, and also eerie noises in the underground, oh my 😱)…this was fun! But also, ngl, I’ve been reading too much horror lately, and was a little on edge when the ants started going for the energy bars instead of rocks 😂
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