Part 10 (1/2)

The sound of a slap drew her attention around.

Her brother rubbed at his neck. ”d.a.m.n flies.”

He doused his exposed limbs and rubbed some on his neck.

Nathan stepped beside her. He had donned an Australian bush hat, and looked like some cross between Indiana Jones and Crocodile Dundee. His blue eyes sparkled with amus.e.m.e.nt in the jungle gloom.

”You're wasting your time with that repellent,” he said to Frank. ”Anything you put on will be sweated off your skin in minutes:”

Kelly couldn't argue with that. After just fifteen minutes of trekking, she felt damp everywhere. The humidity under the canopy had to be close to a hundred percent. ”Then what do you suggest for the bugs?”

Nathan shrugged, wearing a crooked grin. ”You surrender. You ignore them. It's a battle you can't win.

Here it's an eat-or-be-eaten world, and sometimes you have to simply pay the price:”

”With my own blood?” Frank asked.

”Don't complain. That's getting off cheap. There are much worse insects out there, and I don't just mean the big ones, like bird-eating spiders or footlong black scorpions. It's the little ones that'll get you. Are you familiar with the a.s.sa.s.sin bug?”

”No, I don't think so,” Frank said.

Kelly shook her head, too.

”Well, it has the unpleasant habit of biting and defecating at the same time. Then when the victim scratches the wound, he drives the feces loaded with the protozoan Tripanozoma crush into the bloodstream. Then in anywhere from one to twenty years you die due to damage to the brain or heart.”

Frank paled and stopped scratching at the fly bite on his neck.

”Then there are the blackflies that transmit worms to the eyeball and cause a disease called river blindness. And sand flies that can trigger Leishmaniasis, a leprosy type of disease:”

Kelly frowned at the botanist's attempt to shake her brother. ”I'm well familiar with the transmittable diseases out here. Yellow fever, dengue fever, malaria, cholera, typhoid:” She hiked her medical pack higher on her ,shoulders. ”I'm prepared for the worst:”

”And are you prepared for the candiru?”

Her brow crinkled. ”What type of disease is that?”

It's not a disease. It's a common little fish in the waters here, something called the toothpick fish. It's a slender creature, about two inches long, and lives parasitically in the gills of larger fish. It has the nasty habit of swimming up the urethras of human males and lodging there:'

”Lodging there?” Frank asked, wincing.'

”It spreads its gill spines and embeds itself in place, blocking the bladder and killing you most excruciatingly in about twenty-four hours:”

”How do you get rid of it?”

By now, Kelly had recognized the little fish's description and nasty habits. She had indeed read about them. She turned to her brother and said matter-of-factly, ”The only cure is to cut the victim's p.e.n.i.s off and extract the fish:”

Frank flinched, half covering him. ”Cut his p.e.n.i.s off?”

Nate shrugged. ”Welcome to the jungle:”

Kelly scowled at him, knowing the man was only trying to spook them. But from his grin, she could tell it was mostly all in good fun.

”Then there are the snakes . . :” Nate continued.

”I think that's enough,” Professor Kouwe said behind them, rescuing the siblings from Dr. Rand's further lecturing. He stepped forward. ”While the jungle must be respected as Nathan has suggested so eloquently, it's as much a place of beauty as danger. It contains the ability to cure as well as sicken:”

”And that's why we're all out here,” a new voice said behind them.