“Yes,” I said, meaning it.
“How are you?”
“Honestly? I’m pretty sure I pissed myself.”
Tagaq nodded. “Let’s go back and get you out of this and changed, and we’ll start again.” We started walking back to the elevator.
“Did you do this?” I asked her as we walked. “The first time you were on the jungle floor.”
“I did.”
“How did you do?”
She looked at me. “I shit myself running.”
“That … makes me feel better.”
She grunted. “It’s the ones who don’t you have to worry about.”
CHAPTER
14
“Exciting day in maternal kaiju observation,” Aparna said to the group as she entered the cottage after her shift in the lab. She was the last of us to be done with her work for the day; we were waiting on her to go to dinner.
“So exciting you’re making us late for food?” I asked. I was on my second day of ground training with Riddu Tagaq, so I was very ready to eat.
“You tell me.” Aparna opened up her laptop, which had been in sleep mode; it woke up and displayed the last thing that had been on her screen, which was a picture of Bella from on high, care of the aerostat stationed above her. We all peered at the photo.
“Bella shit herself,” Niamh said, after a second.
“She did not,” Aparna replied, annoyed.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because Niamh is not wrong. That looks like shit to me.”
“Bird shit specifically,” Kahurangi said. “Like the most mighty seagull shit that has ever been taken.”
“‘The Mighty Seagull Shits’ is a good band name,” I observed.
“It is not,” Aparna said. “And it’s not shit. Bella just laid her eggs.”
“By shitting herself,” Niamh said. “Not how I would do it, but okay.”
Aparna made an exasperated noise. “It’s not shit, okay? It’s kaiju natal jelly. It’s a nutrient-dense medium for her fertilized eggs, and it’s fascinating.” She pointed to the spatter that was allegedly not the largest seagull dump ever taken. “That jelly contains everything the embryos developing in it need to survive their development inside their ovum. There’s a transfer of nutrients and waste. It’s almost placental. But that’s not all it does.”
“It’s also a dessert topping,” I joked.
“Actually you’re not wrong,” Aparna said. “I mean, actually you are wrong, horribly wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself. But also, you are correct that it’s something other creatures here will find irresistible as a food source. It’s designed to draw them in.”
Kahurangi looked confused. “Why would Bella want that? Her eggs will get eaten.”
“Some of them will, sure. But there are thousands of them in that. Tens of thousands. They were never all expected to survive anyway. And while creatures are coming in to feast on them and their medium, Bella’s parasites are swooping down and feeding on them. And she uses what she gets from the parasites to make more eggs.”
“She’s going to mate with Edward again?” I asked. I remembered the last time and was not looking forward to repeating as Cupid.
Aparna shook her head. “She’s stored his sperm inside her.”
Niamh made a face at this. “Gross.”
“It’s more common than you think, biologically speaking.”
“Biology is gross. All of it. But especially storing sperm in your body like you’re a thermos for jizz.”
“‘Jizz Thermos’ is a good band name,” Kahurangi said. I gave him a high five for his efforts.
Aparna rolled her eyes at all of us. “The point is that she’ll repeat this maybe three or four more times over the course of the next several weeks. We’ve seen this before with her species.” She pointed to the gooey egg mess. “But this will be the first time we ever get to see her species’ early development up close. And that’s exciting.” She snapped her laptop closed. “But clearly you jerks can’t appreciate that. You’re all terrible and I hate you.”
“We are the worst,” I agreed. “Can we go to dinner now?”
“Wait, I can top egg goo,” Niamh said, and reached over for their own laptop.
“Dinner? Anyone?”
“Jesus, Jamie, you’re not starving.”
“I kind of am.”
“Chew on Kahurangi.”