“They’re horrible and want to eat every human they meet?”
Tagaq shook her head. “No. They’re horrible and they want to eat everything. Not just us, and not us first. They’ll kill and eat us if we make ourselves convenient. But if we make something else more convenient, they’re happy to eat them instead. So we do two things: make ourselves less attractive to attack, and make it worth their while to attack other things.”
She pulled an object out of her pocket. “You remember this.”
“The ultrasonic thingy,” I said.
“We call it the screamer,” Tagaq said. “Works on the tree crabs and a few other things. You’ll be getting your own.” She pointed to a canister. “This makes you smell like a particularly nasty kaiju parasite.”
“And that’s good, somehow?”
“Since most things think you smell like a thing that will absolutely start to eat them while they’re still alive, yes. It means they will run in the other direction when they smell you coming.”
“And what do the particularly nasty parasites I’ll smell like think of me?”
“They might leave you alone. They might see whether you want to mate. They might try to eat you.”
“They eat their own?”
“Everything here eats their own, including kaiju.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
Tagaq nodded, and reached for another object. “That’s why we have this. This launches canisters of actinides and stress pheromones that mimic those of injured prey creatures. It opens up on impact. If you see something coming for you, shoot this.”
“At them?”
“If you want.”
“It’s optional?”
“It’s not meant to kill them, it’s meant to get their attention. It says, ‘I’m good to eat,’ in every native language here. They will forget you and go after it, wherever it lands. So will everything else in the area.”
“And then they’ll all try to eat each other instead of me.”
“You or anyone else in your party, yes.”
“If I shoot it at them, then everything around will go after them, right?”
“Do you think you’re going to be that good of a shot?”
“I see your point.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, so.” I pointed. “Screamer, parasite pheromones, Eat Me launcher. All good, but what if they still keep coming?”
Tagaq lifted a baton.
“You want me to hit them with a stick.”
She clicked a button on the stick. “The stick comes with fifty thousand volts.”
“Okay, better.”
“The charge doesn’t last. If you can just beat them with the stick instead, do that. Things here feel pain just fine. Save the voltage for when you need it.”
“And what about when a stick won’t do?”
Tagaq grimaced and picked up the shotgun. It had a short barrel. “This is your last resort. Wide spread right out of the barrel, to compensate for your complete lack of aiming ability. It will kill almost anything at a short range, and at a longer range, the pheromone-dipped depleted-uranium pellets in the shotgun shells will make anything hit but not killed smell like food to everything else. That and the blood. Don’t even think about pointing it within ninety degrees of any human. This is the thing I will train you the hardest on.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “And if this doesn’t work?”
“Then you’re dead.”
“Oh. I was kind of hoping there was something else.”
“No. Dead. Dragged into the jungle. Eaten and scavenged down to the bones, which will then also be eaten. Nothing will remain of you. At all.”
“This is what I mean when I say I think you’re no fun at parties.”
“When you finish your training and survive your first mission on the jungle floor, you and I can sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ as a duet at karaoke,” Tagaq said. “Until then, you learn.” She handed the shotgun to me. “Let’s start with this.”
* * *
The elevator finished rising, and I was surprised to find Aparna and Niamh there.
“You need me for something?” I asked.
“Not in the least, you egocentric monster,” Niamh said. They motioned at Tagaq. “We’re here to see her.”
“Niamh and I were told to get ground training,” Aparna said. “We’re going to help set cameras at the birthing site this next week.”