Fragment. Warren Fahy
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finger. ‘The eyes are mounted on short stalks that pivot or swivel inside a socket in its head. They also toggle in a socket at the end of the stalks, apparently, having a very ingenious mechanism.’
‘I sure hope that thing’s dead,’ Andy said.
Otto ignored him and wiggled the forelegs behind the head to see how they bent. ‘The large legs behind the head are very muscular and have spines at the end. They are fur-bearing, but the heavy spikelike spines are hairless, hard black exoskeleton or horn, and they seem to have a very sharp edge.’
‘They look like praying mantis arms.’
‘Yeah, that’s how they fold,’ Otto agreed. ‘They may be able to act as shears or vises, too.’
‘Or spears,’ Nell suggested, shivering as she thought of what the others must have faced inside the crevasse. ‘The spigers speared the sand in front of them to back away from the water.’
Otto continued. ‘These mantislike subchelate arms are articulated to a bony ring under the skin, from which the neck musculature also extends. The next pair of limbs appears to be true legs. They resemble a quadruped’s forelegs…with one extra joint…and they seem to be attached to a broad central ring of bone that can be felt under the dermis and which forms a medial hump on the dorsal surface of the animal.’
‘Those are eyes!’ Nell exclaimed.
‘Huh? Where?’ Andy said.
‘See, on top of that hump on its back, Otto?’
‘Oh,’ Andy said.
‘There are eyes on the medial hump,’ Otto confirmed, rinsing off more blue blood. ‘Which are similar to the eyes on the head.’
‘Do you think it has a second set of optic lobes in its back?’ Nell asked. ‘I mean, look, they’re image-forming eyes, not just light-intensity receptors.’
‘Either there’s a brain under there or they have ridiculously long optic nerves,’ Andy concurred.
Otto continued his description. ‘There are three eyes on the central hump, reminiscent of the eyes on a jumping spider. One eye looks directly behind and one to each side. They each toggle inside a socket. I think you’re right, Nell. There could be some kind of ganglion structure under this hump. There’s a cranial cap on top of it similar to the one on the head of the animal.’ As Andy winced, Otto tapped the brown chitinous cap on the hump between the eyes, testing to see if there was any reflex action left in the animal. There wasn’t.
Otto picked up a pair of dissection scissors and cut carefully along the mid-line of the cranial cap. He pulled each half apart with forceps. ‘Yep, it’s got a second brain.’ He looked up at Nell. ‘This isn’t just some enlarged ganglion.’
‘It’s got eyes in the back of its head,’ Quentin said.
‘And a head in the back of its eyes,’ added Andy.
‘See that pair of nerve cords running forward to the head?’ Nell pointed at the close-up on the drop-down screen.
‘Yeah, and here’s another pair that run toward the posterior of the animal. See there?’ Quentin pointed. Two white twines of fine string stretched from the brain to the posterior of the animal like jumper cables.
‘It may control the locomotion of its hind legs remotely with the second brain,’ Nell theorized.
‘I’ve never heard of such a thing,’ Otto disagreed. ‘Not fucking possible!’
‘Maybe it has specialized ganglia for speeding up its attack or evasive reflexes, or to help with digestion like some arthropods do,’ Andy offered.
‘Well, we won’t be able to determine that from a dissection.’ Otto frowned. ‘We would have to do a detailed neurological study of live specimens. But we’ll see if we can follow the nerves later. Moving toward the posterior of the animal we see very powerful, kangaroo-like hind legs, with an extra joint where the tibia would be. These limbs are connected to a wide subcutaneous pelvic girdle that is ring-or tube-shaped like the other rings. The tail—’
‘I don’t think that’s a tail,’ Quentin said.
‘It’s a leg,’ Nell said.
Otto scowled.
‘Pull it out from under the body,’ Nell suggested.
‘OK. The tail has a wide base. It is very stiff. It is long and broad, folding more than halfway under the animal to the chest area between the forelegs. The dorsal surface of the tail, which is the bottom when under the animal, is covered with ridged plates and spines in a geometric pattern.’
‘Traction pads.’ Nell indicated the bottom of the ‘tail.’ ‘And cleats–like the bottom of a running shoe!’
‘Whoa,’ Quentin exclaimed. ‘It must rip that tail backwards under it to get air!’
‘The taillike appendage appears to be a sort of ninth leg.’ Otto shook his head in amazement. ‘This leg might be used to propel the animal higher or faster during leaps.’
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