Insects: A Novel (2 page)

3

Jose Silva tried
to contact Raul Barbosa by radio many times throughout the day. By nightfall, he had become officially concerned. This was not like Raul, he told his wife before retiring for the night. Perhaps he
’
d lost power or had a problem with his radio. It could happen, but Raul was self-reliant to the extreme and could repair anything. He thought about alerting local police, but that would do no good since Barbosa
’
s cabin was remote and would be difficult if not impossible to reach in the dark.

Silva was on his radio at daybreak but heard only static. At breakfast, he told his wife that he was going to take his boat to Barbosa
’
s cabin. The weather was clear, and he thought he could get there in three hours. He loaded the aluminum V-bottom eighteen-footer with an extra can of gasoline, water, machete, a small backpack with his lunch, binoculars, and a poncho. He had no idea what to expect, but he was preoccupied with worry and nearly tried to pull away from the dock without untying the boat. Fortunately, he caught himself just before turning the throttle, and he was glad his wife didn
’
t see it because it was such a stupid thing to do.

With little wind on the river, he made good time traveling most of the way with the throttle close to wide open, leaving a large wake. Slowing to a crawl as he approached the tributary that led to Barbosa
’
s cabin, he turned off the river, idled the engine for a moment and studied the landscape ahead to refresh his memory. Barbosa came to him mostly. Silva had visited the cabin a half-dozen times in the previous four years, and his memory of the route had faded. There weren
’
t any obvious landmarks, other than a pile of stones that Barbosa himself had set up not long after buying the property. He
’
d gotten lost once by taking the wrong tributary, and the stones were there to prevent it from happening again.

Silva motored slowly toward his destination, the tributary narrowing and joined by other even smaller tributaries until there was just enough depth and width to make way before it widened. Towering stands of palm and rubber trees came and went as the boat slid through the murky, dark green water. He squinted to see the clearing that would mark Barbosa’s property, and when it suddenly appeared around a bend, he gunned the engine and nearly steered the boat into a partially submerged stump before cutting the throttle and letting the boat drift onto a muddy landing within sight of the raised cabin. He saw Barbosa
’
s loaded boat tied to a post that had been pounded into the ground. He scanned the area anxiously, hoping to see his friend. While the cabin
’
s living quarters were visible from the landing, a grassy slope rose from the landing obscuring the cabin’s lower structure. Silva tilted the motor and pulled the boat completely onto the landing and inspected Barbosa
’
s boat. Then he grabbed his pack and machete and carefully made his way up the slippery incline.

The top of the slope, which was only several feet higher than the boat landing, expanded into level ground framed in the distance by forest. Silva
’
s eyes were immediately drawn to a form sprawled on the ground, a hundred feet in front of him. Even from this distance, he knew it was a body.

“Raul,” he shouted, hurrying forward. He stopped within several feet of the body. The corpse lay face down, its clothing tattered, bloodied and torn throughout. The clothing lay flat as if there was little to support it.

He called Raul
’
s name several times as if expecting an answer, and then looked toward the cabin. Clearly, this was a dead person, he thought. But he was fearful of touching it. He grabbed a rusty spade that Barbosa had left leaning against one of the supports of his cabin. Placing it carefully under the body, Silva raised the handle and rolled the body onto its back. He recoiled in horror at what he saw. There was no face, just a skull with shreds of tissue clinging to it. The shirt had been torn open, and underneath the tattered cloth, Silva saw the bones of a
torso.

“
Oh meu deus
!” he murmured, stepping back reflexively, tossing the shovel aside.

Silva couldn
’
t make sense of this. How could this happen? What could cause this? He
’
d spoken with Barbosa over the radio only several days earlier when Barbosa arranged to visit Silva in Manaus. There was no way the body could have been skeletonized in two days, even in the forest
’
s humidity and heat. For a moment, he wondered whether it was his friend. The shoes looked like Barbosa’s though the shirt and pants were so torn that Silva couldn
’
t be certain.

Suddenly, he backed away from the body as if something had frightened him. He scanned the area and moved toward the garden, noticing where Barbosa had fallen. Scattered around the soil were the bodies of what looked like cockroaches. Many dozens. He thought it unusual but paid little attention as he prowled about, looking for signs of a larger animal or perhaps humans who might have harmed his friend. He did this for about ten minutes and then moved to the cabin. The door was shut but not locked. He pushed it open cautiously and stepped inside slowly. The exterior shutters were closed, and the cabin was mostly dark. Sunlight filtered through spaces between boards in the shutters. Nothing looked amiss. The radio was where Barbosa kept it. Shelves were stocked with canned goods. Momentarily, he thought about using the radio to contact police in Manaus but decided that they might not take him seriously or might not be able to come out immediately or might have a difficult time finding the place. In any case, he did not want to spend a night alone with Barbosa’s body.

Returning to the body, he lifted the left arm by the remains of the tattered shirt sleeve. Barbosa
’
s Timex dangled from the bony wrist. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that his friend had died. And while he had no idea as to how Barbosa was killed, Silva was certain that it wasn
’
t from natural causes.

On his way back to his boat, Silva stopped to ponder Barbosa
’
s boat. Should he take the hides? After all, he had agreed to buy them. Leaving them untended seemed like a waste of resources. So he loaded them into his boat and pushed away. As he put distance between himself and the cabin, he felt the tension of finding the body melt away replaced by tiredness. Yawning several times, he wanted to nap but resisted the temptation. He could rest when he got home. His wife was not going to believe what happened to Barbosa. She was tolerant of her husband
’
s friend but didn
’
t care for him because when he and her husband were together they drank and told crude stories.

4

Howard Duncan was
hesitant to call the state entomologist in Manaus. He knew him to be more interested in his personal ambitions than entomology. The man had told him as much. He saw himself eventually leading the Ministry of Agriculture and was addicted to attending conferences to schmooze and increase his visibility. In fact, they had met at a conference.

However, there was an alternative. Fernando Azevedo came to mind. In his late-sixties, Azevedo was credited with discovering dozens of insects, which he regarded as unimportant. As he explained when Duncan had first visited Brazil, “Our country has more insect species than any other. Yet the estimates of the number of species range from seventy thousand to millions. Seventy thousand to millions! How can we know anything about insect populations when we can only guess at the number? Discovering a dozen here, a dozen there isn
’
t even a drop in the bucket.”

Azevedo lived in a modest, one-story stucco house in a quiet, mostly residential neighborhood of the city. His neighbors were mostly people of his age who kept to themselves. None had an interest in entomology. He was sitting in his living room reading one of the local newspapers when the phone rang. Not expecting a call, he waited to see if the caller would leave his name.

“This is Howard Duncan. I
’
m calling ...”

Azevedo picked up the receiver.

“
Olá
Howard,” he said, cheerfully.

“Hi, Professor,” Duncan said. “How are you?”

“I
’
m fine. To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”

“
Well, we
’
ve run across something that I haven
’
t been able to identify, and I
’
m wondering if you can help me.”

Duncan described the insect his assistant had found.

“I think I can help you,” Azevedo said.

“Really, you know what this is?”

“If it
’
s what I think it is, then, yes, I
’
m familiar with it. In fact, I
’
ve written two papers about it, which have yet to find a publisher. Can you bring a specimen to my office at UFAM?”

Azevedo held an emeritus position at the Federal University of Amazonas and kept a small office on campus. It gave him easy access to laboratories, student assistants, and other faculty. He taught only one class each semester, introductory entomology. Some of his colleagues thought it was undignified for an authority on insects to teach such a low-level course, but he thought it important to provide the highest level of expertise to novices in the hope of encouraging them to enter the field. Even so, the class was open only to second-year students.

Duncan was familiar with the UFAM campus and had visited Azevedo
’
s office several times over the years though never with such excitement. Out of the blue, he had called the right guy in the right place on the first try. He wanted to ask the professor about his papers but decided to wait until he got to the office. He didn
’
t want to waste a moment. His assistant, Cody Boyd, was in the office when Duncan called Azevedo and was infected with his boss
’
enthusiasm and invited himself to tag along.

5

Professor Azevedo
’
s office
at UFAM was jammed with cases of insect specimens, books misaligned in an old mahogany bookcase, curios and items Azevedo had collected during his lengthy career. His part-time assistant fetched a chair for Boyd and the three crowded around the professor
’
s ancient mahogany desk. They declined coffee impatiently.

“Thank you, Daniel,” Azevedo said.

As the assistant closed the door, Duncan handed a memory card to Azevedo, who inserted it into a card reader on his desktop computer. Azevedo leaned toward the monitor and clicked on the card’s icon. Dozens of file names appeared. He clicked on several, smiled broadly at Duncan and dug out a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses from his shirt pocket. The antique frame was nearly as old as its owner. He was careful not to bend the earpieces when he put them on.

“This looks like
reptilus blaberus
,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Where did you find it?”

Duncan glanced at Boyd, who explained how and where he had taken the photos. He looked puzzled.

“
Blaberus
?”

“Yes,” Azevedo replied.

“Reptile roach?”

“Yes. I think it fits. I make the case in one of my unpublished papers. You can have a copy if you like.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“Do you have GPS coordinates?” Azevedo asked Boyd.

Boyd nodded. Azevedo pulled up Google Earth on his desktop computer and after inputting several commands turned the monitor toward his visitors. The screen filled with a map showing tributaries running like veins through dark green undifferentiated background. A handful of yellow place marks clustered in the center of the map.

“These are places I have found
blaberus
.”

“I found mine here,” Boyd pointed to a blank spot on the screen.

Azevedo’s yellow markers were located a substantial distance from where Boyd had found his specimen. Azevedo placed a bright green marker on Boyd’s spot.

“You know what this means?” he said, looking over his glasses at his two guests.

“Either they are migrating, or they’re expanding their territory?” Duncan said.

“
Exatamente
!”

“Couldn’t this be a new colony?” Boyd suggested, tentatively.

Duncan and Azevado exchanged glances. Azevedo stroked the gray stubble covering his chin.

“It could be, but you must understand, they have a very high mortality rate caused by a parasitic fungus that through some unknown mechanism enters the brains of fetuses during gestation.”

“Fetuses?” Boyd asked.

“They
’
re viviparous?” Duncan asked.

“They
’
re ovoviviparous.”

“Really. I thought that was largely confined to reptiles,” Duncan said.

“And fish and some invertebrates. As you know, these guys have reptilian, mammalian and, of course, Blattarian traits. In terms of reproduction, they
’
re more reptilian than anything else, at least as far as we know,” Azevedo said. “We? Mostly me and several assistants over the years.”

“Is
blaberus
native to Brazil?” Duncan asked.

“As far as I know, yes,” Azevedo said. “However, I can think of no reason that would limit their distribution, other than the fungus. It’s probably what keeps their population in check and why no one else has observed them.”

“Really, none?” Boyd said, smiling. “So, I’m like one of only a couple of people in the entire world to have seen them in the wild?”

“Again, as far as I know, yes. Just look at the map and see the distribution I’ve uncovered. These were done over many years. Although I can’t be certain each of my sightings was of the same colony, the colony size was similar, and I found them on dry land under rotting tree branches and debris. Although I didn’t actually observe this, my working assumption is that they forage for insects and animal carcasses.”

“They’re carnivorous?” Boyd said.

Azevedo suddenly rose from his chair and left the room.

“Was it something I said?” Boyd whispered.

“Fernando?” Duncan called softly. From the next room, they heard sounds of drawers opening and closing. A moment later and the portly Azevedo returned to his desk carrying a vintage wood specimen box with a glass top. Azevedo set it on the desk between them and remained standing. Duncan and Boyd stood as well, leaning across the desk to get a better view. Inside the box were two of the insects. One was dissected dorsally and the other ventrally. The specimens were about three and a half inches long, and the body was roughly three inches in circumference. On the ventral specimen, Azevedo had pinned the wings at the corners to form a triangle with their attachment behind the head.

“One thing we know is that females produce eggs that hatch within their bodies but aren
’
t nourished by the female
’
s body,” Azevedo said. “Unfortunately, whenever I located a colony—which because I was unable to tag them could have been the same colony at various locations— the colonies did not stay in one place for long, so I haven’t been able to study their behavior with any consistency.”

“But you were able to collect specimens and dissect them,” Boyd said. Looking at the specimen box, he added, “Outwardly, they’re similar in appearance to cockroaches, yet they don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen.”

“They aren’t like anything you’ve seen and be grateful they aren’t.”

“Why’s that?” Boyd asked.

“They would be a formidable predator if they reproduced in numbers, but the fungus causes about eighty percent mortality in juveniles. We discovered this when we put a juvenile’s central nervous system under a microscope.”

Looking closely at the specimen with the outstretched wings, Boyd asked, “Can they fly?”

“I don’t think so, but I have seen them jump,” Azevedo said. “They spread their wings and use their powerful hind legs to get airborne. It may be that they can glide and perhaps travel longer distances in a strong wind. But that’s just conjecture.”

“This was from a live specimen?” Duncan asked about the dissections.

“Yes. We actually had several live specimens, but they did not live long in captivity.”

“I assume you tried to publish this,” Duncan said.

“Of course, but, you know, these days you have to pay a lot to be published.”

“Did you try the online publications?”

Azevedo seemed annoyed at the question and ignored it.

“As I was saying, this is similar to the mechanism of
Ophiocordyceps unliateralis
that can infect the brains of carpenter ants in the Zona da Mata of Brazil. They
’
re not the same fungus species, but they
’
re related. In any case, I believe this prevents the species from reproducing effectively. That probably explains why we
’
ve never encountered a colony with more than fifty or so individuals.”

Azevedo handed Duncan a lighted magnifying glass and opened the specimen case. Duncan peered intently at the two dissected insects.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” he gushed. Azevedo smiled.

After several minutes, Duncan handed the magnifying glass to Boyd, wrapped his arm around Azevedo’s shoulder and pulled him aside admiringly.

“Is there anything I can do to help you publish?”

Azevedo sighed, shaking his head.

“There was a time when publishing was important to me, but that’s no longer the case. I appreciate your support, but I’m more interested now in learning about these creatures and less interested in documenting my findings. Of course, I have documented them, and anyone who’s interested in what I’ve found just has to contact me or my assistant. It’s one of the privileges of emeritus status. I can do what I want when I want and don’t have to report to anyone other than the chair of my department, who dismisses me as a dinosaur, I’m sure.”

Duncan eyed him thoughtfully.

“I was thinking, since my dean and funders expect me to churn out papers, we could collaborate on joint publication. I would assemble the paper using your research, and we’d share the credit.”

“If you like,” Azevedo said somewhat dismissively, clearly not interested in the topic.

Boyd approached them with an excited look.

“Excuse me, Professor. I’m having difficulty identifying anatomical parts. If I’m not mistaken, it has some kind of spinal column ending in something like a brain stem. Can that be true?”

Azevedo brightened.

“That is my belief,” he said. “But that’s not the only unusual thing. Here, I’ll show you.”

“A brainstem on a cockroach just doesn’t make sense,” Boyd said.

Azevedo smiled, and with Duncan and Boyd watching, he carefully manipulated the head with a toothpick and held the magnifying glass for them.

“They’re not cockroaches. As you know, a cockroach’s brain, such as it is, is distributed throughout the ventral part of its body. The nervous system is nothing like what you
’
d expect from an insect. As you can see, this creature has a brain of some kind in the head.”

“Are those teeth?” Duncan asked. “Is that a jaw, not a mandible?”

“Yes, they’re teeth and yes, that looks like a jaw.”

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Duncan said excitedly and started pacing the room.

“I had much the same reaction when I did the dissections,” Azevedo said to Boyd. “I could barely contain myself. Everything I know about insects goes out the window with these guys.”

“Are they insects or reptiles?” Boyd asked. “You said they breed like reptiles.”

Azevedo lowered himself into his chair, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes with his fists. Looking up at Boyd, he shook his head.

“I’m not sure how to classify them. They have many things in common with insects and with reptiles and perhaps with other genera. You may have noticed the lack of antennae. Did you look closely at their forelegs?”

“Not really. Why?”

Azevedo handed the magnifying glass to Boyd. “Have a closer look.”

Boyd leaned over the box and put the magnifying glass over the forelegs of the ventral specimen.

“These are definitely not cockroaches,” he said with the glass trained over the specimen’s forelegs. “What are those things at the end of the forelegs?”

“They’re cutting instruments,” Azevedo said matter-of-factly. “Actually, chopping instruments, like tiny axes.”

Duncan by now had settled down and stood behind Boyd, facing Azevedo.

“We simply have to publish,” Duncan said. “I don’t care if I have to steal the money from my funders.”

Azevedo smiled and, as Boyd and Duncan prepared to leave, handed them copies of his unpublished papers.

“I hope you can use these, and if you find any more
blaberus
, please let me know the coordinates.”