“There.” Khor points to openings in the crater wall, maybe thirty feet down. Lava tubes, dozens of them, creating a honeycomb pattern. “They nest in the tubes. Come out to mate, fight, feed.”
“I don't see any.”
“Because you're looking for something that makes sense. They don't.” He sets down his pack, begins pulling out collection vials. “First rule of harvest: expect nothing shaped right.”
A wet chittering echoes from below. The sound I heard two days ago but worse. Multiplied. Like hundreds of insects drowning in syrup.
“Second rule: don't look directly at them first time. Brain needs adjustment period. Look sideways until you understand what you're seeing.”
Something emerges from a tube.
I follow his advice, using peripheral vision. Even that makes my head hurt. Too many limbs, all different lengths. Translucent sections showing organs that pulse with colors that shouldn't exist. It moves by flowing, solid becoming liquid becoming solid again.
“That's a Sketh-kar?”
“Young one. Adults are worse.” He finishes preparing the vials, each one specially treated to preserve the secretions. “Going down now. You stay here. Watch. Learn the patterns.”
“Alone?”
“Vek won't approach the crater. Too dangerous even for stupid youth.” He checks his blades, all volcanic glass, metal would dissolve in Sketh-kar secretions. “If something goes wrong, run. Don't try to help.”
He descends before I can argue. The crater wall is almost vertical, but he finds handholds I can't see, moving with careful precision toward the nearest tube opening.
The Sketh-kar notice immediately.
Three emerge from different tubes, their chittering becoming a harmony that makes my teeth ache. They flow along the walls, defying gravity, converging on Khor's position. He freezes, waiting.
One gets close enough that I can see it clearly. Mistake. My brain rebels at the anatomy. Too many joints bending wrong ways. Mouth parts that split into smaller mouths. Eyes that aren't eyes but collections of sensing organs that track movement in all directions.
Khor moves fast, slashing at the creature with his blade. It splits where cut but immediately reforms, angrier. The chittering becomes a shriek. More emerge from tubes. Five. Ten. Twenty.
He's climbing back up, but they're faster. One spits something that hits the wall beside him. The rock hisses, melting. Another sprays a different substance that crystalizes instantly into the secretion we need, but Khor can't stop to collect it.
He barely makes it over the edge before the first Sketh-kar follows. I grab a rock, throw it. The creature explodes into liquid where struck, then reforms and retreats. They don't like projectiles.
“Well.” Khor is breathing hard, something I've never seen. “That failed spectacularly.”
“You're hurt.”
His shoulder has a spray pattern of crystallized secretion stuck to the scales. Where it touches, the scales have changed color, gone from crimson to deep purple. He reaches to scrape it off, but I stop him.
“Don't. It's eating through.”
“Not eating. Changing. The secretion causes mating response in anything it touches.” His breathing gets rougher. “Need to remove it before...”
His breeding cock emerges violently, fully engorged in seconds. His pupils dilate until his eyes are almost black. The secretion is triggering the same mating frenzy it causes in the Sketh-kar.
“Mara. Need to get away from you. Now.”
But he doesn't move away. If anything, he moves closer. His control is fighting the frenzy, and losing.
I use my blade to carefully scrape the crystallized secretion from his scales, collecting it in one of the vials. It's what we came for, even if we got it wrong. The purple fades from his scales, but the damage is done. He's fully in frenzy now, both cocks emerged and dripping.
“Can't... control...” His hands shake as he forces them to stay at his sides. “Run.”
“No.”
“Will hurt you. Won't mean to. Can't stop.”
