The sun beaming through the forest canopy was warm and pleasant, the breeze a constant cooling fan that made the day even more enjoyable.  Raj Hirubu merely grimaced as he forced aside brightly flowered bushes and struggled north.

Another cruel joke, just one of a myriad of cruel jokes this planet continually played.  Crystal blue lakes and rivers.  Poisonous.  Trees bearing berries and fruit everywhere.  Poisonous.  A temperate climate but an atmosphere slowly but inevitably lethal without the proper equipment.  No dangerous insects or animals that he had discovered, but that mattered little when all life forms known on this world were inedible at best.  Stranded on a planet where there was nothing to eat and nothing could be grown without extensive and expensive terraforming.

Hirubu sat on a fallen limb to catch his breath.  The trembling was beginning again in his legs, trembling, he knew too well, that would creep ever upwards until he was sent into convulsions.  Another planetary joke.  Apou's Itch they named it.  A pervasive spore carried in the atmosphere; it caused a disease that was inevitably caught if one inhaled ever so briefly unfiltered planetary air.  Which he had during his crash and escape.  Scientists had equated it with malaria and prescribed a drug that, while never eradicating the intruder, at least controlled the symptoms.

However, his supply of the drug, along with nearly all his other supplies, had been lost during the crash.  Lost.  He roused himself and pulled out his sensor.  The red light blinked steadily and the dial remained locked in the same position.  The sensor was receiving the signal from the outpost, guiding him to the small science station, the only human habitation on this planet.  The sensor did not, however, tell him the distance he had yet to travel.  He had been able to contact the outpost before his supply ship had entered the atmosphere, its engines and guidance system damaged by the small meteorite his equipment had never registered and been unable to avoid.  They knew he was going to land...somewhere.  But they were not equipped to send out search and rescue parties.  Which meant he had to get to them.   Hirubu was exhausted, famished.  Better to just sit here, rest, sleep.  He shook himself.  No.  That would be admitting defeat, something his training would not allow. His ancestors had been samurai and soldiers, had fought, won or died; he would not dishonor their memory by giving in to this planet or to the disease wracking his body.  He stood on unsteady legs, forced aside the alien vegetation and trudged ahead.

The campfire burned merrily, which only served to darken Hirubu's mood.  Above him branches hung down invitingly, their branches swollen with forbidden fruit.  Just the scent from them, even one tempered by the protective mask he wore, made his stomach snarl in mindless protest.  He gulped down the small cup of water in hopes of quieting it.

The water was his own urine, purified and recycled.  Which will kill him first? he wondered  The lack of food, the lack of water or the disease that even now made his body tremble as if his skin had a mind of its own?  If he were a betting man, he decided, he would wager the house on starvation.

Now that he was not concentrating on travel, his attention focused on the Itch spreading through him like a ravenous tide.  A constant irritation, like an electric current he could not turn off.  In the firelight he could see his uniform rippling, could feel something moving beneath his flesh.  As far as he knew, no one had had the Itch this long and remained untreated.  One part of his mind wondered with scientific curiosity what was occurring inside him.  The other part wanted to scream in fear and frustration.   He threw another log on the fire and tried to force the conflicting inner voices into silence, into sleep.  Eventually he succeeded.

He noticed the change the following morning.  Small stiff hairs had erupted through his skin, covering his bare arms with a bristly greenish hue.  He poked at one idly, expecting a stab of pain but surprisingly felt nothing except slight resistance below the skin.  Opening his shirt, he looked at his chest to see if the growth had spread across his body.  There was none.  Surprised, he studied his small reflection on the back of the sensor.  Throughout his growing beard he spotted areas of green.  Only on bare skin, skin exposed to the air and sunlight, he decided.  Then he shrugged; he was too tired and hungry to wonder what this meant.  He was sure he would learn soon enough.

The fire had gone out; he stoked it with some small twigs, then urinated carefully into his purification kit.  After five minutes he drank his breakfast of recycled body waste.  In his breast pocket was a notepad and pencil; he removed it and wrote a few observations about Apou's Itch in the faint chance his body would be discovered.  Hirubu was confident someone would be interested in learning what happens to the victim at such an advanced stage.  He busied himself thus for fully ten minutes, describing the constant pain, the tremors, the unexpected growth on the outside of his body.  He read his notes, nodded in satisfaction, then ripped off the top page, wadded it up and swallowed it.  The pleasant sensation of having something in his stomach drove him to swallow another, then he stopped.  There were enough sheets of paper left to last him three days if he was careful.

He stood, yawned, stretched.  The green hairs on his body stood erect, pointing unwaveringly towards the sky.  Interesting, he thought and wondered briefly of the significance.  Another note for the scientists?  He laughed a deep, bitter laugh.  No one would find his body.  No one would look for his body.  Mohammed would have to go to the mountain.  Leaving the fire to burn itself out, he followed his sensor north.

The terrain was becoming more treacherous as the elevation increased; the temperature dropped correspondingly.  And the forest was thinning as he struggled slowly up the hills.  If only he had a map, he cursed.  But then no one had found this planet interesting or important enough to survey.  At least he knew he was on the right continent.

Little comfort that was.  There was little comfort in anything.  His body ached constantly, both from lack of food and the disease inside.  Hirubu had stopped making notes on the changes he was enduring, the greenish tint to his skin, the constant trembling throughout his body...he had eaten all the note paper.  He could feel something moving under his skin, under the mass of green hair that now covered his bare arms.  Mostly he tried not to notice; he slept frequently, trudged in the direction of the beacon between naps.

Once he had given into temptation and nibbled on an alien fruit.  Seconds later he had collapsed in convulsions, his stomach heaving, his mouth on fire.  He had been able to travel little that day.
Actually Hirubu now traveled little most days.  He leaned against a rock and cursed softly.  How long had he been here?  20 days?  25?  It was becoming so difficult even to think, let alone walk.  Seeing was becoming increasingly difficult, his vision unreliable from lack of food.  Only the constant movement under his skin, as if the worms had already invaded his corpse, could distract him from the gnawing in his stomach, the fear that continued to force him forward in pursuit of the beacon's siren call.  But he shivered as he roused himself and began to plod forward.  Soon even the fear of death would not be enough, would indeed become a siren call much stronger than the one he obeyed now.

This time he stumbled only five feet before a different shooting pain drove him to his knees and a scream from his lips.  Hirubu stared at his left arm as it shook mindlessly at his side.  The skin was bulging and pulsating, as if something was trying to dig its way out.  Already exhausted, Hirubu leaned against a fallen tree and watched.  Yes, there was something under his skin and it was moving along the back of his arm toward his wrist.  He noticed the light green hairs along his arm had disappeared as well.  Or perhaps withdrawn.

There was no pain.  That surprised him the most.  Was the creature injecting me with an anesthetic? one part of him wondered.  He seized his wayward arm with his good one and brought it up to his face to observe.  The lump had stopped at the back of his wrist and something alive was under his skin, something that was growing.  Hatching?  A trickle of blood appeared, then his skin slowly separated.  And something crawled out.

He picked it carefully off his wrist.  It wriggled helplessly between his fingers, its eight legs seeking purchase in the air, its green head and antenna bobbing frantically.  It emitted a sweet inviting odor, one that caused his stomach to demand satisfaction, one that caused him to salivate instantly.  One that could not be ignored.  Before he realized it, before he could stop himself, he had removed his mask, tilted his head back and dropped the parasite into his mouth, chewing it, swallowing it.

Only after the sickly sweet taste had been replaced by bile did he regain control of his thoughts and body.  My god, what have I done?, he thought  and leaned against a tree waiting for the paroxysm of pain to strike.  He stood there a good ten minutes, shuddering at the thought of the creature and his uncontrollable response.  Instead of pain, however, he only felt a sudden burst of energy and a welcome although incomplete fullness in his stomach.  He roused himself and staggered forward, all the while trying to forget.

That night Hirubu stared at his campfire.  For the first time in days he had actually made significant progress.  He studied his left arm, the one where the creature had exited.  Unlike his right, the skin was bare of the greenish spikes.  The cut above his wrist remained with only a thin scab covering it.  Then his eyes widened; another lump was moving across the back of his left arm.  This time he awaited its emergence eagerly.   When it exited from the same opening its brethren had created he grabbed it instantly.  He studied it more carefully this time.  Insectoid, he decided.  No wings, a slick and slightly bulbous body.  This time he noted its taste, pungent, more like an onion, one that decried the sweet aroma it emitted.   The unexpected but satisfying warmth in his stomach brought him hope.  For the next hour he watched the back of his arm, praying more would appear.  None did until the following morning.

Hirubu stood on the hillock and studied the valley below.  In the distance he could see the dome of the science outpost.  Then he felt a now familiar itch on the back of his left hand.  Without thinking he reached down and pulled the creature out from inside his arm and popped it in his mouth.  They were appearing more frequently now, every hour or so.  He didn't know if they emerged while he slept, if they escaped into the woods or borrowed into the ground.  Or crawled back inside him.  Not that he cared.

He looked at the outpost once more.  It would take him most of the day to get there.  That was no longer a concern either.  Chewing eagerly, he began his descent.

FEDERATION ARMED FORCES
CONFIDENTIAL
TO:  Maj. T. Ambercrombie
RE:  Sgt. Raj Hirubu

SUMMARY:
Subject Sgt. Raj Hirubu displayed extraordinary and totally unexpected reactions to his long and untreated exposure to Apou's Itch.  When he was ultimately rescued on Cexnus 7, the soldier was incoherent and physically in a weakened yet stable and actually improving condition (see accompanying report, "Hirubu Examination").

As you know, Cexnus 7 is uniquely hostile to human life forms.  The infestation by the air-borne organism, its subsequent development within Hirubu and the ultimate symbiotic relationship that developed between the two is beyond precedent.  Indeed, Hirubu's system has so adapted to the presence of the organism that he no longer can or will ingest regular nourishment.  Eradication of the organism at this late stage, even if possible, would prove fatal to its host.

What is unique about the organism is that while it causes intense discomfort and physical alterations in its host during early stages of development, it is essentially benign.  The nourishment it requires during its larval stage is obtained from impurities or body wastes within the human bloodstream, thus not affecting adversely the supply of nutrients the human body requires.  As the larva matures it migrates beneath the skin and emits cilia which emerge through the pores of the skin to obtain additional nourishment by feeding off microscopic air-borne organisms and sunlight.

Once the organism has been reached the adult stage, it creates an opening in the host and exits the body.  All adults migrate and exit the host through the same opening.  Upon emergence, the organism emits an aroma designed to attract the host or other animals.  If the organism succeeds in being ingested, it then reinfests the host (or infests a new host) and the cycle renews itself.  If not, the adult perishes within minutes.  These adults thus serve as a continually renewing food supply for the host, as demonstrated by Sgt. Hirubu (see accompanying report, "Organism Analysis.").
 
We must conclude that the introduction of this organism in armed forces stationed in extremely hostile environments or in situations where maintaining supply lines are difficult or impossible is a viable option that must be considered.  More study is called for.
 

Copyright 1998 Pat Welch

You can e-mail PatDaasek@aol.com