Kaiju Preservation Society(35)

She pointed again. “It makes sense why she picks the explosion site. One, the radiation there won’t hurt her or her offspring. Two, every living thing within a hundred kilometers sensed the explosion and is on its way there to feed on it and the fallout. Any kaiju that come around she’ll fight off, including Edward. She’s over him now.” Chuckles again. “The smaller creatures she’ll want for food, for herself and her brood.” She looked up at Ardeleanu. “Show them the parasite video.”

“This is pretty nasty,” Ardeleanu warned everyone, and pulled up another video. On it, Bella stood motionless like a statue while a swarm of creatures squirmed off her and another swarm squirmed on.

“She’s feeding,” Aparna said.

“I thought kaiju were atomic powered,” I said, before I remembered I was just there for craft services.

“They are, but they have biological components, too,” Aparna said. “They’re too big to hunt most creatures themselves, so their parasites do it for them. They detach, go out and hunt and scavenge, kill and eat their prey, come back and reattach and share nutrients, which Bella is using to create her eggs. They get safety, she gets food for her babies.” She turned her attention back to Ford. “Which is why she’s not going to cross over. She has everything she needs here. She’s staying put, and while she does, she’s not going to let any other kaiju come close to the dimensional barrier.”

Ford was not going to give up that easy. “But the blast—”

“Happened on this side,” Aparna said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t matter,” Aparna said, “if you’re a human physicist. From a physicist’s point of view, the thinning happens between our worlds and the dimensional barrier is the thing you focus on. But if you’re a kaiju, you’re not attracted to the barrier, you’re attracted to the blast. The blast means power. It means food. That’s why they cross over. To get at the blast.” Aparna pointed a final time. “Bella’s already got it. She’s not going to let anyone else have it. And she’s not going to leave her children unattended. By the time they’re grown enough that she’ll leave them, the dimensional barrier will be healed.”

Ford thinned her lips at Aparna, then looked to Ardeleanu. “And you agree with this?”

“I do,” Ardeleanu said. “Although I might have been nicer about it.”

“Oh my god, you two, Aparna stuffed her so hard,” I said later that night, back at the cottage, as I recounted the encounter. “It was a thing of beauty.”

“Was it?” Niamh asked Aparna. “Was it indeed a thing of beauty?”

“It was fine,” Aparna said. “I didn’t mean to get snippy. But then she was all ‘You’re new,’ and I knew if I didn’t put a stop to that right then, I wouldn’t hear the end of it for as long as we’re here.”

“You have a nemesis now,” Kahurangi said. “I’m officially jealous. I’ve always wanted to have a nemesis.”

“I’ll be your nemesis,” I volunteered.

“Thanks, Jamie, I appreciate the offer. But you have to win your nemesis on the field of battle.”

“I could punch you if that helps.”

“Tempting, but no.”

“The offer stands.”

“Stop it, you two,” Niamh said, then turned back to Aparna. “He’s not wrong, though. She’s probably going to hate your guts for the rest of the tour. Well, the rest of her tour anyway.”

“It’ll be fine,” Aparna said. “I’ll bake her some cookies. All will be forgiven.”

“Those will have to be some damn fine cookies,” I said. “I was there. That was some heavy-duty stuffage.”

“They’ve worked before.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Enough times that I’ve gotten very good at making cookies.”

“Damn, Aparna,” Niamh said, impressed. “You are now officially my new role model.”

“Shut up, I know it,” Aparna said, mildly.

“Now I want cookies,” Kahurangi said.

“You know the price,” I said.

“It’ll be worth it. Although I should probably be baking Aparna cookies. After your meeting, I was told I didn’t have to brew up a new vat of ‘go away’ pheromones because Bella would be taking care of that problem for us. I appreciated that, because those things are rank.”

“Worse than the ‘come hither’ pheromones?” I asked.

“You have no idea. But now I don’t have to make them, or as much of them anyway, and you”—he pointed at me—“don’t have to go spray them.”

“Imagine my disappointment,” I said.

“I’m sure you’ll find some other way to get yourself on a helicopter,” Kahurangi said.

He was right about that. Because it turned out there was a third consequence of having a kaiju explode:

Tourists.





CHAPTER

13




“Excuse me, what?” I said.

“Tourists,” Tom said.

“We have tourists?”