Osa the Killer

Exploring the mind of a mantis!

by Clifton B. Kruse

Illustrated by Elliot Dold


 

EXCERPTS from a report from Frank Williams, a senior at Harvard University, to his fa­ther, Dr. Randolph Williams, of New York City. The following informal story sent by the young man to his father quite interestingly substantiates the detailed and technical Bulletin 80E24 of Western States College for November, 1936.


 

YOU'LL EXCLAIM that this is an incredible tale, fabricated from the stuff of an entomologist's dreams. But it's true and—you can't argue other­wise—it is evermore life itself. I came out here to this dismally hot and arid little prairie town expecting to swelter away three precious months of my life as a Harvard undergraduate and, would you know it, right from the moment the train pulled out and left me stand­ing at the Havendale Station I sensed adventure?

But let me get my story organized. To begin with, there was no one to meet me at the station. Not a blessed sign of our famous cousin, Peter Bill. By the way, all the folks out in this small Western college town call him Peter Bill as we do, rather than Pro­fessor Peter Wilfred Williams.

I was just swinging up the narrow path to the small white cottage—imagine old Peter Bill, the bachelor, with a whole house to himself!—when out from the door, on a dead run, came the lanky legs and bald head of the one and only Peter Bill.

Well, to be brief, Peter Bill was in quite a flurry because he'd completely overlooked the fact that his young cousin Frank Williams of dear old Harvard was due to arrive this day for a summer of visiting, co-study, and a lot of co-fishing, too.

"But I tell you, Frank," he jabbered on in that breathless way he always talks when excited or embarrassed, "I'm working on the greatest thing yet. It's intense, boy. It grips. It—"

After about thirty minutes of this I did get it straight that he'd been doing a lot of very private and unusual work in his field and that it looked as if the climax of a tremendous research was about to be reached.

Anyway, after we had our tea and the usual vegetarian lunch, Peter Bill dragged me into a particularly large room at the rear of his cottage. Al­though this energetic and amazingly lean professor of entomology called this room his laboratory, you must remember that from one end of the cottage to the other the place is positively creepy with a heterogeneous and multitudinous collection of pickled and mummified entomological specimens—bugs to you. So you can just lie back and have a drunkard's dream of what the old boy's laboratory is like.

Even so, Peter Bill led me, with rev­erent, caressive gestures, to gaze upon the twelve bell jars upon his main work­table—twelve communities of beautiful praying mantes.

"But why all the tubes and radio sets, Peter Bill?" I asked first thing. "Do we talk to the little green bugs and give them X-rays?"

I had uttered this in genial levity, of course. However, old Peter Bill gave me the oddest look. He started to say something, too, but quickly closed his mouth and smiled queerly to himself. All through the afternoon Peter Bill lectured me on the habits and char­acteristics of this curiously cruel insect so that I began to feel that something impended in regard to them; something far more than any ordinary laboratory or field observation of the mantes could ever mean.

Yet it was not until the following morning that I discovered how accurate was my premonition.

 

TO BEGIN with, my job was to stuff live crickets, June bugs, and flies into the jars of mantes. Lovely, long green creatures they were as they would squat motionless, forelegs lifted as if in prayer, and the gauzy, lustrous sheen of their bodies resembling freshly sprouted, leafy greens soon after an April rain.

Then, suddenly, when the unsuspect­ing little gray cricket approached too near in its wonder and admiration, the peaceful-looking mantis would let fly those cruel, saw-toothed forelegs, seize and crush the cricket, and slowly munch a gory breakfast while the insect was still alive.

To hear Peter Bill go into ecstasies of mothering content as he carefully checked to see that each of his live ­meat-eating beauties had been amply satisfied, one would never so much as dream that he'd been a strict vegetarian himself for years. But that's an entomologist for you.

After Cousin Peter Bill was sure that I had been thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of mantis life, he began to show and explain a few things about the extraordinary equipment he had gathered here in the laboratory. Un­fortunately much of what he said was quite over my head and, too, I'm sorry to admit, I really did not pay a great deal of attention to the technical details. Sufficient for my curiosity were the facts that, by means of controlled light reflections, Peter Bill hoped to pene­trate the little world of his precious in­sects and thus obtain a wealth of fine detail which heretofore had been com­pletely overlooked. Also, I was to sit by and take notes of our discoveries as Peter Bill would suggest.

So it was that twenty-four hours after my arrival at Professor Peter Wil­fred Williams' white cottage in Haven-dale, I was seated before the main lab­oratory table, paper and pencils beside me—which unfortunately I didn't get to use—and the entire upper half of my head incased in a peculiarly designed helmet of finely meshed copper wires. Peter Bill wore a similar contraption, both of which were wired to the small cabinet beside Peter Bill's chair.

Blinds had been pulled down, and a single light above the laboratory table cast its dull, yellowish rays down upon us. To be candid, I must admit that I found the whole procedure unaccount­ably solemn. I still did not fully real­ize what it was that Peter Bill was about to do.

"All set!" Peter Bill sang out tri­umphantly, grasping a small switch at the same time.

Click! Then a soft humming as the apparatus started. If one was merely listening and not looking on, he would swear that from the sound some one was warming up a rather worn radio set. Nevertheless, the curious green light—which the newspapers now refer to as the "Emerald Ray"—gave ample indication that something quite out of the ordinary was astir.

For some time—possibly a full thirty minutes—nothing occurred. At least there was nothing happening which aroused any response from me; al­though Peter Bill would give a grunt of satisfaction every now and then. The entire affair was becoming rather monotonous, and the green light so af­fected me that I had to force myself to keep awake.

"Contact!"

The word thundered through my head, causing me to give a sudden jump. Had Peter Bill yelled in my ear? No; I was sure that he hadn't moved his lips. In fact he hadn't really voiced a sound. It's creepier than you think.

Now things were happening, although I was bewildered and somewhat unset­tled in the pit of my stomach. The wire-mesh helmet on my head had be­come suddenly alive, tingling my scalp and seeming to rise up, despite the fact that there was no observable physical pull. Yet the strange vibration was stir­ring all through me. I was getting dizzy. At last I had to grab the arms of the chair and forcibly will myself to settle down. The sensation was quite like one's conscious struggle against nervous hysteria.

"Consciousness contact—relax—ready for the shift—relax."

Not Peter Bill's voice. Not even the real sound of words, mind you. But this was Peter Bill talking to me. I knew this much. All the while I had the sensation of flying up, up, up. That infernal helmet was pulling me high in the air. Not actually, of course, be­cause I still had my eyes open and I could see. The laboratory, Peter Bill bending over the big table, and the hazy green light, were all apparently as they had been. Yet if I closed my eyes I had the sensation of sailing swiftly up and up into the sky.

Click! Something somewhere snapped, and everything became unearthly quiet; hazy, too. I couldn't see now. I blinked my eyes, and a queer blur of milky-white light seemed to flow over and around me like some viscuous fluid. I couldn't cry out or jump up, either. My mind battled frantically. But it was useless. I had absolutely no con­trol over my muscles.

Somewhere a voice called out. It sounded faint, as if coming from a great distance. I tried to call out, too. Then the other voice answered. Without rea­soning it out, I was conscious of talking with Peter Bill through the medium of thought transference.

"Relax—follow me—simply relax. Don't try to think. Don't try to move."

I did as Peter Bill commanded. Now the fearful sense of being alone and helpless left me. I felt a strange, in­corporeal contact of intelligence. It's quite beyond words to picture to any one the sensation; nevertheless, I felt that I was moving out and away from myself and that Peter Bill was beside me.

 

THE THICK, fluid light before my eyes seemed to be taking on some defi­nite though kaleidoscopic form. I was peering first at one point and then at another. Slowly understanding—or a telepathic suggestion from Peter Bill—caused me to cease my efforts to visual­ize this scene in relation to any past ex­perience in sight. Again I relaxed, let­ting the strange flowing colors in this milky light penetrate my mind.

Now I was seeing—actually seeing. Yet not in the way one sees in everyday life. My mind was receiving light im­pressions and construing meaning for every color and fluctuation.

I was seeing—from the eyes and with the sensory nerves of one of Peter Bill's precious insects. Part of the ex­planations which I shall give as I go along were reconstructed after the ex­perience. At this time, remember, I was merely receiving impressions. Oc­casionally some telepathic suggestion would reach me from Peter Bill's mind. However, much of my understanding of this affair was given me by later dis­cussions with the four scientists whom I shall mention later.

I was looking out over a wilderness of sandy soil, a strange land wherein thick blades of grass towered higher than trees. I was conscious, too, of a personality; crude, rudimentary, and with a small range of emotional thought, to be sure, yet it was at least an entity.

This entity had feeling. She drew in the warm air; felt the rough touch of the coarse sand upon which her long body rested motionlessly. Uppermost in the limited consciousness was the urge of watchfulness and expectancy. Though the massive body did not move, the sharp eyes stared unblinkingly at the close horizon. The primitive lust of the hunter was in this being a su­preme motive in life. Gradually, too, I knew that this thing of which I felt inexplicably a part was a complete life the name of which was Osa.

Conjecture, comparison, reason, all such attributes of the human mind were wanting. At the time I, too, fell into the acceptance of the ever-existing pres­ent. There was no sense of time, no thinking beyond the crude, essential wants of a physical individual.

Swiftly alert! No movement here, yet the whole massive body tensed.


There, the distance of three lengths of Osa's long body, hovered a strange gray creature. Osa knew hunger, knew the thrill of blood lust. Slowly, almost im­perceptibly, the long pulpy body rose upon the stubby legs. Forelegs were tightly pressed to the erect thorax, and the tiny, jet-black face with its inno­cent-looking pointed snout and great beady eyes swayed ever so slowly, rhythmically.

Now the gauzy wings unfolded. Osa was secure in the knowledge that her person was exquisite to behold. Osa knew, too, that the soft, alluring green of her body, the diaphanous glitter of her great wings, were as a delectable fresh sprout of succulent grass to her approaching prey.

The gray thing moved nearer its won­dering little eyes fixed upon the incom­parable beauty that was Osa's. It moved nearer, nearer, step by step. Now it was close enough to touch the soft thorax with its curiously symmetri­cal round spots.

Like lightning, Osa's forelegs shot out. Swifter than sight the saw-toothed edges cut into the gray cricket's body as Osa refolded her forelegs. A per­fect tool! The cricket squirmed, struck out its legs in crazed fear. Still Osa pressed, driving the sharp thorns of her forelegs deeper into the cricket's pulpy body.

Osa fed, squatting down to earth again and leisurely sucking in the flesh and fluid which had been the cricket's body. Only the chitinous parts were rejected as Osa fed, wasting not a single edible morsel of her victim.

And through the limited mantis brain of Osa welled an incomplete emotion of contentment.

Time passed without a conscious thought of it in the mind of Osa the mantis. Life was only in the present. Life was little more than hunting. Now and then she would move leisurely from place to place, swaying slowly, instinc­tively alert. Though the long abdomen was heavy with the flesh and fluid of many victims, still the lust to kill and eat was the constant thought in the faint consciousness of Osa.

 

THEN a new emotion came to dis­turb the massive serenity of the mantis. The thing she saw was as beautiful as herself, and even larger. From Osa's pointed little snout were hissed the few sounds she could make. The other crea­ture responded.

There was really no hearing. The movements of the snouts seemed to set up a feeling within the body of the mantis which had an interpretive meas­ure of hearing.

Fiega was an old female, proud and resentful of the younger Osa's presence. Fiega now stood erect, wings out­stretched and vicious forelegs sparring suggestively. Osa, too, became erect in battle array. Forelegs gestured, but did not quite clash.

Osa knew fear as the clawlike fore­legs of Fiega slashed perilously near. Fiega was only pretending. The needle-sharp prongs came only so close to the soft flesh of Osa's thorax. Yet Fiega had now moved a step nearer. Her body seemed more tense, the vast wing­spread more suggestive of the death bat­tle.

Fear clutched at Osa's tiny brain. Her long green body quailed. Then, suddenly, blind with panic, Osa threw all her energy into a mad flight.

 

A GREAT deal of time must have passed. As I recall the details now, I am sure that the fear-crazed Osa must have unconsciously held us in a mes­meric spell. Indeed, the next clear vis­ion came upon us with a total lack of definite conscious memory. That eter­nal, endless present! It's a strange feel­ing. Small wonder that the insects, with all their marvelous perfection of body, have utterly failed to evolve and dominate as have the physically incom­petent beings whose minds, neverthe­less, are active in memory and conscious reasoning.

Now Osa was the hunting, feeding mantis again. Fear had passed, so also had the memory of the challenging Fiega.

A new emotion, not fully expressed in Osa's mind, came suddenly to com­mand our attention. Something had happened to cause Osa's body to quiver with a new sense of the satisfaction and right of life.

Osa's tiny head was swaying rhyth­mically to the slow, measured approach of a creature similar to, yet attractively unlike, Osa herself. Osa saw the smaller body, noted the stronger faster legs of this other. Too, the deeper green of his body was a stimulation to Osa's excited yet not wondering mind.

Ziss, daring little male mantis, hesi­tated just beyond reach of Osa's fore­legs. He expanded his wings so that their glossy sheen might win between two instincts. Ziss was food. Also Ziss aroused some latent stirring within Osa's greater body some peculiar sensa­tion which was quite different from, though just as disturbing as, the pangs of hunger. But Osa had eaten till her fat abdomen was swelled. And the meaningful sway of Ziss' head and wings made the decision easier. Along the narrow thorax, and rippling almost imperceptibly over her abdomen, the quavers of acceptance answered the courtship of Ziss. He approached.

A fluttering moth—one which doubt­lessly had escaped being eaten at the morning feeding—suddenly descended. The two mantes were immobile, their green bodies and motionless outspread wings simulating innocent vegetation. Between the two mantes the moth alighted.

Food—the thought energized Osa's brain. Swiftly her forelegs shot out to grasp the moth's soft body.

But Ziss had struck also. Like blades of a mower the forelegs of Osa and Ziss tore into the moth's body, render­ing the victim in two.

Osa had instinctively crushed her por­tion to her mouth. Yet her sharp, beady eyes saw the major piece of the moth tightly fixed in Ziss' folded forelegs. Osa tensed with anger. Her forelegs became taut. Her snout remained above the torn flesh of the moth.

Quickly Osa dropped her portion of the victim and rose to her full height, wings outstretched. Her eyes were fixed in a gaze of bitter hate upon the greedily feasting Ziss. Osa moved to­ward him, forelegs tensed for the spring, wings stiff with the battle chal­lenge.

But Ziss, sucking in the fresh-killed food, did not look up.

Osa struck out. Forgetful that this was her newly accepted mate, conscious only that this other mantis had robbed her of her rightful prey, Osa sought to kill and to do so with the utmost speed.

Her sharp claws dug into the soft, unprotected thorax of her mate—a deft twist, now a sharp cut straight and down. Osa drew in the squirming body of Ziss, folding him helplessly in the thorny embrace of her forelegs and ex­posing the abdomen to her greedy snout.

Osa squatted to the ground. Slowly, deliberately, she began the systematic removal of all of Ziss which was soft and edible. Even the bit of moth still fixed in his snout was consumed with satisfaction. Ziss was not a mate. Ziss was not even a thing of life. To Osa, Ziss was now a delectable morsel of food to be leisurely and pleasantly con­sumed.

Yet the meal was scarcely half eaten when a queer sound aroused Osa. Now she tensed. Slowly, she arose, though still clutching the remains of the un­wise Ziss in her legs.

Scarcely a body's length away, radiant in all her splendor of green body and vast wing-spread stood the angry old female Fiega.

 

FROM the sharp vibration of the wings as well as by the peculiar tightening of the forelegs Osa sensed the chal­lenge of the other mantis. Fiega re­sented the feasting of Osa, even as Osa had gone mad at the sight of Ziss with the larger portion of moth.

Osa steadied herself. Now she backed a step, unfolded her own wings. The remains of Ziss fell to her feet as Osa covered her thorax with her fore­legs. But Fiega, quick to take advan­tage of Osa's momentary perplexity, advanced. Osa held her ground, strik­ing out warningly with one foreleg. Fiega halted. Wings fluttered. Fiega jabbed viciously straight toward the top round spot upon Osa's thorax. Yet Osa had fended off the blow.

Osa felt suddenly heavy. Her ab­domen was too full for flight now that Fiega was virtually upon her. Fore­legs were pressed tighter to thorax. Now one leg would jab forward. But Fiega was too swift. Osa's blows glided off the tough chitinous foreleg of her attacker.

Fiega sensed Osa's trouble. Osa's swollen abdomen swayed awkwardly. Quickly, now, Fiega pressed forward, first one foreleg and then the other cut­ting in toward Osa's thorax in steady succession. Osa fought back desper­ately. Not fear, but cold, unemotional determination possessed her. It was to be a fight to the finish.

In Osa's limited mind there could be no room for thoughts of escape; noth­ing of subterfuge, nor any fearful dwelling upon what might happen should Fiega overcome her. Osa was like a machine. Every muscle, every nerve, every move of her body, was in perfect accord with her will to tear the soft pulpy body of the oncoming Fiega.

Osa threw herself forward in a des­perate lunge, stretching one foreleg straight ahead. Fiega lurched back. The tip of Osa's claw scraped the soft thorax. But Fiega had struck up quickly. Now she wrenched downward, caught and crushed Osa's driving fore­leg.

Osa stumbled forward. Fiega twisted and struck. Still Osa's foreleg re­mained fixed in Fiega's desperate grasp. Maddened from the pain and the fear­ful advantage of the other, Osa let fly the other foreleg which had been pro­tecting her own thorax. It was a win-all or lose-all chance. She had to reach Fiega's thorax. But should she fail there was the grim certainty that Fiega would take full advantage of this mo­mentary uncovering.

Osa strained every fiber of her beau­tiful body, stretched forward full length in the lightninglike drive. Forelegs clicked against the rough thorns of Fiega's own driving foreleg. Osa grasped—missed.

Fiega had warded off the desperate blow. But now Fiega was quick to take advantage of Osa's awkward position. She cut under Osa's wild blow, dug one long, sharp claw into the soft pulp of Osa's thorax, and ripped up the full length to the tiny, gasping head.

Blackness—a deep, smothering, hide­ous blackness. It's impossible to relate how heavy and ugly and oppressive that sensation was. For that moment of Osa's death broke our consciousness contact. It was like a quick blow on the head. I was stunned, floundering crazily in some wildly swirling universe of horrible screechy sound.

It was then that my numbed brain began slowly, painfully, to arouse it­self from the awful stupor. How long I sat there, dazed and sick, I do not know. Gradually, however, I began to see, to realize where I was and what had occurred. I shook myself reached up, tore off the infernal wire-mesh hel­met, and stood up.

There was poor old Peter Bill. He was still leaning across the laboratory table, his eyes wide with horror. He looked like a dead man, like one who had met with some quick and particu­larly horrible death. For a moment I really believed that he was dead; that in some way this hellish experiment had snapped the cells in his brain.

I probably went berserk. At any rate I dashed over and began to twist and tear at the controls. I must have jerked and torn at about every loose end be­fore the thing went dead. Then I got to Peter Bill. Frankly, I don't know what I did to bring him to. All I re­member is that I worked with crazed desperation.

At last he blinked his eyes, looked around weakly. Then he smiled at me and fell asleep.

 

IT WAS toward night when I got Peter Bill over to the college hospital. He wasn't really sleeping. Something was wrong. His mind was fixed in an unbreakable trance.

Well, of course, you know the rest. The newspapers were blatant with all sorts of stories on the "Emerald Ray." Of course they played up Professor Peter Wilfred Williams as a mad gen­ius. I'll not recount the few official in­terviews poor old Peter Bill was able to gasp out during the next four days. Give the officials here at Western States full credit for salvaging what they could of Peter Bill's data. They worked nobly from the few babbled words, the general idea I gave them, and the dis­organized scribblings which passed as scientific notes to Peter Bill.

What I want to get down now is the real ending of the story which the pa­pers didn't get. I'm writing this to you in order to get it off my mind. Then I'm going south and west, and don't look for me at home or Harvard, either, before Christmas. But, anyway, here's what I have to tell:

It was on the fifth day after the ex­periment. Peter Bill had been com­pletely unconscious for over ninety-six hours. Besides the two physicians and the nurses there were four men staying pretty close to the nearly lifeless body which was Peter Bill—Dr. Henniken, the college president, and Dean Griggs from the State University, together with the Federal Institute entomologists, Weir and Dykes. These were the four who succeeded in salvaging the gains which brilliant old Peter Bill had achieved for his precious science. Don't forget to give these four scientists plenty of credit.

The State University dean had rebuilt Peter Bill's apparatus. I had taken it apart rather viciously, it seems. He had a plan. All four were working desperately against time. We all knew that Peter Bill couldn't last out another day.

The physicians agreed that even such an extraordinary measure as that pro­posed by the State University dean—and substantiated by the scientists—could do not harm. So it was that Dean Griggs set up his duplicate of Peter Bill's apparatus in the basement room of Administration Hall. Dean Griggs had supplied six of the wire-mesh helmets; nevertheless, there were thirteen sitting about the still, scarcely breathing body of the dying man.

I remember that the chief medico in charge of Peter Bill's case had bent over the emaciated body before Dean Griggs' experimental measure was be­gun. The doctor had shaken his head and remarked that we'd better be get­ting along speedily.

I was numb. The first horror had never quite left me. And the sight of poor old Peter Bill lying there with his very breath oozing from the bluish lips was slow torture.

But we were putting a lot of crack-brained hope into this wild hunch of the dean's. It was a case of any port in a storm.


 

CLICK! We were off. Oh, I tell you the infernal hum of the contrap­tion burned into my ears! It perme­ated my entire body with sickening ter­ror. But I held on. I was determined to see it through. Maybe, after all, there was some sense in what these men were doing. Poor old Peter Bill!

The crazy, maddening green lights—I shut my eyes against them.

"Contact!"

The same word Peter Bill had used. And it had rung through my horrified brain in the same mysterious way. So far the devilish thing was clicking to perfection.

I opened my eyes, stared horribly. Yes; there it was—the same thick, vi­cious milky light.

But the milky light began to swirl into a central crimson vortex, swirling faster and faster.

And then there was a scream, a blood-chilling, madman's screech of hellish death. My hair stood on end. I must have come to my feet in sheer horror.

Now the room was a bedlam of crazed, shrieking, cursing voices—the cries of horror and terror of many men! Sounds of struggle, groans.

I tore the helmet from my head, stag­gered back.

There—no one can conceive the full hideousness of it—but there before me, struggling desperately, were the sev­eral doctors and professors who had not been under the spell of the wire-mesh helmet. They were pulling, tear­ing, fighting, at the naked form of Pe­ter Bill.

Peter Bill? Peter Bill's body, yes; but not with the consciousness of the Western States entomologist. This was a raving, utterly depraved blood-thirsty maniac.

His teeth had sunk into the flesh of Dean Griggs' neck. His fingers clawed brutally, digging handfuls of flesh and blood as the thing which had been Peter Bill tore into and ate—yes, ate—the body of the helpless Dean Griggs.

Peter Bill had become Osa. That was my dominant thought. It still is. The mind of Peter Bill had gone out leaving the consciousness of the killer mantis in control of the body of the man. In some strange inexplicable manner the mind of Osa had not per­ished with her body, but had been pro­jected by the apparatus into the body of Peter Bill.

One mantis eating another is a gory sight; but for one man to eat another is the picture of hell itself.

Somehow the frantically struggling men pulled the mantis-crazed human away. I saw one of them strike with some heavy object. Others were work­ing desperately over the torn and bleed­ing Dean Griggs. Then some one led me away. I must have been half crazy myself. I couldn't talk. My eyes were blurred. I felt worn, beaten.

Well, let me close this now.

 

THEY buried Peter Bill yesterday. It was all necessarily secret and solemn. You've read the general news accounts. Nevertheless, don't pay too much at­tention to their forceful predictions con­cerning the "Green Ray." At any rate, you know now why I've got to get clear away; why I must rest and relax. My nerves are still shot.

That's what Bulletin 80E24 doesn't tell about the "Green Ray." It will never be used again. What we know about the mantis is a rare bit of infor­mation, paid for with the life of the world's most brilliant entomologist.


 

Next month—another story by the author of TWILIGHT, Don A. Stuart.

THE MACHINE presents a profoundly impressive and moving conception

of the future. Also—THE ULTIMATE METAL, by Nat Schachner.