"I felt a stab the first time it plunged its stinger into me, but when I came to in the web there was no pain. The pain started in the chart room."
I was thinking furiously. Stinger—ovipositor. A few species of stinging terrestrial insects possessed organs which combined the functions of both. Evidently the wasps had simply stung us at first—to paralyze us. Now they were completing the gruesome process of providing a feast for their avaricious progeny. One of the wasps had taken Darnel from the web, and deposited a fertile, luminous egg in his flesh.
It was becoming hideously clear now. The wasp's retreat into the chart room had been motivated by a desire to complete its loathsome task in grim seclusion. It had withdrawn a short distance for the sake of privacy, passing completely through the wall out of sight.
My stomach felt tight and hollow when I contemplated the grub, which had apparently hatched out almost instantly. It seemed probable that Darnel's anguish was caused by the grub's luminosity searing his flesh, as its mouth-parts were still immobile.
"Darnel," I whispered. "The paralysis wore off. They couldn't sting us into permanent insensibility. The pain may go too."
He looked at me, his eyes filming. "I don't understand, sir. Paralysis?"
I had forgotten that Darnel wasn't even aware of what we were up against. He couldn't see the grub. He didn't know that we were—caterpillars.
He was in torment, and I was powerless to help him. I was glad he didn't know, despite my certain knowledge that I was about to share his fate. I whispered hoarsely: "Can you see Joan, lad. Is she—"
"She's lying in the web next to you, sir. Dawson and Stillmen have been out."
"Taken out."