From: tomf@gte.com (Tom Fawcett)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: A quote looking for a context
Summary: cleaning my directory
Date: 21 Nov 92 18:14:49 GMT
Reply-To: tomf@gte.com
Organization: GTE Laboratories, Inc.
In-reply-to: ajd@oit.itd.umich.edu's message of 15 Nov 92 06:45:54 GMT


We regrouped at dusk just east of the border, waiting to make the crossing.

Digging deeply into his pockets, Isaac pulled out a dozen vials and lined
them up on a boulder.  "Take one.  Rub it all over.  Everywhere.  In your
hair, in your crotch, around your ankles, even on your eyelids.  Everywhere.
Don't miss anything."

Stiquitos look like dragonflies but they attack humans and could extract a
surprising amount of blood in a single bite.  And they were very tenacious:
the hind legs grasped the skin during the bite, forming a stable tripod with
the proboscis.  This along with their large bodies enabled them to withstand
slaps that would kill a mosquito.  They were flying leeches, and often you
had to grasp a stiquito by its body in order to tear it off, leaving proboscis
and legs still in the skin.  While you were doing this a dozen others had
time to settle, grasp and penetrate.

Stiquitos tracked scent and carbon dioxide just as mosquitos did, and just as
effectively, but unlike mosquitos there was no known repellent.  But there
was one defense: certain scents interfered with the stiquitos' tracking
ability.  You couldn't repell them, but you could keep them from finding you,
and often that was enough.  

A few blocking scents had been discovered and could be bought near
stiquito-infested areas.  Some were inoffensive to the human nose, but they
were expensive and most "crossers" couldn't afford them, so it was only the
cheap, strong scents that you could find in the eastern border towns.  On the
western side you could tell the crossers by their stench, which took a few
days to wash out completely.

Each of us chose a vial and poured it onto our palms, rubbing it all over our
bodies as Isaac instructed.  We'd heard the stories and we didn't hesitate.
The liquid was a greasy acid that stung our eyes, lips and groin, but no one
complained, and we kept smearing until our vials were empty.  Finally we all
stood motionless, tense in silent discomfort, emitting only occasional
strained coughs.

All except Peter.  Peter had an aversion to everything artificial.  He
wouldn't use drugs, he didn't take aspirin, he never even drank tea.  He'd
told us with pride that several weeks ago he had endured the extraction of an
abscessed tooth without novocaine.  He even refused the sunblock that Isaac
had given out in the desert.

Of course he would have nothing to do with the blocking scent.

Isaac took him aside and tried to convince him of the necessity.  "You must
use the ointment to block your trail.  You must use some kind of evasion for
the crossing.  The stiquitos have been known to draw ounces of blood in
minutes, and the crossing could take an hour or more.
> It is dangerous to have nothing."

Still he refused, and eventually Isaac gave up.

We headed out into the hills, running, over the border, through the voracious
insects.  We spread out widely to increase our chances, each of us at least a
kilometer from the other.

Several weeks later, along with the standard gossip of new immigrants, I heard
that Peter's body had been found by the border patrol, covered with welts,
completely drained of blood.