Turlock retrieved his binoculars and peered through them.  The door to the shed, nothing more than a pair of shipping containers connected end-to-end, hung open, and just outside of it a two-legged shape trudged alongside the makeshift facility.  “Sentry duty of some sort?”

“You don’t see what’s wrong with his neck?”

After a grunt, Turlock adjusted his binoculars to maximum mag and looked again.  After slowing his breathing like a sniper setting up a shot, he steadied the jiggling of the eyepieces enough to see what Marve was talking about.

“What?  It’s just a—oh, shit.”

What he’d initially mistaken for a hickey or an ugly zit resolved itself in his wavery field of view long enough for Turlock to spot a hole below an ear large enough to stick a thumb in.  Despite the wound, the lab worker managed to keep his head upright.  

“Ugh.  Is that what I think it is?”

“I didn’t think the species was viable on Andajhar.”

“What species?” asked Zeena, her eyes wide.

“Could be an import—a gift from someone with a really sick sense of humor,” said Turlock to Marve.  Before the woman could repeat her question in a louder manner, he added: “Sandzypes.”

She blinked a couple of times.  “Never heard of them.”

“Then count yourself lucky,” muttered Turlock as he peered once more through the binoculars.

The Lotian clarified for her.  “Sandzypes are semi-sentient parasites native to Orono-six and seven.”

“I haven’t been to either planet,” she sniffed.

“Better hope you never have to go,” said Turlock, who once more lowered the binoculars as the sentry disappeared behind the far end of the lab.  “Sandzypes are horrid, but they’re not even in the top five for things that can kill you there.”

“Well, what do they do?”

“They’re weak, but hide well.”  Marve scanned back and forth as he said this; no doubt the bug-man’s vision was so good he was looking for anomalies in the gritty soil around the containers.  “They prefer to enter the brain via the spinal cord, and because it takes them a few minutes to burrow that deep into the flesh, they secrete an anesthetic powerful enough to give them time.”

“Eww.  Do they do this while the victim’s asleep?”

“These ain’t mosquitoes,” said Turlock, forgetting that only Earth humans would have an image of that annoying species.  “They pop out of the sand, able to jump about two meters in the air, land on your neck, bite, and within ten seconds you’re unconscious.  Even if you can grab the damn thing and toss it away before you black out, it has at least half an hour to hop back to you and start the feast.”  He shifted his glance to Marve.  “So, is this job a writeoff?”

The Lotian chittered his mandibles in thought.  “Can we actually afford to abort?”

“I was afraid you’d bring that up.”