The auto extractor is part drill, part jackhammer, part laser saw, useful for cutting valuable ores out of a mineral that shattered a regular diamond bit after only a few spins.

Haddanium, named after Dr. Kamara M. Haddix, who first discovered it. Dr. Haddix herself had broken several drills removing her samples, but we had the auto extractor.

People generally run the extractor by throwing their stomach over it, but I had to protect the baby, so I tried to make do with other methods. My hips, my knees. One time I tried my chest, but with the baby on the way things are sensitive there, so I opted for a sort of awkward upper body push up that left me weak and shaking at the end of the day.

There were five of us, drilling away on the near impregnable substance. Six, if you're counting boyfriends that just stand around and watch you with worried looks on their faces.

"This is macho bullshit, Ellen," Brett said.

I stopped drilling. I could just barely hear him.

"What?"

"I said this is macho bullshit. Your baby is due any day, and here you are extracting ores like nothing's the matter."

"Trying to extract ores, you mean. I hadn't found a one today, because your baby is causing me to throw up every five minutes."

"It's our baby," he corrected. "And you wouldn't be throwing up if you weren't trying to do a man's job with an extra passenger on board."

"Well excuse me for not being content to sit around in a gray cell knitting booties all day while the project runs behind!"

Before he could utter a word of protest, I pressed the bit and laser guide against the unyielding Haddanium.

"Always gotta be the Tomboy," he muttered with a shake of his head.

I stopped. "What?"

He cleared his throat. "I said you're a Tomboy. Sometimes it's the sexiest thing about you. At other times, well, it fucking pisses me off. I'm just sayin'."

My face had been Haddanium, but now I allowed a little sunshine to break out, smiling at him.

He rubbed my back, then left me to go work on machinery elsewhere on the base.

I drilled the rock, trying to ignore the baby's kicking.

The auto extractor chiseled the cracks around my target, loosening the weak points enough to knock the chunk free from the hidden ores.

So far we've found glowing sapphires with gold in their cores, a sort of turquoise that shifted patterns like a lava lamp, and anthracite coal.

Team B is uncovering a lead-like mineral that melts into liquid mercury. You need gas masks for that kind of work. I was actually on Team B for a long time, but when I started showing signs of pregnancy, I was allowed to transfer with a medical note.

The rock was hollow, and when I pried it loose, a swarm of Hell's Lice leaped out, landing on my face and chest, snapping at my flesh with their pincers. A larger one gouged my cheeks, and blood poured down from its claws.

The creatures, although somewhat like lobster, bore a stronger resemblance to genital lice. The other type of crab. Four claws instead of two, oddly excessive amounts of plating with oddly pointed and hairy ridges.

It didn't smell very good, having the thing over my mouth and nose, but I could breathe.

It only felt like I couldn't.

For a moment, I saw only a giant pink thing with legs like human fingers, a long slimy tail curling around my neck as a massive egg, soft, cockroach-like, dropped into my throat.

With a horrified shriek, I ripped the things off my face, then stared at them as they scurried down into a connecting cavern.

No eggs.

No tail.

It hadn't hurt me at all.

Well, only a few cuts.

Thankfully, Hell's Lice only ate some form of lichen, so they were harmless.

We ate the damned things for lunch every day.

Revolting crustaceans that tasted like liver, fermented pineapple, and Cap'n Crunch Berries.

Nearly catatonic, I threw the rest of them off my body.

"Hell's Lice," I repeated to myself.

I hadn't noticed it, but Si had been laughing at me the whole time.

The little spiky haired weasel.

"Remember that gag on Gilligan's Island with the crabs?" he guffawed as he pointed at me.

I scowled at the bony assed figure in the jeans and aviator jacket, grabbing my driller.

"Would you like me to shove this auto extractor up your rectal cavity and see what ores we can extract?"

Grinning smugly, he said, "I don't think you're ready for my rock hard ores."

"I think the laser saw will be enough to cut off anything that needs to be cut."

"Oooh."

I punted one of the Hell's Lice across the cave with a soccer kick.

In addition to yielding giant lice, the exposed crevice yielded the most important archaeological find of the century.

It was a metal icon of purposeful design, a clear sign that an intelligent lifeform existed on this rock hundreds, or maybe thousands of years ago, and, as I picked way at the rock surrounding it with a mineralogist's pick and a laser knife, I discovered the skeletal hand that still clutched it.

"Guys!" I called. "I found something!"

"It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there."

-Bram Stoker, Dracula

I form the shell of the cocoon with secretions from my anal ducts, which dry and harden in the cool air of the cave. A pair of tentacles will remain exposed, snapping me out of hibernation whenever my prey is foolhardy enough to create vibrations in the air, or on the ground.

The cocoon will open on the front, allowing me a speedy exit, and a quick meal.

A Ss'sikhtokawij can stay this way for a long time

Months. Years, even.

But once I emerge, I will have to feed immediately. I will have only a few hours before starvation puts me in my final sleep.

There. Two more layers, and my cocoon will be complete.

Then I wait.