The Grasshopper Brain

When Irene and Terence get back to the Rockpool Café the two bikes and two surfboards are still propped up against the wall.

The Café is closed.

Right! says Irene. That does it! I'm taking you to Emu Bay and leaving you with Gaius.

Good, says Terence. Let's go. This place is unfriendly.

Irene leaves Sweezus's bike propped up against the wall with the others.

She and Terence drive east, in Irene's car, towards Emu Bay.

.......

It's getting dark at the Emu Bay fossil dig site.

Ssü-K'ung Shu is fed up with digging.

Digging, digging......

All he's dug up so far are a few flat stone surfaces imprinted with some sort of coding.

He is not going to give them to Dr Yu Liu ( the Chinese government spy ).

He has shoved them into his pocket.

And now has stopped digging.

It's outrageous. He has done ALL the digging.

Gaius and Dr Yu Liu have been sitting on higher ground.

Talking.

The modern dragonfly, says Dr Yu Liu, has 28,000 lenses in each eye.

Remarkable, says Gaius. A great deal more than Anomalocaris. And of course, many more than the trilobites.

Indeed, says Dr Yu Liu. Oh look!  A grasshopper!

Pardon? says Gaius.

I have just spotted a grasshopper, says Dr Yu Liu. Hey Shu! Come over here!

Ssu-K'ung Shu drops his spade and comes over.

Now what?

Got a jar? asks Dr Yu Liu.

Confucius's balls! Now he's supposed to catch a ridiculous grasshopper!

Shu fetches a jar, from Gaius's back pack.

It once contained pickled cucumbers, but now is empty.

The cucumbers had formed the main part of Gaius's lunch.

Shu creeps around after the grasshopper.

Are you intending to study it? asks Gaius.

Yes, says Dr Yu Liu. It will form part of my study of various aspects of neuroblasts and the architecture of various neuroblast-generated lineages building up the central complex of the grasshopper brain.

Fascinating, says Gaius. But first, catch your grasshopper, eh?

Ha ha, laughs Dr Yu Liu.

Ha ha, laughs Shu, somewhat more bitterly, as he fails once again to keep up with the grasshopper.

The sky darkens, the sea roars and crashes.

Headlights. A car pulls up.

The grasshopper jumps onto the windscreen.

A spider! cries Terence.

Crack! A cucumber jar slams down on the windscreen on top of the spider.

Which isn't a spider.

The windscreen is shattered.

Irene gets out.

She looks angry.