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Needle Flies of the Vosk Delta
"Seldom have I seen clouds so dark," said another. "It is a storm," said another. I suddenly felt sick. "Labienus will speak to us," said a man. "What is that sound?" asked a man, frightened. If Labienus was prepared to address the men, he did not then begin to speak. I suspect that the men, on the barges, on the craft, the scows and rafts, those in the marsh itself, had now turned their eyes westward. I had never been in the delta at this particular time. I now, I was sure, understood the absence of the rencers. "Listen," said a man. "I hear it," said another. I myself had never heard the sound before, but I had heard of it. "Such vast clouds, so black," said a man. "They cover the entire horizon," said another, wonderingly. "The sound comes from the clouds," said a man. "I am sure of it." "I do not understand," said a man. At such a time, which occurs every summer in the delta, the rencers withdraw to their huts, taking inside with them food and water, and then, with rence, weave shut the openings to the huts. Two or three days later they emerge from the huts. "Ai!" cried a fellow, suddenly, in pain. "It is a needle fly," said a fellow. "There is another," said a man. "And another," said another. Most sting flies, or needle flies, as the men from the south call them, originate in the delta, and similar places, estuaries and such, as their eggs are laid on the stems of rence plants. As a result of the regularity of breeding and incubation times there tends, also, to be peak times for hatching. These peak times are also in part, it is thought, a function of a combination of natural factors, having to do with conditions in the delta, such as temperature and humidity, and, in particular, the relative stability of such conditions. Such hatching times, as might be supposed, are carefully monitored by rencers. Once outside the delta the sting flies, which spend most of their adult lives as solitary insects, tend to disperse. Of the millions of sting flies hatched in the delta each summer, usually over a period of four or five days, a few return each fall, to begin the cycle again. "Ai!" cried another fellow, stung. Then I heard others cry out in pain, and begin to strike about them. "The clouds come closer!" cried a fellow. There could now be no mistaking the steadily increasing volume of sound approaching from the west. It seemed to fill the delta, it is produced by the movement of wings, the intense, almost unimaginably rapid beating of millions upon millions of small wings. "Needle flies are about!" cried a man. "Beware!" "The clouds approach more closely!" cried a man. "But what are the clouds?" cried a fellow. "They are needle flies!" cried a man. I heard shrieks of pain. I pulled my head back, even in the hood. I felt a small body strike against my face, even through the leather of the hood. I recoiled, suddenly, uttering a small noise of pain, it stifled by the gag. I had been stung on the shoulder. I lowered my body, so that only my head, hooded, was raised above the water. I heard men leaping into the water. The buzzing was now deafening. "My eyes!" screamed a man. "My eyes!" The flies tend to be attracted to the eyes, as to moist, bright objects. I felt the raft pitch in the water as men left it. The sting of the sting fly is painful, extremely so, but it is usually not, unless inflicted in great numbers, dangerous. Several stings, however, and even a few, depending on the individual, can induce nausea. Men have died from the stings of the flies but usually in such cases they have been inflicted in great numbers. A common reaction to the venom of the fly incidentally is a painful swelling in the area of the sting. A few such stings about the face can render a person unrecognizable. The swelling subsides, usually, in a few Ahn. Vagabonds gorean_librarian@yahoo.com 
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