Last Chance to See Read Free Page A

We’ll need to know all about it if we’re going to go to Mars and places. Where did you say you were going?”
    “Komodo.”
    “Well, don’t get bitten, that’s all I can say. And don’t come running to me if you do because you won’t get here in time and anyway I’ve got enough on my plate. Look at this office. Full of poisonous animals all over the place. See this tank? It’s full of fire ants. Venomous little creatures, what are we going to do about them? Anyway, I got some little cakes in case you were hungry. Would you like some little cakes? I can’t remember where I put them. There’s some tea but it’s not very good. Sit down for heaven’s sake.
    “So, you’re going to Komodo. Well, I don’t know why you want to do that, but I suppose you have your reasons. There are fifteen different types of snake on Komodo, and half of them are poisonous. The only potentially deadly ones are the Russell’s viper, the bamboo viper, and the Indian cobra.
    “The Indian cobra is the fifteenth deadliest snake in the world, and all the other fourteen are here in Australia. That’s why it’s so hard for me to find time to get on with my hydroponics, with all these snakes all over the place.
    “And spiders. The most poisonous spider is the Sydney funnel web. We get about five hundred people a year bitten by spiders. A lot of them used to die, so we had to develop an antidote to stop people bothering me with it all the time. Took us years. Then we developed this snake-bite detector kit. Not that you need a kit to tell you when you’ve been bitten by a snake, you usually know, but the kit is something that will detect what type you’ve been bitten by so you can treat it properly.
    “Would you like to see a kit? I’ve got a couple in the venom fridge. Let’s have a look. Ah, look, the cakes are in here too. Quick, have one while they’re still fresh. Fairy cakes, I baked ’em myself.”
    He handed round the snake venom detection kits and his home-baked fairy cakes and retreated back to his desk, where he beamed at us cheerfully from behind his curly beard and bow tie. We admired the kits, which were small, efficient boxes neatly packed with tiny bottles, a pipette, a syringe, and a complicated set of instructions that I wouldn’t want to have to read for the first time in a panic, and then we asked him how many of the snakes he had been bitten by himself.
    “None of ’em,” he said. “Another area of expertise I’ve developed is that of getting other people to handle the dangerous animals. Won’t do it myself. Don’t want to get bitten, do I? You know what it says on my book jackets? ‘Hobbies: gardening—with gloves; fishing—with boots; traveling—with care.’ That’s the answer. What else? Well, in addition to the boots wear thick, baggy trousers, and preferably have half a dozen people tramping along in front of you making as much noise as possible. The snakes pick up the vibrations and get out of your way, unless it’s a death adder, otherwise known as the deaf adder, which just lies there. People can walk right past it and over it and nothing happens. I’ve heard of twelve people in a line walking over a death adder and the twelfth person accidentally trod on it and got bitten. Normally you’re quite safe if you’re twelfth in line. You’re not eating your cakes. Come on, get them down you, there’s plenty more in the venom fridge.”
    We asked, tentatively, if we could perhaps take a snake bite detector kit with us to Komodo.
    “ ’Course you can, ’course you can. Take as many as you like. Won’t do you a blind bit of good because they’re only for Australian snakes.”
    “So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then?” I asked.
    He blinked at me as if I were stupid.
    “Well, what do you think you do?” he said. “You die of course. That’s what deadly means.”
    “But what about cutting open the wound and sucking out the poison?” I asked.
    “Rather you