Starship Troopers Page #3

JOHNNY:

I have good reflexes.

Carmen notices the way Dizzy's looking at Johnny, doesn't

like it one bit, takes Johnny's arm.

CARMEN:

C'mon Johnny, we'll be late for Biology.

9INTBIOLOGY LAB -- DAY - THE BIOLOGY TEACHER

is an older woman, very spry, also blind. Johnny, Carmen and

other students gather around covered lab tables.

BIOLOGY TEACHER:

For our final today, please identify the mouthparts,

the abdominal organs, and for extra credit, locate the

nerve cord and count the ganglia.

You may begin.

The students remove the cover to reveal large alien bugs, 60

centimeter ARKELLIAN SAND BEETLES laid out for dissection.

CARMEN:

Eeuch !

JOHNNY:

Aw, c'mon, it's just a bug.

BIOLOGY TEACHER:

Just a bug, eh ? We humans like to think we are

Nature's finest achievement. I'm afraid it isn't

true. This Arkellian Sand Beetle is superior in many

ways. It has fewer moving parts, can reproduce itself

in vast numbers, and unboud by concerns of ego and

mortality, makes the perfect selfless member of

society.

JOHNNY:

Better put your goggles on.

Johnny slices the abdomen open with asurgical laser. Green

fluid sprays from the slit. Carmen turns away looking ill.

BIOLOGY TEACHER:

Our galaxy is teaming with insect life. We have

identified over two billion species so far.

Human, life, it would seem, is the anomaly.

CARMEN:

But we 're intelligent. Human minds have invented

art, mathematics and interstellar travel.

BIOLOGY TEACHER:

True, we know of no insect society that has

produced a Shakespeare, an Einstein or a

Cherynkov, but before you let that go to your

head, take the example of the Arachnids, a

highly organized, highly evolved insect society.

She points to an insect evolution chart that starts with a

common ant and ends with a two meter tall ARACHNID WARRIOR.

BIOLOGY TEACHER:

They are relatively stupid by human standards. Workers

have an IQ of 12, warriors around 35 , and yet the

Arachnids have colonized planets. Over a million years

of evolution, Nature has provided the Arachnids with the

biological means to hurl their spore into space.

Johnny applies a spreader and jacks the insects abdominal cavity

open with aresounding crack. Bug guts gush out.

JOHNNY:

Well, if that's the crop, that must be the gastric

caecal...

CARMEN:

Excuse me...!

She heads for the door, hand over her mouth.

10EXTCIVIC PARK - DAY - JOHNNY AND CARMEN

walk home from school together.

JOHNNY:

35% on the math final ! No one could be

that dumb with numbers.

CARMEN:

Well, at least you didn't lose your lunch

over a bug. How embarassing.

JOHNNY:

Who cares about bugs ? You can't go anywhere

if you don't know math.

CARMEN:

Don't be so sure. I like you even if you are

dumb with numbers.

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