Looking at them, desiccated and mummified, it was hard to say whether they stood or crawled.
“I can’t stand looking at them,” Dientz said.
And for once, Sarrasin agreed with him. Rawboned and wiry and multi-limbed with horny, chitinous shells and too many anatomical adaptations you couldn’t begin to guess at, they were about as alien as anything he could imagine. Seeing them alive, seeing them moving, it would have been almost too much for the human mind. They were repulsive and hideous; you wanted to step on them.
Yet, his curiosity got the better of him¾he panned his light up and found more of the creatures interred above. These were larger, maybe adult forms, but just as withered and brown and crumbling. They looked somewhat like Earth mantises.
Dientz began to giggle, then he began
