by Jay Stringer
Hass didn’t know that one, and said so.
“Where Santorini is now?” Chase eased back into her chair. Hass knew she loved the chance to switch modes from relic runner to teacher. “The island is part of an ancient volcano, Thera. The whole thing went up somewhere around 1500 BCE. Wiped out the Minoan civilization, caused a tsunami that hit every coast in the region. It probably inspired the Atlantis myth, and it might have been recorded in the Bible. Huge clouds of ash would have drifted across Egypt, blotting out the sun. Debris would have been falling from the sky. The water could have boiled. The tsunami might have been large enough to empty out the Red Sea.”
“Exodus,” Hass said.
Chase shrugged. “It’s a theory.”
Hass raised his hand a little, just a small gesture but enough to look like a student in class. “And what happens when an eight goes off?”
“Utah, basically. Utah as we know it was formed by an eight. But that was millions of years ago.”
Freema took over. “The most recent one was Sumatra, about seventy-five thousand years ago. Scientists think that one is the reason humans survived in our present form. Why this version of our evolution is the one that dominates the planet. The explosion filled the atmosphere with ash, poisoned the air, blotted out the sun. The worldwide population was reduced to just a few thousand, and every variant died off except us.”
Hass felt his gut tighten in panic even at the thought of something happening on that scale. “The whole planet?”
“The whole planet.” Chase nodded. “It would be like a global nuclear winter. I mean, think about it. If a seven was the Old Testament, wrath-of-God stuff, an eight is higher than the wrath of God. But they’re really rare.” Chase waved away Hass’s panic. “Super rare.”
“Every hundred thousand years,” Freema said quietly.
Hass picked up on her meaning. “You said the last one, the one that killed off all the other humans, was seventy-five thousand years ago?”
“Yes.”
“So, we’re within the margin of error for the next one?”
Chase paused halfway through another sip. Lowered her glass. “So… why are we talking volcanoes?”
Hass and Freema looked at each other. The telepathy that came from a twenty-year relationship. It was Freema who took the lead.
“We think Kilimanjaro is active.”
“And by active, you mean…”
“Yes.”
Chase downed the drink, rolled her head, and put on an overcompensating smile. “Well, then, we better get in and out before it happens.”
If Chase had bamboozled Freema with her charm, the grace period was over. Freema slammed her hands down on the table, this time not caring whether people turned to stare. “No. You’re not dragging him there. Not now.”
“Dragging him?” Chase pushed back in her seat and spread her arms wide. “I’m not dragging him anywhere. Doc’s the one who figured—”
“Doc?”
“Hey, come on.” Hass put both hands up this time, the full DEFCON 1 of the soothing gesture. “Free, she’s right. I’m the one who figured out we need to go to Kili. Chase had given up.”
“I wouldn’t say—” Chase started, but cut herself off and let him continue.
“And that’s why we need your help. I get it, you don’t want us to go. And I get why. And believe me, if we had any choice in it, we wouldn’t be going. If the world blows up, I want to be as far away from the explosion as I can.” He shrugged. “But I need you to trust me. I promise to God. We have to go.”
Freema leaned back and crossed her arms. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Hass could see how much emotion she was holding back as she glared first at Chase, then at Hass. “Fine.” She shifted in her seat, shook her head a couple of times, then said, “You have to go. But I’m not helping you get there.”
“I’ve got that covered,” Chase said quietly, more as an aside to Hass than a reply to Freema. Hass looked at her, but she tilted her head to say, Later.
“I understand,” Hass said to Freema, smooth, calm. “And thank you. Your trust means the world to me. But we also need some information. I thought you might know something about what we need.”
Freema barely moved. Sitting bolt upright, arms still folded, she nodded, once.
Hass took that as enough of an answer to continue. “We’ve heard about something that we think is on the north slope, or near that side of the mountain. A valley or…”
He could see from Freema’s reaction she knew what he was talking about. Her eyes widened.
“The dark place.” She watched Hass and Chase share a look before continuing. “That’s what my grandparents called it. It used to be a scary story, something parents would tell their children. Don’t go to the dark place. A lot of the mountain has been deforested now—farming took the slopes to the south and east, tourist trails have been cut through the north and west. But the dark place is still there, as far as I know. A part of the forest on the north slope, where nobody goes. The tourist trails are all a safe distance away. Nobody ever farmed there.”
“What’s in there?”
“Ghost stories. Things to keep people scared.”
“White cats?”
Freema’s brow furrowed. She looked confused until Chase followed with, “We were shown a map, and it had a picture, a white lion or wolf.”
“Oh.” Freema nodded. “That must be Mngwa.”
Hass had heard of Mngwa. A mythical large cat, said to be the size of a donkey. The stories used to be prevalent across the south of Tanzania, especially in the forest land near the coast, but he hadn’t heard much of it in recent years. But Mngwa was said to be gray, with stripes or spots, not white.
I guess Gilmore didn’t have the right color crayons.
“Mngwa lives in the dark place.” Freema smiled. “In the stories, anyway. That’s his home. That’s why my parents were told to stay away. If you go near the dark place, Mngwa will eat you.”
Hass nodded along. Gilmore’s ideas were starting to mesh with local legends he remembered hearing. “You don’t believe the stories? You don’t believe in Mngwa?”
“I’m a scientist.” She turned to Chase. “You’re from Washington State? You believe in Bigfoot? No. Of course not.” Back to Hass. “You, Hassan, of all people, know not to judge people based on where they come from. You want me to sit here and parade out old Chaga legends so you can go play tourists, so you”—back to Chase again—“can then go play some kind of savior.”
Chase didn’t react the way Hass expected. She simply nodded. Let the silence stretch out long enough to be sure Freema had finished. Then, deferentially, she leaned forward and said, “You’re right. I get it. Doc—Hassan—gets it. You have no reason to believe me, no reason to trust me. And I don’t think I can swear to God, because I don’t know what my relationship with God is.” She paused. “That one is… a work in progress. But all I can say is I’ve found things I shouldn’t have, in the past. I’ve stolen relics. I’ve taken from other cultures for profit. But, and I don’t know if it’s ten years of this guy”—she smiled at Hass—“talking in my ear, I’ve learned to leave things where they are, too. I found Alexander the Great’s tomb. And nobody knows about it, because I left it where it was. Whatever is on that mountain has been there since long before my country or any of our governments came along. And all things being equal, I think it belongs to the mountain. It should stay where it is. But there are other people looking for it, too, and they have the map. They may already know where it is. They might be on their way there right now. And they don’t want to respect history. We need to get there before them.”
Freema sat in silence and listened. Hass watched her eyes widen and narrow a couple of times. She tilted her head once. He could tell she was taking this in. Once Chase finished, Freema looked down at her hands in silence for a full minute. Hass and Chase looked at each other, wondering what would happen next.
She smiled at Chase. “I bet part of you want
s to believe in Bigfoot?”
“Oh, hell yes.”
“I think part of me has always wanted to believe in Mngwa. But I can’t help being a scientist. A big cat? A breeding population on the side of Kili? Still, the Chaga, we migrated to Kilimanjaro, the Impossible Mountain, in the eleventh century. And it was a gift from God. The crops that grew there, the soil, the water. It was perfect. But even then, the early settlers knew they weren’t the first to live on the mountain. There were legends of the people who’d come before. And we settled on the east and the south, a little in the west. Nobody tried to settle on the north. They must have had a reason why. Maybe that reason still exists. Based on what we know right now, maybe there’s some part of the volcano that opens out in that section of the forest, maybe some gas leaks out, or the water is sulfuric.”
Chase smiled. “That would make sense.”
“So the dark place could be real. Whatever is hidden in the trees, it’s been allowed to stay hidden. And a thousand years ago, maybe there were some Mngwa. A lot can change in that time. A species can die out.”
Hass laid his palms down on the table gently. “How do we find it?”
Freema sighed, expressing, okay, whatever. “It’s not that high up. You take the north route, head to the village Nale Moru with the tourists. Follow their trail across the cultivated land. There are two bridges as you enter the forest. At the second bridge, which is over a dried-up riverbed, turn off the trail. The tourists will continue on up to the moorland, to camp at the cave. You follow the dried-up river. It’s going to feel strange—the mountain lies to you about what direction you’re traveling. You see the peaks and they pull you toward them; you think they are north. But keep a compass and follow the river west. You’ll see a thicker section of forest, one that obviously hasn’t been touched.”
“And then?” Hass prompted.
She shrugged. “Walk into it? I don’t know. I’ve never been that far. I only know how to get to that point.”
Chase waved at the barman, indicating she wanted a refill, then pointed at Freema’s and Hass’s glasses. They both said no. Chase waited for her fresh drink to be carried over, then focused back on Freema.
“How many people know about this? I mean, the dark place and the route you just told us? The people going in ahead of us are American, rich, white. What are the chances of them being told the same thing?”
Freema gave a weary, patronizing shake of the head. But it was in good spirit now; her anger was gone. “Everyone knows about it. This is your Western disease.” She pointed at Hass. “He tells me this all the time. If you read the Wikipedia entry on Kilimanjaro, it’s going to tell you the first people to climb the mountain were British explorers. We were living on Kili for nine hundred years by that point, and there were people there before us. You think we didn’t know every inch of that place, including the top? We’ve been telling you it’s the Impossible Mountain for hundreds of years, but you have to come up with different reasons for why. As for these Americans, it will depend on what they ask, who they ask, how polite they are.”
“Money?”
“And money, yes.”
Chase drank in silence. Freema’s phone buzzed. She picked it up and read the message.
“I need to go,” she said. “Government meeting.”
She stood and embraced Hass, squeezing him a little too tightly. “Be safe,” she whispered before squeezing again.
Chase stood up to shake her hand. “Good to finally meet you,” she said. “And I meant it, about trading up.”
Freema laughed, embarrassed all over again. She gave Hass one last parting look to show the worry still beneath the surface before turning on her heel and marching out of the bar without stopping.
“She’s a hottie.” Chase leaned across to nudge Hass. “Seriously.”
“Do you have to flirt with every woman you meet?”
“I promise, you ever introduce me to your mom? I won’t flirt.” She lifted her glass to hide her smile. “Unless she’s cute.”
Hass waved that away. “What did you mean, when you said we have travel covered? Conte?”
“Yeah.” Chase’s smile dropped away. “He’s got a guy who’ll get us in if we go in an hour.”
“What did it cost?”
Chase downed the last of her whisky, stared at the bottom of the glass. “I gave up my claim on the Ark.”
THIRTY-THREE
The phrase you had to be there could have been coined for Kilimanjaro. Chase couldn’t take her eyes off it. There would be no way to describe the mountain accurately that could possibly do it justice to anyone who hadn’t been there themselves. Official records varied, but they all agreed that the highest peak, Uhuru, was over nineteen thousand feet above sea level, and sixteen thousand feet above where Chase was now standing. The sheer scale of it had already made Chase feel light-headed on the occasions she’d paused to look up. She could see why the local tribes would have called this both the Impossible Mountain and the Mountain of the Moon. The summit touched the clouds. She could make out what was left of the glacier that had once covered it, now reduced to a few strips of ice and snow. It didn’t take much to imagine how the scene looked when Western explorers saw it for the first time in the 1800s, with vast stretches of snow reflecting the sun, looking for all the world like it was topped with silver and gold.
She and Hass had been walking for almost a full day. Technically they had been on the mountain for all that time, and yet the peak seemed to rise with them, never getting closer, never getting shorter.
The smuggler Conte set them up with had been fast and efficient. He’d gotten them from Addis Ababa to Nairobi without any official checkpoints or the need for paperwork. They had encountered two roadblocks heading through Kenya to the Tanzanian border, but the smuggler had successfully gotten them through both. Every guard seemed distracted. At one of the checkpoints, they heard news that a massive crack had opened up to the north, a fissure ten miles long and half a mile wide. Whatever Kili was up to, it was coming soon.
They got across the Tanzanian border with a long talk and an exchange of cash. From there, their smuggler drove them to a bar in Tarakea, a small modern town at the base of the mountain. It was there that Chase had taken her first real look at Kilimanjaro. A dark, imposing presence towering over them in the predawn blackness. It wasn’t like the mountains Chase had been used to growing up, which were part of the scenery. This mountain was the scenery. It was all you could see, blocking everything else out.
They grabbed a few hours’ sleep at the bar, which had a backpackers’ hostel upstairs, before they were woken up to meet their guide. He introduced himself as Steve but smiled whenever Chase used the name, like it was a joke she wasn’t in on. He would laugh regularly, regardless of whatever was being said. Each time she started a conversation with him, she heard a voice in her head announce, Steve is filmed in front of a live studio audience. He was Chaga, like Freema, and Hass would talk to him in Bantu for long stretches. His English was perfect, though, and it seemed out of respect to Chase he would only slip into his native tongue when Hass started it.
Steve told them his job was usually to take tourists up through the official trail, making sure they registered before setting off in case of emergency. He would lead his party on a seven-day trek up to the peak and back down the other side, through the rain forest of the southern slope. But the mountain was closed now, and everyone in the area already knew why. The government had given no details yet, but they’d experienced two minor tremors in as many days, and nobody there was an idiot. This checked out with what Chase had already seen. The town had felt deserted when they’d arrived the night before, even for the midnight hour. In the early-morning light, she could see most of the business had Closed signs in their windows, and the driveways were already empty of cars. Chase and Hass had been the only people in the hostel.
The Tanzanian government might have been holding back on any official announcement, but it looked like ever
yone had already gotten the message. The evacuation had begun.
Steve said he wouldn’t take them all the way up, but because he owed a favor to someone (and Chase knew that chain would eventually lead up to Conte), he was willing to take them as far as the edge of the forest and leave them with tents and supplies.
The whole thing had almost been called off when he spotted the tape around Chase’s wrist. “Nobody should go up Kili with an injury,” Steve had said, “especially not to an arm or leg. You need those to climb a mountain.”
Chase had insisted it was nothing major and made a note to ignore the constant dull ache from her bones and to avoid pulling faces or wincing when she put weight on her wrist.
Periodically, Steve repeated warnings about altitude sickness, regularly asking if they needed to stop and rest. Chase said no each time. She was used to altitude. She’d hiked up most of the mountains in Washington before she was even in her teens. She already knew the deal. Or thought she did. The air here did feel different. It was getting thinner faster, but she refused to show any doubt in front of Steve.
Steve led them up through farmlands to the village of Nale Moru, where tourists would start their trip. From there, they deviated off the known path. There were armed guards at the usual checkpoints, enforcing the closure, so they walked across a vast plain, where they saw rivers and trees, bushes, rocks, but no animals.
“They’ve already gone,” Steve said before breaking into another bout of misplaced laughter. “The animals are not stupid.”
The complete lack of wildlife was unnerving. They were walking through the very epitome of nature, one of the purest and most untouched places on earth, but it felt fake. Almost like a movie set, with the animals to be added in later.
The forest was in view for hours before they reached it. At some point along the way, Steve had navigated them back to the main trail because the ground here was well trodden, a compacted mud path that led between the willowy elephant grass and bushes of the plain. The trees of the forest up ahead were huge. Aside from a break in between them that indicated the path, it was easy to imagine they were walking back in time, to prehistory.