Siegfried had not said much all evening. At this point in the conversation he stood up, turned around, and faced the ocean. “What about the island out there?” he said. “That certainly qualifies as a piece of land upon which none of us has ever walked.”
“I’m afraid all this is becoming a little farfetched for us,” Ravi said at this juncture. Anna and he rose from where they had been sitting and started moving toward their hut. “With all due respect, Johann,” he added, “your story about the nepps was indeed fascinating, but Anna and I had doubts about the validity of your ‘visitation’ before, and nothing you said tonight has caused us to change our minds. We see no evidence of any kind of danger, much less the extreme danger that Sister Beatrice supposedly warned you about.”
“Moving ourselves and supplies into the western mountains would be a monumental nightmare,” Anna said. “And the island is of course out of the question. Even if we were all excellent swimmers, which we aren’t, the sperdens would devour us all before we were more than a few hundred meters offshore.”
“I understand,” Johann said as he bade good night to Ravi, Anna, and then Serentha. At that moment the image of hundreds of nepps swimming laps in the lake flashed vividly through his mind. What if? he started to ask himself.
“We’re going to bed as well, Uncle Johann,”Jomo said. “Keiko and I spent all day bundling grain, and we’re tired. Besides, Kwame still doesn’t sleep through the night.”
“Thanks for all your work, Jomo,” Johann said. “I know it hasn’t been easy with my having been gone all this time”
Jomo shrugged. “It hasn’t been that tough;’ he said. “And it’s been great to watch Mom with her grandson.”
Vivien, Siegfried, and Johann were left alone after the others had departed. “None of them believe that Sister Beatrice actually appeared, do they?” Johann said to his wife and son.
Vivien put her arm around him. “They believe you are a wonderful man—kind, intelligent, thoughtful, and our natural leader. They also think that you are convinced you had a visitation from Sister Beatrice in which she warned you of dangers on double full moon night.”
“They love you. Father,” Siegfried said, “but you can’t blame them for not accepting your story at face value. I was talking to Serentha about it tonight. ‘If this ghost or angel or whatever really came to give Uncle Johann a warning for all of us,’ she said, ‘then why wasn’t she more explicit about the danger we will be facing. Why did she speak in riddles?’”
Johann shook his head. “Serentha’s a smart girl, son,” he said, “and her questions are legitimate. As are the doubts of Ravi and the others” He suddenly had a flashback to a conversation about faith that he had once had with Beatrice. “I guess I’m the Thomas in this situation,” he added, “the only one who has actually put his finger through the hole in Christ’s hand.”
Siegfried looked puzzled. Vivien smiled. “I don’t think our son’s biblical education has been complete enough that he understands the analogy,” she said. “But I certainly appreciate how difficult this must be for you.”
After kissing Siegfried good night, Vivien and Johann walked slowly toward their own hut. “It will be nice to have your warm body next to mine tonight,” Vivien said. “I have missed you.”
“And I have missed you too,” Johann said. He kissed her and then glanced up at the stars above their heads. “Don’t you find it ironic,” he said, “that I, who have been all my life so dubious about and critical of all religious and other spiritual experiences related by others, am now asking people to believe that I have had one myself?”
Vivien smiled. “As Sister Beatrice often said, God works in many wondrous ways.”
SIX
JOHANN ADMITTED TO Vivien that if he returned from his second expedition to observe the nepps without any more concrete information about what they should be doing to prepare for double full moon night, then he would abandon the activity altogether.
It was raining on the morning that Johann was preparing to leave. Siegfried had returned two nights earlier after having helped Jomo and Keiko carry the food to the East Village. He had reported that Maria was as imperious as ever and that neither Eric nor she thanked him for the food. Siegfried also said that only his promise to his father to avoid unpleasantries at all costs had kept him from striking the truculent Eric.
Siegfried appeared in his parents’ hut just as Johann was hoisting his knapsack on his back. “I want to go with you, Father,” he said. “Maybe four eyes will be better than two.”
Johann glanced briefly at Vivien. “Your offer is appreciated, son,” he said. “But there are reasons why I must go by myself. First, you are needed here in the village, to help your mother and the others with tasks that require physical strength. Second, and maybe more importantly, I have become quite familiar with the nepps, and know what I am looking for. It would be just as likely that you would be a hindrance as a help.”
Siegfried knew better than to argue with his father. He helped Johann adjust his knapsack and gave him a hug. “Be careful,” Vivien said as Johann walked out of the hut into the light rain.
The climb was difficult because of the steady rain. It took Johann almost all day to reach the region of the geysers, fumaroles, and mudpots. Although he was certain there was probably a more direct route to the nepp colony, he was not willing to take any chances on losing his way in unfamiliar terrain. He was acutely aware that double full moon night was now only thirty-six days away.
Johann made a wide sweep around the nepp colony, to avoid being seen in case his rapid flight on the previous visit had branded him as an enemy of the species, and followed the canyon paths back to his overlook. The rain fell throughout his journey and several times he slipped while climbing up rocky surfaces. But by the end of the second day he had reached the position from which he had previously observed the nepps.
The rain stopped just after nightfall. After sleeping a few hours, Johann dropped down to his shelf, expecting to see the nepp leader dispatching the mudpot trios just before dawn. But there was no activity of any kind in the nepp colony before sunrise.
Johann climbed back to his customary overlook as the first rays of sunlight struck the nepp mounds and warrens. The furry chattering creatures soon emerged from their holes and ambled toward the central plaza for breakfast. After breakfast, the whole colony was addressed by the same nepp leader who had been organizing the mudpot and egg-foraging expeditions during Johann’s previous visit.
During his talk, four vats, each carried by three obviously struggling black-and-white nepps, came into view entering from the path though the grove that led to the fenced compound. These vats were placed on the ground between the work area and the huge circular pot that was buried in the ground. As Johann watched intently, the nepp leader moved out of the colony, on a path leading to the right, followed by several hundred members of his species and the four heavy vats. The whole contingent quickly disappeared from sight and Johann turned his attention to the lake, which was starting to fill with swimmers.
At the lake, something different from what he had previously seen was now occurring. Johann moved around the outcropping to the point on his overlook that was just above the lake. Sitting on the edge of the lake were two more of the large vats. Stretching behind each vat was a queue of nepps. When each animal reached the front position in the line, a swimming supervisor dipped a cup into one of the vats and doused the particular nepp with a clear, slimy material that was subsequently rubbed deeper into the fir by another of the supervisors. Then the nepp was allowed to enter the lake.
Johann surmised that the material in the vats was the same noisome substance from the inside of the ackyong eggs that had made him vomit in the compound on his previous visit. But what he wanted to know was why the nepps were rubbing this stuff all over themselves. Was he watching an elaborate rite that he would never be able to comprehend? Or was there something in this process that contained a clue about the “safety pre
cautions” he would need to take for his extended family?
Lunch came and a second group of nepps returned to the lake and went through the same procedure. While Johann was still pondering the significance of this unusual activity, the nepp leader returned with the contingent who had left early in the morning. Johann rushed back to his other observation post, but the only thing he was able to determine was that the vats that had accompanied the excursion were clearly lighter now, for they were being handled easily by a pair of brown nepps.
Johann could not sleep that night. The changes in the nepp activity during the days that he had been gone suggested that he was witnessing another stage in some process of preparation. If this was true, then everything he was seeing was probably associated in some way with the coming double fill moon night. Johann determined that the only way he could obtain any substantive new information would be to somehow accompany the nepps on whatever it was that they were doing away from the colony.
AT DAWN THE next morning Johann was carefully concealed in a group of bushes beside the path that the nepps had taken out of the colony the previous day. As morning came he began to worry. What if yesterday’s excursion had been a one-time event? What if the nepp leader took his followers in a different direction altogether this morning? What if he was discovered and attacked?
From his hiding place in the bushes Johann could not see the mounds and warrens of the nepp colony. When he had waited for what seemed like an hour, Johann decided that he had made a mistake and was wasting his time. He had just altered his position in the bushes, preparing to leave, when he heard the sound of nepp chatter heading his way. Johann immediately ducked down, as the chatter increased, and through the branches of the bushes he saw the first of the nepps file along the path.
It was easy for him to tell when they had all passed. The vat carriers were at the end of the procession, moving more slowly than the others. They were clearly struggling with their loads, for the equivalent of nepp grunts and groans accompanied their passage past Johann’s bush. He waited several minutes after he could no longer hear any animal noises, and then emerged from his bush and walked down the path, following them.
Johann moved slowly, stopping often, always being careful to keep well behind any nepp chatter that he could hear. Meanwhile, by observing the sun and noticing that the path led mostly downhill, Johann concluded that the nepp group was heading toward the ocean. Constructing a mental map based on his general knowledge of the geography of the area, Johann guessed that the entire procession should reach the ocean, if that was indeed their destination, several kilometers to the west of the human village, in a region that none of them had ever explored because the slopes on the west side of their creek were so precipitous.
Indeed, steep rock cliffs bounded the path on the left as it began to meander beside a small and pleasant creek that dropped out of the hills on the right. The path then entered a phase of sharp turns and Johann slowed his pace, fearful that he might stumble upon the rear of the procession after going around a corner.
Near one of these sharp turns, Johann heard the familiar nepp chatter directly in front of him. Easing forward cautiously, Johann glanced around the corner. About twenty meters away one of the four vats was sitting on the path, surrounded by three black-and-whites, all of whom were lying on the ground in a state of exhaustion with their bizarre tongues hanging out of their mouths. The nepp leader was pacing among them, pointing repeatedly at the vat, and constantly either exhorting or scolding its colleagues. At one point the leader even pushed one of the exhausted nepps over to the side of the vat and raised one of its forelegs up to the closest handle. The black-and-white let its foreleg droop back toward its body, generating what sounded like an angry comment from the nepp leader.
Much later, Johann would ask himself whether what he did next was a stroke of genius or stupidity. Nevertheless, he suddenly emerged from his hiding place and walked down the path toward the nepps and the vat. All the supposedly exhausted black-and-whites scampered into the brush on the creek side of the path. Johann grabbed the handles and picked up the vat, which was full of birtles, and easily hoisted it onto his right shoulder.
The nepp leader did not move as Johann approached. Nor did it try to interfere when Johann bent down to lift the vat. It simply stood in the pathway, eyeing Johann intently, the white balls in its crescent eyes rolling back and forth in constant motion.
Johann smiled and took a forward step along the path. The nepp leader waited only a second or two before shouting something to the others, who began to slink out of the bushes. The nepp leader then gestured to Johann to follow him down the path.
The leader, Johann, and the three trailing black-and-whites soon caught up with the other vats at the tail end of the procession. About ten minutes later, the nepp leader shouted to another group of black-and-whites, who were looking fatigued, and they put down their vat in the middle of the path. The leader then approached Johann and, using a combination of chattering and gestures, requested that he pick up the vat that had just been placed on the ground.
Johann understood immediately. He put the vat he was carrying gently down on the path, and picked up the other one. There was a chorus of approving chatter. The three black-and-whites who had been carrying the first vat, now apparently rested, grabbed it by the handles and lifted it off the ground.
During the next hour, Johann carried each of the four vats one time each. Two of them contained birtles and two contained the terrible-smelling clear slime from the ackyong eggs. At length the path led out onto a mesa about twenty meters above where the ocean waves crashed against a rock cliff. The nepp leader, standing at the edge of the mesa with its back to the ocean, signaled for the vats to be placed beside him. Immediately thereafter, the several hundred nepps formed into orderly rows and columns and became completely silent.
JOHANN STOOD ON one side of the mesa, away from the nepps and the vats, and looked down at the ocean below He could see a pair of sperdens in the distance, their long, graceful necks twisting this way and that. When the sea creatures spotted the nepp leader, however, who was close enough to the edge to be easily seen, they began swimming toward the cliff, their ululations apparently signaling for others to gather.
Throughout this period the nepp leader was talking to the other members of its species. Of course Johann had no idea what the leader was saying, but from time to time he did watch what it was doing. Several times the nepp leader pointed at the offshore island, well off to the left of the mesa. It also walked over and thumped the vats several times. When eight of the sperdens were clearly visible in the ocean directly underneath the mesa, the leader called the other nepps forward, one row at a time, so that they could look down upon the fearsome sea serpents.
So what will happen now? Johann asked himself as the final row of nepps came forward to view the sperdens. And what is this ceremony all about?
He did not have to wait long for his answers. The nepp leader spoke again briefly and then all two hundred of the nepps came forward, spreading out across the edge of the mesa. They dropped down on their haunches and extended their faces just over the edge. Half of them were between Johann and the vats, but he could still follow the proceedings easily. When all the nepps were in position, the nepp leader and eight of the black-and-whites eased one of the birtle vats to the edge of the cliff, and then pushed it over, dumping hundreds of the tennis-ball-shaped creatures into the ocean water below
What followed was a terrifying scene. Screaming in high-pitched voices, their necks moving with astonishing celerity first in one direction and then another, thrashing into and out of the water, the sperdens gobbled up all the hapless birtles in a matter of minutes. Johann could tell that the nepps closest to him were all trembling from fright. Some of the smaller ones even closed their eyes and backed away from the edge.
It took several seconds for Johann to realize that the nepp leader was now motioning for him to come over beside the vats. Being careful not to ste
p on the nepps in the way, Johann crossed the mesa until he was beside the nepp leader and the remaining three vats. What followed was an elaborate chatter-and-gesture monologue that Johann missed altogether on the first pass. The patient nepp leader repeated his request, very slowly this time, until Johann finally comprehended that he was being asked to pick up one of the vats containing ackyong slime and pour it into the other vat of birtles. Johann did as the nepp leader had requested, struggling not to vomit from the smell, although he had no idea why he was performing the task.
After another short speech from the nepp leader, this vat too was pushed over the cliff The ocean was now teeming with the hungry, frenzied sperdens. Johann turned his eyes away at first, not wanting to be sickened by what he considered to be a useless slaughter. But as the frenzied cries of the sperdens began to diminish, and then disappeared altogether, the puzzled Johann dropped to his knees and stared at the ocean below Everywhere he could see unharmed birtles floating on the surface of the water. The sperdens were not attacking them! In fact, they were moving away.
What is happening here? Johann thought rapidly. Are the sperdens satiated? No, that couldn’t be possible, for some of them were not even here for the first batch of birtles.
Johann’s epiphany came suddenly. His synthesis followed in seconds. The sperdens were repelled by the ackyong slime. The nepps were practicing swimming because they intended, after first covering themselves with the ackyong goo, to head for that offshore island on double full moon night. Observe the nepps, he heard the white Beatrice say again inside his head. No land on which any of you have ever walked is safe.
Johann stood up, exultant, completely unaware of all the nepps around him. “Oh, thank you, Beatrice,” he shouted. “Thank you for believing that I would be able to figure all this out.”
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