by B. C. CHASE
“Yeah. Sorry, man. I really didn't think about it,” Nimitz said, though it wasn't totally true. He knew he was trying to put his best foot forward for the new guy in charge, but he didn't think it was at Bridge's expense. And besides, Bridges didn’t like hearing about his theories anyway. Something he had not accounted for, though, was the fact that Bridges was a former Marine and seemed to hold rank in higher esteem than anything else in the workplace.
“You understand?” Bridges was saying.
“Yeah, I understand,” Nimitz nodded.
Bolivar, Venezuela
Layla spun around to see what Doctor Kamil was staring at with such terror.
“DON’T MOVE!” Bertrand commanded in a roar.
They were surrounded. Twenty men with arrows nocked were spread around them in a semicircle. There was no possibility for escape. The men were naked except for a string tying their penises. Their thick, jet-black hair was cropped short and their faces were ornamented with white shoots of bamboo thrust through their noses and chins. Their eyes were wild, wide, and they twitched to look at each of them separately. They loudly called to one another in a foreign tongue, their voices echoing off the rocks and dying in the waterfall. They were slowly approaching them, their bare feet easily commanding the jagged rocks.
Bertrand said in a low voice, “Be calm. Be still. And for the love of God don’t try to talk to them!” He then made himself less assuming by slowly removing his hat and crouching.
The indigenous man in the lead deliberately ascended toward him, aiming the arrow at his chest.
Without taking his eyes off the indigenous, Bertrand withdrew a match box from his pocket. With the indigenous about ten feet away, he struck a match. When the spark of flame burst forth, the indigenous man’s eyes grew enormous with disbelief and he hastily backed away.
Bertrand held the flame up, allowing the indigenous to view it with awe and suspicion. When the flame went out in a puff of smoke as a water droplet hit it, the lead man again approached, this time with less confidence. Bertrand lit another match, and the lead man jumped back with an exclamation, looking to his comrades as if for confirmation that they had also witnessed this miracle. Bertrand smiled back at his companions.
The lead man cautiously moved forward again, gazing at the flickering light, then at Bertrand himself. Before long, he was close enough to touch Bertrand, and he actually reached out his hand to do so. He looked upon him as one would a ghost.
Bertrand softly said, “They have never seen a white man before. He cannot believe the color of my skin.” He pulled back his sleeve and held up his arm.
The indigenous lightly tapped it, then jumped back, aiming his arrow again. His curiosity got the best of him once again and he moved in to give Bertrand’s arm a more dutiful feel. The other indigenous gained confidence and also moved in.
Bertrand touched his chest, saying, “Jeanpierre. Jeanpierre.”
The lead man looked at him inquisitively, then jumped away again with a wild look, shouting to his colleagues.
Bertrand persisted, “Jeanpierre.”
Finally, the lead man motioned to himself and said, “Yamirawa.”
Layla, Doctor Kamil, Doctor Katz, and Bertrand had hands all over them. The entire village was there, stroking Bertrand’s skin, and chattering excitedly to one another.
They had spent about an hour and a half with the indigenous men at the waterfall before they were trusted enough to be brought to the village. Candy offered by Doctor Katz had greatly facilitated amity. On the trail to the village, Bertrand had been saying, “This is wrong. We should be making contact, we should not be with them,” virtually the whole way.
The people were all naked save for the bamboo shoots that were thrust through holes in their noses and chins, the strings the men wore, and several necklaces. Many of the men and women’s lips gaped open where wads of green tobacco leaves had been stuffed.
The horrific stench of feces and decaying plant matter filled the muggy air. It was all Layla could do not to cover her nose.
They stood near a fire ring where embers burned. Some small leaf wraps were steaming on the stones. A number of fifteen-or-so-foot thatched structures dotted the clearing in the tropical forest. They had dried palm leaves for roofs, very little in the way of walls, and were supported by crude wood poles roped together. Inside the nearest one, Layla could see tubular, woven baskets stuffed with some white pasty matter.
Dogs roamed everywhere, participating in the excitement by jumping up at the newcomers.
As the people settled themselves, the visitors were ushered into the nearest communal hut, and food was offered: cooked tapioca wrapped in banana leaves. Layla gratefully accepted, but when she took a bite she was struck by how tasteless it seemed.
Watching them eat with interest, a middle-aged woman settled into a hammock to nurse a baby. A tiny puppy whimpered from below, and she scooped it up and allowed it to suckle on her other breast. An old man missing most of his teeth sat to patiently resume work on a half-woven basket.
For a while, they sat there while Bertrand tried to communicate with them. He knew a little of one of the Yanomamo dialects, but it was proving next to useless with this tribe. Layla took an interest in a gaunt child who lay listlessly in a hammock on the edge of the structure. She stood and walked over to take a closer look, accompanied by some of the people. The child breathed shallowly, clearly near death with illness. One of the women leaned down and touched the child’s chest. When she looked up at Layla, a tear glistened in her eye. One of the men said something with animated hand motions, and then several of the men began to gather in the dirt clearing among the huts. Stuffing wooden tubes with a horrible-looking green mixture, they then pushed the tubes up to each other’s nostrils and blew into them with tremendous force, shooting the green substance up their partner’s nostrils. They repeated this for each nostril two or three times. Before long green mucus was oozing out of their nostrils and off their chins. The men began to chant and dance, hopping about rhythmically. One of them was scratching at his head and rocking on the balls of his feet. A number of them were continuously blowing raspberries.
Doctor Katz told Layla, “Well I guess now is the time to try this. Hopefully I can speak with the gods.” He stood, then stopped and said, “Please get me out of here if I start to do anything crazy.”
“I will, but I might have to knock you unconscious,” she said, smiling. She followed him as he walked out and joined the men. She said, “Do you really think you want to do this?”
“Now that it comes to it, I am a little nervous. But, if these gods exist and these people are communicating with them, some academic person should make the effort to meet them.” He looked Layla in the eye, “What really scares me is…” he trailed off.
“What?”
“What if I actually do meet one of these gods?”
“I thought nothing scared you, David,” she said playfully.
“You’re right.” He made a motion to indicate he desired one of the sticks.
The men prepared one for him. With his first dose he erupted into a tremendous fit of sneezing and hacking. The men, those who were still cognizant at least, laughed. For his second try, Doctor Katz inhaled with less force. His nose began gush with green mucus that looked like peso, but he just wiped it with his shirt and leaped up to hop around comically with the others. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders at Layla as he passed her.
One of the men suddenly started trembling violently. His eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled backwards to the ground. He looked almost as if he was having a seizure. Some of the women came and dragged him across the ground to a hut. The other men totally ignore this spectacle and continued dancing around in a circle, chanting and making increasingly strange, even eerie vocalizations.
As Doctor Katz continued to prance round and round, it appeared to Layla that he was gradually disconnecting from reality. His movements became increasingly less deliberate and less self-c
onscious until his head flailed back and forth and his eyes twitched in their sockets. Doctor Kamil stood beside her to watch the spectacle. Doctor Katz began to speak in an ethereal voice, in unintelligible language, spitting. The green mucus gushed through his lips. Doctor Kamil said, “Do you think he is really slipping into the spirit world?”
Bertrand, from behind, scoffed, “The spirit world! If he keeps this up he will slip into a coma!” This he grumbled to himself, shaking his head, “This is a horrible excuse for scientific research. We should have never come here.”
Suddenly Doctor Katz landed flat on his back. His whole body shook violently and his eyes rolled back in his head.
It was twilight. Doctor Katz’s eyes fluttered open and he sucked in a breath. He looked terrified as he grasped Layla’s arm. The green mucus covered his face and and hair where he had rubbed it during his trance. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly, then shouted back to Bertrand and Doctor Kamil, “He’s awake!”
Doctor Katz had fallen into unconsciousness and had been asleep for an hour. They had placed him in a hammock and Layla had not left his side. Now that he was roused, she scarcely gave him time to take in his surroundings before she asked, “What did you see?”
Bertrand and Doctor Kamil had arrived at his side and listened intently as he spoke, “They came down from the mountain. And they … ” he looked down at his chest. They entered me. They showed me … ”
“What?” Layla asked breathlessly.
“It’s like trying to remember a dream.”
Bertrand rolled his eyes, “A drug induced dream, perhaps, amounting to nothing more than random firing neurons?”
“They are not like us. They are not physical. They exist in another dimension, a spiritual dimension. They did not speak, but I knew their words.”
“What did they say?”
Doctor Katz sat up to rest his feet on the ground. Looking Layla directly in the eye, he said, “That you are not from Egypt. Is it true?”
She looked down at her feet, “Yes.”
“You are Iraqi?”
“Yes. My family fled the chaos of the wars. We must maintain fake identities.”
“And you, Bertrand. They told me that when you were a man of the cloth you gave the Yanomamo weapons. Rifles, which they used to kill their enemies in other tribes and take women. You became a god, picking the winners and the losers among the tribes. They paid you with your choice of the girls, whenever it pleased you. Is that not true?” Doctor Katz asked pointedly, darkly.
Bertrand immediately said, “No! Of course not. I was a priest!” He looked around as if searching for words, then watched Doctor Katz closely as he replied, “The drug has fed you lies, my friend.”
“I saw you. I watched you take the children from their parents and place them in your school. You chose the purest, prettiest girls.”
Bertrand raged, “LIES! I CURSE YOU AND YOUR LIES OF SATAN!”
“That is why you wish to leave the tribes untouched.” Doctor Katz stood and dug his finger into Bertrand’s chest, “Because of your own guilt! You know what you did to those tribes! You were appointed to be their caretaker, but you were a wolf in the guise of a sheep!”
“YOU ARE SATAN! I CURSE YOU SATAN!” Bertrand screamed, then backed away, looking from face to face in torment. He then turned and fled into the forest, his wails, “SATAN, I CURSE YOU!” echoing into the distance.
Layla and the villagers stared after him until Doctor Katz said, “With any luck he’ll go shoot himself with his rifle.”
“David,” Layla said in a reprimand.
His eyes flashed with anger, “You didn’t see what I saw! You don’t know what he’s done!”
Doctor Kamil said, “But how do you know that what you have seen is the truth?”
“He has confirmed it by his own actions. He chose to leave the church because he was plagued by guilt. He protects the tribe from contact because of his own failures with the other tribes! I have never seen anyone burdened with so much guilt. And Layla is from Iraq, after all.”
Doctor Kamil said, “Did they show you anything about me?”
Doctor Katz nodded. “When you told your husband you needed to travel to South America for research, he told you that you could not go. When you said you would go no matter what he said, he nearly killed you.” He lowered her scarf to reveal bruises on her neck.
Suddenly intense, Doctor Kamil said, “That is something you do not have the right to know.” She straightened her collar to conceal the contusions.
“They told me that I am ready. Since I sought them out, I am worthy to be enlightened.”
“They? Who are they? And why would you trust them?”
“They are powerful. Wise. And immortal. They have knowledge beyond the ability of people to comprehend, and they have given the human race many gifts.”
“What gifts?” Layla inquired.
“See the makeup you wear around your eyes? That, for one. The beautification of the eyes.[13] They showed us how to make fire, how to craft iron into useful objects. They have given many inventers the spark needed to bring us many of our most prized modern tools.”
Doctor Kamil said, “How benevolent of them to help us along in this way. What made them think we were worthy of this clemency?”
“They say that we have proven unworthy. We are a destructive race, a scourge on the earth.”
“A scourge on the earth?” Doctor Kamil said with a raised eyebrow. “If they are so wise, why couldn’t they see that we would be so terrible? And why did they give us these inventions?”
Doctor Katz replied with a shake of his head, “We used to be different. They gave us a chance. They are merciful and patient.”
“Are you sure that what they told you about Bertrand was not a metaphor for themselves?”
Doctor Katz said impatiently, “What do you mean?”
“That they gave humankind technology in order to manipulate us?”
“If you want to call it manipulation. Without the knowledge they provided, we would be unable to feed the world’s population as we do. If we all lived the way these tribes do, there is no possibility the earth could support our huge population. The human species is artificially endemic. Left to our own devices, we would be like these tribes: pervasively violent, unproductive, wasteful, and struggling to survive. Do you realize that virtually nothing is reused in these primitive societies? That is why they are nomadic: because they thoroughly exhaust and destroy the territory they occupy and must move on. Unfortunately, despite the metaphysical beings’ best efforts, even enlightened man has now become a serious threat to the earth. They have decided it is time to intervene.”
“But from what you say they have been intervening.”
“In secret anonymity, yes. But their intervention will now be personal. They believe it is time to fully reveal themselves.”
Layla said, “I don’t think we can trust them.”
“Why?” Doctor Katz shot back defensively.
“Because they have given you too much power. Revealing all our secrets to you. It isn’t right.”
“Because I was ready! I sought enlightenment! I was worthy.”
“You were worthy?!” Layla exploded incredulously. “Look at yourself! You rolled around on the ground like an animal! What kind of benevolent beings would make a sane person lose his mind?”
Doctor Katz jumped up, almost knocking Layla off her feet in the process. His face darkened and his eyes grew wide as he snarled, “I am not mad! I have reached a higher plane of intelligence, beyond your mortal vessel!” He eyed Layla with disgust, “We are comprised of dual natures: the physical and the spiritual. To reach the spirit world your physical being becomes subject to spirit. There are side effects. I can see that you are not ready for illumination.”
Layla and Doctor Kamil stood in stunned silence under the arrogant, cold gaze of Doctor David Katz, his eyes shining lifeless and unblinking in the firelight.
SaiLine Paradise
Cabin L1915
Doctor Zhou Ming-Zhen opened the door to his cabin. Although dusk was approaching outside, the lights automatically flickered on to reveal his daughter’s suitcase on the bed, open.
His daughter herself, Li, was not there, though. Neither was his wife, Bao.
There were three possibilities, he thought. They had become trapped in the mayhem downstairs, unable to reach the cabin yet, but perhaps on their way. Given the rapid spread of the sickness and the fact that it seemed to infect principally women, he found it more likely that they had succumbed and were dead somewhere. The last possibility was that they had not gone to the ice skating rink at all and were trapped somewhere else on the vessel. None of the possibilities were good, but the fact that they were not in the cabin was excruciating in its implications and made him wish he could leave and search for the truth.
But the cabin was the safest place for him and his family to be, he thought, due to the increasing pandemonium on-board. Any time he spent outside the cabin was time spent in harm’s way. If he left the cabin and somehow escaped the scrutiny of the crew telling him to return, there was the possibility that his wife and daughter could make it back to the cabin and, not finding him there, leave again.
With these ruminations in mind, he elected to stay put, hoping for their return. He picked up the phone, thinking he would call Yue Zhang, but it was dead. The crew had disabled the cellular connection.
He stepped out onto the balcony which overlooked the aft[14] portion of the ship. His cabin was part of one of two structures that, by their appearance, might as well have been two hotel buildings bordering a central plaza.
The sky was darkening with the departure of the sun. He leaned over the railing, inhaling the cool, salty breeze, and glanced out past the stern where the giant, churning wake trailed in the water. Dark things were floating in the wake, bobbing. He squinted, shielding his eyes to look closer. There were hundreds of them, stretching far out into the horizon. Some of them were lurching and writhing as if alive. It took him only a moment to realize what they were.