by Greg Bear
Ten minutes later, they took up the hike again, by silent agreement spread out across the flat ground, and the sun rose high overhead. Peter stumped steadily through the grass, paying little attention to where he was going. The minutes passed. His head filled with dark thoughts.
When they had reunited, he had felt a surge of hope and a deep sense of the nature of true adventure. They had beaten the odds; they had all survived. They seemed enchanted, this little group . . .
Now he did not care how far from the group he strayed.
It seemed hours later, he looked up and saw the others were several dozen yards to his right.
Anthony called for him to rejoin them. Peter stopped dead, his arms hanging, still feeling the burn. He stared at the ground, at his feet, more to avoid looking at Anthony than for any other reason.
He peered between the blades of grass. Shiny black bodies welled up from holes in the earth. His boots were covered with them.
Ants. Half an inch to over an inch long.
Peter froze. For a fraction of a second, he thought of the ant field and the death eagle getting cleaned. If he just stayed still, he thought, they might not bite. But a deep shuddering horror collided with his anger and exhaustion, and before he could stop himself he jumped and stamped his boots and brushed ants from his pants legs and lifted the pants and scooped them from his ankles. Ants clung to his fingers. He ran toward Anthony, shaking his hands as if trying to fly. "Veintecuatros!" he shouted. "Oh, Jesus, Father, ants, ants!"
A knife blade seemed to stab his ankle and another his hand. Anthony caught his son in his arms and quickly smashed ants with sharp palm slaps on his hands, arms, and back. They danced like frantic scarecrows in the grass, and Peter howled.
He saw a cloud rush over the land black as tar. In the middle of the cloud his father's face appeared, screwed up in anguish. Ray and OBie called out his name but it did not seem familiar and the pain was too much. He saw it would be easy to just fall up to the sky, into the darkness.
It sucked him in like a well of thick crude oil.
Chapter Thirteen
All the things that happened next were as real as could be. He lay in dark dirt. His body hurt all over and he thought his skin would split open. Then it did split open, but he felt much better and he saw himself emerge from the split skin like the white meat of a baked potato, but his white stuff was not fluffy; he was a very large maggot, bigger than a mountain.
Boy, he told himself, no wonder it hurt, with all of that inside me.
The maggot was alone. Peter did not know whether that was because he had eaten all the other maggots, or they had been scared away. Either way, he hoped they were not offended.
He crawled for a while over the earth and the jungle felt like sand beneath him, the trees were so small. His skin began to hurt again and he wondered if he would become a butterfly or a beetle, but when his neck split, neither butterfly nor beetle crawled from the giant, shriveled casing. Instead, Peter saw he was a very large cat covered with spots, a jaguar. This was okay. He knew he had a name at last—Mado—and his skin did not hurt.
Jaguar/Peter lay on the Earth for a long time, waiting for his wet slick fur to dry, but it rained incessantly and the Earth was covered with mud. This irritated Mado and in his anger he swelled and again his skin began to hurt. He opened his jaws as wide as he could and out between tongue and teeth crawled a huge boy, all strong and brown. But this boy could not talk, nor could he eat, because he had left his tongue and teeth inside the jaguar skin.
The huge boy was happy at first because his skin did not hurt. But soon he became hungry. Because he had no tongue he could not complain and there were no animals or plants large enough to be worth eating anyway, so he moaned and rolled in the mud. With his face so close to the Earth, he saw the ground was covered with tiny plants and animals. All of them were male.
Obviously nothing was going to happen on the Earth until all the plants and animals had wives. So he opened up the mud with his big toe and out came wives for the males: females of all shapes and sizes. Babies and seedlings began to appear.
Mado—Jaguar/Peter—waited for someone to come along who would be big enough to eat. But then he remembered he did not have teeth. He hoped for something soft, but most of the animals had bones and shells and he actually did not want to eat slugs.
In his flesh anger, Mado stamped through the mud and wore a deep path over all of the Earth except for the mountains. He looked down between his pounding feet and saw that he had made the tepuis, Roraima and Kahu Hidi and all the other sky-places, and that some animals had hidden on these mountains who still did not have wives.
For a while, Mado contemplated leaving these animals alone to suffer. Nothing he had done so far had relieved his hunger or made him happy. But he could not be a jaguar, even a hungry human boy-jaguar, without clawing, and his nails itched. There were no trees big enough to use as scratching posts. So he reached up and clawed the sky, opening great gashes in the clouds with his long jaguar-nails. From the gashes fell females, but they were all older types of female, like crocodiles and lizards. They landed on Kahu Hidi and on no other mountain, no other tepui.
The older lizard-females mated with the lonely males on Kahu Hidi, with dogs and wolves and jaguars, with bears and birds, and with frogs and salamanders; with possums and anteaters and armadillos, with howler monkeys, but not with humans, for there were no humans there.
A long time passed and Mado grew hungrier and hungrier. He shrank from starvation and walked among the strange old-looking animals of Kahu Hidi. He was not much bigger than a man, but much stronger. He saw that the lizard-wives had mated with eagles and produced feathered monsters, Dinoshi, handsome but very hungry. He stole the mouth from a Dinoshi but did not like the beak, so he left it in the forest. Then he stole the mouth from a dog-lizard but it was too small and he did not like the snout. Then he stole the mouth of a wolf-jaw. He was able to eat again, but he could not chew his food well enough for his human stomach, so he continued to shrink until he was the size of an ant—a large ant, an iyako.
He crawled around between the insects and saw they did not need wives. They had brought their own females to Kahu Hidi. Insects always know what to do. They fed him sweet nectar and honey to honor him for making all the big animals that could die and then be eaten, or whose bodies could harbor eggs that became maggots. He ate a maggot given to him by the ants, and suddenly he was a maggot again, as big as the world—
It was this maggot that heard the tones of Odosha, calling from deep in the ground, below all living things. Odosha said, "You will come see me soon, but not today."
Peter heard Billie's voice. "Come back from there," Billie said. "You should walk for yourself. We have carried you a long way."
"I don't have any legs," Peter said.
"It's good to be a maggot, but you need legs to walk."
Peter thought about that. He was a boy again but not a j aguar-boy. "Did you find your father?"
"Yes. His door was death and I was too afraid to go there."
"He might be around here someplace. Should I look for him?"
"No, he came and went long before you. Just wake up and remember you have legs. Your father needs you. Mine is past needing me."
Peter opened his eyes. He was in a forest and sun came down in small, star-like speckles through the canopy. His skin and muscles hurt and so did his bones, but he remembered he had arms and legs and he moved them.
"I chewed some leaves and made paste and spit it on your bites," Billie said, "and then brought you blue water from the lake. You will get better quickly now, but your father is still ill."
"Are we near a lake?"
"Yes, Lake Akuena."
He saw Billie's face in the forest gloom, eyes dark as night. The Indian's hair was all awry and he had scratches on his forehead and cheeks. Ray came into his view next and his face, too, was dark and scratched. He looked very tired.
"Good to have you back, Peter," Ray
said. "You've been out for two days."
"Where's my father?"
OBie and Wetherford hovered above him. He looked down and saw they were standing. That seemed convincing enough; they weren't ghosts. Ray and Billie were kneeling beside him.
"He's still sick, Peter," OBie said.
"We've had quite a time carrying you both," Wetherford said. "Glad you'll be on your feet soon."
Billie felt Peter's forehead. "Did you become a jaguar?" he asked.
Peter turned his head, looking for his father, but it was too gloomy to see much. His eyes hurt. "Is he going to be all right?" he asked.
"I think he will be all right," Billie said. "He was only bitten once and you were bitten twice, but he got sicker. Did you dream of being a jaguar?"
"I think so," Peter said.
"Good," Billie said. "I will stay close to you. Kahu Hidi doesn't like jaguars. It refuses to swallow them. I think we will be spit up soon."
Chapter Fourteen
In a couple of hours, as afternoon became evening and the forest got even darker, Peter was well enough to crawl over to where his father lay. Anthony sprawled on the ground on a sling woven of grass. His normally swarthy face was pale and sweaty. Shellabarger and OBie had woven dry reeds into slings on the grassland to carry Anthony and Peter. All of their friends had carried them to Lake Akuena, not knowing whether they would live or die. Billie had met them at the edge of the forest around the lake. He had already been to the lake.
Peter wiped his father's face with his fingers. Anthony stirred but did not make a sound. His breath came rough and irregular. Peter wondered why he had been bitten by two ants and was already getting better, but his father had been bitten by only one and was still sick. Billie did not know the answer. He had applied leaf paste to both of them.
Billie seemed discouraged. Peter was too tired to ask many questions. They had fish to eat, caught in the lake. OBie built a fire and the smoke drifted up into the dark canopy. Wetherford and Shellabarger had brought matches to light the sticks of dynamite and make fires. They had two sticks of dynamite left and a whole box of matches. The fire was made of damp wood kindled with dry leaves and was very smoky.
Peter felt differently about everything. In the dark, Billie lay beside him. Peter stared up at a single star visible through the dense canopy. A leaf made it wink at him. He felt well enough to talk a little now.
"Why did you come back to us?" he asked Billie.
"I learned what I needed to learn," Billie said. "I ate part of Odosha's foot. It made me sick. Odosha came and told me that he had killed my friends and I was selfish and foolish to come to Kahu Hidi and try to become a warrior. The time was past. I knew he lied, but he also told me I would be a great leader when
I got back. I knew that was a lie, too. But it was a good lie."
Billie looked off into the night.
"I'm sorry," Peter said.
"I knew you would get in trouble," Billie continued. "I was having a tough time staying alive, and I know a lot of things. I thought you would probably all die without me."
Peter thought about that and lay
quiet for a while, feeling the food in his stomach. The white, flaky flesh of the lake fish had tasted very good.
"What happened to your father?" Peter asked.
Billie did not answer for a time. "Something ate him, or he died and then something ate him. I found his bones and a string of beads he carried, but not his head."
"I'm sorry," Peter said.
"He would have come back and been a leader, but I think Odosha sent some animals to eat him."
"Yeah," Peter said. "We almost got eaten."
"Odosha doesn't want you. You are like a jaguar."
"I dreamed a lot, too."
"Yes." Billie sounded resentful. "I didn't think of letting iyako bite me."
"I heard that word in my dream," Peter said. "Iyako."
"Maybe I told you the word before," Billie said.
"I don't remember. Can you tell me what the dream meant?"
"I don't think I can," Billie said. "Except for the part about becoming a jaguar."
"It felt like an Indian dream," Peter said.
"You are not an Indian."
"Are you angry?"
"Yes," said Billie, and rolled over to go to sleep.
In the morning, OBie and Ray told Peter that Anthony's fever had broken and he was whispering words. Peter sat by his father and held his hand, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Ray hunkered down beside them and Billie stood a few yards away. "Will you tell me if he has dreams?" Billie asked.
"I'll ask," Peter said.
"I didn't think about iyako," Billie repeated.
Anthony opened his eyes. "My lad," he murmured, and smiled at Peter. "I hear Billie. Does that mean we're all dead?" "He's alive. We're alive," Peter said.
"Where are we?"
"South-central lake," Ray said. "Lake Akuena."
"That's the lake in the middle of Kahuna," Wetherford said. Then, with a touch of sarcasm, "We might as well be in heaven." He brought a cup of water and a piece of fish for Anthony. "Billie saved both of you."
"Tell him thank you," Anthony said. Billie had wandered away.
"It was stupid of me to walk into an ant nest," Peter said.
"Didn't know," Anthony said.
"We heard the plane again this morning at dawn," OBie said. "We built a fire by the lake. We're hoping they' ll land and send a raft for us. I'm sure it's Monte and Coop."
Shellabarger walked over and knelt beside Anthony, feeling his pulse. "You're going to be fine," he said. "We'll keep those ant bites bandaged until a doctor can see to them."
"A doctor," Anthony said, chuckling. "Everybody's so optimistic."
"Well, I've been thinking," Wetherford said. "A PBY is damned expensive and rare around here, just as Mr. O'Brien says. And I saw it again this morning. Maybe your producers do have consciences."
"If a cynic like you believes it," Anthony said, "then I should believe it, too."
Wetherford smiled ruefully. "It's a fair cop. But there's nothing less reliable than a converted cynic." He watched Anthony and Peter for a moment, a deep sadness in his eyes. "Is it the right time for a little confession?"
Shellabarger regarded him sourly. "You a Catholic?"
"No, it's not a faith matter, but I've been converted, nonetheless," Wetherford said. "Anybody care to hear why?"
"Sure," OBie said. "I've always been a little curious about you, Mr. Wetherford."
"Well you might be. I'm in the employ of two masters—your Monte and Coop, through their intermediary in Caracas . . . and Creole Oil, through the same intermediary."
Shellabarger adjusted his bandage, and then, as if he hadn't heard Wetherford clearly, said, "What?"
"Creole Oil. You fellows have upset quite a few apple carts down here. Bringing these animals back, getting the Indians riled, causing the Army trouble. The Lords of Black Crude in Caracas, they like nice political balances, and they hate upsets. So . . . they told me to keep watch on you."
"Did they tell you to stop us?" OBie asked, lips tight.
"Yes, in fact, they did—if it seemed things were getting out of hand. And things did get out of hand, didn't they?"
"Yeah," Shellabarger said. "But I've suspected something from the beginning. I watched you, and you didn't do anything. No sabotage. Why didn't you try to stop us?"
"On the train, and when you were loading the animals on the boats . . . I started thinking. I told myself, 'James, you're a miserable little squint. All your life you've danced to the tune of money, but you're poor as a church-mouse. All your little schemes and double deals, what have they got you?'" He snapped his fingers. "That much. Just that much and not a penny more."
"We gave you religion, then," OBie said quietly.
"Not religion, Mr. O'Brien. Adventure. Before, when I thought I was having an adventure, it was just running from creditors or stumbling on the stairs, too drunk
to see straight. But you and the animals—how could I miss such a chance? You've given me the only opportunity to have a real adventure, to accompany some fine and decent fellows and do something wonderful and foolish and brave."
He turned to Anthony. "You' re a brave man, Mr. Belzoni, and not because you come here and face danger. You're brave to take someone as valuable to you as your son, and give him this adventure. If my father, the old fist-flinging and ever-drunken sodding bastard, had ever done such a thing for me, I might be a decent man this very day."
They sat in silence for a bit, with only the crackling of the fire and the soughing of the wind through the trees.
"Well, pardon me my sentiments," Wetherford said.
Shellabarger shook his head and with his finger made a weary cross in the air before Wetherford. "You're absolved," he said.
"Thank you, Father," Wetherford said, and grinned.
Chapter Fifteen
There was no sign of the plane that day. Peter was well enough to walk about and even to go to the lake with Ray and Shellabarger while his father slept peacefully.
Lake Akuena was ten miles long and six miles across. No one had ever measured how deep it was in the middle, but Professor Challenger had found it was full of fish and carried a fine population of fish-eating monsters—crocodiles, mesotherm reptiles, and aquatic therapsids.
"We haven't seen any big beasts in the water yet," Ray said as they stared across the misty surface. "But I can feel them out there."
Shellabarger seemed pensive. "I took a walk a little west of here yesterday," he said.
"What did you see?" Peter asked.
Shellabarger lifted his rifle. "Something pretty sad. Doesn't look like Dagger would have had much to come back to. Feel up for a little hike?"
"Yeah," Peter said, though his legs were still shaky and the bites on his hand and ankle were still swollen and painful. "My father's probably going to be asleep for a couple of hours."