“You want me to talk to more people about this?” Matt asked. “How do you propose that I explain where the lunar cycle question came from? And a sketch artist? I think you’re doing it again, Pete.”
Pete slapped his own head and rolled his eyes. “Dammit, you’re right! I’m an idiot, Matt. I haven’t told anyone anything, though, believe me. We’ll figure something out. The vast majority of the researchers I have coming are going to be heads down in the pit.”
“And did you say ‘late tomorrow?’” Matt asked.
“Yeah,” Peter replied. “As you know, it takes a bit of doing to get here from London.”
“It’s just that… well, I wasn’t really planning on staying that long. I was pretty dead set on flying out tomorrow morning.”
Everyone looked at each other.
“I thought… uh,” Peter stuttered, “well, I guess I thought we were together on this. Didn’t you say you wanted to figure all this out, learn more about the people and some of these other questions that have arisen?”
“I do, I do,” Matt assured him. “I just don’t really want to hang out in a jungle in the middle of Africa. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on back home, you know…”
Peter flipped his pencil onto the pad. It seemed crazy that a project of this importance should grind to a stop because of the supposedly busy life of a recently made millionaire.
“Hey,” Matt said, brightening, “I could bring home a piece of it and give you the same information, you know? I just can’t be here. I know none of you understand this, but it’s very difficult for me to be away from home. Just sleeping tonight, with the arrangements the way they are—it’s going to be a huge ordeal.”
“I guess I didn’t realize how tough this is on you, Matt,” said Peter. “I suppose circumstances were different in New York. You got to go home at the end of the day. Tell you what… I can sleep outside until the new tents get here if it makes things easier.
“It’s not just that,” he sighed. “It’s everything. I don’t know. I could maybe stay through tomorrow and see what comes of a couple more sessions, but after that I really gotta go. I’m not saying I’m done after that, but I need to be done here, you know? That probably sounds selfish, but I don’t know what else to say.”
Peter nodded his understanding. If Matt wanted to go, there was little he could do to keep him here.
Rheese, sitting on a plastic food bin at the far end of the table, said nothing. How lovely it would be if this all just went away because Turner was uncomfortable! Why couldn’t it be a remote investigation, as the lad suggested? Then Rheese could carry on with his search, and everyone else could be happily engrossed in this work somewhere far, far away. Toss a hefty bribe the way of the right people in the Interior Ministry, and—voilà!—full authorization to export the historical artifact!
“Well,” Peter began again, “I suppose this makes my list that much more important. Here are the points I’ve identified. Anyone can let me know afterwards if they think I’ve missed something. One: more details on the lunar event—get a glimpse of that calendar you mentioned. Two: insects and animal life—if you could get a good look at something, say, buzzing around a light source, and maybe some other animals, we could use that approach to narrow down at least the geologic era as a second option. Three: the door—what’s it made of? You said you hadn’t identified the material, but you could tell that the door seemed to be quite heavy, possibly metal. It seems to me that a door like that—unless it’s iron and has rusted to nothingness—might remain preserved over time if the right conditions existed. Four: We want to hear what happens with this Purrit guy, who has something to say about a potential celestial event—maybe an asteroid impact. If it’s real and was a big enough event, it may well show up in geological strata.”
“Excuse me,” Enzi interjected. “If Matthew sees mountains that look a certain way, next to another mountain that look a certain way, cannot he find same mountains around here?”
Rheese rolled his eyes but kept his scoffing to himself.
“That’s good thinking, Enzi,” Pete replied. “Land navigation can be useful, but interestingly enough, the land here looks nothing like it did even one million years ago—which has little resemblance to ten million years before that. In reality, this landscape has probably completely changed dozens of times since the Jurassic period. Even your beautiful Mount Kilimanjaro is just twenty-five million years old. But don’t stop thinking, sir—I want your ideas.”
“What about the stars?” Tuni asked.
“That’s actually number five, thank you. Five: you mentioned seeing the Little Dipper. If there was some sort of unique planetary alignment that happens maybe only every X tens of millennia, or perhaps something else in the stars. I’m no astronomer, so I don’t know what could be useful, but if you have another chance to see the stars at night, perhaps try to snap a mental image of anything that might be out of the ordinary. You know what planets look like, right?”
“Uh… bigger and brighter?” Matt guessed.
“Sometimes, but the main thing is, they don’t flicker. Stars flash; planets don’t. You should be able to spot at least one at any given time.” Peter stepped outside the food tent’s mesh mosquito netting. “Here, come here for a second.”
Matt pushed the fly aside and joined him outside. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had cleared to reveal stars like a billion diamonds strewn across black velvet. The temperature had dropped to the point where Matt was finally comfortable in his turtleneck and gloves; the others were already donning sweaters and jackets.
Pete pointed at a bright yellow planet. “See? No flicker—that’s Jupiter. That’s also what Saturn looks like, just not as bright. ‘Venus is white and very bright, but is not visible late at night.’ My mom taught me that one. Rhymes nicely, no?”
“Look, Pete,” Matt replied, still gazing up at the starry splendor, “I hope you don’t feel like I’m leaving you hanging with all this. I really just have a very small comfort zone. True, this isn’t as bad as being on a crowded Manhattan sidewalk, but I still have to be constantly paranoid, and I’m still not over that asshole being one of the few people that know about me.”
Peter nodded in understanding and said, “Listen, Matt, I do see where you’re coming from. I think you know what my motivations are, and I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“Oh, yeah, so it wasn’t your idea to bribe me to come?”
“Bribe you? No—who bribed you?”
“Well, not exactly a bribe, I guess. Dr. Meier just hung a big carrot in front of me, I suppose.”
“Wow. And I hear you’re not doing too bad these days, so it must have been quite some carrot. Don’t tell me it’s Tuni…”
Matt gasped inwardly and was grateful for the darkness.
“Hah, right! It would take more than her to get me to fly to some godforsaken jungle half the world away.” He paused and glanced over at Tuni in her tight jeans and fleece sweater. She had returned to the food tent and was chatting with Enzi. “So did you two have a thing at some point?”
“Me and Tuni? Only in my dreams, man! Afraid she’s a bit out of my league. Besides, my parents are still calling and telling me I have to come to Mumbai and meet the woman of their dreams and marry her.… So, since you’re leaving tomorrow, can I wake you up at sunrise to get going right away?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, no problem. I was thinking I’d do one more short one tonight. At the very least, we need to know that there’s more to see. There’s a chance that what I’ve already seen is the only imprint there is.”
Matt walked back to the food tent and ate some of the sliced papayas Zuberi had brought out for dessert. Peter went to the RV for his jacket.
A short time later, they found themselves back at the table in the RV, watching Matt prepare for another episode.
15
IRIN PICKED UP HIS K’YOT TOP from the floor in the Center House, where he had left it the n
ight before. He pulled it over his head and attached it to the holdstrip jutting from the top of his k’yot middle. Father had said to meet Pret at the food flat just after dark.
The still air of daylight hours, thick and warm, seemed to linger around Irin’s face. He peered around the intersecting paths of the Center House, early risers already milling about in anticipation of the first meal of the night. A few k’yot-clad men stood out in the crowd. Everyone else seemed to think it safe to wander about in clothes, even though darkness had yet to fully clear away the unsafe blues of daytime. Attacks had previously occurred at this time, and even a little later.
Though most appeared tense and watchful, Irin knew why they believed themselves—not just themselves, but their children—to be safe. Screamers had come and gone before sunrise. Many held to the idea that if the killers appeared and then left, that they would not return until the next day. This was, of course, provided they did not catch anyone. In that event, sometimes weeks could pass before another visit. But Irin knew these routines were only considered as such because someone had yet to see otherwise. He thought that if he was a screamer, he would enter the city, make a big commotion, and then hide out of sight.
Screamers, of course, did not hide and wait. They couldn’t be silent or still for an instant; it was as if they were on fire. His people believed the creatures to be thoughtless, hunger-driven beasts. Irin thought this misconception would remain until yet another new behavior emerged.
“Screamers never come after sunset… they only take children… they only come in pairs… k’yot are impenetrable…” How many assumptions had been proven wrong thus far? How many existed before he was born, or before his father was born?
He and Orin had been awakened before sunset, the shrill cackle of one or more screamers outside. They had visited twice in as many days, in search of roaming meat. Finding none, they tested the door of the house next to Irin’s, scratching and demanding to be let in. Orin had tried to hold him to the floormat, but Irin had gotten up and peered through an eyehole. The waning sunlight, reflecting off of houses and pale rocks had still been blinding. He squinted against it and saw a gray form streak past. It had made him flinch, and an instant later a crash against their own door.
The screamers were learning. There was a time when they had to smell their prey. But the last attack, the one that killed fourteen people, had been against a house cluster after make-safe. Only one door hadn’t been fully secured, but that was all it took. The screamers got in enough to raise the structure out of the ground, flipping the first on its side, the weight twisting the linking tunnel to the adjoined house. There were no survivors.
“You people are foolish to be out right now,” Irin said to no one in particular. Nobody replied, not even a derisive murmur. They are frightened prey animals, like furry crawlers for the flyers that dive from above and snatch up their pick. Only we do not dig holes beneath the dirt, we build our burrows aboveground.
Irin made his way through the group, onto the path that led to the food flats. Pret, the crazy father of Irin’s childhood friend, Wil, wished to speak with him. He remembered the oldest one had always been odd, but the madness had increased in recent times.
The clusters of domes gave way to the vast fields of the food flats. The air always felt cooler out here while heat from the daylight sun still radiated off the domes. Irin inhaled the unique, musty scent of the area as he gazed upon row after row of k’yon stalks. They eclipsed the more distant flats where Irin knew the gwotl vines and dylt grew. Pret was just sitting down as Irin hopped across the main irrigation stream.
“Hello, Pret,” Irin said as he approached.
Pret looked up, his wrinkled, leathery face brightening upon sight of Irin.
“You came, you came!” Pret cheered as his feet danced before him at Irin wished he had gone straight to work.
Irin walked to him and placed his hand on Pret’s head, the customary greeting for one’s superior, or between spouses.
“Your father no doubt told you I wanted to speak with you,” Pret said with a two-toothed smile. “And you no doubt said ‘oh my, must I go?’ because who wants to talk to old Pret out at the fields…” Pret’s smile slowly morphed to a frown as he seemed to segue from lighthearted banter to incensed complaining. “… where no one else spends all night tending the stalks and vines, shooing away crawlers, repairing waterpaths, pruning the…”
“Pret, please,” Irin interrupted. “I am to work with your son this night. He is surely waiting for me. Is this what you wanted to discuss with me?”
“This? That? What was that? Just the ramblings of a bitter oldest, eh? No…” his eyes pensively scanned the sky. “. . . I have to tell you of the death of our people.”
Irin’s face did not change as he waited for Pret to go on.
“Every last new, old, and oldest, yes that’s everyone. All gone. Fwoosh!”
“Because of this ypritl…”
“Yes!” Pret’s eyes widened. “They are rocks! Some are tiny and put on a show for us when they come over the valley. But this one is like a flying mountain! It is going to come… faster than anyone can see… and it will land…” Pret raised his walking stick and pointed at the sunrise side of the valley’s mountain walls. “… right there! Near the caves. The very caves where… well, you know what happened to—”
Irin did not wish to recall his elder brother, but he knew Pret was just being clever. He had mentioned the accident to remind Irin of another prediction—the one that foretold his own brother’s death. Though that dream was had not by Pret, but by his only son, Wil, when he was still new. Regardless, Pret always had a calamitous prediction to share. It was why no one ever heeded his warnings.
“Dreams, dreams, dreams,” Pret sang. “Sometimes they are only dreams. That is what I thought this one to be, but then Wil came to me two nights ago and asked in his whining little voice if I had dreamt of a giant rock that comes to Pwin-T. That’s when I knew. That is when I knew for sure! Dreams, Irin… One time I dreamt I was a tiny black stone on a path, and crawlers of all sorts walked upon my back, looking at me as if I were their missing shell. But they had shells of their own, and I knew their ideas were foolish. My one hope as a stone was that I would be lifted and thrown onto stones like me, but bigger. If a bigger stone were beneath me, perhaps a storm might come and—”
“Pret, stop that!” Irin shouted. “You say that Wil had the same dream?”
Pret looked up at him, wounded. He quietly replied, “He did,” and went silent, gazing at Irin with scornful eyes.
“I am sorry I yelled.”
“It is disrespectful.”
“It is, yes… you were—”
“Talking crazy, I know. I can hear myself.”
“Yes… well, Wil awaits me. I will speak more of this with him.”
“He has always been better than me… with the dreams, that is. When he was a boy, I thought for some reason that he would grow taller than a house. Just keep growing and growing into the sky. He would protect us from not just screamers, but enormous creatures not unlike screamers… but now I know it wasn’t him I imagined. Look at you…” Pret gestured at Irin’s k’yot. “Have your own shell now, don’t you? Which brings me back to those with shells, and those that only believe they are shelled…”
Irin walked away as Pret continued. The dome of darkness now sheltered the valley, only the tiny holes—like eyeholes in a house—allowed the sunlight to shine through. Irin stared up at it as he walked, wondering if he could find this mountain-sized rock that Pret spoke of. Could it be true? Could a sky stripe come down to the ground? And if so, why had no one ever heard of such a thing happening?
Irin found Wil waiting for him at the site of the new house mounds. The dirt men had completed their work, shaping the mounds perfectly for the pouring of solid. The protrusions for windows and the door were completed, too, and branches of various sizes jutted from the dirt. The largest, for the air hole, shot up from the top. Smal
ler ones for eyeholes stuck out from the sides like little arms. On the other side, though he could not see them, he knew there were several in the dotted outline of a door hole for future clustering.
“There you are, Irin,” Wil called. He wiped his cheek on his shoulder then inspected the blood he’d left behind. Wil’s face had always been covered in little black spots. Many Pwin-T people had them here and there, but Wil’s face was speckled with them like no other. He never said so, but it was clear he despised them. When he thought no one watching, he tried to scratch them off, but this just made him bleed, gave him sores, and later scars. Irin pretended to not notice. “Are you going to wear your k’yot every night now that they finally made you one?”
“I came out early,” Irin replied as he peered over the lip of the giant vat of steaming solid. “How long has it been heating?”
Wil climbed down from the pouring ladder and walked to Irin, placing his hand on his friend’s k’yot top. “Since last night. I already checked it—it’s ready.”
Irin leaned into the rising heat and inhaled the scent he knew so well. It reminded him of the taste of blood after biting his lip or sucking on a cut. When he was new, he thought he was made of solid, inside. That everyone was, because of that taste and the scent.
“Shall we begin?” Wil asked with a strange tone. He must have thought Irin was behaving oddly.
Irin studied his friend for a beat, then agreed and lifted the end of the pour tube over the edge of the vat, pushing it into the thick, molten mass. Wil hurried back up the ladder and picked up his end of the tube, aiming it. Irin moved beneath the center of the tube where a bar jutted from the bottom.
“One moment…” Irin said and unstrapped the k’yot top from the middle and tossed it on the ground. He returned to his bar, clutched it with both hands, and said, “Starting.” He thrust the bar forward then pulled it all the way back. He pushed it forward again, back again, and then on the third push the liquid began trickling from the spout in Wil’s arms. Wil directed the solid over the dirt dome with well-practiced movements. Irin completed eight thrusts, ducked under the tube to his opposite shoulder, and began another series. As he continued the thrusts, the material began to flow at a faster pace, oozing over the mound and forming a thin layer that quickly dried and hardened as it slid down.
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