Orin stopped on the path and swayed, pressing her hand against the side of a house to stay upright. This was the third time. She felt the foodrise feeling in her stomach, but somehow she held it down. She swallowed and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm her insides.
No time to be on the mat, she thought. She wouldn’t tell Irin, not now—he had too much to do and too many worries. She would wait until the day her belly began to grow enough for him to notice, and it would be a surprise for both of them. But where would that be? Somewhere far away. Somewhere colder? Hotter? Somewhere that screamers lived, or perhaps, as Irin was fond of saying, somewhere screamers would never go.
She continued walking until she reached Owil’s doorway. Her friend was lying on her side, munching dylt seeds without a hint of enjoyment.
“Are you well?” Orin asked her.
Owil moved only her eyes to look up at her and smiled. “I am fine, Orin, but I cannot seem to stop eating.”
Orin knelt down on the mat, moved Owil’s hair out of her face, and tied it behind her head. “When do you think the newest will crawl out?”
“Thank you. I don’t know. If you had asked eight nights ago, I would have said next night. You ask me now? I say next night.” They smiled, and Orin considered telling her that she had been feeling foodrise and that her belly, too, would soon grow. Probably best not to tell her as she might tell Wil, and he would certainly tell Irin.
“Do you need anything more that I can get you?” Orin asked, looking at the waterbowl. It was still full.
“I am fine, Orin, thank you… but how are you? Your skin looks tired.”
“I’m fine as well.” She stood up, hurriedly rebundling the k’yot under her arm. “I’ll see you later.”
As she walked the last path to her house, the foodrise feeling overtook her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth and fell to her knees. Her belly seized a few times, and she lost control of her throat movements. She forced a deep inhalation and held it. Do not come, do not come, stay inside, stay inside, she chanted to herself.
After a moment, Orin won the battle, and her food settled without coming out her mouth. Continuing her deep, slow breaths, she stood up, walking past the last few houses before entering her own. She dropped Irin’s k’yot on the floor, lay down on the mat, and curled into a ball.
21
MATT RAISED HIS HANDS FROM THE k’yot piece and opened his eyes. He looked around the RV and realized he was alone. His stomach churned, and he felt the same violent nausea Orin had suffered. He swallowed, and his eyes began to well up as he realized he did not have her same ability to fight it. He slid from the seat and rushed to the toilet, his hand over his mouth. He made it just in time and spewed into the stainless steel bowl. His eyes teared and his nose ran until, several heaves later, he was done.
Sitting there on the floor, he breathed through his mouth and cleaned his face with toilet paper. He stood and looked at his hands to see if they were clean, and realized he was gloveless. He flashed back to everything he had touched. The table? The counter as he passed, the door latch, the rim of the toilet, the floor. Fortunately, they had all been “clean.” He yanked a paper towel from the roll and turned on the faucet to wash his hands and face. After carefully using the paper towel to flush the toilet, he left the bathroom and returned to the table to fetch his gloves.
Through the RV windshield, he could see a large group of people outside and two older silver-gray vans. They were the European sort of van with the unique, pointy front.
Matt pulled off his timer armband and returned it to his duffel before proceeding outside. Men and women were unloading the second van while Dr. Rheese and Peter showed two other men and a woman the corner of the pit where the artifact had been found. Matt looked around for Tuni and found her carrying cases from the second van with the new arrivals. She had just set the two cases down in the growing pile beside the equipment trailer when she spotted Matt. Jumping up, she smacked her head with her palm and jogged over to him.
“I’m so sorry, Matthew! We left you all alone!”
“It’s okay,” he replied casually. “I… er, needed the privacy…”
She looked at him questioningly. “What happened?”
“Orin’s pregnant.”
“Oh, my, she is? And you said Irin didn’t want a child before.”
“Yeah, well… I came out of the session and yakked.”
“Yakked?” She looked puzzled. “Oh, you tossed! Poor dear! I’ll get you some water.”
“I’m okay. Thanks, though. I take it these are all the research lab folks that Pete called for…”
“Yeah, they just got here about ten minutes ago. There were too many names to keep track of, but… um, the guy down there with Peter and Rheese is Flip.”
“Which one?” Matt said, squinting.
“The one with the spiky red hair. You can’t see it from here, but he has a face-full of freckles and big black plugs in his ears.”
“Ah, a punk rock scientist, eh? And who’s the other guy down there? And the woman?”
“I don’t recall his name, but he’s the sketch artist gent. And the woman with the ponytail and implants—she’s an anthropologist from Paris—Colette something.”
“Implants?” Matt asked with an accusing smile.
“Obviously—her frame’s much too petite for those monsters.”
“Hm, you could be right there…” Matt said, shading his eyes with his hand. “What about the rest of these people?”
“You know, I met them all, but I can’t recollect. There was a Geoffrey and an Allison, and I think that tall gent with the brambly beard is Rodney.”
“Matt!” Peter yelled from the pit as he scrambled up the slope with the others. “We left you alone in there—sorry about that! Let’s get you back inside to go over your last session, but first I’d like you to meet everyone.” He leaned to Matt’s ear and whispered, “I told them you’re just a lab monkey. Be sure to avoid getting sucked into any work conversations with these folks. Hey, I forget—do you shake hands?”
Matt replied, “It’s no problem when I’m nicely sealed.” He held up his gloved hands.
“Good,” Pete replied. “You’ll notice all these field folks are pretty touchy-feely.” Pete stepped aside and held out his hand toward the freckle-faced, spiky-haired man. “Matt Turner, this is Flip Chamberlain.”
Flip reached out his hand. “Nice to meetcha, Mr. Turner,” he said with a thick Scottish accent.
“Same here,” Matt replied.
“And this is Colette Vioget, from the Anthropological Studies Department.”
“Bon soir, Monsieur Turner,” she said. Matt shook her hand while making a conscious effort to look her in the eyes and not down to the swell of décolletage emerging from the half-buttoned khaki shirt.
“Matt, this is Graham Hillary.”
A short man with a ready smile stepped forward and said “’Ello!”
Peter continued with the introductions as Matt found himself in the same boat as Tuni on name/face recognition. As Peter finished off with the last of them, the tall bearded fellow walked up to them carrying two cardboard boxes.
“Where do you want these, Mr. Sharma?” he asked.
“Ah, yes…” Peter glanced at Matt and said loud and theatrically, “Why, Rod, is that a brand-new tent and sleeping bag you have there?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I have a sealed new pillow and air mattress back in the caravan as well.”
“Great. Well, I’m not sure if we’ll need them now.” He turned to Matt. “They were for you, so you’d be more comfortable sleeping. Sorry, I requested them before I knew your plans.”
“No prob—that would have been cool. Thanks.”
“Just put them back in the van, would you, Rod?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Sharma.”
Peter turned to the group of new arrivals and said, “I’m sure you all know what you’re doing and what you need for prep, so have at it,
folks.” The group dispersed and remerged into smaller clusters of specialists, some heading to the equipment trailer for supplies, others down the dirt ramp of the pit. Pete turned to Matt and Tuni and cocked his head toward the RV. “Shall we?”
Inside, Matt described the most recent events, ending with the new Orin perspective and her era-spanning nausea. From their surprise, it was apparent that no one but Matt had considered that anyone else might have imprinted on the artifact. In Matt’s experience, most artifacts had countless imprints from various people from wildly different ages. There would be a short flash here and there from the original owner, say, an Egyptian priest, then some other priest, maybe a wife or child after a death; then there were the burial people, all very intense with their ceremonies, and finally, flash forward a few thousand years to the archaeologists discovering it. Then there were the researchers and maybe a conservator or two handling it, and that was where the imprints typically ended. That was the usual situation, but Matt had experienced numerous other patterns and the occasional unique imprint. In the last session with the artifact, for example, he had experienced something new—he had never “been” a pregnant woman before.
Pete continued scrawling notes for a few minutes after Matt had finished, then the three of them returned to the oppressive afternoon heat. Peter instantly spotted someone working on something they apparently should not be, and he excused himself with a “Silly prats… pardon me, be right back.”
Matt heard Tuni say “Ugh” behind him and he turned to face her.
He asked, “What’s up?”
“I think I’m getting smelly. I’m going to go take a quick shower in the RV while I’ve got it to myself.”
“Uh, okay, I’ll come with you,” he said with a smirk.
“Right, cheeky man, and guard the door—keep me safe, right?”
As she walked to her tent, Matt pushed up his sleeve to check the time. Final countdown, he thought. Two more hours and I am out of here. Hearing crunching footsteps behind him, he turned to see Tuni returning, but with a strangely angry expression on her face, narrowed eyes fixed squarely on his.
“What?” He took a step back and put up his hands, fearing that she just might take a swing.
“What have you done? With me, I mean.”
“Uh… ya got me,” he said, truly baffled. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Have you read anything of mine? Gotten a quick peep at me through my own bloody eyes?”
He blinked in surprise as he tried to form the words to defend himself.
“I—I can’t believe you would even think that of me!” She crossed her arms, and her eyes held not a scintilla of humor. “Seriously? I wouldn’t—Tuni…” He tried to marshal his thoughts, but she had him raddled. He breathed. “Listen to me, okay? For one thing, I would never do that. It’s a total invasion of privacy, and I would no sooner sneak into a women’s bathroom and peep over the stalls—it’s the same thing. And second, I would never… I mean—you… you’re… you’re you.”
“What the bloody hell does that mean?” She was still serious.
“Meaning… of all people, I would never do anything to damage… forget it.”
“Your chances?” she ventured.
He nodded sheepishly. “Something like that.”
Her face softened a degree, and she regarded him for a moment, chewing her gum. His face radiated innocence and desperation.
“I believe you,” she finally said. “I’ll be back.”
Tuni walked off to the RV, and Matt shook his head with disbelief. He looked at his watch again and then at Peter and the new team, pointing at this or that, sticking little wire things into the ground with yellow flags at the tops, others unwinding string and stretching it between wooden stakes. The site had really come to life. He was melting in his turtleneck and decided to seek shade back at the food tent.
A short while later, one of the new women had driven a backhoe to the far side of the site and was expertly digging up the area above the corner. Tuni had appeared from the trailer in a fresh pair of cargo pants and a tank top, her hair still dangling in wet strands.
“I’m sorry about that, Matthew,” she said as she approached. “I really don’t think you’re a perv. I just went barmy and paranoid for a moment when I was looking at everything in my tent and thought how I must have imprinted on it all…”
“I understand,” Matt said gravely. “You glance around at your things and suddenly I’m a deviant. Makes sense.” Though overcome with relief, he played up the hurt.
Peter jogged up to them, clapping his hands as if shooing pigeons from the ground.
“Let’s get going, people! Tell me, what are you up for, Matt? You think one more long session, a couple of short ones? Your bird will be in the air in an hour. Clock’s ticking.”
“I think I’ll ride it out. My stuff’s all packed, so I’ll just set the timer for an hour and pass up the breaks if there are any.”
“Wonderful,” Peter replied. “They just flip to the next ‘clip’ if you don’t release the object, right? I don’t recall you ever going so long in New York.”
“Yeah. It’s just dead air—kinda spooky, but I’m used to it. Sometimes it’s long, sometimes just a minute or two. Though there hasn’t been any dark space since the first time he took off the suit. Just keeps rolling.”
Walking to the RV, they saw Enzi arrive in the Jeep, alone.
“Jambo, Enzi!” Tuni waved. He searched for her voice and smiled when he found her.
She pointed at the trailer door to invite him into the session, but he declined with a polite gesture and jumped out of the Jeep, clearly on a mission to see Rheese.
She followed Peter inside, and the door snapped shut behind her.
“Oh, wait—we need Dr. Rheese,” said Peter.
“Ugh, do we really?” Matt quipped.
“Hah! Yeah, we actually do. The key to the safe.”
Peter disappeared outside for a moment.
“So,” Tuni said, “less than two hours and we’re out of here, huh?”
Matt nodded. “Yep. Home sweet home—after thirty-something hours of traveling.”
“What will you do?”
“What do you mean? When I get home?”
“I mean, it’s going to kill me not to know what happens next in the story. I sit here and wait for your eyes to open, and it seems like forever! I lean over and read your timer and sit and doodle on scratch paper. And this one—an hour? I don’t know what I’m going to do—go bloody insane, I suppose. I just imagine that you—I mean, when you’re there, essentially you are Irin. You said you feel his emotions and everything. I just don’t know how you could stand it. Leaving, that is.”
“Honestly, I’ve never experienced a single person this long. I usually dread sessions of any kind because it’s so invasive to my mind and—well—my body.” He gestured toward the bathroom. “But I really just need to see what’s next, like you said. This time it’s different. Even though he’s… you know, he…” Matt sighed. “He’s dead. Man, weird, but it’s hard to say. And I know it happened—millions of years ago! But right now, he really isn’t. He isn’t dead to me. I’m stuck.”
Tuni nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly how I feel! I know he’s been dead so long, he’s not even dust anymore! But his story’s a bit like a movie to me. How you start to get invested in someone—a character—emotionally, I suppose.” She paused and peered into his eyes. “Can I tell you something daft?”
“Always.”
“When you tell me what’s happening, I picture him as being you. He looks exactly like you, but black and with little dreadlocks.”
Matt laughed, “That is funny. What’s weird is, I actually just saw him for the first time. I mean, I knew basically what he looked like, because they all have the same sort of features, but it wasn’t until I was seeing him through Orin’s eyes in the last session that I got to see his face. She sees him as beautiful, too. I told you: their
emotions are very intense. And not just because of everything that’s happening—they feel even simple things with this crazy intensity.”
“Perhaps that’s just love and you’ve never felt it before.”
“Uh…”
“Nothing against you. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love, but I know the love I feel for my mother is intense. Do you have that for your parents?”
“Not really. I think just my sister. I don’t know, maybe my mom.”
“You mean you don’t love them at all?” she asked, looking a little shocked.
“No, no. It’s not that I don’t love them, but my feelings around them are all twisted up and ruined by other crap. My dad, for… well, I mean, it’s obvious how awful he was, and my mom, she didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“She didn’t protect you.”
“Not even a little—too busy being a good wife.”
Tuni looked at him and felt a touch of his sadness. She felt bad that she had brought the conversation there.
“I’m sorry, Matthew. I really am. That’s what mums are—”
“It’s all right,” he interrupted. “Let’s drop it. No big.”
She nodded, and in walked Peter and Dr. Rheese.
22
ORIN’S FACE APPEARED IN FRONT OF him, and she tilted her head to indicate that everyone was ready.
Irin walked around the tall rocks and climbed to the tallest one. From up high, he saw the glowing line of women, new, and k’yot-clad men, stretching from the Gathering Rocks all the way to the Center House and then disappearing along the paths toward his house and, eventually, the gate. Only the tips of lightsticks were visible over the houses.
Wil and Pwig had completed the final count, and Irin had been speechless at the increase. He scanned the line and saw all the fully packed n’wips. Their triangular frames of young trees, with cloth bundles suspended between, would be pulled by their two extended front poles. Most of the weight rested on the smooth, up-curved ends at the back of the n’wip, to minimize the strain on the puller’s back. Only having used n’wips in the food flats and over relatively short distances, everyone agreed they would alternate pullers along the way. Irin worried about fatigue during the initial ascent up the hillside, so he had instructed the men to take turns frequently and even double up to pull the same load when the going was especially steep.
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