by Lee Murray
The cat shifted her weight in his lap, kneading her paws on his thigh before settling again.
If there was no news from McKenna in the next 48 hours James would have to call it in, higher up the line. And then there was his sister-in-law. That was a call he wasn’t looking forward to. At the moment, she thought her grandson was peacekeeping on a Pacific island, giving out school books, installing public taps and whitewashing fences. That was Noeline for you. What exactly did she think they issued the guns for? No point in worrying her just yet. McKenna could turn up something. Still, it might be wise for him to drive back to Waiouru and wait for news. He might as well wait there as anywhere. Gently, James lifted the cat off his lap and onto the sofa.
He’d get dressed now. Hell, he was practically up already.
* * *
Taine and Nathan slipped out of the cave and returned with armfuls of firewood. With the fire going, the group prepared the first hot meal they’d had in two days. They said an army marched on its belly; Taine was pretty sure it applied to morale as well. Only Miller wasn’t eating – not hungry he said – but they’d all seen what happened to de Haas, and then coming across Jug like that… well, people reacted differently to trauma, and the soldier had been pretty upset. Taine made a note to keep an eye on him. At least Read seemed to be holding up okay.
“It’s not exactly Mum’s cooking, but I never knew camp food could taste so good,” Read said, between mouthfuls. “I was starving.”
“You have to be starving to eat my mum’s cooking,” Lefty said. “The woman can burn water.”
Grinning, Taine offered Jug a second mug of tea. “How are you doing?” he asked.
Jug winced. “Not so good.”
Taine turned to Jules. “Jules?”
She patted Jug gently on the arm. “I haven’t got any painkillers left,” she said apologetically.
Jug paled. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll sleep in a bit. The pain will ease off.”
Hearing that, Nathan got up and walked across to the pile of firewood. He searched through the logs and branches and pulled out a branch of mānukā. Stripping the bark off the branches, he put some in a billy with water, and boiled it over the coals of the fire. When it was well steeped, he poured some of the mixture into a cup, and the rest into an empty water container.
He handed the cup to Jules. “Hold this for a second, will you?” he said. He gestured to Miller to help him prop Jug up. The gunshot wound must’ve hurt like hell because Jug flinched before they even touched him, looking up with alarm at Miller when the soldier approached him on his wounded side.
“Take it easy, guys,” Taine said.
They shifted him gently, Nathan using his own pack to support the medic’s back. That done, he took the mug from Jules, and handed it to Jug. “Old Māori recipe,” he stated. “Tastes awful, but it’ll help with the pain.”
“Thanks,” Jug said, grimacing. Even holding the cup looked painful. He took a sip of Nathan’s home brew. “Gawd that is awful,” he said.
“Well, let’s hope it’s enough to dampen the pain,” Taine said, standing. He made his way to the stream to rinse his plate. Nathan was right, this stream was deep. Taine walked the length of the cave and put his hand on the cave wall, stooping to check out the tunnel where the stream exited the cave. There was a gap of about a foot between the tunnel ceiling and the stream gurgling and bubbling its way into the darkness. The area was probably riddled with streams like these, miles of them crisscrossing under the ground.
“Boss, Read’s found something.” Eriksen interrupted his exploring. Taine almost hit his head on the roof of the tunnel.
“What is it?”
“Over here.”
Taine followed Eriksen to where the others had congregated not far from the cave’s entrance. Read shone his torch at the wall, illuminating two ovoid shapes poking from the rock. Eggs. From the looks of it, they were uncovered recently, possibly in the landslip that had caused the blockage at the cave entrance.
The sight of them filled Taine with dread. “Sphenodon eggs?” he asked.
Foster laughed derisively.
Jules flicked him a stern look. “No, I think these are more likely to be fossilised moa eggs,” she replied.
“Well, that’s a bloody relief,” Lefty says. “One Sphenodon is enough.”
Foster snorted.
Jules cocked her head to one side as she considered the fossils.
“Jules?”
“Nothing really. I was just thinking. Moa only laid one or two eggs, like these ones here, but tuatara lay lots of eggs, sometimes as many as ten. From an evolutionary stand-point it makes sense. Plenty of animals enjoy an egg for breakfast, so laying more eggs means a greater probability of one of your offspring making it to maturity.”
“Could there be more?” Taine asked.
She shook her head. “No. Richard and I discussed it. We think it’s unlikely.”
Read lowered his torch and the party moved back towards the fire. They sat on the rocks scattered about it. Taking a seat near Jug, Taine took out his carving and began to whittle. The general shape complete, he began to decorate the piece with sweeping whorls and bold fluid lines. He carved without thinking, almost by instinct, taking pleasure in the solid feel of the wood, its resin smell and its warmth.
Lefty took up the conversation where it left off. “Well, what if the Sphenodon’s female? Could it lay eggs?”
“I can’t say if it’s female or not,” Jules replied. “Most tuatara reproduce sexually, and for that there would need to be two. I think this one’s a juvenile.”
“That monster’s a baby?” Eriksen said. “It could get bigger?” He shook his head and murmured “Fuck me” under his breath.
“It’s got good skills for a baby,” said Lefty.
Taine had to agree. “How can you tell it’s a juvenile?” he said, as he chiselled a curve in the wood.
“A few things; like the fact that it hunts during the day. And earlier... when I was close to it...” She gave a little shiver. “…I noticed a parietal eye, or third eye, in the centre of its forehead. When the tuatara reaches maturity that third eye gets encrusted with a horny plate, like a scab, but our creature’s eye is still visible.”
Taine remembered that eye. It was the first thing he’d noticed when the creature had appeared out of the mist.
Leaned up against his pack, Read said, “When I was nine my mother got us a kitten from the SPCA. Sampson we called it.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” Eriksen said.
“Yeah, is there a point to this story, Read?” said Trigger.
“Every day Sampson used to drag in a bird or a mouse and drop it on the mat by the kitchen door. My mother wasn’t that impressed with the mice, but she thought it was cute, the kitten wanting to give us a present. The bird would always be missing a wing or, if it was a mouse, the head would be gone. Once, he brought in a rabbit. It was almost as big as he was. Sampson had bitten its leg off. Left a trail of blood on the back step. One day, Sampson took off. My brother reckoned he saw the cat sitting on the neighbour’s fence licking his paws once, but that was the last time any of us saw him. He never came back home. He was already the best hunter in the neighbourhood, he didn’t need us feeding him Whiskas.”
“So, what’s your point? That if we stop feeding it, it’ll move on somewhere else?” Trigger said.
“No, that’s not what he means,” Taine replied. “Read’s saying the Sphenodon is behaving like his kitten. Every time we come up against it, it’s learning more about us. It’s learning to hunt us…”
“Dr Asher?” Nathan asked, his voice quiet.
Jules looked up wearily. “Yes?”
“That third eye? It’s not an ordinary eye, right?”
“No. We just call it that because of its location. And because of the way it looks.”
“So, if it’s not really an eye, what’s it for?”
“We don’t actually
know. Some scientists think it’s for testing the temperature of the air, to sense fluctuations which would indicate a change in season.”
There was a sudden stillness, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the cave.
Eriksen gave a low whistle.
“Shit,” said Lefty.
“What is it?” asked Jules.
Taine fingers tightened on his penknife. He glanced at the top of her head, where Jug’s Mini N/SEAS goggles rested. “Our Sampson has his own night vision glasses.”
* * *
Beside Jules, on his stretcher, Jug shifted slightly. The poor man had finally nodded off, Nathan’s home-made analgesic doing the trick. Jules was exhausted too, but today’s nightmare kept repeating in her head. Looked like she wasn’t the only one. Miller, sitting upright, his back supported by his pack, was staring at his hands in his lap and mumbling to himself.
Over by the fire, Taine was also awake, whittling.
Sighing, Jules got up and, wrapping her sleeping bag around her, went to join him.
“You should be sleeping,” he said as she approached.
“So should you.”
“I’ll wake Trigger in a bit.”
They sat listening to the fire crackle, Taine passing the time with his carving and Jules watching the coals glow.
“What’s that you’re making?”
Taine turned the little carving in his hands. “You know, I’m not sure I’m making it. It seems to be making itself. It’s a pūrerehua. A Māori wind instrument. You swing it around your head, and it conjures up the sound of the wind. Some people call it a bullroarer. Here, I’ll show you.”
He went to the pile of firewood and searched through it, pulling out a long strand of flax. Tearing off a thin strip, he attached the fibres to one end of the lozenge-shaped instrument, then moving into a clear space, he spun the instrument around his head like a hammer thrower in warm up.
It was the oddest sound, white noise, like the drone of a plane. The men shifted in their sleep.
Taine slowed the instrument. When the bullroarer had stopped oscillating, he wound the flax cord around it and slipped it into his pocket. “I guess it’s not everybody’s cup of tea,” he said, taking his seat again.
She gave him a small smile, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Taine, what happens next? Are we going to be able to get Jug out?”
He turned to her, his eyes reflecting the amber glow of the fire. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep us all safe.”
She smiled at him again. “I know that. I saw what you did for Jug.” She glanced at the medic, sleeping quietly for the moment.
Taine grunted. “What I did for Jug was some basic first aid. It’s part of our training.”
“Whereas Sphenodon 101 is not?”
His smile was short. “Something like that. There’s no textbook for dealing with this kind of enemy.”
Jules paused. “There could be quite a lot of information actually.”
“You mean science?”
“No, I’m talking about oral histories of lizard-like creatures living in New Zealand.”
“Legends?”
Jules shrugged. “Maybe they’re not just legends. If you asked me a week ago if a giant tuatara was skulking about in the Ureweras I would’ve said you were dreaming.”
Taine chuckled softly. “Okay, I’ll give you that. Any particular oral history?”
“Captain Cook wrote a paper about a Māori who’d befriended him – a man who warned him that the land was inhabited by enormous lizards that captured and ate men. He drew Cook a picture.”
“I thought you said the Sphenodon isn’t a lizard.”
“But Cook wouldn’t have known that. If an indigenous man draws a thing he calls a taniwha, Cook’s going to call it a lizard because that’s what he sees. It’s Cook’s interpretation. So from the earliest contact between European and Māori, we have this reference to a giant lizard from a respected scholar.”
Taine frowned, taking in what Jules has said. “How does that help us? What if the Māori made it up to scare the Europeans off? Just say you were that chief and, out of the blue, a ship turns up and parks itself offshore alongside your village. The ship is bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. Taller than a rimu, it’s like a mountain floating on the horizon and it can carry an entire village of pale-skinned people on its deck. The chief knows he hasn’t got a hope against an enemy like that, so he sends in a messenger, someone to befriend the enemy and warn him about the terrifying monsters that roam the land devouring men. I’d say that’s a good way to get rid of the invaders without having to throw a single spear.”
“Maybe. Except in Cook’s journals, the messenger also told him how to kill the taniwha. Why would he do that if he meant to scare the pākehā off—”
Taine placed his hand on her arm, stopping her from talking. “Can you hear hissing?”
“The stream?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so.”
He slipped his rifle on over his head. “Jules, wake everyone up.”
As she hurried to wake the others, the Sphenodon’s eye loomed in the fissure. Jules swallowed hard as its gaze followed her across the cave.
Chapter 25
Taine ran to the cave entrance. The Sphenodon glared through the gap. It spied him and hissed. Using its powerful forelegs, it dragged a large boulder away from the entrance and extended a horny talon into the cave, swiping at Taine.
Trigger came at a run, the Charlie G grenade launcher already hoisted onto his shoulder. Taine showed him the flat of his hand.
“No, we can’t risk it. It’s too much firepower.”
“What are you talking about?” Trigger said. “It hardly bruised the bastard last time.”
“It’ll blast the edges of the cave entrance away, letting him in sooner.”
“Oh shit,” Trigger said, his face falling. “What about the rifles?” he suggested. “We’re close enough, we could take out its eyes, like you said.”
“Too close. The rounds could ricochet off the walls and kill one of us.”
“Fuck! First we’re not close enough, now we’re fucking too close?” Trigger mumbled.
“What about fire?” Read said. “It worked that first time.” Before Taine could respond, Read ran back to the fire and returned with a glowing log. Holding it in both hands, he stabbed it at the entrance.
“Hey Sampson,” he taunted, jabbing the fire into the gap. “Remember this?”
Sampson moved away, but in seconds he was back, raking a taloned foreleg into the space again, scrabbling at the rocks either side of the entrance, and brushing aside a large boulder on the inside of the cave. Read jumped out of the way as Sampson leaned in as far as he could, trying to hook him with a talon. The edges of the fissure crumbled under its weight, stones and debris tumbling into the cavern, the two ovoid eggs included.
Still, Read waved the fire in front of its face and made the animal hesitate. It wasn’t much, but it might hold it until they could think of something else. Taine darted deeper into the cave and scooped up the rest of the firewood, bringing the bundle back and tossing it down in a heap as close to the entrance as he dared.
Sampson was throwing himself at the gap, which was now significantly wider.
“It’s working. He’s going to get through,” Read observed, flatly.
“Give me the torch,” Taine said.
Read handed it over and Taine thrust it into the pile of wood. The burning embers smouldered a second before catching, causing the tiny twigs in the pile to glow red and blacken before the thicker branches did the same.
“Think it will hold him?” Trigger asked.
Taine shook his head. “Not for long.”
“But how are we—?” Read started.
“Back of the cave, now,” Taine ordered.
All three of them turned and ran.
* * *
Taine headed for the stream, pulling his rifle off while he ran. Detaching the li
ght from the picatinny rail of his Steyr, he held it in his palm, diving into the icy stream and coming back up, water streaming off his face.
Shit, that’s cold!
Treading water, his hand pressed on the rock ceiling, he entered the tunnel, allowing the current to carry him.
Nathan poked his head into the tunnel. “McKenna,” Nathan shouted over the chatter of the stream. “What do you think you’re doing? This tunnel could lead anywhere!”
Taine looked back; Jules and Trigger had joined the guide at the tunnel entrance.
“So long as it’s anywhere but here,” he replied, wryly. “I’ll only be a minute,” he quipped, and seeing the panic on Jules’ face, gave her a quick wink.
Turning, Taine continued until he ran out of head space, then he took a deep breath to fill his lungs and dived, kicking out hard. He swam downwards, counting in his head: One Whakatane, Two Whakatane, Three Whakatane…, a hand brushing the wall to orient himself. The underground canyon was convoluted, but smooth, the walls’ rough edges worn away by centuries of water flowing over them. Abruptly, the tunnel narrowed. Taine forced himself to stay calm. If it got too narrow, he wouldn’t be able to turn around. But if he couldn’t find an egress in a hurry, they’d all be stuck. This was the only way. Except it wasn’t. Taine had come to a fork in the tunnel, the stream splitting two ways. Which way? Left or Right? Right, he decided, and he hoped his intuition was good. The decision made, he kicked forward, blowing out slowly, expelling the carbon dioxide from his lungs in a gradual stream of tiny bubbles. Thirty-two Whakatane…
Time’s up. He had to go back now. He couldn’t afford any more precious seconds; swimming upstream was going to take him longer. But what was that up ahead? A light? He turned off the torch. Thirty-eight Whakatane… It could be light. Faint and still a few metres off. He turned the torch on again. Should he push forward or go back? His lungs screamed at him to go back, but the stream’s current encouraged him to go on. He thought of Jules and the others, waiting back at the other end of the tunnel.