Authors: Michael Siemsen
His father shouted, “What were you doing out there?”
In the hallway, Irin saw his mother, weeping. He replied, “I wanted to make sure everyone had made-safe since I kept them all out so close to sunrise. I walked all paths.”
“Foolish,” his father replied. “Your woman could have perished along with you.”
They paused and listened. The screamers had run off in search of easier prey and could no longer be heard.
“I know that. And I thank you for helping, Tillyt. And you as well, Orin.” He stood and walked to his mother, steering her by the shoulders back to her sleeping mat. “I am sorry, Otillyt. You are safe now; you may sleep.”
Returning down the hallway to his house, Irin lifted the top off his head and removed the rest of the k’yot.
“The screamer bled all over your k’yot,” observed Orin.
Irin did not respond but just lay on the mat beside her and held her head to his chest. He breathed deeply and felt her body quiver in his arms. He hoped that the screamers would smell the blood, find Ilter and Twill’s bodies, and take them away—it would look as if they had been caught before they could make-safe. He lay awake for a while, wondering what the next night would bring.
P
ETER PRESSED THE DISCONNECT BUTTON ON
the sat phone and set it on the counter. “They landed in Nairobi about two hours ago,” he said to Matt and Tuni, “and they’ve been on the road since. I’m thinking they’ll be here within the next two hours.”
“So who’s this Flip guy?” Matt asked.
“He’s an astrophysicist—works half-time at the university and the other half in our lab,” he explained as he sat back down on the bench seat beside Tuni.
“Actually,” Rheese said with that smirk that so annoyed his companions, “He’s an astronomer who
thinks
he’s an astrophysicist.”
“I’m sure you’d love to tell us the difference…” Tuni said.
“Well,” replied Rheese, “Flip would tell you that anyone can say they’re an astronomer these days if they’ve studied the skies and know all the classifications of celestial objects and phenomena. He would say that an
astrophysicist,
however, is someone who actually understands how all the aforementioned phenomena work based on physical laws.”
Tuni yawned and said, “Uh huh. So, then, what are they really?”
“Oh, that’s exactly what they are, all right,” Rheese clarified. “And he’s still just an astronomer.”
Peter gave Rheese a long-suffering look and said, “Whatever hairsplitting you want to do with titles, Flip is the foremost authority on lunar and planetary cycles at the research center. He should be a helpful addition.”
“Back to business, then,” said Tuni. “Matthew, your good friend Irin is a murderer.”
“Yeah, so it appears,” Matt replied as he munched a fistful of wheat crackers. “I was pretty shocked as he planned it at the gathering place. It was interesting, though. He was cold about it—I mean, in his head. It wasn’t as though he hated them or was bloodthirsty or anything; he just
needed
to get Twill out of the way. I’ve experienced the mind of a murderer before, and it’s very different.”
“How so?” Tuni asked.
“I’d prefer to not go into it, but Irin didn’t feel good about it; he just knew it needed to be done. There was no other option—in his mind, anyway.”
A brief silence stole over the cramped motor home as everyone imagined various scenarios of what Matt might have experienced with a murderer in the past. Pete broke the silence when he snapped open the leather folder containing his well-scrawled notepad.
“Doctor Rheese,” he began as he scanned his notes, “I’d like to get your archaeologists back from that base camp of yours. We’ll need them to resume digging out from the artifact corner as soon as the new team arrives.”
Rheese nodded as though he had anticipated this perfectly reasonable request, but his mind was awhirl with uneasy thoughts. The idiots he had smashing away at the site would obviously be inept at any sort of proper excavation. He needed them to disappear immediately from the base camp. He also realized that he needed to get the story straight with Enzi, who was outside at the food tent helping with lunch.
“There’s a bit of a problem with that,” Rheese admitted. “I only had them on loan up until yesterday. They’ve already returned to their… um, university.”
Peter looked at him with disbelief. “They’re
gone
?”
Rheese nodded with regret.
“Were you planning on sharing this tidbit of information with the rest of us anytime soon?”
“Well, I… I tried to say this was all a waste of time! I thought you realized that every hour counted.”
Annoyance and disappointment clouded Peter’s face. “Okay,” he said, I’m not sure why this wasn’t discussed over the phone a week ago—or, actually, well before that.” His frustration was evident in his tone, but he managed to maintain his professionalism. “Well, we at least need all the survey equipment returned to the site: sonar, magnetometer, gridding string and stakes, flags—what else did you have? We’ll need it to make sure we don’t damage anything after we remove the topsoil with your backhoes.”
Rheese inhaled sharply through his nose and appeared to be searching the RV’s ceiling for an answer to the question.
“Doctor?” Pete persisted.
Rheese scratched his chin. Equipment? Besides the jackhammers and pickaxes? How to explain that he had never had a single piece of legitimate survey equipment during the past six months.
“They… ah… all the equipment was theirs as well. We’ll, uh… we’ll need to source it from someplace else. We probably have some spools for gridding, though.”
Pete dropped his head into his hands while Matt and Tuni looked on in silence, feeling as if they were watching their parents argue. Rheese excused himself and went outside.
Enzi laid the pile of knives and forks on the first table after counting out enough for all. Hearing the trailer door shut behind him, he glanced back to see Dr. Rheese headed his way, an expression of urgency on his face. Enzi stood upright, waiting.
“Walk with me, Enzi,” Rheese said through his teeth.
In the RV, Peter was on the phone with Maggie, outlining a list of needed equipment. He found himself getting a little snappy with her, and she told him to calm down if he wanted her help.
At the breakfast table behind Peter, Matt and Tuni sat discussing Pwin-T and some small details from the last session that Matt had left out during the note-taking session with Pete.
“What exactly did the screamer look like?” she asked. “From what you said earlier, I’m picturing a giant dog with a long neck.”
“No, they’re pretty nasty-looking, actually. I’d crap myself if I saw one of those things coming at me.”
She looked at him with sleepy eyes. “Tell all, Mr. Turner.”
“Okay, well, I can’t really draw, but…” He slid a blank piece of paper in front of him and began to sketch. “See, they’re really tall, and they run on all fours. This is the back—all bumpy and spiny like this. And the neck’s kind of long, like a… What are they like?” He looked up for help.
“Ostrich? Giraffe?”
“No… uh, wait—you know what a monitor lizard is?”
“Yes. That’s like a Komodo dragon, right?”
“I think so.” Matt went back to his sketching. “Like a monitor lizard’s neck, but a little longer and I think
way
more flexible. That one was twisting it around crazily. It looks like they can turn all the way around backwards just with their neck… There.” He slapped the pencil down and turned the paper around, sliding it in front of her.
She frowned at it and bit her lower lip.
“See it now? Oh, and I think there’s feathery things jutting backwards around the neck and sort of around its ass. Forgot to draw that—gimme.” He quickly filled in the missing parts before returning the paper to her. “Oh, yeah, and sorry—I forgot the big, jutting chest bone thingy. Just imagine it there.”
“Well, honestly I wouldn’t be able to say it was missing from your artwork. Or where I would imagine inserting it.”
“What do you mean?” He tilted his head to look at the paper.
“I mean, I can’t really tell what this is. At all.”
“It’s a frickin’
screamer,
” he said. “What do you want?”
She looked at it as though deep in concentration, but her chin began to quiver as she resisted laughing.
“Matthew, it looks like a five-year-old’s attempt at a disabled horse with sharp teeth. I thought you said they don’t have tails.” She began to laugh.
“That’s supposed to be feathers. I told you before, I don’t draw.” Matt flipped the paper back around and looked at it again. He saw what she meant, and joined in the laughter. Tuni leaned over the table to see it again.
“And why is its head on fire?”
“That’s the neck feathers!” He had to laugh.
“Do you two mind!” Peter shouted, covering the sat phone mic. “These calls are over a hundred pounds per minute!”
They stifled their glee immediately. Matt felt bad, but when Pete resumed speaking and turned his back, Tuni mimicked his stern face and shook her finger at Matt, prompting more snickers. She gestured for them to go outside and leave Peter alone, so they scooted off their seats and tiptoed out.
“We’re such children,” Matt said then spotted Rheese and Enzi on the far side of the pit, walking and talking. It looked suspicious, and he elbowed Tuni to have a look.
“Dodgy…” Tuni murmured.
From the food tent, Wekesa called to them.
“Karibu, tafadhali!”
“C’mon, food’s ready,” said Tuni.
They walked to the food tent, and Tuni asked Wekesa what was for lunch.
“Humburg,” he replied over his shoulder.
“You’ll never guess what’s for lunch,” she said to Matt.
“I caught that—burgers. Joy.”
They sat down across from each other, and Tuni looked at Matthew’s face. She had studied his features at length, both on the jet and during all the sessions. She thought he looked better awake and alert.
Peter burst out of the trailer and let the door slam behind him. Looking over Tuni’s shoulder, Matt could see that he looked cross. He was coming toward them and muttering things under his breath.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked curtly.
“Hamburgers,” they answered together, looking at each other with cautious smiles.
“Oh good. I don’t know what I was expecting out here…”
“So, Peter,” Tuni said, “do you find it odd that Dr. Rheese doesn’t have any equipment for excavations at his excavation site?”
“Yeah, what an imbecile. But I did tell him before to halt everything, so it makes sense if he was trying to save the grant money. It’s just that usually, when we know how long a project will go, we buy equipment or make long-term lease arrangements with the owners.”
“I don’t trust the guy,” Matt declared.
“I know where you’re coming from,” Peter replied. “But just because he’s an ass doesn’t mean he’s dishonest. You’d be surprised how much he’s done for the Cambridge Museum of Natural History. I suppose he does get a little leeway from our side of things because of that good record. If I had to like every person that worked for me, I’d have a fairly sparse staff. The nature of genius and all that…”
They all looked back as an engine started. Enzi was in the Jeep, near the equipment trailer. Dr. Rheese was walking away from it, coming toward the group, as the tires skidded in place for a second and then caught, before the Jeep took off up the road, the sound of its engine fading after it.
Rheese approached as the burgers and buns arrived on the table.
“Where’s Enzi going?” Tuni asked him.
“He’s off to the base camp—thought there might be some men left over there that he might convince to come back to the site and help out. I told him it couldn’t hurt, if he didn’t mind taking the long drive yet again. Good man, Enzi.” Rheese took off his pith helmet and began to prepare his hamburger. “Believe it or not,” he said, “you’ll grow tired of these after a while.”
W
ORD SPREAD QUICKLY THROUGH THE CITY:
Twill and Ilter had gone missing. The trail of blood leading from their house was the only clue to their fate. As Irin walked the paths, he maintained the same look of shock and despondency that he saw on everyone else’s faces. The horrible event had clearly slowed everyone down, though much remained to do.
With dark clouds looming over the sunset mountaintops, and gusty winds bowling through the valley, Irin hoped for the weather to come and go quickly. He visited the Gathering Rocks several times to monitor progress, biting back the impulse to hurry them, so as not to appear indifferent to the tragedy. His sense of hope found new strength as people who had not attended the gathering approached him and announced their plans to follow him. There were even some who had attended and sat in favor of Twill’s “solution” who asked if they could still join.
“Of course,” he told one and all, and reminded them of what was needed. Would they have converted if not for Twill’s death? Irin wondered how many more would be convinced as they watched neighbors and family members prepare for the journey.