A
S THE EARTH
darkened into night, the rain lessened into a fitful drizzle. Amiko’s fever remained high. Gideon hoped that when she woke up, she’d be stronger, but as the night wore on and her fever only got worse, he realized this wasn’t going to happen.
Only one possible solution presented itself: he would have to finish the climb solo, rig a line, and then come back for her and try to haul her up somehow. He could call Glinn from the top, but a rescue would take a few days at least and by then, jammed in this crack, exposed to the elements, she’d be dead. He had to get her to the top, into some kind of shelter, with a fire.
He went through both drysacks and combined the ropes. By measuring them out, he figured there was about a hundred feet. It wasn’t climbing rope, but it was sturdy marine nylon and it seemed like it would hold the weight of a human.
He racked his brains, trying to figure out just how this would work. Amiko was now beyond doing much for herself. He couldn’t just drag her up the rough rock. He had to make a sling of some kind, like a seat, and pull her up that way. He would have to climb to the top, estimate how far it was, fashion a sling, set up a top-rope, climb back down and put her in it. Climb up, haul her up.
Emptying one of the drysacks, he packed it with the rope and essentials and strapped on one of the headlamps. The battery was good, the light bright. Amiko was still sleeping. He decided to let her sleep, wake her up on his return. He quickly scribbled a note,
I’ll be back
, and tucked it in the crook of her arm.
He took a deep breath. He hoped the note was true—that he would be back.
Loaded down with the single drysack, he edged out of the crack and looked up. In the darkness and rain the headlamp could only illuminate about ten feet, but he picked what looked like the easiest route, mentally registering the hand- and footholds and pre-visualizing the climb. Then, with another deep breath, he pushed his way out onto the cliff face.
In the dark and the rain, without Amiko, it was more terrifying than ever. The wind roared up from below, carrying with it the sound of the surf. Confused raindrops lashed about in the beam of his headlamp. The worst was not knowing how far he had to go—one hundred feet? A thousand?
The rock was crumbly, friable, and wet. He lost his footing at one point and ended up dangling in space, holding on by his hands alone. He got a foothold back just as one of the handholds gave way, a bunch of rocks peeling off from the cliff, and he swung by a hand and foot for a moment as the rubble plunged down. He recovered his grip—and then, distantly, heard the clatter of the falling rocks as they struck far below. The near-fall left him utterly paralyzed with fear, clinging to the cliff. He couldn’t move. His heart was galloping, he was hyperventilating, and his head seemed ready to explode in the storm of terror.
Ride it out. Get yourself under control.
Slowly, he came back to himself. Staying put was not an option. He had to go up.
Up, up, up
. He repeated it with each breath. That was the only way he and Amiko would survive. But the fear was still with him, like a monkey on his back now. And he was going to have to come back down, and go up again.
Don’t think about that now.
He resumed climbing. Shift a hand. Then a foot. Transfer weight. Detach the other foot. Find a new foothold. Move the other hand. Begin again. It was like a slow mantra.
The rock was becoming increasingly rotten. Another foothold gave way as he transferred his weight and he dangled again, his arm muscles screaming with the effort before he found a new purchase. This could not go on much longer. And then—just when it seemed he could go no farther—he came through a notch in the lava and saw just ahead a mass of dripping vegetation. He pulled himself up, seized a tree trunk, and scrambled into the welcoming cocoon of the forest, throwing himself down on the forest floor—blessedly, wonderfully, safely flat.
He lay there for a while, trying not to think about what he had to do. First, the good news: that last climb had been no more than a hundred and fifty feet. If he could somehow lengthen his rope with vines, he could haul up Amiko. And the jungle around him looked rich with hanging vines and creepers.
He sat up, breathing hard. He didn’t have time to waste. She was soaked, she was jammed into that crack, she had a fever—but she was, he hoped, conscious. It would be infinitely worse if he had to haul up an unconscious body.
Rising to his feet, he took off the drysack and carefully marked where he had come up over the edge. He would need at least two hundred feet of creeper rope.
He cast about and noticed a number of very thin, whip-like creepers hanging down from the branches of nearby trees. They were only about an eighth of an inch in diameter, but they could be woven into something stronger. He began pulling them off the trees, shaking and yanking them down, until he had dozens of varying lengths. Laying them side by side, but staggered, he created a length of some two hundred feet. And then he started at one end, twining them together in a double braid, six strands’ worth. When one strand ended he wove the loose end in tight where it wouldn’t slip and continued with another.
It took about an hour to finish the makeshift rope. Then he carefully tied the actual rope around his legs and waist, making it into an improvised sling for Amiko. When it was done, he stepped out of it, leaving it intact. He would have to get it around her. She could help. Maybe.
He lashed the end of the makeshift rope around a tree trunk and lowered its full length over the edge of the cliff. Praying that it would be long enough, he began the descent.
The descent was another level of difficulty from the ascent. But he had one advantage—he had one hand on the rope. With every downward step he prayed it would not part or break.
In half an hour he reached the crack. He had thirty feet of rope to spare. Amiko was there, awake, sitting up, her face pale. “Where have you been?”
He briefly explained his plan.
“You climbed to the top…and back?”
“Yes.”
She sagged back, confused. “Why?”
“I’m going to haul you up.”
He pulled on the loose end of the rope and brought up the makeshift sling. Amiko stared at it. “That’s no good.” She pulled it in, quickly untied it, and then—staggering to her feet and standing with much difficulty at the very edge of the crack—lashed it in a sling around herself. “We call that a Swiss seat,” she said when she was finished, her breathing hard and flushed.
“How do you feel?” Gideon asked.
A silence. “I’ll make it.”
“Sit down. I’ll climb back up, haul you up.”
She nodded, sat down.
He positioned her in a safe place. Putting everything into the other drysack, he shrugged it onto his back. Then he began climbing again, using the rope as a guide. This time it was easier and he was on top in another half hour.
He took off the second drysack and placed it on the ground. Now, using two trees as friction brakes, he started to pull Amiko up, slowly, slowly. His greatest fear was that the rope would snag up somewhere on the jagged lava rock. And, after about fifty feet, it did. No matter how much he maneuvered, moved this way or that, it was caught.
He heard a feeble shout from below. Tying off the rope, he went to the edge of the cliff. He couldn’t see Amiko but could hear her voice.
“It’s caught!” she said.
“Where?”
“About twenty feet above me.”
There was only one option: to descend and work it loose.
He went back down yet again, following the rope, until he reached the snag. The vine rope was hooked under a jagged, projecting rock. Examining the problem, he realized he would have to get beneath it and unhook it from below. Twenty feet down, Amiko was dangling in free space. She looked awful, her face gray, translucent.
“Gideon, that’s too hard a maneuver…”
He ignored her. Climbing down slowly, he managed to work his way underneath. The handholds were very poor. Clinging to the rope with one hand and the rock face with the other, he edged out under the overhang, and reached out to unsnag the rope. He grasped it, tried to shake it loose.
Stuck.
He shook harder, and then harder still. It suddenly came free, the rope jerking, causing him to lose both footholds. As his body came off the rock, he grabbed the rope with both hands, sliding and burning, splinters from the vines going deep. He was able to arrest his fall. Now he, too, was dangling in midair.
“Gideon,
swing
!”
With a terrific effort he swung his body, once, then again. The improvised vine-rope groaned under the weight of them both and, with a sudden jerk, dropped a few inches, starting to unravel.
Gideon threw himself onto the rock face, grabbing at a single pocket handhold, taking the weight off the rope. In a panicked scrabble he managed to find a hold for his feet. He looked back at the rope. With the excessive weight gone, the unraveling had stopped.
He climbed back up, the muscles of his arms jerking and quivering with both strain and anxiety. Making it to the top—just barely—he rested only a moment, then resumed the slow work of bringing up Amiko and the sling. Finally, just as dawn was breaking in the east, he managed to haul her up over the lip of rock and into the protection of the jungle.
Amiko stumbled over and collapsed on the ground. She tried to sit up, coughed, lay down again. “You…saved my life.”
“That makes us even,” he gasped. “Rest. Don’t talk.”
She lay back, her breathing shallow, her face pale and bathed in sweat. Gideon looked around the dripping jungle, so thick it enveloped them in twilight despite the rising sun.
He would have to build a shelter.
K
NEELING ON THE
ground, Gideon went through the drysacks, emptying out all the contents he’d managed to salvage and spreading them out to dry. The granola bars were gone, but there were two pieces of pemmican left, both damp. A single handgun, some ammo, knives, cups, lighters, four liters of water, med kit. And the sat phone. He would call Glinn as soon as possible—there might be just enough juice left for one more communication. But for now, he had to make sure Amiko was taken care of.
Struggling to his feet, he grasped a knife and began cutting down some large, flat, glossy leaves, spreading them out to make a dry ground cover. He helped Amiko onto it, making her a pillow out of a bundle of leaves.
He lit a small fire—with great difficulty, as everything was damp—and used a Sierra cup to boil a small amount of water.
“We’re going to change your bandage,” he said.
She nodded her thanks. She was flushed, her eyes bloodshot, her fever high.
He unbuttoned her shirts, pulled them aside. The bandage was soaked with blood. He removed both it and the dressing underneath, exposing the wound. It was no longer closed, the tape having come loose in the struggle up the cliff. The wound was bleeding.
Using clean gauze pads from the medical kit, dipped in the boiled water, Gideon cleaned the wound, rinsed it with sterile water and some Betadine, then applied antibiotic ointment and reclosed the wound with surgical tape. He bandaged it, then crushed an amoxicillin tablet in water, along with a tablet of the second antibiotic. Amiko took them both.
“You need to eat,” he said.
“Not hungry.”
Gideon took out the two pieces of pemmican, which Amiko finally ate.
“We made it,” she said, struggling to smile. “We’re here. You saved my life. And I’m feeling a lot better.”
“Good.” She did look better—but the wound was awful. She had to get to a hospital.
He picked up the sat phone. “I’m calling Glinn. We need a rescue.”
She struggled to sit up. “Wait, Gideon. We made it. Let’s explore the island first.”
Gideon shook his head. She really was half crazy. “You’re injured and you need a doctor.”
“We’ve got bandages, antibiotics, all we need.”
“No way. I’m making the call.” He picked up the cell phone and unlatched the box. Amiko watched as he opened it, checked the battery. Still at one percent.
He turned it on.
It took a while, searching for satellites, while the battery meter blinked red. As soon as it locked on, he made the call.
It was answered instantly.
“Gideon?” It was Glinn.
Gideon interrupted him. “Battery’s almost dead. We need to talk fast.”
“I told you this mission was aborted and ordered you—”
“Enough! We need a rescue. Amiko is hurt.”
“Badly?”
“She needs immediate medical attention.”
“Very well. Give me your coordinates.”
“We’re on an island about twenty miles offshore,” he said. “I’m not sure exactly where.”
“I’m locking in on your satellite signal. I’ll have it in a minute.”
“We succeeded. We found the medicine. It grows here, on this island group. Another thing: this area was once inhabited by large, one-eyed hominids—Cyclopes. The natives worship its skull. It all backs up Amiko’s theory about the
Odyssey
.”
A brief silence. “Extraordinary. We’re almost there with your coordinates…”
Amiko held out her hand. “Let me talk to him. Now.”
Gideon handed the phone over. She grabbed the phone box, turned it upside down.
“What are you—?”
She yanked out the battery and gave it a mighty heave over the cliff.
W
HAT THE
FUCK
!
” Gideon jumped up in time to see the battery go sailing off into blue space. “Are you nuts?”
She stared back at him, her eyes glittering with defiance. “I will not walk away from this. Not now. Not ever.”
Gideon stared at her. He could think of nothing to say. He should never have given her the phone. She was crazy, feverish—not in her right mind.
“Do you really think Glinn will let us finish what we started? No. He’ll put together a new team. The government of Nicaragua will have to be involved, because I’m pretty sure this is part of their territory. It’ll turn into a scientific circus. There won’t be any role for us.”
“You need medical attention. You could die.”
“I’m recovering. We need to see this through.”
He stared at her. She really did seem better. Or maybe it was just the flush of determination.
“We’re almost there,” she said softly. “We need to explore this island, identify the lotus plant—and bring it back. Only then will we be done.” She lay back, gazing at him intently, her face flushed and beaded with sweat, but her eyes clear. She was rational and serious.
Gideon stared back at her. What she said was undoubtedly true—if Glinn pulled them out now, their role would be over. And they were so close. All that remained was finding the plant, and how difficult could that be? He realized that he, too, wanted to see it through. More than that: he wanted to save his own life. How long would it take for the lotus to be developed into a drug and reach the market? The process took years. He didn’t have the luxury of time. It was a long shot, but why not? He had nothing to lose.
“All right.”
She smiled. “I knew you’d come around. You and I—we’re not so different.”
He shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do about finding us some grub. You rest and recover.” He picked up the .45, checked it, then stood up, shoving it into his waistband. He had to grasp a vine while a wave of dizziness washed over him. The top of the island, seen in the dark from below, looked like it might be a few miles across. There seemed to be a lot of wildlife—he could hear birds calling and flitting about in the trees above, along with noises and cries he couldn’t begin to identify.
He picked up an empty drysack, thrust in a canteen and the ammo, and then set off, pushing into the jungle. It was incredibly thick, dense leaves and forest litter underfoot, along with an almost impenetrable understory of big green leafy plants. All around, tall, smooth tree trunks reached upward. And yet, when he looked up, he couldn’t see the sky—just a shifting green dome flecked with gold and brown.
It would be easy to get lost. But as he slashed his way through the jungle with the inadequate knife, he realized he would be able to follow his trail back. Progress was agonizingly slow. He stopped from time to time to scrutinize a plant, pluck a leaf off, and crush it in his hand to check its scent. But there was nothing remotely like the smell of the lotus, either the pod or the root.
Suddenly, as he reached for one odd-looking plant, he felt the ground crumble beneath him and—seizing a nearby branch—just managed to stop himself from sliding into what appeared to be a deep sinkhole or ancient lava tube. After that, he moved much more cautiously. The island, he realized, was riddled with such holes and pits, interspersed with outcroppings of jagged volcanic rock jutting out of the jungle floor, dangerously camouflaged by heavy stands of ferns and undergrowth. At one point he heard a thrashing far above as a troop of monkeys passed over in the treetops, screeching down at him, the invader. He tried to get a bead on one of them with the .45, but the treetops were too dense and the monkeys moving too fast.
Suddenly he came out onto a path—a large-animal trail, beaten down from long use. He looked about for sign or scat, something that would give him a clue as to what kind of animal had made the trail, but could see no telltale sign. This was encouraging—maybe. Whatever it was, it was big. It might be good eating…if he could hit it with a .45.
He continued along the trail, relieved not to have to thrash through the undergrowth and risk falling into another pit. The rising sun beat down on the high treetops, turning the wet jungle into a steaming green oven. He continued to check various plants at random, realizing that finding the lotus might be a bigger challenge than he’d anticipated. At one point, he came to a bush covered with round, burgundy-colored fruits, not unlike small plums. Cautiously tasting one, he found it was deliciously sweet, and he stripped the bush and put the fruit in the drysack.
The trail forked, and he took one branch at random. It wound its way about, passing another bush full of a different but equally delicious fruit. The island was starting to feel like a tropical paradise, a lost world. The plants were almost all unfamiliar—but then again, he’d never been to this part of the planet before. He wished to hell he had spent more time studying the botany books in the boat’s library.
There were all kinds of strange rustlings in the bushes, and once a family of small hairy tusked pigs—javelina, perhaps—burst out of the undergrowth and barreled across the trail to disappear on the other side—again, too fast for him to shoot.
The trail seemed to head toward a lofty volcanic outcropping, and as he approached, he saw that it led straight into a large cave—a lava tube.
Gideon crept warily up to the entrance. Clearly it was some kind of lair. But for what animal? Bison didn’t live in caves, but bears did. Jaguars? He ventured to the opening and stepped inside. There was an animal smell, a smell of dung and wet fur. It didn’t seem like a good idea to keep going.
He looked around the floor of the cave for tracks. And there, in the dry sand, he found a confusion of them. They belonged to an odd-toed ungulate, probably a tapir. Their library on the boat also had a section on the mammals of Central America, and he vaguely remembered the animal’s odd hoofprint and the fact that tapirs were nocturnal and created trails in the jungle. And that they were prized by the locals as good eating.
He now had a goodly amount of fruit, and so he decided to head back to camp. Amiko was still lying where he had left her, sleeping. She looked so pale, so sick, his spirits sank.
Rekindling the fire, he made some more tea. She woke up and drank the tea. He asked how she felt and got an annoyed look in return.
“I’m going to rig up a shelter in case it rains again.” She started to rise.
“Damn it, you stay put,” said Gideon. “You need to get better.”
Laboriously, Gideon cut some stiff poles with the knife, and used them to create an improvised lean-to, lashing them together with creepers. A set of thin sucker rods made the skeleton of a roof, and this he covered with huge leaves. He paved the floor with more of the same. He helped Amiko in, and she lay down on a bed of leaves. He placed the sack of fruit next to her.
“I’m sorry I’m so useless,” she said.
“While you rest, I’m going to do a more systematic exploration of the island.”
She staggered to her feet. “I’m coming.”
“No, you’re not.”
“To hell with you.” She got up but swayed on her feet.
“You can hardly stand up.”
“A little moving around will help.”
Gideon felt a wave of anger with this impossible woman. “Listen. You trashed our sat phone—your last chance of getting medical help. So you
owe
it to me to get better. That means staying right here.”
She stared at him, the old defiance glowing in her eyes. But after a moment she faltered. “All right. But look for the lotus.”
“I wish to hell I knew what to look for.”
She eased herself down, wincing. “And shoot us some meat, will you? I could use a steak.”
Gideon outfitted a drysack for his jaunt, taking some extra ammo, water, and a headlamp. Maybe later, he thought, he’d go back to the cave and try to ambush a sleeping tapir.
He followed his old route to the tapir trail and took it in the opposite direction. This time he moved more slowly, making mental notes, observing the plant life, occasionally crushing a leaf or pod to check the scent. The forest trails forked again and again, in seemingly random directions, but using the position of the sun he maintained a westward-trending route that, in about forty-five minutes, brought him to the other side of the island. He could see light through the trees—and then, suddenly, he found himself on the edge of a precipice, looking out toward the horizon of the open ocean. It was a magnificent view, the sun-dappled water far below, puffy white clouds sailing along, the faint sound of surf. The cliff was just as sheer as the one they had climbed up. Gideon wondered how, when the time came, they were going to get off this fortress of an island.
The trail continued along, close to the cliff’s edge. The surrounding jungle appeared to be full of strange and exotic creatures: brilliantly colored spiders (which he hoped weren’t poisonous), odd crested lizards scurrying away, and multicolored birds crying raucously in the trees. Another monkey troop approached with a huge amount of noise, different from the first. He quickly stepped off the trail into dense vegetation, ready to take a shot. These monkeys had white heads, and he recollected from the briefing book that they must be white-headed capuchins. But he didn’t recall the streak of yellow on the hind legs, like stockings.
Hoping that they weren’t rare and exotic, apologizing to the gods, he waited silently, .45 at the ready, as the troop worked through the treetops closer to him. They were feeding with great gusto on fruits, the discarded pits dropping down around him. Slowly, he took a bead on the biggest monkey and aimed. It was a tough shot, over a hundred feet. He let his breath run out, then squeezed the trigger.
A loud explosion. The monkeys erupted in a deafening screeching, the trees thrashing as they raced off, including the monkey he had tried to shoot, with a large amount of loose dung falling around him as a sort of good-bye gesture.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself, tucking the .45 back into his waistband, flicking a piece of monkey shit off his shoulder, the foul stench rising up around him. He moved carefully back to the open trail.
Behind him, he heard a sound, a rushing—and then a terrifying roar. He spun around, fumbling his pistol out, but before he could raise it a hideous, terrifying creature came charging down the trail, its pink mouth open and bellowing. It was gigantic, humanoid, with a massive oversize head in which stood one huge, glistening, yellow, saucer-like eye.
A huge hairy arm swept out and Gideon felt a bone-breaking blow to his side, knocking him a good ten feet into the violent embrace of the jungle. He lay dazed and in excruciating pain as the furious creature, with another grotesque and spine-freezing roar, bore down on him with a slab-like hand, and struck another mighty blow…