Amazonia

  Dakii handed one of the loaded straws to Nate and one to the shaman. The Ban-ali leader waved Nate to kneel beside the hammock.

  Nate obeyed.

  Kouwe cautioned him, "The shaman knows he's about to die. What he is offering is more than a casual ritual. I think he's passing the mantle of his responsibility to you, for the tribe, for the village, for the tree."

  "I can't take that on," Nate said, glancing back at Kouwe.

  "You must. Once you're shaman, the tribe's secrets will be open to you. Do you understand what that means?"

  Nate took a deep breath and nodded. "The cure."

  "Exactly."

  Nate stepped to the hammock and knelt.

  The shaman showed Nate what to do, but it was similar to the Yanomamos' ritual. The small man positioned the drug-loaded end of his reed straw to his own nose. Then motioned for Nate to bring his lips to the other end. Nate's job was to blow the drug up the other's nose. He, in turn, positioned his own straw to his left nostril. The shaman brought the other end to his mouth. Through the straws, the two men would simultaneously blow the drug into each other's sinuses.

  The shaman lifted an arm. They both took a deep breath.

  Here we go...

  The Indian brought his arm down.

  Nate exhaled sharply through the reed, while bracing for the jolt to his own sinuses. Before he even finished blowing on his end of the straw, the drug hit him.

  Nate fell backward. A burning flame seared into his skull, followed by a blinding explosion of pain. It felt as if someone had blown the back of his head off. He gasped as the room spun. The sense of vertigo overwhelmed him. A pit opened in his mind, and he was falling. He tumbled, spinning away into a darkness that was somehow bright at the same time.

  Distantly he heard his name called, but he couldn't find his mouth to speak.

  Suddenly his falling body shattered through something solid in this otherworld. The darkness fragmented around him like broken glass. Midnight shards fell away and disappeared. What was left was a shadow shaped into a stylized tree. It appeared to be rising from a dark hill.

  Nate hovered before it. As he stared, details emerged. The tree developed three-dimensional conformations, tiny midnight leaves, tiered branches, clustered nut pods.

  The Yagga.

  Then, from beyond the hill's edge, small figures marched into view, all in a line, heading up the slope to the tree.

  The hekura, Nate guessed dreamily.

  But like the tree, the figures grew in detail as Nate floated nearby, and he realized he was mistaken. Instead of little men, the line was a mix of animals of every ilk--monkeys, sloths, rats, crocodiles, jaguars, and some Nate couldn't identify. Interspersed among these darkly silhouetted animals were men and women, but Nate knew these weren't the hekura. The entire party marched up to the tree--and into it. The shadowy figures merged with the black form of the tree.

  Where had they gone? Was he supposed to follow?

  Then, from the other side of the tree, the figures reemerged. But they had transformed. They were no longer in shadow, but glowing with a brilliant radiance. The shining troupe spread to circle the tree. Man and beast. Protecting the Mother.

  As Nate hovered, he sensed the passage of time accelerate. He watched the men and women occasionally wander back to the tree as their radiance dimmed. They would eat the fruit of the tree and shine anew, refreshed to take their place again in the circle of Yagga's children. The ritual repeated over and over again.

  Like a worn record, the image began to fade, repeating still, but growing dimmer and dimmer--until there was only darkness again.

  "Nate?" a voice called to him.

  Who? Nate sought the speaker. But all he found was darkness.

  "Nate, can you hear me?"

  Yes, but where are you?

  "Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

  Nate drew toward the voice, seeking it out of the darkness.

  "Good, Nate. Now open your eyes."

  He struggled to obey.

  "Don't fight it...just open your eyes."

  Again the darkness shattered, and Nate was blinded by brilliance and light. He gasped, sucking in huge gulps of air. His head throbbed with pain. Through tears, he saw the face of his friend leaning over him, cradling his head.

  "Nate?"

  He coughed and nodded.

  "How do you feel?"

  "How do you think I feel?" Nate wobbled up from the floor.

  "What did you experience?" Kouwe asked. "You were mumbling."

  "And drooling," Anna added, kneeling beside him.

  Nate wiped his mouth. "Hypersalivation...an alkaloid hallucinogen."

  "What did you see?" Kouwe asked.

  Nate shook his head. A mistake. The headache flared worse. "How long have I been out?"

  "About ten minutes," the professor said.

  "Ten minutes?" It had felt like hours, if not days.

  "What happened?"

  "I think I was just shown the cure to the disease," Nate said.

  Kouwe's eyes widened. "What?"

  Nate explained what he saw. "From the dream, it's clear that the nuts of this tree are vital to the health of the humans in the tribe. The animals don't need it, but people do."

  Kouwe nodded, his eyes narrowed as he digested what was said. "So it's the nut pods." The professor pondered a bit longer, then spoke slowly. "From your father's research, we know the tree's sap is full of mutating proteins--prions with the ability to enhance each species it encounters, making them better protectors of the tree. But such a boon must come with a high cost. The tree doesn't want its children to abandon it, so it built a fail-safe into its enhancements. Animals are probably given some instinct to remain in the area, something to do with territoriality, something that can be manipulated as needed, like the powders used with the locusts and piranhas. But humans, with our intellect, need firmer bonds to bind us to the tree. The humans must eat from the fruit on a regular basis to keep the mutating prions in check. The milk of the nut must contain some form of an antiprion, something that suppresses the virulent form of the disease."

  Anna looked sick. "So the Ban-ali have not stayed here out of obligation, but enslavement."

  Kouwe rubbed his temples. "Ban-yi. Slave. The term was not an exaggeration. Once exposed to the prions, you can't leave or you'll die. Without the fruit, the prion reverts to its virulent form and attacks the immune system, triggering deadly fevers or riotous cancers."

  "Jekyll and Hyde," Nate mumbled.

  Kouwe and Anna glanced to him.

  Nate explained, "It's like what Kelly reported about the nature of prions. In one form, they're benign, but they can also bend into a new shape and become virulent, like mad cow disease."

  Kouwe nodded. "The nut milk must keep the prion suppressed in the beneficial form...but once you stop using the milk, it attacks, killing the host and spreading to everyone the host encounters. This again would serve the tree's end. Clearly the tree wants to keep its privacy. If someone flees, anyone the escapee encounters would sicken and die, leaving a trail of death."

  "With no one left to tell the tale," Nate said.

  "Exactly."

  Nate felt well enough to try to stand. Kouwe helped him up. "But the bigger question is why I dreamed up the answer in the first place. Was it just my own subconscious working out the problem, unfettered by the hallucinogenic drug? Or did the shaman communicate it to me somehow...some form of drug-induced telepathy?"

  Kouwe's face tightened. "No," he said firmly and pointed to the hammock. "It wasn't the shaman."

  The Indian lay in his hammock, staring up at the ceiling. Blood dripped from both his nostrils. He was not breathing. Dakii knelt beside his leader, head bowed.

  "He died immediately. A massive stroke from the look of it." Kouwe glanced to Nate. "Whatever you experienced didn't come from the shaman."

  Nate found it hard to think. His brain felt two sizes too big for his skull. "Then it must have been my s
ubconscious," he said. "When I first saw the pods, I remember thinking that the nuts looked like the fruiting bodies of Uncaria tomentosa. Better known as cat's claw. Indians use it against viruses, bacteria, and sometimes tumors. But I didn't make the correlation until now. Maybe the drug helped my subconscious make the intuitive leap."

  "You could be right," Kouwe said.

  Nate heard the hesitation in the professor's voice. "What else could it be?"

  Kouwe frowned. "I talked with Dakii while you were drugged out. The ali ne Yagga powder comes from the root of this tree. Desiccated and powdered root fiber."

  "So?"

  "So maybe what you dreamed wasn't your subconscious. Maybe it was some type of prerecorded message from the tree itself. An instruction manual, so to speak: Consume the fruit of the tree and you will stay healthy. A simple message."

  "You can't be serious."

  "Considering the setup in this valley--mutated species, regenerating limbs, humans enslaved in service to a plant--I wouldn't put anything beyond this tree's abilities."

  Nate shook his head.

  Anna frowned. "The professor may have a point. I can't even imagine how this tree is able to produce prions specific to the DNA of so many different species. That alone is miraculous. How did it learn? Where did the tree even get genetic material to learn from?"

  Kouwe waved an arm around the room. "This tree traces its roots back to the Paleozoic era, when the land was just plants. Its ancestors must have been around as land animals first evolved, and rather than competing, it incorporated these new species into its own life cycle, like the Amazon's ant tree does today."

  The professor continued with his theories, but Nate found himself tuning him out. He was drawn back to Anna's last question. Where did the tree even get genetic material to learn from? It was a good question, and it nagged at Nate. How had the Yagga learned to produce its wide variety of species-specific prions?

  Nate remembered his dream: the line of animals and people disappearing inside the tree. Where had they gone? Was it more than just symbolic? Did they go somewhere? Nate found his eyes on Dakii, kneeling by the hammock. Maybe it was another intuitive leap, or a residual effect of the drug, but Nate began to get a suspicion where that somewhere might be.

  Ali nerah. Blood of the Yagga. From the root of the tree.

  Nate's gaze narrowed on Dakii. He recalled the Indian's description of his father's fate, spoken with gladness. He's gone to feed the root.

  Nate found his feet stepping toward the tribesman.

  Kouwe stopped his discourse. "Nate...?"

  "There's one piece of the puzzle we're still missing." Nate nodded to Dakii. "And I know who has it."

  He crossed to the kneeling tribesman. Dakii glanced up, tears running down his face. The loss of the leader had struck the man hard. He hauled to his feet as Nate stopped before him.

  "Wishwa," he said, bowing his head, acknowledging the passing of power.

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Nate said, "but we must speak." Kouwe came over and assisted with the translations, but Nate was now becoming skilled at mixing English and Yanomamo words to get his message across.

  Dakii pointed to the bed, wiping an eye. "He named Dakoo." The native touched a palm to the dead man's chest. "He father of me."

  Nate bit his lip. He should have guessed. Now that Dakii had mentioned it, he saw the similarities. Nate placed a hand on the man's shoulder. He knew what it was like to lose a father. "I'm truly sorry," he repeated, this time with more feeling.

  Dakii nodded. "Thank you."

  "Your father was an amazing man. He will be mourned by all of us, but right now we're in grave danger. We need your help."

  Dakii bowed his head. "You wishwa. You say...I do."

  "I need you to take me to the root of the tree, to where the tree is fed."

  Dakii's head snapped up, his face showing both fear and worry.

  "Gently," Kouwe warned him in a whisper. "You are clearly treading on sacred ground."

  Nate waved away the professor's caution and placed a palm to his own chest. "I am wishwa now. I must see the root."

  The tribesman bobbed his head. "I go show you." He glanced to his dead father in the hammock, then turned toward the exit.

  They began to wind back down the tunnel. Anna and Kouwe whispered behind Nate, leaving him to his own thoughts. He again remembered his comparison of the Ban-ali symbol to the serpentine tunnel through the Yagga's trunk. But did it represent more? Did it also symbolize the essential molecular shape of the mutating prion, as Kelly had suggested? Was there indeed some communication between plant and human? Some shared memory? After what Nate had experienced under the effect of the drug, he was not so sure he could dismiss this last possibility. Perhaps the symbol did indeed represent both. The true heart of the Yagga.

  Nate and the group continued down.

  "Someone come," Dakii said, slowing.

  Then Nate heard it, too. Footsteps, trotting or running.

  From around a corner, a familiar figure appeared.

  "Private Carrera," Kouwe said.

  She nodded, hardly out of breath from the steep run up the tunnel. Nate noticed she had recovered her weapon. "I was sent to fetch you. To see if you found another way off this plateau. Sergeant Kostos had no luck disarming the explosives."

  Nate realized, in all the disturbing revelations, he had failed to ask the most important question. Was there another way out of the valley?

  "Dakii," Nate said. "We need to know if there is a secret path to the lower valley. Do you know one?" This communication took much gesturing and Kouwe's help.

  While Kouwe translated, Carrera glanced at Nate with an eyebrow raised. "You've not already interrogated the man?" she whispered. "What have you been doing?"

  "Doing drugs," Nate said, distracted and concentrating on the conversation with the tribesman.

  Dakii finally seemed to understand. "Go away? Why? Stay here." He pointed to his feet.

  "We can't," Nate said with exasperation.

  Anna spoke at his shoulder, "He doesn't understand about the bombs. He doesn't know the valley is going to be destroyed. Such a concept is beyond him."

  "We'll have to make him understand," Nate said. He turned to Carrera. "In the meantime, I need you and the sergeant to gather as many of this tree's nuts as you can into packs."

  "Nuts?"

  "I'll explain later. Just do it...please."

  She nodded, turning away. "But remember, guys...tick-tock." She glanced significantly at them, then took off.

  Nate faced Dakii. How to tell the man that his entire homeland was about to be wiped out? It wouldn't be easy. Nate sighed. "Let's keep heading to the root."

  As they continued down, Nate and Kouwe flanked the tribesman and slowly communicated the danger here. Dakii's confused expression slowly twisted into horror as he got the message. The scout's feet stumbled as he walked, as if the knowledge were a physical burden.

  By now they had reached the tunnel exit, surrounded by a gallery of blue palm prints. Beyond the opening, the light in the glade had taken on a dark honey color, suggesting sunset was at hand. Time was running out.

  "Is there another way out of the valley?" Nate asked again.

  Dakii pointed to where the tunnel ended at a slightly concave wall covered with the blue prints. "Through the root. We go through the root."

  "Yes, I want to see the root, too, but what about the way out?"

  Dakii stared at him. "Through the root," he repeated.

  Nate nodded, finally understanding. Their two missions had just become one. "Show us."

  Dakii crossed to the wall, glancing over the prints, then he reached out to one near the innermost wall. He placed his palm over it and pushed with arm and shoulder. The entire wall pivoted on a central axis, opening a new section of passage, winding deeper underground.

  Nate glanced up, recalling that the flow channels here hadn't exactly matched. A secret door. The answer was before him this entire
time. Even the palm prints on the walls--they were like the one on the Ban-ali symbol, guarding the double helix that represented the root.

  Anna slipped a flashlight from her field jacket. Nate patted his own jacket, but came up empty. He must have lost his. Anna passed him hers, indicating he should go first.

  Nate moved to the door. Wafting out was the musk of the tree, humid and thicker, dank like the breath from an open grave. Nate readied himself and pushed through the opening.