Sarah was alone in section three, just aft of the navigation section, when she saw a very low-hanging tree branch. Mendenhall momentarily illuminated it so Sarah could see it. Then he moved the light away and clicked it off to preserve his own night vision. Sarah leaned over as the large branch cleared her head by less than a foot. That was when she felt something touch her baseball cap and then remove it. She thought she hadn't lowered her head far enough, that it had been snagged by the branch, until she turned and saw the hat hanging there, the dark little fingers holding the bill and turning it. Sarah's eyes went wide as Mendenhall laughed.
"I think a monkey just stole your hat," he called from the top of section four.
As Mendenhall continued to laugh, the red cap was tossed back at Sarah, who caught it before it went over the gunwale.
"Must not have fit," the sergeant said with a chuckle.
Suddenly a small arm reached out and removed the bush hat from his own head and he instinctively ducked, but both arm and hat had disappeared into the trees.
"I guess it thought yours would be a better fit," Sarah said with a grin.
Mendenhall cursed. He clicked on the spotlight and aimed it at the trees. He shined the bright light behind him and then all around. Then he quickly shut it off.
"Sarah, now, this is no shit; there are about a hundred…things in the trees."
Sarah seated her cap back on her head, still smiling. "Monkeys?"
Before he could respond, the deck was inundated with small objects they immediately recognized as exotic flowers, bananas, and berries of every sort. Then the night erupted with chattering, not monkeylike at all in its sound, or maybe it was, Sarah thought, but it was as if the animals in the trees were laughing: their chatter was interrupted by short gasps of air. Sanchez immediately called out for Mendenhall to shine the spotlight his way, that something was in his hair. As he did so, his and Sarah's eyes widened when the light fell on a shiny-skinned four-limbed creature that had its tail firmly wrapped around the corporal's neck. It was running its small hands through his thick, dark hair, jabbering, and appeared to be petting Sanchez.
"What in the hell is this thing?" he called out, afraid to move. "It's kind of fishy smelling."
Sarah couldn't believe what it was she was looking at. The animal was about three feet in length and for all practical purposes did resemble a monkey, except it had not one hair on its body. Sarah started breathing a little heavier than before as she carefully and slowly reached out to push the intercom button.
"Chief, kill the engines," she said.
Without asking any questions, Jenks shut down the diesels and the night went silent. Sarah could now hear the lone creature sitting atop the head of the marine coo and chirp. It almost sounded as if it were singing as it groomed the hair of Sanchez.
Sarah still had the button depressed for the intercom and without removing her eyes from the bizarre scene three sections back, she found the button for the sciences lab. She hoped someone was still working down there.
"Anyone up in science?" she said in a barely audible voice.
There was no answer. Then the deck hatch above her opened and Virginia stuck her head up.
"The master chief wants to know if there's a problem; he said he can't get through your intercom," she said as she climbed out onto deck. Then she saw Sarah was still holding down the talk switch on the communication intercom. Virginia looked to where Sarah was looking and froze. "Oh my god," she whispered and then without turning, pried Sarah's finger from the button. "We have a visitor, Chief; everyone's all right."
"A visitor?" he asked.
"This thing has scales, and its fingers are wet and they're webbed," Sanchez said, still not moving.
"Hold it together, Corporal, I don't think it's aggressive," Sarah managed to say.
The small creature looked up at the sound of the humans' voices and tilted its head. It jabbered softly, and then it stood and reached for a passing branch and easily lifted itself free of the corporal's head and disappeared into the canopy. Its swinging tail was the last thing they saw as it vanished completely.
Sarah reached down and picked up a twig that had berries still attached to it. She pulled one off and ate it.
"Good," she said.
"That's not a very good thing to do, not very scientific, Sarah," Virginia said as she picked up a beautiful species of orchid she had never seen. She smelled it and then placed it in her hair, above her ear. "Have Corporal Sanchez fill out a written report on his description of what occurred, even his feelings on the matter. Okay, Sarah?" Virginia added in a distant voice. "What an amazing animal."
Sarah watched Virginia reenter the hatch and then looked at Mendenhall. As she watched, a small hand jutted from the trees and slammed his bush hat back onto his head. He ducked as laughterlike chatter sounded all around the drifting boat.
The twin diesels fired back up and Teacher started forward again. This time, the three lookouts would have no trouble staying awake.
* * *
Most of the off-duty crew, twenty of them, were in the cramped dining section of Teacher eating a breakfast of ham and eggs as they listened to Mendenhall and Sarah tease Sanchez about his strange encounter in the dark morning hours.
"And these creatures weren't aggressive at all, or timid?" Ellenshaw asked, his white hair looking as if a garden hoe had churned it up.
"Well, ask the corporal, he had a little better view than Will or I," Sarah said as she sipped her coffee with difficulty. Even hours later, it was difficult not to laugh.
Sanchez shot her a look and then had to smile himself. "No, I didn't exactly get the feeling they were timid," he said as he took a bite of his toast.
"And they definitely looked aquatic in nature; you actually saw the webbing between its small fingers?" Heidi Rodriguez asked.
"Saw and felt it," the corporal said, losing his appetite for his toast. "And it smelled to high heaven, like… well, fish."
As they talked, they heard Teacher's engines shut down.
"All hands are asked to join Major Collins on the upper sun deck," Jenks's voice said over the intercom.
Sarah looked out of the large window as she rose and saw it first. "Jesus, look at that," she said as she hurried from the dining section toward the nearest stairwell that led upward to the deck above.
The others glanced out the windows and then hurriedly followed Sarah.
* * *
Jack and Professors Nathan and Pollock were on deck with the rest of the first watch. Virginia was busy snapping pictures and Nathan had a video camera out, documenting the amazing sight above them that had been illuminated by the boat's external floodlights.
Sarah joined Jack and shaded her eyes from the bright glare. "Beyond belief," was her simple statement.
"What in the hell are they supposed to be?" Jenks said as he joined them after placing Teacher's automated systems online.
Towering above them, on both sides of the tributary, stood two eighty-foot statues. They were ancient with vines and other vegetation growing from age cracks in their stone.
"They're like no Incan gods I have ever seen," Nathan said as he continued to film with the camera.
"They are carved directly from the granite of the cliff," Virginia said as she turned to photograph the other one on the opposite bank. "They're identical depictions of the same… same deity," she said, snapping four quick pictures.
"Look at the hands," Jack said.
The large hands of the carvings were webbed, like those of the small creatures that were reported by Sarah and her night watch. The statues had scales like a fish and the body was humanlike, very massive, and depicted strength. The head was the most amazing thing of all. Its features were that of a fish, but in the shape of a human head. Several rows of finlike flaps extended downward from the neck and head and draped just over its broad shoulders. The lips were thick, pursed like those of a fish; the nose was but two small holes; and they could make out the gills that ra
n along each side of the jaw in four distinct lines. But the most amazing feature was the way in which the carvers of these ancient statues had depicted the eyes. Although human in shape, they had dead dark pupils like those of sharks.
"Lord, look what the left hand of each is carrying," Nathan said as he lowered his camera.
A small human skull was grasped in each statue's left hand. Long claws were sunk into the bone in a disturbing and vicious illustration by the stone carvers.
"What would you say the scale is on that, Charles?" Virginia asked Ellenshaw, who was staring wide-eyed.
"If that is an accurate-size skull of an adult human, I would say the gods depicted here would be at least eight and half to nine feet tall, upright of course."
"It would have been one hell of a swimmer," Jack said. "Look at its feet."
The clawed feet were very long and wide, and they, too, were webbed. The powerful-looking legs had long fins down the back until they disappeared into the rock wall of the cliff. The arms also had fins, running along the back of the forearm to the wrists.
"All in all, not something I would care to run into either in the water, or out," Sarah said as she hugged herself. She remembered the fossilized hand, just as the others now recalled it.
"This must mean we're close to the valley and the lagoon," Professor Keating said.
"What makes you think that, Professor?" Jenks asked.
"Because these statues were placed here as a warning. They're guarding something," he said, looking at Jenks. "And I can't think of anything else they would be here to protect unless it was Padilla's lagoon, would you?"
The master chief placed back into his mouth the cigar he had been holding and clamped down with his teeth. "Well then, let's just go see what's so damned important that someone would carve statue, of their mother-in-law in the cliffs." He smiled at Virginia. "It must be good, whatever it is," he said as he turned and went below to get Teacher under way again.
The other thirty-plus members of her crew stayed on deck and watched the large statues slide past as they started downriver again. Most had to turn back for last looks as they just couldn't fathom why the Incan gods had never been cataloged or documented before; after all, there were lakes all over Peru, and her coastline was extensive. Why a water god way out here, and why one that was so different from the squat, rakish-looking gods of other Incan deities?
It was only Jack who noticed that the jungle and forest sounds had returned as they moved up river. What unnerved him was the fact that no one had noticed when they had ceased in the first place. Then he realized why: Teacher's voyagers had been so awed by the giant statues that they hadn't noticed they had drifted into sunlight for the first time, when the canopy of trees had given way to the carvings. Now that they had reentered the tree-covered tributary, the sounds of life had returned. Why had the birds and animal sounds stopped when they were in front of the carvings?
Jack turned and went over to Carl, who was scanning the river ahead with binoculars.
"Carl, go to Mendenhall and get sidearms from the weapons locker. Issue them to all security personnel; give one to Jenks and Sarah also."
"You got it, Jack. See something you didn't like?" Carl asked, handing him the binoculars.
"Yeah, two somethings, both of them about eighty feet high and representing something we may have a part of in fossilized form, and those things didn't look like they were welcoming people to this part of the river."
16
Teacher was still in semidarkness at noon. Every once in a while, dapples of bright sunlight would filter through in beams as bright as lasers. The oppressive heat and the sight of those strange carvings had unnerved the crew to the point that most were lost in their own thoughts. Before they had boarded, everyone had been briefed by each department on everything that was known about the original Padilla expedition, and now certain pages of those briefs were standing out like a lighted piece of artwork. Every man and woman onboard Teacher remembered the fossil and its estimated age from the carbon-14 tests that had been conducted. Although not official, the estimation of only five hundred years was now not just a curious fact, it was just a little scary, because the more one saw of this strange world, the more one could believe the existence of almost anything.
Jack was reading a tech manual on the operation of a small charge that could be used at depths up to two hundred feet, which was filled with Hydro-Rotenone, a tranquilizer used by research scientists and developed in Brazil for underwater catch-and-release programs. The hand grenade-size charges operated in exactly that fashion, except these silverish little eggs had a small switch that could be used to select certain depths to detonate a charge that would disperse the Hydro-Rotenone in a thirty-foot arch underwater.
"More toys?" Sarah asked as she sat next to Jack in the false twilight the canopy of trees had thrown them into.
He put the manual down and looked at Sarah, who was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blue blouse. She was freshly showered and smelled strongly of bug repellent.
"Love that perfume," he said as he lightly placed a hand on her leg, then removed it.
"It's all the rage in New York these days." She watched his hand for a brief moment, saddened that he couldn't leave it on her leg.
Teacher had run up to six knots, and the breeze the extra speed created felt good. They heard laughter coming from a few sections down, where most of the science team was out on deck getting some air after lunch. Mendenhall was on duty with Jenks, and Sanchez and Carl were learning the fine points of the submersible operation in the engine room. Jack raised his head and wondered aloud were Danielle Serrate was.
"The last I saw, she was in the computer library doing something," Sarah said. "Why, are you starting to wonder what her motives are?"
"Yeah, it's hard to believe they're just ex-husband motivated, but with her being the head of her agency and being sanctioned by her government in the assistance she's shown, I wouldn't care to guess what her real motives would be."
"Does the fact that Carl is getting close to her affect your way of thinking?"
"Everett is a grown man; I think he knows how to handle himself. It's been over a year since he lost Lisa, and I think it's time he starts realizing there are other women in the world. Besides, have you ever in the last year heard him talk so much?"
"Yeah, I—"
They were interrupted by the very object of their conversation, as Danielle bounded up through the open hatch.
"Jack, look over the side!" she said as she made the deck and leaned over the gunwale.
The major stood and went to Danielle's side and Sarah to her other. Jack immediately saw what she was indicating and turned and ran for the boat's intercom, where he slammed down the proper button.
"Kill the engines, Chief," he said loudly as he again switched buttons and hit the one marked eng.
"Carl, are you still in engineering?"
"Still here," he said.
"Get someone and get to the fantail; use a boat hook and snag those bodies," Jack said hurriedly.
Jack heard the engines shut down. He hurried to the hatch and made his way down the spiral stairs. He quickly ran aft to the engine room. The double rear doors were open to the fantail. One of the detachable chairs went flying as the men maneuvered to arrest the floating bodies with boat hooks. As Jack joined them, he saw the bodies were bloated.
"Goddammit!" he said as he reached out and opened the railing. The four men struggled, bringing the two bodies aboard over the fantail just above the black letters that spelled out Teacher.
"Oh," Carl said as the smell hit them. He gently rolled over the larger of the two and saw that it was a man clad in a diver's wetsuit. The neoprene was stretched beyond endurance and had split in the upper arm and thigh areas. The face was bloated and misshaped. But that didn't keep them from seeing the deep gouges that had been inflicted upon the man's face.
Jack heard noise behind them and saw Virginia and Dr. Allison Waltrip, the surgeo
n from the Group, as they hurried through the double doors. Virginia gasped but Waltrip immediately bent over the two still forms. The three marines backed away and turned to face the slow-flowing river. The doctor moved from the larger to the smaller of the two. She gently rolled it over and saw that it was a girl who couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-one. This corpse was bloated like the other, but had no injuries that were readily apparent. Her eyes were wide in death and glazed over with a milky substance that made Virginia partially turn away before she remembered her professionalism. Dr. Waltrip started feeling around the body for a wound. The girl was dressed in shorts and a blouse; it reminded Jack of the very clothes Sarah was wearing. The doctor ran her fingers through the girl's hair and then stopped.
"Gunshot wound to her temple. My guess she was dead before she entered the water, but I can't be sure without an autopsy."
Then her attention was drawn back to the large man in the wetsuit. "His injuries are extensive. The face wounds wouldn't have been life threatening," she rolled the man over, "but these wounds are deep enough to have severed several arteries in his back and lungs." She probed the open wounds with her finger, making everyone cringe just a little. As she ran her fingers along one of the larger gouges, she extracted something and held it up to the deck light. It was rounded and ridged and it seemed to shine, giving off rainbow effects in the light.
"What is it, Doctor?" Carl asked.
"I don't know." She looked closer. "That almost looks like a hair follicle on the bottom, see?" She held it up for all to examine.
"I think I know what that is," Heidi said as she stepped up and took the object from the doctor.
"What?" Carl asked.
"It looks exactly like a fish scale — a damned big one, but a fish scale." Jack walked to the railing and looked out on the water. "Dr. Waltrip, can you get a good picture in two hours of how they died?"
"I can try," she said.
Jack walked to the fantail intercom and informed Jenks that they would anchor in the middle of the tributary for two hours while autopsies were performed on the two bodies. Then he watched as the men moved the bodies to the section seven medical labs.
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