by Warren Fahy
Hender was ably backed up by Andy and Cynthea, who were seated at his side as the feed from the press conference was broadcast around the world. Commentators remarked that not since man had landed on the moon had such a global sensation monopolized all human communications in such a simultaneous event. Hender treated it as practice for the event scheduled for tonight: a formal gala in his honor at the London Natural History Museum.
There might never have been a more desirable party to attend in London. Hender was told that everyone would be there.
8:47 P.M.
Hender took a long shower with six showerheads in his amazing bathroom. He was able to blast the water pressure to get between the tendrils of his fur, which, after drying off with his four blow-dryers, left him refreshed and agreeable for the night’s festivities as his skin breathed freely again, enriching his blood with oxygen. Without their symbiants, a thorough shower was the only way sels could exfoliate.
Andy smelled the pleasant copper penny and cilantro odor exuding from his sel friend and knew that Hender was nervous as they neared their destination. Hender’s fur began displaying fireworks of anticipation as they arrived, and he squeezed Andy’s hand with one of his hands.
The small motorcade that had conveyed them from the hotel came to a stop near the cascade of steps in front of a vast and beautiful building carved in stone. It reminded Hender of the cliff of Henders Island, though it was artfully sculpted into windows, pillars, and arches. With three hands, the sel nervously fingered the invitation he had received in a gold-lined envelope, spindling the paper in three directions as he climbed to the entrance of the “museum.”
Flanked by dozens of guards in dark suits, Hender moved nimbly up the steps on four legs like a centaur between Cynthea and Andy, his fur sparkling bursts of color as he held up his rumpled invitation with one of his upper hands.
“How do you feel, Hender?” Andy asked.
“Awesome,” Hender shivered.
They passed under the arched doorway that was like a cave entrance between two towers of rock, and Hender pulled back as he saw inside: the place was filled with humans, on the ground below and along a giant stone ramp to a ledge above where more of them were crowded and looking down at him all around. They all wore “tuxedos” like Andy’s that were nearly all the same or else they wore gowns as varied as flowers in the humans’ gardens. Females wore the gowns.
In the center of the room, Hender suddenly noticed a huge creature with a soaring neck, and he reached four arms back to protect Andy and Cynthea. The humans around him gasped as he disappeared, using his light-sensitive fur to hide himself.
“That’s a skeleton,” Andy said, realizing that the bones of the Diplodocus arching like a roller coaster inside the museum’s foyer had startled the sel. “It’s a fossil of an animal that died millions of years ago!”
“A fossil? That’s a fossil?” Hender withdrew his arms and folded them as he reappeared, staring in awe at the sauropod skeleton.
The people all turned to him like petals of Henders clover turning toward the sun. One person called for everyone’s silence, and Hender was formally introduced by an important human, to deafening applause that lasted five full minutes, much to Hender’s amazement.
At Andy’s suggestion, Hender waved four arms above his head in greeting, to an even louder ovation.
The crowd quickly quieted when a microphone was handed to Hender.
“Speak into it,” Andy urged him. “Like a microphone. Say hello!”
“Hello, everyone.”
A swoon swept over all who heard his voice speak English. Then there was a profound and sustained moment of applause that rocked the building like an earthquake.
“Thank you!” Hender finally said, overcome by the thunderous response. “You are amazing! This place is great. I love my hotel room! Congratulations! Let’s party! OK?”
Everything he said exhorted more applause as a massive cheer swelled to a global roar through the cameras that broadcast the event to the world, live.
A series of people introduced themselves and posed for pictures with him in front of the giant sauropod skeleton while clasping one of his hands. The great nature documentarian, Sir Nigel Holscomb, who had narrowly survived Henders Island, introduced himself to Hender then, and when he noticed Hender had a BlackBerry, he insisted, to a round of cheers, that they exchange tweets, which Hender happily did, bestowing forty-five million followers on him in an hour.
A bewhiskered and bespectacled man who Cynthea claimed was a noted scientist came forward now and called Hender’s attention to a display case containing hendro artifacts.
“Oh, cool!” Hender said. He noticed replicas of some of Kuzu’s weapons, which were made from human flotsam fused with native materials.
“I was admiring sel craftwork,” said the gray-haired man. “You sels are quite ingenious!”
“I am not all sels and all sels are not me. My friend, Kuzu, made these.”
“Ah … Of course.”
Hender met a woman who seemed to be wearing flowing gold. He flushed striped waves of purple and pink on his fur coat to see what the reflection would look like on her gown. “I love your clothes,” he said.
She nodded, awestruck. “Thank you!”
“You must miss your island,” said one guest, a movie star quite well known to Cynthea and Andy.
“You have never been there,” Hender replied, triggering a round of laughter. He shrugged. “This is much better. Much safer.”
Hender was captivated by the setting for the party, which featured a collection of amazing things. As a collector himself, his attention was taken away from one point of interest to another as he wandered up the stairs to the next level of the museum. Cynthea, Andy, and Zero struggled to stay close as he drew a growing train of humans with him. A couple of eminent scientists managed to keep up, along with a huffing and puffing Sir Nigel.
Hender ran up to the museum’s wall. “Oooh! What’s up here? This is nice!” He pointed at a light sconce between exhibits.
“Yes,” said one man. “That is one of our better inventions.”
“You invented it?”
“Oh, no, no.”
“Why do you say our, then?”
“Well, you’re right, Hender. Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.”
“I like Thomas Edison.”
“Yes, Hender.”
Hender smelled food now and moved forward on four feet, gracefully parting the guests as he found a table where shrimp and other hors d’oeuvres were spread over a bank of ice. “Yum!” he said, feeling his hunger. He attacked the shrimp and deviled eggs with four hands. As he reached for another prawn, Hender noticed marks on the wrist of a very old human. He pointed with one iridescent finger. “Color!”
“Tattoo.”
“Numbers?”
“Yes.”
Hender noticed the man was bald and had a white goatee. Human hair changed color, too, he thought, but only over a long period of time. “Why?”
“It was given to me when I was a child.” The man’s eyes seemed very wet. “When I was a prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” Hender asked.
“Yes. Because my people, my tribe, were different, they put us in a place where we could not escape, a prison, so they could kill us.”
“Oh. I’m a prisoner, too.” Hender held the man’s hand.
Another man chimed in. “Yes, Hender, I’m afraid we are capable of awful things.”
“You did this?” Hender drew back, afraid.
“No, no!” said the man. “Other humans did. A long time ago. Not me.”
“Oh,” Hender was relieved, the color returning to his coat. “Don’t say we!”
“OK, Hender.”
“A lot of humans say we too much,” Hender said.
11:02 P.M.
Hender waved good-bye to the gathering at the entrance of the museum, his coat turning magenta, and the crowds gave him a deafening send-off after an evening that was
already being breathlessly reported as a triumph around the world.
On the ride back to the hotel in the motorcade, Hender opened some of the small gifts he had been given, which had been cleared through the security people who intercepted them. He now had a handsome gold magnifying glass, a fantastic pen encrusted with jewels that dazzled his eyes, and a beautiful lighter for creating fire with a click of the finger, an invention Hender regarded as miraculous. On Henders Island, he had collected some disposable plastic lighters on the beach below his house, and Kuzu had figured out how to strike sparks with them; but none of these devices had ever made a flame by themselves.
It started to rain. Hender rolled down the window and smelled the scents that were as varied, noxious, sweet, and pungent as the scents of his native island. Their Phantom rushed through the night as the rain made the endless streets and cars and buildings glisten. The enormous car deposited Hender and his entourage in front of the hotel, where shoulder-to-shoulder police held back the bursting crowd.
Andy noticed that the packed onlookers seemed unruly. As Hender stood waving among the sea of people, they converged on him with dangerous pressure. Despite Andy’s apprehension, Hender was at ease now, waving four hands and rising on two legs over the police line, which incited an eruption of applause and cheers. To the horror of those guarding him, Hender contracted and disappeared, rising on the other side of the barrier. Amid an explosion of flashing cameras, he reappeared in vivid color and shook the people’s hands four at a time, deciding that he liked humans very much.
A tall man with a shaved, tattooed head shoved his way through the others in front of Hender. Hender noticed that three of the bald man’s upper teeth were made of gold. Rushing behind, his bodyguards saw the man raise one muscular arm. A butcher knife flashed in his pale fist. “Piss off, ya grotty devil!” he screamed, and he leaped at the sel, the blade flashing as he plunged it down at Hender’s chest.
Before any of the bodyguards could intervene, Hender moved four hands in a blur of motions, removing the knife from the yob’s hand with two hands and slamming him on his back on the sidewalk with two more, pinning him with five hands. Red waves of light rippled across Hender’s fur as blood pooled under the groaning man’s head on the pavement.
The crowd clapped but then backed away, stunned at the lethal display Hender had unleashed on his attacker. Dozens of phones and cameras had recorded the assault from every angle.
Immediately, Hender was surrounded by uniformed humans, who shouted as they gently put themselves between him and his assailant and quickly extricated him from the crowd. Hender gave the police the man’s knife as they cuffed and carried the man away on a stretcher.
Hender’s security detail rushed him into the hotel, and Andy trotted along with him. “Awesome kung fu, Hender,” Zero said.
“Yeah, good work, man!” Andy said.
“Thank you, Andy. I’m sorry I hurt the man.”
“It’s OK, Hender,” Cynthea said.
“He was trying to kill you!” Andy said angrily.
“I hope nobody’s mad.”
“He was an asshole,” Zero growled.
As they entered a private elevator, Andy gave Cynthea and Zero a worried look.
“I want to sleep now, guys,” Hender said. “For four hours. OK?”
“OK,” Andy said.
“See you in a while, Hender. You were great tonight!” Cynthea said. “Don’t worry!”
“Thank you, Cynthea.” As he stood inside his door, his fur washed out and grayed suddenly. “Good night.” Hender closed the door to his room softly.
Andy’s cell phone rang. “Yes? Oh. Really. That’s a shame. I see. No, thanks, I think it sucks, but, yeah … because it sucks! It wasn’t his fault! Right, bye.” He looked devastated.
“What?” Zero asked.
“They canceled the audience with the Queen tomorrow.”
“Why?” Zero asked.
“Security reasons.”
“Oh, shit!” Cynthea said.
“What did they say?” asked Zero.
“They said it would be better to postpone the Royal visit until further review.”
“Give me that schmuck’s phone number, Andy,” Cynthea said.
Andy shook his head. “It’s no use, Cynthea. They’ve made up their minds.”
11:59 P.M.
Nestled in the blue whirlpool of blankets on his giant bed, Hender worked quietly on the next bit of his book, working off his nervousness so he could go to sleep:
The 2nd Darkness
According to the Books, 64,985,121 years ago. There were only eight petals on Henderica, and eight tribes, which kept to themselves when they weren’t fighting before the second darkness came.
There were over a million sels then, and they built great things like humans do today. Some dreamed of things that could carry them across the poison sea. But when the waves came they carried two petals and two tribes away as the sky turned black.
Sels found the tunnels made by treno trees, whose roots had lived and died and melted away. The tunnels twisted hundreds of miles under the ground. While all other plants died above, the warring tribes came together to save the trenos. For four years, the six tribes fed the trees underground. And they wrote the first Books, to remember.
All of your “dinosaurs” died then. I’m glad. I don’t think I would have met humans if they had lived. But maybe I would have met something else, instead.
MARCH 20
11:31 A.M. MAXIM TIME
Geoffrey came out of their dorm after a fitful sleep. He saw that the others were peering through the window of the maternity ward excitedly.
“Trees,” Dimitri said. “They must be trees! But they’re moving.…”
“They’re Henders trees,” Otto said.
“They’re animals,” Katsuyuki explained.
“They only look like trees,” Geoffrey said as he approached them and looked through the glass. A miniature jungle had sprung up over the last week and formed tunnels five feet tall through which ravenous jet streams of Henders bugs and even rats now circulated. A variety of the pseudo-palms retracted lines of glistening bait-eggs that dangled from their fronds.
Geoffrey looked at Katsuyuki wearily. “How did these species get to an island off Japan, Katsuyuki?” he asked. “Did you ever figure that out?”
“We think they came from a jar in a raft that washed ashore.”
“A raft?” Geoffrey wondered suddenly. “Thatcher?”
“Yes, actually!” Katsuyuki exclaimed. “We found Thatcher Redmond in the raft.”
“Alive?”
“No! Very dead.”
“A bug jar from Hender’s house must have been in the Zodiac,” Geoffrey muttered. “Oh, Christ! We used jars of glowing animals to signal the boat that rescued us. We must have left one in the raft! But Hender’s jars didn’t have rats in them.… Where did they come from?”
“You call those rats?” Dimitri said. “They have eight legs and—and two sets of eyes—”
“Yes, and they have two brains,” Geoffrey conceded. “They’re mammal-like arthropods that evolved in isolation on Henders Island. We just called them rats. What I don’t understand is how they got off the island.”
“All of this came from one suitcase of specimens,” insisted Dimitri.
“Do you have any photographic record of what was in that suitcase?”
“Yes, of course.” Dimitri called up a gallery of images on a laptop.
Geoffrey took over from him and scrolled through the images. One photo showed two brown lumps that looked like dates. He paused on them and zoomed in.
“What?” Katsuyuki said.
“Resting eggs?” Geoffrey muttered. He looked up at Katsuyuki. “Like the kind copepods and daphnia lay during periods of stress to make clones?”
“Yes.” Katsuyuki nodded. “A very effective survival mechanism. You think Henders rats might use resting eggs, too?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. May
be Hender put them in his light jars as a food supply for the bugs. I wish he were here so I could ask him. If those things are resting eggs and they hatched into clones and mated, they would have exchanged millions of sex cells by now. Both would be assembly lines of baby rats, as would all of their offspring.”
“But how could those ‘trees’ get here?” Dimitri asked.
“They’re related to disk-ants.” Geoffrey peered through the clear spots as he moved along the window. “A certain percentage of disk-ants latch on to the ground and metamorphose into about six or seven varieties of animal that superficially resemble palm trees.”
“How long was this island isolated?” Dimitri muttered in amazement.
“More than half a billion years, three supercontinents ago,” Otto said.
“Hey!” Geoffrey spotted something as he reached the center of the window and looked down. The others gathered round and looked where he pointed.
Hundreds of eight-legged Henders “rats” were speeding through tunnels between the trees. They seemed to be converging on a spot four feet from the window, where they delivered regurgitated food to a single rat that had grown to the size of a German shepherd.
“Oh, no,” Otto whispered.
“Does that camera work?” Geoffrey pointed at the camera mounted on a track inside the chamber above the window.
“Yes.” Dimitri pointed out the control toggle at the end of a conduit hanging down from a hole drilled above the window.
“You drilled through the wall there?” Geoffrey asked as he reached up to toggle the camera down.
“Yes. But we filled the holes with cement,” said Dimitri.
Geoffrey shook his head grimly as he rotated the camera down.
Dimitri grabbed his wrist and stopped him. “Careful, my friend! We don’t want to break the window.”
Geoffrey agreed. “You do it, then.”
Geoffrey observed as the Russian used the controls to toggle the heavy camera housing that was mounted on a thick steel arm. The camera slid along the track at the top of the window inside the chamber. When the camera reached them, Geoffrey said, “Point it down at that thing and let’s get a look at it.”
