by Barry Klemm
He turned to the Padre now.
“Did they scream?” he asked.
Munro, the geophysicist from the US Geological Survey, who had taken charge of the site, frowned at the question. He was acting as interpreter. Thyssen needed to raise his eyebrows to get the question passed on.
No. The women screamed but the men did not.
There were no other witnesses to the event. The villages above the mission from where the victims had come were now deserted, exorcised and burned. All the boats were gone from the roadstead below. Things were so quiet around the mission these days that Padre Miguel was thinking of moving on.
“And they were the same men? The same ones who were in the coma three months earlier?”
Yes. They were the same men. It was said the demons possessed them while they slept.
“And none of them survived, and no man who was not in the coma died here.”
That is so. Except, of course, the women they dragged over with them.
Munro, a long skinny Southerner with blonde hair and glasses, looked far more convincingly a scientist than Thyssen, who might have more resembled a pioneer mountain man, or the boss of a biker gang. Munro was continually saying things to the Padre that Thyssen did not ask, and mostly they were reassurances that Thyssen was to be respected. Now that the wave of journalists and tourists had passed, the Padre had settled into deep suspicion of all strangers.
“How were the boats arranged when the men were first found in the coma?”
Munro could answer that himself, with a slight irritation.
“They were in a circle as you would expect.”
“Expect? Why?”
“The shockwave would have pushed them all outward from the centre.”
“All of them?”
“No. But those inside the circle all perished, and those outside it suffered no effects.”
“Interesting.”
Munro shook his head. “Harley, we’ve already explored all those possibilities. We tested for bacteria and chemical effects emitted from the caldera during the eruption. As we expected, it was too deep for anything like that to reach the surface.”
“But there was turbulence. The shockwave that pushed the boats into a circle.”
“True. At eight hundred feet depth, you wouldn’t expect that. But it was only very slight.”
“Yet severe enough to kill these men three months later.”
“We can’t be sure there is a connection.”
“There has to be. Sixty-three men are knocked unconscious in their boats during the eruption—all of them at the same distance from the epicentre. All sixty-three lie in a coma for eight days, all recover on the same day and eight weeks later, all sixty-three take a casual stroll to Kingdom Come at the same time. How can you imagine there is no connection?”
Munro hissed with exasperation through the gap in his front teeth. “I didn’t say there wasn’t a connection. They are obviously linked by a common series of experiences. What I mean is that there is no evidence of a common cause. Not a trace.”
“You mean, none that you’ve been able to find.”
“Oh, you imagine that you can find something where thirty of your peers failed?”
“No. I don’t. Perhaps everyone looked in the wrong places. Or perhaps all trace of the cause had been eradicated before they started looking.”
“There’s always traces, Harley. You know that.”
Thyssen gazed at him severely.
“Under the circumstances, I’m not prepared to be convinced of anything that I thought I knew, Munro. And you shouldn’t be either.”
They stood for a time, in the sun and gentle breeze. Like its cause, there no trace of the tragedy that had happened here. That was only in the minds and memories of men. Then the Padre was speaking.
“It is time for mass. The Padre asks if you have finished with him?”
“One more question,” Thyssen said first and then thought of the question second. “Of all of the people he had talked to about this, did the Padre hear of anyone who had experienced anything similar.”
The translation took some time and the Padre shook his head at first, but then his face cleared of doubt and he spoke again.
“There was a woman,” Munro translated. “A doctor, from New Guinea or somewhere. She telephoned, apparently. Said she had treated patients with a similar condition. She predicted they would recover in seven or eight days with no ill effects. But there were language problems and nothing much is clear.”
Thyssen nodded, and then asked very directly. “Are you sure it wasn’t New Zealand?”
*
This was the place, there was no doubt about it, even if Chrissie could not see why it might have been. There was no questioning her faith and if it guided them to someplace in the middle of nowhere, then that was the divine plan. Lorna, sweating, unsuitably dressed, swatting at flies, might not have liked it, but that was the way it was. And then there was this truck driver who had parked right where the divinity least wanted him. Some people had no sense of perspective.
They had hung around the campsite while the man stirred himself and then stirred the fire to life and put the billy on. Now he was squatting in front of the fire and although evening was coming on, it was by no means cool. Lorna, exasperated by his gaze, hung back and Chrissie had to go forward.
“Excuse me. Is this your property?”
“Nope,” the man grunted.
“Do you live around here?”
“Nope.”
“Is there any reason that you’re here?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Oh,” Chrissie said. She had run out of questions. Usually, this was the bit where Lorna babbled out a lot of questions and found out the man’s entire history in five minutes, but instead she sat on a jerry can and looked grumpy, swishing at the flies madly.
The man regarded her far too long, before he reached into a pack at his feet and produced a can of insect repellent. He threw it to her. “Give that a bash.”
Lorna caught it deftly but it wasn’t a brand she liked. She scowled.
“When the sun goes down, the mozzies’ll eat yer alive,” the man said offhandedly.
Lorna sprayed liberally and then passed the can to Chrissie, who also hesitated. Was it right to kill a few hundred of God’s creatures at such a moment? For the moment was close, she could feel it. They had arrived just in time. But then she reasoned that the creatures would not be killed but only repelled. She gave herself a few disdainful blasts, took a couple of paces forward and handed the can back to the man. His hand was very grubby.
In fact she could not work it out. All along she was expecting to meet someone here—this man just wasn’t the image she had in mind.
“Just makin’ tea,” the man said in his gruff tones. “Want some?”
“Yes please,” Chrissie smiled, and Lorna scowled but finally nodded.
The man grabbed a handful of tea from the packet and chucked it in the billy. Oh boy. When the water boiled, he stood, picked up the billy by the handle and swung it. That did it.
“Are you for real?” Lorna snarled at him.
“Girlie, I reckon you’re the one that don’t exactly blend into the landscape.”
“Who could?” Lorna snapped.
*
The pager summoned her to the reception desk where an urgent call awaited. In fact it wasn’t so much urgent as long distance, the admissions nurse pointed out as she handed the receiver over. “Dr Campbell speaking.”
From the other end, the voice boomed so loudly that she had to hold the receiver away from her ear. The admissions nurse needed to put a hand over her smile.
“My name is Harley Thyssen, Professor of Vulcanology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I’m sorry to call so precipitously but I think we have something in common, Dr Campbell.”
Felicity tried to take it in, but really she was wondering if this was one of her patients that she had forgotten, despite the f
act that it could not be. “I’m afraid I don’t understand...”
“Allow me to navigate the conversation for a few moments, Dr Campbell. If you can answer a couple of simple questions, the matter might be expedited.”
“Sure. Okay,” she said, irritated to notice that she was already mimicking his American accent.
“I understand that some time ago you made telephone contact with Father Miguel Sierra of the Magaria Mission on Gran Canaria Island? Is that so?”
“Well... yes...”
“The good father tells me that you wished to discuss the circumstances of some of your own patients in regard to the medical condition of sixty-three patients previously under his care?”
“That’s right. There seemed to be similarities between six people I treated here and those...”
“Yes. And these patients were all victims of the Ruapehu eruption?”
“Yes,” Felicity said softly. A mighty sense of relief swept through her. Here, then, was someone who understood.
The voice on the other end, who to Felicity might still have been that of a god, allowed a satisfied pause. “Okay, Dr Campbell. First let me praise your diligence. And add that I, like you, am investigating the connection between the volcanic activity and the comatose conditions of the victims. I’d like it if we can pool our resources.”
Felicity baulked. There were, after all, matters of patient confidentiality to consider, not to mention that the hospital would be none too pleased if the matter was not directed through the proper channels. She would have said all that, had she not suddenly realised that she did not even remember the name of the man to whom she was speaking. From the desk she snatched up a pad and pen and asked him to repeat his personal details. Professor, no less. MIT, no less. Thyssen answered patiently.
“Dr Campbell, we cannot hope to achieve much with this call. I am merely attempting to touch base.”
“I don’t know how I can be of any assistance...” Felicity said helplessly.
“You already have been. You made the connection. However, I must point out that at this stage, there is no evidence to support that connection whatsoever, except that of coincidence.”
“Oh.”
“Nevertheless, we must proceed.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Have you maintained contact with the six patients?”
“Yes. One of them is still here in Wellington Hospital. His condition is steadily improving and he ought to be able to be released in a few months. I observed unusual behaviour in that patient and then wrote to the medical practitioners responsible for the others. They reported their patients as normal, with respect to their on-going conditions. More recently, two days ago in fact, I tried to contact the patients themselves. None were available to speak to me.”
“None of them?”
“One was under sedation, as indeed Mr Wagner is here. The other four had all gone away and no one seemed to be able to tell me where.”
“Excellent, Dr Campbell. Fine work indeed. Okay, so obviously we need more details. I wonder if you would be good enough to provide the data you have on the six patients, their condition and progress and present circumstances and send it to me at MIT. To which, I will reciprocate with all the information I have on Gran Canaria and other incidents. Then, each of us will be in a position to know more precisely what we are talking about.”
The enormity of it once more shook Felicity to the core and she procrastinated desperately—if only to give herself time to think. “There will be limitations in regard to patient confidentiality...”
“Of course. I too will have to withhold certain information until its security classification is more clearly known. But the more you can tell me and the more I can tell you, the better our chances of determining just what this condition is and what the connection is, if any.”
“All right then...” Felicity sighed, knowing that there was no time in her schedule for such a task, but the true concern then came to her. “Do you think they are in danger?”
“Yes, I do,” Thyssen said chillingly. “And if we are right, it could be that a great many other people will be in danger in the future. We really need to get on with this, urgently.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you doctor. No doubt we’ll speak again. Until then, I suggest discretion. This all might amount to nothing. We wouldn’t want to make complete fools of ourselves before the public, would we?”
*
They had taken his battery away again, and once more the chase was on through the corridors of Fairhaven as Joe attempted his umpteenth escape by hand. At least, he mused, it was building the strength of his arms. For he had suddenly stopped, and the two nurses in pursuit almost ran into the back of him. They stood to either side, hanging onto the wheelchair grimly, panting desperately. Joe flinched in pain several times and then suddenly became calm.
“Perhaps you’ll be good enough to push me back to my room,” he smiled up at them.
*
Felicity looked over the monitors grimly. Kevin Wagner, sedated to oblivion, was at peace at last.
“Same as last time,” Turley said.
“Yes, I know,” Felicity said in quiet bewilderment. “I watched it happen. He just grew more and more agitated until finally he threatened to become violent. But now, all of a sudden, he’s calm again. I just don’t understand it.”
*
Andromeda gave out a few extra snores and that was it. She had passed out on the floor of the motel room, hours ago, her second bottle of Vodka half-drunk, tilted from her hand. In the middle of nowhere, nowhere had been the only place to go.
*
Chrissie could feel the moment was close. She sat on the bull bar of the truck and gazed at the sky away to the east, sipping the tea out of the dirty cup in which it had been offered. Lorna sulked and drank. The man squatted and regarded the fire. It was ridiculous.
And then the sensation came upon them and they sat, stiffening their bodies, bowing their heads, gritting their teeth. The nausea swept up through their feet, erupting through their bodies into their brains. The man sat back on his heels with a grunt, Lorna almost fell off the jerry can as she wrapped her hands across her midriff, Chrissie clutched the bull bar and tried to raise her head. The Angel of Judgement passed by and hurried on toward the west and the moment was over.
Lorna unravelled and stood up, dusting herself off embarrassedly. She had spilled most of her tea and the tin cup hung uselessly from her fingers. The man stood and bent forward, resting his hands on his knees. Chrissie rose and walked unsteadily, studying everything. But it was gone. They had been passed over again.
The man then straightened and looked around.
“Well, I gotta go now. Can I give you girls a ride somewhere?”
*
An unnamed mountain, insignificant amid the neighbouring peaks of the Southern Andes, suddenly exploded. Amid rain and storms, the brilliant flash reached no human eyes, and the tremendous roar no ears, or if it did was mistook for distant thunder. Like the tree that fell in the forest, no one saw or knew it had happened. The massive ash cloud pumped up to be lost amid the swirling hurricane, the shaking of the earth disturbed no feet. Lava burst from the crater and spilled down the slopes and there were a couple of further blasts an hour or so later but then the mountain, even less significant now with its cap blown away and replaced by a rugged crater, began to quieten again and slide back into obscurity.
And anyway, had the eruption been noticed, it would hardly have been regarded of importance. This was Tierra de Fuego, The Land of Fire, the great island amid thousands below the Strait of Magellan, a disjointed tail of the Andes and snow-bound tundra, eternally under grey clouds or so it seemed. This was the land, they said, where the sun never shone. In fact it did, but always so feebly it could be ignored.
There were people who lived there but on the flat lands further north, eking out an existence in the most inhospitable land on earth. None of the
m saw the eruption nor felt its tremors, and such events were so common anyway that they would have thought nothing of it in any case.
It was even of little interest to vulcanologists, being so remote, amid so many other greater recent eruptions and mightier mountains, away from all civilisation.
When the seismic readings came through, there was perhaps only one person in the world who took any note of it. Jami Shastri shook her head in dismay.
“Why don’t these things happen where someone can get near them?” she murmured.
It briefly crossed her mind that she was asking for the death of multitudes. She shuddered as she made her way to Thyssen’s office with the preliminary data hardcopy in her hand. He was still in the Canary Islands, as far as she knew, but wherever he was, he would want to know about this right away.
5. BEYOND COINCIDENCE
She stood in the doorway, watching him pack like a wife who had just kicked out her husband and began to regret it before he got out the door. Kevin Wagner was hurriedly pushing his belongings into an overnight bag—wherever he was going, it wouldn’t be for long.
