Fragment

by Warren Fahy

  “Looks like a cargo cult,” Thatcher mused as they came around another bend in the stairs and amidst the flotsam saw a life preserver stenciled with faded dark blue letters: R.M.S. LUSITANIA.

  “Thank you, God!” Zero laughed as he videoed it with his handheld and head-mounted cameras.

  Nell glanced at Geoffrey behind her, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Geoffrey nodded and impulsively squeezed her hand.

  As they came through a level passage they saw artifacts that were clearly more recently acquired: pieces of ROVs, an Army helmet, even an Incredible Hulk action figure.

  Hender opened a door. They emerged on a huge branch under the umbrella of the tree’s canopy.

  Below, attached to the trunk of the tree, hung an enormous waterwheel-like structure.

  From the wheel spooled a thick cable of braided green fiber. The cable ran through a pulley on a branch that reached over the cliff.

  A basket the size of the Trident’s large Zodiac hung at the end of the cable against the orange glow of the setting sun, swinging slowly in the steady wind that blew seven hundred feet above the sea.

  Hender pointed at the basket and then at some of the garbage stacked in piles on the wide branch.

  “Hender’s got an elevator,” Andy told them.

  “That must be how he got his collection! The elevator must go down to a beach where he got all this stuff.”

  “Trash,” Thatcher said, glancing back at Cane. “Humanity’s calling card.”

  “Um,” Zero looked around nervously, “should we be out here?”

  “It’s OK, Zero,” Andy assured him. “The tree gives off some kind of bug repellent. We’re safe here.”

  Nell laughed. “This is a plant,” she sighed. “The first actual plant on this island!”

  Andy smiled. “Too bad it doesn’t have a flower, Nell.”

  “I wonder if they evolved together.” Geoffrey watched Hender climb nimbly to a high branch and extend his arms in a double V. A soulful, lilting call resonated through a chamber in the creature’s cranial crest.

  A distant chorus of four similar horn-calls answered from across the bowl of the island.

  “We’ve heard that before,” Andy said. “Remember, Nell?”

  Tears of shame brimmed in her eyes as she remembered the nightmarish voices the outboard mikes had picked up in StatLab echoing across the island. “Yes…”

  “So there are four more of them,” Thatcher said.

  “OK,” Geoffrey said, decisively. “We need a pow-wow. Now.”

  7:23 P.M.

  Hender led them back down to the B-29 fuselage, where Andy managed to tell him with hand signals that he and his human friends needed some privacy.

  Hender nodded. He gestured with four hands toward the nose of the B-29, where the humans proceeded to congregate as Hender stayed near the front door, his back turned discreetly.

  “We have to save them,” Nell began, standing before the patchwork window in the cockpit. The way the plane jutted over the ocean, she felt almost as if they were flying.

  Cane stood with his eyes closed as if this were a bad dream. Words had come out of the mouth of what looked like a prop in a horror movie—it had called him by his name, and now there were more of them coming. He could not piece this together with the world he came from; it seemed like the world was splitting in two beneath him. He did not see the soul of his Creator in this monster. He saw another force, of awesome power, that had acted without any regard for human sensibilities to invest this animal with the appearance of a soul. Cane was convinced he was closer than he had ever been to the presence of the Devil.

  “I was about to give up on this island myself,” Geoffrey told the others. “But I think we just found the only benign species possible here: intelligent beings. Think of it!”

  “We have to tell the President,” Andy said. “We have to stop them.”

  “Absolutely,” Zero said, recording them with both cameras.

  “Let’s get to the Humvee and radio the base,” Nell decided.

  “Hold on.” Thatcher raised a hand. “We are under extremely strict orders from the military about transporting any species off this island…”

  Nell glared at him with a fierce challenge in her eyes. “Are you suggesting that we destroy these creatures? Is that what you’re saying, Thatcher?”

  “I’m saying nothing, I’m merely questioning: What is it that makes this species any more valuable than the hundreds of species we are about to incinerate, Dr. Duckworth?”

  “I can’t believe you’re even asking this,” Nell said, flushed with anger. “Hender thinks. He knows his past and plans his future. He’s a person—like you and me.”

  “Surely, that’s their worst recommendation!” Thatcher shook his head, laughing contemptuously. “It makes Hender’s kind more dangerous than a plague of locusts. Don’t you see?”

  “They don’t have to be like a plague of locusts, Thatcher. They have a choice,” Nell argued. “Locusts don’t have any choice.”

  “Exactly,” Thatcher agreed, mildly. “Which makes us much worse than locusts. It doesn’t take many of our choices to add up to global devastation on a scale no other creature could ever match. We didn’t have to come to this island, Dr. Duckworth— but we did. And if we hadn’t, none of the creatures on this island would have to die now. Would they?”

  “Spare us the irony, Thatcher,” Geoffrey said. “We’re here now, and we have a moral obligation, damn it.”

  “Before we saw Hender you wanted to save this island,” Nell reminded Thatcher.

  Thatcher jabbed an angry finger at her. “And you wanted to nuke it!” he snarled. He looked at the others, seeking an ally. “Hasn’t it occurred to any of you that this creature is far more dangerous than anything else on this island precisely because it is intelligent? My God, this planet will be lucky enough to survive one intelligent species—but two? Are you all mad?”

  Geoffrey scoffed. “Intelligent life must have managed to live on this island in harmony with its environment for millions of years to evolve into Hender. Face it, Thatcher, that theory of yours, that intelligent life must destroy its environment, is wrong—and these beings are the proof. One of my own theories has already been shot down by this island, if that makes you feel any better. I thought an ecosystem with so little symbiotic cooperation couldn’t even exist, let alone outlast every other system on Earth. I was wrong, too. Get over it, Thatcher. Welcome to the wonderful world of science.”

  “It’s funny,” Nell mused. “I thought this island would prove my theory that plants pollinated by insects would exhibit extreme genetic drift in isolation. But there were no pollen-bearing plants here. There aren’t any plants, except for this tree.” She looked at Thatcher sadly. “But what we have found instead—it’s like a miracle, Thatcher!”

  Thatcher glared back at her, and smiled contemptuously.

  “I had a theory,” Zero piped up, “that if you could find the most remote island on Earth, you’d find paradise. Guess my theory’s shot to hell.”

  “Henders Island,” Andy said. “The place where theories come to die. Right, Thatcher?”

  “What we are doing to this island only underscores the danger of making any special exception for this species,” Thatcher insisted. The edge in his voice was unmistakable.

  “This isn’t a chapter in your book, Thatcher,” Zero growled. “This isn’t about winning some stupid scientific argument. We gotta save these guys, come on!”

  “They’re people, Thatcher!” Andy said.

  “No, they’re not!” Cane spluttered and then fell silent when he caught Hender watching him from the other end of the fuselage.

  “Yes, they are!” Andy yelled.

  Cane’s grip tightened on the forestock of his rifle.

  “Relax, dude,” Zero told him.

  “Look, Thatcher.” Nell leaned forward. “It’s no doubt true that without our intelligence this island would never have been found, and none of this w
ould be necessary now. For life’s sake, I regret that anything on this island must be destroyed. But it would be murder to knowingly kill other intelligent beings, just as it would be murder if we were to allow other species on this island to reach the mainland. It would be murder because, unlike anything else on this island, Hender and beings like him can choose not to be monsters. And so can we. That’s why they deserve a chance. Surely you can see that, can’t you?”

  Thatcher studied her with smoldering contempt. “That choice produces saints and sinners, Dr. Duckworth. Pacifists and terrorists. Angels and devils. And there is no way to predict which. To bring this creature and his ilk to the mainland will expose the rest of the world to a peril it could never withstand.”

  “OK, so who’s for saving them?” Zero asked, giving Thatcher a deadly stare as he raised his hand.

  Nell, Geoffrey, and Andy raised their hands. “Yes!”

  Cane looked through the window as twilight filled the sky.

  All the others looked at Thatcher, waiting for his response.

  Behind his eyes, wheels turned, recalculating the odds against him.

  Suddenly, the zoologist sighed.

  “All right,” he nodded in apparent resignation, and raised his hand. “Of course, I will abide by the group’s decision, as it seems that everyone’s mind is made up. Sergeant, are you all right? I should get you back to the car. Come on.” He took Cane by the arm, and turned him toward the door. “We need to radio the base to tell them what we’ve found.”

  “We’ve got twenty-two and a half hours left before we have to evacuate this island,” Geoffrey said, glancing at his watch. “You better tell them we have to start making arrangements immediately to transport these creatures.”

  Andy followed them to the door as Hender stepped aside to let them through.

  As soon as Thatcher pushed it open, Cane vomited outside.

  “Eew, yuck!” Andy pulled the door shut behind them and went back to the others.

  “Yuck!” Hender nodded.

  7:29 P.M.

  Thatcher patted Cane’s heaving back, looking over the twilit fields below as wheels turned in his mind like the gears in a slot machine. He noticed strange shapes were sprouting out of the purpling field below the tree, attracting little clouds of glowing bugs.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into them,” the zoologist said. “This is exactly what the President warned us about, trying to get live species off this island. How are you feeling, Sergeant?”

  “Feeling fine, sir!” Cane sounded off, lying.

  Thatcher helped Cane over the stepping stones to the Humvee. He climbed in first and reached down to help the soldier, who shrugged off his help as he gripped the doorframe and pulled himself into the driver’s seat.

  Cane quickly slammed the door behind him. His face was very pale and streaked with sweat. He squeezed the steering wheel, hanging his head between his arms as he took long, shuddering breaths.

  Thatcher looked out the windshield over the island. Glowing swarms drifted like ghosts over the fields below. The ring of the jungle had a dim pink glow as a wispy fog filled the basin around the barren core, which stood out like an island in the fog. “Well, this is far worse than anyone could have imagined, Sergeant. It’s an abomination.” He turned to look at Cane. “Against God.”

  Cane closed his eyes, breathing faster and gripping the steering wheel with one hand, his crucifix in the other.

  “These freaks of nature were not meant to coexist with humans on this Earth.” Thatcher was an atheist, but this approach seemed like the best bet, he thought, given the circumstances. “Why else would they have been separated from us since the beginning of time, Sergeant? My God, what in heaven’s name are we trying to do? The scientists back at the base are going to want to save this species—precisely because it is intelligent!”

  Thatcher glanced at the soldier and then looked back out the window as swarms of bugs moved across the slopes below. “I guess after you win some of the most prestigious awards in science your colleagues just stop listening to you.”

  “You’d think they’d listen to you more,” Cane muttered.

  Thatcher snorted laughter and stared thoughtfully at the Army base, a mile in the distance. This discovery would certainly derail the entire thesis of his book just as his career was taking off. The fact that he was here when intelligent life was discovered living in the oldest sustained ecosystem on the planet would cause a sensation. And a professional humiliation after his Redmond Principle had predicted intelligent life must destroy its own environment. His Tetteridge Award would suddenly be worthless. Ridiculed, even. It could even be revoked. The other precious awards would never materialize. The markers would come due, the alimony. But there was something else, something irrational pulling him, a primal temptation that he had faced many times, a belief in his luck—which placed him in natural opposition to the world. He could never resist betting against the house.

  Thatcher sighed. “I wish I hadn’t won those awards, Sergeant. Maybe if I had never won them my colleagues would listen to me now. Maybe they would listen.”

  “I hear you, sir.” Cane’s voice was low and serious.

  Thatcher shook his head, not looking at Cane. “Those things will become part of our society now, Sergeant, if they leave this island. They’ll be sharing our neighborhoods, our jobs, our schools—even our hospitals and cemeteries. How are you going to explain that to your children? They’re clearly physically and mentally superior. They probably procreate faster than we do. We’ll be signing our world over to them. What are your orders, Sergeant? I mean, I don’t wish to interfere with military matters, of course. But, what if you were to find someone trying to smuggle live species off the island…”

  “My orders are to shoot on sight anyone attempting to smuggle live specimens off the island, sir!”

  “Ah, yes. That’s right. Tell me, Sergeant, just hypothetically— if you found yourself in the extraordinary position, if you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to save life on Earth, even if it meant disobeying your orders—are you the sort of person who would do it? Or are you the sort of person who would obey your orders, no matter what the consequences might be for the human race?”

  “Hypothetically how, sir?”

  “What if you radioed in and told the base we are collecting specimens but don’t mention exactly what we found? It’s 7:30 now. Could you meet me at 9, down there, out of sight?”

  Thatcher indicated a slight rise in the ground about thirty yards down the slope from Hender’s home. It was probably one of the moldered wings of the B-29, long ago engulfed and dissolved by clover.

  Cane looked hard at Thatcher. “Then what, sir?”

  “Then we might be able to just drive away, Sergeant.”

  “Sir?”

  Thatcher shrugged. “They have no other means of transportation. And while you’re gone I can make certain that they don’t have any way to communicate with the base.”

  “That would be murder, sir.”

  “Taking those creatures off this island would be genocide, Sergeant. Of the entire human race.”

  After a moment of silence, Cane asked, “Where would I go?”

  “Anywhere. Until nine o’clock.”

  “What would we say?”

  “We could say we got attacked while collecting specimens and that the others didn’t make it, Sergeant. Our companions foolishly insisted on leaving the vehicle and we wisely stayed inside. That almost happened already today, didn’t it? You haven’t yet told them what happened to Dr. Cato. We say they all died with him. In less than forty-eight hours, this whole island is going to be nuked. How much more simple could it be?”

  Cane stared ahead through the windshield for a long moment. Then he switched on the Hummer’s ignition. “Rendezvous at twenty-one hundred hours, sir,” he said. But he refused to look at Thatcher.

  Thatcher got out and heard the distant din of the jungle below as Cane drove
away.

  He noticed the faintly glowing swarm on the field below change direction and streak up the slope toward him.

  Thatcher turned, tripping, and ran.

  7:33 P.M.

  Thatcher burst in and slammed the door behind him.

  Copepod snarled at him.

  “Not good, Thatcher,” Hender said, startling him.

  “I agree,” Nell said. “What did they say, Thatcher?”

  “Please call off this dog!” Thatcher scowled.

  Hender whistled and Copepod ran to his side. Hender stroked the dog with his two right hands, and Thatcher studied Hender for a moment. He didn’t answer Nell’s question.

  “What did they say, Thatcher?” Geoffrey pressed.

  “The seismic activity must be interfering with radio reception,” Thatcher answered. “Cane said he had to get closer to transmit a message.”

  “My God, that guy was scared out of his wits!” Zero said.

  “You should have gone with him to make sure the right message gets through to the President,” Nell said, running a hand back through her hair in frustration.

  “I wrote it all out for him,” Thatcher snapped. “He said he would be right back!”

  A hard earthquake jolted the fuselage.

  “Aye-yai-yai-yeesh,” Hender trilled.

  “This isn’t good,” Geoffrey said, reaching for handholds and glancing at Nell, who seemed struck by a dawning thought.

  They looked around at the curiosities now swaying from Hender’s roof.

  “The quakes have been getting worse,” Andy said. “All the hen-dros are upset about it.”

  “Hendros?” asked Thatcher.

  “I call them hendros,” Andy said. “Short for hendropods.”

  Nell looked at her watch. “Cane better not take too long, Thatcher. Considering everything that will need to be done to get the hendros safely off the island, we don’t have much time.”

  “We should have enough,” Geoffrey reassured her, and he jabbed a look at Thatcher.

  7:54 P.M.