by Bill Schutt
As the hours and then the days passed, every attempt to reverse or to drive forward succeeded only in miring the vessel more deeply, until it became, as Sänger finally summed it up, “Hopeless. We are like a fly, trapped in a spider’s web.”
Eventually there was no choice left but to anchor the sister ship, Nostromo, in deeper water nearby, and to transfer fuel and equipment from the Demeter to the second boat. Voorhees had been caught by surprise when Demeter’s cargo cranes pulled the prefabricated sections of two heavy-lift helicopters out of the hold.
The two men stood silently, which was itself a testament to the spectacle that was unfolding. Once the craft were assembled, they could see that each was powered by a single engine, driving two three-bladed rotors. Nearly twelve meters across, each rotor was mounted on twin tubular steel outriggers on either side of the planelike fuselage—the forward section of which was rounded with a fully glazed cockpit. Voorhees thought this last feature would provide the pilots with a panoramic view of their own deaths. The “chosen” pilots appeared to be a slender, feral-looking man and a pixy-like woman with short blond hair.
“What are those machines?” Voorhees asked.
“The builders, Heinrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis, call them Drache.”
Voorhees gestured toward one of the “Dragon” pilots. “And is that who I think it is?”
“Hanna Reitsch,” Sänger replied with pride. “Do you know her?”
Voorhees winced. “Unfortunately.”
As the young engineer watched the insectlike flying machines rise into the humid air, it was immediately apparent to him that the Dragons were inherently unstable at slow speeds. Annoyingly, the older man seemed to be reading his thoughts.
“If you think the challenges of controlling a rocket-plane are large, just imagine the skill Reitsch and Lothar need to control these. If they lose control for an instant . . .”
Voorhees tuned out the rest of the lecture, instead envisioning Hanna Reitsch’s expression turning from surprise to terror as her mechanical dragonfly began to wobble, then spin out of control, then smash into the river, one of the blades severing—
“Maurice?” Sänger’s voice was a mixture of exasperation and annoyance, especially as he noticed the wry smile his reluctant protégé was now wearing.
Although the current project had proceeded with great haste, there were no crashes. The two helicopters covered the corpse of Demeter in downpours of vines and branches. Yet Sänger was far from satisfied and the theme of his next and most oft-repeated monologue was an expression of fear that all too soon, after the last useful pieces of equipment were gutted from Demeter and airlifted out, the wreck would be discovered—by someone.
“Not much time,” he told Voorhees. “We must hurry.”
On the same morning MacCready and Bob Thorne examined dead animals, pasted into drying pools of their own blood, Voorhees had watched the bright glow of his latest test sled rapidly diminish, then vanish into the mist. Proper flight test analysis required that the rocket sled, despite being designed as a throwaway booster stage, had to be brought back for study. Recovery would have been a simple affair if only Voorhees had been permitted to attach a radio transponder to the sled. But more than a year’s work had gone into planning and preparing the base for the arrival of the two space-planes. And even without the greater chance of discovery arising from the grounding of the Demeter, the base commander had insisted that the fog-shrouded compound remain radio silent. Because of this, more primitive methods were required for the search and recovery: A team of four would locate the sled and helicopter it back to base for a final examination.
It had gone like clockwork the first time around. The recovery team for the earlier test rocket launch had located the sled’s landing spot in less than a day, sending back a runner to report that it was being prepared for airlift. Hanna Reitsch flew Dragon I four kilometers north to the spot indicated on the runner’s map—zeroing in on a tethered red balloon that suddenly appeared through the fog as she hovered. Reitsch lowered the helicopter’s payload cable, the terminal end of which had been modified with a set of heavy-duty straps. Minutes later, when the female pilot took her craft higher, Voorhees’s rocket sled came with her.
Although examination of the sled led to slight design modifications, in concept the intricate launch vehicle worked perfectly. Despite the purpose to which he knew this great new science was being applied, Voorhees was able to draw some small consolation from the knowledge that the door to space had been kicked wide open. For a fleeting moment he had wanted to shout about it, but he knew that there were people around him who did not want to hear of such dreams.
Now, though, the nightmares were taking over.
After the next sled test, things did not go according to plan. Two days passed without word from the recovery team, then two more, then a week. It was as if the forest had simply reached out and snatched them. Three nights ago, two more men had gone out in search of cameras from one of Sänger’s stage separation tests. They were two days overdue when a local tribesman found their bodies—drained of blood.
“Phantoms.” That’s what the German and Japanese crew members began calling the unseen enemies that had descended upon their men. The native workers had their own name for the attackers: chupacabra.
“Phantoms” or chupacabra—the names made no difference. The Axis workers were becoming as downcast as the locals. First, the river had reached out and wrecked the Demeter. Now the forest itself was reaching out, causing men to do what Voorhees was beginning to suppose humans did best: bleed and die. During the very same seconds in which R. J. MacCready and Bob Thorne watched the last test sled scratching fire straight up into the sky, Maurice Voorhees, in a rare metaphysical moment—the kind of moment he would more have expected of Lisl than of himself—started to wonder if it was possible that nature, aroused by the ravages of techno-violence, was beginning to lash back consciously, with her own very strange style of violence.
CHAPTER 8
Whistling in the Dark
In nature there are neither rewards, nor punishments;
There are only consequences.
—ROBERT B. INGERSOLL (1833–1899)
Chapada dos Guimarães, Brazil
January 22, 1944
The rocket launch, as Bob Thorne would have put it, was somewhat less than a good sign. What it had done was to remove from R. J. MacCready’s mind even the slightest doubt that the enemy force he had been seeking was large and well equipped. The nature of their mission remained unclear, but whatever it was, the bad guys had been at it for a while. Even worse was their proximity to the American mainland. Close. Too close.
They were testing something. Mac had watched it blaze a nearly vertical path, trailing a clear thread of smoke back to the launch site. By comparing notes and using basic geometry, he and Thorne had been able to narrow down the launch site to a degree that Hendry’s Rangers could not have known previously. It was at most, only thirty miles away.
There’s no time to waste.
MacCready mapped out a simple plan. First, he’d send Thorne and Yanni to contact Hendry with the approximate coordinates of the launch point.
“Let Hendry’s bomber boys take it from there.”
Unfortunately, it would take days for the news to reach relevant parties and for the brass to mobilize a response. In the meantime, Mac would head into Hell’s Gate, find the Axis fireworks squad, and attempt to better pinpoint their launch sites. Of course he’d look for signs of the missing Rangers along the way, although he considered their prospects to be poor at best.
What Mac needed first, but somehow knew he’d never get, was a good night’s sleep. For as much as he abhorred the possibility of blundering bleary-eyed into “enemy territory,” what he hated even more was the idea of leaving a good mystery unsolved—especially a zoological mystery.
“I want to check this out tonight,” he told Bob Thorne.
“What, mangos? We got them.”
“Now, Mac, you know I love a dead donkey crusted in shit and blood as much as the next guy but you cannot be serious about this so-called plan. You need to bunk in tonight, pally.”
MacCready held up his hand. “Look, I appreciate your concern but what I do need is for you to help me get some stuff together. Can you rustle me up a goat and some rope to tie him up with?”
Thorne knew the argument was over. “Jeez, Mac, really?”
“And I’m gonna need a ladder and blanket as well,” Mac continued. And before Thorne could turn that one around, he held up his hand again. “Don’t make me have to kill you, Bob.”
The botanist gave his friend a “who me?” shrug. “Hey, it’s your party,” he said.
Soon after, MacCready had his supplies, and the two men stood in an orchard on the outskirts of town. The scattering of fruit trees dead-ended at the top of a two-hundred-foot bluff. They were a hundred yards from the nearest farmhouse and, for whatever the reason, the owner of this particular fazenda seemed to have hauled up stakes and gone into hiding.
“This is the spot,” MacCready said, surveying the orchard and the place he had selected, before letting his gaze settle on the spectacular view of the valley below.
For a long time the two men said nothing, but only stood watching the sunset. Then Thorne picked up a piece of rotting fruit and pitched it toward the pile of rocks at the foot of the bluff. “Now, Mac, if it were me wandering off to take a leak tonight, I would watch that first step.”
MacCready acknowledged his friend with a nod.
Behind them, the goat shook its head and tested the strength of the ten-foot rope that had been secured around its neck. Thorne gestured toward the animal. “Are you sure you two don’t want to rent a room?”
MacCready ignored the comment. He was looking at an ancient and gnarled tree that rose above the citrus grove. “What’s that tree, Leaf Boy?”
“Bertholletia excelsa.”
“Show-off.”
“Brazil nut to you zoologist types.”
“Any thorns?”
“Nope.”
“Poisonous sap?”
“Negative.”
“That’ll do.”
Within five minutes, Thorne had used a tent peg to stake out the goat near the base of the great tree. By the time he’d finished, MacCready was settling atop a thick horizontal branch situated a dozen or so feet above the ground. Satisfied that it was sturdy enough to hold him comfortably, he smiled down at his friend, “If I’m not back by zero three hundred, send Yanni with some pinga and a couple of glasses. That ought to perk things up.”
Thorne replied with a new rude hand gesture he’d learned from some Italian guys who had passed through Chapada the year before. “You like that one?”
MacCready waved him off. “Old one. You need to get out more.”
“Yes . . . well, just be careful, huh?”
The two friends exchanged nods, and Thorne headed back toward town, picking up speed as he went. Any guilt he felt about leaving Mac behind was being quickly overridden by a desperate need to outrace the rapidly approaching darkness.
MacCready scooched himself backward until his back rested against the tree trunk. Unfolding the blanket he’d brought, he used it as a cushion. The goat, which had apparently given up on yanking out the tent peg, glanced up with apparent interest at the proceedings. MacCready gave the animal a quick wave, then checked his watch, his flashlight, and the Colt .45 holstered to his side.
There was something theatrical about how night fell in the tropics—the suddenness of it. And now the curtain had fallen.
Mac squinted into the encroaching dark, somewhat surprised at not being able to see the edge of the bluff, though it was less than a hundred feet away. Watch that first step is right, he thought.
Although the zoologist had set up camp in rainforests on many occasions and in many odd places, including tree branches, once he clicked off the flashlight his thoughts turned, as always, to the overwhelming, alien blackness. He was acutely aware that the trees themselves were alive and covered with life, and this awareness brought with it a mild claustrophobia that was impossible to describe and which never entirely went away.
He concentrated on the night sounds: the steady din of cicadas . . . the occasional sharp click of an insect he had yet to identify . . . the sporadic peeping of a male frog. Unlike the incessant chorus of frogs inhabiting more temperate regions, MacCready knew that the song of Physalaemus was subtle, brief, and infrequent. He’s looking for a mate. But he doesn’t want to get eaten.
Another sound came to him, tinny and incongruent but somehow reassuring. In the distance, a gramophone was playing Frank Sinatra’s “Embraceable You.”
The music wafted from the direction of what he’d thought was an abandoned farmhouse, lulling the exhausted scientist, and momentarily—only momentarily, he was certain—he dozed . . .
MacCready was jolted instantly awake by an agitated bleat from the goat. How long have I really been asleep? The music had stopped and, strangely, so had the noise from the insects and frogs. As the moon emerged from behind a cloud, the staked-out goat and the surrounding stand of trees were illuminated. MacCready’s imagination, too, seemed illuminated, and in ghostly silence, he saw shadows everywhere—and deep within the shadows he sensed movement . . .
Phantoms?
Ghosts?
Chupacabra?
No, he told himself. Figments of my imagination. Nothing more.
In the darkness of the forest, four “figments” reacted as the biped stretched, yawned, and, after a long look around, relaxed again against the tree trunk. Honed by more than fifty million years of evolution, the creatures in the trees employed an ultrasonic equivalent of night vision, through which they created acoustic images of their mammalian prey—both species. MacCready’s body, even his slow, rhythmic breathing, was analyzed at unimaginable speed, simultaneously visualized and heard through a chorus of rapid-fire clicks. Communicating in the language of sonar, the mother and child identified the biped on the branch as the same one they had encountered in the straw cave several days before. He had been more alert then—dangerous to the mother and, more important, to her child. But now the biped was slowing down, becoming more relaxed . . . almost asleep. Now, she decided, he would serve as the next step in her child’s education.
The largest of MacCready’s ghosts transmitted what to human ears would register as a barely detectable streamer of clicks. The child received the message and understood: food.
The young creature tensed and actually vibrated with anticipation.
Then the command.
KILL
In the clearing below MacCready and his phantoms, the goat shifted uneasily. The animal was completely oblivious to the blood that streamed from a pair of incisions above each of its rear hooves. Two dark shapes crouched behind the goat’s hind legs—but the twins, a year older than their brother, were anything but oblivious to the warm flow.
As the mother observed, the youngest crept—suspended below the branch on which the biped slept. The child moved cautiously but true stealth came only with experience, and as the predator neared MacCready’s right leg, the claw on his elongated thumb snapped a thin, dry twig.
Jerked instantly awake, MacCready blinked into the moonlight. Can’t see a thing.
He swiped at his eyes with a sleeve, and then looked down, searching for the goat.
Two black forms, resembling nothing more threatening than mounds of leaf litter, flanked the goat on either side. Then, reacting as one, the mounds came alive. Raising their bowed heads and, with long incisors glistening like tinsel, they glared up at MacCready. And then, in an instant, they were gone.
Whathefuck?
There was a faint rustle of parchment—Just like the sound in the Balloon Man’s hut�
��and the scientist knew that he was not alone in his tree. Strange shapes were moving toward him—ever so slowly, keeping to the shadows; and he understood that the darkness itself had come alive. Overcome with a sudden sense of claustrophobia, MacCready snatched a deep breath and pressed his back firmly against the tree trunk—trying to put more space between himself and the phantoms. Now, if he could only convince himself that the faint scuttle, more felt than heard, came from his imagination and not from directly behind him, on the opposite side of the trunk. If only—
Craning his neck to one side, MacCready glimpsed—or thought he glimpsed—a shadow, adjusting its position, keeping the vertical trunk between itself and its prey’s line of sight. Only by accident did he discover that flesh-and-blood shadows and not phantoms of his imagination actually did surround him—only by accident. Three feet away, on the branch that supported him, he sighted a dark bump that hadn’t been there before.
I’m dead . . .
For long seconds, MacCready watched the tightening perimeter of shapes as if in a trance, and for the first time within memory he retreated into himself—squashing panic with what he expected would be his last scientific observation: Incredibly cryptic morphology and behavior. No wasted movement. These are pack hunters at the peak of their evolutionary game. Black fucking ju-ju! These are the creatures that—
Something like a wave pierced his body, vibrating. It instantly reminded him of the GO sensation from the dead village—but this time, it was different.
GENTLE
“What the—”
GENTLE, came the message again, and immediately an incomparable sense of peace crept into him, seized him.
You’re not losing your mind, MacCready thought. Everything is all right, now.
RELAX
And suddenly he was dreaming of his mother’s face. It’s been so long. So long since I’ve seen you smile.
On the ground below, the goat jerked spasmodically, as if it were lying in electrified water. The animal let out a wet cough that sounded astonishingly human.
