Singularity

by Bill DeSmedt

  And why was their probing stare directed now at Jack himself, as though seeking something deep within his soul?

  Abruptly, the man broke into a toothless grin. He raised an arm and spoke several quavering, breathless syllables for Hoffman’s whispered translation.

  “Eagle, be welcome among us. I am called Jenkoul.”

  “What’s all this ‘Eagle’ business?” Jack finally asked Hoffman. Because it hadn’t stopped with that first mention. No, all through Jenkoul’s preliminaries—blessing of the visitors, blessing of the occasion, blessing of the raggedy prayer rug, for godsakes—seemed like every third word out of the old guy’s mouth was something to do with eagles, each time accompanied by a significant glance in Jack’s direction. “You sure you’re getting that translation right?”

  Hoffman made a face like Jack had just told him his baby was ugly.

  “Yes, of course,” he said stiffly. “It is basic vocabulary, after all,”—big emphasis on the basic—“entirely unambiguous.”

  “And he’s definitely talking about me.”

  Hoffman chuckled unexpectedly. “Consider it a token of esteem, my dear Professor. Perhaps he takes you for a fellow shaman.”

  “He’s not alone. There’s any number of my so-called colleagues who’d agree with him.”

  “Shh,” Hoffman said, and pointed. Clutching Akulina’s arm for support, Jenkoul had risen from his prayer rug and was easing himself down onto a hummock of hide and fur piled opposite the choums entrance. From there, half reclining, the old shaman regarded his guests brightly and invited them to seat themselves. Following Jenkoul’s lead, Jack settled back too.

  With the opening ceremonies out of the way, it was finally time for the main event.

  “The sun of high summer rises early over the valley of the Stony Tunguska, but on that fateful morning I arose with it, for I had far to ride.”

  Jack leaned forward, watching Jenkoul’s face, listening to his soft, breathy intonations alternating with the Teutonic precision of Hoffman’s English translation. This was what he’d come for: the old man’s firsthand account of the Event itself.

  “I had journeyed into the heartlands many times before, Eagle, and always before my heart had rejoiced at their beauty. But on this day my heart was filled with dread. Were it not for my father’s wish that I lead the southern herd to fresh pasture, I would never have ventured there. Not on that day. I was in mortal fear of the curse, you see.”

  Jack nodded, still waiting for Jenkoul to get to the good stuff. As far as cosmology was concerned, that did not include curses. Hoffman, on the other hand, seemed to be lapping this part up. He said something in Evenki that could have been a request for more detail. Least-ways, Jenkoul gave them some.

  “The curse of Ogdy, revealed at the solstice ceremonial. Revealed to Pilya, shaman of our clan, as he walked the spirit road for the last time.”

  Jenkoul shook his head. “Pilya. There are none like him today. Even in those days there were few who could peer beneath the skin of the world and behold its beating heart, as he could. And fewer still willing to give their lives to know the true way of things.

  “He died, you see.” Jenkoul sighed as if it had all happened yesterday, rather than nearly a century ago. “He gave warning of the storm god’s coming and he died. The vision killed him, the horror of it stopping his heart.” He sighed again and stared into the distance, at things only he could see.

  Hoffman took advantage of the pause to lean over and whisper, “Not the vision. It was almost certainly the mushrooms that killed him.”

  “What mushrooms?” Jack whispered back.

  “Amanita Muscaria, fly agaric—the Hindus call it Soma. The flesh is hallucinogenic, used by many cultures throughout the world to bring about a trance state. It is, however, also poisonous—not fatal in small amounts, but a large enough dosage could induce cardiac arrest.”

  Hoffman broke off then. Jenkoul was resuming his tale. “So you see, Eagle, I had reason to fear the heartlands. Still, what son would deny his father? So, early that morning I mounted my reindeer Onikan and set forth—”

  “Hold on,” Jack said. “He’s seriously saying ‘reindeer’ ? As in Rudolph?”

  It took Hoffman a moment to get the reference. “Ah, your Santa Claus myth. Yes, Professor, reindeer as in Rudolph—the Evenkis ride them.”

  “Little low to the ground for that, aren’t they?”

  Hoffman ignored him and went back to translating. “The going was slow until we reached the Silgami ridge. There the rocky soil offered better purchase for Onikan’s hooves. And with no underbrush to impede us—for only mushrooms and mosses grow well in the half-light that filters down through the treetops—it now seemed I would reach the southern herd at Churgim Creek by noon. For the first time that morning, I began to hope that I might complete my journey safe from harm, after all.

  “Then, without warning, a shadow reared up before us. Onikan jerked to a halt, nearly pitching me over his antlers. At first I could not make out its true form; it seemed only a patch of deeper darkness against the forest gloom. Then it moved and revealed itself: a giant Siberian gray bear, twice my height and not ten strides away.

  “Onikan stood trembling, eyes rolling, ready to bolt. I reached out a hand to soothe him, knowing that if the reindeer tried to run, the bear would be on us in an instant. It was only when my mount began to calm that I could spare a moment to regard the enormous beast before me, and ponder what to do.

  “I was then only in my fifteenth summer, Eagle, but already I had learned much of the old ways, the wisdom of our people. And I knew that this lord of the forest must be paid the respect which was his due, the due of all his kind.”

  This last remark sparked a brief exchange between Jenkoul and his interpreter, all of it Greek, or rather Evenki, to Jack. When Hoffman spoke next, it was as a professor of ethnography, not a translator.

  “Our friend here has touched upon an interesting point. The Siberian peoples, you see, hold very different attitudes toward the various predators that share their world. One, in particular, they have singled out for demonization, the one they regard as that worst, most malevolent of animals, the one they call the ‘beast of evil heart’—the hated and reviled wolf.”

  “Hey,” Jack said, “I happen to like wolves.”

  “Perhaps you would feel less sentimental, Professor, if forced to compete with them for pride of place at the top of the food chain.” Hoffman held up a hand to forestall further protest. “In any case, I do not condone the opinion, I merely report it. And that only by way of contrast to the folklore surrounding the bear. Evenkis view the bear, you see, as almost a benign creature, one that seldom attacks without provocation and never kills without cause. Indeed, from his manlike mannerisms, upright stance, and manifest intelligence there stems a belief that the bear possesses something akin to a human soul. So strong is this imputed affinity that Evenkis have been known to address bears using terms otherwise reserved for kinfolk. Which is, in fact, what our friend Jenkoul had begun saying a moment ago.”

  Hoffman then turned for a brief exchange with the shaman, following which the story recommenced. “I faced the bear, speaking slowly and in deferential tones. ‘Grandfather,’ I said, ‘let there be peace between us. Do not bar my way.’

  “The Siberian gray shifted his stance, but made no other reply. I saw then I might have no choice but to kill him. I unsheathed my firearm and took aim at an eye. Hit him there and he might die before he could reach me. My finger was tightening on the trigger when something in the bear’s manner gave me pause. He stood there, head to one side, as if waiting for . . . for recognition, perhaps?

  “The rifle trembled in my hands, as I realized what, or who, confronted me on that shadowed hillside. This was no ordinary bear at all. It was—‘Bynaku?’ Sure enough, the ears pricked up at the sound of his true name. This was none other than an avatar of Lord Bynaku, Ruler of the Lower World.

  “The spirit-bear drew himself u
p to his full height. He sniffed the air and took a step forward, waving his huge paws. I heard him speak then, growling ‘Mot! Mot!’—the words we Evenkis use to goad a reindeer into a gallop. The Lord of the Lower World was warning me back the way I had come. But why?

  “My Churgim Creek encampment beckoned, its choum offering relief from the noonday heat, but. . . . but only the foolhardy ignore the counsel of a god.

  “I bowed low, then steered Onikan around on the narrow path with the pressure of my knees. I twisted in my saddle for a last look back, but the Siberian gray was nowhere to be seen. In the place where the spirit-bear had stood, a single beam of early morning sunlight fell upon the mossy forest floor.

  “What danger could threaten in this sacred place? Ogdy’s curse? The heavens gave no sign of the storm god’s displeasure. And yet I was suddenly filled with nameless foreboding.

  “I could not desecrate the earthly abode of Bynaku with a shout. Instead, I bent forward and pressed my lips to Onikan’s ear. ‘Mot! Mot!’ I whispered.

  “And we began to run.”

  The story went on from there, of course. On to a flash of bright blue light, to peals of thunder, blasts of heat, miles of forest laid waste, etc. Far as Jack was concerned, it was all pretty much same old, same old. Nothing that hadn’t been reported a hundred times before, and by observers in a better position to actually see the event. By his own admission, Jenkoul had been racing away from the Epicenter at the moment of the impact, after all.

  Jenkoul must have read the disappointment on Jack’s face. He pursed his lips. “In days long past, there were many who could have told you such things as I have spoken of, such things and more. They have all since departed on their journeys up the River of the Dead.” The old man shook his head. “Still, they left behind record of what was known to them, that others might know it too.”

  Jenkoul levered himself up to a sitting position then, the better to fix Jack with another of his penetrating stares. “But what I would tell you now, Eagle, is known to me alone.”

  And, with that, the old man had launched into the most harrowing tale of all. Yet, despite the gruesomeness of the events and the pain Jenkoul was plainly experiencing on reliving them Jack could hardly keep from grinning ear to ear. For here it was: a gold mine of corroboration for his hypothesis. He was right, after all. Had to be. No other explanation could fit the facts.

  The facts—was he getting them all? He quick checked his digital recorder, then sighed in relief. The indicator lights showed it still recording, still capturing this amazing story for posterity.

  Finally Jenkoul was done. Jack waited to see if he had anything more to offer. But no, he had leaned back into the pile of furs again and closed his eyes, resting from his exertions.

  Or not. Jenkoul’s eyes opened again to narrow slits. “Eagle,” he said, “it is fitting that you should know your own part in this. As I have told you my fate, so I will tell you yours. You have only to ask.”

  Jack hesitated, unsure what to make of this. Before he could decide, Hoffman intruded on the silence with a response. Presumably in the affirmative, since Jenkoul began to speak again.

  “It was at the solstice festival five summers ago. For one last time I tasted the sacred mushrooms and walked in spirit the crooked path to the Lower World. There, I was met by One who had guided my

  footsteps all unseen since days of my youth, yet who only now revealed himself to me once again: Lord Bynaku.”

  Right, the old guy’s familiar, or whatever—the spirit bear who’d supposedly saved him from the impact.

  “We talked through all the space of a fleeting summer night,” Jenkoul went on, “And in that time beyond time, Bynaku showed me many mysteries. But the last was greatest of all. For he showed me how, in the final days of the Middle World, he, Bynaku, would send forth Eagle, lord of the winds, wisest of creatures, to find the lair of Ogdy’s all-devouring Wolf.

  “I am old,” Jenkoul said. “My spirit readies itself for its final journey on the River of the Dead. But before I die, I longed to look upon Bynaku’s Eagle. Eagle, who will confront Ogdy’s Wolf, not with might, but with wisdom.”

  Jenkoul struggled to sit up and look Jack once more in the eye. “And now, Eagle,” he whispered, “You have come.”

  Jack was still trying to think how to respond when he felt Hoffman’s tap on his shoulder. “Professor Adler? It grows late. We must rejoin the group.”

  Jack glanced at his watch: after five already. Where had the time gone? But Hoffman was right: factor in the hour or so it would take them to get down to the rendezvous point, and they’d just make it before the Land Rover left for base camp.

  Leavetaking was quick and painless. Until the last, that is, when the old shaman laid a palsied hand on Jack’s arm and said, “Go forth, Eagle, find the Wolf. Stop Ogdy’s evil before it can devour the world of men.”

  “I—I’ll try.” What else could he say? The look in the old man’s eyes was so desperate.

  Outside Akulina was preparing the evening meal over a bed of coals. Jack waved her a good-bye and waited for Hoffman to join him.

  “Ready to go?” Jack said, then, “Anything wrong?”

  Hoffman’s face held a curious mix of emotions, chagrin dominant.

  “I am afraid you have wasted your time, and mine, Professor Adler.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, that last part was complete and utter rubbish! And casts doubt on all the rest.” Hoffman’s face showed red against his white beard. “Prophesying the end of the Middle World, as if shamanism were a chiliastic religion, like Christianity. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever in the Evenki oral tradition to hint of such a Manichean battle between powers of light and darkness, nor of Eagle and Wolf as those powers’ surrogates. From the point of view of ethnology, I fear all this material is worthless.”

  “Worthless? What about the vigil in the Great Swamp, the encounter with—”

  “Oh, please, Professor Adler, do not pretend you lend any credence to that account. Why, the whole thing was obviously nothing more than a mushroom-induced hallucination.”

  “Actually, that account may have furnished a key to the Tunguska mystery itself.”

  “Clearly delusional,” Hoffman said. The way he was looking at Jack made it unclear whom he was referring to.

  “No, really, I’m serious.”

  “Of course you are. Next, you will claim that you are in fact this Eagle savior-figure sent from Bynaku to confront Ogdy’s Wolf.”

  “I’ll admit, I don’t get that stuff about the Eagle. What’s it supposed to mean? That I’m an American, maybe? Eagle’s the symbol of America, after all. But, still, I can’t be the first American the guy’s ever seen.

  “And yet you are so typical an American,” Hoffman said around a sneer. “You trouble to master no language but your own. Not even to learn the meaning of your own name.”

  Jack said nothing, just looked at the German ethnographer.

  “Your name—Adler,” Hoffman said.

  “What about it?”

  “It is the German word for Eagle.”

  6 | Our Ship Comes In

  AFTER AN EARLY breakfast topped off with two hours of what the client euphemistically referred to as “check-in”—a battery of security probes stopping just this side of a full body-cavity search—Knox was ushered into the august presence of Euripedes “Pete” Aristos, Director, Reacquisition Working Group, DOE Critical Resources Oversight Mandate.

  Aristos turned out to be a heavyset, balding, shirtsleeves type, whose taste in office decor ran to Greenbar Baroque: he’d had his headquarters suite furnished almost exclusively in randomly situated piles of computer printout.

  The man himself was talking on a headset and worrying with a lightpen at a high-definition display that took up most of the rear wall. Right now, that datawall was showing a channel map of the Chesapeake Bay spangled with blinking points of light done in tasteful shades of fire-engine red. Aristos
was playing connect-the-dots with the lightpen in synch with whatever the headset was telling him. Without turning, he waved his visitors toward chairs stacked with the ubiquitous printouts. Marianna unceremoniously dumped the contents of her chair on the floor, and motioned Knox to follow suit.

  “I keep telling him it’s the paperless Third Millennium—wake up and save the trees,” Marianna whispered, leaning toward Knox conspiratorially. She was making an effort to be friendly this morning. “But Pete’s old school,” she went on. “He’d rather live with this clutter than try to assimilate textual information from a vertical surface.”

  “He could get a thinline display,” Knox said. “Pricey, but it would lie flat on his desk.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t tried,” she began, then broke off when her boss turned to face them.

  “Knox? Pete Aristos.” Aristos held out a beefy hand. “Marianna take care of you? Get you a coffee?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Okay.” Aristos slipped off the headset and settled into his chair. “Everything you’re about to see and hear comes under the Homeland Security boilerplate you just—” He paused to cock a quizzical eyebrow at Marianna, who nodded. “—you just signed. Nothing leaves this room, got me?”

  “Check.”

  “Marianna, do your thing.” Aristos handed her the lightpen. He rolled his chair to one side and beat a brief tattoo on the detachable keyboard resting in his lap.

  Marianna rose and walked behind the big desk. In response to Aristos’s keystrokes, the map of Chesapeake Bay covering the rear wall gave way to the seal of the United States Department of Energy, hovering over a Day-Glo-on-midnight Top Secret banner.

  “We’re under some time pressure here,” Marianna began, “so I’ll skip through the intro pretty quick.” If she knew or suspected that Knox had already seen most of it, she wasn’t letting on.

  “As you may have already gathered, Jon, the Mandate is a branch of the Energy Department, attached to DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. But it also dotted-line reports to Homeland Security . . . and, of course, those field agencies with operational responsibilities.”