The Canopy

by Angela Hunt

  A patient in this condition should have been slurring his speech, stumbling, totally lacking motor coordination . . . and yet Ya-ree had allegedly managed to flee hostile pursuers in the forest, give his name and history to a hospital clerk, and expire in relative peace.

  Michael’s stool squeaked as he leaned back and stared at the waterstained ceiling. Perhaps, through some maneuvering of his subconscious, he had failed to recognize obvious symptoms of a neurological disorder. After all, Ya-ree had spoken to Esma about lights leading him through an uninhabited jungle. The lights could have been a hallucination produced by altered brain function. Just last month he’d read about new research proving the brain’s ability to manufacture optical illusions . . .

  He brought his hand to his chin. All his theories were conjecture, of course, and he couldn’t prove anything with the rudimentary equipment available at this hospital. To discover the truth, he would require an electron microscope. He would need to find solid evidence of prions in the brain before he dared raise an alarm.

  For a fleeting instant he thought about sending a message to Dr. Alexandra Pace at Yarupapa, but he’d be wasting her time if his suspicions proved groundless. If what he feared was true, however, she’d be the first person he’d contact.

  Moving to the phone, he punched in Fortuna’s extension, then asked her to arrange a flight to Lima.

  “Lima!” she screeched, delivering a devastatingly good impression of a female Ricky Ricardo as a flood of Spanish followed. “You have patients!”

  He glanced away, steeling himself to her objections. “They’ll have to wait. See if one of the other doctors will come in to cover for a few hours.”

  “Lima!” She muttered a few choice words in her native tongue, then finished with, “What are you going to do there?”

  “Going to visit the university,” he told her. “I’m taking a brain to school.”

  2 APRIL 2003

  1:45 P.M.

  The desk-sized electron microscope was one of two EMs in Lima; the other belonged to the leading hospital. Rather than stand in line to use the hospital equipment, Michael had decided to take his chances with Dr. Gustavo Mozombite, head of the new Structural Molecular Biology Center at the Universidad de Lima.

  Thankfully, the learned doctor had a background in medicine and spoke excellent English. He had welcomed Michael with typical Latin generosity, listened to a brief history of the native patient, then lifted a brow when Michael pulled out his case of slides.

  “You mean to examine the tissues now?”

  “As soon as possible,” Michael answered. “I must return to Iquitos this afternoon.”

  “Then let us not waste time.”

  Now Michael crossed his arms as Dr. Mozombite adjusted the transmission electron microscope to examine one of the specimens he had brought from Iquitos. They stood in a small, darkened room with the image projected onto a television screen. The EM used a beam of electrons rather than light to illuminate a specimen and magnified the image by focusing its beam with magnets rather than a glass lens. Because electrons have shorter wavelengths than visible light, the EM could achieve much higher magnification than a light microscope. The machine’s spectacular capability meant that Michael and Dr. Mozombite could not only see brain cells, but small viruses, broken fragments of protein and DNA, even cell debris.

  “It takes time to learn how to read and interpret what we will see here,” Dr. Mozombite said, his face gray in the monitor’s glow. “I had to learn the difference between a cell membrane, a discarded nucleus, and other building blocks of a cell. After you learn what is normal, you learn to identify what is not.”

  Michael stared at the screen, unable to believe he’d been staring at the same specimen only hours before. The EM had created a window to another world, a microscopic universe filled with good and evil, friends and foes . . .

  With one hand expertly controlling the image, Dr. Mozombite pointed out cell walls, a cluster of cell debris, a cell with a broken wall.

  “Here.” With one hand Dr. Mozombite pointed to the screen, with the other he pressed a button that snapped a photograph of the image. “This is odd. These sticks—do you see them?”

  Michael squinted, adjusting his perspective until he saw several sticklike objects among the microscopic cell debris. The sight sent a tide of goose flesh rippling up each arm. “I see them.”

  Mozombite cast him a shrewd glance. “I am guessing, but could they be amyloid plaques?”

  “I know what they are.” Michael’s voice rasped against his throat. “They are scrapie-associated fibrils—now known as PrP, or prion proteins.”

  “Are these the cause of your patient’s death?”

  Michael shook his head. “The man died from acute sepsis resulting from a bowel perforation.”

  “The infection killed him first, then. But surely this encephalopathy would have proved fatal within a few months.”

  Michael let the silence stretch a moment, then looked directly at the professor. “The patient lived in an indigenous tribe—I doubt he had ever left the jungle until yesterday. Before he died, he told a clerk—perfectly lucidly—that he had been healed of the ‘shuddering disease.’ He had supposedly been near death, but sought help from a shaman of another tribe. He said the shaman healed him.”

  Mozombite said nothing as he pulled other specimens from Michael’s tray. Together they watched silently as the rodlike images appeared in slide after slide.

  Finally Mozombite flipped the light switch. He sank onto a stool, rubbed his chin with two fingers, then folded his arms and lifted his chin.

  “I have learned to curb my cynicism regarding native medicine,” he said. “The Indian healers do offer amazing cures for jungle diseases. What they lack are cures for modern diseases, evidenced by the hundreds of unfortunate deaths in Brazil, where entire villages have been wiped out by malaria and measles.” He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “I doubt your patient’s story was true. Prion diseases are new; the natives would have no knowledge of how to treat them.”

  “How do we know for certain? If this tribe has truly been isolated, perhaps they do know of the disease. What if they’ve seen it in jungle animals? What if they ate the animals and became infected? While we were misidentifying prion diseases as Parkinson’s and palsy, they might have identified it and found a cure.”

  Tilting his head to one side, Mozombite gave Michael a slanted look. “A bold assumption, Dr. Kenway.”

  “It’s a bold disease, Dr. Mozombite. So—if you were in my situation, with this evidence in hand, what would you do?”

  “With the rise of BSE-infected cattle and the corresponding threat to our international food supply?” A muscle clenched along the man’s jaw. “Neurology is not my field, but I’ve read enough to be alarmed for the planet’s future. Plus . . . given the evidence in this man’s brain, I think it’s important to determine how he became infected. If prioninfected animals have reached this continent, we need to know.” He rubbed his chin for another moment, then met Michael’s gaze. “If your patient’s story is true, Dr. Kenway, I’d risk everything I owned to find that healing tribe.”

  2 APRIL 2003

  4:52 P.M.

  What’s that sound?” From under the wide brim of her straw hat, Alex peered out at Deborah Simons, who was photographing a parade of ants marching over one of the outermost canopy pontoons. “Do you hear it?”

  Deborah lifted her head as the noise intensified. Rhythmic, quick, and low, the sound was unlike anything they’d heard since entering the jungle.

  “Jungle drums?” Deborah guessed. “Lazaro showed us how they beat on the trunks of those hollow trees—”

  “It’s not the same. It’s—” Alex groaned as the realization hit. “It’s a helicopter.”

  A moment later, a chopper appeared on the green horizon, confirming her suspicions. Muttering an oath, Alex dropped to her knees and laced her fingers through the mesh surface. She had finally begun to feel a
t ease on the raft, but she didn’t relish the thought of being buffeted by the rotor wash of an intruding helicopter.

  “What sort of idiot,” she yelled as the chopper drew closer, “would approach us up here?”

  Milos Olsson, who had been standing near the porthole, waved his arms in a desperate attempt to warn the helicopter away. But the pilot was either blind or stupid, for the craft kept coming, whipping the green sea beneath him into frenzied waves.

  “Down, everybody,” Olsson called, dropping to his knees. “Secure your equipment!”

  Leaving one hand securely entwined in the mesh, Alex pulled her notebook from beneath her knee, then dropped it down her buttoned shirt. Her camera hung safely about her neck, her water bottle snuggled in the pocket of her backpack, and her mechanical pencil—well, by now it was probably resting in the well of a bromeliad or on the forest floor.

  Amid a blizzard of curses flowing from her teammates, the pilot came nearer, then hovered above them for the space of about thirty seconds. Caught by the air currents, the platform rose and fell as the branches of the tree whipped to and fro, threatening the mesh fabric.

  Tipping her head back to see beyond her hat’s flapping brim, Alex caught a glimpse of two men behind the wide windshield—a grinning pilot in headphones and a white man wearing a baseball cap. The white man was emphatically gesturing to the east.

  “That’s right, Einstein,” she muttered. “Please send him away. It’s not like we’re terribly secure up here.”

  A moment later, the helicopter turned and flew eastward, toward the river. Alex remained tucked into a ball until the loudest thumps had faded, then she lifted her head to survey the damage.

  They’d survived with no serious casualties. Deborah was fussing because the windstorm had agitated her ants, and Louis was bewailing several lost specimens. But this tree was laden with flowers, so he’d be able to replace his samples with little effort. Flailing branches had torn a twelve-inch gash in the mesh near Baklanov, but after assessing the situation with a string of Russian curses, he announced that he would take care to avoid that spot until the fabric could be mended.

  Olsson leaped around the raft, taking stock of the situation, then announced that they needed to descend if they wanted to be back at the lodge before dark.

  They had spent a long morning on the platform and then had crawled into the shade provided by a towering teak for lunch and a shady siesta. After slathering on fresh applications of sunscreen and mosquito repellent, they had crawled out again to complete their investigations of the mahogany.

  More accustomed to the raft now, Alex had finally been able to relax. She had spent part of the day helping Baklanov with his samples, then she had sat on the mesh with binoculars and studied wildlife in the treetops below, watching one particular troop of active marmosets for any sign of illness. She had observed nothing unusual, but still it had been a good day. Despite her weariness, she had managed to keep her emotions and her muscles under control.

  After checking to be sure she and Baklanov had gathered all their supplies, she stood and moved over a pontoon toward the porthole. She halted when she saw a large gray object, no bigger than a football, a few inches from their exit. As she took another cautious step, she noticed that the object was . . . buzzing.

  “Olsson?” she called, keeping her distance. “You wanna take a look at this?”

  The sturdy Swede came closer, then grimaced and muttered a curse. “Stupid chopper dislodged part of a wasps’ nest,” he said, propping his hand on his hip. “Probably from that teak.”

  “Do we dare walk around it?”

  Olsson turned to Deborah Simons, who was packing her bag. “Dr. Simons? This is your area of expertise, yes? What would you suggest we do?”

  Deborah stood and came closer, then bent with her hands on her knees. She studied the nest for a long moment, then the corner of her mouth drooped. “Yeah—I saw that species earlier today. A marmoset ventured close to one of those nests in the canopy below us.”

  Alex’s mouth went dry. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t see the attack, but after a minute that monkey dropped like a stone. I’m not sure what species that nest houses, but right now I’m not especially eager to find out.”

  Olsson scratched at his beard. “Could we kick it away?”

  The entomologist shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to take a chance. What if it breaks when we kick it? Some insects will swarm if attacked, and if they do, we’ve nowhere to run.”

  “So how do we get down?” The question came from Carlton, who had ventured up without his lovely assistant.

  Deborah straightened and slipped her hand into her pants pocket. “We find a way to fling the nest and hope like mad the wasps go with it.”

  Groaning, Alex slipped the kerchief from her neck and dabbed at her forehead and the back of her neck. The sun seemed to have become hotter in the last five minutes, the air thinner.

  Baklanov came forward, one hand holding his backpack, the other pushing sweat from his brow. “So—how do we fling it away?”

  Olsson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am taking suggestions.”

  Alex glanced around the raft. Each researcher had brought only the minimum of equipment to the canopy—notebooks, cameras, specimen vials, water bottles, tubes of sunscreen. Though several of them carried insect repellant, nothing short of industrial-strength wasp spray would neutralize this threat.

  “I have an idea.” Louis Fortier’s scrawny shoulders rose perceptibly as he stepped up to meet the challenge. He walked to within three feet of the nest, then bent and pulled a purple blossom from a plastic specimen container.

  Deborah eyed the flower with narrowed eyes. “What is that?”

  The bantam Frenchman grinned at her. “Tell me, Dr. Simons— have you observed that type of wasp on the forest floor?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “In the understory, perhaps?”

  She shook her head.

  “I thought not. Well, I have not seen this flower below the canopy, either. I think the vine grows up here for a reason, and that reason may have something to do with your wasp.”

  After pulling a red kerchief from about his neck, Louis spread the fabric on the mesh surface of the raft, then crushed the blossom between his palms, squeezing the petals until his hands were shiny with wetness. He then wiped his hands on the kerchief.

  “I only hope my human pheromones will not overpower the scent,” he said, his expression serious as he took pains to wipe even the flesh between his fingers with the cotton cloth. “But I think we are in luck. The fragrance of this flower is strong, especially to a creature as small as a wasp.”

  He glanced around, then looked at Alex. “Madame Pace, if I may be so bold—would you donate your belt?”

  Alex’s hands flew to the plain leather belt strung through the loops of her khaki trousers. She couldn’t imagine what the man had in mind, but if it would help them get out of this tree . . .

  She unfastened the clasp and pulled the belt free. “Here,” she said, tossing it to the Frenchman.

  Grinning at Olsson and Baklanov, the perfumer poked the sharp tongue of the belt through a corner of the thin cotton kerchief. He then made a loop of the belt and locked the clasp, leaving the scented kerchief dangling from the metal prong of the hasp.

  Holding the belt on his palm, in playful formality Fortier bowed to the Swedish botanist. “Monsieur Olsson, do you think you could cut a thin branch for me? I will need a fork at the end.”

  Grinning, Olsson retreated to a cutout in the raft. “How long?” he called.

  Fortier eyed the wasp nest. “Two meters should suffice.”

  Olsson returned a moment later with a slender branch about six feet long. He handed it to Fortier. “I see what you’re about to do. I hope it works.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Gripping her pack, Alex took an involuntary step back as Fortier placed the belt in the forked end
of the branch, then lowered it to within an inch of the wasp’s nest. A moment later the buzzing sound increased as a veritable wave of insects swarmed out to settle onto the fragrance-soaked fabric.

  “They don’t understand what’s happening,” Simons explained, a smile in her voice. “But they are irresistibly drawn to the aroma.”

  “And that, my friends, is the power of perfume.” Moving slowly, Fortier lifted the twig, drawing the kerchief away from the nest. Scores of wasps clung to it, while around it hundreds of others formed a living cloud. Stepping daintily over a pontoon, Fortier moved carefully, holding the kerchief aloft and away from his face. A sudden breath of wind fluttered the cloth for a moment, threatening to blow it back toward the group, but the clasp on the belt held it tight.

  Creeping like a tardy husband sneaking into his wife’s boudoir, Fortier proved himself the Pied Piper of wasps as he minced his way to the edge of the raft. He suspended the branch over the edge, waited for a lull between wind gusts, then smacked the base of the branch with his right hand, launching kerchief, belt, branch, and wasps over the edge of the platform.

  “I hope those buzzing babies didn’t land right by the rope,” Alex called, moving toward the porthole.

  Lifting his arms, Fortier danced his way to the center of the raft. “Do not worry, chérie—they will float around the kerchief for as long as the fragrance lasts. They will not bother you tonight.”

  As Alex hooked her safety harness to the line for the trip down, she realized the wasps had completely taken her mind off her dread of the descent.

  For at least a few moments.

  The sun had balanced atop the western horizon by the time the boat pulled within view of Yarupapa Lodge. Alex and her companions stared silently at the helicopter resting on its pontoons a few feet offshore. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised to find the helicopter at the lodge; this part of the jungle held few pockets of civilization.