Fires of Eden

by Dan Simmons

  Obviously a lava tube connecting to the sea. Eleanor could hear the slap of the sea as waves surged in the narrow passage thirty feet below. Some dynamic of the lava tube channeled the explosive surf up this crack in the rock to the small aperture where she crouched. Satisfied with the explanation and not wishing to get wetter than she already was from the spray, Eleanor was about ready to leave when she heard something else above the wail of wind and water.

  Voices. There were voices in the lava tube.

  Eleanor stepped back as the geyser of spray exploded upward. As soon as the spouting ceased, she moved back to the crack and lowered her face to it.

  Voices raised in rhythmic argument or actual chanting. Trusting the surge of water not to come off schedule, Eleanor lowered her head and shoulders through the hole and realized that the fissure extended downward for fifteen feet or so and then leveled off into the ceiling of a cave. The lava tube was deeper and much narrower toward the sea, the ridged cavern rising like a ramp toward this blowhole. Eleanor realized that the last hundred feet or so of the lava tube was not much more than three feet across. It widened and leveled off as it moved inland under the lava field.

  Blocking the blowhole as she was, Eleanor could not have seen this in the darkness. It was not totally dark. The gleam of torches or some greener light illuminated the lava tube in the mauka, or landward, direction. She heard the explosion of surf from the opposite direction and suddenly pictured the high-pressure blast of water hurtling her way. She had tarried too long. Fingers slipping on wet rock, Eleanor scrabbled to pull her head and shoulders up the crevice before the geyser smashed her like a huge sledgehammer.

  Her shoulders had just come free when heavy hands fell on her back.

  “Are you shitting me?” Byron Trumbo was just preparing to putt when Will Bryant brought him the news of the escaped murderer.

  “I never shit you,” said his assistant.

  Trumbo frowned, putted, missed, putted again, missed, and putted in, falling two strokes behind. Hiroshe Sato could not hide his smile. Trumbo stalked off the green, pulling Will by his elbow.

  The morning session had gone well. The Sato Group had opened the negotiations three weeks ago with a bid of $183 million for the Mauna Pele. Trumbo had insisted on $500 million for the resort and adjoining property. The discussion now hovered at $285 million. When it hit $300 million, Trumbo was prepared to agree. He would use the capital to shore up his appalling losses in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, get out of the casino and hotel business, and get back to the basics of stock and real estate.

  Then, as he was lining up his putt on the fourth hole of the northern golf course, Will Bryant had whispered in his ear, “Sheriff Ventura is here.”

  “Fuck,” Trumbo muttered after he told the Sato people to go ahead to the next tee. He walked back under the palms to where Ventura was waiting. The Kona sheriff was so tanned that he looked like a Hawaiian, but Trumbo knew that the man had grown up in Iowa.

  “Charlie, you look great,” said Trumbo, shaking the other man’s hand. During the construction of the Mauna Pele, Trumbo had taken it as his personal duty to get to know all of the Kona Coast’s politicians and law enforcement people.

  “Mr. Trumbo,” said the sheriff, pulling back his huge hand. Ventura was at least six-three and had never cut the billionaire much slack.

  “Will says that you’ve got some news about Jimmy whatshisname…the killer.”

  “Kahekili,” said Ventura. The sheriff’s voice was flat. “And you know as well as I that the allegations were silly. Jimmy Kahekili could slice somebody up in a bar fight if he was drunk enough, but he’s no serial killer.”

  Trumbo raised an eyebrow. “So you say. But Will tells me that you came out here to warn me about him anyway.”

  Charlie Ventura nodded. “I got a call from the district attorney in Hilo. They let Jimmy go last night. The judge reduced the bail from fifty thousand dollars to a thousand because of the lack of evidence, and Jimmy’s family made bail.”

  Trumbo waited.

  “This morning Jimmy’s cellmate told a trustee that Jimmy took the whole thing kind of personal,” said Ventura. “Evidently Jimmy had convinced himself over the past couple of weeks that you were responsible for his troubles and he told this trustee that he was coming after you when he got out.”

  Trumbo sighed. “Can’t you do something?”

  Ventura made a gesture with one hand. “The state police have put out a notice that Jimmy’s to be questioned about the threats, but so far no one can find him.”

  “He lived around here, didn’t he?” said Trumbo.

  “Yep. Right down the road in Hoopuloa. I’ve already spoken to Jimmy’s mother and two brothers this morning. They say they haven’t seen him and I’ve passed the word to him that if he shows up at the Mauna Pele or makes any more threats, I’ll bring him in myself,”

  Trumbo said nothing. He remembered that Kahekili was a big man…larger than the sheriff…a giant. He had once chopped up a South Kona bar with two axes, wielding one in each hand.

  “Anyway,” said the sheriff, “I know you have tons of security around here, Mr. Trumbo. So you might alert them to watch out for Jimmy. He’s a hothead and he knows the country around here.”

  “Yeah,” said Trumbo, thinking of his missing bodyguard, his still-comatose security chief, and the dickhead who was in charge of things now. “Thanks, Sheriff.”

  “One other thing,” said Ventura. “Have the state police been here about the dog and the hand?”

  Trumbo blinked. How the fuck does he know about that?

  Ventura took the billionaire’s silence as a negative. “They should be here sometime today to interrogate the witnesses and take a statement,” said the sheriff.

  “Good,” said Trumbo. He thought, That fucking art curator. His ass is grass.

  “I’ll be in touch if there’s any news about Jimmy,” said Ventura.

  “You do that,” said Trumbo, and turned back toward the tee. Will Bryant was hurrying toward him. Trumbo stopped him six feet away with one blunt finger aimed like a pistol barrel. “If this is bad news, I may have to kill you.”

  His assistant nodded, swallowed, and said, “Three things, boss. First, Mr. Carter talked to Hastings again and has taken it on himself to warn the guests that the lava flows are causing potential problems. ‘Possible airborne toxic events,’ Carter’s calling it.”

  “That little shit,” breathed Trumbo. He would fire the manager and the art curator at the same time. “Is anyone listening to him?”

  Will rubbed his upper lip. “This morning we had seventy-three paying guests. Forty-two of them have checked out.”

  Trumbo grinned. The ground felt slippery under his golf shoes, as if he were standing on a board that was resting on a field of marbles. Trumbo seriously thought that he might be losing his mind. “Tell me that’s the worst of the three things, Will.”

  Bryant said nothing.

  Trumbo continued grinning. “Go on.”

  “Second, Dillon’s missing.”

  “Missing? Whaddya mean? This morning he was sedated in the infirmary.”

  Will nodded. “Sometime after eight he clonked Dr. Scamahorn on the head with a bedpan and made a run for it. The nurse says that he’s still in his hospital gown.”

  Trumbo looked out at the a’a as if he might see the hairy little security director running from boulder to boulder with his ass peeking out. “OK,” he said. “No big deal. Tell Fredrickson to watch for his old boss while he’s watching for Jimmy whatshisname with an axe. What’s three?”

  Will Bryant hesitated.

  “Come on,” snapped Trumbo. “Sato’s waiting for me. What’s three?”

  “Tsuneo Takahashi,” said Will.

  “Yeah,” said Trumbo, rubbing his eye. “Hiroshe said that Sunny was up late partying with some of the girls: He slept through the breakfast and missed the tee-off. Sato’s pissed at him. So?”

  “He’s missing,” said Will Brya
nt. The assistant took a breath. “Sunny had a private room on the fourth floor of the Big Hale…evidently the others in Sato’s group are used to his partying and like to keep him away from the business…but Fredrickson checked and says that something smashed the lanai doors sometime before dawn. The suite is torn all to hell. It looks like all of Sunny’s clothes are still there…just no Sunny.”

  Trumbo lifted his graphite putter in both hands and bent it without thinking. “Don’t panic,” he whispered.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Will leaned closer.

  “Don’t panic,” Trumbo whispered, even more softly this time. He continued to bend the five-hundred-dollar putter as he walked back toward the tee for the fifth hole. “Don’t panic. Don’t panic.”

  SIXTEEN

  E Pele, eia ka ’ohelo ’au;

  e taumaha aku wau ’ia ’oe,

  e ’ai ho’i au tetahi.

  Oh, Pele, here are your ’ohelo berries;

  I offer some to you,

  some I also eat.

  —traditional Pele chant

  Mrs. Cordie Stumpf, née Cordie Cooke of Elm Haven, Illinois, awoke before dawn with no hangover but with the constant pain she had ignored for two months now. Cordie went for a walk as the light came up and the birds came alive with noise. Cordie did not jog. The thought of running around when you did not have to was absurd to her.

  Cordie waited for the breakfast lanai to open and had a huge breakfast of pancakes with coconut syrup and Portuguese sausage and scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast and three glasses of the excellent orange juice they served here and several cups of coffee. The leather journal that Nell had given her the night before was in her bag, but Cordie did not take it out while she ate. She had not looked at it before turning in last night. Cordie did not read many books, but this one she planned to read straight through.

  After breakfast, Cordie wandered past the garden-level shops of the Big Hale. Most of the expensive little boutiques were closed, as were the beauty salon and the massage therapy center. Cordie began to wonder if the locals had decided not to come to work.

  Stephen Ridell Carter came up to her as she was headed for the beach. “Mrs. Stumpf,” he began, nervously glancing at a list of names on his clipboard, “I’m pleased I caught you.”

  “Me too,” said Cordie. “I always like getting caught.”

  The manager looked a bit nonplussed at that, but went ahead with what was obviously a spiel he had repeated many times that morning. It seemed that the twin volcanic eruptions had sent lava within a dozen miles of the Mauna Pele. Mr. Carter was sure that there was no immediate danger, but upon advice of the world’s greatest volcano authorities, the Mauna Pele was suggesting that its guests might want to head homeward or transfer to another fine hotel with the assurance of a full refund of their fees.

  “I’m not payin’ anything,” Cordie reminded him. “I’m vacationing with the millionaires.”

  Mr. Carter smiled. “Quite. But I assure you that the remaining vacation time will be honored when this…minor risk…has passed.”

  “That include the airfare I won? They going to fly me back a second time for free?”

  The manager hesitated only a second. “Of course.”

  Cordie showed her small teeth in a grin. “Well, thanks but no thanks, Mr. C. I’m here and I guess I’ll stay.”

  “But if there is any way…”

  “Nope, thanks anyway,” said Cordie, tapping the thin man on his linen-suited arm. “I got to get me to the beach. I have a bunch of reading to do.”

  Cordie did not actually read on the beach itself. Her skin was still red from the previous day’s sunburn and she did not want to expose the journal to direct sunlight and salt air. Instead, Cordie found a lounge chair on the grassy, parklike area twenty yards in from the beach south of the Shipwreck Bar, sheltered and shaded by palms, but within a short walk of refreshments. Settling back in the cushions, making sure that her cover-up shielded her sunburned thighs from the solar rays, Cordie opened the book and began reading. She was a slow reader, but by late morning she had reached the account of events along the South Kona Coast recorded 130 years earlier.

  June 18, 1866, In an unnamed village along the Kona Coast—

  The night and day since last I wrote seem like the half-forgotten sights of a world with which I have long since ceased to have aught to do. In truth, I believe that I have exchanged my tenure In a world of beauty and sublimity for a place in hell. But even such an excursion as a descent into hell demands the honest traveler tell his tales, and so I shall.

  Last night, the heathen temple, after the rain, after the rescue of Halemanu, after the return of wild-eyed Mr. Clemens…it all seems so long ago. But that is where I last had time to set pen to paper, and that is where I must resume.

  “Wondrous things!” Mr. Clemens had exclaimed, and—ignoring the native child’s pleas that we leave that place at once—Reverend Haymark and I urged the correspondent to share the events of the past half hour.

  “The past half hour!” Mr. Clemens had said, removing his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checking the time. At seeing that he had indeed been gone from us for half an hour’s span, Mr. Clemens began laughing wildly. Reverend Haymark stepped closer, squeezed the maniacal correspondent’s upper arm with what I could perceive was a powerful grip, and handed him a silver flask.

  “Whiskey?” said Mr. Clemens, pausing in his laughter long enough to hold the flask under his nose.

  “For medicinal purposes,” said the cleric. Our Reverend Haymark had been a man of many surprises these past few nights.

  Mr. Clemens drank deeply and wiped his mustache with shaking hand. “You must forgive me,” he said, gazing at none of the three of us directly as he spoke. “You will understand when I…when I tell of the wondrous things I saw.”

  The three of us spectators sat silent as the redheaded young newspaper man spoke in his strangely lyrical Missouri accent.

  “Although I could plainly see the torches on the beach, it took me a while to work my way down the cliff face without being detected. It was here that all my years of being a boy served me in good stead. Secrecy and stealth are a boy’s middle name. By and by I reached the bottom of the hill and sought out a vantage point from which I could spy without being spied upon in return. An S-shaped rock, a sort of split boulder near the point where the trees ended and the sand began, served that purpose most admirably. I set up housekeeping there not two hundred feet from where the torches burned and the ghostly figures cavorted. Now that I have come through it, I admit that I was…well, perhaps frightened is too strong a word for the emotion in my breast…but I admit to a certain shortage in the saliva department and a surplus of urgency elsewhere.

  “What I saw then was enough to make a Methodist of me. First there were the marchers…the chanting and music-playing Marchers we spied from this very hut…another set of Marchers made up, it appeared, of seven-foot giants whose skin glowed the same pearly light as their uncanny torches…and more sets of Marchers that arrived even as I crouched behind my boulder. At that moment I would have sold my soul for the meanest spyglass I had ever used from my pilothouse…sold it and be welcome.

  “There must have been a hundred or more Marchers there. Both the human-sized ones and the larger variety were present in both male and female form…they wore almost no clothes and the torchlight and my fuddled mind were clear enough for this identification. Some were obviously royalty, for they stood or sat or reclined on the stretchers—those open palanquins I have seen the native royalty in Oahu travel in—carried by slaves and gave orders while the others worked feverishly. Royalty is the same the world over and it is usually found horizontal.

  “But the workers… I must say they worked with a will. As I watched, these slaves…for it was obvious to this son of the South that they were slaves, even though they shared the same skin color as their masters…these slaves disappeared into the jungle and reappeared in much the same frenzied manner as I have
seen ants come and go from a particularly busy anthill. Each time these teams of slaves emerged from the jungle they struggled under the weight of a stone block some four feet square, similar if not identical to the stone blocks we observed in the abandoned temple which lies just outside this hut in which we shelter. I watched as the gods…for this is how I thought of the seven-foot-tall figures, so noble was their posture and bearing…pointed to the spot on the beach where the first stone blocks should be placed. The slaves hurried to do so, and then scurried back into the jungle for still more loads of blocks.

  “And so I watched the construction of an entirely new heiau, for such it was. I soon recognized the shape…the broad steps for sacrifice, the walls for defense. Ah… I see in your eyes that you cannot believe such a thing. How could an entire temple be built in the space of half an hour? Thus you may understand my amazement, Miss Stewart, Reverend Haymark, for I stayed hidden behind my boulder and watched this frenzied construction for hour after hour. At one point I marveled that the dawn had not risen to interrupt these titanic labors, but when I removed my watch to check the time—just as I did moments ago before you—only ten minutes had passed from the time I had last checked the hour before descending the cliff. I was sure that the device had failed. Indeed, upon checking the second hand, I found it frozen in place.