Fires of Eden

by Dan Simmons

  We reconvened back at the stream and Mr. Clemens hefted the coconut. “I have half a mind to dip this in the water to let Reverend Haymark join in our ablutions,” he said, but setting the coconut safely in his own saddle-bag, he added, “but the other half of my mind vetoes the proposition.”

  “Half of my mind believes that I am out of my mind,” I said. My voice sounded drugged with fatigue even to me.

  Mr. Clemens nodded. And then he did a strange thing, stepping forward quickly and raising his hand to my shoulder. I first thought that he was adjusting my collar or returning some errant strand of hair to its proper place, but instead his large hand merely rested on my shoulder while he leaned forward and kissed me.

  I was taken totally by surprise. I did not protest. I did not pull back. Mr. Clemens kissed me again.

  Finally I pulled back, flustered, setting my hands on his chest and pushing him away, although with little force.

  Mr. Clemens shifted from boot to boot. “I apologize, Miss Stewart, but I have been wanting to do that since we were on the ship discussing cosmic topics by the light of the stars. I apologize for my presumption and awkwardness. I do not apologize for the affection that motivated the awkwardness. My intentions are of the highest caliber, and are not to be mistaken for momentary impulse.”

  I stood speechless. Finally I managed, “Really, Mr. Clemens…” which set my companion to more shuffling of boots and a blush which equaled the one I had laughed at not three hours earlier.

  Setting my hair in place, registering my unhappiness with him through posture and intensity of my unfriendly gaze, I confess that my thoughts were whirling back to the sensation of his lips on mine, his strong but sensitive fingers on my shoulder.

  “We should continue,” I said at last, pulling the reins to wake Leo from his standing doze.

  “I must apologize again, Miss Stewart, if you…”

  “We will speak of this later,” I said curtly—perhaps more curtly than I intended. The saddle leather creaked as I pulled myself into the awkward astride position I had been using since coming to the islands. Mr. Clemens rushed to help me, but I gained my seat and pulled back the reins. “We should hurry,” I said. “We do not know how long the spirit of Reverend Haymark will remain efficacious in its temporary home.”

  Mr. Clemens made a sound which I took for assent; he mounted and we continued upward along the lava slopes of Mauna Loa with my thoughts as twisted and confused as the a’a lava which now surrounded us.

  We arrived at the ramshackle village sometime in mid-afternoon. I was too exhausted to consult my watch. The village men were nowhere in sight, which relieved my anxieties somewhat. I was concerned that Mr. Clemens would have to shoot several of them to convince them to leave us alone. My brazen companion appeared to share this relief, for he seemed in higher spirits since my rebuke at the stream. He helped me off Leo, who was wheezing loudly in the way that horses do shortly before collapsing.

  The old woman was waiting for us in the hut, as was the lifeless body of Reverend Haymark. I crouched by the cleric’s corpse, looking carefully for the early signs of putrefaction that would convince me that the events of the past several hours had been an opium dream.

  The missionary’s body remained lifeless and cold to the touch, but exhibited none of the symptoms that twelve hours of true death would inevitably bring on.

  “You have brought it,” said the old woman in a way that suggested it was not a question. It soothed my nerves somewhat to see that she was no longer floating in the center of the room, but was sitting on one of the woven mats in the same manner as I.

  Mr. Clemens held up the coconut.

  “Good,” said the old woman. I scrutinized her features, but was no longer sure that she was the same person as the attractive young woman at the fissure. I was too tired to care.

  The old woman slapped me. Shocked, I raised a hand to my burning cheek.

  “You must be awake to do this thing,” she said. “You must understand and remember each step. If you make a mistake, the spirit of your kahuna friend will be lost forever.”

  I could only stare.

  “I will do it,” said Mr. Clemens, stepping between the old woman and me.

  She shook her gray head. “Only the woman, the follower of Pele, can do this thing.”

  “I am not a follower of Pele,” I said through shock-numbed lips. “I am a Christian from Ohio.”

  The old woman merely smiled. She lifted a gourd with a cloudy liquid in it. “Drink this,” she commanded.

  I looked doubtfully at the viscous liquid, but I drank. Within seconds, a strange energy surged through me.

  “Now,” said the old woman, “we shall begin.”

  There was a loud noise at the open doorway. Mr. Clemens, looking over my shoulder, said, “My Lord.”

  Filling the entire doorway was the giant hog from the Underworld of Milu. My heart stopped.

  The old woman barely paused in her preparations. “He cannot enter,” she said sharply. Setting her wizened hand on my head, looking at the hog, she said, “Kamapua’a, know that this haole wahine and all of her descendents have been set apart by my touch. They are under the protection of Pele. You may not harm their bodies.”

  The hog snorted in anger and then smiled. “But I can eat their souls.”

  “You may not enter,” said the woman. “This hut is set apart from your power. I have invoked the force of Kilauea. You have no power here.”

  The hog pawed at the earth in his inhuman frustration.

  “Attend me,” said the old woman. “Each step must be correct, or your friend’s uhane will be lost forever.”

  The chanting began then. The ritual commenced.

  Cordie regained consciousness amidst a tumble of broken palm fronds. There was no interval of confusion: she knew exactly where she was and exactly what had happened the instant before she was knocked out. She remembered the creatures blocking the road, Paul’s panic attempt to back the Jeep, the falling tree, and her own tumble out the rear of the vehicle. What she did not know was whether all of that had occurred thirty seconds earlier or three hours ago. It was still raining, although not as hard as it had been when they were driving back from Eleanor’s hale. This meant little—the tropical rainstorms had changed temperament within minutes during the past few days.

  Fighting the nausea that comes from such a bump on the head, Cordie thrashed her way through the tangle of palms and pulled herself up the rear bumper of the Jeep. Something small and wet and furry brushed against her leg and Cordie’s hands involuntarily curled into fists before she realized that it was a rat. They live in the damn palm trees. There were probably fifty of those filthy things running over me while I was out. Cordie felt her skin shudder, but she set aside the thought. She had grown up as white trash, living on the outskirts of a dump where she played every day. Most of her adult life had been spent in garbage collection. She hated rats, but she was not unused to them.

  Even before pulling herself to her feet, Cordie felt around for her tote bag. The long strap had been over her shoulder when the Jeep slammed into the tree, but she remembered the bag flying away even as she went flying. She found it within thirty seconds, its Velcro tab still secured. Cordie fumbled it open and drew out the .38 and the flashlight. Her thumb on the hammer of the pistol, her head throbbing with the aftereffects of what must be a mild concussion, she came up over the back of the Jeep with both weapon and flashlight extended.

  The Jeep was empty. Stepping through sharp branches, she worked her way around the driver’s side of the stalled vehicle. The headlights still illuminated rain but there was no sign of the creatures. Nothing moved in the underbrush. Cordie came around to the hood of the Jeep, flashlight swiveling. Nothing in front of the Jeep. Rain dripped from foliage in the dark.

  A low sound to her left made her drop to one knee and elevate the pistol barrel level with the flashlight beam. It came again—a moan. Cordie lowered the beam and saw a man’s bare foot protru
ding from the flower bed. Small plaques set in the ground near the bare foot bore labels that Cordie could read even from this distance: “Hibiscus” and “Lantana” and “Hapu’u Fern.” The man moaned again. Swinging the beam behind her again, feeling sure that she was the only person or creature standing in the immediate vicinity, Cordie approached the body on the ground.

  It was Paul Kukali. The art curator’s shirt had been torn off and his trousers had been shredded as if by long claws. The left side of his face was bruised and lacerated, one eye hidden by the purple swelling, his left arm was obviously broken in two places, a finger was missing on his right hand, there were deep cuts on his chest and upper leg, and his right ankle looked wrong, as if it had been twisted too far. “Jesus,” whispered Cordie, “they did a job on you.” She had never especially liked the man, had not fully trusted him for some reason, but she hated seeing him in this condition.

  The art curator moaned again. Cordie leaned closer and set a hand on his bare chest. Despite the damage, the man’s breathing seemed strong and clear and his heartbeat was solid. “Paul,” she whispered, “where’s Nell? Where’s Eleanor?”

  Paul Kukali moaned again. He was not truly conscious.

  Cordie patted his shoulder and stood. She had received enough medical training to know that she should leave him in place and get help to him rather than vice versa; his back could be injured or there could be serious internal injuries that could kill him if she tried to move him. But Cordie also knew that in this insane place at this insane time, medical help would not be coming anytime soon. The creatures that did this to Paul might well find her before she got back to the Big Hale, in which case he could die out here in the dark.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Cordie, and began searching the paved walkway and flower beds with the flashlight. There were footprints—human and otherwise—and torn flower beds, but no sign of Nell. Then, suddenly, the flashlight beam illuminated something pale several yards into the jungle twenty paces or so to the right of the fallen tree that had blocked their path. Crouching, keeping the pistol ready, Cordie moved under the low branches. The rain had intensified and fell from leaf to leaf with a patting sound that might have been soothing under different circumstances.

  It was Eleanor. Her clothing was not ripped and there were no external signs of injury. Cordie set the pistol in her belt and felt her friend’s wrist and throat. She laid her cheek on Eleanor’s breast. Nell had no pulse. She was not breathing. Her skin was cold to the touch.

  “Shit,” said Cordie. Gripping the flashlight in her mouth, she pulled Eleanor’s body through the mud and underbrush. By the time Cordie reached the path, she was gasping for breath and the throbbing in her aching head made her dizzy. She had to sit down on one of the stones lining the flower bed to let the dizziness and nausea pass. Then, lifting Eleanor with great tenderness, she carried the body to the Jeep and set it carefully in the wet backseat.

  Paul Kukali had ceased moaning but he was still breathing. Cordie used a bandana to wrap around the bleeding right hand with the missing finger and then, taking care not to touch the shattered left arm, she half carried, half dragged the man to the front seat of the Jeep. Paul moaned loudly during this operation, especially when his broken ankle scraped along the ground, but he did not fully waken.

  After using the shoulder harness to fix the curator in place and wedging Eleanor’s body in the back so that it would not roll, Cordie leaned against the Jeep briefly to shake away the dizziness, tossed her tote bag on the floorboards, leaned over to hot-wire the ignition again, got the thing started after several minutes, and just sat in the driver’s seat for a moment. The Jeep was blocked by the fallen tree in front and the smaller one behind. But the tree in front was a palm tree and the fronds were just a mass of foliage in the flower bed to the right.

  Cordie set the Jeep in four-wheel low and drove over the fronds, cracking branches and pitching back and forth as she went. She half expected something to drop snarling from the trees onto her back, but she was too busy keeping the vehicle from pitching over to worry about it. Then she was on the paved path to the Big Hale and could see the dark hulk of the Shipwreck Bar ahead.

  Cordie shifted out of four-wheel low and accelerated.

  The five-piece Hawaiian band had initially refused to come to the Mauna Pele, but Trumbo had promised them an extra thousand and here they were, saxing and guitaring and ukulele-ing their way through the night, with the hurricane lamps providing a soft glow to the long banquet room and Sato’s people scarfing down saki like it was going out of style. Trumbo welcomed the music, for it covered both the sounds of the storm and the unusual quiet of the almost abandoned hotel beneath the seventh floor. It also allowed him to think rather than talk.

  The thinking was not terribly productive. According to the original schedule, Sato was supposed to have signed the papers that afternoon and this was to have been the celebration party for both sides. But although the terms seemed settled enough, Hiroshe Sato and his advisers were upset about Sunny Takahashi taking off and refused to sign until the kid returned. As far as Byron Trumbo could tell, Sunny wasn’t really dead, but was a sort of ghost being kept in a lava tube south of the resort, guarded by a giant, talking pig who would give Sunny back if he—Byron Trumbo, billionaire—would come down to talk.

  Weird shit, thought Trumbo. He was not superstitious, nor was he religious, and he had no interest in the paranormal, but he was used to weird shit. One did not amass a fortune of over a billion dollars without encountering weird shit. Nor did one amass such a fortune without the ability to focus, and what Byron Trumbo was focused on now was getting the contract signed and the Mauna Pele off his back so he had the capital to dig his way out of his current financial crisis. The talking pig could wait for rational analysis. So could that other talking pig, Caitlin Sommersby Trumbo, although he doubted if anything rational would ever pass between the two of them again.

  Michaels, the acting security chief, had come by earlier to whisper in his boss’s ear that Mrs. Trumbo and the other two ladies, along with the lawyer, Koestler, were together and guarded and safe on the seventh floor of the Big Hale. Trumbo had fetched the other two with the excuse that a hurricane was blowing in—which it looked like it was. He was sorry that the three women had finally stumbled across one another; Maya was not a great loss—the relationship was reaching the end of its natural arc anyway—but Trumbo had enjoyed the unusual pairing with Bicki. Well, maybe that’s not a total loss, he thought, but quickly put the issue aside. He focused on the immediate problem.

  The immediate problem was how to get Hiroshe to sign the deal. Trumbo suspected that despite the Sato Group’s apparent obliviousness to the chaos around the Mauna Pele, Sunny’s disappearance had been just the icing on their cake of vague uneasiness. Despite their vicious history right up to and through World War II, the modern Japanese affected this terror of violence and they could sniff it out.

  On the other hand, Trumbo knew, young Hiroshe was trying to step out of his father’s shadow, and this beautiful golf club on the Big Island of Hawaii was the shortest route. It would either turn him into a successful billionaire entrepreneur in his own right, or sink the old man’s fortune. Byron Trumbo did not really give a shit which way that went as long as the resort got sold and he got the cash.

  Trumbo wondered if he should have powered up the lights. He had guards around the emergency generator and it was working all right, but he had decided to save power for the elevator, the seventh-floor security alarms, and the lights in the conference room when the time came for the signing…if it came. Meanwhile, the Japs didn’t seem to mind the hurricane-lamp ambience, so he decided to leave well enough alone.

  The band was working up a sweat, Will Bryant had come back to the table but was wisely avoiding his boss’s eye, and Trumbo was carrying on stupid conversation with Hiroshe, old Matsukawa, and Dr. Tatsuro, when Michaels came back. Trumbo despised having his ear whispered in, so he stepped away from the table
for a minute.

  “Two things,” said the flustered security man. “First, Fredrickson is off the air.”

  “You mean he didn’t check in when he was supposed to?”

  “No,” said Michaels, “I mean that he’s off the air. We had him on an open band so all he had to do was break squelch if he got in trouble and…”

  “Break squelch?” said Trumbo irritably. He hated it when people spoke professional or technical double-talk.

  Michaels actually blushed. “That’s an old ’Nam term, sir. It means we had him on an open band…the rest of us kept off it…and all he had to do was press the transmit button so we could hear him. That’s the way we used to communicate in the boonies when we didn’t want the Viet Cong to overhear our…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Trumbo. “Save me the war stories. So all Fredrickson had to do was push a button, but he didn’t?”

  “We don’t know, Mr. Trumbo. He’s off the air. It’s as if something smashed his radio.”

  “Or ate it,” said Trumbo.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Nothing,” said Trumbo.

  “Shall we send some men out, sir?” said Michaels. “Things are pretty quiet up here, we could…”

  “No,” said Trumbo. “If Fredrickson’s still alive, he’ll be doing his job and find a way to let us know if something comes out of that hole in the ground. If he’s not…well, why waste men. Now what was the other thing you wanted?”

  “There’s a woman here to see you, sir.”