Earth Thirst (17 page)

“That's when we found out who was still on the boat; we could hear them screaming and shouting. Me and Tawni—she was the one who had the orca tattoo on the back of her neck—well, anyway, she and I tried to get all the rooms open, get people out and on deck where the life boats were. Gus and some of the other guys tried to fight the fire, but it spread too fast. It all happened so quickly. We didn't have any time. We barely got the life boats in the water in time. And then there was nothing we could do except wait for someone to spot the smoke.”

“How many made it into the lifeboats?”

“I don't know. There were three boats. There were six—seven?—in the one I ended up in. At least that many in the others. I… don't really know. And once we got picked up and taken to the hospital, it was chaotic. There were lawyers from Prime Earth there. The police showed up. Hospital security was trying to get everyone out of the way. It was a mess. I don't even remember a lot of it. The next morning, the guys in dark suits show up, and I know they're friends of the guy from the boat.”

“Secutores.”

She nods. “And that's when I knew we were going to disappear. Those of us who were coherent enough to talk about what had happened. I had to get out of there or get a message out to someone, but before I could do anything, the nurses came in and put me out. When I woke up… well, I didn't really wake up again. Not until you came.” She flushes slightly, and turns her attention to her food, which she has barely touched. “Your turn,” she says. “What happened to you?”

I give her the short version—glossing over the parts where people died. She pretends not to notice the judicious editing.

NINETEEN

S
he wanders out onto the balcony again when we're done eating, and I stack dishes and clean up—giving her some space—before I join her. The sky is wide above us, and a bat flies by, a dark rag fluttering across a panoply of glittering stars.

“What's next?” she asks.

“Out there, past the airport, is Rano Kau,” I say, pointing off into the darkness. “The island was formed by three volcanoes, which extruded over a relative short span of time—geologically speaking. Rano Kau was one of the last ones to form, and the rim of the crater makes for a good wind break. It makes for a good micro-climate: warmed by geothermals, a couple of rain basins that are large enough to call lakes, and a rich soil.”

“Sort of like Ka-Zar's Savage Land.”

“Whose?”

“Ka-Zar. He's a—never mind. Yes, I read comics as a kid. I was
that
girl.”

“And look at you now. All grown up.”

“Mostly.” She looks at me over her shoulder, and I can see her face quite well in the ambient light. There is an impish curl on her lips. She leans back slightly, bumping her shoulder against me.

I don't know how I'm supposed to react. She's been sending me a variety of signals, and I've been wrestling with my own… what? To call it a
long-standing fascination
is to dissemble. To downplay what I've been feeling.

“There's a break in the rim of the crater,” I say, ignoring the signals I may or may not be getting. “You can look out over the ocean there; it became a place where the natives performed religious ceremonies. Over time, they built a village.”

“So there was a cult here,” she says.

“Not a Cargo Cult. This was earlier, and it wasn't reliant upon manna dropping from Heaven as part of the ritual celebrations. It was called
tangata manu
. A bird cult.”

“Didn't the Cargo Cults worship birds too—as in the giant planes that dropped supplies?”

“This was a different sort of bird cult.”

“Did they worship chickens or something?”

“Terns, actually.”

“Isn't that the local equivalent?” I can tell she's playing with me, and I find it both intriguing and distracting.

“The
tangata manu
rite was a manhood ritual,” I say, keeping on topic. “Every year, hardy warriors from the tribes would gather at Orongo and they would race to see who could get to a tiny atoll that lies offshore. They would dive and swim to this rock and try to be the first one to collect an egg from one of the terns that nested there. They're not chickens, but they might as well be, as ubiquitous as they are. Though, by some quirk, they only nest on Motu Nui—the atoll—and not on the main island.”

“A quirk, eh?”

“Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the island shamans banded together and wiped them out on the island. After a generation or two, the terns probably got the hint and stayed away.”

“Smart birds.”

“The guy who finds an egg first gets to stay on the rock as long as he likes—meditating, praying, whatever it is they think they're supposed to do—and then he comes back to the Orongo and gives the egg to his patron, who becomes the
tangata manu
for the next season.”

“The bird man,” she nods. “Does he get to wear a funny hat?”

“Of course. It's not a cult if it doesn't involve a funny hat.”

“Okay,” she laughs. “So what does this have to do with why we're here?”

“The
tangata manu
got to help tend the trees that grew in the crater. For that year, they were apprenticed to the steward of the garden. What they learned about tending the trees and the soil was knowledge they got to take back to their tribe. Remember how I said that the dirt here is different? Cultivating it was an ancient secret that was critical to any tribes' success in the growing season. The
tangata manu
's tribe would be assured of having a good harvest the year after their champion won.”

“They grew the trees everywhere else,” Mere says.

I nod. “But they're all gone now, which means—” I pause as bits of memory fall into place in my head. White wings. Waves. Torchlight. An arc of carved stone. Figures of birdmen.

“The steward left,” Mere finishes for me. “Is that why the island died?”

“I don't remember,” I say.

* * *

I should go alone, but Mere pretends not to hear me when I suggest the idea. It's not far to the crater—a couple of kilometers—but we have to go around the airport. It'd be easy enough to rent a bicycle from the hotel, but doing so at this time of night is just going to draw attention to us. We keep it simple instead, and as soon as we walk a block from the hotel, I pick her up and start jogging.

She feels good, nestled against my chest, her head tucked against my shoulder.

An airplane howls overhead as I follow the road around the end of Mataveri's main runway, and instead of sticking with the road as it doubles back on itself toward the main terminal, I head overland. It takes me about an hour to jog up the hill, and I'm out of breath when we reach the top and I put her down. I don't want to look, afraid I'm going to see as desolate a landscape as the sere terrain surrounding the city, but to my surprise, the valley of the crater is carpeted with a lush forest.

“Are there any trees?” she asks, unable to see as clearly as I can.

“Yes,” I say, my voice breaking. “There are a lot of them.”

“Silas.” She fumbles for my arm, and I try to suppress the shiver that runs through my flesh as her fingers get hold of me. “When was the last time you were here? There haven't been trees on Easter Island for more than a hundred years.”

“I know.”

“When we were on the plane you said something about remembering World War II, and you said you were older than that. When I asked you how old, you dodged my question.” Her hand tightens on my arm. “I know we laughed about the
vampire
thing, and what you said about being a
Dardanoi
…”

Her brain is starting to insist on some answers. Things are becoming too real. I understand her confusion—I have my own. She can't make the pieces work without accepting some things as being truth that are difficult to swallow.

“I was here,” I admit. My memories are still fragmented, like the leftover pottery shards that get folded into raw soil. The growing loam.

“Are you familiar with Sirolimus?” I ask, changing the subject. “It's an immunosuppressant, used primarily to treat patients who've received organ transplants. It is sourced from a bacterium only found here in the island.”

I close my eyes and try to remember the way Rano Kau used to be. “We cultivated a number of fragile species in the garden down there. Species of tree and bush that had gone extinct elsewhere in the world. It was its own ecosystem, and we had saved it. The soil here—the humus—is incredibly rich, almost the perfect proportions. In fact, we tried to grow a sapling from”—I pause, catching myself—“from an old, old tree that we had been tending for centuries. Our cutting lasted longer than a lot of people thought it would, but it didn't survive.”

It was too far from Mother. Or too close, perhaps.

“Why is the soil important?” she asks. “Is it for you? Do you need to… you know, sleep in the ground?”

“We can. We do. But most of the ground has been tainted by all the chemicals leaching in from landfills or what seeps into the ground after being dumped in streams. We need clean dirt, and that's what this ground is. This garden and our steward were always here, even after the island was
discovered
by European explorers.”

The image of a headdress of white feathers floats through my head. As does the sensation of jumping off a cliff. And black streaks on skin, like ash mixed with tears. I'm starting to build context. Remembering why I should know this place.

“I need to rest,” I say, pushing the images aside. They're still a distracting mess. “My immune system is compromised. I need to flush my system clean. Any of the others would have the same need. They'd come here for the same reasons.”

“And here we are,” she says, “and there are trees, so what is the problem?”

“Why are there only trees here?” I ask. “If there is a steward here still, why did they let the rest of the island die?”

“We should go ask,” she points out. “I wish I could see something,” she sighs.

“This is why I didn't want you to come with me,” I remind her. “I should take you back to the hotel.”

“Yeah, well, that's not going to happen,” she replies. “I should have brought a flashlight.”

I offer her my optics. “Try these.”

They're too big for her face, but she stuffs the ends of them into her hair and they look like they'll stay in place well enough. I show her how to work them, and as I do, her hand naturally rests on my hip. “Wow,” she grins as she looks around. “These are cool. I knew being obstinate would totally work in my favor.”

She fiddles with the settings, and I take advantage of her hand moving away to step out of her line of sight.

“Oh,” she says, grabbing my arm without missing. “I see something. There's a blob out there. Sort of red and yellow.”

“It's a heat bloom,” I say, realizing she's got the thermal filter on. “Ambient heat. Usually from a building.”

“Maybe it's Orongo,” she suggests, “though…” She cocks her head to one side as if the change in perspective will help her decipher what she is seeing.

“It can't be,” I tell her. “Orongo is on the western rim of the crater.” She's looking off to our left, and since we're facing nearly south, she's looking in the wrong direction. My night vision is good, but whatever heat signature she has spotted is too subtle for me to pick out.

“It's almost like a cross.”

“There shouldn't be anything like that out there. The natives weren't Christian. Nor would they build something like that if they were.”

“Well, there's something out there now.” She offers me the optics. “Here. Look for yourself.”

I do, and I can tune the settings more delicately than she can. The shape wavers, solidifies.

“It's a building,” I announce. “Four wings off a central hub.”

“Well, I guess I know where we're going, then.”

I hand back the optics. “I guess so.”

Why would Arcadia build something like that?

* * *

We work our way down the sloping rim of the crater and enter the rows of trees, and I'm struck almost immediately by the methodical organization of the trees.

There are toromiro, of course, a leafy tree almost fernlike in its appearance; it used to cover the hills of Rapa Nui. Ranks of miro stand in stately lines, while clumps of carambola—star fruit trees—huddle together like displaced children. I think I smell the tang of citrus trees, though I haven't seen any yet. There are several different species of palm trees, as well as two varieties of the plant whose fruit is known as the miracle berry. Both of these last two species are native to Africa, and their presence crystallizes a suspicion that has been building in the back of my brain.

“It's amazing,” Mere says. The moon has risen, and she's taken off the optics as there's enough light to follow the track between the rows of trees. “It's a tree farm.”

“Yes,” I say, “but it's not right.”

“What's wrong with this? There are species here that live nowhere else, right? I thought you'd be more excited about it.”

“I am. Don't get me wrong. I thought the toromiro were extinct.” I wave a hand up and down the row we're walking along. “But this isn't, well,
organic
. Notice how the toromiro are all exactly the same distance from one another.” I point at the next row. “See those over there? Those are tualang. They're not much taller than the toromiro now, but give them time and they can grow to heights of more than seventy-five meters. Bees like them. The sorts of bees that build nests a meter across. They're not terribly aggressive, which makes it easy to harvest their honey and beeswax.”

“So there are bees here too?”

“Perhaps. The use of honey as an antiseptic goes back thousands of years.”

“You said this was a spa. That's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect to find here. The bacteria you were talking about earlier. The honey from bees. It all sounds like the sort of things you'd find at a private Beverly Hills spa for the stupidly rich.”

“It's the organization,” I say. “The building, too.” It's obvious to me, and I know why she doesn't see it as I do. She's never been underground; she's never experienced the fulsome chaos of the systemic nervous system of plant life. The way roots of different species—weeds, flowers, shrubs, trees—all share the same space, the same water and nutrients. It only looks chaotic from the outside. If you are in it—if you can sense every other root and tendril around you—then it becomes part of you. Order out of chaos.