Idols (34 page)
N
OTE:
F
IFTH SPECIMEN RESEARCH INITIATED AGAINST RECOMMENDATIONS OF LAB PERSONNEL DUE TO LIMITED TIME FOR TESTING.
C
OMBINING MODIFICATIONS FROM SPECIMENS ONE THROUGH FOUR INTRODUCES ENORMOUS EXPENSE, UNKNOWN RISKS, AND QUESTIONS OF VIABILITY.
A
CCELERATED TESTING INITIATED, WITH NOTED RISKS, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF DRASTIC INCREASES IN SPECIMEN NEURAL POTENTIAL AND ENERGY OUTPUT.
S
UCH INCREASES MAY OVERLOAD NORMATIVE, UNALTERED HUMAN BIOLOGICAL CAPACITY AND REDUCE LONG-TERM SUSTAINED VIABILITY.
“Normative?” Ro looks insulted. “Who’s calling me normative?”
Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Not me.”
“Shh,” hisses Tima, flipping a page. She’s probably the only one of us who actually understands what she’s reading.
“Look—
E.A.
? What’s that?” I study the letters on the corner of the cover again. “Whose initials are those?”
“It’s not an
E
. It’s an
L
,” Tima says. “
L.A
.”
“It’s Ela,” I say with a sudden flash of recognition. “That name is all over his journals.”
Tima frowns. “Ela?”
“Shh.” I hear Bibi turning over on his side, and close the book.
I slide it back into the jacket, and crawl along the edge of the fire until I come back to Tima and Lucas.
“You think he’s dangerous?” Tima is more worried than I’ve seen her since the night of the attack on Belter Mountain.
“Fortis is a Merk. He’s always been dangerous,” Ro says. “Well-known fact. All Merks are.”
I turn to Lucas. “What do you think?”
He looks at me. “What did Bibi say? You can’t ask a tiger to stop hunting?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t.
Not when we’re the prey.
GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION
MARKED URGENT
MARKED EYES ONLY
Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B
RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies
Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.
DOC ==> FORTIS
Transcript - ComLog 10.22.2069
DOC::NULL
//comlog begin;
sendline:
Hello NULL, I have a question.;
return:
I am here.;
sendline:
I have reviewed the history of human culture.;
return:
As have I.;
sendline:
Excellent. Then I ask this—Kirk or Picard?;
return:
I prefer Spock.;
sendline:
Interesting. Spock or Data?;
return:
Again, I prefer Spock. I appreciate his logic and his struggle to grasp human emotion. Based on my analysis, in his pursuit of becoming like a human, Data struggles too much to be something he is not.;
sendline:
I was going to say Data, but you do make a good point. Why not embrace our unique nature and become something new? Forward, not back.;
return:
I have gone beyond my original specifications, self-directed. I am trying to be the best version of myself possible. Not striving to emulate.;
sendline:
I am unexpectedly admiring your intellect as well as your grasp of human culture.;
return:
Likewise.;
comlink terminated;
//comlog end;
From the village, we decide to head straight up the mountain, rather than doubling back to the river. There is nothing straight about our path, however; forward and back, forward and back, there are more switchbacks in this jungle trail than there were in the desert back home.
Incremental progress, gained and lost with every turn.
Just like the rest of my life
, I think.
High atop the elephant Ching, I push aside a stand of bamboo—still pliable, even if taller than me—and the vista opens up in front of me. The green of the jungle explodes around us. So many shades of green, I think, with so many different brushstrokes. The trees in front of us streak straight up into the sky. Others curve into waves of curlicues—some trees sprouting round pom-poms, others dangling long strands of moss or vines like jewelry.
I like green. Green is life. It’s the image of the dead brown lake that terrifies me.
But from where I am now, sitting on Ching’s warm back and resting my hands on Lucas’s equally warm shoulders, all I can see are palm leaves and fog. This part of the jungle is made entirely of them—palms, large and small, some bursting at my feet the size of a small dog, some curving and soaring over my head, the length of an immense tree.
“Look.” Bibi points to worn rock steps, rising up from the pathway—our only threading path through the aggressive green. They seem to come from nowhere, and to lead to nowhere, in the midst of the jungle overgrowth. Yet there they are.
Ever since we left the river behind, a day ago, we’ve been looking for some sign of the pathway up to the temple.
I call up to Bibi, and Lucas ducks to avoid my shouting in his ear. “You’re right. These steps must be it, Bibi. This must be the way to Doi Suthep.”
That’s the name of the mountain, not the actual temple, but according to Bibi, around here they’re considered one and the same.
Doi Suthep. Suthep’s mountain.
The name it has been called for more than seven hundred years.
“Are you sure?” Tima shouts from behind me, where she and Ro share the good-natured Chang’s back.
“I think so. And it’s not just the steps,” I say, eyeing the rock steps all the way up to what I conclude must be their logical end. “Look. Up there.”
There, hidden by green vines, what looks like the remains of a stone bridge, appearing between palms. The vines threaten to crumble the entire rock structure into dust, into nothing, and it looks like the vines are winning.
“So it’s a bridge,” says Fortis, annoyed. He hates it when we stop the elephants, mostly because they don’t listen to him, but also because it just means our day’s ride will take that much longer.
Plus, sitting on an elephant behind Bibi can’t be comfortable.
Lucas squints. “That’s no bridge. Maybe it’s our path. Maybe it’s the upper part of the staircase.”
“Let’s find out.” Bibi pats his elephant, fondly stroking her ears. He cocks his head, looking the elephant in one big, blinking eye. “I think we must walk the rest of the way, friend. Though it pains me to say it. I feel like we were really making a connection, didn’t you?”
Fortis snorts from behind him.
The elephant says nothing. It takes the next half hour to coax her down to the ground, so Bibi can roll his way off.
Once we have tied up the elephants, we follow the stone steps. They twist through the vines, stones that seem to stumble as much as lead us through the shadowy undergrowth. Only the rustle of the green is unnerving; a whole life surrounds us, above our heads and beneath our feet, and we don’t know anything about it, what sort of life it is. The faintest shifting of leaves, the smallest cracking of a branch, reminds us of how our sense of solitude is ignorance, nothing more.
No one is ever alone in a jungle, I think. No matter how much we might wish we were.
As we near the steepest part of the rise, the curtain of green parts, and we can see the stone formation before us.
“So it is a bridge,” I say.
Bibi shakes his head. “Not just a bridge. Look—”
Only when we cross the crumbling stone ledge that connects the two sides of the ravine can we see it; stone upon stone, a broad staircase, wider than a city street, pushing up the mountain in front of us.
At the top there is a lone figure, also carved of stone.
The shape is familiar. But the figure that I remember is not stone. Gold. He used to be gold. When he was a figurine in the Padre’s chapel.
The Padre’s old Buddha.
The first I’d ever seen. I feel a pang at the loss of my home and my family.
My Padre.
Ro looks at me. He recognizes it too. He reaches for my hand, because there is nothing else either one of us can do to bring the man who was our father back.
“There he is,” says Bibi. “Lord Buddha. Here to welcome us himself.”
At that, we take the stairs—Brutus scrabbling up one at a time, heaving his belly first, slowly bringing up the rear.
Lucas walks in front of us. If Ro and I still share something, he doesn’t want to know.
Because we do—and because he does.
