Insects: A Novel (7 page)

25

“Professor Azevedo? Professor
Azevedo, are you there?”

Azevedo put the phone to his ear.

“
Olá, olá
,” he said.

“I can barely hear you, Professor. Are you in a tunnel?”

“No, I’m leaving the chemistry building. Just a minute.”

Azevedo exited the building and looked for a place to sit, holding the phone at his side. Nearby was a small plaza with several tables with umbrellas to block the sun. He moved toward them. Duncan fretted on his end and started to pace. He wondered whether the call had been dropped. He heard neither static nor any sound from the phone.

“Hello, Dr. Duncan, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, I thought I’d lost you.”

“No, I wanted to sit down. Actually, I’m glad you called; I have something important to tell you.”

“And I’ve got something to tell you,” Duncan interrupted. “A member of my group has offered to help underwrite our expedition, as long as she goes along, of course. Now, what were you going to tell me?”

“I think I know why we saw so many
blaberus
in the forest.”

“Really?” Duncan set his cup on the table. “Why?”

“Tree bark. I found a crystal,” Azevedo said matter-of-factly.

“Tree bark?”

“Yes, the inner bark of a Lapacho tree,” Azevado said, paraphrasing from the printout that Montes gave him. “It’s a big tree with medicinal qualities that seem to derive from quinoids that are bioactive. Interesting, no?”

Duncan could barely contain himself. Boyd noticed his boss’ excitement and gestured toward him as if to ask “What’s up?” Duncan waved him off and started pacing. Already his mind whirred. No longer would this expedition be about discovering an insect. They would document an incredible transformation in real time where a living creature suddenly adapts to and overcomes a limitation that may have affected its species for untold generations. There was much to learn and many papers to write.

Meanwhile, Boyd texted to Stephanie Rankin “He’s @ it again! manic faze,” then listened intently to Duncan’s conversation, which he understood was with Professor Azevedo.

“This is incredible,” Duncan said.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Azevedo said. “It pretty much puts me back to the beginning of my research. I don’t think I can make any assumptions about these insects if my new hypothesis proves correct. But what was it you said you had, a member of your group offered to underwrite the expedition?”

“Yes, yes, Maggie, ah, Maggie, God, I’m blanking on her last name. Anyway, she’s wealthy and can cover any cost we can’t. Cross that’s her name, Maggie Cross. Of course, she can’t pay for the entire thing, so I think we need to make plans immediately, get estimates for a guide, boats, I think we’ll need at least two, maybe three, some security, she’s insistent on that, and since you live here, perhaps you know some businesses that can accommodate us. I’ll take care of locating equipment, camping gear and the like.”

“Security?”

“Yeah, she’s afraid of, you know, druggies and bandits, you know the stuff you see on TV movies. I figured since she’s paying for it, there’s no reason to talk her out of it.”

Azevedo understood Duncan’s breathless excitement. He shared it. And even though it was mid-April, the last month of the wet season, he agreed any delay could be costly. Before ending the call, they agreed to meet the next afternoon at Maggie Cross’ place, which Duncan said he would arrange, believing she would not refuse though it hadn’t occurred to him that she might have other plans.

On the walk across campus back to his office, Azevedo started to wonder about the size of the new
blaberus
colony. It was one thing to encounter a colony of fewer than a hundred individuals. What about a colony ten times that size? A hundred times? A thousand times? These were questions he’d never considered. Suddenly, they were important.

26

“You can’t fool
me,” George Hamel said slyly as Maggie Cross finished ordering lunch at a cafe near her home.

“Whatever do you mean?” she said.

“You’re falling for that professor. I’ve seen this before. You’re setting yourself up again. I don’t know why it is you chase men who care more about their work than they do about anything or anybody else.’

“You’re imagining things.”

“It’s okay to fuck him.”

“That’s my business, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“You are incorrigible. Remind me, why do I put up with you?”

“You put up with me because I put up with you.”

Cross squinted at Hamel with mock anger and smiled. This was a dialogue they’d had multiple times. They each knew how far they could go and were comfortable staying within bounds. The repartee was good-natured and highly stylized and largely satisfying for both.

Cross’ phone rang shortly after they were served. It was Duncan. As soon as he realized who was calling, Hamel started gesturing and silently mouthing words to which Cross responded by waving him off and turning her head away. The call lasted several minutes, and when it was over, Hamel stared at her like a parent eyeing a mischievous child.

“So, what’s up?”

“Oh, it’s about the expedition. He wants to get underway immediately.”

“But he needs your money, right?” Hamel gloated. “Am I right?”

“Yes, but it’s not him. He’s not asking for money for himself.”

“Okay, so, what’s he need it for?”

She sighed, her eyes going to the ceiling.

“He said the money would go for security, which I would pay for no matter what, and for boats and possibly a guide. Those who come along will cover the rest, he said.”

“And you believe him?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she snapped. “It’s not like he’s trying to steal from me.”

“But he could be using you,” he said quietly.

She shook her head in a negative way.

“It wasn’t a social call,” she said.

“So he asked you to hire a security company?”

“No, of course not,” she said, emphatically. “What do I know about security companies? He just wanted to confirm that I would underwrite the cost if necessary. I’ll have to check with my accountant, but it may be tax deductible.”

“There you go,” Hamel said brightly. “You’ve found the silver lining.”

Cross frowned and shook her head.

“You didn’t say when the expedition was going to start. Next week?”

“I got the impression that if he can get things together quickly enough we’d leave tomorrow. He’s in a hurry. We didn’t discuss details.”

“Really! Well then, we’d better get going. We have some shopping to do.”

“We?” she said sarcastically.

“Well, if I don’t go, who are you going to insult?”

27

After several calls,
Professor Azevedo met with a boat owner named Gonzalo Juarez. The middle-aged Juarez grew up in Mexico but emigrated to Brazil to make his fortune. Able to read and write Spanish, he struggled with Portuguese and was embarrassed any time he asked native speakers to talk slowly so he could understand them. As a result, he made his living as a guide for Spanish speakers. However, business was slow, and he had a thirty-foot work boat that would transport a dozen people. The wooden boat sat high in the bow and low in the stern and was powered by a small inboard diesel. The boat had once been open, but Juarez had erected a roof along its entire length with a tiny wheelhouse near the bow. The area behind the wheelhouse was open. Azevedo asked the owner to install bench seats to accommodate a group of eight.

28

The eight expedition
members, two guards, a guide and his assistant arrived aboard a thirty-foot modified wooden crabber of distant vintage, hauling three smaller aluminum flat-bottomed runabouts behind them. It was slow going. Gonzalo Juarez, the captain, and his mate struggled to keep the boats from bashing themselves into pieces while trying to arrive at the tributary that led to Raul Barbosa’s cabin before dark. They’d gotten a late start. It took much longer than they expected to load the boat, which was barely large enough to accommodate its passengers and their gear, some of which was secured to the heavy wood roof. Several took Dramamine before the boat left the dock. Everyone could tell it was going to be a rough ride.

Arriving at the tributary, Juarez and his mate tied up the thirty-footer, and the group loaded everything into the small boats, started the outboards and slowly made their way from the Rio Negro into the interior. Darkness was descending as they finally reached Barbosa’s landing where they pulled and pushed the heavily laden boats onto the narrow shore and scrambled up the hill that opened onto Barbosa’s camp.

Less than a week had passed since Duncan, Azevedo and Cross had first visited the place. The group made its way toward the cabin, using headlamps and flashlights to light the way in the dimness of early night. Duncan had decided to move everything from the boats to a staging area under the deck of the raised cabin. By the time they finished, darkness had fallen, and insects filled the still air with a penetrating noise that sounded to some as if their ears were ringing. Duncan led the way up the stairs to the cabin deck. Leaning into the door, he pushed it open. He had hoped that it wouldn’t be locked. Although they had tents, everyone was tired after the long day and everyone, including the hired help, filed into the close, humid cabin, its darkness giving way to bouncing LED headlamps as each person entered. Some were nearly disoriented from the discordant movement of the lights against the walls.

“Let’s see if we can find a light or generator or something,” Duncan announced, and several members started feeling along the walls for switches. Cody Boyd finally found a switch near the sink and flicked it. Several low voltage lights flickered to life, apparently powered by Barbosa’s backup batteries. The headlamps were switched off and the cabin filled with a reassuring though dim ambient light. Someone asked whether it was okay to stay in the cabin, to which Duncan responded that it was—that the former owner had no use for it.

No one disagreed as they fanned out in predictable groups. The two security men, who spoke little English and wore T-shirts, blue jeans and sneakers, bedded down in one corner while the guide and his assistant spread their bedrolls nearby. Javier Costa, the guide, spoke English haltingly while his young assistant, Antonio Suarez, was fluent by comparison. The middle-agers Duncan, Cross, and Hamel stayed together while Boyd shared a corner with Rankin, Johnson and Peeples. Rankin passed around a fifth gin that they all sipped, Rankin and Boyd more than the others. The lights began to flicker after an hour, by which time the guides and security men were asleep. It wasn’t long before the room was filled with snoring, occasional coughing and farting and the constant hum of insects outside and to some extent inside.

29

Maggie Cross was
not happy with the security arrangements. She expressed her concerns to Duncan while they ate a breakfast of cold cereal and coffee. She was troubled by their appearance, that they didn’t wear uniforms and about their guns—one carried a single-barrel shotgun while the other carried a rifle, both old and showing rust.

“It looks to me like they’ve never cleaned or even fired those guns,” she whispered as they sat on a bench on the deck overlooking the garden.

“That’s how it’s done down here,” Duncan said dismissively.

“Well, they don’t look very professional, and I’ve always believed that if you don’t look the part you can’t play the part.”

Truth was that Duncan didn’t think security guards were necessary, that Azevedo and the guides would be able to handle any situation. He dismissed the likelihood of encountering bandits or drug gangs, and even if they did, it was unlikely two private security guards would offer much protection. More than likely, they were fishermen whom the company they worked for hired off the dock. He left local hiring to Azevedo, who probably delegated it to his assistant. That’s what Duncan would have done had it been his job.

“Look,” he said quietly, “I’ve been on many expeditions, and I’ve never seen the need for guards. This is a big country, and the forest is immense, despite what you’ve heard about logging and the like. I wouldn’t worry about it. Besides, look at the beautiful sunny day that’s ahead of us.”

“And the humidity,” she was quick to add, wiping sweat from her chin.

“No way of escaping that in the tropics.”

“I suppose,” she said, “but I wish I could have packed more clothing.”

“I’m afraid we’ll be roughing it a bit, and we all have to do our bit carrying equipment and other stuff.”

“I know, I know; I just wish it was more like one of those African safaris where you have people to do these things.”

“I don’t think even you could afford that. Besides, the more people the more problems. I think we’ve got the right number.”

“Except for the guards, right?”

Duncan sighed.

“No, they’re fine. I just hope they’ll carry some of the stuff.”

30

Duncan had overestimated
the amount of equipment they could carry. Boyd carried photography equipment, including a DSLR with two lenses, a tripod, and a small video camera with built-in light, batteries, filters, and other items. In addition, he carried his sleeping bag, clothing and personal gear. Others carried tents in addition to their own gear. The rest of Duncan’s group carried equipment such as specimen boxes. The guards carried food, and the guides carried cooking gear and fuel. What they couldn’t take, they left in the cabin. Having found a key that fit a padlock that they’d found near the door, Boyd was the last to leave and locked the door, giving the key to Duncan, who had already started the march into the forest.

Duncan had instructed his group to fan out at the start and look for carcasses across a wide swatch of the forest floor. It was not long before the guides realized they weren’t there to guide. At his boss’ suggestion, assistant Antonio Suarez approached Professor Azevedo to ask what he wanted them to do. Azevedo shrugged.

“Just stay with us, so we can reach you if we need you. This is just the first day. There’ll probably be more for you to do tomorrow.”

Upon hearing from his assistant what Azevedo said, Costa smiled broadly.

“I’m going to hang back,” he told Suarez, who planned to get ahead of the group to see what he could see. At twenty-four, he was making decent money as a guide and was banking as much as he could to pay for his own boat. A guide with a boat could make a lot of money, most of it legal. Americans paid well and tipped generously to catch peacock bass. Peacocks, big and powerful, tested anglers to their limits and Suarez knew spots that he’d discovered on his own and planned to offer them to his customers when he got a boat. He’d already thought about how to advertise and was working on where to place ads. He’d determined that to reach North American sports fishermen he had to advertise in fishing publications. The big ones were too expensive, but there were many smaller publications, and he was compiling a list of them to get prices. Guiding was the ideal occupation for a young Brazilian who loved to explore. That was why he left the guide and the group behind. He had a folding rod and reel in his backpack and hoped to find water containing peacock bass.

Duncan watched as Suarez walked past him and looked at Azevedo, who was behind him. Azevedo shrugged.

“He’s young. We don’t need him now, anyway.”

“I suppose. What do you think the chances are we’ll find anything?”

“Good, if
blaberus
moved in this direction. Not so good otherwise.”

“But they’d have to get across water in other directions.”

“Who says they can’t? Maybe they swim like dolphins.”

“There’s just not much we know about them, is there?” Duncan said.

“Especially now that they’ve overcome the fungus,” Azevedo said, leaning on his walking stick. “I was thinking last night about how I’ve spent decades studying these creatures and how little I have actually learned about them. Until this week, I thought I knew a lot. I don’t think that anymore.”

Duncan frowned slightly and scanned the area his group was examining. He didn’t expect immediate results, and for the first hour or so there were none. Then a shout came from his right, about fifty yards ahead. It was Stephanie Rankin. Everyone quickly moved toward her. They’d all been waiting for this moment for nearly a week and now, so soon into the expedition, they would see results. As everyone gathered around, she pointed toward the ground several feet in front of her hiking shoes. The carcass of an armadillo.

Duncan took out latex gloves from his pack, kneeled next to the carcass and picked it up gingerly. Pulling out a dissection kit, he deftly separated the upper shell from the skeleton, setting both on a small, square sheet of plastic that Cody Boyd arranged on the ground. After everyone had a good look, and Boyd had recorded everything, he tried to get a GPS signal to mark the location but couldn’t penetrate the thick canopy. Duncan told him to try again when they reached a clearing and instructed Rankin to mark the carcass with a small orange flag mounted on a metal rod, similar to those used to mark evidence at crime scenes. He redirected the search so that half of the group fanned out to the left and the remainder to the right of the carcass. Duncan and Azevedo trailed behind as the group slowly advanced through the thick forest. The forest floor was relatively easy to walk through and immersed in shade. The forest canopy was so dense that little sunlight reached the ground.

Finding the first carcass energized everyone. The three youngest, Boyd, Rankin and Johnson, turned the search for carcasses into a game, betting on who would find the largest animal, who would find the most, and similar wagers. The bets were for beers that they’d collect when they returned to Manaus. They continued their slow, methodical march until midday when they gathered in a clearing to eat a lunch of tuna canned in oil and crackers. Hamel complained about the oil, but Duncan said that was all they had, and he was free to eat crackers without tuna if he wished. Cross gave Hamel a harsh look and daintily ate her lunch, washing it down with bottled water.

Following lunch, the group fanned out again. More than two hours had passed since Rankin had found the armadillo and questions were whispered about whether they should change course. They were getting nowhere fast.