More Than Paradise Part 18

When she nally came face-to-face with the g, Charlotte understood exactly what Eve must have gone through, seeing the apple and wondering if she could trust the snake enough to sample the forbidden fruit.

She had almost walked straight into it, busy cleaning her binoculars as she slowly moved along the route she'd been mapping out. The strangler g, once an epiphyte but now a sprawling monster, blocked her path, corded thickly around a low-hanging branch of its host tree.

And there, dangling right before her eyes, was one of its succulent wares, hanging far below the upper canopy where all the fruit and seeds usually grew.

Mesmerized, Charlotte could only stare. Her heart went wild in her chest and her legs wobbled. She was tempted beyond belief to seize the plump ruby-black fruit and cram it into her mouth, knowing she would be the very rst woman on earth to taste it. She fought off the urge to run back to the camp immediately and share her triumph with Ash. The last thing she needed right now was another lapse into daydreams about the woman she could not shake loose from her mind.

Forcing herself to focus, she reached for the fruit, instinctively checking behind her. Yet again, she had the odd feeling she was being watched. She'd spoken with Ash about her constant sense that she was not alone. She suspected her imagination was running away with her because she felt like a burglar in a hallowed citadel, a spy in the secret bower where Mother Nature seduced Father Time. Not that she'd phrased it that way to Ash, who could not be expected to empathize with such ights of fancy.

* 159 *

Ash had pointed out the obvious-that the Nagle team was discreetly patrolling the area, making sure everyone was safe. It was likely someone had been nearby periodically, checking on her but trying not to disturb her. If she wanted, Ash would tell her team to make themselves known to her. Charlotte had declined, dismissively insisting that it was nothing and that she knew if she needed help all she had to do was use her cell phone, yell, or re one of the ares everyone carried.

She turned slowly on the spot, surveying the musty, dripping forest oor around her. "h.e.l.lo?" she called in a casual voice. "Who's there?"

When no one answered, she took a long look behind her, then swiftly plucked the fruit and sniffed it, the rst test of toxicity. Any wild plant that smelled of peaches or bitter almonds was probably poisonous.

The g had a very different scent, somewhere between crushed grape skins and maple syrup.

Fascinated by her discovery, she traced the strangler branch ten feet down a steep slope to its source, a vast web of aerial roots that had encased its victim like a living cof n. This specimen was huge, perhaps a thousand years old. Overwhelmed, Charlotte sank down onto the ghostly root structure and leaned back against the damp, solid trunk.

She had started to wonder if she would ever nd the Ficus species she was looking for or if the reports of its presence in the area around Kwerba were mere speculation.

She stared up at the vast columns of wood rising some hundred feet above her. Ficus lascellesae. A tree named after her. She might have wished for a less macabre species; however, strangler gs had always fascinated her. She examined the small reddish black fruit, looking for signs of a g wasp. That, too, would be a discovery, because each Ficus had its own dedicated species that only pollinated those particular trees.

Another amazing thing about tropical Ficus was that they bore fruit all year round. This made the trees important players in the battle to regenerate rainforests that had been destroyed, as they were incredibly hardy and could provide food for birds and animals when there was a seasonal shortfall.

In addition to the wasps, most Ficus had vertebrate dispersers, usually small mammals like fruit bats. That was something she could look forward to, Charlotte thought with wry amus.e.m.e.nt, picking up countless samples of droppings to identify which animals were * 160 *

involved. Perhaps she would recruit one of the naturalists to help her with that grubby task. Someone was bound to want a break from the physical slog of rigging up platforms at a hundred feet to study the mammals and birds that lived in the rainforest's upper canopy.

Or there was Simon, the entomologist. He could only hunt his giant birdwing b.u.t.ter ies for about an hour each day because there was not enough sunlight the rest of the time. He was always hovering, looking for someone he could latch on to.

She let her hand glide over a cool smooth ridge of wood. In rainforests the biggest trees tended to grow straight up, not branching until they'd reached the canopy and long hours of sunlight. Below canopy level, trees didn't need protection against water loss or plummeting temperatures and the bark was so similar in many species that they could not be told apart, except by their owers. The near-naked trunks and roots were satiny to the touch and ghostly silver white, making the forest seem somehow enchanted with its deep shadows and monochrome vegetation.

The crisp snap of a twig made Charlotte freeze and lift her head.

All she could see was the ma.s.sive b.u.t.tressed roots of the towering trees and the dense latticework of lianas and epiphytes entangling the lower canopy. She suspected the sound had been made by one of the remarkable golden-mantled tree kangaroos that followed expedition members around like dogs. It was truly astonis.h.i.+ng to encounter animals that had no fear of humans. They had never been hunted or harmed, and innocently approached the visitors to their world, curious and willing to be touched. Even the birds were gregarious and inquisitive.

The knowledge that humans were dangerous had never been acquired.

Every creature they'd encountered here trusted that no one was going to harm them.

Yesterday, in front of her tent, a tree kangaroo had sat in her lap and offered her some of the berries it was eating. Until that moment it had never occurred to Charlotte that a caring accord between humans and animals in the wild was not only possible but could be a natural state of affairs. The birds and animals in these enchanted mountains knew nothing of the reign of terror humans had in icted on every living creature sharing the planet. Their behavior was as close as possible to nature's intent, and fear was not genetically encoded. The Fojas were a living ill.u.s.tration of the global paradise humans had lost.

Ever since that moment of realization Charlotte had swung * 161 *

between awe and desperate sadness, knowing what might have been and hating that, no matter how good their intentions, the expedition was a threat to the serenity this region had known since the beginning of time. She knew she was not the only one who had this on her mind.

After their rst day of frenzied eld work and startling discoveries, conversation around the mess area had been surprisingly spa.r.s.e, the atmosphere one of quiet re ection.

The initial jittery elation they'd felt from the moment they tumbled out of Ash's helicopter had given way to a sober realization people slowly began to articulate. By the end of the evening they'd all agreed that the last thing they wanted was for their work here to open the oodgates to numerous research teams, tourists, business, and the whole unstoppable cycle.

A couple of the moodier team members had even suggested they return to Kwerba and devote their lives to circulating stories of a giant man-eating spider and a species of anaconda so huge they disguised themselves as tree trunks. They'd even come up with a name for the fearsome predator, Eunectes rex homicides. The group discussed the idea quite seriously for several minutes before concluding that such speculation would only be an invitation to poachers and Hollywood movie producers.

Charlotte looked around again; then, satis ed that she was completely alone, she opened the g and probed the pulpy contents with the tip of her tongue. If it was poison, there would be a reaction.

She waited for the telltale numbness, burning sensation, or bitter taste.

The tiny sample was a little sour, but no worse than the subtropical tamarillo fruit. Remarkably, it bore a hint of the muskiness found in the best g cultivars.

Thinking, This is a historic moment and Perhaps this is what the very rst gs tasted like to Neolithic woman, Charlotte sank her teeth in. She hadn't even chewed the rst momentous mouthful when another fruit landed in her lap. She started in fright and choked on her sample as a bizarre creature, neither man nor beast, stepped out from behind a mahogany tree.

Charlotte had taken courses in evolutionary biology and sedimentary petrology at college, contemplating a career in paleoanthropology if her rst love didn't pan out. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. The individual appeared to be a hirsute male hominid who possessed primitive skills-he had woven * 162 *

a gra.s.s covering for his genitalia. His entire body was smeared with dark clay as though in an attempt to mimic the appearance of a West Papua tribesman; however, the skin tone was Caucasian. Charlotte's rst thought was Bigfoot! but there was one serious problem.

The creature had a head that could only be described as a nightmare mutation. Covered in a mop of reddish hair that suggested Neanderthal origins, it was peculiarly elongated, the facial characteristics reminiscent of a marsupial. This tragedy of genetics had adorned itself with a large collar of leaves and feathers, perhaps another sad bid to be seen as belonging to a local tribe.

Despite her apprehension, Charlotte felt sorry for him. She and the kangaroo man regarded each other for several seconds, then Charlotte had a brainwave and took out a small ashlight she could offer in exchange for the fruit gift he'd thrown. She wondered if the individual had any language. And what if he had a family? Imagine how famous the expedition would be. The Flores Island "hobbit" would be chopped liver compared to a nd like this.

Charlotte tried some sign language, cupping her hands to her heart and lowering her gaze in case the creature saw eye contact as a challenge. Very slowly, she looked up again and pointed toward herself, saying gently, "Charlotte."

The creature did the same thing and said in a thick Aussie accent, "Bruce the Roo at your service."

Charlotte knew her mouth had fallen open, but she was so shocked she could only stare.

Eventually the kangaroo man said, "Dr. Lascelles, right?"

"That's right."

"A pleasure and a privilege. I read your paper on the healing properties of the Peruvian Eustephia. b.l.o.o.d.y fascinating, although I take issue with your argument about the ethics of hiring local curanderos. It's still biopiracy, doesn't matter how you want to dress it up."

Charlotte was lost for words. What did one say to a man in a fake marsupial head, wearing a gra.s.s loin-pouch and trying to debate ethn.o.botany in the middle of a lost world that was supposed to be inaccessible by foot? And he looked like he lived here. How was that possible?

"Why the fake kangaroo head?" she asked, for lack of a more erudite response.

* 163 *

"The kangaroo has a symbolic meaning in shamanism," he said. "Because of its jumping ability it helps us overcome fears and inhibitions that stop us doing what we really want."

"Similar to alcohol?" she observed dryly.

"Sarcasm does not become you. There's also a New Guinean myth," he continued intrepidly. "A female roo saw the very rst human couple here in the Garden of Eden after they'd just nished doing the wild thing and it ate the leaves they'd been lying on. It got pregnant from eating sperm and gave birth to a human boy called Sisinjori."

"So this is in honor of the myth?" Charlotte concluded.

"Yes, and I don't want anyone to see my face."

"Why not?" Charlotte imagined a dis guring accident.

"Because there's a price on my head."

Wonderful. She was out here with a felon. Charlotte contemplated screaming but her companion shook his snout at her.

"Don't scream, Doctor, or I'll have to shoot." He raised a weapon.

"That's a tranquilizer gun," Charlotte said disdainfully, not sure whether to run or try to talk her way out of whatever mess she was in. Was this a kidnapping? Had there been a reason for all the security after all? And where were the Nagle guards now that she really needed one?

"Imagine what could happen while you're out cold as a mackerel.

Maybe your friend Billy Bob will wake up and nd you before the cavalry shows up."

"Billy Bob?"

He gestured toward a shape lying inert in the darkness behind him.

"Your minder."

"Oh, my G.o.d. Is he dead?"

"He can be." Calmly, he offered her the weapon.

"Are you insane?" She didn't mean for the question to be taken literally but he appeared to consider a reply necessary.

"Sanity is relative. Your president invaded a country so that his friends could make money from a war. Is that sane?"

"Immorality and insanity are not the same thing."

"What do you call a sane man who chooses villainy instead of honor?"

"A criminal," Charlotte replied.

"My point exactly." He walked over to Billy Bob and nudged * 164 *

him with a toe, coaxing, "Wakey, wakey." When there was no sign of movement, he cajoled, "He wouldn't feel a thing."

"No!" Charlotte spluttered. "What on earth would make you think I could do such a thing?"

"You're afraid of him, aren't you?" When she hesitated he said, "My animal instincts are seldom wrong."

Charlotte was not entirely surprised by that a.s.sertion. "I don't go around killing people, even ones I don't like. What about you, Mr. Roo?

You said there's a price on your head. Are you a criminal?"

"It depends who you talk to." He took Billy Bob by the ankles and dragged him to an intensely shadowed spot, then kicked a layer of leaf mold over him. "I am a thorn in the side of corrupt authority, an archenemy of the Indonesian death merchants, defender of the forests..."

"You're an environmental activist?" she interpreted.

"I prefer Knight of the Order of Gaia."

He was crazy, she thought. "What do you want with me?"

"Just a small favor."

Charlotte had a bad feeling about this. "Let's get to the speci cs. I have a Ficus to doc.u.ment."

"You're connected with Belton Pharmaceuticals, aren't you?"

"Yes, my employer is conducting one of their key research projects."

"What would you say if I told you I know where there is a compound every pharmaceutical company in the world would kill for?"

"I'd say what's in it for you?"

He waved an arm around. "This. I want a guarantee that this will never be touched. No loggers. No mining companies. Soldiers stationed at every point of access to keep the murdering, lying, thieving b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of here."

"I have no control over what happens here politically."

"True," he conceded. "But you work for the people who could make it happen. And that's why I'm talking to you."

"Well, I don't think I can be of any help. I'm not a lobbyist. Once I've completed my study, I will be making various recommendations, but it's not as if I can start demanding the kinds of things you are suggesting. I'm a researcher, not-"

"Let me show you something," he interrupted. "I think you're in for a shock."

* 165 *

He offered his muddied arm and Charlotte took it reluctantly and allowed herself to be escorted away from the approved research perimeter, in the wrong direction from the camp, where she would never be located. She could hear Ash already.

"I'm not so sure about this," she said, staring up into a pair of gla.s.sy, unblinking brown eyes. She wished he'd take off the mask.

"Ever done any rappelling?" he asked.

"Yes. My family went hiking and caving a lot when I was a kid."

"No worries, then," he said cheerfully. "It's only eighty feet down."

v Ash called Charlotte's cell phone yet again, ignoring her own directives to the team about not wasting battery power and con ning calls to real emergencies. When Charlotte still didn't pick up, she sent a text message.

"Hey, beautiful. Where are you?"

She continued to search the pegged-out area Charlotte was supposed to be working within. It was too soon to sound the alarm or involve anyone else. At the best of times most of the scientists were vague about boundaries and p.r.o.ne to plunging headlong into the forest if they thought they heard one of their endangered species. No one went looking for them and reported them missing after two hours. Ash would be inviting speculation if she treated Charlotte any differently.

After what had pa.s.sed between them, she found it very disturbing that Charlotte hadn't returned to the camp at any point during the day.

Ash had said she would be around. She had to make up some supply lists for the helicopter drop tomorrow so she could call in the order to Klaus. They would be changing places, too, with Ash ying the Huey back to Kwerba. Klaus was bringing in the female contractor who was Ash's ticket out of here.