The Three Graces Ch. 3

On Site

The nightmares had receded. Time had helped to dim some of the memories. As soon as he had used the remote to deactivate the protective system and stepped into the camp, they flooded back full force. He was taken to another time, another world. He almost expected GMG1 Yoshita's voice over his shoulder saying, "Holy shit, Lieutenant." Yoshita was dead now, fused with the rusted vehicles and the other colonists that had manned a barricade, thinking themselves protected by the steel barrier.

He and Yoshita had been the only survivors of the Special Reconnaissance Team on That Night. They had returned to the base camp from a patrol, to find a scene similar to what lay before him now.

Walter Crane was no stranger to war. He'd seen his share of death. Bodies of women and children burned by indiscriminate weapons fire from outer space, bodies of soldiers and civilians, slashed, punctured, blown apart in actions on this planet and many others. That was the mechanics of war. This was different. This was rage. This was primal force unleashed.

A cloud of flies rose from the site as they entered. The smell told Walter what to expect. From somewhere, music from some Southern Hemisphere radio station tried to enliven the atmosphere. His Yanomamo guide looked around, open mouthed, at the destruction. The four inflatable two-person tents, fragile, since they were protected by the dome, were torn to ribbons. They could see, even from where they stood, the remnants were spattered with blood. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, were strewn about the camp, wrenched into grotesque, almost comical, postures. In the center, appearing inviolate, sat the hover, door sealed and silent. Walking to one of the tents, Walter found the remains of a blond couple, both nude, both literally ripped apart. A quick inspection accounted for all the members of the team, except one. He carefully recorded their identification codes with his scanner, as this particular team had been clouded in bureaucratic secrecy and its members might provide some motive. Finished with this grisly business, Walter focused on the hover. Still no evidence of life from behind the closed door and tinted windshields. The flies returned to their work.

Again using the remote, he accessed the hover's computer and opened the main door. He removed some latex surgical gloves from his pocket and put them on. Pistol at the ready, he moved slowly up the ramp, stopping to listen at the door. All was quiet. He moved warily into the cabin, sweeping his weapon over its contents. The last man sat at the console. The computer provided him data he was oblivious to, warning him that his protective shield was down. His throat gaped open from an extremely clean wound, soaking the front of his coveralls. Walter noted the erection, still rampant in death, coated with dried secretions, projecting incongruously from the open fly. He went to the keyboard. Accessing the security log, the computer calmly said, "NO DATA AVAILABLE, CHECK DRIVE." Looking for expedition data he got the same response. Same with the communications log. Checking the drive for the data disc he found it to be empty. From there, he moved to a sweep of the cabin. Everything seemed to be in its place. In this small place they had to be organized. Equipment was stowed in its racks, the sampling table was bare. That was odd. They'd been here for three days and should have had some samples. He checked the sample bins but they too were empty.

He sat on the table to puzzle this out. Someone had gotten inside the force field, torn apart five people outside, and yet cleanly killed this one man and carefully covered their trail. There had to be something here out of place, something left behind. Inside the closed hover, the smell of the carnage outside was shut out. Walter detected a faint smell of something else. Antiseptic and…perfume! Taking the medical bag from the rack, he took out the small plastic bottle of antiseptic. The seal was broken. Checking the trash receptacle he found only an empty trash bag. Looking back at the table, he noticed something hanging from the corner. On closer inspection, he found a single, meter long, black hair wedged in the crack in the corner. He pulled a zip-lock bag from his pocket and carefully sealed the hair inside.

He went back outside and resealed the hover. Other teams would take care of the remains and he didn't want to be here when they arrived. Soon this site would be a bustle of activity he couldn't afford. One more thing. He went to the tent of the blonde couple and looked around for their belongings. A small bag yielded some feminine articles, but, as he expected, no perfume. Women, on crews such as this, seldom had much use for those vanities.

The Yanomamo guide had had too much of the scene outside and retreated into the forest to loose his Whopper Value Meal. He stood up when Walter exited the hover and waited expectantly, wanting to leave this evil place. Walter waved to him and said, "Let's go. Take me to them." He turned and reactivated the dome.

The Shaman

They reached the barrier entrance to the village at dusk. The guide went ahead to pave the way. It was some time before he returned, motioning Walter to come ahead. Passing through the barrier of brush and dry palm leaves he was met by about a dozen burly native men, arrows fixed in drawn bows. Underfed dogs snarled at him and snapped at his trousers. He stood his ground. After animated conversation between the guide and the men, they finally lowered their bows. The village was obviously on edge and this was culturally a warlike people. The hallucinogenic drug ebene was in evidence by the green snot drizzling from the nostrils of the men.

He was then subjected to a dozen examinations, as each the men had to satisfy himself, before being led to the lean-to where the headman and the shaman waited.

The shaman was using ebene. The headman administered it by blowing the snuff through a long pipe into the shaman's nostril, one in each. The shaman grimaced and slapped the sides of his head before the drug took effect and his eyes glazed over. Long strands of green mucus began to drip from his nostrils. The headman motioned the guests to sit. Walter assumed the posture he had been told was correct, sitting elbow on knee, hand at mouth, staring reflectively at the thatched ceiling.

Walter had carefully briefed the guide on the questions he wanted asked. An animated discussion began between the guide and the headman. Walter and the shaman stared at the palms and listened. At one point, the shaman broke in and a brief exchange followed between him and the headman. Listening intently, Walter heard several words repeated, no badabo and Jaguar. Finally they came to a consensus. The guide turned to Walter and began his summary.

"They say there is much confusion and fighting. Much raiding between the tribes. The shaman says the no badabo are amongst us and jaguar is playing his tricks. These are all foolish legend, no badabo are the original people, Jaguar is a deceitful spirit. They say many people have disappeared, taken by the Jaguar. This caused the raiding. There have been several club fights and it almost came to war between the neighboring village to the north."

Knowing that all spiritual contexts were based on actual events, Walter asked the guide to ask them if anyone had seen anything, with their own eyes. The guide translated and a period of silence followed. Eventually the headman began a discourse with much pantomime and gesturing at the end of which he resumed his reflective study of the ceiling.

"He says yesterday, at dusk, he himself was hunting monkeys. He had shot a monkey and he was waiting for the poison to kill it when he felt the spirits moving. He says he didn't have his club so he hid. He says he heard the spirits pass overhead. That is all. He hurried home before Jaguar could find him."

Walter told the guide to thank them and moved to stand. The guide looked at him in amazement. "You're want to go now? It's dark."

Walter smiled and thought maybe those myths and legends weren't so foolish after all and the guide's veneer of civilization was not so thick as he thought. "Yes, I can't afford to spend the night here. If you like you can stay, I can make my way to the hover."

Ashamed of his fears the guide said, "No I will go with you." With thanks they took their leave.

Both men moved warily down the jungle trails. Walter, accustomed to moving at night in such situations, paused occasionally to listen to the night sounds and scan his surroundings using his peripheral vision, where night vision is strongest. The guide stayed close, looking about anxiously. Only once, they heard a far off coughing sound. "Jaguar", the guide said in response to Walter's look and laughed nervously.