Uncontacted, page 12
Antonio looked to Stel. “This is your tribe, Stel, you’re the expert here. Plan backfired, now what do we do?”
“Don’t move,” Stel came back with.
Antonio did, but said, “Why do you think they killed their own tribe member?”
“Looks like we’re about to find out. Avoid prolonged eye contact, and don’t raise your voice. Let me do the talking unless they address you directly.”
“What about the bag?” They both looked a few feet away, to where they had been standing next to the tribal subject. The duffel bag containing the artifact that Antonio had been carrying lay there, a couple of feet from the dead man.
“Don’t make a move for it now, they’ll think it’s a hostile act. Just stay put.”
The greeting party was splashing across the shallow lagoon now, in between the beach and the mud flat. Two of them loaded arrows into their bows as soon as they reached the mud flat, while the rest advanced cautiously across the flat to where the two intruders stood with their hands in the air.
Stel turned his head slowly toward the bag and said a couple of words. One of the natives nodded. “Stay here, I’ll get the bag,” Stel told Antonio.
“Not going anywhere,” Antonio confirmed, making very brief eye contact with one of the warriors pointing an arrow in a drawn bow at his heart.
Stel returned at a slow walk with the bag and placed it on the ground between him and the tribe members. He said a word while nodding, then proceeded to slowly unzip the bag. The natives backed up a step at the sound of the zipper, but otherwise remained unchanged. He reached in and removed the artifact and placed it in the packed mud next to the bag so that they could fully see what it was.
The artifact, which had been reassembled into its meteorite, glowed a deep, steady green. The tribe’s reaction was instantaneous. All of them knelt in the mud and prostrated themselves in gestures of supplication, bowing down as if the newcomers were gods.
“What’s going on?” Antonio asked Stel under his breath.
“They think we have their artifact, that we somehow managed to take it without ever being seen by them, which is basically impossible the way the guard it so carefully, so—“
“—so they think we’re gods.”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Are you going to be the one to break it to them that we’re not?”
“Hopefully their excitement after we tell them that they still have theirs will be enough to spare our lives once they find that out.”
“Hopefully?” Antonio gasped
Stel held out two fingers to the tribe and looked at the glowing artifact. He said a word in the tribal language he had just had an intensive course in with the then-living subject at Oxford. The warriors appeared confused, furrowing brows and whispering among each other.
“I told them, this is a different one that looks the same, from a different tribe. But it is the other half of the same whole.”
“And they get that?” Antonio asked.
“I think so, but they’re going to fact check us, I’m sure, by sending someone to check if their artifact is still in its safekeeping spot.” As they watched, one of the men said something to another, who nodded, and then the one who had initiated the conversation turned and ran toward the beach, wading into the lagoon. “And there he goes.”
“Wait, wait!” Antonio said, his voice a little too loud. But they all stopped, even the one who had started to run. “Why don’t we go with them?” Antonio suggested to Stel. “If their artifact is gone, then they can kill us there, as a sacrifice. If it is in fact there, then they know we’re telling the truth about having the other half, or a duplicate, whatever it is.”
Stel immediately began translating this as best he could to the tribal men, with Antonio occasionally chiming in. The tribal people then conferred together for a few moments before one of them nodded. That same man then pantomimed wildly while pointing up into the mist-shrouded mountains beyond the jungle, holding up three fingers at the end of his words.
Stel explained to Antonio, “He says they agree to take us on the arduous hike to the place where they keep the article they have, which they still think is the one the we have. If that is the case, as you so prophetically guessed, they will kill us upon arrival to the ‘place of the sacred stone’. “
“Why did they kill their own tribe member?” Antonio wanted to know. Stel nodded toward the slain tribal subject and said a few words to the same individual who had just sanctioned the trek to the sacred stone.
“They lament that they had to kill him, but say that he was ‘contaminated’ by having left the island, and so had to be killed.”
Antonio had no reply for this, but he thought to himself that it was all starting to make sense to him. The two halves, his father, the 2-29 birthdays and the two tribes on either side of the world…
The tribal man said a few more words to Antonio and Stel. They need to get going on the trek, which they say is far, three days travel.”
“Three days?” Antonio exclaimed. “The Brazilian tribe kept theirs much closer at hand.”
Stel shrugged. “Hope you’re up for a little hike, my friend.”
Chapter 22
Andaman Islands
They set off toward the ‘place of the sacred’ stone only a few minutes later. Without actually stopping at the village, they passed near enough that other members of the tribe joined the hiking party they heard was leaving to check the artifact, and a couple of those who met the newcomers at the beach stayed behind at the village. Antonio speculated that he and Stel were like new acquaintances you’re not sure if you want to bring to your home yet. Stel got a good laugh out of it, but not for long.
“Unfortunately, the fact that they’re bringing a hunting party along doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.”
Antonio agreed. The tribe had done their best to explain that the hunting was good up in the mountains where they were going, but since it was far away they didn’t usually go there to hunt. “Just taking advantage of an opportunity, I guess. I hope.”
“I think you’re right,” Stel said. “They could have killed us back there on the beach, after all, if they’d really had the mind. What I wonder is, if it’s too far to go to hunt, how do they guard it? You would think the guards would hunt before they came back to change shifts, if that’s how they do it.”
“Maybe they just have guards stationed at key bottleneck points, like the beginning of this trail. Whatever the case, it won’t be long before we find out.” Antonio picked up his step a little to keep up with the tribe. Even barefoot, they easily outpaced him and his booted feet in their home environment. He started to lower his voice for what he was about to say next, but then realized how silly that was, since the tribe could not possibly understand English.
“There’s probably some truth to the hunting thing, but at the same time I bet the ‘hunters’ are doing double duty as security, too.”
They trekked along in silence for a while after that, traversing flat ground that was well shrouded by the tree canopy. Occasionally they forded large streams, sometimes able to walk across fallen logs for all or part of the way, others being able to high-step through the water, and once, even having to swim a short distance. During that swim, Antonio spotted a crocodile near the river bank as he was climbing out, and wondered how much longer it would have been before he was attacked had he stayed in the stream. He knew the rain forest itself is full of dangers even without what he and Stel had embarked upon, but even a small thing like seeing a crocodile really drove that point home.
Not long after swimming the stream, the unlikely trekking party came to the head of a narrow mountain trail, little more than a game path, the opening just barely tunneled out of a veritable wall of thorny brambles interspersed with the occasional palm tree. The path was at an incline almost from its beginning, and at first they had to ford a few smaller streams until it became drier as they moved higher up the mountain. It was still very green and forested at their present elevation, but looking up, Antonio could see how the trees became more stunted, not as towering and majestic, although the canopy cover was still thick.
“I know this must be hard for you, all this walking I mean, without your fancy airplane to carry you over the jungle,” Stel teased him as they trudged single file up the steep game trail.
“Yeah, well maybe you should try it sometime. You might find that—“
Suddenly one of the tribe members fired a blow dart into the bush, out of a two-foot long section of bamboo. They heard an animal squeal and then one of the tribe scooted off after it. A couple of minutes later he came back to the trail with a dead, bleeding boar. The tribe indicated it was time to take a break while they cleaned and dressed their kill before moving on. Antonio observed them, thinking of his own failed pig hunt back in Brazil, and marveled at how adept the man was with the stone knife. The boar’s meat was collected and its hide folded, cut and actually worn by one of the men around his waist in under ten minutes.
The boar meat was shared among the tribe and eaten lightly cooked over a hastily made fire. When offered, Antonio and Stel both refused a particularly undercooked piece, and the tribal men laughed and continued to eat. It occurred to Antonio that both he and Stel could easily be killed here. They were outnumbered, unarmed, unable to communicate effectively, and hundreds of miles from any kind of modern civilization…with cannibals. But he shook off the grim thoughts, telling himself he was too far along to back out now. Besides, he thought, he had to admit that the curiosity over what awaited them at the artifact site made it hard not to want to continue.
Apparently this was motivation for the tribal people, too, because while eating, Antonio caught them sneaking glances at the stone half Antonio carried. He had made the mistake of keeping a spork in an inside pocket of the same backpack compartment, so when it came time to eat he opened the bag and then throughout the meal the tribe snuck surreptitious peeks at the stone. Clearly, the tribe was just as curious as he and Stel were to see if it was in fact stolen, or if it is the other half. And if it is the other half…the other half of what, exactly?
When they were done eating, the tribe indicated it was time to move on. They all got back on the game trail. The stone was heavy enough to be a burden, even in a decent quality backpack. Antonio hadn’t noticed it before because he only had to move it a short distance in and out of various vehicles. But now, hoofing it up what was gradually becoming a steeper and steeper hill, with thick leafy plant tendrils slapping him in the face as he walked, it was becoming a burden.
“Stel, I think it’s your turn to carry this rock. You take it the rest of the way today, and I’ll pick it up in the morning, deal?” Although a small thing, it was the first concrete example of he and his former rival actually working together, and he was grateful when Stel picked up the pack.
“No worries, mate. You wear mine, I pack light.”
That settled, they picked their way up the lush mountainside, the air laden with moisture, the sounds of hidden creatures in the jungle around them a constant din. Antonio didn’t want to admit it aloud to Stel, but he had developed a nasty blister on his right foot, even though he wore proper socks and boots. He wanted the moleskin he kept in his pack for this purpose, but Stel carried it now because it had the stone, and he didn’t feel like asking him to stop just for that, because it would earn him more ribbing about missing his “fancy airplane” and not being up to the task of true jungle trekking. It would have to wait until tonight when they made camp.
The air was noticeably cooler and the sun not visible beneath a blanket of cloud cover by the time they reached what the tribe said would be their campsite for the night. Looking around at the area immediately surrounding the trail, they saw not much more than a slight widening in the trail itself, with thick jungle on either side, as well as being on a steep incline, and wondered why the tribe saw this as a good camp site.
Antonio gestured around at the jungle and uttered the word he believed meant, ‘why’ in their language. The natives appeared amused, making quizzical faces, one of them even laughing. Then one of the tribe pointed up into the trees, accompanied by a single word.
“There?” Antonio said, the realization slowly dawning on him.
“They sleep in the trees,” Stel completed the thought for him.
“Of course. Fantastic!” Antonio’s sarcasm didn’t stop him from helping the tribe, though, not that it looked like they needed it. Although he and Stel assisted the tribal people by handing them various articles that needed to go aloft with them, it became clear by watching them move about the arboreal shelter that they did not need any assistance. It was the two professional explorers who would be challenged the most by the climb.
Slowly but steadily, they managed by climbing slowly and carefully.
“I’m used to being clipped in when I go up into the canopy,” Antonio remarked, and Stel agreed.
“Makes me a bit nervous, too. But when in Rome. Besides, we don’t have climbing gear, anyway.” Stel perched in the crook of a branch about twenty feet above the ground while he waited for Antonio to select a branch from which to make the next move higher.
“Hey, once we get settled in up there, we might be able to check our phone messages. Sometimes you can get a signal from way up top.”
“That’s what I like about you, Antonio. You really know how to find the bright spot in the darkest situation. So we can check our work messages while we’re sleeping in the trees, is that it?”
“I do what I can.”
Above Antonio, the tribal men had completed their ascent, some twenty feet beneath the canopy’s uppermost reaches, so that the branches were still stout enough to bear weight. With efficiency that Antonio found impressive, the natives set up a system of ropes, mats and hammocks that allowed them to comfortably lounge about, or even stand and move around a bit. They set up a small cook fire in a bowl on a platform of woven mats they’d unrolled and tied in place, and in what seemed like no time at all to Antonio, the aroma of slow-cooking meat wafted through the canopy.
By the time Antonio and Stel had set up their hammocks (they both had their own modern camping hammocks, since in the jungle it was a gear staple and didn’t take up much space or weight), bowls of cooked pork, rice and boiled plantains were passed to them. Washed down with cool stream water collected in their canteens that day, both researchers found the meal highly satisfying.
When it was done and the dishes cleansed with water and put away, the sun was setting on the rain forest. From up here in the trees, they could peek out through the leaves and see a carpet of living jade for literally hundreds of miles. Soon they started to see glowing pinpoints of light flitting about beneath the canopy, filling the space between branches with twinkling amber light.
“Here come the fireflies, right on schedule,” Stel said, settling into his hammock.
The rest of the tribe also took up their hammocks, with the exception of those two placed on guard duty—guarding from what, Stel and Antonio speculated but couldn’t decide if it was simply jungle predators like big cats and snakes, or some unknown human threat--and it was clear that things were winding down for the night. Like at sea, life in the jungle was generally early to bed and early to rise.
Antonio shifted his weight in his hammock. His legs cradled around his backpack, which contained the stone. He had tied the bag straps to a thick hanging vine to further secure it. He could imagine a scenario in which the pack fell out of his hammock during the night and bounced off every tree branch on the way down to the ground, where the rock and its precious device shattered into a thousand pieces. Not something he wanted to deal with the repercussions of, so he took the extra step to make certain it wouldn’t happen. As he shifted the bag between his feet, he saw the red glow coming from inside his pack.
The artifact shimmered faintly in the dark as he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 23
The entire ensemble was on the trail again at daybreak, after a quick but satisfying breakfast of an herbal tea the tribe made, along with more plantains and some kind of “beef jerky,” though Antonio was pretty sure it wasn’t actually beef. Nervously, Antonio checked his backpack to see if the artifact was still glowing, but if it was, it wasn’t noticeable in the early morning light.
As with yesterday, the group trekked in a single-file formation, with Antonio and Stel in the middle of the group, four tribal members ahead of them, and four behind. The four tribe members who were not guards did not walk with weapons at the ready, although they also carried weapons, albeit of lighter “caliber,” smaller bows and shorter arrows, shorter, thinner spears or crude yet sharp bone knives.
Antonio found the “militarization” of the tribe disconcerting, and he told Stel so. “They even posted guards all night. How do the ones who stayed up all night get to sleep?”
Stel chuckled. “They tough it out for one day, then tonight, they’ll go to sleep early while two different ones will be selected for guard duty. You may notice, though, that they don’t put the hunters on guard duty.”
Antonio glanced over his shoulder to swat off a bug and look at Stel for a moment while he walked. “That’s kind of odd, isn’t’ it? Guard duty—wouldn’t they want their best fighters on that?”
“That was my first reaction, too, but in reality, they want their hunters in tip-top shape all the time—they are, like you said, the tribe’s military might, its muscle power. Anyone can spot a threat and wake everyone up, so they let the hunters sleep.”
“Quite a sophisticated operation.’
“Indeed. Not to mention how they guard this ‘sacred stone’ site that’s a three-day hike from their village.”
“I’ve never seen that kind of organized militia type behavior in a tribe—well, except for the most recent Amazon tribe I discovered. They also had a heavier armament than usual.”
