Uncontacted, page 8
“We have no choice in the matter, Alfred. If we want to advance our careers, then this is the way.”
“It’s a hell of a thing to do you, you know? You’re talking about basically kidnapping a tribal human—one who would literally eat us if he could-- and taking him to the big city so we can study him in a lab environment.”
“Interview,” Stel stressed, “call it an interview for Christ’s sake, mate. These people aren’t lab rats, they’re human beings.”
Alfred made a snorting sound. “You better get used to hearing that kind of criticism.”
Stel shook his head. “Alfred, we’re not going to keep the poor sap indefinitely. We just need to get him into a controlled environment and get him—or her, I suppose, depending on who comes along to check the meal next—talking. Then we’ll be able to get a handle on the language. Bring in other outside experts if need be. Then we can actually have a dialog about what’s been happening with the fishermen, so we can report back to the lovely Mr. Patel that we know exactly what’s going on, and then make a recommendation on how they might proceed, which is what we’re being paid to do.”
At this, Alfred acquiesced. “I suppose it does make a certain kind of sense, Stel, but come on, even you have to admit it’s extreme, so extreme that it smacks of desperation. Why not just admit that we don’t know, further study is required?”
“Further study is required, but we’re going to take the initiative and complete that study before they even know it needs to be done. Onward and upward!”
“You do realize, my good chap, that if this backfires, it would set both of our careers far, far back—even yours.”
Stel leaned in closer to his colleague. “I didn’t get to be at the top of my profession by playing it safe. You know this! Years ago I was studying things no one cared about, topics considered frivolous by everyone who was anyone. You remember those days, Alfred—you remember the Asprochaliko dig?”
Alfred nodded slowly. “Fair enough. I just hope—“
“Shhh! Someone’s coming!”
Both porters were still back at the camp, which was some distance from the two explorers’ current position, so they only needed to worry about concealing themselves. That in itself was a tall order, though, since these tribal people were extremely in tune with their environment and would tend to notice any sound, sight or smell even slightly out of place.
The pair of anthropologists lay prone on the moist ground, watching as a tribal figure, an adult male, approached the roasting human meat on the fire. Stel watched as the man neared the rope trap, which was set low and concealed in the leaves on the forest floor.
The high-pitched drone of an unseen insect was the only sound as the tribal man padded silently across the forest floor toward the spit-roasting meat. Stel reached out and placed a hand on Alfred’s shoulder, a warning to stay put, stay calm, until it was time. Stel was holding his breath, afraid of making the barest sound. The tribal person stopped a foot short of the trip rope and turned in their direction. He paused while his gaze was directed that way, but then he turned back toward his food and stepped toward it at a normal walking pace.
Stel yanked on the free end of the rope and pulled it taut. With the other end tied to the tree, the obstruction was suddenly ankle-high in the tribesman’s way, and he tripped over it, stumbling to the ground. Stel slapped Alfred on the shoulder: go! The two of them scrambled up into a run toward the fallen man. They dove on top of him just as he was starting to regain his feet.
“Get his hands, Alfred, get the hands—hurry!”
Stel bear-hugged the tribal man, attempting to immobilize him enough for Alfred to hold his hands together long enough to be tied. The sinewy man was a fighter, though, and within ten seconds Stel and Alfred both had blood streaming from their noses, and Alfred a swelling eye.
“It’s a death sentence for us now if he gets away,” Stel huffed, referencing the fact that the entire tribe would hunt them down if this man were to escape at this point and relay his ordeal. The smell of charred human flesh a few feet away served as an even more powerful reminder of their fate should that happen.
“I’ve got his wrists,” Alfred choked out, his head beneath their target’s back.
Stel planted one knee on the indigenous man’s side while he pulled the length of rope from his belt that he had prepared for this purpose. With Alfred holding the wrists he was able to wrap the rope around him, even though he flailed. With the wrists tied behind his back, Stel pulled the man off of Alfred and together they pulled him to his feet, with Alfred holding his wrist rope.
The tribal man promptly head-butted Stel in the left eye, which split instantly, sending a trickle of warm blood down his cheek.
“Right, let’s get going then, shall we?” Stel said, spinning the captive around and shoving him forward toward their makeshift camp.
#
By the time they reached the camp, the tribal man had settled into a quiet, sullen demeanor, no longer lashing out at his captors. The two Indian porters were shocked at his appearance; he was completely naked, wearing not even a loincloth, and was extensively adorned in tattoos and bone piercings.
Stel instructed the porters to pack up the camp and then he turned to Alfred, who still held onto the tribal man’s wrist rope like a leash. “You hold onto him, I’m going to call the boat.” Stel picked up a radio and chatted into it while the porters continued to put away the camp. After a couple of minutes, Stel signed off his radio call and addressed Alfred.
“Boat’s going to meet us on the far side of the mud flat, where they dropped us off.”
Alfred’s eyes widened. “The tribe usually has lookouts on the flats. If they see us walking there with him…” He nodded at their prisoner, who made eye contact with them in turn, but said nothing, nor did he try to move.
“That’s as close as the boat can get to the island, Alfred. We’ll just have to be fast.” He looked over at the porters, who were rolling up the tent. “We better get a move on, Alfred. They’ll catch up.” The porters nodded and Stel, Alfred and the tribal captive set out for the beach.
They entered the narrow game path single file with the captive in the middle, Stel up front and Alfred behind, holding the rope. “Do not let him run off here, Alfred, we’ll never find him again, jungle’s too thick.”
“I’ve got him, but if you hear me yell, it means I need help.”
“Glad we have a secret signal, mate.”
“Glad you have a sense of humor even at a time like this. You’re going to have to do the machete work, though, my hands are full.”
“Fair enough.” Stel hacked away at a cluster of thick vines hanging over the footpath, blocking it.
“Why do I feel like a blow dart is going to land in my neck at any second?” Alfred lamented.
“I’m going as fast as I can, old friend. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.”
They continued on toward the beach, eventually rejoining a larger path they had taken earlier. “Ah, this is more like it,” Stel said. “We can move a little quicker now if you’re up to it?” He turned around to eyeball the tribal man, who looked none the worse for wear, and Alfred, who now had one badly swollen eye, although his bloody nose had been dealt with at the camp.
“I’m sorry, but I’m really not up to it, mate. I’m going as fast as I can already. I don’t want to lose control of him,” he finished, nodding to the rope he held that bound his captive’s wrists.
“It’s okay, you’re doing fine, just keep moving. We’re about halfway there.”
They plodded on in silence for a while, more confident now that they recognized their surroundings and knew where they were going. Just before the beach came into view through the trees, the native made his move, perhaps having waited for the trek to be near its end so that his captors would be more tired.
“Will the private plane be lined up when we get to the mainland?” Alfred was saying. “Because I assume they’re not going to let us fly back to London commercial with our friend here. Somehow I doubt his papers are in order, not to mention his outfit, or lack thereof, is cause for concern, so—“
The tribesman moved so swiftly that Alfred, concentrating on his next words, was taken completely by surprise. There was a bare foot plowing into his belly, and the rope sliding through his palm, and then the tribal human bolting off the path into the tangled jungle. Only the oomph emitted from Alfred’s mouth when the native kicked him gave Stel any warning at all. But he spun around as soon as he heard it, saw what was happening and stuck his right foot out, sending him tripping and sprawling headlong onto the rain forest floor.
The two explorers dogpiled on top of him again.
“Don’t be too rough on him,” Stel cautioned as Alfred started to twist one of the man’s arms. “We’re going to need to learn from him, Alfred, we don’t want him to hate us.”
Alfred looked up from binding the man’s hands for the second time that day. “What, you don’t think kidnapping him from his remote island in the Indian Ocean, pulling him away from his family and his tribe and bringing him on a plane—something he’s never even seen before let alone ridden in—to London, is going to make him hate us?”
Stel shrugged while he got off of the man, who only stared expressionless at the dirt. “Look, we’re trying to help his people. If we can learn to communicate with him, then maybe we can prevent a full-scale war between his tribe and the Indian government, because that’s a war his people will not win. So transporting him is a necessary evil. Let’s just go as easy on him as we can in the process.”
That said, Stel and Albert pulled the man to his feet, shook their heads at him and said “No,” and then resumed their trek along the path. They broke through to the beach without further incident, where Stel scanned the mud flats for signs of the tribe, and for signs of their pickup vessel, the research boat. No sign of either, but by the time they waded across the shallow lagoon—the tide was higher now than when they had crossed earlier—and back to the mud flats, the squat, heavy bow of the research vessel was in sight steaming towards them.
“I still can’t believe we’re doing this, Stel. I really can’t.” Alfred stopped near the edge of the mud flat, where it sloped off into deep water.
“Relax, boat’s right there, it’ll be here in five minutes.” But even as he said it, Stel glanced nervously back at the island, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t see a horde of angry natives running out of the jungle onto the beach, darkening the sky with volleys of arrows. But there were only the coconut palms swaying gently in the breeze.
“Do you think he can swim well, even with his hands tied behind his back?” Alfred asked, noticing how their captive was staring into the sea.
“Yes. Keep him back from the edge until the boat gets here.”
Alfred pulled gently on the rope to see if the man would comply without having to resort to the use of force, and to his surprise he did. Both anthropologists kept their eyes on the beach for signs of approaching tribal members, but the beach remained empty.
During the final minutes of the boat’s approach, Stel tried talking to the native, using phrases of other tribal languages and dialects from the Indian Ocean region that he had assumed would be close to what this tribe spoke. None of them appeared to have any effect on the man, who remained mute and showed no recognition.
Then the boat pulled up and a boarding ladder was dropped. Alfred and Stel pointed to the ladder but the indigenous man refused to move.
“I don’t think he gets it,” Stel said. “I’ll go up first, to show him, then maybe he’ll go.” Stel climbed the ladder and got on the boat, where an astonished crewman drew a pistol and asked if they were all right, knowing the fearsome reputation of Andaman Islands tribes in general.
Stel asked him to put the weapon away and told him the man was coming with them. The crewmen, rather than take this little tidbit at face value, radioed his captain to verify this arrangement. When the captain came back confirming Stel’s order, Stel shot the man a smug look and then waved down to Alfred.
“Bring him up, let’s go.”
Alfred cut the rope binding the tribal captive’s wrists, and they all gesticulated to the man to climb the ladder. He looked around once, and for a moment Stel thought he was going to run for it, now that his hands were freed, but then he simply walked to the ladder and scaled it easily. He paused at the top, never having been aboard a modern boat before, and peered inside.
“It’s all right, come on aboard,” Stel said.
With obvious reluctance, the captive threw a leg over the side of the boat and stepped aboard. Alfred followed close behind, and the crewman radioed the captain that everyone was aboard.
The ship’s engines rumbled to life as the captain put them into gear, and the vessel’s prow headed across the Andaman Sea for the Indian coastline.
Chapter 15
Brazilian Amazon
Antonio felt no heat from the light. Even as it changed to a fiery red, it remained cool to the touch. But what was this thing? It was clearly manmade, of that he had no doubt. The light was artificial, not bioluminescence; some kind of LED panel as best he could tell. At first he thought it might be a piece of field equipment left here by some other researcher. But as he passed his hands over the smooth, illuminated face, and his gaze lit once again on the black rock that seemed to encase the entire piece of technology, whatever it was, Antonio could not say with any certainty that this was a piece of research gear.
Whatever it was, besides the light, it also produced a faint humming sound. Antonio placed his ear against the device to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the cavern acoustics, but no, with his ear pressed flat against the surface of the thing, he could clearly hear a hum. It sort of reminded him of a computer fan noise. Very strange--what would these people be doing with any kind of technology at all, in the middle of the Amazon jungle, far down in a hidden cave?
Looking more closely at the light panel, there were spots of color that didn’t match the overall background, which right now was red. But along the left edge he saw a row of small colored dots: blue, green, black, white, purple….Antonio held his breath as a thought came to him…buttons? Was this thing some sort of touch screen panel, like on a ….computer?
Antonio wanted to see if he could extricate the device from the rock which held it, but right now the tribal warrior was approaching. Antonio hunkered deep down in the ring of stalagmites, but as the warrior drew near, he knew it was no use. The light from the device between his feet was casting shadows on him, probably making it obvious to the tribal man that something was different about the stalagmite formation.
A sudden war cry erupted from the man’s lungs, a high, modulated shriek that paralyzed Antonio with inaction. And then the tip of a spear thrust in between the columns of stone, right past his head to jam into a stalagmite on the other side. A puff of stone dust erupted from where it hit, and then Antonio set himself into motion, knowing he was a dead man if he didn’t extricate himself from his fish-in-a-barrel type of position.
The two stalagmites he had slipped through to get in here faced his oncoming foe, so he tried threading a gap on the opposite side. He turned himself sideways and squeezed most of the way through before he hung up, squeezed in place in the tight space. The tribal person, seeing the outsider’s predicament, began to circle around the geological formation. Antonio fully exhaled all his breath so as to make his stomach and chest as small as possible, then he tried to move again. He pushed off the ground with his feet while leaning toward the outside of his stone prison.
He fell through the tight columns with a burst of uncontrollable momentum, causing him to fall outside of the circle of stalagmites and onto the rocky cavern floor. Knowing he had no time, Antonio used his momentum to go into a roll, not allowing his body to stop, knowing that his pursuer was only steps away. The move bought him just enough time to bring his arms into a defensible position as the tribal warrior leapt on him, abandoning the use of weapons in favor of hand-to-hand combat.
Antonio had seen the sparring matches many tribes used to train their boys to fight, and he had no desire to grapple with this man any longer than was necessary. He himself was not a trained fighter, and he was under no illusions that he could keep up with a true tribal warrior whose instincts and muscle memory would be honed to a fine art.
He was also clear on the fact that this was not going to be a high school wrestling match, refereed with a winner according to who best performed under established rules. No, unfortunately, the situation was such that there could only be one outcome for this fight, if Antonio was to survive, and that meant the death of the tribal attacker. Any other result—Antonio fleeing to the outside, the warrior subduing but not killing him, or Antonio defeating the warrior but leaving him alive—would mean that the rest of the tribe would know that he had been in their sacred place. That he had touched whatever it was they thought they were guarding—some kind of exotic computer technology embedded in a rock.
He had to kill this man. It was something he’d never done before in his life, never even considered, but now he knew above all else that there was simply no other way for the situation to be resolved.
Antonio grabbed the fighter by his hair—it was not long, but shorn in sort of a bowl cut that was common among many tribes in the region. Still, it was long enough to get a hold on, and he flung the man’s head hard to toward the ground, rolling his own body as he did so to add to the momentum. The left side of the tribal man’s face slammed into the cave floor, and Antonio knew instantly it was a debilitating blow.
It took Antonio some time himself to recover from the move and to get himself into position to see what he had inflicted, but when he did he was surprised at how easy it had been to cause such terrible damage. The warrior was getting up, very slowly, and when he turned his head, Antonio could see that the cheek bone had been caved in, an unfortunate happenstance of landing on a point of rock instead of perfectly flat ground.
