Lisica Chapters

Thanks for joining us for the fourth and final volume of our Scientist Soap Opera escapist journey to the mysterious island of Lisica! You can find previous episodes in the link above or column on the right. Please don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment if you enjoy what you find!

Audio for this episode:

50 – In The Dirt

Amy disentangles herself from the forest and stumbles out into the clearing. It’s been days. She hasn’t eaten or slept or even really looked up in that entire time.

Now she’s starving.

But where is she? At the edge of a grove of incense cedar and sugar pines, a nearly alpine environment. Facing southwest to judge from the light behind the clouds. The day after a big storm that she only dimly recalls… Amy opens a grimy hand before her, needing food and shelter. Where is everyone else?

She opens her mouth and a ragged moan emerges. Not what she expected. Amy expected words. But what kind of words? She has gotten by without words for days now. What does she need to say?

Shambling forward, she has no energy left in her limbs. Amy is spent, as if she’s the one giving birth.

Her vision swims. The land tilts like a pitching sea. She reaches out to the rough bark of a pine to steady herself.

Eyes watch her. Beady eyes. Familiar. But not the fox she’s been attending. This is another. Amy opens her mouth again. “Lisica.”

The fox chirps and bounds ahead, leading her from this place.

Amy shuffles after.

Moments later she finds herself approaching a small, level clearing. Morska Vidra is here, collecting limbs and bark in piles. He works with simple efficiency, stripping the logs and pulling the bark from the wood. He doesn’t look up when she arrives until his fox interrupts him.

Amy and Morska Vidra stare at each other for a long moment. Finally she collapses to the ground, leaning back against a rotting log. The old man only watches her. Finally he goes back to what he was doing, turning his back on her as if she isn’t even there.

Amy watches him, exhaustion keeping her head empty of thought. Finally, his fox nudges her fingertips with his cold nose. She looks down. The little creature has dragged a leaf-wrapped bundle to her. Some of Morska Vidra’s own food? Yes, a couple knobs of fungus wrapped in aromatic leaves. She nibbles at one.

Ha. Chanterelles. Starving in style, she is.

“Thank you…” Amy croaks, nodding at the fox. She looks deeply at the small mammal for the first time, able to now distinguish this fox from the one she’s been helping. This fellow is sleek and handsome compared to the distended belly and matted fur of the vixen. And he has a very… intense look in his eye. Is that the word? More intentional, rather than intense. There is a will behind those glittering black orbs, a busy mind with a long to-do list.

“She…” Amy addresses Morska Vidra, trailing off after just the first word. But he can tell she wants to say more so with a glance over his shoulder he encourages her.

She marshals her strength and tries again. “She… isn’t ready yet. To give birth.”

Morska Vidra says something philosophical to the treetops. Then he tosses the branch he holds onto a pile and approaches Amy. With stirring words, he tells her that her work isn’t done yet. That must be what he means, isn’t it?

Amy struggles to her feet, to indicate her own self-reliance. Show Morska Vidra who he’s dealing with. All that strength she normally dislikes has come in handy over the last few days. But he is still not on her side, it’s plain to see. And she’s wavering again. Perhaps she needs to give him a proper Bontiik before she can—

Morska Vidra barks at her, like a coach enouraging a runner to kick through the finish line. He grabs her roughly, his hand twisting her clothes at her belt buckle, pinching her skin. He pulls her close.

Morska Vidra continues, slamming the length of her body against his own in a rhythmic chant. His eyes snap with vitality. She can do nothing but hang on, gasping with each collision. He leans in and blows a thin stream of air into Amy’s open mouth.

She is helpless in his grasp. But she doesn’t tear herself away. Amy can tell it’s all done for her benefit. It doesn’t feel like assault. It is more intimate than sex, mixing their breaths like this, having him shake her so hard it’s like he’s trying to knock the dirt off the roots of this old weed he’s pulled up. But it’s working. His vitality is spreading into her.

The fox barks cheerily from her rotten log. Amy stares deep into Morska Vidra’s eyes. Ahh. She understands now. This was the last piece of the puzzle she needed to find. Now she can heal the vixen and let her give birth in peace. A palpable life force washes through this landscape. Not easily accessed, but now that she’s broken through she can feel it everywhere. She can hear the plants talking.

This is what the mama fox needed. Not her surgical procedures, but this greater aid, this appeal to the island itself. Amy has finally found the version of Shinto that Lisica practices, here in this old man’s embrace. He has shaken the modernity right out of her. She can hear the old music again.

“I have to… get back.” Amy finally steps away from Morska Vidra, dropping her eyes. “Thank you, master.” She reflexively bows deeply, something she hasn’t done in decades. But it sure seems fitting here. She turns to the fox, who watches her with bright eyes. “And you’re the daddy, aren’t you?” Amy scritches him behind the ears. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her safe.”

Ξ

Pradeep stands on a green hillock searching the hillside. A brief shower sheds water onto him, then passes. He hardly feels it.

And then it happens. The hours he’s spent visualizing her form materializing from behind the trees actually occurs, just as he thought it would. At first, he doubts what he sees because he’s already seen it with his heart so many times already. Her blue coat and black headscarf. Her white shoes.

Then Maahjabeen sees Pradeep. A sob bursts from her and now she’s running down the slope to him, arms out.

He opens his own arms in wonder, striding toward her. Nobody has ever loved him like this. He is speechless. She slams against him, her heat and heft and heart all hitting him solidly in the chest. “Nobody…” He needs to tell her. But instead she covers his mouth with hers in a kiss. She drags at him, pulling him so fiercely close their teeth cut their lips. They taste each other’s blood and tears.

“What did you do?” He wraps her tight and asks the air behind her. “How did you rescue me?”

“It wasn’t me,” Maahjabeen answers, turning them so he can see the figure waiting at the edge of the woods. “She did it all.”

“Is that a child? Who is that?”

“Her name is Xaanach.” The little girl stands doubtfully, nearly shy, beside a thicket, plucking at one of the leaves. But she watches the two lovers with a sullen intensity.

“Ah! She’s the one who led Miriam and Mandy to Jay and me. And didn’t she rescue Flavia?”

“Oh, I think you’re right.” Maahjabeen kisses him again, unable to stop. “She led me to Wetchie-ghuy’s hut but she wouldn’t let me go in. Maybe I was just there to give her the courage to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Release your spirit.”

“Yeah, Katrina said you went…” Pradeep searches for the way to say this. “You thought you could get back from Wetchie-ghuy…?”

Maahjabeen pulls back and makes a gesture with her hands, of one shooting up out of the other and spreading into a flower. “This is the gesture Xaanach kept using after we ran away. And she cast a clay jar into the bushes. That’s where he kept it.”

Pradeep shakes his head in disbelief. “Strangest thing. It did feel very much like something essential within me was missing. And now it’s back. But I don’t know… In hindsight it seems very silly, the idea that he could attack me on some mystical level. You know, Flavia thinks his drugs just wore off. And that’s all my—”

“Yes, Flavia is a fool.” Maahjabeen snorts.

“He did cast some kind of spell on me. But I don’t care what the answer is right now. I am just so glad to have my babi back.”

“Mahbub.”

They kiss for a long time, their hands roaming each other’s bodies, her fingers in his hair. After a timeless span they break apart to find that Xaanach has drawn close and waits at their elbows, studying their intimacy.

“Oh, hello.” Pradeep smiles at the child. She is a creature of the wilderness, with mossy bits of forest stuck in her hair and hanging from her neck and wrists. “Maahjabeen says it’s you I have to thank for my… my return to health. So thank you. I am glad that Wetchie-ghuy no longer has a hold on me.”

At the mention of Wetchie-ghuy, Xaanach eagerly crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue. Then she hisses, “Wetchie-ghuy. Nák. Wetchie-ghuy chán.”

Pradeep takes a deep breath. “It’s true. He did have his claim on me. But it’s gone now. That chain has snapped. You’ve made me free again. Thanks again. A million times.”

Maahjabeen allows herself to relax her fighting stance. She did it. She got Pradeep back. Now she can think of other things again. The sea. “Mahbub. Now that you are whole again. If you are up for it, we can transport the kayaks to the sea cave. Then you and I can live there. We still have ten days. Maybe nine. Just you and me.” She kisses him again.

Pradeep kisses her in return. “I want nothing more.”

Ξ

“Yes? What did you want to talk to me about?” Alonso looks at both Katrina and Esquibel, standing together but apart, turned away from each other with their arms folded. That’s not a good sign. And they asked him to leave pine camp to have this private discussion. What in the world is happening now?

“Please, Alonso. Have a seat.” Esquibel has rigged a small pier on the creek, jutting out a meter from the bank. “You can soak your feet in the cold water as we talk.”

“That does sound nice. But are we sure it won’t invite an attack from the bad guys across the water?”

“Well… In a sense… That is what we are here to discuss. Please, Doctor. Just let me help with your sandals and…”

“Ahh.” Alonso settles, the shock of the icy water robbing him of the dull pain. “You are an angel, Doctor Daine. Both of you. Angels straight from Heaven.” But halfway through his heartfelt statement he can tell it’s the wrong thing to say.

Esquibel steps back, a smile quivering on her lips.

“Are you going to tell him or should I?” Katrina hasn’t moved, still standing at a distance with her arms crossed.

“No.” The word is quick from Esquibel, accompanied by a raised hand and a half-step forward. What is it she doesn’t want Katrina to tell Alonso? “I… ehhh… Doctor Alonso, I wear many hats here.”

“Yes, Doctor Daine. We all do. And as far as I can tell, we’ve all done a pretty good job wearing them, in our many roles…”

“Including spy?” Katrina spits out the word.

“Spy…?” Alonso frowns.

“No, not spy,” Esquibel quickly corrects. “Not the way that you are thinking. More like hacker maybe. And I’m acting under direct orders from the good guys. I promise you. My orders come directly from Colonel Baitgie himself.”

“Yes, I know they do.” Alonso looks from one woman to the other. “So she is spying? On the Lisicans? What is the problem?”

Esquibel presses her mouth into a line and shakes her head. This is hard. “It is the Japanese.”

“Eh? From World War Two?” Alonso is surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation. He can’t make sense of any of this.

Esquibel only shakes her head no again.

Katrina prompts her. “She gave one of their spies a USB stick a few nights ago, didn’t you?”

“Wait, who?” Alonso stirs, turning from his contemplation of the creek’s dark currents to study both of their faces. Katrina is irate, Esquibel besieged. “What are you talking about?”

“The Japanese are our allies,” Esquibel explains. “There is no real danger in sharing…”

“Sharing what? What did you give them?”

Belatedly, Esquibel realizes Alonso will be far more upset about what was shared than with whom. She shrugs, trying to figure out a way to disarm this bomb before it’s too late.

But he is too smart to be forestalled. “Plexity?” His voice rises into a whine. But the second time he asks it ends in a roar. “Did you give them Plexity?”

“I—I…” Esquibel stammers, but Katrina cuts her off.

“She tried, but they got the original cast recording of Pal Joey instead. I could tell she was up to something. Stealing my USB stick to do it!”

Alonso struggles to his feet. “Explain yourself, Doctor. You—”

“Doctor Alonso, please don’t exercise yourself unduly.” Esquibel tries to get him to sit back down. “The water is good for your—”

“Don’t touch me! You tell me. Tell me what is happening here. Why do the Japanese want Plexity? What is in it for you? What does it mean for—for everything? Our mission, our safety.”

“We are safe. The mission is—”

Alonso explodes. “Just what the hell were you and Baitgie thinking, Esquibel? Coño fucking spy games on my watch. Why can’t the military ever do what they say they are going to do?”

“Everything is fine.” Esquibel tries to invest those words with as much confidence as she can muster. But it isn’t enough.

“No, it isn’t fine. Obviously. They asked for, what, the source code? And ended up with music tracks instead? So what will they do next? Give up? I doubt it. And where even are they?”

“I have it… under control.” Now Esquibel is starting to get irritated. She fights not to seethe at them. If she has to sit through yet one more moralizing civilian speech about how wicked and naughty the global military apparatus is she will scream.

Katrina laughs in bitter disbelief. “Why am I not reassured?”

“Who else knows? Anyone?” Alonso needs to manage this situation. Somehow. He needs to take control again.

“No…” Esquibel is once again too quick with that word. “I asked Katrina to be discreet.”

“She didn’t even want me telling you, Alonso.”

“I didn’t want her telling anyone! It had nothing to do with you, Alonso! It was specifically to limit the spread of this intelligence.”

“Yes, limiting the spread of intelligence. Doesn’t sound very much like what this mission is supposed to be about.” Alonso drags his hands down his face. “Esquibel! I trusted you! You and Baitgie! You are my partners! So tell me. All your secrets. You can’t—”

“Oh, she ain’t gonna do that.”

Esquibel pleads with them, hands out. “I can’t! I’m following orders here! I can’t share them! Not without authorization!”

“So. What do we do now? What will happen next?” Alonso scrubs his feet dry and puts on his sandals again, wheezing through the pain. He begins walking back to pine camp. He will need to tell Miriam, certainly. He can’t hide anything from her. And, well, really, all the others. None of them deserve to be kept in the dark when their careers and their lives are so plainly on the line here.

“Yeah, it’s not like the Japanese are going to give up, are they?” Katrina asks. “Come all the way across the ocean and leave with nothing but a rousing rendition of Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered. What’s going to be their next move?”

Esquibel falls silent. Neither of them know the Japanese have already come twice. They just think it was a single contact. No use in disabusing them of that notion now… She shakes her head and thinks. Yes. What will their next step be? “They will try to contact me again, I assume.”

“Well, maybe we can contact them first.” Alonso doesn’t like the idea of just waiting around for a Japanese spy to show up. They need to do something. And now that he has decided that, the rest of a plan starts to clarify in his mind. “I mean, the village across the water here…” He wheels back around, pointing at the far bank of the creek and the meadow beyond. “They are the ones who talked to the Japanese, no? So they’re still maybe talking to them, housing them, supporting their activities.”

Esquibel unhappily nods. This has occurred to her as well. “But those Ussiaxan villagers attack all the others, including us. I don’t know how to reach the Japanese. The last time, the first time, the agent didn’t contact me until…”

But Katrina’s restless brain has turned this problem on its side. “Wait a goddamn moment. I know what we can do, Alonso. I know how to find the Japanese.”

Ξ

Triquet unwraps their ankle and tests it. Yes… Better today. Still a little twingey, but probably able to bear their weight down the tunnels. It’s time they got back to the sub. And Flavia has agreed to go with them, for the sake of everyone’s safety. Considering how the day should go, Triquet might bring a little shift to wear in the muddy parts and then a real outfit in a bag once they get out. They don’t want to spend all day in a dirty fit.

Triquet fills a daypack and sticks with just a bit of eyeliner and lipstick. Then it’s a rice cake for breakfast and some hot water with lemon. But before Flavia finds them, Maahjabeen and Pradeep do.

“We heard this is where the tour starts?” Pradeep asks, deadpan.

“Oh! Are you lovebirds coming too?”

“We left the kayaks in the sub.” Maahjabeen peers past the edge of the camp, as if she could see through the cliffs to the sea below. “Got to get them out on the water. We should stow them in the sea cave. The big plan. So…”

“Jolly. And there’s Flavia. Good morning, doll. Let’s get a move on. The day wastes.”

Moments later the four of them are striding across the meadow, the dew soaking everything below the knees. Maahjabeen gives Triquet a speculative look. “What do you even hope to accomplish in the sub any more? I thought all your mysteries were solved.”

“Oh, honey, no.” Triquet giggles, thinking of the absolute mountain of artifacts and documents the sub holds. It could occupy them the rest of their life. “Not even close. For one thing, we still don’t know why they buried the gol-durned sub in the sand, do we? That would be a hoot. Knowing that. And I need to put together as good a snapshot of the collection here as possible. I’m going to have to develop quite the pitch. Welcome to my sub! Like my own personal archaeological Plexity, with lots of cross-referencing. How about you? How is your study of the great beyond coming?”

“I have done nothing. This is the first time Pradeep and I are both healthy in weeks. I haven’t seen the ocean in too long.”

They climb the trail and enter the village. Now, they are seen as somewhat normal fixtures and not even the village children break away from what they are doing to watch them. The researchers cross the village square in silence. Where Morska Vidra’s house used to be is now partially claimed by his neighbors. The remainder is a dark spot in the earth.

Descending the tunnel tree gives Triquet more trouble than they expected. They have to take it quite slow, and the tendons along the side of their foot are complaining loudly by the time they lower themself to the tunnel floor.

The mud passage is also less fun than normal and they not only get mud on everything but they injure their ankle further and hold everyone else up behind them. Groaning in pain, Triquet finally wins free to stand in the small chamber that has been dug beneath the sub. Where its hull plating has been removed lie the remains of Esquibel’s futile attempts to barricade it. Triquet will have to clean this mess up when they get a chance.

Ah, the sub! “Home sweet home.” Triquet trails their fingers along the steel walls, luxuriating in materials that have been manufactured. It’s been nothing but natural fibers for far too long.

“A roof. Aaahh…” Flavia releases a tension she didn’t know she held. The open sky always overhead is so… exposing. It exhausts you. “Civilization at last.”

“Where are the others?” Triquet realizes they haven’t seen Maahjabeen and Pradeep since the mud tunnel. “Did they not come this way?”

“Eh. No. Pradeep wanted to show his girlfriend a cave painting, he said. So they took a different tunnel. They will come down through the bunker and meet us from there.”

A few hundred meters behind them, Pradeep follows the twine, trying to remember the system of knots Miriam had made. It’s been weeks since he was in these particular passages. And it isn’t going too well. But as they’d watched Triquet squirm into the claustrophobic mud tunnel he had tried to think of alternative routes. Then he recalled the first thing he had seen underground.

These passages are short, rough and muddy, all linked together like a warren. Weaving through the maze reminds Pradeep of the mad flight with Jay through the dark last week. How has he found himself so quickly back underground? Ah, well. At least he knows where he is this time.

Maahjabeen bumps up against him, her eyes closed. She holds herself flutteringly still, like a hummingbird hovering in the air. This is not her place, deep underground. It is not her detour. She just needs to trust in her Mahbub. But that is easier said than done.

“See?” They eventually enter a small cavern with a high ceiling and Pradeep shines his light across a scintillating mosaic of shell and bone and paint. The Milky Way.

She blinks at the roof, her eyes slowly expanding with wonder. “Ahhh… It is so lovely.” Maahjabeen didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t this. These villagers had seemed so artless. This is a colorful surprise. She reaches for the constellations close enough to touch, her fingers tracing the whorls of light.

“It makes me wonder…” Pradeep shakes his head. “What must their cosmology be like? Elsewhere in the world you see enough of the stars and galaxies at night to understand that it is the default night sky, yes? It is always there, only sometimes covered by clouds. Every society knows about outer space. But here? Maybe not. Something like ninety-four percent of your nights are under this marine layer. So you only see the stars on special nights. Do you even think they are always there? Or are the Lisicans convinced the stars only arrive once every two or three months?”

This shift in perspective is hard on Maahjabeen. She shakes her head, unwilling to grant the villagers such a deep and complex worldview. It is easier to think of them as ignorant savages for sure. Otherwise, she might have to think more deeply about what Wetchie-ghuy wanted with Pradeep’s soul. It is a notion that stuck itself in her brain as she followed Xaanach on the way to the shaman’s hut. Maahjabeen is usually not very good at seeing things from someone else’s point of view, but in a moment of insight she visualized the old shaman laboring by firelight to bring about some great work, the work of his entire life. And these foreigners have suddenly shown up, to give him the resources and opportunities he needs. Why, there’s so many more souls to collect! And yes, what he does stinks of the devil, and yes, bringing about his version of Lisica is probably the worst possible outcome, but still. The old man has a plan. What does Jidadaa call it? His prophet poem. In a moment of compassion or weakness or whatever it was, sneaking up to his dwelling Maahjabeen had felt a twinge of guilt for ruining his life’s work.

Before they leave, Pradeep takes photos of the cave painting. Then they pass through another small cavern that leads to a fissure in the cliff. In moments they’re outside. And it’s a mild day. The air is filled with salt and the regular sounds of the surf. Maahjabeen moans in contentment. “Oh, yes. Let us get the boats.”

Pradeep nods and forges ahead through brittle manzanita branches. It is so nice to see their old camp. It brings up a welter of unexpected emotions in him. This is where he nearly died (well, the first time) and also where he met the love of his life. It is the axis from which the rest of his entire life rotates, spinning outward in time. If he could, he’d fix up the bunker and live here forever.

And it would need a lot of fixing. They tiptoe through the open door, shadows in every corner. But a shaft of light displays the scattered fern fronds in the back corner and the raised trap door leading down to the sub.

Why is the trap door up? Alarm courses through Pradeep before he recalls that this is how Triquet rejoined them, days before. Nobody had been able to clean up the traces of their passage since. Now, once they retrieve the boats, Pradeep will make sure to cover their tracks once again.

It is the work of twenty minutes to do that and get the boats down to the water. Scouting their destination, they’d peeked over the edge of the giant redwood trunk across the beach first, to see if anyone’s Navy floated off the coast. But the horizon was clear.

Now, giggling in anticipation, they get the boats out onto the water. Maahjabeen seals Pradeep’s spray skirt and pushes him off with a kiss. After she joins him, gliding across the glassy surface of the lagoon, she playfully splashes him, just a few tiny droplets, and he yelps. “Remember when I made you roll?”

He grimaces at her. “I was quite sure you hated me, you know.”

Maahjabeen shrugs. “I hated everybody.”

She leads him out the mouth of the lagoon, hugging the outside of the breakers as Amy showed her. The sea is muted today. Safer. Its tempests are being tossed elsewhere. But they still need to dart across the gap in the surf at the base of the seastack. Soon they are paddling strongly up the island’s southeast coast, headed for the sanctuary of the sea cave.

But they never reach it.

As Maahjabeen leads Pradeep to the fold in the cliffs of its entrance, their way is blocked by a pod of killer whales.

Ξ

“Mandy dandy.” Katrina finds her out in the meadow, trying to figure out how to inflate her last weather balloon with the few remaining precious helium canisters she still has. This is hard. And if Mandy gets it wrong then it’s no balloon. And she has to go back to being useless. So she’s already crabby. And seeing Katrina does nothing to help her mood.

“Yes?” Mandy demands, exasperated. “What do you want?”

Katrina is taken aback. She has certainly seen this side of Mandy before, but this ire has never been directed at her. So she crouches helpfully beside Mandy and tries to read the instruction pamphlet over her shoulder. “Oh, balloons can be so frustrating. I did one of these for my nephew’s birthday party. You just need to—”

But Mandy plucks the pamphlet away. She turns on Katrina. “Can I help you?”

“Oh. You want to figure that out on your… Yeh. Well, I’ve just got a bit of air traffic control to discuss.” Katrina gestures at the drone’s hard case. “Worked out a flight plan but Esquibel said you were trying to get your balloon up and to make sure I didn’t get in your way. I’m sorry I’m in your way. I can… I mean, what’s the haps here, dude? Do you need a hand?”

“No.” Talked to Esquibel, did she? Mandy grabs a canister and screws the adapter onto it. Now she should be able to mate the adapter to the balloon’s bladder. But when she starts screwing it in she hears the hiss of escaping gas. “Ehhhh. Why is this so…? Fuck!”

“Nah, mate, you just got to press through. Super fast.” Katrina pulls the assembly from Mandy’s hands and quickly spins the canister until the threads seal. The hissing stops. “Like pumping up a bike.”

Mandy pulls the weather balloon back out of Katrina’s hands. “Thank you. Yes, I am too stupid to figure things out myself. You’re right.” She stands and stalks away, opening the hose valve that fills the balloon with helium. She hooks it into its harness, which is already tied down to their hundred and fifty meters of climbing rope. If she hadn’t snapped the steel cables the first time she had launched a balloon, she could put more instruments aboard. But because the rope itself is so heavy, she can only put up a minor suite. Not like she has that much gear left anyway. Almost all of it has been lost or damaged. Such a horrible clusterfuck of a meteorology mission. Mandy still feels Katrina’s eyes on her and annoyance makes her skin crawl. “What.”

“So I’m not like the most empathic person on the planet but, I mean, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?”

Mandy hates jealousy. It makes her helpless. And it strikes her at her core, making her question everything about herself. The specific sensation of it too is so unpleasant, all hot and suffocating and unreasonable. She can’t think with Katrina around, not when she is stealing Esquibel away right under her nose. Do they think she’s blind? No, just dumb. Mandy shakes her head and a bitter snort escapes. “You should know… Just so you know… Esquibel can’t ever hide anything from me. I can always tell when she has a secret. So I made her tell me.”

“Oh!” Katrina falls back, relieved. “You know? Oh, thank god. I thought I was going to have to deal with the Japanese all by myself. But if you already—”

“Wait. What? The Japanese?” What the hell does Katrina mean by that? “What do the Japanese have to do with anything?”

And now Katrina is instantly crestfallen. “Uhhh. Oh. I thought you said you… I mean, Esquibel said we couldn’t tell anyone so I didn’t want to initiate a… No. Fuck it. Alonso said we have to let everyone know. So here’s me, letting you know. I don’t care how Esquibel feels about it.”

“But… wait. The Japanese? I don’t care about that. Whatever it is. Esquibel has a secret. And she told you before she told me—”

“She didn’t tell me shit. Figured it out on my own. Caught her red-handed. Slipped her the USB stick but wiped all the Plexity data first.”

Mandy stares at Katrina in open-mouthed shock.

“So you didn’t know. Yeh. Esquibel is a spy, dude. And she’s done all she can to keep me from telling anyone. Are you…? I’m sorry. I can tell it’s a lot. It is a lot. So I was wondering. Maybe I can go first. Just a quick little recon mission across the creek. You can, like, take your time to digest this whole espionage situation and I’ll do my thing and be out of your hair by the time you’re ready. Deal?”

But Mandy still hasn’t closed her mouth. The shock resounds in her. This isn’t what she thought was happening. This isn’t it at all.

Katrina frowns. “What did you think this was about? Esquibel and me getting it on behind your back?” It starts as a joke, but by the time she finishes the question Katrina can tell that is exactly what Mandy feared. “Oh, Mandy dandy no…”

Mandy’s face crumples and she sags against Katrina. “I’m sorry. We’re both, it isn’t anyone’s fault it’s just we’re both so attracted to you… And when you both had a secret… that I couldn’t…”

“There there, my little poppet.” Katrina soothes Mandy and lets her hot tears flow. “What you and Esquibel have is so special. I’d never dare to put myself between…”

Mandy allows herself to be comforted. It feels so nice, being in Katrina’s arms. They fit so well together. But Mandy now knows the golden girl is not for her. Not when the price is her dearest Skeebee. “Thanks, Katrina. You’re so sweet. Sorry to drag you into… my crazy brain. I thought it was a love affair thing but it was really just… the Japanese? What does that even mean?”

“They’re spying on us here. Want Plexity data, I guess. And we realized they’re probably in the village across the way. That’s what the Dandawu told me. The Japanese used to visit the Ussiaxan. So I figured…” Katrina pulls the drone’s headset out of her backpack. “I’d maybe visit as well. See what the place looks like from the air.”

“Like Japanese, what, soldiers?”

“Spies. Operatives. Ninjas, as far as I know.”

Mandy only nods. Finally, she shakes off her many worries. “Okay. I mean, yeah. You can go first, Katrina dear. Sorry. I mean, this is my apology. For thinking mean things about you. We do your project first. And then, if it isn’t too much trouble, maybe you can help me with mine.”

“Good plan.” Katrina grins. “And no apology necessary. Being in a relationship is hard. I can’t seem to do it to save my life.”

Katrina opens the hard case and takes out the drone. Within moments it’s assembled and soon it’s aloft.

Now, where to send it? Its battery is full but that’s still less than twenty minutes of flying time. She’ll need to get lucky to find out anything really interesting in that time. And she’ll also need to be discreet. No buzzing people down game trails. Hopefully she can remain high enough they don’t even know she’s there at all.

The drone lifts into the sky. She sees the creek as a blue-black ribbon dividing the green meadow. Pine camp is so lush from above, with busy little figures doing their work under the trees. She can’t see the Keleptel village of Morska Vidra and Yesiniy from here. But she can maybe see some smoke from their fires.

On an impulse she follows the creek downstream. She wants to see if she can follow its course all the way to the waterfall. But she only gets a few hundred meters before the creek is entirely choked with deadfall. All the wreckage of every storm has collected here over the years, driving the creek underground. It must continue on under giant piles of molding logs in the dark, to spill out over the edge of the cliff somewhere further along. Ah, well. She doesn’t have any more time for this now.

She lifts even higher and returns to the far side of the meadow, spotting a narrow trail leading up to the north under the trees. Nudging the drone along, Katrina does her best to follow the path. But it swerves into the woods and is soon lost beneath the eaves. She swivels the drone around, to study the north horizon. A wide redwood-crowded ridge blocks the way, running east to west. She lifts the drone over it to see what she can find on its far side.

And there it is. Ussiaxan. A splendid village, three times the size of Keleptel. Not that far after all, just hidden on the far side of this wooded ridge. Smoke rises from log houses that are also larger and a little more refined than the huts they know. This entire village looks whole human development cycles ahead of all the others. Oh, great. The Ussiaxan are the overachievers of the island. They’ve gone and pissed off the smart ones. Not the best strategy.

There appears to be some animal husbandry going on here. Enclosed pens harbor pigs. A flutter of dozens of white wings in a small structure makes Katrina think of a dovecote. The village square is also more impressive, twice as big and lined with gray flagstones. As the drone soars overhead, one of the villagers enters the square and tilts his head up.

Oops. Too close. She doesn’t need to start a war here. She pulls up, away from the village, waiting until the man hurries away.

From this vantage she can see another stream that runs along the back of their village. Some of the houses have small jetties sticking out into it. She needs to remove the drone from the village airspace for a bit until they forget about it. Perhaps she should investigate if there’s anything upstream of where they dwell.

A clearing has been cut out of the woods here. On green grass stands a wooden building, of an older style than the log houses of the village and built with yet more refinement. Like a dilapidated cottage from a fairy tale, it stands alone in the woods, surrounded by tall pines at the edge of the stream’s banks.

Figures emerge. A tall woman and a short man. They are deep in dialogue and don’t look up. Katrina follows their progress toward the north side of town, and across a narrow bridge she had just thought was another of the jetties. Now they are on the stream’s near bank, between two yards.

“I need a parabolic microphone. Isn’t that what they’re called?”

“Like a spy microphone?” Mandy’s disinterest is clear.

“Yeh. Directional. Telescopic, baby. Not that I could understand what they’re saying. I wonder how divergent their language is from the village here? They’ve been apart like three or four generations now. Enough time to… Hey, hold on. Here’s someone we know. Hello, Lady Boss. Here’s a report from your, who are these two? The high priests? The top bureaucrats? Coming from the cottage in the woods. You know, the one across the stream. And they don’t agree on whatever it is. So they’re making you decide…”

They are small figures far below, their faces unreadable even at the furthest optical and digital zoom. But their hands are animated, all three of them. At least, that is a feature they still share with all other Lisicans.

Then another trio of figures moves across the footbridge and Katrina whistles. “Oh, fuck. So this is what this is all about.”

Her change in tone gets Mandy’s attention. She pulls herself out of her melancholy to study Katrina’s eager form, hidden behind the headset. “What? What is it?”

“They’ve got Sherman. These Ussiaxan villagers are parading Sherman through the yards and they’ve got like a collar around their neck. The Lady Boss and her like cabinet are arguing about what to do with them.”

“So what are they going to do?”

“These freaks, who knows? Might just make this Decapitate a Shaman Day. Wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. Or maybe they’ll cut some deal. Work together. That’s probably the dispute. Listen, Shirley. You can’t trust Sherman. You know it. I know it.”

“But on the other hand, Shirley,” Katrina puts on the man’s deeper voice. “Imagine what kind of power a shaman can bring to the fight. We could mop the whole island up, side to side! Think about it, Shirley. Just you and me. Ruling side by side…”

Mandy can’t help herself. A giggle escapes. “Is that really what they’re saying?”

“Something like it. I just really hope they don’t all find common cause. Because that would be bad for everyone else. We like that the Ussiaxan are isolationists. That is a very good thing and probably keeps a fair number of folks alive elsewhere. We don’t need them and Sherman mixing in the affairs of… Ehhh… This is when they’re giving Sherman the chance to respond. But I can’t see their face at this height. Just going to drop around a bit and…” Katrina physically ducks. “Oh, shit. They saw me. Oh, shit.”

“They did? Oh, god. What are you doing now?”

“Evasive maneuver time. Oh, shit. This place is going mad. Like an anthill. So many people. Like, like a couple hundred…? My god I had no idea there were so many here. Like on the whole island. And they can all see me. Oh fuck a duck. I’m so sorry! I thought it was quieter than—! Yikes! Oh my god. Nearly ran into a tree. Got to go up. Get out of here.”

“Yeah. Get out.”

Katrina rockets the drone up a couple hundred meters, until the village can be encompassed entirely by the camera’s frame. Here she hovers, seeing a crowd amass in the village square. They can’t see her at this height, can they? No way. She would be the tiniest speck. But still. No use upsetting them any more.

Katrina wings away back over the wooded ridge. She only gets a brief glimpse of the man atop a redwood platform hurling his spear at her as she passes by—the man who first saw her in the village square, as a matter of fact—before the drone is sent down in a spinning loop to crash on the slope in the dirt.