Chapter 60 – Coming Home
February 17, 2025
Thanks for joining us for the FINAL CHAPTER of 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!
As to what comes next, please watch this space for upcoming links to an Audible/Kindle version of Lisica as well as a podcast version. Also, my next project will begin here soon!
Audio for this episode:
60 – Coming Home
“Look,” Mandy calls out. “The clouds are breaking up.”
Amy had been about to give up. Her eyes are dazzled and she doesn’t trust herself on the heights up here at the top of the island. She turns back to Mandy, shielding her eyes from the blanket of brilliant clouds below them with an upraised palm. “They are? How can you tell?”
“I can see water. Let’s just give it another few minutes.”
The sky is a perfect dome of clear blue above, the morning sun blazing on the eastern horizon. “I forgot after all these weeks…” Amy shakes her head, carefully skirting the open pit of the shaft and making her way back to the crown of the ridge, “how strong the sun could be. We can’t even look at the clouds it shines on!”
“I grew up in Hawai’i.” Mandy smiles in memory of her sun-drenched childhood. “I can’t ever forget how hot it gets. Or how bright. Or how humid. But I’ve never seen… this.”
Only three peaks pierce the white blanket, theirs and two to the northwest and northeast, a triangle of perfect isolation. Apart from these tiny slivers of dark rock, the whole rest of the world is white below and blue above.
“This is too much.” Amy still can’t process the overwhelming sensation. “How can we expect to see anyone from up here?”
Mandy squints and looks back over the clouds on the ocean. “Hold on. Maybe the clouds over the southern shore will vanish so we can catch sight of a ship.” She rubs her wounded shoulder, bothered by the pain. “I do hope we only see a nice comfy research vessel or something. Or maybe one of those cruisers that launch the Navy helicopters. Get us home quick.”
“We’re probably on a slow boat home. For like a week or more. At least, that’s what I’m preparing myself for… It’s going to be hard to go from all this wonderful life here to a cold little metal box.”
Mandy peeks over the edge of the cliff again. The fogbank is indeed breaking up, shredding into long banners of white and gray. “And right on cue.” Mandy points a finger down, at a small dark gray ship cruising in from the island’s west coast. “There they are.”
“Oh my god. No way.” Amy squints at it. The ship is a destroyer from several generations before. Diesel smoke coughs from a stack of vertical pipes. Her heart sinks. “Russian. Got to be. Hardly looks seaworthy. Well, now we’ve got to warn the others. Come on.”
Yet Mandy delays, wanting confirmation. “I don’t see any flag.”
Amy grimaces. “Maybe they took it down. Maybe they’re not supposed to be here and they know it.”
“Yeah. We have to tell the others.” But Amy is already ahead of her on the trail back to the village. Mandy has to hurry to keep up, but her wound only slows her down.
They descend as fast as they safely can, Amy’s unnamed fox kit squirming in her pocket from all the activity. She is starting to get claws like needles, and they’re starting to poke through every layer of cloth, including her sports bra.
Amy drops the final length of nearly vertical trail back into the village. Her plan is just to dart through the square and enter the tunnel, but the way is currently blocked. A crowd of angry villagers surround someone in the square, yelling at them.
The person they have trapped tries to escape. The figure heaves against their held up arms and Amy recognizes Daadaxáats from the descriptions. The shaman is an ageless, sexless creature with a wide face set in a fierce grimace and bone fetishes hanging from their gray curls. In one hand they clutch a kit fox, in their other they ward the villagers away with a stick and feather totem. The people fall back from it, none daring to challenge the shaman.
It is clear to Amy that Daadaxáats has somehow stolen one of the village’s kits and is now trying to escape with it. Fury boiling over, she charges in and snatches the totem from their grip. “You evil… horrible…” Amy has no words for the hatred in her heart.
It is such an unexpected act that the shaman stops, dumbstruck, as do all the villagers. They all look at Amy with outrage and fear.
“Go on. Get the baby back,” Amy orders them while tearing the feathers from the cross-sticks of the totem. “Daadaxáats can’t hurt you any more. Yeah, I said your name. You didn’t like that, did you?” Amy’s voice curls into scorn. “Daadaxáats. Daadaxáats.”
But the villagers aren’t listening to her any more. Amy is just adding her voice to their growing clamor. Dozens of them fully encircle Daadaxáats, arguing about the criminal’s fate. There is no escape for the shaman.
They reach a consensus and the Mayor calls out a declaration from her place in the crowd. Then they all regard Daadaxáats.
Without a word, the shaman surrenders the mewing kit. Gentle hands take it back.
“Oh, thank god.” Mandy stands at the base of the cliff path at the edge of the village, watching the scene appalled. “Amy,” she calls out, rubbing her shoulder again. “Come on. We should go.”
But two new sounds suddenly echo from different points in the village. The first is a rustle of dried leaves behind the huts to the north. It is the fox mama and papa on their daily rounds, here to feed the kits of the village. The second is the snap of a small branch underfoot on the trail leading down to the creek. It is the Chinese spy, face smeared with dirt, crouched at the trailhead.
He sees the foxes. The foxes see him. Faster than an eyeblink the foxes turn and vanish under the fern. The spy lunges forward, still collared and leashed like a dog. The exiled Lady Boss holds the other end of several meters of rope. Her fast feet have no trouble keeping his pace. They dive together into the underbrush.
With collective cries of outrage the villagers chase the exiles into the bushes, some running wide to encircle and intercept them.
In a gap between thickets, the Lady Boss stands. She calls out something fearsome and waves the Chinese spy’s gun. She fires it at a random angle toward the clifftops. The noise and recoil startles her and she nearly drops it. But she recovers, sneering at them.
Spooked by the gunshot, the villagers all go still once more. The only remaining movement in the thickets is most likely the foxes, hurrying away. The Lady Boss drops back down into the ferns to chase them.
Crack. Another gunshot. “No,” Amy groans. “Not the foxes…”
After a long moment the Chinese spy drags himself clear from the edge of the ferns, blood streaking his face. He still wears the collar and leash but nobody holds the other end any more. A free man again, he brandishes his pistol, pointing it at all the glaring eyes hidden in the undergrowth. He warns the villagers off in his own language, stumbling back, and then once he’s assured there is no threat he slowly limps upslope, toward the northwest, only looking back twice.
A strangled sound rises from within the bushes. The villagers converge on it, carrying out Lady Boss, who has been shot in the jaw. The lower half of her face is a bloody mess and several teeth skew wetly from the gore. But her eyes are open; she still lives.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Mandy repeats. “I should go get Esquibel. They don’t know gunshots…”
Amy nods at the villagers. “No, but for my money, the Mayor is the best healer here. Ask Alonso.”
Preparing her front porch to receive the woman, the Mayor sends Xeik’w off to collect the necessary tools and supplies. Amy and Mandy can only stand in silence as the Mayor treats the wound of her old nemesis. Lady Boss cries out when her jaw is touched, and it shocks Mandy back into her urgent mission. “I have to go. We have to…” Mandy can see that Amy is far more invested in this drama of the foxes than she is. “Uh. Kay. How about you stay? And make sure it all gets put right, I guess.”
Amy nods. “Oh, shit. Right. That destroyer. Yeah, you go. But I just need to make sure… Ah, there.” Movement at the edge of the village is the two foxes stealing between the huts. The four kits are brought to where the mama sets up on Yesiniy’s porch. Amy brings her own. All five kits suckle at once, wriggling closer.
A rough hand closes on Amy’s shoulder. She turns. But Mandy is gone. It is Morska Vidra, watching the nursing kits with luminous eyes. He looks different, much younger than she’s ever seen him and for once Amy thinks they might be the same age. He says something to her, mimicking the gunshots, and how he ran to the village once he heard them. Then he indicates the foxes with his thumb tip, trying to communicate something profound. Lisica this and Lisica that. All she can do is nod and try to commit certain repeated words to memory. But her mind isn’t working right.
Only now does the adrenaline finally drain from her blood and tremors rattle in the emptiness. Amy’s teeth chatter and for a moment she wonders if she is about to go into shock. Morska Vidra frowns and drapes an arm across her shoulder, drawing her close.
Even as Amy’s empty head rings like a bell she still knows how profound this gesture is. It is what she has been seeking this entire time. Acceptance from the Lisicans. Belonging.
The Mayor prepares some of the broad leaves with paste. Xeik’w is doing what oral surgery they can, to the cries of their patient and the murmuring advice of the villagers on the porch.
Amy turns back to the suckling kits. “The babies are getting so fat. You know?” She mimes herself as fat. “Plump as pigs. They look so healthy!” Morska Vidra laughs. He is like the proud grandfather, the patron of this entire fox clan. Contentment radiates from him like stones in the sun.
Ξ
Triquet fights the wheel of the hatch that divides the sub from the stairs leading up to the bunker. They swab it with another dollop of rancid motor oil and try again. Just by shifting the wheel back and forth a tiny bit, the oil gets deeper in the gears and… Movement! Easier than they feared it would be. Now they can close the hatch and spin the wheel shut so this bulkhead will be waterproof, unsinkable, and impassable to the coming Russians.
But Triquet needs an extra hand. “Jay. Are you down here?”
“Radio room, boss!” Jay’s voice emerges faintly from further within the sub. “Just sealing up the last cracks!”
“So is that everyone? Nobody is up top any more?”
“Yeah.” Jay emerges at the far end of the dimly lit ward room. “Pradeep and Maahjabeen are in the sea cave. Amy’s still in the village. We got everyone else. Even Jidadaa.”
“Good.” Triquet closes the hatch and spins the wheel. Then they disassemble the nearest bunkbed and prop its cross-strut under the hatch wheel’s spoke, preventing anyone from turning it. They pat the hatch in satisfaction. “Like six centimeters of solid steel. There’s nothing gets through that. Whew. So relieved.”
Triquet and Jay pass through the hatch behind them, finding Esquibel, Miriam, and Katrina lounging in the second ward room. They enter the narrow hall and Jay shows off the work he’s done to block the tunnel in the radio room with large pieces of steel furniture. In the captain’s cabin, Alonso and Flavia sit side by side on the bed, working on their laptops. Triquet and Jay nod and smile before continuing past.
Esquibel follows them, peeking her head into the captain’s cabin. “What? No Mandy? I thought she… Ehh… Where is she now?”
“Oh!” Esquibel hears Mandy’s voice from ahead. “It’s Xaanach! The young shaman! We’ve been looking for you!”
Entering the control room, Esquibel finds a small crowd. Mandy and Jidadaa are here, facing the open bulkhead that leads to the tunnels the boys got lost in. Xaanach has silently emerged from this darkness. The frail girl stands in the slanting shadows, staring at Triquet and Jay, Mandy and Jidadaa.
As Jay works to seal this tunnel, Jidadaa instantly pelts her with a litany of questions and statements. Xaanach just glowers. There is something of a shaman gaze on this island and she has perfected it, a brooding, lowered-brow hoarding of power. A tiny kit picks its way around her neck through her ratty hair. She answers Jidadaa as best she can, but with little warmth. There is no sisterhood between these outcasts.
Finally, Jidadaa steps back and begs Xaanach for patience. She translates what she has learned: “Yes, Xaanach got baby ten. And baby eleven went to Kula.”
“Your own mom?” Mandy cries. “Oh, that’s great.”
“What she needs. Someone to live for, yeah?” Jay asks.
Jidadaa nods. “Now she is one of the people again.” But her face is a mask. Whatever joy they expect to light her face is not there.
Mandy asks her friends, “It’s great, right?” She makes a cringing face, afraid she said the wrong thing about Kula.
Jidadaa turns to Jay. “Lidass bring change. Change for everyone. And now lidass leaves. His job is done.”
Jay frowns. “Aw, does this mean I don’t get to come back? Or maybe I can come back some day, but in like a different season? Like the golden childs?”
She ignores the question and tells them instead, “Xaanach say she bring ke’w’wits for the pain.”
Hearing the word, Xaanach opens a pighide sack and carefully removes what looks like a bird’s mud nest, hardened into a rough sphere with a dark hole at the top. From cracks it leaks a clear sticky fluid, running down her forearms. She laughs, drizzling the fluid into Jidadaa’s cupped hands, who laps at it. “Honey. So good.” She holds out her hands under Jay’s face and he gamely licks the honey from her palms. It is so light, and not very sweet. But somehow revivifying, like he just pounded a whole Gatorade.
“Yum. Aw, man. She’s making a mess. Does anyone have like a container? It’s getting everywhere.”
“Oh, my gosh, that’s so good!” Mandy rubs a sticky dollop of honey from her chin. “I’ve never had honey taste like that.”
“Ke’w’wits,” Jidadaa explains, catching more of the spilling honey in her hands and lapping at it. “Good medicine.”
“Got to be like some local bees,” Jay explains, “and their local pollinators. Every honey is different, depending on its flowers.”
They prevail on Triquet and Esquibel to try it. They all have sticky faces now. Good medicine indeed. They collectively feel its effects and their cares slough from them with sighs and laughter.
Jidadaa picks at Mandy’s collar. “Your shoulder.”
Mandy stops laughing. “Oh, like, slap some directly on it?”
Esquibel nods. “There is reasoning for this. Honey has been used as an antibacterial when nothing else is available. I’d want to test it first, but all my gear is packed. Maybe I can test it on the ship and we can apply it if it is clean. Will that work, Jidadaa?”
But Jidadaa ignores Esquibel. “Take shirt off.”
Esquibel reaches out and snares Jidadaa’s hand. “Excuse me. Weren’t you listening? I need to test it first.”
“You have pain too?” Jidadaa asks Esquibel. “Somewhere?”
“Don’t we all. Scraped my elbow just following you lot in here.” Esquibel holds it up, showing the abrasion, and before she can pull it away, Jidadaa has smeared it with honey. “Oi! I told you! Bloody hell. Now you’re going to get it infected. All because you couldn’t wait for—!” Then she stops, trying to inspect her own elbow. “It’s stopped hurting. Almost entirely. My god. Such strong anaesthetic properties. So quick.”
“Really?” Mandy pulls at her shirt. “Cause I could sure use a break from all this pain. It works? It’s okay?”
“No. Not all honey is antibiotic. And we don’t even know if that is what this is. We haven’t seen if they’re bees or—or earthworms.” Mandy picks at the medical tape to peel back the bandage even as Esquibel tries to prevent Jidadaa from applying the honey.
Jidadaa slips through Esquibel’s grasp and claps a gob of honey directly onto the wound. Mandy gasps. Esquibel shouts in outrage, pulling Jidadaa back. But her hand still clamps Mandy’s shoulder.
After a long moment, Mandy sighs, a long shuddering exhalation that carries away much that has been held. She lifts her head. Jidadaa does too. “Thank you,” Mandy mutters, grasping Jidadaa’s hand at her shoulder. “Wow. Thank you so much.”
Jidadaa carefully peels away her hand. The wound is a dark red scab surrounded by inflamed skin. She says something of concern to Xaanach, who takes her own turn peering at it. Then she makes a decision, kneeling with the mud hive at Mandy’s feet.
Xaanach croons into the dark opening of the hive. She cajoles the creatures within, begging favors.
“What is she doing now?” Esquibel demands. “Jidadaa?”
“What even is that in there?” Jay asks, leaning over the child. He can detect movement, but can’t tell what it is. “Something larval maybe? Like I can catch sight of something… wriggling?”
“Ew,” Mandy gags. “Not bees? Oh, no. What did we just eat?”
“What is she saying to it?” Esquibel demands of Jidadaa.
“Beg ke’w’wits to heal Mandy.”
“And is ke’w’wits like… insects, or…?” Jay leans in even closer.
“Whoa.” Esquibel pulls on him. “Get back, Jay. Now.”
“It’s smoking?” Triquet is shocked. This is the last thing they expected. “Why is it smoking? Is it going to blow up?”
The hive now emits a thin stream of brown smoke, sickly sweet and herbal. Xaanach leans over it in primeval ceremony, hair hanging lank in the shadows. She cackles at the hive and lifts it. The mud ball now trails a thicker, darker fluid from its cracks.
“How…?” Triquet goggles. “How did that…?”
“How did she do that?” Esquibel demands again. “Xaanach? How did you make it burn?”
Jidadaa nods sagely. “Ke’w’wits agree. Heal Mandy.”
Xaanach collects a gob of this darker resin onto a little dried leaf. She mimes touching it, then pulling her hand back as if from a fire.
“Burns,” Jidadaa agrees. “Don’t touch. Healing burn.”
Esquibel steps between Xaanach and Mandy. “Stop right there. If you think I’m letting you put what is clearly a contaminated substance on Mandy’s open wound, then you’ve got—”
“Esquibel. Please.” Mandy palpates her own shoulder. “It’s already feeling better. Please let her.”
“You can’t put folk remedies on a gunshot wound and expect…”
“Esquibel.” Something in Triquet’s tone quiets her. They roll up their sleeve, revealing their osprey bite. “Remember?” Their scar is almost entirely gone. Now there is just a faint line where the skin indents along the incision. “The burny sticky stuff. Now we know where it comes from.”
“Do we?” Esquibel is so tired. She can’t find the anger to defend the rational world one more time. All this woolly-headed thinking. She gestures at the hive. “Do we really know anything? We know what that… thing is now? And what Xaanach will be putting on her? Mandy, this is like a nine year-old girl. And it is your health and well-being. Nothing is more precious.”
“If you’re worried,” Mandy shrugs, “I can take some antibiotics. But can you please get out of the way now so we can try this?”
With deep misgivings, Esquibel steps back. Ultimately, there is only so much a doctor can make a patient do.
Xaanach smears the tarry substance on Mandy’s wound. “Ooo!” she calls out. “Yes, it sure does burn. Triquet, did yours burn?”
“Yes, doll.” Triquet squeezes her hand. “But I don’t remember this part. I was out for the first hour or…”
“Wow. This really really burns.” Mandy clasps her shoulder and falls back against Jidadaa. “Like, a lot. Ow.”
“Let’s get her on a bed.” With Jay and Triquet’s help Esquibel carries Mandy back to the captain’s cabin in concerned silence.
Ξ
Paddling on the open water together, perhaps for the last time, Maahjabeen is filled with contentment. Here she is doubly home, floating in the embrace of the ocean with her own true love. She promises herself to savor each moment, etch every sensation and emotion upon her heart, so that when she is old she can think back on this day and remember paradise.
Esquibel had found them in the sea cave, and asked them to go out and scout the southern coast of the island before reporting back. They had been more than happy to oblige. Any reason to get back out onto the rolling swells of the gray ocean.
Pradeep turns and smiles at her, his teeth so brilliant, his eyes so kind. “Pull up here, babi. Let’s not come flying around the point.”
But it is hard to stay in place among all these cross-currents. Firewater and Aziz float too close to the cliff and when the waves pummel its base, the water is sent back with an echo of its force, catching the edge of the wider westerly ocean current, which tears into momentary gyres and riptides and whirlpools.
They back-paddle furiously to stay hidden from any ships that might be anchored outside the lagoon, and eventually tune their boats to the water’s chaos, easing forward a bit until they do see the dark gray hull of the Russian destroyer anchored three hundred meters from the lagoon’s outer breaks. It is so close they can see the apron of rust that leaks from its bow. Sailors in dark jumpsuits lounge on the deck. None have seen them. Yet.
“Back!” Pradeep hisses. But as he maneuvers he spots another ship here. White atop with a Navy blue hull, anchored even closer to the mouth of the lagoon. Its broad bow and suites of instruments indicate it is a large research vessel, perhaps for the Arctic. Pradeep stops struggling and lets Firewater coast into view. No point in trying to hide now. This ship flies the American flag.
“Ahoy, kayaks,” a flat voice broadcasts over its loudspeaker. “Paddle away from the surfline. Your lives are in danger.”
Maahjabeen scowls. “They don’t think we haven’t been out here in these same conditions for eight weeks? Ha!” To prove her point she lunges forward into the worst of it, the deadly maze of upswells and surf sets that wind between the seastacks. They finally release her and she darts across the last of the open water to join the American ship. Maahjabeen peers up at it from a safe distance. After a moment a silhouetted head appears.
“Damn, you people are crazy!” The familiar hoarse voice of a sailor who spends his life shouting at sea fills Maahjabeen with a kind of tender regret. It really is happening. Their ride back home is here. “Gave you an order to stand off the cliffs, ma’am. I expect you to follow it. If you’re going to get on my ship…”
“Yes, yes.” She waves his threat away. “When I am on your ship I will follow your orders, captain. But I am not yet on your ship.”
Pradeep glides up beside her, giving a brilliant smile of apology to the captain. “Ah! Thank you for the very thoughtful warning, sir. We have just… been practicing. No harm done, yes? But I must ask… How do we know that the Russians there are, uh, safe?”
In response, the captain’s head disappears from over the rail.
For a full minute or more they wait for him to re-emerge but he never does. “Eh. I am getting cold,” Maahjabeen complains. “And he is not inviting us aboard so… we paddle into the lagoon?”
“Surely, my love. Should be easier from this direction. Just surf the tops on in. Be like an orca, yes?”
Maahjabeen shares a dark smile with him, realizing in a flash that studying the orcas will be her life’s work, living among them and charting their paths through the sea. From the Alaska coast to California she will track them like the lineage of her family tree.
The waves roll them through the mouth of the lagoon onto the sand. There are already three beached zodiacs here, one Russian and two American. Pradeep shakes his head in worry. “Well, now it’s going to be much harder to get back to the cave to report back. And what will we even say? What in the world are we supposed to make of this… truce? Why are they both here? Does this make the Russians trustworthy or the Americans fully untrustworthy?”
“The Americans were already fully untrustworthy. Especially Baitgie, yes?” Maahjabeen lifts herself from Aziz’s hatch. She drags the blue hull clear of the lagoon’s small waves.
Pradeep nods unhappily at Maahjabeen, pulling Firewater clear and following her to the redwood trunk that bisects the beach and faces the site of their former camp. From atop the log they can see that the clearing is now filled with Russian marines in tactical gear and American specialists in light blue jumpsuits.
“Sir!” One of the specialists spots Maahjabeen and Pradeep atop the trunk. “Two targets!” The marines turn and glare at the couple but make no further moves. It is the Americans who hurry toward them, carrying tablets and medical kits.
“Targets…?” Maahjabeen calls out. “I don’t like being called a target, thank you very much! And we are not used to—!”
“Apologies. My apologies.” An American Navy officer hurries ahead of the others. “Just our military terminology. No, you are not targets. Let me assure you. We’re just happy to find you.” He is a small, wiry man in his fifties. His smile seems genuine. “Hello. I’m Kit Sidler. Commander Sidler. I’m in charge of this mission.”
With a squeeze of Pradeep’s hand, Maahjabeen gives her lover a smile filled with bravado. “Come on, Mahbub. It is time. Let us meet this new adventure together.”
Ξ
“Banging. And scraping. I hear banging and scraping.” Triquet ducks through the hatch leading into the first ward room. Where they had braced the hatch shut, a continuing series of metal-on-metal impacts can be heard. “Great. Well I guess we have our answer. The Russians are definitely here.”
Flavia lies on the bunk, playing solitaire on her computer. She takes her earbuds out. “Eh? You said something, dear Triquet?” Then she frowns. “What is that banging? Are the bad guys trying to bash their way in?”
“Wait. Listen. It’s very deliberate.” The bangs are regularly spaced, followed by a quicker trio, ending with a long scrape.
“Ehh, I know this. This is morse code.” Flavia opens a new window on her laptop, suddenly excited. “I love morse code. Let me just open a dictionary here and… now… What do you hear?”
“What is that banging?” Miriam ducks through the hatch with Mandy and Esquibel in tow. Alonso limps in after with Katrina. They all ask the same question and the room fills with noise.
“It is just that we need it to be quiet!” Flavia shouts over them. “Because this is morse code. Now. What do we hear, Triquet?”
“Dot, dot, dot scrape scrape dot, dot dot scrape…”
“E… e… p… i… t…” Flavia writes down.
“Dot scrape scrape dot, dot scrape dot, dot scrape, scrape dot dot.”
“P… r… a… d…”
“Prad!” Jay starts. “Eepitsprad! Pradeepits! Its Pradeep!” he babbles, reaching for the strut that braces the hatch closed.
Esquibel cautions him. “Or what if it’s a trap? There are ways to force a hostile to tell you their name, you know.”
Alonso shrugs, “We don’t really have much of a choice, do we? They know we are here. It is only a matter of time now. What can we do? Retreat to the interior? Live on the run? No. This is when we open the door, my friends, and face what is coming to us.”
Miriam casts a wondering glance at Alonso. He has more to lose than any of them if it is the Russians. But he has achieved a kind of serenity in these final hours. She is thrilled at his transformation. He is vital again, eyes sharp. His aspect is august and grand, like a bronze bust in a university library. She has never loved him more.
Esquibel steps away from the door with a sigh. Jay yanks out the strut, spins the wheel open, and hauls the hatch wide. “Yes!” He claps forearms with someone and pulls them through. It is indeed Pradeep, with Maahjabeen right behind. Jay embraces them both. “Fucking brilliant thought, dude, with the morse code.”
“It was her idea.” Pradeep defers to Maahjabeen.
She shrugs. “But we knew it was easier to spell out his name.”
The laughter that fills the room is the release of tension.
“So it is safe? We can come out?” Esquibel tries to peer past them up the dark stairs.
“Well…” Pradeep frowns, unhappy. “Uhh…”
“Yes or no?” Esquibel snaps. “Are the Americans here?”
“Well, yes.”
“And the Russians? Any sign of them?”
Pradeep and Maahjabeen only look at Esquibel sidelong.
“What is happening?” Alonso wonders. “Why are we not getting any straight answers from you two?”
“Maahjabeen?” Esquibel repeats in irritation, “Please. Any sign of the Russians? Or any threats?”
“You must forgive us,” Maahjabeen answers drily. “It is a habit we just picked up, not giving answers about the Russians. Seems to be how everyone handles the situation here.”
“What situation? What are you talking about?” Miriam asks.
Pradeep laughs bitterly. “Okay. Sorry. I’ll stop wasting time and just jump a few steps forward, here. See if my new theory here has any weight. Esquibel, why did you want us off the beach?”
Pradeep’s new tack is such a sudden turn that the ward room hushes. Esquibel frowns. “Well, at first it is because you were building your platforms outside the treeline and the satellites could see. But once you corrected the plan for the camp, I had no other issue with—”
“No, not then,” Pradeep interrupts her. “I mean weeks later when the golden man told us the Russians were on their way. You didn’t want us to meet them. You didn’t want them to meet us. You wanted us to fear them and hide from them. Why?”
“I… I…” Esquibel can’t handle how Pradeep’s brain works, coming at her from all these random angles at once. “I mean, it just made more sense for us to be underground when threats appeared. Safer. We’ve had these arguments over and over…”
“But they aren’t a threat. They are partners with the Americans and the Canadians and the Japanese and a few others, aren’t they? Commander Sidler confirmed all the others but not the Russians. Nobody will say a word about them. Why is that?”
“Pradeep… It’s classified…” Esquibel groans, dropping her face into her hands. “Part of our final briefing. I can’t… under penalty of court-martial… say anything more about this. Please!” Esquibel begs the ward room but she has lost them all once again.
“Che cazzo!” Flavia has no words for how despicable she finds Esquibel. “You knew this? You made me terrified of the Russians. I have not slept for two weeks! And it was all some lie? Why? Why would you do such a thing?”
“That is what I can’t share. I am so sorry.” Esquibel can’t stand the waves of hostility pouring from all of them. She has become too close. They really are family now. Tears spill down her face.
“You’ve just been manipulating all of us, this whole time… Lying to us…” Miriam scowls at Esquibel. “I knew we could never trust the military. I knew it!”
“No, no… It is just the requirement Russia had for them to be part of the mission. They insisted that their part in the operation be stricken from the record. Nobody knows why. It is Russia’s—!”
“Lieutenant Commander.” At the base of the stairs outside the hatch is the shadow of Commander Sidler. His voice is cold steel. “You are not sharing privileged mission data with civilians, are you?” At his shoulder is his Russian equivalent, an older Marine officer with a silver buzzcut and a purple nose.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m very sorry.” Esquibel grips her own hands, squeezing them together. The tears are so hot, streaming from her burning eyes. She lifts her clasped hands in supplication. “But I can’t… I can’t do this any more. I can’t sustain the…”
“Lieutenant Commander Daine!” Sidler stands straight and raps out her title. “You will shut it down. All the way down. Or you will find yourself in the brig for the trip home. Am I clear?”
“I am just…” Esquibel’s mouth works silently. “Very sorry. This has been so… see, my own dear Mandy has been shot…”
“Shot? Someone got shot? Reyna. Get a medic in here.” Sidler studies the researchers with their dirty faces and wild eyes and torn clothes. “What the hell happened to you people?”
A young medic with tightly braided hair enters in her sky-blue jumpsuit, carrying a pack. “Who got shot, Commander?”
“Doctor Daine?”
“It is Mandy. But she is fine.” Esquibel indicates her, wiping away tears. “She has been in my care from the first and I am…”
“Let me just take a look, ma’am.” The medic kneels beside Mandy and helps her with her shirt. Then she peels back the bandage and regards the tarry patch covering the wound. “Uhh, what is that, Doctor Daine?”
“A local treatment. A poultice. It is fine!”
The medic frowns at this lack of protocol and picks at the edge of the black resin. “Doc, you know as well as I do that there are a whole host of reasons why…” The black bits fall away in her hand.
Mandy gasps in wonder. Beneath the poultice, her skin is whole.
“Okay. Where’s this bullet hole?” The medic looks at Esquibel as if she might be mad.
It is that look that does it for Esquibel. This is the same look she has been giving Maahjabeen and all the other mystics. And now it is her turn. She is one of them. She saw Xaanach beg the mud nest to combust. She saw the ichor that it excreted. And now she has seen the miracle it has accomplished. Twice. In a wound she had cleaned herself. How impossible. But yet, the impossible exists after all. “Commander Sidler.” Esquibel is filled with a sudden certainty and clarity that she hasn’t felt in years. She stands at attention. “You shall be the first to hear. I am resigning my commission. Effective immediately. I will stay for your debriefing or whatever, but I am no longer an associate member of the U.S. Navy or a Lieutenant Commander in the Kenyan Navy. I am done.”
Sidler listens to her decree with a kind of flat contempt. When she is done he lifts an irritated hand and shoos Esquibel away. “Resignation not accepted. Damn. Can’t wait to make some sense from this nonsense. Okay first, we need to count heads and get check-ups. We’ll sort out all the drama later. Just happy to find you. Y’all been hiding out pretty good these last few weeks.”
“Oh!” Katrina suddenly cries out. “It’s true! We aren’t all here! Still missing one! I’ll be right back. Give me… an hour.”
Ξ
They all cluster on the beach, coordinating the removal of their gear. Alonso has tried to give the half-empty wine barrel to a number of sailors but it is the Russian commander who takes him up on the offer, recognizing Chateau Ausone with a wide smile.
Pradeep helps Maahjabeen prepare the kayaks for transport. Jay stuffs a last wad of dirty clothes in his backpack then takes himself for a walk so he can smoke a final joint in peace. Flavia hovers over the specialists who carry her gear, reminding them how expensive and fragile everything is. She is eager to get going. Her dog Boris awaits, as do her many other projects. Miriam has learned that Commander Sidler has a layman’s interest in geology and she is giving him a brief overview of the island, pointing animatedly at the cliffs and listing silicates.
Triquet stands outside the crowd, wearing a shimmering sequin gown, lurid facepaint, a feather boa, and workboots. They are back to their outsider status, although they notice that one of the butch medics is giving them friendlier smiles than the others get. Well well well. There may be an ally here on the long journey home.
Mandy helps Esquibel with her crates and bins of medical gear. Her arm is functional again, with just a faded soreness to indicate it was ever injured. Esquibel thinks less of her resigned commission than the promise of this honey treatment. Oh, yes, she will be back. And she will have Xaanach teach her, to tease out the mystery of this miracle cure. If Esquibel can isolate the active compounds in the dark resin she’ll change the world. She’ll be rich, she’ll win the Nobel Prize. Her future will be secure. If she can only come back.
“Alonso.” Katrina calls out from atop the log. It takes several tries before he hears her over the clamor of the move.
With newly-powerful strides he crosses the beach to her. “Ah! Katrina. There you are. It is time to load your things.”
“Amy needs a chat first. She’s in the bunker.” Katrina jumps from the log, calling out, “Hey! Careful there, mate! That laptop is the only one I have!”
Alonso finds Amy in the shadowed bunker, nuzzling her kit. “Ah, there she is. How’d it go, Ames? Did you say all your goodbyes?”
But Amy’s eyes are bright, filled with tears.
Alonso pulls her into a bear hug. “Oh, it’s alright. You did well. Finally got back on their good side in the end. Proud of you…” But his smile fades. A growing disquiet fills him.
“Oh, Lonzo.” She kisses him. “You can tell, can’t you? I’m not going back. I’m staying here. On Lisica. I’m so sorry.”
Alonso blinks. “But the ships are leaving. I don’t understand.”
“With Morska Vidra. He and I… It turns out we’re both kind of outcasts and we… Well… We’re going to raise the foxes together. Just him and me in his little hut. We’ll be so happy.”
“Oh, no… Amy… This isn’t the proper time to make that kind…”
“I’m sorry, Alonso. But there is no proper time. It’s now. Or never. We are only guessing that they’ll let us come back but I… I can’t leave. This is all I ever wanted from my life. Here on Lisica. Please. Tell them not to look for me. I’m already gone.”
“But Amy—!” Now Alonso bursts into tears, hugging her again with fierce possession. “I can’t! I’m responsible for you and I…!”
Yet she is already extricating herself from his embrace, a smile of great peace on her face. “I hope it doesn’t get you in trouble but… I have to go now. I do. Please visit again soon!” Amy steps back and retreats to the trap door and the stairs leading down.
Alonso is in shock. Amy is gone? But leaving her is impossible. He can’t. He’s responsible for her. And what will he tell the Commander? They will just start some stupid search for her and none of them will get to leave for a week.
But Amy is really gone. The bunker is empty. And they are already calling for Alonso again on the beach. Like a sleepwalker he returns to them, his face haggard and eyes lost.
Miriam hurries to him. “What is it, Zo? Where’s Amy?”
All he can do is shake his head, helpless.
“Doctor Alonso?” Commander Sidler calls out. “Time to get in the boats. Still missing one, I think? A…” He consults his tablet. “Let’s see… A Doctor Amy Kubota?”
“Here I am!” They all turn to the fallen log. Jidadaa has jumped atop it. She holds a pigskin satchel and wears a new t-shirt from Kula’s collection. Her face is excited, her smile wide and brave. “I am here! Yes, I am the Amy.”
“Good.” Sidler turns away. “Well that’s everyone then. Let’s get a move on, folks. Civilization awaits.”
“Wait… no… but…” Katrina stammers. A specialist takes her bag from her slack grasp. “I mean, where is…?” She looks at Alonso, who silences her with a stern glare. All the others watch this tense exchange, their faces filled with confusion.
But they all decide not to say a word. They file dutifully aboard the American zodiacs, Aziz and Firewater towed behind. None of them speak. They are each too disturbed by the loss of Amy and the addition of Jidadaa. They take their seats in the boats as the outboard motors rev, their propellers cutting through the green waters of the lagoon.
“Look,” Jay points at the cliffs, where a giant bird sails across the face, its black wings spread wide. “Laysan Albatross. Phoebastria immutabilis. We haven’t seen any since we got here. This must be its summer nesting site. Amy would…” He falls silent. Then his face crumples into tears and he sobs.
Esquibel wraps an arm around Jay and pulls him close. She kisses his forehead. “There there, little brother. I’ve got you. Everything will be alright. Just like Amy and those big birds up there, Jay, we are all coming home.”
Chapter 56 – Amy’s Foxes Ever Did
January 20, 2025
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:
56 – Amy’s Foxes Ever Did
Flash.
Cleaving the darkness of Alonso’s sleep, a white corona of light pops in an upper corner of his closed eyelids, shattering his slumber. He drags himself awake as voices rise. Someone starts screaming. Another. Familiar voices.
A gunshot.
Somehow Alonso is now racing barefoot across the slope. Where even is he? Pine needles beneath his feet. Others run beside him, shouting. He had been so deeply asleep. Not even dreaming. And now he’s charging out from under the edge of the trees, his legs stabbing him with nerve pain but still carrying him out into the dark meadow. Ah, yes. They had all returned to pine camp at the end of the night once Katrina told them their presence in the village made old Yesiniy irate.
A huddle of women stand in the field in fierce dispute. He can’t even make sense of their words. Oh. Esquibel kneels and tends to Mandy in Katrina’s arms, Flavia holding a light. What is going on?
“He shot her!” Katrina yells, outraged, to those who approach. “The fucking spy shot Mandy!”
“Superficial!” Esquibel assures them. “She will be fine.”
Alonso and Miriam pull up short as Pradeep and Maahjabeen and Jay emerge from the darkness behind them, their phones flaring with light.
“Where is he?” Jay scouts the perimeter. “Why’d he shoot her?”
“We surprised him.” Flavia holds her light on Mandy’s stained shoulder as all the others flare around her. “With the flash.”
“Of all the stupid bloody things you’ve done…” Esquibel seethes. But she needs to focus on stabilizing Mandy first. Wounded in precisely the way that Esquibel is trained as a specialist. She will have the very best care. This will not harm her. Not Mandy.
“The Chinese spy?” Alonso is slow to grasp all the elements of the scene. “He is here?”
Katrina nods at a line of darkness. “Dived into those bushes. Headed toward the creek. Upstream. Who knows. He might still be right there, lining us up. Esquibel, did we not have a deal that we were not going to do any more of this shit in private?”
“This.” Now Esquibel has to be as precise with her words as she is with the few surgical implements she carries. “This is exactly why I had to… I am sorry. Does someone have a blanket?”
Jay instantly tears off his jacket and places it under Mandy. Maahjabeen does too, rolling hers into a pillow and kneeling at Mandy’s head, soothing her with caresses at her temples.
Mandy clutches her shoulder, silent and grim. Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. It feels like a really angry giant punched her. Really hard. And she can’t have anyone fussing at it, even Skeebee. Especially Skeebee. Mandy grunts at a sudden sharp pain, a shot at the base of her neck. Her whole right side starts to tingle then goes numb. She eases a bit down onto the jackets and looks up at Esquibel with suspicion. “Now what are you going to do?”
“Just cleaning it up, Mandy G.” Esquibel’s voice is quiet and infinitely tender. “The bullet passed through. Hit nothing major. Good entry and exit points. Right now I’m just going to remove any fragments, okay? Just make it spotless for you…”
Mandy feels a distant tugging. The faces of nearly everyone from the camp loom over her. But it’s too much. She closes her eyes in distress and turns away, blocking it all out. What a horrible mess.
Pradeep appears with a pair of groundcloths and blankets and pillows. He builds a nest beside Mandy and prepares for her transfer. “Ready whenever you are, Doctor.”
“Thank you, but…” Esquibel focuses on her task, pulling the fibers of Mandy’s punctured jacket and shirt out of the entry wound, washing it with a bulb of sterilized water. “I don’t want to move her at the moment. Can you fetch my two big kits for me? Back at the tent. It is all I brought from my clean room in the cave. Thank you. And someone start boiling water.” She hears Pradeep rise and hurry away through the grass.
“Anything else we can do?” Miriam appears, laying her fingertips on Mandy’s other shoulder with the lightest touch.
“I have Flavia and Pradeep.” Esquibel is taking refuge in her professional training. “The rest of you, honestly, are in the way. Please go back to bed. We can discuss everything in the morning.”
“Ehh…” Alonso groans. “I don’t think any of us will be able to go to sleep for a long time. Not while poor little Mandy is out here in the field with a bullet in her neck.”
Mandy makes a frightened face at Esquibel, who smiles comfort back to her. “Shoulder,” she corrects Alonso. “Just muscle. Small caliber. Nothing major. And the bullet is gone. Now I am just doing some pre-op care so when I do stitch her up she won’t have much of a scar at all. Good thing you’re not left-handed, darling. We’ll need you in a sling for the next week or two.”
Despite her order, the others arrange the pillows and blankets Pradeep brought and lie down in the field beside her as she works. Esquibel frowns and shakes her head. “Your big Cuban family is very strange, Alonso.”
“Yes, aren’t we?” He has his head in Triquet’s lap. “I am sorry, Doctor Daine, if we are continuing to bother you. But my heart, it is still hammering.” Others murmur in assent. “There was a shooting. An actual person we know and love getting shot. The adrenaline is too much. We can’t just go back to bed.” Esquibel continues to work in silence, now pushing Mandy onto her side so she can tend to the ruptured skin of the exit wound. Alonso tries again. “So what happened? How did this…?”
Jay, who has been patrolling the bushes since Katrina pointed at them, now hushes them. “Shh. Shhh…” He listens, straining in the darkness. They all do. There. The faint crack of a footstep, then another, moving away. “There he is. So what should I do, team? Follow him? Let him go?”
“He has a gun, Jay.” Miriam may not be able to go back to sleep but she sure is weary. “He just used it. Please don’t give him—”
“Yes, come back, Jay.” Alonso’s mind is starting to clear. What a disaster. He wishes he knew what to do but nothing is clear. “We need to hear what happened first. Katrina?”
“Yeh. Well.” Katrina is at the edge of the groundcloth, sitting on her heels hugging her knees facing Esquibel and Mandy. “We just knew she wasn’t going to tell us so we had to keep an eye on her. Last night, nothing. But tonight, Flavia wakes me like an hour ago and whispers, ‘she’s on the move.’ So we hopped up and crept like cats through the bushes and sat shivering in the dark for like ever while Esquibel stood out in the middle of the field like a fucking scarecrow. Just standing there.”
“Oh, Esquibel, what were you thinking?” Alonso appeals to her, trying to include a modicum of respect along with his exasperation. “Please, uh, illuminate us on the subject.”
“Shortly. If you will only give me ten minutes…” Esquibel wishes Mandy hadn’t fallen back into the dirt when she’d been shot. Too much grit in the exit wound. Now she must be thorough. “I will be glad to answer all your questions when…”
“I believe it would have been fine if Mandy had not found us.” Flavia holds the light steady, on its highest setting. It is the least she can do. But she does not look at the blood. That is too much. “But, eh, she did not know the plan.”
They all give an expectant moment for Mandy to tell her side of the story but she remains silent while Esquibel picks at her.
Katrina takes up the tale again. “So, I mean, Mandy sort of got rightly irate about the situation when she realized what was going on. We had trouble keeping her quiet. And when the spy heard her I guess he thought Esquibel had double-crossed him so the gun came out and that’s when—”
Flavia finishes, “I had the brilliant idea to do like Jay and flash my camera at him. But that only made him want to shoot me. And I am so sorry. He hit Mandy instead. Poor sweet child.”
Jay is the only one who doesn’t settle. He gathers firewood, piling it at the edge of the groundcloths, and after a few manic minutes he builds a fire. With all this activity he doesn’t hear what Esquibel says to the others to fend them off. He doesn’t need to. There’s other smarter people here for that.
“No no no, Esquibel. That is demonstrably false. You know,” Flavia responds, growing irate, “I wouldn’t have had to make such a decision if you had only trusted us for once! And told us what you would be doing!”
Esquibel bears it in silence. She is now stitching both wounds closed, having determined that there is no more reason for delay. She has to focus on keeping her hands steady, something that is normally not a problem. But nothing about this is normal.
“I have a question…” Alonso holds up his hand like the professor he hasn’t been for five years. “What does any of this mean about the likelihood of being picked up at our appointed hour?”
The camp silences. They’ve all been thinking it. Miriam is the first to brave the topic. “Well, Zo, I mean, really, this mission is still too big for just one man. He can’t decide it all, can he? It’s not like he was going to pilot the ship himself. There’s what, like at least a few dozen personnel involved.”
“But he would give the orders.” Triquet frowns into the darkness. This reminds them of their worst nights in Guatemala, the jungle alive with rebel gunfire. At least this time they aren’t suffering the shits. They’ve had nothing to add until now, but this kind of big-picture analysis is where they can chime in. “It’s like a command structure thing, yes? I mean, Baitgie could just delay the pickup for another eight weeks and make up his own reasons to his boss, right? And this is some black budget nonsense so there might not be almost any oversight at all. They’ve forgotten about Lisica before. He could keep us out here for years.”
“Now… now talk like that is making me insane.” For the first time the light in Flavia’s hands shake. “If we get trapped here I will kill myself. I swear.”
“Flavia, please. Paranoia doesn’t help…” Esquibel has heard enough raw emotion. Now she needs them to calm down.
“Paranoia! You say that? She is lying right there! The woman you love! Shot by a Chinese spy!”
“Stop shouting that!” Esquibel hisses. “If he can hear us, he will know we know! I hadn’t let go of the facade he is Japanese!”
“Flavia. My dear. We will get you home,” Alonso promises. “I understand. Everything feels very dire right now. For all of us. But we will figure this out.” He waits for Esquibel to finish wrapping Mandy in gauze and covering her with an extra blanket before continuing. “Now. Doctor Daine. Please tell us the contents of your conversation with the spy.”
Esquibel sighs. She has run out of other things to do. “He held out his hand. I said I didn’t have it. He never spoke. He took a step toward me. I said that I had done my best but there was no storage anywhere that I could steal. I told him I was really upset with myself and to give me another couple days. He reached for me. But that’s when we heard Mandy behind us and he pulled me to the ground and took out his pistol. I shouted. I told them no. But then the flash went off and he fired. Then he ran. That is it.”
“All the way back to Ussiaxan.” Jay still patrols the far side of his fire, peering at the dark line of undergrowth where he disappeared.
“And how do you believe this will be handled by Baitgie? Do you think this will prevent him from having us picked up?”
“Well, no.” Flavia immediately tries to interrupt but Esquibel holds up a hand. “Wait. There are several possible scenarios and in each of them I can’t see how it would help. Like, let us say he really wants that data. His real bosses have decided it is valuable enough to mount this operation all the way out here. But all the moving pieces are too complicated and it fails. The plane crashed. The handoff with the crooked doctor doesn’t go as planned. Now will they just give up? No. They will still pick us up on time and just wait to find an easier way to steal the data, perhaps after we submit it to Baitgie. For some reason, they didn’t want to wait that long. Now they must. Or…”
“Or maybe they just send like a whole Chinese strike team or whatever to Lisica,” Triquet adds, “who take it from us by force.”
“Or why doesn’t this American colonel just keep us out here so the spies can keep trying?” Maahjabeen’s cynicism about the great powers has never been so validated. “We are just puppets to him. Numbers on a sheet of paper.”
“There is an actual global satellite agreement coming into force next week. He didn’t make that up.” Alonso tries to recall anything about his interactions with Baitgie that could be useful now. “The whole situation will change. He said once that when it happens he’ll be required to publish an inventory of all his secret hideouts. People will start looking. He will only have a small window here…”
“If I am not home by the 20th of May my department chair will call the Italian Polizia, I swear. Interpol. All of them.”
Alonso frowns. “I doubt that. Maybe after a week has passed.”
“This is just not how militaries operate!” Esquibel needs all this ill-informed nattering to end. “I was in endless meetings leading up to this mission. Support teams. Resources. Extra training. So many people know we are here and are working to bring us home in, what three more days? Multiple branches and even nationalities working together in international waters. It isn’t just a shady figure in an office all alone pushing buttons. He would have to, possibly, falsify the facts on the ground here to get the operation to change its timelines. And he would never do that. It would lead to a whole list of questions he couldn’t answer.”
“So what do you think it is, then?” Miriam asks. She sits behind Katrina, the girl leaning back against Miriam’s bent legs.
“I doubt that the point of this whole operation is about the data.” With a steadying breath, Esquibel centers herself and focuses on this last scenario. Saying it out loud will help fill in the gaps that have been torturing her for the last few nights. “It isn’t about Plexity. It’s about me. This is just how they are grooming me to join Baitgie’s little band of traitors. After I committed to this whole charade, they had me. See, the way it will go is I will go home. And some anonymous contact will send me footage and proof of me betraying this team. The spy, he wears a camera. He films me each time. It’s already happened. I am already compromised. They can ruin my life unless I join their efforts. Labor in secrecy my whole career. I’m probably not even supposed to know that Baitgie has also been turned. But this is how they will get me. And I am useless to them if I remain out here. So they will come get me.”
“And maybe it’s just a little bit of column A…” Triquet holds up one hand, then the other, “…and a bit of column B. The Plexity data will be useful to whatever their own mad scientists are cooking up, and you’d also be a valuable asset for them.”
Now Mandy rolls back, putting a hand to her shoulder, and looks at Esquibel. “Valuable.” The word holds no weight. Mandy’s eyes are unreadable. “What are you going to do now, Skeebee?”
Esquibel shrugs at Mandy, sad. “I knew that espionage was going to ruin my life, but I didn’t realize how quickly or… fully. I swear to you all I had no idea at the… depths of this. I am sorry, Mandy. I hoped we could somehow continue this wonderful love affair that we have here, but… I am so sorry you got shot. I am so so sorry. You deserve better. Better than me. You deserve safety.”
“I guess I appreciate the apology. Or something.” Mandy hates this. The intruding bullet, dividing them from each other. In her heart she can’t blame Esquibel. The intense woman has always been larger than life. She operates under a whole different set of rules. Things like this always happen to her. Of course the Americans and Chinese are fighting over her. But still. This is a hell of a way to get dumped.
In the silence, Pradeep quietly asks, “Flavia. That flash. Was it just a light or did you actually take a picture?”
“Oh. Ehhh…” Flavia frowns, instantly upset with herself for not thinking of this. “Yes. Here. But they are too far away.”
“Is there anything,” Pradeep continues, “that might identify the spy as belonging to one country or another?”
Flavia zooms in on the two figures. Esquibel is on the ground. The spy crouches over her, legs spread, pistol out. His black suit is featureless, nearly undetectable against the darkness behind him. “No. No… You can’t even see his face. No details…” She searches in vain and then finally shrugs, giving up. “It is a useless picture.”
“Well. In a sense.” Pradeep rises, joining Flavia beside Mandy. “We know that this image can’t identify him. But does he know it?”
“And more importantly,” Triquet adds, “do his bosses know it?”
“Exactly.” Pradeep takes Flavia’s phone and examines the image himself. “Esquibel. You fell awkwardly. Maybe twisted your ankle? It looks quite bad.”
“It is fine.”
“Yes, so our spy has retreated to his base, where he must contact his superiors and tell them… what?”
Maahjabeen answers. “That we all know about him now and one of us took a picture.”
“Which will put him in very bad trouble,” Pradeep continues. “What kind of reaction do you think his commanding officer might have to that news, Esquibel?”
“Oh, fury. I am quite certain.” Esquibel considers the issue. “The Chinese are all about saving face, even in the PLA. It’s kind of… known. Different military cultures. They will almost always double down and try to save the mission before his commander has to report the failure to his own superiors. Yes, Pradeep. You are right. Our spy may come back with a vengeance. Take everything we have at gunpoint. The hard drives, everything.”
“No!” This stirs Alonso and he heaves himself up to address them all. “He cannot have it. I would die to defend it.”
“You might just. He might get orders to secure Flavia’s phone and kill the witnesses, yeh?” Katrina asks, miserable.
Esquibel scowls. “He… might. I just wish I knew why they are doing what they are doing. Then we would be able to make a plan. But we will never know.” She shivers, thinking of how easily the Chinese spy put slips of paper beneath her shirt as she slept. Twice. Esquibel won’t sleep well these last few nights, maybe ever again. “I think it would be best to retreat to the sub, someplace that only has single doors that can be defended.”
“Exactly,” Flavia agrees. “Doors and walls and furniture.”
“You’re talking about right now, aren’t you?” Katrina groans.
Esquibel tries to calculate it. “Well, if his base is in Ussiaxan, then we know he can’t get there in under an hour, and that’s during the day. It took us at least that long. So it will be at minimum two hours before he can return here. Add time for him to relay how he failed and to receive new orders… It’s currently 3:19 am…” Her frowning face is illuminated by her phone’s screen as she consults the time. “I think we will be safe until dawn. But we must expect him after that.”
“What if he has friends?”Flavia asks. “More spies?”
“What if he brings the whole Ussiaxan village?” Jay adds.
“No,” Esquibel and Katrina say at the same time. Then Esquibel continues. “They are looking for the fox, remember? According to the Russian we met, nothing is more important to them.”
“Yes…” Alonso now recalls that Esquibel, Katrina, and Mandy had returned in the dark after a long absence with Jidadaa and Xaanach. “I never heard the details of this. We were too busy moving back here. And you were gone all day and into the night. In a field, you met a Russian… what, soldier?”
“No,” Katrina answers with a sigh. “He was a scientist like us. He mentioned some technical university when he was raving. I didn’t recognize it. I think it was in the east, like Vladivostok area.”
“He… was?” Alonso asks.
Esquibel nods once, curt. “He did not survive. Sepsis. But I was able to take away the pain at least.”
“Who killed him?” Pradeep wonders.
Esquibel shakes her head. “We couldn’t tell. The original injury was… well, an autopsy could shed some light but I couldn’t tell. His ribs had splintered and punctured a lung. But we don’t know if…”
“It could have been a boar,” Katrina lists, “or a bad fall in the woods or maybe the Thunderbirds just got sick of him. Maybe he asked the wrong questions. Their like representative there didn’t seem too upset when the bloke died. He just took back a necklace they’d given him and vanished.”
“What kind of scientist?” Flavia asks.
“His name was Viktor. He didn’t say. But I got the impression…” Katrina consults Esquibel with a glance, “something in the medical field. Not a doctor or a nurse but…”
Esquibel shakes her head no in agreement. “No, but maybe a technician. If he had been a real medical professional he would have done more to combat his infection. But he just… laid there. As far as we could tell he had only been in his sleeping bag smoking cigarettes for a week or more.”
“Waiting for his friends to find him.” Katrina shakes her head at the sad memory. “I bet those Russians who scared us off the beach were sent to find him. But they couldn’t find the way in.”
“Yes,” Maahjabeen agrees, “the Russians must enter where the Japanese did, up the west cliffs somehow. Maybe that message was for him, written in the sand.”
“He wasn’t waiting for his friends. He was waiting for the end.” Mandy’s voice is a spidery rasp. It makes them all fall silent. “He told us all about the foxes, Alonso. He said it’s all about the babies and where they go. He was like fixated.”
“Yes, Jidadaa has already told us this.” Alonso is sad to hear about the man’s loss. “What a waste. He gave his life for them.”
“But he told us…” Mandy sits up with effort, accepting help from both Katrina and Esquibel. “The Russians have figured out that to control Lisica you need to control the foxes. It’s their religion. It’s their whole culture. Lisica. The island isn’t just named after foxes.”
Mandy looks at both Katrina and Esquibel, who scowls. But it is the doctor who eventually continues. “He said, no he raved, that the foxes are actually in charge here. That they rule Lisica.”
“He wasn’t raving,” Katrina corrects her quietly.
“He was raving the entire time. Just because he had moments of lucidity,” Esquibel retorts, “doesn’t mean what he said was true. It is classic paranoid fever dream material. Animals don’t govern islands, especially ones with hundreds of people on them.”
“The foxes… are in charge.” Miriam knows the statement is preposterous but it still resonates within her. “Don’t know why, love, but that actually answers a whole host of—”
“Are you totally insane?” The amount of scorn dripping from Flavia’s words is insulting. “When did scientists start to believe such fairy tales?”
“I didn’t say I believed anything,” Miriam snaps at her. “I’m just talking in terms of models. We’ve had incomplete data about this subject for eight bloody weeks. But if you plug in these possible factors then all of a sudden our inscrutable villagers might start to make a lot more sense. Remember when you were arguing with the Mayor, Esquibel, about the placement of pine camp? It was Morska Vidra’s fox that chose our spot. Once he sniffed it out they were suddenly all fine with it. It was his fox who originally gave his blessing to us in the mouth of the cave, which let the villagers first talk to us. It was his fox…”
Flavia stands, waving her arms to interrupt Miriam. “Okay, fine. Fine. The people have put their pets in charge. So what? What does any of that have to do with us?”
In the silence, Jay suddenly perks his ears. “Yo yo yo. Someone coming. Oh, shit. We waited too long and now…” He searches helplessly for a weapon, for cover in the open meadow.
They all stand. Esquibel reaches for her satchel as the figure steps stiffly from the darkness into the light.
“Amy!” Alonso’s shout of joy is ragged with shock.
She stands at the edge of the firelight, blinking at them. Amy is gaunt, her eyes hollow. She is covered with dirt and bits of moss, as if she’s been buried beneath the forest floor these last five days.
They surround her, embracing her, murmuring and kissing her, picking debris from her hair.
“Careful. Careful.” Amy shields herself from those who want to squeeze her tight. She spins out of Pradeep’s embrace and clutches at her breastbone. Turning back, she reveals the fox kit the vixen had prematurely birthed then rejected. It has grown in the last couple days, nearly doubling in size, but it’s still sightless, an elongated worm with just the barest wisp of white hairs starting to sprout. It wriggles weakly in Amy’s cupped hands. “My little premie baby. This one was just the first. But it’s done now. Eleven in all. It’s finally over. They all survived. And mama is resting.”
Ξ
“The name of the man Maureen Dowerd fell in love with is not kept here. The soldiers showed little interest in learning any of the local languages or customs. They only called him Shanno. So it will only be among the Lisicans that his full story is known.” Triquet lectures all the others, crammed together on the bunks in the upper deck ward room of the sub. “But, well, if you’ll pardon the artistic license, I think this tale needs to be told from the heart. I’ll keep my assumptions and leaps of logic to a minimum here, but here’s what we now know…” Triquet takes a deep breath to place themself back in time, among the crisp collars and nicotine stains and upright posture of 1959. “This boat’s name is the USS Sunfish, an IXSS unclassified Tench-class sub built for intelligence gathering missions in the Pacific after the war. Its existence isn’t recorded anywhere. What we have finally uncovered is a crime of passion.”
“I mean… haven’t we known that already for a long while?” Flavia addresses the room, frowning.
Triquet nods. “That the colonel killed her, yes. Or had her killed. And he hunted Shanno and the child but never seemed to find them. It was Shanno’s own people who eventually killed him, right, Katrina? That’s what you said the head of the Thunderbirds told you. That it was the Ussiaxan. The people without a fox. And that they ‘caused Maureen to be killed.’ Which is pretty much the last puzzle that needed to be solved. That’s the part that took forever. But the collected records of Staff Sergeant Boren really bring the whole thing to life. It was the night of December 12th, 1959. He wrote it in a letter to his brother that he never sent. He says the Colonel ‘cracked like a bad egg. And the diesel shovel ran all day. The men were not happy.’”
Flavia shakes her head, displeased. “What does that mean? Ingles dug his fiancee’s grave? With a diesel shovel? Isn’t that just basically like a bulldozer? Why would it take him all day?”
“He wasn’t burying a body…” Pradeep realizes.
“He was burying a sub. Boren’s schedule for the day shows all standard activities were canceled or moved, even meals. And the next day things had shifted again. To finish the job. Or recovery. Seems like it was a real mad dash. A reckless decision.”
“To plug the hole.” Maahjabeen looks at Esquibel. “Common military instinct, apparently. That was the tunnel to the interior, right there at the top of the beach.”
“Exactly, exactly…” Triquet croons. They fall into character, the tormented jilted lover. “Ingles loses his mind. ‘If I can’t have her, no one can. These damn natives cause more trouble than they’re worth!’ And in his wild fury he orders his crew to put the cork in the bottle, leaving Maureen in the interior with her new man.”
“Too bad they didn’t know about all the other tunnels,” Jay chuckles. “That must have messed with his head when she popped right back out after all his work.”
“No, there were no other tunnels in those days. I don’t think…” Triquet shrugs. “This is where we would have to guess. But I figure all those other tunnels we get lost in underground here were dug in reaction to the sub taking away the villagers’ path to the beach. They tried a million different directions and only a few actually made it all the way through the cliffs.”
Maahjabeen waves at the ground beneath them. “But what about the channel underneath and all the concrete leading to the sea cave? The… the… what is the word?”
“The culvert,” Miriam offers.
“Yes, was that already there?”
Triquet shrugs. “I think it wasn’t. I think the culvert and sea cave were probably developed later. But I might be wrong. There are layers here. I think the sub got dug in and then they just kind of built all these things around it. Then they cut the conning tower off and fully buried it when it was time to change leadership, so they wouldn’t have to answer any tough questions, I expect. They built the bunker over it in 1961, the year Ingles left.”
Alonso chuckles. “We wracked our brains so hard trying to figure out why the Americans would bury a sub down here. We thought of so many like tactical and geopolitical reasons. But in the end it was all because of a broken heart.”
“And racism,” Triquet agrees. “And isolationism. All the normal human impulses. But I keep coming back to the phrase ‘they caused Maureen to be killed,’ instead of the Ussiaxan killing her. And what I’m pretty sure that means is that they were the ones who revealed Maureen’s infidelity to the colonel. It was a blow to the back of the head that ended her life. Behind the ear. She didn’t see it coming. She may not have known it was coming.”
“You’re saying,” Esquibel asks, “that he caught them while they were having sex?”
“Perhaps. Or maybe leaning over a crib. The baby’s been born. The baby who grew up to be Yesiniy, the old woman who now lives next to the Mayor. She’s obviously not his, not with that hair. It’s when Ingles discovers Maureen’s secret that he kills her. Hides her body in that grave in the woods. Leaves without saying a single goddamn word about it to anybody. Total monster if you ask me.”
“He never understood…” It’s the first time Amy’s spoken since they’ve set up in the sub. Her focus has been almost entirely on her infant fox, coaxing it to drink some of the powdered milk she has reconstituted. Now she shakes her head in sorrow at the tragic myopia the soldiers and sailors had. They never explored the interior of the island. They never saw its astounding life, never understood the secrets hidden in its green heart. “Poor man. Such a sad way to exist. Just so rigid. Sometimes I wonder how my ancestors were able to make it through a day.”
“I mean…” Flavia shrugs, “people still kill people for cheating today. It is not very different.”
“It’s not that. It’s…” Amy shakes her head, no words for what she now knows. “Postwar culture was just so monolithic. You know what I mean. We can hardly even watch their movies any more. Listen to their music. It’s not that it was just simple, it was… inert. Like everything they did was about enforcing some unnatural social norm or another. They were so busy doing all that they couldn’t hear the trees singing.”
“And you do?” Esquibel has given Amy a wellness check, which she satisfactorily passed, but that only indicates the health of her body. What her mind must have endured for the past five days has obviously left some indelible mark on her. It reminds Esquibel of the hallucinatory psychosis surrounding some new mothers’ births. What is it about the process of delivering infants that tears the fabric of reality for so many people?
Amy shrugs. “I got deep in the forest’s rhythms, I can tell you that much. And that vixen, she was just such a… vixen. Now I know why the word has the connotations it does.”
“What connotations?” Miriam asks, mock offended. “You’re the one who first started calling me Vixen back in the 90s.”
“Yeah, when you were being naughty,” Amy laughs. “I never thought an animal could be so controlling. It’s all somehow in their ears. The way they tilt and move them is so expressive. Like a lady with her fan. The idea that they run the island makes all the sense in the world to me now. She’s just got so many demands.”
“So, Triquet,” Alonso asks, “are you finished? Are these your final findings on this subject?”
“Final? Well, no. But it’s where I’m at now and I think most of the major questions have been answered. I’ll hand over my research to the authorities when we get back and see if they want to make anything of it.”
Esquibel nods. “They should. If only that an unregistered woman somehow got on their top secret island for a couple years and they never knew.” She frowns, watching Triquet duck through the hatch leading deeper into the sub. They return by the time she ends her sentence, arms full of bottles. “Now what? What is that?”
Triquet smiles wolfishly. “The last thing I have to share this morning. Who wants a shot of Bushmills in their oatmeal?”
Ξ
“Take my hand.” Pradeep holds his out at the threshold of the sea cave’s door. Maahjabeen giggles and grabs it. He pulls on her and she gives out a little yelp, then collapses into his arms. He swings her up and carries her through like a bride. “Welcome home, my love.” He kisses her, or at least tries to. But they are both laughing too hard and their teeth clack on contact.
He stumbles when he enters the cave and his grunt is met by a series of heavy splashes in the water. They both gasp and whip their heads around, to spy the last of the sea lions dropping from their perches on the shelves of the cave.
Only a few remain, watching the intruders with shining black orbs. Other heads surface, their curiosity getting the better of them. Pradeep and Maahjabeen remain still and quiet, frozen in an awkward fall, hands braced against the stone floor, bodies twisted. Finally one of the closer sea lion mothers barks at them, an urgent plaintive bellow that echoes from the walls and water. The call is taken up by a few others and soon more heads have emerged to join the chorus. It is a deafening sound, hurting Maahjabeen’s ears. She finally shifts, rolling onto her side so that she can plug her ears with her fingers. An urgent glance to the back wall shows that Firewater and Aziz are still safely stacked there.
The sea lions subside, mollified, and hump their way back onto the shelves. Pradeep frowns at their behavior. “They are awful quick to accept us. I was afraid that we’d scared them off entirely. But they’re already back out of the water…”
“Because something in the water scares them even more.”
“Your orcas.”
Maahjabeen smiles fiercely in agreement.
“Fantastic. Remember the carcass we found here the first time?”
“You are so romantic.” She cups his face, only half-joking. There are so many sea lions in here she can smell them. Probably sixty or more, and all crowding her favorite spots in the cave. She rolls to her feet and one of the distant sea lions takes up the alarm again, but this time none of them join her. She subsides after one of the larger males croaks, a decision having been made. “Yes, papa. I would risk the two skinny little humans instead of the pod of orcas as well. Wise choice.”
Pradeep is a bit spooked by the lustful growl in Maahjabeen’s voice. He notes the gleam in her heavy-lidded eyes. Her stance. “What has gotten into you? You look like a predator too.”
“Oh?” Maahjabeen would reflexively deny it but she sees no reason to. The pulsing heat racing through her limbs proves it. Yes, how fine it must be to live as a black and white torpedo with fangs. To have these endless oceans as a playground, through which you can rocket faster than anyone. To snare a wriggling bit of meat, plucking it right from the water and tearing it open… She grabs for the next best thing, hauling Pradeep close and kissing him wetly, pressing herself against him.
“This is weird…” is all Pradeep manages to say before she is atop him, smothering all further protests.
After she collapses, shuddering above him, they hold each other tight. Maahjabeen opens her eyes, the fireworks having passed and the odd refractory post-coital thoughts drifting through her. She is shocked to find a juvenile male sea lion on the stone floor of their own side of the cave, not more than two meters away. He bobs his tapered head, nose alive to their rich scents. She laughs at him.
Pradeep lifts his head. “What are you…? Ah. Yes. Weird. How long has he been there?”
“Long enough to learn things, eh, Mahboub?” She settles once more, head on Pradeep’s shoulder. The young sea lion still keeps his distance, and his head keeps bobbing. “So cute.” She loves the glistening intelligence in this creature’s eyes. “What a shame they taste so good. It is like hunting the deer, eh?”
“Okay now you are identifying with the orcas to a disturbing degree. I have worked with sea lions for years but I don’t think I have ever once wondered how they taste.”
“Hot. And juicy.” She kisses him and rolls away, sitting up. “I want to see if my clan are out there.” She stands wearing only a sports bra and shoes. Relishing the sea air on her naked skin she picks her way along the left wall of the cavern toward the next open grottoes where they built and then demolished their concrete buildings. Maahjabeen feels luxurious, a kind of fullness she has never before experienced. For perhaps the first time in her life she wants to walk around naked, in the most private place in the whole world, with nobody’s eyes on her except her own true love. And dozens of these furry, fatty snacks.
“Careful.” Pradeep scrambles to his feet, his shorts around his ankles. He pulls them up and holds out a useless cautionary hand. Maahjabeen steps toward a cluster of the resting pinnipeds. Can they tell how much she is on the side of their hunters? “Don’t get between them and the water.”
“But I just want to see…” Maahjabeen cranes her neck past their bodies. She edges forward and one of the nursing mothers lifts her head. “Oh, look, Pradeep! The baby is so precious!”
“Do you think you could get some of that milk for Amy’s fox?”
“Ehh…” Maahjabeen and the sea lion stare at each other. “As Salaam Alaikum.” She bows a bit and tries a close-lipped smile.
The sea lions all start barking again. But it isn’t because of her. She can see a tall dorsal fin racing in, a bow wave building before it. Then the orca rises from the water, mouth gaping, and snaps at the edge of the platform across from Maahjabeen. She cries out in pleasure, making eye contact with the magnificent fellow before he pulls back into the water, having missed his catch.
The sea lions at her feet surge against the back wall, caterwauling their terror, as the orca slowly swims the circuit of the cave. On the platforms in the center of the water, one sea lion is pushed to the edge. She falls in and the killer whale surges toward the spot.
Neither come up. A long minute passes. The orca is gone.
Maahjabeen finally drops her eyes from the last spot she saw the sinking fin. On the stone floor before her is a white splash, a mess of milk where the infant was nursing. She takes off her shoe and sock and soaks the fabric in the puddle. “Look, Pradeep! I got some milk after all!”
“Ha. What a fox this will be.” He shakes his head in wonder at the foreign DNA they are feeding Amy’s kit. “First boar milk, then powdered cow milk, now sea lion milk. It sounds like a superhero origin story. The fox who became a legend.”
Maahjabeen draws a sharp breath, a deep insight lancing her. “The orcas. The foxes. The foxes rule the land here and all the people on it. But my orcas, Mahboub. They are the rulers in the same way of the sea. Remember how much trouble everyone had about how the orcas led us to the old shaman? They are shaping what happens here as much as Amy’s foxes ever did.”
DW Draffin -- Lisica 