Lisica Chapters

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.”