Lisica Chapters

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

Audio for this episode:

48 – God, We Suck

Triquet is monumentally annoyed. And the infuriating part about it is that they aren’t quite certain what it is annoying them. All they know is that things that normally don’t provoke any reaction in them are now enraging. The fiddly bits of the espresso maker. The disorganization of last week’s laptop files. These brown stains on their flower-fringed ankle socks that never seem to get truly clean. That’s what it is. Things have gotten so dingy here. The lovers are all quarreling. The villagers are stubbornly distant. Everything is covered in a layer of dirt. It’s enough to drive anyone batty.

With an immense effort, Triquet tries to shake off this ennui with a return to their tent. But none of their clothes hang on display any more. There’s no room in here. They sorely miss the bunker and its storage. And the sub. It’s basically lost as well. Getting to the sub now is a thirty minute crawl through mud. And Triquet can’t do it alone. So their investigations have slowed to a halt.

No. No more of this gloom and doom. It’s actually a pleasant morning after the gentle showers. The bees are buzzing. The sun even makes brief appearances and the dewy meadow glitters with refracted light. Come on, Triq. This is still paradise. Of course it’s dangerous. Everywhere is dangerous. Now put on some chiffon and find your courage, soldier. Even if the whole Lisica expedition ends tomorrow, it has still been one of the highlights of your life.

There. Triquet always looks better in green. Now, how to finish this look? Hmm. They left their really big pieces of costume jewelry at home. Otherwise it’d be that chunky fake jade necklace and bracelet set that’s half Cloris Leachman, half Flintstones. Here they’ll just make do with the wooden prayer beads and a fake garnet ring. They pull on a pair of booty shorts underneath for modesty, locate the pink slip-ons, and step back out into the fresh air feeling somewhat restored.

Makeup? No, not with the amount of sweating they’ll most likely do. Today is hopefully the last day of really putting this camp together. But it’s going to take all day. Triquet can see Flavia has already wired things to the solar panels. When Katrina gets back they can fly the parachute overhead again and get a little more protection from the rain. Then her lights can get strung and the little village will feel complete. But before then, Triquet has ideas.

First, a riverstone path to the trenches. Those have been dug a hundred meters upslope and away from the creek, over a rise and hidden in a cleft. It’s a better spot than they had on the beach but this isn’t sand beneath their feet. They’ll all quickly churn an ugly line of mud into the ground unless Triquet is able to prevent it.

Crossing the meadow to the creekside, Triquet is disappointed to find that the bank has no easily-removed rocks. They’d imagined this would be like most of the creeks they’re familiar with, mostly like the slate and flint banks of the Delaware Gap. But here it’s all loam and moss and ferns overhanging the banks and the water is running fast and black. No loose stones anywhere.

Following the creek upstream, Triquet unwittingly follows Amy’s footsteps up the canyon toward the tributary where she would have done their laundry. But they stop at the base of the cliff she ascended. Here is a pile of rounded rocks deposited during some long ago flood. Now it’s just a matter of transporting them. Triquet waves at the golden childs dogging them. “Care to lend a hand?”

But of course the youth makes no move to help.

Triquet unfolds a small tarp and loads as many of the big rocks onto it as they can safely manage. Then they drag it back to camp. Hm. These slip-ons are not the right shoes for the job after all. And maybe a flowing gown of tissue-thin fabric isn’t the best either. But it did unlock something about their mood. Now Triquet can see that it’s the unyielding pressure coming from the natives that’s making so many of them crack. It’s Jidadaa with her cryptic demands in the middle of the night, the shamans stalking them, the golden childs hovering. They are in an inexorable hydraulic press and its plates just keep squeezing closer and closer together.

Returning from their third trip with the stones, Triquet passes Mandy emerging from her tent, who looks completely out of sorts. “Good morning, sunshine.”

But Mandy doesn’t respond, peering at the sky instead. She steps further out from camp and crosses to the meadow.

Intrigued, Triquet drops their load on the pile and follows her.

Mandy holds a barometer. “Crap. Look at that.” She absently hands it to Triquet and scans the gray-mantled sky. This marine layer can often hide what’s happening above.

Triquet reads the barometer. “920 millibars. Very low. That’s what it says. Is very low bad?”

“920 now? OMG. Uh, that’s a lot more than very low. That’s like… one of the lowest recordings I’ve ever heard anywhere in the world. The world record is in the 890’s and that was a tropical cyclone in the West Pacific. My god. What’s coming our way?”

“You’re saying that means another storm’s coming? This is what they mean by a drop in barometric pressure? But like when? And how much? Can you retrieve your weather station first?”

“God! I haven’t been able to fetch it! I was going to, but then we found Jay and Pradeep instead. I mean, I’m super glad we found them, but… I need data!”

“Well, what’s your guess?”

Mandy accesses her newfound powers of observation. She smells the air deeply, noticing that it’s wet and perhaps a bit fruity, like it swept across continents of thawing tundra. Well, that will be its engine no doubt. Cold differentials. And the trees on the far ridge are riffling in a stiff breeze that has the character of a compressing wave, as if the air itself is being pushed hard from behind by an accelerating force. They don’t have long. An hour at the most. But this half-assed camp won’t be able to survive a real onslaught, not if it hits as hard as it promises. “So sorry. But my guess is that we will all have to go back into the sub for a few days.”

Triquet’s pile of rocks is still pathetically small. “No! I just got all this work done! And—and… Ah, hell.” They drop their head in defeat, a black mood descending again just like that.

“Ah! That’s why I’ve been so grumpy!” Mandy realizes in relief. “We’ve all been on edge! It’s because there’s a huge storm coming! This like looming threat feeling has totally been weighing on me. Oh, what a relief. I thought I was losing my mind.”

Triquet studies Mandy, uncertain about her conclusion. It’s eerie how much her analysis matches Triquet’s own, but it’s led them each in opposite directions. An oncoming storm somehow gives Mandy peace? Ye gods. No it doesn’t. Isn’t this just another compounding amount of pressure, to crush them all into bits?

Mandy waves at Miriam, still at work in her trench. “Hey, lady! Storm coming! The biggest!”

Miriam sighs in defeat. “Oh my days. Seriously? Turns out this place is as bad as Ireland. Great… When?”

Mandy squints at the sky. “Don’t know. Soon. We need a real roof over our heads for this one.”

Miriam uses the spade to clamber out of her trench, covered in dirt. “God forbid we ever get any actual work done.”

Ξ

Katrina unweaves the plaited cord that secures her to the trunk. Iwikanu smiles, encouraging her, tapping at her wrist with gentle fingertips. It is a long cord, stiff and thick as her finger. But she has depended this whole time upon its strength. Now it is time to go.

Finally it falls free and she is untethered, crouching on the fragile skein of this platform they’ve built high in the redwood canopy. Iwikanu smiles at the gap in the floor, the ground nearly a hundred meters below. She is expected to climb down through it and begin her long descent down the trunks and branches that form a woven series of living ladders all the way to the ground.

This fairy ring of redwoods is perched on the western slope of the interior bowl of the island. The land rises nearly vertically beside the trunks, with madrone trees pressing beneath, granting the irregular rungs for the ladders she climbs down.

Finally Katrina finds her way to the lowest trunk. This last ladder hangs down the trunk’s length in a long line of looped cords like the one that kept her safe above. But these are for her hands and feet, tied off at regular intervals. She supposes this ladder can be raised to prevent any attacks. She thinks once more of Singlung He and his aphorisms about attack and defense. “I don’t know. I’d be more worried about people shooting us from the hillside.”

The matted platform Katrina had spent the last day and night on was a marvel of construction, something she’d never conceived. It rocks quite strongly in the wind. Tall trees sway far more than she ever knew. When a gust pushes through this circle of columns, it hits one first and then the others at greater and greater delays, making the platform rock and oscillate with increasing force.

Those who live up here ride the rhythm with sea legs, never losing their footing, never tethered to the limbs. But Katrina could barely stay on her feet up there. She spent most of her time on her hands and knees, laughing and gasping in terror, trying to stay on the good side of her hosts as they finally gave up on her balance and tied her off with an umbilical cord to mother tree.

They did make it easy. The Shidl Dít were kind and patient with her, understanding her lack of experience being a bloody bird. It wasn’t that she was unwilling either. Or that she had a particular fear of heights. It was just… absolutely debilitating. Survival instincts kept shorting out her abilities. And gravity felt different up there, like it was on some sort of counterbalance or pendulum and if she didn’t watch herself her feet would kick out and she’d pivot from the waist and tip over some edge to her terrifying death.

Okay. Maybe she did have a fear of heights. But Katrina was fairly certain it was less the heights and more a fear of death. Or, as in the old joke, it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing.

Only as she nears the ground does she notice that Iwikanu has descended with her, waiting patiently in the loops above for Katrina to drop to the earth. She does so and soon the two of them are standing face to face, sharing one last smile. Iwikanu unslings a boarskin bag and presents it to Katrina. “Ohh, that’s so sweet. God, I don’t even know if I have anything for you. Um. Here.” She pulls off a hair tie and makes a short ponytail of his hair. She wraps it tight and steps back. “You look proper handsome now.”

They say farewell in Russian and Katrina tells him that she will never forget him and that he must visit her in Australia some day. But this is more of the language than he knows so his smile just freezes and his eyes dart. She breaks off, the strong impulse to give him a hug bringing her up short. It’s probably a bad idea. She does it anyway. He laughs.

Then Iwikanu puts his golden mask back in place and steps away from her. She understands now, that this is a ritual distance that she cannot break, even if she needed him. Iwikanu is no longer her sweet new friend with a little sister and two gentle parents who gave up their own bed to her last night. Now he is what they call kadánda dayadi, child of pollen, child of the spring. And to them, he is no longer human. He is transformed.

She would have understood none of this if his chief the Dandawu hadn’t spoken a fair amount of pidgin Russian. But through broken phrases and mime and a lot of patience on both ends, they talked long into the night and again in the morning. He is an old man with extensive knowledge of the island, but little of the outside world. She did what she could to avoid too many unfamiliar ideas, and he showed no appetite for exploring them.

Katrina wonders what her insatiable curiosity must have seemed like to him. Is it just the unfathomable luxury of a modern life, to pursue knowledge for its own sake, even on topics that will never be useful? Is it just her overactive first-world brain that would be happier harvesting nuts and making boarskin leggings? She recalls telling one of her university professors about a hike she had taken and how she felt like a Stone Age nomad but he had corrected her. She was, in fact, nothing like a paleolithic human. Their conscious minds were fixed in the present, watching the branches of each tree for a bird that might make a meal, scanning shadows for predators waiting to make a meal of them. They did not have any fancy ideas about social media or petrol prices running through their heads. They couldn’t afford to. She is not any kind of ancient ancestor. Katrina is instead very much a product of her generation.

The day is gray and gusty. She knows the plan must be to retrace her steps back to pine camp and she only hopes she can remember how to do it. For being a hidden village, getting here was pretty straightforward. Two ridgelines and then a drop to the trees. So after she climbs that drop and follows the two ridgelines back, she should be where Iwikanu slaughtered that boar who attacked them.

Mentally, she divides the hike into four sections. Actually it forms a cohesive narrative, like they are each chapters in a novella, a charming story called Katrina’s Hike. The first chapter must be the introduction to her return, reacquainting herself with the ground and climbing the steep slope up to the top of the ridge, from which she can briefly spy the ocean on the western horizon, between gaps in the farther ridge’s peaks.

The second chapter is that first ridge, which leads her up and down its broken spine and over knobs of reddish stone. Miriam would like it here with all its exposed geology. But Katrina would prefer to get back under the trees. This is too much sun and wind for her all day.

The third chapter is the second ridge, a transverse line across the south of the island that brings her back to the east and the valley at the bottom of the sloping Douglas Firs. But the weather is starting to sour here. The wind really sweeps through the trees now and each gust brings the crack of falling branches. Getting close now. This is the far end of the valley in which that boar lived. All she has to do is cross it again and she’ll be home in no time.

But… as if there’s a pressure-sensitive plate beneath this meadow, as soon as Katrina steps onto it, the skies open up and a deluge of rain drops on her head from out of nowhere. The meadow darkens and the temperature drops. She is instantly drenched.

Cursing at the icy water finding its way beneath her three light layers, her teeth start chattering. “Got to… keep moving…” If she can just get back to camp she’ll be able to dry out.

Katrina ascends the final slope as runnels of water race past her, tearing the soil out from under her soles. It is a grim half hour of struggling against the elements. The wind and rain lash at her, chilling her to the bone. The golden childs who is otherwise Iwikanu still paces behind, patiently watching but never helping.

When Katrina finally does get back to pine camp, water sheets across the ground, carrying away the pine needles, the tents are all soaked through, and no one is there.

Ξ

Alonso and Miriam limp into the village, holding a hopping and grimacing Triquet between them. They are all soaked to the skin and miserable. Just before entering the village Triquet had slipped in the mud and twisted their left ankle. Despite assuring their older colleagues that they can walk it off, they had fussed over Triquet and hauled them up by the arms, nearly carrying them the last few paces with care. Easing their patient down to the deck of Morska Vidra’s covered porch, the three refugees look around.

The village looks deserted in the purplish downpour. No smoke, no light in any door. Puddles are already forming pools in the village square. The only sound is the creak of the trees in the wind.

Alonso grabs a handful of Triquet’s clothing and wrings it out with strong hands. He shares a sidelong pleased look with Miriam. “Did you see?”

She is shivering, slicking back her hair to get the water to stop dripping into her eyes. “See what?” She scans the village again.

“No no…” Alonso stands again. “Mira.” Then he crouches. “I helped Triquet. I carried them. For the first time. I helped. I was the carrier instead of the carried.” His proud smile is so wide.

She nods, dumbly, knowing how significant this is but unable to find enthusiasm within her. She squeezes his hand instead and looks into his eyes, her breath ragged.

“Oh, Mirrie, you’re freezing.” Alonso reaches over Triquet’s legs and envelops her in a bearhug.

Triquet thinks of saying something, but then doesn’t. Instead, they fall back in regard to study the two dark figures in embrace. What must it be like to love so well, so long? It is outside Triquet’s experience. Their parents certainly never did. Growing up, they had a few friends with cool moms and dads but certainly nothing like this. There is a silence in the contact point between them, as if Miriam and Alonso have sealed themselves together. Dyadic withdrawal. Triquet remembers the term from a sociology course. They have just retreated into a world they alone populate where they are something larger than themselves alone. And now the storming world is beaten back, with Triquet sheltering beneath.

Finally they break free and Alonso blows on her fingertips. Then he places a strong hand across Triquet’s chest. “How is the pain?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. But I saw you, Alonso! I sure did! Big man on campus, carrying me away. How are you?”

“There is pain, certainly, yes.” Alonso considers what to say next about it. But nothing more is required. He holds out his hands and shrugs. “I am only glad I can help such a sweetheart.”

“Can we like… knock on his door?” Miriam stands, staring doubtfully at the hut. “What do you think, Zo?”

“I think they are not here. I mean, where even is the door?”

Miriam and Alonso step toward the black gap between the redwood bark boards that used to be covered by a door of smaller bark pieces. He leans his head in. “Hello…? Ah. Here is the door. They stowed it inside. I wonder why.”

“There’s no one in there?” Miriam steps inside, ducking low. The ceiling isn’t much more than Amy’s height. Alonso has to hunch over quite a lot.

“And nothing. There is only a door. And an old… eh, loom? Bedframe? I do not know what this is here in the corner.”

“But where did they go? I mean, the floor’s dry. Why would you leave your dry house in the middle of a huge storm? Madness.”

Another refugee arrives, stepping on the boards of the porch outside. It is Esquibel. She ducks in and looks around. “Good. This one is empty. And it has a firepit. Bring him in here.”

Alonso and Miriam go back outside to find Maahjabeen and Flavia unlashing Pradeep from the travois. Soon Esquibel helps them pull his unresisting body inside. His eyes are open and his face is slack. Mandy follows, carrying a sodden ball of sleeping bags and pillows. She disappears within as well.

“What the F?” Jay stands in the center of the the village, turning round and round. “Ghost town. Great. Where’d everybody go? And what do they know that we don’t?” The rain is cold but not frigid and he’s warmed up now. It’s just a lot. Even with his hood cinched tight, it’s hard to keep it out of his ears and eyes.

Alonso watches him from the porch. He beckons to Jay, in disbelief that the boy literally doesn’t have the sense to come in from out of the rain. “Come on. Get out of there and dry off.”

“Hold on, chief.” Jay pokes his head into each of the other huts first. They’re all empty, all the belongings gone except the doors. “So weird… Hey, Alonso. Why do they put the doors inside?”

“Maybe so they do not float away?”

“Seriously. I’m going to float away for sure.” Jay steps onto the porch, shakes like a dog, and unzips his rain parka. It kept him pretty dry except for a hefty leak at his neck. But he’s in shorts and sandals anyway. “You think we can all fit in there?”

Esquibel sticks her head out as Jay asks this. “Firewood,” she orders. “Before you get out of your wet things.”

Jay sighs. “Sure thing, Doc.” He zips his parka right back up and steps out into the downpour.

Once Esquibel withdraws from the small door, Alonso peeks in. Yes, they are all settled and now there is room for the rest of them. “Come on, Triquet. Let’s drag you in here too.”

“Oh, fine. I’m fine. I’m coming.” Triquet hauls themself to their feet and tries putting weight on the ankle. “Yes. Perfectly fine.” But then they try tilting their foot outward and pain runs up the outside of their lower leg. “Or, well, not entirely. But walking I can do. Careful walking. Or even crawling.” It does seem like the better option. They make a grand entrance, on hands and knees, but no one even looks up. The others are engaged in their own struggles. Triquet finds a spot in the far corner and eases their back against the blackened timbers.

Miriam also drops against the wall with a groan, still shivering. Triquet drapes an arm across her shoulders and she leans into it. “How about a fire? Anyone? That pipe’s a smoke hole, right?” An intact tube of bark is stuck in the roof at a shallow angle. Whenever the wind swirls a few raindrops spatter in.

Esquibel nods. “Jay is getting us some wood.”

“And here he is.” Alonso steps away from the door to give him room to enter.

Jay ducks in with an apologetic half-smile. He is empty-handed. “Nada. They took it all. Wherever they went, I guess they knew they’d need their firewood.”

“Well we need a fire too.” Esquibel is worried about Pradeep. She doesn’t know how he will deal with all these extreme changes in his environment, just on a metabolic level. She doesn’t know if he can generate enough heat. What are these bizarre narcotics the shamans keep using against them? They present in ways she’s never seen with any compound or heard about in any literature. Oh, yes. This is a new drug we discovered on an island called Lisica. It removes your soul.

Jay shrugs. “We can burn the door.”

Miriam barks a sarcastic laugh, appreciating the dark humor. But then she stops herself. “Oh, you’re serious. And how do you think our hosts will like us after we’ve done that?”

Jay shrugs again. “It’s the only dry wood around. I can build them another door when the storm dies down no problem.”

“Yes, do it.” Esquibel doesn’t have time for the niceties of outreach and community engagement right now. “We need the fire. And we need that door to last all night. So keep it modest.”

“Will do.”

Jay pulls the door away from the wall and makes a face. “Okay. Problem one. This is redwood bark, which is super flame-resistant. Good against rot too. But it’s going to be a bitch to burn. Problem two. No dry kindling. So that’s going to be fun. Not exactly sure how we’ll get this done yet… Aha! But the frame is another wood, like laurel. Now that’s some good firewood there. Okay. I got a plan.” He pulls a buck knife and collapsible saw from his pack.

They all work in silence at their various tasks. Mandy helps Maahjabeen out of her sodden jacket and squeezes out her thick hair for her. But Maahjabeen only has thoughts for Pradeep. He doesn’t shiver but there is a bluish cast to his skin that worries her. “Mandy, please cover the door with a blanket. Where is that fire?”

As if she invoked it, a flame blooms under Jay’s hand in a pile of sawdust and strips of kindling. They all turn to watch as he coaxes it to life, putting wafer-thin sheets of redwood bark atop it. These only blacken and smoke but refuse to catch fire. “Need to make it hotter…” Jay pushes more kindling into the blaze and soon it reaches a critical heat, igniting all the other fuel he carefully places on the growing pyramid.

The heat spreads into the wide room, smoke spiraling up into the canted smokehole. Firelight flickers against the dark walls. They all ease back, letting the fire give them its primeval comfort.

“I love a good plasma.” They are Flavia’s first words. She has been engaged in a long silent struggle against the deteriorating conditions of the day. But the sight of those bluish-orange twisting sheets of ionized heat soothe her. “Remember the bunker? How nice it used to be in there?”

“I loved the bunker!” Mandy clasps her hands under her chin. “It was like one big dorm room. And the sub?”

“We should go back to the sub.” Yet as Triquet says it they realize how impossible that would be right now. Descending the tree trunk down that shaft in the tunnels would be agony on their ankle. What a dope, stumbling in the mud like that.

“We are not going anywhere.” Esquibel says it firmly, cutting the foolish notion off before they can seriously consider it. “This fire is the most important thing right now. Keeping Pradeep warm.”

“Did anybody bring food?” Flavia presses a hand against her growling belly. “I didn’t realize how hungry I am until now.”

“Shh.” Alonso holds up a hand. “There is somebody outside.”

They can all hear tentative footsteps on the planks of the porch. A tension winds in the air. Jay stands, gripping his knife. Is this it? Is this his moment? Is Wetchie-ghuy about to come barrelling in here with his potions and his spells? Where will Jay even stab him? He should probably decide before the whole thing goes down so he knows how to hold his knife. In the neck, like a stab down from above? Or a slash across his belly, which means he should reverse his grip and…

A figure leans in, dark and hidden, and a breathless voice hisses the Lisican greeting, the final syllable rising in hope. “Bontiik…?”

It is Katrina.

Mandy squeals and throws herself at her, pulling Katrina into the hut and squeezing her tight. The space is suddenly charged with everyone’s heat and movement, their exclamations and questions. They all have to hug Katrina, or at least touch her or pet her hair. For a long sweet interlude, it’s nothing but chatter and laughter and most of the sounds they make aren’t even words.

Finally they settle again. Katrina scans their faces. “Still no Amy? Blimey. Out somewhere in this storm? Poor dear. I hope the shamans are keeping her dry.”

“Jidadaa told us,” Alonso informs her, “that the shamans do not have her and neither she nor the golden childs know where Amy is. We are very worried. Very worried.”

“I mean… She’s an outdoors person, right? Probably living better than we are right now.”

“Where are the golden childs anyway? Have we seen them?”

“Oh, yeh.” Katrina points back out the door. “They’re out there a few houses down. Just watching. They’re kadánda dayadi, like the children of pollen. Don’t worry about them.”

“Why?” Triquet asks. “What does that mean?”

“So… From the beginning… They brought me to their village in the trees. Crazy place. Way up high in the redwoods. And they had this long ceremony to remove their masks up there. Lots of colored powders smeared on their skins then washed off. And when it was all over the bloke next to me took off his golden mask and he was just this guy. He introduced himself as Iwikanu. We were totally best buds. He took me to his parents’ house and they fed me some nice eggs and mash and his little sister couldn’t get over my pale white weirdness. Just like prodded me all night. She was so cute. But yeh. When he put his mask back on he wasn’t Iwikanu any more. They told me he transformed into an agent of the gods. The springtime god, to be exact. They’ve only got a couple more weeks of this before summer comes and the kadánda dayadi vanish like pollen on the wind.”

“So poetic.” Miriam unlaces Katrina’s shoes and peels off her socks for her. “And how did you learn all this?”

“Their chief speaks a bit of Russian. I learned so much. But here. Look. Check this out first.” Katrina holds up her prize, the sack that Iwikanu gifted her at the base of the tree. It is large and heavy and she is tired of carrying it.

Jay goggles. “What the hell? What is that made of?” He grabs the sack. “This is like pigskin. Feels like some giant hairy NFL football. Ew. Where’d you get that?”

“There’s boars, Jay. On the island. One attacked me. That’s why he took me back to their village. I needed to help him carry—”

“I knew it!” Jay crows. “Remember when the bad village showed up and they had those cross-braces on their spears? I just knew there had to be big-game hunting! And what’s in here?”

“Go ahead and open it.”

Jay unfolds the irregular flaps of the sack to find ingots of raw flesh, gleaming and purple, inside. Dozens. “What the…? Oh, baby! We’re eating like kings tonight!”

The hut fills with their joyful clamor once again. Nobody is happier than Flavia. She grabs Katrina and kisses her face over and over. Jay hops up and down like a child at Christmas. Only Alonso sighs, doleful, and Triquet sees it. “Ah, what’s wrong, boss man? Not a pork guy?”

“I love it. But I miss my wine. It would pair so well.”

Triquet giggles. “And bring me some truffle oil while we’re at it.”

Alonso laughs, appreciating the teasing. “Yes, I’m a wretched alcoholic, it’s true. Very spoiled. Eh. Mira. This bag is made from a single pig, just stitched up the sides. Kind of gross.”

“I don’t think that meat is very hygienic,” Esquibel cautions. “How long has it been out? Over 24 hours, yes?”

“Well they didn’t carve it up until this morning if that makes you feel any better. Then they rubbed this oil all over it and packed it away. I didn’t think I was going to get to taste it. Was kind of broken up about it, to be honest. But they were just waiting to give me my share! Oh, he was such a brute. His tusks were so scary, just like these pointed broken giant teeth coming at you.”

“Ehh…” Esquibel is unconvinced. “What kind of oil?” But then Jay gently drops the first steaks directly on the burning coals and the sizzle fills the night air with heady scents. “Just make sure you sear all the edges at least.” Then Esquibel has to stop talking because there is suddenly too much saliva in her mouth.

They all watch in silence as Jay cooks. He is a timeless figure, stooped over the flames, tending to the first feast of the hunt. From time to time he pokes at the sizzling meat with his fingers, testing its consistency. Within a few minutes he’s pulling the first ones free, knocking the ash from the charred crust.

Flavia has found a small flat tray in her belongings that can serve as a plate. “Here, Jay. Right here. Come to mama.”

With a grimace he drops it onto her plate and waves his fingers to cool them. Jay grins at Flavia, wolfish. “Let me know how it is.”

Flavia kisses him. “I have never been so attracted to you as I am right now.” They all laugh at her but now there is a sharp edge of anticipation in it as they crowd round. Flavia doesn’t even offer to share. She picks at it, blowing on the steak to cool it, and tears a bit off the corner. “Oh. Che meraviglia. So good. A little chewy. Gamey. Is that the word? But who cares.”

She hands the plate to Esquibel, who wrinkles her nose, inspects it minutely, then takes a bite. “Ah. Very hot. That is good.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “To kill the bacteria so… Oh.” Then she starts chewing in earnest. “Oh. This is amazing.”

“Yeah, I bet that oil is really helping lock in the juices.” Jay giggles, dropping the next finished steak on top of the first. Mandy finds another lid as a plate and soon they’re all eating and groaning in pleasure, falling back against the walls of the hut with dirt and ash and grease smeared on their chins.

“But what did you learn from this chief of theirs?” Alonso finally asks Katrina, licking his fingers. “You say he speaks Russian. That is another thing Jidadaa told us, that Russians visit them regularly. The tree village. What did you learn about that?”

“Oh, you saw Jidadaa? How is she?”

“Same as ever. She rescued Prad from Wetchie-ghuy at least.” Jay allows some grudging admiration to color his words.

Esquibel repeats, “Katrina. Tell us of the Russians.”

“It’s not a very good relationship.” Katrina is still eating. She can’t stop and there’s still three steaks they haven’t finished. “Lots of distrust. Strictly transactional I think, although I can’t figure out what the Russians give the Thunderbirds in return. The Shidl Dít. Like I didn’t see any modern stuff anywhere up on their platform. Maybe like some winter coats from Siberia or something.”

“And what do the Russians want from the Thunderbirds?” Esquibel locates a notepad and pen. She wants to make sure she gets what Katrina tells her recorded word-for-word. This is the most valuable intelligence she can bring back.

“And why are they even called the Thunderbirds?” Jay wonders. “I mean, like there are only a few birds in the whole world that can strictly be called thunderbirds and we haven’t—”

“Jay.”

“Sup, Doc?”

“Let her answer my question first please. National security and all that.”

“Oh. For sure.”

Katrina shrugs. “Well, like I said, there’s a lot of distrust. And like layers, you know? So I didn’t get what you’d call a straight answer. But they really opened up after I sang them some Marvin Gaye. They think I’m some kind of wizard.”

“That is so wild that they don’t have music.” Jay shakes his head. “I mean, can you imagine what your daily life would—?”

“Jay! Please!” Esquibel glares at him.

Katrina shakes her head in memory of the painstaking dialogue. “We went back and forth. Lots of miming. After a couple hours of that, what I was finally able to figure out is that what the Russians want here more than anything is the foxes.”

Esquibel’s pen is poised above the blank sheet of note paper. She blinks. “Eh? The foxes? What do you mean?”

“You mean like for their fur?” Jay frowns. “That’s so, like, 19th century. Nobody wears fur any more.”

“Okay… Eh…” Miriam can make no more sense of it than any of the others. “So did the Thunderbirds give them the foxes?”

“On that point,” Katrina manages through a full mouth, “they were quite clear. Absolutely not.”

They all consider this in a perplexed silence.

“But what did the Russians have to say about the Americans or the Chinese? Anything on that?” Esquibel can’t tell her superiors that the Russians were here like English bloody lords hunting foxes for sport. They’d tell her this whole mission was a waste.

“They don’t know. I tried to get kind of geopolitical for a bit but the Thunderbirds are like wildly incurious about the world outside. They know Lisica and its three tribes and that’s about it. But they know Lisica better than anyone else, I’m pretty sure. Even better than the shamans. The Dandawu has the deep cuts, that’s for sure. Like, they recognized the name Maureen Dowerd, Triquet. They like fully remember her.”

“Oh my god. The modern mystery. Yes,” Triquet groans. “Can we please get back to that?”

“She was a friend to all the tribes. The only one who could speak to everyone, even the great shaman at the time, Aan Eyagídi. It was the first time they had met an outsider who was a woman and not a soldier. And he spoke of her great heart. She sounds like a lovely woman. Very charming.”

“And then she fell in love with a local.”

“Yes, and that is when the fractures appeared. The Shidl Dít had no problem with their affair and the child she had. But those nasty Ussiaxan condemned them both. He said they’re the ones who caused her death. And for years they hunted her lover too. Killed him when he was old. But their lineage lives on. All those blond curls. Morska Vidra’s village mostly had no problem, but some did and left them to go live across the river. Reactionairies and their racial purity. Tale as old as time.”

Jay calculates. “So it was the, like, grandparents of the Lady Boss and that whole crew who killed Maureen? Poor thing.”

“Not exactly. We went round and round about this all night. The Dandawu used different words for what the Ussiaxan did to Maureen and her lover. They killed her lover. That was clear. But for her he used a more complex phrase, like ‘they brought about the reasons for her death.’ Like they set some kind of trap.”

“That’s wicked.” Triquet shakes their head. “And this is how the past informs the present. I wasn’t sure the bad tribe would hold their grudge forever but it sounds like that’s exactly what they do.”

“And the Dandawu confirmed the Ussiaxan kept all the secrets. On Maureen Dowerd and the Russians and the Americans and the Chinese. When Wetchie-ghuy deposed Aan Eyagídi during the time of the twelfth mothers, the Ussiaxan took all the island’s maps and diaries and keepsakes to what they call the treasure house—”

Triquet claps their hands to their mouth. “Oh my god there’s actual diaries out there? Plural? Mine mine mine! Ooo baby. That’s like textual chronology primary source white gold.”

“Yeah, but all surrounded by about like sixty warlike spear-warriors,” Jay reminds them. “We’d need like Seal Team Six to drop on their heads if we want to snag their shit.”

Now Esquibel is writing. “It is in their village, you say?”

But Katrina hesitates. “Ehm, you aren’t going to like call in a missile strike or anything, are you?”

“Are you serious? No. I can’t do that. This is just information-gathering. A big part of my job here.”

“I mean he didn’t tell me exactly, but yeh. I figure it’s in there with all their holy holies.”

“Do any of the Ussiaxan speak Russian?” Alonso doesn’t like how close this aggressive tribe is. Just across the creek. How much will their taboo to cross it matter if they are impelled by a greater need to kill the foreigners? “Can we reason with them?”

“No. Chinese. They’ve been contacted regularly by the Chinese, who come in from the north and always avoid the Russians and the Americans.” Katrina looks everywhere but at Esquibel. “They also used to be the contact tribe for the Japanese, like 80 or 90 years ago during the war.”

“That was the bunker I found on the west coast during that first storm.” Maahjabeen shakes her head at the memory. It seems like it was from six years ago, not six weeks. “Definitely old. Definitely Japanese. And Soviet too. So there’s some crossover.”

“I really need to get a look at that site.” Triquet flexes their ankle. “Some day. Could you like tow me on a raft?”

“Oh, the breakers would never allow it.”

“And the other really cool thing he told me,” Katrina continues, “is about the founding of the island. He said it was one man and two sisters. They were Eyat but he was Rumelian.”

“Rumelian?” Alonso wonders. “What is Rumelian?”

“I have no idea,” Katrina answers. “I was hoping one of you would know.”

But none of them do.

“What are you doing?” Flavia asks Jay, as he shakes as much water off his coat as possible and pulls it back on.

“Just thinking. One place I haven’t looked. Maybe it would be a good idea before it gets too late.”

“Where’s that?” Miriam asks.

“In the caves. That’s got to be where they’re hiding, right?”

“The sub,” Triquet grumbles. “Scattering all my sorted piles.”

“Who knows?” Jay goes to the door and pulls Mandy’s blanket wide. The loud drumming of the rain is disheartening, convincing all the others to stay by the fire. “Back in a sec.”

“That boy is a lunatic,” Alonso announces. “But I am glad we have him back.”

Jay returns nearly instantly. “Yep. Cave mouth is just full of all their belongings. But no villagers to be seen. They got no faith in their huts during a storm like this, I guess. And look!” He pulls a bundle of sticks through the door. “Stole some of their firewood!”

All the others are pleased, but Katrina thinks back on her time with the Dandawu and all the kindnesses his people showed her. She shakes her head in despair. “God, we suck.”