Shring-Shring-Shring went the sound of the machete as Hank chopped his way through thick sheaves of underbrush. This wasn't the way the bushmen would do it, he thought self-consciously, though he didn't know if there was anyone out here at all. But if there were, he felt sure they'd find another way to slip through the forest. Barefoot. Comfortable. Cat-like. The village was now likely seventeen miles behind him. The forest was exactly as he remembered it. He couldn't see it but he knew there was a ridge up ahead, and once the steady incline of this hill abated, he'd have enough of a vantage point to confirm his bearings. The rhythm of the machete had long ago faded into the back of Hank's mind, and he was keenly aware of the jungle, or so he thought. His mind began to drift lazily toward how all this began.
Hank Charlo was one of those high school prodigies who really didn't care about good marks or looking smart to other people. Those things were part of High School's background noise. They were the province of nerdy slouches who had to cling to their brains because they had nothing else to make them feel good about themselves. To Hank smarts came naturally and matter-of-factly. He enjoyed football, parties, though he had seldom drank. He loved math and chemistry in particular, devouring college-level textbooks like tic tacs before even writing his SATs. The reason for his aptitude was his visual way of thinking and remembering. In his mind, stoichiometry, complex bonds, reactions and chemical compounds were as ready-to-hand as words and phrases. His memory wasn't photographic, but it was close.
He could have written a doctoral thesis on chemistry in first year university, but by then his passion for it was gone. He didn't have to try. There was nothing sensual or worldly about it. He diverted to biology, when a friend writing a doctoral thesis on snakes told him about finding a new undiscovered snake in the Amazon rain forest. The idea of finding new species in some exotic land awakened in him a craving to travel. Hank wrote his doctoral thesis in entomology, and now he was a paid researcher.
Hank's revenue came from a pharmaceutical grant. Two years, he had had as glamorous a break as any entomologist could hope for: A new species with an extremely useful pheromone. It had to be the most useful chemical in nature, Hank thought, except there was no way to synthesize it artificially without more information about its biosynthesis. It came from a slug that he discovered when he made the trek into the deep bush with an expedition of entomologists from the University of Illinois. A new species of Ibycus. Hank wasn't typically interested in slugs, but the ones in Borneo were pretty cool. Ibycus rachelae, or the love dart slug, was especially cool. When courting, the slug harpoons its mate with a bone dart full of pheromone.
"These slugs took absolutely no chances. Screw just letting your sex chemicals just waft around, you wanna lay someone? Dart 'im." Hank had said to one of the cuter undergrad interns on the expedition. Now, he smiled at the thought of Irene Stephenson, the doctor leading that expedition, tearing a strip off him for it later.
It was on that expedition that he found the orange slug. He knew the species hadn't been cataloged, and on a whim he named it after himself, Ibycus charlae. In that moment, he had no idea he was holding his dream. It wasn't until six months later in the lab that he discovered the chemical composition of its pheremone, an extremely complicated estrogen-like steroid. Only Hank Charlo could have grasped the implications of the compound, and in the moment of piecing together the chemical structure (which was a long process when working only from the substance's spectrography), his brain reacted to the data. Like Francium and Fluorine Hank though. chemical derivations of it had spun and spun in his head. The implications of this compound were more or less astronomical. Now he needed several live slugs.
Now, as he hacked through the jungle, solo for the first time, he smiled. This is exactly what he was put on Earth to do. Journey through the underbrush, with a tent, four days rations, a huge and completely unnecessary 20k budget, and no plans except bagging bugs and maybe drinks and dinner in Palangkaraya. He forged ahead through the thick sweaty heat of the Kalimantan lowlands. Somewhere a Cicada buzzed. Pomponia Imperatoria, Hank guessed. The thing was practically drowning out the sound of his machete. Now if only he could find you, little I. Charlae.
He had made two team expeditions sponsored by Zole pharmaceuticals. This solo trip he was making out of the discretionary expense budget, which Roger, the slimy Zole rep, had referred to as "party money." Hank wasn't going to waste any money partying. Back in Illinois, school was still in session. Research teams from the university were still getting organized. A team expedition was a month away, and Hank wanted his slugs. When he phoned Zole to clear the expense (a superfluous gesture, but one he felt bound to offer anyway), Roger had sounded disappointed. Disappointed no doubt that Hank wasn't going to use the money to round up a bunch of cute coeds and throw a kegger. Watching drunk people could be fun, sure, but not if it was on your bill. Anyway, Zole was more than willing to send Hank to Borneo by himself. He knew the jungle well-enough, and so here he was.
Sweat trickled down his forehead. His forearm was starting to ache. Hank paused to drink from a canteen that hung off his backpack. In perhaps another four miles he would reach the top of the ridge he was climbing, then maybe set up camp. Behind him, Pomponia Imperatoria buzzed like some fantastic biological machine. He wiped the sweat off his brow, and took a few minutes to run a carbide sharpener over the long blade of the machete. That's when it happened.
It was a completely foreign sensation. Almost like his ears had popped. But it had happened in his head, kind of a mental pressure change. He felt like a switch had been flipped. Hank turned his head left. He did it for the first time in maybe 15 minutes, and there was a huge vista. One he had never seen. And there was smoke. Tiny columns of smoke, three of them, poking out of the treetops perhaps two miles away. Between him and the smoke there was a valley, flanked by two sizable mountains. It was the type of scene you photographed if you were shooting for National Geographic: One that Hank would have seen immediately. Hank's brow furrowed in confusion. Why hadn't he seen this? It was almost like this entire region had been stuck in some kind of mental blind spot. Looking over his shoulder, Hank saw that his path climbed a ridge with only a thin line of trees between him and the view. It was impossible.
Hank absently pocketed the carbide sharpener, drawn by the scene in front of him. The hill dropping into the jungle in front of him, was traversible, and the habitat at the bottom of this valley was identical to the landscape where he found his one and only specimen of Ibycus Charlae. Without thinking, Hank began to descend the slope. He paused for a moment, took a bearing, and hacked his way into the unknown.
He was two minutes off the trail. The rhythm of the machete had once again become a kind of hypnotic thrum in the back of his head. Shring-Shring-Shring. He came up on a particularly thick sheaf of fronds. Some kind of palm. Does any other type of plant have fronds? As long as he lived, Hank would never forget that sheaf of fronds. A quick automatic slash of the machete cut them down, and what they revealed froze him dead in his tracks.
The eyes. It was the eyes. They stared off. Like the hadn't even seen him. Huge and black. Almond-shaped. And the spindly body. It looked exactly like those gray aliens that those bug-eyed, self-appointed experts talked about in UFO documentaries. But this thing was real. And there was there was no mixing it up. The thing was a space alien. Though it was perfectly still, Hank was terrified.
The creature was clad in nothing but a thatched loincloth. It had simple dots painted under its motionless eyes. A thin black line ran the length of its cheek. The black was trickling. The black was blood. Hank realized with renewed horror that he had cleaved open the creature's skin from its tiny dot of an ear to the tip of it's jaw.
The blood oozed, slowly like motor oil. Still the creature did not move. Was it in shock? And why wouldn't it have hidden when it heard Hank coming? Would it move again? Would it be pissed off when it did? Hank didn't have to wait long to find out. After about 15 seconds, an eternity, the creature let out a wail. It was the raspy, agonized scream that sounded surprisingly like the voice of Spielberg's ET. Then it's head snapped toward Hank. It looked at him. Oh God, it looked him in the eye.
A new scream boiled in Hank's brain, but it was not verbal. It was an accusation. Hank's mixture of emotions exploded in guilt and remorse: for stupidly chopping his way through the jungle, inconsiderate, reckless, careless, all these words would never add up to the intensity of the abject remorse Hank felt for wounding this creature. Tears brimmed at Hanks eyes for a second, and then long wet streams ran down his face. He dropped the machete, and felt its blade sever a tendon as the heavy blade entered his foot. The creature looked at his foot, then back at his face. The remorse he felt was quickly, overwhelmingly, replaced with a sense of forgiveness. A second ago Hank would spent a lifetime apologizing for an accident. Now an apology seemed unnecessary. That was astounding. More astounding, even, than the pain blossoming from Hank's foot. But looking into the eyes of this terrifying intelligence, Hank knew he'd never have to worry about his foot.
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