Human (43 page)

With feverish intensity, Orrin and Dale poured over data for seventy-two hours straight. In the back of his mind, Phil’s words echoed.
You’re not roping me into your damned lunacy…

“Dale?” Orrin said. It was nearing lunch time again.

There was no reply. He turned to find Dale fast asleep with his head on the keyboard. Quietly Orrin slipped into his office. He needed to make a call. The mobile number he had stored in his phone recited an unavailable message.
Come on.
Orrin quickly tapped on his keyboard and dialled the listed administration number of his friend’s employer instead.

“CSIRO enquiries, how can I direct your call?” answered a receptionist.

“Hi, I’m looking for Dimitri Angelis please? In the Division for Astronomy and Space.”

“Please hold for one moment.”

It had been a year since they’d caught up over a pint; reminiscing about their post grad shenanigans together. Orrin hoped above all else, that Dimi still worked at the CSIRO in this reality, as he had in the last. The soft on-hold music pacified his frustration.
You’re not roping me into your damned lunacy … lunacy?
Perhaps he had been looking at this whole thing wrong.

Of course, he hadn’t for a moment considered that Phil was actually right.
Not this time.
But the word lunacy evoked a second meaning that resonated in him more than was customary.
Lunar…
Perhaps the premise that he’d caused the time shift single-handedly was wrong. Perhaps there were external forces operating… forces he’d had no knowledge of at the time. In that respect, Dimi might prove to be invaluable.

“I’m sorry sir, but Mr Angelis is out of the office this month on a research project. Would you like me to leave a message?” the receptionist said.

A month.
“Is there no other contact number for him?” Orrin asked.

“I believe not sir, apparently he’s at one of our deep space telescopes but the details are confidential. He can’t be contacted by phone. If you like I can give you his email address?”

Orrin scribbled the address onto his whiteboard and tapped out an email.

Urgent – Dimi, please contact me. I’m desperate man, I need your help – Orrin

Orrin stepped back into his lab and was surprised to find Jayne waiting for him, a grim look on her face.

“I need to go back to the waterhole.”

Gihn looked up. He took the bowl of warm water Ivy had brought from Shahn's hearth and passed it on to Lahstri. The medicine woman took it without a word and continued her ministrations on the two dying hunters in the back of the cave. Since Truen had passed away, they had lost another two men to the Slow Death. Thankfully, no more had fallen ill since and Ivy thought she knew why.

Gihn raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

“I can't tell you why,” Ivy said. “I just need to… check something first.”

“Secrets, Hiranah. You are holding back knowledge again.”

Ivy sighed. “Not for long. Something is very wrong there but I need to see for myself. I don't even know what I'm looking for yet.” That wasn't entirely true but until Ivy could define the danger without causing more panic, she’d decided it was best to handle the situation alone. Three deaths within a week had already shattered the tribe with fresh grief.

“I’ll ask Xiou and Setian to take you tomorrow then, perhaps Kora and Kari as well - “

“No, just me and one guide,” Ivy interrupted. “And it has to be today,” she glanced at the two men at her feet. “Too many have died already from this.”

Gihn frowned. “Setian can take you then. Xiou is hunting.” Ivy nodded. She liked Setian. The hunter was quiet and good natured. His mate Kora had also become a close friend.

Within minutes, Ivy had tied a water bladder to her hide skirt and wrapped some travelling food for them both. It would take perhaps three hours to get there and back, depending on what she found. She met Setian at the cave entrance.

“Are you ready to go then, Hiranah?” Setian smiled.

“No, she is not.” A gruff voice interrupted and Krue pushed his way between them. “I don't like this. What is she hiding?”

“I'm hiding nothing Krue,” Ivy said, resentfully. “And I don’t need your approval to go.”

“Well… you do need my approval to take Setian. I have work for him here.” Krue looked around, as if trying to think up a task. Setian intervened diplomatically.

“I can assist you with plans for the probech hunt as soon as I return, Krue,” Setian said. “We have plenty of time yet.”

Krue looked livid. “Now you turn my best hunters against me woman?” Krue turned to address Gihn, who had followed Ivy, anticipating trouble. “The karathah wants to go alone and won't even tell us why?” He looked at Ivy with as much disdain as he could manage. “Why we should trust her? She’s done nothing but draw lines in the dirt and you fools cheer! She is one of
them
.” Krue spat in the dirt at her feet.

“Stop doing that!” Ivy yelled. “I’m not a
k
arathah, not anymore!” Her face was red with humiliation. Ivy wanted to believe her own denial. There was a reason Krue hated Homo sapiens and she couldn’t forget what that reason was.
Murder.
The very thing Ivy suspected of them again. The karathah had drawn and twisted the pain within this man into a bitter point and now he stabbed her with it. She
was
a karathah. Deep in her gut, Ivy knew that her suspicions of what was to come justified his hate more than even he knew. It wasn't the first time she was ashamed of her own species.

“Ha! Of course you are,” said Krue. “You take from us and give nothing in return. Now you ask us to trust you so close to their territory? You want to meet with them there! You’ll betray us and lead Setian into danger.” Krue's eyes steeled with an icy glare, and Ivy sensed the loss that was locked underneath. She took a deep breath, stifling her anger. Ivy understood the misplaced accusations of grief.

“I am not meeting the karathah, Krue,” she said. “And no harm will come to Setian for taking me there.”

“You are right that no harm will come to him.” Krue lifted his chin stubbornly and stepped closer to Ivy, entirely unintimidated by her height. “Because he will not go. It is me who will take you. And if the karathah are there to meet you, woman, I will kill you.”

The trek passed in silence. Krue walked ahead, refusing to acknowledge Ivy but for the occasional icy glance behind him. Although it was much less pleasant than the friendly banter she might have exchanged with Setian, Ivy was not entirely upset. It gave her time to think.

Ironically, it was Krue’s own hostility toward her that sparked her realization.
Karathah are nothing but poison to our land,
Krue had once said. And he was right.

The waterhole was poisoned.
That fact was critically obvious, as much as it pained her to know it. Ivy had discussed the symptoms of the swift death with Gihn on numerous occasions. It couldn’t be contagious or those tending the sick would have contracted it too. The victims shared no peculiarity of diet or living conditions. It favoured men and women of previously good health, but no children or elders. Hunters were clearly the target and the only consistent links between them were the trails they took before falling ill. They were the strongest hunters, and as such, regularly ventured the furthest. The hot spring was apparently on the boundary of their territory and a favourite place to refresh during a hunt, to wash the blood and dirt from their bodies,
or to take a drink.

Why the karathah would deliberately poison a known water source for the hobbits was still unclear, but Ivy had no doubt a justification had been fitted to the crime. It had been done before. The heinous act of poisoning the most necessary of human requirements,
water
, was historically renowned in her own country. Humanity had no limits to its malediction. In Australia, it had been for colonial possession of land.

Is that what they want? Land?
The hobbits used so few resources as it was, but what else was worth killing them for? They had only their cave, their hunting territory and the trade goods. It didn't seem enough.
But then, no justification is ever enough.

They were nearly at the hot spring when Krue turned. His face slipped from suspicion to irritation in an instant and Ivy followed his line of sight. From where they had just walked, Kyah appeared in the lowest branches. Trahg and his tiny dusty-haired cousin Turi were clinging to the long hair on her back. They were all smiles.

“Hiranah! We followed you!” Trahg looked inordinately pleased with himself as he tumbled off and grabbed her hand. “Kyah missed you so we came too.”

Ivy scooped the five-year-old into her arms. “Trahg! It’s dangerous to be out here alone! What if a shirakan tried to eat you for dinner? Or if you became lost? You know better than this, Trahg. And dragging Turi along too -” Trahg rolled his eyes and wiggled out of her grip, keeping his hand wrapped around the amulet on Ivy's wrist. “I never get lost and anyway, it was Turi's idea.” Ivy raised her eyebrow at the smallest boy, who only buried his face into Kyah's back with a shy smile.

“I see you found a new way to travel,” Ivy noted. Kyah didn't seem to mind the burden. On the contrary, she looked perfectly serene.

“Turi got tired,” Trahg said, shrugging.

“It is a stupid way to travel Trahg,” Krue growled. “It is too far for children to be alone and the karathah are nearby. They would kill you faster than the shirakan. I will make sure you are both punished by your mothers when we return.” Despite Krue's harsh words, Ivy saw an undercurrent of worry in his eyes.

“I'm sorry Tua,” Trahg said, with a quivering lip. Although Ivy was familiar with the more respectful title given to elders, she didn’t often hear it.

“Stay close and keep quiet,” he grumbled and turned away to continue walking.

Trahg looked to Ivy with a frown. “I thought you came with Setian,” he whispered loudly, “he’s much nicer.” Ahead of them, Krue huffed.

Ivy smirked and resumed walking, one hand wrapped tightly around Trahg's tiny fingers and the other hand loosely around Kyah's elongated ones. Turi stayed clinging to the bonobo's back, watching the goings on imperiously.

Ivy stopped dead. “Krue, Wait!”

The old man turned back, clearly annoyed by a second delay. “What now?”

“This,” Ivy whispered. Where she had stopped, a mass of creeping vines suffocated the undergrowth and spiralled up the trunks of ancient trees. Hidden in the long leaves and confetti of leaflets that the vine produced, were bright red flowers. The flowers should have sparked the panic that now rose in her chest. But no, they looked as innocuous as any other in the greenery. It wasn't the flowers, nor the leaves that Ivy had examined under a microscope in her laboratory not more than a month ago and forgotten. It was this.
Cherry red seeds.
A single black spot glossing one end of the hard shell. They hung in profusion from the underside of dry, splitting pods and it suddenly occurred to Ivy why these seeds would indeed
not
make a nice necklace. She knew this plant. It topped her botanical reference chart of phytoliths in the residue lab. Ivy had identified plants of importance to native Indonesians for food, medicine or utility in anticipation of the stone tools she was expecting from Flores. Each crystalline phytolith was unique to a species level and could be identified even thousands of years after the organic body surrounding it in life had decayed to nothing. Every plant on that chart was important. But this one topped them all – and for a very good reason.

This was the Rosary Pea. Exotic. Beautiful.
Fatal.

As the pieces fell into place, each one felt like a glass shard to Ivy's heart. This was no ordinary plant. Abrin, the poison within its gilded skin, was seventy-five times more potent than its mephitic cousins. As little as three micrograms of the substance could kill a human adult, less than the amount contained in a single seed. To remove the toxin from its hard case was to risk death itself. In her modern world, Ivy learned there had been fatalities caused by simply pricking a finger while drilling a tiny hole to bead the pretty things for jewellery. To ingest the toxin of the Rosary Pea seed was to trigger a debilitating breakdown of every cell in a person’s body, as each cell was stripped in turn of its cardinal ability for protein synthesis. The bloody vomiting and diarrhoea, seizures, hallucinations and fluid within the victims’ lungs would begin after only a day. Within a week, the liver, kidneys and spleen would shut down. There was no antidote and no way back from the pain. There was only death to hope for.