I wanted to cut free. Revolted at the idea of ever risking it again. Tomlinson believed, he truly believed, in the symmetry of life and in a Creator's universe that was warmed by what he called sentient consciousness. Hannah had possessed the same mystic instincts. She knew. . . .
But the only thing I knew or believed was that all life—my life included—was a definable, weighable process. That process was brief indeed. For a while at least, I wanted to be free of the tethers. I wanted to be wild and alone and on the loose. So what I did was buy a big-frame backpack and a jungle tent from another one of my Gurkha friends—this was in Kuala Lumpur—and I set off on foot, and by public bus, on my tour of Indochina. What I found was what I expected to find: Asia was on the move. It was chopping, building, and bulldozing its way out of the oxcart world, directly into the world of computer chips. It was financing the transition with the bounty paid—usually by the Japanese—on rain forest timber and increasingly rare sea products. Denotations on maps such as "national park" were euphemisms meaningful only in that they marked regions that bulldozers had not yet reached. The term "net ban" was meaningful only in that it symbolized the increased value of Asia's own unregulated and desperately overused fishery.
I roamed around, observing, taking notes. Americans who call themselves environmentalists would have found the wholesale destruction I saw shocking. I did not. It was tragic, yes. But not shocking. When stray dogs become a part of the citizenry's menu, professorial speeches about the long-term benefits of virgin forests and sea conservation won't turn a single head—particularly when those speeches come from people who have never had to stalk their neighborhood's pets.
I loved the people, but ultimately, I grew tired of Indochina. The people I met were as smart as they were kind; they were as generous as they were tough. The reason I left was triviaclass="underline" I yearned to hear English spoken. It happens sometimes, when you have been away too long in a foreign land. I had my portable shortwave radio, true. And in places such as Thailand and Cambodia, the V.O.A.—Voice of America—came in fairly strong. But it wasn't enough, so I caught a Qantas flight in Phnom Penh and flew to Darwin.
Australia and its Northern Territory are the English-speaking world's future . . . just as Asia is currently designing the rest of the world's future. After Cambodia, I was unprepared for the horizon of wild space and pure sea light that rims Darwin. The land has a hot, primeval aspect. Tendrils of steam seep upward, as if the process of chemical genesis still continues. Darwin is an outback town; a frontier town, despite its parks and modern architecture. In too many cities around the world, sidewalk travelers wear expressions of introspective rage. Not in Darwin. In Darwin, people had a blue-collar glow, as if they were just damn glad to live in a world that had electricity and indoor plumbing. Strangers grinned at me on the street, tipped their Akubra cowboy hats and said, "Ga'day!" or, "How ya goin', mate?"
It was from Darwin that I mailed—via a buddy of mine in Managua— the second of my only two letters to Mack at Dinkin's Bay. The first had included a brief note explaining that I had decided to do some traveling and would be back in about a month. The second letter, sent seven weeks later, explained that I might be gone for six months, maybe more. It included private notes to Janet Mueller, Jeth, and Rhonda and JoAnn aboard the Tiger Lilly. I offered no return address. Still felt the need to be on the loose, untethered.
East of Darwin, I had a friend who owned six hundred square kilometers of land. It was grazing land and eucalyptus forest that fronted the Timor Sea. My friend was reluctant—didn't think it was hospitable—but he finally agreed to chopper me out to the most desolate stretch of beach on his property, and leave me there. I told him I wanted to spend a few weeks living off the land, collecting specimens from the mud flats. My friend told me that I was bloody nuts, unloaded my gear, and flew off.
That is where I decided to return to Dinkin's Bay. But here is how and why: I had built a sapling hut that was close enough to the sea so that I could feel the rumbling surf, but far enough away from the beach so that the giant estuarine crocodiles wouldn't crawl up and eat me in the night. I had covered the hut with a tight palm-frond thatching to keep out the monsoon rains, and I had constructed what I thought was a very ingenious all-weather fire pit. Made myself a nice little jungle camp, complete with everything but a sign outside that read: Beware the Big Dumb Shit.
For food, there were plenty of mud crabs, plus the occasional snare-dumb feral hog. I also caught barramundi—a fish which looks and behaves remarkably like a snook. For water, I had the monsoons, as well as a Pur hand-pump water filter. It was a good life. I loved the solitude of it... all the potential that the sea and that wild country offered. Some days, just for the hell of it, I'd pull out the little mirror in my toilet kit and take a look at myself: long tangle of salt-bleached hair ... red beard . . . sea-gray eyes that gradually, very gradually and over several weeks, lost the predator's gleam.
I told myself I was a hermit. I told myself that I had become the captive of my own wild instincts. But we are all creatures of habit, and soon I had carved out a new routine that was very similar to my old routine. I ran along the beach each morning, collected specimens and took notes during the day; then I'd lie in my palm shack at night, listening to my shortwave radio.
It was something I heard on the shortwave that caused me to finally return to Florida. I was lying by the fire, using what remained of my clothes as a pillow. I had the radio's antenna extended as far as it would go, and I was tinkering with the slide tuner. I was trying to pick up something— anything—in Spanish, when I happened to come across a medical talk program on Voice of America. There was a lot of static, a lot of whiny electronic garble, but I listened because there seemed to be something very familiar about the voice of the woman being interviewed.
Heard her say: ". . . always considered myself to be a logical woman who is well grounded in the sciences, but I have no explanation for . . ."
Static.
I stood naked beside the fire and held the radio up in the air, turning slowly, trying to vector in on the signal.
Heard the woman's voice say, ". . . lightning strike, perhaps . . . filled the room with a brilliant white light. . . . May explain it, although . . . yes, there were a number of wires still attached . . ."
Static.
"... still talks about an alien presence in space, which he insists . . . never dead, only traveling . . . The man still describes his body as a spaceship. . . ."
Static.
Pulled the radio down to my ear because I was certain that I recognized the woman's voice. Heard Dr. Maria Corales say, "... only one other known case of such a recovery. Even so, for my own peace of mind as a surgeon . . . for my own spiritual peace of mind . . . doing more tests . . . Odd thing is? He believes, and I'm beginning to believe too. . . . Yes . . . God . . . I'm talking about God. . . ."
It took me all the next day to hike out to a dirt road, where I caught a lift into Darwin. The following morning—it was March 24, a Friday—I caught a Qantas flight home to see my friend Tomlinson.