‘I think it would be better if I were to leave this place,’ said Swift. ‘And take the radioisotope with me. Without it the satellite is just scrap metal.’
The swami frowned.
‘But can these things be handled safely? It is a long walk you have back to your friends. Perhaps it would be better if we were to put this source of poison in a place where it can do no harm to anyone or anything until the end of the world. There is a place. A very deep crevasse. Not the one that led you here. But quite close.’
‘You show me where it is,’ said Swift, ‘and I’ll dispose of the isotope.’
Swift had spent enough time with Joanna Giardino in the UCSF Medical Centre’s Radiology Department to know that there was little chance of her being able to handle the radioisotope safely. Not without lead sheets and lead boxes and special tongs, and a whole lot of other protective gear.
Even the isotope in the Med Centre’s X-ray department was treated like something from the Manhattan Project. Any radio fission product, whether biochemically inert or biochemically active, could do biological damage either outside the body or within.
Despite the SCE suit she was wearing, and her helmet, and even holding the tube containing the satellite isotope at arm’s length between two ice axes in an improvised pair of tongs, Swift was aware that radiation would pass through her body like light passing through a window. The damage it might cause on the way through would remain. Even a few minutes of exposure might easily prove fatal.
She thought of Rontgen, the discoverer of the X-ray, who had died of bone cancer, and of the two pioneers in its medical use, Madame Curie and her daughter Irene, both of whom had died of aplastic anemia, caused by radiation.
Swift had no wish to die prematurely of leukemia or some other radiation-related disease. But she could not see how anything other than removal of the isotope from the satellite, followed by its safe disposal, could effectively ensure the yetis’ continued safety in their hidden valley. There was rather more at stake than her own future to consider: There was also the future of an important new hominoid species to think of.
No contest, she told herself, and hoped she might live long enough to be able to write up her findings in a book.
Swift had the swami show her the new crevasse before she did anything. Then she told him that when she did dispose of the isotope, she was going to do it alone. There was no sense in exposing him to risk as well as herself.
Accompanied by the yeti, the swami led her to the far side of the valley and to a narrow crack in the ground that bordered the protective range of mountains. The crack was a good five minutes’ walk from the satellite.
‘Here,’ he said, pointing into the fissure. ‘This is about nine hundred metres deep, I am quite sure.’
Swift inspected it and nodded.
‘That should be safe enough.’
They walked back to the open panel of the satellite next to which Boyd had left his pack. Swift took a look inside. There were several detonators, and a larger and more powerful radio than the one she had been using. At least now she could call Pokhara and organize a helicopter out of ABC.
Packed under Boyd’s plastic explosive, the isotope was easy to locate. Swift peeled away the wad of C4 and then read the printed injunction against tampering with the thermoelectric generator and its cesium 137 isotope. Cesium had a half-life of thirty years. But did that make it any less lethal in the short term than plutonium? The fact was she had no idea.
Before opening the isotope housing, she looked around for the swami. He was watching her carefully, with the yeti sitting a short distance away watching him, as if waiting to be told what to do.
‘You’d better go now, swami,’ she said quietly. ‘This stuff’s hazardous as soon as it’s lifted out of the metal housing. No point in us both getting a dose.’
‘So small,’ he chuckled, peering over her shoulder curiously. ‘Can it really be so very dangerous?’
‘Very. Now please go.’
‘You would risk your life, for us?’
Swift collected her helmet and prepared to put it on her head, hoping that it might afford her some protection against the cesium. The swami raised his hand over her, in apparent blessing.
‘The truth of love is the truth of the universe,’ said the swami. ‘This is the light of the soul that reveals the secrets of darkness. This light is steady in you. It burns in a shelter where no winds come. Yours is a great soul indeed, and having shown your willingness to behold the spirit of death, you have opened your heart unto the very body of life.’
‘Thanks,’ she said grimly. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Now get going before I change my mind.’
‘This is an action done in God, and therefore, your soul is not bound to it.’
By this time Swift had little idea what he was talking about and cared even less. Her mind was concentrated on the lethal job at hand. It didn’t seem to matter much what he thought of her. She wasn’t doing it for a garland of flowers, a basket of fruit, his good opinion, or her reward in heaven.
Swift was about to tell him more forcefully to go away when the swami turned and spoke to the yeti, and now that she was nearer, she knew that this was no language she had ever heard before. It was like Tibetan perhaps, but somehow more guttural — there was no other word to describe it — it was more apelike than she had earlier perceived.
The big silverback yeti stood up. But instead of leaving the area with the swami as she had ordered, the yeti advanced on Swift, with arms outstretched with the obvious intention of picking her up. Before she had time to do anything she found herself held gently in the creature’s tree-trunk arms and rising up in the air.
‘Hey, what’s the idea?’
‘Don’t worry, he won’t harm you.’
‘Then tell him to put me down, please.’
‘He will,’ said the swami. ‘But only when you’re away from this place.’
‘Look, I can’t have made myself very clear,’ she said, staring uncomfortably into the yeti’s big wide face. ‘I have to dispose of the isotope to make the satellite safe so it won’t poison this whole valley.’
‘Yes, you did. You were very clear. But perhaps I did not make myself clear. I am the guardian here, not you. I have taken a holy oath to protect these brothers and sisters. Not you. I cannot let you risk your life when that is my destiny. So you see that if anyone is going to dispose of this isotope, then I am bound to do it.’
‘You don’t understand,’ insisted Swift. She tried to wrestle herself free from the yeti’s hold, but his arms were quite immovable. She might as well have been pinned by steel hawsers. ‘The radioactivity will kill you if you handle the isotope.’ She struggled to find a way that might help him understand. ‘It would be like handling the sun,’ she said.
‘What could be more joyful than to melt into the sun? And you were prepared to handle it, were you not?’ he said, handing her Boyd’s pack.
‘That’s different. It’s my responsibility.’
‘And as I have just explained.’ He giggled again. ‘It is mine.’
The swami made a namaste with his hands.
‘But the thought is appreciated. He who sees all beings in himself, and himself in all things, need have no fear. Besides, I should have thought it was obvious by now. I’m rather a tough fellow. Not so easy to kill.’
The swami spoke to the yeti once again, and without hesitating the yeti began to carry Swift away from the satellite.
‘He will take you back to your camp. By a different route. Oh yes. There are many ways in and out of this place.’ He smiled pleasantly. ‘And you said you wanted to study him. Well, this will be your opportunity. A unique opportunity. Goodbye.’