Now another sound reached them: the thwap-thwap of chopper blades. In an instant the Cyclops vanished into the forest. Gideon exited the cave with Amiko and stared up in time to see a shape passing over them: a large single-engine helicopter, which Gideon recognized as a Sikorsky S-70, was passing over the trees. A column of smoke was rising into the pristine sky from the far end of the island-top. Even as they looked, there was the roar of another explosion, along with a wash of overpressure that lashed the jungle canopy. Another ball of fire rose into the sky, billowing into black smoke.
“What the hell?” Amiko cried.
“Napalm!” yelled Gideon, over the roar. “They’re clearing a landing zone!”
“They? Who?”
As the S-70 passed overhead, Gideon could see no identifying logos or marks — only a call number. But even as he watched, the chopper slowed and the cargo door slid open. Just before the chopper disappeared over the trees, Gideon could have sworn that the man standing in the door, wearing plain jungle camo, was Manuel Garza.
56
The helicopter had vanished, but Gideon could still hear the thud of its rotors. It sounded like it was going into a hover near the middle of the island, no doubt to rope down personnel to finish clearing the LZ.
“Glinn,” said Amiko, in a low voice.
Gideon swore. “I guess he got a better fix on us than we realized.”
For a long time, neither said a word. The thump of the chopper blades rolled through the trees, the smoke billowed upward. Soon that was joined by the sound of chain saws.
Gideon looked at Amiko. He could see the disbelief, the shock and anger, in her eyes.
“We need to stop this,” she said.
“Yes. We need to confront Glinn, find out what’s going on.”
They went back into the cave, threw some supplies into a drysack. Without exchanging a word, they set out toward the rising smoke and the outraged buzz of chain saws, following the web of trails toward the far end of the island. As they moved on, the sounds grew louder: the crashing of a great tree being felled, the whines of multiple chain saws going at once, the shouts of men, the crackle of radios — and now the rumbling of a massive diesel generator.
They burst into the clearing. One chopper was coming in while a second had already put down. A third was hovering nearby. It staggered Gideon how much had been done in so little time. A crew was busily cutting up and hauling off a litter of great trees that lay on the ground, while others went around with fire extinguishers putting out the last of the napalm fires that had devoured the thick brush and understory. Still others were erecting metal poles for tents and establishing an electrified perimeter fence.
At one side, a massive metal cage was being erected.
At the sight of this, Gideon stopped. It was impossible. They hadn’t told Glinn — hadn’t even known themselves — that there was a live Cyclops on the island.
“The son of a bitch,” breathed Gideon. “How did he know?”
Amiko said nothing.
Nearby stood a large wall tent, already erected and staked out, with a small gazebo adjacent to it. After a moment’s hesitation, Gideon walked toward it, Amiko following. He pulled aside the flap and there, as he expected, was Glinn, sitting in an all-terrain wheelchair, wearing light safari clothing, a young blond man in camo standing at his side, holding an M16. Nearby stood Manuel Garza, his face like stone.
“Ah, Gideon and Amiko,” Glinn said. “I was expecting you. Come in.”
“What’s that cage for?” Amiko asked quietly.
“Won’t you sit down?”
“Answer my question.”
“You know some of it already. It all started with the vellum. Respondeo ad quaestionem, ipsa pergamena. ‘I, the very page, answer the question.’ It turns out that the ‘very page’—the parchment itself — was the solution. It was made from the skin of an animal — but not any sort of animal normally used for parchment. We did a DNA analysis of the sample. As I’ve told you, we identified the creature that the parchment was taken from. Neanderthal. But there was a twist. This Neanderthal-like hominid was different. More robust. Bigger. Fiercely aggressive. And in one area, this creature’s genetics are completely different from Neanderthals — and modern humans. And that is in the area of sight. The creature of the vellum had a very different way of seeing, a single, large optic nerve, a single area of the brain for optic processing — and what’s more, a single eye. When you radioed that you’d seen the skull of a Cyclops, we knew exactly what this creature was. And when we ran this information through our proprietary QBA programs, we got a most interesting result: that, given the remote location of this island group and lack of contact with the outside world, there was no good reason to think the Cyclops had gone extinct.”
“And the cage,” said Amiko. “That’s for…capturing one?”
“While the lotus is our prime goal, the scientific opportunity to study a living Neanderthal-like creature must not be missed.”
Gideon stared at him, then glanced at Amiko. She was looking at him with intensity, communicating some meaning.
Gideon managed an easy laugh. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve been on the island now for days. We haven’t seen the slightest indication of any Cyclopes. You might as well send that cage back to where it came from.”
Glinn seemed to pierce him with his one gray eye. “You’re an excellent liar, Gideon, but you can’t fool me.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I shall keep the cage ready and waiting, because you have just confirmed what I suspected: that there are Cyclopes on this island.”
Amiko finally spoke. “Wrong. There’s one Cyclops. A very old one. The last of its kind.”
Glinn arched his eyebrow. “Indeed?”
“So you see,” said Amiko slowly, “there’s no way you can put the last one in that cage. It would be a crime against nature.”
“I’m sorry, Amiko, but we’re going to be working to recover the lotus. Our activities will be disruptive to the Cyclops’s habitat. The creature will need protection.”
Amiko’s voice rose a notch. “You need to call this whole thing off. Right now. You’re wrecking the island. It’s a unique habitat. This isn’t the way to recover the lotus!”
“I am sorry,” said Glinn, “but it’s the only way to recover the lotus.”
Amiko said, “You’ll kill him if you put him in that cage.”
“Him?” Glinn’s one eyebrow raised slightly.
“Yes, him.”
“So you’ve made contact?”
“Yes.”
He lapsed into silence. Finally he sighed and extended one claw-like hand in a gesture of conciliation. “May I speak?”
Amiko said nothing.
“There are two issues here,” Glinn began, his voice mild, reasonable. “The first is that we’ve discovered a medicine that will change the lives of every human being on this planet. It’s that significant. Of much less importance, but still extraordinary, is our discovery of a living hominid—”
“Our discovery?” Gideon said acidly. “You had nothing to do with it.”
“Your discovery of a living hominid, a relative of our species, a variant of Homo neanderthalensis. That this creature lives in the same place as the miracle drug and apparently feeds on it is unfortunate. By landing here, by identifying the plant and obtaining samples, we can bring the drug to humanity. By studying the creature, we can learn much about our origins. Two birds with one stone. That is why we’re here. And truly, the Cyclops needs to be protected, if only from itself.”