Invasive Species (4 page)

HE DREW CLOSE
to the dying forest. The green, stained-glass light that glowed through the unbroken canopy behind him gave way to something brighter, harsher. The wind changed direction for a moment, blowing into his face, and with it came the now-familiar bitter odor.

Only then did Trey realize that the forest around him was silent. Even healthy rain forests can be surprisingly quiet, but this was different. He heard no birdsong, no frogs calling, not the midday shrill of cicadas or whisper of crickets. It wasn't the quiet of a vast natural engine concealing its secrets, but a stillness more like death.

Perhaps a hundred yards ahead he could see a tangle of underbrush. Inside a healthy forest, very few plants grow in the understory; not enough sunlight reaches the ground. Only where a great tree falls, creating a light gap, do vines and thorn bushes and saplings sprout.

Only where a great tree falls, or all the trees are stricken.

What the hell was going on here?

*   *   *

HE STOOD IN
the angled afternoon sunlight beside peeling trunks, beneath bare, twisted branches. Every step he took, he was forced to kick through piles of leaves, sodden and rotting.

Something was out of whack, and Trey couldn't figure out what. This pissed him off.

He knew that people tended to think of natural landscapes as immutable, never-changing, but of course it wasn't true. Through time—eye blinks, really—glaciers had carved pathways across the world, forests had sprouted and withered, oceans had turned to desert. Nothing stayed the same forever.

And the balance was fragile, especially in the rain forest. Clearing for farmland or industry, the arrival of an invasive pest from elsewhere, humans hunting out keystone species—any one, or a hundred others, could doom an entire ecosystem.

So what was messing with this one?

Only one plant seemed to be thriving in the gap created by the blight: a kind of sprawling, woody vine that Trey had never seen before. Its leaves were a dark glossy green, and here and there he could see its tiny, fleshy fruit, red like a cranberry but smaller and more oval.

The vines spread from tree to tree, sometimes climbing five or ten feet up a trunk before reaching out toward the next. Examining the tree nearest him, Trey saw that the vine didn't appear to be the cause of its blight, at least not in any way he could see.

It gave off a spicy odor that reminded him of ginger.

A hundred feet ahead, directly in his path, lay a thick wall of half-dead brambles, yellow-green leaves and spiky branches interwoven like a cage. Again, this was something Trey had never seen in the healthy forests he'd explored.

Another unfamiliar plant taking advantage of light gaps in this forest. Though, unlike the glossy vine, the brambles didn't seem immune from whatever was killing the trees.

Something jumped near Trey, right at the periphery of his vision. His pulse quickened, but he did not flinch. With careful, slow movements, he turned his head. A pair of bright black eyes regarded him from the depths of a tangle of the vines. A squirrel, it was, a small forest squirrel, its fur mainly dark gray but with a rufous patch on its back.

It stared at him, curious but seemingly unafraid, for a good ten seconds before it turned, revealing a thick, bushy tail, and disappeared into the tangle. Unseen, a second one greeted it with a chuckling call.

Then the forest was silent again. Even the wind had died.

Silent . . . until Trey took two more steps forward. Then he heard it, a sound that made the back of his neck prickle.

Not a rustle like the one the squirrel had made. Not birdsong, or the crash of some large animal navigating the thicket of brambles ahead.

No: a low humming, almost beyond the reach of even his exceptional hearing. He felt it, a vibration in his bones, in the tips of his fingers and deep in his skull, more than heard it.

Moving silently, he came up to the brambles. The thorny branches wrapped around each other and the trunks of the nearby trees. Though their leaves were yellowish, scraggly, sickly, they were thick enough to block the view.

Ahead, the humming sound rose in pitch and intensity, then quickly died away.

Trey glanced around for some way to climb over the wall of brush, but saw none. The only way through was . . . through.

He began to edge his way into the mass of thorns. One step at a time, clearing the tendrils away, letting them go when they were behind him. Feeling them tugging at him, restraining him, as if in warning.

The smell was much stronger here.

After a half hour, scratched and bleeding, he was almost through. Hidden by the ten-foot-tall stump of a dead tree, he stopped moving and, with great care, pulled away one last half-dead shoot and peered in.

Circled by the wall of thorn bushes was a clearing measuring about twenty-five feet in diameter. The sandy ground within the clearing, as clean and leafless as if someone had just raked it, was molded into strange little hills and hummocks. Atop each mound was a hole, perhaps two inches around.

For ten seconds, fifteen, Trey had no idea what he was looking at. Then something ejected a spurt of sand from the hole nearest to where he stood, followed by a tiny pebble and a piece of twisted root.

And he did know. Partly.

It was the home of a colony of some kind. But of what? The holes were far too big for any ants he knew of, any bees, any wasps. Maybe some minuscule mammal?

Too many questions.

He crouched down beside the stump to wait. Ten minutes later, the answers started coming.

*   *   *

IT BEGAN WITH
a rustling on the opposite side of the clearing. At first little more than a slight, dry sound, like fabric rubbed between a thumb and forefinger. Then it grew louder, and a patch of brambles began to shake. Something big was coming through them, something that let loose with a moaning sound as it approached.

For a moment it paused, as if resting. Then, with a last squeal, it burst through the brambles and staggered across the ground into the middle of the clearing.

A monkey. A red colobus, and a big one.

There was something wrong with it. As Trey watched, it stumbled and fell, lying spread-eagled on the ground for a moment. Then it struggled back to its feet, its legs shaking, and turned slowly toward him. When it did, he could see that the skin over its stomach was hugely swollen, as if it were carrying a large tumor beneath its fur.

He drew a little farther behind the tree stump, then held his breath to stay as still as possible. He didn't know what to expect. Would it panic if it knew he was there?

When it turned its face toward him, he saw that its eyes were a silvery white. Was it blind? He couldn't tell.

The monkey took three wavering steps across the clearing before its foot caught on one of the mounds and it fell. This time it just lay there, its patchy fur rising and falling in time to its breath.

Again something moved at the edge of Trey's vision. He shifted his gaze to the nearest mound, the one whose hole he'd seen being cleaned out a few minutes before.

As he watched, a triangular head topped with bulbous, iridescent green eyes emerged. A freakishly thin, black, arched body topped by a pair of crimson wings followed, the wings flickering so quickly they seemed to leave a bloody smear in the air.

It was a wasp. An enormous wasp, maybe three inches long. Trey had never seen one like it before, of any size.

He felt something wriggle in his stomach. There was something about the way it tilted its head to regard the fallen monkey. Something alert, intelligent, calculating.

The wasp perched for a moment atop its mound, unmoving. Then it flew up on humming wings and swooped low over the colobus.

The monkey twitched. Perhaps it could see through its silvery eyes, or perhaps it sensed or heard the vibrations of the wasp's speed-blurred wings. It seemed, in an abject, helpless way, terrified.

The wasp returned to its perch, and only then did Trey notice that it was no longer alone. Others had emerged from their tunnels while he was watching the first. Six more, each seemingly identical, bloodred wings flickering like flags, green eyes turned toward the monkey.

The first one traced a few steps, changed the rhythm of its wing beats, and lifted three inches into the air before settling back onto its mound. When it was still, a second one took flight, streaking upward so quickly that Trey felt his stomach twist.

A moment later the wasp reappeared, plummeting toward the colobus, landing with an impact that came to Trey's ears as a dull, dead thud.

The monkey's eyes opened wide, and its mouth gaped as well. Its arms and legs flailed, as if it were trying to run, or fight back.

Moving on spiderlike legs, the wasp ran back and forth over the monkey's back. Then, without warning, it lifted the skinny black tube of its abdomen. Its stinger slid out, as white and sharp as a needle made of ivory, and plunged deep into the flesh of the colobus's neck.

The monkey cried out. Its eyes wide, its mouth hanging open, it grew still, and Trey wondered if the sting had killed it.

But then it stirred, the wasp still perched on its neck. Stretched its legs, drew in a deep breath, and slowly got back to its feet. It seemed, if anything, less shaky. Stronger than it had been. When it turned, Trey could see that red-tinged drool was dripping from its open mouth.

The wasp rose into the air, flew back to its mound, landed, and took a few seconds to clean its front legs with its mandibles.

Then it turned its head to look at Trey.

At that moment he realized that it had known he was there all along. All the wasps had. They'd just had more important business to conclude before dealing with him.

Trey stood as still as possible, but he knew it was hopeless. Wasps' eyesight was much keener than humans', and, unlike some lizards and other animals, they didn't rely on their prey moving to be able to see it.

The wasp leaped in the air and flew arrow-straight at his face. At the same moment, the colobus snarled and, moving with startling speed, rushed across the clearing toward him.

Even though Trey's brain was telling him he'd get trapped in the brambles if he didn't plan his escape carefully, his body wasn't listening. He recoiled and felt the thorns scratch the skin of his neck and arms and grab hold of his clothes. In an instant, he was trapped.

The wasp came on. Reared up. Hovered three inches from his face. Behind it, the monkey crouched to leap. Then it paused, silvery gaze on him, froth bubbling around its mouth, as if waiting.

Waiting for orders.

The wasp's green eyes stared into Trey's. Its thin abdomen, the sheath for that needlelike stinger, pulsed.

Any second, Trey expected to see the stinger slide out, expected the hovering wasp to swoop forward the last three inches, expected to feel the needle puncture him, expected . . . what?

Agony.

For five seconds at least, however, the wasp made no move toward him. Instead it stayed virtually still, swinging just a little this way and that in the air, its triangular head swiveling so that its multifaceted eyes never left his face.

Almost, Trey thought, as if it were figuring something out.

Making up its mind.

Then it did. Swinging upward, it paused for a moment at its apogee, then swooped down like a dart.

Trey closed his eyes.

And heard a crashing sound in the brush behind him.

He opened his eyes to see the wasp draw back. It swung away, made a big loop around the clearing, and vanished down its tunnel. The others, too, had disappeared. The colobus was clambering through the tangles at the farside of the clearing.

The crashing got louder. Now Trey could recognize it: the sound of a blade meeting wood. A moment later, he felt the brambles tear away from his hair and clothes.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled. Half stumbling, he fought his way out through the brush, then stood there, his legs shaking.

A slightly built woman in black pants and a ragged, long-sleeved white shirt stood before him, machete hanging by her side. Its blade was stained with thick sap that pooled and dripped from its sharp edge.

She was looking away, toward the clearing, but when she turned her head Trey knew who it was. Mariama Honso, her eyes wide, her expression filled with alarm mixed with a kind of exultation.

Before he could say anything, she stepped forward and hugged him. Enveloped him in her arms for a moment before letting go.

It wasn't a hug of relief, he knew, or affection, or any emotion he recognized. He didn't have any idea why she'd done it.

He said, “What—”

But Mariama was listening to something else. Trey heard it, too: the humming of wings.

Her gaze found his.

“You fool,” she said.
“Flee.”

THE PLAN HAD
seemed simple when Mariama hatched it. She'd go after Gilliard, that brave, foolhardy, strange American visitor. Arriving in time, she'd prevent him from getting himself killed, then bring him back. On the way, they'd stop someplace quiet, private.

Mariama had thought the Etoile Bar in Ziguinchor would serve. There her father, Seydou, would join them. Together, they would explain to Gilliard what it was he'd seen, and what it meant.

What it meant for the world.

Soon. If not this month, then next, or the one after. They were sure of this, Mariama and Seydou. It had already begun.

And then, once he believed, they would tell him what he needed to do.

And pray that he understood.

*   *   *

MARIAMA WAS YOUNG,
but already she knew many ways that a seemingly foolproof plan could go wrong.

This one began to go wrong with the phone call. The call Trey had received after visiting the health clinic and seeing the dead soldier. Mariama and her father, still at work in the clinic, didn't learn of the phone call for more than two hours. By then Trey was gone, heading on his suicidal mission to the forest.

Already almost beyond her reach, and very likely doomed.

Still, she had to try.

Too much depended on his staying alive.

*   *   *

THEN HER CAR,
her beloved 1983 Peugeot 305, ran over a sharp stone on the Massou-Djibo Road and had a flat tire. Thirty miles from her destination. Listening to the flapping of the slack rubber against the washboard dirt as she guided the car to the edge of the empty road, she almost despaired.

In her mind, she saw Trey moving in his strange, catlike way through the forest. She'd followed him once, and thought he was quicker and quieter than anyone she'd ever seen, besides herself.

She'd even thought he might have spotted her, and
no one
ever saw Mariama if she didn't want them to.

She imagined him now, following the hints, the clues he'd picked up these past few days. The dying forest. The dead man on the clinic table. The smell.

Using his unusual skills to race to his death.

And she wouldn't reach him in time. It was hopeless. She knew that. She hoped his pain wouldn't be too overwhelming before the end came.

But Mariama Honso had never given up on anything, hopeless or not. She was as hardheaded as a rhino.

All life was hopeless, but you kept living anyway.

She changed the tire, got the car back on the road, and drove.

*   *   *

SHE FOUND GILLIARD'S
Land Rover where she'd thought she would: where some long-vanished logger had given up his foolish attempt to build a drivable track to the giant, immensely valuable hardwood trees that grew deep in the forest. The end of the road.

Mariama climbed out of her car, bringing only her recently sharpened machete with her. As she went past the Land Rover, she placed her palm against its hood. It was cool to her touch.

More evidence that she was too late.

She went on.

*   *   *

TREY HAD LEFT
few signs that he'd passed this way, but still Mariama was able to follow. A broken branch, flower petals scattered where he'd brushed against them, half a footprint in a patch of mud. She knew where he was going, into the part of the forest that no outsider should ever enter.

And then, at the very heart of the forbidden place, she saw him. Standing there on the edge of one of the colonies, trapped in the thorns of the volor plant. But alive. Still alive. She was amazed.

As she drew closer, she could read his expression. A mix of fear . . . and fascination.

That was unusual. Most people, facing what he was, showed only pure, unadulterated terror.

She felt like shouting at him, but that was the worst thing she could do. He would jump, struggle, become so enmeshed in the volor that it would take hours to extricate him.

Worse,
they
would be startled by her voice as well. And when they were startled, they attacked. They bit and stung. Paralyzed or killed.

They. The thieves.

So, even as her brain screamed at her to hurry, to run, to yell, she moved slowly, carefully. Coming up behind Gilliard, she cut through the brush with her sharp blade. Clearing a path for him, if he would only take it, if he would only notice.

Beyond him, the thieves retreated. They knew her. They knew Mariama.

But this still might not be enough.

Finally he was free. Waking as if from a dream, he turned to look at her. His eyes were wide. She could see that he understood what had just happened, how close he'd come.

He took a couple of steps away from the colony. Mariama went up on her toes and wrapped her arms around him, just for a moment. He stiffened, pulled away from her, but she held on a little longer before letting go.

He had no idea why. Of course he didn't.

It was one of the things she needed to tell him.

Only not now.

“You fool,” she said, to make sure he was listening, but also because it was what she thought of him.
“Flee.”

When he was gone, she turned to face the thieves, hanging in the air, watching her through those green eyes that seemed to understand everything.

But then again, she did, too.

*   *   *

EVEN THEN, EVEN
after Mariama had saved him, her luck was bad. She hadn't thought to tell him to wait for her where they'd left the cars—and he hadn't. She shouldn't have been surprised. She'd already seen that this odd American spent as little time with other adult human beings as he possibly could.

Then a storm struck as she was driving back. The Peugeot had to fight through grasping mud, where Gilliard's fancy Land Rover had undoubtedly plowed right through. It took her twice as long to get home as it had taken to reach the forest.

Still, Mariama wasn't worried. There was plenty of time for Trey to hear what she and her father had to tell him.

Only there wasn't. By the time she made it to Mpack, her white car now a spattered reddish brown from the drying mud, he was gone. Gone forever.

The village children were waiting to fill her in. When Gilliard had arrived, he'd been met by a group of soldiers who had flown down from Dakar. Soldiers and a woman, a skinny American woman who'd shown up burning with anger.

Standing where everyone could see them, she'd yelled at Gilliard. Her voice was as high-pitched as a fish eagle's (she also resembled one, the children said), and she talked so fast that even those who understood some English couldn't follow her.

When she'd taken a breath, Trey had turned and walked away from her. He'd gone into his hut. Five minutes later, he'd emerged, carrying his pack and some other things, and climbed into the car with some soldiers and the angry woman.

“Do you think he'll come back?” the children asked. They liked Gilliard. He was strange and generous, two things they appreciated in outsiders.

“No, I'm afraid not,” Mariama said. “I think he's gone for good.”

As she spoke the words, she felt a black space open in her chest, just around her heart.

*   *   *

“HAVE THEY PUT
him in jail?” she asked her father that night. They were in the empty clinic. It was clean, scrubbed down, disinfected. You could only detect the thieves' odor if you sat still and breathed deeply.

Seydou Honso shook his head. There might even have been a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“No,” he said. “The government has no interest in keeping him. They just want him out. The soldiers were the lady's idea.”

“That was Kendall? The one who was always calling?”

He nodded. “I think she believed the only way to get him to listen was to bring men with guns.”

Mariama said, “That was probably true.”

They sat in silence for a while. Now there was no expression on Seydou Honso's face except for a kind of grim certainty.

“I fear we have missed our chance,” he said.

Mariama had known he would feel this way. She said, “No.”

“But who else will listen? Who else will understand what is taking place?”

“There are others,” she said. “But Gilliard is the one to tell them.”

She thought about his expression when she found him in the forest. Yes, he would understand.

“But how?” Her father turned his palms up. “He's gone, and he won't be welcomed back. Ever.”

“I know,” Mariama said.

“And calling him on the telephone won't work, no more than it did for that Kendall lady.”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I will go see him,” she said.

Seydou's eyes widened. “But how? You have no passport.”

This was a fact. Mariama's outspokenness had led to her losing her right to travel anywhere outside Senegal. She even required permission to leave the Casamance region.

Legally, that was.

“You know how,” she told her father.

He stared at her. Then he said, “You cannot.”

“I can. I must.” She reached out and put a hand on his strong arm. “Papa, I have no choice.”

He argued with her. Finally, almost breathless, he said, “You'll die.”

She smiled. “Perhaps I won't,” she said. Then, “Or perhaps I will. You know I have never feared death.”

Nor had he, not for himself. She knew that. Every day he risked malaria, dengue, river blindness, and a hundred diseases that had no name, in order to treat the clinic's patients.

He had no fear for his own life. For hers, though, yes. Of course.

Mariama said again, “I have no choice.”

In the end, he knew it was so. “But not right away,” he said. “There are people I can talk to, people who will help you.”

She nodded. Though she didn't speak, she knew he understood her gratitude.

“If I'm lucky,” she said, “how long will it take to reach him?”

“Weeks.” He grimaced. “If you're very lucky.”

“Will they get there first?”

He flicked a hand eastward, toward the vast rain forests of Central Africa and the savannas and deserts beyond them. Then west toward the Atlantic Ocean and the New World.

All the places the thieves had already reached, or soon would.

“First, second,” he said. “Does it matter?”

Mariama said, “I have to believe it does.”

Seydou Honso smiled at his daughter, his expression full of love and grief.

“I know you do,” he said.