Amazonia

Nate answered her question. “The creatures can be controlled.”

“How?”

He waved to the laptop. “It took my father years to learn the Ban-ali secrets. It seems that the tribe has developed powders that can both attract and repel the creatures. We ourselves saw this demonstrated with the locusts, but they can do it with the piranhas, too. Through chemicals in the water, they can lure and trigger an aggressive response in the otherwise docile creatures. My father believed it’s some type of hormonal compound that stimulates the piranhas’ territoriality and makes them attack wildly.”

Manny nodded. “Then it’s lucky we wiped out a majority of the adult horde so quickly. I imagine it takes time for their hatchery to grow a new supply. Just one of the disadvantages of a biological defense system.”

“Perhaps that’s why the Ban-ali keep more than one type of creature,” Carrera noted astutely. “Backup troops.”

Manny frowned. “Of course. I should’ve thought of that.”

Carrera faced Nate. “Then there are those cats and giant caimans to consider.”

Nate nodded. “Gatekeepers, like we thought, set up to defend the perimeter. They patrol the entry points to the heart of the territory. But even the jaguars can be made docile by painting a black powder over one’s body, allowing the Ban-ali to pass freely back and forth. I imagine the compound must act like caiman dung, a scent repellent to the giant cats.”

Manny whistled. “So our guide’s body paint wasn’t all camouflage.”

“Where do we get some of this repellent stuff?” Kostos asked. “Where does it come from?”

Kouwe spoke up. “The Yagga tree.” He had not moved, only grown more pale with the telling of the tale.

Nate was surprised by the professor’s quick answer. “They’re derived from the Yagga’s bark and leaf oils. But how did you guess?”

“Everything ties back to that prehistoric tree. I think Manny was quite correct that the specimen behaves like an ant tree. But he’s wrong about who the ants are here.”

“What do you mean?” Manny asked.

“The mutated beasts are just biological tools supplied by the tree for its true workers.” Kouwe stared around him. “The Ban-ali.”

A stunned silence spread over the group.

Kouwe continued, “The tribesmen here are the soldier ants in this relationship. The Ban-ali name the tree Yagga, their word for mother. One who gives birth…a caretaker. Countless generations ago, most likely during the first migration of people into South America, the tribe must have stumbled upon the tree’s remarkable healing ability and became enthralled by it. Becoming ban-yin—slaves. Each serving the other in a complex web of defense and offense.”

Nate felt sickened by this comparison. Humans used like ants.

“This grove is prehistoric,” the professor finished. “It might trace its heritage back to Pangaea, when South America and Africa were joined. Its species may have been around when man first walked upright. Throughout the ages, there are hundreds of myths of such trees, from all corners of the world. The maternal guardian. Perhaps this encounter here was not the first.”

This thought sank into the others. Nate didn’t think even his father had extrapolated the history of the Yagga to this end. It was disturbing.

Sergeant Kostos shifted his M-16 to his other shoulder. “Enough history lessons. I thought we were supposed to be developing an alternate plan. A way to escape if we can’t raise someone on the radio.”

“The sergeant is right.” Kouwe turned. “You never did tell us, Nate. What happened to your father and the others? How did Gerald Clark escape?”

Nate took a deep breath and turned back to the computer. He scrolled down to the last entry and read it aloud.

“April 18

We’ve gathered enough powders to chance an escape tonight. After what we’ve learned, we must attempt a break for civilization. We dare not wait any longer. We’ll dust our bodies black and flee with the setting moon. Illia knows paths that will quickly get us past any trackers and out of these lands, but the trek back to civilization will be hard and not without threat. Still, we have no choice…not after the birth. We’ll try tonight. May God watch over us all.”

Nate straightened from the laptop, turning to the others. “They all attempted to flee, not just Gerald Clark.”

Across the many faces, Nate saw the same expression. Only Gerald Clark made it back to civilization.

“So they all left,” Kelly mumbled.

Nate nodded. “Even a Ban-ali woman, a skilled tracker named Illia. She had fallen in love and married Gerald Clark. He took her with him.”

“What happened to them?” Anna said.

Nate shook his head. “That was the last entry. There is no more.”

Kelly’s expression saddened. “Then they didn’t make it…only Gerald Clark.”

“I could ask Dakii for more details,” Kouwe said.

“Dakii?”

Kouwe pointed below. “The tribesman who guided us here. Between what I know of the Ban-ali language and his smattering of English, I might be able to find out what happened to the others, how they died.”

Nate nodded, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the details.

Manny spoke up. “But what made them flee that night? Why the hint at some urgency in that last note?”

Nate took a deep breath. “It’s why I wanted everyone to hear this. My father came to some frightening conclusions about the Ban-ali. Something he needed to relay to the outside world.”

“What?” Kouwe asked.

Nate wasn’t sure where to begin. “It took years of living with the Ban-ali for my father to begin piecing facts together. He noticed that the isolated tribe showed some hints of remarkable advancements over their Indian counterparts in the greater Amazon. The invention of the pulley and wheel. A few of the homes even have crude elevators, using large boulders and counter-weights. And other advancements that seemed strange considering the isolated nature of this tribe. He spent much of his time examining the way the Ban-ali think, the way they teach their children. He was fascinated by all this.”

“So what happened?” Kelly asked.

“Gerald Clark fell in love with Illia. They married during the second year of the group’s incarceration here. During the third, they conceived a baby. During the fourth year, Illia gave birth.” He stared hard at the gathered faces. “The child was stillborn, rife with mutations.” Nate recalled his father’s words. “‘A genetic monster.’”