Starfist: Wings of Hell (39 page)

“Yes, they are.”

Gobels nodded affably. “I will give you something important, now, this moment, then. Let the cameras roll!” he shouted happily.

“Yes?” She leaned forward expectantly.

Gobels smiled. “Skinks are homeothermic, not ectothermic.”

“That means?”

“That means they maintain a stable internal body temperature regardless of external influence. My study of Skink thermophysiology has proved they are, well, like us, Miss Quyen.” He grinned. “They have a large number of mitochondria per cell, which enables them to generate heat by increasing the metabolic rate at which they burn fats and sugars. They have deep layers of fat under their skin that act as insulation in cold weather, and veins close to their arteries that extract heat from them and carry it back into the trunk. Skinks are omnivorous creatures. In the swamp where your Skink has escaped is an endless supply of food, so that even in the coldest weather he will be able to eat enough to keep his metabolic rate at the proper level to ensure survival.”

“Then he won’t die in the cold?”

“Of course not,” Gobels snorted. “Now, Miss Quyen, that is my gesture of goodwill and cooperation for today. But when you have agreed to my terms for release, I will then tell you things about these Skinks that will, well, raise the beautiful hairs on the back of your pretty little head.” He laughed, leaned back, and playfully blew a huge cloud of cigar smoke at the ceiling.

Moses knew the season was changing. He could feel the lower temperatures in the mornings and he noticed the leaves on the trees turning beautiful colors. But he was happy where he was. In the weeks he had been free he had come to love the vast swamp that he had almost to himself. Occasionally men would come through on vehicles that roared and sputtered and threw up waves of vegetation and mud. They laughed and shouted and fired guns into the water but none came near where he lay, carefully submerged in the muck. But he was growing bigger. He ate his fill, consuming small swimming creatures, and animals he found hiding in the mud beneath the water, and succulent plants with delicious roots.

Moses was also growing more conscious of his environment, conscious of
himself.
He knew now that he was not a man-child but, as he swam and hunted and ate and basked in the waning sunlight, he wondered
what
he was. The natural maturity that came with growth, together with experience, was changing him. The Brattles and Treemonisha, whom he remembered with fondness, had treated him as a human being, but he knew now that he was not of their kind. He knew also that he belonged in the swampland. And he knew that many men were looking for him. Once he encountered a creature as big as himself and he spoke to it but it fled, splashing and shrieking and, for the first time, Moses knew what it felt like to frighten something else, a power he did not know he had up until that moment.

Moses realized that soon he would need shelter. He could see in his mind’s eye very clearly the route he had taken to get where he was. How he could do this he did not know. He considered going back to Treemonisha’s house and living there again with her. But that would never do. Those men who had hurt him would come back. So carefully, meticulously, he dragged branches and twigs out of the surrounding forest, entwined them, covered them with mud and leaves, and built himself a hut in the water that could only be entered by swimming up through a submerged entrance hole. From the surface the hut looked like a mound of jetsam accumulated in an eddy. But inside it was dry and comfortable and he could sleep and live there in perfect safety.

And then one morning, when the first thin layers of ice had formed in the places where the water lay quietly, Moses heard a familiar voice.

The suborbital flight from Fargo to Falls Church in the former state of Virginia took about two hours. Zechariah was accompanied by Special Agents Rittenhouse and Keen. Once on the ground again, they boarded a Ministry of Justice hopper for an hourlong flight to Wellfordsville in the southeastern part of the region known as Virginia.

“Since the war,” Rittenhouse explained, and he meant the Second American Civil War, “the region from Falls Church south down into what used to be called the state of North Carolina has reverted to a primeval condition. If you look below us you’ll see one vast stretch of forest and swampland that has consumed what used to be the thriving metropolises such as Richmond, Norfolk, and so on. Your Moses has disappeared into this wilderness.”

“Then no wonder you haven’t been able to find him,” Zechariah said.

“You are our last hope, Mr. Brattle,” Special Agent Keen said. “Our plan is a simple one. We’ll send your voice into and over the wilds using a special broadcasting system through which you can call Moses out to show himself and come to us. We’re hoping he’ll recognize your voice and respond. We’ve had hundreds of men searching for more than a month now with no success.”

“There is a reward for Moses, Mr. Brattle,” Rittenhouse confessed rather sheepishly. “One hundred thousand credits. It’s caused a virtual gold rush down there. I’m afraid, with the locals jumping in and muddying the waters, that someone will get hurt, possibly Moses. It was not my idea, sir, but the local people know these woods and swamps and it was thought…” He shrugged helplessly.

“What we got was a riot,” Keen added. “Vigilantes competing with each other for the bounty. There
have
been casualties.”

“We’ve pretty much got things under control now,” Rittenhouse continued. “We’ll start your search from Wellfordsville, where we’ve set up a command post. We want you to meet someone down there first and then tomorrow at dawn you’ll commence your first over-flight.”

That someone was Treemonisha Giddings. “You that boy’s father?” she asked, standing on the rickety porch of her cabin.

“No,” Zechariah answered. “My boys found him down in a stream near our home back on Kingdom and we took him in. That’s why we named him Moses.”

“As in the Bible?”

“Yes.”

“Then you did the Lord’s bidding, Mr. Brattle.” Treemonisha stepped down off the porch and extended her big hand.

“Yep.” Zechariah took the hand in his. It was strong and warm.

“Those scientists did terrible things to that boy. They come here to take him back and we had a fight, yes, sir, we shore did.” Treemonisha emitted a rumbling laugh as she remembered the struggle with the three rubes. “Knocked my porch down. Never have had time to fix it back up.” She laughed again. “And that’s how the boy escaped, in the confusion, and we ain’t seen hide nor hair o’ him since.” She nodded her head in affirmation. “Nobody been able to find that boy, not these gents here”—she nodded at the two special agents—“’n ’specially not them rednecks who been out there shootin’ themselves up.” She laughed derisively.

“Well, we’re gonna find him now,” Rittenhouse promised.

Zechariah turned to Rittenhouse. “Don, what do you say, if Ms. Giddings here is free, maybe she’d come along with us tomorrow? You harbored Moses, gave him succor, Ms. Giddings. Maybe between the two of us we can get him to show himself. What do you say?”

Treemonisha thought about that for a moment and said with finality, “Does a bear shit in the woods?” and laughed that deep, rumbling laugh again. Zechariah Brattle knew he would enjoy the company of the big woman very much.

For a week they flew low over swamps and forests, taking turns calling Moses’s name until they were hoarse. During that time Zechariah got to know Treemonisha Giddings very well. He found out that she was more than a century old, give or take. Births were not accurately recorded when she was born so she was not sure how old she was. Her husband was long dead and her children, those who had survived, had all moved far away and never came to see her. “I think they’s all passed on,” she confessed. “It’s a terrible thing, Zach, when you outlive your own youngins.” Zechariah in turn told her all about his family and life back on Kingdom.

At the beginning of the second week, Zechariah had an idea, which he discussed with Don Rittenhouse. “Give us one of those swamp boats and let us go alone into the wilds, Don. This airborne search is not working. I want to get down on the water and call him in my own, natural voice, not over some speaker system. We’d frighten the shit out of a kwangduk the way we’ve been doing this.”

“It could be dangerous, Zach. The locals have mostly given up on the search but there are hunters out there, wild, dangerous men who consider outsiders poachers and trespassers.”

“Give me and Ms. Giddings a brace of shot rifles, Don, and we’ll take care of ourselves.”

Rittenhouse considered. “All right, but we’ll fly an escort hopper nearby and if anything happens you
can’t
handle, you can call us for support. But remember, Zach, if anything were to happen to you two, it’d be my ass.”

“Give your ass a rest, Don, and it’ll be all right.” Zechariah laughed.

For several days Zechariah and Treemonisha cruised along in the powerful air-cushioned Swamp Runner with no success. At night they shut the engines down and slept in the small cabin. Several times each day they performed a radio check with the hopper escort maintaining its position just over the horizon as it followed their progress.

“Don said they once called this place the Great Dismal Swamp,” he remarked one afternoon as they rested by a huge mound of flotsam.

“Thass right, Zach. I don’t know where the name
dismal
come from. You live here long enough and this place sorta grows on you, becomes part of you.”

“Even this late in the year the place is still beautiful. It’s like we’re the first people ever to come to this spot.”

“Mebbe we are.”

“How cold does it get here in the winter?”

“Colder than a well digger’s ass.” Treemonisha laughed.

“I’ve
never
head that one before.” Zechariah grinned.

“It’s just the way we talk about these parts. Why, sheeyit, you shoulda heard my husband when he got fired up.” Remembering, she bellowed that enormous laugh out over the waters.

“Pappy, momma!”
Moses shouted, sticking his head up over the gunwale.

Zechariah was so surprised he jumped to his feet, spilling his soup. “My little baby!” Treemonisha exclaimed, tears in her eyes. She reached out and hauled the Skink into the Swamp Runner.

“I heard you,” Moses said. “I knew it was you,” he added.

Treemonisha embraced Moses warmly and rocked him back and forth. “We thought you was dead.” She was crying now.

Zechariah knelt on the deck. “You’ve grown big,” he observed. “And you are talking distinctly. How in the world—?”

Moses shrugged. “I don’t know, Pappy. I just do it.”

Zechariah noticed with growing amazement that Moses’s voice sounded exactly like that of his two stepsons. “We’ve come to take you with us,” Zechariah announced.

“No!”
Moses exclaimed. He had grown big enough and strong enough that he was able to push Treemonisha away. He stood up. “Those men—” he began.

“No, no, Moses, we won’t let anyone hurt you!” Zechariah protested.

“Two men
hurt
me Pappy. Other men have come here, bad men. I live here now. I stay here.”

“No, Moses, you
must
come with us, we
need
you!” Zechariah insisted.

“Leave him alone!”
Treemonisha demanded. She put her arm around Moses and held him tightly.

“Pappy, Momma Hannah said we have to obey God’s will.”

Zechariah was astonished. His wife, Hannah, had often said that when faced with problems she couldn’t overcome. But he never realized Moses was listening or even understood what she said. “It is God’s will I remain here, Pappy. God made me to live here. I am
not
going with you.” He broke Treemonisha’s grip and slid over the side of the boat into the water before Zechariah could stop him. Zechariah watched helplessly as Moses disappeared beneath the murky water.

A few meters out, Moses surfaced again. “I love you both!” he shouted. Zechariah found he could not speak.

“Baby! Come see ol’ Treemonisha one day! Promise me!”