The Orthogonal Galaxy (51 page)

“
Because of this, we
received wilderness training on the most extreme of all
environments our planet has to provide us. Blade has given you one
example of this by recalling the Anaktuvuk as his most harrowing
adventure. I will share the Anavilhanas for mine.”

Paol looked at his
companion with a smile, and noticed the very expressive Slater grow
wide-eyed at the mere mention of this word. He exhaled strongly
through pursed lips while nodding in agreement with
Joonter.

“
Once we had completed our
tundra adventure, mission trainers sent us to the Amazon for our
rain forest adventure. Leading up to the experience, we spent
months studying up on the resources and dangers of that area. Our
task was to parachute into a very remote area a couple of miles
away from the Black River, navigate through the dense forest maze
of archipelagos called the Anavilhanas with our sponge kayaks (and
by densely, I’m talking as much about insects as I am about trees
or the islands along the river!) and find our way down to the
Amazon and on towards Manaus, nearly 50 miles away.

“
As we broke through the
canopy on our way to the ground, we remained for a few minutes in
the underbrush taking in the scene. Never had we anticipated such a
diverse environment. Dark even at midday, we could not look up
through the trees to see any portion of the sky, and while at
first, we could see no life, we knew the forest was rich with
hiding birds, insects, and other animals. The incessant cooing,
whooping, chirping and burping made us reel, as we looked without
success for the source of this orchestra of sounds.

“
Leaving our parachutes,
we ventured towards the west, where we had seen the river on our
way down. What at first was a minor annoyance quickly became an
unbearable bane—insects! All shapes, sizes, colors. Some airborne,
some under our feet, some dropped from tree branches. At one point,
I quipped to Blade that there must be a million insects out here,
to which he knowingly replied, ‘thirty million, Paol.’ He pointed
out that it was a fact that he had discovered during his study of
the region. At first, I laughed, assuming he was simply trying to
lighten the situation with his trademarked humor, but once we
returned home, he proved it too me in the book he had read. To this
day, however, I still wonder how on earth there are so many insects
in that jungle, considering the number of birds there as well. I
would think that the thousands of birds we heard on our trip
would’ve had to make a dent in the insect population.

“At any rate, we did
receive some respite from the insects, and I’d like to say that it
was welcomed, but it was not. During several occasions, our focus
on insects was diverted to predators. Shortly after reaching the
Black River, we launched our kayaks along the river, and were
engulfed in a maze of long thin islands that run with the current
of the river. Some of these islands were just several feet wide,
but miles long. Navigating through them was a chore. At first, we
assumed that as long as we caught a downstream current, we would be
safe, but on a couple of occasions, the channel between two islands
became too narrow to navigate, and we were forced to walk our
kayaks across the island to another channel on the other
side.

“
Anyway, as tense and
stressful as it was to walk along that river in Alaska with a wolf
on the other side, this river didn’t exactly protect us from
predators. Our first predator experience was preceded by a
high-pitch screeching that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Looking over at the bank, I saw leaning on a branch of a tree in
the river, a jaguar eying us with clearly malicious intent. I was
relieved to be on the river instead of on the bank, and I thought
that we were surely safe from the big cat, but much to my horror,
the animal lurched and then dove headlong into the river. Seeing
the thing swimming straight towards us, I nearly panicked. We
couldn’t out-paddle him, for he was paddling with much more ability
than we could.

“
Not knowing what to do,
we had hoped that the beast couldn’t take on our kayaks, but we
continued to look behind us with the cat in pursuit. Blade was just
ahead of me and to the right, and I saw him look often over his
left shoulder. Eventually, the thing gained on me and clawed at my
kayak. I swatted at it with my paddle, but I didn’t have a good
swing since the thing was directly behind me, and I dared not try
to stand or pivot my body for fear of capsizing in the river, where
the jaguar would certainly have the advantage over me.

“
I was so focused on the
cat that I hadn’t noticed that Blade had slowed and pulled behind
my foe. Likewise, the cat was so focused on me that he hadn’t
noticed Blade either. Then I noticed Blade lift his paddle high
over his head and bring it down on top of the jaguars head with
crushing force. The cat howled in pain and instantly relinquished
its grip on my kayak, sinking into the water.

“
Blade quickly pulled
beside me, and the river seemed deathly quiet while we looked all
around for evidence of the cat’s location. Would he spring up from
the river and fly at us for our attack? After about a minute, I
noticed an object slowly emerge to the surface about fifteen feet
behind us. The cat glared at us, opened its mouth to reveal sharp
fangs and bellowed in a manner that seemed to rattle the entire
jungle. Worried that he would recover and make a fresh attack, we
prepared ourselves with handguns. We weren’t eager to unload
ammunition so quickly, because we still had at least three days
ahead of us, but we certainly didn’t want to deal with this cat any
longer. Fortunately for everyone involved, the jaguar thought
better of its plan, slipped back to the shore, and disappeared into
the dense vegetation.

“
As dusk settled over the
river, we found a beach on one of the Anavilhanas islands and set
up camp there. With all of the scares in the jungle, we did two
things to survive each night. First, we lit and kept a fire
burning, in the hope that nocturnal predators stayed away from
light, perhaps out of fear of human populations. Second, we took
turns sleeping, or at least that was the theory. I found it very
difficult to sleep at all. With the calls of nocturnal animals, and
the sound of rustling brush on one side of our camp or the
splashing river on the other, my attention was constantly focused
on trying to gaze into the darkness to assess the source of each
new sound or movement.

“
One night, while Blade
was sleeping, I saw an anaconda try to sneak into camp. While
throwing a rock into the sand on one side of it, I diverted its
attention while rushing to the other side with my switchblade. I
stabbed down with the blade clenched tightly in my fist, thrusting
the blade clear through the snake about a foot below its head. I
rushed away as the thing started writhing all over the place with
my knife staking it to the ground. It wasn’t until the morning when
I went back to reclaim my knife, and I had noticed the snake, and
my knife missing. After a search of the surrounding area, we found
the dead snake draped over the branch of a tree with my blade still
lodged tightly in its neck. It took some exertion to reclaim my
weapon, but I was not about to leave it behind. I figured I might
need it again, and again before this was all over.

“
As we were preparing to
launch our kayaks for what should have been our final morning, a
black caiman shot out of the water from underneath my kayak. This
thing was frightening beyond all belief. With the body of an
anaconda and the head of an alligator, I was completely unprepared
for this attack. Quickly, the thing latched onto my arm with
powerful jaws and sharp teeth. I dropped to my knees in pain. My
arm burned as teeth bore down to bone. Thanks to Blade’s quick
acting, I was spared from certain amputation, as he got behind the
monster and stabbed him with his switchblade. Turning to deal with
this new threat, it dropped to the ground and slithered
aggressively towards Blade. With one shot of his gun, Blade ended
the threat as quickly as it began with an efficient shot between
the eyes. The last thing I remembered was looking up to see Blade’s
horror-filled expression, a bloodied blade in one hand, and a
smoking handgun in the other.

“
Blade quickly dressed my
wound, wrapping a towel tightly around my arm to stop the bleeding,
but the damage was significant, and I figured I would not be able
to use it to continue paddling down the river. With some thick
vines and other materials that we had available in our packs, Blade
fastened a makeshift tow-line between the kayaks, and tugged me
down the river slowly. That day, we didn’t make it to our
destination as we had expected, so we camped one more night. I was
finally able to get some sleep, but was awakened by a call and
nudge from Blade. Gaining my senses, I noticed that Blade had just
whacked my good arm with a long stick he had in his hand. And then
I saw him thrashing at the ground with the same stick. I looked
down at the ground and noticed that with each jab at the earth,
Blade’s stick was driving a bright blue frog back into the jungle.
Here while we had dealt with predators of such a large scale, we
were completely unprepared to deal with such a little menace as was
the poison dart frog that Blade had discovered climbing up my
arm.

“
The next morning, Blade
knew he had to get me to Manaus for medical attention. If the
damage done by the caiman wouldn’t start a threatening infection in
my right arm, the growing deep purple spot on my left arm left from
the toxic secretions of the frog would do me in.

“
So, while I was
completely helpless, here was my partner, paddling with all of his
strength to get us downstream as quickly as possible with my dead
weight dragging behind. Well, fortunately for me, as you know
today, my partner did deliver me to Manaus quickly, where I was
attended to, and then rushed by air back to the States for
continued attention and recovery on not one, but two badly damaged
arms.”

“
So, clearly, I have to
say that if we do land in some harsh environment on Earth2, I’ll
take Alaska over the Amazon any day.”

The astronauts continued
to be probed on their training experiences for about thirty
minutes. Questioning varied widely from light-hearted to
optimistic, to skeptical, and occasionally downright angry. The
nation, and indeed much of the world had formed vastly polarized
opinions of the mission, and that became all too apparent, when the
professor of astronomy was drilled by an antagonist
reporter.

“
Professor Zimmer,” called
out one reporter, as a corner of Zimmer’s mouth turned downward
almost imperceptibly in recognition of the tone with which his name
was called.

Zimmer’s eyes quickly
located the reporter, standing tall over the seated crowd. His
forehead was wrinkled as his brow reached for a receding hairline.
Salt and pepper hair coupled with thick inquisitive glasses
indicated that this was a seasoned veteran, and Zimmer thought he
recognized the individual from one of his many press conferences
over the years.

The reporter introduced
himself as “Cartier Landry, of the NPC.”

Zimmer managed a cordial
smile, as he thought to himself, “Ah, yes... how could I forget Mr.
Landry of the National Press Corps. Wasn’t it just two, maybe three
years ago, when we butted heads over the parallel Earth. What was
the word? Preposterous? Ridiculous? I would’ve thought that I’d
convincingly won that battle now that Earth2 has been discovered.
And yet here he is.”

“
Yes, Mr. Landry. Go
ahead,” Zimmer was pleasant in outward appearance, but was
preparing for verbal fisticuffs inside.

“
Pundits, statisticians,
and actuaries all over the world have placed their odds on this
mission, and yet NASA has not come out with any official statement
against these individuals. Nor has NASA released any mission
prognosis themselves.” Landry paused, to shoot a brief glance over
to Dr. Gilroy turning his eyes only, not wanting to waste precious
energy on moving neck or body muscles to physically turn towards
the mission manager. “I understand that NASA will maintain a veil
of secrecy over what is really being said about the prospects of
this mission, but you,” his eyes now shifted back to Zimmer, as a
condescending smile formed on his face in at attempt to goad the
astrophysicist into saying something newsworthy. “You, professor,
are not accountable to that organization. Are you willing once and
for all to state your gut feel as to the success of this mission?
What odds would you ascribe in light of what the world is
saying.”

“
Mr. Landry, it would be
rash and imprudent of me to give you a number that would indicate
my personal belief on the prospects of the mission.

“
Assume with me that I
give you a number, any number. If I give you a number that is less
than 50%, and the mission fails, then it looks like I called it. If
I give you a number greater than 50% and the mission succeeds,
likewise, I must’ve known what I was talking about. If I give you
exactly 50%, you will complain that I’m not courageous enough to
take a stand on the matter. Let’s say, I believe the mission will
succeed. Why would I give you any number other than 51%? If I say
80% or 90%, don’t I get just as much credit for calling it right as
I do for saying 51%? Further, 51% is a safer number if the mission
should fail, because then my reputation has some leeway for having
some doubt in its success. So, I am unwilling to give you a
number.