hands slid across the surface. He had enough presence of mind to hold on to his light and the boxes of butterflies. Then his legs cleared the tube, and
in the next instant his body and head popped free. He dropped to the tunnel floor in a heap. One of his boxes fell open and three butterflies escaped, drifting erratically through his light beam.
He whipped the flashlight around to fend off the animal. There in his cone of light stood a live hadal. Osprey shouted his alarm just as it fled from his light. Its whiteness startled him most of all. The bulging eyes gave it an aspect of enormous hunger, or curiosity.
The hadal ran one way, Osprey the other. He covered fifty yards before his light beam illuminated three more hadals crouching in the tunnel's far depths. They turned their heads from his light, but didn't budge.
Osprey cast his flashlight back the way he'd come. Not far enough away prowled four or five more of the white creatures. He swung his head back and forth, awestruck by his predicament. He took his Swiss Army knife from a pocket and opened its longer blade. But they came no closer, repulsed by his light.
It seemed utterly fantastic. He was a lepidopterist. He dealt with animals whose existence depended on sunshine. The subplanet had nothing to do with him. Yet here he was, caged beneath the ground, faced with hadals. The terrible fact bore down on him. The weight of it exhausted him. Finally, unable to move in either direction, Osprey sat down.
Thirty yards to his right and left, the hadals settled in, too. He flipped his light from side to side for a while, thinking that was keeping them at bay. At last it became apparent the hadals weren't interested in coming any closer for the time being. He positioned the flashlight so that its beam cast a ball of light around him. While the three monarchs that had escaped from his box fluttered in the light, Osprey began calculating how long his battery might last.
He stayed awake as long as possible. But the combination of fatigue, his fall, and adrenaline hangover finally mastered him. He dozed, bathed in light, clutching his pocketknife.
He woke dreaming of raindrops. They were pebbles thrown by the hadals. His first thought was that the pebbles were meant to torment him. Then he realized the hadals were trying to break his lightbulb. Osprey grabbed the flashlight to shield it. He had another thought. If they could throw pebbles, they could probably throw rocks big enough to hurt or kill him – but they hadn't. That was when he understood they meant to capture him alive.
The waiting went on. They sat at the edges of his light. Their patience was depressing. It was so utterly unmodern, a primitive's patience, unbeatable. They were going to outlast him, he had no doubt at all about that.
Hours turned into a day, then two. His stomach rumbled with hunger. His tongue dried in his mouth. He told himself it would be better this way. Without food or water, he might start hallucinating. The last thing he wanted was to be lucid in the end.
As time passed, Osprey did his best not to look at the hadals, but eventually his curiosity took over. He turned his light on one group or the other, and gathered their details. Several were naked except for rawhide loin strings. A few wore ragged vests made of some kind of leather. All were male, as he could tell by their penis sheaths. Each sported a sheath made from an animal horn, jutting from his groin, and tied erect with twine, like those worn by New Guinea natives.
It was easy to anticipate the end. His battery began to fail. To either side, the hadals had moved closer. The light faded to a dim ball. Osprey shook the flashlight hard, and the beam brightened momentarily, and the hadals withdrew another five or ten yards. He sighed. It was time. C'est la vie. He chuckled, and laid the blade along his wrist.
He could have waited until the last instant of light before making the cuts, but feared they might not be done well. Too shallow, and it would simply be a painful nip
at the nerves. Too deep, and the veins might convulse and close off. He needed to get the strokes right, while he could still see.
He pulled evenly. Blood jumped from the steel. It leaped out of him. In the shadows, he heard the hadals murmur.
Carefully he switched the knife to his left hand and did the opposite wrist. The knife fell from his grip. After a minute he felt cold. The pain at the end of each arm turned to a dull ache. His blood spread on the stone floor. It was impossible to separate the dying light from his fading vision.
Osprey laid his head back against the wall. His thoughts settled. Increasingly, a vision of the beautiful Mexican woman had begun visiting him. Her face had come to replace his butterflies, all of whom had died because his light was not enough. He had arranged each monarch beside him, and as he slumped sideways, their wings lay like orange and black tissue on the ground.
Off in the distance, the hadals were chirping and clicking to one another. Their agitation was obvious. He smiled. They'd won, but they'd lost.
The light shrank. It died. Her face rose in the darkness. Osprey let out a low moan. The blackness pillowed him.
On the brink of unconsciousness, he felt the hadals pounce on him. He smelled them. Felt them grabbing at him. Tying his arms with rope. Too late, he realized they were binding tourniquets above his wounds. They were saving his life. He tried to fight, but was too weak.
In the weeks ahead, Osprey returned to life slowly. The stronger he got, the more pain he had to endure. He was carried sometimes. Occasionally they forced him to walk blindly down the tunnels. In pitch darkness, he had to rely on every sense but sight. Some days they simply tortured him. He could not imagine what they were doing to him. Captivity tales swirled in his head. He began to rave, and so they cut his tongue out. That was near the end of his sanity.
It was beyond Osprey's comprehension that the hadals summoned one of their finest artisans to peel the upper layers of skin, no more, from tip to tip of each shoulder and down to the base of his spine. Under the artisan's direction, the wound was salted to prepare his canvas. Its seasoning took days, requiring more abrasion, more salt. Finally an outline of veins and border was applied in black, and left to grow over. After another three days, a rare blend of bright ochre powder was laid on.
By that time, Osprey's wish had come true. He was mad from pain and deprivation. His insanity had nothing to do with the hadals freeing him to roam in their tunnels. If madness was the password, then most of their human captives would have been free. Who could understand such creatures? Human quirks and fallibilities were a constant source of puzzlement.
Osprey's freedom was a special case. He was allowed to go wherever his whim took him. No matter which band he strayed behind, they made sure to feed him, and it was considered meritorious to protect him from dangers and guide him along the trail. He was never given supplies to carry. He carried no claim mark or brand. No one owned him. He belonged to everyone, a creature of great beauty.
Children were brought to see him. His legend spread quickly. Wherever he went, it was known that this was a holy man, captured with small houses of souls around his neck.
Osprey would never know what the hadals had painted into the flesh of his back. It would have pleased him no end. For, every time he moved, with every breath he took, it seemed the man was carried along by iridescent orange and black wings.
The frontier is the outer edge of the wave – the meeting-point between savagery and civilization... the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist.
– FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, The Significance of the Frontier in
American History
9
LA FRONTERA
The Galapagos Rift System, latitude 0.55°N
Promptly at 1700 hours, the expeditionaries boarded their electric buses. They were loaded with handouts and booklets and notebooks numbered and marked Classified, and were sporting pieces of Helios clothing. The black SWAT-style caps had proved especially popular, very menacing. Ali contented herself with
