'Ah, Professor,' he said. 'Just the man I was looking for. A point of clarification. These notes here, “Paxu, Tupra and Roya',' he pointed to Race's notes. 'These are in order, aren't they? I mean, in the order Renco visited them.'
'They're in the same order as they appear in the manuscript.'
'Okay, good.'
'Hey, Walter,' Race said, sitting down next to Chambers.
“There was something I was hoping I could ask you.'
'Yes?'
'In the manuscript, Renco mentions a creature called the titi or the rapa. What exactly is that?'
'Ah, the rapa; Chambers nodded. 'Hmmm, yes, yes. Not really my field, but I do know a little bit about it.'
'And?'
'Like many other South American cultures, the Incans had an unusual fascination with the great cats. They built statues to them, both large and small, and sometimes they carved huge has reliefs of them into entire mountain rock- faces. Why, the city of Cuzco was even built in the shape of a puma.
'This fascination with the great cats, however, is really quite a strange phenomenon, since South America is known for its lack of great cats. The only large cats indigenous to the continent are the jaguar—or panther—and the puma, which are actually only medium-sized felines. They're not even close in size to the tiger which is the largest of all the great cats.'
Chambers shifted in his seat. 'The rapa, however, is another story altogether. It's more like the South American version of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. It's a legendary creature, a great big black cat.
'As with Bigfoot and Nessie, you hear of sightings every couple of years—farmers in Brazil complain about cattle mutilations; tourists on the Inca Trail in Peru claim to see big cats running around at night; and occasionally, local men are found brutally killed in the lowlands of Colombia. But no-one ever gets proof. There are a couple of photos, but they've all been discredited—just blurry, out-of-focus shots that could be anything from an ordinary old panther to a spectacled bear.'
'So it's a myth,' Race said. 'A giant-cat myth.'
'Don't dismiss giant-cat myths so quickly, Professor Race,'
Chambers said. 'They are quite common throughout the world. India. South Africa. Siberia. Why, it might surprise you to learn that the most vehement beliefs in giant-cat myths come from England.'
'England?'
'The Beast of Exmoor, the Beast of Bahn. Giant cats that prowl the moors late at night. Never caught. Never photographed.
But their prints are often found in the mud.
Goodness, if the sightings are true, chances are that the Hound of the Baskervilles was not a dog, but actually a giant cat.'
Race snuffed a laugh at that and left Chambers to his work. He returned to his seat. No sooner had he sat down, however, than he felt someone sit down next to him. It was Lauren.
'Ah, the lucky cap,' she said, looking at Race's battered blue Yankees cap. “I don't know if I ever told you this, but I always hated that damned cap.'
'You told me' Race said.
'But you still wore it.'
“It's a good cap.'
Lauren's eyes wandered appraisingly over his T-shirt, jeans and Nikes. Race noticed that she was dressed in a thick khaki shirt rolled up at the sleeves, khaki trousers and a sturdy-looking pair of hiking boots.
'Nice outfit,' she said, before he could say exactly the same thing.
'What can I say?' he replied. 'When I packed for work today I wasn't expecting to go to the jungle.'
Lauren threw her head back and laughed. It was the same laugh Race remembered from the old days. Totally theatrical and of utterly dubious sincerity.
'I'd forgotten how dry you were,' she said.
Race smiled weakly, bowed his head.
'How have you been, Will?” she asked gently.
'Good,' he lied. 'And you? You've obviously done well for yourself. I mean, geez, DARPA…'
'Life is good,' she said. 'Life is very good. Listen, Will…“
And there it was. The transition. Lauren had always been good at getting down to business. '… I just wanted to talk with you before we landed. I just wanted to say that I don't want what happened between us to get in the way of what we're doing here. I never meant to hurt you—'
'You didn't hurt me,' Race said, perhaps a little too quickly. He looked down at his shoelaces. 'Well, nothing that didn't mend after a while.'
Not exactly true.
It had taken him a lot more than a while to get over Lauren O'Connor.
