

Let Them Eat Tea

A political romance comedy adventure

by

Coleman Maskell

Wynne Cofield

© Copyright 2012, Coleman Maskell, Wynne Cofield

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* * * Table of Contents * * *

Chapter 1 – Deer Hunting

Chapter 2 – Nick and Marie

Chapter 3 – St. Lucy

Chapter 4 – LiberTEA Injustice for All !

Chapter 5 – World Harmony Cafe

Chapter 6 – Dinner at the Farm House

Chapter 7 – Setting Off

Chapter 8 – Charlie and Katrina

Chapter 9 – Winter in the North

Chapter 10 – On L'Isle Barjot

Chapter 11 – Meeting the Crocodiles

Chapter 12 – Night in the Village

Chapter 13 – Hospital in Winter

Chapter 14 – The Waterfall

Chapter 15 – Dinner at the Apartment

Chapter 16 – Back at the Lab

Chapter 17 – Politics as Usual

Chapter 18 – Charlie's Lab Results

Chapter 19 – Night in America Continues

Chapter 20 – Kat and the Kitten

Chapter 21 – Greenhouse

Chapter 22 – A Visit from Doug

Chapter 23 – Charlie Drinks the Tea

Chapter 24 – Greenhouse, White House

Chapter 25 – The Liberty Tea Company

Chapter 26 – A LiberTEA party

Chapter 27 – Back on St. Lucy

Chapter 28 – Water and Sand

Chapter 29 – The Jungle Is Neutral

* * *

Chapter 1 – Deer Hunting

Autumn is brisk and crisp but not yet cold. The sun lies low in the west. In the forest, a few struggling dark green pines stand out in stark contrast against the tall bare hardwood trees. Orange and gold leaves lie scattered on the ground beneath. Three men outfitted for deer hunting move quietly along the route of a deer path, fanned out a few yards apart, carefully observing their surroundings for any sign of deer. Two Secret Service agents accompany the three hunters, taking positions on the far right and far left. Squirrels overhead run leaping away through the branches as the men approach. Occasionally a retreating squirrel pauses and turns to throw a nutshell or a pinecone angrily at the intruders.

Walking between President Sheppard at the center of the group and the Secret Service agent flanking them on the right, Eugene Wright stops to point out a barren patch about waist high on a tree trunk. He looks over to make eye contact with Sheppard. Bark has recently been stripped away, possibly by a hungry deer. Sheppard stares at the spot, then looks at the ground beneath it. The thick ground cover of loose dead leaves and twigs makes it impossible to see any tracks. At eye level, on another nearby tree trunk, they see a second bare patch.

At that moment, off to his left, toward the west, Sheppard hears a slight rustle of ginger footsteps moving through dry leaves. From the corner of his eye he catches a flash of brown motion only a few yards away, moving through the trees where a bark-eating deer might be. With one movement he snaps the butt of his hunting rifle to his shoulder, spins and fires in the direction of the sound.

Nick Wright sees it happening and moves faster. As he darts to cover behind the trunk of a large oak, the buckshot from the older man's gun whizzes past the spot where Nick had stood an instant before, close enough for him to hear the air ripping.

From behind the tree, Nick shouts out to his trigger-happy friend, "Whoa, there, Shep."

Glancing down, he notices a few medium-sized forked branches nearby on the ground. It strikes him suddenly that they look a lot like five-prong buck antlers. He snatches two of them up quickly and attaches his white pocket handkerchief flag-like onto one of them between two of the prongs. Holding the branches out from behind the tree at deer antler height, he jiggles them up and down. The flag waves. "I surrender," he announces in a shout, continuing to jiggle the white flag on the makeshift antler. "I give up. Don't shoot."

Eugene, the third hunter, laughs, eyes glistening. "I didn't know you were so scared of Cousin Nick going after your job, Quick Draw," he directs a remark at the gun happy President. "You do know you can only serve eight years, right? They told you that? Cause they tell me that's still a rule up there. Getting rid of Nicky here won't help you any with that."

"Come on out here, Nick," the embarrassed shooter calls to the man behind the tree, ignoring Eugene's barbs. "I'm not going to shoot you. Stop it with that handkerchief, will you? Get over here."

Nick drops one branch and pops the other up into the air and then sideways to the ground, grabbing off his handkerchief as it falls. Standing straight, he struts out from behind the tree, smiling broadly, folding his handkerchief and replacing it in his pocket as he strides rooster-like toward the others. Eugene's eyes are still sparkling with suppressed laughter. Sheppard looks grim and embarrassed.

Sheppard clears his throat. "Now listen, Nick, I'm sorry about that, that incident there," he says, slapping the other man on the back.

Sheppard then grasps Nick around the shoulder in a friendly conciliatory way, drawing him near like a close friend and confidante. He leads him a few steps away as if to distance them from the event.

"Right sorry. You know I didn't mean to shoot at you there," he continues in a lowered conspiratorial voice, still walking slowly toward nothing in particular. "I thought it was a deer over there for sure," he continues. After a pause he gives a little laugh and adds, "Glad you're not hurt."

Nick just smiles and continues to accompany the president, saying nothing. The two men stop walking when they reach Eugene, whose eyes are still sparkling a little with the enjoyment of Sheppard's discomfort. Sheppard looks Nick over and brushes off the arms of his jacket with both hands, relieved to find no damage anyplace.

"You're good as new," Sheppard announces, angling for a 'no harm, no foul' outcome. "Like it never happened." After pausing to stare into the other man's eyes, he adds slowly, "I guess the women are going to think this is pretty funny too. Probably accuse me of being careless. Guess I'll get an earful." He pauses and stares at the younger man, waiting for a reaction.

Nick waits several seconds for effect before answering, still looking into Sheppard's eyes. "No reason the women need to hear about this," he finally answers, to the visible relief of the man who has just emptied two barrels of buckshot at him. "The less said about it the better. We don't want it leaking to the press. It'd be bad for the campaign. I still need you to help out with that campaign for the 37th Amendment," he says pointedly. Nick has coupled the campaign for the Right To Work Constitutional Amendment together with his hopes of succeeding President Sheppard in the next national election. "We only have about a year to campaign," he continues. "We don't need any distractions from that. We don't want any bad press."

Nobody says anything for a time. The men's eyes are still locked on each other. Finally Sheppard nods. "The campaign. Best thing for everybody if we devote our efforts to that," he agrees, and slaps the other man on the back again.

"Best thing all around," Nick answers with a smile. "Right, Eugene?" he solicits the other man's agreement.

Eugene Wright nods and shakes his head at the same time, still smiling wryly, eyes still twinkling, but looking as though the burden of suppressing the laughter has just increased its weight. "Absolutely," he agrees, grinning. "You bet."

As they stand contemplating their situation and the future, a muffled thump catches their attention. The Secret Service agent on their left has discharged his weapon, the sound barely audible through the silencer. Twenty yards further away a big five-prong buck leaps up, twists in the air, and falls limply to the forest floor. Its front legs twitch as it tries to raise its head one last time. Then it lies still, panting, heart pounding, eyes wide. The dying buck has suffered a clean wound to the chest through the shoulder very near the heart.

"Better if you finish it off, Mr. President," the agent addresses Sheppard. The two men exchange a quick unemotional glance. Sheppard reloads his rifle and walks over to where the deer still lies panting. He fires point blank and the deer lies still.

"Don't you have to account for firing your weapon?" Eugene asks the agent, wondering if the procedure is actually the same in reality as what he's heard.

"I shot at an animal that seemed to be menacing the president," the agent answers coolly, holstering his weapon.

"Yeah, he was in danger of not bagging anything today," Eugene observes.

The agent looks at his eyes, half smiles for a second, then looks away again in the direction of the president, saying nothing. He walks over to where the president stands with Nick looking down at the big five-prong buck.

"I'll carry that for you, Mr. President," the agent offers, and picks up the dead buck without waiting for an answer. It weighs as much as a grown man, at least 150 pounds, but he throws it over his shoulder with apparent ease. "Shall we be heading back now, Sir?" he asks in the same even tone of formal politeness.

Sheppard nods. "Thanks, Stan," he adds. Then Sheppard takes point as the group heads back toward the isolated turnout where the cars are parked.

Back at the road, Stan throws the deer carcass up into the bed of Nick's big white 4x4 Ford truck. Nick and Eugene get into the front seat and start the engine. The president joins Stan and a waiting Secret Service agent in a sleek low black unmarked American car with tinted bulletproof windows. Their other Secret Service companion from hunting duty enters a third vehicle, joining another agent who has waited guarding the cars while the hunting party wandered in the woods. The crackle of radio contact sounds out from both government cars as the agents check in before proceeding. Then the three vehicles pull out onto the road and head as a convoy for Eugene's family farm a few miles away.

"Boy, it's been a nice little vacation for me here these last few days, Gene," Nick says to his cousin as they pull out. "I almost hate to get back on the campaign trail."

"Almost," Eugene laughs, "but I guess duty calls."

"That's it. Duty calls," his cousin answers.

"Nothing to do with egomania," Eugene adds. "Wanting to be president or anything like that. It's just selfless service to the country, right?"

"Hey, absolutely," Nick answers, and they both laugh. "Nothing egotistical about me."

"Right, because egotism would be a flaw," Eugene suggests.

"And I have no flaws!" Nick completes the thought like a high school boy, and they both laugh again.

It's been that way since they were kids. Here in the country, going hunting with his cousin again, it feels like nothing has changed, as if time has been indefinitely suspended.

Time, of course, goes on.

They return to the farm for one last family dinner. Then President Sheppard will return to Washington and Nick Wright will return to the campaign circuit of end-to-end rallies, speeches, appearances and interviews. The presidential election is only about a year away, and time moves quickly. Away from the farm, outside the magic bubble of hunting and camaraderie, time is passing quickly and the world is clearly changing. Nick wants to steer that change.
Chapter 2 -- Nick and Marie

They look like a couple, sitting on a garden bench on the little hill that forms the front lawn of the big hotel. Inside, the convention is just getting underway. Nick is due onstage to speak soon. For the moment the two sit together on the sculptured bench on the manicured lawn, she on his right, angled towards him, neck arched to look up toward the sky, as if suspended in a frozen excerpt from a Norman Rockwell painting. They look like models posing for a glossy magazine advertisement for the good life.

Feeling tense with the usual mild stage fright, the two try to relax by breathing deeply in the autumn air, immersing themselves in the ambience of the location, listening to the small birds chirping in the well-kept trees. Like children they look for patterns in the clouds.

"Those puffy little clouds coming up there," Marie starts a sentence, and trails off. She points up at the smoke rising into the sky from a house fire down the block, almost behind her on their right, invisible to her. "Those are people's heads in the crowd -- the audience walking in. Supporters coming to cheer you on," she finishes with a little laugh. She has never been compassionate, and she isn't clever; but she looks good and she has a quick smile. Those are factors that served her well a dozen years ago as a high school cheerleader, and they continue to serve her well now in politics.

Nick looks past Marie, down the block outside her field of vision, where a tall pale willowy woman stands in front of a three-story brick apartment building adjacent to the burning house. She holds a baby balanced on one thrust out hip, bouncing it gently. Near the attractive woman stands a pretty little girl Nick estimates to be about six or seven years old. The little girl is holding a cat, trying to calm it. The cat is pale, fluffy, pretty and soft like its owners. So the woman must be younger than thirty, he reasons, and then briefly turns his attention again to the clouds and the fact that Marie has spoken and is probably waiting for a response.

"There's the podium," he says, pointing with artificial exuberance at a boxy dark cloud slightly to their left. The rounded puffs of smoke from the fire look more like women's boobs to him, but he doesn't say so. "And look, there's a big silver limo," he adds, drawing Marie's attention to an elongated cloud still further off to their left, away from the direction of the fire.

Marie focuses her glazed blue eyes intently up at the clouds while Nick turns his attention back to the events around the fire. In front of the burning house, the homeowner is arguing with a big football fullback of a man in a red and yellow private fireman suit, with a big red hat. A matching red and yellow private fire truck sits parked across the street.

"Listen," Nick imagines the big fireman saying, gesturing at a nearby fire hydrant. "If my guys put out this fire, I have to pay the city for the water we use. I have a government issued card I'm required to put into the meter on that hydrant there. Otherwise the water doesn't come out. The city sends me a bill for the water the next day. If you don't pay me now, I can't pay the city tomorrow. The day after that, the city cuts off my water supply to put out other fires. Fires happening to people who can pay. It's as simple as that."

"But five thousand dollars!" the homeowner must be exclaiming next, looking up and flinging both arms towards the heavens, spinning on his feet to turn half away and then immediately turning back again. He lets his arms drop to his sides and shrugs in a gesture of helplessness, asking where he can get five thousand dollars on such short notice. "Surely the city doesn't charge you $5,000 for the water," he ends on a hopeless note, and looks down at the sidewalk before looking back up into the private fireman's eyes. Unrelenting eyes.

Well, if he can't afford to pay the firemen, Nick reflects coldly, let his house burn. He should have had better fire insurance. Or he shouldn't own a house. We don't need freeloaders and parasites that don't pay their own way. They're a danger to the community and a drag on society. They cost us all money.

As the two men argue energetically on the front lawn of the burning house, a man in a business suit appears on the roof of the adjacent apartment building. Maybe he's the owner of the building, or maybe a manager. He douses the roof of the apartment building with a garden hose. Next to him on the roof another man, dressed in dirty work clothes, is already dousing the exterior wall of the building on the side facing the fire.

"My guys have to get paid," the big fireman back on the ground is saying quietly but firmly. "They have families to feed. Mortgages to pay. Water bills."

As the men argue, occasional flaming pieces of tinder burst from the house onto the surroundings. One lands near the little girl and frightens the cat. Suddenly and quickly, forcefully, the cat struggles and squirms, bursting from her arms in a leap. It races full speed away from the fire, towards the hotel lawn where Nick and Marie sit on the picturesque bench. The little girl runs after the cat. The woman comes chasing after the little girl, baby transferred instantaneously to her shoulder, where she clutches it tightly as she runs.

The girl catches up with the cat next to a medium size oak tree not far from the bench where the two politicians sit. The cat stops and rubs itself against the rough bark of the tree, turning back to look at the girl, purring. The girl stoops to pick it up. She holds it close in her arms. Soothing the cat with long strokes, she comes over and installs herself on the bench, next to Marie. Marie moves away reflexively, closer to Nick. About that time the mother arrives, and Nick rises to greet her.

"Nick B. Wright," he introduces himself with a practiced grin. "Always happy to meet a voter." He stretches out his hand to shake hers, but she only stares at the outstretched hand. "What might your name be?" he asks, unperturbed. He wants to touch her, even if it's only a handshake for now.

Marie dislikes both children and cats, and she dislikes attractive young women even more. She rises quickly to introduce herself, offering an outstretched hand, hoping to interfere with Nick's maneuvers by distracting the woman. That, she realizes, is something they don't need right now: Nick getting himself into trouble with a woman before the elections next November.

The cat is perhaps frightened again by the sudden movement, or maybe it simply returns Marie's animosity. In any case it hisses and darts out its claws in a quick sure motion, scratching Marie's outstretched hand. Then the cat bolts off again, towards the hotel, with the child on its heels. Marie shrieks in disgust and recoils. The woman looks at them both for only an instant and takes off without ceremony in pursuit of the child and the cat.

"You okay?" Nick asks.

Marie makes a guttural disgusted sound and shakes herself like a wet lap dog. "It's time for us to be in the convention," she says. "You're on stage soon." So saying, she walks off regally toward the hotel, expecting Nick to follow her. He watches the swaying motion of her hips for a minute as she walks away, then follows as expected.

Inside the hotel, Marie retires quickly to a ladies room to tend to the scratch on her hand. She has a small bottle of liquid bandage in her purse, like a small bottle of clear nail varnish. The scratch isn't bleeding, but it's starting to flush, with a bright red line down its center. She applies the clear liquid over the scratch with the little brush in the bottle cap, and almost immediately it seals the wound. She feels a slight stinging, but the redness soon begins to fade. Wonderful stuff, that liquid bandage, she thinks to herself, calmed by having dealt with the situation, feeling in control again. She watches the wound dry in the air, turning the hand this way and that so the varnished patch catches the light. In a few minutes nobody will even notice the scratch. When it seems dry, she applies a coat of skin tone over it from a lipstick-like beige make-up stick. There, good as new, she congratulates herself again.

She turns to the mirror and smoothes her hair, then applies an unneeded refresher to her lipstick and makeup. She flashes herself a big smile and looks at the perfect white teeth her parents paid to have straightened, and she now pays to have whitened regularly. They really do look a lot like pearls, she thinks to herself, glancing back and forth between her pearl necklace and her smile. She smoothes her hair again and turns to go rejoin the convention. Someone has to keep an eye on Nick, she sighs.

The lobby is a party of red white and blue balloons, bright banners and upbeat music. She quickly catches up with Nick. It's a big crowd, and everyone is well dressed. The hairstyles and makeup look like they've been done for magazine covers. Maybe they have. A lot of these people reasonably expect that their photos might be taken anytime, and the photos might turn up anywhere. The two politicians walk quickly, but not too quickly, through the milling supporters and fellow crusaders. Marie holds back at the end while Nick makes a grand entrance through the massive double doors that stand open.

Banners proclaim pithy slogans like "Be right with Nick" and "Wright to Work," celebrating the Right to Work cause the pair have attached themselves to.

By "Right to Work," of course, they mean "break up the labor unions." Big corporations have been pouring big donations not only into the party, but into his personal campaign fund, all in the hope and faith that Nick Wright is the man who can prevent workers from trying to start labor unions where now there are none, and break the power of unions already in existence. Collective bargaining is a nightmare for the oligarchy. They want the freedom to be able to hire and fire workers at will, and not be bothered by the restraints of safety regulations or other nonsense about working conditions. With Nick's charm and rhetoric behind them, it looks more and more like they might soon get their wish on a national level.

When the band leader catches sight of Nick making his way to the stage, the band strikes up his signature variation on "Johnny Be Good," which has been altered just enough to dodge the copyright. The crowd chants "Nicky Be Right". Confetti is thrown from balconies and cascades down over the crowd like wedding rice. Balloons are released from nets. He ascends the stage amid wild cheering and faces the crowd, both arms raised like a sports star.

"I come before you today," he begins, adjusting the microphone, holding up his right hand as if to quiet the crowd. In fact he thrives on the admiration and affection, and is in no hurry for it to end. Still, he raises his hand higher, and raises his voice louder, repeating, "I come before you today." The crowd quiets a little, and he continues, "not as a candidate, but as a fellow CRUSADER." His loud emphasis on the word crusader, followed by a pause, signals the supporters to explode again into cheers.

Marie wanders over to the food tables. It's not time for her appearance onstage yet, and she's seen Nick's act plenty of times. She may as well try the appetizers.

The otherwise air-conditioned room is adrift in smells of little cakes and fancy confections, backed by an undertone of solidly American food like hot dogs, fried chicken, and popcorn, overlaid on the lighter scents of expensive perfume and after-shave. Marie doesn't like hot dogs or popcorn, but they look great in photos that might appear in magazines to be seen by the base. The fried chicken she doesn't mind eating, but it isn't immediately recognizable in photos, and it's a little messy to eat. What she wants is a slice of chocolate mousse cake, but she settles on a small piece of Godiva chocolate.

"Every American," Nick is thundering from the podium. "EVERY American CITIZEN," he shouts, enunciating clearly and punctuating every pause by thumping his fist, "has an absolute, inalienable, self-evident, Natural right to work. WITHOUT red tape. WITHOUT government interference." Cheers come from the crowd again. "Without regulation. Without joining some UNION, and WITHOUT TAXES!"

At that big cheers arise, mixed with cowboy-like whooping and hollering.

Marie glances towards the stage as she takes a popsicle-shaped chocolate ice cream on a stick. A flashbulb lights up her face as she brings it to her lipsticked lips. Not sure what message that sends, she thinks. Since it's pure American ice cream from a Midwestern dairy state, it will probably net out okay on the spin. It helps that the wrapper was still partly in place: a red, white and blue wrapper.

Soon enough, amid another giddy tide of cheering, the time comes for Marie Mallon to ascend the stage.

"And now I give you," Nick announces, "our grand lady, Marie Mallon!" He reaches out and grasps her outstretched hand as she takes the last few steps up. She accepts the proffered microphone and waits for the cheers to die down. Like Nick, she is in no hurry for the cheering to end.

"I thought I was still a little too young to be a grand lady," Marie opens, to scattered laughter. "But I'm delighted to see you all here," She adds, to scattered clapping. "We've come a long way," she continues, sounding more serious.

She pauses about seven seconds to let them contemplate how far they've come. Then she adds, "but we have a long way still to go!" This is met with applause, but the clapping is not as energetic as she'd like.

"What we have done," she backs up to more generally appreciated ground, "is nothing short of miraculous." Bigger applause to that. After about three seconds she adds, "With the help of the Lord," and that gets even bigger applause.

"We have put an almost complete halt to government attempts to control our bodies through mandatory vaccinations, public health 'Services', and birth control -- which should really be called death control." Laughter and applause fill the room before she continues, "And we have finally put an end to the wanton desecration of human embryos – embryos made in our Lord's image! The desecration that our opponents liked to call 'research' -- stem cell 'research' -- stem cells from unborn human babies!"

The applause grows steadily louder, mixed with enthusiastic hollering. She continues, "The NIH is gone. The CDC is gone," then switches track a little to add, more enthusiastically, "and the EPA is gone." That brings more robust cheers and whoops. "We have almost abolished public programs like Medicaid that encouraged weakness and dependency and were a magnet for illegal immigrants. Programs that taxed your paychecks and sapped our resources. We are FREE of that now. Because of YOUR efforts. YOUR hard work. How about a big cheer for our supporters, our fellow crusaders?" The crowd breaks into excited applause and hurrahs. That should get them into the mood to cheer for the next suggestion.

"It is time," she continues after the crowd settles a bit, but not too much. "The time is now. Time to unshackle employers and workers alike from union-mandated health insurance!" More giddy cheering from the audience. "Are you with me?" she asks, and repeats it twice, cheerleader style, to ever louder shouts of affirmation. "There is another constitutional amendment coming up on the ballot next November," she loudly announces what they already know. She almost shouts the final sentence: "It is our job to pass that amendment!"

Nick joins her at the podium, and they raise clasped hands in a victory gesture. Both smile the stilted practiced smiles that sell their act so well. More confetti appears from the rafters, catching the spotlights like glitter as it falls. "Pass the 37th Amendment!" Nick shouts, and Marie echoes the words. The crowd whoops and hollers ecstatically. More balloons are released.

She would like to repeal Medicare too, but that can wait. It is still the most difficult bastion to assail, and she knows that she needs much more support before she can attack it. Repealing the bans on child labor will be even harder. Surely children have as much right to work as anyone else, she thinks to herself, but the people aren't ready to hear it yet. She can bide her time. Her support is growing every day.

"Get out the vote!" Nick shouts to the crowd.

Marie grins a big smile and waves to the crowd with both hands. "Yes on 37," She screams at the top of her voice, followed by an expansive come-on-everybody gesture with both arms. She repeats both the gesture and the words with contagious and convincing enthusiasm.

"Yes on 37!" they shout back, and "Wright to Work!"

The band strikes up Nick's signature tune again. Anyone in the crowd who still has confetti launches it into the air as the pair march triumphantly back down from the dais into the excited crowd, shaking hands all around as they progress. Another successful appearance.

Chapter 3 - St. Lucy

The warm clean breeze from the ocean washes lazily over the Caribbean island of St. Lucy in winter and summer alike. Sea birds patrol the blue sky sporadically, slowly, swooping in wide arcs. Intermittent seagull cries punctuate the quiet. Fishing boats dot the turquoise water and cluster in the harbor of Soufriere.

Dr. Albert Baldwin has set up work in a small government lab not far from Bridge Street, easy walking distance to the center of the picturesque little city. From big modern windows he looks out over the ocean. Toward the south he has a partial view of the towering Pitons jutting abruptly up toward the sky, almost half a mile in height, just beyond the edge of town. From this distance, the view reminds him of the fjords in Norway, where he used to visit his grandfather in summer. That must have been twenty years ago, he realizes, but the view here is so vivid it makes the memory come to life, as if it had been only last year. The lab is air conditioned. When he leaves the lab and goes outside, the tropical vegetation and the year-round balmy warmth contradict the Nordic view. It's usually just above 80 degrees by afternoon here, in winter and summer alike. No cold winters. No snow. Soufriere is a peaceful sleepy town on the Caribbean island of St. Lucy. It's barely a city at all, he realizes, half the size of Narvik. He sighs. Though he has lived here for only a few short months, he feels as if he has come home.

It's still early morning. Baldwin has just come into the lab. When he arrives, around sunrise, he walks around turning on equipment. Some of it takes a few minutes to warm up, boot up, or otherwise activate. Alone in the big room, he stands looking out the windows for those few minutes, drinking fresh decaf coffee from a cardboard cup. The most commonplace coffee here is better than the best gourmet coffee he ever had in America. He stares out the window, still waking up, thinking about the past and the future, his life on the island, and the girl he's found here.

The government of St. Lucy offered him a job when the National Institute of Health -- the NIH -- closed its doors back in the USA. In fact it had offered jobs to him and more than a few other people thrown out of the NIH and CDC. The little island country couldn't offer to pay much. They aren't desperately poor, but neither are they rich. They have an educated middle class, though, and a high literacy rate; and the national language is English. The tiny island nation has produced the highest per capita rate of Nobel Prize winners of any country in the world. He is aware of two, out of a very small population. He thinks there might have been a third one from the more recent awards. In any case, it seems to be something of an intellectual's paradise, if his reaction to it is any gauge. Now the island has adopted a small collection of cast-off scientists, all single unattached men able to work cheaply in exchange for the opportunity to live in a place that seems like paradise.

Other countries are snapping up laid off scientists too. Like most of his colleagues, he'd had higher paying offers in China and the Middle East, and a few from African countries. Some countries are trying to develop weapons. Some want scientists to find fixes for local agricultural and medical problems. Some dream of breaking the expensive stranglehold of the American and European pharmaceutical giants. None of them, even Dubai, can offer the impressive facilities and equipment the NIH had. What they do offer is a chance to continue one's scientific work.

The fact that English is the official language of St. Lucy is making it easy for Baldwin to adjust to daily life. Other languages are widely spoken. On the streets one hears a mix of French and Spanish conversations, along with a variation on Creole that's far more common than English; but English is usually enough for him to get by, though his American accent sets him apart. The local accent has a decidedly British influence. To the American ear it sounds a bit overly formal, reminiscent of the actor Sidney Poitier. Other British influences include the political system and the roads. They drive on the wrong side of the road, relative to America. He doesn't mind that. He can walk almost anywhere he wants to go. Sometimes he bums a ride from his friend Zeph, but mostly he likes to walk. Occasionally he considers getting a car, but the mood passes.

The best thing about the job on the island, from the scientist's point of view, is that it gives him the opportunity to continue his work on vaccinations. He had become a rising star at the NIH by developing a promising vaccination for AIDS when he was barely out of graduate school. People had been comparing him to Jonas Salk. The future looked bright. Then the funding cutbacks came, and within a few months all the vaccination programs were terminated. The unhappy scientists were approached by headhunters, employment agents representing potential alternate employers. Soon job offers started coming in. While most of the scientists around him were still thinking about whether to stay or to go, the "Individual Health Freedom and Independence" constitutional amendment passed, and the doors closed on the CDC, the NIH, and almost all public health programs in America. Baldwin considered his options and chose the St. Lucy job.

St. Lucy has a big scientific advantage over China and Africa, from Baldwin's perspective. It's accessible by yacht from Florida, at least in good weather. That means he'd had no trouble packing a substantial assortment of lab samples into the luggage he could reasonably carry to his new home. While he doesn't own a yacht himself, he has friends who don't mind giving him a ride now and then. Friends willing to drop him off at any secluded place around the island's relatively unguarded coast.

His AIDS vaccine had been on its way to clinical trials when the order had come down to pull the plug on the health services. Other vaccines were in advanced stages of development, including some promising ones that targeted specific cancers. Both as a man of science and as a man of conscience, he didn't want to let go of that. The orders coming down from above had been clear: Destroy the vaccines. Destroy all samples. Burn, shred or otherwise destroy everything related to the research.

At the time, Baldwin had guessed the point of this was probably to prevent the laid off scientists from keeping their research for themselves and going into independent competition with the giant pharmaceutical companies. Upon further reflection now, he realizes that it wasn't just the drug giants that stood to lose from the vaccinations getting out. The medical industry as a whole has a lot to lose from effective vaccines against the big money-making diseases that kill their victims slowly while the medical service suppliers drain their money. Thinking about it again, he shrugs slightly in silence and takes another sip of the delicious Caribbean coffee. To Baldwin personally at the time, it had just meant the materials wouldn't be missed.

To put on a show of compliance he had destroyed scrap paper, blank disks, and vials of tap water, while concealing and smuggling out the potentially life-saving samples, notebooks and data files. At an Internet cafe he had made encrypted copies of the data files, giving them innocuous file names with misleading file extensions like .bin, and had then emailed them to, and from, freshly obtained disposable email addresses. The copies now hung suspended in his own private data cloud. He could access the data anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. The disk copies of the data files, along with the lab samples and the notebooks, he had packed into improvised hiding places in his luggage, which he hand carried onto a friend's yacht.

That boat had carried him, with his samples and notes, all the way to the sleepy island of St. Lucy, drinking beer and listening to music, partying with the ladies all the way. To his friends it had been a rousing going away party for their buddies Baldwin and Zeph. To Baldwin it was a well-executed smuggling operation, a chance to continue his work, and a start on a new life.

Now here he is. Most of the smuggled lab samples are still securely stashed in a remote hiding place in the interior. He makes frequent sightseeing trips there, bringing back only what he needs at any given time. Copies of the data files remain immediately accessible by email from any Internet-enabled computer.

The formula for the AIDS vaccine he developed at the NIH has been leaked to a friendly African government that has already started clinical trials. He's happy about that. The people he works for now in the St. Lucy government helped him to arrange the leak, but, like him, publicly they disclaim any knowledge of it. If the trials go as well as he hopes, the next generation of Africans will be able to look back on AIDS the way we look back on Polio now. He has a nagging concern as to whether the people working on synthesizing the vaccine and implementing the trials over there will be able to understand the molecular markers and how the chromosomes are translocated. He doesn't really want to win a free trip to Africa to sort things out for them. He sighs and hopes for the best. Even if nothing else ever goes right in his life again, he thinks, at least that much will have been accomplished. Knowing that gives him an odd sense of inner peace, and a paradoxical confidence in the future.

He turns away from the windows, discards the empty coffee cup in a recycling bin, and begins working. He makes a circuit of the lab, checking temperatures, taking notes on the progress of the cultures. Sometimes he puts a sample on a small glass slide to get a closer look with a microscope, occasionally adding a drop of some formula and observing the reaction. He places a small vial into a centrifuge, puts something into an oven and later takes it out. Time evaporates as he gets absorbed into the work, and the early morning dissolves. It's about 10:30 when he looks up, broken from his reverie by the pleasant sound of a woman's voice calling out to him.

"Buddy," he hears her call his nickname, in that British-influenced accent of hers. She had been born on the island, grown up and gone to school here, but if you met her in Europe you would think she was British, or possibly a Swedish girl who had studied in England. Well, a very suntanned British or Swedish girl, possibly one who spent her summers in the Canaries.

She leans out from behind the door, her head just peeking around it, as if she isn't completely sure she'll be welcome. He, on the other hand, is unquestioningly certain she must be extremely welcome everywhere she goes.

"Annetka," he answers her reflexively as he looks up. She always startles him. Everything about her seems so perfect: long slender body like a swimsuit model, high cheekbones, big eyes with a very slight almond shape, happy warm deep blue eyes. Before meeting her it had never occurred to him that blue eyes could look warm. The list goes on: long pale hair like satin, long neck, almost lobeless ears that look like delicate little round seashells. She has the most ordinary nose he's ever seen in his life, straight, not indented, not raised. Her slightly full lips, shaped like a cupid's bow aimed upward, tend to look as if she's just repressing a smile.

He smiles himself without meaning to. "Come on in," he hears himself say.

"I thought you might come with me down to the beach today. I'm going to meet up with a few friends," she answers, and enters the room alone.

She straightens herself as she comes out from behind the door, and her long straight hair slips across her shoulders like a pale satin curtain. It sways with her movements as she comes into the room, moving with that slightly undulating island girl walk, as gently as soft waves lapping the shore, as sensuously as a Latin dancer. This is just her natural gait. She hasn't practiced it. It's common in the islands. Still, seeing her move that way always makes him catch his breath. It seems so out of character for a woman with an almost Scandinavian appearance and manners.

He knows she was born on this very island, the daughter of Czechoslovakian refugees who had come over in the days of Eastern European Communism. The islands are the only home she's ever known. He thinks of her as a castaway in Paradise. Annetka Svoboda, castaway. Like himself.

He stares at her almost hypnotized, watching her walk across the lab towards him. He imagines he should speak, but no words come.

One of the things he likes best about her is that she seems so unaware of her natural beauty, not vain like so many American women. Annetka is hesitantly extroverted, as if always slightly afraid she might be intruding or interrupting something. She is warm, genuine and human, without guile or reservation.

"I can't right now, Annie," he eventually gathers his thoughts enough to answer her question with authentic regret, his eyes locked on hers as she approaches him.

"I'm just starting a series of tests. You've heard about those cases of people going crazy all of a sudden, reports from all around the islands." His voice carries a tone of sincere apology. Somehow he feels as if he has to explain himself. "In the news recently," he adds. "Sudden Onset Insanity, they're calling it."

She stands close to him now, looking up into his eyes. Her right hand brushes his left shoulder gently for no reason, as if brushing off some speck that isn't there. Her hand returns to the shoulder, rests there. Her fingers very gently, very lightly massage the back of the shoulder.

"Some of the people have died," he adds, to show how serious the situation is. "I think it's being spread by rats that come off the cruise ships," he goes on, as if continuing to talk might keep her near him longer. "People are dying," he emphasizes quietly, still looking down into her eyes.

He feels his hand stroke her hair. It feels soft, like mink or chinchilla. Up close, in the fluorescent light, he notices the pale color isn't uniform. It's composed of varying streaks in different shades of pale, some lightly golden, some the faint pastel of wheat at harvest time. Probably the effect of exposure to the sun, the scientist in him hypothesizes. He strokes it again. Still soft. He wants to pull her closer, to kiss the top of her head. Instead he lets his hand fall onto her shoulder, and looks again into her eyes.

"Well then," she says softly and slowly, brushing his other shoulder gently with her other hand, "I guess you'll have to stay here and work." She adds a little no-hard-feelings semi-smile. She stands very close, her hands on his shoulders.

The nearness feels like intimacy to him. The scientist in him reminds him of another explanation: The comfortable interpersonal distance for people in this culture is extremely close compared to American or Northern European standards. Still, as a man, he feels what he feels. While he analyzes, she steps back a little, lets her hands fall to her sides.

"We don't want any more people to die if you can stop it," she concludes sympathetically as she turns half away, giving him a slightly wounded look back. He desperately wants her to stay, though it makes no sense for her to do so.

"Maybe you'll drop in again after the beach. On your way back," he hears himself blurt out as she starts to leave. "We could have dinner or something." As much as he wants to do his work, he doesn't want to let her get away.

At that she smiles more fully as she backs off and turns toward the door. Her satin hair spins out like a full skirt as she turns her head quickly to look back at him, again locking eyes. "That would be nice," she says, sounding disappointed but consoled. "You can tell me all about whatever you figure out today."

Then she's gone. It almost hurts to feel her sudden absence.

He takes a deep breath and puts it behind him. He has work to do. And he hopes he might have tonight with Annetka.

The government of St. Lucy has just supplied him with tissue samples obtained from casualties from the outbreak in the islands. He's also brought in some samples he saved from a similar outbreak in New Orleans and Miami, with scattered cases reported from coastal cities in between, shortly before the CDC and NIH were closed down. His hypothesis is that the disease is being carried by rats on the cruise liners and supply ships that make the rounds freely throughout most of the islands in the Caribbean and to all the American cities along the Gulf coast.

He suspects it to be a virulent new strain of Apicomplexa, something like Toxoplasma gondii. If so, Toxoplasmosis would be the diagnosis, and that would usually be treatable if diagnosed in time. It isn't contagious in the sense of being directly transmissible from one person to another. Intermediate hosts are required. It has a complex life cycle and a long incubation period, so there are only scattered cases. But psychosis is so rare in the Paradise Islands that even one case draws attention. By their standard, as few as a dozen cases is an epidemic.

Before they can stop it, they need to understand it. Baldwin intends to apply his full efforts to that. He goes back to methodically and meticulously setting up his tests, analyzing his samples, entering careful notes both on paper and into a spreadsheet he's started on the computer.

Looking through the microscope at a brain tissue sample from a victim in St. Kitts, he can see the unmistakable evidence of the neural damage caused by advanced T. gondii, but it goes beyond the expected damage. It almost looks like Cordyceps fungus growths. He makes his gruesome notes, and turns to a brain tissue sample from New Orleans. It looks the same. He adjusts the lens on the microscope a bit, then adjusts it back to its previous setting. He's getting as clear a view as he can with this equipment.

He takes out a rare sample from an accident victim in Miami. The disease had been less advanced in that case. A young man had run in front of a speeding automobile on the freeway and been killed instantly. The authorities had attributed the young man's behavior to being stoned on drugs, but his family and friends had been adamant that he was a model student and general nerd who never took drugs or drank alcohol. The only reason the labs had come into possession of the brain tissue samples was because taking such samples had become standard procedure in hospital morgues in Florida after the lethal psychosis outbreak had turned into a local news scare story. The samples had been sent to the CDC. A friend at the CDC had sent some on to him at the NIH. When the NIH closed down, the samples came with him to St. Lucy.

He analyzes more samples. All of the samples are telling him the same story. There has somehow been a grotesque melding of T. gondii and Cordyceps. Such spontaneous crosses of microorganisms are rare, but they do happen. And when they do, epidemics can follow. He exhales fully, shaking his head a little in a combination of sadness and disbelief, and turns off the light on the microscope.

He sits back in a chair, mentally digesting the implications of what he's found. Staring blankly at the walls, he notices that the outside light has turned dim, and realizes the entire afternoon has passed. He sighs again, and stands up. There's nothing more to be done here tonight. He has to get cleaned up and change clothes for a late dinner with a beautiful woman who might not wait for him forever.

Chapter 4 - LiberTEA Injustice for All !

A brass band plays a raucous and patriotic but unidentifiable tune. A political gathering is in full swing at the Marriott in Columbus, Ohio. Crowds mill around energetically on the confetti-strewn floor. Tired balloons float near the ceiling.

As late as it is, adrenaline still fuels most of the guests. They paid good money for tickets to this. They want to get their money's worth by wringing any fun they can out of it. Most also want to be seen. Some want to be caught on photographs.

Charlie Wilburn, a young Physics graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, is staying with his mother in Ohio for the holidays. He's brought his girlfriend Katrina. His mother is an ardent supporter of the 37th amendment. The mother bought the tickets. She dragged her son Charlie along to the event, and Charlie dragged Katrina.

The young couple are discussing the speeches they've just heard, or rather making fun of the speeches they've just heard, working on their own never-ending improvisational comedy routine.

"If you want to call them speeches," Katrina offers. "More like insane soliloquies. My little brother's book report on Harry Potter painted a picture closer to reality."

He laughs. "So they're more like rants?" he suggests. "I don't know. To me it's more like stand-up comedy."

"No, more like Jay Leno's Jaywalking bit," she comes back, tilting her head and nodding, looking at him with a sidelong glance and a half smile. She's referring to a late-night comedy bit where the host interviews random people on the street, asking them simple common-knowledge questions, collecting wrong answers that are wrong in funny ways.

"Battle of the Jaywalk All-Stars," Charlie ups the ante, and they both laugh.

"No, no, that's the televised debates," she answers, and they laugh again.

He loves to get a laugh out of her. Of course with the LiberTEA party providing the material, it's pretty easy.

"LiberTEA Injustice for all!" he offers an ironic cheer. "Want to grab something to eat?" he adds.

She answers, "Nah, my stomach's upset."

Angling for another laugh, he asks, "Why would it be upset? Did you get in an argument with it?"

"Exactly," she picks up the thread, cracking up. "My nose smelled the food and voted to eat something. The stomach said, No way -- I've eaten food like that before, and the results aren't pretty. So it turned into a big row. I had to break it up. The nose is on lockdown now. Stomach is pretty upset."

"You sure you didn't just catch the contagion of the moment? Nicky Bee's crusade?"

"I was vaccinated against that by watching Do Bee and Don't Bee in grade school," she answers, smiling, looking at him sideways again to check if she's getting a reaction.

She shoots, she scores. He laughs again. "Well, Nick and Marie will put a stop to that nonsense," he answers, still smiling.

"Which nonsense? Vaccinations or Grade school?" She is delighted that she finally gets a turn to pose a question as the straight man.

"Probably all of the above if they have their way," Charlie supplies the punch line.

"Well, we're doing our part to help the party. Your mother paid a lot for our tickets," she comes back, hitting uncomfortably close to home.

"Look on the bright side. They won't be able to develop serious weapons anymore after they put a stop to science education. We could be fomenting world peace! They'll probably just spend the money on more parties like this."

She does some subdued dance moves and sings, "Par-tee like it's EIGHT-teen ninety-nine."

"How about 1799?" Doug suggests. "Or maybe 1717. Seventeen something. Decline and Fall of the Polish Empire. Almost a democracy. Religious freedom. Lots of Liberty. Banned slavery. Way ahead of its time. Lasted two or three hundred years," he explains, and the comedic interlude dies as he falls into a brief bout of serious thought.

"So, not at all like America, then," she says ironically, trying in vain to steer him back to the comedy.

"Well, I don't think they ever made it as far as getting a president who supported gay marriage," he answers, taking her seriously. "Maybe they would have gotten to that point given time, who knows. They were definitely a beacon of human rights in pre-America Europe. Then the government cut off funding to itself, and over the next few decades the whole empire just fell apart."

She gives the jokes a brief rest as she pauses to agree. "That's a good analogy," she allows. "Didn't it fall apart when one guy in government was able to use some kind of personal veto power to stop all taxes? I think his name was, uh, Grover Norquist," she devolves into humor again. "No taxes. That sounds like Nicky B. and the gang."

He smiles but doesn't laugh. "That was part of it all right. Liberum veto put the brakes on that particular birth of democracy. But there were a lot of other things going on. The military declined. The economy was bad."

"So, nothing at all like America, then?" she says with a straight face, and they both crack up laughing again. "Nothing to worry about there."

"Nothing to worry about," he comments sarcastically. After a second's pause he adds, "No use worrying about what's already done."

"Spilled milk," she agrees. "Water under the bridge."

"And the canasta's even worse," he tries for a joke.

"Anyway, I thought you were studying Science, not History," she observes.

"Science is going to be History, with these guys," he answers, laughing again.

"Nah, we'll still have Creation Science," she offers, laughing right back.

"Taught in Sunday school," she adds, pausing for comedic effect before concluding, "It's just Monday through Friday school that's at risk."

"So when America is attacked, we'll just blow those Jericho trumpets, and wait on the Lord to smite our enemies?" Charlie asks, as if it were a serious procedural question.

"Divine smiting. Divine healing too. That's the ticket," she agrees. "No worries. Just the power of prayer."

"Good point. And a bible in the shirt pocket can stop a bullet, I hear," he adds.

"Exactly," she responds. "Bibles are educational AND practical."

"Where do I get a Jericho trumpet?" he inquires, eyes smiling.

"Right next to the Armageddon ones," she offers. "I hear they're on sale. Two for the price of one. The Armageddon trumpets are going fast, too. Or is that coming fast? Maybe Armageddon's coming fast. I get confused," she ends with a smile.

. . .

After a time, Katrina excuses herself to go to the Ladies room for a few minutes. Charlie has nobody left to laugh with, and his eye wanders, looking for entertainment.

He sees Marie Mallon chatting up supporters and, she hopes, donors.

Charlie looks at her. He remembers having heard guys refer to her as Marie Melons. She isn't that much older, he thinks. Well, okay, she's probably a lot older. She is fascinating though, and his lady friend Katrina has disappeared for the moment. He may as well have one of those little sandwiches Marie is passing out. He ambles over to her, moving with the crowd.

Marie gives him the same cheerleader smile she gives everyone, and offers up a tray of tomato and cucumber crustless mini-sandwiches. He takes one. "Did you make these?" he asks, to make conversation. It seems unlikely that she did.

"Well," she laughs, "the bread is from a bakery. But I did assemble the sandwiches myself."

"Amazing. Beautiful AND a good cook," he remarks. Surely a line like that can't get far, but it's an opener, and he isn't terribly adept at social situations. Anyway, she's proven repeatedly that she isn't very bright.

She smiles broadly and returns the weak compliment. "Good to hear from a young man who's both charming AND has good taste in sandwiches."

"And in ladies," he adds.

They both laugh.

"So you're raising funds for the 37th amendment campaign?" he asks, to keep the ball rolling. "I mean, people paid for tickets to this thing tonight."

"So they did. Meet the candidates AND support the cause," she answers.

"You could do a fund-raising dinner," he suggests. "If you can actually cook, people would probably pay good money for that."

"I can bake bread," she offers. "My cooking skills are fairly limited."

"Baking bread is good. People love that," he encourages her. "You can advertise it as a joint effort, and make a big deal out of the fact that you're baking the bread. Good for the wholesome image, too. How much bread do you think you could bake, in an afternoon, say?"

"If all I had to do was bake bread?" she laughs. "And had a place to do it? It isn't so easy on the road like this."

He's a little thrilled that this celebrity lady is responding to him, even though he doesn't agree with her cause at all. In fact he thinks she's ridiculous. But attractive. "You just have to recruit some of the wives of your dairy farmer supporters," he says. "to provide the kitchens for the baking, and also to help with the actual preparation."

She looks hesitant, and says nothing. She's considering it.

He calculates how much money she might bring in by charging some arbitrary amount for tickets to the dinner. "If you charge maybe $10,000 per guest for 50 guests, you take in half a million right there," he presses it.

She lights up at the thought of bringing in that much money. "Really, would it be that much?" she asks, questioning his math. Obviously she can't do the calculation herself.

He assures her his math is correct. "Sure, look. You have 4 zeroes in $10,000, right? Three zeroes for the thousand, and that's times ten, so four zeroes for ten thousand." He pauses to be sure she's following. "When you multiply that by the 50 guests, you've got your 4 zeroes from the ten thousand, and the zero from the fifty gives you five zeroes. A five with 5 zeroes after it is 500,000. That's Five hundred thousand, which is half a million."

She doesn't follow the numbers. But he sounds convincing. "It's a good angle," she concedes, "cooking something myself."

"Sure, and you can get the farm wives to do most of the work. You just advertise that you're working together with your supporters preparing the meal, which will include the homemade bread that you bake yourself, from your own private recipe. Or it could be an old family recipe."

"Family recipe," she announces, as if that finalizes the deal.

Hey, she's going to run with this, he thinks to himself. He'll have good dreams that night. He eats a few more little handmade sandwiches, and then sees Katrina coming back. He waves to her.

"Marie Mallon, meet Katrina Lundgren," he introduces the two.

"Nice meeting you," Marie greets her. Neither woman offers to shake hands.

Katrina smiles. She declines the offer of sandwiches. "I've had enough already," she says simply. After a pause she adds, "but it is a rare opportunity, getting to meet you. You and Nick have done so much to keep America safe from democracy."

Charlie's jaw drops slightly and his eyes open wider. Marie doesn't notice the sarcasm.

"Christianity as well," Katrina adds, pushing it. Charlie's head tilts and he grunts inaudibly.

"Well, everybody does what they can," Marie answers, thinking she's being complimented, feigning humility.

"Whose idea was it to pack the Supreme Court like that, anyway?" Katrina continues. "Did you come up with that, or was it Nick?"

"Pack?" Marie asks.

"To increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. So they could appoint a majority of LiberTEA supporters. Two years ago."

"Oh, that's old news," Marie answers, understanding the question at last. "That was President Sheppard, and Nick. They're very close."

Before Katrina can come up with some cutting rejoinder about closeness, maybe about being in bed with Nick, Charlie grabs her arm.

"It's time for us to go," he interjects. "We have an early morning tomorrow. You understand," he nods to Marie, and so saying pulls Katrina away from her unwitting victim.

Katrina laughs lightly as they walk away. "Early morning?"

"Yeah, we're past the solstice, so the mornings are coming earlier every day," he tries to justify his loose treatment of the truth.

Katrina laughs again. "Maybe you should stick to physics," she suggests. "The nights are actually getting longer. The sun is rising later. Oh, wait, that is physics. Maybe you missed your calling as a historian after all."

"Well, if it's staying dark longer, then the mornings will seem to come earlier, because we have to get up while it's still dark. So we have an early morning because it will seem early because it'll still be dark out. I don't know. Let's go home," Charlie suggests. "You were starting to get KATty."

"But I was having such a good time."

"We can have an even better time at home alone for a few hours," he answers suggestively, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close.

"What will you tell your mother?"

"That you had to leave because your stomach's upset," he ends on a joke.

Chapter 5 - World Harmony Cafe

The evening is warm and balmy, like most evenings on St. Lucy. A salty ocean breeze plays gently across the large veranda of the restaurant. The veranda is studded with glass topped white wrought iron tables and cushioned wrought iron chairs. A few couples sit in the open air perusing menus or looking into each other's eyes. Slow Jazz instrumental music drifts faintly out onto the patio from inside the main restaurant. The smell of potatoes cooked with Indian spices occasionally wafts out with the music when the direction of the breeze changes. A big sign on the brick wall of the building announces the name in big letters:

World Harmony Cafe

Shortly beneath that, in smaller script, the names of drinks appear:

Juice and Fruit Smoothies on tap. Beer and Wine also served.

The next lines list some popular menu items:

Jambalaya, Falafel, Enchiladas, Tacos, Kung Pao Tofu, Pasta Pomodoro

Potato Pancakes, Lefse, Corn Cakes, Naan

Samosas, Plantain Chips, Pappadum, Antipasto, Hummus

Collard Greens, Chow Chow

Asparagus soup, Pot Liquor, Soup D'Jour

Sweet Potato Pie, Pineapple Cake, Banana Bread, Sorbet

Don't see what you want? Just Ask, all Vegan.

Skipping a space, the next lines read:

No animal products used.

No tobacco allowed!

Bringing people together by bringing food together.

Vegan for life.

After another blank space, the two bottom lines announce, in somewhat larger letters:

Music nightly from 8 p.m.

Jazz Friday and Saturday

Late dinners and a nightlife are part of the package in hot climates. This particular Vegan restaurant is locally famous for the best Indian food around, occasional tofu ingredient notwithstanding. The New Orleans music is a big draw too.

Pretty young Annetka Svoboda sits on the terrace with her beau, Dr. Albert Bedwin Baldwin. His nickname is Buddy to his friends, occasionally Baldy, and sometimes Bedwin to Annetka, who has somehow found out his oddly royal, and mildly suggestive, middle name. She's especially delighted that he blushes slightly and gets momentarily flustered if she gives him a suggestive glance when she pronounces it with the emphasis on the first syllable. "Bedwin," she is saying, "Tell us about your research."

"I'm dreaming," Zeph says while Baldwin pauses. Baldwin and Annetka have been joined at dinner by another couple. Zephram Yates, a castoff CDC scientist friend of Buddy's from the states, now also working on the island, sits across from his new girlfriend. His eyes are locked on Zoe Jalissa Zamora, his exotically beautiful mixed-race multilingual island dream girl. "Tell me, Buddy, when you were back at the NIH, did a single pretty girl EVER ask about your research?" Zeph poses his perpetual question. He still has trouble believing his luck in finding Zoe. He keeps expecting her to vanish if he rubs his eyes.

"But we're interested, DOCtor Yates," Jalissa responds scoldingly, emphasizing the first syllable of Doctor, like a mother cross with a child. She looks at him with enormous round brown eyes that seem to reflect the night sky. Her long dark hair hangs over her shoulders in layered medium-loose curls. She has a small nose, but not too small, and full lips, but not too full. Taller than Annetka but not as tall as Zeph, she has long legs and the lithe body of a dancer, with the addition of abundantly developed feminine characteristics. She smells like the spices and flowers that grow on the islands. With only a little formal education, but a lot of native intelligence and intellectual curiosity, apparently she actually is interested. Meeting her, for Zeph, was like a polarized magnet encountering its opposite.

"Amazing," Zeph says, and shakes his head, with his gaze fixed unbreakably on his girl. Stunningly beautiful and interested in science. Can life offer anything better, he wonders, and thinks not.

"Oh, come on," the dark island girl insists, turning her attention to Baldwin. "Annetka said it has something to do with the crazy people. She says it's like the antler ants on the Shaman's Island."

Zeph isn't terribly interested in the research just now. He's wondering how Jalissa can possibly smell like the spices and flowers that grow on the islands. He lacks the nerve to ask. Anyway he enjoys imagining the possibilities. He says nothing and lets Baldwin talk while he contemplates and stares at young Ms. Zamora.

"The recent outbreak of sudden onset insanity," Baldwin delivers his composed answer, "has led to death in all the cases we know about for certain. But I suspect there may be a lot more people who are carriers, people who haven't been driven to the insanity and death stage, at least not yet. It may be that it takes a long time to develop. Not as long as AIDS, but probably several months. Much longer than the flu. So a person carrying it might show no symptoms for a long time, but they can probably still spread the parasite during that phase."

Zeph - Dr. Yates - looks at the speaker, taking an interest.

"That's my suspicion, anyway," Buddy adds.

"After all, they send me tissue samples because somebody has died, right?" he asks Zeph rhetorically. "People want an explanation. Somebody insane but alive doesn't attract as much sympathy and interest, and I certainly don't get samples. People assume the victim is drunk or on drugs. And the parasite might not develop fully in a person with a strong immune system. If it has a long incubation period that would explain how it could spread so widely before presenting itself in a fairly far-flung geographic area."

"Florida and the Gulf Coast states, and maybe the whole Caribbean," Zeph says and nods.

Buddy nods back. For illustration, and for the beautiful non-biochemists at the table, he describes the offending parasite a bit loosely. "This parasite -- it's sort of a fungus. You can think of it like a wart with long stringy tendrils like vines growing inside the brain of the victim." After a pause he adds, "That takes time."

Jalissa is again struck, from that description, with the similarity to the Antler-Ant phenomenon sometimes found in the nearby tropical jungles.

"Does it ever explode out of their heads, like what happens to the ants?" she wants to know, but doesn't pause for him to answer. "In the highlands on Shaman Island," she tells him, "they have a healer, a tribal medicine man, who brews up a herbal tea. Sometimes animals, and even people, are infected with the Antler Ant spores there. He gives them the tea. It's supposed to be a cure, people say."

Baldwin is astonished. So is his fellow scientist Zeph.

"Cordyceps had made the trans-species jump to humans? Ophiocordyceps unilateralis?" Baldwin enquires of the girl, so surprised he forgets to dumb down the language. "To mammals and humans? Here, in these islands? You've seen this yourself?"

"Well, no. I haven't seen it myself," she answers, taken aback by his sudden intensity. "I've heard about it," she adds for clarification. Seeing the disbelief in the men's eyes she also adds, "from reliable sources."

Nobody says anything. Uncomfortable with the silence, she continues. "What, you think I'd make up something like this? For what? No, really. This is true. There is one particular species of giant carpenter ants that only live on the one island, in the high jungle in the interior," she explains. "These things are half as long as your foot. Well, half as long as Jack's foot."

"Jack is her brother," Zeph offers. "A big guy about 6 foot 6. Don't know his shoe size."

"You've seen these ants yourself?" Buddy asks.

Again, she hasn't, but she has seen evidence. "Not the ants. I saw an ant bite on a friend of Snake's. It was big. Jack and Snake have seen the ants. They were there on the island. Not long ago. They were a little shaken up by it. Snake was afraid his friend might get infected."

"Snake is a friend of her brother Jack," Zeph clarifies. "Big tough guy. Normally nothing shakes him up."

The two men suspect she's exaggerating, or repeating an exaggeration she heard from the actual witnesses. But curiosity is a potent force in the scientific soul. They want to see for themselves.

"That island," Annetka offers, "is famous around here for the fantastic beaches on the north coast."

"I don't own a swimsuit," Baldwin says weakly. He isn't trying to resist going to the island, which he very much wants to do. What he doesn't want is to go swimming. It dawns on him that he isn't going to be able to refuse to swim forever and still make a life in the Caribbean.

Annetka, undeterred, reports that "There's a very nice nude beach there too, so no problem. A clothing optional beach, I mean."

The combined appeal to his prurient interest and his scientific curiosity is too much to endure. "Okay," Baldwin answers, "Let's go have a look. One day soon. Swimming and, uh, sightseeing."

"Tomorrow," the two women say in unison.

"It'll be Saturday tomorrow," Annetka says with a trace of excitement, flashing her big deep blue eyes right at Baldwin, smiling her charming half smile.

The waitress picks this moment to come to their table.

"How's the falafel?" Zeph asks. "Do you have samosas? Bring me a large strawberry banana smoothie."

Jalissa answers one of his questions: "That spiced potato smell you keep noticing? That's the smell of samosas."

"The falafel is good. All our food is good," the waitress answers his other question. "One large strawberry banana smoothie. You need more time to decide? Anybody want to order a drink?"

Yerba Mate for Zoe Jalissa. Annetka wants chocolate almond milk made with Mexican chocolate -- the kind flavored with Christmas spices. A large glass of apple-pineapple juice for Baldwin.

Annetka and Zoe look at the menus, which they already know by heart. Nothing on them has changed since the last time they were here. "Jumbalaya?" Zoe asks her friend Annetka.

"I like their Indian food," Annetka answers. "Chana Dahl or Lentil Curry. Or maybe that cauliflower potato thing. Definitely Samosas. Pappadum."

"Bring us the drinks and some samosas and pappadum for appetizers," Baldwin tells the waitress, "and plantain chips."

The woman departs without writing anything down, walking away slowly with her hips swinging gently side to side.

Annetka continues the conversation where she left off. "We can go tomorrow early. We'll have lots of time. We could even spend the night if it comes to that. Maybe we can find the shaman, the ants, everything. It's lucky Jalissa speaks all the local languages. She can translate no matter what language they're speaking."

When she sees agreement in Baldwin's eyes she adds, "after swimming."

The plan is silently agreed, by being unopposed. Jazz sounds float out from the main restaurant, overlaid with the chatter of scattered conversations at the tables. The breeze brings in the fresh salt ocean smell.

"So, what did you do today?" Buddy asks the others at large.

"We were all swimming," the girls answer, and giggle. Nobody explains to him why that's funny.

"We had a great time," Zeph sums it up.

. . .

After dinner the two couples part, agreeing to leave for the island early in the morning.

Zeph and Zoe Jalissa take off in his little blue car. The discordant sound of the engine seems to assault the quiet peace of the evening, which is otherwise punctuated only by drifting strains of jazz and fragments of tinkling conversations.

Baldwin is left alone with Annetka under the dim streetlight. They set out to walk with the few blocks to her family's home. He likes walking, and she seems to like it too. The island is nice that way. He estimates the entire island is only about ten or fifteen miles across at its widest point. Soufriere itself is small, with maybe ten thousand inhabitants at the most. No place in Soufriere is ever too far away to walk.

The starlight is bright and the moon is almost full. Baldwin takes Annetka's hand and holds it in his as they walk, swinging their joined hands between them with each step.

He remembers high school, walking a girl home from a dance. He had almost forgotten that period of his life, but walking here with her suddenly it doesn't seem so long ago. As in high school, they arrive at her home too soon.

At her front door they stop and she turns toward him, face upturned. The porch light illuminates her sparkling eyes, her perfect features.

He wonders whether to kiss her goodnight.

As he looks into her eyes, her father opens the door and the moment disappears.

"Good night, Annie," he says, dropping her hand from his.

She smiles and goes in through the door that her father holds open.

"Good evening, Sir," he says to the father by way of greeting. The father nods at him, retreating back into the house as he closes the door.

Baldwin turns and walks away, walking toward home without thinking where he is going, thinking about nothing.

Before his head hits the pillow he is already dreaming about swimming with Annetka at the clothing optional beach.
Chapter 6 - Dinner at the Farm House

A rooster crows for the fourteenth time in the farmyard behind the large stately farmhouse a few miles outside Wrights Corner, Indiana, a little west of Cincinnati on the way to Indianapolis.

And it isn't even ten o'clock yet, Marie reflects. "I thought roosters only crow at dawn," she says aloud, smiling hopefully at her hostess, the farmer's wife Della Peterson.

"Heh heh," Della laughs a little, as if her celebrity guest has told a deliberate joke. "Oh, Honey, they can crow anytime," she adds and laughs again more heartily. "It's not so bad when they run late. It's when they start early that it's bothersome."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yes. Turn on those outside lights and that's all it takes to get them started. Why, sometimes a tractor or a car headlight is enough." She laughs again, less enthusiastically. "They can keep it up for hours, Honey," she ends decisively, draining the water from a big pot of boiled potatoes. She dumps the cooked potatoes into a cafeteria sized metal bowl, where it joins two previous similar batches of boiled potatoes, waiting to be converted into potato salad for the big Sunday dinner late that afternoon. It will be the biggest gathering she's ever had at the farmhouse, and certainly the only time guests have paid. And so much money! But for a good cause. "Keep that 37th Cannonball rolling," she says aloud. The remark has continuity within her own train of thought, but to the others it just seems like a random change of subject.

"Amen to that," Marie responds automatically.

"Amen," the farm woman answers, in her innocent well-meaning way. She has seen very little of the world outside the farm, the small town, and the small church they usually attend. Fortunately the church has more than one service on a Sunday morning, and she attended a very early one. "Was probably us going to church this morning that woke the chickens," she adds.

Marie finds the abrupt subject switches unnerving. She really is not very bright, and it costs her an uncomfortable effort to adjust her mental state for each change. She doesn't see any connection between the different subjects, so it has the effect of someone with a remote control switching channels aimlessly on a television set she's trying to watch. She moves on to kneading the next lump of bread dough, spreading it out on the floured board, sprinkling a handful of flour over it, folding the dough over itself repeatedly. This she likes. This she understands.

"Maybe Nick and the guys leaving to go fishing at five a.m. woke the chickens," Marie suggests a possible alternative. "That was before dawn. That big Ford pickup of Nick's certainly has headlights on it."

Della laughs. "It does at that," she agrees.

A cat scratches at a litter box in a corner of the giant kitchen, adding the scent of dusty powder and ammonia to the air. It isn't a strong smell, but Marie notices it above the food and cooking smells. The cat does its business, then scratches again. Marie doesn't like having the cats in the kitchen. She doesn't dislike cats as much as she once did, and she understands that farmers often keep cats to control mice. Still, does the cat box have to be in the kitchen? Whether from intuition or from decades of parentally inflicted training and drilling in social skills, she knows enough not to ask. She continues to knead the bread, sprinkling on flour, turning the dough over onto itself in half, stretching it and folding it again.

Marie sneezes, turning her face into her shoulder to avoid spraying the food. The food is probably contaminated by the sneezing, despite the precaution. It's probably already contaminated by the cat litter dust, she thinks to herself, maybe as self-justification. Real people often live under these conditions, she tells herself; and people had asked for a home-cooked meal, clamored for it in fact. This is what a home-cooked meal is.

Della laughs, and it startles Marie, as if the woman had been reading her mind. "Why, would you look at that," Della marvels, gazing out the window.

Marie sees nothing outside the window but a silo, a windmill, some reddish dairy barns and chicken sheds in a large dirt farmyard, the dirt populated by a random collection of small farm animals, the scene backed by seemingly infinite rows of tall corn and a vast blue grey sky with gathering clouds.

"Looks like we're due for rain," Della points out.

"Not this afternoon I hope," Marie responds, now that the topic of discussion is clear.

Della laughs under her breath. "Why, no, Dear, it won't spoil your shindig. Not this afternoon. Soon though."

Marie doesn't care even a little. "Will that be a problem for you?" she asks the other woman, as if concerned.

"Just means we better start getting that corn in soon, is all," she says, and shakes her head. "A little rain is okay. Too much rain can ruin the whole crop. This shouldn't be too bad tonight. It's just starting, that's all. It'll be coming down hard before long."

"Well, let's enjoy today then," Marie turns the topic to the bright side.

"Amen to that," Della says sweetly, and drains steaming water from another large pot of potatoes. "We'll have potato salad soon." She sets down the big pot and takes another oversized chrome steel bowl down from a shelf. "I butter get started baking those cakes," she adds jokingly. "Get it, butter get started," she smiles self-consciously, turning to Marie, hoping for approval of her pun.

Marie smiles at her beneficently, granting the approval, but internally self-congratulatory for the superior nature of her own puns, indeed her own intellectual stature, relatively speaking. That college boy may think he's smart with his ideas and doing all that math in his head, she reflects. Maybe he is smart at that, she concedes to herself. But to these people, she, Marie, is the clever one, the Queen Bee, the one with the puns and the big ideas.

"Della, people tell me YOU make THE BEST cakes for miles and miles around," Marie adds a compliment for her hostess and helper.

"She does at that," another woman chimes in. Until that moment Marie has forgotten that she and Della are not alone in the kitchen. Five other women are helping with the preparations, all supporters, all volunteering their time and efforts because they have faith that the 37th amendment is going to improve the situation in the country, because they have faith that LiberTEA philosophy holds out the best hope for continued enjoyment of their lives of relative privilege and comfort, because they have faith that Marie Mallon and Nicholas B. Wright are campaigning to maintain detached islands of safety and prosperity for themselves and their families.

"Stop that, you'll make me blush," the hostess says, and her cheeks turn a medium range pink.

"Well, Della, you know your cakes ARE the best cakes anybody around here has ever seen," another woman adds, and all nod and murmur agreement, looking straight at the local cake queen, who turns a more intense pink.

"Well, Angela," she answers in echo, "you know my cakes had better get started on their way to the oven then."

So saying she measures three pounds of butter into the big bowl. Butter isn't just a secret ingredient. The goodness of butter is an article of faith for a woman married to a dairy farmer. She adds a five pound bag of sugar and turns on a noisy electric mixer, stopping the embarrassing conversation.

Again the rooster crows, audible over the noise. Another cat scratches up dust from the litter box. Again Marie sneezes, and this time one of the other women echoes the sneeze. They continue preparing the gala Sunday dinner. The clouds continue to drift in slowly.

Della's 10-year old son Butch rushes in through the kitchen door, white-blonde hair sticking up here and there like ripe wheat, gangly limbs waving in all directions. "Mama! There's going to be an execution on the TV tonight!" he exclaims, clearly excited by the news. "Can we watch it, Mama? Can we watch it on the big screen?"

"Well, what execution is that, now, Butch, darlin?" asks one of the women, his aunt Becky. "And who told you about that?"

"Cousin Bobby," he answers, fidgeting like a six year old needing the bathroom. "It's in TEXAS!" he answers the other question, eyes growing wide. "They use the ELECTRIC CHAIR."

"Electric chair, hmm?" Aunt Becky considers it, and turns to her sister, Butch's mother Della. "This must be that Bill Benson thing. You know. The abortionist. And they say he was doing stem cell research to boot! It's desecrating the dead, is what it is."

"Stem cell research! Well, I never," Della shakes her head. "What time do you suppose it's on?"

"Seven o'clock," the boy offers sheepishly. "Tonight."

"Well, the big dinner will still be in full swing at seven o'clock," Della holds back, remembering her duty to her guests and the cause. But an actual electrocution! She hasn't seen one of those in weeks. "A lot of important people will be here. They might be in the middle of making speeches."

Marie chimes in, sounding expansive and generous, "Why, Della, I think our guests would enjoy watching the execution! Did the boy say you have a big screen TV?"

"In the big room," the hostess answers. "That screen's seven or eight foot across, I'd guess, hanging on the wall in there. You probably didn't notice it cause it's so flat and all. It's not a REAL big one. But it's big enough for us I guess."

"Well, that'll work just fine, Honey," Marie responds. "That's the same room where we'll be having the dinner anyway. And we don't have to turn up the sound until it gets to the good part."

"That's true. Well, if you think so then."

"Oh, I do. It'll be great. Put some life into the party."

"All right, then, Butch," Della answers her son. "We can watch the execution. But you behave yourself! You're going to put on your good suit and mind your manners for our guests."

"Yes ma'am," he agrees, excited and delighted. "I surely will. Thank you, Mama. Thank you, Miss Mallon."

"Sure, Honey," Marie smiles, as if she had actually done something. "Why, I'm glad you told us about it. I'm sure everybody will really like to see that."

"Yes ma'am," the boy agrees politely, and withdraws the way he had arrived, not wanting to hang around and risk upsetting his chances now that he's won what he came for. Then he stops in the doorway, deciding to push his luck. "Do you think cousin Bobby could come over too?" he asks timidly, looking back at his mother.

"If he wears a good suit and minds his manners," the mother agrees. "Now you run along and tell him so."

With a final "yes, ma'am," the boy leaves the kitchen, elated. On the way out he bumps into Nick Wright, just returning from the morning fishing with three other men. Nick is holding out a string of dinner-size fish in his right hand, and is thrown off balance for a second when the boy runs into him. Butch also loses his footing momentarily.

"Whoa, boy, where you going in such a hurry?" Nick says jovially, reaching out his free hand to stabilize the boy.

"Sorry, Mr. Wright. I was just going out to tell Bobby we get to watch the execution on the big TV tonight, but we have to get cleaned up and wear our church clothes. That's all. There's a real execution on tonight, Mr. Wright! In Texas. They're going to use the electric chair!"

"Well, that sounds mighty fine, Butch. Yes it does. It's a long while from now to then, though. What do you say you go get Bobby while we drop off these fish here, and then we all go out back and shoot some hoops for a while?"

"Yes!" Butch answers, pumping both arms in an enthusiastic victory gesture. "Thank you, Mr. Wright." Out he runs into the yard. His uncle Eugene, also holding a string of freshly caught fish in his right hand, closes the door behind his nephew.

"Nice boy you have there," Nick says to Butch's father, Della's husband Pete, another member of the fishing expedition. "Right energetic though."

Pete chuckles with reserve. "He is at that," the man allows.

Leading the way into the kitchen, Pete finds a stainless steel sink that doesn't seem to be in use, and plops down his string of fish on the drain board. There are about a dozen fish and the string hangs over into the adjacent sink. The other men follow his lead. "Got you some fresh fish for your dinner," he says to his wife, nodding toward the sink. "We can hang around and clean them if you don't want to," he adds, "if we wouldn't be in your way here."

"Never mind," one of the younger women jumps in. "I'll do that. You go get cleaned up and shoot hoops with the boys."

"Well, thank you, Sarah," Pete says and nods his head toward her in a vestigial bow. "That's right nice of you." His eyes light up as he glances back at his fishing companions, as if they've gotten away with something. They all leave the kitchen immediately, as if afraid the women might change their minds. Safely in the hallway outside the kitchen they all break into big grins.

"There's a bathroom down the hall here where we can wash off some of this fish smell and leave our clothes," Pete announces, and again leads the way.

"There are some bathrobes in the closet there, we can just put those on long enough to go upstairs," he adds as they pass a closet in the hall. "Anyway the women are all in the kitchen. Everybody got a change of clothes upstairs?" he asks, looking around. "Well, if you don't, you can just borrow something for now. I got plenty of old jeans good enough for playing basketball. May as well have some fun between now and dinnertime. Good idea you had there, Nick."

"Hey, I'm full of good ideas," the politician answers. "Just ask the voters."

"You're full of something, all right," Eugene jokes, and again they all grin.

Back in the kitchen, the bread dough Marie has been kneading is set aside to rise, and six loaves of bread that have already finished rising go into one of the big ovens. The nice thing about a farmhouse kitchen on a big farm like this, Marie realizes, is that everything is set up to make really big meals for a lot of people. Whether for farmhands, relatives, or political supporters, the food cooks the same. What a great idea that college kid had, raising money with a home-cooked dinner, and getting a farmer's wife to volunteer the venue and round up the labor. All Marie has to do now is bake the bread and put on her usual charming show, things she's known how to do for a long time.

"This will all work out just fine," Marie announces confidently to the women in the room, and everyone returns her good humor. "An execution. What could be more entertaining than that?"

"Why, one of your speeches, Dearie," Angela, an older woman, answers. "I just love the way you talk about how far we've come, getting rid of O-BUM-a-care and those awful vac-SIN-ations. You do say the cleverest things."

"And Med-DECAYED. That was funny too," Debra agrees with Angela, reciting another of Marie's well-worn lines.

"And truthful," Della adds. "All that public health nonsense is just a big expense and a waste of our money."

"The pioneers didn't have any public health care, you can bet," Angela agrees quickly. "Just relied on their own hard work, like we're doing now."

"Didn't that Donner party of pioneers eat people?" a younger woman asks.

"For shame. You've gone to public school too much, that's your problem, Little Miss. They teach the utmost nonsense in those public schools. Probably teaching you Evolution too." Angela shakes her head and clucks disapprovingly before continuing. "Anyway, if they did eat people, I'm sure the people were already dead on their own. The point here is, the pioneers were survivors, self-reliant. Not like these lazy sickos today, with their abortions and their stem cell research."

"Abortion is murder," Debra chimes in gratuitously.

"Maybe I'll make an electric chair shaped cake," Della gets an idea, and looks toward Marie for approval. "You think?"

The women in the kitchen murmur for a minute indecisively, then the murmurs turn into approval. When that happens Marie Mallon answers, smiling broadly, as if she had thought of it herself, "YES! That is a GREAT idea, Della! Oh, you ARE just as talented as they all say."

"Let's wait until we see the cake before we say that," Della laughs modestly. She pulls out large rectangular pans for baking the cakes. An electric chair is a fairly boxy shape, she recalls, so it should be pretty easy to assemble a cake recognizably close to the shape of an electric chair.

So the afternoon passes, until by 4:00 there are dozens of loaves of fresh warm bread, big bowls of potato salad, big platters of fried chicken and sweet corn, a bit of tomato and lettuce salad, two trays of carrot sticks, scallions, pimento-stuffed green olives and cubes of a very mild cheddar cheese garnished with fancy toothpicks, all the makings of a gala home-cooked dinner. There are assorted desserts, but the pinnacle of it all is a very large electric-chair shaped cake that sits as a centerpiece, chocolate iced with bright red cherry icing drizzled over it suggestively for trim. Gold lightning bolts made out of yellow candy canes stick out from it at odd angles, suggesting electricity. Everything is covered with clear dome-shaped tops, so the cats can't be tempted to steal a snack.

"That's really something," Marie admires the cake, which looks like a museum piece under its glasslike dome. Della feels proud about the cake but at the same time humble and embarrassed at being complimented by the celebrity lady.

"It's just a cake," she says sheepishly. "But I'm glad you like it. I'm glad if I could do something to help the cause. I mean, look at all you do!"

Marie smiles at her, and that is all the reward she wants.

The women dry off their hands and take off their aprons, ready to go upstairs to change before the guests start arriving. No guests are due until 4:30, but with the farm so far from the airport, it's hard to be precise about timing a trip. And so many people are coming! All the women drift out of the kitchen.

After a few minutes Butch and Bobby sneak in and steal cookies, then leave to change clothes themselves, hiding the cookies in their overall pockets.

The kitchen is quiet. All the tables are set. A mist of rain starts to come down outside, almost imperceptible.

. . .

By five o'clock the party is going strong, and guests are still arriving.

Everyone who comes in is dressed as if for a semi-formal dinner at a grand hotel. Without looking outside you wouldn't know they were on a farm. Della feels important, for one of the few times in her life. She wears a simple black dress and her grandmother's jewelry.

The children are subdued, not wanting to do anything to risk their chance to see the big TV show at seven. A good thing, Della reflects, that they're having this execution tonight. It guarantees the boys will behave properly for once. The television is on, turned to a Modern Christian music channel, but it can't be heard over the conversation of the guests.

Everyone seated, Nick B. Wright says grace, trying to invoke blessings on the meal, the assembled faithful, and their political cause. "And please help us to pass the 37th Amendment," he ends with a deep loud voice that passes as inspirational.

"A big Amen to that," Marie adds the finishing note.

"Amen," all present assent. Some add, "Hallelujah."

A thin instrumental version of Amazing Grace plays in the background.

"That chicken sure smells good, Della," Nick says, taking a piece and passing around the platter.

"Oh, Angela and Debra made that," she answers, blushing and gesturing towards the two.

"Well it's darn fine fried chicken," he repeats the compliment, looking at the two responsible for it. "And is this Marie's bread?" he feigns astonishment, slicing a thick chunk from a warm loaf. "Who knew you could cook like this?"

"Here, this is real butter, from the farm here," Della offers. "Fresh churned this morning."

"Food should be cooked with lots of love and lots of butter, my Mom always said," Nick answers her with a smile, spreading butter thickly onto the warm bread. Dairy farmers are big supporters. Butter has to be praised. He passes the butter dish on around the table in the same direction as the bread and the chicken had gone, with the same smile still installed on his face.

By 6:30 the speeches are going strong. "Private Police forces," a standing man is saying, "do a better job than publicly funded ones ever did. They're more loyal. They work harder. And they aren't so bothered by sissified regulations!" He concludes and takes his seat.

"Here, here," several people agree, raising their glasses. "To private enterprise," someone offers a toast, and all cheer. "To freedom," someone adds, and they cheer again.

"To NO TAXES, at all, ever again!" Nick adds the final verse, with his loud deep voice. "HURRAH!" and all down their drinks.

"How much you figure they'll make on the tickets, from the execution tonight?" a young woman asks. Nobody hazards a guess.

"More than they'd make supporting the bum for the rest of his life in a tax-supported prison," Nick supplies an answer to fill the vacuum. "Execute the lot of them and they won't cause any more trouble."

Laughter.

"As long as it's enough to pay for the electricity to fry him," another man adds.

Laughter again.

Rainfall begins to be audible, like a slow drip from a leaking pipe, like partially held-back tears. Everyone knows it can only get worse. No one says anything about it. A distant crack of thunder is heard, and a flicker of far away lightning strobes outside the windows.

"Hey, what channel is that on, anyway?" Someone asks, "Isn't that starting pretty soon?"

"At seven," Della answers, and the TV is turned to the boisterous celebration that forms the lead-in to the big event.

People on the screen are blowing party horns, waving flags and signs, as excited as if a football match were about to start. An interviewer holds a microphone out to people in attendance at the execution, people whose interview comments echo the sentiments heard inside the farmhouse. Fry them all. The party horns sound their discordant refrain, banners and balloons bounce and float across the screen, and, outside the farmhouse, lightning plays across the sky.

Someone thinks to put birthday candles onto the electric chair cake. They place the candles carefully in the general shape of a man. Just before the stroke of seven the candles are lit. A very accurate grandfather clock chimes seven in the farmhouse just as the switch in Texas is thrown. Electricity sparks visibly across the screen as the dying man twitches like an epileptic in his death throes. Laughter and cheers both on the screen and off. People blow out the candles and the cake is cut and served.

"Here's to the 37th amendment!" Someone offers the same toast again.

"Here's to Nick B. Wright for our next president!" Someone else ups the ante. "Be Right with Nicky B. Wright!"

"Be Right," the crowd cheers.

"And Marie Mallon for second chair!" Nick adds to the cheer, holding his glass high to the group. "Marie and me! Be Right! Be PERFECTA!"

This is the first time he has actually announced that the two are a combination ticket. The group goes wild, whooping, hollering, swallowing drinks in big gulps. Della is so proud it happened here, at her house. They've announced they're going to run together as a ticket for the next election. She claps, starting a round of clapping. Thunder and lightning join in. The wind howls at the chimney and the windows.

"Nicky Be Right!" Marie stands up and proposes the same toast again, and again all cheer. Altogether a successful evening, she sighs to herself, still smiling the practiced smile, making eye contact with everyone, aiming the smile at each in turn. "Nicky and me! and the 37th!" She shouts. She also thinks to herself about the half a million dollars raised by the dinner. "Thank you, Della," she says quietly to the farm wife at her side as she seats herself again. "This is a major evening for all of us."

Chapter 7 - Setting Off

The sun is not yet visible on the horizon, but its light and warmth have already begun to spill out over St. Lucy. Early morning sounds of fishing boats and fishermen can be heard in the distance. The air is clear and clean, washed by a light breeze from the ocean.

Zeph parks his boxy blue compact car in front of Buddy's lab. He and Zoe Jalissa get out slowly and stretch themselves like cats. Zeph takes a few quick steps across the sidewalk and taps out a rhythmic knock on the closed door of Baldwin's lab. "You in there?" he calls out. "Daylight is upon us."

Annetka opens Baldwin's front door halfway and leans out from behind it, blonde hair hanging loose, smiling a morning person smile. "We're almost ready," she says, gesturing for the two newcomers to enter the room. "Buddy is just putting together a few things to bring. Sample jars and what not." She yawns and stretches as they walk into the room. "Hope you had an early breakfast," she adds.

"We did," Zeph answers for both of them. "Miss Zoe Jalissa Zamora ate two entire miniature pancakes, and about an ounce of pineapple banana salad."

"Well," Zoe Jalissa retorts, "Dr. Zephram Horatio Yates the Third ate five scrambled eggs. Yes, five. He drank his fruit salad as a smoothie. A large smoothie. He also had pancakes, but definitely not miniature. And some kind of fried potatoes I didn't recognize. I think it's an American thing."

"I am not the third Zephram Yates," he corrects her as usual, deflecting the topic from his breakfast appetite. "My father is named Zeke Hiram Yates. Grandpa was Zebediah Henry Yates. I am the third Z.H., not the third Zeph. There's only ONE Zeph." So saying, he kisses her on the forehead. "One Zeph," he repeats. "One." He looks her in the eye, sternly but lovingly.

"One Zeph who likes to eat big breakfasts," she teases, patting his stomach playfully and pulling away, then turning back to look into his eyes and flash a quick Mona Lisa smile.

Baldwin walks out from another room with a large picnic basket into which he is packing equipment as he walks. He picks up a portable microscope and sets it in carefully. A box of sterile disposable gloves goes in next.

"We certainly won't be eating a big lunch," Zeph adds, speaking to his girlfriend, feeling compelled to justify the current allocation of the picnic basket.

"You don't want to eat on the island," Buddy states what he thinks should be obvious. "There could be contamination. It's just a precaution." He doesn't know what to expect, so he wants to be prepared for the worst. He wonders to himself whether he wishes he owned a gun.

The two scientists and their girlfriends are preparing to go to the small nearby island where the infected ants and the native healer are said to reside, a place they have gradually fallen into calling Witch Doctor island. Jalissa disapproves of the nickname, but it rolls off their tongues anyway. The native residents of St. Lucy call it Crazy Man Island, and that isn't much better. If it has an official name, nobody seems to know it. The girlfriends will double as translators and indigenous guides. The trip is both a date and an expedition.

"Okay, that's everything, I think," Baldwin announces. Looking around the room one last time, he turns toward the door.

Annetka picks up a stack of neatly folded blankets and towels in one arm, and in the other a beach bag containing sunscreen, sunblock, hair brushes and ties, and similar beach paraphernalia.

Zeph picks up two big magnifying lenses and a box of matches and drops them into the equipment basket.

Jalissa, near the front door, yawns and stretches again, letting her outstretched hand settle on the doorknob. She opens the door. Bright morning light streams in. She lowers big dark sunglasses from her head to cover her eyes.

The group adjourns to the car Zeph left parked at the curb, which has just enough remaining room in the rear compartment to put in the picnic basket, with the beach bag by its side and the blankets on top.

"Don't forget we have to pick up Jack," Zoe Jalissa reminds Zeph as he starts the car.

"Forget? I'm counting on leaving the car in his driveway while we're gone."

They take off toward the harbor, stopping three blocks short of the waterfront.

Her brother Jack lives in a small beach house, traditional but with modern upgrades. In other climes it might be called a cabin or a cottage, or maybe a bungalow. Here it's just a house.

Zeph parks in the driveway and puts on the hand brake. They all pile out of the car and in through the front door of the house, straight into the main room, knocking on the open door as they pass. Jalissa taps out a Caribbean tune with both hands on the door and the dining table, then ambles over to the sink and starts washing up the breakfast dishes. Zeph stares in amazement.

"I know," Baldwin says when Zeph looks at him. "What girl in America ... ?"

Zeph laughs and shrugs.

Jack and a friend are sprawled out on a sofa in front of a television, watching a rerun of a recent soccer game. It's a fairly big sofa, but they make it look small. They give no immediate indication of noticing the company. Someone scores in the game, and a cheer rises from the stadium crowd. Jack stands up to greet his sister's troupe. His head comes close enough to the low ceiling that he has to bob around the light fixture to approach them.

"My brother Jack," Zoe introduces him with an undulating two handed flourish, turning her back on the sink and leaning back against the counter.

Jack doesn't smile, but he doesn't look standoffish either. His expression is more stoic than anything else. His eyes size up the guests. Muscular and good-looking with high cheekbones, slightly inset eyes, and a strong chin, he looks Samoan or Hawaiian but is in reality a mix of Irish, Norwegian, Native American, Carib, and Afro-Caribbean, like his sister.

"Dr. Yates and I have met," he says with a nod, eyes locking on Zeph.

"Zeph," Zeph answers.

"Yeah, Zeph," Jack agrees. Releasing his visual grip on his sister's boyfriend, Jack turns to look at the other two new arrivals. "This must be Dr. Baldwin with Anna?" he inquires with an even voice, looking back and forth between the two.

"Annetka," she corrects Jack half-heartedly, following Zeph's lead to show support for his position. In fact she doesn't much care what modifications people impose on her first name. People get away with calling her any nickname that starts with Ann or even contains the syllable Ann in a prominent position.

"Yes, this is my boyfriend Buddy," Annetka continues, introducing Baldwin to the two young men.

Baldwin realizes he must have given an involuntary start at hearing the spontaneous recognition of what he hoped was becoming their relationship, because the next thing he notices is that she winks at him and smiles fleetingly before turning back to continue speaking. He feels a rush of warmth on his face as he blushes slightly, and he hopes it isn't as noticeable as it feels.

"Dr. Albert Bedwin Baldwin," she continues. "Biochemist, lately of the NIH in the United States, now employed by the sovereign government of the island of St. Lucy, currently working on prevention of, and treatment for, the recent outbreak of sudden onset insanity in the islands. Setting out on a scientific expedition to retrieve biological specimens of the giant antler ants on Crazy Man island." She ends the announcement with a self-conscious smile and a head turn accompanied by a shoulder shrug that sends both arms into an outflung gesture reminiscent of lifting an invisible ballgown skirt in a curtsy. Annetka is graceful and easygoing by any rational standard, but compared to Zoe Jalissa she seems stiff and British. At the moment she feels that awkwardness acutely and wonders why.

"Buddy," Baldwin says, offering an extended hand, locking eyes with Jack. "So you don't like for your sister to go off-island without a bodyguard, I hear."

"That's right," Jack answers, in a tone that says "we understand each other." He accepts the outstretched hand with a traditional European-American business handshake. Resourceful and confident, without any natural propensity to introspection, the young man assumes himself invulnerable enough to fill the bodyguard role perfectly. No one in the room expresses any doubt.

"Good. I don't own a gun," Buddy agrees to the relationship.

For answer Jack nods slightly toward a handgun and ammunition on an end table by the sofa, near the TV. "Snake does," he says, clarifying the provenance of the weapons.

For himself Jack picks up a knife and machete, fixing them to his belt. These are standard tools for the jungle, used to cut paths through overgrowth. Their utility as weapons is normally secondary.

"They want to see the ants on Crazy Man Island," the sister repeats Annetka's announcement, in case Snake hasn't heard. "And maybe meet the old man."

"But first we go swimming," Annetka interjects. "At North Beach. Then we look for the ants."

Jack's friend Snake, actual name Franklyn Smith, jumps to his feet and punches the air, cheering a play on the recorded television game. Then he turns to face the others, putting on his more serious face and voicing acceptance. "Yah, mon, we be coming along with you there to that place now," he says. "Crazy Man island. L'Isle Barjot. Let's go."

"L'Isle Barjot," Zoe repeats the forgotten name softly. Somehow it sounds less offensive in French. Zeph and Baldwin exchange a quick glance, with which they agree to adopt the new nomenclature.

Snake stands a little taller than Jack. Like his friend he stands with a loose and limber posture. Both have bodies made slender and agile by years of martial arts and Caribbean dance. Though both are handsome athletic men, their features are very different. Jack has the mixed European Carib look of his sister, projecting the appearance of a more athletic, more suntanned, better looking version of a young Elvis. Snake is Afro-Caribbean, with smooth dark skin of a color and texture somewhere between well oiled walnut wood and expensive dark chocolate, and with the majestic bearing of an African Masai.

Outwardly friendly and extroverted, Snake is loyal and affectionate to his friends. Despite his innate good nature, he can be lethally cold blooded and remorseless when a situation demands it. This, together with his lightning reflexes, has earned him the nickname Snake. It is said he can disarm an opponent by grabbing the knife or gun straight out of his hand, moving with the speed of a Cobra strike.

Jack, by contrast with his close friend Franklyn, doesn't seem as friendly and outgoing. He has a Scandinavian reserve copied or inherited from his father's Norwegian father. Despite the surface difference in their demeanour, the two are very alike in their thinking and in their feelings. Jack's friends sometimes call him Jag, a shortened form of his childhood nickname Jaguar. The two young men have been inseparable friends since very early childhood, when they played together on the beach and were known in the neighborhood as Jaguar and the Doberman.

Though both young men are babe magnets, Annetka doesn't find herself attracted to either of them. They're nice enough. They're good looking. They just aren't her type. She goes for the educated intellectual sort of man. Her affection, once given, is almost impossible for her to withdraw, so she needs a lot from the people she lets herself get close to. They have to be courageous, not just physically but intellectually so, willing to face not just new situations but also new ideas. Good character is an absolute prerequisite. A sense of humor is a big asset. To Annetka's mind, Jack seems to lack a sense of humor. She finds the jury to be still out on Snake's character. Because she is close to Zoe, she accepts both Jack and Snake as part of the team, but she hasn't formed a personal bond with either of them beyond that. Being naturally well mannered and considerate, she is always friendly toward them, but not overly friendly, because she doesn't want them to get the wrong idea. Since they're both babe magnets they accept the distance readily. They have plenty of other women to choose from at any time. For their part they seem to think of Annetka in a role something like that of a mascot.

Snake straps on the shoulder holster pistol and an over-the-shoulder ammunition belt, then puts on a loose lightweight cotton jacket over the weapons. He also ties an athletic band around his head. It has wild colors and an aggressive pattern of skulls, crossbones, and a rising sun. "For effect," he explains with a laugh when they look at the headband. "Better to scare an enemy away than to fight."

"Your face should be enough for that," Jack offers, deadpan.

Maybe he does have a sense of humor, Annetka reflects. She still likes Baldwin better. It's just a chemistry thing, she supposes. She can't explain it otherwise.

"Actually, bro, you walk in front then," Snake snaps back. "I want them scary things to see that face you got first."

The group leave the little house and walk together the few blocks to the old wooden boat pier, carrying their beach supplies and the picnic basket of equipment.

Jack jumps down from the pier onto the floor of a big outboard-motor boat that belongs to his father, a fisherman. Snake hands down the basket and other things, then helps the women down one at a time. The scientists climb down next. Snake follows last, casting off the rope. Jack adjusts the rudder and starts the motor, and they take off across the calm salt-smelling ocean, towards the island.

Jack handles the boat with complete ease. His father's father had been a fisherman in Norway before coming to the islands during the European potato famine. It had not hit Norway especially hard, but it had hit. The grandfather had made a good life for himself and his family fishing in the Caribbean, and had brought up his son to do the same. The grandson Jack has been around boats and fishing all his life.

The slight breeze from the forward motion of the boat skimming across the water caresses their skin softly and stirs the women's hair like a cosmetics ad.

"I'm looking forward to swimming," Annetka reminds Baldwin. "You sure you don't have a swimsuit? North Beach is clothing optional."

"I, uh, I found a swimsuit after all," he tells her. Realizing he wasn't quite ready for nude swimming, he had somehow made time to go out and buy the first swimsuit he could find.

"Oh, I hope I remembered to bring mine," she teases, and he blushes again despite his efforts to fight it.

Soon they arrive, pulling around to the top of the island, putting the boat into a small inlet on an empty beach. They all hop out of the boat into waist deep water, into gentle waves not more than a foot in height. Jack joins Snake at the bow of the boat, pulling the rope hand over hand, hauling the boat up onto the sand. A conveniently located palm tree serves as a post to tether the boat. The tethering isn't really necessary, but since the tree is there they use it.

The two women spread out the blankets on the powdery warm white sand while the men carry the other things up onto the shore from the boat.

Sitting on a blanket, Jalissa braids her long black hair and pins it in a coil on top of her head. She then stands up and takes off her shirt and slacks, revealing a very brief two piece turquoise swimsuit underneath. The bright, almost fluorescent greenish blue snippets of cloth contrast nicely with her deeply tanned skin. She sits back down on the blanket and leans back on her elbows, looking out over the water.

Annetka stands up, leaning forward from the waist, brushing her long pale hair into a pony tail on top of her head. She wraps the tail around itself and pins it firmly in place, like a topknot. Then she lets her outer clothes fall onto the blanket, revealing an equally brief variegated green print bikini, with a pattern reminiscent of palm fronds.

Snake removes his shoulder holster and ammunition band, wrapping them tightly into a towel to keep out the sand. He removes his shirt, but keeps on his Bermuda-style shorts.

Jack lays out his machete and five various knives within easy reach, then covers them with a towel to hide them from sight. He puts the picnic basket on one end of the towel for a weight against the wind, and Snake's weapons package on the other end. Like Snake he takes great care with the situation of the equipment.

Sitting on a blanket, Buddy removes his shirt, then takes off his trousers while still in a sitting position. He immediately rolls onto his stomach. Still unaccustomed to the very casual dress code in the islands, he feels embarrassed. Somehow he doubts that his swimsuit will completely hide the evidence of his feelings for Annetka, especially when she's wearing that little bikini.

Snake and Jack sit at opposite ends of the little encampment, backs towards each other, each facing inland at a different angle, the weapons cache between them. No other soul can be seen on the beach. A light wind carries in the smell of clean sea air and stirs the tops of the palm trees. Seagulls dance in the crystal blue sky overhead. It is still fairly early morning, already warm, not yet hot.

Zeph and Zoe Jalissa decide to go in for a swim. They walk off slowly across the warm sand, feeling its powdery warmth slip between their toes as they walk hand in hand toward the water.

"Put some sun block on my back?" Annetka asks Baldwin as the other couple disappears into the water. He sits up and begins rubbing the cream onto her soft warm skin, feeling very happy about the decision to go to the beach today.

Annetka rolls over slowly and he applies more sun block onto her abdomen. She closes her eyes and almost hums a drawn out form of the sound of the letter M, enjoying the moment. When he stops, she sits up and says "My turn."

"Just on my back," he says, lying down on his stomach, arms crossed under his face. She applies the sun block like massage oil, rubbing his muscles like a trained masseuse. Not that he's ever been to a trained masseuse, but this feels really good, so he supposes a professional massage must be something similar. "Where'd you learn how to do that?" he asks, curious.

"What, put on sun lotion?"

"No, the massage thing. It's like you're giving me a back massage," he answers, thinking he shouldn't need to explain. In the same instant he realizes she's teasing him and she understands the question perfectly well.

"Oh. I don't know. I thought everybody does that. Maybe it's different in America?"

"Oh, America is a lot different all right," he answers. "Quite different."

"Do you miss it at all? Your home in America?"

"I'm feeling more and more at home on St. Lucy," he answers, lifting his head to look sideways into her eyes. "Anyway I didn't have one fixed home in America," he dismisses the question. "I worked several places. None of them as nice as here."

"Family?" she asks, a little uncomprehending. "Parents?"

"My parents live in Massachusetts. If I want to see them, I fly there on an airplane. That hasn't changed. If they want to come for a visit, they can come here just as easily as they can come anyplace else on a plane. In fact in the winter this is a lot better than most places. I might even see them more often than before."

She half laughs, half giggles. "So I'll get to meet your parents soon, then?" she asks, half teasing, half serious.

Zeph and Zoe come back up from the water and stretch out next to each other on a blanket, turning to lie on their backs facing up at the sun. Beads of saltwater dotting their skin begin to evaporate slowly but visibly.

"What do you think, Zeph?" Baldwin asks. "Miss the USA much?"

Zeph laughs. "What's to miss? The weather? The political corruption? The blizzards in winter and forest fires in summer?" He pauses and sits up, looking around. "The traffic tickets?" he continues after taking a refreshing deep breath of the clean sea air, realizing he's on a sudden roll. "The executions? The deportations? The crumbling infrastructure? The weather? Oh, I said that one already." He turns to Zoe Jalissa and asks seriously, "Do you realize it's February in America right now?"

"It's February here, too, silly," she answers sweetly, and taps the tip of his nose with her forefinger. "It's February everyplace."

"Do you know what snow is?"

"I've read about it and seen it in movies," Zoe offers in reply.

"You probably don't even know what cold is," Zeph observes.

"That's not fair. We do have ice here, you know. Also Ice cream. Popsicles. Refrigerators and freezers."

"Well, up in North America it's like a giant outdoor freezer about a third of the year, at least in the Northeast and Midwest. It has bad roads, unreliable electricity, corrupt police and officials, poorly funded public education, and virtually no public health care at all. Greed is a way of life. The USA has the biggest percentage of its population in prison of any country on Earth. I could go on," Zeph ends his short rant mercifully.

"Oh, no, that's all right. No need to go on," his girfriend answers, laughing. "Sounds like an oversized Haiti," she adds, making the comparison sound like an insult both to the neighboring island and to the northern giant. "Only frozen sometimes. So, I'm getting the idea you don't miss it much, then."

"I'm happy here," he says, turning to face her and look into her enormous deep brown eyes. "I'm happy here with you." He strokes her silky black hair and continues gazing into her eyes, and she feels almost as if her being merges into his for a moment.

"Plus," Baldwin offers when his friend falls silent, "At least for the present, unless current international treaties change, we don't have to pay back our student loans anytime soon."

Zeph laughs and nods. "That's right, we don't. We've escaped. We're finally free men. They don't extradite for debt."

Annetka asks what a student loan is.

"It's a form of indentured servitude," Baldwin answers, only half in jest.

Zeph laughs again. "That's pretty much it. We're sort of like escaped slaves."

"Like Mama's great grandmother," Zoe Jalissa suggests, making a connection with something she knows about. "When that Spanish slave ship wrecked on those rocks in the hurricane."

"Similar indeed," her boyfriend answers. "More like your great grandmama's great grandmother probably, but otherwise quite similar. When did that happen? The event you're talking about? Sometime around 1800?" He pauses and shakes his head, imagining what the scene must have been like.

"She must have been one tough lady to survive all that," he finally suggests, thinking what it must have been like for her, thrown into the sea by giant waves breaking over the deck, battered and tossed like a limp rag doll among the cracking timbers, finally being washed up onto a strange foreign beach in the darkness, hurricane winds howling and lashing at the wreckage all around her on the wet sand. He shakes his head again. She must have been terrified. "Imagine the woman," he continues, "Making her way to land in a hurricane, and then having to hide out in the jungle, not knowing whether her captors might still be hunting down the survivors, with no food or fresh water, no clothes, no tools or equipment, no maps, not knowing any local languages, not knowing what to expect from the local people when she runs into them." He pauses, focusing on the image. "Hunh," he finally grunts, shaking his head again as if to shake off the haunting scene. "Well, our servitude and conditions were nowhere near as extreme as what she went through," he says, "but in principal it's essentially the same type of thing, just a much tamer version of it."

After a quiet interlude he decides to try to bring in more accuracy and perspective. "Actually, indentured servitude isn't strictly speaking slavery, because the servitude isn't open-ended. It has a fixed term, after which the victim is automatically freed. Also indentured servitude is linked to a specific debt," he tries to clarify. "A slave is well and truly stuck in the situation, like a prisoner condemned to life with no hope of parole, and no limitations on the power of the master. With a servant it's different. It's more like a contract. There are definite rules as to what the master can or cannot do to the worker. Eventually, through clearly spelled out services, the servant pays off the debt and gains freedom. The trickiest part is in how long it takes to pay off the debt. In the case of American student loans, for a lot of people it takes half a lifetime to work free of the debt."

Another quiet moment falls on the group, the silence punctuated only by the breaking waves and the intermittent seagull cries.

"Also, student loan servants have it better than most indentured servants because we aren't manual laborers. We're members of a higher class of servants, more like Roman slaves. You read about that in school I suppose?"

He knows he can suppose this fairly confidently, because St. Lucy has an extremely high literacy rate. It even has the highest proportion of Nobel Laureates in the world: including the recent winner in astronomy, three Nobel prize winners, from a tiny island. One might be a fluke. Two could be a coincidence. Three is a pattern.

Zoe agrees that she had a course in school that included Roman history, Roman slaves, and the decay of the Roman Empire.

"In short, the Paradise Islands are aptly named," Zeph concludes. "Especially St. Lucy. Especially in winter. Especially with an angel like you here."

The friends continue to bask in the sun and celebrate their good fortune as the morning slips by them. When the sun is about halfway to its zenith at the top of the sky, Zeph's cell phone chimes out a jaunty Caribbean tune from beneath a pile of clothing and towels.

"Your phone works out here?" Baldwin wonders, surprised.

"Apparently so," Zeph concedes, somewhat surprised himself. He fishes the phone out from a trousers pocket. The caller ID identifies his niece Katrina Lundgren, a graduate student in Physics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

"Hello, good morning," he greets her, imagining the snow in Wisconsin, glad to be where he is. "Hope you're all well there. I know we're doing fine here."

Chapter 8 - Charlie and Katrina

An early evening in February has darkened the sky over Madison, Wisconsin. Silhouetted against the closed curtains of a second floor apartment near the college, the shadow of a small shapely young woman raises both arms in a helpless gesture, leaning forward, head bobbing slightly, saying something. Her arms fall to her sides. Her young man gestures quickly in angry frustration at nothing, swinging out his right arm in an all-encompassing gesture. Then he turns away and shrugs, thrusting his hands stiffly into his pockets, body still rigid with tension.

It's a small argument, a lover's quarrel some might say; but to Charlie and Katrina it seems almost catastrophic. They've never had a quarrel as bad as this one before. They've been together almost a year. Until recently it had seemed as if they would never fight at all. As science graduate students they've always had a copious supply of intellectual discipline and rationality, which they've brought to bear on the tricky problem of making a relationship work.

"You've changed, Charlie," the girl is saying. "You're spouting illogical nonsense like Marie Mallon and Nicky B. Wright."

"Like my mother, you mean?" he responds, this time flailing both arms, falling further into the unfamiliar throes of emotional reaction to a remark. "You've never liked my mother. I get that. She isn't intellectual enough for you. Nobody's intellectual enough for you, are they?" he continues, letting himself get worked up in reaction to the imagined slight. He starts to slam his right fist against a wall, but stops himself.

She resists the urge to snap, "No, I mean Merry Melonhead and Nicht Be Right."

Instead she asks him plaintively, "Charlie, what are you thinking?"

She says it almost desperately, her voice heavy with a suggestion of suppressed tears.

"Reason it out, Charlie. We can't just take off from school and go work for the campaign in the middle of the school year. We're involved in projects that have already been funded. You have qualifying exams coming up. It would put us back an entire school year. And we still have those undergraduate student loans to consider." She pauses, trying to think of some argument that might reach him. "It would be different if it were summer," she suggests.

"Summer will be too late," he answers flatly, eyes staring into a distance not actually visible in the small room, as if seeing something she can't see.

"The election isn't until this coming November," she tries to move back to a reasonable position, "and it's only February now. We could take off this summer and work for them for three months."

"For them? It's THEM now, is it? It used to be us," he answers cuttingly. "This is for us, Katrina. It's for all Americans. We have to work for the values we believe in, the values that made this country great."

"Where did your scientific detachment go?" she wonders in response.

He refuses to discuss it further, turning his back on her.

She begins to cry softly.

He throws himself into his desk chair with unnecessary force, pulls his legs in under the desk, and picks up a book, giving the appearance of studying for the upcoming exam he wants to skip out on. His gaze is fixed on a random mark on the wall, not on the pages. His breathing is shallow and angry, the veins in his neck and temples pounding with elevated blood pressure.

She picks up her own books and papers and sits at a table, turning on a small table lamp with an old yellow tungsten bulb. She opens a journal to an article she's been researching. The tears rise in her eyes despite her efforts to concentrate on the article. She turns a page, wipes her eyes, and continues to cry silently, softly, trying to study through the tears.

A few hours pass. She has made a few notes, done a little work on her research. She has found references to several more articles she needs that aren't available online. It's getting late. She stands and stretches.

"You want a drink or anything? I'm about ready to go to bed," she announces, not sure if he hears. She sees that his book is still open to the same page as it had been when he first sat down. "I think I need to go to the library in the morning." She walks into the kitchen and pours a glass of water for herself, and one for her partner. Walking back, she sets it down on his desk. "Charlie? Are you coming to bed now?"

"In a little while," he says, shaking his head as if waking up, taking the glass of water. "Thanks for the water."

She brushes her hand affectionately across the top of his head and goes into the bathroom to wash up and change clothes for bed. As long as they've been together, they still don't change clothes in front of each other if there's a choice. She leaves the door open as a concession to their intimacy, but he doesn't look. He has gone back to staring at the wall, or beyond the wall into whatever model of the world has gripped his imagination. At another time, under different conditions, she might think he was lost in thought about some elusive scientific problem or difficult theory. This time she finds it worrying, even frightening.

She wants to ask him to get medical attention, but how can she say that after a fight? What do you say? Clearly not: Darling, you're going nuts, please see a doctor. Maybe: Honey, you've been under a lot of stress studying for your qualifying exams, have you thought about asking a doctor for something to help you with the stress? She could envision how that would turn out. It would start another fight.

The fights seem to happen almost every night now, over anything, over nothing, and they're worse each time. She shakes her head and goes to bed, pulling the blankets up around her, wishing for a warmth that doesn't come from blankets. If only she didn't care about him quite so deeply, she thinks as she falls asleep.
Chapter 9 – Winter in the North

Morning comes late in winter in the north. It's close to eight o'clock when Katrina wakes up next to Charlie and slips out of bed quietly. She throws on some jeans and a sweater, puts on big snow boots, picks up a book bag and puts in a few papers. She dons a big down-filled coat and pulls on her gloves. Carefully she pulls the door closed behind her and sets off for campus without waking her partner.

She expects the library to be open by the time she gets there. She likes mornings because her concentration is at its best. Taking energetic strides, she covers the snow-covered ground quickly, breathing deeply as she walks. The air is crisp, cold and clean. The almost clear sky is the color of blue topaz crystal. Fresh snow on every surface magnifies the early sunlight into a diffuse white glow. In this light, the night before seems like something out of a movie or a bad dream. She feels almost like dancing, the morning seems so perfect in comparison.

But without Charlie, it can't be perfect, she realizes. As a scientist she doesn't use words like love, but as a woman she knows that he has a special place in her heart that no one else can fill. She knows that not all women have such feelings. Some go from one man to another as casually as they change shoes. She knows that the depth of feeling she has is unfashionable, unliberated. She also knows that she is emotionally bound to Charlie with an unbreakable bond.

There must be some way to approach this problem scientifically, she imagines, though she can't immediately think of a way. If it were a scientific problem, she'd go to an adviser at the college. Well, she reasons, there are advisers in life too. Her uncle Zeph might have some ideas, or at least another perspective. As a scientist himself, and as a man with experience, maybe he might provide some insights.

She spends an hour or so looking through scientific journals in the big research library on campus, making notes, cross-referencing, finding out all she can for her project. Though she can't forget about Charlie, she relegates thoughts of him to the back of her mind. Then she puts down her papers and pushes herself away from the table. It's late enough now to call Uncle Zeph. He'll be awake.

She puts her papers back into the book bag and walks the short distance to the lobby of the big library, where cell phones are permitted. It's quieter here than outside. Scrolling down through her address list, she finds Uncle Zeph, under U for Uncle. She realizes she should re-edit it as Z for Zeph, then access it by scrolling backwards with the up arrow rather than scrolling down. She hits the dial button, and the phone rings at the other end. His message tells her to call back between 11:00 and 2:00.

Someone less determined and committed might break for food, but it doesn't cross her mind. She is as interested in her research as she is committed to it, and she goes straight back into the library. She looks up a few more articles, double checks a few questionable points, reads over what she has, strays off on a tangent reading something mentioned in a bibliography that isn't strictly related to the immediate topic. Eleven o'clock comes quickly. The lobby isn't as empty as it was earlier. She goes outside. The sun seems amazingly bright.

The campus is like a park. With the icicle covered trees, the people in brightly colored scarves and jackets, it looks like something out of a movie about Christmas or a Winter Wonderland. If only there were an ice skating rink in the middle of campus, she thinks, the image would be complete. Finding an unoccupied bench, she sits down to call her uncle.

"It's me, Katrina, remember, your niece?" she starts. "Your sister's daughter? Yeah, that Katrina. So how are the Paradise Islands? Spending all your time on the beach now?"

They chat happily and with energy, as if it had been months since they'd talked. He tells her about his girlfriend and his job. Then she confides in him about her problem.

Zeph doesn't really believe Charlie is going insane, but then again he doesn't really disbelieve it. It's strange, he has to admit. There seems to be a lot of insanity going around lately.

"Has he been around animals recently?" Zeph asks. "In the last 4 to 6 months? Cats or rodents especially? Cat boxes maybe?"

She doesn't think so.

"Don't suppose you can get me a blood sample?" he inquires perfunctorily. He can't imagine how she would.

"Blood, probably not," she answers. "Other bodily fluids yes. Hair and skin even, in his sleep. Oh, he forgets to flush the toilet sometimes, so stool samples I could even manage. Okay, wait, maybe I could get a very tiny blood sample, enough for one glass microscope slide, but it wouldn't be enough for you to do anything with it."

They talk a while longer, discussing the situation and possible methods for getting samples.

"I miss you, Uncle Zeph," she concludes her side of the conversation.

"We'll see each other. Maybe you'll visit next Christmas," he reassures her, and adds, "Bye, Katrina."

She presses the button that clicks off the call, and is again filled with haunting solitary despair. She sits looking silently out over the icy winter scene that surrounds her. The fountain is frozen into stillness until spring. Amber incandescent lights shine out from behind closed windows like translucent gold. Highlights sparkle on the icicles that cling like Christmas decorations to the barren branches of oak and maple trees. Occasional snowflakes begin to fall, large perfect snowflakes that drift down slowly in the still air. She catches one on a gloved hand and looks closely at its tiny ice crystal structure, turning it this way and that to catch the light. Even with all this beauty, her eyes begin to fill again with tears.

"Hey, girl, have you had lunch yet?" she hears the sound of a friend's voice.

"Shelley," she says and turns, trying to sound cheerful, or at least not as bleakly miserable as she feels. "I, uh," she starts to decline, then changes to "No, I haven't. What did you have in mind?"

"The Mexican restaurant of course," her friend answers. "They have spinach enchiladas. And they're within my budget too," she adds happily.

"Free gazpacho too," Katrina jokes, referring to the bowl of hot salsa on every table. Her friend consumes at least one entire bowl with every meal, no matter how small the meal might be. "That salsa is supposed to be a condiment, you know," she adds.

"So, are you coming? I think it's Friday. They have Happy Hour starting at lunch," her friend Shelley cajoles.

"Happy Hour?" Katrina asks.

"You don't know what Happy Hour is?" Shelley says unbelievingly.

Katrina shakes her head.

"You're not much of a drinker I guess," the other girl observes. "Happy Hour is a designated time period when beverages, especially alcoholic beverages, are marked down to a lower price. It's supposed to encourage people to come in and socialize. Most places that have Happy Hour have it around five o'clock I think, when people are getting off work. Happy Hours are often accompanied by free peanuts. In the case of a Mexican restaurant, probably free tortilla chips. Sometimes other food might be discounted too. It's the bar and restaurant equivalent of a matinee discount at the movies."

"They won't have a Mariachi band, will they?" Katrina demands of her friend. "That would give me more of an Unhappy Hour."

Shelley laughs. "You and half the campus. How can the same culture produce such spectacularly good food and such abysmal music?"

"One wonders. Maybe they don't really have Mariachi bands in Mexico," Katrina hypothesizes. "Maybe they exported all the Mariachis to get rid of them, and they're keeping the good music for themselves."

"A secret stash of Aztec gold, in the form of music?" Shelley asks. "Gold albums maybe?"

"Could be," Katrina answers. Trying to add some humor she suggests, "Or maybe the Mariachis are an advance force for a diabolical attempt to take over all of North America, maybe the world! Undercover agents for a heretofore unsuspected elaborate plan for an Aztec resurgence. Those gourds they shake conceal a secret weapon that destroys the brain of anybody who listens. They lure you in with the delicious smell of Mexican cooking, and then -- GOTCHA! The Mariachis activate their mind destroying equipment and you're a goner." Smiling, she looks at her friend to see what kind of response the joke has gotten.

"Sounds diabolical all right," Shelley laughs, going along with the joke. "You want to come in and investigate the sinister plot, then?" she reiterates the invitation.

"Yeah, why not," Katrina says, yielding to the temptation of Mexican food. "You can't be too careful these days. Let's see what insidious scheme they're up to." So saying, she rises from the bench and shoulders her book bag.

The two head off for the Cantina Biblioteca just off campus, conveniently located not far from the library.

The Cantina is neither authentic Mexican nor Disneyland reinterpretation. It lies in a happy middle space. The proprietors have avoided the familiar imitation Mexican theme of exaggerated brightly painted designs on every surface. The interior is dim, but not dark. The decor is subdued, but with an obvious Hispanic influence. Heavy dark wood surfaces abound. Patrons, mostly students, sit at rough hewn solid wooden tables on nondescript mismatched chairs. A few brightly colored Mexican items hang from the ceiling and on the walls. They are not too many, and not too gaudy. On the main wall a black velvet painting of a matador, red cape whirling, hangs adjacent to a black velvet painting of a bull, head down, pawing the invisible ground. The mixed smells of beans, corn, onions and cumin waft through the warm room.

The girls seat themselves at an empty place. Menus are already on the tables. The waitress brings them a basket of fresh tortilla corn chips and a bowl of hot salsa. She wears a Mexican influenced dress in a plain pale color with only a little bit of elaborate embroidery and lace. "You want something to drink while you wait?" she asks, and pauses, then adds, "Are you ready to order?"

"Bring us some water," Katrina requests, looking at the menu. She doesn't see a single item she wants to eat. It smells really good, but there isn't any specific item listed that meets her rather restrictive criteria for being considered edible.

"Spinach enchiladas for me," Shelley orders without hesitation, "con arroz y lechuga."

"Si," the waitress answers, writing down the order. "You want water too? Maybe a pitcher of cerveza? Only $5 right now. Unless maybe you have to study in the afternoon," she adds, suggesting the usual reason the students give her whenever they decline to order beer.

The two girls look at each other. "Actually I don't," Shelley says. Katrina just looks at the ceiling and shakes her head.

"Okay, cerveza," Shelley finally agrees to the suggestion, feeling bold.

"In the daytime?" Katrina asks her friend as the waitress departs.

"I'm off for the weekend now. My last class was at 10 this morning. You can order the beer now and take all day to drink it. People come here and play chess, all kinds of stuff. It's a place to hang out. Buying a pitcher of beer is like buying a ticket to stay for the afternoon. You know, they need a pool table, though. I don't play pool myself, but it would be a good addition to the atmosphere."

"No doubt," Katrina agrees with her friend, just to be friendly.

The beer arrives, with two glasses, before the enchiladas. Shelley eats tortilla chips laden with hot salsa, and sips some beer. "I should have asked for water too," she realizes fairly soon.

"It didn't do me any good," Katrina points out. In fact no water has been brought to the table.

"This happened to me in Mexico too," Shelley remembers. "I don't think water in restaurants is a common item in Mexico." She thinks again and adds, "Spoons either. It's always hard to get a spoon."

To be friendly and social, Katrina decides to pour a little beer into the glass that was brought for her. She doesn't go so far as to sample the tortilla chips however.

"I'm going to the loo," Shelly tells her friend, who shrugs in response. "If she comes back, tell her to bring me some water too."

Katrina nods. Shelly stands up and looks around, then walks off. Katrina smiles. As many times as Shelley's been here, Katrina would have expected her to remember where the toilets are by now.

Alone in the silence, Katrina takes out a book from her backpack and opens it on the table. She turns to a familiar page and looks down, then looks back up at the wall. She scans the wall briefly, looking for a large undecorated space. Finding one, she lets her eyes rest there. Thoughts of her fights with Charlie rise back into consciousness. She doesn't indulge them, nor try to suppress them. She looks at them blankly, without answers. It reminds her of when her dog had died. That thought also she allows to play across her mind, neither encouraged nor opposed. The dog is gone, she finally forms the thought, which she tells to herself silently. Maybe soon Charlie will be gone too.

The emptiness inside her seems overwhelming. A suggestion of tears stings at her eyes, but no tears come. She blinks, takes a deep breath. The waitress has appeared with the enchilada plate. "Two glasses of water please," she says, looking up, trying to catch the woman's eyes, but unable to do so. "Agua, por favor. Dos," she tries it in Spanish, to no better effect. The woman writes nothing down and gives no indication of having heard. She picks up an unused place setting from the table and walks away.

Katrina looks in the direction the waitress has gone until she disappears, then turns to look at the book in front of her. Her eyes close. When they open again she is staring at an empty area on the table, feeling empty, thinking nothing, again feeling the tears trying to start but failing to do so. After a few minutes she is surprised to see the waitress return carrying a pitcher of ice water with sliced lemon, and two glasses. She sets them all on the table quietly and disappears again. Katrina pours herself a glass of the water and takes a sip, wishing it had occurred to her to ask for the water without ice. Sometimes you really just can't win, she thinks to herself.

Her friend returns, happy to see the water, but equally unhappy to see the ice.

"I think it's what you said before," Katrina analyzes the matter. "They just aren't used to using spoons or drinking water. They don't know much about it. They're in unfamiliar territory."

"Aren't we all."

"Some more than others. Sometimes more than other times."

"And is this one of those sometimes, for you?" Shelley asks, probing.

Katrina looks up, meets her friend's gaze.

"You haven't been your usual chipper self lately," Shelley observes. "Come on, what's going on with you? Spill it."

"Fighting with Charlie," Katrina confides, shakes her head and shrugs, then drinks another sip of water.

"Over what?" the other girl asks, incredulous.

"He doesn't study. He doesn't think straight. He wants to take a break from school and campaign for the LiberTEA Party."

Shelley laughs out loud. "You have GOT to be joking."

"I wish I were."

They talk about it for a while, and come to the same impasse the subject always hits.

Now Katrina has bared her soul to two people. It may as well have been two Polar Bears, she thinks. Aloud she says, "but enough of all that. I think the value of this confession thing is much overrated." She tries to smile, to indicate in some way that the words are a joke, but it probably comes off looking more like a grimace.

"Drink some of that beer," Shelley suggests.

"Why not?" Katrina answers, and tries a sip. It tastes bitter, but it's oddly appealing at the same time. She takes another drink. At least it doesn't have ice in it. "Not bad," she announces the result of the taste test. She takes a third taste, and half the glass is gone. An odd feeling of relaxation comes over her body. Strange, she had not realized she was tense. Hunh. She feels almost like yawning. It dawns on her then: What she does NOT almost feel like is crying. Wow. This must be why people drink alcohol, she realizes in that moment. The next thing to rush into her awareness unbidden is a sudden strong feeling of repulsion, a need to pull away, as if she had inadvertently picked up a burning hot object. Wow. That I do not need, she thinks to herself. She shakes her head.

"Strong stuff?" Shelley jokes. "You've never had alcohol before, have you?"

"Actually, I have," Katrina tells her, "a few times, at holidays. I've never had it when I was depressed or confronted with a big problem. That's the novel event here. Okay, to be fair, it isn't a situation that comes up for me a lot, having a depressing apparently insoluble problem. However, what I do know is that I'm going to work on fixing the problem, not on avoiding looking at the problem for a while so it can just continue getting worse while I'm busy avoiding."

"Well spoken," Shelley says applaudingly, raising her glass as if in a toast. She drinks a sip of the beer. "I myself am neither depressed nor confronted with any major problems. I just have the weekend off. So, it's a different situation for me."

Katrina nods in agreement and takes another sip of cold water.

"You, on the other hand," Shelley continues, "apparently have a big problem to solve. That's sort of like having a big term paper due, or a project deadline coming up."

Again Katrina nods. "I have to figure out how to get blood and tissue samples, for starters," she tells her friend. She goes on to describe the Caribbean epidemic of sudden onset insanity. She confides that she thinks Charlie might have gotten infected with it. She has no idea how that could have happened, of course. "He used to be totally logical about everything," she comes to the conclusion. "He was Mr. Logic personified. It had to be something big to change that. Something physical."

"That particular insanity you mention, it leads to death, from what I've read about it," Shelley observes.

"Yeah, so, that moves the deadline up a bit," Katrina agrees.

"Let's get to thinking of some ideas then," her friend suggests. "We already know he doesn't always flush the toilet. So stool samples are no problem. What else do we have?"

"We need blood samples," Katrina says.

"I know a nurse," Shelley responds. "Again, no problem. She can draw blood."

"So she just comes over and takes blood samples? How do you see that working?"

"You invite us for dinner. Charlie falls asleep early. Nina takes the blood samples while he's asleep. Like I said, no problem."

"Falls asleep?"

"Knock out drops."

"Oh, wow. And she's just going to do this?" Katrina asks.

"Why not? She owes me some favors, and besides she's a good friend."

Chapter 10 - On L'Isle Barjot

"That was strange," Zeph says, putting down the phone. "Let's go for a swim one more time before we take off into the jungle to look for those ants."

"You two just got dried off," Annetka comments, seeming surprised.

"You haven't even been in yet," he answers. "Let's all go in."

"Not me," Jack remarks, still sitting stoically at a corner of their spot on the beach, surveying the landscape like a military guard.

Glancing around, Zeph sees that they are no longer alone. Three other couples have staked out scattered places. The sun is higher.

"Not me too," Snake adds.

"I'm not much for swimming," Baldwin agrees. "And I'm kind of anxious to go look for those samples we came for."

"Always it's samples. Okay, let's get dressed," Zeph agrees. "The morning is almost gone anyway."

With that they begin pulling on jeans and shirts over their swimsuits. They fold the towels and blankets, pick up their gear and head towards a small road twenty yards further from the water. "Don't know where this road goes," Baldwin says looking up and down the road, "and there wasn't much information on the maps I could get. But it is a road, so it must lead to something. The island isn't very big. Maybe there's a place to rent some sort of vehicle to take us into the jungle."

"Not likely," Jack advises him flatly. "The road leads in two directions," he adds. "This is your party. Which way do you want to go?"

"Snake was here before, wasn't he? Didn't ZJ say Snake has actually encountered the ants, on the northern part of the island?" Baldwin says, turning his eyes to meet Snake's, at which Snake nods agreement. "Where? from here?" Baldwin asks.

Snake points north.

"Is it far? Should we take the boat up the coast?"

"Nah, mon. Not far," Snake answers. "This is good. We can walk from here."

"You take point," Zoe's brother Jack directs Snake. "I'll cover the rear."

North they go in a column on the narrow road, Snake leading in front, Jack trailing.

Baldwin carries the basket. The two women carry the beach towels and blankets.

"I'll spot you turns carrying the basket," Zeph offers. Baldwin nods.

Feeling uncomfortably useless, Zeph takes the blankets from Jalissa, realizes they aren't heavy, and takes the towels from Annetka as well.

The road winds along the coast for a few hundred yards, then turns inland, narrowing even more as it veers toward the highlands and begins to rise. The brightness of the beach fades into memory as their eyes adjust to the shadows of the jungle trees. As the road ascends the tree cover becomes denser, blocking more and more of the light. The environment takes on a dim damp feel, like the interior of an elaborate theme park ride; but everything here is real. They brush against the tropical plants as they pass. Some they recognize as overgrown houseplants. Snake unsheathes his machete. He begins swinging it rhythmically left and right in front of him, cutting through the recent overgrowth that partially partially blocks their path. Swaying his body a bit as he swings the long curved knife, he takes on the appearance of a dancer, giving his forward movement the appearance of a subdued dance to unheard music.

"Is this an old unused path?" Zeph inquires.

"Nah, mon," Snake answers good naturedly, his voice keeping rhythm with his movements. "These plants grow up overnight. When nobody use the path for a day or two, you be needing the machete to cut your way through."

So that's the reason so many Carib men carry machetes on their belts, Zeph realizes for the first time. "And I thought you guys just carry machetes around to look tough," he tries to make a joke.

"Nah, mon, we look tough enough without props. We be practical men. Everything we do be for some practical reason. You tourists don't see the reasons. You think this whole place be a big Disneyland ride."

Embarrassed, Zeph says nothing. He considers correcting the "tourist" misnomer, but there seems no point. He's happy enough that cutting away the vegetation has slowed Snake down, though not much.

"Your turn to carry the basket," Baldwin changes the subject. He hands off the basket to his friend, removing a pair of tongs, a few empty sample tubes, and a magnifying glass. "Hey, Snake," he adds, "Can we slow down the pace to half speed? I want time for a closer look at some of these bugs we're going by."

"Sure, mon. You call out when you want a stop." Snake slows their forward motion by halting for three beats after each forward step he takes, adding a little side to side dance movement of the shoulders to fill the time, then pausing again, freezing for an instant like a mime after each swing of the machete. He moves with the lithe agility of years of both dance and mixed martial arts training, and the natural rhythm of a dancer. His eyes and ears scan the environment with an alertness born from both the martial arts training and his previous experience on the island. He dislikes coming back to this place, but those feelings don't matter to him. His friend Jack wants his help to keep his sister Jalissa safe. That matters. He listens carefully to all the myriad jungle sounds, parsing the cacophony into recognizable components. He sees the details of their close environment, the lizards zipping away as they approach, the stick bugs stopped still on branches, the fireflies oblivious to their presence. So far no sign of anything bigger than a hummingbird, but he knows the bigger animals will appear further ahead.

"I'm looking especially for any signs of ants, even if they aren't infected," Baldwin informs Snake. "Also any other insects or anything that might be infected. It would be great if we could find infected feces or an infected mammal. An infected cat would be fantastic." When the other makes no response, he adds, "Snake?"

"Yah, mon, I'm hearing you. You might be getting your wish soon," Snake answers without looking backward, without breaking the rhythm of his forward motion. "I'm smelling one of those Margay cats nearby. Probably it run away from us though. Also I hear some little rats running away under the bush. How we going to tell if they be infected?"

"Well, in the advanced stages, the rodents should show little or no fear. That's how the microorganism propagates itself. It makes its host lose all fear of cats. That makes it easy for the cats to catch them and eat them. If this is the hybrid of T. Gondii that I think it is, then it can only complete its life cycle in the intestines of cats. That's the breeding ground. The spores come out in the feces, which lands on plants. Rats and other small animals eat the plants, and the fungus develops inside them. As the parasite reaches maturity, the small animal loses all fear of cats, and delivers itself up for dinner. The cat eats the rat and the cycle repeats."

"So we be looking for rats that don't be afraid of cats, and the cats that be eating them," Snakes sums up the take-away. "And if we can find some poop that be good too. What about anteaters? Cats be eating the anteaters sometimes too."

"There are aardvarks here? Anteaters?" Baldwin asks. That could be a link. "Put anteaters at the top of that list," he quickly amends the search menu. "An infected anteater would tell us a lot."

"Yah, sure there be little anteaters here. They eat the ants," Snake answers, in a "what you think" tone. These tourists don't seem to know much about how life works. "You want anteaters that be eating the antler-head ants?" he asks. "I can find you that."

"YES," Baldwin answers enthusiastically, not hiding his excitement. "That would be the prize. That, and, of course, to find this shaman who can cure the infection, and get samples of the plant or plants he uses to do it."

They come to a fork in the path and stop. "The shaman be that way," Snake waves his right arm at the right-hand fork of the Y-shaped intersection. "The anteaters be the other way," he adds, gesturing to the other path forward with his left arm. "Carib people have the sense not to be making their houses right next to the ants," he adds by way of explanation. "Guess they don't be fearless with infection yet, hey?" Then he adds a joking jab: "If you want to find the people who live with cats, I have to take you to where the Americans and Europeans live for that". It isn't native Caribs who keep cats for house pets, after all. The custom has always seemed odd to him. Now it seems dangerous.

"Ha ha," Baldwin says flatly. "Sorry, Snake, I already know that's a problem. Guess you hit a little too close to home for that to be funny."

Since the scientist has been open with him on this, Snake decides to chance being open in return. He turns to look the other man in the eye and poses a simple question: "All those tourists that keep the cats for pets. You think maybe they be losing their fear of cats, the same way the rats be losing fear? You think maybe that infection be why they like the cats so much?" He pauses and waits for an answer.

Baldwin breaks eye contact, sighs audibly and heavily, hands in pockets, looking down. After twenty seconds of contemplation he looks up and exchanges a glance with Zeph, whose gaze is also fixed on Dr. Baldwin, waiting for a researched scientific opinion to be offered up.

He looks back at Snake and gives the disappointing answer: "Honestly I don't know. In general they aren't infected with THIS strain of fungus, we're pretty sure of that much because they don't manifest blatant insanity followed by suicide. But if you ask: Could it be some related non-lethal strain? Yes. It could be."

The others are still looking at him expectantly so he continues, "We have no evidence that it IS, but it would do a lot to explain why some cat owners go to such great lengths to take care of their cats, sometimes making the cats the primary focus of their lives, sometimes owning several cats."

Baldwin becomes aware that this is starting to turn into an academic lecture, but the others still seem interested, so he continues supplying information. "Keeping a cat box near the kitchen, microscopic parasite spores could become airborne and get into food. Changing cat boxes without washing hands thoroughly, they could pick it up on their hands, yes. Plausibly once the parasite has grown to maturity inside of the host, they could then pass the mature parasite back to the cat when they touch the cat food. It could definitely happen, and in fact it is known to happen with the pure strain of T. Gondii. That particular strain isn't noted for turning people into cat lovers, but yes there could be a related strain that does exactly that."

He decides it's time to sum up. "But if so," he says, "then it would be a very different strain than the one we're looking for here. The one we're looking for causes people to go insane and commit flamboyant suicides. That's an aberration that doesn't seem to benefit the cats or the parasites in any obvious way, but it is happening, and somehow it's spreading throughout every land mass that touches the Caribbean Sea."

Baldwin falls silent. No one speaks for a few seconds. The quiet is punctuated only by jungle sounds

Finally Zoe speaks. "Maybe it only makes SOME people commit flamboyant suicides," she suggests. "If this is related to warts, I mean, like plantar warts in the brain," she adds and pauses, looking around for confirmation.

She gets nods of qualified agreement and continues. "I know it's a simplification. But listen. Warts don't develop to the same extent in everybody. Some people get small warts that are easy to get rid of. Other people with the same exposure get big painful warts that feel like walking on broken glass and are hard to get rid of. From the same exposure. Why couldn't this be like that? Different response with different people?"

Baldwin shrugs and turns, points to the left-hand path. "Let's go for the anteaters," he says, and they start to walk, Snake leading with his machete as before. After a few steps Baldwin gives Jack's question the only answer possible: "I'd need to have blood and tissue samples from dead cat lovers to try to answer that one."

"Not impossible," Annetka chimes in. "People die every day. Some of them are cat lovers. Didn't you say that the authorities in Florida take samples from every unexplained insanity and suicide? Couldn't they take samples from known cat lovers too?"

"I doubt they still collect those samples. If you know someone who knows someone who works in that department, yes it's theoretically possible."

"We can ask around," Zeph offers.

"Yeah, we'll ask around," Baldwin agrees, and the group falls silent again, moving slowly along the jungle path, pausing for a few seconds intermittently to look more closely at something or capture a sample insect.

They come to a clearing near a fresh water pond or lagoon, and bear left along the path a few yards from the water bank. Snake and Jack are examining the ground like Indian scouts. Baldwin examines seemingly random leaves and insects through a magnifying lens. Looking up, he sees red glowing eyes about five feet away in the shadows of the tree branches. At almost the same time he feels the presence of Snake close behind him. None of them move. More sets of red eyes appear. Jack is behind them, holding out both arms to keep the women back. Zeph takes a butterfly net from the picnic basket, and a sample container. He telescopes the handle of the butterfly net out to full length and hands the sample container to Baldwin.

With their attention focused on the sets of reflective eyes in the trees, they hear Jalissa shriek behind them. Turning instantly they see the three foot wingspan of a Spectral bat in full flight, circling the clearing at a height that varies from three to ten feet. Jalissa is ducked on the ground.

"It's eyes," Jalissa said. "It had glowing eyes. It came straight for me."

The bat completes its circle and swoops back by them, swooping close enough that they reflexively duck. All see the bloodshot red eyes clearly.

"Is that normal?" Baldwin asks.

"What, the red eyes? No," Jack answers.

From behind them several small rats run out from the trees into the open, towards the water.

Zeph reaches out the butterfly net and deftly bags one of the rats as it passes. With the rat caught in the net, Zeph tries to keep it there by shaking and rebalancing the net. Baldwin assists quickly with the sample container. The rat's eyes are bloodshot and glazed over. It throws itself frantically but uselessly against the glass sides of its prison.

Another rat darts halfway up Annetka's blue jeans when Baldwin sees it and knocks it away. As it hits the ground less than a foot in front of them, the big Spectral bat dives on it like a hawk. Annetka lets out an involuntary shriek.

"I saw it too," Baldwin says, holding her. "Its eyes."

As another great bat swoops down on a rat a few feet away, Zeph swoops out the net above it and bags the bat, pinning it onto the ground.

"Hopefully its eyes will be red too," he says, totally engrossed in restraining his catch, putting one foot down firmly on the handle to keep the bat pinned against the ground. The bat struggles fiercely, but despite its impressive three foot wing span it weighs less than a pound. It has no chance.

At the same time as Zeph is netting the bat on his right, Jack nudges Baldwin's left shoulder and points to a branch overhead.

"Margay cat," Snake states quietly, in case Baldwin can't see what Jack is pointing at. The cat is motionless, as attentive as a pointing dog, eyes fixed on the ground close below it.

"I see it," Baldwin says quietly without moving. "We won't catch that with a net."

"You got a sample container for that one?" Snake asks. "That little cat weigh 10, maybe 20 pounds."

Baldwin nods slightly, confidently, otherwise frozen in place, full attention on the arboreal prize he can't reach. In fact he has no idea how he can contain this cat. But he knows he wants it.

At the edge of vision he sees Jack slowly unsheathing a knife. By the time he turns to look, he sees a gun in Snake's hand. He wonders vaguely how long the gun has been there and how he didn't see it being drawn.

On the left, one of the women shrieks involuntarily again when yet another Spectral bat pounces from the sky.

Before Baldwin can turn his eyes fully to look, the margay has dropped from the tree onto the back of the bat, biting open its head. Jack is on top of the margay almost as quickly, his knife through its back in the direction of its heart. It squirms and flips wildly, then falls still to the ground as Snake's gun erupts in sound.

"Sorry about the noise," Snake says, smiling.

"Never mind the noise," Jack answers. "You better not have damaged my knife."

"Nah, you missed the heart, mon. Your knife be in the left lung of that cat. My bullet go in the right side, straight through to the heart. You look. You see."

Baldwin turns the cat over with one foot. When Jack starts to move in he warns him to be careful. "Don't touch it without gloves. We don't really know how contagious this is."

"It's a beautiful cat," Jalissa observes.

Jack holds down the body with one boot, grabs the handle of his knife and removes it.

"Yeah. Beautiful," Baldwin agrees sincerely. Then he goes to the equipment basket and pulls out a large plastic bag that looks adequate to hold the remains. He puts on plastic gloves. Picking up tongs in one hand and shaking open the bag with the other, he scoops the limp beautiful carcass into the bag. He ties a knot in the bag to close it.

"Hand me a bag too when you're ready," Zeph asks him, still standing on the handle to keep the bat trapped.

"You want that bat dead?" Jack asks matter of factly.

"Not with that knife," Baldwin answers with equal lack of ceremony. "I don't want to contaminate the sample. We'll just bag it as it is. It won't last long." He hears the coldness in his voice, but this is a cold business. People are dying of this epidemic. The faster he finds a solution, the fewer people will have to die.

The remaining rats have scurried back into the brush. The men bag the bat, which flaps a bit for a while and then falls still.

"Annetka, can you get some of those disposable disinfectant towels out of the basket?" Baldwin asks. "Gloves all around too," he adds as an afterthought.

He hopes she hasn't been put off too much by the spectacle. In retrospect he imagines he should have found some way to make this trip without her. She doesn't seem to be put off, though, just shaken up. She gets the gloves, dons a pair, and gets out the towels. Silently she hands them around to the others to clean off any contamination.

"Clean off the leg of your pants, there, too, Annie, please. Just in case," he pleads.

She smiles and cleans off the path the rat had taken to run up her leg.

"You touched the rat," she says to him.

"Yeah. I know. I'll wash my hands after I take the gloves off. There's nothing else for it at this point. Probably it isn't that contagious. It's just that we don't know."

"How about we go for the medicine man now?" Snake asks. "Or you still want that anteater?"

Baldwin grimaces and confesses he still wants the anteater. "How about anteater first, then shaman?" he asks.

"Okay, mon, you got it," Snake answers, and finds the continuation of the trail. The machete comes out again, and he is back to his previous rhythm, as if nothing had happened in the clearing.

"I don't know much about guns," Zeph speaks after a time, "but wasn't that a remarkable shot, when Snake brought down that cat?"

Jack laughs and Snake says nothing.

After a pause Jack's sister answers. "Yes. Snake is known for remarkable shooting. He also has skill with other weapons, and all kinds of fighting."

With that the subject is dropped. They continue silently along the dimly lit path to the swishing rhythm of the machete switching back and forth through the overgrowth in front of them. The sounds and smells of the forest encircle them and absorb their full attention as they climb with the path toward the wilder highlands. Unfamiliar bird calls fill the air from the indefinite distance. The air is moist, still and cool, with the smell and feel of a greenhouse or tropical arboretum. Among the recognizable houseplants are scattered thick hanging vines and occasional beautiful orchids.

At length they come to another clearing. A small stream splashes along in front of them, gurgling over rocks the size of basketballs. In the near distance they see the immediate source of the water, a high but sparse waterfall spilling over a stony cliff. The path seems to ascend in front of them in the form of stairstep-like boulders beside the waterfall.

"I suppose the anteaters are up there?" someone asks.

"No, they be around here," Snake answers. "Not a lot of them. You might see one in a day. We find the ant mounds and then wait." Since his friend was bitten by an ant here on his last trip he isn't looking forward to the prospect, but he accepts the situation for what it is.

"I'm surprised this island is big enough to support an anteater population," Baldwin observes.

"They be small anteaters. Tamandua. Everybody wearing some boots or something to cover the legs good? Tie something around your ankles maybe," He suggests to Zoe. "These ants be fierce."

Baldwin removes something resembling a set of shoelaces from the basket and hands them to Zoe. She secures the ankles of her jeans firmly around her socks, leaving no easy access for ants. After a pause he takes out more sets and passes them around. Everyone ties up their trousers at the ankles. Considering further, he hands out pairs of plastic gloves all around, which the others also accept. The equipment falls seriously short of hazmat quality. Baldwin finds himself wishing he had planned the expedition a little better. Or at all, really.

They need to find a spot where they can observe the anthills without being exposed to the ants. On rocks in the water maybe, Baldwin thinks to himself. Aloud he says, "So where were the anthills last time?"

"Okay," Snake answers, and continues into the clearing. "There," he says, pointing to a large anthill a few feet from the riverbank. He gestures broadly along the bank, pausing the gesture in staccato to point out an assortment of scattered large anthills strung along the forest floor.

Very large ants come and go, carrying bits of edible debris large enough to be seen from where the people stand. Struck by the size of the ants, they find themselves looking around for boulders in the small river, picking out places to sit.

Saying nothing they move together into the shallow stream as if the movement had been choreographed, finding places to settle themselves on the rocks above the rippling brook. Annetka dangles her feet in the water and leans on Baldwin, who puts an arm around her and pulls her a little closer. Nearby Zoe stretches out full length on a large flat rock, and rests her head on Zeph's lap.

"The water is good," Snake expresses approval. "The anteaters can't smell us quite as well this way."

Jack and Snake sit on the far right and left of the group, facing outward. Snake faces the anthills, still holding his machete, pistol close to his hand. Jack relieves Zeph of the butterfly net and holds it in his left hand, knife in the right. They seem calm, but they're obviously watching the jungle around them alertly.

"These ants don't seem to be infected," Jack points out.

"No. They don't," Baldwin agrees, just as glad they aren't, "but an anteater has a fairly large territory. They cover a lot of anthills, taking samples from each. If there are any infected ants within half a mile of here, any anteater we see here should have sampled them. Clearly these are the giant carpenter ants we heard about. This is good. We should stay here and wait. Say, Snake, is this where your friend was bitten by an ant?"

"Near here," he answers. "I don't think it was infected. The infected ants be farther up, just above the waterfall."

"That's fine then. Any anteater we find here will have dined there as well."

Time passes. More time passes.

"This must be what a stakeout feels like," Jack says eventually.

"Speak for yourself," Zeph answers, caressing Zoe's hair.

Around them the jungle continues its existence, punctuated by hummingbirds and dragonflies darting by, occasional bright butterflies and parrots, and unrecognizable bright birds with long tails. The waterfall sends up a background mist that enfolds them. Strange bird calls sound out intermittently in the distance.

A small anteater finally makes a quiet appearance, dangling upside down from a woody vine by a prehensile tail, looking like an imaginative cross between a small albino monkey and a three pound miniature polar bear, looking as though someone had dressed it in a black motorcycle vest or an old-timey one-piece black bathing suit, with a very elongated tapering Pinocchio snout. Hanging by its tail, it reaches down toward an anthill with knifelike claws reminiscent of the fictional Marvel superhero Wolverine.

"Is that a real animal?" Annetka asks in astonishment. The anteater darts out its long tongue toward the anthill, frog-style, but the tongue is much longer and thinner. The tongue reminds her of a cartoon impression of a New Year's party favor. "That's the weirdest animal I've ever seen in my life," she announces. It's cute, she also thinks, but does not say.

"The butterfly net won't hold that," Jack observes, contemplating the superhero claws.

It drops from the vine onto the forest floor and applies both claws to digging at the anthills.

Snake aims his pistol at the animal's heart. "You want me to take this shot?" he asks Baldwin, eyes focused unwaveringly on the small mammal gobbling up the oversized ants.

Baldwin takes a deep breath, exhales, and says, "Don't damage the head if you can avoid it."

"I be an ace shot, mon," Snake defends his ability from the imagined slight. "I thought you already see that today with the bat."

"I know, I did notice, and I thank you for that. We're extremely glad you came along today. If you could avoid damaging the lower abdomen too, that would be really great. Thanks very much," Baldwin apologizes for the unintended implication and raises the bar.

In that instant a big Spectral bat swoops down and sinks its claws into the little anteater's head. Snake's pistol erupts in sound and the bat falls still, shot through the heart. The black and white anteater twitches in its claws, brain dead but not yet still. Baldwin leaps forward, detaches the dead anteater very gently from the claws, and examines the bat's entry wound. Straight through the heart. No damage to brain or digestive system.

"Fantastic shooting," Baldwin praises Snake, who nods in acknowledgement.

Snake knows he's good, but he still likes to hear it said. Ego is both his strength and his weakness. It drives him to perfect his skills, but the perpetual need for reassurance and praise eats at him like an insatiable hunger.

They bag the dead bat and anteater in plastic bags and add them to the collection. Baldwin places all four specimen bags into another large plastic bag and ties it off. It's too big to fit into the picnic basket now. "Which one do you want to carry?" he asks Zeph. "Specimen bag or equipment basket?"

"Basket," Zeph chooses.

"Snake, how about if we leave the others here with Jack. They can go back to sitting on the boulders in the river. That looks pretty safe. You and I can just go up to the top of the falls and bag a few infected ants? Or you could stay with the others and Jack could come with me to collect ants."

"I'll come," Snake says. He fixes his weapons to his belt.

Baldwin removes a specimen jar and some tweezers from the basket. Zeph takes the specimen bag and the basket and sets them on one of the large flat stones in the shallow river. All but Buddy and Snake return to their previous seats on the rocks.

Snake leads the ascent up the rocky side of the cascading water. A few feet from the top of the falls, he points to a large dead ant on a fallen wet leaf lying on a low-hanging branch. Its head has exploded with the wart like growths that resemble antlers. Baldwin lifts it carefully with the tweezers and places it in the specimen jar. Then he takes the leaf as well.

"Spores," Baldwin explains. "There should be spores on the leaf."

Snake nods and points out other ants one by one. "If the infected ant bite somebody," Snake asks at length, "they be getting infected?"

"Probably not," Baldwin reassures him. "It's passed on by eating the spores. If the spores land on a fruit and you eat the fruit, that would put you at risk. If you touch something with spores, then you touch food, that creates risk. I'd never heard of this infecting anything but ants before, so I like to be cautious. But you shouldn't be at risk from an ant bite."

Snake seemed relieved.

"Did you see the healer when you were here before?" Baldwin wonders. "If you were uncertain, I'd think you might have wanted to consult with him."

"Might be I want to now," Snake replies. "Last time I just wanted to get off this island," he adds in an uncharacteristic outbreak of verbosity. "I wanted to get out of here. Now I'm back. Let's find that man who cooks up the tea."

Chapter 11 - Meeting the Crocodiles

"If we get off this island today alive," Zoe Jalissa says with quiet sincerity, brown eyes big and glistening, "I'm going to church tomorrow."

"Me too," Annetka agrees, trembling a bit.

"Me three," Jack and Snake add in unison.

"You can be four if you want to be," Snake raises his voice to a louder level of quiet, with a tone of mock reprimand, "but I be three on this church train tomorrow. You don't ever even be going to church anyway."

Jack smiles silently. Snake actually attends church sometimes of his own accord. Jack goes only rarely, when coerced or cajoled.

The two scientists look at each other. Until now they haven't realized their girlfriends are religious, though they should have guessed.

"I'll come along," Zeph offers, and draws Zoe closer, trying to comfort and calm her.

"Sure, why not?" Baldwin adds.

They sit on a ledge over a lagoon, legs dangling, above and below them a flat rock wall. In front of them dangles the remains of a broken rope bridge. Next to it hangs what is left of a rope ladder that was previously anchored at the top of the wall. In the lagoon beneath they see several shapes that look like floating logs but could be alligators, caiman, or even more likely, Crocodylus Acutus, the American Crocodile. As the observers watch, one of the floating logs raises up at one end and snaps at a low-flying parrot.

"Not a log," Baldwin says.

"Crocodylus Acutus," Zeph says decisively. "They can grow up to 20 feet in length. Common in these islands."

"You know that, Tourist?" Snake gibes. "You seen a lot of these?"

"No," Zeph admits. "It's only what I've read." He's completely happy to let Snake take any kind of lead he can on this. He wishes it would happen, in fact.

"I just don't see how a breeding population could establish itself on a small island like this," Baldwin says wonderingly.

"The go from island to island," Jack fills in the informational gap. "This lagoon connects to the ocean downriver from here."

"So, what do they do? Swim up the waterfalls?"

"No," Jack shakes his head. "They walk around them, same as we do."

"Maybe we could scream for help," Annetka suggests helpfully.

"Not a bad plan," Baldwin bobs his head side to side evaluating the idea. "I haven't seen a living human being since we left the beach, though. Snake?"

"Nobody, mon. They must be here though. If they got a healer they must be people here to heal."

"Reasonable," he assents to the logic. "They probably don't live this close to the crocodiles, though."

"Somebody built the bridge," Jack observes.

"Not recently," Baldwin points out. "Even granted that things decay quickly in the jungle, that fell apart pretty easily. It must have been there for a while."

"What, Tourist, you didn't bring your cell phone? Maybe you can call somebody for help," Snake lashes out again. He isn't used to feeling helpless and he doesn't respond gracefully to the feeling.

"Nobody I know around here owns a helicopter," Buddy replies reasonably.

He considers pointing out that they aren't tourists, but there's no point really. Anybody not born in the islands is a tourist in Snake's lexicon. Also he feels indebted because Snake has done some incredible shooting to bag the specimens they came for, Specimens Zeph managed to hang onto when the bridge collapsed. Both men deserve a break, he reflects. He's glad Zeph doesn't rise to Snake's pointed remarks.

"Although," Baldwin continues after a pause, trying to give the suggestion a fair hearing, "if my phone does by some chance work here, and we don't come up with a better plan, I could call somebody in Florida to arrange a rescue. It would take a few days though, and it would be embarrassing for you and Jack."

Snake looks embarrassed even at the idea.

Zoe seconds Annetka's earlier suggestion: "I like the plan of yelling for help. Could it hurt anything? Why are we talking so quietly anyway? The alligators can't make it up this rock wall, can they?"

"Crocodiles," Jack corrects his sister reflexively, then feels insensitive and pedantic for having done so. "Sorry, Zoe," he adds.

"Sorry they're crocodiles?" she asks lightheartedly.

"Well, yes, that too; but I meant to say sorry for the remark," he addresses his sister sincerely.

"What language would we use to yell help?" Zoe asks, not to be distracted from the closest thing they have to a plan.

"To answer your earlier question first," Jack responds, "if people hear us, and the people happen to be unfriendly, maybe pirates or gun runners or drug smugglers for example, then yes, it could hurt something."

"Things can always get worse," Snake points out what the women and the scientists might not have observed in their relatively sheltered lives.

"Creole," Baldwin suggests. "It's most likely to be understood by indigenous inhabitants, and least likely to be understood by pirates and the like. Plus if bad guys hear us calling out in Creole, they're more likely to ignore us. However I do think it might be a better idea for you to teach Zeph and I to pronounce the call for help, and let us do the screaming. A woman's voice screaming for help in any language might attract people you don't want to attract."

"Well, the Creole word for help is Anmwe!" she tells him. "Anmwe!"

Jack and Snake look away in disgust. They both know the language. Neither of them is ready to accept calling for help as their best plan.

"Anmwe," Baldwin tries to imitate her sound.

"Anmwe" she repeats, more slowly.

He tries again, "Anmwe."

Both pause and look upward. They have heard the unmistakable sound of a pebble splashing into the lagoon beneath.

From above them, a man's voice calls out something the two scientists don't understand, and the four Carib-born members of the group all quickly answer, "Wi!"

Jalissa graciously translates words of the man above: "He wants to know if we are through resting on this ledge and would like to go on," she says.

Baldwin and Zeph look up into the Carib man's smiling face and nod. He says something quickly and disappears. "He's going for a rope," Jalissa translates. "He probably means a thick vine."

In less than a minute a thick vine drops over the ledge and dangles next to them. As grateful as they are to their rescuer, they don't know him. Zeph suggests, in English, that Jack or Snake climb up first. Jack smiles and ascends the ropelike vine quickly, hand over hand, feet pushing against the vertical rock wall.

"Can you ask him to find another vine, to haul up the basket and things?" Zeph requests the girl. At the same time, another more slender vine drops down. He looks up and sees Jack holding the other end.

"Tie on the basket," Jack calls down in English. Zeph complies.

After the equipment goes up, Zoe follows it, and Zeph comes after.

"Annetka?" Baldwin says, and makes sure she has a firm hold on the rope. He need not have worried. She climbs as well as a monkey. Baldwin follows, and Snake comes last.

At the top they find themselves alone with their rescuer and their questions.

"He's been following us since we left the beach," Zoe tells them.

The man, smiling, says something further, and she translates again: "It is not always safe for tourists on this island. They don't know their way around. They get themselves into trouble. So if the people who live here notice tourists coming inland, into the highlands, somebody must follow, to be sure the tourists don't get hurt."

Their rescuer says something else, and she adds, "He says there are many dangers. He says the crocodiles bite."

"Yeah, we thought they might," Baldwin says. "Ask him if he knows about this shaman, the healer. Maybe he can takes us there."

She enquires, and the man immediately nods and sets out in front of them. They fall in, Jack first, Snake bringing up the rear.

Late afternoon finds them in a village not far from the top of the highlands. Women are cooking outdoors over open fires, in big iron pots. The visitors smell yams, and some kind of meat, or combination of meats, they can't identify by smell.

Baldwin suddenly realizes he's hungry. He hopes it won't be considered rude to refuse to eat. He very much wants to avoid eating some unrecognizable combination of foods from an environment known to harbor deadly parasites.

Their rescuer and guide brings them to a small house with a palm frond roof and taps on the edge of the doorway. After a few minutes an elderly man comes to greet them. The two residents of the village exchange conversation briefly, and the old man returns inside. Their guide gestures to them to follow. The only light inside comes from a few windows covered with something that looks like mosquito netting or window screen. All seat themselves on floor mats in a circle.

"Tell him what we're looking for," Baldwin requests, and Zoe begins to speak to the old man in Creole. He listens attentively, nodding from time to time.

When she finishes explaining, the old man speaks in English. "I am Azacca," he introduces himself. "Jomo tells me he heard you speaking a language he thinks is English."

"Yes, English," Baldwin readily agrees, delighted with this turn of events. "I'm Baldwin, this is Zeph, Zoe, Jack, Snake, and Annetka," he introduces the party, gesturing at each in turn with an open palm, pausing to make eye contact with both the friend and the shaman with each introduction.

"You have been taking our animals," the shaman points out.

"We need these to study and compare with the disease that affects our people," Baldwin justifies the carnage. "We took only what we needed."

The old man pauses. "You needed two bats?" he asks.

Ouch, Baldwin thinks. "We were hunting the anteater the second time," he explains. The old man laughs gently and accepts the explanation.

"The fungus that kills the antler headed ants," he rushes straight to the point. "This affects people and animals here as well? And you can cure it with some plants or some tea?"

The old man smiles and nods. "It is possible to cure this," he agrees. "But I do not want you to take away our plants that grow for medicine here on this island. How can I trust you with this information? North Americans and Europeans, these people are like termites. They destroy everything in their path, leaving nothing. If you take the plants away, how will I make the herb tea for my own people when we are afflicted?"

Tough question, Baldwin reflects. He exchanges glances with Zeph.

"I got nothing," Zeph says simply.

The old man laughs gently again.

"Is there anything I can do to reassure you?" Baldwin asks plainly, looking the old man in the eye.

No answer.

"I know Europeans have a bad history," he continues after waiting. He locks eyes with the old man unwaveringly. "I know North American and European pharmaceutical companies have done terrible things," he continues. "Those people aren't me. I don't work for them. Zeph doesn't work for them. We only want to cure people of this terrible affliction. We work for the government of St. Lucy. This disease has spread throughout the islands. It is still spreading. If it is the same as the disease you can cure here, we can stop it's spread. We are not with the drug companies. We do not charge money for curing diseases. The Caribbean governments will pay for developing and distributing the cure. They will give it freely to everyone in the islands who needs it. We only want to help. Please help us to help others. So many people are being afflicted, and the number of afflicted grows."

So saying he falls silent, but does not break eye contact with the healer in front of him.

"So many people will require many plants," the shaman finally says.

"I have a plan for that," Baldwin responds without hesitation. "If you can give us seeds, we can grow the plants on St. Lucy, in outdoor plots or greenhouses. We don't need to take plants from here, after the first, if we can get them to grow. Show me how to make them grow. Show me what to do."

The old man thinks for a space of about ninety seconds. "What about the people who are dying now? Should I believe you will wait, while the plants grow?"

"We would need a small amount of the dried herbs, for experimentation and study," Baldwin admits. "Are the plants so rare? Can you give us enough to cure just a few people, so we can study the effects? How rare are the plants?"

The other man bobs his head side to side and makes a gesture with both hands to indicate a balancing scale.

"If we can grow it on St. Lucy," Baldwin offers, "We can bring some back here to supply you."

The elder man considers the idea. "Will you spend the night here?" he finally asks. "The hour is late. The coast is far. We cannot do this tonight in any case."

"I'd be very happy to stay," Baldwin speaks for himself. He looks at the others. All nod.

Annetka says something to the shaman in Creole, and he nods and smiles. Zoe shares the joke. Jack seems unamused. Baldwin looks at Snake as the old man walks away to arrange preparations.

"She say you be her man, you sleep together," Snake answers the look.

Baldwin feels his cheeks blush very slightly in the dimness, but he is delighted with the arrangement. He wonders about Zeph and Zoe, but doesn't ask.

. . .

The only thing that bothers him is that he doesn't have a way to refrigerate the specimens they collected. No one speaks for a while, and he sits alone with his thoughts in the dim light. After a time he looks at Annetka, but she seems lost in thought herself, gazing out the window toward the jungle. Cooking smells and sounds drift in. Music starts, an animated tropical rhythm that Baldwin doesn't recognize. Jungle birds and howler monkeys call out intermittently in the distance. As darkness comes in, the music rises in volume, overpowering the jungle sounds.

Zoe snuggles closer to Zeph.

"I bet they'll be dancing," Annetka guesses.

Catching a whiff of cooked pineapple on the breeze, Baldwin is suddenly reminded of a Luau in Hawaii. The remembered Luau had been on the beach, not in the mountains, and he concedes to himself many other differences as well; but the similarity is unmistakable. Standing up, he answers his girlfriend's question. "Let's find out," he says, taking her hand and pulling her up. Together they walk out to see.

The air in the highlands is cooler than on the beaches, and Annetka shivers slightly. He pulls her close, putting an arm around her waist as they walk. The cooking fires provide heat and flickering light. Torches on poles supplement the fires like primitive streetlights. Wild music dominates the arena. A few dancers gyrate energetically in an open area between the big open fires, washed by a bath of orange light and dancing shadows. The flames seem to flicker in time to the music. Perhaps they do, he realizes. In the still night, the movement of the musicians and the dancers patterns the air currents around them, and the flames are driven with the motion, making it seem as if the whole village is alive with the heartbeat of the music.

When they reach a nearby fire, she disengages from his arms and stands close to it, holding out her hands near it, looking at the dancers.

Baldwin breathes deeply and admires the beauty of the scene. He can be fairly sure he won't be able to match the dancing of these islanders. Maybe Annetka can. She seems to want to dance. He looks at her, uncertain how to confess his inability, wondering fleetingly if it might affect her feelings towards him.

No, she isn't that shallow, he decides quickly. It might affect her mood, and that would be bad enough, but it wouldn't change her basic feelings for him.

He reaches out and strokes her hair, only then noticing that she has it hanging loose around her shoulders. He's sure she had it tied up earlier in the day. He shakes his head, not remembering the change, and pulls her hair back behind her neck, touching her skin very lightly as he does. She trembles slightly and the skin on her arms prickles with goosebumps. She looks down and away, not meeting his eyes, then shakes her head in a movement designed to make her hair return to its former disarray. Again he brushes the hair back gently, and this time she meets his eyes with hers. Her breathing is a little quicker and shallower than before, her heartbeat stronger and faster. They draw close to each other slowly.

"Hey, Buddy," Jack calls out, and Baldwin turns reluctantly to greet the approaching companion. "You want to let me dance with your girlfriend?"

The event seems so sudden and so odd that the scientist is bewildered for an instant. Jack can't possibly be interested in Annie that way, he conjectures. She's a close friend of his sister Zoe, so Jack has probably known her for years. He guesses Jack thinks of Annie like an honorary sister. His mind leaps instantly to the idea that maybe Jack might want to protect her from the mad scientist. It seems unlikely. Baldwin has been seeing the girl for several weeks before this, and there hasn't been any hint of an objection. Next his mind races to the possibility that maybe Jack just knows Annetka likes to dance and guesses that Baldwin won't be able to keep up. Or, he concludes his wild speculations before blinking, maybe public kissing is an enormous breach of protocol here and could get them stoned, and Jack happens to know or guess this. Baldwin blinks again and glances around. He sees no public displays of unplatonic affection. He still doesn't believe this is the answer. He goes back to the simplest thought: Maybe Jack just wants to give Annetka a chance to dance, knowing she likes dancing. He sighs involuntarily and answers, "Sure, of course," temporarily surrendering the girl. Realizing he still holds her left hand in his right, he places her hand in Jack's.

Jack and Annetka join the dance, like sports cars merging into fast traffic. He marvels that she dances just like the islanders. It makes sense, of course. She was born in the islands. She grew up in the islands. She is in fact an island girl. Her hair and eyes are European. Her speech is European. Everything about her movements is pure Caribbean. He stares raptly as if watching a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Chapter 12 - Night in the Village

Baldwin isn't sure how long he's been watching the dancers when he feels the presence of Jomo, their friend from the afternoon. "Here to save me from the dancers now?" he jokes, not sure whether Jomo understands. Jomo smiles and gestures for him to follow.

They walk a few yards to where the shaman sits. The old man looks up and gestures to a place by his side. Baldwin sits. For a few minutes they remain sitting together in silence, continuing to watch the dance.

"Your girlfriend's a good dancer," the shaman finally observes, opening a conversation. "Was she raised in the islands?"

"She was born on St. Lucy, in Soufriere," he answers. To himself he thinks: She spoke to him in Creole, everything about the way she moves is Caribbean; He's supposed to be a wise man, he has to realize she's native to the islands. Of course he has to realize, he answers himself. The man is just making friendly conversation. Great, he thinks. Even among primitives I'm a social primitive by comparison. He shakes off the internal dialog and adds, "I'm the luckiest man alive to have found her."

The shaman nods. Is he nodding in agreement with the analysis, Baldwin wonders, or is he blessing the pairing? It doesn't matter. The down side of genius is that an active mind doesn't stop thinking and analyzing even when it isn't needed. "I love her," he hears himself add. He's surprised that he tells this to the shaman when he hasn't said it to her.

The shaman nods again. "I can see all that," he tells Baldwin reassuringly. "Perhaps she also counts herself lucky to have found you."

It is Baldwin's turn to nod, conceding the bizarre possibility. It had not occurred to him before. Even faced with the suggestion he can hardly credit it as likely. She's so perfect. Surely she could have anybody she might want. Why would she pick him, of all people? He can't dance. He can't shoot a gun. There is no end to the list of things he can't do, when he thinks about it.

"And yet she does want you," the shaman answers Baldwin's thoughts. Seeing the surprise in the younger man's eyes, the old man chuckles. "I had a young wife once, too, you know," he adds. "Like you, I didn't see why she would want me, out of all the young men in the village. Still, she did. It doesn't matter why. My advice to you is to give the young lady what she wants."

Baldwin nods again and says nothing for a while. Internally he tallies the nodding score, two nods for each man. Does that make it his turn to talk? If it is, he doesn't know what to say. He changes the subject to refrigeration. "I wish I had some way to put those specimens on ice for a few days," he says. "I was thinking maybe we should send Snake or Jack to take Zeph and Zoe back to St. Lucy with the samples. Zeph would know what to do with them. Or maybe they should all go back and I could just stay here with you for a while by myself."

The shaman grunts out a "hunh," then shakes his head. "Not necessary," he adds. "I can refrigerate your specimens here, if you don't mind riding a bicycle."

"Bicycle?" he asks. His own mind answers him with an instant dream picture of an exercise bike hooked up to an electrical generator. In his mental picture he pedals furiously, like a cartoon character being chased, pedaling wildly to a Keystone Cops silent movie soundtrack. "You have a generator here?" he asks, excited at the possibility.

The shaman nods again. "Too bad I can't use the dancing to power it," he says aloud, still nodding. "It's like this almost every night," he adds, gesturing toward the dancers.

"I could do bicycling," Baldwin agrees to the proposal.

"Maybe tomorrow," the shaman assents to the arrangement. "It's already powered up now. Tomorrow afternoon you can take a turn on the stationary bike to keep it going. In the morning we go out together looking for plants."

"Fantastic," the younger man blurts out. He feels suddenly energized by shedding the mental weight of the refrigeration problem.

The shaman continues, "I've taken the liberty of having Jomo put your specimen bag into the refrigeration unit already. It's more secure from animals there."

More good news there. "I'm curious," Baldwin asks after a few seconds.

"Why I have a refrigerator?" the Shaman completes the thought for him.

"Yeah. I don't suppose it's for cold drinks," he answers. "Not that I know much about the shaman business. I don't. But it never occurred to me that you might use modern equipment like that."

"I even have a microscope," the older man informs him congenially.

Baldwin just stares. Okay, traditional medicine is subject to progress like everything else. Why wouldn't it be?

Another minute of silence. "Well, thank you for that," Baldwin finally adds. "For taking care of the specimens. Maybe I can find you some additional equipment, if you need anything. As part of our collaboration on this Cordyceps problem. I mean, this antler ant problem."

"No need to correct yourself," the shaman responds immediately. "You're quite right. It's Cordyceps, or rather a variation on Cordyceps, a cross maybe, or a mutation."

Baldwin looks at him. "Cordyceps and T. gondii," he finally replies, and looks for a reaction.

"What do I know from Cordyceps? Is that what you're thinking?" the shaman speculates on Baldwin's unspoken questions.

Baldwin nods.

"I studied chemistry and biology at the university. Even went to the medical school for a while on Grenada, before I dropped out and came back home. My son is attending there now. Maybe he'll even finish the course," he ends with a laugh.

"Why would you do that?" Baldwin wants to know.

The old man gives him a look, as if he doesn't see a specific question.

"What prompted you to go after a modern scientific education? You know, I expected you'd be a traditional shaman, living here like this. I assumed your father had been a shaman before you, that kind of thing. You look like you totally belong here. So I'm thinking, were you really born here, are you actually indigenous? and if so, then I'm curious why you'd go after something so different from all this, and then come back. Did you have any trouble getting admitted? How did you pay for it, a scholarship or something? That's really interesting, that you would do that, and that you could. Forgive my curiosity."

The shaman laughs a little, and finishes the pineapple drink he's been working on. Then he answers Baldwin's questions. "I managed it. Some scholarship money, some part-time work. It wasn't easy, but I had help, and in the end I learned a lot. As far as why I did it, that's easier to explain. I was a young man. My father was still the village shaman then, and he was in good health. Sometimes the boys from here go to other islands, some to find work, some for girlfriends, and some just for adventure. Some came back with stories of modern doctors in the cities. How can there be a doctor in a city, I wondered. I had studied under my father, learning about all the plants that grow in the jungle. There are no medicinal plants growing in the city, I think. What does a city doctor do? How does he heal? And I listen to the stories told by those who return from the cities." He pauses to accept another pineapple drink from a woman who smiles at him lovingly. He smiles back at her, and she disappears again into the night.

"After I hear enough I decide to go see for myself," the older man continues. "One thing leads to another. I was gone for years, studying and learning. Sometimes I came back to visit my father in the village. He approved of my learning as much as I could, whatever the source. A good man, my father." Again Azacca pauses and sips the pineapple drink while he thinks about his father for a minute or two.

"When I saw he was getting older, I became afraid of losing him." Azacca continues. "So I returned to the island. And he lasted another forty years after that!" the old man says, laughing and shaking his head. "He continued to teach me as long as he lived. Now I am the shaman," Azacca concludes, "and it is my son who has gone away to learn what he can from the schools."

Baldwin thinks over what the old man has said before asking for more information.

"This Cordyceps hybrid we're seeing," he finally asks, "Is it something new? Or was it here on the island in your father's time?"

Baldwin waits while the old man considers his answer.

"I first saw this variation about seven years ago," the old medicine man recalls. "We don't get a lot of tourists here, but we do get some. There was a particular cruise ship that anchored in the bay for about a week. The tourists would come ashore and lie on the beaches, reading, napping, and drinking pineapple mixed with alcohol."

He pauses to drink some pineapple juice himself while gathering his thoughts. "One woman brought a lot of pets with her," he finally says. "We tried to talk to the boatmen, to warn them not to bring foreign animals ashore. She seemed to have money; She must have paid them to look the other way."

"She always had some animal with her," Azacca continues with a head shake and a sigh. "Sometimes a monkey or a cat. There were some others I didn't recognize. She'd always carry one on her shoulder or in a handbag. Take it with her everywhere. When she took a nap, or just looked the other way, sometimes the animal would wander off. Usually she found them again. Sometimes she didn't. The men told me a Spectral bat got one of her little rodents. I don't know what species it was, maybe a chinchilla or a hamster. She lost a little monkey to a margay. None of it seemed to bother her much until one day her pet cat skipped off into the jungle while she was napping on the beach. I ask you, who but an American tourist would take a cat to the beach?"

He pauses for an answer, but Baldwin has none to offer.

"So she insisted on a big search," the old man recounts, with a peevish tone in his voice. "Hired some of the local people to hunt for the cat. Offered a reward. The cat was never found of course. Probably something ate it. She left with the cruise ship a few days after that."

At this point he pauses again, thinking about the situation. He drinks more juice from another pineapple that a woman hands him. He looks at Baldwin, wondering if the biochemist is ready to take a chance on the local cuisine. Baldwin nods. The shaman smiles and gestures to the woman to bring a drink for his guest. From the way they look at each other, Baldwin wonders if she might be a younger wife, or maybe a grown daughter.

After sipping the pineapple juice for a minute the shaman continues. "Now, I have no evidence that it was connected, but bringing in alien animals like that presents a strong chance of introducing new diseases and new parasites. About six months after the woman was here, I saw the first signs. Small animals began to lose all fear of the margay. You know the margay, those small spotted cats that hunt in the trees? Tree ocelots they're sometimes called. The little hutias and agouti would run right up to them and get eaten. That made me think, this could be T. gondii. I didn't find any other T. gondii evidence at the time, though."

He pauses again to take another sip from the pineapple, then continues. "Those same margay eat the anteaters too, of course. If the anteaters have been dining on Cordyceps-infected ants, then of course the two parasites end up together in the cat's digestive system. It makes sense what you suggest, that there could have been a crossover eventually, a merging." Again he pauses when the woman brings Baldwin's drink, another hollowed out pineapple filled with pineapple juice. It feels warm. The straw is a hollow reed.

Baldwin sips the drink, then nods and smiles approval. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was.

Again the shaman continues the story, coming to the end. "Within a few months we saw the more extreme symptoms. The small animals were not simply fearless, they were insane. Bats the same way. Even small monkeys. I got samples and analyzed them of course. Compared them with the Cordyceps that infects the ants. Very similar."

He pauses again reflectively, then continues the story. "So I thought that perhaps I had been wrong, and the tourist woman's menagerie had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was just some mutated form of Cordyceps. Ants infected with Cordyceps of course become fearless, so a mutated form attacking mammals seemed plausible. I experimented with different formulas based on what I knew about the ants. Fortunately I was able to cure a few monkeys before the first human cases occurred. So we've managed to get along. I haven't found any way to eradicate it, though." With that he ends the story.

Baldwin tells the shaman about his own history, then tells him that reports of the new disease have been coming in from all over the Caribbean and all along the southern coast of America.

The two men talk far into the night while the music and dance continue in the flickering orange and black darkness. Sometimes Annetka comes and sits by him quietly, listening, leaning on him. He holds her close for a while, until the call of the dance draws her back.

People are eating, but no one insists that the guests eat. Baldwin sees Annetka trying some cooked bits of pineapple and decides it's probably safe. The shaman sees that he notices, but says nothing to reassure him. All food entails some risk, Baldwin imagines. Roasted pineapple must be fairly safe as food goes. He's glad she isn't sampling the meat. Then again, the shaman knows about the problem; surely he wouldn't be permitting the villagers to consume anything unsafe.

The night gets late, and couples begin to disappear from the dance floor without returning. Annetka comes back and sits by Baldwin, closing her eyes, leaning on him and not leaving to return to the dance. The shaman makes a gesture and Jomo reappears.

"Jomo will show you to your place for tonight," the shaman tells them, standing up, and then says something to Jomo quietly in a language Baldwin supposes to be Creole. Jomo gestures for them to follow. The couple rise and follow as instructed.

Jomo shows the couple to a small thatched hut near the shaman's, and then disappears. Through the doorway they can still see the bonfires and feel their heat. Several layers of blankets have been laid out generously on the flat dirt floor.

The two sit on the blankets together, looking out the door at the fires, holding each other close for warmth.

Looking more closely at the floor, Baldwin sees that it isn't just dirt, it's been hardened like baked clay. So it's more like a tile floor, he thinks, drawing a comparison to something familiar. The blankets aren't exceptionally soft, but they aren't coarse either. They seem to be made from heavy cotton.

With one arm around Annetka, Baldwin reaches back with his other hand and picks up the loose edge of the top blanket in the pile they're sitting on, wrapping it over her shoulders and around her, pulling her closer to him. She turns her face to look up at his eyes.

Chapter 13 - Hospital in Winter

It is late February in the Midwest, early evening, cold and dark. The edges of the roads and sidewalks are bracketed with low walls of packed snow, streaked with black dirt, with ash from chimneys and motor oil leaked from cars, with crushed remnants of dead brown leaves left from autumn. Across the lawns and fields the packed snow spreads out in every direction, covering any ground that isn't paved and salted. University Hospital's parking lot looks like a plowed field of tire tracks sculpted in slushy ice, seeded with scattered rock salt crystals, irrigated with shallow puddles of salt-melted snow. Neither stars nor moon can be seen in the sky; even the sky itself is invisible in the foggy glare of the streetlamps that shine down like cold dim spotlights on an empty stage. Occasionally a lonely snowflake drifts down, glinting as it turns slowly in the diffused light.

Inside the hospital, in a waiting area near an operating room, the lovely and immaculate Marie Mallon reclines on a black plastic cushioned chair under white fluorescent lights. Rows of similar chairs and small sofas extend beside her, around her and in front of her, where Nick and the other faithful sit waiting. All wait to hear any news about their friend Angela, unconscious inside the operating room for the last three hours. Most of the women who volunteered for the fund raising dinner on the farm near Wright's Corner are present, their faces somber, genuinely worried and saddened. Though Angela has no immediate family, she has cousins and friends. Some of them have known her all their lives.

"Angela's only fifty-three years old," Della says for the third time this hour, dabbing a handkerchief to the inside corners of her moist blue eyes, sniffling, struggling to hold back the sting of tears. Angela is her cousin. They've been very close since childhood. As Della struggles to keep from crying, the tears that gather in her eyes augment their stark blueness, so that her eyes seem to glow with sadness whenever she looks up.

No one answers her for a minute.

After a while Marie thinks of something to say, trying to sound reassuring. "She made the best little sandwiches for that rally in Columbus. You remember those, Charlie," she adds, looking over at the college student.

He nods agreement and she turns back to speak to the distraught woman again. "Oh, Della, let's just hope and pray Angela will come out of this all right. They have really good doctors here."

Of course Marie has no idea whether the doctors are good or not. She just wants to say something that will calm the unhappy woman, partly out of concern, but mostly just hoping somehow she'll settle down and stop repeating the annoying mantra about Angela's age.

"It's a tragedy, that something like this could happen to our Angela," Nick offers, perhaps prematurely, but trying to prepare the others for the bad news he's sure will come. "She's been a rock solid supporter of the movement from the very beginning. Never wavered. Always there. A foundation stone of the movement. You could always count on Angela."

He pauses for dramatic effect and looks around before continuing, "If we do lose her, we know she'll be going on to a better place." So saying, he places his right hand on his heart for a brief second and glances up toward the ceiling.

She'll be going to the ceiling? Katrina, sitting with Charlie, thinks but doesn't say. An upper floor of the hospital? Are there better doctors on the higher floors? Probably not, she answers herself. Nothing is going to help Angela now.

In fact Katrina is sincerely sorry for the unfortunate woman on the other side of the operating room doors. There is something poignant and incomprehensible about death. She is appalled at what she sees as soulless hypocrisy from Nick and Marie, pretending they can feel what the others are feeling, but probably unable to care about anything outside themselves.

"Amen," Marie seconds Nick's speech.

Others murmur and repeat the amen.

"Join me again in prayer," Nick asks. All bow their heads, and Nick offers up a short prayer for Angela's recovery, with an alternate request for her to be taken directly to heaven if recovery isn't her fate. "Thy will be done," he concludes solemnly, and all present join in his amen.

Everyone in the room resumes sitting in silence on the square plastic-covered cushions, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, staring at the white walls and each other.

"Only fifty-three years old," Della says again after a while. This time her husband puts an arm around her and pats her shoulder, draws her a little nearer to him, saying nothing. With his other hand he caresses the top of her other arm. She rests her head on his shoulder, still dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief, fighting to hold back the irrepressible tears.

Mercifully soon, a white-coated doctor emerges from the swinging doors of the operating room, looking grim, backed by two younger doctors.

What could he possibly need with a stethoscope in this context? Katrina finds herself wondering, observing it hanging from his neck like an ID badge on a cord, or a techno necktie. The two younger doctors flanking him wear them as well. Doctor ID badges, she decides. She feels a sudden chill and shudders involuntarily, realizing Angela must be dead.

The doctor glances around at the assembled visitors, not sure who the next of kin is.

Everyone in the waiting area looks up at him apprehensively.

The doctor looks toward a nearby nurse, who walks over to him and says something very quietly.

He walks to the chair where Della sits. She stands up. Her husband stands with her, holding her, bracing her arms in his big hands, prepared for the worst.

"I'm sorry," the doctor says to her quietly, seriously, eyes locked on hers.

Della dissolves into tears. Her husband consoles her the best that he can, putting both arms around her. She buries her head on his chest. Her back rises and falls in rhythm with her quiet sobbing. The doctor waits.

When she interrupts her crying after a time, the doctor continues delivering his message. "It was a brain hemorrhage. She didn't suffer. Strokes like this are unfortunately not uncommon with cases of uncontrolled hypertension, at her age, with her level of stress. There are no signs of bacterial infection or other incidental causes. It's just a stroke brought on by uncontrolled high blood pressure. I'm really very sorry. There was nothing further anyone could have done for her." Sensing the mood of the room, he adds, "She's in a better place now."

At that Della breaks into crying again, this time on her husband's shoulder. The doctor turns and leaves silently, the two younger doctors following behind. The crowded room seems empty and hollow.

"Her cats," a young woman finally says. "She had six cats. Who's going to take care of them now? Shouldn't we do something?"

"We should take the cats," Nick agrees. "Find them homes if we can't keep them ourselves."

All murmur assent.

Della stops crying again to admit she has a key to Angela's home. It's a long way from the hospital, but they can go and get the cats tonight.

"We probably should," Marie agrees, seeing that at least it would get them out of this dismal waiting room.

Again a general murmur of agreement goes around the room.

Angela has no relatives anyone knows of except for Della. She had spent all her free time working on the campaign. The cats had meant a lot to her. They'd been her immediate family.

"Taking care of the cats is something we can do for Angela," a young woman observes. "It's about the only thing we can do, now."

Going to get the cats gives them something they can do tonight, something that gets them out of the hospital waiting room without feeling like they're deserting.

After some discussion, half a dozen volunteers each agree to take one of the cats, and several more agree to provide fallback homes if the first ones don't work out. Maps are drawn, directions given.

With that, the group breaks up and retires to the frozen wasteland of the parking lot outside. Della and her husband head up the parade in a big SUV. Behind them a caravan of the mournful heads out of the parking lot. The SUV heads toward the house that had been Angela's, leading a caravan of half a dozen future pet owners, each one consoled with the thought of doing some last thing for their departed friend, may she rest in peace.

Chapter 14 - The Waterfall

A symphony of jungle sounds welcomes dawn on the island.

Eyes still closed, Baldwin comes to awareness of the cooking smells in the village, something unidentifiable but Creole. His mind conjures an image of Jumbalaya or some sort of Creole influenced stew. He becomes aware of the hardness of the floor beneath him through the thick cotton blankets, and the warmth of Annetka next to him.

His mind wakens to a quick memory of the night before, and where he is now. He's spent the night -- They've spent the night -- on the island where they went to collect the samples. Annetka and the cooking smells compete for his attention. His stomach reminds him that he hasn't eaten since the previous morning back in St. Lucy.

As Annetka takes a deep breath and shifts position, he feels his arm go out and wrap around her, draw her close. With a snuggling up body movement, she settles her head on his shoulder and one hand on his chest, eyes still closed. They lie together quietly for a while, listening to the jungle, breathing the air, until their breathing synchronizes and Annetka opens her eyes. She takes a deep breath and exhales, like a sigh.

Baldwin opens his eyes reluctantly and sighs similarly. "Good morning," he says.

"Is it safe to eat here?" she asks. "I ate some of the food last night."

"Mmm. I noticed," he answers, turning on his side to look at her. "With Azacca on hand to supervise the village health plan I'm willing to bet it's okay."

"Azacca? Is that the shaman's name?" she asks, lifting herself up on one shoulder and turning her face to meet his eyes.

"Yeah, I met him last night. We talked a long time while you were dancing. He's going to take us out today to get plant samples. Well, take me out, anyway. I'm not sure if you and the others want to stay."

At that she makes a pouting face. "I want to stay with you," she says, wiggling her body in a slow undulating way next to his. "Anyway," she adds, "What about the stuff we collected yesterday? You can't just leave that sitting around for long, can you?"

"Would you believe he has a refrigerator here?" Baldwin answers.

"Hmmh," she mutters, and settles her head back down on his shoulder, snuggling close, stroking his chest.

Pulling her closer again, he brings his other hand up to stroke her hair gently.

Just then Jomo appears, outlined in the light of the open door. It occurs to Baldwin that the door has probably stood open all night. He wonders vaguely if the doors here can be closed.

Probably a curtain or something could have been dropped over the door, he reflects. For all he knows there was a curtain over the door all night, and Jomo just opened it. He wasn't exactly paying attention.

Okay, I'm awake now, Baldwin realizes, and sits up.

"You sleep pretty late," Jomo observes in good humor. "Azacca want to be going now pretty soon. You want breakfast you better be getting yourself up now." So saying he smiles a broad friendly smile and departs.

"I think I liked it better being asleep," Annetka comments, sitting up next to him, turning to look at his face again. "But I am hungry," she adds, tilting her head and glancing at him upward and sideways, in a cajoling way, batting her eyelashes slightly and then looking down at the floor.

What he wants at that moment is neither food nor sleep, but he knows that the day is upon them and they have to face it head on. "To breakfast, and beyond!" he announces in his best Buzz Lightyear voice, stiffening his torso to mock military attention and thrusting his right arm to point up towards the door.

She gives him a blank look.

"Buzz Lightyear. It's a kid's toy, from a movie. He's a toy space ranger or something. He says 'To Infinity And Beyond', in a very impressive way. More impressive than me. Okay. Let's go get breakfast," Baldwin tries to explain and then tries to move on. He stands up, reaches out his right hand to Annetka.

"Okay, Space Ranger," she says, taking his hand, and stands up with him.

They do what they can to make themselves presentable, then step out from their quarters into the bright nearly tropical light that bathes the village. Women dressed in brightly patterned red, yellow, and turquoise cotton are stirring big cooking pots over open fires. A multi-colored parrot flies by, almost too fast to be noticed. The colors are so bright and the environment so rich with stimulus that just having one's eyes open is like exercise.

Baldwin looks forward to being back in the shadowy cover of the jungle trees, looking for samples again. More proximately, he looks forward to eating something.

The two of them walk over to the nearest cooking fire and stand quietly, alternately staring at the food in the pot and glancing at the woman stirring it. The woman looks up and smiles. Annetka says something, and the woman laughs and points to their right. Baldwin follows the direction with his eyes, and sees Jomo, Zeph and the others sitting in front of the shaman's place, eating breakfast from handheld bowls.

They join their friends, and soon a woman hands Annetka a bowl of food and a spoon. Baldwin recognizes it as very like his dream image of Jumbalaya Creole stew. He looks up at the woman and nods, smiling. Annetka says something, and the woman soon hands him a similar bowl. He smiles again and accepts it.

"Tell her I said thanks," Baldwin asks Annetka, who does so. Smiles all around.

"Caution to the winds, hey?" Zeph teases, taking another spoonful of the pot luck concoction himself. "It's good stuff, you know," he adds.

"These people don't seem to be suffering from eating the food," Baldwin answers, with a sweeping nod meant to encompass the entire village. "Anyway, I trust Azacca. He knows what he's doing here."

"You remembered his name," Zeph feigns being impressed by his friend's intellectual prowess. In truth he often is impressed, even a little intimidated sometimes, but not this time. Out here he feels like they have a level playing field. Well, except for Snake. Snake shines in this environment. And Jack and the girls have the advantage of being multilingual. Still, outside the lab and away from the books and computers, he feels that he's on an even footing with his intellectual giant of a friend.

"Hard man to forget," Baldwin answers. The shaman isn't present in the group, so they feel free to talk about him. "He went to medical school for a while in Grenada, you know," he adds. "Can you believe that? He's an amazing guy."

"Coming from you that says something," Zeph allows. "I saw you talking. What else did you learn? And what's the plan for today?"

"Ah. I'm going out with Azacca to get plant samples. I guess anybody who wants to come along can," he adds, glancing over at Annetka, who smiles sweetly in acknowledgement.

"Then," Baldwin continues, "in the afternoon anybody who wants to can spend some time pedaling the exercise bike on the generator that feeds the refrigerator."

"I'll do it," Snake and Jack both respond in unison, then look at each other and utter little reserved laughs of embarrassment.

"You go ahead," Jack offers. "I know you've been doing bicycling for training anyway, so this is a chance to get in some of your gym work."

The other man nods acceptance of his friend's deference.

"But I want one of us to go out with Annie and Baldy," Jack continues with the pragmatics of the situation. "The other can stay here with Zoe and Zeph, if they want to stay in the village." He ends by looking enquiringly at Zeph, who shrugs and looks at Zoe. Zoe also shrugs.

"Is there any reason we shouldn't come along?" she asks, looking back at Baldwin.

"Not as far as I know. Let's all go, if that's okay with our host," he answers her. "I was just thinking you might want to get back to St. Lucy."

"No, it's nice here. We're having a good time. It seems safe enough now," she responds definitively. Obviously she feels comfortable and at home. "The old man seems to keep the village safe," she adds, "and the people. We're okay here."

"Eventually we'll need to get the samples back," Zeph observes. "But if we've got refrigeration, that gives us a window of a couple of days."

"Actually," Baldwin breaks the news, looking straight at Zeph, "I was thinking I might stay here for a few more days, maybe a week, to learn more. I was thinking you might go back to St. Lucy with the samples."

"Alternate plan," his friend suggests. "We stay here another day or two. You learn what you can. We all go back together with whatever we've got. You start analyzing those samples we risked our lives to get. If and when you need more information, you come back, or we come back. First order of business is to get back to the lab with those samples, and you know as well as I do that you're the man to carry the ball from there."

Baldwin goes back to eating the breakfast. Whatever it is, it's hot, it tastes good, and it makes his stomach stop growling at him. "This is good," he says out loud, changing the topic away from the future back to the present.

"The plan is good? Yes, okay then," Zeph deliberately reinterprets the comment.

"The food," Baldwin answers, giving the other man a look; but he knows he's lost the game and they'll all be staying together for the duration.

The shaman walks over, returning from early morning rounds of the village, carrying a shoulder bag that looks like a cross between an oversized water canteen and a hippie chick's handbag. He nods at the group and disappears into his home. A minute later he reappears, carrying an actual canteen and some other bags that are probably for collecting plant samples. He asks

Jomo to go get a couple of men to help carry, speaking English in deference to his guests.

"No, we'll do it," Jack offers, and Snake nods. The other men present, including Jomo, all nod in suit.

"Let me come along with you, Azacca," Jomo asks.

The other man sighs and agrees to the arrangement. "So you're all coming along this morning?" he asks, looking around the assembled group for dissenters. There are none. This is still an adventure and they want to stick together. "Come along, then," the old man says acceptingly, then turns and walks away toward the path into the jungle, not looking back.

Setting down their breakfast bowls, the group follows. Jomo takes the canteen and fills it as they pass a water barrel on the way out of the village. Jack then takes the sample bags from the old man, who does not resist the assistance.

They enter the welcome shadow of the jungle and are soon surrounded by the now familiar overgrown houseplants, the bright birds flitting past, the pleasantly moist still air scented with orchids and spice. It feels and smells like an extravagant version of a big arboretum or aviary at a big city zoo, but here, as far as the ear can hear, there are no distant echoes from trams or distant traffic, no dimly overheard fragments of human conversation, just an endless medley of varied birdcalls backed by intermittent howler monkey cries and other animal sounds that Baldwin will probably never learn to identify individually.

They walk quietly in single file through the serene environment, following the shaman, Snake just behind the old man, Jack and Jomo taking up the rear. Time seems suspended as they follow on through the jungle, off the main path but not in dense overgrowth. The shaman certainly seems to know his way around.

"Here, see this," Azacca eventually says, stooping to point to a small plant growing parasitically like an orchid on a piece of rotting wood.

Of course, it hits Baldwin. Orchids prey on fungus. Cordyceps is a fungus. The second part of the one-two punch hits him: Orchids are notoriously difficult to cultivate. Wow. Okay. He stoops down to look where his new mentor is pointing. Zeph crouches to join them.

The shaman gives an impromptu lesson on the biology of the plant in front of them, how to grow it, how it reproduces, when and how to harvest it. He gives precise information on timing and temperatures.

Baldwin feels grateful for whatever random luck or divine intervention had caused this indigenous traditional healer to choose to attend modern schools. It might or might not make him a better shaman, but it certainly had made him a good teacher.

"This is one of three plants we need," he concludes, holding his hand out towards Jack to reclaim a sample bag. "This is the main one actually," he adds, taking up the entire plant and a generous section of the rotting log under it, placing them carefully into the bag and then handing it to Zeph. He takes two more sample bags from Jack.

Baldwin looks around and notices that there are a few more of the plants on similar pieces of deadwood nearby, spread out about ten feet apart. It occurs to him that the shaman is cultivating the plants. This is a medicinal farm. "How long have you been cultivating these?"

He asks. "Was it hard to get them established?"

The old man laughs quietly. "It was before my time," he answers, standing upright and facing his student. "Back when the French were around. Maybe my great grandfather's time. I inherited all this and learned to take care of it, but never needed to use this particular plant until recently."

Baldwin continues to look at him.

"L'Isle Barjot," Jack supplies the old French name. Madman's Island.

Azacca nods. "Yes, there was an outbreak of Cordyceps in humans then. It was different from the strain we're seeing now, but it was bad. People who were infected went crazy, including a few Frenchmen. The French started calling it L'Isle Barjot, and avoided the island." He pauses to laugh.

"So it was a blessing in disguise, as your saying goes," he adds. "The French left us alone. All the tourists and colonizers left us alone. My ancestor eliminated the parasite here, cured any people who weren't too far gone yet to save. After that we lived in peace. Well, until recently."

He chuckles again.

"But I had done my homework as a young man," he continues. "I remembered the stories. First thing I did was to try using this plant as my great grandfather had. You can imagine how disappointed I was when it didn't work right away," he ends.

He takes up two more of the plants and places them into sample bags of their own, then turns to walk off past the little garden of cultivated Magnoliophyta, into another section of jungle.

The others fall into line and follow the medicine man, Snake near the front, Baldwin behind him spinning mentally through ideas for setting up a greenhouse that will work, Annetka close behind thinking mostly about her boyfriend, followed by the equally love struck Zeph thinking about Zoe Jalissa, who follows next and happens to be thinking about orchids, with her brother Jack and their rescuer Jomo again bringing up the rear of the column, thinking, like Snake, mostly about guarding against any possible dangers.

"Are the flowers nice?" Jalissa asks as they walk. When she gets no response, she adds, "the plants back there. Are they orchids? Do they make nice flowers?"

"Yes, nice flowers," the shaman answers, "but not often, and this is the wrong time of year for them."

They walk on quietly, with time once again seemingly suspended in the stillness. Birds flit by as other birds have, brief explosions of color against the dark variegated green surroundings.

Occasional lizards skitter out of their way as they pass. Baldwin spots a tiny red-eyed three-toed tree frog hopping quickly out of sight near eye level. The dawn chorus of birdsong has abated unnoticed into the more subdued daytime movements of the jungle symphony by the time they stop again.

Standing a few yards from the top of a cliff, Baldwin hears water rushing nearby. It sounds like a waterfall. He judges they must be about thirty feet above the crashing sound where the falling water can be heard splashing into the water below.

"Here," Azacca says, pointing to the next plant they'll collect. "This one grows wild near riverbanks, but it isn't delicate, though it looks delicate. It's related to Diffenbachia, Dumbcane.

Be careful not to handle it too much without gloves."

So saying he begins the next lecture in their botany seminar, pointing for illustration as he talks at the thin delicate leaves, the roots, and the surroundings. By the time he finishes, Baldwin feels confident in his understanding of the plant.

Azacca digs up a few samples with a small hand spade, not touching them directly. He hands

off the sample bag, then points to a small strange scrub tree nearby.

"Euphorbiaceae," he announces and chuckles. "It's a small tree. You won't be able to carry back a full grown sample today I'm afraid, but we'll find you some young shoots to take. And you'll want some of the flowers of course, and the sap, maybe some bark to analyze. Look at these tiny flowers here," he says, pointing out the bizarre tiny flowers growing like a cluster of misshapen sequins covering the thick stem.

With that he launches into the final plant lecture of the morning.

After about twenty minutes he ends by saying, "Luckily plants grow quickly around here. If you take back some of the shoots, you should have mature plants within the year."

Taking his medicine bag, he pulls out a pocket knife and excises the base of the stem whose flowers had been used to introduce the lecture, including a half inch circle around the base, pulling it off at an angle that brings along a swathe of attached bark. When a drop of sap oozes out of the cut, he carefully scrapes it off into a tiny glass vial and seals the vial. He places the vial into a second specimen bag. Then he takes a roll of tape from his medicine bag, cuts off a strip with the pocket knife, and bandages the cut. He seals the specimen bag containing the flower cutting, but keeps the other one open.

Handing off the filled specimen bag to Jomo this time, he looks around on the ground near the base to find young shoots. He spots some near the edge of the cliff, growing scattered a few feet apart, each only a few inches in height. With the hand spade he works one loose from the ground, leaving a small cone of dirt attached at the base. He puts the specimen into the bag with the vial. After repeating the exercise with six more young plants nearby he seals off the final bag and hands it to Jomo for safekeeping.

Standing to face the group, Azacca points in a direction that Baldwin supposes, from the sounds, must be upriver of the waterfall.

"The water comes from up there," the shaman says. Waving his arm in a wide arc down past the waterfall, he describes the course of the river. "It goes over a series of waterfalls here," he pauses his arm in the direction of the waterfall sound. "Then it continues on. The waterfalls here are very pretty. Your girlfriends might like to see them," he adds, glancing first at Zeph, then pausing to stare into Baldwin's eyes for a few seconds. "It's late morning. We'll take a break here for about an hour, maybe longer."

Baldwin blinks.

"There be a rainbow sometimes," Jomo adds to the description of the falls below.

"A rainbow? Oh, I'd like to see that," Zoe Jalissa responds excitedly, coming up very close to Zeph. He doesn't need further convincing.

"Here, I show you the rainbow," Jomo offers, smiling a broad friendly smile. He grabs Zeph's share of the sample bags out of his hand and gives the lot of the bags to Jack to look after. "I be right back," he promises Jack, with a friendly smile.

Jomo darts along the edge of the cliff in a slightly downhill direction, pausing twenty yards away to see if the others are following. Zeph and Jalissa are behind him, moving more slowly and carefully. Annetka is just then touching Baldwin's arm and looking up into his eyes. He takes her hand and they join the procession making its way toward the hidden path to the river.

Jomo continues more slowly, pausing again after another twenty yards. He stands at the top of a sloping stairstep-like natural arrangement of rocks leading down the side of the cliff to the riverbank below.

After exchanging a few words with Jack, Snake follows the group, leaving Jack behind to protect the shaman and the samples.

The path is fairly steep, but most of the rocks are wide. Baldwin speculates that the formation might have been the result of a landslide in the past. He wonders how long the path has been here like this, but Jomo is fairly far ahead of them, so he doesn't ask. It isn't overgrown, so it couldn't have been here terribly long. Maybe that means landslides are frequent.

"Probably happened in a hurricane," Snake offers, as if reading Baldwin's mind.

Baldwin grunts and nods in acknowledgement and glances at the other, who grins fleetingly in response.

Baldwin takes each downward step just ahead of Annetka, to be in a position to catch her if she falls. A few of the boulders that form the path are over a yard in height, and he helps her down from each, reaching back up to hold her waist and lower her gently onto the next level.

Sometimes she leans forward and wraps her arms around his neck as he brings her down. He supposes she can't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, it seems so effortless.

Occasionally she loses her balance slightly and her entire body presses against his completely, sliding against him as he lowers her slowly to touch her feet to the rock below.

He begins to imagine various possibilities for how they will later make the ascent back to the top. Perhaps he can lift her up ahead of him piggyback on his shoulders. The thought arouses him. He goes on to other creative solutions, but they all arouse him. Indeed they give rise to creative ideas that aren't solutions at all, just interesting and arousing. He tries to focus his attention back onto the task of getting down in the first place. He is partially successful, partially not.

The jungle, the river, everything seems to fade into a blurred backdrop for the little bubble world of holding Annetka and guiding her down. Holding her for a moment, letting her go again so he can climb down over the next rock, reaching back up to hold her again. That becomes his whole world as they glide further and further down toward the riverbank.

Near the end he finds himself deliberately holding her close at each opportunity, prolonging the contact, making no attempt to pretend it isn't erotic. She returns every hug, looking happily at him sideways as he releases her, looking down quickly in embarrassment when he returns her glance.

They come to the last rock in the path. The world begins to intrude on his awareness. He lowers Annetka down, holds her close for just an instant more than is needed, and releases her onto the damp earth of the riverbank at the base. Jomo is nearby, waiting. Zeph and Zoe stand with him, arms around each other's waists.

"Glad you could make it," Zeph says ironically, alluding to their slow progress.

"I take the time to do it right," Baldwin answers as Snake lands on the riverbank beside him.

"Hey, look, Snake's even slower," he adds. Snake laughs just slightly, shaking his head and maintaining the grin for a while, intermittently shaking his head again as he re-contemplates the humor of the remark. The two seem to be developing into friends, a little to the surprise of both.

"Waterfall back up this way," Jomo says and points upriver to his left. "Rainbow up here too. Sometimes. Usually. This way," he adds and takes off walking slowly upriver along the riverbank, the river on his right.

Snake says something to Jomo in Creole and the girls laugh.

"Okay, what did he say?" Baldwin asks. Though Annetka knows him well enough to have predicted he would want a translation, he doesn't yet realize that.

"That he doesn't need to slow down here, the tourists can keep up with him on flat dry land that isn't at the top of a cliff."

"That's kind of funny, actually," Baldwin admits, though he doesn't laugh at it.

"Do you speak any languages most people wouldn't know?" his girlfriend inquires. "They have you at a disadvantage here."

"A little Norwegian?"

"Too close to English," she responds. "Also I don't speak Norwegian. I'd learn it for you, though, if it wasn't so close to English. How about we take a Japanese class together, or something like that? Something very foreign."

"Sure," he answers, surprised but game. "You find a class nearby and let me know in time to sign up. It'd be fun."

"Can I come too?" Snake asks, mostly as a jibe.

"Rather defeats the purpose," Annetka points out.

"That's unfriendly," Snake pretends disappointment.

"Snake is welcome to join us," Baldwin vetoes Annetka's isolationism.

Annetka shrugs.

"Maybe I think about it," Snake ends the discussion.

Ordinarily this would send Baldwin into introspection about the other man's psychology and temperament, but at present he's more interested in Annetka. Feeling images press into his mind, recalling the sensation of her body sliding against his as he was lowering her down from rock to rock on the path down from the cliff.

He reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder, slides it halfway to her neck, draws her close to him as they walk. He kisses the top of her head gently, and she wraps an arm loosely around his waist, leaning on him. The path is straight and flat. The water gurgles along beside them, bouncing over small rocks, jaunting merrily along on its lively trip down to the ocean.

Occasional overgrown houseplants stand scattered intermittently along the way, some reaching roots out into the little river, some having taken root halfway up the cliff, reaching feathery green arms upward toward the light or arching down like willow branches. The smell of the fresh water is all around them, mixed with the omnipresent smell of cardamom and nutmeg and the jungle. As they approach the first waterfall, a trace of ozone is added, like the smell in the air after a thunderstorm.

"Oh!" Jalissa exclaims as the path curves gently toward the right and she gets the first view of the big waterfall. The others soon catch up and stop where she stands. A pastel section of prismatic color arches across half the base of the waterfall, as if a pie slice had been taken out of a rainbow and placed there in the mist.

"Wow," Annetka agrees.

"Rainbow," Jomo beams, and gestures in the direction everyone is looking.

After a minute he adds, "We break here. Hey, Mr Snake, you want to stay with these tourists and I go back up, check on that other guy Jack?"

"You stay or go. No matter. Jack okay on his own. Azacca safe with Jack too," Snake assures him. "Hey, Jomo, it be safe here for these guys? No margay cats, none of them bad rats here?"

"No problems here. This be safe place. These tourists be okay for a while. Why, you wanta take a nap here, Mr Snake?"

"Might be I do take a rest. And don't be calling me Mr Snake, or I going to call you Mr Jomo."

Jomo laughs and says, "I go back up now. You call out you want some help or something. I come down quick. Anyway I come back check on you if you not back in some little while. When Azacca say time to go now."

The two men look at each other, apparently agreed on the course. Jomo flashes away back down the riverbank and up the rocks on the side of the cliff.

To Baldwin and Zeph, Snake says, "I'm going to scout around a little. It's safe to wander around if you want to sightsee. Don't go too far."

"Snake," Annetka stops him. "Do you think it's safe to go in the water here?"

Snake turns to face toward the top of the cliff and calls out a question loudly. Jomo's voice answers from above.

"Sure," Snake tells Annetka. "Safe to swim."

"Swim?"

"Big pool at the base of waterfall. Four feet deep, maybe five."

She looks at her boyfriend. "I want to swim," she says plainly.

"You don't have a bathing suit."

"I don't care."

He sighs. He takes her hand and says, "Let's look around a little, like they suggested. See what else is here."

"More waterfalls," Snake announces. "Might be more rainbows too. Sometimes."

Baldwin and Annetka both shrug. They walk off hand in hand, approaching the near side of the waterfall. Glancing back as the path turns to the right, they see Zeph and Zoe preparing to go skinny dipping. Snake is lying on his back on a broad flat rock, arms folded behind his neck, looking up at the sky.

"He might really be going to take a nap," Annetka observes.

"Might be at that. Hey, look. The path goes in under the waterfall. Look," he gestures toward a shadow in front of them. "It's a bit like a cave," he observes as they continue to approach. The path forks, and they continue toward the waterfall.

They follow the path as it continues to curve to the right, in behind a curtain of water dropping from an overhang far above. It acts like a frosted window, letting them see the world beyond in a blurred and out of focus way. Time seems suspended for that instant when they first stand under the waterfall together, breathing in the waterfall smell, feeling the mist on their skin, looking back to see the vague figures of Zeph and Zoe swimming and playing in the water, and the indistinct jungle valley beyond.

Zeph makes a splashing sound lunging up out of the water at Zoe, and Zoe giggles a tinkling musical stanza of delight. Baldwin smiles and looks at Annetka.

"I want to swim," she says, and starts removing her clothes.

He watches, reaching one arm out into the curtain of water beside them to test its temperature. It certainly isn't melting snow, he quickly realizes. Runoff from rainwater, in a land that never sees winter, it seems pleasant enough.

"Okay," he agrees, and takes off his shirt and shoes as she takes off her jeans. Rather than jumping straight into the water, she comes closer to him.

"Want help with those?" she suggests, glancing down at his trousers, then up into his eyes. He says nothing, but takes them off. Both stand there dressed to go skinny dipping. She stands very close. She doesn't see that he is well prepared for something else besides skinny dipping.

"You want to go swimming," he says, and caresses her shoulders very lightly, barely touching the skin.

She shivers involuntarily and her breathing changes, becomes a little faster, a little shallower. The black circles at the center of her eyes expand and she starts to flush. Without deciding to do so, he finds himself kissing her, first gently, then passionately, holding her close. Her arms wrap around him as she returns his embrace. Soon he realizes he is kissing her neck and she is making little soft low moaning sounds.

"Swimming," she agrees, pulling away, and slips through the curtain into the pool of water. He follows.

He catches up with her and they pause again at a secluded edge, out of sight of the others. Again they kiss. Time melts away as they embrace in the warm water, enveloped in the misty spray from the waterfall, their senses washed by the sounds and scents of the nearby jungle.

He cannot say how much time passes before he hears Jomo's voice calling out to them.

"We should go," Baldwin tells Annetka reluctantly. "We need to be getting back to the others."

She blinks.

They kiss one last time, and begin to gather themselves for the ascent.

Chapter 15 - Dinner at the Apartment

Winter in Wisconsin continues unabated, unrelenting, covering the visible universe in ice. Daylight is dim and short-lived. Night comes early and does not give up its turn in power easily.

The apartment doorbell rings and Katrina goes to answer it. Charlie is behind her. Their dinner guests stand in the hallway outside the apartment door, holding heavy winter coats in front of them in folded arms.

"This is Nina," Shelley introduces her friend to Katrina and Charlie as they enter. "She's visiting her family in Madison. She grew up here. Her parents both work for the state government."

"Here, let me take your coats," Katrina offers. The two hand her their coats and their handbags, which she carries the few steps into the open bedroom. She hangs the coats on the backs of chairs near a heating vent so any melting snow will dry out during dinner, and sets the bags nearby.

Charlie shows the two to the dining area, where Katrina immediately joins them. The table is already set. Charlie brings out a hot casserole dish from the kitchen and sets it on a trivet in the center. When all four are seated comfortably around the square table, he says grace, praying for blessing on the meal and on everyone present.

"Amen," Katrina chimes in.

He looks at her. "I've never heard you say that before," he observes. "All the times we have prayers at the meetings and rallies, you never really seem to join in."

"Well, maybe that should change," his girlfriend answers, arranging a linen napkin neatly on her lap and leaning forward to take a dinner roll onto her plate. "Anyway, I have a feeling this is going to be a really good night for us, together here. Nina, I'm so glad you could make it. Shelley, thank you for coming." She looks at the two women each in turn as she speaks, feeling more at ease than she has all winter.

Charlie takes Nina's plate and loads it with a serving of the mixture in the casserole dish. "Hope you don't mind pot luck," he says, handing her back the plate and accepting the next one held out.

"Charlie made this casserole himself," Katrina points out, "but don't worry, it's safe to eat."

The guests laugh.

"Oh, I brought some wine," Nina says, as if just remembering. "It's in my bag, in the other room. I'll go get it, if that's all right."

Katrina smiles and nods, and the other woman disappears into the bedroom for a minute. "That was very thoughtful of her," Katrina says, looking at Charlie for agreement. "I know you're not used to drinking alcohol," she adds, "but let's be polite, okay?"

"Of course," he agrees. "I'll try a small glass. Oh, let me get the wine glasses down." He goes to a high cupboard in the kitchen and finds some rarely used wine glasses, which he brings back to the table.

"Anybody want a glass of water or fruit juice?" he asks, and without waiting fills the water glasses on the table from a water pitcher with floating lemon slices. "It's good to alternate drinking water with anything alcoholic, so you don't get dehydrated," he adds, just as Nina returns with the bottle of wine.

"That's true," Nina agrees, setting the bottle on the table. "Now, note that this is Organic Vegan wine," she points out. "It's a Cabernet, which sort of goes with anything. I've had it before, it's a nice wine. Best of all," she ends, "it has a screw top rather than a cork." She unscrews the top of the wine to emphasize the ending.

The other two women hold out their wine glasses, and Charlie reluctantly follows their lead. Nina fills each of the small glasses about three quarters full. "Here's to tonight," she gives a toast. The glasses clink together and all sip the wine. Katrina looks at Charlie and smiles.

"This casserole is good," Shelley offers a compliment to the host. "Oh, say, do you have any salt and pepper? I don't see any on the table."

Charlie looks at Katrina.

"I don't know, maybe there's some in the kitchen," she says. "You used salt on that popcorn the other day, remember? Maybe it's up there with the popcorn. I don't know about pepper. Maybe on the spice shelf? You might have seen it when you were making the casserole?"

"I'll go have a look around," he sighs, and departs to the kitchen. The popcorn is kept in a high cabinet that Katrina can't reach easily, because he's the only one who ever makes popcorn. He doesn't believe he put the salt up there, but maybe he did. He doesn't remember ever seeing pepper in the apartment at all, but he figures there's no harm in having a look around.

"Quick, now," Shelley whispers to Nina as soon as the kitchen door swings shut.

"I'm right there with you," Nina answers, opening a small vial she's just taken from her pocket.

She empties half the contents of the vial into Charlie's wine glass and the other half into his water glass. "In case he doesn't drink the wine," she explains.

"Won't it make the water taste funny?" Katrina wonders.

"It already tastes funny from the lemon," Nina answers, closing the vial and putting it back in her pocket.

Katrina bobs her head in a sideways nod, evaluating the degree of funniness in the taste of the water. True they didn't usually have lemon in their water every day, so maybe her boyfriend would in fact attribute any unusual flavor to the added lemon. She realizes that on balance it's still their best shot. Charlie has to drink a little bit of wine, so he'll later believe he passed out from the alcohol; but he might not drink very much, because he just doesn't like alcohol.

Nina quickly stirs Charlie's water with a butter knife, then stirs the wine. She wipes the butter knife dry on her napkin and returns it to the table beside her plate. "Anyway, it's supposed to be tasteless and odorless," she adds.

"What about dosage? Doesn't the dosage matter?" Katrina inquires further.

"Yes, but it's not that precise. Individuals vary a lot in their tolerance. You have to be sure you don't give him enough to do any damage, and take into account the fact that any alcohol he takes in is going to add to the effect. So whenever there's a question we have to lean toward the lower dose. If he isn't feeling it in half an hour, we'll just have to give him some more. There's always a slight chance this won't work, you know. And I doubt I'll be invited to dinner a second time. Certainly I won't get him to drink wine again." Nina has to be honest about the limitations of what they can do with knock out drops.

"We'll think of something else if this doesn't work," Shelley adds to her friend's speculation about possible alternate plans. "We're going to get the blood sample Kat needs, whatever it takes."

They fall silent as the kitchen door swings open. Charlie returns and sets a salt shaker in front of Nina, near the center of the table, as he sits down. He straightens his chair and takes a drink of water. "I really don't remember putting the salt up there in the popcorn cabinet," he says, shaking his head.

"Oh, well, we've got salt now," Katrina replies, looking at Nina.

Nina realizes she'll have to use the salt now that it's here, so she adds a little salt to her casserole and takes a bite. "Perfect," she says, smiling at Charlie. He smiles back, and forgets the annoyance of having had to go fetch the misplaced salt shaker. Looking at her in that moment, he thinks he remembers seeing her before.

"Weren't you at the hospital when Angela died?" he asks her, staring intently at her face, trying to remember. "You were the nurse," he finally figures it out. "You were the nurse that steered that doctor to Della when he was trying to figure out who the next of kin was."

"I work at University Hospital in Cincinnati," she nods at him, smiling. "I don't remember the case you're talking about, but I am a nurse, and if your friend died at Cincinnati University Hospital then I might have been there, sure." She nods again. "Sorry to hear about your friend, though," she adds.

Well, his memory's not failing, anyway, Katrina comforts herself about Charlie's mental state.

"Here's to Angela, wherever she is now," Shelley proposes another toast.

"May she rest in peace," Katrina adds, raising her glass. Nina's glass comes up to join the other two above the center of the table.

Charlie reluctantly joins in, adding another "rest in peace." The glasses clink together.

The three women drain their glasses. Charlie only sips, and Katrina gives him a look. He drinks down the rest of the wine from his glass.

"So, this casserole is fantastic, Charlie," Katrina says to him, smiling and meeting his eyes with hers. "Anybody want bread?" She adds, passing around the basket of dinner rolls.

"You're home visiting your parents?" Charlie asks Nina. "How do you know Shelley, again? I've forgotten."

"Oh, we probably didn't say," Nina answers him sweetly. "Shelley grew up here in Madison. We went to undergrad college together here. We've been good friends for a long time. I see her whenever I'm in town."

"See, this is why we should have people over more often," Katrina interjects. "I go to your rallies, Charlie, but you never get to meet my friends. So now you're meeting them."

"My rallies? I thought they were our rallies," he responds with an edge in his voice.

Oops, she's triggered one of the missing teeth in his mental gears. "Of course, our rallies. I just meant it was you who had introduced me to them. Your mother, remember?" She really hopes he doesn't go off on one of his insane rants.

"Yeah. okay," he says, partially calmed, and shifts in his chair. His face takes on an introverted appearance. He seems to stare into nothingness, as if there were a black hole at the center of the table absorbing all his mental energy, from which his attention will never escape.

Katrina and Nina exchange a glance, but Nina only shrugs.

"Too soon?" Katrina asks, and Nina nods. So it isn't the knock out drops.

Nina holds up five fingers on one hand and flashes them three times.

"Fifteen minutes?" Katrina forms the words soundlessly, and Nina nods.

"Anybody want corn?" Katrina asks, picking up a previously undistributed serving bowl. "This is our favorite vegetable, frozen sweet corn."

The other two women accept the offered corn.

"Mine too," Shelley says. "That and spinach. Well, red yams too, if you count that as a vegetable."

"Corn, Charlie?" Nina offers the bowl to her host. He takes it from her hand and sets it down on the table without answering. Though his eyes meet hers, he seems withdrawn, unresponsive. He turns his attention back to the invisible attraction at the center of the table.

"Sometimes it's a wall," Katrina says quietly, with a head gesture towards him. He glances up at her, as if he has heard something but not quite understood it. She says nothing, forces a little smile. He goes back to staring.

Nina notices now that his eyes seem slightly red. Staring unblinkingly can do that, she thinks, mentally explaining it away.

Katrina's eyes also seem to go slightly red, but from a different cause. She feels tears trying to start.

"Snap out of it, girl," Shelley advises Katrina, snapping two fingers in front of her face. Katrina turns to look at her. "We're going to fix this," Shelley reassures her friend. She claps her hands twice quickly in front of her, to make noise. "Come on. Buck up. It's going to be okay."

Katrina nods, drinks some water. The tearful moment passes.

By this time the women are all but ignoring Charlie, waiting for the fifteen minutes to pass, and hoping he doesn't shift from withdrawn into ranting insanity.

"Does it happen after meals more?" Nina wants to know. "Anything like that? Any pattern?"

"Not really. There are triggers, like if I say the wrong thing. Sometimes it happens without any trigger though. If there's a pattern I'm not seeing it."

"A pattern to what?" Charlie asks, suddenly waking from his blank state as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, the, uh, the weather," Shelley grabs for a quick answer. "We were just saying how unpredictable the snow has been this year."

"It's always unpredictable," he says, "except that there's always plenty of it on the ground."

Nina laughs. "I guess you're right," she says, drawing his attention away from Katrina. "That settles it, then. There's no pattern to the snow." Then she adds, laughing again, "It falls straight down, there's that."

"Sometimes sideways, if there's a lot of wind," Shelley picks up the thread.

"Forty-five degree angle maybe," Nina offers a compromise.

"Anybody want some corn?" Charlie asks, and picks up the serving bowl with the corn. He puts some on his plate and hands the bowl to Nina.

"Thanks," Nina says, accepting it. She puts a little more corn on her plate and hands the bowl on to Shelley.

"It's our favorite vegetable," he says. "Frozen sweet corn. Great with a little butter and salt."

Nina hands him the salt.

"Thanks," he says. He puts salt on the corn and turns to eating his dinner.

"More wine, anybody?" Nina asks, and without waiting begins refilling the wine glasses, starting with Charlie's, before he can object.

Shelley finishes the food on her plate and takes a sip of the wine. "What about dessert? Did you make a dessert?" she asks Katrina, looking at her watch and glancing at Nina.

"There's a lemon mousse cake in the kitchen," Katrina responds, as if just remembering it. "Are we ready for dessert?" she asks, looking around the table, her eyes settling on Charlie.

"I'll go fetch the cake," he offers, setting down his fork. He stands up halfway and collapses back into the chair, looking at the woman across from him with a slightly surprised but otherwise blank expression. He looks down at his plate and pushes it away as he slumps forward, laying the side of his head flat on the table, arms hanging gorilla-like straight to the floor. Delicately balanced but not falling off the chair, he passes into unconsciousness.

"He's out," Nina announces the obvious, as she reaches two fingers to his temple gently to feel his pulse.

"And I was looking forward to that cake," Shelley cynically feigns regret.

"You're sure he's out?" Katrina asks.

"He's out, honey," the nurse assures her hostess. "Do we want to try to get him into the bedroom, or just leave him sleep here?"

"That I had not thought about," Katrina answers. "Can you take the blood sample without, you know, knocking him over?"

"Yeah, probably. Maybe not. But he'll have a painfully stiff neck in the morning if he sleeps for long the way he is now. The floor would be better for him. It's just a matter of time until he falls anyway," the nurse outlines the situation. "If you want my professional opinion," she adds, "the best thing is probably if we ease him gently onto the floor. Maybe you want to put a blanket down for him first."

Katrina nods and goes to the bedroom to get the down comforter.

"Bring my handbag too," Nina calls after her. As soon as she disappears, Nina and Shelley look at each other and simultaneously burst out laughing.

"This is actually working," Shelley manages to say through the laughter.

"You didn't think it would? Oh, ye of little faith," her friend answers her. "Trust in the magic hands," she announces theatrically, waving her hands in front of her over Charlie as if she were a magician doing passes over a closed and covered gimmick box.

"Watch out, don't levitate him awake," Shelley responds, and immediately cracks up again in the light mood flooding through them, releasing the tension generated during the awkward dinner.

"If your laughing doesn't wake him, nothing will," Nina answers, joining in her friend's spontaneous merriment. "I'm afraid the neighbors are going to complain about the noise of it."

"Then we'll have to tell them that our miserable host has passed out drunk. Oh, the shame of it. Poor Katrina having to put up with his drunken rages," Shelley envisages the situation.

"It would go toward explaining his recent behavior," Nina laughs.

Katrina returns to the table with the blanket and the two try to put on serious faces, but they're still clearly smiling and considerably relaxed. It only takes one questioning glance from Katrina to send them both into a short laughing fit again.

"You sure you didn't bring some laughing gas in that bag, and maybe it leaked?" Katrina says, picking up the mood. She's gotten so used to being apprehensive that she'd forgotten how good it feels to laugh.

"That must have been Charlie passing gas," Shelley answers with crude humor.

"Nothing funny about Charlie's gas," Katrina picks up the cue. "Trust me, that much I know. The party wants to turn it over to the army for use in chemical warfare." All laugh together at that.

"Come on, we have to get these samples," Nina finally says, trying to shift into serious mode but still smiling broadly and shaking her head. She stands up and takes her bag from the hostess with one hand, and with the other points to a spot on the floor next to Charlie's chair. "Put that blanket down there. We'll slide him onto it gently." She sets the handbag down on her chair and opens it like a doctor's bag.

"What if he wakes up?" Katrina wonders.

"He won't," Nina assures her. After a pause she adds, "and if he does, it's the magic hands." So saying she waves her hands as if magically over the sleeping man, who responds with an isolated snore. At that they all break into laughter again.

"Come on, Shelley, help me get him onto the floor," the nurse asks her friend a minute later when they've stopped laughing.

All three women together manage to get the man onto the blanket on the floor fairly gently, or at least without dropping him suddenly. He makes a few movements, like a child trying to roll over in its sleep but lacking sufficient energy. Then he lies still, activated only by slow gentle rhythmic breathing.

"Well, he's alive," Shelley observes.

"For the time being," Katrina points out.

Nina smiles, shaking her head, and pulls one of Charlie's arms out straight to prepare for taking the blood sample. She brings out a big syringe and three smaller vials with stoppers. She also takes out cotton and alcohol, to clean the skin.

"Wait a second," Katrina interrupts. "Would it be possible to take it from someplace where he won't see the puncture tomorrow? His butt or something?"

"There aren't a lot of veins in his butt," Nina observes, "but we could probably do the back of the knee or thigh. That would work. We'll have to get his trousers off, and I don't know how you'll explain that in the morning."

"It'll be easier than explaining a puncture on his arm. Oh, I've got it, I can let him think he wet himself and I took off the pants so he wouldn't be laying in it."

Again they all laugh briefly at the image of the man wetting himself.

"Dangerous stuff, alcohol," Shelley says shaking her head, mimicking Charlie's apparent dislike of one of her favorite beverages.

"That's what he's going to think after this," Nina answers, and again they laugh.

Katrina starts taking off Charlie's pants, and when she gets far enough along with the project the other two women help her to pull them off.

"Better put these in the laundry," Shelley says, holding her nose with one hand as the trousers come off. "If you're going to stick with that story about the bedwetting."

"Good idea," Katrina answers, "but since I'm lazy, I think I'll just tell him we got it on before he passed out, and act hurt when he doesn't remember it."

Shelley smiles broadly, shaking her head. "That'll work," she says.

"Here okay?" Nina asks, pointing to a visible vein shortly above the back of Charlie's left knee.

Katrina nods. He isn't going to be able to see the back of his thigh. Feel, yes. See, no. Maybe he'll think he sat on something sharp.

Nina proceeds to take the blood sample, cleaning the area with alcohol on a cotton ball, then inserting the needle gently at an acute angle. As she draws back the plunger of the syringe slowly it fills gradually with the dark red fluid. It's done. She places a cotton ball over the puncture and deftly tapes it into place with a snippet of surgical tape. She transfers red the fluid carefully from the syringe into the small vials one by one and stoppers them shut. She tapes the stoppers onto the vials with preprinted labels she's brought along for the purpose, and wraps another preprinted label around the side of each vial. She places the vials into a container Katrina has never seen before, apparently designed to transport such samples.

"Voila," she finally says, closing the box and presenting it to Katrina. "You can take that bandage off after about an hour," she also advises. "Anything else we can do for you tonight? Hair sample? Biopsy? I'm not equipped for brain tissue sampling unfortunately."

"More's the pity," Shelley laughs.

"I think I already have the other samples I need," Katrina answers Nina's question seriously, "unless you have some other ideas for getting soft tissue samples he won't miss that won't injure him."

"Oh, now we have to avoid injuring him too," Shelley feigns annoyance.

Katrina looks at her and smiles. "His brain's already sort of injured," she answers, "so we have to be careful with what's left of it."

"What little's left of it," Shelley pretends to edit Katrina's remark. With that she returns to seriousness, perhaps reminded of the stark reality of Katrina's situation with Charlie. "I'm so sorry this had to happen to you, Kat," she continues. "If there's anything else I can do for you, you have to let me know."

Katrina nods.

"There is one thing," she says, looking at the other woman's eyes with a serious expression.

"Tell me."

"You can have some lemon mousse cake with me now!" Katrina says with a whoop, leaping into a cheery and triumphant childlike jumping jack, almost giggling.

"Put that sample box in a safe place first," Shelley says with a grin. "Let's eat in the kitchen," she adds.

"Conveniently my best hiding place is in the kitchen, so let's go," Katrina answers happily.

Nina leans down and covers her patient with the loose part of the comforter where he lies, sleeping bag style. Then Nina picks up her handbag, Katrina carries the sample container, and the three women retire to the kitchen, where a freshly made lemon mousse cake waits for them to sample its delights.

. . .

After another hour or two Katrina's friends are ready to leave. She hands them their coats reluctantly, and the three hug like dear sisters. "Thank you both so much," Katrina says warmly, "for the help, and for the wonderful evening. I haven't had so much fun in months."

Shelley resists the urge to make another joke and restart the laughfest. It's getting late and the weather is still waiting for them outside. "Anything, Kat. Just let me know," she answers, eyes locked on Katrina's.

After a few seconds of soul piercing eye contact, Katrina turns her gaze to the nurse. "Nina, thank you so much for your help. Just, thank you."

Nina nods and resists the urge to deflect into humor again. "If there's anything else you need that I can do, you or Shelley just call me and I'll help if I can," she answers, looking at Katrina's eyes. On that note they open the door to the hall.

"Bye now," Katrina says behind the two women as they leave. She stands in the cracked doorway for a minute looking out at them as they walk down the hall, turning back at the end to wave. She returns the wave, smiles, and then they're gone.

The room feels empty and alone, but it also feels warm with the ghosts of the evening's spirit. She looks at Charlie lying on the floor wrapped in the comforter like a sleeping bag, as if camping out. It doesn't seem so hopeless anymore now.

She sits next to him on the floor. He seems so peaceful. She strokes his hair gently, and he sighs in his sleep. She goes into the bedroom for another big blanket, and lays it out on the floor next to her sleeping darling, then goes to the light switch on the wall and turns off the lights. Lying down on the second blanket, she undresses herself and wraps the blanket around her. Snuggling up close to her unconscious lover, she falls asleep.

Chapter 16 - Back at the Lab

Back at home in his lab in Soufriere, Baldwin sits looking intently into a microscope. He's spent most of the night experimenting with the plant compounds he obtained from the smaller island. The sun is starting to come up, but he hasn't noticed it yet. Almost a week after their island expedition, he still spends nearly every waking moment in this lab, sorting through information, running experiments, looking for answers, trying to put together both a vaccination and a cure that can be distributed in a stable, standardized, reliable form. His mind is filled with it during the day, and at night it fills his dreams, until his entire being seems to merge with the problem he's trying to solve.

Zeph comes into Buddy's lab without knocking, carrying a small case of sample containers. Glancing around the big room, he notices some small plants Baldwin has already started growing from the seeds they brought back. The little plants sit perched in their little pots on the windowsill facing the morning sun, baby shoots nudging upwards from under little blankets of dark earth. The larger samples are now neatly potted and stand in the windowsills beside the babies. They've already tripled in size, in just a few days. He marvels at how different they look here in the lab, like ordinary houseplants.

After a while Baldwin looks up from his microscope and sees his friend in the room, holding something. "What's that?" he asks, curious.

"Oh, these. Yeah. Remember my niece Katrina? The one who phoned me when we were on the island? She sent me these. Well, Doug brought them out to me on his yacht. Nice guy Doug. Anyway, these are samples I'd like you to run."

"Samples from what?" Baldwin asks. Taking the sample case, he opens it and looks inside.

"She, uh, she's read about the little epidemic you're interested in. The sudden onset insanity. Thing is, she's convinced her boyfriend is afflicted."

Baldwin smiles and shakes his head slightly, almost laughing.

"Difficult to quantify what constitutes irrational behavior in a mate," Baldwin observes aloud. "It tends to be a bit on the subjective side."

"Yeah," Zeph mutters, nodding but not laughing. "The thing is, his behavior has changed radically in the last few months. She's my niece, but she's more like a little sister really. We've been close since we were kids. She looks up to me. I'm Uncle Zeph who can fix anything."

Baldwin exhales abruptly in a cynical chuckle.

"They're college kids," Zeph continues. "In the sciences. Grad students. They're not given to irrational behavior. Neither one of them. I met the boyfriend once, Charlie his name is, about a year ago. He seemed normal enough when I met him. Well, for a scientist. Sharp guy too. He'd landed a Research Assistant gig at the University, and he was just starting work on an interesting project. Had everything going for him, and everything he needed to keep going. Dedicated to science. Wouldn't have known politics from astrology. Dedicated to Kat too; A storybook couple. But now she says he's all whacked out on some political nonsense. Wants to drop out of graduate school and campaign fulltime for some crazy issue or something."

They both laugh.

"Well, there's no shortage of crazy political causes going," Baldwin allows, taking out one of the sample jars and examining the neatly printed label. He sets it down and takes out another, looking at the label in the same way. "Neat handwriting," he observes.

"Yeah, she's a peach. Good at origami too. She can even cook. I hate to see her having trouble like this. She really sounded pretty upset. And Kat's not usually emotional. I've never seen her like this before." He stops talking for a minute to gather his thoughts about the girl.

"She's not all that much younger than me, you know? Almost like a little sister," he continues, not realizing he's repeating himself. "I've known her forever. She's not just making this stuff up, Al. There's a problem of some kind."

After another reflective pause he adds, "Could be he's just gone psychotic, of course. It happens."

Buddy chuckles again at the last remark and nods, agreeing to run the samples. "Reminds me a bit of that case from Florida, I have to admit."

"I do have to point out one thing though," he adds hesitantly, staring at the label on the sample jar in his hand, not wanting to disappoint his friend. He looks up at Zeph and waits for Zeph to look over at him, then holds his gaze steady while continuing. "Listen, Zeph, we don't really have a deliverable cure yet. I don't know how much we can do for the girl even if we find evidence of the disease in the samples." He waits for that to sink in before continuing. "What do we say to her if the samples test positive?"

After a few seconds he answers his own question. "Yes, your boyfriend's nuts and he's probably going to die," he jokes in the way scientists joke. "Have a nice day, apart from that. Try to stay out of the way if his head explodes."

The two men laugh together, then turn serious again.

"I can go back to the island and try to beg some more plants from the old man, if that's what I need to do," Zeph suggests. "Get him to grind up some more instant tea."

"Might do," Baldwin agrees and shrugs. "but you don't really need to," he adds.

"If we have something ready to test," Baldwin allows, thinking it out as he talks, "and if she's volunteering her boyfriend for the first clinical trial . . . and if there's evidence of infection in the samples she sent, then sure, I'm game for sending her the doses she'll need. It's an informal clinical trial for me and it might help her."

"Or if you just want to take a chance on unstandardized doses of instant tea powder," he continues after thinking about the possibilities again, "we still have a bunch of that powder Azacca ground up for us. We can just send her some of that. When is Doug planning to go back?"

Without waiting for an answer from Zeph, he continues again, still thinking it out as he goes. "I can put measured doses into gelatin capsules. If Doug's in a hurry I could just empty out a tea jar and fill it with the stuff. She probably wouldn't need a lot of it." He stops and evaluates the situation, then adds the downside. "We don't really know what the shelf life is once it's ground up and mixed," he points out the problem. "The active ingredients might be stable, or they might be volatile. That's the main problem with the instant tea approach. The ingredients might need to be freshly prepared within a few days of consumption. We just don't know enough yet. I need to run more tests."

"Do you have something ready to test on people?" Zeph asks hopefully, ignoring all the stream of consciousness caveats and what ifs.

"Depending what you mean by ready," Baldwin answers. "It definitely kills the parasite in a tissue sample in a Petrie dish."

He shrugs again, looks off to the left at nothing and back again, looks down, then looks at the nothing on his right, sighs and turns his head back to look his friend in the eyes.

"Somebody has to be the first test subject," he finally announces, looking at Zeph evenly. "It may as well be Charlie, assuming he actually is infected. If so, then he'll eventually die if left untreated, so we can't really hurt him any by trying it."

"But you're not really ready by generally accepted standards," Zeph restates the position.

"Not by rigorous standards, not even close," Baldwin agrees. "I was hoping to file a request for a hospital trial in a few days, optimistically."

"Okay, so let's do it now," Zeph agrees to the nonrigorous terms on offer. "If you have something reasonably standardized and stable that you're willing to send, let's send her that. Otherwise the tea powder and crossed fingers."

"Okay, give me a day to run the samples and another day after that to put something together for her. If Doug is willing to hang around St. Lucy for a couple of days, you can arrange for him to pick up your niece's souvenir of St. Lucy the morning after next, if the samples test positive. It's a nice place, St. Lucy. Especially this time of year. Show Doug the sights or something. Introduce him to some women. Take him to that club, you know the one? He won't miss the time. Show him loads of beer and pretty women."

"One other thing," Zeph adds. "She tells me Charlie has recently become philosophically opposed to vaccinations and inoculations of all kinds whatsoever."

"All kinds?" Baldwin asks. "No tetanus shots? No penicillin?"

"All kinds," Zeph says nodding. "It isn't the only insane idea the guy's taken up. If he'd been sane and rational we wouldn't be getting asked to provide a treatment."

Buddy sighs. "I'll fix up an oral form," he says. "Azacca dispenses it orally, so it should work. We just have to get it standardized and stabilized. They used to give polio vaccine as sugar cubes. Quinine water for malaria. Drugs are administered orally all the time. We'll work it out."

"Thanks, Al," Zeph responds in a serious tone.

"Sure. Sorry I can't do more," Baldwin answers with equal seriousness. "Right now I have to finish this thing I'm in the middle of analyzing. Have to set up the next stage of a test. Then I'll get on to analyzing the samples you brought. You'll have an answer by tonight." Then he turns back to the hypnotic pull of his microscope as if the whole conversation with Zeph had never happened.

As he heads for the door, Zeph's attention is drawn to an experiment he hadn't noticed on the way in. A small fluffy white kitten is mewing very quietly, shivering slightly like a Chihuahua. It's eyes are moist and frightened. It looks about three weeks old. The delicate kitten sits in a cage with a white rat. The rat is much larger than the kitten, but the cellmates seem to exist in detente. The whole thing strikes Zeph as odd. Baldwin doesn't normally do animal experiments if they can be avoided.

"I think your pet kitten's hungry," Zeph comments on the mewing.

Baldwin rouses himself from the microscope and joins his friend. He looks down at the occupants of the cage.

"Watch this," he says, taking a small piece of soft cheese from a nearby cabinet. He places the cheese in the cage near the rat. As both men watch, the rat backs off slightly from the cheese, enough to let the tiny kitten approach it without fear. The kitten begins to lap at the cheese, licking it up while the rat sits quietly.

"So this rat doesn't like cheese?" Zeph asks. "Or it isn't hungry?"

"On the contrary," Baldwin answers, putting on thin plastic gloves. He reaches a gloved left hand into the cage and removes the kitten. Stroking it gently, he sets it into a nearby empty cage. He turns back and gets another piece of cheese from the cabinet, then drops it into the cage with the rat. The rat pounces on it hungrily.

"So – what's going on?" Zeph wonders.

"The rat is infected with the parasite we've isolated from the samples we brought back from the island. Apparently the infection makes the rat like cats," Baldwin informs him. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Is the kitten infected?"

"Not at all. It's been inoculated with my test vaccine. Last night. I'll be returning it to its mother today, if she'll take it back. She may reject it. Then I guess it'll have to grow up here with me. But I think she'll take it back. There's a shopkeeper nearby who keeps a few cats around to help with pest control. I borrowed the kitten from him last night. He gave me a really cute one, too."

So saying, he slides a separation panel into place in the rat cage, dividing it into two areas. "I kept the kitten separated in the adjacent cage for a while before putting them together. There wasn't any problem with the rat. It seems quite fond of the little fluff ball. Love at first sight in fact."

He stares at the rat and the kitten blankly, thinking. "You might ask Katrina if her boyfriend has developed a fondness for cats recently," he ends with a suggestion.

Baldwin then feeds the kitten one more morsel of cheese and returns again to his seat at the microscope, tuning out the rest of the world.

Zeph hangs around for a few minutes looking out the windows at the scenery, then leaves quietly. Baldwin is too engrossed in his work to notice or care.

Chapter 17 - Politics as Usual

"Child labor sounds bad," Nick allows, picking up the purring cat that had been rubbing itself against his leg. It curls up on his lap and he strokes it gently. It's big and white and fluffy, with fur as soft as mink. "But a child's right to work, that's another matter entirely," he spins it. "Teaches them values. Work ethic. Self-reliance." The cat purrs.

"Butch and Bobby do farm chores, right, Eugene?" he asks his cousin. A group is convened for political discussions at Nick's cousin's farmhouse near the little town of Wright's Corner. They're discussing planks for the platform. Nick's cousin Eugene nods.

"So there you go," Nick continues. "We're going to afford city kids the same rights as farm kids already have naturally."

"Tell you what," Shep adds. "If those little inner city hoodlums would spend more time working they'd have less time to make trouble."

"Drug dealing is work. Thieving is work of a sort," Charlie interjects. "It all takes planning and effort. The new laws would steer them into more socially productive work, that's all. They're already working. Just working at the wrong things."

"It would help us compete with China and South America, I'll tell you that," Sheppard offers. "Kids work a lot cheaper than adults. And they sure don't try to start unions."

Several men chuckle.

"An American kid is born with the same right to work as a kid in China? That's our angle? I don't know," a lady from Minneapolis says.

"You listen to me," President Sheppard turns on the dissenter, stiffening and straightening as he leans forward in the oversize armchair, an intense expression on his rugged face. "Those Chinese are eating us alive. They've got factories the size of small cities. Factories with a quarter of a million workers, and half of those are children. Half of them! Children who work for next to nothing and don't complain."

"Places like Wolf Com," a quiet voice nearby volunteers.

Sheppard seizes the suggestion. "Wolf Communications. That's right. Wolfcom," he continues. "They got that big old place in what's it called, Long Who? Over two HUNDRED thousand workers. That's the entire population of Fort Wayne, right there."

"Size of Des Moines," a representative from Iowa murmurs, raising his hand briefly as if casting a vote.

"Boise," an Idaho congressman adds, raising his hand for a second as well, as if someone had called for a show of hands.

Murmured city names bounce around the room, like a sound making its way across surround sound speakers. Orlando, Scottsdale, Norfolk, Madison, Sioux Falls are named. Baton Rouge. Kansas City and Topeka. Spokane.

"Some say it's bigger," the Senator from Michigan eggs them on enthusiastically. "FOUR hundred thousand. Size of Cleveland."

"Tulsa," someone from Oklahoma volunteers.

"Miami," an elderly congresswoman from Florida adds. "That's the population of Miami."

The same man who had named Kansas City now names Wichita. Omaha, Honolulu, and Minneapolis follow from different voices spread out around the room. New Orleans is mentioned.

"One factory in China is that big. One," the man from Michigan says, shaking his head, eyes on the crowd.

Sheppard waits for the murmurs to die down before continuing. He's on a roll, on a sea of approval.

"Place is built like a prison, too," Sheppard goes on. "Tell you what it is, it's like an entire town wholly owned by Wolf Com, including every man, woman, and child in it. You think Wolf Com has union problems? It wouldn't even cross a kid's mind to start a union! Those kids work 12 hours a day, I'll tell you what. America can't compete with places like that with these unions on our back. Occupational safety? Never heard of it in China. Those places are built like prison cities, pure and simple. And the kids are happy to have the jobs. A lot of ours would be too. Wages would plummet, and the unions would fall apart. There's always a fresh supply of kids to serve as strike breakers."

"Can't put anything like that into the campaign ads, of course," Nick moderates, and several men nod.

"No, it has to be about values and self-reliance," Sheppard agrees, cooling down. "Wish I could have gotten this stuff into my campaign back eight years ago. Public wasn't ready for it then. I think they are now. After a guy has been out of work for a long time, if his kid gets offered a job, he might be inclined to let the kid take it."

Nick agrees. "Teach our children the value of work," he suggests. "Or maybe this: Allow our children the freedom to work on an equal footing with all Americans. Don't treat our kids as second class citizens. Call it Youth Rights."

"How do we answer people who say kids should be in school?" someone asks.

"They aren't exactly learning much in a lot of those schools," Sheppard responds. "Heck, half of them are dropouts."

"Education starts with learning the value of self reliance," Nick suggests. "Like that kitten over there," he laughs, pointing to a tiny fluffy white fur ball that has managed to climb halfway up a curtain and leap to a table, where he's started to nibble on some pate canapés.

Former dissenters shrug. No further arguments are presented against the idea, and extending Right to Work to cover children makes it in as a campaign platform item: Youth Rights.

"We can promote on the job training programs to teach reading and writing," Charlie throws in another idea.

"Yeah, that might work," Nick agrees. "What do we discuss next? Medicare?"

"I think we might be ready to tackle Medicare now," Marie speaks up. "It's really the last of the public medical programs left. We have to get rid of it. One idea is we could gradually raise the eligibility age."

"Or extend Medicare," Charlie suggests. "Add veterinary care for the old people's cats."

The suggestion is so off the wall that half the people present laugh.

"Think about it. Having a pet lowers the blood pressure. The purring sound of a cat has a therapeutic effect. It's holistic medicine of a sort. Then we promote pet ownership as a substitute for expensive medical procedures."

"Promoting cat ownership is good," Nick allows, stroking the cat sprawled across his lap, "but I don't think we can tie it in with Medicare."

"How about instead of raising the eligibility age, we introduce a cutoff point? A right to die after, say, fourscore years and ten," Marie suggests.

"We could do both, limit it at both ends," Nick admits, "but you know, I'd rather see expensive procedures excluded. No transplants, no dialysis. Or put in a high co-pay for procedures, so most people won't be able to afford any of it."

"Put cats in hospitals," Charlie brainstorms. "We could have a program to put a cat mascot into every hospital. Remember that case where a rat in a hospital in India chewed off an old guy's part and he died? Horrible case. Guard against that sort of thing happening here by putting cats into hospitals. They'd be like security guards against rats, and the purring would have a therapeutic effect that would shorten recovery times. Remember we save a bundle every time we reduce the hospital recovery stay."

"I like it," Nick says, nodding. "Put cats in the hospices and managed care facilities, and those halfway house places (what do they call those?), where they put the patients to recover for a few weeks after they leave the hospital."

"Yeah, that's good," Marie agrees. "I don't know about the hospitals really, but those other places, that's good. That would work."

"How do we spin it?" Nick throws out a question. "Natural healing?"

No one present offers an alternative.

Sheppard nods. Others either nod or shrug.

The idea of putting cats into managed care facilities makes it into the platform as the Natural Healing plank.

"What else do we want to do on Medicare, seriously?" Nick redirects the discussion. "Age limits? Procedure limits?"

"We can do all of them," Marie says. "Or lifetime limits, like we have for welfare and unemployment insurance. We already have no more than two years on general welfare in a lifetime, and no more than a year at once on unemployment insurance. How about we add, no more than twenty years on Medicare? That would encourage people to sign up later, without actually raising the eligibility age. So we wouldn't have to answer eligibility age attacks."

"That's a good idea, Marie," Charlie congratulates her on her original thinking.

"Coming from a genius like you, that's a good compliment," she answers him, sincerely flattered by his acknowledgement.

"It's really good thinking, Marie. You've come up with a great idea. Lifetime limits. And besides limiting the number of years of eligibility, we could have lifetime spending caps," he suggests, building on her concept.

"So, freedom to decide for yourself?" Nick plays at spinning it for a general audience. "Who decides when you're too old to work? Who tells you that you're so old you need Medicare? Some government bureaucrat? Or do you want to decide for yourself? Take control of your life like you always have. Don't let some kids in Washington tell you you're old. You tell them. You decide when you're ready."

More nods than shrugs greet the phrasing.

"And you decide how to spend your health care dollars," Nick continues. "Don't want some expensive procedure you probably don't need? Now you can say no.

Don't see why you should stay in hospital for a week after your operation, doing namby pamby physical therapy? Neither do we. Maybe you don't think you need an annual physical? It's your call. Your body -- your call. You've been paying your hard-earned money into government Medicare insurance for a lot of years. Don't you think you should decide how, and when, to spend it? We agree with you. Vote for your right to decide for yourself."

"I like it," Sheppard agrees. "I think we can sell it."

"It's sort of an Elderly right to work, when you think about it," Nick points out. "So it fits in well. No matter what your age, if you're an American citizen, you have a right to work without government interference. Start as young as you want, work as long as you want. Self-reliance shouldn't have term limits."

Sheppard laughs.

Almost everyone nods. The Right to Decide makes it in.

"So we've got Youth Rights, the Right to Decide, and Natural Healing," Nick sums up the position so far. "Besides the basic Right to Work, Amendment 37. That's our basic domestic policy so far. Do we want to do anything to increase the privatization of police and fire departments, or let that go for now? What about foreign policy? Do we want to do anything about foreign wars? We could take another look at privatizing the armed services."

"I don't know," Shep says, shaking his head. "That Agua Negra thing got a lot of bad press a few years back. And there's been a lot said about the big profits and low risk for our friends at big H. I don't know if we can sell privatization right now. It's spreading our resources a bit thin to bother with it. Unless Hal is offering you some pretty big campaign contributions, I wouldn't risk it."

Nick nods and moves on. "Privatized prisons are doing pretty well. Here's an idea I've been playing with. Convicts as soldiers."

"How about bringing back debtor's prisons?" Marie suggests. "Get rid of the bankruptcy laws, get rid of all the bank and credit card fee restrictions and interest limits. A lot of people get over their heads in debt. We sentence them to debtor's prison, but we offer to let them work off the debts with military service."

"Debtor's army? I don't know. Bring back the drug laws and get us a crack head army, if you ask me . . . " someone suggests.

"Here's an idea," the senator from Michigan chimes in laconically. "We can just rebrand crack as a medication for battle fatigue and dispense it to soldiers for free. Sort of an employment benefit. That'd get enlistments up."

And so the discussion continues far into the night.

Chapter 18 - Charlie's Lab Results

The windows of the big laboratory room in Soufriere stand out against the dark night like cold white rectangles. Dark outlines of growing plants can be seen lining every window. Inside, Baldwin is working late into the night, carrying on his daily battle against human death and suffering, hoping for small victories.

"There's no sign of the microbe, or anything like it, in any of these samples," Baldwin is telling his friend and colleague Zeph. "No spores, nothing. Don't get me wrong, he might be infected with it. We just aren't seeing the evidence. Very likely the evidence is confined to the brain."

"I'd have expected some evidence in the blood, at least," Zeph answers unhappily. "How about if we just send her some doses of the cure anyway? We haven't seen any side effects. Let her try it."

"We can do that, sure. I'm happy to do that for you. But we don't really know it's the same strain. Those kids live way up north, nowhere near the gulf coast where the epidemic is. It might not be the same microbe, Zeph. The cure might not work."

"His mother travels a lot," Zeph responds, "for the political campaign. She could have picked it up. He hangs around with a lot of people who travel. People associated with his mother and the campaign. A lot of them have cats, I'm told."

"Do they take their cats with them on trips?" Baldwin asks.

"I don't know. Some of them might."

"Have there been any other cases of brain malfunctions besides Charlie? It might be misdiagnosed as psychosis or a brain tumor. Maybe as Alzheimer's or a stroke."

"Hunh. Kat did mention an old woman who had a stroke not that long ago. The woman had several cats, as I recall. After she died, the campaign volunteers adopted the cats. You know, one here, one there. Divided them up."

"Was there an autopsy on the woman?"

"No. She was old, and she had high blood pressure. It was ruled a stroke. Nobody thought anymore about it."

"So, there's no chance we can get any brain tissue samples, then?" Baldwin asks, just in case there might be.

"Not unless somebody digs her up," Zeph answers, considering the unlikely idea. "It's out in the country. They don't have any public police forces out there anymore, just the private ones, except for traffic cops. I doubt a rural cemetery maintains any kind of security presence. Maybe a night watchman at most. Somebody like that might be distracted or taken out somehow. I don't know. It might be feasible, but it won't be anybody's first choice."

"Okay, what about her cats then? Any chance we could get one of those? I know your niece will think it's gruesome, but it would help us diagnose her boyfriend, maybe cure him. If she gets one, will Doug bring it down here?"

"I suppose he would. He's a pretty game guy. I suspect he might be sweet on our little Katya too. That's always a driving force."

"If the cat is alive, Doug and Kat both need to take precautions. We'll need to warn them. Warn them to make sure they don't get scratched. Don't clean a cat litter box bare-handed. Don't have a cat box anywhere near food. Don't leave clothes on the floor where the cat might do his business on them. Probably better not to pet the cat too much either, but if they do, they need to wash their hands before eating anything."

"I'll let them know," Zeph says. "You have some paper so I can write it all down? It all seems pretty obvious, but I don't want to forget any of it. Do they need medical masks, those little white face mask filters, like doctors wear?"

"No. There's no airborne transmission. Transmission is purely by ingestion or through an open wound. Touching a cat won't infect you unless you lick your fingers afterwards, or chew your fingernails, eat with your hands, prepare food with your hands, that sort of thing. Being in a room with a cat won't infect you unless food is exposed, and even then, it's only if traces of cat excrement get onto the food. It would be bad to have a cat litter box near the kitchen."

Baldwin hands over a lined yellow writing tablet and a Pilot fine point pen.

Zeph looks at him.

"Don't get scratched," Baldwin repeats, pointing at the paper. Zeph writes it down. They go through the list of precautions one by one as Zeph creates a neatly numbered list.

"The basic idea is, no contact to do with bodily fluids or excrement," Baldwin sums it up. "Don't get scratched or bitten. Keep cat and cat box away from food areas. After contact, wash hands before handling food."

"What if she does get scratched?" Zeph asks.

"Then we better hope it's the same strain we've been looking at, because we've got a cure for that."

Zeph looks down at the floor.

"We'll send her the cure anyway," Baldwin tries to cheer up his friend. "It won't hurt anything. It might not help, but then again it might. And if she's willing, she can try the vaccination on herself. It didn't hurt the kitten any. No reported side effects."

"Kittens aren't known for being careful reporters," Zeph answers. "But it's a good idea. Better than the alternative of doing nothing. When are your actual clinical trials here scheduled to start? You have that lined up now?"

"Already started. This morning, in fact. Local boy. High schooler. An islander whose mother keeps a pet cat. Checked up with a doctor for headaches and mood swings. I know a lot of the doctors around here, and they know what I'm working on, so this one picked up the phone and gave me a heads up, asked for advice. It's a little like the case in Florida. The patient goes to school, gets good grades, doesn't take drugs. And listen to this: The mom gave up the cat for analysis. My hand to heaven."

"Wow. That's a devoted mom," Zeph says, pulling his head back slightly in admiration and amazement. "It'd be great if Katya's Charlie had a mother like that!" he adds after a few seconds. "For that matter," he continues, "it'd be great if Charlie would just check up with a doctor. But the islands are different. It's all so different here. So have you, uh, analyzed the cat's brain tissue?" he ends tentatively, not sure how to phrase the brain analysis question.

"No, the cat's still alive," Baldwin says, answering what he guesses to be the underlying intent of his friend's question. "It's in a cage in the other room," he adds, pointing toward a door at the far end of the lab. "I discussed the case with the boy's doctor and we decided it'd be better if we just try the cure I have now first. In all the samples from the islands, from the whole Gulf of Mexico area, we've only seen one strain of the parasite."

"The thing I do want to do with the cat, though," he continues, "is check the bodily fluids and tissue samples that I can get without killing it, so we can try to find non-lethal tests for the pathogen, apart from feces samples. Something that might be applicable to humans as well. I'm getting the hospital to collect a lot of samples from the boy too. After that, well, if the boy has cancer, they'll treat for that, and I'll give the cat back to the mom. If the boy has the infection we're targeting, and he responds to the cure, then I'll cure the cat too and, again, return the cat to the mom. If the boy doesn't respond to any treatment, that's when I'll have to analyze the cat's brain tissue."

"Can't you do a, uh, brain biopsy of some kind?" Zeph wonders. "Get a sample of brain tissue without killing it? Because that could also be done on people."

"Probably could. I talked to a brain surgeon about that today. He says they can do brain biopsies to diagnose brain cancer, but it's an expensive procedure. First they do a scan to locate the tumor, then they do the biopsy. I don't want to waste government money on a brain scan of a cat. And without it, we wouldn't know where to take the sample. Think of it this way: If you had a wart on your left big toe, and I took a tissue sample from your toes at random, maybe the toe next to it, maybe even the pinky toe," He stops to gesture at Zeph's left foot, to help him imagine the situation. When Zeph looks down at his foot, Baldwin continues, "Well, I probably wouldn't find anything. Unless you had another wart that just happened to be starting to develop on that other toe. You see the problem?"

"Yeah, I do. Hunh," Zeph responds. "So you could do brain scans?"

"I could get them done. That would tell us there's a tumor or growth of some kind in the brain, and where it is, if the growth is big enough. But the growths we're looking for might not be that advanced yet, so they could be too small to spot. The boy was scheduled for a brain scan today, by the way. He's probably already had it by now. I got the government to pay for his treatment, since he's agreed to participate in clinical trials. This kid must be a genius, or super sensitive or something. I mean, the boy was coherent enough to realize he had a problem and then walk himself to a doctor. Or maybe it's just the family structure here. Very close knit. The mom or dad might have spotted it, and the kid listened. This kid has even given his mom medical power of attorney. And since she turned over her cat, we know the mom cares. So this is a perfect setup for me, from a clinical trial point of view. I may have actually gotten hold of a case in its early stages. Anyway, after the brain scan, if they find anything unusual, then they'll do a biopsy. I'll finally have access to brain tissue samples from a living victim in the early stages of infection. Meanwhile we treat with what we have. Especially because our treatment is harmless. If it turns out to be cancer, if he has an ordinary cancerous brain tumor, well, cancer treatments can be pretty debilitating."

Baldwin pauses.

He looks at Zeph for a studied minute before bringing up Zeph's own problem. "Charlie could have a brain tumor, too, you know," he suggests, not for the first time. "Has Kat taken him to a doctor yet?"

"Charlie won't go to a doctor," Zeph answers. "Thinks there's nothing wrong with him. He doesn't have headaches, apparently, and he doesn't acknowledge the mood swings and aberrant behavior. His mom thinks the change is wonderful: Now he works together with his mom on the political campaign! She's delighted. So, we treat with what we have?"

"Yeah. We'll send Katrina what we've got. In fact I already packaged it up for her this morning," Baldwin says, walking over to nearby cabinet and pulling out a small linen shopping bag. Inside the bag is a decorated metal tea canister with a red and gold Oriental design. Nestled next to it is a small red-tinted screw-top jar made of translucent plastic on the outside, lined with clear glass on the inside. The jar contains a few sugar cubes. Inside the bag, next to the jar and the canister, sits an Oriental-style combination teacup and individual teapot, the kind used to prepare a hot drink for one person from loose tea. The bag smells like spiced tea. Baldwin has in fact soaked it overnight in a strong spiced tea infusion, to permeate it with the smell, in case a Coast Guard dog might notice it. A sniffer dog search is an unlikely scenario, not just because of funding cutbacks, but because such dogs are trained to detect specific drugs. The herbal cure won't be on that list yet. Baldwin is careful and thorough by nature, though, and he has taken the extra precaution.

"Here," Baldwin says, handing his friend the bag. "Doug can take it tonight. Call her and let her know what's coming, what the precautions are. The sugar cubes are the vaccine," he says, picking up the sugar cube jar as if for illustration. "Have her take one of those herself immediately. If it works, it should prevent her from contracting the disease. She should take a second one a week later. Sort of a booster. I've included a few extra sugar cubes in case she wants to immunize anyone else close to her. Obviously it's too late for her boyfriend. He'll need the cure. The vaccine won't last much longer than a week unrefrigerated, maybe ten days, so tell her to use it right away."

Baldwin puts the sugar cube jar back into the bag. He picks up the tea canister and holds it at eye level. "The cure is a different matter," he says. "Anybody already infected can only be saved by the powder in this tea canister. That's our cure. Distilled essence of Azacca's powder with a few added enhancements of my own. And I don't know the shelf life on that, though heaven knows I've added compounds to try to increase it. A quarter of a teaspoon twice a day is the best dose, if she can get it into him. Once a day is probably enough, but it'll take longer to work. How long it will take also depends on how advanced the growths are, and how strong his immune system is. If the cure doesn't cure him, she needs to get him to a doctor to scan for a brain tumor. Those kids are way outside the known geographic range of this epidemic."

"The known range, yeah," Zeph says, taking the bag. "But that's the thing about epidemics, isn't it?" he adds. "They spread."

Chapter 19 – Night in America Continues

Back in the living room at the farmhouse, the political planning continues unabated far into the night.

Marie sits comfortably on a well-padded antique armchair, stroking a plain grey-on-grey striped kitten that sits on her lap purring. It smells like a combination of sick cat and dusty cat litter, but she doesn't mind anymore. So many of her friends have cats now, she barely remembers that she used to dislike them. As she strokes the soft fur, she finds the gently rumbling purring almost hypnotically calming.

"You want to talk about raising revenue without taxes," the senator from Michigan is pontificating, "Michigan is way ahead of the pack on that. Anyplace you can do it, you just impose fines instead of levying fees. Traffic laws are a phenomenal source of revenue, which I might add is currently untapped by the Federal government."

"Federal traffic cops? I don't know," Nick responds doubtfully. "It would cost a fortune to create a Federal traffic enforcement department, for one thing."

When Nick pauses to gather his thoughts, the senator comes back with an instant rebuttal. He knows his subject matter. "No traffic cops," he says. "Notification by local authorities. We get computerized lists of all local traffic violations, and then we send every violator a computer-generated letter of notification telling them they owe a Driver Responsibility Fee. Put it under the Department of Transportation, or Interstate Commerce. Don't flag everything, just pick a few violations you can vaguely justify. Driving without proof of insurance was the first thing we tried in Michigan. When we got away with that, we added careless driving, reckless driving, driving while intoxicated, and illegal left turns. We could do that last one because there's a lot of sentiment against left turns in Michigan. That one might not go over on a national level. But lack of insurance, intoxication, reckless driving, that should be an easy sell." He laughs and adds, "maybe seat belt violations. And anything that targets long haul truckers, they're like sitting ducks."

"Isn't that, like, double indemnity or something?" Marie asks. "Trying a person twice for the same crime? Don't we have something against that in the constitution?"

"Well, nobody's taken it to court yet, that I know of," the senator answers her, "but I doubt it would be struck down, at least it might not. Ever since the O.J. trials these double whammies have been accepted. Also, a traffic ticket isn't exactly a crime, at least I don't think it is. It's a violation of a regulation. A regulation isn't quite the same as a law. Tell you what, we've raised a bundle of money on this."

"Isn't Michigan one of those states that have city income taxes?" Nick asks, still petting the fluffy white cat that's been sitting in his lap most of the evening. "Seems to me I heard somewhere that if you work in Detroit, then you have to pay Detroit city income tax, even if you don't live there. It's on the list of taxes we haven't struck down yet but we sure do want to. It's taxation without representation, if you ask me. A guy works in Detroit and lives in the suburbs, he pays taxes in Detroit but he can't vote in Detroit. Has no say at all in how the money is spent. Strikes me as a violation of the ideals of the founding fathers. Boston Tea Party, remember that? If you can get away with city income tax, and the courts say nothing, then I think we can get away with a few traffic fines without worrying about the courts."

"Courts?" Sheppard laughs. "We've got so many justices on the Supreme Court now those guys have trouble agreeing on anything. One thing they do agree on, though, is they back me. I appointed them for that, and they don't forget it. No, we won't have any trouble with the courts, at least not the high court. I've got those guys in my pocket."

"Costs to the Federal government would be minimal," the senator points out. "Just the administrative overhead. Local cops and computers do all the real work. We just sit back and collect the money."

"Federal traffic fines it is," Nick agrees, and everyone nods.

"Those kittens," Charlie asks, when he's sure the subject of Federal traffic laws is finished. "Are those, uh, Angela's grandchildren? They came from one of Angela's cats?"

"Rest her soul," Eugene responds. "I ended up with one of her cats. That big white cat on Nick's lap there. It turned out to be with child. Anybody want a kitten? They're ready to leave their mommy anytime."

Charlie picks up one of the kittens, a white ball of fur that reminds him of coconut cotton candy. It weighs about four ounces. He strokes it and it begins to purr. "I have an idea about that income tax thing," he offers, leaning back into his chair.

"Shoot," Nick says, glancing at the president with a grin.

"Business licenses," Charlie states flatly, and pauses for effect. "Take Detroit for example. Why bother with all that paperwork from all those individual tax returns? Huge cost for the government, and nobody likes it. But you create an Employer's Business License, that's different. Individual citizens don't see it. You make it a percentage of the total payroll cost."

Nick laughs. "Not exactly right-to-work friendly," he says, "but it's a good spin."

"and it's a flat tax," the senator adds. "Actually we could get that passed in Detroit. We have a flat one per cent tax now. Repeal the income tax, create an Employer's Business License fee of one per cent of the payroll. I like it. If it goes over well in Michigan, you add it to the national package. If not, you haven't taken any risk."

"No exemptions, no paperwork," Marie says, nodding, "and we don't even call it a tax. Driver's licenses, marriage licenses, Business licenses. People are used to licenses."

"And in another way, it's even better than a regular flat tax," Sheppard adds approvingly. "It doesn't tax investment income. Or farm income. Most of our supporters would get off almost scott free on this. If they're a CEO of their own company, they'd pay one percent on whatever salary they take. Anything they get from stocks and such, no cost. A farmer only pays one per cent on any labor costs for hired hands he hires on the books, and that's it. I like it. It's good."

"Well, I'm going to have to get up early if we're going fishing," Nick says, glancing at his watch. "Either that or make it an all nighter. Myself I'd prefer to get the three hours of sleep." He looks around at the others for agreement, then adds, "So we should wrap this up here. We'll pick up where we left off. Revenue. Business Licenses, to be continued. Start right after dinner tomorrow. Everybody on board with that?"

Nods and murmurs of assent close the evening of platform building.

"Okay, good," Nick says and stands up, leaving the big white cat to occupy the seat he vacates. "Thanks for letting me stay here at the house, Eugene. This is great. Fishing in the morning. See you at five." He strokes the cat one last time and heads upstairs.

Chapter 20 - Kat and the Kitten

"Is that a kitten on the sofa?" Katrina asks Charlie in disbelief. "When did that get here?" Immediately she regrets just blurting out the question. She never knows anymore what might set him off. She turns away and pulls her bathrobe closer around her, retying the belt.

"Oh, last night," he answers calmly, stretching and yawning. From an eastern window, pale grey light falls slantways across the room through partially open Venetian blinds, making the apartment look like a faded set in an old film. A fluffy kitten lying curled in a ball on the sofa arouses itself, stretches slowly, and yawns. "I brought it home with me," Charlie continues. "Thought it'd make a nice pet. It's little and soft and it makes a great purring sound."

Someone out in the street turns a key on the noisy starter of an old car. The kitten jerks its head to look, then bolts up the dark cloth column formed by one of the open drapes. It perches on the curtain rod at the top as if hiding itself on a tree branch.

"Climbs curtains, too, apparently," she observes, and again immediately kicks herself mentally for saying it.

"It doesn't weigh much. It can't hurt the curtains just yet," he says, reaching up to lift the ball of white fluff down from the window with both hands. To the kitten he says, "No climbing curtains," tapping its nose with his index finger, staring into its eyes as he admonishes it. "No climbing curtains," he repeats. Then he strokes it, and it purrs as he sets it down gently on the floor. It immediately repeats its curtain climbing performance. Again he admonishes it. This time it runs off and hides under a big padded armchair, disappearing from sight. "It's one of Angela's grandchildren, so to speak," he tells Katrina. "One of her cats was pregnant when Angie died, and this is one of the kittens."

"You have a litter box for it? Or do you take it for walks?" she asks as gently as she can, trying not to sound negative.

"Uh, I put a little shoe box of cat litter in the kitchen for now," he answers, without taking offense at the question.

"Not the kitchen," she responds reflexively. "I mean, I think the kitten would be happier with a little more privacy," she immediately rephrases the remark. "Let's put its litter box in the laundry room." So saying, she picks the box up and moves it before he has a chance to contradict the idea. She returns to the kitchen and washes her hands thoroughly with a drop of soap and a lot of warm water. The warmth of the tap water feels comforting and pleasant against the omnipresent late winter cold that seeps through the outside walls of the apartment. Charlie hasn't said anything negative yet this morning, she thinks to herself, despite her own negativity. The kitten does seem to have a calming effect on him.

She takes a box of oatmeal down from a shelf, and a covered saucepan from a cabinet. After measuring three cups of water into the saucepan, she covers it with a lid and turns the stove burner on high to get the water boiling. "Oatmeal for breakfast?" she offers, hoping the question will distract his attention from the relocation of the cat box.

"Sure. I'll put on the kettle," Charlie responds. "You want tea or coffee?"

"Either one," she answers. "Whatever you're having is fine. As long as its decaf."

Charlie takes a china saucer down from a cabinet and sets it on the counter. From the refrigerator he retrieves the small carton of half and half cream he had stopped for on the way home the night before. He pours about two tablespoonfuls into the saucer, then places the saucer into the microwave. On the microwave clock he punches in 11 seconds and hits start. The microwave hums briefly. He hits the stop button when the countdown reaches 1 second, just before the bell would ring. After touching the liquid with a forefinger to test the temperature, he places the saucer gently on the floor for the kitten, though it hasn't come out from under the chair yet. That done, he turns his attention to the electric kettle. He lifts it. From the weight he judges that the kettle is still half full of water. He plugs it in and flips the switch on.

A few months ago Katrina would have asked him some question, anything just to start a conversation, just to hear his voice in the room. This morning she accepts the silence and takes it as peace.

After a minute the kitten comes into the room silently and begins lapping up the liquid from the saucer.

Katrina hears the water in the saucepan start to boil, and turns down the heat to medium low. She measures oatmeal into the pan and covers it again, then returns the oatmeal box to the cabinet. She adds a teaspoonful of soymilk, a teaspoonful of brown sugar, and half a teaspoon of her personal signature spice mixture that consists mostly of cinnamon with traces of ginger and cardamom. She stirs the oatmeal, still saying nothing to her boyfriend, though she watches him from the corners of her vision. It's an odd sensation, to be with the one you love and yet feel so very alone inside. The inner corners of her eyes start to moisten slightly and she fights back the feeling, suppressing the tears but not fully able to suppress the sorrow.

Charlie sets the dining room table with bowls, spoons, and cups. Beside each spoon he puts one of the small soft kitchen towels they use as makeshift napkins. He fills a ceramic tea kettle with warm tap water and heats it in the microwave for a few seconds, then removes the heated kettle from the microwave and discards the water. She watches his movements. It's so strange to feel love and sorrow at the same time. He is there in the room with her, and yet not fully there. She takes a deep breath and exhales. Seeing the kitten pad by toward the laundry room, she covers the saucepan before the kitten can start to stir cat litter dust up into the air.

After the tiny cat comes padding softly back into the room, after the dust seems to have settled, she washes the stirring spoon carefully with dish soap and warm tap water, again enjoying the warmth on her hands.

"We're fastidious today, aren't we?" Charlie asks, noticing what she does with the spoon.

"Oh, well, it's an excuse to warm my hands," she responds, thinking more quickly than before, careful to avoid any suggestion that Charlie's new pet is in any way a factor. "You know. I like the warm water. It's so cold these mornings."

"Well, winter can't last forever," he answers, coming close to her and stroking her back. "It'll be over pretty soon."

"Yes, pretty soon," she agrees. "This certainly can't last forever, like this."

Charlie takes down a box of herbal tea bags and places two of them into the preheated teapot. He adds boiling water from the kettle, filling the teapot, and replaces the teapot lid.

Katrina picks up the saucepan. The oatmeal is done. She spoons it evenly into the two bowls on the dining room table. The kitten mews and rubs itself against her pajama-clad leg. She resists the urge to push it away. "Charlie, do you think you should give the kitten some more milk?" she calls out to him.

He comes in from the kitchen with the teapot and sets it on a coaster on the table. "Sure," he says. "That's a good idea. Come on, Kitty. Back in here." He goes back to the kitchen and prepares a second saucer of half and half cream, which the kitten begins lapping up. "I'm glad you're taking to the kitten," he says to Katrina, coming back into the dining room and taking his seat at the table. "I was afraid you might not like it."

She utters a small nervous laugh as she goes back into the kitchen to return the empty saucepan. "Don't worry about that," she answers, returning to join him at the table, closing the door to the kitchen behind her. "We'll see how it goes," she adds, sitting down and adjusting her chair. "The kitten seems to like it here so far." He's acting so normal that she feels tempted to start up a real conversation, to ask how things went for him last night, but in the end she isn't willing to take a chance on upsetting him.

"This oatmeal is good," he compliments her cooking.

She takes a bite herself, nods, and smiles at him. "It's the cinnamon," she says. "Is the tea ready yet?"

Charlie starts to pour tea into the two cups.

They hear her cell phone start to ring on the living room coffee table.

"I'll just get that to shut it up," she says with a little nervous laugh, going into the other room. She answers the cell phone. The call is from her uncle Zeph in St. Lucy. She walks closer to the window, as if to pick up a weak signal better. There she stands quietly for two or three minutes while Zeph tells her everything about the lab results, the delivery Doug is bringing, and what they still need.

She is standing as far away from the dining room as she can in the small living room, hoping Charlie can't hear. He looks at her inquiringly from the dining room table nonetheless. She smiles at him hesitantly and holds up an index finger in the wait-a-minute gesture. To the telephone she says, "I don't know, let me check," which puzzles Zeph on the other end of the call.

She smiles again at Charlie and retreats to the bathroom, as far from the dining room as she can get in the small apartment. She closes the door and makes rattling-around sounds in the medicine cabinet, as if looking for something.

"Zeph?" she says in her quietest non-whispering voice. "I'm sorry about that. Charlie's here. I'm still at the apartment. We were just having breakfast. Yes, it's late, but, you know, it's winter here, and it's the weekend. Listen, would poop samples do? Because I could send you a poop sample by post today. It isn't an actual cat that belonged to Angela, but apparently one of those cats was pregnant, and this is one of its kittens. Would that work?"

"It might," she hears her uncle say on the other end of the phone. "If it's infected, and if the infection is far enough along, then yes, the poop would be exactly the right source. The parasite reproduces only inside the intestines of cats. That's the only way it can propagate. That's why cats are the critical part of its life cycle. It's also why it's so important to keep the cat box away from food. You are doing that, aren't you?"

"Oh yeah. I didn't need to be told that one. Good to be reminded, I guess, but yeah, the litter box is in the laundry room. That's next to the kitchen, so it isn't perfect, but it's out of the kitchen."

"I guess there's no good place for it in a small apartment," he concedes, "but be careful. I told you Doug is bringing vaccine samples? You need to take the vaccine. If you get infected yourself, there'll be nobody left to try to cure Charlie, and nobody there for you. So if it's the same problem we've been looking at here, taking the vaccine should make you immune to it. Now, that still isn't a guarantee that you're safe, because what you have up there might not be the same strain of the parasite as we're seeing down here. So even with the vaccine you still need to be careful. But take the vaccine. Sugar cubes, same method of delivery Salk used to distribute Polio vaccine in the nineteen fifties."

"I'll take it, Zeph," she answers him, "as soon as it gets here. Listen, what you said about me being alone. You don't need to worry about that. There is somebody else here for me. I'm not alone. There's a nurse named Nina. She's a friend of Shelley's. You remember Shelley? Well, Nina and Shelley helped me get the samples I already sent you. Actually, Nina was one of the nurses at the hospital when Angela died. Her family lives here in Madison. So she's around a lot on weekends. Let me give you her phone number, in case anything does happen to me."

Zeph takes down the phone number. "Give me Shelley's number too, just in case," he asks. He takes down that number too. "So," he inquires on a chance, "if they did an autopsy when Angela died, we'd love to have a sample of brain tissue, if your friend Nina can get it."

"No autopsy," Katrina reports disappointingly. "Sorry."

"Maybe a leftover blood sample," he suggests, guessing what might still be left sitting around someplace. "Anything she could get might be helpful. At least ask her."

"I'll ask her," the girl says, agreeing to try.

"Give her the vaccine too," Zeph adds as an afterthought. "Shelley as well. We're sending you a few extra doses in the sugar jar, so you should have enough."

"Okay. So you really need one of the actual cats?" the girl continues. "I may as well send you the poop sample, though, right, because that might be good enough?"

"Yes and yes," Zeph agrees. "If the poop tests positive for the same parasite, we might not need the cat, but it would be good to have. I'll have to check with Baldwin. But if the microbe you're seeing up there is a different strain than we have down here, then we definitely want to get hold of an infected cat. Meanwhile send the excrement sample, by all means. Overnight mail, if you can."

"Okay. I'll get that to you as soon as I can. If Charlie goes out today, I can come back to the apartment and scoop up a sample. Yes, I'll wear plastic gloves. And I'll seal it up really well. And I'll disguise the packaging somehow. Maybe put it inside a Thermos jar. How should I send it? Do you think Fed Ex, or UPS, USPS, or what? What's fastest to St. Lucy?"

"I don't know. You'll have to call around," he tells her. "As far as packaging, the Thermos jar isn't really necessary, unless you're doing it to throw the sniffer dogs off track."

"They don't use sniffer dogs much anymore," she volunteers a news update. "Cost cutting, courtesy of the TEA movement, combined with the civil liberty issue -- The Liberty in Liber-TEA. Say what you will about the LiberTEA party, the cutbacks in Customs and general surveillance are all to the good."

"Yeah, those airport searches were pretty abysmal," he agrees with his niece's observation. The body searches would have been far more offensive to her. At the time, she had been a young teenage girl, delicate, sensitive, and easily embarrassed. Just the thought of her having to go through that makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He shakes his head, as if shaking off the image. "I'm glad the party got rid of those, all right," he says. After a pause he adds, "Like they say, even a broken clock is still right twice a day." He pauses introspectively again, considering the problem of shipping the excrement sample. "You know," he finally says, "sniffer dogs wouldn't be trained to sniff out cat poo anyway. They'd be trained for specific problematic substances, not innovative new ones. And even if Customs agents were to find the poop samples somehow, they wouldn't know what they'd found. It probably isn't even illegal."

"That gives me another idea," she says, perking up with a little low dose enthusiasm. "I could pack it in a candy box, or a cookie tin. It'd look like a prank. If anybody does happen to find it, they'll probably just think I'm angry at you for something. It's a standard revenge prank, sending poop wrapped as a confectionary item. Ridiculous, but standard.

At the other end of the phone, Zeph laughs. "Cookie tin," he says. "Chocolate coconut. Poop rolled in cat litter will look suggestive of chocolate rolled in coconut." He laughs softly a little more, shaking his head. "It's a good idea."

"Okay. Well, I gotta go," she winds up the conversation. "Charlie's going to start wondering what I'm up to. Love you, Uncle Zeph."

"I love you too, little girl. Take care."

With that the call ends. She feels energized. Light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't an oncoming train. The lonely desperate feeling disappears, as far removed from her consciousness as last night's dreams. She slips the phone into her bathrobe pocket and retraces her steps through the living room, almost bouncing back to the breakfast table.

"What was that about?" Charlie asks.

"Oh, just girl stuff," she answers cheerily. "It was Nina. She wanted to know what brand of something I'm using. For somebody else she's helping. It's nothing really. Just girl stuff."

"Hunh. So, are you off to the library again today?" he inquires.

"Yeah, the library. Research. I've got that paper due, you know. Yourself?" she asks in return. "What do you have planned for today?"

"I'll be going into campus too. Maybe I'll run into you. You want to meet up for lunch?"

"I don't know. Call me, okay? No, text me, because I'll be in the library. Oh, I might have to run some errands too. Nina asked me to pick something up for her. Just text me, okay?" She realizes she feels elated at the prospect of progress on her situation, and she isn't going to let Charlie get in the way.

He nods, oblivious. "So, what should we name the cat?" he poses a question. "Katrina's already taken, obviously, as a name. I was thinking maybe Kitty."

"Hope," she suggests.

Chapter 21 - Greenhouse

Dawn breaks over St. Lucy quickly and brightly, as if a celestial light switch had been flipped on. Over the following moments it brightens even more. Sea birds with widespread wings let out intermittent haunting cries as they wheel in the blue sky over the beach in great arcs, now and then dropping like dive bombers to intercept fish at the surface of the water. Odd long-legged birds dart back and forth across the packed wet sand, ankle deep in the shallow waves that rush gently up and fall back again in a lacy blanket of foam, unveiling bits of breakfast for the birds with each cycle. The soft warm breeze that caresses the top of the water washes the clean salty smell of the ocean gently in over the awakening island.

Inside a big greenhouse next to the beach, Annetka is helping Baldwin with the plants. Since just before dawn they have been unloading small plants from the back of a truck and setting them up inside the newly acquired greenhouse.

"I'm just afraid the American drug enforcement loonies will think we're growing marijuana or something," Baldwin is saying, fiddling with the irrigation supply pipes just overhead. The thin pipes cross the air like electrical wires, delivering water to rough heavy tables that fill the big room like cafeteria tables. "I feel exposed here."

"You've been hanging around with Snake too much," she laughs lightly, arranging a little plant just right to face its leaves toward the east, maximizing the surface area exposed to the light. "Caution is good, but he's got you looking for things that aren't there. The American drug enforcement loonies have suffered from the same cutbacks as everyone else in America. They're seriously underfunded and understaffed. Much to the joy of all their international neighbors, I might add. My own personal fear is that the light here will be too bright for these small plants."

"It'll be fine. I think," Baldwin answers. He wonders about the point she's bringing up about the light intensity. "You're right, we'd better check on them again in a few hours, to be sure," he decides.

"What do we do if they're starting to wilt?"

"Just move them down onto the ledges under the tables, I guess," he answers, pointing under the nearest table at one of the built-in utility shelves halfway to the floor. "The tabletops will provide shade. It should be fine. I think."

She looks over at Baldwin, who is looking at the plants, analyzing the possibilities. "I'm sure you're right," she says reassuringly. "They'll be fine here. Our babies will grow up to be fine sturdy young plants," she adds, laughing lightly again. "They will give us many grandchildren."

"I hope so," he says. "If the epidemic is spreading north, we'll need them."

"Well, that's when you'll need to worry about the American drug enforcement loonies," she says, coming closer to him. She strokes his arm gently. Their eyes meet, and he doesn't resist the urge to kiss her, stroking her hair and drawing her close.

"I want to get married," he says as they pull apart, his hand still stroking her hair. "I don't like being away from you at night."

"You're at your lab all night," she admonishes him gently.

"I sleep eventually," he defends himself, not denying the allegation. "And even if I come in late and you're already asleep," he adds, "at least we'd wake up together in the morning."

"All in good time," she answers. "Anyway, meanwhile you could put some kind of a bed in here someplace. It could be our little love nest."

"That's a good idea," he allows, thinking about how to arrange it, "but I still want to get married."

She laughs. "When the time is right," she says. "I want my father to give his permission. My family will want a regular wedding. It takes time to plan and make arrangements."

Baldwin exhales heavily and returns to working with the plants. The little plant pots have all been set into long troughs on the table tops. He adjusts one of the long narrow pipes that deliver trickling fresh water to the bottom of each trough. "That should do it," he announces, turning on the water valve to the table where they're standing. Water begins to drip slowly into the bottom of the trough.

"Looks good," she agrees. Neither of them has much experience with greenhouses, but it all seems to be in order as far as they can tell. She looks up at him happily. They're accomplishing something together. Annetka is struck by the realization that she feels good about their situation, really good in a profoundly fulfilling way. It feels right. Being with Baldwin feels right, the way being on the beach in St. Lucy feels right. This is where she was meant to be. This is what she was meant to do with her life. This is where happiness lies.

Chapter 22 - A Visit from Doug

Spring comes to Madison Wisconsin like a soft morning, waking the land from the bleak and frozen nightmare of winter. A gentle warm breeze stirs the fruit trees. It picks up the barely perceptible scent of cherry blossoms, combining it with the sweet and spicy smells of a mixture of newborn garden flowers, and spreads the smell of spring everywhere. At ground level a visual explosion of red and yellow tulips dots the campus landscape.

Small birds flit through the low bushes and the flowering trees, perching for an instant on a branch, darting to the back of a white wrought iron garden chair, fluttering in small groups to bathe in the big fountain, little wings splashing in the water. They tweet brief cheerful songs of five or ten notes to one another, in languages that only birds can know.

On the broad open lawns of the University campus, young men and women walk to classes, energetic with health and youth and the joy of the reawakening world. Wearing lightweight jackets or no coats at all, the students look at each other as if seeing strangers. Young men drink in the welcome sight of pretty girls in bright spring clothes that reveal the structure of their bodies, soft curved lines that had been hidden from sight for months under heavy winter coats.

Students smile and wave to each other as they pass. Small groups pause here and there to stand together and talk for a minute or two under the trees. Some sit together as couples on stone benches. Others chat and laugh together in small groups. Exchanging papers and texting each other bits of information about their classes or their social plans, the students reawaken to life after winter.

Katrina sits on a white wrought iron chair at a small table on the patio outside the Student Union coffee shop, reading a book. After a time, the tall slim figure of an athletic young man in blue jeans appears, striding over to join her, full of self-assurance and energy. He carries a standard issue student backpack, giving the impression he might be a student. His blue jeans are clean and pressed, his T-shirt a little too new. He wears expensive sneakers, equally spotless. His clothes and his posture scream that he comes from a moneyed background, not just upper middle class, but well to do. His eyeglasses, though a fashionable style, suggest he may be more of an intellectual than his athletic build implies. Uncharacteristically suntanned for the northern climate, he stands out from his paler colleagues. His eyes twinkle with a happy conspiratorial glow as he seats himself without asking at the table with Katrina. She looks up from her book. He smiles and unzips the main compartment of his backpack, bringing out a tea canister and a jar of sugar cubes. He places them in the center of the table, in front of Kat. "Herbal tea," he announces. "A special blend just for you. Fresh from the Paradise Islands."

She smiles back, glancing only for a second at the jars on the table as her gaze rises to focus on his eyes. She is a little surprised to notice that her heart flutters. An odd sensation rises inside her, similar to the feeling she had the first time she surprised a wild deer while hiking in the woods, and it leapt away in a flash of poignant beauty. She realizes for the first time that her childhood friend Doug, the gangly boy she met at summer camp, is now a good looking young man. How long had this been true, she wonders. It couldn't have happened overnight. She had just failed to notice before.

"Your eyes are bluer than the Caribbean skies," he says, and she laughs.

"and they sparkle more dazzlingly than the sea," he adds.

She laughs again, and the laugh fades slowly into a smile that lingers. She tilts her head slightly and shakes it as if to say no, I don't believe this. "My valiant knight has returned from his quest," she announces, smiling with her whole being and locking his eyes with her own. A part of her realizes that she is suddenly in a good mood, a too unfamiliar feeling.

"I have crossed the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean for you, my Lady Katrina," he responds happily. "Across the sandy seacoast I have come, over the towering Appalachian mountains, through the vast dread plains of the American Midwest. There is no barrier I would not scale, no risk I would not take, and no obstacle I would not overcome." So saying, he stands and bows with a hand flourish, losing eye contact. He seats himself again and says, "Seriously, I drove all night."

"Thank you, Doug. You're ... fantastic. Really fantastic," she responds sincerely, and their eyes are again joined in silence.

At length he summons the courage to suggest, "So how about we have lunch together? Do they serve food here, or are these tables just for show?"

She laughs again. She sees no reason to abandon this pleasant interlude too soon. She can't give Charlie the cure until tonight anyway. "Sure, let's have lunch," she says. "You're buying. They sell food right in there," she adds, pointing to some double doors a few yards away from the table. "Bring me anything you like as long as it's Vegan and the components are readily identifiable."

He laughs and rises. "Start with a sugar cube appetizer while I'm gone," he suggests to her, smiling but serious. So saying, he moves away toward the doors into the Student Union coffee shop slash cafeteria. She watches him walk away and disappear.

While he's gone she examines the contents of the jars. A full canister of a brownish powder that could pass for ground tea. Ten sugar cubes. Ten? Okay, fine, ten. Enough to dose five people. Hunh, she thinks, wondering what mathematical formula Baldwin had used to come up with the number ten.

After a few minutes Doug returns with a tray. The tray contains a platter of salad-like antipasto items: black and green olives, celery and carrot sticks, radishes, bits of lettuce. There are a few pieces of fruit and five pint size bottles of fruit juice.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Sir Doug," she announces as he sits down, "but the army isn't here to join us. Methinks you may have brought too much food."

"Lady Katrina," he answers, "I've worked up a serious appetite questing for several days. Permit a humble knight some lunch."

"Okay," she says simply, and takes an olive.

"I still count ten sugar cubes," he admonishes the object of his affection.

She removes one of the sugar cubes from the jar and places it in her mouth. "So this is a vaccine," she says, making a face as if reacting to something odd. "It tastes kind of funny."

"Funny?" he asks, leaning forward, concerned. Could the vaccine have gotten contaminated on the trip, or spoiled or something? Had he needed to keep it refrigerated and nobody told him?

"Yeah, it's like," she answers, a serious expression on her face, pausing as if searching for a word. "What do they call that stuff?" she adds and pauses again. At last she says, "Sugar. I remember now. It tastes like sugar."

He smiles and exhales forcefully, then leans back in his chair. That's our Kat, he remembers. Always with the jokes.

Again she smiles back. This is all right, he thinks. Worth the trip. Maybe she'll go out to dinner with me or something if I play it right.

"So, whatcha readin?" he asks, gesturing with a celery stick toward the closed book at her side on the table. "Plain paper cover. Is it porn?"

She laughs. "Not porn," she says, and opens the book to reveal the title of a recent scientific study she's been reviewing.

"You take the vaccine too," she decides, taking a sugar cube out of the jar and holding it out to him as she speaks. "You're taking risks here."

"I already had mine," he answers. "They dosed me in St. Lucy."

She returns the cube to the jar.

"So tell me," he says, nodding towards the book, "are you really all that interested in physics? Or is this about Charlie? Pursuing a life of science together? Did you get interested in physics because of Charlie, or did you get interested in Charlie because he's so awesome in physics? Where's the direction of causality there, anyway?"

Immediately he regrets mentioning Charlie, because her face falls and she becomes introspective. "Never mind," he tries to backtrack. "What I really want to know is, how's Nina? Was she able to get samples from that dead woman in Indiana? The one with all the cats?"

"She got an old blood sample," Katrina answers, "that they took when the woman first came into the hospital. It hadn't been thrown out yet. I don't really think there's anything else there, but she's still looking. She won't be up here with it until this weekend, though. Are you going to hang around until then? I don't think it's a good idea to send a blood sample by post. It'd be great if you could take it, but you've been doing an awfully lot for us lately. I hate to keep asking you to do all this."

"For you, Katya. I've been doing a lot for YOU," he corrects her sternly, then smiles. "It's no trouble, though, really," he then lies. "I go down to see Zeph and Baldy anyway. St. Lucy is a great place. Cold beer, hot women. Nice beaches. What's not to like? I get some deep sea fishing in. Maybe I should start a regular courier service. What do you think?"

She chews on a carrot stick and says nothing, as if digesting the question.

"Nah," he answers himself. "Bad idea. That's not what my father means when he says he wants me to start my own business. I know that. Okay, nix the courier service idea. Listen, there's a concert in the quad this afternoon. Boy, they don't waste time getting started once the weather breaks. I saw a flyer for it inside the Student Union in there." He pauses and gestures toward the doors to the building, as if the provenance of the concert were in question. "So I might go to that. If you don't have a class or anything planned, maybe we could go together. I mean, if I'm going to hang around until Nina comes up this weekend, may as well fill the time. What do you say?"

"It's wouldn't be like a date," she answers slowly, eyes slightly narrowed but still in good spirits. "You know I still have a relationship with Charlie."

"Let's face it, sweetheart, your boyfriend's a vegetable," he says, deciding spontaneously to lay out the truth for her.

She laughs, which surprises them both.

"Not only that," he continues, cheerful but still in truth telling mode, "if you're honest with yourself, you know you aren't really in love with him anymore. You're loyal. I respect that. He's in trouble. I get it. You have to help him. But what happens after that? You know you don't feel the same way now as you felt before all this happened. Here's a news flash: You never will. Once it's gone, that feeling doesn't come back. Sad but true," he finishes the revelation, picks up another celery stick, and looks at her eyes, observing her response and waiting for an answer.

She eats another carrot stick, then an olive. She unscrews the top of an apple juice bottle and takes a sip.

"It wouldn't be a date," she repeats her earlier answer, "but yeah, I'm not doing anything that can't wait. I'll go to the concert with you. Who's playing?"

He names some local groups he's never heard of before, but remembers from the flyer. Eventually he comes to one she recognizes and her eyes light up a bit. He stops talking.

"I like them," she says, nodding. "Sure. It'd be fun. Just so we're clear that I'm still with Charlie."

"You're still with Charlie," he agrees, nodding back at her. "I had definitely noticed that." Not a bad result, he reflects, sitting back in the chair. Better than he had expected, though short of what he had hoped for. I still have a few more days to work on her, he thinks to himself. She'll come around. Her boyfriend's a vegetable.

"So, what time do you two have dinner?" he asks her. "At home? That's when you'll be giving Charlie the tea?"

"Yeah. Around six o'clock," she tells him. "I should try to be home by five thirty. Leave campus around five."

He nods. He has Katrina for the next five hours, and the competition is a human vegetable. Moreover, the vegetable should be recovering soon, so she won't be bound to him by feelings of responsibility. He likes his chances.

Chapter 23 - Charlie Drinks the Tea

After a carefree afternoon, Katrina parts company with Doug reluctantly, promising to meet up again soon. Back at the apartment she replays bits of the afternoon in her head as she starts the dinner, repressing recurrent urges to hum a cheerful tune still stuck in her head from the concert. She slips the tea canister into a big pocket on her favorite kitchen apron. While the oven heats up, she rolls out dough for pizza on a cookie tray. She places the tray into the oven gently, just for a few minutes, just so it can start to set.

Taking the tray back out of the oven, she covers it thickly with tomato paste. Onto that she adds chopped garlic and onions, fresh oregano and basil. Carefully she sprinkles out about an ounce of the dried herbal mixture from the tea canister, then closes the canister and slips it back into her apron pocket. With a long-handled spoon she mixes the additions into the tomato paste, until it looks like thick lumpy spaghetti sauce. With a smaller spoon she takes a sample of the sauce and tastes it. Not bad, but a little off from what you'd expect on pizza. After considering for a few seconds, she decides to add a little cayenne pepper and a lot of mushrooms. Oh, some veggie burger might help too. Finally she anoints her work of art with a cheese-like topping they favor, but she uses it sparingly. Just enough to suggest the idea of cheese. The less you can taste it, she reasons, the less chance you have to notice it isn't exactly cheese by a strict definition.

Back into the oven her masterpiece goes. She hopes she remembers correctly that the herbs can withstand the heat of cooking. In the islands they boil it to make tea, she reminds herself. Of course it can take the heat.

During the next ten minutes, while the pizza bakes, she sets the dining room table for dinner, using the good napkins, the good dishes, and wine goblets for the apple juice. She sets out a big bowl of tossed green salad. In the center of the table she places a cake stand for the pizza. May as well give the main course its best chance for success.

The kitten comes in and rubs itself against her ankle. Charlie follows close behind it. "What's cooking?" he asks. "Smells like spaghetti."

"More like pizza," she says nervously. "Have you fed the cat? Or will it be joining us for pizza?"

He laughs just a little and shakes his head. The kitten does have a calming effect on him, she notes to herself yet again.

"I'll just give it some soft cat food," he answers her, and goes into the kitchen. The kitten walks after him. Katrina exhales heavily.

After a few minutes she goes into the kitchen to get the pizza. Charlie is stooping beside the kitten, petting it gently as it eats its cat food and purrs. Katrina says nothing. She knows the kitten takes only a few minutes to eat. After that it will curl up for a nap, and Charlie will be free to join her for dinner. He'll even be a bit tranquilized by his time spent with the purring cat.

Picking up a few kitchen implements as she goes, she takes the pizza into the dining room and transfers it gently to the cake stand, where she cuts it into the traditional eight slices. Not the best idea, she decides. It would have been easier to cut it first and then move it to the cake stand. Oh well. It'll do. It looks fine. She sets down a serving spatula at the corner of the table, between where she and Charlie will sit. That's it. Nothing to do now but wait the few minutes until Charlie joins her.

On a whim she decides to chance putting on some music. Something peaceful, romantic maybe. Something that will aid in digestion. Just as the music starts, Charlie rejoins her in the dining room.

"We should dance," he suggests. She's a bit taken aback. "After dinner, maybe," he adds. "That pizza smells good."

Hunh. So it does, she realizes. Okay then. She takes her seat at the table, and he follows suit. "You do the serving honors?" she asks, gesturing at the serving spatula. Immediately she feels like biting her tongue, afraid he might knock something over and spoil both the mood and the food. Her fear turns out to be groundless, though. He serves a slice of the herbal pizza onto each plate with aplomb, and reseats himself gracefully.

"A toast?" he proposes, lifting his goblet of apple juice. She clinks her glass against his. "To pizza dinners," he offers.

"To pizza dinners," she agrees, her eyes meeting his, clinking glasses again.

Apple juice has never tasted so good, she thinks. This is going to work. She takes a few bits of the salad. Just as she starts to smile, the doorbell rings. Ding-dong, an old, standard doorbell two-note chime. She folds her napkin and sets it on the table as she rises to answer the door. Charlie rises with her. Ding-dong, the bell sounds again.

They open the door to a small group of LiberTEA party campaign workers, Charlie's mother in front.

"Mom!" Charlie exclaims.

"We were in the neighborhood, passing out fliers," his mother explains cheerily as she steps forward. Charlie steps back and lets the group into the room.

"Well, come on in," he says, picking up the kitten that has come to the door to investigate the commotion. "Come on, have some pizza with us," he adds, and returns to the dining room, kitten in hand, without waiting for an answer. Katrina smiles at the guests and gestures to them to come on.

"Hey, this is good stuff," Eugene says, helping himself to a slice of pizza. "I didn't know you were such a good cook, Kat."

"Oh, me and Marie, cooks," she answers with a little light laugh, not knowing what else to say. "That's us, okay." She brings down a stack of sandwich-size plates from a cabinet and hands them around. "Maybe I should make some more pizza," she adds. "It doesn't take long. Twenty minutes or so. You have time to stay for a while?"

Those who have already tried the pizza nod vigorously in acceptance.

"Well, okay, then," Katrina agrees, smiling. "I'll just get back in the kitchen and whip that up. You stay here and relax your feet. Charlie can get you some apple juice." As the kitchen door closes behind her, she sees Charlie's mother starting to hand out goblets for the juice.

Feeling safe in the kitchen, she sighs in relief, surprised to realize how happy she is just to be alone, away from the tension of guarding every word against some slip that might send Charlie into another sudden fit of temper. Wow. She breathes deeply, relaxes, and sets to making more pizzas.

The boys in the islands sent plenty of tea, she reflects as she applies measured amounts onto the tomato sauce along with the oregano and basil. Even so, if she's going to be feeding crowds, she'd better ask for another shipment. It occurs to her that half the LiberTEA party could be infected, for all she knows. She laughs involuntarily at that. Maybe they all are! Well, she shrugs, as long as the herbal mixture holds out, she doesn't care. It's harmless at worst. And apparently tasty.

She puts two pizzas into the oven and closes it, then leans back on the counter and relaxes, staring at the oven, listening to the muffled sound of voices chatting on the other side of the door. The people in the other room seem as distant as last year's memories. It's as if she finds herself watching someone else's life being replayed on a stage or a movie screen, not quite real, but demanding her attention for now. She finds herself wondering how the show will end, and soon after that, she wonders when. The pizza continues to cook, permeating the kitchen with the homey, healthy smell. Again she breathes deeply. A life-giving recipe, she hopes. The oven timer rings, and the moment ends. She leans forward, takes the pizzas out of the oven, and places them on top of the stove.

"Pizza time," she says cheerily, leaning her back against the door to open it, carrying a warm pizza tray held high in two ovenmitt-clad hands. Someone pulls the door open the rest of the way and she turns to set the pizza on top of the empty tray where the first one had been. "Help yourselves," she says, and returns to get the other pizza from the kitchen, leaving Charlie to do the cutting and serving.

A minute later, both pizzas delivered to the table, she has little choice but to rejoin the group. They seem to be discussing an upcoming execution, as if it were a sporting event. The ensemble in the room reminds her suddenly of a scene from a World War II movie; a group of Nazi supporters in Berlin, toasting the triumphs of the Reich. She shudders involuntarily. Happily, no one notices.

"This sure is good pizza," Eugene says, for the third or fourth time. "You know what you could do? You could make this for one of the fund raisers," he suggests, to a murmur of general assent.

A f---? Wow. A fund raiser. She's supposed to help these people raise money? Holding her tongue, she smiles an icy smile. "We'll see," she hears herself saying, and notices Charlie's expression turn dark as she does. She forces a bigger smile. "Honestly, I'll have to see if I can. I still have classes and all that. Let me know when you're planning one around here." She directs the remark to Eugene. He nods seriously, taking her remarks at face value, knowing nothing about her true feelings or Charlie's dark mood swings.

"Well, okay then," she says with a little laugh. The conversation moves on, to something about tomorrow's plans for distributing leaflets. She looks at the salad, remembering that earlier in the evening she had looked forward to eating it. At the moment the idea of eating that, or anything else, seems like a foreign concept. She can't imagine forcing herself to swallow anything more.

Chapter 24 – Greenhouse, White House

Zeph wanders into the greenhouse on the beach, his left arm wrapped around Zoe and his right around a lightweight laptop. "Anybody home?" he calls out.

"What's up?" Baldwin asks, stepping out from behind a bank of tall plants. Snake and Annetka soon appear too, garden implements still in hand.

"Wow, this stuff grows fast," Zeph observes.

"We be in the tropics here, mon," Snake points out. "Full of life and hope."

"Plus, I have free gardening help," Baldwin adds, nodding towards the two who have been helping him out with the plants.

"Public service," Snake says with a bow and a smile.

Annetka dips as if in a curtsy.

"What's with the laptop?" Baldwin wants to know. "Hope it runs on batteries."

"It does, but -- You still don't have electricity here?" Zeph responds.

"Too many sea birds for a windmill," Annetka offers in explanation.

"And no money for a tidal power installation," Baldwin adds. "Unless I get a Nobel Prize or something, I'm afraid the greenhouse is going to have to make do without electricity."

"Or you could get them to run lines from the nearest poles up on the road," Zoe observes. "That would be within the modest resources of the government of St. Lucy, I'm pretty sure."

"Waste of money. We don't need it," Baldwin ends the discussion, then repeats his question, "So, what's with the laptop?"

"Skype," Zeph announces.

"What's Skype?" Snake asks. Since he's learned that Baldwin doesn't mind answering questions, he doesn't mind asking them. The friendship he's developed with Baldwin works well for both of them because their strengths and needs fit together like a pair of missing puzzle pieces.

Baldwin explains Skype. "It's like a telephone call, but with pictures, like a movie. So you see who you're talking to, and they see you."

"Who we goin to see on this Skype today?" he asks.

"Katrina," Zeph and Zoe answer at the same time, then laugh together.

"Kat wants to talk about what's happening with the tea you sent," Zeph continues.

"Okay, set it up," Baldwin shrugs.

Snake takes an interest in everything Zeph is doing with the laptop.

"That's the camera eye," Baldwin points out when Zeph mounts the small camera by clipping it onto the top of the screen.

Snake looks at it closely, head tilted, then pulls back. "Like camera in a telephone," he observes.

Baldwin nods. "Skype turns the laptop into a big-screen telephone," he adds.

"So we goin to see when she smile, when she be worried," Snake observes. "Not just guess from the voice."

"Exactly," Zeph chimes in. "That's the whole point. Words don't convey everything. She has some real concerns about this, and we want to get the, uh, whole picture." He looks at his watch. "I told her we'd call at ten, that's another few minutes."

They pass the next few minutes explaining things on the laptop to Snake.

"You goin to get one of these for the greenhouse," Snake finally announces to Baldwin. "The government goin to buy it for you, and you bring it here."

Baldwin sighs. Annetka and Zoe laugh.

"I see electricity in your future," Zoe intones in her best fortune teller voice, waving her hands as if caressing the aura of an invisible crystal ball.

"ZZzzt. Zzzap," Snake adds, moving jerkily as if from electric shocks. His natural grace makes the motion look more like a faux-Egyptian dance step.

"I can recharge it back at the lab every night," Baldwin announces in turn. "The built-in rechargeable battery pack will be fine."

"Order, order," Zeph calls out, tapping a spade on the edge of a greenhouse table as the face of a pretty American girl appears on the laptop screen.

"Uncle Zeph?" the girl's voice is heard to ask. "Is that you?"

"Or maybe a cleverly disguised double?" he answers, turning to face the camera.

"Oh. I thought maybe you grew your hair long enough to comb it over your face, and you were wearing your shirt backwards," Katrina suggests.

Not having met Katrina before, the others laugh.

Zeph introduces everyone. Then he grabs something that looks like a tall stool, but might be a plant stand, and sets it in front of the screen, gesturing to Baldwin to sit on it.

Baldwin looks at the stool, then looks around for a towel or a drop cloth. Annetka hands him something, which he places over the stool before he sits on it, facing the girl on the screen. "This is Baldwin," Zeph repeats the introduction. "You talked to him on the phone before."

Baldwin considers saying, "You can call me Al," but he's pretty sure she'd turn it into a dance number or a joke, so he passes over it. "Katrina, is it? Or Kat?" he asks her, attention fixed on her reaction.

She blinks, as if surprised by an odd question. "Kat is fine. Or Katya. Katrina. Kathy. A rose by any other name would smell the same. And – I can call you Al? Or are you Dr. Baldwin?"

"Fair question. Whatever you like. So what's the problem? Zeph seemed to imply there's something bothering you. Is the therapy not working? You know, I guess Zeph told you, we don't really know if what you're seeing up there is the same strain as what we've been seeing down here, or even if it's related at all."

Baldwin's heartfelt compassion for all humanity comes through clearly in the tone of his voice. Katrina feels instantly disarmed by the immediate human connection, drawn to him and frightened by him at the same time, as if in the presence of the Dalai Lama or some sort of saint. She shudders a little, suddenly acutely aware of the inhumane coldness, the savagery and malevolence, of Charlie's crowd of friends. She wants to fly to the islands, to run screaming from the nightmare her life has turned into.

"What's on your mind, girl," Baldwin says in a friendly way after a minute or so of silence, trying to nudge the conversation along. He speaks as if she were a child, and indeed he feels the same way towards her, in that moment, as he would feel toward a child who might have come crying to him for help after falling and scraping a knee. "You can tell me about it. Tell us. We're here to help you out with this, if we can."

"Wow. Sorry," she says, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. "The tea you sent, it is helping. It seems to be working. He complains a little of headaches, but his mind is definitely getting clearer. He doesn't stare at the wall for long periods like he used to. Doesn't lose his temper as much. It's only been about, what, three days I think, and it's a major change."

"Okay, well that's good. So what's on your mind, then? Maybe he doesn't like the taste? Some side effect like diarrhea or something?"

She laughs. "No. No diarrhea. It's – he likes the taste of it, actually. I mix it with Italian herbs and spices, put it in things like spaghetti and pizza. He loves it. That's the thing, in fact. He loves it, his friends love it. They want me to make big pots of it for their fund raising dinners."

At that Baldwin can't suppress a little laugh, but he returns his attention immediately to the distraught girl. "Maybe you could send me your recipes," Baldwin suggests. "We can start a spaghetti sauce cannery here in the islands."

He intends it as a joke, but the others exchange the look people get when they're simultaneously surprised by a good idea. They have no idea how to start a cannery, of course, but somebody in the government must know. Or somebody at the World Harmony Café, maybe. Somebody on the island. Doug has connections with business people, maybe Doug knows. All these thoughts go through the minds of Baldwin's friends as he continues his heart to heart chat with the unhappy young woman.

"I just don't want to go on like this," Kat is saying to Baldwin when the others start listening again. "I want Charlie to get better. I do. But these people he hangs around with are unbearable. They enjoy executions, for Heaven's sake. They're the same people who dismantled the National Health Services. I certainly don't want to help them raise money to – to carry on this insanity." She throws her hands up, as if gesturing to the heavens for help.

"Insanity. Now, that's a good word for it," Baldwin responds, as even-tempered as usual, hoping his calmness might be at least a little contagious. "I wish I could hold you and comfort you, take away the misery, but I can't do that. What we can work on, though," he says, trying to make eye contact while pausing for effect. "What we can work on is taking away the feeling of despair. You don't have to feel despair anymore. You should be able to see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel now." Again he pauses and looks at her, trying to gauge her reaction to his words. "The therapy is working, right? Of course, you've said it is. So you find yourself in the middle of an epidemic of insanity, and you aren't exactly a trained health worker. Does that sort of paint the right picture?"

After a minute Kat realizes that Baldwin is going to wait until she answers. "Sort of, yes," she says. "I guess so. Maybe." After thinking about it for another few seconds she asks him, "Do you really think all these people could be affected by this virus thing, whatever it is? You don't think they're just, well, naturally insane?"

Baldwin exhales a short little grunt of a laugh. "Well, they could be," he answers, evaluating the question honestly. "That sort of thing does happen. In that case the tea will do them no harm. But what about the ones that aren't that way? Don't you think that at least a few of them might be afflicted like Charlie was? Just suffering from an infection?"

He is a little taken aback to see in her eyes that she doesn't really care, but the expression is fleeting. It is quickly replaced by an overgloss of the compassion that has been trained into her since childhood. She had been raised by Christians, the real kind, the kind who believe in the doctrine of "love thy neighbor".

"It isn't always easy, is it?" He says to her. "To love your neighbor? Oh, say for example, when your neighbor's a son of a b*** who'd just as soon see you dead?"

They both laugh. "You were raised a Christian, right?" he asks her. "Do good to them that hate you and spitefully use you? That sort of thing? You know that book?"

"Yeah," she says. "I've read the book. And yes, it's hard sometimes. I wouldn't have expected you to be a religious man," she adds, "being a scientist and all that."

"Well, I'm not," he allows. "But I have read a lot about it. Funny thing, all the major religions have the golden rule in there someplace, did you know that? The Do unto others thing? It's in Buddhist texts, you can even find it in Islam if you look. It's in all of them. Not that people practice it much, but it is in there. What about you? Are you religious yourself?"

"I don't really know," she answers truthfully. "I was brought up that way, certainly. We were taught what Christ preached. Love one another. Help one another. The Sermon on the Mount. Yes, I, I've been exposed to that. It's like learning to ride a bike, or do simple math. Once you know it, it doesn't go away. It becomes part of you. Even if you don't believe intellectually, the heart continues to believe. So, yes, and no." After a pause she adds a question, "Is that what motivates you to do what you do? To help people, to find cures?"

He echoes her answer. "I don't really know," he says. "It's just what I have to do. So, what's holding you back, then? Are you afraid that if you cook for the fund raisers, you'll really be helping the LiberTEA party get funding?"

She laughs. "No, I guess not. It wouldn't amount to much, anything they'd get from my spaghetti. I just don't like being around them, I guess. And – I'm not sure how much of the tea we have, or if that's the best use of it. Plus we'd be asking Doug to take a chance smuggling it if we need more. I don't see why we should ask a good man like Doug to risk his life and freedom for – for the likes of these people."

Baldwin tilts his head one way, then the other, weighing her arguments.

"I mean, they've shut down the CDC," she adds. "They decided to do that themselves. So now the USA is supposed to get surreptitious foreign aid from St. Lucy to help with an epidemic? Because they didn't want to pay taxes to support public health?"

Baldwin shrugs. "Guess so," he allows.

"Then again," he adds, "The parasite has affected their judgment. It's entirely possible that they were influenced to shut down health services, in the same way that they're influenced to take care of cats. The infected people -- the hosts -- are doing work in the service of the parasite. It sounds far out, but you can see it yourself if you look for it. Look how everybody who gets infected almost immediately starts to love cats. Even infected rodents do that. They walk right up to the cats and let themselves be eaten. I kid you not. The parasite affects their brain in such a way that they do that. Cats are the only hosts that enable the parasite to reproduce. It needs cats. Maybe it needs to shut down health services too."

"You aren't suggesting it's sentient?" she asks, incredulous. "Conscious? A thinking virus, or fungus or whatever it is?"

"Not at all," he assures her, shaking his head. "But it doesn't matter. Only the effect matters."

"Suppose an example," he continues. "Postulate some mechanism. Maybe as the parasite grows, it puts pressure on some particular area of the brain. Or maybe it releases some particular chemicals. Or severs some neural connection. Something that happens as it grows affects the behavior of the host. If that modified behavior of the host happens to facilitate the survival and propagation of the parasite, then that mechanism gets passed on to future generations of parasite."

He inhales deeply, thoughtfully, and exhales again slowly, pondering the monstrous ways that nature sometimes works. "Closing down health services is obviously advantageous to the parasite," he continues. "Maybe closing down all public services is just part of the deal. Maybe the effect just isn't that precise. If the parasite releases some chemical that affects the host in such a way that affected human communities halt all public services, all community efforts of any kind, all help and support of one person for another – maybe that works to the parasite's advantage. . . . I'm just saying. It might be chemicals it releases, it might be pressure on certain areas of the brain. Could be any sort of physical effect that has a follow-on effect on behavior.

These people that seem so whacked out to you, so vicious, so unworthy of saving – maybe they're just sick."

He stops at that, looks at her, and sighs heavily. She may not be up to the task of distributing the cure, he realizes. And after all, he asks himself, why should she? Why should she be better than other people?

She breathes in slowly and deeply, looking at Baldwin steadily. "You want me to do this?" she asks. "You want the government of St. Lucy to foot the bill for distributing this cure to big gatherings of rich American right wing fanatics, sort of a free soup kitchen for the rich, paid for by the not-so-rich?"

He looks back at her steadily, and nods.

She takes a deep breath, and exhales heavily.

"We're all in this together," he says at last. "That's why I do this, to answer your earlier question. Epidemics don't see national boundaries. They don't see class boundaries, or ethnic boundaries. If this is widespread in North America, it will affect the islands. Maybe give rise to another mutation that won't be so easy to cure. We need to stop disease of any kind wherever it is, before it spreads." He moves as if to rise from the stool, but he hears her ask him another question.

"Are sporadic treatments really going to help?" She asks. "Is one spaghetti dinner going to do anything?"

He shrugs. "Maybe, if the person was just recently infected, yes, it could be enough. However," he adds, "I think we have another idea." He looks around at the others. He had noticed their reactions to the idea of a spaghetti sauce cannery.

"And that is?" she asks.

"Your nickname, Kat, is very convenient for appealing to cat lovers," Baldwin observes, as if it were unrelated to the subject at hand. Then he clarifies the point. "It would be good as part of a brand name for an exotic brand of spaghetti sauce imported from the islands. We could put a high price on it, so the food snobs can think they're getting something good. Certainly it'll be rare. Who knows, we might even be able to charge enough to cover our costs. Have Doug contact me if you talk to him. Tell him his father's dream is about to come true: He's going to start his own business. He's going to be a spaghetti sauce magnate. Kat's spaghet-TEA sauce, with a secret mixture of herbs and spices, distributed exclusively at rallies and fund-raisers."

"Think about this, Kat," Baldwin concludes. "Suppose this guy who's running for president really is infected. Imagine if you can cure him. Imagine you could cure just that one guy. Do you see the difference that could make?"

As unlikely as it seems on a Skype connection, their eyes seem to meet.

Chapter 25 – The Liberty Tea Company

Late Saturday morning, Katrina joins the collection of random students who sit in the courtyard outside the Student Union coffee shop, lounging, studying, chatting with each other, listening to iPods, listening to the birds sing, breathing in the fresh spring air. Flowering trees are scattered everywhere. Red and yellow tulips dot the grounds. The scent of mixed garden flowers hangs in the air.

As tired of life as she feels after the hard winter, Katrina enjoys seeing spring come over Wisconsin. The land is coming back to life, and immersing herself in it gives her the feeling that she can be reborn along with the land. As she walks slowly across the courtyard, tired but graceful, she feels the energy of life flowing back into her a little more with each step she takes.

Inside the coffee shop she fills an extra large insulated cardboard cup with a mix of the herbal teas and pays for it with a wave of her smart phone. Then she comes back outside to enjoy the ambience and wait for Doug to meet her. She takes a seat at a table on the edge of the crowd, where she can feel that she is part of the group without worrying too much about their conversation being overheard. She sips the tea and looks around, soaking up the atmosphere, not bothering even to read a book. The realization strikes her that it's relaxing just to be away from Charlie, to be free from apprehension about when another bout of irrationality will strike. She sighs, and sips the tea.

"Not great tasting tea, I'd wager," Doug says cheerily, coming up unseen behind her and taking a seat in the wrought iron garden chair on her right, setting his backpack and laptop case on the table.

"It's pretty bad, actually," she admits with a little laugh. "Though I've had worse."

That makes it Doug's turn to laugh. "You don't mean Paradise Island Tea, I hope?" he asks. "Because I've heard that's great stuff."

"And so it is," she agrees happily. "Charlie's definitely improving. Still not exactly what I'd call sane, but definitely improving. The periods of blank staring at the wall are gone, and he doesn't rant as much."

"The guys in the islands told me your spaghetti sauce is all the rage," Doug continues, smiling. "To die for, as people say."

She laughs lightly again. "Or not," she answers as expected. "For Not-to-die. That's the goal."

"It tastes good, though, right?" he asks again. "I mean, the way you prepare it, in spaghetti, or pizza."

"Same sauce for both," she answers, "and yes, they're loving it. I guess the guys told you about the plan? To start a spaghetti sauce business and dose the whole insaniTEA, sorry, LiberTEA party?"

"A tea party? That's a great idea," Doug answers, laughing. "I thought they were talking about organizing pizza parties, but either way. Now that you mention it," he continues, glancing at her as if it had been her idea, "I have been thinking about that tea idea. A beverage might be better for distribution. If you -- with your impressive culinary talent -- could turn that herbal concoction into something people would want to drink, that might be a better way to go on this. Relative to an Italian tomato sauce, which would have a smaller target market."

She considers the idea.

"I understand the competition in the herbal tea market isn't too formidable," he adds after a silent pause, gesturing in the direction of her cardboard cup.

She smiles. "There are reasons Starbuck's doesn't sell a lot of herbal tea," she says. "Not least of which is taste."

"That's where your talents come into play, my lady," the young man responds, with a hint of a bow. "Seriously," he adds, turning serious, "Have you thought about it at all? Developing something for the beverage market? I mean, apparently you do know a lot about cooking. Or so I'm hearing."

She laughs.

"Seriously. If these guys want your pizza this much, that's a real compliment. Remember, a lot of these people are accustomed to eating in four star restaurants, eating filet mignon and caviar." Unable to resist adding a joke, he adds, "Besides that, sometimes they eat really good food too."

She responds with good humor, "So this is a sales pitch on what a great cook I am? To reel me into doing what \-- developing a killer formula for a herbal tea that will turn Starbucks green with envy?" She holds up both hands in a gesture of incomprehension and helplessness.

"This is no time for modesty, my dear," he dismisses the issue. "Lives are at stake," he adds, in a tone that combines mock humor with mock seriousness, lifting one eyebrow and looking at her slightly sideways.

She laughs automatically at his tone and expression. "You ask me to do the impossible, sir," she objects, making her best effort at Shakespearian English.

"Nay, only what would be impossible for a lesser mortal," he responds playfully, "for your talents are as infinite as the heavens, your cooking wisdom as deep as the ocean. Surely woman never lived who could outcook you."

She shakes her head and smiles at the same time. "Honestly, Doug. A good tasting herbal tea? That's a bit more difficult than spaghetti sauce." After a quick pause she adds, "Could I add ginger and apple?"

He smiles and nods. "That's my girl. We can call it The Island Kat Tea Company, what do you think?"

"Liberty Tea might be an idea," she suggests, brainstorming. "Not Sani-Tea," she comes up with another idea and dismisses it just as quickly.

"Sanity? Funny, and tempting, but no, It tips our hand and besides that it sounds suggestive of sanitation," he agrees. "We'll leave Sani-Tea off the short list. Kat's Meow? Kat's Caffeine-free Kapow?"

"The name doesn't really have to have the word Tea in it, I guess," she says, "but the word Tea does directly address our, what did you call it, target market? The LiberTEA party members infected with this brain-eating parasite? So then, having TEA in the name might be good." She pauses to mull it over for a few seconds before adding, "I can see by that same reasoning that having Kat in the name is good too, because anybody in our 'target market' is going to love cats, so they'll be drawn to the word KAT. They certainly care more for cats than they do for people. If we could name it Liberty Kat Tea that would be something they could really identify with. Maybe have a picture of a sleek black cat stretching and rubbing itself on the liberty bell. Or a white cat, if the background is dark."

"Did I detect a note of, um, animosity in your voice?" Doug responds. "Oh, wait, maybe it was the actual words you used that gave me that idea," he adds. "Really, you think they dislike their fellow man?"

"Let me see," she pretends to ponder the question. "They don't want to pay taxes. They don't think they should have to spend money to fund public health care, not even for children, pregnant women, the elderly, the incapacitated, not even for the shattered war veterans who got their injuries fighting in wars to defend the liberty -- and international business interests \-- the LiberTEA party prizes so much. They think they should be totally free to do whatever they want, pollute the air and the water with dioxins and everything else, cut down forests, drill and spill oil."

Doug stares at her, surprised, but he lets her outburst run its course. Better to let her get it out.

"That's freedom," she continues. "That's liberty. They can run their overloaded logging trucks on public roads and bridges, use so much public water from government-built dams that ordinary farmers with ordinary shallow wells run dry. When the bills come in for rebuilding and repairing not just the broken people but the roads and bridges and dams, well, everybody else -- ordinary everyday people who aren't rich -- bear the costs. In money and in blood."

Doug just looks at her.

She stops and shakes her head, then changes tack. "You know what? You might be right," she says. "None of that means they don't care about their fellow man. It just means they're tremendously self-centered. Really they're just acting like spoiled children. Which I guess makes sense, since, you know, the rich ones mostly are. Spoiled children, but grown up, physically. I'm guessing here, I'm no psychologist."

He puts on a straight face, but his eyes twinkle with the effort of restraining laughter. The subject is deadly serious, but her outburst was still funny. After a few more seconds of silent eye contact, they both burst into laughter together.

"Sorry, was that a bit much?" Kat says when she can speak again, eyes wet with laughter, barely able to get out the words without breaking up laughing again. "It was a bit of a digression," she adds.

Doug is smiling and shaking his head, eyes still bright. "So you have some issues with the LiberTEA party, then?" he manages to say. "A little tension of some sort? I'm guessing here, I'm no psychologist."

They both laugh again, and Kat blushes slightly. "The point was," she says sheepishly, eyes averted, "Liberty Kat Tea might be a good name. You know, it has liberty in it, and cats, and tea."

Doug laughs lightly and shakes his head. "You had a hard winter," he concludes. "It's taken its toll on your disposition."

"Very hard," she agrees, still a little embarrassed over her outburst, looking down at the grounds around them rather than meeting his eyes.

"You've been very attached to Charlie for a while now," Doug points out analytically, "and you feel like the LiberTEA party has taken him away from you. All that pent up energy has to go somewhere. So you had a little outburst. No big deal. You're among friends here."

She says nothing for a minute, eyes still lowered, looking at the concrete tiles of the courtyard around them, where she notices a stray or feral cat foraging around the legs of the tables, looking for scraps and handouts. "Speaking of cats," she says, "Look over there. There's one of the little guys now."

"Speaking of cats," he answers, nodding, and looks in the same direction. He pulls out a small drawstring pouch from his backpack. From the pouch he takes a few pellets of something that looks like kibble or kitten chow. With his right hand he pitches a pellet gently in the direction of the young cat, so that it hits the concrete a few feet short of the target, then skips past it, like a stone skipping across water. The cat chases the pellet as if chasing a mouse.

"You carry cat food with you?" she asks. "Now it's my turn to be surprised."

"It's experimental," he says, tossing a second pellet after the cat chomps down the first. The second pellet meets the same quick fate. Then the cat sits, swishing its tail and licking its lips, looking in the direction of Kat and Doug. "We've been made," he jokes. Then he tosses another pellet with less force. It falls short of the cat's position by about a foot. The cat walks over to it slowly, sniffs at it, and devours it quickly. Again the cat sits and looks at him, licking its lips and swishing its tail.

Doug sighs and looks at Kat. She seems to have gotten over her embarrassment.

"Baldwin is developing some cat chow," he explains. "He says the only way to get rid of this thing for good is to cure the cats. People aren't the primary hosts, cats are. Cats are the key to the parasite's life cycle. Any cats will do. Pet cats sure, but stray cats, feral cats, wildcats work just as well. Bobcats, mountain lions. Circus lions. Right now it seems like pet cats are the main carriers, and that's a good thing, because we can reach them. Wildcats, with all of North America for their range, would be almost impossible." He pauses and tosses another pellet, a foot closer than the last one. Again the cat approaches. "I guess the flavor formula works," Doug observes. Katrina is still quiet. "Baldwin says we're lucky this wasn't an avian thing. You know, carried by birds. I mean, birds can get it, just like mice and people can, but cats are the key host that it has to have to reproduce. It lays its eggs while it's inside the cat's guts. Disgusting, if you ask me, like much of real life, but there it is. Our only chance to get rid of this thing totally is if we can cure all the cats." He can't think of anything more to tell her about it, so they sit together in silence for a while. The stray cat gradually approaches them, drawn on by the tossed pellets.

"You did take your vaccine, right?" she asks him, feigning apprehension about their newfound feline friend, as if forgetting that the two of them took the vaccine together not long ago in this very quad.

He exhales a short grunt of a laugh. "I was wondering the same about you," he says, glancing over to see her response. She smiles, bobs her head slightly, blinks her still moist eyes, and meets his gaze.

"Am I wrong here, Doug?" she asks. "I mean, okay, that was an outburst, I kind of went off on you a little bit there. I'm sorry about that. Okay, maybe it was a lot, not a little. But I'm not wrong about the ideas." She looks at his eyes, as if waiting for an answer, but none comes immediately. "Oh well," she continues. "I'm sorry to have gone off on you like that. Really I am. I've been so stressed out, you know, with Charlie and his LiberTEA party cronies and all that."

Doug nods. "I know," he says, looking at her steadily, searching for words that might ease her mood. "But it's almost over now," he says, trying to sound reassuring, to offer comfort and hope. "We're on the down side of the slope. We have to slog on these last few miles. But we're in it together. We have a good group. We can do this thing."

Looking at him, she smiles, cocks her head, and sits up a little straighter, all in one motion, obviously encouraged. To Doug the whole world seems to brighten a little at that smile.

"Thank you for being here for me, Doug," she says to him, eyes warm and open, clearly sincere.

"Always," he answers, and lets the moment run its course in silence.

"So I'm thinking we'll incorporate in St. Lucy," he says after a while. "We can call it The Island Kat Tea Company, Limited, and ..."

Making a time-out gesture with her hands, Katrina shakes her head, her expression the smile of a woman who catches a man trying to fast-talk her into something. "Wait a minute," she says when he pauses. "Whoa. We haven't settled on the name yet. Island Kat Tea? I don't think so. The word Tea is good, and Kat is okay, but Island not so much. Surely we want something more patriotic, less exotic and foreign. Liberty Bell Tea. LiberTEA party Tea. The Boston LiberTEA Party Company. Something."

"LiberTEA Belle Tea Company, spelled B-e-l-l-e?" he asks, not seriously. He just wants to see her reaction.

"Who'll bell the cat?" she replies, shaking her head as if she isn't following his train of thought.

He looks back at her the same way. "How about LiberTEA tea? Or Liber Tea? Doesn't really sound good," he replies to his own suggestions, shaking his head. "Liberty Tea might work. Liberty Bell Tea, Liberty Kat Tea, LiberTEA libations, no, groan, uh, Kat's LiberTEA food co.? Sounds boring, even to me. I'm liking Liberty Tea. It's simple, and we don't infringe on the party name."

The stray cat reaches their table and brushes against Doug's leg, angling for attention. Doug pets its head and puts down a few more pellets, which the cat proceeds to devour.

"What do we call the cat food?" she asks. "If it's a Tea company."

"Good point. Kat's Gourmet Tea Cakes for Cats? Patty cake -- KatTea Cake? Delicious herbal health for gourmet cats with discriminating owners? It should have the word gourmet in it," he says.

"Maybe the drinks should too. Kat's LiberTEA Gourmet Tea?" she suggests. "spelled -ty or -TEA, either way."

"That's a good name for the tea," Doug agrees, nodding, looking at her, but also looking past her into a world of possibilities. "We can spell it liber-t-y or liber-t-e-a depending on what we can negotiate with the party. I'm not paying them for the use of the name, though, so I think we might have to stick with the -ty spelling."

Kat shrugs. "You won't find me donating money to the party," she agrees. "Then again, if we spell it with lowercase letters it might not be a trademark infringement. If they even have a trademark. Should we?"

"Yeah, we have to trademark our name, whatever it is. So it should be unique. I'll check with the lawyers to see if changing to lowercase would be enough. I agree I don't want to make any decision that mind end up forcing us to turn over any money to that party."

After a while Doug continues, "Okay. So, we'll have a line of hot and cold beverages that eventually we might market through places like Starbucks and Panera, but we start with Kat's Gourmet Liberty TEA, which can be served hot or iced, and during the trial marketing period it will be sold only at LiberTEA party functions. We tell them it's a trial marketing period. Maybe it's all the distribution we'll ever need, but we'll see. Let's say it'll be an apple ginger spicy thing with an earthy undertone characteristic of Kat's secret blend of herbs and spices. Or whatever formula, or recipe, you come up with on that." He stops for a minute and looks at her, to be sure she's still following. She looks into his eyes, but her expression tells him she still feels dubious about her ability to create the product.

"Kat," Doug says to her, seeing her expression, "it seems to me that you apply the analytical mind of a scientist to cooking problems. I know you, Kat. You're bright and creative. You're bound to come up with something good that people will be lining up to drink."

Again she shrugs. Probably she can work out a good drink recipe. Toss in apple and ginger and cinnamon, what can go wrong. They sit in silence for a minute again.

"Doug?" Katrina asks at last.

"Yeah?" he responds.

"Not all of them are infected with the parasite. Some of them are just nuts on their own," she says sadly.

He nods in agreement. "And some of them really are greedy self-absorbed villains who long for world domination. But most of them are just well-meaning but naive people, dupes taken in by the rhetoric and deceit of a handful at the top. The thing is, there have always been people like that. Both of those kinds of people. Usually there just aren't so many of them. At present their ranks have been greatly swelled by victims like Charlie under the influence of the parasite."

They look at each other for a minute. Then Doug presents the bottom line, "We're going to do what we can to cure the ones who can be cured. That's all we can do."

After a minute he adds a few more words of reassurance. "It really ought to be enough, Kat. There have always been people with radical fringe ideas. That's okay. It's even good for discourse and progress, as long as the fringe ideas stay on the fringe. Let's focus on the actual problem at hand: Curing the afflicted, controlling the parasite, driving back the night. We don't have to get rid of night entirely, we don't even have to be afraid of the existence of night. We just can't let night overwhelm everything and drive us back into the dark ages."

She sighs and nods, then breathes deeply and relaxes.

He takes a deep breath and relaxes too, looking at her, pretty sure she has settled down and is ready to work.

He opens the laptop and brings up a document titled Articles of Incorporation. He fills in the company name, The Liberty Tea Company. She sees her name listed as one of the principal shareholders and directors. He turns the computer so the screen faces her, and she goes through the document, half reading, half skimming.

"I'm one of your business partners?" she asks.

"It's going to be all your formulas for the drinks," he answers. "Also, this way you can charge off business expenses. Food items and kitchen equipment for research and development. Distribution costs. Travel, including business trips to the island. In fact if your kitchen at the apartment isn't good enough for this research, we can look around, and have the company rent a storefront or an office, maybe a closed restaurant or deli, something like that, around here someplace. It would be our USA Headquarters, housing our local R&D lab. Oh, and I've taken the step of acquiring some startup capital, courtesy of my father. That's why he's also a shareholder. It's a reasonable division of responsibilities. Dad supplies the startup capital, I manage the business, and you're in charge of Research and Development for the products."

Somehow this surprises her. After reflecting on it she realizes there's nothing in it that should really be surprising. She knows Doug. She knows this is who he is. She just isn't used to seeing him in this light. "What about Baldwin?" she asks.

"He doesn't want to be directly involved," Doug says, exhaling a deep breath as he does so. The two look at each other. When neither speaks for a minute, Doug realizes it's up to him to pick up the ball. "The government of St. Lucy will supply us with herbs and spices, which will be sold as byproducts of Baldwin's greenhouse operation. They'll be billed as scraps and cuttings. We'll be acquiring them for food use, as spices and herbs, not for any medicinal purpose. When and if Baldwin happens to know of some medicinal purpose, that will then put these ingredients into the same logical, and hopefully legal, category as quinine. People drink tonic water as a beverage. The quinine in the tonic water also happens to be effective against malaria." At that he stops, makes a bulgy-cheek fish face for an instant, then looks at Kat.

They both laugh together.

"Tonic water," she says.

He smiles, tilts his head to the left a bit, and shrugs. "Tonic water is the model," he affirms.

They both laugh again.

"Look at coffee," he points out. "You can't tell me caffeine isn't a biologically active agent. So, what do you say? Are you in?" he asks. Then in a half-humorous change of voice he adds, "People are dying," drawing out the last two syllables. They both know it's true, and it's serious, but they treat it like gallows humor.

She tilts her head and shrugs in acceptance. "Okay, I guess," she says.

He nods, and extends a hand. "It's customary to shake hands to agree business arrangements," he explains. "I'm afraid it's a part of my upbringing that I'm rather wedded to," he adds, slightly embarrassed. "It doesn't change our friendship at all. Shouldn't affect it. Just a business agreement. As a friend, you can trust that I'll always have your back, Kitten, business or not. Remember that."

She looks at him oddly, again seeing a side of him than she hadn't seen prior to today. They shake hands.

"There'll be some papers for you to sign. Maybe I can print them out someplace around here?" he asks.

"You can be a cold customer," she observes.

"Guilty as charged. It's part of the package. Now," he says, folding up the laptop, "Did you manage to get any samples from Nina? Anything I should take down to Baldwin and your uncle Zeph?"

"We can talk about that," she says, "while we wander through campus looking for a concert. Oh, and the library has printers. Shall we go? Or do you want to try some of this Student Union Substandard Herbal Tea first?"

"Walking sounds good," he agrees, and rises to join her. "Is there a concert today, really?" He asks.

"Yeah," she answers, "I checked ahead of time. It starts around lunchtime. Gives us time to go to the library first."

"You're very efficient," he points out.

"Hey," she says, "I'm a businesswoman now. Hadn't you heard?"

"A research scientist," he spins it for her. "You're in charge of R&D on a new product line at a startup company."

At that they walk off together towards the library, and the uncertain future.

Chapter 26 – A LiberTEA party

Balloons, confetti and patriotic streamers of crepe paper are splashed everywhere around the hotel ballroom in an extravaganza of red, white and blue.

An unrecognizable amalgam of Johnny Be Good and the national anthem blasts from giant speakers, eradicating any chance of ordinary social conversation. An original piece perhaps, Katrina reflects on the music, smiling as she hands out another big glass of chilled red Liberty Tea to a party supporter.

Free floating balloons and loose bits of paper bounce on the air currents from the air conditioner fans and the movements of the crowd, giving a visitor the feeling of floating dreamlike on, or in, a giant American flag undulating in a tired wind.

The instruments are not tuned to concert pitch. The tempo is awkwardly uneven, and too quick. The musicians seem to be trying to compensate for their shortcomings with enthusiasm and volume.

The campaign is in full swing.

Katrina sighs, wishing she had thought to bring earplugs. She looks around as if searching for a way to get some relief, but she knows very well that she has to endure the evening until it ends. Smilingly she pours two more tall glasses of the popular red herbal tea, which empties another gallon jug from her supply. Still smiling, she hands the glasses to two well-dressed people she doesn't recognize, probably a married couple. She picks up another gallon jug. Fifteen down, twenty-five to go, the calculation pops into her mind.

The well-dressed woman sips the tea and looks surprised, smiling as she turns to her husband to see his reaction. He sips the tea and smiles back at his wife, nodding, then turns to look at Katrina. He points to the placard displayed imposingly behind the table, and nods approvingly. The placard says:

What would a LiberTEA rally be

without a cold glass of Liberty Tea?

Make tonight a Tea party -- for the LiberTEA party

Special limited trial for LiberTEA party supporters only

Liberty Tea

Let us know what you think

of the new gourmet drink

Katrina smiles at her visitor and gives a thumbs up gesture.

The well-dressed man smiles back condescendingly. With his wife on his left arm and the drink in his right hand, he can't very well return the thumbs up. Instead he turns back to his wife and guides her away from the table, back into the crowd. As she leaves she looks back at Katrina, smiling broadly, and nods approval.

So, Katrina thinks, they're drinking the tea. She sighs, exhaling heavily. That's good, anyway. They're drinking the tea.

Charlie comes up and pours two glasses of tea and carries them off. She sees him meet Marie Mallon about twenty yards away. Marie isn't exactly alone, but she isn't with anyone specific either. Charlie hands her one of the glasses, which she accepts. Katrina watches as they begin drinking the tea and then walk off together. Katrina is surprised to note that she feels nothing about it beyond scientific detachment. She shakes her head, shrugs, and goes back to pouring the popular tea.

Outside on the veranda, Charlie and Marie find garden chairs and sit at an angle to each other in the half light.

"This tea tastes exactly like apple pie," Marie says. "Just exactly; and the best homemade apple pie, at that. It looks sort of like pink champagne or cherry soda, but when you drink it, it's exactly like drinking liquid apple pie." So saying, she takes another sip. "Wow," she continues. "This sure beats my homemade bread."

"Nonsense," Charlie reassures her. "People loved your homemade bread. In fact you two could set up an event together, a tea and toast kind of thing. You could make little buns or croissants or individual bread loaves of some kind. Make it an afternoon tea party for the LiberTEA party. Sort of like that dinner at the farm, but toned down a little. Less work. A smaller and more intimate gathering. Hot tea and hot bread. It'd be perfect for a fund raiser."

"Is this tea still as good as this when it's hot?" she asks him, incredulous, looking at his eyes for the answer.

"Like hot apple pie," he answers, staring back at her evenly and smiling.

"Wow," she says again, and takes another drink of the tea. After half a minute of silence she comes back to Charlie's idea. "It would be like what they call High Tea," she decides. "We could do that. I could make little cinnamon buns and things too, not just plain bread. And those nice farm ladies could donate fresh butter. Weren't they wonderful, those women on the farm?" she asks Charlie's opinion. The success of several of his ideas has led her to place a lot of faith in his judgment.

"They were nice," he says, "and they still are. We'll ask them to send, or bring, fresh butter. It's a great idea."

Marie nods, happy when the genius Charlie approves of one of her ideas. She feels validated.

Back in the ballroom, Katrina continues to dispense the life-saving liquid to all comers, smiling so frequently that her face begins to feel strained from the exercise of it.

Before she has gone halfway through the forty gallons of beverage she brought to the event, Doug appears in the room, looking well dressed himself and totally at ease with the situation. She is surprised to see him, and very happy. The scientist in her is then surprised at her reaction. She laughs. "What are you doing here?" she tries to ask, mouthing the words slowly because she can't be heard.

Doug smiles too, and points to an empty tea jug, then makes a questioning gesture and expression. He wants to know if she wants him to bring in more tea.

She considers it and shrugs, gesturing with both hands held out to the side, palms up, almost at shoulder height.

Doug laughs and shrugs too. After a minute he takes out a piece of paper and writes, "Next time we hire someone to pass out the tea."

She nods and laughs, and he balls up the piece of paper and puts it in his jacket pocket. He looks around. Not seeing Charlie, he decides there's nothing to stop him from joining Katrina in dispensing the spiced herbal tea. Pouring and serving up tall glasses of Katrina's carefully engineered concoction, he smiles and nods at the guests like a natural born politician. Katrina's spirits are greatly buoyed by his arrival, but since he hadn't seen her alone, he can't know that. They carry on working and laughing together, pouring tea, floating in a sea of raucous music, patriotic colors, and seemingly random people.

Ten gallons of tea later, the night is still going strong. Doug sees that he'll have to leave Katrina's company long enough to go pick up more tea from their local headquarters, which at present is also their world headquarters: a converted restaurant they've leased, not terribly far from the hotel.

"I won't be gone long," he writes on a piece of paper. "Have to pick up more tea."

She nods and smiles at him. It's a different smile than she gives the others. She meets his eyes with hers, and in her eyes he sees deep human warmth tinged with both sadness and happiness, a nuanced mix.

Reluctantly he leaves to go pick up the resupply of the drink.

Katrina is left alone in the crowd with her feelings and her thoughts. The scientist in her observes, as if watching another person, that seeing Doug walk away leaves her with a feeling of emptiness. She recognizes it as the same empty feeling she felt when Charlie first started to withdraw into his illness, leaving her on the outside, leaving her alone. She shakes her head slightly, blinks deliberately, and takes a deep breath. So that's the feeling of being left alone. That's the feeling loneliness, as contrasted with solitude. She reflects on it like a scientific observation.

New patrons arrive rapidly at the table, looking for the fantastic tea. Smiling a broad artificial smile, she turns back to her work, pouring the tea with grace. "Thirsty?" she asks, as if she could be heard. "Here, try some of this. That should make you feel better."

Chapter 27 – Back on St. Lucy

Warm pastel sunset splashes across the sky above the soft Caribbean beach. Gentle waves caress the sand and draw back slowly in lacy retreat, then return to nuzzle the sand again softly in an endless rhythm. Above the water's edge, a few gulls and pelicans drift on the lazy breeze that carries the soft clean air in from the sea. The light percussion of the water splashing the shore is broken with a subchorus of intermittent sea bird calls, haunting and lonely.

Annetka exits the greenhouse on the beach, wearing a light summer daytime dress, carrying a canvas beach bag over her left shoulder. She pulls the door closed behind her, latching it securely to protect the plants inside from the vagaries of the wind. The warm breeze tosses her long loose hair and caresses her, as if welcoming her back outside. She stops and stands facing the coastline, looking out over the panorama of the sea. The beauty of St. Lucy, the only home she has ever known, fills her being as she takes a deep breath of the salty clean air. St. Lucy, the beach, her anchor points in a chaotic world, are a part of her, just as she is a part of St. Lucy. She stands for a few minutes, breathing deeply and slowly, relaxed, looking out over the sunset beach, until she feels completely at peace and at one with her world.

Behind her, from the direction of the road, Baldwin appears, walking quietly towards her. He sees her standing silhouetted against the sunset, her light dress fluttering against her skin, her light hair flowing. He thinks of a frame from an old movie shot in the South Pacific, then of a magazine ad. None of the reminiscences that flit across his mind can match the reality of the transcendent beauty of the moment, the place, the woman he loves. He watches her and walks towards her slowly and quietly as all the memories and flickering pictures are washed away by the perfect reality of the moment.

She becomes aware of his approach, though she neither hears nor sees him. He comes close, stands at her right side. Slowly he puts his left arm around her waist and very gently draws her close. Gently he kisses the top of her head, then rubs his cheek softly against her hair. She leans her head against his shoulder, and he strokes the side of her head softly with his right hand, then kisses the top of her head again.

"You're late," she says softly. "I was going home," she adds.

"Mmm," he responds, nuzzling the side of her head gently, smelling her hair. "You've caught me. I was out with another woman."

"Liar," she says. "I know you. You were working late again."

He smiles and takes her head in both his hands gently, turning her face to his. "You know me so well," he answers her when their eyes meet. She pouts in response. "So let's get married," he says, not for the first time.

"It isn't time yet," she answers, not for the first time. She pulls back a tiny bit, just enough to get him to drop his hands from her face. "Besides, do you expect me to marry a man who'll never be home on time? It'll only get worse. We're doomed," she adds with a sigh and a smile.

"Doomed to be together forever," he responds. "I'll accept that fate anytime."

She breathes deeply again and turns to face the lingering sunset. Again he puts his arm around her and draws her close. This time she extends her right arm around his waist in response, and they stand locked together. Together they watch the sea a little while longer, until the land falls dim and the birds fall silent.

"Let's go sit with Paddy," the scientist says at last, when the sky has fallen to charcoal. He squeezes her waist gently, as if pulling her to go.

"Paddy?" she asks.

"Paddy O'Furniture," he responds. "Irish. Worse than me. Stays out all night."

She smiles and they walk back toward the greenhouse, where they've recently set up a collection of patio furniture on the sand.

"Want something to drink?" Baldwin asks as he releases his girlfriend's hand and opens the greenhouse door.

"Sure, anything that's there," she responds with a shrug, and reclines on a comfortable chair.

He comes back out with two open bottles of something, maybe the local beer, maybe fruit juice. He hands her one and sits next to her in the moonlight. "I love you, girl," he tells her.

"I love you too," she answers. "So, how's work going?" she adds a vague open question, taking a hesitant sip of the drink. She wants to know what kept him apart from her for the last few hours, but it isn't in her nature to be pushy or intrusive. She's happy that he's here now. Still, she wonders.

"Everything's smooth. We're through the lab trials and the government approvals. That's a lot easier here than in the states, I can tell you. We even filed patent applications. Oh, and now we've found a small commercial lab here on the island that's agreed to manufacture a few runs of the stuff. We don't think we're going to need a lot here in the islands. The outbreak isn't that big yet, and the population is small. That's where I was this afternoon, working some things out at the manufacturing facility. The government's still talking to itself about whether to do a full scale vaccination program. Anyway, we should be ready to start general distribution to hospitals here in the islands within a fortnight. Here's to your health," he says, raising his drink.

"Here's to the health of the islands and all their people," she responds, clinking her drink against his.

They sip their drinks and watch the full moon rise in the dark sky, enjoying each other's company and the warm night.

"Hospitals can get it already, can't they?" Annetka asks after a while. "I thought you were already giving it to hospitals."

"Yes, we are. I am. But it's on a clinical trial basis," he answers. "Each case has to be approved to participate in the trial. The victims, or their families, sign waivers. They all get approval. There's no problem with that. But it's a small scale, handcrafted approach. A couple of weeks from now any doctor in the islands should be able to get the medication in a standardized dose without talking to me. They'll just order it through pharmacies. Now that we've got the manufacturing started." He takes another sip of his drink and decides it's probably beer.

"I'm glad you're here," Annetka remarks after a minute. "I mean, not just here for me now, but here on St. Lucy, working on things like this. Saving people's lives. It's good. It makes me feel safer. It makes me feel like the world is a safer place; like St. Lucy is a safer place."

"So, America's loss is your gain, then, hey?" he summarizes. "That's nice to hear," he comments, leaning back a bit more in his chair. After a pause he adds, "from you."

"You know how I feel about you," she answers.

"It's still nice to hear," he says. "Maybe I'm insecure. I don't know. I like hearing you say things like that. Makes me feel safer myself, I guess." He looks at her for a second to gauge her mood. "Safe you aren't harboring some seething undercurrent of silent anger about me being late tonight," he ends with a smile and a straight look.

"Not mad," she answers, shaking her head and smiling, meeting his eyes with hers. "Just happy you're here now."

"Okay, so, do you want to go out to dinner now?" he asks, his voice going up enquiringly at the end as he sits up a bit straighter, turning in his chair to suggest action. "It's not very late really. World Harmony's open at least til midnight."

"Funny thing, I brought some Chinese carry out food," she answers, "in those little white cardboard cartons, you know? I'd been thinking we might eat here. Maybe spend the night. I don't know if it's still good. It's been sitting out for a few hours now, in a greenhouse in the tropics on a hot afternoon." Standing up from her chair, she shrugs and turns the palms of her hands toward the sky. "You're the scientist," she turns over the question to Baldwin. "You decide."

Baldwin also rises from his chair. "Well, we're young and strong. We could probably chance it," he allows, putting both arms around her waist and drawing her close, "but World Harmony is a safer bet. Anyway it's a Friday night. Let's go out." As an afterthought he adds, "Let's take the carry-out food with us though, and throw it out someplace. I don't want to attract rats to the greenhouse."

So, carrying two half empty drink bottles and a bag of Chinese carry-out, they walk up toward the road. Before they can go twenty yards along the road toward town, they turn around at the sound of a car stopping behind them near the greenhouse. Nothing else occupies that stretch of beach, so they pause to look. In the moonlight they see a tall young man step out of the car and look at the greenhouse, then up the road at them.

"Friend or foe?" Baldwin calls out.

"Are those all the options?" Doug calls back.

"Look what the sea washed up onto the beach!" Baldwin responds, recognizing the voice. He pulls Annetka's hand gently to walk back toward the visitor. "We were just going out to eat. Want to join us? World Harmony Cafe. Great place. Real food."

"Sure. Don't mind if I do. Want a ride?" Doug says as the two arrive at the car. "What are you carrying, lab samples? The car's a rental, so I don't care if you bring it along."

"Trash," Annetka responds. "It used to be food. We just need to throw it out."

"Romantic," Doug smiles. "Baldy really knows how to treat a girl."

"I guess you're much better at that," Baldwin responds. "Is Katrina with you?"

"Very funny," Doug answers, losing the smile. "I wish I could get her to come down here. But, no, she's still with Charlie. And she's still in college. Come on, get in the car. I'm hungry."

With that they all pile into the rental car and take off for the Cafe. During the short trip Doug catches them up on current events in the north. Charlie is well on his way to recovery. Katrina's Liberty Tea is becoming a megahit. Cats like the kibble. The lawyers think the tea is probably legal, like health food and herbal remedies. The government is the same dysfunctional shambles. The good news is, a few of the party members seem to be starting to wake up, Charlie among them.

They park on the street near World Harmony. Baldwin discards the drink bottles and the bag of carry-out food in a green metal barrel under an antique street light.

Even though it's Friday night, they still see a few empty tables on the patio. They choose the nearest one, at the edge of the sidewalk. Seeing them sit down, a waitress brings over menus, walking slowly, her skirt swaying, looking around at each table as she passes it. As she sets down the menus, she casts a flirtatious glance at a young man sitting alone at the next table, before turning to look in turn at Baldwin and Doug. Annetka and Baldwin order from memory while Doug speed-reads through the eclectic selections.

"Three soft tacos with rice and beans, and a papaya mango smoothie," Doug announces his choice, and the waitress nods and withdraws.

"Decisive. I like that in an entrepreneur," Baldwin chides his friend.

Doug grins cheerlessly. "I'm doing it for Katya," he says flatly.

"I know," Baldwin answers seriously. "So, any luck at all on that? She didn't seem all that in love with Charlie anymore, quite frankly, when we saw her on the Skype call. She seemed pretty close to the end of her rope."

Doug sighs and nods agreement. "She is. But the girl's tenacious. She can hold on to the end of a rope for a good long while."

He pauses and breathes deeply, turning introspective. After a minute passes and no one else speaks, he continues. "I don't know. Sometimes I think she's drawn to me, in that way. Other times I think she just wants out of her mess, and she doesn't know what she wants beyond that."

"One thing is certain," he adds, after another silent pause. "She won't run out on Charlie before he's fully cured. I've known her since we were kids, and it isn't in her nature to run out on a friend in trouble. When he's fully cured, then we'll see how things are. I think I've got a fighting chance." He pauses again as the waitress brings the drinks and sets them out around the table. Taking a sip of the papaya mango smoothie, he smiles a little. "Anyway, isn't that all anybody has in the end?" he concludes. "A fighting chance?"

Baldwin nods. "Every day above ground is a small victory over death," he agrees, remembering something an old Irish doctor had said to him once at a conference. "Every day we face the world, the world also has to face us," he repeats another encouraging phrase someone had once aimed at him. Nothing original occurs to him to say.

A silent laugh flickers across Doug's face.

"What?" Baldwin wants to know.

"Nothing," Doug answers, shaking his head and smiling. Unable to suppress a grunted chuckle, he finally shares the thought, "If Katrina were here, she'd have said: A stitch in time saves nine." At that he breaks into a full-blown smile, and the other two laugh.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Annetka tries.

Doug nods, smiling only slightly, the expression in his eyes thanking her for the effort.

Baldwin tries to think of a humorous non sequitor to prop up the mood. "If you've got your health, you've got everything," he tries, and the other two snicker. "Give me Liberty Tea, or give me death," he adds. That gets actual laughs all around.

After another quiet minute, Annetka interrupts the silence. "We heard about another bridge collapsing. Was that as bad as the news reports made it out to be?" she asks, curious about conditions in the states. She finds it hard to believe that a country like America, a country of legendary, almost mythical stature, could be deteriorating the way the stories say.

"Probably worse," Doug answers matter of factly. "I didn't see the news reports you got here, so I don't really know what you saw or heard. I don't even know which bridge you heard about. There have been three I know about in recent memory. Who would have thought it possible, right? But the people don't want to pay taxes. So the roads and bridges and dams aren't maintained. They fall into disrepair. It's like what happened when the sea walls gave out in New Orleans. Nobody would foot the bill to shore them up. I cringe to think what happens if -- when -- a major dam gives out. It could be like Katrina all over again. Worse."

Doug shakes his head again and tries to smile. Failing that, he takes a deep breath, exhales, and takes another drink of the tropical fruit smoothie. "That's a really good drink," he comments.

The other two nod, still looking at him.

So they want more news.

"Well," Doug continues, "There are almost no emergency services anymore. Very little anyway. No taxes means no money for government services." Seeing Annie's expression, he shrugs helplessly. She looks incredulous.

"The emergency services are the easiest to cut because most of the time you don't need them," he explains. "So what little is left is pretty ineffectual when an actual bridge really collapses. Even the National Guard is decimated, because so many of them have been sent over to fight in the Middle East. You know what the National Guard is, right?" he asks, directing the question to Annetka.

She tilts her head, shrugs, and shakes her head no, with an apologetic pout.

"The National Guard is the military group that's supposed to respond to domestic emergencies, like hurricanes and, well, bridges collapsing. Most of those guys have been called to active duty, meaning they've been sent to fight in the Middle East. Army Reserve, same thing. So there's really nobody left to respond to domestic emergencies. The local people are mostly on their own. So when a bridge collapses, yeah, there are a lot of deaths."

After a pause he adds, "Very little taxes, though." His gaze encompasses them both, then focuses on each of them in turn. "Death and taxes?"

"Yeah, we get the reference," Baldwin responds. "It just isn't funny."

Annie smiles in a strained and sorrowful way, making an effort. "It's so sad," she says plaintively.

"Sad indeed," Doug agrees. "The good news is, we three here are doing something about it. Doing our small part. Which reminds me, Baldwin, our girl Katya managed to bag you some lab samples from the old cat lady that died. You remember that good old girl in the LiberTEA party, kept a lot of cats? She'd been preparing food at home and bringing it to party events for decades. Well, even though there was no autopsy, apparently there were blood and tissue samples taken before she died, when they were still trying to save her. It wasn't all destroyed. They found some in the back of a fridge someplace. A good friend of Kat's knows a nurse who has connections with the hospital. They scored the leftover lab samples. So I've got that stuff for you. Shall I bring it by your lab in the afternoon?"

"Tomorrow is Saturday," Baldwin eventually answers, glancing at his girlfriend. "I'd hoped to sleep in late," he continues, looking sideways at Annie again and then back at Doug. But excitement about getting the samples lays hold of him in less than ten seconds. "Then again I want them right now, to be honest. Are they refrigerated?"

Doug nods. "They're on the boat. It has electricity and a good refrigerator."

"Can we go by the boat tonight after dinner, and take the samples back to the lab?" Baldwin asks. "That way I'll have them there as soon as I go in again, and we can still sleep late tomorrow."

"Fine with me," Doug agrees, glancing at Annie.

She shrugs and smiles, eyes twinkling as if with secret knowledge, as if she's seen the show already and knows the ending.

"That's what we'll do, then," Doug concludes, looking off into the near distance where the waitress is appearing with a big tray of dinner. The others turn to look at her just as she arrives at the table.

"Mmm, that smells good," Annetka says approvingly when a big plate of Indian curry is set in front of her.

"Yes, it does," Doug agrees, inhaling the fried corn and salsa smell as his Mexican plate is set down.

Baldwin just nods, staring unfocused into the distance, seeing nothing around him as thoughts play through his head. He'd like to start on the lab work tonight, but he isn't willing to disappoint Annie twice in one day.

"You can go start the lab work tonight," Annie announces as if reading his mind, taking a bite of her vegetable curry.

Baldwin looks over to see her eyes on him. He is aware that she has spoken, but he has been so lost in thought that he hasn't heard the actual words.

"It's okay," she says, repeating the message. "You're already working inside your head. You might as well be doing it in the lab. You won't be happy any other way. You'll be thinking about those samples all night. You won't sleep. Just go ahead and get started on the lab work. It'll be all right. After dinner, though."

Baldwin blinks. "Really?" he asks.

"Of course really," she answers. "and you can still sleep late tomorrow. That is, if you actually go to sleep anytime tonight. Come down to the beach in the afternoon, if you want. I'll be going swimming."

They look at each other with complete recognition, like soul mates. He blinks again. It's hard for him to believe he can be this lucky. He wants to embrace her on the spot, but it's a public place. She smiles and breaks eye contact, looking away toward the sauces and chutneys on the table. "Mango chutney?" she asks Doug, who considers it honestly for a tenth of a second and then decides no.

"I'd love to get some of what you two have," he answers her. "What you have together. Not the mango chutney though."

She smiles and shrugs, then dabs some chutney on a poppadum chip and eats it herself.

"Good luck with that," she addresses Doug. "I think Katrina likes you a lot. She's very confused about her feelings for this other guy, Charlie, though. At least, that's what I thought, as a woman. Are the tacos good?"

"Excellent," he responds.

"So you've known her since you were kids?" Annetka asks.

"That's right," Doug tells her. "Went to the same summer camp. I think I might have fallen in love with her the first time I saw her, high up in a tree near the place where we used to swim. She was spying on us. She had binoculars! Can you believe that? Maybe it was after that though. Hard to be sure."

"What was she doing up in the tree?" Annie wonders.

"Studying juvenile male Homo Sapiens pack behavior," Doug answers. "That's what she told me later when I saw her on land and asked. She was keeping a notebook and everything. Lab notes, she said." He gives out a little nostalgic laugh remembering it. "Come to think of it, that might have been when I fell in love with her. She was destined to be a scientist, that much was obvious."

"Sounds like she studied cooking concepts with the same scientific approach," Annie observes.

"You bet," he replies. "Everything she does, she approaches it scientifically, and she does it with a passionate intensity. The drink recipes she's come up with are going to make this whole Tea company idea work, and work big. She even does art! Have you seen the bottles she's designed for the bottled drinks? She has a dozen slightly different shapes, and seven slightly different shades of tinted glass. The bottles alone will become collector's items. Oh, that reminds me, I have to tell Baldwin. She wants him to look into adding a trace of catnip into the kibble! She's worked out a recipe that cats love. Combines the treated kibble with some fresh fish parts and what not, including the aforementioned catnip. Baldwin should make sure it still works therapeutically." He stops talking to the girl and turns to Baldwin.

"Baldwin hasn't been following the conversation," Annetka tells Doug. Doug is staring at Baldwin and Baldwin is staring into space.

"He's thinking about the lab tests he's going to set up tonight, wondering what samples you've brought, things like that. He'll be back with us in a few minutes," she says with assurance. "Look at us!" she adds, and Doug turns back to look at her. "You and me. We're both in love with scientists. Well, this is what you're letting yourself in for, if you think you want something like what we've got."

"I'll take it," Doug answers without hesitation.

Annetka sighs. "Why did you let her get away from you in college? How did this Charlie come into the picture?"

"Oh, I was an idiot," Doug says simply. "We went to different colleges. I thought I had time. Just ... an idiot, that's all."

They both laugh a little. Baldwin looks at them enquiringly.

"Oh, you're awake again," Doug comments.

"Katrina wants you to try adding a little catnip into the cat food," Annetka fills in what Baldwin's missed. "She's sent a recipe with Doug."

Baldwin nods.

"She wants us to set up a cat food canning plant here in the islands," Doug adds. "She thinks rich cat owners will favor canned cat food, and she wants to keep the recipe secret. She has a beautiful label design too. I'm going to talk to some guys here tomorrow or Monday about setting up a canning operation. There have to be a lot of seafood scraps we can pick up from all the fishing that goes on here, so it's an ideal industry for the island too."

Again Baldwin nods. "All true," he says. "It'll be good for the island to have the canning work. I'm assuming you're talking about ethical standards, good working conditions, and all that."

"Absolutely," Doug agrees. "Keep in mind we'll be selling this cat food to rich people, and the cats love it. So we can charge enough for the end product. We'll be able to afford to pay for reasonable working conditions, fair wages. To be honest I wouldn't agree to it otherwise."

"Why do you care?" Annetka enquires flatly, then looks at him with her big dark blue eyes.

"Fair question," Doug replies, "and I'll be honest with you. Katrina is a partner in this venture, and she's in charge of Research and Development. As the business gets going, she might come down here and hang around from time to time. I want her to be comfortable here. The people who work in the factories, and their families, are people we'll run into on the street and on the beaches. If the factory is a good place to work, they'll treat her with respect and affection. They'll like her. Otherwise not so much. That's just how life works. People who don't know you tend to judge you by what they think you represent. And of course in my hypothetical dream world, there's a chance I might get together with Katrina, romantically. Maybe come to live on the island. I want to give my dream a fighting chance."

Annetka smiles at him. "A fighting chance," she agrees.

Finishing their dinner, they return to Doug's rental car and drive down to the harbor.

The yacht sits moored at the pier beside fishing boats. The soft dark sky is splashed with white stars and a round full moon. The three friends step out of the car into the warm night air, stopping a minute to look around at the postcard perfection of the scene. The bejeweled sky, the bright cold moon, and the boats that float on the sea beneath them, all are reflected almost perfectly in the dark still water. They walk quietly up the wooden pier and onto the boat, not wanting to break the peaceful silence.

Inside the cabin of the boat, Doug opens a refrigerated compartment and pulls out a deep vegetable drawer at the bottom. The drawer is full of crushed ice. A few cans of beer can be seen just under the ice layer. He reaches through the ice and pulls out a large plastic food container, within which can be seen the sample jars. He hands the box to Baldwin. Baldwin smiles broadly.

"This is great," Baldwin announces, looking at the labels. "Thanks for bringing these down, Doug."
Chapter 28 – Water and Sand

Annetka and Zoe have been swimming most of the morning. It is close to noon when they walk back up the beach toward the greenhouse, dripping, squeezing water from their hair. Droplets of water shimmer and disappear as they fall through the air. Sunlight is everywhere, reflecting warmth and light from every facet of every surface. The women's tanned bodies glisten in the sun as they walk together up the beach, laughing and chatting about nothing but the joy of life.

Zeph sits with Jack and Snake on the patio furniture outside the greenhouse. Facing the beach, they watch the girls walk back towards them.

Zoe takes a seat on a beach towel on a chair next to Zeph. Jack hands her another towel. She uses it to dry her hair, patting it gently, then wraps the towel around her head.

Annie goes into the greenhouse and brings out some drinks. She passes the drinks around, then sits on a long beach towel spread out on a reclining lounge chair, pulling her legs up and leaning back. Snake offers her another towel. She places it around her shoulders like a cape and spreads her wet hair on top of the towel in front as she leans back again.

"Your hair will get sunburned," Zoe warns her.

"Don't care," Annetka answers, eyes closed. "It already is."

"Want some lotion?" Zeph asks Zoe, rummaging in a beach bag. He brings out a tube of suntan lotion and starts applying it gently to one of her hands. "Can't be too careful," he says, looking at her eyes as he caresses her hand.

She smiles at him flirtatiously, and he progresses in the application of the lotion to her arms, then proceeds slowly to the rest of her exposed skin.

Doug appears on the inland horizon, coming down toward the beach from the direction of the road, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, carrying a big beach bag.

He sets the bag on a table and takes a seat. The others smell food.

"Is that Chinese carry-out?" Annetka asks, still resting in the recliner chair, one arm lifted, elbow crooked across her closed eyes.

"It is," Doug answers. "Since you didn't get to eat it last night. Where's my drink? Everybody else has a drink."

"In the greenhouse," Annetka responds. "There's a big ice chest, without ice of course. Near the door. It's orange."

Doug gets himself a drink and returns to the table. "Lunch, everybody?" he asks, unpacking white cardboard cartons, paper plates and chopsticks from the beach bag on the table. The cartons are passed around. Annie leaves her lounge chair and takes a straight backed chair at the table. Everyone finds something sufficiently tempting to get them to start eating.

"So your Katrina have a new recipe for the cat food," Snake says, making it sound like a question.

"That's right," Doug agrees. "She's a wizard with the recipes."

"You have those recipes all written down someplace?" Snake continues after a minute. He takes another bite of the delicious spicy food and chews it in silence. Szechwan, he thinks. When another minute has passed and no one answers his question, he rephrases and extends it. "You have copies of those nice recipes, off site from that kitchen you got? Someplace safe, like a backup? Or it's all just inside her head? After another short pause he finally states the point explicitly. "It goin to be a very sad day for your Tea company if that pretty Katrina ever get hurt, if those bad men get a hold of the girl."

Doug looks at Snake and suddenly feels cold. "Some of the recipes I have," he answers after a few seconds. "Some of them are, as you say, inside her head."

Snake nods and shakes his head at the same time, as if to say "I thought so." He looks at Doug's eyes and waits for the light of understanding to appear.

"That's a bad idea," Doug finally announces his comprehension.

"Not safe for the girl," Snake points out.

Repressed panic falls on Doug. How could he be so stupid? If anybody realizes what they're doing and wants to stop them, Katrina would be an obvious target. He doesn't move, but his face must betray everything in his mind, because Snake soon tries to settle him down.

"No need to panic, brother," Snake says. "You call her on the phone. Tell her do what Bald Eagle does. Write the formulas in emails."

"Emails. That's good," Doug responds, visibly calmed. How can he have failed to think of this sooner? How can they all have failed to think of it? He hopes Katrina is safe, he knows she probably is, but his heart pounds as he pulls out his cell phone and tries to get a signal.

"Here, use mine," Zeph suggests, handing over his own phone. "I can always get a signal in these islands, at least so far. Talked to Katrina this morning in fact. She was still alive."

Doug takes the offered phone. Kat's name and phone number are already displayed on the screen. He presses the green call button.

No answer. After a few programmed ringing sounds, the Voice Mail comes on, inviting the caller to leave a message.

"Kitty? It's Doug. Call me," Doug says, then clicks the red end button.

"Thanks," he says next, handing the phone back to Zeph. Then he says nothing more, and the sounds of occasional sea bird calls occupy the auditory space, overlaid on the rhythm of the sea tossing itself against the shore. Each wave that strikes the sand diffuses a generous spray of clean ocean smell into the warm air.

After a few minutes, Annetka breaks the silence. "You said Katrina wants to keep the recipes secret," she points out. After the others have time to digest that remark, she adds, "I don't think email is very secure. Can you really keep secret files in cyberspace like that? I mean, and keep them secret." She ends the statement with her voice descending to a lower note, suggesting finality. With chopsticks she takes a single large cashew nut from the Kung Pao tofu and places it on the tip of her tongue, then chews it slowly.

Doug is shaken from his reverie by the social obligation to answer the lady's question. "We encode things," he answers flatly, as if stating the obvious. "For example she might write the word snow to mean powdered sugar, and ice to mean granulated sugar. And we parcel the messages. For example, she'll write standard spice mixture or basic herbal mixture as code for the active ingredient. Also she has a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, and what-not that she calls the apple spice mixture. The exact formula for the apple spice mixture is located in a separate place, and written in Spanish by the way. A hacker or eavesdropper would need to find separate references to find out what the apple spice mixture is. They'd have to get the formula for the basic herbal mixture from Baldwin. So we do take precautions." He pauses to eat some rice and vegetables.

When no one else picks up the conversation, he adds, "You're right that email isn't secure. In fact computers aren't secure. But neither is anything else when you come right down to it. Right now we just have the recipes -- the formulas -- scrawled on bits of paper, with a limited number of copies. We rely on the aforementioned encoding and parceling for secrecy. The problem, as Snake has so adeptly pointed out, is that a lot of the formulas are not yet written down. They exist only in Katrina's notes or in her head."

Doug watches Zeph as he tries Katrina's number again. The call goes straight to Voice Mail, and he puts the phone back in his pocket.

After most of the food has been eaten, Baldwin appears against the inland horizon, walking down toward the tables from the direction of the road. He goes into the greenhouse and comes back out with several drinks, which he sets on the table next to the Chinese carry-out cartons. As he takes a seat in a chair next to Annetka's, he touches her very lightly with a sweeping gesture from the back of her neck down the length of her arm. She shivers slightly with pleasure, and turns to look at him. He hands her a drink. She lifts a large cashew from the Kung Pao tofu with chopsticks and feeds it to him.

"Find out anything interesting?" Zeph inquires.

"The cat lady was infected," Baldwin answers, "but that's hardly surprising. What is news is the time line. Indications are that she had been harboring the parasite for at least twenty years, maybe thirty."

"Twenty years?" Zeph repeats, sitting up straight and looking at Baldwin intently.

"At least," Baldwin agrees. "That means this thing could be a lot more widespread than we've been thinking, at least up north."

"So, epidemiologically speaking," Baldwin starts, then trails off.

"Yeah," Baldwin answers the thought. "We'd better go ahead with that vaccination program here in the islands."

"Is there any way it could have started up north and spread to the islands from there?" Zeph poses a question.

"Possible, but unlikely," Baldwin answers. "That island, L'Isle Barjot, is a perfect incubator. It has both parent species together, being eaten by the same predators. There's reported history of a prior outbreak. The way I see it, it almost certainly must have come from the island and been spread north by rats on ships -- merchant ships, banana boats, the tourist trade. The new model is that it happened quite a bit further in the past than we originally thought; and it can take a lot longer than we thought to becomes lethal. Clearly it develops rapidly in some individuals, like Katrina's Charlie, and in fact all of our other cases as far as we've seen. But in some people, like this cat lady, the terminal phase can take years, even decades, to develop. That would give such a person plenty of time to spread the parasite to new hosts."

"Which means it's more prevalent, more widespread than we thought," Zeph sums up the findings.

"Yup. That's what it means, all right," Baldwin agrees. He drinks most of his bottle of apple juice in one gulp, and gobbles up some scraps of rice and vegetables.

Doug takes out his own phone and tries again to dial Katrina. The Voice Mail message starts and he clicks off.

Baldwin gives him a questioning look.

"Katrina. Trying to call Katrina," Doug supplies the information Baldwin is missing. "You weren't here earlier, but Snake pointed out that we have an exposure with Katrina keeping recipes -- formulas -- in her head."

"You have some of the recipes, right?" Baldwin asks.

"Yeah, some. The point is, it makes her a target. If anybody figures out what we're doing and wants to stop us," Doug answers.

"Who would do that?" Zoe wants to know. "People still infected by the parasite?"

Zeph shrugs.

Doug moves his head in an indecisive gesture and also shrugs. "We're thinking that the parasite can affect people's brains in a parasite-serving way, right? And that it's affected the brains of party members, influencing them to make irrational decisions like shutting down all the public health services?" Doug asks.

"Yeah, that's right," Baldwin answers. "It probably is capable of that. You've all seen how the infected rodents walk right up to cats, essentially volunteering to be eaten. The parasite has affected their neurological function in ways that favor the parasite's survival and propagation. Clearly shutting down all public health services improves the parasite's chances of survival and reproduction. So, if a strain of parasite happened to evolve that happened to cause that effect, then that strain of parasite would have a clear survival advantage. It influences the host to act on its behalf. Yes."

"So," Doug asks, "Could it do something as specific as targeting an individual? Targeting Katrina? If it somehow realized she's a threat to its survival?"

"It isn't sentient," Baldwin answers, "if that's what you're asking. It doesn't realize anything. It applies nerve pressures and releases chemicals that influence the host to act."

"Sorry, 'realize' was the wrong choice of words," Doug responds. "I didn't mean to say that the parasite is sentient. Clearly it isn't sentient. It's not conscious. It doesn't think. It's not self-aware. I didn't mean to imply that. I'm not thinking it's some sci-fi thing from outer space. What I was thinking of was something more like an A.I. -- a computer with programmed artificial intelligence, like a chess playing computer or maybe something even more sophisticated. What I was thinking was that it might be able to detect threats to its existence and respond to them, the way the chess computer responds to threats on the chess board. Could the parasite do that?"

"I ... doubt it," Baldwin answers, skewing the word 'doubt' in an odd recursive way, as if doubting his own doubt. "It doesn't seem to be that selective, and we don't see any mechanism that would enable it to be. I mean, shutting down the public health services would be an impressive feat for a parasite, taken on its own, out of context. But the context is that all kinds of public services in general have been shut down. It's a sledgehammer, broad spectrum approach. The parasite influences the host to behave differently in very general ways, not to take specific targeted actions."

Baldwin continues to think about the question for a minute, trying to come up with an example or a metaphor. "It's like a mood-altering drug," he finally offers. "Consider an aphrodisiac for example. It might cause a person to be interested in behaving in a certain way, but it wouldn't be precise enough to determine the choice of partner."

"So the parasite might be able to turn its host into a homicidal maniac, but it couldn't actually pick targets?" Doug picks up the thread.

"Exactly," Baldwin says with finality.

"Any idea how I might talk Katya into moving down here?" Doug asks his friend, unreassuredly. "I'd feel safer with her here."

Baldwin laughs a little as he answers, "If I think of anything on that, I'll let you know."

They all sit together in relative silence for a while, enjoying the warm sea breeze, picking at the remains of the food. Someone brings out more drinks.

Baldwin takes a bottle that he thinks is probably the local light beer. "Speaking of Snake's ideas," Baldwin says, "He has another one." He pauses to take a sip from the bottle. It seems like beer. Taking another sip, he looks at Doug, who is watching him intently. "Snake's idea," he continues, "is that we put up a computer with a good internet connection out on L'Isle Barjot, with phone and Skype set up, so we can talk to Azacca."

"The old medicine man?" Doug asks. "Yeah, let's do it. Katrina was asking about him. Thought maybe he'd want an interest in Liberty Tea, maybe an advisory consulting role, stock options."

"Dunno," Baldwin answers, "but it would be nice to be able to contact him without going out there every time."

Doug laughs. "Definitely. Let's all go on Tuesday," he suggests. "We'll take the yacht. I've got some equipment on board that we can set up for him, at least I think we can. It'll mean I won't have it on the trip back north, but I can replace it once I'm back up there. And I've still got the ship to shore radio and the cell phone. Can everybody do Tuesday?"

Glances are exchanged around the group, with accompanying shrugs.

"Sure, Tuesday's good," Baldwin translates.

"Unless you want to do it sooner," Doug reconsiders. "We could leave tonight, or in the morning. I've got meetings with some guys in St. Lucy to talk about manufacturing, but we can reschedule that. It'd be good to get out to the island and talk to this guy. You know I've never met him. We should remedy that."

Again glances and shrugs bounce through the group. "Tomorrow after church," Zoe suggests. They all look from one to another in quiet agreement.

"Okay, tomorrow around midday," Baldwin tells Doug. "Shall we meet at the pier?"

The women look at the men, and the men nod. By custom women don't go to the harbor alone.

"I'll pick you up in the car," Zeph says to Zoe. "Around eleven thirty?"

Zoe nods.

Annetka and Baldwin just look at each other and smile. They plan to sleep in, or at least they don't plan to get out of bed early.

Chapter 29 The Jungle Is Neutral

Wind whips across the deck as the boat heads toward L'Isle Barjot. It's windier than usual, and scattered grey clouds block the sun intermittently. Normally Doug has to handle the sails alone, but today he has several capable hands to assist.

"Looks like a storm might be coming in," Jack shouts, enjoying the work.

"Might be," Doug agrees, speaking loudly to be heard above the wind. "Not supposed to be, by the forecast," he adds with a grin.

"We'll make good time," Jack comments, grinning back.

Indeed, early afternoon finds them snugly ensconced in a sheltered harbor. High above them the tops of tall palm trees whip in the wind, but the thick vegetation stills the air at sea level. The surface of the water is only slightly choppy, almost calm. They drop anchor and quickly load two dinghies with equipment and tools, all carefully wrapped in weatherproof tarps. The dinghies are equipped with outboard motors.

"Invigorating," Annetka remarks as they race over the surface of the water. "It's like riding in a convertible," she adds, trying to gather her long hair in her hands so it won't be tangled by the breeze. Zoe smiles and nods, trying to protect her own hair likewise.

The short trip to the beach passes quickly.

The men assemble six foot long poles from sturdy plastic sections, like plumbing pipe, and lash them together with rope to form an A-shaped frame like an artist's easel, tying leather strips at the apex for handles. They throw a canvas tarp across the frame and lash it into place, forming a plains Indian style travois. That done, they test its strength by shaking it back and forth and jumping on it. It holds up well. They repeat the exercise to make a second travois. Onto these conveyances they pack the computer equipment and tools from the dinghies, finally lashing everything securely into place.

"Ready to go," Doug announces, glancing quickly out to sea at the impending weather.

"This way," Snake indicates with a nod toward the road inland up the hillside.

Baldwin takes the other handle at the apex of the travois Snake has grabbed. Jack and Zeph together man the other frame, leaving Doug with nothing to do but carry a tool bag. The women carry lightweight beach bags holding everyone's spare clothes and personal effects.

Dragging the frames over the sand quickly, they reach the paved road in a few minutes. Doug calls a halt. The others think he wants to adjust the cargo, but in fact he rapidly affixes wheels to the ends of the poles. Snake smiles. They take off at a trot up the road, hoping to make it to the village before the storm comes in.

When they reach the point where the blacktop road turns into a dirt path, they pause again and remove the wheels, returning them to Doug's tool bag. Immediately they press on into the jungle. Within a few minutes the beach and the wind are just memories. The jungle seems darker than they remember it, but apart from that they find no indication of the inclement weather they know is coming in quickly behind them.

Halfway up the mountainside, Jomo and a group of young local men meet them.

"Jomo!" Baldwin greets him almost gleefully. "Good to see you!"

"Seems like I be rescuing you again," Jomo jokes. His group of locals smile. "Come on, we help you carry this stuff now. It be gonna rain soon," he adds, still jovial.

The young men gather around the sides of the stretcher-like travois and pick them up like pall-bearers. Baldwin relinquishes his position to a much fitter replacement. Zeph does the same. Even Jack and Snake turn over the job quickly. One of the fit young jungle dwellers offers to take Doug's tool bag, and Doug doesn't protest. The same man takes the beach bags from the two women, grinning sheepishly at them as he does so. Together the enlarged group commence at a quick trot up the mountainside. The locals can go as quickly carrying the equipment as Baldwin can go without it. Indeed the city dwellers have trouble keeping up on the steeper inclines.

About an hour later they arrive at the village. The city dwellers are exhausted but happy. The local men are smiling and joking with each other, not apparently tired by the trip at all.

"Where you want this stuff to be?" Jomo asks.

"For Azacca," Baldwin answers. Jomo nods and his smile becomes even broader, something Baldwin would not have thought possible. Their seemingly inexhaustible capacity for good humor astonishes him as much now as it did the first time he saw them. Then again, he reflects, why not? Life here seems good, and they're certainly healthy. In many ways it's an idyllic existence. Not the life he wants for himself, but he can see the appeal.

Jomo directs the others from his contingent to carry the equipment into Azacca's hut, without stopping to ask Azacca whether he wants it. As the cargo is carried into the doorway, the medicine man himself emerges from it.

"So, Bald Eagle. You return for another visit. You like my company so much? Or you want something again?" Azacca inquires.

"Azacca, meet Doug," Baldwin introduces the only member of the party who hasn't already made the old man's acquaintance. "Doug is helping us to distribute the cure in the north."

Azacca nods. "Come inside," he says, with a gesture that encompasses the entire group. "It's going to rain, you know."

"Yeah, it sure looks like it," Doug says, looking up at the sky.

This strikes Azacca as very funny, and he laughs as they all duck into his home. A minute after he stops laughing, the laughter overtakes him again. "Looks like rain to you, too, does it?" he asks, eyes twinkling, looking at Doug. He laughs for a third time.

"Uh, yeah," Doug agrees, not sure how to interpret the laughter. He decides his remark must be funny in the same way as happens when a child states an observation of something obvious. "I can't be sure, of course," he adds, calculating that it might provoke more laughter.

At that Azacca chuckles and looks at him again, eyes twinkling.

"I like you, Doug. You're a very funny guy," the old man says. "So, what brings you out to our island in this weather?" He turns from looking at Doug to look at Baldwin.

"We want to set you up with some computer equipment," Baldwin says plainly.

"Like a telephone," Snake adds for explanation. "Telephone with a television together. Then we don't be having to come all this way up here to talk. We be seeing you on the computer."

Azacca looks at Snake.

"Takes electricity though," Snake adds when the other man makes no response except to stare.

"Okay," Azacca says, and nods. "Let's give it a try." He turns to Baldwin and asks, "You planning to set it up in here?"

Baldwin gestures towards Doug. "This is really Doug's equipment. I was planning to let him set it up, unless he asks for some help. As Snake points out, it'll need electricity. Is this a good place? Will it be in the way here? It needs to be indoors out of the rain."

"Might be better to put it in the bicycle shed where we generate the electricity," Azacca decides.

"Yeah, that's good," Baldwin agrees.

Jomo goes to the door and waves to some of the young men to come back. In a few minutes the boxes have disappeared and been relocated to the bicycle shed.

"You want to do this now?" Azacca asks. "Or after dinner? You're spending the night, right?" He addresses the question to Baldwin, but then he looks at Doug, as if expecting Doug to make some comical reply.

Not wanting to disappoint, Doug responds, "Thanks for offering, because, you know, I think it's going to rain."

Azacca chuckles. He nods and gestures to Jomo in a barely perceptible way, and Jomo is off to make arrangements for the guests.

"If you want to set up equipment," Azacca tells his guests, "Let's get started with that now, while it's still daylight and the ground is still dry." So saying, he walks back outside, expecting the others to follow.

They walk over to the large hut that Snake and Jack think of as the bicycle shed, but Baldwin and Zeph think of as the generator shed, where electricity is generated by peddling a stationary bicycle. Inside they see the equipment on the floor, still securely wrapped for transit.

"Is there something we can use as a table for the computer?" Doug asks as he squats down and starts to unwrap the tarps. Zeph and Snake join him. Jack helps Azacca move a table to an advantageous position near the center of the room, where it will get light from the windows without being in much danger of getting wet.

"Those are shutters we close over the windows when it rains," the old medicine man points out, gesturing towards them as he speaks. "The electronics should be safe here. We never get hurricanes here, or anyway we never have before. We get high winds when they pass, but it hasn't ever knocked out any buildings."

"You speak pretty good English, for a medicine man," Doug observes, unpacking components and cables, which he sets on the table.

Snake brings over the end of an extension cord. Doug's eyes follow the cord back to its other end, where it links into a big box attached to the bicycle apparatus. He shrugs. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, it'll mean another trip to bring up a generator.

"Zack went to school," Snake informs him. "He don't spend his whole life here in the village."

Doug nods. "Studied medicine, probably?" he enquires, looking at Azacca while plugging connecting cords into their appropriate sockets.

Azacca nods.

"Good thing for us you did," Doug says with a grin. Azacca returns the smile.

Doug plugs the computer power cords into the sockets of a surge protector, and hands the plug end of the surge protector to Snake. "We can just plug it in, I guess?" Doug inquires. Snake has anointed himself the local electrical expert by bringing the cord over to the table.

Snake nods and makes the final connection. The computer starts to power up, but Snake jumps on the bicycle and starts peddling anyway, to regenerate the supply.

"We won't attract lightning with this?" Doug wonders.

Azacca laughs. "We might," he allows, "but we never have before. I run a refrigerator and a ham radio from here. We've never had a problem. Then again," he adds with a grin, "We don't get a lot of storms. This could be the one that does it."

Doug smiles back at the old man, and shakes his head. Azacca laughs.

"So, what do you want me to do with this fancy equipment you've brought out here?" Azacca asks, walking over to look at the startup screen. "Snake said something about Skype?"

"He did," Doug agrees. He goes through the motions of bringing up the Skype connection, glancing at Azacca frequently to make sure everything is being understood.

"So, who we going to talk to?" Azacca asks. "Looks like we're all here at this end of the call."

"Not all of us," Doug answers. "There's a girl back in the states that I've been trying to reach all day. Let's see if she's available. Unless you have someone else you want to call?" he adds, glancing at Azacca to see if that might get a laugh.

It gets a little smile and a head shake. Still smiling, the older man says, "No, let's call your girl, by all means."

Doug tries to put through a call to a computer in the storefront building in Wisconsin that serves as the Liberty Tea World Headquarters and Research Facility.

Miraculously, after a minute, Katrina connects.

"Doug!" She says perkily at the same time as he exclaims, "Kat!"

Both laugh. Several people in the room with Doug smile.

"I didn't expect you to answer! I've been trying to get you all day," Doug blurts out.

"What's the emergency?" Katrina asks, smiling like a child. Her eyelashes flutter for a second.

Doug feels a little embarrassed to admit his fears for her safety. He also still feels a bit afraid. "We were talking," he begins, "and Snake here pointed out that some of our formulas exist only in your head, and," he pauses for a second as he gathers the courage to hear himself say, "that makes you a target."

"A target?" she says, surprised, trying to keep a straight face. She says nothing for a minute, trying to be sensitive to his obvious concern, suppressing the urge to suggest "for a sentient virus? or, uh, fungus, was it?" She wins the battle to keep quiet, but loses the battle to suppress laughter. A little giggle comes out. "I'm sorry," she says immediately. "Of course it's an exposure. It bad business practice if nothing else. So what do you want me to do?"

"Email the recipes, I guess," Doug says sheepishly. "In our code, of course."

"Of course. Shall I send them to Albert and Zeph? Or ... ?" she trails off, waiting for instructions as to how to set the man's mind at rest.

Baldwin hands Doug a sheet of paper. He looks at it. It contains several email addresses. He holds it up to the camera.

"Well, all right, then," Katrina says, "I can read that." she continues, speaking slowly, moving around as she does. "I will send you those formulas right now. There are copies on the disk here, in code of course, and I just have to append them to an email, which I can do on this laptop here." She points the camera briefly toward a laptop on the same desk as the main computer, then turns it back to focus again on her face. She smiles. "Okay?" she asks, moving her hands as she talks.

"Okay," Doug answers, watching her.

"One email, cc to all five of those addresses," she says. "I'm hitting send," she intones, looking at the camera, holding one hand lifted over the enter key.

"Yes. Send," Doug agrees, and her hand falls.

"There, it's done," she says with a grin. "Feel happier now, Douglas Christopher?"

"I do," Doug agrees. "Speaking of which, you seem to be in a very good mood yourself."

"I am," she allows. "Charlie went to the hospital this morning."

The others laugh, and she turns a bit pink with embarrassment. "With a headache," she explains. "He said he felt like he had a hangover. He seemed almost a little amnesiac, too," she adds. "I really think he's just embarrassed about the things he's been doing while, um, under the influence, so to speak."

"Probably so," Doug allows. "I know I would be."

Katrina laughs. "So anyway, he'll probably be in the hospital for tonight at least, and then who knows. I'm planning to spend the night here and get some work done. Not just Liberty Tea work, I use the computer for research for school too. Actually I've been spending the night here a lot. It's easier to concentrate. Then it gets late. And we have that cot set up. It's so easy just to stay, you know?"

Doug nods. "Yeah, Baldwin has a bed set up at the greenhouse too. Probably even has a cot in his lab, though I haven't seen it. So, you're happy because Charlie's recovering, then?"

"Besides that, distribution is looking up!" Katrina announces with enthusiasm. "Charlie gave a case of our tea to Marie Mallon. She then proceeded not only to give a few bottles to that lunatic right-wing Wright, her running mate; she also gave some to our current president, Sheppard. They all love it. The White House emailed us an order for twenty cases as soon as we have a bottling operation that can supply them, and Marie has given Charlie an informal assurance that if Wright gets elected they'll put in a standing order for it. Talk about a win-win scenario! I'd love for the LiberTEA party to lose the election, but they'll probably win, and we're good either way."

"Wow," Doug responds. "I better get that bottling operation operational."

"So, how come we're Skyping?" Katrina wants to know. "Are you at the greenhouse? Or on the boat? Phones not working?"

"In fact the phones have not been working for me today," Doug answers sheepishly, momentarily embarrassed about his earlier apprehension. "Maybe you just didn't pick up because you were at the hospital with Charlie, though, now that I think about it. We're actually on the island where the medicine man, the guru guy, lives. We brought the computer equipment from the boat up here, so we can have, you know, meetings, without coming up here."

"Okay, well, I haven't met him," Katrina answers. "You going to introduce us?"

"Yes. Azacca," Doug says, turning the camera eye towards the old man, who smiles and raises one hand slightly in greeting.

"Pleased to meet you," the girl says. "May I call you Zack? Or is it always Azacca?"

"Zack is fine," the old man agrees, and the girl smiles. "Pleased to meet you too," he adds.

After a pause, something else occurs to him. "If this is so we can have meetings," the medicine man says, turning to the others in the room, "There's something you might want to know about."

"That sounds ominous," Doug answers, as lightning flickers in the distance.

They wait, listening to see how far away the storm is. A minute later thunder cracks, distant but well audible. Azacca moves to close the shutters, but Jack takes care of it before he has gone two steps.

Azacca turns back to the assembled group. "There was a merchant ship docked in the harbor by the jungle a few days ago," he tells them, shaking his head as if preparing to deliver bad news. "It had a Japanese flag," he continues, "but the crew that came ashore were a motley group. Some of the men went down to watch them, see what they were up to. It turned out they were trapping animals."

"Did you talk to them about it?" Baldwin asks hollowly.

"Of course we did," Azacca says, his voice heavy. "But it turns out those big Spectral bats are worth a lot of money to the zoo in Japan."

"That's bad," Baldwin says flatly, suddenly tired. He feels blood draining from his face and looks around to see if there's a chair. There isn't. He breathes deeply and slowly, forcing himself to renew his strength. "You told them the bats are sick?"

"Of course we did. The young men did. Jomo was there. He speaks English. Some of the poachers spoke English too. They didn't believe us. Thought we were just trying to scare them away."

Zeph and Zoe sigh heavily at the same time. Annetka looks at Baldwin, then at the old man, waiting to hear more.

"They were armed," the old man explains, trying to make it simple for them to understand. "They had guns. We could have fought, but we couldn't have stopped them from getting at least a few of the specimens they wanted."

"A zoo in Japan?" Baldwin asks.

"No zoo needs that many bats," Azacca answers. "There must be more than one zoo. Maybe private collectors."

Again Baldwin feels a bit weak, but strengthens himself as well as he can. Annetka takes his hand, then grasps his arm. He puts his arm around her, drawing her close.

"Oh," Azacca adds, almost as an afterthought, "also they took several of the margay, the little tree leopards."

###

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