Nate hovered before it. As he stared, details emerged. The tree developed three-dimensional conformations, tiny midnight leaves, tiered branches, clustered nut pods.
The Yagga.
Then, from beyond the hill’s edge, small figures marched into view, all in a line, heading up the slope to the tree.
The hekura, Nate guessed dreamily.
But like the tree, the figures grew in detail as Nate floated nearby, and he realized he was mistaken. Instead of little men, the line was a mix of animals of every ilk—monkeys, sloths, rats, crocodiles, jaguars, and some Nate couldn’t identify. Interspersed among these darkly silhouetted animals were men and women, but Nate knew these weren’t the hekura. The entire party marched up to the tree—and into it. The shadowy figures merged with the black form of the tree.
Where had they gone? Was he supposed to follow?
Then, from the other side of the tree, the figures reemerged. But they had transformed. They were no longer in shadow, but glowing with a brilliant radiance. The shining troupe spread to circle the tree. Man and beast. Protecting the Mother.
As Nate hovered, he sensed the passage of time accelerate. He watched the men and women occasionally wander back to the tree as their radiance dimmed. They would eat the fruit of the tree and shine anew, refreshed to take their place again in the circle of Yagga’s children. The ritual repeated over and over again.
Like a worn record, the image began to fade, repeating still, but growing dimmer and dimmer—until there was only darkness again.
“Nate?” a voice called to him.
Who? Nate sought the speaker. But all he found was darkness.
“Nate, can you hear me?”
Yes, but where are you?
“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
Nate drew toward the voice, seeking it out of the darkness.
“Good, Nate. Now open your eyes.”
He struggled to obey.
“Don’t fight it…just open your eyes.”
Again the darkness shattered, and Nate was blinded by brilliance and light. He gasped, sucking in huge gulps of air. His head throbbed with pain. Through tears, he saw the face of his friend leaning over him, cradling his head.
“Nate?”
He coughed and nodded.
“How do you feel?”
“How do you think I feel?” Nate wobbled up from the floor.
“What did you experience?” Kouwe asked. “You were mumbling.”
“And drooling,” Anna added, kneeling beside him.
Nate wiped his mouth. “Hypersalivation…an alkaloid hallucinogen.”
“What did you see?” Kouwe asked.
Nate shook his head. A mistake. The headache flared worse. “How long have I been out?”
“About ten minutes,” the professor said.
“Ten minutes?” It had felt like hours, if not days.
“What happened?”
“I think I was just shown the cure to the disease,” Nate said.
Kouwe’s eyes widened. “What?”
Nate explained what he saw. “From the dream, it’s clear that the nuts of this tree are vital to the health of the humans in the tribe. The animals don’t need it, but people do.”
Kouwe nodded, his eyes narrowed as he digested what was said. “So it’s the nut pods.” The professor pondered a bit longer, then spoke slowly. “From your father’s research, we know the tree’s sap is full of mutating proteins—prions with the ability to enhance each species it encounters, making them better protectors of the tree. But such a boon must come with a high cost. The tree doesn’t want its children to abandon it, so it built a fail-safe into its enhancements. Animals are probably given some instinct to remain in the area, something to do with territoriality, something that can be manipulated as needed, like the powders used with the locusts and piranhas. But humans, with our intellect, need firmer bonds to bind us to the tree. The humans must eat from the fruit on a regular basis to keep the mutating prions in check. The milk of the nut must contain some form of an antiprion, something that suppresses the virulent form of the disease.”
Anna looked sick. “So the Ban-ali have not stayed here out of obligation, but enslavement.”
Kouwe rubbed his temples. “Ban-yi. Slave. The term was not an exaggeration. Once exposed to the prions, you can’t leave or you’ll die. Without the fruit, the prion reverts to its virulent form and attacks the immune system, triggering deadly fevers or riotous cancers.”
“Jekyll and Hyde,” Nate mumbled.
Kouwe and Anna glanced to him.
Nate explained, “It’s like what Kelly reported about the nature of prions. In one form, they’re benign, but they can also bend into a new shape and become virulent, like mad cow disease.”
Kouwe nodded. “The nut milk must keep the prion suppressed in the beneficial form…but once you stop using the milk, it attacks, killing the host and spreading to everyone the host encounters. This again would serve the tree’s end. Clearly the tree wants to keep its privacy. If someone flees, anyone the escapee encounters would sicken and die, leaving a trail of death.”
“With no one left to tell the tale,” Nate said.
“Exactly.”
Nate felt well enough to try to stand. Kouwe helped him up. “But the bigger question is why I dreamed up the answer in the first place. Was it just my own subconscious working out the problem, unfettered by the hallucinogenic drug? Or did the shaman communicate it to me somehow…some form of drug-induced telepathy?”
Kouwe’s face tightened. “No,” he said firmly and pointed to the hammock. “It wasn’t the shaman.”
The Indian lay in his hammock, staring up at the ceiling. Blood dripped from both his nostrils. He was not breathing. Dakii knelt beside his leader, head bowed.
“He died immediately. A massive stroke from the look of it.” Kouwe glanced to Nate. “Whatever you experienced didn’t come from the shaman.”
Nate found it hard to think. His brain felt two sizes too big for his skull. “Then it must have been my subconscious,” he said. “When I first saw the pods, I remember thinking that the nuts looked like the fruiting bodies of Uncaria tomentosa. Better known as cat’s claw. Indians use it against viruses, bacteria, and sometimes tumors. But I didn’t make the correlation until now. Maybe the drug helped my subconscious make the intuitive leap.”
“You could be right,” Kouwe said.
Nate heard the hesitation in the professor’s voice. “What else could it be?”