Nymphaea

Chapter 19: Underworld

Stephen prepared breakfast. He hadn’t been able to go back to sleep anyway so he had washed off what Ayve had left behind on his body under the shower and now he was waiting for Melissa to awake.

Whilst the coffee machine spluttered in the kitchen (and helped to wake up his daughter hopefully with all that noise – it was one of those cheap beasts who took ages to get the coffee ready; his proper machine had broke down a few days ago), he sat down in the living room and switched on the TV. The news had just started. Right, Ayve had hinted that there would be something interesting to see there on Friday… Having him close had completely distracted Stephen. He hadn’t spent a thought on it. The presenter just finished a report about a tsunami.

“…promised to send aid immediately.

In Bolivia, in the department Potosi, a scientific institute was attacked this night. In it the two specimen of a possibly new, human-like race that had been caught on Wednesday in the Andes were accommodated. The discovery had been made public yesterday. An official statement has not yet been issued but eye witnesses refer to several severely wounded security men.”

What did that mean? Had they actually caught some of the nymphs? And now the building they had been housed in had been attacked? Stephen went to his bedroom and switched on his notebook. Goodness. Couldn’t computers boot up faster? He went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. An acoustic signal told him that at least Windows had been started eventually.

He went back and sat down, drumming his fingers nervously on the hut cup. Finally the PC had established an internet connection. Stephen visited one of the news pages in search for more information about the catch on Wednesday. Yes, of course: there was an article.

“Catch them in the rye

Farmers deliver quite extraordinary villains to the police.

Wednesday morning, two hours before dawn in a Bolivian county with low population in the department Potosi. A farmer arrives with several men from his family to present thieves to the local police officers that have intruded his land and slain his cattle repeatedly in the last weeks. The sight is unique: one of the two thieves is unconscious, the men claim to have found him in that condition. And yet four of the six captors bear severe wounds – a doctor has to be called. The second villain is tightly bound with several ropes. At first glance he seems a usual man. A little wild in his mimics. A little more than a little too thin. He is half starved and so is the other. In Bolivia that is not a rare sight. It is one of the poorest countries in Latin America.

Yet – on second sight, the catch is remarkable. The farmers give account of strange things going on with the bodies of the captives. They claim to have seen how the colour of their skin changes from black in the dark to the Scandinavian skin colour they wear in the bright light of the police station. And the injuries that the captors present look like markings from a wild animal with sharp claws. They insist that those have been made by the conscious thief who tried to drive them away from his defenceless companion. The police officers laugh. But the doctor who is busy tending the wounds is intrigued. After trying to take a closer look at the catch and receiving a wild stare and hiss worthy of the indigenous puma or jaguar, he decides to contact a befriended scientist who works in a private institute financed with western money.

Three days later, a delegation of US-American scientists flies in. And the sensation is perfect: it seems as if truly a new humanoid species has been discovered. What exactly they are has yet to be examined. But one thing is bewildering: both specimen had covered their genitals with clothes – a sign for awareness beyond animalistic instincts.”

Stephen leaned back. So – what did this mean? Had they found some stray nymphs? But the description did not fit. The picture Stephen had gained in the last months was that they were highly reasonable, calm, peaceful. And the medical examinations had revealed nothing like claws or skin that reacted to light changes.

Was there another species? He had to know. As Melissa seemed still asleep, he scribbled a note for her, grabbed a piece of toast, deposited another note on the McCourt’s kitchen table and jumped into his car. His colleagues surely knew more. He needed tovisit his agency.

*

His colleagues were surprised to see him. He was to still to be on sick leave until Monday. But they were indeed busy, as Stephen had expected. He asked to be filled in to the details. Doherty, who seemed to have been up all night and had just taken a short coffee break, led him into his bureau and put a DVD into his PC.

“Look at this.”

It was an amateur-made video. Probably shot in that research institute. It carried the date of Friday. It showed two very thin, large, slender males shoving food hungrily into their mouths, suspiciously eyeing the camera every few seconds. They had long, black, unkempt hair that fell down their bony pale torsos in dirty black strands. But apart from their ragged appearance and their underdeveloped table manners (they neither sat at a table – well, there was none – nor did they eat with knife or fork – yet, they probably had not been provided with those either) they looked human. The scientist took a step towards the creatures. The one in front immediately started hissing, pinning him with his glare. The one in the back on the other hand made different sounds. Stephen wasn’t sure but he believed to hear a rhythm there… was he actually saying something to the other, speaking in an unknown, harsh language?

Stephen pointed that possibility out to Doherty.

His colleague nodded. “Just what I thought. We passed that information on already.”

Stephen frowned. “Passed it on?”

“Yeah. To the American investigators. Two US-American scientists were wounded during the assault last night so naturally, the US are interested in the issue. And even more so since they were informed about our contact with them, you know?”

Stephen’s face showed surprise but inside him there was more. He wasn’t sure whether he liked these news. “They know about the nymphs?”

Doherty shrugged. “Yeah. One of the bosses told them.”

Stephen resumed watching the recording. Seya had said that Ayve dreaded public attention. They were close to getting it. Was that what he had meant when speaking of the quiet before the storm?

The screen was black now. The scientists had turned off the lights. A pocket light flashed up. One of the scientists – who had withdrawn behind iron bars now – pointed it on the eyes of the previously hissing creature who glowed like the eyes of a cat or – in regards to their round shape – that of an owl. The lamp was switched off.

Darkness was everything that was visible on the screen for a while. Than suddenly the ceiling lights were turned on again. The sight was incredible. They were black. Not the dark brown some native Africans or Australians had – their skin was pitch-black. And then within seconds the blackness faded and gave way to nearly white skin. It was stunning. The voice who commented on the material all the time assumed it was camouflage for the hunt. He annotated that they had tried in vain to provoke the creatures to extend their claws and referred to the examination that was scheduled for Sunday when the US-American scientists would take up their work.

Doherty clicked to end the movie presentation.

“Well, there were no further examinations. It seems the attack had the precise purpose to get those two out. There are two theories: one is that they were ‘rescued’ by their own kinsmen. That of course implies that they do have some form of higher developed intellect. Seeing that they could walk on two legs with a straight back like us and preferred heated meat to raw that seems likely. The other theory is that they were kidnapped by an unknown interest group. The victims are still too weak to be questioned and whoever did this was familiar with technical equipment. They disrupted the energy supply which set the monitoring system out of order. And they must have had some means of transportation. There are no footprints leading away from the sight, only grooves of car wheels. They left no pursuable traces.”

“So, what’s going to happen now?” Stephen asked.

Doherty shrugged once more. “They are searching the area. Hoping to find a hint or other specimen. Doesn’t sound very likely in my ears, though.”

Doherty sipped his coffee, dreaming away for a moment. “It’s bizarre, isn’t it? I mean: we’re supposed to have overseen two other intelligent races now. Ten years ago we had no idea something like that was possible. And: how can that be possible? There are humans all over the world! Where to hell are they supposed to live that no one’s ever seen an inch of them?”

*

He stood in front of the grand half open picture-window, staring out over the rocky cliff at the sea. He sucked at his cigarette and blew out the smoke in big clouds that were taken away by a light, cool breeze. Everything seemed so peaceful here… why couldn’t he just stay and forget the rest of the world?

“You are welcome,” a rough voice whispered into his ear. He felt a strong arm coming up from behind, resting around his neck in a loose embrace. The rest of his body remained untouched. He relaxed slowly. There was no reason to answer. They knew that this was not going to happen.

“So you intend to keep that going,” the raspy voice ascertained.

He took another drag. His arms were crossed as if to protect him. If he only knew from what. He hated himself, at least sometimes, because of this stupid impulse. All these stupid impulses. Wouldn’t it be for them, he could be a happy man, couldn’t he? Just turn around and…

He was close. He could feel the tears coming up. But they wouldn’t fall. They never did. Damn himself. Damn him for caging himself up.

“I guess so,” he replied in a thin voice, but calmly. He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Even I need to lay hands on somebody every now and again.”

The head that had produced the dark, throaty voice before nodded silently, fighting the tide of anger, disappointment and bitterness that seized his body. He slowly withdrew his arm, stroking over the other man’s shoulder before leaving the house to regain his composure somewhere away from him.

Ayve placed a hand on the window frame to steady himself. He trembled.

*

Being the man with the most experience at the Secret Service when it came to nymphs (as he had decided to call them being tired of the lack of a proper term), Stephen had a busy week communicating with the US-American investigators. That was much to his liking of course as this left him constantly provided with the latest ‘news’.

Well, news it could hardly be called. They were not very successful in their aims to find hints of the whereabouts of these beings. And the Bolivian government was not very helpful either. The restraint of their cooperation originated in their refusal to believe in the existence of such creatures at all. They considered the whole thing a joke or a swindle. And even if there was truth in the whole matter they had other things to worry about.

The Bolivian government officials were not the only disbelievers. After the first days or two when the media capitalized the blowoff, it switched in most cases to making fun of the whole affair. People were so used to the idea of being the only intelligent race that they would not believe this wild story. This reminded Stephen so of a conversation with Ayve he had had nearly a decade ago…

Without the help of Bolivia, the few investigators who were allowed to strive through the wilderness at the foot of the Andes made little progress. Stephen did not expect anything else. Even if they had had a greater group of searchers they would not have found anything. Doherty had been right in some ways: they had to be very skilful in hiding to have passed unnoticed so far. It would not be so easy to locate them.

The only way Stephen saw to obtain further information was Ayve. He had admitted that this affair touched him somehow, hadn’t he? So he was bound to know something. There were only two tiny problems. Number one: Ayve was the one to decide when they were going to meet again. ‘I’ll contact you soon.’ Sure. What was soon in the life of someone a few dozen centuries of age? Number two: Ayve had not told him on Friday – why should he change his demeanour now? What Lissy had spared him of training in patience had thoroughly been tended to by Ayve. Stephen had to wait and see.

***