David Golemon - Legend

There was no answer. Then the deck hatch above her opened and Virginia stuck her head up.

"The master chief wants to know if there's a problem; he said he can't get through your intercom," she said as she climbed out onto deck. Then she saw Sarah was still holding down the talk switch on the communication intercom. Virginia looked to where Sarah was looking and froze. "Oh my god," she whispered and then without turning, pried Sarah's finger from the button. "We have a visitor, Chief; everyone's all right."

"A visitor?" he asked.

"This thing has scales, and its fingers are wet and they're webbed ," Sanchez said, still not moving.

"Hold it together, Corporal, I don't think it's aggressive," Sarah managed to say.

The small creature looked up at the sound of the humans' voices and tilted its head. It jabbered softly, and then it stood and reached for a passing branch and easily lifted itself free of the corporal's head and disappeared into the canopy. Its swinging tail was the last thing they saw as it vanished completely.

Sarah reached down and picked up a twig that had berries still attached to it. She pulled one off and ate it.

"Good," she said.

"That's not a very good thing to do, not very scientific, Sarah," Virginia said as she picked up a beautiful species of orchid she had never seen. She smelled it and then placed it in her hair, above her ear. "Have Corporal Sanchez fill out a written report on his description of what occurred, even his feelings on the matter. Okay, Sarah?" Virginia added in a distant voice. "What an amazing animal."

Sarah watched Virginia reenter the hatch and then looked at Mendenhall. As she watched, a small hand jutted from the trees and slammed his bush hat back onto his head. He ducked as laughterlike chatter sounded all around the drifting boat.

The twin diesels fired back up and Teacher started forward again. This time, the three lookouts would have no trouble staying awake.

Most of the off-duty crew, twenty of them, were in the cramped dining section of Teacher eating a breakfast of ham and eggs as they listened to Mendenhall and Sarah tease Sanchez about his strange encounter in the dark morning hours.

"And these creatures weren't aggressive at all, or timid?" Ellenshaw asked, his white hair looking as if a garden hoe had churned it up.

"Well, ask the corporal, he had a little better view than Will or I," Sarah said as she sipped her coffee with difficulty. Even hours later, it was difficult not to laugh.

Sanchez shot her a look and then had to smile himself. "No, I didn't exactly get the feeling they were timid," he said as he took a bite of his toast.

"And they definitely looked aquatic in nature; you actually saw the webbing between its small fingers?" Heidi Rodriguez asked.

"Saw and felt it," the corporal said, losing his appetite for his toast. "And it smelled to high heaven, like… well, fish."

As they talked, they heard Teacher 's engines shut down.

"All hands are asked to join Major Collins on the upper sun deck," Jenks's voice said over the intercom.

Sarah looked out of the large window as she rose and saw it first. "Jesus, look at that," she said as she hurried from the dining section toward the nearest stairwell that led upward to the deck above.

The others glanced out the windows and then hurriedly followed Sarah.

Jack and Professors Nathan and Pollock were on deck with the rest of the first watch. Virginia was busy snapping pictures and Nathan had a video camera out, documenting the amazing sight above them that had been illuminated by the boat's external floodlights.

Sarah joined Jack and shaded her eyes from the bright glare. "Beyond belief," was her simple statement.

"What in the hell are they supposed to be?" Jenks said as he joined them after placing Teacher 's automated systems online.

Towering above them, on both sides of the tributary, stood two eighty-foot statues. They were ancient with vines and other vegetation growing from age cracks in their stone.

"They're like no Incan gods I have ever seen," Nathan said as he continued to film with the camera.

"They are carved directly from the granite of the cliff," Virginia said as she turned to photograph the other one on the opposite bank. "They're identical depictions of the same… same deity," she said, snapping four quick pictures.

"Look at the hands," Jack said.

The large hands of the carvings were webbed, like those of the small creatures that were reported by Sarah and her night watch. The statues had scales like a fish and the body was humanlike, very massive, and depicted strength. The head was the most amazing thing of all. Its features were that of a fish, but in the shape of a human head. Several rows of finlike flaps extended downward from the neck and head and draped just over its broad shoulders. The lips were thick, pursed like those of a fish; the nose was but two small holes; and they could make out the gills that ran along each side of the jaw in four distinct lines. But the most amazing feature was the way in which the carvers of these ancient statues had depicted the eyes. Although human in shape, they had dead dark pupils like those of sharks.

"Lord, look what the left hand of each is carrying," Nathan said as he lowered his camera.

A small human skull was grasped in each statue's left hand. Long claws were sunk into the bone in a disturbing and vicious illustration by the stone carvers.

"What would you say the scale is on that, Charles?" Virginia asked Ellenshaw, who was staring wide-eyed.

"If that is an accurate-size skull of an adult human, I would say the gods depicted here would be at least eight and half to nine feet tall, upright of course."

"It would have been one hell of a swimmer," Jack said. "Look at its feet."

The clawed feet were very long and wide, and they, too, were webbed. The powerful-looking legs had long fins down the back until they disappeared into the rock wall of the cliff. The arms also had fins, running along the back of the forearm to the wrists.

"All in all, not something I would care to run into either in the water, or out," Sarah said as she hugged herself. She remembered the fossilized hand, just as the others now recalled it.

"This must mean we're close to the valley and the lagoon," Professor Keating said.

"What makes you think that, Professor?" Jenks asked.

"Because these statues were placed here as a warning. They're guarding something," he said, looking at Jenks. "And I can't think of anything else they would be here to protect unless it was Padilla's lagoon, would you?"

The master chief placed back into his mouth the cigar he had been holding and clamped down with his teeth. "Well then, let's just go see what's so damned important that someone would carve statue, of their mother-in-law in the cliffs." He smiled at Virginia. "It must be good, whatever it is," he said as he turned and went below to get Teacher under way again.

The other thirty-plus members of her crew stayed on deck and watched the large statues slide past as they started downriver again. Most had to turn back for last looks as they just couldn't fathom why the Incan gods had never been cataloged or documented before; after all, there were lakes all over Peru, and her coastline was extensive. Why a water god way out here, and why one that was so different from the squat, rakish-looking gods of other Incan deities?

It was only Jack who noticed that the jungle and forest sounds had returned as they moved up river. What unnerved him was the fact that no one had noticed when they had ceased in the first place. Then he realized why: Teacher 's voyagers had been so awed by the giant statues that they hadn't noticed they had drifted into sunlight for the first time, when the canopy of trees had given way to the carvings. Now that they had reentered the tree-covered tributary, the sounds of life had returned. Why had the birds and animal sounds stopped when they were in front of the carvings?