Philip Kerr - Esau

‘So it was that the men decided to kill all the yetis. First they left poisoned tsampa on the hills for them to eat. Many yetis died. And for years afterwards yetis were hunted and killed. The heads, the hands, and the feet of many yetis were taken to be used in religious rituals. Some ancient religions even venerate these relics as holy objects, for they believe that yetis contain the souls of men. And in a way, they are not so far from the truth as I have told it to you.’

After that, the swami was silent for a while and refused to answer any more of Swift’s questions except to confirm that a female yeti and her infant were safely returned to the hidden valley. Talk of poisoned barley had reminded Swift of why she had followed Boyd, and now she said, ‘The satellite contains a radioisotope,’ she said. ‘A kind of poison. Boyd planned to destroy the satellite with explosives, which would have spread poison over the whole valley. All the yetis would have died. Not to mention you, swami.’

‘What is death but lying naked in the wind?’

He smiled and held up his hands.

‘If only men thought of God as much as they think of themselves, who would not attain liberation? There is a tradition in these mountains. A great religious tradition. A puzzle, if you like. There are those who call people like me the Concealed Lords and say that we worship the yeti. Some say that we are Buddhists. Some that we were here before the Lamas. The truth is sadly rather more prosaic. Merely that there have always been people like me — the religion matters not — guardians who understand the yeti and seek to protect them from the outside world. But lately this has become very hard. Every year more and more tourists come to the mountains.

‘I had thought that the yetis could stay undisturbed on this holy mountain where no men are allowed to go. For many years it has been a forbidden place. The Sherpas have respected that. But things have been hard for them. There has been no money, and so they have brought you here, where you wanted to go. Well, let us hope that man will be kind to the yeti, although I can see no cause for optimism since men are so unkind to each other, as well as to other apes. The yeti himself only attacks man because he has learned to fear man. Really, he is quite gentle.’

The swami sat down on the ground and pulled the yeti’s ear with affection.

‘But you must tell me what I must do, to prevent this poison you have described.’

‘I think it would be better if I were to leave this place,’ said Swift. ‘And take the radioisotope with me. Without it the satellite is just scrap metal.’

The swami frowned.

‘But can these things be handled safely? It is a long walk you have back to your friends. Perhaps it would be better if we were to put this source of poison in a place where it can do no harm to anyone or anything until the end of the world. There is a place. A very deep crevasse. Not the one that led you here. But quite close.’

‘You show me where it is,’ said Swift, ‘and I’ll dispose of the isotope.’

Swift had spent enough time with Joanna Giardino in the UCSF Medical Centre’s Radiology Department to know that there was little chance of her being able to handle the radioisotope safely. Not without lead sheets and lead boxes and special tongs, and a whole lot of other protective gear.

Even the isotope in the Med Centre’s X-ray department was treated like something from the Manhattan Project. Any radio fission product, whether biochemically inert or biochemically active, could do biological damage either outside the body or within.

Despite the SCE suit she was wearing, and her helmet, and even holding the tube containing the satellite isotope at arm’s length between two ice axes in an improvised pair of tongs, Swift was aware that radiation would pass through her body like light passing through a window. The damage it might cause on the way through would remain. Even a few minutes of exposure might easily prove fatal.

She thought of Rontgen, the discoverer of the X-ray, who had died of bone cancer, and of the two pioneers in its medical use, Madame Curie and her daughter Irene, both of whom had died of aplastic anemia, caused by radiation.

Swift had no wish to die prematurely of leukemia or some other radiation-related disease. But she could not see how anything other than removal of the isotope from the satellite, followed by its safe disposal, could effectively ensure the yetis’ continued safety in their hidden valley. There was rather more at stake than her own future to consider: There was also the future of an important new hominoid species to think of.

No contest, she told herself, and hoped she might live long enough to be able to write up her findings in a book.

Swift had the swami show her the new crevasse before she did anything. Then she told him that when she did dispose of the isotope, she was going to do it alone. There was no sense in exposing him to risk as well as herself.

Accompanied by the yeti, the swami led her to the far side of the valley and to a narrow crack in the ground that bordered the protective range of mountains. The crack was a good five minutes’ walk from the satellite.

‘Here,’ he said, pointing into the fissure. ‘This is about nine hundred metres deep, I am quite sure.’

Swift inspected it and nodded.

‘That should be safe enough.’

They walked back to the open panel of the satellite next to which Boyd had left his pack. Swift took a look inside. There were several detonators, and a larger and more powerful radio than the one she had been using. At least now she could call Pokhara and organize a helicopter out of ABC.

Packed under Boyd’s plastic explosive, the isotope was easy to locate. Swift peeled away the wad of C4 and then read the printed injunction against tampering with the thermoelectric generator and its cesium 137 isotope. Cesium had a half-life of thirty years. But did that make it any less lethal in the short term than plutonium? The fact was she had no idea.

Before opening the isotope housing, she looked around for the swami. He was watching her carefully, with the yeti sitting a short distance away watching him, as if waiting to be told what to do.

‘You’d better go now, swami,’ she said quietly. ‘This stuff’s hazardous as soon as it’s lifted out of the metal housing. No point in us both getting a dose.’

‘So small,’ he chuckled, peering over her shoulder curiously. ‘Can it really be so very dangerous?’

‘Very. Now please go.’

‘You would risk your life, for us?’

Swift collected her helmet and prepared to put it on her head, hoping that it might afford her some protection against the cesium. The swami raised his hand over her, in apparent blessing.

‘The truth of love is the truth of the universe,’ said the swami. ‘This is the light of the soul that reveals the secrets of darkness. This light is steady in you. It burns in a shelter where no winds come. Yours is a great soul indeed, and having shown your willingness to behold the spirit of death, you have opened your heart unto the very body of life.’

‘Thanks,’ she said grimly. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Now get going before I change my mind.’

‘This is an action done in God, and therefore, your soul is not bound to it.’

By this time Swift had little idea what he was talking about and cared even less. Her mind was concentrated on the lethal job at hand. It didn’t seem to matter much what he thought of her. She wasn’t doing it for a garland of flowers, a basket of fruit, his good opinion, or her reward in heaven.

Swift was about to tell him more forcefully to go away when the swami turned and spoke to the yeti, and now that she was nearer, she knew that this was no language she had ever heard before. It was like Tibetan perhaps, but somehow more guttural — there was no other word to describe it — it was more apelike than she had earlier perceived.