Ian Watson - The Embedding

The runt with the bayonet finished his skirting of the main circuit of the village—and the taboo hut lay within his field of vision a hundred yards away down the forest path that was now a wet canal.

The runt hesitated, taking in the dank mass of trees between him and the hut—the menace of jungle—the distance from the helicopter. Then he pretended not to have seen it.

“There’s nothing here either,” he shouted.

What in hell’s name were they looking for?

I couldn’t believe they could be looking for the same thing those Portuguese troops had been looking for in that Makonde village when they landed their Alouette. Not in the heart of this unpolitical jungle! In the streets of Rio, yes—or in the coastal countryside. But deep in the Amazon? It seemed ridiculous.

The officer shouted into the helicopter and a miserable-looking Indian interpreter appeared, who addressed the village through a loudhailer in some Tupi dialect then in a couple of others. But there’s a kind of linguistic fault-line that divides the Xemahoa from their neighbours. He couldn’t communicate with them in any of the dialects he tried. And Kayapi wasn’t volunteering anything.

Abruptly the officer wheeled about and snapped his fingers for the Negro and the runt who came bounding back through the flood to scramble into the helicopter. The blades turned, beating down fists of air on the water, rustling the fronds of the huts. Then they lifted off, and disappeared beyond the trees.

They could only have been in the village ten minutes.

Later I asked Kayapi what would have happened if the runt had gone as far as the taboo hut,

“We kill them maybe.”

“Kayapi, you know what those guns can do?”

“I know guns, yes.”

“You know carbines, rifles, pistols, Kayapi. Guns that fire once or twice or three times. You don’t know those guns. They shoot kai-kai times in this space of time.” I snapped my fingers as the officer had snapped his.

Kayapi shrugged.

“Maybe we kill them.”

“Why did you hide my things in the jungle?” I demanded.

“Was it not right, Pee-áir?”

“Yes. In fact it was right.”

“So.”

“But my reason would not be the same as your reason, Kayapi.”

He stared at me, shook his head, and laughed.

“Tomorrow, Pee-áir, you must meet maka-i. We all meet him together.”

Preparations are going on for the dance. But it will be a dance through two feet of water. Some of the nearby jungle is deep water already—six feet, or worse, where the land slopes down.

And this village is on something of a slope. God knows how deep the water will be in a few weeks. How high is that bloody dam? Thirty or forty metres?

The ants are going crazy, swarming through the branches. Iridescent blue morpho butterflies, the ones that get made into ornaments—plaques and plates of blinding blue—flutter above the waters. Red and orange macaws scatter through the trees, propelled by their own screeches. I saw a couple of alligators scuttling near the village this morning. Fish are wandering into the jungle. They’ll soon be swimming through the branches.

But enough talk of nature. Description for its own sake means next to nothing. The Xemahoa know that. Nature here isn’t ‘pretty’. It isn’t a picture, a landscape. It’s a larder and a glossary. And I fancy it’s more important as a glossary than as a larder, to the Xemahoa mind. Macaws are first and foremost feather-number creatures.

Kayapi came to me just now and confided what they’re expecting from the pregnant woman.

Those White-Robes would have crowed with delight.

Or shrunk back in horror!

They expect their maka-i ‘God’ to take on flesh and blood inside her. It’s the Christ thing all over again.

So that’s what Kayapi meant about the maka-i baby coming ‘when it was time’! That’s why the woman has been high on maka-i through her pregnancy.

God knows what condition she must be in! Her nose must have half rotted off by now—if the mess that the Bruxo’s own nostrils are in, is anything to go by.

And God knows what the genetic consequences may be!

DESCRAMBLED TRANSCRIPTION OF EXCHANGES WITH “LEAP-FROG”

T PLUS 3 DAYS 14 HOURS 30 MINUTES

MISSION CONTROL HOUSTON “You’re closing nicely. The object maintains a steady rate of deceleration relative to Earth. I tell you, we’d be pretty scared if it wasn’t. There’d be a hell of a hole someplace in Wisconsin otherwise! The size estimate is still one nautical mile diameter. You should expect visual acquisition soon.”

PETR S TSERBATSKY “Surely that would depend on its mass. The hole in Wisconsin.”

MIKE MCQ DALTON (NAVIGATOR) “You think it’s a balloon some joker has blown up and tossed us to catch?”

TSERBATSKY “An expanded structure maybe. An interstellar ramjet scoop. I am just speculating.”

PAULUS’S SHERMAN (MISSION COMMANDER) “That’s possible, Mike.”

TSERBATSKY “Or it could be a hollowed out asteroid. Both suggestions are feasible.”

MISSION CONTROL “Distance forty, that’s four oh, nautical miles—it’s closing at a relative velocity of two hundred and decelerating—one-ninety-nine… one-ninety-eight—”

DALTON “So we’re moving nicely backwards? Maybe we can hitch us a ride the rest of the way home. Stick out your thumb, Petr!”

TSERBATSKY “I never can appreciate this transatlantic frivolity. This is perhaps the most significant moment in human history. The first meeting with extraterrestial intelligence.”

DALTON “Anybody making first contact by playing that nude auction show back at us has just got to be joking—”

MISSION CONTROL “Distance, ten nautical miles—closing at one-seventy-five… one-seventy-four… Cut the chatter, will you, Mike?”

T PLUS 3 DAYS 15 HOURS 5 MINUTES

SHERMAN “I can see it! There’s a half moon profile out there—sidelighted by sunlight. It has to be a globe. How’s the quality of the picture?”

MISSION CONTROL “There’s a bit of glare. Will you move the camera over to the right?”

SHERMAN “How about this?”

MISSION CONTROL “That’s better. We see it now.”

DALTON “What’s it transmitting right now?”

MISSION CONTROL “The movie of the Manson Musical. A New York station put it out last week. No, wait a second. That transmission’s just stopped… They’re transmitting our rendezvous diagram now—yes it’s the rendezvous diagram, check. Now it’s stopped. It’s coming again… no—they’ve changed it now. A new diagram. It shows your flightpath intersecting with theirs. Diagram’s changed again. The scale’s large now. There’s Leapfrog and the Globe. The Globe is a perfect circle. Leapfrog’s a small triangle of dots. A dotted line connects you both.”

DALTON “Do we cut along the dotted line?”

MISSION CONTROL “Another change—new diagram. Showing Leapfrog sitting on the very outside of the Globe. They want you to land on them. Distance is five miles now, relative velocity fifty… forty-nine—”

SHERMAN “Good visuals now. How do you read the pictures?”

MISSION CONTROL “Fine. Will you prepare to land on manuals?”

SHERMAN “Wilco. The Globe’s shining as if it’s made of metal. A high albedo. No apparent irregularities. Not a rock body I’d say—so the idea of a hollowed-out asteroid is a no-no.”

MISSION CONTROL “Landing plan’s being rebroadcast. No fresh developments. Distance is three miles, Relative velocity thirty… twenty-nine—”

TSERBATSKY “It makes me feel like a flea. Such size, and moving under its own power!”

SHERMAN “Houston? I’m going for a short burn to slow down the rate of closing. A point-five second burn… now.”