The Lost Island

53

The jungle was alive with life: a green, steaming, roaring hothouse full of insects, lizards, and invisible animals all contributing their chirps, croaks, tweets, rasps, and drumming to the general din. Gideon had been following the Cyclops through the jungle for several hours now. The morning after they’d exchanged names, the Cyclops had left the cave — after a halting “conversation” with Amiko — with an ambiguous gesture to Gideon that seemed to be an invitation to follow. The creature was apparently involved in a search of some kind, and Gideon hoped beyond all hope it was a hunt for the elusive lotus. But so far the Cyclops, despite a most diligent search, had found nothing.

Once again, Gideon was powerfully impressed with just how beautiful and unique the island was. The sheer variety of life on the island-top was staggering — the massive clusters of blooming flowers, orchids cascading down like brilliant waterfalls, the giant ferns, the ancient tree trunks covered with moss, the hanging vines and mysterious, shadowy understory. And everywhere he looked came the sounds of life and the rustle and flash of hidden creatures, along with an incredible variety of butterflies and brightly colored lizards.

It was also hazardous. The top of the island, which appeared flat from afar, was in reality a collapsed volcanic cone, the ground riddled with pits, sinkholes, and extinct fumaroles carpeted over with vegetation so thick it obscured the openings and fissures, turning every step into a potential trap. While Gideon was no botanist, he was amazed by the bizarre and exotic plants he saw: giant pitcher plants full of water; an orchid with enormous purple blossoms that smelled like rotting meat; vines that formed impassable nets; gigantic tree roots that looked like melting cheese.

But nothing that could be the lotus.

Gideon followed the Cyclops along ever-smaller trails through the forest. It was hard to believe such an ungainly creature could move so gracefully, with such silence and stillness. It made its way along almost invisible trails without rustling so much as a leaf. Gideon, half its size, blundered along, pushing through branches, tripping on roots, and generally struggling to keep up.

The previous evening — the episode with the lighter, the introduction of the name Polyphemus — had changed everything. While the creature hadn’t exactly become friendly, it finally offered them their freedom, rolling away the stone and indicating with gestures that they were free to go. Or stay, as they wished. They had decided to stay for another night, and then move camp the following morning.

After supper, Amiko had tried to learn more from the Cyclops about the history of his people on the island. It was long and frustrating, with many misunderstandings and false starts, and it indicated to Gideon that, despite their common hominid ancestry, there was still a great gulf between them in terms of comprehension and intelligence. Amiko had gleaned — or thought she had gleaned — that Polyphemus was an ancestor who seemed to be revered, about whom there seemed to be numerous stories. The Cyclops did not himself have a name, it seemed, or at least not one he chose to reveal. He was very old, but just how old was hard to determine. With many gestures indicating the passage of days and seasons, Amiko had estimated his age at centuries at least. While Gideon found that hard to swallow, the creature certainly looked ancient, scarred, and — above all — weary. He had the air of having seen and suffered much. Amiko had not been able to find out any information about other Cyclopes on the island. On that subject, he seemed sadly silent.

It was getting close to noon, with the jungle turning into a steaming green oven, but the Cyclops had still found nothing. The speed with which the beast moved through the forest, combined with the heat, was gradually wearing out Gideon, who was still weak from his injuries.

All of a sudden the creature halted. Dropping to its knees, it began sniffing around with its big, flat nose in a most comical manner, gently probing the ground with the tip of its spear as if to release some kind of scent. Slowly, the Cyclops moved off the trail into the incredibly dense understory, and Gideon followed gingerly, also on his hands and knees, as it was the only possible way to proceed. But the Cyclops moved faster than he could, disappearing into the thicket, and Gideon in a panic hurried to follow.

“Wait!” he called, knowing well that the Cyclops not only didn’t understand him, but couldn’t care less. He tried to stand, got tangled in the understory, dropped to his knees again, and pushed forward, listening for the creature’s movements. As he moved along, a shower of ants fell on him from the leaves above, disturbed by his passage, and he felt them crawling down his shirt and into his hair, biting him and releasing a smell of formic acid.

“Son of a bitch!” He crawled forward, slapping and cursing. Just as he was thinking he had lost the Cyclops, he broke through a wall of vegetation to find the creature in a small opening, on his hands and knees, digging furiously with the wooden end of his spear.

A few moments later a black, root-like thing was exposed. With a start, Gideon realized it wasn’t actually a root at all — it remained unattached to any sort of plant — but an underground fungus of some kind, perhaps something not unlike a truffle. It even released a powerful, truffle-like scent: a combination of dirty socks, earth, and a cinnamon-like spice.

It was the smell of the lotus.

With a reverence and care that astonished Gideon, the Cyclops carefully brushed away the dirt and lifted the fungus out of the hole. He removed a piece of leather from his sack and spread it on the ground, laid the lotus on top, and proceeded to clean it more thoroughly with twigs and leaves. Then he carefully wrapped it in the leather and tucked it in his bag.

He turned his face to Gideon and stared, then made a gesture with his hand that Gideon didn’t understand.

“Good work,” said Gideon, giving him a thumbs-up and a smile. As usual, the creature didn’t seem to understand him, either. But then, it seemed to Gideon the creature gave a fleeting grimace — was it a smile? — and tied the sack back around his waist. The creature turned away and proceeded back through the forest, Gideon struggling once again to keep up. Soon they were back on the trail and, in twenty minutes, had returned to the cave, by byways so obscure, with twistings and turnings so confusing, that Gideon could never have retraced it.

Amiko was there, tending the fire. The Cyclops sat down at the fire, removed the sack, and opened it.

Gideon caught Amiko’s eye.

“A lotus?” she asked, her voice hushed.

Gideon nodded. “He dug it up. It’s not a plant — there’s no aboveground growth. I think it’s some kind of fungus.”

“This is incredible,” she said in a low voice. “All we need is to get it.”

They watched as the Cyclops carefully unwrapped the root-like thing, the smell of it drifting through the room. With a glittering obsidian blade, the Cyclops carefully began slicing the lotus into long slivers, releasing more of its powerful scent.

“What is he doing?” Amiko asked.

“No idea.”

“I hope he isn’t going to eat it.”

But that was exactly what the Cyclops started to do, first toasting the slivers on a hot, flat rock by the fire and then eating them with his fingers while they watched. His actions had a reverential air to them, and for a while he made a strange humming noise that might have been some sort of chant or prayer. When all was gone, he retired to his sleeping area — a patch of soft sand in one corner — and curled up.

Amiko darted out and swept up the remaining peelings and strings, wrapping them in a piece of plastic and packing them in a container in her drysack.

She came back and sat next to Gideon, speaking in a low voice. “You realize this is it.” Her eyes glowed. “We’ve found the last piece of the puzzle. And just consider what we’ve found! An extraordinary healing plant. And a living Cyclops — with ties to the historical Odysseus. This is going to change the world. And we did it.”

Gideon said nothing. For a while, certain thoughts had been growing in his mind. They were not good thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” said Amiko.

He shook his head. “We haven’t thought this through.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think is going to happen to the Cyclops when we report back to civilization?”

Amiko stared at him. “Well, it’s an incredible discovery: an ancient hominid-like creature, perhaps a cousin to the Neanderthal, an honest-to-God living Cyclops.”

“Living is the operative word. You didn’t answer my question: what’s going to happen to him?”

“I…I’d imagine some kind of wildlife sanctuary would be established here, you know, with visitors carefully controlled.”

Gideon shook his head. “With a powerful, lifesaving, miraculous, trillion-dollar drug hidden on this island?”

“The lotus would be cultivated elsewhere.”

“First, it’s an underground fungus, like a truffle. Despite the fact that truffles cost thousands of dollars, no one’s ever been able to cultivate one. Second, it took the Cyclops six hours of searching to find that one lotus, using all his knowledge and powerful sense of smell. Six hours. There can’t be many left. And now we know he eats the root. He’s one of the Lotus Eaters himself! Maybe that’s why he’s so incredibly old. He’s dependent on it. His whole existence, his very life, depends on this island remaining exactly as it is. But will it? Once this knowledge gets out? I hardly think so.”

Amiko fell silent, and finally said: “I hadn’t considered all that.”

“Lastly, this island would appear to be Nicaraguan national territory. So as soon as we report this, it’s out of our hands. The Nicaraguans will be in control. God only knows what they’ll do.”

Amiko glanced over at the sleeping creature. Gideon followed her gaze. It lay on the sand, curled up, its hairy sides rising and falling in rhythm to its breathing, its big horny toes with their broken nails twitching, looking for all the world like a dog having a dream. His single eye was covered by a large wrinkled lid. There was a certain strange “otherness,” for want of a better word, about the Cyclops. He seemed to show kindness, in his way — but at the same time he could be violent and unreadable. He was sort of human — sort of an animal.

“I’m growing fond of the old brute,” Amiko said.

“And I think he might be, ah, developing feelings for you.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

“I’m not joking. He won’t give me the time of day. He only took me lotus hunting because you pretty much harangued him into doing it. You’re the only one he responds to. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“I don’t believe it. This isn’t King Kong.”

Gideon took her hand. “Anyway, we’ve got a much bigger problem. We can’t just walk out of here and tell people what we’ve found. Because if we do, all hell will break loose — and then that Cyclops is lost. Look at him. He may look fearsome, he may look strong — but, in reality, he’s totally vulnerable.”