The Presence

CHAPTER 10

Katharine was genuinely annoyed with herself. The bones of the skeleton, fully exposed now, were laid out in precisely the position in which they’d been found. She’d had to move a few of them as she’d cleaned away the sediment that covered them, but in addition to the endless rolls of 35mm film she’d shot, there were dozens of Polaroids as well — a complete photographic record of the excavation and an essential aid to reconstructing the skeleton in situ. Now, as she stared down at the skeleton, her impatience with herself grew.

She should know what she was looking at.

In fact, she should have known what she was looking at yesterday, right after the skull and mandible had been fully excavated. But no matter what came to mind — chimpanzee, gorilla, gibbon, or any of a dozen other apes and primates — there was always something wrong: the skull not prognathic enough, or the mandible too wide, or the teeth showing the wrong configuration. The devil, she decided, was definitely in the details on this one, because it was the details that didn’t add up.

“So, have you decided what it is?” Rob Silver asked, emerging from the rain forest to stand next to her.

“Well, I’m absolutely certain it’s an anthropoid,” Katharine said, attempting to mask the crankiness she was feeling, but failing to fool Rob. “And I’m fairly certain it died from a blow to the head.”

Rob squatted down. “May I pick it up?”

“Be my guest,” Katharine said, crouching down next to him. “I have to tell you, right now I’m thinking you’re wasting a lot of Takeo Yoshihara’s money on me. Either that, or I’m missing something that’s staring me right in the face.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rob told her. “If this was going to be an easy one, I wouldn’t have needed you at all, would I?” He held the skull up, rotated it, then stuck a finger through the hole that had been pierced in the left parietal bone. “What do you think caused this?”

That, at least, was something she felt confident about. “A spear. I’ve seen exactly the same kind of wound in hundreds of skulls in Africa. And you can see by the position of the skeleton that while this head wound appears to be the mortal blow, the body was moved.”

“You can see that,” Rob countered. “Explain, please?”

“For one thing, it’s lying on its back. If you assume someone threw the spear that killed it, it would have just collapsed.”

“So whoever threw the spear pulled it out.”

Katharine nodded. “But someone also laid the body out,” she went on. “See how the arms are? They’re not just lying at its sides.” With a forefinger, she traced along the right humerus, which lay parallel to the spine. But the arm bent at the elbow, with the radius and ulna angling inward toward the center of the pelvis. The bones of the left arm mirrored their counterparts on the right, and the small bones that had made up the hands and fingers were jumbled together, as if one hand had been placed on top of the other.

“Like it was laid out for burial,” Rob suggested.

“Exactly,” Katharine said.

“Sounds as if we have a murder mystery on our hands,” Rob said, laying the skull carefully back in the exact position in which it had been resting. “Someone killed this guy, and then his family brought him up here and buried him.”

Katharine shook her head. “Doesn’t add up,” she said. “First, he wasn’t buried. Everything I scraped away was natural debris, the kind of stuff that builds up in a hurry in rain forests. I don’t find any evidence of burial. Just laid out, and then left here. And the Hawaiians didn’t do that, did they?”

“Absolutely not. They have a great respect for their dead. The burial grounds are sacred, no matter how old they are. And bodies were always buried.”

“So what went on here?” Katharine asked.

“Whoever killed this guy laid him out, then walked away?”

“Maybe,” Katharine agreed, straightening up from her crouch, but keeping her eyes fixed on the skeleton. “But that’s not my biggest problem.” Rob looked up at her. “My biggest problem is that I can’t figure out what it is.”

“It’s human, isn’t it?” Rob asked.

“Not from what I know of humans,” Katharine replied. “It’s barely four feet long, which makes it awfully small for a full-grown Homo sapiens.”

“Maybe it’s a child.”

“The skull doesn’t look like a child’s skull. It seems to be fully developed.” Stooping again, she traced her finger along the seams between the parietal and occipital plates. “See? The bones are fully fused, which means the head is pretty much full size. Yet it’s no larger than your average six-year-old’s. Also, look at the forehead — way too sloped for Homo sapiens. The mandible’s all wrong, too.”

“So it’s some kind of primate,” Rob suggested.

Katharine fixed him with a withering look. “First, there are not now, and never were, any primates on these islands, except for the ones in the zoo in Honolulu. But more important than that, when a chimpanzee or a gorilla dies, you don’t lay it out as you do a human.”

Rob chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. “If it was a pet—”

“Forget it,” Katharine interrupted, her annoyance toward herself now widening to include Rob. “Believe me, I’ve thought about that. This was no pet.”

“So what is it?” Rob asked, deciding to ignore her annoyance. “Come on, you’ve got to have some idea.”

Katharine took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Since it’s just you and me, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to laugh.” Rob’s brows rose in a noncommittal arch, which Katharine suspected was as far as he’d commit himself. “What it looks like is utterly impossible. You won’t believe it any more than I do.”

“Try me,” Rob suggested.

“Early man,” Katharine said.

Rob shook his head. “You’re right. Not possible. Aside from the fact that there was no such thing as early man in this area, these islands weren’t even formed when early man was poking around the planet. Even if Maui was here — which I seriously doubt — what we’re standing on wasn’t. This is a volcanic island, Kath. Layer after layer of lava. I’ll bet the layer we’re standing on isn’t more than a couple of thousand years old, and probably a lot younger than that.”

“I didn’t say I believed it,” Katharine said. “And I can add half a dozen other reasons why it’s impossible, starting with the fact that every early man specimen I’ve ever seen — and I mean every one — is a fossil. And these bones, in case you haven’t noticed, aren’t fossils. They don’t look more than a few hundred years old, if that.”

“So what do we have?” Rob asked.

“I wish I knew,” Katharine sighed. “What I’d really like to get my hands on is a computer, so I could check some things out on the Net.”

“Well, at least that part’s easy,” Rob told her. “Come on.”

The funny feeling started almost the minute Michael emerged from the locker room and trotted out to the field for his fourth-period gym class. At first he hardly noticed it, but as he jogged across the grass toward the spot near the far end zone of the football field where his class was falling in for the morning’s round of calisthenics, he felt it again. It was like last night, when he’d awakened from the nightmare and felt as if there was something in his lungs that wasn’t quite letting him catch his breath, or fill his lungs with air.

Asthma.

But even as the word popped into his consciousness, he rejected it.

It didn’t feel like asthma, and besides, he was over that — he hadn’t had an attack in months!

Ignore it, he told himself. It’ll go away.

He fell into place in the loose formation just in time to yell out a loud “Yo!” when the teacher called his name, then dropped down to the ground for the set of ten quick push-ups that opened the gym class. The class was quiet this morning, and everyone knew why.

Kioki Santoya.

All morning, people Michael didn’t even know had come up to him, asking if there had been anything strange about Kioki last night. What was he supposed to say? He’d hardly even known Kioki — even this morning he had still been having trouble remembering his last name. Now, as he did his push-ups, he could sense the other guys watching him, wondering if there was something he wasn’t talking about. He made it through the push-ups, and though the odd sensation in his chest was still there, it didn’t seem to be any worse. Along with the rest of the class, he scrambled to his feet and starting doing jumping jacks. By the time they’d finished a set of twenty-five, Michael was starting to sweat and he could feel his muscles warming up.

“O-kay!” the teacher said. “Run in place!”

Michael’s arms dropped to his sides as he began running, lifting his knees high with each step, working his legs like two pistons. This was one of his favorite exercises, for in the long months it had taken to build his lungs, his legs had developed, too, and he’d almost come to think of their strength as a kind of barometer, proof positive that his entire body was growing stronger every week, forever throwing off the terrible grip in which his disease had held him.

This morning, though, after only a few steps, the muscles in his legs started to burn. But that was crazy — he was barely getting warmed up! At this rate, a single lap around the track would wear him out.

“Okay, let’s do it!” the teacher yelled. “One lap, and the first two around choose up sides for baseball!”

The class broke ranks and headed out onto the quarter-mile track that circled the football field. Two of the guys — Zack Cater, who was in Michael’s English class, and someone whose name Michael thought was Sky, and who lived down the road from him — took off in the lead. Instantly, Michael knew he had no chance of beating them. He might be able to put on enough speed in the first hundred yards to pull ahead of them, but by the second hundred he’d have fallen behind. Then, most of his energy having been spent on the first sprint, he’d wind up straggling in at the very back of the class.

Not good for someone who had made the track team just yesterday.

Worse would be the humiliation that followed when Zack and Sky left him until dead last to be chosen for the baseball teams.

Better to pace himself and finish somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Glancing around, he saw that there were only two other boys behind him, so he increased his pace slightly, quickly passing three runners, then closing on two more. Once he’d left all five of them behind, he steadied his pace, falling into an easy gait that should have carried him comfortably through the turn at the end zone, then back along the opposite side of the field.

Except that the strange feeling in his chest was getting worse and the muscles of both his legs were burning like crazy, and threatening to cramp up any second.

But he’d done a full lap yesterday, then whipped Jeff Kina in a sprint! What the hell was wrong?

Once again, as it had every few minutes this morning, his mind went back to the dive last night.

But it wasn’t just the dive he was thinking about. It was also the long hike across the rough lava, stumbling with every step.

And the fight with his mother, and the hours of sleep he’d missed. So what did he expect? All his body was doing was punishing him for last night.

A strange thought flickered through Michael’s mind: Was that what had happened to Kioki Santoya, too? If they hadn’t gone on the dive at all — if they’d just gone to a movie, and then come home early, as they’d first planned — would Kioki still be alive?

But that didn’t make any sense. It wouldn’t have made any difference what they’d done last night — what had happened to Kioki … had just happened.

For himself, though, the hike and the dive and the loss of sleep were costing him. Well, fine. If he had to pay for what he’d done, so be it. But he still wasn’t going to let himself finish last.

Determined to ignore the discomfort in his chest and the pain in his legs no matter what, Michael held his pace through the curve around the end zone, and started down the long straightaway. One of the boys he’d passed on the first stretch came up on his right and fell in beside him.

“Thought you were supposed to be real hot shit,” the boy said. Laughing loudly, he pulled away from Michael, deliberately twisting his feet to kick up a cloud of dust from the cinders that paved the track.

Michael tried to turn his head away, but couldn’t avoid sucking in some of the dust, and braced himself against the fit of coughing he was sure would seize him. But then he was through the gray cloud and suddenly felt himself building up speed.

He’d been right! Whatever it was, all he’d had to do was work his way through it! His legs were starting to feel a little better, and his chest was getting back to normal, so he notched up his stride and started to close on the boy ahead of him for the second time. They pounded down the track with Michael just a pace behind, and though the dust behind the other boy was starting to make Michael’s eyes sting, he could feel his strength surging back. As they headed into the last curve, Michael pulled ahead.

Now the finish line was just yards away. Michael poured all the energy he could muster into the final sprint. He passed one more boy, then crossed the line, his chest heaving and his legs burning again. It wasn’t until he dropped his pace back to a walk and turned to join the rest of the class that he realized the gym teacher had been watching him.

“What’s going on, Sundquist?” he asked. “Jack Peters told me how good you were yesterday afternoon, but I’m sure not seeing it this morning. You feel okay?”

Michael hesitated. Should he say anything about the funny feeling he’d had his chest? Or the fire in his legs? But if he did, it was a sure thing the gym teacher would do the same thing the ones back in New York always had: send him to the nurse.

He wasn’t about to start that again. No way!

“I’m okay,” he said. “I just stayed up too late last night, that’s all.”

“Don’t let Peters hear you say that,” the teacher told him. “You want to stay on the team, you keep yourself in shape. Got it?”

“Got it,” Michael agreed, silently suspecting there was a rule somewhere that said gym teachers had to be jerks. He was about to turn away when the teacher spoke again, and Michael wondered if he’d known what he was thinking.

“Then take a few more laps. And while you’re running, you can think about the value of a good night’s sleep.”

While the rest of the class split up into teams for baseball, Michael started around the track.

He steeled himself against the pain as his legs began to burn again, determined that no matter how bad it got, he wouldn’t give in.

He’d built himself up, and he’d made the track team, and whatever was causing the funny feeling in his chest, he’d get through it.

Or die trying.