Amazonia

"It's a long story, old friend:" He helped Nate get his father on his feet. Too frail to move on his own, Carl Rand clung to Nate and Kouwe. "Right now, though, we have to get you out of this damn place:'

Nate stared at his father, tears streaming down his face. "Dad. . :'

"I know, son," he said hoarsely and coughed.

There was no time for a proper reunion now, but Nate wasn't going to let another moment go by without saying the words he had regretted withholding the day his father left for this expedition. "I love you, Dad:"

The arm around his shoulder tightened, a small squeeze of affection and love. A familiar gesture. Family.

"We should fetch the others," A

"Nate, why don't you stay with your father here?" Kouwe suggested "Rest. We can collect you both on the way out."

Dakii shook his head. "No. We not come back this way." He waved his arm. "Other way to go:"

Nate frowned. "We should stay together anyway."

"And I can handle myself," Carl argued hoarsely. He glanced back to the cubbyhole. "Besides, I've been resting here long enough:"

Kouwe nodded.

With the matter settled, they began to climb toward the surface. Kouwe gave a thumbnail sketch of their situation. Nate's father only listened, leaning more and more heavily upon them as they walked. The only words his father spoke during the discourse were at the mention of Louis Favre and what he had done. "The goddamn bastard:"

Nate smiled, hearing a bit of the old fire in his father's voice.

When they reached the surface, it was obvious the two Rangers had been busy. They had all the Ban-ali gathered. Each bore packs full of nuts and weapons.

Nate and his father remained in the entrance, while Kouwe explained about the addition to their team and what they had found below. "Dakii says there's an escape route through the root's tu

"Then we'd best hurry," Sergeant Kostos said. "We have less than thirty minutes, and we want to be as far away from here as possible:"

Camera joined them, her weapon on her shoulder. "All set at our end. We have a couple dozen of those nut pods and four canteens of the sap:"

"Then let's haul ass," Kostos said.

7:32 1?M,

As they wound through the root tu

Though Sergeant Kostos believed the subterranean tu

So they hurried. Not only for their own sake, but for the world. Inside their packs, they carried the fate of thousands, if not millions-the nut pods of the Yagga, the suppressant for the virulent human prion. The cure to the plague.

They could not be trapped down here.

Glancing over a shoulder, Kouwe again checked the party. The dark tu

Behind Kouwe, the others looked equally wary, even the Indians. The line of men and women ran out of sight around a curve in the twisting passage. Back at the end, pulling up the rear, was Private Camera. She kept a watch behind them-where Tor-tor and the giant black jaguar followed. It had taken some coaxing to encourage the two cats inside, but Nate had finally been successful in luring Tor-tor. "I'm not going to leave Ma

Once Tor-tor entered, the large female jaguar had followed.

Camera remained alert, her weapon ready, in case the wild cat decided it needed a snack while traveling.

Dakii paused at the intersection of trails. Sergeant Kostos grumbled, but they dared not force a faster pace. It would be easy to get lost down here. They depended on Dakii's memory.

The tribesman selected a path and led the others. The tu

After a few minutes, the tu

Kouwe followed, gaping at the room. The chamber had to be a half mile across. Through the center of the chamber, a massive root stalk, as thick around as a giant redwood, penetrated from the roof and continued down through the floor like a great column.

"It's the Yagga's taproot again," Nate said, coming up beside them. "We must have circled back to it:"

From the main root, thousands of branches spread like tree limbs in all directions, toward other passages.

"There must be miles and miles of tu

"The tree must have been collecting its specimens for centuries," Nate's father mumbled beside his son.

"Maybe even longer," Kouwe warned. "Maybe as far back as when these lands first formed:'

"Back to the Paleozoic," Nate murmured. "If so, what might be out there in that vast biological storehouse?"

"And what might still be living?" A

Kouwe cringed. It was both a wondrous and frightening thought. He waved Dakii onward. The sight was too terrible to stare at any longer, and time was ru

They wound along the lip as it circled the chamber. Dakii led them to another opening, back into the tu

"When I studied anthropology," Kouwe said, "I read many myths of trees. The maternal guardian. A caretaker, a storehouse of all wisdom. It makes me wonder about the Yagga. Has man crossed its path before?"

"What do you mean?" Nate asked.

"Surely this tree wasn't the only one of its kind. There must have been others in the past. Maybe these myths are some collective memory of earlier human encounters with this species:"

He recognized the doubt in Nate's eyes and continued, "Take, for example, the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden. A tree whose fruit has all the knowledge in the world, but whose consumption curses those who eat of it. You could draw a parallel to the Yagga. Even when I saw Carl trussed up among the roots, it reminded me of another Biblical tale. Back in the thirteenth century, a monk who had starved himself seeking visions from God told a tale of seeing Seth, the son of Adam, returning to Eden. There, the young man saw the Tree of Knowledge, now turned white. It clutched Cain in its roots, some penetrating into his brother's flesh:"