plantations.
It is too warm to return to my cabin. I spread my thin mat on the rooftop of my barge and watch the celestial light show while clusters of indigenie families sing haunting songs in an argot I have not even tried to learn. I wonder about the Bikura, still far away from here, and a strange anxiety rises in me.
Somewhere in the forest an animal screams with the voice of a frightened woman.
Day 60
:
Arrived Perecebo Plantation. Sick.
Day 62
:
Very ill. Fever, fits of shaking. All yesterday I was vomiting black bile. The rain is deafening. At night the clouds are lit from above by orbital mirrors. The sky seems to be on fire. My fever is very high.
A woman takes care of me. Bathes me. Too sick to be ashamed. Her hair is darker than most indigenies’. She says little. Dark, gentle eyes.
Oh, God, to be sick so far from home.
Day
sheis waiting spying comesin from the rain the thin shirt
on purpose to tempt me, knows what iam my skin burning on fire thin cotton nipples dark against it i knowwho they are they are watching, here hear their voices at night they bathe me in poison burns me they think I dont know but i hear their voices above the rain when the screaming stops stop stop
My skin is almost gone. red underneath can feel the hole in my cheek. when I find the bullet iwill spit it out it out. agnusdeiquitolispecattamundi miserer nobis misere nobis miserere
Day 65
:
Thank you, dear Lord, for deliverance from illness.
Day 66
:
Shaved today. Was able to make it to the shower.
Semfa helped me prepare for the administrator’s visit. I expected him to be one of the large, gruff types I’ve seen out the window working in the sorting compound, but he was a quiet black manwith a slight lisp. He was most helpful. I had been concerned about paying for my medical care but he reassured me that there would be no charge. Even better—he will assign a man to lead me into the high country! He says it is late in the season but if I can travel in ten days we should be able to make it through the flame forest to the Cleft before the tesla trees are fully active.
After he left I sat and talked to Semfa a bit. Her husband died here three local months ago in a harvesting accident. Semfa herself had come from Port Romance; her marriage to Mikel had been a salvation for her and she has chosen to stay on here doing odd jobs rather than go back downriver. I do not blame her.
After a massage, I will sleep. Many dreams about my mother recently.
Ten days. I will be ready in ten days.
Day 75
:
Before leaving with Tuk, I went down to the matrix paddies to say goodbye to Semfa. She said little but I could see in her eyes that she was sad to see me go. Without premeditation, I blessed her and then kissed her on the forehead. Tuk stood nearby, smiling and bobbing. Then we were off, leading the two packbrids. Supervisor Orlandi came to the end of the road and waved as we entered the narrow lane hacked into the aureate foliage.
Domine, dirige nos
.
Day 82
:
After a week on the trail—what trail?—after a week in the trackless, yellow rain forest, after a week of exhausting climb up the ever steeper shoulder of the Pinion Plateau, we emerged this morning onto a rocky outcropping that allowed us a view back across an expanse of jungle toward the Beak and the Middle Sea. The plateau here is almost three thousand meters above sea level and the view was impressive. Heavy rain clouds spread out below us to the foot of the Pinion Hills, but through gaps in the white and gray carpet of cloud we caught glimpses of the Kans in its leisurely uncoilingtoward Port R. and the sea, chrome-yellow swatches of the forest we had struggled through, and a hint of magenta far to the east that Tuk swore was the lower matrix of fiberplastic fields near Perecebo.
We continued onward and upward late into the evening. Tuk is obviously worried that we will be caught in the flame forests when the tesla trees become active. I struggle to keep up,
It is too warm to return to my cabin. I spread my thin mat on the rooftop of my barge and watch the celestial light show while clusters of indigenie families sing haunting songs in an argot I have not even tried to learn. I wonder about the Bikura, still far away from here, and a strange anxiety rises in me.
Somewhere in the forest an animal screams with the voice of a frightened woman.
Day 60
:
Arrived Perecebo Plantation. Sick.
Day 62
:
Very ill. Fever, fits of shaking. All yesterday I was vomiting black bile. The rain is deafening. At night the clouds are lit from above by orbital mirrors. The sky seems to be on fire. My fever is very high.
A woman takes care of me. Bathes me. Too sick to be ashamed. Her hair is darker than most indigenies’. She says little. Dark, gentle eyes.
Oh, God, to be sick so far from home.
Day
sheis waiting spying comesin from the rain the thin shirt
on purpose to tempt me, knows what iam my skin burning on fire thin cotton nipples dark against it i knowwho they are they are watching, here hear their voices at night they bathe me in poison burns me they think I dont know but i hear their voices above the rain when the screaming stops stop stop
My skin is almost gone. red underneath can feel the hole in my cheek. when I find the bullet iwill spit it out it out. agnusdeiquitolispecattamundi miserer nobis misere nobis miserere
Day 65
:
Thank you, dear Lord, for deliverance from illness.
Day 66
:
Shaved today. Was able to make it to the shower.
Semfa helped me prepare for the administrator’s visit. I expected him to be one of the large, gruff types I’ve seen out the window working in the sorting compound, but he was a quiet black manwith a slight lisp. He was most helpful. I had been concerned about paying for my medical care but he reassured me that there would be no charge. Even better—he will assign a man to lead me into the high country! He says it is late in the season but if I can travel in ten days we should be able to make it through the flame forest to the Cleft before the tesla trees are fully active.
After he left I sat and talked to Semfa a bit. Her husband died here three local months ago in a harvesting accident. Semfa herself had come from Port Romance; her marriage to Mikel had been a salvation for her and she has chosen to stay on here doing odd jobs rather than go back downriver. I do not blame her.
After a massage, I will sleep. Many dreams about my mother recently.
Ten days. I will be ready in ten days.
Day 75
:
Before leaving with Tuk, I went down to the matrix paddies to say goodbye to Semfa. She said little but I could see in her eyes that she was sad to see me go. Without premeditation, I blessed her and then kissed her on the forehead. Tuk stood nearby, smiling and bobbing. Then we were off, leading the two packbrids. Supervisor Orlandi came to the end of the road and waved as we entered the narrow lane hacked into the aureate foliage.
Domine, dirige nos
.
Day 82
:
After a week on the trail—what trail?—after a week in the trackless, yellow rain forest, after a week of exhausting climb up the ever steeper shoulder of the Pinion Plateau, we emerged this morning onto a rocky outcropping that allowed us a view back across an expanse of jungle toward the Beak and the Middle Sea. The plateau here is almost three thousand meters above sea level and the view was impressive. Heavy rain clouds spread out below us to the foot of the Pinion Hills, but through gaps in the white and gray carpet of cloud we caught glimpses of the Kans in its leisurely uncoilingtoward Port R. and the sea, chrome-yellow swatches of the forest we had struggled through, and a hint of magenta far to the east that Tuk swore was the lower matrix of fiberplastic fields near Perecebo.
We continued onward and upward late into the evening. Tuk is obviously worried that we will be caught in the flame forests when the tesla trees become active. I struggle to keep up,
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