City of the Yeti Read online

  The pilot was still circling over the city, and I wondered how long he could stay up there before getting low on fuel. At least he wasn’t trying to land on the plateau, probably because snow cover obscured the terrain.

  To my amazement, within five minutes, a dozen Sramana children appeared in the square, where they stood and waved at the airplane. The pilot rocked his wings back and forth several times in response, then turned east for Pokhara, and the only airstrip in central Nepal.

  From a castle window, Nineveh and I watched the plane grow smaller. “Do you think the monks at Jang betrayed us?” I asked.

  “No. The plane is likely part of an expanded search effort that includes the Dhorpatan wilderness. It’s obvious that your location must be near Jang, since the first pigeon landed there.”

  Now I regretted sending any messages. If one of Nepal’s valuable airplanes had been diverted to hunt for just two kids, then the government was surely involved, no doubt thanks to Dad and Uncle Colin.

  As the plane disappeared over the horizon, Nineveh’s voice grew sad. “I fear that our time on the mesa has finally run out.”

  “Then Rachel and I should leave for Jang as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, but even your reappearance won’t stop them now.” He patted my shoulder and shuffled away.

  Nineveh understood humans all too well. Once they determined that this city was uncharted, they would return, and in large numbers.

  On the morning after the plane appeared, I awoke burning with fever. In the two weeks since the kidnapping, something had been incubating inside of me. When I met Rachel in the hallway, we pointed to each other’s faces, and both blurted out, “Bumps!” We ran to a mirror and saw a red rash on our foreheads. We’d already suffered from chicken pox and measles as toddlers, so this was something else.

  As the day progressed, bad memories surfaced. I’d seen this rash before, back in Lucknow. If I was right, it was smallpox. I knew it could appear even after vaccination, which we’d both received, though symptoms were then milder. But it could spell disaster for the Sramana if they were susceptible.

  Rachel and I wound up back in the medical ward, surrounded by a team of doctors who kept their distance. Only Nineveh dared approach. “Smallpox is something that can afflict Sramana,” he said. “I survived it almost a century ago, when the mesa was nearly wiped out by the disease. Hopefully, I’m immune now.”

  He sat in a chair near our beds. “We’ve always checked humans carefully for any illness before inviting them to live here. I’m convinced both of you were in good health when you arrived.”

  After conferring privately with the doctors, he said, “We’ve learned something important from the visiting Hedjet families. Their warrior escorts were showing symptoms just before your kidnapping.”

  “But how did the warriors catch smallpox in the first place?” I asked.

  “They had bragged about an earlier abduction involving human hunters. Something went wrong, though, and they released their prisoners. Those hunters probably carried the disease.”

  My immediate concern was for the two Hedjet families. I questioned the crowd in the room, and the head doctor answered from several yards away. “Those families have already been quarantined at a separate location. They were planning to head home soon, but now that’s out of the question. We’ll try to isolate anyone who came in contact with them. The incubation period for smallpox in our species is longer than yours, so symptoms won’t show up for a while. Also, unlike humans, in us it’s contagious even before a rash appears.”

  Another doctor continued, “We haven’t routinely vaccinated our population, as humans do, using calves infected with cowpox. Long ago, we used yaks for this purpose, but none of our livestock are infected now.”

  I felt an enormous weight in the room. The community had received a double blow from humanity: their city had been spotted, and a terrible disease planted. In addition, the lone Hedjet warrior who escaped the skirmish probably took smallpox back to his village.

  “Could you use some of our blisters as a vaccine?” I asked, remembering how ancient cultures had done this; it was called inoculation.

  “That would be too risky,” the head doctor replied. “Our best strategy is to isolate everyone, and hope that the outbreak is limited. We’ll cross-inoculate among Sramana as a last resort.”

  “What if you could get some of our vaccine, based on cowpox?” I asked. “Would that help?”

  “I don’t see why not,” the head doctor replied.

  “Then send out a request for vaccine, without saying who needs it, or where it’s going,” I said.

  Nineveh commented, “I suppose we could send notes by pigeon again, or ask someone to ride to the Jang monastery. But the response would be unpredictable, and probably much too slow.”

  I tried another plan. “Your town has already been discovered, right? They’ll fly over again, I’m sure. Maybe we could signal them to drop a supply of vaccine. It would be faster than any other method. Also, if the pilot thinks there’s an epidemic down here, he won’t try to land.”

  Nineveh reflected for a moment. “Yes, that just might work. But how to signal?”

  “Why don’t you make a sign?” Rachel suggested. “How about tracing big letters in the snow?”

  Nineveh looked impressed with her idea. “What do you think this sign should say?”

  Dad had often described attempts to vaccinate everyone in India against smallpox. He’d also mentioned a new technique for preparing vaccine, called freeze-drying. It was invented in Paris in 1918, and allowed material to be stored for long periods and shipped anywhere. If we could get some of that, then the mesa would be ready for the crisis, and any others to follow.

  “Let’s write: NEED PARIS SMALLPOX VACCINE,” I said. “Can those words be translated into Nepalese?”

  “I think so,” Nineveh said, enthusiasm filling his voice. He gave orders to several individuals standing at the back of the room, and they rushed out.

  From the hospital window, we had a partial view of the large field where the horseback competition had been held. With snow cover, it resembled an enormous, flat page of white paper. Within hours, long winding trenches had been dug into the ground using plows, the brown dirt serving to trace out characters from the Nepali alphabet. All we could do now was wait and, ironically, hope for a plane to return.

  Human curiosity proved predictable. Soon after sunrise on the following day, a different airplane appeared. This one was larger, and carried two persons, no doubt to confirm the amazing story told by the earlier pilot. Fortunately, no new snow had fallen overnight, and the oversized letters were still visible. Once again, a group of children, with hoods covering their heads, stood near the sign and waved. And once again, the pilot rocked his plane’s wings in acknowledgement.

  This event was followed by a long week without any hint of a plane, due to thick cloud cover and fog. The mild symptoms that Rachel and I experienced faded over that time. We moved out of the main medical ward and into a small recovery room. A few elderly Sramana, who’d lived through the previous smallpox epidemic, cared for us and delivered our meals. The doctors said it would soon be safe for us to leave, and in fact, our immunity would allow us to help Sramana smallpox patients.

  Once we were released, Uruk acted differently toward us. Just after the kidnapping, he’d been friendly, but now he kept his distance, and frowned in our presence. According to Nineveh, Uruk suspected that we were the original carriers of the disease, since he hadn’t observed symptoms on the Hedjet warriors.

  Finally, during the first break in dense fog, another two-person airplane arrived. We held our breaths as it flew over. Three small crates attached to parachutes floated down. They hit the ground fairly hard, and I hoped padding had been placed around the glass vials of vaccine. The plane made a few circles over the ci
ty to confirm the drop, and then vanished.

  A team of doctors and others, including Rachel and myself, rushed to the hospital’s supply room, while Sramana soldiers carried the crates in from the field and opened them. Each interior had been packed as a series of boxes within boxes, the spaces in-between stuffed with cotton, to insure that the vials at the core would survive impact. A package of sterile needles for scratching the skin was included, as well as picture-based instructions. According to my father, this sort of kit had proven successful in remote areas of India, where only local doctors were available to perform the procedure.

  In fact, everything about this kit and the packing reminded me of my father. Then I saw something inside that didn’t belong. It was a folded page from the London Times, dated November 28, 1922. One article had been circled using a pen. The headline read: Carter finds tomb of Tutankhamun! The persistent archeologist had finally done it.

  The presence of this article meant only one thing: Dad had guessed I was here. It was his clever way of sending me a private message. But how did he know? The answer hit me like a splash of cold water. Our sign in the snow had specifically requested Paris vaccine. Dad was one of the few doctors who’d heard of the technique, and he’d shared the details with me.

  I turned to Rachel, angry with myself. “I’ve just announced to the whole world that we’re here.” She looked puzzled, so I handed her the news page and explained. Search parties might avoid the mesa a bit longer due to a smallpox scare, but eventually they would overrun the place.

  Unexpectedly, two soldiers began arguing out loud, even pushing one other – a rare sight among the telepathic Sramana. A doctor walked over and questioned them. He returned to the crates looking worried.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “The hoods on those soldiers blew off as they retrieved the crates. The co-pilot pointed down and yelled at the pilot, maybe to confirm the drop, or, maybe because he noticed that the soldiers weren’t human.”

  I walked over to a window, now even more upset. Outside, thick clouds had returned, and large snowflakes were drifting down. By nightfall, a blizzard had engulfed the mesa.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The blizzard raged for three days. Snowdrifts well above our heads covered many parts of the city. However, interior rooms remained warm and dry behind thick walls of stone, with heat provided by oil or wood-burning stoves.

  Nineveh’s attitude was nonchalant. “Once in a while, we have an early winter, especially after an extreme monsoon season. Roads to human villages will remain impassable until spring.” In other words, we were stuck here for the winter.

  Yet snow was the least of the city’s concerns. Despite the application of smallpox vaccine to all residents, symptoms of painful red blisters showed up by mid-December. The two Hedjet families were the first to fall ill, along with locals who’d met with them, including Harappa and Amri. Meanwhile, Lothal and Mehrgarh, who’d avoided the Hedjet, remained healthy, but were still quarantined at home.

  I wasn’t surprised to see Uruk come down with symptoms, given his contact with the infected warrior at the campfire. He still blamed Rachel and me for his illness, despite doctors’ efforts to explain that humans weren’t contagious until a rash emerged. Our rash had appeared two weeks after the rescue.

  The main hospital ward filled up quickly, and other rooms nearby were converted into isolation quarters. On the Sramana, even after vaccination, the rash looked worse than anything I’d seen with humans. Liquid-filled blisters covered most of their fever-ravaged bodies, and it could drag on for weeks. Symptoms were worst among the younger Sramana. Doctors speculated that the human vaccine, while offering some protection, wasn’t as effective as they’d hoped, probably because it had been applied post-infection.

  Rachel and I volunteered most of our time caring for patients. Rachel stayed with Harappa as her rash progressed, chatting away while applying warm, moist towels to the blisters. The two played chess or Sramana card games for hours, and became even closer friends. Amri improved enough to move to a recovery area, and we hoped that Harappa could soon join her.

  One afternoon I stopped by the main ward to visit the Hedjet boy who’d tried to play soccer with us in the courtyard. He motioned for me to sit beside his bed, and struggled to tell me his name by thinking the word, and also saying it out loud. It sounded like Ephesus. On this particular day, his fever had dropped a lot, and he wanted to talk. I decided to stay as long as the nurses would allow.

  Ephesus pointed to a window where snow had piled up on the ledge outside. “Where I’m from, this sort of weather is nothing. We live in stone buildings, like here, but in deep winter we move into caves for better shelter. In summer, there are secluded valleys for us to practice horseback riding and archery.”

  I decided to tackle the biggest issue first. “I’ve heard that the Hedjet plan to leave their towns.”

  “True. And most want to join the Deshret peacefully. But some want to take over Deshret villages by force.”

  “It’s mainly us – humans – that caused the problem, right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied, looking self-conscious. “However, many Hedjet realize that human interaction can have advantages. For example, trading helped to make this city what it is today.”

  “You know, compared to your parents, you’re a lot more open to humans.”

  “I wasn’t always like that; something happened recently. Human explorers were found near our village this summer. It’s the highest we’ve ever seen them climbing. As usual, we scared most of them off, but one stayed. He seemed unafraid, and was even willing to live with us for a while. Our elders permitted it, knowing they could always erase his memory if necessary. They wanted to learn more about future human activities, and eventually they came to trust him. I talked with him several times. He was nice – an older man, a teacher I think.”

  Could it be? I described Grandpa’s features as best I could remember. He’d last visited Lucknow when I was eight years old.

  “Hmm. Sounds like him,” Ephesus said. “Anyway, because of that, our elders asked two Hedjet families to travel here to begin talks about clan reunion. My family was one of them.”

  “What happened to the old man?”

  “I’m not sure. He left my village after I did. Maybe he went home.”

  “My grandfather never returned home.”

  “Oh, I see.” Ephesus adjusted his position in the bed, grimacing as new blisters rubbed against the sheets. Eventually he grew still and gazed at the far wall, as though he could see through it. “I want to know more about this city. I’ve heard stories of a secret cave filled with treasure – things once shared by all Sramana, but hoarded by the Deshret after the split.”

  I leaned closer, suddenly more alert. “What kind of treasure?”

  His eyes now sparkled. “Well, for example, a potion which, if taken regularly, can offer immortality. Deshret live much longer than Hedjet, and I’ll bet it’s more than just a difference in where we live.”

  I remembered the age stated by Nineveh. I’d never asked the other elders, but all were probably over one hundred, in a land where most humans only lived to be fifty or sixty. However, I doubted that any Deshret was immortal, or even close to it. Besides, if they really had magic potions, why weren’t these used for the smallpox epidemic?

  I took a hard look at Ephesus. He reminded me a lot of Lothal. Both had grown up with fables and rumors regarding each other’s culture. Without interaction between the two clans, neither side could separate fact from fiction.

  Thinking back to Lothal’s claim, I asked, “Can the Hedjet really kill humans by stopping their hearts?”

  “What? No!” Ephesus said. “We can manipulate thoughts, but not physical things. Maybe a few people with weak hearts were scared to death by the illusions we create. We train very hard to frighte
n humans!”

  “Oh yes,” I said, “those ‘Yeti’ images. Could you show me how that works?”

  “I’m not very good at it, and besides, I’d rather not try it on you.”

  “Please. I want to see what’s been scaring all those travelers over the centuries. You can stop if it starts to hurt me.”

  “Well, if you insist. First, try to relax.”

  That was easier said than done. I took a deep breath and leaned back in my chair. He squinted and stared at me. A full minute passed without any results, and I wondered if he was too sick for a demonstration. But then I felt dizzy, and watched his face transform. The four canine teeth grew into sharp fangs nearly two inches long. His forehead, already large, expanded upward several more inches, with dozens of new wrinkles appearing. Both eyes sank deeper and started to glow, while the brow ridges pushed out further. His nose flattened, and scraggly hair sprouted everywhere, giving him a primate look. Lastly, all the smallpox blisters disappeared.

  At first I thought, yes, this is just what I’d expect for a Yeti. But when he growled, it was all too real. I stood up and backed away, even though part of me was saying, you fool – this is just a parlor trick! Finally, my deepest instincts took hold, and I became gripped with fear. I had to flee!

  I turned and ran toward the door – and right into a doctor who’d just entered the room. I knocked a tray out of her hand, and it clattered loudly on the tile floor. Fortunately, this doctor had a normal Sramana face, which no longer seemed unusual.

  “What are you doing, Danny?” she asked, sounding irritated as she picked up the mess.

  Her voice snapped me back to reality. I risked a glance at Ephesus, who now appeared normal as well. He was gesturing for me to return. I paused to regain my composure, and then walked over. Embarrassed, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

  He handed me a clean cloth to wipe my face. I was sweating and didn’t know it. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I tried to keep it simple.”