Zephyr Dorsey

“The Mystery of the Savannah” from Professor Q and the Blood Fiend

Alexa Quintillian leans forward as she climbs the burnt-orange, azul streaked stone, her limbs and face glistening with perspiration.  A small rucksack sets upon her back and a rifle rests across her thin body, nestled into the crook of her arm.  Thin rills of water trickle down the massive rock on either side of her expensive hiking boots.

Near the top of the rock sets a pool of water, no larger or deeper than a bathtub, its steam rising almost transparently through the bright rays of the African sun.  Alexa places her rifle and rucksack beside the pool and treats herself to some water from her canteen. 

She stands at the boundary between two plateaus.  Below her is the great undulating grasses of the savannah on one side, and the deep, intertwining layers of jungle on the other. 

Most of the villages in the area lie along the river cutting through both plateaus.  Between the river and the jungle below is situated the private guardsman base owned by the Gorgazon corporation, the personnel of the base tasked with protecting the dam under construction at the fall-line between the two plateaus.

Alexa closes her green eyes and allows the sunbeams to tingle the skin of her bare shoulders and the cool air from the nearby waterfalls to blow through her tan, sleeveless blouse.  She is just beginning to realize how exhausted she is.

She has spent the last several months defending herself and her client against a pack of overpaid attorneys who would make a pride of lions seem like a basket of mewing kittens.  Somehow, against all odds, she has this morning succeeded in convincing the judge to issue an injunction against the Gorgazon corporation, ordering the globe-spanning conglomerate to immediately cease and desist construction of the dam.  Her client, the Economic and Social Affairs Department of the United Nations, is fighting to keep the dam from being built.  The reservoir the dam is intended to create on the upper plateau will rob the villages below of their water.  Her victory is only a temporary one — new legal challenges have already been filed — but at least the water will keep flowing through lower plateau for a few more months.

Alexa reaches below the rim of the small stone pool and feels the temperature of the shimmering blue water.  She smiles.  Perfect.

She takes-off her blouse, boots, and safari shorts, revealing a black one-piece bathing suit.  She folds the clothes and puts them next to her gun and atop her backpack and places her canteen on top of her clothes.  She then ties-back her shoulder-length brown hair and lowers herself into the warm water.

Leaning her head against the pool’s smooth rock rim, her sharp jawline a few inches above the glimmering water’s surface, she can smell the healthy minerals contained in the rising, soothing steam.

Overhead, the clouds float, soft and friendly across the blue sky, reminding her of the stuffed animals the servants used to line across her bed each morning when she was a child.  She was always so comforted by the sight of the immaculately made bed, with its pink cover and its lacey pillows, and by the row of cuddly animals lounging atop it, all of them content to wait there for her while she was away at school.  There was order and comfort and security in the scene.  She missed that feeling.  The world had turned-out to be the opposite of that little girl’s bedroom, filled not with comfort and security, but danger and heartache at every turn. 

She knew that, in many ways, her pampered childhood had not prepared her for the bloody reality of Nature she would find once she had ventured beyond the walls of her exclusive school and her family’s New England estate.  And she knows that she has suffered more than anyone would guess from the ripping away of the cashmere illusions that once enswaddled her.  But in other ways, her upbringing, with its access to vast resources of education and experience, had allowed her to acquire precisely the skills and knowledge-base she would need to face the world, her world.  No, she did not know how to survive in the wilderness — and she probably would not last three days if trapped in the slum of one of the world’s largest cities — but she had been taught where to find the levers of true power controlled by the global elite, and she had acquired the skillset allowing her to get close to those levers.  And most importantly of all, her father had made certain that, whenever she is able to actually lay a hand upon one of those levers, she knows how to move it.  

Settling into a comfortable position in the warm water, Alexa breathes-in deeply, feeling herself beginning to relax for the first time in weeks, a feeling more intoxicating than the best bottle of wine from her father’s well-stocked cellar.

There are no high-powered attorneys here to try trip her up or make her feel stupid.  No whirlwinds of negotiations to wear her down to powder.  No blizzards of paperwork to bury her alive, or bureaucratic knots to twist around her neck. 

For the moment, she can forget about territorial disputes dating back centuries.  She does not have to suffer the stares of worried fathers and desperate mothers, all depending upon her legal skills and the will of a few, insulated judges.  And best of all, for the moment at least, she does not have to deal with the perversions of justice caused by so ludicrous an amount of money flowing into so small amount of real estate.

The people in the lower plateau have a right to water, thinks Alexa.  Surely anyone, anywhere has the right to their own life-blood.

She shakes her head.  She cannot think about all that.  Not right now.  Thinking about all that is opposite of why she has come to the warm spring.  She has come to detox her mind of worries, if only for a few minutes. 

She tries again to clear from her mind the clutter of six grueling months of legal work.  She focuses on reconnecting with Nature, on communing with Mother Gaia, on submerging into the Oneness of existence…

She breathes out and imagines her breath as spiderwebs extending into the universe, to the trees of the jungle, to the waterfalls between the two plateaus, to the bashful crescent of the pale daytime moon, to the shining sun, itself.  She desires to consciously experience her ongoing participation in the great conversation of the cosmos.   Absorbed and absorbing.  Welcomed and welcoming.  She longs to feel part of the divine feminine, continuously giving new life to the Universe.  Daughter, Lover, Mother, Goddess —

Thop-thop-thop… at the fringes of her awareness.

She pushes the disturbing sound away.

Thop-thop-thop…

Alexa’s mouth twitches.  She tries to retain focus, to not let the moment slip away. 

Thop-thop-thop-thop! 

Her jaws clench and her brows constrict.

THOP-THOP-THOP-THOP-THOP! 

Alexa jerks open her eyelids and lurches forward through the warm water and glowers above, slender fingers splayed over the rock-edge of the small natural pool.

She can hardly believe it.  A helicopter!  Out here in the middle of no-where, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, daring to intrude upon her one chance of seizing a single moment of yogic bliss. 

The helicopter, gaudily bearing the Gorgazon corporate logo on its side, hovers in place not far from her.  A man steps to the edge of the rectangular opening in its belly and, after a brief hesitation, leaps from the opening, lowered by a cable-supported harness wrapped around his chest and back.

Alexa stands, dripping water and frustration.  She had recognized the man instantly.  He is a man with an uncanny knack for trampling on tranquil moments.

After hitting the ground, the man removes his harness and shows the helicopter his thumb, and the cable yanks taut, and the harness zips up toward the helicopter, and the helicopter rises and moves away.  He waves the helicopter a hearty goodbye.

He is a thin-shouldered man of average height, wearing a peach-colored, long-sleeved shirt, faded blue jeans, and big brown boots.  He hikes up the exposed rock with swift strides and arms pumping like levers.

“Quintin!  You are beyond belief!” shouts Alexa across the quickly shortening distance.

She steps out from the hot water so she can begin to air-dry, which she knows won’t take long in the warm winds of Africa. 

“Whoo-ee!” Quintin exclaims, drawing near, the sun behind him, and his face obscured in shadow.  “Now this is some piece ah real estate!  Could make a fella believe in God.  Or at least the national park service.”

He gives his wife a hug, unconcerned that her bathing suit is dripping wet. 

Her chin just over his shoulder, Alexa shakes her head and smiles.  Even after these all years, her husband never ceases to surprise her.  She pulls back and crosses her arms.

“What in the world are you doing here?  How did you find me?”

He points a finger up.  “You, uhh, didn’t notice the chopper?”

Alexa tilts her head warningly him, arms still crossed, leaning back on one bare leg, the other stretching toward her husband.

“Ya know, they’da choppered you in, too, if you’d asked.”  He grins.

“Let me guess.  You found yourself missing me so much that you commandeered a helicopter to seek me out so you could spend the afternoon with me.”

“I like that.  Let’s go with that.”

“Quintin!” 

Quintin recognizes his wife’s I mean it voice.

“Well, truth is, darlin’… It’s jus’…”  He shrugs, and his hands go into the back pockets of his jeans, and he looks out over the vast landscape.  “I thought ya might want in on this one,” he says with faked bashfulness, grazing the toe of his boot along the surface of the massive rock beneath them.

Alexa perks up.  “You have a case?”

“Yep.  I got a case.”

“What?  Where?”

“Here.  The Gorgazon base-camp.”  Quintin points in the direction of the lake below.  “Archie’s on his way with a jeep.  I told him to meet me here at the warm sprang.  Somethin’ he wants me to take a look at.”

“So you really didn’t know I was here?”

“No idea.”  Quintin shakes his head and smiles his wide grin. 

Even after years of a close marriage, Alexa cannot always tell when her husband is kidding.  But she decides, in this case, it is unimportant.  He is here now.  And he has a case!

“Ah!  Here he comes!” says Quintin, clapping once. 

Peering over the savannah, Alexa sees a moving speck almost invisible upon the wide grassy plain.  She begins putting-on her clothes and redonning her canteen and backpack. 

Quintin picks-up her rifle and weighs it in his hands.

“You plannin’ on doin’ some big game huntin’ on your relaxin’ hike, were ya?” he teases.

Alexa takes the gun from him.  “You’re the one who told me to carry a rifle where-ever I go out here.”

He smiles his broad grin and winks at her.  “Sage advice.”

Alexa looks into her husband’s deepset eyes.  Perhaps, with his balding pate and growing paunch, he would not fit most women’s idea of handsome.  But she has always found him irresistible, even from the start.  Well, infuriating from the start, but irresistible soon after. 

His cheekbones, sharp and pronounced, together with his jutting, dimpled chin, always make him look gaunt in his author photos, although Alexa knows the truth that his waistline has been slowly expanding over the years.  His eyes are so deeply set between a pair of crow’s feet wrinkles as to remain in perpetual shadow, even beneath a sun as bright as the one staring down at them now.  The color of his eyes, in fact, forever remains a mystery to most people who meet him.  Even in the many pictures which have been taken of him and splashed across the world’s media, his eyes seem to change color from photograph to photograph. 

His once-black hair is now largely gray and receding from his formidable forehead.  However, besides the few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his face is remarkably wrinkle-free.  More than one person has told Alexa how difficult it is to judge her husband’s age.  Rather than seeming either old or young, he exhibits a range of ages depending on the moment.  

And when Quintin grins… well, that is when he looks to Alexa like the eternal boy.  He has a remarkably warm and winning grin, but one that also advertises the mischievous streak running thickly through him.  

The couple begins down the hill of multi-colored rock, Alexa in the lead.  They tread carefully, the rock slippery and the gradient steep, with thin ribbons of water running alongside the soles of their hiking boots.

“How was your little bath, by the way?” Quintin asks.

“Short.”

“Hey — what about that thang you had today?  How’d that go?”

“That thang?  You mean the injunction to save the lives of thousands of people down river?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I’m happy.  For the moment, at least.”

“Wait!”  Quintin puts his hand on his wife’s shoulder as they reach the bottom of the rock-hill.  “Does that mean…” 

She turns toward him.  “Yes. I got the injunction — temporary injunction.  Gorgazon has to halt construction on the dam pending the results of farther legal and regulatory investigations.”

“Whoo-ee!  Sometimes bureaucratic B.S. works for the good guys!”

He gives his wife a full body hug — at least the fullest he can manage with a woman carrying a gun and a backpack.

“Congratulations!” he says, smiling ear to ear as he holds her out at arms-length.  “I knew you could do it.”

Alexa shrugs and begins walking again toward the savannah.  “That makes one of us.”

“Not many women could’ve taken on the whole international capitalist superstructure and won.”

“And fewer men.”

Catching-up to his wife, Quintin puts an arm around her and kisses her cheek.  “I’m proud of ya, babe.”

“Thanks.  I’m pretty proud of me, too.  But the fight’s not over.  It’s just an injunction.”

“Ah Hell, the fight ain’t ever over.  When the fightin’s over, that’s when you know you’re dead.”

“Well, you know what they say…”

“Yeah.  It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight — it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

“No.  That life’s about the journey, not the destination.”

“Yeah well, I guess with death as the destination, all we got is the journey.  Shoot.”

At the bottom of the incline leading up to the hot spring, Quintin stops abruptly, arms akimbo.

“Hey, lookee there,” he says. 

Alexa turns to find her husband staring down at the ground.

“What?”

“See that dirt?  All that dirt was perdy recently sittin’ on top ah this big rock.  Sumpin shook it down.  Not long ago either.”

“So?  What’s that mean?”

Quintin looks around, hands remaining on his thin hips.  “Musta been a small quake ’round here.”

“Oh that,” said Alexa, turning and heading into the tall grass.  “This whole area is geologically active.”  She turns her head toward Quintin.  “Did you, uhh, notice the hot spring back there?”

“Ha, ha,” says Quintin catching-up with a few spry steps of his slightly bowed legs.

They walk over the great steppe, its long grass undulating in the breezes, more beautiful than any landscape painting.

“I hope this is Archie,” says Alexa, seeing the jeep approaching and slapping her rifle.  “Otherwise, they might arrest us for poaching.”

“You ain’t gonna poach nuthin’ but fieldmice with that thang, darlin’.”

The open-top jeep with the Gorgazon logo on the doors pulls in front of Alexa and Quintin.  In the passenger seat is Archimedes “Archie” Dooley, a middle-aged man of average build, with dark hair and a thin black moustache.  Behind the wheel is a young woman wearing a small cloth cap with a short bill, the orange and purple Gorgazon logo emblazoned on its front, and her hair tied behind her neck.  Both occupants of the jeep wear fatigues colored in camouflaging splotches of grassy green and dirty brown, each of their shirts long-sleeved but thinly made, buttoned down the front, the outline of the Gorgazon logo stitched on the chest pockets.  Archie also wears stars on his shoulders indicating his rank and the insignia on his chest, opposite the corporate logo, indicating that he is a member of the medical staff in Gorgazon’s privatized army. 

“You guys want a lift?” asks Archie, a smile spreading beneath his thin moustache, and an arm dangling over the green jeep.

“Yeah, why not?  Whattiya say, dear?” asks Quintin turning to his wife and moving toward the vehicle.

“Hey, Archie,” says Alexa following her husband into the backseat, carefully keeping her rifle from pointing in any of the wrong directions.  “I almost didn’t recognize you, Chancey,” she says to the driver.  “You look so much older.”

Chancey smiles a bit bashfully, her dimples suddenly making her look younger and more like the college-aged girl she actually is. 

“Guardsmen duty will do that to you ma’am,” says Chancey with a practiced tone of respect in her young voice.

“So will havin’ to work at the same base with your old man,” begins Quintin, clapping Archie on the shoulder as Alexa seats herself and secures her rifle.

Chancey and her father smile in the front seat, saying nothing.  Archie gives his daughter the signal, and the jeep spurts forward over the rough terrain.   

“So whadda we have, Arch?” asks Quintin, leaning back and speaking loudly to be heard over the passing air.  

“There are animals dead all over this part of the savannah.”

“And you wanna know why,” says Quintin.

Archie nods and turns his whole body in his seat to more easily face his old friend.  “Yes.  We’ve examined the carcasses, but initial tests have failed to find the cause of death.”

“And the developin’ opinion is that it was some sorta mass poisnin.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Stands to reason… If there were external signs, such as gunshot wounds or such, that would give your people a clue.  But when all the bad stuff is on the inside, that makes thangs tougher to decipher.”

“Our base commander, Shareef, has convinced himself that this was a chemical attack intended for our base.”

“But you don’t agree,” says Quintin.

“I find it very unlikely.”

Quintin bobs his head up and down to acknowledge the information and looks out over the savannah, dreading the sight of all the upcoming death.

“Unfortunately, Shareef is already planning a counterattack,” continues Archie.  “He’s gonna bomb several of the local villages which he suspects of giving aid and comfort to Averroes.”

“Averroes bein’ the warlord suspected of the alleged gas bombin’?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s no proof this… Averroes… did it,” interjects Alexa, leaning up and putting a slender hand upon the seat in front of her.  “Or even that a chemical attack did indeed occur.”

“Exactly,” says Archie.  “Many innocent people will die if Shareef insists on bombing the villages in retaliation.”

“When’s the retaliation commence?” asks Quintin.

“Could be as soon as today.”

“Today?” exclaims Alexa. 

Archie nods gravely.

“Well,” says Quintin placing a hand on his wife’s leg.  “At least there’s no pressure to solve this thang quick.”

“We’re at the first of the animals, major,” says Chancey.  “Should I stop here?”

“Yes,” answers Archie.  “Let’s get out.”

Chancey brings the jeep to a stop and everyone exits.  Several antelope carcasses lie near them.

“I have some gloves if you need, professor,” says Chancey, indicating the small box in her hands.

“Thank ya, Chance.  I’ll take a pair of those,” responds Quintin.  He looks her in the eye as he dons the plastic gloves.  “Me and Alexa don’t git to see you and Archie much anymore,” he says.  “How do ya like the guardsman life?”

Chancey shrugs.  “It’s good.  I’m getting to apply my psychology degree.”

“Ah,” says Quintin.  “Interrogation work, then.”

“Some of that.  Also working with the locals and trying to get a handle on the local politics and worldviews.”

“That’s good.  And you git to be with your father.”

“Yeah.  That, too.”  Chancey rolls her eyes as a joke as she turns to Archie, who winks at her in return.

Quintin moves to the nearest animal and squats to examine it.  He pays special attention to the mouth and the eyes, but also lifts its ears and limbs, examines its underside, and feels along its body.

“Be careful, Quintin,” says Alexa.

Quintin nods, knowing she means that he should not do anything that would infect himself if the cause of death turns-out to be some sort of disease or transferrable contaminant. 

After a few moments, Quintin stands and begins immediately to the next-closest animal. 

“Who is this Averroes?” asks Alexa of Archie as they follow-along behind her husband.

“He’s a warlord downriver.  He’s been threatening Gorgazon personnel ever since we took-on the mandate to secure the vicinity of the dam we’re constructing.”

“Don’t tell me he’s upset just because Gorgazon is stealing all his people’s water?” says Alexa sarcastically. 

“Right,” says Archie, not exactly itching to get into an argument over a political issue with one of the United Nations’ top lawyers.

“Is there any reason to link what happened here to Averroes?” asks Alexa.

“None whatsoever.  But Shareef doesn’t care about the facts.  He sees this as an opportunity to make it that such attacks will not be tolerated by Gorgazon.”

Quintin stands from his examination of the second animal and begins taking-off his plastic gloves.  He hates the way his hands feel inside of plastic.  He says it makes him feel like he’s suffocating from the wrists down.

Chancey holds out a container she has brought for glove-disposal purposes, and Quintin drops the gloves into the container with a, “Thanks, Chancey.”  She then hands him a sanitary wipe, which he uses and also throws into the container.  Looking across the savannah, he can see the gaps in the tall grass indicating the presence of many more downed animals.

He glances at Archie.  “So, you don’t thank it’s this Averroes fella, huh?”

Archie shakes his head.  “Averroes is a smart guy.  Even if he was persuaded that a gas attack was his best option, it seems unlike him to bungle it this badly.”

“You say, even if he was persuaded,” says Alexa.  “Would a gas attack be unlike him?”

Archie pauses, choosing his words carefully.  “Averroes is a formidable foe, no doubt.  But his reputation in war is actually one of mercy and chivalry.  Not…”  Archie looks around… “cruelty and barbarism.” 

Quintin walks out farther among the carcasses, his arms behind his back, one hand wrapped around the other wrist.

“Were any Gorgazon guardsman killed during… whatever killed these animals?” asks Alexa. 

“That’s just it,” says Archie.  “No Gorgazon guardsmen were killed at all.  In fact, the only people killed were a few people from the neighboring village.  A village that is known to support Averroes.”

Quintin pops up from his examination of the fauna.  “These villagers killed… Where were they at the time?”

“Just a little farther downriver.  They were apparently walking home across the savannah from a trip to a neighboring village.” 

“Are you getting any ideas, darling?” asks Alexa, moving closer to her husband and crossing her arms, her lips grimly pressed together, feeling the pressure of needing the mystery solved before Archie’s commander begins the so-called counterattack. 

Quintin places his hands on his hips and looks from carcass to another.  “Nothin’.  It had to be some kinda poisnin, I can tell ya that.  But what kind, I can’t say.”

“Maybe this Averroes guy was testing a new bio-weapon,” suggests Chancey.

“Maybe,” replies Quintin, though sounding unconvinced.

“And your people at Gorgazon… they’ve taken blood samples?” asks Alexa, turning to Archie.

“We’ve done what we could with the facilities here.  Any further testing has to be sent to a true medical laboratory.  But our preliminary tests have found no sign of any poison or gas.”

 Quintin looks down the wide grassland.  “How big of a swath did this thang cut?”

“About twenty kilometers,” answers Archie.  “Between the lake on one side, and the base and the nearest villages on the other.”

“Uh-huh,” says Quintin, walking forward to another animal, Chancey trailing him with the gloves.

“Were there any signs before now that Averroes possessed chemical weapons?” asks Alexa.

“No.  None,” replies Archie.  “We have no idea how he got his hands on a chemical weapon — if that’s indeed what’s happened.”

“Any chance Commander Shareef is bluffing?” asks Alexa.  “About the counterattack?”

“Zero.  The Sumarian government has given Gorgazon a blank check in the area, as far as security operations.  In this part of Sumar, Gorgazon is judge, jury, and executioner.”

“That’s a lot of power for a corporation,” says Alexa disapprovingly.

Archie nods, but keeps his own counsel.

Quintin dons a second pair of gloves and bends down over another animal.

“What have relations been like recently with Averroes’ people?” asks Alexa, looking over her husband’s shoulder.  “Has there been an uptick in altercations, threats, anything?”

Alexa’s questioning of their guide while she and her husband investigate a crime-scene is part of the couple’s standard operating procedure whenever they find themselves exploring a mystery as a team.

“No.  Nothing that I know-of,” responds Archie.  “It’s actually been kinda quiet around here lately.  I mean, besides all the explosions from the dam construction.”

Quintin shoots up, almost knocking his wife under the chin with his shoulder as he stands.  “They’re usin’ dynamite up at the dam?”

“Yes,” answered Archie.  “Or whatever the modern equivalent is.  They’re at that stage in the construction, I guess.”

Quintin looks to his wife.  “That could be the reason for that dirt-slide back at the sprang.”  He turns again to Archie.  “The explosions… they been perdy big?”

“Yeah.  Sometimes you can feel the ground tremor beneath your feet, like a big truck rumbling-by.”

“Are you getting an idea, Professor Q?”

“Oh, I’ve got hunderds of ideas, Chancey,” says Quintin.  “The trouble is workin’ it down to just one.”

 “I hope you can find something quickly, Q,” says Archie as he and his daughter follow the Quintillians toward the sunbaked jeep. “If we’re about to bomb the hell out of some poor village, I’d prefer we did it with a little proof.”

“Maybe it’s a water supply issue,” suggests Alexa.  “Some sort of poison leaching into one of the local watering holes.”

“Possibly,” says Quintin.  “But if it was, then the poison would’ve had to have been suddenly wide-spread and then suddenly gone.  All these creatures seem to have died at almost the same instant.  There are no stragglers.  But that seems unlikely when ya consider the variables, such as when each individual animal would’ve drunk the bad water, and how much each one would’ve drunk, and how each individual metabolism would’ve processed it.”  Quintin rubs the back of his neck with the palm of his hand.  “Hey, Arch, you and Chancey mind takin’ us a little farther down?”

“Not at all, Q.  Chancey needs the driving practice.”

“Do not,” says Chancey.  “But I’ll be glad to keep driving, Professor Q.”

The small group is again in the jeep and driving toward the lake when Quintin leans up from the backseat.

“Hey Arch, there were no deaths on the upper plateau, right?”

“No effects up there, as far as I know.”

“Uh-huh,” says Quintin leaning back into the bouncing jeep.

The quartet sits quietly for several more bone-jarring minutes, then they park and exit the jeep, Alexa feeling a little nauseous from the bumpy ride.  They find more dead animals, although from a different species of grazing animal.

“Chancey,” says Quintin, “give me another set of those gloves, wouldja?”

“Sure thing, Professor Q.”

Quintin dons the gloves to examine one of the animals.  His examination is cursory, merely confirming something on his mind, and he stands soon and scans the vicinity. 

“None ah the victims appear to be wasted from disease,” he says, disposing of the gloves and wiping his hands.  “There ain’t no rashes, no discolorations, no loss of hair, no strange growths.  They ain’t no signs ah starvation, or even malnutrition, far as I can tell.  And there’s no gun wounds, no marks ah any kind.  Nothin’.”  Quintin pauses, processing all the facts he has gathered so far.  “Whatever they were attacked-by was somethin’ invisible.  Somethin’ they didn’t see comin’ at all.  And goin’-by the way they’ve fallen, whatever hit ’em, hit ’em perdy darn quick.  My bet is that this herd fell at precisely the same moment the other herd did.”

“That seems impossible to explain by a contaminated water or food source,” says Archie.

“So it was a gas attack,” says Alexa.  “None of the other possibilities are capable of explaining it.”

Quintin nods, fanning his sweating palms in the warm breeze.

“And there’s no sign ah debris?” he asks Archie.  “Like from some sort of delivery device?  A bomb?  Anything?”

“Nothing, Q,” answers Archie.  “Sorry.”

“If it was a chemical attack, wouldn’t there be some sort of residue or signs of fallout?” asks Alexa.

“Sometimes,” answers Quintin.

“So this whole area,” begins Alexa, walking forward, “was blanketed in some sort of poison, many kilometers, but there’s not a trace of toxin?” 

Quintin can hear in his wife’s voice that cross-examining tone she gets sometimes. 

“Correct,” answers Archie.

“Anyone been sick in the nearby villages?” asks Quintin

“Nothing unusual,” responds Archie.  “Nothing like… this.”

“Hmm…”  Quintin turns toward the dam.  “And none of the personnel at the dam were affected?”

“No.  We checked with them,” replies Archie.  “They don’t have many people up there right now due to the… well, thanks to your wife’s U.N. case–“

Alexa wonders if she hears a bit of disapproval in her old friend’s voice.  That would understandable, she supposes.  He is, after all, on the payroll of the global corporation she just defeated in the courtroom.

“So that reduces the likelihood that it was the dam that released somethin’ toxic into the air,” observes Quintin to no one in particular.

“Geez, you think that’s a possibility?” asks Archie.

“I don’t think we should trust Gorgazon to tell us the truth about this, Quintin,” declares Alexa.  “If they’ve released some toxin into the air or water, they have every incentive to cover it up.”

“True,” responds her husband.  He is not quite as anti-corporate as his wife, but he does know human nature, and human nature stays the same whether it’s people in a village or in a worldwide corporation.  He puts his hands in the back pockets of his blue jeans, his arms forming sharp angles behind him, and looks toward the lake. 

He spins on his boot-heels and stares over the ground, thoughts processing furiously behind his deepset eyes.  After a moment, he looks up crookedly at the others with a knowing grin on his face. 

“The plants are still alive,” he says quietly.

“You’ve got something,” says Alexa.

Quintin takes his hands from his pockets and begins pacing over the tall grass.

“Plants breathe,” he says.  “They respirate.  But they do it backwards from us.  For them, carbon dioxide is not a waste product.  It’s a basic need.”

“Yeah?” says Archie.  “So?”

“Let’s head toward the lake, Chancey,” Quintin says, beginning toward the jeep.

“Yes, sir,” says Chancey, catching up to him quickly.

A few minutes later, Quintin is asking Chancey to slow the jeep to near walking-speed.  He sticks his head out from the vehicle and examines the passing ground. 

“Do you guys smell that?” asks Alexa.  “There’s a different smell to the air here.  And not a pleasant one.”

“Stop the jeep!” orders Quintin, leaping from the vehicle before Chancey has completely brought it to a halt.

The others get out, too, and gather around Quintin.

“What is it, dear?” asks Alexa. 

“I thought we’d find sumpin fishy ’round here,” he answers Quintin, staring at the ground.

The others follow Quintin’s downward gaze and see strewn over the ground dozens, perhaps hundreds, of fish.

“What the Hell?…” says Archie.  “It’s like a biblical plague.”

“Chancey?”

“Yes, sir?”  Chancey looks at Quintin expectedly.

“Take us to the lake-shore.”

——–

“Y’all ever heard anyone talkin’ ’bout the lake lookin’ cloudy or muddied?” Quintin asks Archie and Chancey as Lake Sumar looms closer.  “Specially in the late Sprang or early Fall?”

The two Gorgazon employees answer that they have not.

“And the weather here…” says Quintin, “pretty constant temps all year round?”

“That sounds about right,” says Archie.  “We could check the data on that.”

The foursome exits the jeep only a few feet from the lake. 

“Look, Quintin,” says Alexa.  “The plants.”

The small plants near the lake are crushed and wilted.

“How would the plants here become poisoned?” asks Archie.  “And only here?”

“Not poisoned,” says Quintin.  “Look here.”  He squats and picks up a plant and tosses it aside. 

“Quintin!” whispers Alexa in a reflexive hiss, afraid that he may be touching something toxic.

“Don’t worry, darlin’.  These plants’ve been attacked physic’ly, not chemic’ly.”  Quintin stands.  “See?  Some of ’em have even been uprooted.” 

Alexa begins observing the foliage more carefully.  “They’re not drooped or yellowed.  These plants weren’t in bad health.  They look like…”

“Yeah?” encourages her husband.

“Like they’ve been crushed.”

“Exactly,” says Quintin, wiping his fingers on his jeans.  “And check-out the lake.”

Alexa steps forward and gazes at the lake.  “I thought you said the lake never looks cloudy, Archie.”

Archie and Chancey step to either side of her to get a better look.

“I did,” says Archie.  “I’ve never seen the lake look this way before.”

“No one has,” says Chancey.

“That’s ’cause it ain’t ever looked this way,” says Quintin.  “Not for many years, anyway.  When’s the last time it rained ’round here?”

“Over a week.  Maybe two,” answers Archie.

“And yet, look.  There’s water standin’ in places all along the shore line.” 

Everyone begins looking at the ground around them.  It is true.  Even several feet away from the lake there are standing puddles.

“How deep ya reckon this lake is, Arch?” asks Quintin.

“I can’t remember.”  Archie turns to his daughter.  “Chance, you remember?  They tell us during our arrival-brief.  Or at least they used-to.”

“I don’t remember exactly, but it was well over a thousand feet in some places.”

A female voice blares from the jeep’s radio.  “Base Purple to Amethyst.  Amethyst come in.”

Chancey looks to Archie, and he motions her toward the jeep with a movement of his head.  She jogs over and jumps into the driver’s side seat to answer the call.

Quintin stares over the vast expanse of cloudy water.  “If we call it fifteen-hun’erd-feet deep…” he starts, “that’s a helluva mass of water sittin’ there.  Tres heavy.  Whatever’s on the bottom there’s gonna be under immense pressure.  Many times reg’lar air pressure.  We’re talkin’ several hun’erd pounds ah pressure per square inch.”

“Really?” says Archie.  “That is a lot of pressure.”

Chancey rejoins the group.  “We’ve got to head back to base, Doc,” she tells her father.

Archie looks concerned.  “Why?”

“The retaliatory strike for the gas-attack is about to commence.  Everyone’s being called-in.”

“You must stop that strike,” says Quintin stepping forward.  “This was not an attack by any warlord.”

“What killed the animals, then?” asks Alexa.

“The lake,” answers Quintin.

—   —   —

Commander Shareef is every bit as imposing as Quintin thought he would be, although more slovenly dressed.  He is a local man, with the local accent, probably in his fifties.  His hair is short and dark, his nose wide, his forehead short, and his jowls expansive.  His ill-fitting, green-and-tan uniform is a rolling mess, crumpled in some places and stretched tightly over others, especially around his wide waist.  The symbols on his shoulders declare his high rank, and the orange and purple logo of Gorgazon on one side of his chest makes it clear who he works-for.  Unlike Archie, who wears the medical insignia opposite his Gorgazon logo, the commander has no such second design on his chest. 

In the center of Shareef’s three-day growth of beard is a big mouth mercilessly pinching an unlit cigar.

“I do not have time for this Dooley,” Commander Shareef declares in his accented English the instant Quintin and Archie enter from the outer room into his private office.  He is standing behind his desk, bending over some papers.

“You must call-off the attack, Commander.  It wasn’t Averroes,” announces Archie.

Shareef shifts the cigar from one side of his wide mouth to the other.  “Who was it then?”

“That’s what I’ve brought this man here to tell you.”

Shareef looks at Quintin for the first time, his dark eyes scrutinizing the peach-colored shirt and blue jeans and wide belt buckle and ostentatious boots. 

“Who the Hell are you?”

Quintin snorts a laugh at the greeting.  He is not surprised when Shareef frowns, obviously unaccustomed to being laughed-at. 

“This is Quintin Quintillian, sir,” explains Archie.  When the famous name triggers no recognition in the commander’s eyes, he adds, “Professor Q?”

Shareef straightens and tilts his head back slightly and freshly appraises Quintin, raising his thin eyebrows, the skin crinkling on his narrow forehead.  

“Professor Q, huh?” he says.  “The big genius.”

“That’s how my publishers sell me,” sighs Quintin, trotting out one of the standard lines he uses to deflect such embarrassing comments. 

“He’s one of the world’s best investigators, commander,” says Archie matter-of-factly.  “He is frequently called-upon by the FBI and the CIA for assistance in America.”

Well, not frequently, thinks Quintin.  But now is not the time to quibble.

“This is not America,” responds Shareef gruffly, the word “America” sounding like “Ameerica” in his accent.

“He’s examined the dead animals we found,” continues Archie.  “He knows what happened to them.”

For the first time, Archie realizes that he has not actually heard Quintin’s explanation, and he experiences a flash of worry that whatever Quintin has come-up-with will prove inadequate for dissuading the commander from his course.  He looks to Quintin, unable to conceal the concern in his dark eyes.

“I already know what happened to the animals,” says Shareef. 

He raises a loosely closed fist, makes a small explosive sound with his large mouth, then flings apart his fingers. 

“Just — just let him talk, will ya, commander?” says Archie.

Quintin gets the impression that Archie and Shareef have a history of antagonism.

“I do not know what has brought you here, Mister Q, but I think it is best that you leave now, before you do something that is deemed to interfere with our mission.  Nobody has asked the FBI or the CIA or the great Mister Q to become involved.  This is a Gorgazon problem, on Gorgazon controlled territory, and Gorgazon will handle it.  We have complete jurisdiction here.”

“I’m sure ya do, commander,” says Quintin.  “But that don’t change the fact that if you bomb those villages, you’ll be murderin’ innocent women and children.  What happened out there wasn’t an act of war.  It was an act of nature.”

“Just hear him out, commander,” pleads Archie. 

Shareef holds up two long fingers.  “Two minutes,” he says.  “Then… we fly, they die.  You don’t mess with Gorgazon.  We have zero-tolerance for chemical attacks.”

“I understand,” says Quintin. 

As Shareef finds his swiveling armchair behind him and plops into it, Quintin and Archie exchange sideways glances.  Scores, maybe hundreds of lives are riding on this moment.

Shareef opens an expansive palm toward Quintin.  “Proceed,” he says in his deep voice, folding his arms in front of his chest, his uniform wrinkling more.

Quintin takes a deep breath.  “I know you thank this was a chemical or bio attack, commander, and you have good reason for thankin’ so.  It has many characteristics similar to such an attack.  But this is sumpin else.”

Shareef’s dark eyes stare impatiently.

“It’s called a limnic explosion,” continues Quintin.  “Ya see, this entire area sits over a vast space of deep underground volcanic activity.  That’s why ya have some hot sprangs and a few bubblin’ mud-pools in the vicinity.”

“Yes, yes,” says the commander curtly, flicking his downturned fingers at Quintin in a gesture seeming to indicate that Quintin can skip that part.

“Well, all this bubblin’ volcanic activity feeds carbon dioxide into the underground streams of the area.  These streams, in turn, feed into Lake Sumar.  Over time, all this CO2 builds-up at the bottom of the lake.  Now normally, the water in a lake will turnover with the seasons.  The upper waters’ll cool in the winter and begin to sink.  This’ll push-up the CO2 gases up from the bottom, and when they reach the surface, they will gradually be released in amounts too small to be noxious.”

Quintin pauses, trying to determine from Shareef’s expression if he is following so far.  Shareef gives no indication one way or the other.  Quintin decides to continue.

“Of course, humans exist all the time in an atmosphere containin’ CO2 — we exhale it ev’ry time we breathe,” Quintin looks toward Archie as if for confirmation.  Archie nods encouragingly, and Quintin continues.  “But too much CO2 at once will crowd-out the oxygen we need.  This is bad.  This will cause us to suffocate– it will cause any animal to suffocate.”

Shareef shifts in his chair, not hiding his impatience with the science lesson.

Quintin continues, speeding-up his delivery.  “The climate in this area has changed durin’ the last century — to the point where the variation between seasons is very minimal now — too minimal to trigger the water-turnover that the lake needs so that it can release the build-up of CO2 at its depths.  So, the CO2 jus’ sits there, buildin’ and buildin’ through the years, trapped by the enormous pressure of the weight of the water above it — hunderds ah pounds ah pressure per square inch — until fine’ly, some disturbance sets it off.”

“The dynamiting at the dam!” interrupts Archie,    

“That’s right,” says Quintin, pointing at Archie and grinning at the enthusiasm in his friend’s voice while also keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the commander.  “Some explosion or series of explosions at the dam Gorgazon is constructin’ shifted the waters in the lake enough to give all that CO2 a chance to squeeze-out from under the thousands of pounds of water setting on top of it.” 

Archie sighs audibly.  With his scientific background, he can already see where this story is going, and he is relieved that the explanation will be more than adequate to save the villages.

“So,” Quintin resumes, “the sudden release in all that pressure makes the CO2 rise quickly — like an explosion.  It pushes a tidal-wave of water over its shores, crushin’ the nearby plants, and spewin’ fish outta the lake for hunderds of feet.  Then, this enormous cloud of CO2 begins travelin’ over the ground.  The plants it passes are okay, of course, cuz they breathe this stuff, ya know?  But for animals it’s a diff’rent story.  This CO2 is a heavy gas, heavier than oxygen.  It don’t travel up to the higher plateau where the dam is.  It hangs down low.  And it gits down below the oxygen in the atmosphere, and pushes the oxygen up, slinking along beneath it.  Unfortunately, down low is precisely where most animals — animals that need oxygen to breath — are carryin’-on with their lives.  But now the oxygen’s too high to breath, and all they got is this ancient CO2 from the bottom of the lake.  So, they suffocate.”

“And why were we not injured by this CO2?” asks Shareef. 

“Luckily, the CO2 cloud had largely dissipated by the time it reached the base.  People prob’ly experienced some shortness of breath as it passed through, but not enough to even thank twice about.  It’s all very unfortunate, commander, but it ain’t no act of war.  And there’s nobody to punish.  Less’n you wanna go whip the lake like Caligula or sumpin.”

“Our blood tests show nothing,” objects Shareef, shooting an accusatory look at his chief medical officer.

“Cuz no one who’s lookin’ for biological or chemical agents is lookin’ for CO2,” answers Quintin.  “Carbon dioxide ain’t exactly a recognized weapon of war.  But if you send some people to the lake who know what they’re lookin’-for, believe me…  they’ll find plenty ah evidence indicatin’ a recent limnic explosion.  And if you have some blood-acidity tests run on some of the animals, you’ll find signs of CO2 poisnin, guaranteed.”

“Your guarantee means very little to me, Mister Q.”  Shareef stares at Quintin for a long moment longer, then slaps both arms of his chair and pushes himself to a standing position.  “I’ll take your opinion into consideration.”

“But commander–” begins Archie.

“Major Dooley, if you’ll be so kind as to show Mister Q out with as much dexterity as you showed him in.”

Archie steps closer and leans over Shareef’s desk.  “But you are going to call off the strike, right commander?  To kill those poor villagers now would just be… madness.”

“I will consult with my military officers, major.  Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Archie is obviously not satisfied with the commander’s answer, but Quintin puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Let the man consult, major,” he says.  He turns to Shareef.  “Thank you for takin’ my brief, commander.  I know it’s a big decision… what with all the liability to Gorgazon if you ended-up wiping-out several innocent villages.  Your dam project would probably go down the tubes after that.  Hell, your whole career prob’ly hangs in the balance here, don’t it?”  Quintin grins. “Well, good luck to ya,” he says, and heads toward the door.