Lemuria by Burt Clinchandhill (most popular novels of all time .txt) 📗

up with her and looked into the forest. A few hundred feet into the woods, the circular, slanted rooftops of the shabono looked desolate in the shadow under the treetops.

“Bigger than I thought.” Bishop gazed at the ingenious construction. “Can we?”

“If there’s any time left, later on, we can go and visit the place,” Lindsey answered. “For now, I think the more interesting place is the cave.”

“You’re the boss,” Bishop answered, and Lindsey picked up the pace again. “So, no sign of any other tribe members, but everything they owned was left behind?”

“No one, and yes, they left everything behind, but you must realize that except some clothing and hunting gear, they don’t own much, and clothing is simply loincloths.”

Bishop smirked.

“What?” Ignatowski raised his voice.

“Uh, nothing. I think it’s, um... let’s say, remarkable, how you can lose an entire tribe that you’re surveilling by satellite overnight.”

No response followed. For the next five minutes, the forest stayed silent except for the sounds of birds and bugs.

“We’re here.” Lindsey pointed to the gray, stone wall fifty feet away. They made their way up and took off their backpacks. “Let’s take out our lamps and go inside. We need to be careful not to spook the family. We tried to communicate that we would be back, but I’m not sure they understood.”

“Wow.” Bishop rubbed a hand over the smooth rock of the entrance. “This looks man-made. But who would carve a cave out of solid rock, out here, in the middle of nowhere?”

Ignatowski looked at him as he put a strap with headlight over his head. “Amazing, but maybe the Mashco-Piro did it themselves. It’s known that ancient tribes stayed inside caves seasonally to avoid the heavy rain seasons.”

“Sure they did, in existing caves.” Bishop thought that the rock formation looked like it was formed of out of steatite, not the hardest of stones. “But still, the people who lived here ten thousand years ago—and even now—hardly had the tools to dig a hole in the ground, let alone carve one out of the existing rocks.”

“Shall we?” Lindsey asked, and they entered the cave. The cave was dry and dusty, and the lights from their headbands carved their beams into the passageway.

Bishop stopped, shining his light on a painting on the rock. The images in red, made from oxidized iron, depicted men, animals and some tools. He recognized a man with a bow and arrow, something that could be a spear, and animals that could be swine and deer. But his eyes were drawn to other symbols on the wall, symbols that looked like a worm that could also be a ladder or a man waving a fist, that could just as easily have been an elephant with a large tusk raising its trunk.

“What is it?” Lindsey asked.

“Nothing much. I once read about the Toquepala Caves in the south of Peru. There’s some rupestral art over there that looks a lot like these, and I wondered what they would have thought and meant ten thousand years ago when they drew these pictures on the wall of these caves.”

Lindsey took a few steps back and took in all the paintings. “I guess we’ll never know. We need to go. Kajaq,” she called out as they started walking again.

“Kajaq?” Bishop tilted his head. “What or who is Kajaq?”

“We’re not sure, but when we were here the last time, it was something the native man spoke several times. And when we repeated it, he seemed to calm down. It could have been his name, but we’re not sure. I hope it helps us find him and make contact again.”

“Over there.” Ignatowski pointed to a flickering light at what looked like the end of the passageway. The three stopped as the flickering light rapidly came closer, and a silhouette became clear. “It’s the female carrying a candle.”

“You think?” Bishop eyed Ignatowski as the woman stopped a few feet in front of them, wearing nothing. Her hand reached out to the headlight on Lindsey’s head. She touched it, and as Lindsey shook her head, the young woman took a step back and looked from left to right following the light beam.

“It’s okay,” she tried to sound assuring and reached for the woman’s hand. The woman gave a soft grunt, and carefully took Lindsey’s hand and smelled it. “It’s her.” Lindsey recognized the tiny, dark tanned woman from her visit before. “Kajaq?”

“Kajaq,” the woman repeated, as she tried to pull Lindsey further into the cave. “Kajaq, Kajaq.”

Lindsey smiled. “It’s Lucy.”

“Lucy?” Bishop questioned.

“We nicknamed her Lucy, after the oldest fossilized woman ever found and who died about 3.2 million years ago.”

“Lucy and Lindsey.” Bishop tilted his head a bit and grinned.

Lucy pulled Lindsey a few steps further into the cave. “Let’s follow her.” The four took a few turns and arrived at the room Lindsey and Ignatowski visited before. “It’s the same room.”

“As gray as before, and decorated the same,” Ignatowski replied in a mocking tone. In the corner of the room, the man and baby lay down, both with closed eyes, on a few pieces of animal fur. In a few steps, Ignatowski kneeled next to them. He picked up the baby’s head. She immediately opened her eyes and started crying. He let go of the baby again and turned to the man. He grabbed him at the shoulder and shook. Nothing happened. He then grabbed his two shoulders and sat him upright against the wall and checked his pulse. “His heart’s still beating,” he concluded.

Lindsey hastily reached into her pockets and came back with a small rectangular box. She handed it to Ignatowski, who opened it and took a disinfecting wipe from it and cleaned a small area of the man’s lower arm. Then he took out a syringe complete with a needle that was filled with an orange liquid. He took off the safety cap, sprayed a few drops away—removing possible airdrops—found a vein, and in one push emptied the syringe into the man’s arm.

Bishop