The satellite view was deceptive. Google maps reveals an impressive looking patchwork of highways in the Mato Grosso and all throughout Brazil. Labeled with such bureaucratically soporific appellations as MT 101. Yet, these thin lines stretching like gossamer serpents to overgrown pioneer towns were nothing but dust in a vast ocean of green.

So knowing that we could eventually break through to another highway should the need arise, wasn’t as comforting a thought as one might suppose.

These were the things I pondered as I watched Lucas shoo a stick bug the size of a forearm off of his pack.

“That thing is almost as scary as Graham.”

“You mean Jeeves?”

Schmidt chuckled. “Jeeves…?”

“Or maybe he’s more of a Bertie Wooster.”

“What the hell are you talkin bout man?”

“Guess you Krauts are just that uncultured.”

“I’m American man...U..S…A – U….S….A – U…S…A – U…S…A!”

“I wouldn’t be proud of ignoring the glory of Stephen Fry no matter my origin.”

“Can’t ignore what you don’t know.”

“That’s the definition of ignorance.”

“Whatever.”

We sat for a bit in the fold out chairs appreciating the familiarity of the fire rather than the warmth. The polyglot chatter of the voices mixed with twilight and the occasional cry of howler monkeys had a surreal effect. God, my legs ached. Even more so my feet. Even with the best gear the planet had to offer there was no way, no precaution, no circumspection that would allow you to adequately address the damp. I had athletes foot. I had it bad.

“Fuck.” I cursed.

“I’m not into dudes.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, if I go gay I’m goin for old bedroom eyes over there,” I said flicking a thumb in the direction of one of the Brazilians with especially large liquid brown eyes that seemed to ever be on the verge of weeping.

“Pffft….my ass is better.”

“I thought you weren’t gay.” I laughed.

“Just cause I’m straight doesn’t mean I’m not vain.”

“Glam rock kid?”

“Yep.”

Our banter was a silent pact to balm the weirdness. Graham had become eerily good at hunting. I’d never known him to hunt. In all the years I’d spent with him…I’d never heard him mention hunting. Nor did I know that he could carve out, string, and pull a long bow.

What was stranger was that no one stopped him. Brancos were not supposed to hunt on tribal lands. Yet no one stopped him. The Kuikuros and other tribes among us were terrified of him. The Brazilians disliked his taciturn nature, and the terseness of his replies. As for Lobo and his mercenaries they were far too busy keeping watch on the brush. The latin spec-ops guy also seemed to have gained a deep respect for old Hoyt.

Which is why he made no attempt to stay the silent stride that carried the lanky predator beyond the perimeter.

“What I don’t understand is how he’s able to get close to anything with that reek.” Sam remarked.

“Yeah…”

Hoyt had continued smoking like a chimney throughout the week. I could always smell him before I could hear him.

“So, I guess we have to talk about it…” I said after yet another prolonged silence.

“Let’s not and say we did.” Lucas said.

“Yeah…you tasted that Finnish pussy…you should appreciate Suomi wisdom…silence is sacred.”

“Fancy yourself an ascetic now motormouth?”

Sam flicked his tongue between a piece sign. “Motormouth is what your mom calls me.”

“O yea…score that postmenopousal tang…ya tiger!” Schmidt rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Christ guys…I’m serious what do you think is going on here…”

Lucas sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you can’t tell me that this is actually real…”

“Well it is…we’re here, wet and miserable as fuck, likely to die of dysentery or oversaturation at any given tickby of a god damn second.”

“No I mean…I don’t think Thornton is a Gman at all…I don’t think we’re really propogandists…or shrinks…or drug manufacturers…”

Each of us eyed our boots uncomfortably.

“I think he’s the arch-druid and we’re bringing him the vestal virgins on a silver fucking platter.”

“You guys wanna…call it quits…”

Slowly we all shook our heads.

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Ah, the rain…it was after all a rain-forest. Though we were careful to embark during a season that was dry relatively speaking…the problem was that we were speaking relatively.

We were coping… swimmingly.

That is we were in essence swimming. Though everything was waterproofed in a spectacular fashion…I kept waiting for something to give out. It was of course a relief from the heat…but hardly that either. The decrease of hell was but a scant degree and a half if that.

There were times that we’d have to cut through bush, and times that we could walk freely between massive trunks, shrouded in a dark misty shower.

No wonder the Indians walked about nude. Hey…maybe they were the first people to evolve…hairlessness would certainly be an advantage here…

“What’s got you so perplexed?” Dr. Cook inquired as he fell into step beside me.

“Oh just thinking about ultimate origins. This place sort of makes it inevitable. That and what a spectacle we must be. We are an utter invasion.”

Cook laughed.

“We are but a germ’s germ here. Even if we took the whole population of Brazil. Even with the deforestation…”

This was not a comforting thought.

“So do you believe what that anthropologist at Kuikuros village told us?”

Cook stared at his footfalls for a bit.

“Believe him in what way?”

“That the cities were simply a larger scale version of those massive grass huts? That the conquistadors were being too European in their imaginings. That cultural nearsightedness was the cause of their failures. They were looking for stones, causeways, roads – and this was wrong…”

“Oh well certainly yes as regards the Kuikoros. You yourself saw the ditches and depressions for the palisades the remananats of the plaza. However…our friend is a bit too enthralled with a certain glib neosketpticism. It’s an odd thing common in academics my age…they want to reform ‘Western Conceptions’ so much that once something fit for that purpose is found…they cease inquiring.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re in love with the noble savage myth. I am too…to an extent….but there is a reason the Kuikuros and many others are fascinated and frightened by their own myths about the ‘people of the cloud’ that live somewhere beyond their borders. There were ample reasons for the early explorers to lie. Grants…glory…etc…but that does not mean that they lied. Nor does it mean that they lied to themselves mistaking boulders for bricks.”

“What makes you so certain? Is it Hoyt’s map?”

“Pffft…well, it certainly buttresses the case for alternative history. But, that history frankly stands well enough on its own.”

“O?” I said as I smacked the billionth demon from my cheek. It was remarkable how they braved the rain for blood.

“Well, yes…I have shown you Gobekli Tepe…you yourself saw the ‘Brazilian Stonehenge,’ and Stonehenge itself. Certainly certain clever physics may have been applied…and perhaps many a thing has the accustomed mundane explanation…but when one takes all these things together…and when one see the explosions of high culture…the surprising spread and syncretism.”

“Syncretism….So what you’re telling me is that if someone was seeking to create a new faith…a global faith…it would in fact be an old faith?”

Cook and I trudged along in silence for a great long while before he spoke again.

“Yes.”

I began to see Thornton’s prodding in a different light. He was not a G-man who wished to use psychological and chemical tricks for martial purposes. He did not simply want to gain compliance through memetic warfare. He was a sorcerer…a high priest in some mystery religion I was only beginning to understand. And we were all his unwitting altar boys…o good.

And I began to feel a very strong urge to deny the doctor.

“Yea…but come on…what could be out here…that we haven’t seen…you yourself have been studying the area for forty years you say…and you have not yet found a single thing resembling El Dorado or whatever…”

Cook laughed again.

“I have already told you…we are a germ’s germ here…much there is unseen beneath the canopy…and much more beneath…the soil beneath the canopy…and you and I hold a clue to original elevations, to a four hundred year old topography in the map of your strange friend there…” he said as he pointed to Graham hiking a few bodies ahead. “You yourself have seen the strange stones that we’ve been passing the odd dispersal of trees where they should be thick…no my friend…you are going to see something far more ancient and impressive than a thatched roof New York.”

We were again silent for a great length.

“Babylon ex nihilo?” I inquired incredulously.

Cook simply shook his head.

“Babylon is simply a fragment…and nothing arises ex nihilo…all physic things have a metaphysic origin.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Thornton.”

“So be it.”

“So you are basically proposing the stoned ape theory?”

Cook smiled broadly. “That’s an oversimplified version of an aspect of what I’m saying but what I’m saying can’t really be said. It like theoretical physics or any complex systems can only be understood through rigorous study. But…it can also be seen. And I aim on seeing it.”

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