Copyright © 2000 by Gary Goshgarian

A special thanks goes out to the following people for providing me with medical and other technical information.

From Northeastern University's College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Profession: Robert F. Raffauf, Barbara L. Waszczak, Carol Warner, Robert N. Hanson, Richard C. Deth, Wendy Smith, and Susan Sexton. Also, William J. DeAngelis, Department of Philosophy, and James R. Stellar, Department of Psychology.

Thanks also to Dr. John Neumeyer and Dr. William White of Research Biochemicals International; Mark Froimowitz, Pharm-Eco Laboratories, Inc.; David Lee-Parritz, New England Regional Primate Research Center; Dr. Changiz Geula of Beth Israel Hospital, Laboratory for Neurodegenerative and Aging Research; Ellen Kearns, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston; David Sturges, Professor of Economics, Colgate College; and Kenneth Van Cott, Director of the Pharmacy, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

I am greatly indebted to How and Why We Age, by Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D. (Ballantine Books, NY, 1994) whose own research with human cell tissues has been incorporated into this story.

A special thanks to William Martin, Charles O'Neill, Barbara Shapiro, Christopher Keane, Kathryn Goodfellow, and Alice Janjigian for their good suggestions. Also, to my terrific editor at Tor Books, Natalia Aponte.

A final word of appreciation to Susan Crawford who has always been more than an agent and who stood by me all the way.

There's no good way to die. But this was as bad as it gets.

Christopher Bacon raised the pistol at a spot in the bush, not certain if anybody was there or if it was all in his mind. What Iwati called "bush bugaboo"-when the tangle of green closed in, and shadows pulsed and shifted like some stalking beast. When mosquitoes buzzed to the core of your brain. And fatigue crossed with claustrophobia. And some damn juju flower filled the air with a cloying stench.

But Chris could sense movement-some rustling behind that black curtain of vines, whispers hovering at the threshold of awareness. He could see nothing in the dark-just shadows in the firelight. And the only sound was the electric buzz of insects and tree frogs-as if something was about to happen.

The rain had stopped, but the air was gluey. And he was wet-his shirt plastered to his chest, his pants chafing his legs, his toes gummy in his boots. Wet as he had been for two weeks even when it wasn't raining. So wet that his face felt like an aspic and the soles of his feet were covered with dead white skin that he could scrape off with his fingernails. The ground was a ripe-rot mud. And everything dripped. The rainforest always dripped. A relentless green dripping. And it filled his head.

Maybe Iwati was right: Thirteen nights had unhinged him, reduced him to spikes of raw nerves, producing phantoms out of nothing.

Maybe.

But every instinct said he was not alone, that he was being watched-that just beyond those vines lurked a hungry presence that at any second would explode into the light and gut him.

For two days he had felt they were being stalked, ever since Iwati and five porters had led Chris into this remote region of the Sepik beyond the West Irian border-a tabu zone that even the Wanebabi tribe had warned them to avoid. But despite his porters' protests, Iwati had insisted on this side trip. So they hacked their way through jungle as dense as fur to this lake under the ancient cone of the Omafeki volcano-and all for that juju flower, the one that stank of apples and rotten flesh. And ever since, they had been on alert, certain that every errant sound was the Okamolu-the elusive highland tribe who stalked intruders with spears and arrows and a craving for "long pig."

But Iwati was unfazed, puffing his pipe and saying it was just tree kangaroos or bush rats. "Nothing to worry about, my friend. Nobody else here." Chris took refuge in the fact that his old schoolboy chum was shaman of the Tifalmin people and knew these parts. Tree kangaroos, Chris told himself-and an active imagination.

And where the hell was Iwati? While Chris had made a fire, Iwati led his men to a clearing to set up camp. But that was just down the trail. He had been gone for more than half an hour.

Chris crouched behind a fallen tree, the pistol gripped in both hands, ready to blast. Behind him the volcano brooded against the fiery sunset. It was nearly night.

"Iwati!"

No answer, but Chris's voice passed through the bush like a gunshot, exciting critters to a razor-edged chitter.

Invisible winged things were eating him alive. His eyes, ears, and lips were swollen, and some tiny boring beetles had gotten inside his boots and filled his feet with poison. During the day he had slathered himself with a repellent Iwati concocted of justica root and pigfat. But his face had been wiped clean, and the stuff was in Iwati's bag. Dozens of creatures in the Papuan bush were capable of killing a man-from black mambas to wild boars to eighteen-foot crocodiles. But it was the goddamn bugs that reduced you to lunacy. Unseen things that ate your blood and flesh. And that syrupy stench clogging his throat.

Suddenly a nasty thought rose up: What if Okamolus had killed Iwati? A sudden blitz of arrows, and Iwati and his men would be dead without commotion.

Or what if the porters had mutinied? They had been jumpy since leaving Wanebabi. What if they had put a knife in Iwati's back and fled for the river? Why not? The Okamolu's reputation for savagery was legendary. Chris remembered the war story of a Japanese patrol that had hacked its way out here to coerce locals into building an airstrip and had found themselves surrounded by Okamolu warriors. After a standoff of spears and automatic rifles, the Japanese commander in a gesture of truce dropped his rifle. Following cue, the Okamolu leader stuck his spear into the ground. The crisis was over, so it seemed. That night all but one of the nine men had their throats cut in their sleep and ended up the next day headless and laid out like pigs on mumu fires with yams and tubers. The final memory of the sole survivor was of children gnawing on a charred leg.

"Iwati!"

Still nothing.

Chris pressed himself against the tree, certain that if he survived the night he'd be feverish with malaria by dawn. Bastards! He wished they'd break the spell and get it over with. He had brought the gun for crocs, not a shootout with cannibals. Even if he could blast his way out, he'd never make it to the river on his own. Either he'd get lost or stumble into a pool of quick mud.

Then it happened. The tangle of vines slowly parted.

Chris's finger hummed on the trigger. Somebody was moving toward him. No trick of light. No insulin low. No hallucination. The vines were parting. The standoff was about to break. Showdown.