Nine

Of one thing he was sure, of one conclusion he was already certain: He needed help. Given enough time, he felt he could find any remedy, any solution to Kelli’s condition that might exist—if one existed. And one had to exist. But he had no idea how much time he had. Parasites usually tried to keep their hosts alive, but the Interlopers could not be compared to the simple organic parasites familiar to generations of beginning biology students. Who knew what whims might drive Those Who Abide? He had no way of knowing when her already weakened condition might fail, when her critical bodily functions might shut down one by one. He might have years in which to search for a cure—or he might have months. Or he might have no more than . . .

He threw himself into research with a fervor that astonished and troubled his colleagues and friends. They ascribed his sudden fanaticism to a desire to lose himself in work in order to avoid having to ponder his wife’s hapless condition twenty-four hours a day. Even the best intentioned of them did not understand. He could never put Kelli out of his mind for more than an hour.

Kelli, Kelli—how did the Interlopers “feed”? What sustenance did they draw from a human being, comatose or active? The abiding servant Uthu had spoken of some form of nutrition. It was not physical, or if it was, the effects were not visible or detectable by the usual means. If he knew how the Interlopers fed, he might be able to find a way to prevent them from feeding, or to poison them, or to in some fashion, way, means, interfere with their living processes. In his research, thorough as it was, he was striking out in a dozen different directions into the unknown. He did not even know what he was looking for, or if he would recognize it when he found it. He only knew that his life, his happiness, his future, depended on looking.

He needed help.

But where to begin searching for that? As far as he knew, except for some long-dead Chachapoyan shamans, he was the only human being uninfected by the Interlopers who was aware of their presence. It seemed unlikely that among the billions and billions who populated the Earth there was no one in that singular position except him. Doubtless another, somewhere, whether by accident or design, was suffering from the same cursed knowledge and awareness. How to find them, make contact, establish a rapport so that they might help one another, or at least find companionship and common cause in the fight against the empyreal body-dwelling parasitoids?

Foolish as it made him feel, he began by searching the columns in the daily paper under headings such as Psychic Readings, Your Future Foretold, and Secrets of the Ancients Revealed! (only $29.95 plus shipping and handling!). Unsurprisingly, there was nothing listed under “Interlopers” or “Intruders” or “Those Who Abide.” Follow-ups to the ads quickly disabused him of any notion that they might prove helpful, or that the advertisers were anything but frauds or, at best, well-meaning quacks who had nothing to offer. Most wanted money.

It was the same with the television spielers, those with 900 numbers that promised free consultations and readings. When he tried to talk about invisible creatures that fed on something undefined within the bodies of ordinarily unaware humans, the more adept individuals on the other end of the line consistently tried to steer the conversation around to whether Cody was married, whether he loved his parents or not, if he was having trouble at work, in his love life, or sleeping, what his favorite television shows were, and more than once, what the numbers were on his primary credit card (for reference purposes only). The less skilled, if that was not an oxymoron in the call-in psychic hotline business, quickly dropped off-line when he started talking about Interlopers that inhabited natural objects such as trees and rocks.

He had expected nothing less, but felt bound to try every possibility. Having thoroughly exhausted the exceedingly limited capabilities of the more professional manifestations of the country’s fascination with psychic silliness, he moved on to more reputable sources. Researching the studies carried out and reported on by the distinguished CSICOP organization and its venerable journal The Skeptical Inquirer saved him a good deal of time by allowing him to quickly ferret out associations and groups that cloaked themselves in a veneer of scientific respectability. Reading about fraudulent individuals who had already been exposed allowed him to concentrate on those who had not yet been thoroughly investigated.

More and more, he found himself drawn to police files and records. These, at least, were full of unexplained, seemingly irrational incidents. The postal clerk who arrives at work one morning with automatic weapons in the pockets of his uniform, the “good kid” who suddenly and for no apparent reason goes berserk and hacks his family to death with an axe, the preteens who gun down their teachers and schoolmates, the active athlete suddenly brought low by a crippling disease alien to his lineage: All these and more drew Cody’s attention in his desperate search to find something relevant to his wife’s condition.

So many appalling incidents that defied rational explanation; they piled up in his office, filling the previously empty corners and overwhelming his neat desk and file cabinets and bookshelves. Tribal warfare in the Balkans, endless misery in Bangladesh, religious warfare in the Middle East, a successful banker convicted of murdering his co-workers in Zurich, a garbage collector from Des Moines committing suicide while on vacation in Colorado—all were components of the unending, dismal, inexplicable liturgy of dementia and irrationality that afflicted mankind. Nor was it anything new, Cody knew. It had ever been so, throughout human history.

He could not help but wonder how much of the gloomy record of misery and wretchedness he was accumulating was inescapable, and how much due to the presence and interference in human affairs of the still mysterious aggressors whose hapless hosts referred to them as Those Who Abide. Were they evenly spread throughout human civilization, or were there regions where they thrived and others where they were scarce? What percentage of the population of Northern Ireland was infected? What of Russia and the Congo, of India and southern Mexico? Was the bulk of Polynesia relatively infection-free and that of downtown Washington D.C. otherwise?

Gradually he began to build a picture of human history that owed as much, if not more, to the possible intervention of the Interlopers than to the exercise of human logic and free will. Contemporary affairs were only the tip of the metaphysical iceberg. The present had no monopoly on the inexplicable. Decisions that had been made since the beginning of recorded time he now viewed through the lens of a new awareness. Perception granted him a unique perspective.

What was really behind the burning of the great library of Alexandria? Did its thousands of scrolls containing the collected knowledge of the ancients include among them the formula for a potion similar to that which had been discovered independently by the Chachapoyans? What actually caused the decline and fall of Rome and the end to the wondrous Pax Romana that had kept comparative peace in Europe for some five hundred years? How did Genghis Khan and his successors really manage to defeat the combined forces of nearly half the known world? Did he have unknown, unseen allies that sowed confusion and dissension among his adversaries in expectation of the mass murder and devastation that would follow?

Every significant human event that confounded reasonable, intelligent thought had to be viewed in this new light. It was terrible for Cody to think that he might be the only one with his finger on the “view” switch. Without incontrovertible proof, no one would listen to him, ponder his theories, or make an effort to substantiate his reasoning.

The revision of human history would have to wait, he decided. What mattered now was Kelli. His immediate efforts must be directed toward saving his wife.

If there was anyone else like him out there, they might very well have already traveled down the same desperate path of seeking he was currently following. What would they do next? How could a poor farmer in Pakistan make contact with a kindred spirit in Paris? How might a hunter-gatherer in Papua New Guinea exchange knowledge and observations with a gem miner in Minas Gerais? How could an archaeologist in Arizona hope to find a fellow perceiver in Antigua?

Newspaper ads seemed the most likely place to start. He commenced a comprehensive search of the personals in every paper he could get his hands on. In that regard, it was more than a little helpful to have full access to the university library. His telephone bill skyrocketed as he placed regular, hopeful calls across the country and to the far ends of the earth. The responses he gleaned varied from the absurd to the outright deranged. In less than a month he had personally held conversations with more psychotics and genuinely disturbed people that the psychiatric outpatient center at his wife’s hospital dealt with in a year. Not one of them, not even the hundred or so calls he placed to various locales in Southern California, contained an iota of useful information.

Only when he felt he had exhausted the more traditional resource of newspaper ads did he turn wholeheartedly to the Internet. Anyone could place a newspaper ad, but not everyone had access to the Net. While maintaining the steady flow of newspapers to his home and office, he began to spend more and more time accessing search engines and composing his own eclectic messages to be posted on as many bulletin boards as he could manage.

The result was a flood of information that threatened to inundate the computer in his office and the two he and Kelli kept at home. He bought and added more hard drive storage than a small business server would need, spending money he didn’t have to install a full-scale designated server in his den. Additional research eventually enabled him to import filtering software that screened out a great deal of the electronic chaff, winnowing out what was irrelevant so he had time to skim to the articles he absolutely felt he could not ignore.

He learned a great deal, absorbed an enormous amount of pertinent material, and built the most powerful anti-spam firewall possible to fend off the resultant flood of E-mail requests for, yes, his credit card number and free opportunities to consult 900 numbers. As Kelli’s condition seemed to worsen slightly, his melancholy and discouragement grew. The abundance of cybercrap was no different from what he had previously encountered in its traditional print-and-paper counterparts.

He answered as much of the material that flowed to his computer and mailbox as time and money would allow. He stopped shaving and lost weight despite Mark and Dana’s goodhearted attempts to have him over for dinner as often as possible. His work at school suffered noticeably, with lectures skipped, papers left unread, and a dearth of publication in the professional journals that had come to expect regular contributions from him and his wife. Only his semi-celebrity status within the field as the interpreter of the Chachapoyan codex allowed him to retain his position at the university, tenure notwithstanding. He didn’t know what to do except to keep digging, both into the Chachapoyan glyphs and the deluge of irrelevant, often unintelligible material that flooded his home and office.

He also had to deal with would-be hopefuls in person, though this was infrequent. No psychic search service was going to send personnel at their own expense to try and induce him to retain their services. No metaphysical detective living in North Platte was going to pay his or her own way to fly down and visit him. Where confident, self-assured astrologers and soul dowsers and inventors of devices for seeing into the other world were concerned, a lack of willingness on Cody’s part to commit money to their diverse enterprises was usually a sure means of terminating further dialogue.

So he was somewhat surprised to answer the door one Saturday morning to find standing on the walkway in front of the steps a small, unassuming, elderly gentleman nattily decked out in pin-striped suit complete with bow tie and hat. Brushing his long and currently unwashed black hair back off his forehead, Cody gazed at his latest visitor out of tired, aching eyes beneath which premature bags had begun to form.

The little man won points for neatness, anyway. As near as Cody could tell this early in the morning, his visitor was unpolluted and therefore not another minion of the Interlopers. Nothing untoward abided within him, except perhaps a tendency to stare without blinking. Not that he was any saner than the multitude of mostly well-meaning nuts who had preceded him. The furled black umbrella he was leaning on, not jauntily but as if he actually might need the support, was proof enough of that. Only those who had no choice in the matter wore suits and ties in Phoenix in late September, and nobody actually carried umbrellas. Overhead, the intensifying sky was a flat sheet of blue from which heat radiated like the flame of a gas stove.

But the bow tie was a nice touch, Cody had to admit. And the umbrella was less threatening than some of the objects the more disturbed of his recent visitors had carried with them.

Though his profession had given him some experience at reckoning an individual’s ethnic background, he couldn’t quite place the man standing before him. He was fair-complexioned but not Nordic, with fine features and slightly oversized ears. Feminine, even. Nor did he look particularly Slavic. He might well have been Romany save that his skin was really too light. His ancestry remained a mystery. From beneath the expensive fedora, which boasted what looked like a small fly-whisk tucked neatly into the hatband on the left side, emerged white, slightly curly hair that in places still showed insinuations of blond. His appearance suggested someone who did not lack for money, but who was not conspicuously wealthy, either.

Cody sighed. Those charlatans who put up a good front usually waited at least half an hour before making the first practiced request for funds. “Can I help you?” He had learned to be polite instead of churlish even when confronted by visitors who invariably wasted his precious time. There was enough woe in the world without his having to add to it. He would not do the Interlopers’ work for them.

The dapper visitor smiled, displaying what appeared to be all his own teeth, with the exception of one that was conspicuously and unapologetically gold. It flashed in the morning light.

“Vielleicht,” he replied. “Perhaps.” His accent was strong, and quite different from what Cody might have expected. German, he decided immediately. Which meant that his visitor might equally be from Germany, or Austria, or Switzerland. Or Chicago. Or anywhere, including the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.

“It is I who may be able to help you, Herr Westcott.” Raising the umbrella, he gestured slightly with the tip. “Might I come in? It is very hot out here, much more so than I am used to.”

Not from Phoenix, then. Cody hesitated, then sighed and stepped aside. At least this one was well-groomed and didn’t smell. “Come on in, then. You’ve got five minutes to convince me you can do anything for me.”

The man nodded and walked with measured stride past the far younger, much taller archaeologist. As Cody led him to the den, he noted that his visitor’s eyes were never at rest. They were in constant motion, darting from left to right, searching, hunting. A quintessential characteristic of the paranoid, he knew. Four minutes left. He had work to do and no time to waste today coddling the deranged fantasies of even well-dressed eccentrics.

He directed the man toward the one chair that was not buried beneath piles of printouts, stationery, books, magazine excerpts, and letters both opened and still sealed. “Everyone calls me Cody. Or Professor Westcott.”

Settling himself in the empty chair, his eyes still flicking from place to point as he rested both hands on the end of his umbrella, Cody’s elderly guest smiled politely. “Very good to meet you, Herr Professor. I am Karl Heinrich Oelefsenten von Eichstatt. You may call me Oelefse.”

Leaning against shelves overflowing with papers, Cody crossed his arms and frowned. “The Oelefse part doesn’t strike me as fitting with the rest.”

The fedora bobbed, head and hat performing an odd little miniscule nod. “That name was a gift from someone else I was able to help. Many of us have gifted names in addition to those given to us at birth.”

Uh-oh, Cody thought. Making no effort to disguise the direction of his glance, he peered meaningfully at his watch. “You don’t have much time left. Where are you from? L.A.? San Francisco?” There was a sizable German-speaking community in the city by the Bay, he knew.

For an old man, the visitor’s tone was steely. “If you keep asking me questions, Herr Professor Cody, I will not have time to explain how I may be able to help you. I have come from Heidelberg.”

Cody lowered his arms. “Pennsylvania?”

“Germany.”

A little more than one minute left. Already, the archaeologist’s thoughts were jumping ahead, to the work he’d been doing before the doorbell had disturbed him. No nut was going to come all the way from Germany to Arizona to indulge his fantasies, not even one with money. He hoped the old boy wouldn’t put up a fuss when it was time for Cody to show him the door.

“You expect me to believe that you’ve come all the way from Germany, at your own expense, just to help me, a stranger you’ve never met?”

“Of course. We saw your plea on the Net. And I did not come at my own expense. The Society paid my way.”

Definitely time to go, Cody decided. “Well, that’s very thoughtful of you, Oelefse. And I truly appreciate it. But I’m very busy and there’s a lot I want to do still today.” Standing away from the shelves, he gestured toward the hall that led to the front door. “I hope you enjoy your visit to Arizona.”

The old man made no move to rise. “You do not believe me, young mister Cody.”

“Now, now, did I say that?” The archaeologist plastered a big, fat, fake grin on his face. He’d been down this road with others of Oelefse’s ilk, many times before, and had formulated a routine for dealing with them. The important thing was to remain calm, and friendly, and sympathetic to their beliefs. “You’re not going to give me any trouble, are you? Because I really am busy.”

“Verdammt, do you think you are the only one? The only person who is troubled by Those Who Abide?”

“No, of course not.” Cody was already halfway down the hall. He glanced back at his visitor. “I’m just one of the busiest ones.”

His visitor sighed. “Two blocks from here there is an artificial cataract that decorates the entrance to this neighborhood. It has a big sign on the bottom and is constructed of native stone.” Small, intense blue eyes locked on Cody’s. “Presently, it is home to not less than two and not more than four Interlopers, of at least two different types.”

Cody stopped walking toward the front door. Pivoting sharply, he returned to the den. “How do you know that?” His visitor was right, of course. Cody saw those particular Interlopers every time he drove past the waterfall.

“I see them, of course. Your house, by the way, is clean.”

“Yes, I know.” Hastily shoveling papers out of another chair, he sat down opposite his visitor, whom he was now seeing in an entirely new light. Could it be that the man’s inner strength, his tone of voice, his self-possession, were not manifestations of madness, but of something else? “The question is, how do you know?”

“I told you. I can see them. Anyone who belongs to the Society must be able to perceive.”

Cody swallowed. He was too unsettled to be polite. “You’re from Germany and you belong to an organization that’s aware of Those Who Abide?”

His visitor took the archaeologist’s astonishment in stride, exactly as if it was something he had encountered before. “The translation in German is different. Why should you be so surprised? We have had more than our share of troubles with Those Who Abide.”

Cody found himself nodding slowly, aware that he had gone from cool skepticism to grudging acceptance of his visitor’s legitimacy. “That would explain a lot.”

“There are many explanations awaiting you, my young friend. Not everyone is of a mind sufficiently open to accept them.”

“Oh, I’ll accept them, all right.” Cody spoke with feeling. “I’ll accept anything that might help my Kelli.”

“Ah ja, your wife.” Oelefse was nodding slowly to himself. “From the description accompanying your entreaty, a most unfortunate, but hardly unique case. You made it quite clear to anyone capable of reading between the lines that she has been infected. I am truly sorry.”

Ashamed at the way he had treated his visitor, Cody now strove to make amends. “Look, I’m sorry if I was a little abrupt with you at first. You have to understand that in the course of trying to get help for Kelli, I’ve had to deal with a lot of people who were pretty shaky upstairs.”

“I am not offended, Cody.” Raising the umbrella, the elderly German pointed toward the other end of the house. “You will now offer me something to eat and drink. Nothing too heavy, please, and tea would be nice.”

Cody immediately started toward the kitchen. “Coming from Europe, I would’ve thought you’d prefer coffee.”

“I would,” Oelefse conceded, “if I could find an American who knew how to make it. Tea will be fine.”

Rummaging through the filthy, half-abandoned kitchen, the archaeologist managed to find both tea bags and a box of cookies that was not too far past the expiration date stamped on the wrapping. When the tea was ready, he brought it and the accompaniments into the den, to find his visitor blithely reading through a stack of magazines.

“Nothing in any of those.” Cody put the tray down atop the pile of books that concealed the coffee table. “Sugar?”

“I will help myself.” Putting the magazines aside, Oelefse resumed his seat. His manner in preparing his tea was as precise as everything else about him, his movements almost dainty. He ate and drank with the air of an impoverished aristocrat. “Nothing for you, my friend?”

“Me? Oh, yeah.” Revisiting the kitchen, the archaeologist returned with an open beer. This he used to salute his guest. “To your health.”

“Prosit.” The elderly gentleman gestured slightly with his cup of tea. “You Americans do not know how to make beer, either.”

“I hereby apologize in advance for all my country’s deficiencies.” Cody struggled to rein in his impatience. “How can you help Kelli?”

“First I must see her. In your communication you stated that she lies in a comatose state.”

Cody nodded. “She breathes on her own, and she’s getting fluids and sustenance intravenously. Her body seems to be processing everything properly, but her blood pressure lately has been trending downward.” He bit back the lump in his throat. “The doctors try to be reassuring, but I can see that they aren’t hopeful.”

“Why should they be?” Oelefse spoke with unconscious coldness. “They cannot know what is wrong with her. I must see her.”

“Of course, of course.” The surge of hope that Cody felt nearly caused him to drop the perspiring bottle he was holding. “Can you do anything for her? Is there a pill, or some kind of injection?”

“Diagnosis first, then prognosis, then treatment. If such is viable.”

Hope evaporated as quickly as it had materialized. “What do you mean, ‘if’?”

“I will not lie to you, Cody Westcott. The Society has no time for comforting prevarications.” Blue eyes narrowed at him over the rim of the teacup. “Those Who Abide vary enormously in their ability to affect human health. Not so much the physical aspects of it as the mental. Your wife might emerge from her coma—changed.”

Cody’s lips tightened. “Changed how?”

Oelefse sipped delicately. Steam rising from the cup curled over the bridge of his nose. “Her memory may be damaged. She may feel differently about certain things. She may feel differently about you.”

“I’ll take that chance.” The archaeologist knocked back a long swallow.

“There may be other kinds of impairment. Her sanity may be damaged.”

“Just bring her out of the coma. I’ll deal with whatever consequences arise.”

“Will you? You are nothing if not confident. That is good. You are going to need all the confidence you can muster, my friend, if we are to have any chance of saving your wife. Now then: I do not suppose you can identify the Interloper, or Interlopers, who have come to abide in your mate’s body?”

“I don’t know names for any of them, if that’s what you mean. I suppose this Society of yours does?”

Oelefse smoothly poured himself a second cup of tea, emptying the small pot Cody had prepared. “Over time, one learns to put names to things. It is the human way. The Society is very old, and the litany of Interlopers quite long.”

“How long?” Cody prompted his visitor. “How many different kinds are there? I know that I’ve seen dozens.”

“There are thousands of different types,” the German told him quietly. “And they number in the millions. They have afflicted mankind since the beginning of time. Some say they came down from the trees with us. As for the Society, as an archaeologist you would know the ten- to fourteen-thousand-year-old cave paintings from Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain.”

Cody nodded. “They show bisons and cave bears and lions living beside humans in Neolithic Europe.”

“And Interlopers.” Oelefse smiled at the younger man’s startled reaction. “Ja, they too are depicted on those same ochre-stained walls. What appears abstract or incomplete to the average anthropologist is perfectly obvious to those of us who know what we are looking at. In Australia there are similar ancient paintings, and also in Damaraland in southwest Africa. Primitive peoples knew the Interlopers, but that does not mean they knew how to fight them. Some did, and survived. Others did not, and perished beneath the weight of their own ignorance. We have records of such vanished peoples.” Blue eyes twinkled.