by Alec Nevala-Lee
Both sides tend to see environmental issues in simplistic terms. But they’re rarely that simple....
I.
The shotgun was not aimed directly at Helki, but its barrel was pointed in her direction, which was more than enough for her to take it personally. The man holding the gun, a tanned hiker whose cowboy hat bore a faded Yaqui emblem, looked at her with a pair of obsidian eyes. “You’re the herpetologist?”
“I’m a snake doctor,” Helki said lightly. “When I say that I’m a herpetologist, people sometimes get the wrong idea.”
This was an old joke, one that she occasionally brought out at cocktail parties, and she had hoped that it would lighten the mood. As it turned out, none of the hikers even cracked a smile. Helki felt even more ill at ease than before, although she would have found it hard to explain why. Glancing over at Victor, who stood a few feet away, she could see that he was wary as well.
It was a few hours after dawn. Helki and Victor had been trudging through the forest, not far from where they had left the Land Rover, when, rounding a bend in the road, they had come across the three hikers. The bearded man in the cowboy hat leaned against the trunk of a lodgepole pine, the shotgun cradled loosely in his arms. A jeep and hybrid pickup were parked nearby. Two younger hikers were seated on the hood of the pickup, a boy and girl dressed in expensive outdoor gear. They seemed like college kids, in their late teens or early twenties, and both were watching her closely, as if wondering how far she could be trusted.
“We’ve been following the approval process,” the man in the cowboy hat said, looking between Helki and Victor. “We knew that you were coming, but we didn’t expect you so soon.”
“I’m impressed that you even heard about us,” Victor said, his voice friendly but guarded. Victor Murakami was one of Helki’s oldest friends, and he cut an impressive figure in his Forest Service uniform, his tall, rangy presence making her feel more secure. “What brings you out here?”
“We came for one last look at the lake,” the man in the cowboy hat said. “Soon all of this will be gone.”
With the barrel of his shotgun, he gestured at the trees, a movement that seemed to encompass the entire forest, with its ranks of lodgepole and mountain hemlock marching up the hillside. At this altitude, beyond the fire zone, mature pines cast a welcome shade across the clumps of monkey flower growing on either side of the road. Further up, above the gray pillars of the trees, towered the eastern ridge of the Sierra Nevada, its wooded mountains still crusted with snow. It was a warm day in early spring, the overcast sky casting a chalky light across the woods. Except for the background murmur of birds and insects, the forest was silent.
The man’s words, as well as the absence of any wool or leather in his clothes, made it easy for Helki to guess why he was here. Environmental groups had been protesting the proposed resort development for over a year now, and although Helki knew that their efforts were doomed to failure, their numbers inexplicably continued to rise. “You make it sound like the end of the world,” Helki said. “The forest will still be here when this is all over.”
The man in the cowboy hat shook his head. “The last round of appeals failed to make any difference. In a year, these woods will be nothing but ski resorts and second homes. It’s only a matter of time.”
One of the younger hikers, a blond kid with a goatee, spoke up. “You’re a forest officer,” he said to Victor. “Instead of oak and pine, we’re getting condominiums and parking lots. Are you proud of this?”
“My feelings aren’t the point,” Victor said, although Helki could tell that he found the question presumptuous. “I’m an ecologist. If the development is environmentally sound, I need to say so.”
“But there’s going to be a revised report. We saw it in the papers. That’s why you’re here today, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t clear yet,” Victor said. “When the project was first proposed, we drafted an environmental impact statement. It’s possible that it will need to be revised, but there hasn’t been a final decision.”
“And if you decide that a problem exists, will the development be ordered to cease?”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t my call,” Victor said. “It’s up to the county commission.”
The blond hiker sighed. “See, that’s precisely the problem. Have you ever been to a meeting of the county commission? Half of the commissioners have ties to the resort industry. Another half own property that will double in value if this development takes place. They all have conflicts of interest, but they don’t seem very eager to recuse themselves. If there’s money to be made, a handful of snakes aren’t going to make a difference.”
At the mention of snakes, the girl made a face and turned to the man in the cowboy hat. “Russell, remember—”
The man in the cowboy hat gave her a sharp look, which silenced her immediately. Helki could tell that he held a great deal of sway over his younger companions, especially the girl, and that he was annoyed that his name had been revealed. “You’ve been to the lake,” Helki said. “Have you seen any snakes?”
Russell pointed up the trail with his shotgun. “Over the ridge. You can’t miss them.”
“Not even if you try,” the blond hiker said. “Listen, do me a favor. After you’ve seen the snakes, come back and let me know if they’ll make any difference. If I thought that the county commission would take any of this seriously, I’d have asked them to come out here a long time ago, but I know better. They aren’t bad people, maybe, but they lack imagination. They won’t act until the day of reckoning. And when it happens, they’ll say that no one could have seen it coming.”
Helki wanted to challenge this easy cynicism, which expressed a lack of imagination of its own, but she knew that his vision of the future was essentially correct. Lake Molluk, a crater lake ten miles to the east, had already been transformed into a ski resort, complete with luxury condos and video arcades, and its owners hoped to do the same to Lake Yomigo, its undeveloped twin, which lay over the ridge ahead. You didn’t need to be a radical environmentalist to have mixed feelings about this kind of development. Even if the resort turned out to be permissible from an environmental standpoint, from an aesthetic point of view, it could only be a disaster.
Victor made a show of checking his watch. “Helki, we really should be on our way.”
“Helki,” the girl hiker said, addressing her for the first time. “That’s a lovely name.”
“Thanks,” Helki said, regarding her with a biologist’s eye. The girl was slim, pretty, and could have been anywhere from fifteen to twenty. Helki was reminded of the time in her own life, not so very long ago, when she had been angry, idealistic, and too immature to understand the need for compromise.
Russell was regarding Helki with evident interest. “That’s a Miwok name, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Helki said, hoping that Russell would not take this as evidence that they had anything else in common. She wondered again what he was doing here. If the young hikers were two peas in a pod, Russell was an anomaly. The shotgun, in particular, struck her as an incongruous element. Helki pointed to it. “Were you out here hunting, too?”
Russell grinned at this, as if sharing a good joke. “It isn’t loaded. I carry it in case we run into Homo sapiens nimrodamericanus. Hunters leave you alone if they think you’re one of them.”
Helki only nodded. Looking more closely at the shotgun, she saw that a strip of white bandage tape had been laid along the barrel, a modification designed to aid sighting in poor lighting conditions. It was the sign of a man who knew how to use a shotgun as a defensive weapon, not merely for hunting or show, and it bothered her. She thought about asking to see a permit, but decided to let it go.
After exchanging a few more guarded words, the two groups parted ways. Helki and Victor continued up the hill, heading for the spur that overlooked the lake. As she walked away, Helki found, somewhat to her surprise, that she was furious. She didn’t blame the hikers for feeling bitter about what was happening to the lake and forest, but it stung to be treated like one of the enemy. A quisling. Now that the encounter was over, Helki imagined herself saying all the right things, eloquently arguing that working within the system was the only way to make a meaningful difference. Deep down, however, she knew that such an argument would not go far with the hikers, no matter how convincingly it was worded.
They took a switchback trail that diverged from the main road, heading up the hillside. As soon as the pines had blocked the hikers from view, Victor spoke. “Did you see what was hanging from the truck’s rearview mirror?”
Helki tried to remember, but saw only the vague image of a pendant. “No, what?”
“It was a little emblem, like something from a charm bracelet. A monkey wrench.”
Helki considered the news in silence. Among certain environmental activists, a monkey wrench was a symbol of direct action. Usually this meant nothing more dangerous than protests and picket lines, but it could also mean blockades and fire bombs. “You think they’re planning something?”
“Maybe.” Victor glanced back, as if to make sure that they weren’t being overheard. “There have been a number of protests over the proposed development. Arson. Tree spiking. That sort of thing.”
“Should we report it?”
“I’m not sure yet. After all, there’s no evidence that they’re planning anything. All we know is that they’re opposed to the ski resort, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Victor smiled. “If anything, I envy their certainty. I wish that I had that kind of passion these days.”
“It’s a class privilege,” Helki said. “It’s easy to care about the planet when you’ve never had to worry about anything else.”
Victor marched up the trail, which was sandy and laden with pumice. “I seem to remember that both of us were promising activists back in the day, and I wasn’t exactly a trust fund baby. Neither were you.”
Helki granted the point. “And what happened? I grew up, got married, and became a government consultant. My conscience is clear. But those kids were looking at me as if I were the worst kind of sellout.”
“You learned to work within the system, that’s all. I made the same choice.” Victor gave her a rueful grin. “I don’t think that it was just an excuse for cowardice. Of course, I could be wrong.”
Helki knew that this remark concealed a deeper set of concerns. Victor often spoke of his mixed feelings towards the Forest Service, which was notoriously inclined to bend over backwards to cooperate with local development interests. Although he claimed to have come to terms with the political realities of his work, Helki suspected that he would leave for good one day.
Before she could ask him about this, however, she became aware of a rustling noise coming from beyond the ridge, a sound like the murmur of dry leaves. “Hold it,” Helki said. “We’re close.”
They halted. The crest of the hillside was a few steps away, a row of trees outlined against the sky. Here the mountain hemlock had fallen back, leaving only lodgepoles and white pine, their bark the color of cinnamon where the trunks were exposed to the wind. Victor paused at the edge of the trail, one foot propped on a mossy stone. “So what do we do now?”
“We tread softly.” Helki sat on a fallen pine beside the footpath, its scaly gray trunk like a monumental spinal column. Indian paintbrush covered the ground to either side, the dense clumps of stems topped with spikes the color of blood. From her pack, she took a pair of soft shoes. After changing out of her hiking boots, she removed two pillowcases from her pack and draped them over her arm.
They ascended the spur, which disclosed a spectacular view of the surrounding forest. In the distance stood the mountain itself, a lava dome complex on the southwestern edge of Long Valley Caldera. Despite the warm weather, its slopes were covered in a sparkling layer of snow. In the basin at the foot of the mountain lay Lake Yomigo, a limpid crater lake nearly a mile across, surrounded by a maze of use paths. Miwok legend regarded the lake as a haunted place, but in the daylight, it was nothing more than one of many gorgeous landscapes in this part of the Sierra Nevada.
For the moment, however, Helki saw none of these things, her attention fixed on the ground. The lee side of the hill ran three hundred yards down to the edge of the lake, its surface covered with fissured boulders. The slope was steep and uneven, a broad apron of gray talus and scree, and Helki had to work to keep her balance as she made her way towards the living, squirming carpet at her feet.
The ground was moving. It rippled and writhed in ropy lines, undulating in a sea of olive green. From where they stood to the edge of the lake, the hill was covered with thousands of slender bodies.
“Garter snakes,” Helki said. For a long moment, she could say nothing else, her heart pounding with exhilaration. There were at least five thousand garter snakes on the hillside. They had been sleeping through the winter, their blood as thick as strawberry jam, and now they were emerging from brumation, gathering to reproduce and migrate. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
She looked back at Victor, who had remained at the top of the hill. He seemed pale, with a forced smile on his face, as if he had not fully understood what they had come here to observe. “Yeah,” Victor said. “It’s great.”
Helki was already scooping up handfuls of snakes and tossing them into a pillowcase. Their bodies were soft and cool, a curious blend of suppleness and rigidity. She handed a second pillowcase to Victor, who had picked his way carefully down the steep palisades of granite and loose stone. “I need to get a hundred snakes for marking,” Helki said. “Be sure to get some females. You can tell them apart from the males because they’re twice as long.”
Victor picked up a snake, holding it gingerly behind the head. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Not around here,” Helki said, pausing to examine one of the snakes more closely. It was slender, eighteen inches long, with keeled dorsal scales. A yellow ribbon ran along its dark green back, a pale stripe on either side. “You need to go to Manitoba to see this sort of thing. At Narcisse, you’ll sometimes see twenty thousand snakes at a time, but I’ve never seen it in California.”
As she spoke, she grew increasingly excited. She would need to review the literature to be sure, but she was fairly certain that this behavior was unprecedented in Thamnophis elegans. The snakes were forming mating balls, a hundred males clustering around a single female. After being impregnated, the female would escape, heading for her spring feeding grounds, and the mating ball would disperse, the males scattering in all directions in search of another willing prospect.
Helki saw that Victor was no longer collecting snakes. He was standing on one of the boulders, seized, it seemed, by an attack of ophidiphobia. Helki was amused by this, but also concerned. She knew that he had to keep him talking. “Admit it. This is more fun than a day at the office.”
Victor nodded weakly, knelt, and managed to stuff a handful of snakes into the pillowcase that was writhing in his hands. “It beats dealing with the resort companies. At least the snakes don’t have lawyers.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Helki said. “We still haven’t checked underground.”
Helki finished filling her pillowcase. Taking a marker from her pocket, she removed the captured snakes one at a time, tagging each one on the belly with a purple stripe. After each snake had been marked, it was let go. As she worked, she kept a mental tally of how many she had released. Tomorrow, she would collect another sample, and by counting the number of tagged snakes that reappeared in the second lot, she could arrive at a rough estimate of the total population.
As Helki marked the snakes, her eyes kept returning to the mountain and lake. It occurred to her that the appearance of mating balls, which was unprecedented in this area, might have been caused by a drop in the average temperature. “What kind of weather have you been having?” Helki asked. “A cold winter?”
Victor handed her his pillowcase, which was only halfway full. He seemed glad to be rid of it. “No, it was unusually mild. Not a lot of snowfall. I can look up the records, if you like.”
Helki pointed toward the mountain, the lower slopes of which were frosted in snow. “So this is artificial?”
“Not exactly,” Victor said. “It’s too expensive for the resort to depend exclusively on snowmaking, so they’ve developed ways of preserving the natural snowfall.” He pointed to a wooden building on the far shore of the lake, close to the water’s edge. “They installed a cooling station last year. It pumps cold water out of the lake and runs it through pipes in the mountainside, which lowers the ground temperature and keeps the snow from melting.”
Helki was surprised by this. “I didn’t realize that the slopes were already operating.”
“They aren’t,” Victor said. “The resort owners don’t want to start construction until they’re sure about the location. They’ve been doing a dry run of the cooling system for a few months. They did the same thing at the resort at Lake Molluk. Before they installed the cooling system there, snow preservation was lousy. That’s why the area wasn’t developed until recently.”
“What about environmental factors? It doesn’t affect the ecology of the lake?”
“They’ve passed all of the regulatory hurdles. The system is a closed loop. When the water returns to the lake, it may be a few degrees warmer, but the overall temperature of the lake remains constant.” Victor paused. “Do you think this has something to do with the increase in the snake population?”
“We have to consider the possibility.” Helki looked at the snakes, trying to imagine what might have caused the increase in numbers. “You said that the cooling system was installed last year?”
“Yes, in advance of any other construction,” Victor said. “It’s the only major development in the area so far. Are you wondering if the snakes might have migrated here in response?”
“Maybe,” Helki said. “If the cooling system disturbed their natural habitat, they may have been forced to relocate.”
Victor scratched his chin. “You know, there’s another possibility. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but is it possible that these snakes were introduced into the environment on purpose?”
Helki finished marking and releasing the snakes, leaving only six specimens behind. “To stop the construction? I doubt it. If you want to rally the public against habitat destruction, you need something cute. Reptiles don’t cut it. Snakes, especially, don’t cut it. Believe me, I know.”
From her pack, Helki took a plastic sweater box that she had lined with newspaper. Removing the lid, she placed the six remaining snakes in the box, which she had stocked with a homemade blend of gelatin and pulverized trout. As she watched the snakes, she was struck again by the jeweled perfection of their heads, the graceful engineering of their streamlined bodies. It was a shame, she thought, that so few people could appreciate such elegance.
“If only we had more time,” Helki said, caught off guard by her own frustration. “Nothing we do is going to stop this development.”
Victor was watching her closely. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you so angry.”
“I know,” Helki said. “But this isn’t why you hired me. I promise that my report will be completely objective.”
“I never doubted that it would be,” Victor said. “If it makes you feel any better, I hate this, too. I couldn’t say anything to those hikers, but the last thing that the world needs is another ski resort. Just don’t tell my wife—”
Helki smiled at this. The day before, at Lake Molluk, Victor’s wife had immediately fallen in love with the resort, along with Helki’s husband and daughter. Before leaving the hotel that morning, Helki had promised to come back in the afternoon, so that they could all hit the slopes together. She supposed that her family was outside now, savoring the beauty of the morning and the pleasure of fresh powder without giving more than a passing thought to their environmental cost. It must be nice, she thought, to enjoy such things with a clear conscience.
They climbed back over the ridge, away from the lake, until the den of snakes was out of sight. Helki carried the sweater box by its handle, swinging it gently from side to side. When they returned to the spot where they had met the hikers, she saw that the pickup truck and jeep were gone. She lingered for a second, looking at the deserted clump of pines, remembering how she had wanted to tell the hikers that working within the system was the best way to get things done. For the first time in a long while, she allowed herself to wonder if she might be wrong.
The same thing seemed to have occurred to Victor. Without looking in her direction, he cleared his throat. “I don’t think that we need to report this encounter to anyone. What do you say?”
Helki took a moment to reply. “Are you hoping for some direct action? Or is it—”
“I didn’t say that,” Victor said, cutting her off. “I’m only suggesting that we leave it alone. If someone wants to take the fight outside the system, I’m willing to look the other way.”
Helki felt a surge of affection for Victor, who, it seemed, had not entirely abandoned the ideals of his youth, as quixotic as they might seem in the light of adulthood. “Me too. Let’s leave it at that.”
As she spoke, a muffled explosion came from beyond the ridge. Helki turned toward the sound. She assumed that it was noise from the construction taking place on the far side of the lake, but part of her wanted to believe that it was something more. “Our friends at work?”
“I’m impressed,” Victor said, although he clearly didn’t take her suggestion seriously. “They certainly—”
He broke off. A low roar, slowly gathering in volume, was coming from beyond the hill. At first, it was no more than a vibration, a tremor that Helki sensed as much through the soles of her feet as with her ears. As the roar grew louder, it rose to the level of thunder, although it continued to hug the ground. At its loudest, a few seconds after it had begun, it sounded as if a fighter plane were swooping low across the lake, which was hidden from view by the hillside.
Finally, the sound died, the volume diminishing as if someone were turning down the knob on a stereo. In the sweater box, the snakes were writhing in agitation. Helki looked at Victor. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” Victor said, his voice full of uncertainty. “Let’s check it out.”
They headed for the ridge, which would give them a view of the forest. In the silence that followed the thunder, the woods seemed unnaturally quiet. Helki felt a series of dry thumps at her side. Looking down, she saw that the snakes were throwing themselves against the walls of the box, as if trying to escape.
A moment later, as they reached the switchback trail that led to the crest of the hill, Helki paused. There was a strange smell on the breeze, like a faint whiff of rotten eggs. “Victor, hold on for a second.”
Victor halted and looked back at her. She could tell that he was worried. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong.” Helki was about to say something else, but was cut short by an acidic taste in her mouth. Her saliva had grown sour, as if she had swallowed a dose of bad medicine. “We need to get out of here—”
Even as she spoke, she grew disoriented, as if the ground had tilted to one side. All around her, the forest seemed to expand and contract. Her breathing became rapid and shallow.
Looking at Victor, she saw that his face was flushed. As she drew a surprised gasp at the sight, the first intake of air told her everything. There was something on the wind. A stiff breeze was blowing across the forest, and with every breath that she took, an invisible invader was passing into her bloodstream.
“Come on,” Victor said. They turned and cut across the switchback trail, walking quickly, then breaking into a run, the toes of their shoes knocking up spumes of pumice and sand. Although Victor was normally the faster runner, Helki overtook him with ease. Something was terribly wrong, but the danger, if real, was internal and inescapable. It filled her with a freezing horror, a sense of being occupied by an unseen enemy. Her nerves were screaming. For the first time in her life, she had a sense of how it would feel to go mad.
She ran blindly, aware of nothing but the hole that seemed to grow in her chest with every lungful of air. As she neared where they had parked the Land Rover, she found that she could no longer hear Victor’s steps. Turning, she saw him crumpled in the road, his hands clutching at the sandy soil.
The box fell from her hands, struck the ground, and broke open. The snakes began to slither slowly away, their tails flicking feebly against the dust. Although she barely had the strength to walk, she ran to where Victor had fallen, the woods seeming to press against her from all directions. She knelt at Victor’s side, trying to shake him awake, but his eyelids only fluttered in response. Helki swore, hoping that the sound would give her courage, but only a whisper escaped from her lips. All around her, the world was growing red.
She hauled Victor to his feet, his arm slung over her shoulders, and stumbled towards the Land Rover, feeling as if her legs were mired in mud. Her muscles protested, aching, as she willed herself forward one inch at a time.
As the forest grew darker, Helki felt the acid taste spreading through her mouth and throat, sharpening the smell of rotten eggs. She no longer remembered why she was trying to reach the Land Rover. It seemed like a senseless effort, pointless, when all that she wanted was to sleep—
Her legs scissored onward, more through momentum than conscious effort. The Land Rover trembled before her, as tantalizing as any mirage, and then she was at its side. Next to her, Victor groaned.
Helki’s strength was all but gone, but she managed to open the back door and shove Victor inside. As she shut the door, reaching the driver’s seat seemed impossible, but she forced herself to take the few necessary steps. Her fingers seized the door handle and yanked it open. She got behind the wheel. The sound of the closing door was like that of a safe swinging shut.
Helki stared at the driver’s console, her sight failing. She couldn’t remember what she was doing here. Her hands groped for her key ring, operating solely out of muscle memory, but when her fingers closed around the cool metal of the keys, she no longer recalled what they were for.
Her head fell forward, coming to rest against the steering wheel. In the last second before she lost consciousness, she saw something through the windshield, an image that followed her down into the darkness. The sweater box lay where it had fallen open, but the snakes were no longer moving.
* * * *
II.
When Helki opened her eyes, her first thought was that the sun was in the wrong place. She was slumped forward, her body aching from being in such an awkward position for so long. Her nose was a few inches from a pebbled surface, like the cratered expanse of an asteroid. As her vision cleared, she saw that it was the grain of the steering wheel. She was still in the driver’s seat.
Helki forced herself to sit up. Her head was pounding, and she was painfully thirsty, her tongue adhering to the roof of her mouth. She had been lying on her right arm. As she shifted it gingerly, feeling as if a scrap of dead flesh had been grafted onto her shoulder, it flooded with pins and needles.
The air inside the Land Rover was stale. In the back seat, Victor was leaning to one side, his head resting against the window. His eyes were closed. Helki reached back and nudged him with her left hand. “Victor?”
Victor’s head jerked upward, his hands rising in an automatic gesture of defense. He looked at her wildly. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Helki said. There were blisters on Victor’s forehead, inflamed circles the size of pinheads. A glance in the mirror revealed the same blisters on her own face, as well as a red triangle from where her head had pressed against the steering wheel. She suppressed a crazy laugh at the sight.
Victor was looking around the Land Rover in confusion. “How did I get here?”
“I carried you,” Helki said. “I got as far as the driver’s seat, and I passed out. That’s all I know.”
Victor clutched his head. “You carried me? How long have we been like this?”
Helki pulled out her cell phone to check the time. As she did, she noticed a blinking red light on the display, which said that she had ten missed calls. Her sense of dread only deepened when she saw what time it was.
“It’s four in the afternoon,” Helki said dully. “We’ve been here for eight hours.”
Victor stared. “You’re kidding.” He pulled up his sleeve to check his own watch, and was unable to speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was hushed. “What the hell happened?”
Before she could reply, Victor opened his door and climbed out of the car. Helki tried to stop him, afraid of the possible danger, but when he seemed to suffer no ill effects, she opened her own door a crack.
The smell of rotten eggs was gone. After a moment of hesitation, she opened her door all the way and got out, her shoes crunching in the dirt. The forest was still. No birds sang. The insects were silent.
“Look at this,” Victor said, kneeling in the road. Helki limped over to where he was crouching, her legs weak. When she bent down to see what he had found, she saw that the ground was covered with lifeless insects. She picked up the fragile husk of a dragonfly. It was perfectly intact, but dead.
Helki went further into the woods. At the foot of a lodgepole pine, she found a dead bird, a woodpecker that had fallen from the branches. Other birds lay unmoving on the ground, thrushes and sparrows lying among the lavender asters. A squirrel had died with its paws clenched.
Victor was standing beside her, the color drained from his face. “We can’t stay here.”
“Wait,” Helki said. She went back to where she had dropped the box of snakes, only fifty feet from the Land Rover, although the distance had seemed endless at the time. The box lay where it had fallen, the lid open, sheets of newspaper and shreds of food scattered along the ground. The six snakes were nearby. One had died inside the box itself, while four others had managed to crawl a few feet. The final snake had died two yards from the box, its body twisted and contorted.
Helki looked at the dead snakes in silence. Before she knew what she was doing, she was moving up the trail towards the ridge. Victor fell into step beside her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“The snakes,” Helki said, her voice weak from thirst. “I need to see if they’re okay.”
As she ran forward, she noted further signs of devastation. More dead birds lay on the ground. Lifeless bugs crunched underfoot. When she reached the path that led to the top of the hill, she ran towards the spur. A minute later, the lake and hillside were at her feet. When she saw what was there, tears sprang into her eyes, but she wiped them quickly away.
All of the snakes were dead. The hill, which had once teemed with life, was covered in thousands of bodies, as inert as severed lengths of cord. Helki picked up the remains of a mating ball. The snakes were heavy and limp.
No scavengers had descended. Helki knew that crows should have appeared to pick out the livers of the snakes, gorging themselves on so tempting a feast, but nothing stirred on the hillside. No insects. No birds.
Victor’s shadow fell across the ground before her. There was a pause before he spoke. “I’m so sorry.”
Helki shook her head. “It’s genocide. There’s no telling if any of the snakes survived to carry on the reproductive cycle.” She looked up at Victor. “Who did this? What reason could anyone possibly have?”
Victor said nothing, his eye caught by something in the distance. Following his gaze, Helki looked at the lake itself, and realized that things were even stranger than she had guessed.
Lake Yomigo, which was normally a deep blue, had turned red. Although the edges of the lake remained transparent, a crimson pool, the color of blood, had appeared at the center of the water. The sight, which reminded her of the plagues of Egypt, made her own blood run cold.
When she raised her eyes further, she saw disaster of a more everyday kind. At the far shore of the lake, the cooling station was in ruins. Although the fire, if there had been one, had gone out, the walls and roof of the station had fallen in. Fire trucks and emergency vehicles were parked nearby, paramedics and firemen moving in efficient formations. The sight was strangely comforting.
“We should drive over there,” Victor said. “Maybe they can tell us what happened.”
“Give me a second,” Helki said. She picked up a pair of dead snakes, acting out of a vague sense that it would be wrong to leave them here. Victor watched, but did not lend a hand. As she gathered the snakes, a scrap of conversation echoed through her brain. She wanted to ignore it, but couldn’t stop remembering what the blond hiker had said. A day of reckoning—
They were heading back to the road when the cell phone vibrated against Helki’s hip. It was her husband, whom she had left behind at Lake Molluk. Remembering her ten missed calls, she answered the phone. “Jeff?”
His voice was full of anxiety. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to call for hours—”
“I know,” Helki said. “Something happened here. I couldn’t call back before now.”
“Are you all right? There have been reports of an explosion at the lake. The police are calling it ecoterrorism. I’ve been trying to talk to the ski patrol, but they won’t give me a straight answer—”
“Don’t worry,” Helki said, although her heart was pounding at the news. “I’ll be back at the resort soon. How is Emily doing?”
“She’s fine, but she wants to know where her mommy is. Why couldn’t you call?”
Helki hesitated, not wanting him to worry. “It’s a long story. I can explain everything when I see you again.”
“All right, but don’t stay out much longer,” Jeff said. “We need you back here.”
Jeff hung up. Helki exhaled deeply, missing him, the dead snakes heavy in her other hand. Victor, whose cell phone failed to get a signal, borrowed her phone to call his wife, who was also at the resort. As soon as she answered, he reassured her, in a mixture of Japanese and English, that they were coming back soon. When he was done, he hung up and returned the phone to Helki without a word.
As they neared the spot where they had parked, Helki silently reviewed the morning’s events, hoping that she would remember something that would convince her that the hikers had not been responsible for what she had seen. Whenever she came close to persuading herself, she remembered the monkey wrench hanging from the rearview mirror. The signs had been there, and she had ignored them, or welcomed them, hoping that the hikers would engage in some minor act of vandalism that would force the resort to take notice. But if they had decided to go further—
This train of thought was severed as soon as she came within sight of the Land Rover. A police car had pulled up nearby, and two figures were standing next to the cruiser. One was a sheriff’s deputy, his appearance calm and professional. The other man, wearing a fleece jacket embroidered with the logo of the ski resort, had his back turned, but Helki recognized him at once.
“What do you know?” Victor said quietly. He picked up the pace. “It’s Frank.”
Helki knew that he was not pleased by this. Frank Burton was the head of mountain operations at Lake Molluk. He was shrewd and friendly, but a company man to the core, and had cooperated only grudgingly with the Forest Service’s environmental studies. When he saw them coming, however, the look of relief on his face seemed genuine. “Thank God,” Frank said as they approached. “I was afraid that we were going to find another pair of bodies.”
Victor went up to the two men, with Helki hanging back a few steps. “Bodies? How many have you found?”
“Twelve dead,” the deputy said. “Mostly campers. All within five miles of the lake.”
Helki was shocked by the news. On some level, she had been hoping that there would be no human casualties. “What was it?”
“Nobody knows,” Frank said. “It looks like the victims just lay down and died.” He regarded them curiously. “You must have been right by the lake when it happened. Are you all right?”
Victor quickly explained what had taken place, although he did not mention the hikers. The deputy frowned. “You need to be checked out. We have an emergency care team nearby—”
“Wait a minute,” Helki said, tired of being in the dark. The two dead snakes were still in her hands. “Before we go anywhere, you need to tell us what’s going on. We heard the explosion, but we don’t know anything else.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Frank asked. “It was ecoterrorism. Some kind of bomb destroyed the cooling station and killed everything within miles. God knows how many casualties we haven’t even found yet—” He broke off, then forced himself to start from the beginning. “This morning, an alarm went off at ski patrol headquarters, indicating that there was a fire at the cooling station. At first, we didn’t take it too seriously. There have been false alarms before—”
“What about the operating crew?” Victor asked. “Wasn’t there anyone at the lake?”
“Not that early in the morning,” Frank said. “It took us a while to assemble a team to check it out. At worst, we thought that we might be dealing with arson or vandalism, the sort of thing we’ve seen in the past. When we got close enough, we saw that the station was in ruins, but the fire had gone out on its own. We were about to investigate, but when we found dead birds and animals on the ground, it made us nervous about staying. So we called the sheriff’s department.”
“When we got the call, we sent out a few fire trucks,” the deputy said. “They’ve got biohazard gear and equipment for detecting chemical agents. When we swept the region, we found nothing. No contaminants, no residue. As far as we know, the forest is clean. Except for twelve bodies and a ton of dead animals, there seems to have been no environmental impact at all.”
“What about the red stuff in the lake?” Victor asked. “Do we know what that is?”
“We’re doing tests,” Frank said. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem toxic. As of now, our focus is on finding witnesses and survivors. That’s what we were doing when we came across your vehicle.”
Helki was still trying to grasp the scale of the attack. The emotional core of her brain had closed off, as if her reservoir of feeling wasn’t deep enough to respond to what had happened. “Do we have any idea who did it?”
“As far as we can tell, the bomb was detonated by cell phone, which is consistent with ecoterrorism,” the deputy said. “Red paint was sloshed around the scene, which we’ve seen before. But the casualties? I’ve never seen anything like it. If it was a chemical attack, the agent has dispersed without a trace. Nothing in the bodies. Nothing in the air. No sign of how any of this was done.”
“Maybe the point was to leave nothing behind,” Frank said. “If I were an ecoterrorist, I wouldn’t set off a weapon that would leave the forest uninhabitable. Maybe they’ve developed an agent that causes one round of casualties, then evaporates cleanly. The opposite of a dirty bomb. Green terror.”
Helki knew that this was pure speculation, but it frightened her anyway. Looking at Victor, she found that he would not meet her eyes. She knew that they needed to mention the hikers, but forced herself to hold back. Before they said anything to the police, she wanted to be sure that they were on the same page.
“I need to get back to Lake Molluk,” Helki said. “My family must be worried sick.”
“You’ll need to come to the crisis command center,” the deputy said. “After you’ve been checked out, you can go.” He headed for the cruiser. “Are you all right to drive? If not—”
“We’ll be fine,” Victor said quickly. “We were knocked out for a while, that’s all.”
The two men waited in the police car as Helki and Victor headed for the Land Rover. Climbing into the driver’s seat, Helki sat for a moment behind the wheel, remembering their last desperate scramble for the car, an effort that had saved their lives, although she wasn’t sure why. Finally, she started the engine and followed the police cruiser down the road.
The forward motion, taking them back to civilization, seemed to clarify her thoughts. Helki felt a purifying rush of anger. “Why did they do it? They acted as if they were the only ones who cared about the natural world, and now twelve people are dead. And the snakes—”
“I know. It’s insane.” Victor looked out at the pines. “Or maybe it was inevitable.”
“Inevitable?” Helki found it hard to focus on the road. “It was murder. They planned it and carried it out. Maybe they didn’t expect human casualties, but they must have known that animals would die.”
“I’m not excusing it,” Victor said. “I’m just trying to understand it. Environmental radicals have spent years attacking property. They spike trees and burn down ski lifts, and what happens? Nothing. It’s all insured. If you torch a resort, the owners just build a new one. I can see why some activists might decide that outright terror was their only option. A last resort.”
“But how can you not wear leather and then carry out an attack that kills thousands of animals? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You remember what the deputy said. This was a clean attack. No trace of chemicals or toxins. If you were an ecoterrorist, you might decide that a few thousand casualties were acceptable for the sake of the larger cause, but you’d draw the line at permanent ecological damage. Maybe this was a test. They developed a clean weapon and released it in an isolated area to see if it dispersed. And if they were watching to see what the effects would be, they’re probably pleased by the outcome.” Victor paused. “So what do we tell the police?”
“I don’t know,” Helki said. “They’ll want to know why we didn’t speak up before. If we’d known what the hikers were planning to do—”
“There was no way for us to know,” Victor said. “Nobody could have foreseen this.”
Helki didn’t respond. Through the windshield, she saw a scattering of white tufts in the field ahead. It took her a second to realize that it was a flock of sheep that had been struck dead where it stood. The sheep lay close together, thirty or forty in all, like lumps of cloud that had fallen from the sky. There was no sign of the shepherd. Looking at the flock, Helki felt the prick of fresh tears.
A second later, she saw something in the forest beyond the field. She braked sharply. The vehicle lurched to a stop, sending them rocking forward in their seats. Victor was staring at her. “What is it?”
Helki turned off the ignition. Up ahead, the police cruiser stopped, reversed itself, and pulled up alongside the Land Rover. The deputy rolled down his window. “Is something wrong?”
“I saw something in the woods,” Helki said. She pointed through the windshield, halfway hoping that what she had seen would be gone, but it was still there. “A pickup truck.”
The deputy turned to look. A private road, barely wide enough for a single vehicle, ran along the edge of the field into the woods beyond. Across the entrance, a rusted chain stretched between two posts, a sign hanging from its sagging center: NO TRESPASSING. Three hundred yards further down, behind a clump of pines, stood the pickup truck, only its tailgate visible from the main road.
“We’ve seen this truck before,” Helki said. “On our way to the lake, we passed some hikers in the forest. A jeep and pickup truck were parked nearby. When we came back, they were gone.”
Frank was studying her face. “You think that they could have been a part of this?”
“It’s possible,” Helki said. She didn’t elaborate, but when Frank turned to Victor for confirmation, he nodded.
“All right,” the deputy said. He got of the car, its door pinging softly, and knelt to examine the ground. A moment later, he rose. “Fresh tire tracks. They must have replaced the chain after driving through.”
The deputy unhooked the chain and bore it off to one side. Climbing back into the cruiser, he eased onto the private road, driving between the posts. Helki followed, tires grinding in the dirt, her hands clamped tightly on the steering wheel. After two hundred yards, they halted. The pickup had come clearly into view. A woman was seated in the passenger’s seat.
Frank and the deputy emerged from the police cruiser, their eyes fixed on something on the road. Helki set the parking brake and got out, followed by Victor. Through the pines, the lake was visible in the distance. Dead birds and insects lay on the ground, along with something else.
Ten feet from the pickup, the blond hiker was stretched out in the dirt, his face turned toward the sky. He was dead. His heels had dug shallow hyphens in the soft soil, as if he had convulsed on the ground before his death.
The girl was slumped in the cabin of the truck, her eyes closed. She was not moving. As the deputy ran up to the blond hiker’s body, Frank approached the truck, not taking his eyes from the girl.
A bundle lay in the bed of the pickup, covered with a tarpaulin. To Helki’s surprise, instead of going immediately to the girl, Frank reached over the side and pulled the covering away. Underneath, there was a jumble of tents and bedrolls. Fishing around, Frank found a soda bottle full of red liquid, which sloshed against the sides of the container when he shook it.
“Red paint,” Frank said quietly. “The same kind that we found at the cooling station.”
Through the cabin’s dirty windows, which were rolled up, the girl remained motionless. Helki opened the door. As she did, she saw that the monkey wrench icon was still hanging from the rearview mirror.
At the sound of the door, the girl’s eyes opened. She looked weakly from side to side, only her eyes moving, her head slumped against the seat. A low moan escaped from her throat.
Frank set down the bottle of paint and hurried over to the cabin. The girl stared at the newcomers, as if unable to remember if she had seen them before, but her eyes finally locked on Helki.
“Helki,” the girl said weakly. At the sound of her name, Helki felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a surprised look on Frank’s face as the girl murmured a string of incoherent words: “The fountain. Helki, you need to stop him. I didn’t know. Lake Molluk—”
“Lake Molluk?” Helki asked. She felt a rush of fear. “What about Lake Molluk?”
The girl closed her eyes, head rocking, as if she were caught in a delirious dream. She spoke Helki’s name again, then fell into unconsciousness. Helki took her by the shoulder and shook her, but the girl said nothing more. The message, whatever it was, would remain incomplete, but Helki had heard enough. All the while, Frank watched her closely, his eyes narrow with suspicion.
* * * *
III.
After calling for an ambulance, the deputy knelt by the blond hiker and began performing chest compressions, although the boy seemed beyond the point of saving. Helki and Victor helped the girl out of the front seat, laying her on the ground with her feet elevated. As they wrapped her in a blanket, she did not move or respond, breathing shallowly, her eyes jumping behind closed lids.
“Lake Molluk,” Helki said to herself, watching as the deputy tried to revive the hiker. She wondered if the girl had been trying to warn her of a second attack. The first attack, as devastating as it had been, had been in an isolated location. The resort at Lake Molluk, by contrast, had thousands of people, including—
Helki pulled out her cell phone. Dialing her husband’s number, she waited for it to ring, but the call died without going through. She was trying again when Frank plucked the phone from her hand. “We need to talk.”
“Give me back my phone,” Helki said fiercely. “I need to get my family out of here. You heard what the girl said—”
“I heard her say your name,” Frank said. “She knew you. You need to tell me why.”
Helki took a breath, forcing herself to remain calm. “We ran into three hikers near the lake. They may have overheard my name.”
“Three hikers?” Frank’s eyes were drilling into her face. “There are only two here.”
“There was a third man,” Victor said, coming up to where they stood. “His car isn’t here now.” He related what had happened with the three hikers, leaving out the details of their subsequent exchange over whether or not to report the encounter. “We thought that it seemed strange, but not urgent enough to report right away. Maybe it was the wrong call—”
Frank looked down at the unconscious girl. “So when you saw the hikers, they were coming back from planting a bomb at the cooling station. They didn’t count on meeting anyone in the woods, but after leaving you behind, they decided to go ahead with the plan. One man went to Lake Molluk, maybe to prepare a second attack, and the two kids came here. When the bomb went off, they were caught in the blowback. Does that sound plausible?”
“I don’t have enough information to say,” Victor said. “Why are you asking us?”
“I just want to be sure that there isn’t anything that you aren’t telling me,” Frank said. “If I remember correctly, you weren’t too happy about the development at Lake Yomigo. Am I right?”
Instead of replying, Victor went up to the deputy, who was growing tired, and took over the chest compressions. The deputy rose, perspiring, and checked the pulse of the girl who was lying nearby. She was breathing, but still unresponsive. As Victor continued to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the deputy went over to the truck and rifled through the glove compartment, coming up with some papers and two cell phones. Helki turned away, focusing on the body of the blond hiker. She could feel Frank’s eyes on the back of her head.
When he had finished his search of the pickup, the deputy rejoined the group. “I’ve got identification and vehicle registration,” the deputy said. “They drove here from Arizona. As far as I can tell, their cell phones were new and prepaid. No record of incoming calls. One outgoing call on the boy’s phone. It may have been the call that set off the bomb.” He trailed off, sensing the tension in the air. “Is there something that I should know?”
Frank tersely related what he had been told. When he was finished, the deputy looked at Helki. “What did the third man look like?”
“Tall and bearded,” Helki said. “He was wearing a Yaqui emblem on his cowboy hat. Old clothes, no wool or leather. He had a shotgun with a strip of bandage tape along the barrel. His name may be Russell.”
The deputy asked a few more questions about Russell’s appearance, then relayed the description over the radio. “All units will be alerted,” the deputy said when he was done. “If he’s here, we’ll find him.”
“What about evacuating the resort?” Helki asked, afraid that they weren’t taking the risk seriously enough. “If the second attack is anything like the last one, thousands of people are going to die—”
“Security is on high alert throughout the resort,” Frank said. “We can’t do anything else. If we evacuate without good reason, we’re just going to start a panic.” He fixed her with the same suspicious gaze as before. “Or is there something else that you’d like to tell me?”
“Nothing that you haven’t already heard,” Helki said, refusing to be intimidated. As she spoke, the ambulance drove up, lights flashing. Two paramedics got out, shouting questions, as Victor stood aside. After checking the blond hiker for vital signs, the lead medic shook his head. As the two hikers were loaded into the ambulance, the girl’s eyes opened and came to rest on Helki’s face. Helki remembered their wild expression long after the ambulance doors had shut.
Before leaving, one of the paramedics gave Helki and Victor a cursory medical exam. “You’re good to go, but you’ll need to report to a hospital for a more thorough checkup,” he said when he was done. “We’ve seen acidosis in some of the survivors. You may need to receive further treatment.”
Victor, who had lapsed into an exhausted silence, perked up at this. “Acidosis? Are you sure?”
But the paramedic was already turning away. After consulting with the deputy, the two medics got into the ambulance and drove off. Helki was left beneath the pines, unable to think of anything but the possibility of another attack. Nothing else mattered. She had to get back to her family.
In the end, Frank agreed to let them drive back to Lake Molluk, but insisted on coming along in the Land Rover, as if reluctant to let them out of his sight. Victor was standing to one side, apparently lost in thought. Helki nudged him gently. “Listen, we need to go—”
“Just a minute,” Victor said. He turned to Frank. “I have a question. When you got to the cooling station, it looked as if it had caught fire after the bombing, but it wasn’t burning, right?”
Frank climbed into the Land Rover. “That’s right. The fire went out on its own.”
“I may know why.” Victor opened the trunk and rummaged around for a few seconds, finally emerging with a gas lighter, the kind with a long nozzle that was used to light barbecues. He headed for a fire pit a few yards away. The pit, installed for campers, was a shallow depression lined with bricks, about a foot below the ground. Standing over the pit, Victor pressed the button on the handle of the lighter. A yellow flame appeared at one end.
“Let’s see if I’m right,” Victor said. He lowered the tip of the lighter into the fire pit until the flame was below the surrounding ground. As Helki watched, the flame winked out immediately.
Victor pressed the button several more times. Although Helki could hear the ignition mechanism clicking, it refused to light again. When Victor removed the lighter from the pit and raised it a few feet above the ground, however, a fresh flame appeared as soon as he tried to light it.
“Carbon dioxide,” Victor said. “It’s heavier than air, so it sinks to the ground and gets caught in depressions like this. When carbon dioxide levels are high, it’s impossible to light a flame.”
Helki considered this new piece of information, which explained why the fire at the cooling station had gone out. She remembered the roar that she had heard after the explosion, and how she had been overwhelmed by panic when she tried to approach the lake. Finally, she remembered what the girl in the pickup truck had said a moment ago. The fountain—
The last piece fell into place. Helki knew what had happened. “A limnic eruption.”
“Yes, I think so.” Victor clicked off the lighter. “I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible, but—”
Frank was leaning out the window of the Land Rover. “What are you taking about?”
“This wasn’t an act of terrorism,” Victor said. “The hikers blew up the cooling station, but they didn’t mean to kill anyone. The deaths around the lake were caused by something else.”
“We can explain it to you on the way,” Helki said. “I’m not staying here for another minute.”
They got into the vehicle and drove off, leaving the deputy behind. As Helki headed for the main road, she dialed her husband’s number again, but there was no answer. Fear was pounding a steady drumbeat in her head, but she tried to ignore it, focusing only on taking the curves of the road as quickly as possible.
Victor was explaining the situation to Frank. “You need to understand that this entire area is geothermically active. Both Lake Yomigo and Lake Molluk were formed in the craters of dormant volcanoes. Over time, carbon dioxide seeping up through the ground can accumulate at the bottom of lakes like these. We’re talking about millions of cubic feet of dissolved gas. Normally, it’s dispersed by seasonal turnover, but under certain conditions, the gas can build up until the lake is saturated. A disturbance can cause all of it to be released at once.”
“It’s like a bottle of soda water,” Helki said. “Before you open the bottle, the carbon dioxide is dissolved in the liquid. When you unscrew the cap, the pressure is released and the gas comes out of solution. If the same thing happens in a crater lake, you get a cloud of carbon dioxide that can kill everything within miles. It’s invisible and nontoxic, but it makes it impossible to breathe.”
Frank seemed skeptical. “But what would cause the lake to release so much gas?”
“An explosion would have done the trick,” Victor said. “The hikers planted a bomb to destroy the cooling station. When they set it off, the blast released the accumulated carbon dioxide in the lake. These two kids didn’t know what they were doing, so they got caught right in the middle of it.”
“It’s happened before,” Helki said, remembering a case study from her college years. “In Cameroon, there’s a crater lake called Lake Nyos. It lies above a pocket of magma that saturated the water with carbon dioxide. The gas accumulated for years, and one day, it erupted, suffocating everything in its path. Villagers heard a noise like thunder, and when they went to see what was happening, they fell asleep and never woke up. A thousand people died that day.”
“This explains why the fire went out,” Victor said. “It also explains the symptoms. People who are exposed to carbon dioxide suffer from acidosis of the blood. They may hallucinate smells, like rotten eggs. In the end, they die of suffocation. Helki and I survived because we made it to the car and closed the doors. After a few hours, the gas dispersed enough for us to move around safely.”
“If you’re right, it must have been one hell of an eruption,” Frank said. “Why didn’t anyone see it?”
“We didn’t see it, but we heard it,” Helki said. “After the blast, there was a roar from the lake. The fountain would have been spectacular, up to fifty feet high, like a huge champagne bottle being uncorked. If other survivors come forward, I’m sure that we’ll find someone who witnessed it.”
“It may also explain why the lake turned red,” Victor said. “An eruption this violent would have stirred up sediment at the bottom of the lake, including dissolved iron, which would have oxidized at the surface.”
As Victor spoke, Helki finally saw the full picture, a movie unspooling in her brain as she drove down the mountain road. At the first tremor from the blast, a vibration had passed through the lake, pushing saturated water from the bottom towards the surface, where the pressure was too low to keep the gas in solution. Bubbles had formed, buoying the water higher and creating a column of carbon dioxide. The suction had drawn more water up from the base, forming a vast fountain. A cloud of death had rushed away from the shore, spreading inexorably across the land.
In the air, birds were beginning to appear again, descending to scavenge the bodies of the dead. “There are dozens of crater lakes in this part of the country,” Frank said. “Why hasn’t this happened before?”
“I don’t know,” Victor said. “In most lakes, the water is constantly turning over. The top layer is cooled by the wind, sinks to the bottom, and is replaced by the warmer water below. In the process, carbon dioxide is released. You only see buildup like this in tropical lakes where water temperature is too stable for turnover to take place. I can’t tell you why it happened here.”
Helki felt the germ of an idea pushing its way to the surface. “What about the cooling system? The water runs through pipes throughout the mountain and returns to the lake, a few degrees warmer than before. It could be enough to upset the convection process. A layer of saturated water would remain at the lake bottom, deeper than what you’ve been pumping out—”
Victor took up the thread. “The lake is sheltered by the hills, which would have impeded turnover anyway. Previously, the lake would have released small amounts of carbon dioxide on a regular basis, but if turnover was affected, these dispersals would have ceased.”
“And this explains the snakes,” Helki said, racing to catch up with the implications of her own hypothesis. “If the lake normally released carbon dioxide in limited amounts, it would have filled the fissures in the hillside, making it impossible for animals to survive there. When the gas began to build up in the lake instead, it created a vacant niche. The snakes were the first to take advantage of it. This explains why they formed dens and mating balls. When the conditions were right, these behaviors appeared for the first time.”
“But there’s one thing that I don’t understand,” Victor said. “If carbon dioxide levels in the lake were rising, somebody should have noticed it. It couldn’t have been overlooked for so long. Unless—”
He broke off. Frank had gone pale. “What is it?” Helki asked, alarm bells going off in her head.
“We ran a study before installing the cooling system,” Frank said haltingly. “It indicated that lake turnover would be affected. At worst, we thought that the problem would only affect organisms within the lake itself. We were sure that we could find a solution eventually, but we were afraid of delaying construction. We thought that we could address the ecological issues later. So we buried it—”
“But this was a time bomb,” Victor said, his voice trembling with anger and disbelief. “The lake was bound to blow up eventually. It could have been a storm, a construction accident. Any number of things could have set it off.”
“And what about Lake Molluk?” Helki asked. “Could the same thing happen there?”
Frank nodded reluctantly. “We’ve had a cooling system in place for years. Our studies there showed the same thing. Lake turnover is affected. We haven’t checked the carbon dioxide levels, but—”
“—but Lake Molluk is a crater lake,” Victor finished. “The lakes are twins. That’s why both were chosen for development. If someone sets off another bomb there, the lake could explode.”
“We need to warn Russell,” Helki said, floored by the full implications of what they were saying. “You understand? He doesn’t know what the explosion will do. From his point of view, he’s just attacking resort property. He has no idea what will happen if a bomb goes off.”
“There must be a way to get in touch with him,” Victor said. “If there isn’t, we need to go public. Call the media. Tell them that the lake will explode if anyone detonates a bomb.”
“That’s only going to start a panic,” Frank said, his air of skepticism gone. “A mass evacuation might set the lake off on its own. Besides, if we advertise the danger, there’s no telling what kind of lunatics we could draw. If all it takes is a single bomb—” He wiped the sweat from his face. “I need to talk to the owners. They’ll decide the best course of action.”
They arrived at Lake Molluk. After passing a security checkpoint, Helki pulled into the parking lot, from which she could see into the village that had been built at the base of the mountain. It was impossible to look at the scene without imagining what would happen if the lake erupted. A cloud of invisible gas would rise from the lake, surging forward at forty miles per hour, impossible to evade or outrun. Skiers would suffocate where they stood, tangled up in their equipment. Horses harnessed to carriages would fall to their knees, dragging their reins down with them. The resort would become a graveyard. A necropolis.
Frank seemed to be envisioning the same scenario. When he spoke again, his voice was subdued. “I need you to keep this to yourselves for now. If word gets out, we won’t be able to control the outcome. Give me an hour.”
“One hour,” Helki said. “Fine. But in the meantime, we’re leaving with our families.”
“I understand.” Frank looked back at Victor. “If we make it through the day without an eruption, what happens?”
“The lake can be degassed,” Victor said. “If you sink a vertical pipe to the bottom and start pumping water to the surface, the water will continue to rise on its own. The pressure from the gas will push it upward, and the carbon dioxide will escape harmlessly. It’s been done successfully in Africa.” He paused. “Of course, the best solution would be to stop lake cooling altogether.”
Frank did not reply. They got out of the Land Rover and headed for the hotel at the center of the village. As they walked in silence, they passed groups of skiers, families, and resort staff, all going about their business with no idea of the danger. Helki wanted to take them aside, one at a time, and warn them of what could be coming, but knew that it would sound like madness. In the crisp mountain sunshine, even she found it nearly impossible to believe.
When they reached the ski patrol’s headquarters, Frank went inside without a word. Helki and Victor went into the hotel across the street, which had been designed to resemble an alpine chalet. Clusters of guests were lounging in the lobby, which was very warm, thanks to a log fire blazing in the corner. If the lake erupted, the fire would go out at once, extinguished by a blast of carbon dioxide, the first and only warning that something had gone wrong.
“He’s right, you know,” Victor said. “We can’t go public without causing a panic. We need to tread softly.” He touched her arm. “Don’t wait for a call from Frank. Just get your family out of here as soon as you can.”
“I will.” Helki gave Victor a hug, then watched as he headed towards his wing of the hotel, glad that they had both survived. Entering the nearest elevator, she pressed the button for her floor, looking forward to seeing her family again. When the elevator opened onto her hallway, she went to her room, where she used a key card to unlock the door. As she did, she realized how exhausted she was.
“Helki?” Jeff’s voice came from inside the room as she opened the door. “Is it you?”
“Yes, I finally made it,” Helki said, glad to hear his voice. She closed the door behind her. “I’m sorry I—”
She broke off. Jeff was seated on the sofa, watching the news. He was tall and handsome, still athletic in his early forties. Next to him, Emily, their daughter, was reading a children’s book. At the age of six, she had the best qualities of both parents, with her mother’s dark coloring and her father’s grace.
Helki saw these things only in passing, her eyes caught by the third man in the room. He was seated in the armchair in the corner, his large hands clasped across his knees. It was Russell.
“Hello, Helki,” Russell said, regarding her calmly. “I’m glad that you made it back.”
Emily dropped her book and jumped into her mother’s arms, asking where she had been. Helki replied distractedly, unable to take her eyes from Russell, who was looking amiably at her husband.
“Russell has been assisting the search and rescue effort,” Jeff said. “We were trying to figure out where you might have gone after I called. I was worried when you didn’t call back.”
“I couldn’t get through,” Helki said, her daughter’s tiny arms still clasped around her neck. She saw that Russell had shaved his beard. Instead of the faded clothes that he had been wearing that morning, he was dressed in a ski patrol uniform. A duffel bag lay at his feet. It was large enough for a shotgun.
“Cell phone service can be unreliable in the mountains,” Russell said, watching Helki intently, as if daring her to say something. “I’m not surprised that you weren’t able to get a signal.”
“That’s why I came back.” Helki turned to Jeff. “We need to get out of here now.”
Jeff took Emily from her arms. “Is something wrong? Does this have something to do with—”
“Just trust me,” Helki said. “Pack our things. I need to speak to Russell for a second.”
Her husband looked as if he wanted to say more, but instead, he set down Emily, who ran into the adjoining bedroom. Jeff followed, leaving the door slightly ajar. Helki heard him take down their suitcases.
Russell rose from his armchair. Without looking at Helki, he went to the balcony and slid open the glass door, leaving his duffel bag behind. Helki kept an eye on it as she followed him outside. On the balcony, the resort was spread before them like a gingerbread village, the mountain in the distance, its slopes covered in carefully tended snow. Russell rested his elbows against the railing, looking out at the setting sun. He seemed in no hurry to begin the conversation.
Helki soon grew tired of the prolonged silence. “What exactly are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” Russell said. “When I heard my description over the radio, I figured that it was time to go. I was about to slip away when your husband asked me if I knew what had happened to you. It must have been the uniform.” He shrugged. “When I realized who he was, I came up here. Such coincidences are always meaningful. Besides, I have something for you.”
Helki was afraid to ask what this meant. “If you do anything to hurt my family—”
“I have no intention of hurting anyone,” Russell said. “Except to defend myself.”
“With another bomb?” When Russell didn’t reply, Helki told him what had happened to his companions, explaining the conditions at the lake and the disaster that might ensue if another bomb went off. Russell listened to her theory in silence, offering no sign of what he was thinking. When Helki had finished, she repeated her question. “If there’s another bomb, you need to tell me.”
Russell reached into his pocket. Helki drew back instinctively, but when his hand reappeared, it was holding nothing but a cell phone, which he set down on the railing. Helki remembered how the bomb at the lake had been detonated. “Is that how you’re going to set it off?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Russell said. “If you’re really afraid of what I might do, you’ll let me walk away.”
“You wouldn’t set off another bomb,” Helki said, not sure that she believed her own words. “If the lake erupts—”
“It wouldn’t be my fault. According to your theory, the lake could erupt at any time.”
Helki was amazed by his coldness. “One of your friends is dead. The other is in the hospital. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“They were good soldiers,” Russell said. “After we ran into you by the lake, I wanted to call everything off, but the boy insisted on going ahead. They were supposed to call me when they were done. When I didn’t hear from them, I knew that something had gone wrong.”
As she listened, Helki kept her eye on the cell phone, wondering if she could make a grab for it. Russell seemed to guess her intentions, and without making a point of it, he took the phone and moved it to his end of the railing. “Our plan was to destroy the cooling station, which would have delayed construction for a few months,” Russell said. “But if you’re right about the lake, I can get the resort to do whatever I want. All it takes is one phone call.”
“If you’re willing to do it,” Helki said. “If you’re ready to become a real terrorist.”
“This isn’t ecoterrorism,” Russell said. “Ecoterrorism is deforestation and pollution. People like you aren’t going to change this.” He turned back to the view of the mountain. “I don’t expect you to understand. What I’m doing won’t be appreciated for a hundred years—”
Helki wondered if Russell was really as cold as he claimed to be. He seemed to feel no guilt over the deaths that he had inadvertently caused. Perhaps, she thought, he was so used to contemplating the extinction of entire species that a dozen deaths, or even a thousand, seemed meaningless by comparison. If so, then his brand of compassion had turned him into a monster.
“The snakes are dead, you know,” Helki said. “The population may never be able to recover. We were seeing behaviors that had never been witnessed before. Now they’ve been lost forever.”
When Russell turned back, she saw that his eyes were damp. “It isn’t what I wanted, but there was no alternative. People need to be shocked into action. If you hate me for it, I don’t blame you. But if I didn’t believe that my actions were somehow necessary, this would be the worst day of my life.”
His words reminded her of what had brought him here in the first place. Russell was a fanatic, perhaps even dangerous, but he lay at the far end of a continuum that included Helki herself. She could reject his methods, but not his cause, especially when the alternative was a virtuous sense of helplessness.
It occurred to her that a man like this, so ready to take extreme measures to save the world, might be willing to save it with an idea instead, if he were convinced that the idea had the greater chance of success. “If you want to send a message,” Helki said, “there’s a better way.”
Without reflecting too deeply on what she was doing, Helki told Russell about how the resort had covered up the results of its own study. It had built the cooling system in spite of evidence that lake turnover might be affected, and by doing so, it had created the conditions that had led to the eruption. “Take it public,” Helki concluded. “I’ve given you the outline of the story. You can do the rest. People may not understand the science, but they’ll understand the lie.”
Russell had listened to her account without speaking. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you were right about me,” Helki said. “I could never go public. I’ve made too many compromises. You’re outside the system. If you want to send a message, this is your best chance. I’d rather see you do it this way.”
There was a tap on the glass door that led to the balcony. Jeff was standing in the next room. “Helki, we’re ready to go.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” Helki turned to Russell. “Do we have an understanding?”
Russell looked at her for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, I think we do.”
He left the balcony, taking his cell phone with him. Helki found herself wondering if there had been a bomb at all, or if it had been just another ruse. As she walked Russell to the door, she felt that something important had just been decided, although she wasn’t sure what it was. “Remember what I said.”
“I will.” Russell turned away. Helki watched as he walked down the hall, then closed the door, drained. She wanted nothing more than a few hours of sleep, but knew that rest of any kind was a long way off.
Jeff was watching her with concern, their daughter in his arms. “He forgot his bag.”
Helki followed his gaze to the duffel bag next to the armchair. Before she could talk herself out of it, she knelt and opened the bag. Inside, twined together like a caduceus, were two garter snakes. As the light fell across their bodies, they raised their heads, eyes gleaming like bright jewels. Helki picked up the larger snake, a female, and felt the cool body twining smoothly in her hands. Thousands had died, but these two had endured. It wasn’t much. It was enough.