Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [55]
The flight over the Andes from Cuzco was spectacular, an unfolding panorama of ancient Inca terraces—now groomed and tended by machines—irrigated ranches, and tiny, quaint Quechua alpine communities that made a good living from crafts and tourism. Then the peaks gave way to mist-swathed cloud forest. The slow lifter descended, following the steep eastern slopes, occasionally blowing mist and cloud aside to give those aboard a glimpse of the thick vegetation beneath. Once, a family of spectacled bears ambled into momentary view, and recorders whispered as the travelers imaged the moment for replay back home in London and Cairo, Delhi and Surabaya.
Cheelo Montoya took no pictures, though he made a show of oohing and aahing over the scenery as energetically as those around him. A tourist who failed to tour would stand out in the minds of his fellow travelers, something he intended to avoid. The absence of a recorder did not have to be explained. Not everyone spent their vacation gazing fixedly into a color imager.
Sintuya proved to be even smaller than he had expected. A few restaurants served meals of exotic rain forest produce, everything from starfruit mousse to caiman fritters. Aware that it might be the last meal he would enjoy for some time that he would not have to prepare himself, he splurged on a ragout made with agouti, yuca, assorted vegetables, and blanched Brazil nuts. A couple of hostels, a flurry of handicraft and gift shops, the usual traveler’s aid stations, and an outlying scientific complex comprised the rest of the town. Though the air-conditioned, dehumidified hostels beckoned, he resolutely ignored their civilized blandishments. Except for the purchase of one meal, he would leave no record behind of his presence in the remote community.
Idling away the rest of the day among the town’s minor amusements, he waited until well after nightfall to steal a boat. It was a small, silent tour lifter that could carry up to four persons. There were half a dozen of the sleek little craft bobbing at the dock. He set all of them free, shepherding the others out into the middle of the current and watching as they drifted off downstream. Theft might be suspected in the disappearance of one boat. The flight of all six would be interpreted as a consequence of bad luck, vandalism, or a youthful prank gone awry. When only five of the errant craft were recovered it would be assumed that the other had sunk or that it would be found washed up in some overgrown bend of the river or stream mouth.
The silent engine whisked him upstream at high speed, the boat’s built-in sensors automatically avoiding any obstacles in its path. An aircar would have offered greater speed and more flexibility, but unless he wanted to skim along above the canopy it would have been as useless as an ancient ground-bound vehicle. Also, it would have run out of power in a few days. The boat’s energy cell ought to last for a couple of weeks, at least. By keeping to the main river and hugging close to its lush, overgrown banks, he ought to be able to make his way deep into the Reserva without much risk of detection. Once he turned up a tributary, there was no reason to suppose anyone would come looking for him at all. Runaway boats did not head themselves up the current.
He would find a suitable site, perhaps an old abandoned tourist blind, and settle in until his supplies began to run low. Supplementing his stores with living off the land, he should be able to exist quite tolerably, if not entirely comfortably, for a number of months. By that time the urgency attending the death of one unfortunate traveler in distant San José would have faded, and he would still have several weeks in which to make his meeting with Ehrenhardt. Emerging from the rain forest, he would solidify his credit balance, arrange to have his physical appearance altered, and start afresh as master of a lucrative, semilegal franchise. He would finally, at last, be someone important. He would finally have done something big.
Setting the boat on automatic after programming