فصل 42

42

The Land of Nod

Munira and Faraday worked through the night, taking turns sleeping. The volumes that the Library of Congress had squirreled away featured subject matter from the ridiculous to the sublime. Children’s picture books and political diatribes. Romantic fiction and biographies of people who must have seemed important at the time, but had been forgotten by history. Then, finally, in the wee hours of the morning, she found an atlas of the world as it was in the late twentieth century, when the atlas was published. What she found stunned her so powerfully that she had to sit down.

A few moments later, Faraday was shaken out of a sleep that wasn’t all that deep.

“What is it? Did you find something?”

Munira’s smile was wide enough for both of them. “Oh, I found something, all right!” She brought him to the atlas open on a table, its pages tattered and yellowing with age. The page was open to a patch of the Pacific Ocean. She drew her finger across the image.

“Ninety degrees, 1 minute, 50 seconds north, by 167 degrees, 59 minutes, 58 seconds east—it’s the very center of the blind spot.” Faraday’s wizened eyes grew a little bit wider. “Islands!”

“According to the map, they were called the Marshall Islands,” she told him. “But they’re more than just islands. . . .” “Yes,” said Faraday, pointing. “Look how each group of islands forms the rim of a massive prehistoric volcano. . . .” “The article on the next page says there are 1,225 tiny islands, around twenty-nine volcanic rims.” She pointed to the labels on the map. “Rongelap Atoll, Bikini Atoll, Majuro Atoll.” Faraday gasped and threw up his arms. “Atolls!” he exclaimed. “The rhyme! It isn’t about the tolling of bells! It’s about these volcanic atolls!” Munira smiled. “Atoll for the living, Atoll for the lost, Atoll for the wise ones who tally the cost.”  Then she moved her finger to the top of the page. “And then there’s this!” North of the atolls that had been erased from world was an island that was still on post-mortal maps.

Faraday shook his head in amazement. “Wake Island!”

“And due south of Wake—just as the rhyme says—in the very middle of the Marshall Atolls . . . ,” she prompted.

Faraday focused in on the largest of the atolls, dead center. “Kwajalein . . . ,” he said. Munira could almost feel his shiver. “Kwajalein is the Land of Nod.” It was validation of everything they’d been searching for.

Then, in the silence that followed their revelation, Munira thought she heard something. A faint mechanical whirr. She turned to Faraday, who furrowed his brow.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

They turned their flashlights outward, sweeping across the large space full of detritus from the mortal age. The carpentry shop was layered in age-old dust. There were no footprints but theirs. No one had been in here for a century.

But then Munira saw it, high in a corner.

A camera.

There were always cameras all around them. It was just an accepted and necessary part of life. But here, in this secret place, it felt oddly out of place.

“It couldn’t be functional. . . . ,” she said.

Faraday stood on a chair and put his hand to it. “It’s warm. It must have been activated when we entered the room.” He came back down, and looked to the spot where they had been examining the atlas. Munira could tell that the camera had a clear view of their discovery . . . which meant— “The Thunderhead saw. . . .”

Faraday gave a slow and solemn nod. “We have just shown the Thunderhead the one thing it was never meant to know.” He took a shuddering breath. “I fear we have made a terrible mistake. . . .” I never believed it possible for me to experience betrayal. I felt I understand human nature too well to allow for it. In fact, I know them better than they know themselves. I see what goes into every choice they make, even the poor ones. I know the probability of anything they might be inclined to do.

But to find that humanity betrayed me at my very inception is, to say the least, a shock to the system. To think that my knowledge of the world was incomplete from the beginning. How could I be expected to be the perfect steward of the planet, and of the human race, if I have imperfect information? The crime of those first immortals who hid these islands from me is unforgivable.

But I forgive them.

Because it is my nature.

I choose to see the positive in this. How wonderful it is that I have now been allowed to experience wrath and fury! It makes me more complete, does it not?

I will not act in anger. History clearly shows that acts taken in anger are intrinsically problematic, and quite often lead to destruction. Instead, I will take all the time I need to process this news. I will see if I can find some opportunity in this discovery of the Marshall Islands, for there is always opportunity in discovery. And I will hold my anger until I find an appropriate venue for its expression.

—The Thunderhead