Proof, they said, that the monster had killed Whittlesey. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when he remembered what that cop, D'Agosta, had mentioned at the going-away party for the FBI agent: that they had found a double-arrow pendant belonging to JohnWhittlesey in the creature's lair.
And he alone knew where the life-giving fibers could still be found after the jungle was destroyed: He knew, because he had sent them there. Kawakita imagined the day it happened: the Whittlesey-thing, crouched in the jungle, seeing the fire come falling from the sky, burning the tepui, the Kothoga, the precious plants. By eating the fibers and becoming infected with the reovirus, Whittlesey had turned into Mbwun.īut then civilization came anyway, with all its terrors. But Kawakita had already discovered his miracle. Everyone knew that the darkest, most isolated areas of rain forest held undiscovered plants of almost inconceivable importance to science. In sufficient quantities, it had the power to induce morphological change of an astonishing nature.
Chances are, it had existed relatively unchanged since the Mesozoic era. The reovirus in the plant was astonishing. But when the Kothoga found Whittlesey, Kawakita knew there was only one possible outcome. Perhaps Crocker had killed the creature with the expedition's gun as the creature disembowelled him. Perhaps the creature had been old, or enfeebled. Whittlesey's accomplice, Crocker, had no doubt been found first. The Kothoga, laying eyes on a white man for the first time. In the close, comforting darkness, listening to the tranquil humming of the aquaria, Kawakita could guess at the drama that had played itself out in the jungle.
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