The submarine Nostromo was being consumed as well—cut apart, hauled away, and sold as scrap. What remained of the boat stood in increasingly open daylight. The Rio Xingu was already dropping, and within two decades it would be reduced to a relative trickle—taking with it the perpetual fog layer that had shrouded the entire valley for millennia.
Though the lack of fog made it easier to haul his heavy welding equipment from town, Hector Uieda hated being out here alone. All of the sheet metal that had covered the labs and other buildings was gone now, leaving only a framework of vine-covered ribs. To Uieda, it wasn’t the skeletal appearance of the buildings that chilled him; it was the sounds they made. Normally the occasional breezes rustling through leaves had a soothing effect, but not here, and not now. Beneath this rustling was a disquieting undertone, more felt than heard. He’d experienced the odd feeling before, but this evening it seemed stronger than ever. Uieda had to admit, however, that the heat and humidity weren’t nearly as troublesome as usual. It’s almost pleasant, he thought.
Brooklyn, New York
* * *
R. J. MacCready and Major Hendry had been able to pull all the necessary strings to expedite the immigration of a war hero’s widow to America, especially as she was a war hero herself, albeit a secretly decorated one. Everything about the “Silverbird Incident” was being kept so secret that nearly a century would pass before the public learned the full story.
At first sight, Yanni Thorne feared that the concrete wilderness of Flatbush Avenue might prove, as she joked to Mac, “tougher than the one growin’ under the plateau.”
As always, though, she adapted quickly. Hendry had arranged living quarters for her near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, on the uppermost floor of a decommissioned factory-warehouse. During the war, the building served as a kind of spare-parts storage box for the navy’s Grumman aircraft. By the time Yanni landed in New York, Hendry’s two sisters had convinced him that their “crazy” idea about buying the suddenly empty and seemingly useless warehouse at the bargain-basement price of a government auction, then repurposing it into large river-view apartments, “might be just crazy enough to be right.”
Yanni was the first to move in, followed by several of the region’s bohemian artists, who admired the skill with which she was transforming her glass and concrete cavern into a living, breathing work of art.
Missing Bob and the little house they had shared at the edge of the forest, she brought the forest itself into her new home. With Mac along for the ride, she had scoured every flower shop and nursery from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan for familiar plants. Yanni’s indoor replica of the Brazilian tropics thrived under huge factory skylights and windows that ran from waist height all the way up to the ceiling. The furnishings were odd, by most people’s standards: a massive rolltop work desk from the 1890s, with a hammock and a little sitting area nearby, all of it surrounded by tropical evergreens and flowering plants. Near what she called her “breathing wall” (a vertical carpet of leafy vines and bromeliads) Yanni had reproduced, as best she could, the kitchen from their home in Chapada.
Mac was a frequent visitor; making sure the apartment was secure and checking out her neighbors with a concern that would have amused Bob. He also contributed a new refrigerator as a housewarming present, but Yanni never plugged it in. She hadn’t gotten used to the concept of frozen or prepared foods, preferring to buy fresh meat and produce daily from the local markets. As for the fridge, Yanni removed the door and used the box as additional shelf space for an array of shade-loving plants.
On an exceptionally clear spring morning, Yanni Thorne noticed, during her walk to the Manhattan Bridge, that newspapers were headlining the latest in what were being touted as the “first ever” photographs of Earth from space. They had been snapped by Wernher von Braun’s freshly upgraded, suborbital rockets.
“Second ever,” she said to herself, recalling the ruins of the Nostromo lab and the fuzzy-looking photos she and Mac had found. “But they didn’t seem so important at the time.”
And if S?nger’s involved, they’d be wise to keep his ass far away from me, she swore.
As she did every morning—rain, shine, sleet, or snow—Yanni walked the Manhattan Bridge’s footpath into the city, and to her job, proudly wearing her Brooklyn Dodgers cap. The span could easily be crossed by train in only a few minutes, but she liked the long stroll across the bridge, because she loved the river. No matter what weather or lighting conditions prevailed on any given morning, the river was beauty, the river was peace.
Upper West Side, New York City
* * *
Who the hell designed this torture device?” MacCready asked himself.