McKinney gave him a serious look, then planted her feet firmly on the tree trunk, far above the jungle floor. “Do you know why I love science, Adwele?”
He shook his head.
“Because science is the best tool we have for finding truth. For instance, to the naked eye you and I look very different, but it took science to help us see that there’s almost no genetic difference between us. And that’s a great truth. Remember that.” She slapped him on the helmet playfully. “It’s what you put in here that counts.” And she poked him in the chest. “And what’s in here. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you can’t try for something, Adwele. No one knows what you’re capable of yet—not even you.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Time to head back.”
He nodded.
“What’s the first step when descending?”
Adwele thought for a moment, then looked down to the base of the tree. He cupped a gloved hand over his mouth and shouted, “Down check!”
McKinney looked down to see an Amani Reserve ranger named Akida wave back and give a thumbs-up.
“Clear!”
She looked back at Adwele. “Okay, good. Remember, we do this slow and steady so we don’t overheat the rope. Two fingers on top of the hitch, with your control hand holding the line. Depress the Blake’s Hitch lightly, and remove the safety knots as we reach them. . . .”
* * *
Walking the mile or so back to the research camp, McKinney shared the load with Akida, but Adwele insisted on carrying his own pack, struggling as he went. McKinney kept a short length of throw line over her back in a European coil and turned back to watch Adwele.
Navigating around a tree, Adwele started falling backward with the added weight. “Help me, miss!”
McKinney grabbed his rope bag and helped him reseat it on his shoulders. “You got it?”
“I’m good.”
She exchanged grins with Akida, the Amani ranger who brought up the rear. They could both see traits of Babu in the son.
They continued walking the path home. Adwele walked behind her. “My mother says you are too pretty to keep your hair short. You should let it grow so that you can find a husband.”
“Uh, thanks for the advice, but I’m in Africa to do research. And where I come from, women don’t need to rely on a man for a living.” She pointed down at driver ants swarming in a thick line along the edge of the path. “Look.”
Adwele stopped to watch the swarm. “Siafu.”
“Yes.” McKinney pointed. “Do you know that almost every ant you see is female?”
“Even the siafu warriors?”
McKinney nodded. “That’s right. All of the workers, the warriors, and the queen, they’re all girls. The nursery workers determine the caste of the young by how they feed them, but the only time they make boy ants is when they want to create a new colony.”
“Then they need boys sometimes, eh?”
McKinney laughed. Adwele never missed anything. “I guess that’s true. C’mon, smart guy. . . .” She held out her hand to keep them moving. Her gaze happened on a large raven observing them from a tree branch overhead. She was surprised for a moment until she realized that the Amani no doubt held more than a few ravens. Perhaps she was only just starting to notice them.
CHAPTER 6
Wake-up Call
It was hot and humid in the darkness. Another scorching night at the research station. Early December, but Tanzania’s hot dry season appeared to be coming on early. McKinney lay on her cot in a Cornell T-shirt and gym shorts beneath mosquito netting. Unable to sleep, she had rolled her shirt up and was fanning her exposed midriff with a Harvard report on social algorithms. Dripping with sweat, she listened to the sounds of the jungle all around her: animal calls and a relentless thrum of crickets.
Way out here there was no air-conditioning. Not that they couldn’t have it, but it was frowned upon by hard-core field researchers (and grant committees). The technology that did make it out to the bush was always surprising. For instance, she got four bars on her cell phone in the Amani, but adequate medical clinics were rare.
God, it’s hot.
Although her windows were open, they were placed high up the walls with a thick wire mesh for security reasons, inhibiting airflow. There was also a brass whistle on top of the Pelican case next to her cot that she was supposed to use to summon the station’s several askaris in case of trouble. They’d had thieves in the night before, but since the American drone incident in Iraq, the university had doubled the security detail (presumably since a third of Tanzania’s population was Muslim, and the American embassy had been bombed before).