Oh well, he thought, nothing I can do about it now. Whatever it is, it'll just have to happen. He released the remaining stars, scattering them at random across the sky, and let his arm drop back onto the sand. He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted, and let himself start drifting off to sleep. He felt a familiar, comforting weight on his chest. Must be Bruichladdich, he thought. How did he get here from Paddy's? Cats do that sometimes, I suppose. They follow their owners. I read that somewhere. They stow away. He's a good cat, coming here to find me. I wish he'd shift over a little bit, he's squashing my lungs… but he'll be so comfortable. I can't move him. I'll be fine. I'm so tired…
The next thing he knew, a black bird had swooped down and lifted him gently in its talons, cradling him as they rose into the air. It lifted him higher and higher, up toward the stars he had so recently rearranged. He could see them at close quarters now, much bigger than when he had held them in his hand, and was disappointed to see that they were nothing but large white buttons. But none of that mattered. The condor was carrying him into the brightness of the Moon. Soon the light would consume him, and he would be asleep, and everything would be as peaceful as the cat curled up on his abdomen.
"He's not here!" Nina looked frantically around the campsite. "If he's not here and he's not back in the tent, where is he?"
"It's only speculation, but perhaps he chose to sleep in another tent. He might be giving us a wide berth in order to avoid any possible confrontation with me."
Nina looked at Purdue with curiosity. Was he really jealous? It was so hard to tell how he felt — not just about her, but about anything. His anger was impossible to detect until it became white hot rage, which had never been directed at her but which she had seen at close quarters and been unnerved by. His happiness was likewise indistinguishable until it spilled over into childlike glee. Even in bed his reactions were difficult to judge. She always had the sense that he was constantly analyzing every experience, to the point where he could not simply feel an honest reaction to something without it being extreme.
"Look, Dave… " Nina twisted her fingers together awkwardly. "I know it probably looked a bit suspicious, waking up and finding that Sam and I were both gone, and then coming out here and finding the two of us together. But honestly, there's nothing going on. I just couldn't sleep and I was feeling trapped in the tent and wanted someone to go for a smoke with."
He nodded. "I know."
"You do?" She scoured his face for any clue that might tell her what was going on. She found nothing.
"Oh, yes. Or if there was, you would be concealing it remarkably well. It's true that your hair is a little disheveled, which could be consistent with an act of passion, but you do not seem guilty. You aren't blushing, you have not been touching your throat, which you always do when you have something to hide. There is no flush across your chest, which I would expect to see if you were sexually aroused, and the smell of your sweat is unlike the scent that you give off in those circumstances."
Nina was perplexed. On the one hand, his analysis was absolutely accurate, and it was certainly preferable to an unwarranted jealous scene. She could only imagine what her ex, Steven, would have made of a situation like this. But on the other, it was infuriating to be read so calmly. Surely a normal human being would have at least a slight flicker of jealousy. She tried to imagine how she would have felt if she had caught Purdue out here with Julia Rose, or perhaps with Sara. She couldn't make the image work in her head. It was too unlike him. She had no doubt that if Purdue felt the need to look outside of their relationship, he would simply tell her. In all likelihood, he would probably ask her to join in.
This is not a helpful train of thought, she told herself firmly. Setting it aside, she gave Purdue a brief recap of what she and Sam had witnessed in the connection tent. "I don't know what was in the steam, but I've been to a couple of parties where people have been using poppers and the smell sort of reminded me of that. They were throwing a lot of herbs around, but what I was smelling wasn't entirely natural. I think Sam got more of a lungful than I did — he was up a bit higher. I was crouched down with my head about here, where the air was clearer. What if he's wandering around somewhere, high as a kite? We should find him."
"I doubt that we can," said Purdue. "Look around. We have nothing but desert. You and I, searching together with just a single light source between us, would cover these dunes and hollows slowly. Besides which, Sam's reaction to the drug would have to have been considerably stronger than yours to send him off on such addled ramblings, and that seems unlikely. Come back to bed. I would be prepared to bet that Sam will reappear in the morning, having spent the night in another tent — and if not, we can mobilize the entire group to search for him."
He held out a hand to Nina. Suddenly she felt weary. Purdue was probably right. Things had been a little weird between Sam and her thanks to her relationship with Purdue, and it made sense that he would have made himself scarce. Dawn was just a few hours away. They would find out what had happened to him then. She let Purdue take her hand and lead her back toward their tent, where she lay in the darkness, his arm around her, unable to sleep.
Sam, on the other hand, slept soundly and dreamlessly. When at last he woke up, he was drawn gently back to consciousness by a soft voice speaking his name.
He opened his eyes to see a white ceiling above him, lit by gently glowing white lights. He turned his head and felt a soft pillow beneath his cheek. As he shifted his body, he felt a light blanket move with him. The place smelled clean, slightly chemical… medical. The gentle voice belonged to Sara, who was sitting at his bedside dressed in a silk trouser suit in pale gold.
"There you are, Sam," she smiled, laying a cool hand on his forehead. "You had us worried! How do you feel? Cody, give him some water."
"I'm fine," Sam rasped, gratefully accepting the glass of ice water. The liquid soothed his parched throat as he swallowed. "I think."
"You were lucky," she said, and held out a handful of half-mangled leaves for him to see. "We found these in your hand. I would assume that you recognize them, but if you got the leaves from someone who didn't tell you what they were, perhaps you don't. It's salvia. Salvia divinorum, to be exact. I guess you found them down by the river? Or did somebody give them to you?"
Sam's head ached as he tried to remember. He could not recall anything to do with leaves, and he said so.
"It's ok. People often don't remember what they've done when they are under the drug's influence, or recently released from it. Since these have obviously been chewed, I guess you were chewing them last night — in which case you were lucky to end up down here. A little while ago we had someone get high on salvia during a Vision Quest and he wandered out into the desert. By the time we found him he was extremely dehydrated and had to be airlifted to a hospital. So even though it's a legal high, we don't advise using it while you're here — or any other mood-altering substance, for that matter." She closed her fingers, crushing the leaves.
"Where is this?" Sam asked.
"This is our medical facility," Cody spoke up, leaning on the back of Sara's chair. "It's kind of basic, but we've got everything we need for cases such as yours."
"But… where is it?"
"Right beneath the connection tent!" Cody said. "No, it's ok, there's no need to look so weirded out. You didn't know it was here, and that's because we didn't tell you. We try to keep this place a secret so that all the delegates can feel like they're getting the authentic Parashant experience, hundreds of miles away from anything. They're not gonna feel like they're out here on their own if they know they've got this right downstairs, are they?" He flashed Sam a conspiratorial grin. "So don't go telling everybody, ok?"