Coyoli inclined her face to the west, into the bright, tropical sunshine and closed her wide-set eyes. The sun warmed the milk chocolate toned skin of her face and exposed shoulders and arms, and she closed her eyes to listen to the chants and calls of the crowd below. Far to the east, just on the horizon she could see strange, dark clouds. Thrump------thrump------thrump beat the drums in their slow rhythm on either side of the altar. She knelt to the far right of the center of the dais on the Pyramid of the Moon where her father, Amhetkatak, the High Priest of Quetzalcoati, presided over the ceremonial sacrifice. The crowd’s chants began to join together as they sensed the moment was nearing, while from the center of the platform she could hear her father invoking the gods to bless the sacrifice. Amhetkatak was the master of working a crowd into a frenzy, where they demanded the sacrifice of one of their own.
Thrump-----thrump-----thrump the drums began to increase their tempo. The rhythmic chanting began to take on its own life to match the drums, and Coyoli looked down at the throng. Thousands of her people filled the lower tiers of the pyramid and the steps up the center, and out into the Moon Plaza. The humanity stretched out of the plaza and down the Calle de los Muertos---the Avenue of the Dead---almost to the Pyramid of the Sun, which was even larger than the one dedicated to the Moon.
Thrump----thrump----thrump. The chants were reaching a crescendo matched by Amhetkatak’s prayers and Coyoli knew the sacrifice was near. She looked over at her father in his gold-decorated, feathered serpent headdress as he held the sacrificial knife with its jeweled gold hilt high above his head for the people to see. She had never been able to watch the sacrifices, choosing instead to look to the east where she could see the moon just visible rising above the dark clouds in the afternoon light.
Thrump---thrump---thrump. The rising moon was the reason this sacrifice was being held on the Pyramid of the Moon instead of the Sun. Coyoli was on the leading edge of this tier where she was visible because her father wanted the gathered masses to see his daughter named for the Olmec goddess of the Moon, Coyolxauhqui.
Thrump--thrump--thrump. The smaller Pyramid of the Jaguar, bordering the Moon Plaza and stained dark like its seldom-seen namesake, across from the Pyramid of the Serpent also had sacrifices ready to be performed. The drums told the lower priests when the moment would come.
Thrump-thrump-thrump. The pounding beat of the drums was so loud and quick Coyol felt it through her bones as much as she heard it through her ears. The crowd below swayed, gyrated, leapt, and some even collapsed in the afternoon heat to be trampled by their crazed companions. Coyoli felt the moment coming and stared more intently at the moon, and even though it was barely visible she thought she could see mountains and plains and seas.
Thrump! The incoherent screams of the crowd almost drown out the dying screams of the sacrifice just a few feet away as Amhetkatak plunged his jeweled knife into him. Below on the smaller pyramids priests also brought their knives down and blood filled the runnels of all three altars as the life was drained from the victims. The people’s cries lasted much longer, but finally subsided as they realized the sacrifice was ended and the spectacle was over.
Coyoli rose from her knees to perform the ritual altar cleansing which had been her duty for nearly two years now. The attendants carried the body from the altar to allow Coyoli access to it, and a slave brought her two buckets and sat them down next to the altar. One bucket held brushes made from the hair of previous sacrifices and the other filled with water with scented oils, and blessed herbs. She looked at the altar, covered with blood that was quickly darkening, and knew the task that lay before her.
“Coyoli?” She heard her name, but all she could see was the blood. She stared deeply into the coagulating red liquid trying to see the life that once was there. Soon the altar was gone and all that was there was the blood.
“Coyoli?” She could hear the voice, but when she looked around all she could see was blood.
“Coyoli?!” A hand grasped her shoulder. No one is allowed to touch the daughter of the High Priest in that manner! She turned swiftly and looked up at the face of Dr. Mathias.
“Coyoli, are you alright?” Bob Mathias’ smile melted her soul, and she saw the operating room in Medical Center around of her. “You seemed a little lost for a moment there.”
“I’m alright.” Coyoli Mata said. She looked down and saw she was not wearing the brightly colored, strapless gown but medical scrubs instead stained with sweat.
“Good! We need the OR as fast as possible. We have two more surgeries to perform from that Eagle accident and maybe one artificial heart transplant---in spite of the heat.” Mathias smiled again while dabbing droplets of sweat from his brow and rushed off toward the ward to check on that poor Michelle Osgood.
“An Orderly’s work is never done.” Coyoli smiled to herself, and entered the OR to scrub down the operating table and floor. The room was hotter than normal like all of Alpha, and it had something to with kind of space heat wave. She gathered the bloodied instruments and put them in the sterilizer, and collected the linens for washing, then set to the task of cleansing the operating table itself. There was loud noise and commotion from another part of Medical Center and saw Dr. Mathias and Dr. Russell rush past, but she learned long ago that she was better off not getting involved in the concerns of other Alphans.
She had come to Moonbase Alpha in July, 1999 for a six month tour from her home in Mexico City where she worked three jobs trying to help her invalid mother and father. The Space Commission offered enough, with hazardous duty pay and free room and board, to cover all of the cleaning jobs she had to vacate with some left over if she could become an order in Medical Center. They gave her the job on the basis of her work cleaning a small medical clinic in the barrio north of Mexico City. She omitted the fact that she only cleaned the offices.
Coyoli learned on the job the first month, and worked hard to do her best. She was sending her parents more money than she had ever been able to before and thought she might sign up for another stint if the whole tour went as smoothly as the first two months. That was a little more than two years ago, just before the moon was blasted out of orbit.
The job was done and the OR glistened when Coyoli sealed the door and activated the BugWasher. The device actually had a very technical title that included Dr. Russell’s and Dr. Bergman’s name, but Coyoli was not a technical person, so she called it the BugWasher, and the name stuck. When she had first started on the base, she cleaned the room and disinfected it with traditional chemicals brought from earth, but after Breakaway they quickly discovered that new methods had to be devised for ridding the OR and accident sites of germs. She even had a hand held BugWasher unit for smaller jobs.
Coyoli watched the room begin its purple-blue glow and looked at her sweat-soaked reflection in the OR windows. Her wide placed cheekbones, and dark complexion were common in her native land, but set her apart here on Alpha. She had friends, but mostly kept to herself---not forming any kind of close or romantic bonds. She really hoped the Command Staff would eventually find a way to get them home because she tired of being alone. Mata’s duty shift was over and she left Medical Center thinking of her parents and looking at the floor.
When she reached her quarters Coyoli looked around at the bareness with which they were decorated, and was reminded again of her isolation. The only person with whom she had talked in the last two days was her direct superior, Dr. Mathias, and while he always treated her with respect she would never consider him a friend because he had so many responsibilities of which she was just another. Was her loneliness of her own doing? Had she deliberately avoided getting close to others because she felt guilty for leaving her parents alone? If she had never signed on for a job for which she was not qualified just to make a few extra pesos she would still be there with them.
Her exertions and the heat on the base finally took its toll and Coyoli collapsed into an exhausted, fitful sleep.
Strong hands pulled Coyoli along by her bare arms with her unshod feet just touching the floor. Her brightly colored dress was stained, and she smelled of vomit. When she looked to either side of her, she saw strong men to whom she could not place names, but that she recognized having met before. Why were they handling her in such a way? Suddenly she remembered, her father, Amhetkatak, ordered them to take her to safety after the second sacrificial offering in as many days had failed to appease the gods. The dark clouds on the horizon had come, blotting out the sun and bringing with them a deadly storm of wind and driving rain.
Yesterday’s offering was one scheduled to bless the maize harvest, and the second offering to drive away the destructive storm, but with both sacrifices failing, Amhetkatak realized his High Priesthood was about to end. He ordered his band of 300 or so family and followers to the safety of the hidden caverns beneath the Pyramid of the Moon. Only the closest associates of the High Priest knew the secret entrance of the tunnels that lead to the natural catacombs over which the Pyramid had been built, and that was where they were headed now. They would be safe from the rains and howling winds of the storm above
The temperature was noticeably cooler here than aboveground, and Coyoli’s swoon abated enough so that she regained her senses. They had left the tunnels and entered into one of the large natural chambers. The caves were not water-worn, but rather looked like air pockets in the ancient volcanic rock, and she saw many others of Amhetkatak’s family and entourage. The men laid her gently onto the cool stone floor of the catacomb and hurried off to help others, while Coyoli closed her eyes again.
Someone was gently wiping her face with a cool, damp cloth and Coyoli opened her eyes to see Dr. Russell’s smiling visage.
“Welcome back, Coyoli. We were a little worried about you.” Helena Russell looked up at Bob Mathias and smiled. “She’ll be fine, Bob. Good thing you sent someone to check on her during the evac.” Dr. Russell got up to make rounds in the impromptu MASH they had set up in the catacombs.
Dr. Mathias took the sponge from Helena as she left and knelt down to continue wiping Coyoli’s brow.
“You gave me quite a scare, young lady.” Bob Mathias said with a mock scold and a smile. Coyoli noticed that he smiled at her quite a lot.
“What happened, Dr. Mathias?” She asked.
“That strange space heat wave got closer and they ordered everyone to evacuate underground, so I called around before I left Medical Center to make sure someone had seen you come down here.” He smiled at her again. “When no one verified they saw you, I went to your quarters and used my emergency override and found you unconscious. I’ve found there is some radiation associated with this heat, and your quarters are on a relatively high tier of Alpha, so I think you may have taken a slight radiation overdose to go with heat exhaustion.”
“Thank you for rescuing me.” Coyoli thought for a moment of hugging his neck, but decided against it. She knew that Dr. Mathias longed for his family on earth, and maybe it was enough that they long for lost loved ones together but separate. Perhaps it was time she got to know some of this new family of Alphans better. They may all feel just as she did about home and family and being lost in space and time.
Coyoli closed her eyes and dreamt of the tropical sun warming her face on the Pyramid of the Moon.
MWL