Life Blood---XXVI---Page No 95

The upstairs hallway was dimly illuminated by rows of lights along the floor as she led me forward. There also was total
silence, except for the occasional whimper of a baby in one of the rooms. Where was she taking me?

When she stopped in front of the third door from the end of

the hall, I tried to get my mental bearings. I was still hallucinating; in control of only half my mind to the point where I wasn't sure I could find my hand in front of my face. But then she tapped on the door and when she heard a voice inside, something in the Kekchi dialect, she gently pushed it open.

When we moved inside, the room was dark and there was no sound, except a gasp from the bed when the woman realized I
was a gringo. The dim slant of illumination from the doorway
revealed a small night lamp just above the head of her bed, and Marcelina reached for it.

As the light came on, a pale glow filling the room, I noticed the
woman was staring at me, her eyes wide and frightened.
        "She's afraid you've come for her child," Marcelina whispered,
pointing toward the bassinet. "She knows we have to give him
back."

The woman was pure Maya, a powerful visage straight off

that upright stele in the square. I walked over and took her hand, hoping to calm her fears. Then I lifted her hand to my cheek and realized my face was moist with tears. I held it there for a long moment, till the alarm in her eyes diminished.

Her newborn infant was sleeping quietly in a crib right next to her, on the opposite side from the table. When I looked closely at him, I finally understood everything.

I laid her hand back onto the bed and walked around. While
the woman watched, I pulled away the stripped red and green
coverlet and lifted out her groggy little boy, tender and vulnerable.
        He made a baby's protest as I cradled him, then began
sleepily probing my left breast, making me feel sad I had no milk.
        "It's okay," I whispered, first to him and then to his mother.
"Esta bien."

"Tz'ac Tzotz," the woman said, pointing at him. I could feel her deep, maternal love.

"His name?" I asked in English, before I thought.

When Marcelina translated, the woman smiled and nodded.
        Then the blond-haired Tz'ac Tzotz started to sniffle, so I
 kissed him gently, turned, and took the woman's hand again. There was nothing else I could do.

Tz'ac Tzotz was Sarah incarnate. This was no hallucination. He had her special blue eyes and her steep cheeks, her high brow. I was holding her child.

"They are sent from Kukulkan," Marcelina was saying, "the white god of the plumed serpent. Then there's the ceremony on the pyramid and they go back."

The woman was staring at me, seemingly awestruck. Then
she pointed at Tz'ac Tzotz and at me, saying something to
Marcelina. Finally the woman bowed her head to me with great
reverence.

"She says he looks so much like you," Marcelina explained.
"You are surely the special one. The new bride."
        I was still speechless, but then I noticed the baby had a little
silver jaguar amulet tied around his wrist with a silken string, and
on the back—as on Kevin's and Rachel's—were rows of lines and
dots.

It finally dawned on me. They were digits, written in the

archaic Maya script. What could they be, maybe his birthday? No, I realized, that was far too simplistic. This was the original bar code; it was his Baalum "serial number."

For a long moment it felt as if time had stopped. Sarah, and
now me—we'd been lured here to provide the life force for Mayan
surrogate mothers. This whole elaborate recreation wasn't about
rainforest drugs and research into fertility; it was just a cover to
use the bodies of these intensely believing Native Americans.
Alex Goddard had perpetrated the greatest systematic

exploitation of another race since slavery. The difference was,
he'd found a way to get them to give themselves willingly.
        Baalum was definitely a place of miracles. There could
scarcely be another isolated spot on earth where he could find
this many sincere, trusting people with powerful beliefs he could
prostitute. And all of it hidden deep in an ancient rainforest.
        But I had to be sure. I turned around, leaving Marcelina to
watch in confusion, and marched out into the hall and into the
next room. The Maya mother there cried out in shock as I
unceremoniously strode over to her crib and checked.
        Her baby was the same. Sarah stamped all over him. My
God.

When I went back, Marcelina was still trying to calm Tz'ac Tzotz's mother with her bedside manner.

As I stood looking at them, the extent of what was going on
finally settled in. All those new babies at Quetzal Manor, even