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they were the alien organisms.
    “Do you need me to calm you?” the psychologist asked. There was a steely tone to her
     words that made the anthropologist mumble something noncommittal and stare at the
     ground.
    I stepped into the silence with my own suggestion: “We need time to think about this.
     We need time to decide what to do next.” I meant, of course, that I needed time to
     see if the spores I had inhaled would affect me in a way significant enough to confess
     to what had happened.
    “There may not be enough time in the world for that,” the surveyor said. Of all of
     us, I think she had best grasped the implications of what we had seen: that we might
     now be living in a kind of nightmare. But the psychologist ignored her and sided with
     me. “We do need time. We should spend the rest of our day doing what we were sent
     here to do.”
    So we returned to camp for lunch and then focused on “ordinary things” while I kept
     monitoring my body for any changes. Did I feel too cold now, or too hot? Was that
     ache in my knee from an old injury suffered in the field, or something new? I even
     checked the black box monitor, but it remained inert. Nothing radical had yet changed
     in me, and as we took our samples and readings in the general vicinity of the camp—as
     if to stray too far would be to come under the tower’s control—I gradually relaxed
     and told myself that the spores had had no effect … even though I knew that the incubation
     period for some species could be months or years. I suppose I thought merely that
     for the next few days at least I might be safe.
    The surveyor concentrated on adding detail and nuance to the maps our superiors had
     given us. The anthropologist went off to examine the remains of some cabins a quarter
     mile away. The psychologist stayed in her tent, writing in her journal. Perhaps she
     was reporting on how she was surrounded by idiots, or just setting out every moment
     of our morning discoveries.
    For my part, I spent an hour observing a tiny red-and-green tree frog on the back
     of a broad, thick leaf and another hour following the path of an iridescent black
     damselfly that should not have been found at sea level. The rest of the time, I spent
     up a pine tree, binoculars focused on the coast and the lighthouse. I liked climbing.
     I also liked the ocean, and I found staring at it had a calming effect. The air was
     so clean, so fresh, while the world back beyond the border was what it had always
     been during the modern era: dirty, tired, imperfect, winding down, at war with itself.
     Back there, I had always felt as if my work amounted to a futile attempt to save us
     from who we are.
    The richness of Area X’s biosphere was reflected in the wealth of birdlife, from warblers
     and flickers to cormorants and black ibis. I could also see a bit into the salt marshes,
     and my attention there was rewarded by a minute-long glimpse of a pair of otters.
     At one point, they glanced up and I had a strange sensation that they could see me
     watching them. It was a feeling I often had when out in the wilderness: that things
     were not quite what they seemed, and I had to fight against the sensation because
     it could overwhelm my scientific objectivity. There was also something else, moving
     ponderously through the reeds, but it was closer to the lighthouse and in deep cover.
     I could not tell what it was, and after a while its disturbance of the vegetation
     ceased and I lost track of it entirely. I imagined it might be another wild pig, as
     they could be good swimmers and were just as omnivorous in their choice of habitats
     as in their diets.
    On the whole, by dusk this strategy of busying ourselves in our tasks had worked to
     calm our nerves. The tension lifted somewhat, and we even joked a little bit at dinner.
     “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” the anthropologist confessed to me, and I
     replied, “No, you don’t,” which was met with a