The People in the Trees

The mice that ate the opa’ivu’eke meat continue to live well past their normal lifespan, and Norton’s publication of his findings is met with immense skepticism. He wants a better lab and coordinates with Sereny, who wishes to replicate his experiment. Norton sends Sereny one of the legs of the opa’ivu’eke. Around the same time, Norton’s mice begin to mentally deteriorate. He does not reveal this in any of his publications, however, for he doesn’t want to alarm people and wants to be the first one to solve the problem. Meanwhile, Sereny conducts his own experiment with mice and publishes findings that replicate Norton’s results. Norton goes from a scientific pariah to a near-god in the field.

Tallent finally comes to visit him and the dreamers upon his return from his second trip to Ivu’ivu. He tells Norton that the tribe is finished now that Norton’s publications have brought the attention of the world to the shores of the island. Before leaving the lab, Tallent visits the dreamers and is infuriated by their treatment and advanced state of mental deterioration. Norton returns to U’ivu with Tallent and Esme and meets with the king, gaining permission to continue to Ivu’ivu. Before he departs for the island, he is brought to Fa’a’s family, who are ostracized by the community because of his trip and death. Norton refuses the family’s offer to adopt either of Fa’a’s two children. He makes it back to the village on Ivu’ivu and joins Esme and Tallent seven years after their first trip. His goal on this trip is to find two opa’ivu’ekes and take them back to his lab. He succeeds in finding the lake and spends much of his time in the village, forging connections with the children, and for the first time, he contemplates having children of his own.

Norton returns to his lab as the race to Ivu’ivu heats up. More schools and companies are trying to gain access to the village. Sereny questions Norton as he begins seeing the mental deterioration in his own mice, and Norton finally reveals the price of immortality. Their conversation pushes him to publish his findings on the mental decay, and this information worsens the world’s rush to access the island. He makes another trip to Ivu’ivu for two more turtles and realizes that it will be the last time the islands of U’ivu will ever be the same, for news of his research has exacerbated the greed of pharmacological companies and universities. There is even an attempted break-in at Norton’s lab. Meanwhile, the swift decline of U’ivu and the violation of the village on Ivu’ivu causes Tallent to completely shut Norton out of his life.

Two years pass, and Norton moves from Stanford to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), taking the dreamers, opa’ivu’ekes, and mice with him. The move causes a swift, final decline in the health of the opa’ivu’ekes and the mental state of the dreamers. Even the mice suffer, dying at six times their life expectancy. In 1961, Norton returns to U’ivu and sees foreign influences everywhere. As he makes his way to the village, he encounters competing pharmacological camps. Realizing that outside influences have forced the villagers to abandon their way of life, he regrets how much has been abandoned. Norton learns that before he arrived, Tallent was on the island, but soon disappeared, never to be seen again. Norton searches for him and is crushed when he cannot find him.

The opa’ivu’ekes are hunted to extinction by the competing labs and universities. When the turtles are gone, these groups tear Ivu’ivu apart, relocating the village to U’ivu and taking as much flora and fauna as they can in hopes that something else will have the same effect of immortality. However, all the destruction is for nothing, and immortality slips away. Other dreamers are found on the island and are taken by the various companies. An increase in review boards and ethical standards for scientific experimentation and observation cause Norton to lose access to his dreamers. Soon, everyone turns on Norton, blaming him for the destruction of Ivu’ivu and the failure of the opa’ivu’eke’s immortality. With the quest officially undermined, the labs and companies leave U’ivu in a state of disarray, opening the door for the return of the missionaries who succeed in converting the islanders to Christianity. Life on U’ivu is completely disrupted, and in the aftermath, the island and people fall into disarray, with alcoholism and disease running rampant.

Norton returns to U’ivu biannually and on one such trip, adopts Muiva, the first of his many children. He adopts new children on nearly every trip, including the grandson of his former guide, Uva. By adopting, he hopes to regain the closeness he had in his relationships with the boys on Ivu’ivu. However, the adoptions don’t end his loneliness, and with each subsequent adoption, the period of happiness shortens. His adoptions briefly shift the public narrative of him to a brighter light, but as the number of children grows, he once again attains the status of a predatory villain. When Norton wins the Nobel Prize, the social criticism of him ceases. He continues travelling to U’ivu every few years and regrets to see many of the common traditions disappear. On one trip, he is stopped before departing by a man that demands he take his child. Norton refuses until he recognizes the man as the boy from the a’ina’ina so many years ago. He agrees, trading scraps from his pocket for the boy. He names the boy Victor.