Into The Out Of

by Alan Dean Foster

  When he looked up he found Kakombe staring at him. Their eyes locked for an instant. That was enough, just a look. An important matter had been settled without a word. Kakombe nodded imperceptibly, a thin smile on his face, and then turned away to gaze out across the sand river.

  "It does not matter," he murmured to no one in particular. "It would not have worked anyway. Most ilmeet women cannot stand the smell of cattle."

  Oak joined the senior warrior in surveying the sand. "I guess we ought to see if there's anything worth salvaging besides ourselves. Be nice to find an intact canteen or calabash."

  "Yes," Kakombe agreed. He pointed downriver. "Dry it may appear, but we will find a place where the elephants have dug down to water. We will follow the sand river until it rejoins the flowing Ruaha, then follow the water back to camp."

  Most of the wreck had cooled enough to hunt through, but they found neither calabash nor canteen, and the big water cans that had been strapped to the roof rack were so much shrapnel. They did stumble over Merry's backpack. There wasn't much inside, the contents having been extracted by the rampaging female shetani who had tried to rip Oak's throat out.

  Half buried in the sand was a case of engine oil. The box had burned away, but the cans were miraculously intact. Kakombe used his Nafasi knife to punch holes in the top of each can and they let the oil drain out into the sand. Each can would hold half a quart of water, if they could find any. Against Kakombe's protests Oak shouldered the torn but still serviceable backpack. They put the cans inside, along with a few other useful and still unbroken items, and started hiking.

  The first elephant well lay only a few hundred yards from the burning car, around a bend in the river. Someone was already drinking from the tepid pool. Mbatian Olkeloki looked up and grinned at them.

  Merry ran forward and threw her arms around the old man, nearly knocking him down. She was sobbing all over again, but this time the tears were tears of joy. He tried to disengage himself.

  "Please, Merry Sharrow, I am happy to see you too, but I am very tired and cannot support the both of us." She stepped away from him.

  "Sorry. It's just that I was…" She let the sentence fade. Then her expression changed. Tentatively she reached out and touched the old man's forehead. The skin was taut and cool to the touch and her fingers didn't sink in at all. He smiled at her.

  "It will be difficult now to see what the signs and stars portend, but at least there will be something to see."

  "I saw you do that," Oak told him, "but I still don't believe it." He stood straight while Kakombe removed the oil cans from the pack and set to washing them out.

  "Why not? Everyone possesses that additional perception you perceived as a third eye, my friend. But few people can access it mentally, fewer still physically."

  "You knew." Oak stared at him, feeling like a total fool. "You must have known from the beginning that I had only a good left eye and Merry only a good right one. Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you ever mention it?"

  "Think now, Joshua Oak. If we had stood together, you and I, in your home city of Washington, D.C., and I had said that in addition to wanting you to accompany me to Africa I was going to need your artificial eye to complete a certain magical Maasai spell, what would your reactions have been? I do not think you would have been more encouraged to help me."

  "The lion," Merry said. "What about the lion?"

  The old man laughed out loud. Watching him, Oak knew he couldn't be more than eighty years old. Probably not that much. Anything else was nonsense, pure nonsense.

  "I expect I made a mistake, Merry Sharrow. I guess that was not my lion after all. If he had been, I would not be here sharing this delicious dirty water with you now. Are you ready, senior warrior?"

  Kakombe placed the last of the water cans in Oak's pack and nodded.

  "Then come, my friends. This has been a memorable day's work well done, and we have a long walk ahead of us." He took a step forward.

  A thin black arm exploded from the sand just to the right of the water hole and the fingers locked tight around Merry's ankle. She let out a high-pitched scream as Oak grabbed her around the waist. The arm retracted, pulling her down into the sand. Then they both fell backward, Merry on top of him.

  As they lay there panting hard, Kakombe bent over and yanked the arm out of the ground. No dark fluid oozed from the cut. The limb had been severed and cauterized as cleanly as if by a surgical laser.

  "The last of the nightmare." He took the amputated arm from Kakombe and examined it with interest while Oak helped Merry to her feet. "Sometimes a few tiny places are difficult to seal. That is how other shetani slip through into our world one at a time. But this one was only wide enough to let in an arm, and it closed quickly. Paasai Leleshwa." He shrugged.

  "What was that, anyway?" Oak asked him.

  "It has no literal translation from the Maasai. 'The indescribable color' is the nearest I can come."

  "What about all the shetani already in our world?" Merry wanted to know. "Aren't they going to cause trouble?"

  "I think not. At least, no more than they ever have. Most of them will scatter and hide, many will perish. It is like the seals who live under the polar ice. The narrower their air holes become, the closer they stay to them. With Paasai Leleshwa we have sealed the shetani's principal air hole. We have interdicted that which refreshes their souls." He held out the severed arm. "Will you have it? It was reaching for you."

  She took a step backward. "Are you kidding?" Olkeloki turned and offered it to Oak. "Friend Joshua?"

  "Thanks, but it clashes with my decor."

  "I will take it, laibon." Olkeloki handed it to the senior warrior, who tucked it into a fold on his torn toga.

  "Think that water will last all the way back to the river?" Merry indicated the bulges the water cans made in the remnants of her backpack.

  "If not we shall find another water hole. I am more concerned about food. We must have the strength to reach the water." He scanned the near bank. "Perhaps we can find some nuts and fruits."

  "Nuts and fruits," she repeated. "God, I could eat a whole impala by myself. Horns and all."

  "I would look for a baobab pod to crack," said Kakombe, "but it is late in the season and I fear the baboons have eaten all."

  Half an hour later they had to stop to drink. At this rate, Oak thought, they'd have to find another water hole soon. He was lowering one of the cans from his lips when he heard the faint rumble. It came from downriver. As they stood and stared a Land Rover with an extended cab came bouncing around the next bend, heading straight toward them. He tensed, wondering if the friends of the two unlucky poachers had come looking for them. Then he relaxed so much he sat down in the sand.

  It was Axel Wolf with a load of tourists from camp.

  The Land Rover squealed to a stop a few yards away.

  Wolf came over to stare at them, shoving his hat back off his head. "Now what the bloody hell happened to you people?"

  "Had an accident." Oak gestured back upriver. "Rolled her. Must've hit a rock. The tank blew."

  "Looks like the lot of you nearly went with it." He was eyeing Oak shrewdly. "Funny, but you didn't strike me as the reckless driver type." Oak favored him with a bland smile.

  "How about a lift?"

  "We're pretty full up." Wolf indicated the gaggle of sightseers who by now had piled out of the big four-wheeler. "I guess the lady and the old man can ride inside, but you and the moran will have to ride on top."

  "No problem."

  "The tsetses'll come for you as soon as we start moving. I'll drive as fast as I can but you're still going to get bit."

  "For some reason I don't think a few tsetse bites will bother us." He raised his oil can. "Cheers."

  "Look, Sherry. Isn't he handsome?"

  Oak struggled back to his feet. The women weren't looking in his direction, however. All eyes were on Kakombe. The woman who'd spoken wore shorts which did nothing to flatter her pear-shaped low
er body. Her friend was clad in white-hunter-style khakis complete with fake bush hat. She approached Oak, flinched when she got a look at his face.

  "What happened to your eye?"

  "It's an old injury. Don't let it bother you." He could see that it did but wasn't in the mood to coddle anyone.

  She spoke without getting any closer to him than absolutely necessary. "Does he speak English?" She nodded toward Kakombe. "Do you think he'd mind if we took his picture?"

  "I'm sure he'll be delighted. But watch out for his spear."

  She giggled. Another woman joined them. It was Oak's considered opinion that sequined sunglasses didn't go with safari outfits. He watched as they clustered around the senior warrior, who looked at Olkeloki and muttered darkly in Maasai. The old man replied with what sounded to Oak's ears like a terse lecture. Occasionally the women would glance back at Oak and look away quickly when they saw him returning their stare. Cameras began to click. Kakombe muttered again.

  "What did he say?" the first woman asked the laibon.

  "He says that you may take all the photos you wish." The old man walked over to whisper to Oak. "What he really wanted to know was if he could boot the big white lady in the backside. He says he has never met such impolite women, not even in America. I told him such an action would complicate our situation unnecessarily, besides which it would be unbecoming for an Alaunoni. We have had enough complications to last us a while."

  "Except one." Merry stepped between them, her one good eye darting from Oak to Olkeloki. "Can you marry us? You can perform marriages, I'll bet."

  Olkeloki was clearly taken aback. "It is one of a laibon's pleasanter duties, that is true, but would you not prefer to be wedded according to the customs of your own country?"

  "We can take care of that later. How about it, Josh?"

  He drained the last of the oily water from the can and tossed the empty container aside. "I still don't recall proposing."

  "You'd better say yes, and fast." She indicated her belt. "I still have my knife."

  "Since I have no choice…" He took her hand in his.

  "How strange." The women had finished photographing Kakombe, to the senior warrior's great relief. Now they were staring at the trio standing close together in the sand river. The one in the safari hat leaned close to whisper to her companion. "They're each missing an eye. I wonder what happened?"

  Her friend peered over the rim of her sequined sunshades. "Maybe they're part of some African cult."

  "Look at the way they're holding hands," said the third woman. "Whatever they're doing, you can tell they're in love."

  The first woman shrugged, turned a slow circle. "That much I can understand. Can you imagine a more beautiful, peaceful place?"

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  Epilogue the First

  Arkady Dorovskoy dismissed the general and turned to gaze out the window toward St. Basil's. From his office he could see over the Kremlin wall into the city beyond. Things had been quiet for several weeks. No more nerve-wracking incidents, no more sabotage—if sabotage it had been, and not something as yet unexplained. That unprecedented phone connection, for example. He was sure he'd heard a third voice whispering over the line. He shrugged. Impossible, absurd. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that everyone could breathe again.

  There were agricultural difficulties in Kazakhstan, but there were always agricultural difficulties in Kazakhstan. Nothing to blame on outside forces. More problematic was the secret computer network that had been set up by students at the universities in Pskov and Kiev.

  We need a good Russian word for "hacker," he told himself solemnly. In order to catch up with the West in computer technology, students and technicians were going to have to be allowed a certain amount of freedom. Tightly monitored, of course.

  It didn't matter. Nothing could upset him now. Not with the worst crisis of his administration defused. There would be plenty of time to deal with ordinary, mundane problems. A few extremists in the Politburo were still demanding some kind of reprisals against the Americans, who steadfastly continued to maintain their innocence. Dorovskoy had taken care of that promptly. No solid evidence indicating complicity, no reprisals. Let the fanatics chew on that for a while.

  To hell with agriculture. What he needed, what Moscow needed, was a little color. Take that dull gray building over there: why not paint a few rainbows on the old stone. Hardly worth a directive, but maybe it was time for a few changes. These last few days have made all of us more aware of our own mortality. We make the best vanilla ice cream in the world. Why can't we brighten up this ancient city?

  Feeling much better about the state of the world and himself, the Premier left the window and went back to work.

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  Epilogue the Second

  Disgusted with himself, the President of the United States undid his tie and set about redoing it. If he couldn't fix a lousy tie, how the hell was he going to push that education bill through Congress?

  He was looking forward to the celebration on the Potomac tonight. There would be fireworks and music and maybe if the Secret Service didn't think they were all booby-trapped he could buy himself a hot dog. For the first time in weeks everyone would be able to relax.

  Kennedy had the Cuban missiles, I had this, he thought. Geary and the rest of the hard-liners in the cabinet were feeling pretty good about themselves, convinced they'd broken a complex Soviet espionage and sabotage network by not backing down on their threats. Weaver knew better. When the moment of crisis had finally come, both sides had turned away out of mutual respect for each other—and out of mutual fear. Sources now hinted that the Soviet hierarchy was half convinced a third party had been responsible for all the trouble. That jibed neatly with the CIA's own most recent reports. Working together, sooner or later the two governments would discover who was responsible. Initial suggestions pointed to the Albanians. That made sense to both sides. Everyone knew the Albanians were crazier than Stalinist bedbugs.

  All that mattered was that the flash point had never been reached. Cooperation in hunting down the cause held out the promise of cooperation in other areas, Geary and his clique of rabid anti-reds notwithstanding. Meanwhile he could get back to the business of running the country. That education bill promised to be a real barn burner up on the Hill. Not to mention the matter of renewed price supports for Midwest grain.

  We sell the Egyptians surplus wheat by underwriting Kansas exports, and that enables the Egyptians to lower the price of their wheat on the world market, thus forcing us to increase price supports for our farmers so they can continue to compete—against themselves. Hell of a world. Whoever called economics a science deserved to be horsewhipped. You might as well put a witch doctor or something in charge of the Federal Reserve.

  "Paul?" He glanced to his left, having almost mastered the stubborn tie. Jennine stood in the entrance to the dressing room. His wife looked ravishing, which didn't surprise him. She'd been ravishing on the day he'd met her, and despite the pressures of Washington life she'd managed to stay that way ever since. Every hostess in the city envied the First Lady.

  "I'll be finished here in a second," he told her.

  "Could you give me a hand with something first, sugar?"

  He sighed and turned away from the mirror, leaving the tie triumphant for at least another minute. "What is it? Button trouble?" He followed her into the bedroom.

  "No. It's probably nothing." She smiled apologetically. "Don't worry. Colonel Sherwood will get us to the stands in time for you to make your speech."

  Every time she smiled at him like that it took him back twenty years. "Then what's up?"

  "Well, I'm not sure, Paul." She sounded a touch less than her usual completely confident self. "Like I said, it's probably nothing. I'm just being silly." She knelt and lifted the handwoven cotton spread. "But I could've sworn I saw something moving under the bed."

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