View from Another Shore : European Science Fiction

by Rottensteiner, Franz(Author)

  western detour round the countries of the dead. He laid his hand on my map, on the point between Juba and Djibouti, between Asmara and Lake Victoria, where the bombs had fallen in the struggle for the horn of Africa.

  He noticed at once that on the old map Lake Chad was shown larger than it is today. The latest satellite pictures show that the desert has extended even further to the south. I can confirm this. The king has just told me that the old

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  caravan route to the Nile can only be covered with camels today. There is not enough water for horses. Only three centuries ago ox teams travelled through this old caravan route. I made him a present of a burning glass—these lenses are called Zimbabwe glasses here and are highly valued. I offered him my

  horses. He promised me his support, indicated he would allow me to use his camels and provisions and even offered me the prospect of a guide and a

  herder. He has already found a guide. His name is Hazaz, a big strong

  Nubian. He seems prudent and experienced and seems very reliable. His

  herder is a young boy called Beschir. He’s quick-witted and intelligent and has a good hand with animals, but he is delicate, a bit small for his fourteen years, with sad dark eyes that reveal a sensitive character.

  Here nothing is known about conditions on the Nile, except, at best, pilgrims’

  fables at second and third hand. Tales of horrible mutants, men with bodies of insects, heads of birds and white cannibals.

  The day before our journey started, I rode to the northwest to the lake

  where the king’s herd grazed. The king’s blacksmith was also there.

  The camels were being shod. Two slaves held a grumbling, snarling

  animal while the smith pressed its hooves against his loin cloth. He

  nailed Bu Raqabu, the strong hide of the sabre-horned antelope, to

  the animal’s hooves. It was known to resist the rocks and sand of the

  desert better than steel. He laughed in relief when he had finished and

  poured the leather pail full of water over himself.

  That night I led the animals, rebellious with restlessness, into the

  town, where they were to be saddled and loaded before sunrise.

  Thus, it came to pass that we rode away from Kotoko towards the

  east through the land of the light-skinned Dagama on our way to the

  great contaminated river and to the ocean beyond the desert, to the

  holy city that had risen from the dead, over which Allah holds his

  protective hand.

  Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack

  April 8th, 2036

  At last we are on our way. The king has kept his promise. Well-equipped with animals and provisions, we are setting off for the east, following the old pilgrim route which once crossed Darfur through Kordofan to Khartoum and

  from there on to Port Sudan. The names of these places are unknown to all here today. Has the route changed perhaps?

  It is said that there are pilgrims who maintain that they were in Arabia after the oil war. Mecca had been rebuilt, at least the holy places. I mistrust their

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  reports. I don’t dare bring up the subject otherwise for it arouses a religious fanaticism that frightens me.

  In spite of all this, I am confident.

  We rode through many abandoned villages and rested at dried-up

  springs. We crossed the sandy remains of the Lake of Fittri, in the land

  of the Bathra tribe. The lake looks like a mirror that has broken into

  smithereens, but this is only the layer of salt covering the clay earth

  that has cracked from the heat and glistens in the sun. Our camels left

  deep tracks. The air was damp and stifling and the camels snorted

  with fear. Islands seemed to float over the horizon to accompany us

  soundlessly along our route.

  We detoured round the ruins of Abećhe´ where there are supposed

  to be strange beasts and horrible pale mutants who know how to

  make themselves invisible. They are said to strangle travellers at

  night.

  On the twenty-eighth day of our journey we reached the foot of the

  mountain and rushed to the spring called Bir Meschru, the Spring of

  the Skeletons. Many are said to have mysteriously died there. But

  that too is a lie. Just half an hour’s ride from the spring, there is a

  place to the north, between isolated tamarisks and shittah trees,

  where there are hundreds of dead bodies. It is quite evident that

  they had not met with a mysterious death, but had been cruelly

  massacred. Few of them had become skeletons; most had mummified

  in the dry air and had become feather-light, rolling over in the wind.

  Although the sun had darkened their skin, it was obvious that they

  were white refugees that had been slaughtered. All their clothes had

  been stolen.

  We rode back to the oasis and were all very depressed. The

  otherwise happy face of Master Jack had never been so earnest.

  In the meantime, back at the spring, a second caravan had arrived

  and had set up its camp under the palm trees. There were two

  travellers with four camels, pilgrims from the west far beyond

  Timbuktu, on their way to the holy places. They begged us for tea

  and sugar. I was sure that they were from the Logon tribe from the cut

  of their faces and their clothes. I didn’t believe a word they said, for

  the Logons are deceitful and covetous and are said to be magicians

  with the Evil Eye, who can change into hyenas in the night. They

  camped a stone’s throw away from us.

  The water of the spring was somewhat salty and tasted of sulphur.

  However, this was the richest source of water for many miles and our

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  camels needed a rest. Thus, it was decided to rest for two nights and

  one day.

  Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack

  May 5th, 2036

  We must have passed the former boundary between Chad and the Sudan long

  ago. As far as I can make out El Geneina doesn’t exist any more. The

  mountain range to the east must be the Jebel Musa. Now, the caravan route leads up into the mountains. The way before us is difficult. Hazaz assures me that it can only be a three-day journey to El Fasher, the former caravan

  junction in Darfur. From there it will take us 30 days to En Nahud in

  Darhamar, another 7 or 8 days to El Obeid in Kordofan and then Khartoum

  will be within reasonable distance. Only two months if our journey continues so successfully. But who knows what perils await us? I have seen thousands today who once believed themselves fortunate. They had fled contaminated

  Europe and had succeeded in their flight across the Mediterranean. They had encountered unspeakable hardships in crossing the desert—were led by

  deceitful caravan guides into a supposedly safe place that turned out to be a trap and there they were slain. These horrors actually happened. I have seen these ‘mutants’ graveyards’, as they call them, with my own eyes. The robbers and murderers even went about their horrible business with the approval of their governments, in order to prevent the plague resulting from biological warfare advancing further to the south, as it had completely depopulated the whole of the northern strip of Africa. The military was often put into action to shoot down the streams of refugees. What they didn’t realize was that

  migratory birds had already carried the plague into the areas of the

  south— which abound in water—yes, even in the heart of Africa and that

  they returned with it every aut
umn.

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  The Labyrinth

  It clouded over that night, but there was hardly a drop in tempera-

  ture. I dreamt of the dead in the desert that the wind had set into

  motion. There had been children among them.

  Some time or other in the night I awoke. Hazaz had put wood on

  the fire again and cowered in the darkness of the night. Today I know

  that he was then as conscious as I that something was wrong. The

  Logon tribe had taken on another form and were sniffing us out.

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  In the morning, fog covered the oasis and the sun was lost to view. I

  had a hard time finding the animals and herding them together. They

  had diarrhoea from the sulphurous water and their hides were damp

  from the fog. We crouched in silence around the fire and drank tea.

  Master Jack went over to the pilgrims and spoke with them for a

  long time while Hazaz and I rearranged the packs on the animals and

  checked the saddles and their straps and put them in order.

  Although it was the beginning of May, the wind came from the

  south and the suffocating heat became unbearable. It strained our

  hearts and hindered our breathing, making us at the same time

  exhausted and restless. The atmosphere was crackling and deceptive.

  Distance had no meaning. The mountains appeared nearer. The hours

  dragged on. Threatening clouds were gathering in the southeast.

  ‘Herd the animals together, Beschir’, Hazaz said. ‘A storm is coming.’

  Master Jack came back just as we were putting up our tent and

  securing it. ‘There’s going to be a thunderstorm’, he called and, as if

  the heavens wanted to prove their point, a sharp crack of thunder

  echoed from the mountains nearby. The animals sought shelter under

  the sparsely growing siwak bushes. The sky darkened visibly. The

  wind throbbed in the acacia trees and the dry palm branches hissed

  like disturbed snakes. However, the storm made its way past us to the

  north. There, in the mountains, deep red lightning flashed and ripples

  of thunder were heard for a long time, while in the south, the stars

  began appearing one by one. Nearby hyenas were laughing. Shortly

  after, I must have fallen asleep.

  I awoke to a scream. Before I could get to my feet, Master Jack was

  up, had grabbed his crossbow and quiver, and run out. I ran after him.

  My riding camel was only a few feet away and was no longer

  tethered. It seemed out of breath as if it had been chased around. It

  stretched its neck and sniffed. In the leaden-coloured light of the

  dawn, I discovered a second camel just a few yards away plucking at

  the branches with its hard lips and snorting excitedly. It was Master

  Jack’s camel. It had its hobble on, binding its forefoot to the leg. The

  other animals were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘This way, Beschir!’, I heard Master Jack call. He crouched beside

  Hazaz on the ground. I couldn’t see what had happened. I grabbed my

  camel by its reins and dragged it behind me. As I drew nearer I saw that

  the left side and sleeve of Hazaz’s garment was dark with blood. It was

  the most horrible wound I had ever seen in my life! It gaped open three

  or four fingers wide, not bleeding. One could see the white of the bone.

  I heard a deep sobbing that sounded like a foolish bleat. I was very

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  much ashamed when I realized that the sound was coming from my

  own throat. But I couldn’t help it. I sat down in the sand, as I could no longer stand up.

  ‘I surprised them’, Hazaz whispered, clenching his teeth. ‘Those

  jackals! Those sons of bitches. . .’

  ‘Keep still!’, Master Jack ordered. He pressed the wound together.

  ‘You should have woken us. You should never have acted on you

  own!’

  With a throbbing cry, Hazaz buried his face in his right arm and lay

  on his stomach in the sand.

  ‘Come here and help me, boy!’, Master Jack’s voice aroused me

  from my stupor. I felt the sweat break out on my neck and freeze in

  the cool of the morning. My whole body trembled as I helped to dress

  the wound with cloth from Master Jack’s saddle bag and to splint the

  arm with a piece of wood.

  ‘Don’t bother about me!’, Hazaz moaned. ‘Catch up with them.

  They won’t get far. Not with my camel. It will put up a fight. But the

  pack animals. . .’

  ‘Was this done with the stroke of a sword?’, Master Jack asked.

  ‘It was a shangormango’, Hazaz snarled. ‘Thrown from not even ten

  feet away—the jackal wanted to throw it in my face. At the last

  minute, I shielded my face with my arm.’

  We carried him carefully to our pack saddles. We made him a

  comfortable bed under a tamarisk tree. The sun was rising as we

  saddled our camels.

  ‘What is a shangormango?’, Master Jack asked as we looked for

  tracks. I wished I had been given the eyesight of Hazaz.

  ‘A throwing iron’, I said. ‘Some are very adept with them. They can

  decapitate a man at a distance of thirty feet or slit the legs off a gazelle at fifty feet.’

  Hazaz was right. His camel had resisted stubbornly. Its tracks were

  easy to recognize. When the two scoundrels saw us coming, they tried

  to get away on foot in different directions, knowing full well that even

  in the saddle they wouldn’t have a chance against our swift riding

  camels. Their plan had failed the moment Hazaz prevented them from

  taking all the animals. Had they fled at that moment with their own

  animals, they would have perhaps been able to get away. But their

  greed got the better of them. These men were not robbers, but petty

  scoundrels, and stupid ones at that.

  We set off after one of them and Master Jack soon rode him down.

  He let out a pitiful whimper and crawled towards me on all fours,

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  perhaps hoping I would be more merciful. Master Jack handed me his

  crossbow and I took aim and crooked my finger round the trigger,

  when suddenly all anger and bitterness left me. I was filled with a

  great sadness and loathing for the pitiable creature lying face down

  before me. He crawled towards me like a misshapen lizard, stretched

  out like my own shadow. I just couldn’t do it. I remembered the

  horrible wound. I just couldn’t do it: Master Jack took the crossbow

  from me, unstrung it and hung it on his saddle.

  ‘Listen!’, he said to the man. ‘We are going to take your animals as

  we have a wounded man to transport. As long as we are at the

  watering place, keep away! Should you dare to come anyway, I’ll

  shoot you both!’ Then he turned his camel around and we rode away.

  The whimpering behind us turned into a great lamentation. The

  further away we rode, the angrier and nastier it became—directed, of

  course, at Master Jack’s light skin and his race. I looked at Master

  Jack, but he didn’t look back, took no notice at all. Perhaps he didn’t

  understand. We herded the animals together, our own and theirs, and

  rode back to the oasis.

  I was at odds with myself. Master Ja
ck had been allowed by

  circumstance to see into my very heart. Was it the heart of a

  coward incapable of revenging his friend? As if he had heard my

  innermost thoughts, he said, ‘You did the right thing, Beschir. His life

  is useless. His death would have been no less useless.’

  I looked at him helplessly, but he smiled and nodded encoura-

  gingly. I pulled myself together and knew at that moment that I

  would follow this man to the very edge of the world. And I swore to

  myself to do so, come what may.

  It was midday when we returned to the oasis. We noticed from afar

  that another caravan had arrived. We were frightened and expected

  to find Hazaz dead and our packs and provisions plundered. It would

  have been easy booty, but we were lucky. They were merchants from

  Darfur on their way to the west. They had looked after Hazaz and had

  given him something to drink. They told us that they couldn’t

  understand what he was talking about and that he had often lost

  consciousness. They were astonished when they heard of our mis-

  fortune and kept shaking their heads in disbelief and repeating, ‘Tsk,

  tsk’. However, they seemed much more preoccupied with their own

  troubles. During the night in the mountains, they had been caught in

  a storm and were drenched through and through. They had spread

  their coats, blankets and packs out to dry and sat jealously guarding

  their possessions. Later, however, they helped us gather boughs,

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  branches, and rushes in order to weave them together into a sort of

  litter similar to those used by well-born women or for transporting

  valuable female slaves. We shall transport Hazaz in this. His condition

  is becoming more and more serious. He has not regained conscious-

  ness since our return..

  Extracts from the Journal of Master Jack

  May 6th, 2036

  Yesterday, I wrote of our good fortune. Today, it has left us. Two camel thieves surprised us before dawn. However, they acted so stupidly that it didn’t take long to regain possession of our animals. Unfortunately, our caravan guide was so badly wounded in the attack that I fear for his life. My antibiotics were lost in the Congo River along with my pistols and ammunition. All of which I could have used today.

  Merchants who have just arrived from El Fasher said they left there three days ago. It would be wonderful if we could reach El Fasher in three days.