“What are you doing here?”
“No one answer when I knock, Mr. Kampa.” She gave me an apologetic smile. “I came in to clean.”
“Before dawn?”
“Oh, no, sir. Much after. It’s nearly noon.”
A little more questioning revealed that she had been in my suite for almost two hours and that she was disastrously behind schedule. If I did not let her go, the manager would fire her, and she would have to return to a desolate mission outpost southeast of the Recreational Centre, where life was both hard and very dull. I wrapped a sheet about myself, gave her the equivalent of nearly fifty American dollars, and told her to catch up as much of her work as she could. I would protect her from the ire of the Sands management. The woman departed, thanking me.
I dressed and stalked about the suite trying to sort out my emotions. Dirk Akuj had hoodwinked us. His ngoma ceremony had been a cunning scam. Or had it? Timothy and Daniel would come round soon enough, I could tell by their breathing, but in the meantime I wanted to collect my thoughts without their help. Was it possible that for a moment—a brief moment, at least—my Helen’s ngoma had inhabited the comfortable body of the hotel maid? In spite of everything, I felt pretty good.
Monicah had left me a note. It was written on the back of the birthday telegram from my mother:
Dear Daddy,
You can give me your permission to do this by not trying to bring me back, okay? We’re crossing Lake Kiboko into Uganda in a motor launch, and if you want to catch us you probably can. I really, really hope you won’t try. You had your turn, this is mine, and maybe one day Dirk and I can point everyone toward their tomorrow by stepping out of it back into today. Tell Grandma Jeannette and Aunt Anna I love them. Lots and lots o’ love to you too.
Your daughter,
THE GRUB
I rode the elevator down to the lobby, then walked out to the marina in the strength-sapping heat. In spite of the heat several vacationers were out on the lake in paddleboats; a light breeze fluttered the fringes on the colorful parasols beneath which these hearty tourists labored. Despite my daughter’s note and her conviction that we could catch up with her if we tried, she and Dirk Akuj must have already reached the lake’s western shore. Although it might still be possible to overtake them in the treacherous hinterland between Zarakal and Uganda, I was not going to blow the whistle on their escape.
In spite of this decision, I returned along the pierlike arm of the marina to the walk running north and south along the lakeshore. Here I turned north and made my way to the water-purification plant servicing the entire complex. My keys admitted me to the fenced enclosure surrounding the plant, and my status in the Zarakali government short-circuited the objections of a pair of uniformed guards who clearly wondered what business I had in their little bailiwick.
I hiked through a maze of metal tubing, pressure gauges, and wheels to the clean sandy area where an immense water tower rose up into the desert sky. I climbed the narrow iron ladder on one of the tower’s colossal legs and from the catwalk looked over Lake Kiboko after my daughter. The guards and several other plant personnel watched me ascend, dumbfounded by my audacity.
Then I leaped out and caught a support rod with both hands. The plant personnel gasped. When I began a long slide inward, my feet dangling like window-sash weights, they cried, “Be careful, Mr. Kampa! Please be careful, sir!” Their shouts were reassuring hosannas. I slid the rod to an intersection beneath the tank, then hung there in the arid breeze gazing westward after Monicah. For the duration of my stunt, at least, I was a very happy man.
Also by Michael Bishop
Unicorn Mountain
Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.
Unicorns roam the uplands of Libby Quarrels’ mountain ranch. When Libby takes the AIDS-afflicted Bo Gavin out of exile in Atlanta to live with her in Colorado, she sees no connection between his disease and the fantastic secret she guards. But it so happens the unicorns suffer from a plague of their own, and the alternate world that touches the high country has unleashed magic sinister as well as marvelous. While Libby’s Indian ranch hand Sam is stalked by his wife’s headless ghost, his estranged daughter has visions that propel her toward the grueling Sun Dance ritual, where an encounter with the spirit world may decide the fate of both the unicorns and the people whose lives they’ve touched.
Other Ebooks from ElectricStory
Terry Bisson
Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories
Suzy McKee Charnas
The Vampire Tapestry
Mark Jacobson
Gojiro
Barry N. Malzberg
The Engines of the Night
Alexei Panshin
Rite of Passage
Rudy Rucker
The Secret of Life
Lucius Shepard
The Jaguar Hunter
Robert F. Young
Memories of the Future
No Enemy But Time Page 40
