The Real

by Masha du Toit

  “You think it could be the Samurai Dog, maybe?” This idea seemed to appeal to Isabeau.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Isabeau was quiet again. Ndlela settled himself back down on his pillow, but just as he started drifting off again, she spoke once more. “He said something about pressing a button. That could be him talking about her kill switch. You know the gardags have—”

  “Yes, I know.” Ndlela was quick to forestall another lecture about Isabeau’s favourite book. “I really don’t remember what he said.”

  “But what about the shooting?” The worried note was back in her voice. “They said they were going to shoot somebody. You heard them, and we know they have guns.”

  “Maybe we misunderstood. They could have meant something else.”

  Isabeau gave a disgusted snort. “You’re being just like Noor. They’re gangsters. Who else would talk about things like that?”

  “Maybe.” Ndlela tried to snuggle deeper under his blankets. “But even if you’re right, Issy, what can we do about it? Noor’s right. We just have to stay away from them. This isn’t like one of your story books where we can gather clues or something and go to the police.”

  “Oh, I know that!” Isabeau stiffened with indignation. “I know that. That’s why I can’t sleep. I don’t like thinking of them down there, so close. And they’ve got somebody locked up, I know they do. Even if it’s a human person and not the Samurai Dog, that’s just as horrible. I keep thinking what it must be like to be locked up in one of those cages—”

  “Well, don’t think about it then.” Ndlela sat up again. It was clear Isabeau wasn’t going to leave him alone while she was in this mood. “Listen, do you want me to read to you a bit?”

  “Oh, yes, please! From Gardag?” She untangled herself from his blankets and jumped up. “I’ll go get it. I’ll be right back.”

  Ndlela sat, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of Isabeau looking for her book. He didn’t like to admit it but the things she’d said had worried him. He’d been trying to forget how scared he’d been, hiding in the crawlspace, listening to that menacing voice above him in the dark. Now he couldn’t push away the image that Isabeau had conjured up.

  What if there was somebody in the circus, right now, locked up in one of those rusted lion cages, shivering in the same wind that rattled their own shutters?

  “Here it is.” Isabeau pushed the book into his hands. “And here’s the torch. Read from the beginning, please.”

  The Muara

  It was full dark when Elke reached the Muara.

  The sky was overcast so there was no moon to light her way, and no lights at all on the hummocky landscape that stretched out before her. The sea roared and a scent of iodine tinged the brisk gusts of wind that shook the undergrowth. A chorus of peeps and clicks filled the night, the voices of insects and frogs.

  She slipped into mind-link with Meisje and watched as the dog scanned the landscape with her enhanced vision. Some areas glowed with body heat, but they were too small to be human. Rats foraging, or cats hunting among the bushes.

  According to the map, the Muara was at least partly a wetland—beach and dune near the sea and towards the river a muddy swamp, reed beds and small streams. Not a good place to wander into in the dark. Nevertheless, she’d have to do exactly that. She’d be far too visible, waiting up here by the freeway when daylight came.

  She had to stay out of sight. Find this circus place that Moraes had mentioned in her message. Scope out the place, check whether Moraes was, in fact, alone as she’d claimed to be.

  And then?

  Elke shivered, trying to ignore the unease that had been gnawing at her ever since she’d stepped out on the Ishtar Gate. Diesel and Otto must both be frantic with worry at her unexplained disappearance. Argent was probably stirring up all kinds of trouble. Dollie might be arrested by now, for all she knew. Had she done the right thing, after all, coming out here into the Real?

  One thing at a time. And the first thing now is to find a place to sleep, out of sight.

  Elke grimaced at the insinuating whine that circled close to her face.

  Oh, that’s just great. Mosquitoes.

  ¤¤¤

  After almost an hour’s search Elke found what she was looking for—the ruined remains of a house built up against the ridge that overlooked the Muara. Most of its roof was gone and many of the external walls had collapsed, but the second-floor balcony looked solid enough.

  She even managed to get a bit of sleep there, sheltered by the parapet wall with Meisje curled up against her.

  It was the cold that woke her, the bitter cold of early morning. The sky was silver bright, but the sun had not yet crept over the horizon.

  For a moment she stared in surprise at the unfamiliar dark shape nestled next to her, then she recognised Meisje. The undyed strip of white hair around the dog’s eyes gave her a look of alert and rather silly surprise. Elke grinned and ruffled Meisje’s neck hair, wondering how long the dye would last.

  After a careful look over the parapet she hoisted herself further up onto the concrete slab that was all that remained of the roof. Meisje leapt up after her. By luck, it seemed, they’d found an ideal look-out place. It was high enough to see in several directions and even when standing she could remain hidden behind the scrubby plants that had taken root there, creating a convenient screen.

  With the binoculars she’d bought at Miss Ursula’s, Elke scanned the landscape. The Muara was an astonishing sight. She’d heard about it, of course, the beach resort lost to the sea and sand, but she’d not been prepared for the sheer strangeness of it.

  Most of the nearby buildings were roofless and many seemed on the point of collapse. Full-grown trees sprouted from some of the windows and sand piled up against their walls. Farther down, closer to the sea, the houses had been reduced to piles of rubble and roof tiles. Incongruous reminders of the neighbourhood that had once been here remained. Lines of street lights waded knee-deep through the sand. What looked like a swing set, rusted and leaning drunkenly, showed where there must once have been a children’s park. In the distance ran the strong, clean lines of the dikes, marked off every now and then with a spindly wind-pump, motionless in the windless air.

  The river was easy to spot, even without the help of her map. The area around the river mouth was green with vegetation. There were banks of grass and reeds, small trees, and the glint of water. A little way up the river, a group of buildings caught her eye and she focused the binoculars on them. They were half hidden by a wall that must, by her calculation, run along the edge of the river. The tallest was several stories high. It had a florid look, its lines curved and fussy, the broken facade decorated with showy scroll work. Some kind of signage up on the roof, tall letters, but she couldn’t make out what they said from this angle.

  The sea-ward side of the building had collapsed and much of the interior was exposed, but the back half looked fairly intact. Some of the windows still had glass in them. There were flagpoles up on the roof but in the wind-still morning she couldn’t see if there were any flags hoisted there.

  Could that be the Circus?

  The upper rim of the sun was visible now and the Muara responded with the swelling of birdsong. Soon things would warm up too much to make use of Meisje’s heat perception. Elke put the binoculars back in their case and asked Meisje to come stand next to her. Once the mind-link was made, she let Meisje take over and submerged herself in the gardag’s sensory world.

  The scent of cold concrete. Her own body. The sea. The faint but pungent scent of cat. Her guess was confirmed by the glowing heat signature slinking through the undergrowth. None of the nearby houses showed any sign of life, although it was possible that somebody could be hiding behind those solid, heat-absorbing walls. More importantly she could sense no trace of human scent nearby. No cooking fires, no food scents, no excrement or sweat.

  Still, it was a windless day, w
hich meant that Meisje could only catch the nearby scents.

  A gleam in the distance caught Meisje’s eye and she lifted her nose, her ears swivelled to catch the slightest sound. Elke followed the dog’s gaze, merging the data she got through the mind-link with her own understanding.

  Something was moving along the wall next to the river.

  She broke the mind-link and took out her binoculars again. Somebody walking there. Pushing some kind of vehicle. A bicycle?

  The person disappeared from view, then appeared again some way farther along. Through the binoculars Elke could see that it was a girl with long, dark hair, pushing a bicycle. For a stomach tightening moment Elke had thought that she was looking at Moraes, but she immediately realised her error. This girl’s skin was honey coloured, not dark. Her hair, while black like Moraes’s, was much longer and straight as a fall of silk. She walked with a distinctive limp; something wrong with one of her legs. Tracing her route back, Elke guessed that she must have emerged from somewhere close to the ornate building with the flag poles.

  The girl disappeared from view and a minute or so later she was on the near side of the river, astride the bike, pedalling along what must be a path up to the freeway.

  Going to Kaapstadt.

  Elke turned the binoculars back to the ornate building again. After some time, her patience was rewarded with a flicker of movement on one of the balconies. Somebody was definitely stirring up there. A few moments later two, no, three small figures appeared next to the river, moving in the opposite direction to the girl with the bike. They were going down towards the sea.

  Elke upped the magnification on the binoculars and rested her elbows on a low wall.

  Two children and a dog. Younger than the bicycle girl, Elke judged. The one in front was a boy. His skin was dark and he had a sturdy, determined walk. The other child was smaller with a flare of fair hair under a broad-brimmed hat and long, skinny legs.

  The dog was a stocky, ugly, broad-chested creature with bandy legs—a muscular bundle of energy bounding happily around the children. Its bark came to her, faint on the chill morning air.

  Elke moved the binoculars back to the ornate building, then focussed on the surrounding structures but spotted no other signs of life.

  She turned to look at the children again but they’d disappeared from view and she didn’t see them again even when she spent several minutes scanning the direction they’d been heading. She put away the binoculars and rubbed a hand over her face, trying to scrub away the weariness.

  This is going to take a while. Better get something to eat.

  ¤¤¤

  After about an hour, Elke sent Meisje to do a bit of scouting by herself. This seemed the safest way to begin exploring the Muara. The dog, trained as she was in reconnaissance, was less likely to be spotted by any unfriendly eyes than the two of them together, or even Elke by herself.

  Elke found a patch of sun and tried to catch up on her sleep. It felt odd to be outside after such a long time in the confined spaces of the Eye. The breeze was freshening, carrying a load of rich, disturbing scents, and every rustle and scamper caught at her attention. After some time, she managed to fall into a light slumber but woke as soon as Meisje came climbing up to her hiding place.

  “Anything interesting?”

  Meisje sat and twitched her ears up and forward. Yes.

  “See anyone?”

  The dog’s ears went down and to the sides. No.

  “Smell?”

  Yes.

  “Human?”

  Yes.

  “Anyone we know?”

  Meisje lowered her ears and gave her head a rapid shake. Don’t know. Not sure.

  Elke looked at the dog speculatively. Not Moraes, then. Meisje would identify her scent without any trace of doubt.

  After several more questions, Elke learnt that Meisje had scented the recent presence of humans within a kilometre of their hiding place. Recent tracks by two young females and a young male, as well as the faded traces of an older male who was, possibly, a strangeworlder.

  She’d also detected the fresh tracks of one gardag and two others that puzzled her and might, or might not be gardags.

  Elke frowned. This must be the same lot we scented on the way out of Kaapstadt, but again, without human handlers?

  A thought occurred to her that made her sit up. “Meisje, that gardag. A female, right? And old?

  Yes.

  Could it be the Samurai Dog, Xun? The thought nearly startled her into laughter.

  Xun herself, wandering around the Muara with her children. It made sense. Driven from her mountain den, the old gardag was looking for a place to hide. The Muara was relatively deserted and it was close to Kaapstadt. Xun could easily have found her way here in her attempts to escape from unwelcome human attention.

  Just to make things a bit more interesting. Still, she’d have to be careful. If it was only Xun, that would be one thing. She was a gardag, even if an unusually old one. The other dogs were a different matter. According to the rumours, the man who’d commissioned Xun had ordered her mated with a wolf in a misguided attempt to create an even more impressive gardag. That would make her offspring half-wolf, half-dog, an unpredictable combination at the best of times.

  With Xun living out in the wilds of Table Mountain, those pups must have grown up without any training or human intervention. Feral dog-wolves with a mother who was a genetically manipulated gardag? They’d have inherited many of her enhancements and would be stronger and more intelligent than ordinary dogs.

  “We’ll have to watch out for them, girl.” Elke gave Meisje a considering look. “You tell me as soon as you scent that lot again. The dogs, or gardags or whatever they are. Okay?”

  ¤¤¤

  “What’s up with Robby?”

  It was the end of a long day’s beach-combing, and Ndlela and Isabeau were drawing near to their home. Usually, by now, Robby had lost some of his headlong energy and liked to trot sedately at their heels. Now, however, he was sniffing in the bushes and gazing up at the ridge, nose up in the breeze.

  “Something’s up with Robby,” Ndlela said again. “Look. His hackles are all up.”

  “Smelling a cat, maybe?” said Isabeau, but both of them knew that this was unlikely. The scent of a cat would have Robby happily rushing in pursuit, not frowning and hackling.

  “He’s growling!” Isabeau knelt next to him. “What is it, Robby? Is there somebody up there?”

  Both children looked up at the ridge but saw nothing out of the ordinary. In the past, when people had come to camp in the broken down houses, they’d never bothered to hide themselves. You could always tell they were there from the smoke of their fires and their noise.

  “This is creepy,” said Isabeau. “Let’s get home.”

  They went carefully after that, doing their best to stay out of sight. When they arrived home, Ndlela closed the door behind him with a sense of relief. Isabeau immediately went to the window.

  “See anything?”

  She leaned on the sill. “No.”

  “We’ll have a look with Jayden’s scope tonight.” Ndlela joined her at the window. What if those circus people are out there, watching us. Or creeping up on us?

  He shook off the thought as he closed the shutters. No point in worrying about shadows, as his mother used to say.

  “Your turn to make supper, Issy.”

  ¤¤¤

  It was long after nightfall before things cooled down enough for Jayden’s scope to be useful. Ndlela set the scope up on the roof and after a short argument, allowed Isabeau to have first go. He sat staring into the dark, listening to the sea while she scanned the landscape.

  After a few minutes she tensed and adjusted the magnification.

  “What can you see?”

  “Shh!” She raised a distracted hand, her body bent tensely over the scope.

  Ndlela tried to make out where the scope was pointed, but it was simply too dark to see more than a faint h
orizon line.

  “There’s somebody there,” whispered Isabeau. “I can see— Oh! Wait.” She moved the scope again. “I think it’s a dog.”

  “Let me see.”

  She stepped back reluctantly. “Don’t bump it.”

  With a grunt of disgust at this impertinent instruction, Ndlela peered carefully into the scope.

  Nothing. Just a jumble of black and grey, with a faint, general glow that he knew from past experience was probably a large rock that still held some heat from the sun.

  Then he saw it.

  “Oh!”

  A pale glowing blur, moving in and out between darker shapes of the bushes. Isabeau was right. It looked like a dog. Larger than Robby, but not huge. Then another shape appeared.

  “It is a dog. And there’s a man with it.” He kept his voice low although he knew that whoever this was, they were not close enough to hear.

  “Let me see!”

  Ndlela moved aside so she could take his place again.

  “I see him, I see him!” Then Isabeau was silent for a long moment.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s sort of crouched down next to the dog. I think—” She adjusted the scope a fraction. “—I think he’s got his arm around it, or he’s petting it.”

  Ndlela took another turn at the scope. Isabeau had adjusted it remarkably well. The focus was clear. He could make out the heat signatures of a dog, sitting and alert, and a human figure crouching close beside it. As he watched, the dog turned its head towards its companion, who leaned in to caress it. Even in the glowing blur of the scope, the gesture spoke of easy trust and friendship.

  Ndlela moved back to give Isabeau a turn again. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

  “They’re just sitting there,” said Isabeau at last.

  “They’re watching our windows,” said Ndlela. “We didn’t close all the shutters, and some of the blinds are up.”

  “I know.”

  In the early days of their mother’s absence, they’d obeyed Jayden’s rules religiously. No visible lights after dark. No smoke during the daytime. No tracks in the sand leading to their hotel. But over the months they’d let things slip.