"The last communications the ship received from its home planet talked of a civil war breaking out, but the ship was already underway and the voyage was largely automated. The fact the citadels have now launched a full-scale invasion of Earth suggests I Wadu's people may have lost that civil war.
"Once they found Earth supported a wide variety of life, and would likely be invaded by the Aeskri, his people engineered a hormonal change in one of their members – remember I talked about that?"
There were some reluctant nods. There was so much information, with so many implications, that it was hard to keep up.
"They froze embryos from the resultant breeding, and when the last of the crew died, the ship must have waited a thousand years before thawing out I Wadu and trying to educate him.
"He thinks he's about fifteen years old, and he says the ship knew it was time to thaw him out when it detected underground activity from the invasion fleet. Eventually, of course, the citadels emerged above ground.
"His ancestors shielded the ship electronically from the citadels. It's a safe place for us as long as we don't bring attention to it, or broadcast anything from it.
"I Wadu doesn't know what his purpose here is, but if his people lost a civil war to the Aeskri, it seems likely it's to help us. You know the saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'."
There was complete silence.
"Any questions," she said, as an afterthought.
52
Fezzou area
Atlas Mountains, North-west Africa
It was a small party that made its way down the long slope that led up to the Imazighen village. The dead Tinghir troopers lay in a long common grave on their right. A covering of rocks stopped desert animals disturbing the fallen. It was a cold and clear high country morning.
Don was musing on the fact the Imazighen people had no name for their village. It was like calling a place 'where the people are'. In truth it was named after the Izem family, at least it was according to Udad. If it had a name it would be Izemarkh, which meant lion-hearted, after Izem the lion, but use of that name was discouraged. It seemed odd to a Westerner, but there was much of the Imazighen culture Don didn't understand.
Izem and Udad were the guides for the journey, and Don had Mosha with him. Jo had new forms of electronic camouflage for the radio station at Fezzou. The station was based in the ruins of the abandoned village, but it was mobile.
It's main defence against detection by the citadels was its many forms of irregularity. Signals were sent in a short burst and camouflaged differently each time. They were sent at random times, and from different locations in the area.
Don and Jo had never ridden a camel before, but the animals were roped behind a lead animal, Don behind Izem and Jo behind Udad. All the inexperienced riders had to do was hang on, and sway along with their mounts. Mosha was trying to build on his existing skills with the animals, but spent most of his time ahead or behind them, rather comically trying to explain loudly to his camel what he wanted.
"You haven't met the sergeant-major before?" said Udad.
"The radio man?" said Don. "No, I haven't."
"He's French," said Udad, "from the last days when Algiers was a French colony. 'Sergent-major' in French translates the same as sergeant-major." Don laughed. Udad had dropped into a perfect French accent. Jo smiled.
"He was the boss at a government outpost in this area. We saw him often, and he just seemed to fit in. When the French left Algiers he somehow stayed on. He married one of our village women, late in life, but then she died a few years ago. It was hard on him. Now he's part of the resistance, like the rest of us.
There was a companionable silence for a while.
"Graham's doing really well," said Jo. "Mokrani's just given him his final checkup. Have you seen him stripping and re-assembling a rifle one-handed?"
The Imazighen doctor had done some very fine work amputating Graham's arm, and re-attaching the muscles to keep as much function as possible. The way Graham was throwing himself back into his role as an SAS soldier was equally impressive. It was something Don understood. If Graham couldn't be a soldier any more, what was he good for? The SAS man was too young to think about retiring.
"He's talking about strapping a machine gun to his side in place of his arm," said Don, "says it restores balance to his body. He's going to have to put on some muscle to take the extra weight of the ammunition, but we've made him some bars and weights to work out with, and he's going for it.
"You should see his group of followers," he continued with a laugh. "The villagers have never seen anything like it, and some of them have taken up weightlifting to keep him company!"
Mosha laughed. The thought of the tall, lean Imazighen men beefing up seemed unlikely to him, but these things were all part of the village family they now belonged to. In fact, Mosha realised, he'd rarely felt as contented as he was now – end of the world or not. He figured it was the simple life and honest companionship that did it.
By late morning they had climbed the slopes of a nearby range, and could see Fezzou in the bottom of the valley. They turned into a dead-end canyon, and Don wondered where they could be going. Half way in there was the click of a rifle going to automatic above them.
"Don't move! Raise you hands!" bellowed a voice, and a soft thump followed as someone landed behind them.
"Now if you would be so kind as to identify yourselves?" said a rather British voice.
Izem gave his lineage rather tersely. He was not happy, and neither were the others. Having people get the jump on you wasn't much of a guarantee of long life.
"Ah. Well, that's all right then," said the figure behind them. "The sergeant-major said you'd be along in a few days. Hands down."
They turned around to see the camouflage outfit and insignia of the British SAS. Don smiled. This guy was good at his job.
"Briggs," said the man, coming forward to stand beside Don. He looked up at him curiously. "And who might you be, gunner?" he said.
He'd picked Don as army. Jo was surprised. Somehow, the most highly trained of soldiers seemed able to recognise each other in any situation.
"New Zealand SAS," said Don, with the ghost of a smile, "or I was. Grey ops now. And it's a bloody wonder who you meet in the middle of nowhere."
Briggs smiled, and jogged on in front of them.
"Come on through!" he called back, as if he was inviting them into the kitchen through the back door.
A tidy structure had been erected against a wall of rock on one side of the canyon. Canvas covered a simple pipe frame. The door flap peeled back as the sergeant-major came out to meet them.
He welcomed Izem and Udad as if they were family. A short time later Izem, Don and Jo joined him inside the structure, and it was all business. Briggs was outside helping Udad with the camels.
"These are the new carrier wave signals," said Jo, downloading them to a fairly substantial machine that looked like a computer but wasn't, sitting on a wooden chest against the rock face. The sergeant-major wasn't an IT man, but he knew enough to set up the messages and let Jo's programme do the rest.
"This is the latest communication from Cal," said the sergeant-major, and handed the printout to Izem. His voice was soft, with an underlying French accent. The Imazighen leader scanned the printout quickly, then handed it to Don.
"And a message from our German connection?" said the sergeant-major, holding up several pages. Izem pointed to Jo. She took them, and then sat bolt upright.
"A Rosetta stone!" she said in admiration. "A base to translate the ship language from." She flicked through the pages as her smile broadened.
"If I ever meet the Rohifs family I'm going to shout them all to dinner."
"How do you transmit messages from here?" asked Mosha, looking round.
The sergeant-major pointed to a generator, one that was the maximum size a camel could carry, stacked on one side of the canvas structure. Then he explained that the radio waves he sent out were
less than 1MHz, with a long enough wavelength to be diffracted around the curvature of the Earth by gravitational interference.
The antenna needed to be around 80m, quite an amount of wire to be rolling up and down the mountainside each time. He was also able to access the ELF network – less than 300Hz – to contact a handful of subs that were still operational, though the antenna for that was tricky. He had to lay out a number of segments that together acted like a half kilometre length.
When he'd finished, Don relayed some news to them all.
"Cal's been busy analysing a bunch of information," he said. "He's fairly sure the citadels are automated. The only ones he can locate with, presumably, Aeskri inside are in Cambodia and Peru, on opposite sides of the world."
There was a sudden silence. They all got it. Cut off the head and the body would be helpless.
"We're on watch for the attack on the Cambodian citadel," he continued, "along with several companies of Gurkhas and a force from New Zealand. But nothing happens until Cal has a better idea of the Aeskri weak spots."
Don and Jo looked at each other. There were other agents in play, but their team was the most likely to achieve that. They had to try harder, and think deeper. Every day they spent without an answer was a day in which the citadels got more entrenched on Earth.
53
Fezzou area
Atlas Mountains, North-west Africa
Izem, Don and Jo sat around the folding table in the pipe and canvas structure that served as the sergeant-major's mobile base. The man himself was running through Jo's new carrier waves.
Don continued reading through the latest news from Cal, and slowed when he came to developments in his home country.
"Wellington's been abandoned," he said to Mosha, who shook his head sadly. "It was doing all right until citadel strikes took out the Civil Defence building, and everything else that was still functional.
"The survivors are now up in Waiouru. One of them, Jimmy Rumbal, will be our Quartermaster for the Cambodian mission."
The role of supplies was critical in all military actions, and Don hoped Jimmy was good at it. He fell silent, and kept reading. Apart from Wellington, and the capital Auckland which had become a lawless and chaotic zone, the news was mostly good. The country had dissolved into a group of provincial states.
New Zealand's geography was so varied that each province had always had a strong individual identity – made stronger by the national obsession, rugby – and the provinces had re-asserted their earlier roles without too much difficulty.
Most provinces had brought back public hangings, and the police and military ruled with an iron hand. Don could see why it was necessary. The population of the country was now estimated at just under a million, less than a fifth of what it had been. That was a better percentage than in most countries.
An entirely unrelated matter had been niggling at the back of his mind, and it suddenly crystallized. He turned to Izem.
"Do you think the Rohifs family would still be able to produce something as sophisticated as your enhanced moukalla muskets?" he asked.
Izem nodded. "They moved their factories into remote areas at the start of last century, and they're good at waiting out difficult times. They were more concerned with widespread wars in Europe – which did eventuate – than the arrival of the citadels, but it saved them from the worst of the earthquakes and the anarchy that followed. Why?"
"If we're going up against the Aeskri," said Don, "we need an edge. I don't know what quantity of alloys from the ship the Germans have, or if we could get more of it to them, but we need bullets that fit standard issue weapons and can penetrate some of the stuff the Aeskri will have.
"Do you think the Rohifs would be up for it?"
"We should ask," said Izem, reaching over for a message sheet. He began to compose a request that would go to Germany.
He was half way through when Don looked up from the bulletin he was holding and laughed. "You're going to enjoy this, Izem," he said. "Cal arranged for a British SAS team to visit the Tinghir warlord, this Thami El Glaoui. The man is, um, rather subdued now, and his troops won't be visiting the surrounding villages in future - except perhaps to offer aid, and apologise."
Izem looked up and smiled. That was good news.
Then something clicked for Don. "Ah, that explains Briggs," he said to himself. The man was a dispatch messenger that had been left behind.
When they finished their business, Izem thanked the sergeant-major for taking the risks he did for the resistance. There was clearly a close bond between the two men.
"Don't you ever get relieved," said Don, "get some time off?"
There was an uncomfortable silence. The sergeant-major broke it first.
"This is a posting you don't come back from," he said quietly. "I'll make a mistake some day, or the citadels will get lucky, and the next party bringing me supplies and messages will find a smear on the mountainside.
"I've got nothing to go home to now my wife is dead," he said, "and I'm too old to fight like you. But this is one way I can do my bit.
"French, English, Imazighen, New Zealander, what does it matter now. There's something each of us can do, one final giving of the finger against impossible odds. Maybe it will be enough, who knows, but at least the bastards will know we didn't just roll over and die to make things convenient for them."
Don could see why Izem loved this man. The sergeant-major knew what was going to happen to him eventually, but he went ahead anyway. The visitors stood, ready to depart, and Don took the opportunity to salute the old man. Mosha followed suit.
Outside, Udad was preparing the camels. Briggs came straight up to Don.
"Not sure how you're fixed for assets, guv'nor, but taking my chances with you sounds better than trying to make my way across the desert to Algiers, and then back to base.
"What do you think?"
Don nodded. He'd been prepared for Briggs' question. The Englishman saluted, and headed off to help Udad prepare the camels. Don wasn't sure how large a contingent he would be taking to Cambodia – or any idea how they would get there – but the fighters he took would need intensive training. Briggs would be a valuable instructor.
As they were coming down off the mountainside, Don murmured a few words to Jo. She nodded. Don looked at his watch.
"It's still early in the afternoon," he said. "I thought I might show Jo that pass you took us through the other day, Izem, the long way back to the village."
Izem considered this for a moment. "Do you think you can manage the camels?" he asked. Don looked at Jo and she nodded. The morning had been enough for them to get used to their mounts.
"Yes," said Don quietly.
Mosha made an effort not to smile. "I'll introduce Briggs to the rest of the team," he said jovially. "Don't miss dinner time at the big hall!"
As the rest of the party rode on down the track, Jo turned and looked at Don. She wanted to say something smart and funny, but she didn't trust herself to say anything.
"This way," said Don, and veered up the slope. "It's a bit of a scramble until we hit the path coming from the other side of the range. Less than an hour to the top, though. Beautiful views. You'll enjoy this."
She followed behind him. She was sure she would.
He talked more than she was expecting him to. Comments about the colours in the rocks, and the freshness of the breeze. She wondered if he was as nervous as she was. He didn't show it, but she figured he would look composed in any situation.
The top of the pass came and went, and it did have views of the Atlas Mountains, and they were better than any postcard.
"This is one place I want you to see," said Don, as they started down the other side. A narrow defile on their left seemed to broaden out further in. He let her precede him.
She saw him look both ways along the path, and then carefully in all directions. She knew why. For a moment she wondered why women all around the world let friendly strangers usher them away from
the herd so the men could do what they desperately wanted to do with the women.
She sighed. She knew why. In half an hour this stranger would be irredeemably part of herself, because that was how nature did these things. And sometimes that was the best thing that would ever happen to her, and sometimes it was a disaster. She was fairly confident which it would be this time.
At the end of the ravine was a bowl in the mountainside. It would have made an excellent, if rather small, amphitheatre. The breeze passed over the top, and the bottom was sunny and still. Jo's camel stopped of its own accord, and then Don was beside her, reaching up to help her off the animal.
She knew he wasn't going to let her go once she was down, but she reached for him anyway. Then he was holding her, and cupping her head against his chest.
He took her hand, and led her to a sloping rock that had been warmed by the sunshine. He laid a thick camel blanket over the rock, and then put down his jacket as a pillow. He lifted her up and placed her gently on her back. She shut her eyes. Partly because of the sun above her, and partly because her mind was overwhelmed with the feelings that were stirring inside her body.
She could feel her clothing being re-arranged, and then she caught a familiar scent. He had thought of contraception. She almost laughed. It had seemed irrelevant to her. They would probably be dead in a few months, but he was a man who thought of everything.
The brightness of the sun behind her eyelids disappeared, and then he was gently stroking her face. She had expected him to be heavy on her, but there was no sensation of weight at all. She folded her arms about him.
In some ways all men were the same, and in other ways she would never have this experience again. She found it fascinating. Even in this one act that linked all men to her, this man had an implacable Don-ness about him. He would never be anyone else.
Then she was lost in the moment.
54
Presidential convoy
Pittsburgh, USA
Struggle for a Small Blue Planet Page 23
