The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  “And why do you tell us of these Cheyenne, these great warriors of the plains of the land of your birth? The story fails to bring joy to hearts already heavy with the troubles of the Tuareg.”

  It was time to play the joker.

  Crawford said carefully, “Because there was no need, O Amenokal of all the Ahaggar, for the Cheyenne to disappear before the sandstorm of the future. They could have ridden before it and today occupy a position of honor and affluence in their former land.”

  They stared at him.

  “And give up the old ways?” Guémama demanded. “Become no longer nomads, no longer honorable warriors, but serfs, slaves, working with one’s hands upon the land and with the oil-dirty machines of the Roumi?”

  The chiefs muttered angrily.

  Crawford said hurriedly, “No! Never! In our great conferences, my viziers and I decided that the Tuareg could never so change. The Tuareg must die, as did the Northern Cheyenne before he would become a city dweller, a worker of the land.”

  “Bismillah!” someone muttered.

  “Too often,” Crawford explained, “do the bringers of these things of the future, be they Roumi or others, fail to utilize the potential services of the people of the lands they over-sweep.”

  “I do not understand you, El Hassan,” Melchizedek grumbled. “There is no room for the Tuareg in this new world of bringing trees to the desert, of the great trucks which speed across the erg a score of time the pace of a hejin racing camel, of larger and ever larger oases with their great towns, their schools, their new industries. If the Tuareg remains Tuareg, he cannot fit into this new world, it destroys the old traditions, the old way which is the Tuareg way.”

  Homer Crawford now turned on the pressure. His voice took on overtones of the positive, his personality seemed to reach out and seize them, and even his physical stature seemed to grow.

  “Some indeed of the ways of the bedouin must go,” he entoned, “but the Tuareg will survive under my leadership. A people who have throve a millennium and more in the great wastes of the Sahara have strong survival characteristics and will blossom, not die, in my new world. Know, O Melchizedek, that it has been decided that the Ahaggar Tuareg will be the heart of my Desert Legion. In times of conflict, armed with the new arms, and riding the new vehicles, they will adapt their old methods of warfare to this new age. In times of peace they will patrol the new forests, watching for fire and other disaster, they will become herdsmen of the new herds and be the police and rescue forces of this wide area. As the Cheyennes of the olden times of the land of my birth could have become herdsmen and forest rangers and have performed similar tasks had they been shown the way.”

  Homer Crawford let his eyes go from one of them to the next, and his personality continued to dominate them.

  The Amenokal ran his thin, aged hand through the length of his white beard beneath his teguelmoust and contemplated this stranger come out of the ergs to lead his people to still greater changes than those they had thus far rebelled against.

  * * * *

  Crawford realized that the Targui was divided in opinion and inwardly the American was in a cold sweat. But his voice registered only supreme confidence. “Under my banner, all North Africa will be welded into one. And all the products of the land will be available in profusion to my faithful followers. The finest wheat for cous cous from Algeria and Tunis, the finest dates and fruits from the oases to the north, the manufactured products of the factories of Dakar and Casablanca. For Africa has always been a poor land but will become a rich one with the new machines and techniques that I will bring.”

  The Amenokal raised a hand to stem the tide of oratory. “And what do you ask of us now, El Hassan?”

  Instead of to the older man, Crawford turned his eyes to the face of Guémama, the leader of the young clansmen. “Now my people are gathering to establish the new rule. Teda from the east, Chaambra from the north, Sudanese from the south, Nemadi, Moors and Rifs from the west. We rendezvous in ten days from now at Tamanrasset where the Arab Legion dogs have seized the city as they wish to seize all the lands of the Sahara and Sudan for the corrupt Arab Union politicians.”

  Crawford came to his feet. His voice took on an edge of command. “You will address your scouts and warriors and each will ride off on the swiftest camels at your command to raise the Tuareg tribes. And the clans of the Kel Rela will unite with the Taitoq and the Tégéhé Mellet in a great harka at this point and we will ride together to sweep the Arab Legion from the lands of El Hassan.”

  Guémama was on his feet, too. “Bilhana!” he roared. “With joy.”

  The others were arising in excitement, all but Melchizedek, who still stroked his gray streaked beard beneath his teguelmoust. The Amenokal had seen much of desert war in his day and knew the horror of the new weapons possessed by the crack troops of the Arab Legion.

  But his aged shoulders shrugged against the inevitable.

  Crawford said, the ring of authority in his voice. “What does the Amenokal of all the Ahaggar say?” He had no intention of antagonizing the Tuareg chief by going over his head and directly to the people.

  “Thou art El Hassan,” Melchizedek said, his voice low, “and undoubtedly it is fated that the Tuareg follow you, for verily there is no way else to go, as each man knows.”

  “Wallahi!” Guémama crowed jubilantly.

  V

  Guémama, nephew of Melchizedek the Amenokal of the Ahaggar Tuareg confederation and fighting chief of the Kel Rela clan of the Kel Rela tribe, brought his Hejin racing camel to an abrupt halt with a smack of his mish’ab camel stick. He barked, “Adar-ya-yan,” in command to bring it to its knees, and slid to the ground before his mount had groaned its rocking way to the sand.

  The Tarqui was jubilant. His dark eyes sparked above his teguelmoust veil and he presented himself before Homer Crawford with the elan of a Napoleonic cavalryman before his emperor. Were red leather fil fil boots capable of producing a clicking of heels, that sound would have rung.

  Crawford said with dignity, “Aselamu, Aleikum, Guémama. Greeting to you.”

  “Salaam Aleikum,” the tribesman got out breathlessly. “Your message spreads, O El Hassan. My men ride to eastward and westward and never a tent from here to Silet, from In Guezzam to Timissao but knows that El Hassan calls. The Taitoq and the Tégéhé Mellet ride!”

  Homer Crawford was standing before the hovercraft. The Amenokal’s tribesmen had set up two large goat leather tents for his use and the three Americans had largely withdrawn to their shelter. Crawford was aware of the dangers of familiarity.

  Cliff Jackson, who as usual had been monitoring the radio, came from the hover-lorry and growled, “What’s he saying?”

  “The tribesmen are gathering as per instructions,” Homer said in English.

  Jackson grunted, somewhat self-conscious of the Targui’s admiring gaze. The Tuareg is the handsomest physical specimen of North Africa, often going to six foot of wiry manhood, but there was nothing in all the Sahara to rival the build of Homer Crawford, not to speak of the giant Cliff Jackson.

  Crawford turned back to the Tuareg chieftain. “You please me well, O Guémama. Know that I have been in conference with my viziers on the Roumi device which enables one to speak great distances and that we have decided that you are to head all the fighting clans of the Ahaggar, and that you will ride at the left hand of El Hassan, as shield on shoulder rides.”

  The Targui, overwhelmed, made adequate pledges of fidelity, flowering words of thanks, and then hurried off to inform his fellow tribesmen of his appointment.

  Isobel emerged from her tent. She looked at Homer obliquely, the sides of her mouth turning down. “As shield on shoulder rides,” she translated from the Tamaheq Berber tongue into English. “Hm-m-m.” She cast her eyes upward in memory. “You aren’t plagiarizing Kipling, are you?”

  Crawford grinned at her. “These people like a well turned phrase.”

  “And who could turn them better than Rudya
rd?” she said. Her voice dropped the bantering tone. “What’s this bit about making Guémama war-chief of the Tuareg? Isn’t he on the young and enthusiastic side?”

  Cliff scowled. “You mean that youngster? Why he can’t be more than in his early twenties.”

  Crawford was looking after the young Targui who was disappearing into his uncle’s tent on the far side of the rapidly growing encampment.

  “You mean the age of Napoleon in the Italian campaign, or Alexander at Issus?” he asked. Isobel began to respond to that, but he shook his head. “He’s the Amenokal’s nephew, and traditionally would probably get the position anyway. He’s the most popular of the young tribesmen, and it’s going to be they who do the fighting. Having the appointment come from El Hassan, and at this early point, will just bind him closer. Besides that, he’s a natural born warrior. Typical. Enthusiastic, bold, brave and with the military mind.”

  “What’s a military mind?” Cliff said.

  “He can take off his shirt without unbuttoning his collar,” Homer told him.

  “Very funny,” Cliff grumbled.

  Isobel turned to the big Californian. “What’s on the radio, Cliff?”

  “Let’s go get a cup of coffee,” he said. “All hellzapoppin.”

  * * * *

  They went into the larger of the two Tuareg tents, and Isobel poured water from a girba into the coffee pot which she placed on a heat unit, flicking its switch. She said sarcastically, from the side of her mouth, “A message, O El Hassan, from the Department of Logistics, subdepartment Commissary of Headquarters of the Commander in Chief. Unless you get around to capturing some supplies in the near future, your food is going to be prepared over a camel dung fire. This heat unit is fading out on me.”

  “Don’t bother me with trivialities,” Homer told her. “I’ve got big things on my mind.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Hm-m-m. Such as what?”

  “Such as whether to put my face on the postage stamps profile or full.”

  She said, under her breath, “I shoulda known. Already, delusions of grandeur.”

  “Holy Mackerel,” Cliff protested. “Aren’t we ever serious around this place? You two will wind up gagging with the firing squad.”

  Crawford chuckled softly but let his face go serious. “Sorry, Cliff. What’s on your mind?”

  Cliff said impatiently, “From the radio reports, the Arab Union is consolidating its position. El Hassan is being discredited by the minute. Your followers were in control for a time in Mopti and Bamako, but they’re falling away because of lack of direction. The best way I can put reports together, the Reunited Nations is in complete confusion. Everybody accusing everybody of double-dealing.”

  Isobel said dryly, “Any other good news?”

  Cliff said glumly, “Rumors, rumors, rumors. Half the marabouts in North Africa are proclaiming a jehad in support of the Pan-Islam program of the Arab Union. Listen, Homer, we’ve got to get the backing of the Moslem leaders.”

  Homer Crawford grunted. “We need Islam in this part of the world like we need a hole in the head. That’s one of the things already wrong with North Africa.”

  “What’s wrong with Islam? It was probably the most dynamic religion ever to sweep the world.”

  “Was is right,” Crawford growled, now on one of his favorite peeve subjects. “The Moslem religion exploded out of Arabia with some new concepts that set the world in ferment from India to Southern France. For all practical purposes Islam inventedscience. Sure, the Greeks had logic and the Romans had engineering—without applying the Greek-style logic. But the Arabs amalgamated the two concepts to yield experimental science. They were able to take the intellectual products of a dozen cultures and wield them into one. For a hundred years or so it looked as though they had something.”

  When he hesitated for a moment, Isobel said, questioningly, “And …”

  “And they couldn’t get away from that Q’ran of theirs. They took it seriously. They started off in their big universities, such as those at Fez, being the greatest scientists and scholars the world had ever seen. But the fundamentalists won out, and in a couple of hundred years the only thing being taught at Fez was the Q’ran. To even suggest that all necessary information isn’t contained therein, is enough to have you clobbered. Islam became the most reactionary force to suppress progress in the civilized world. In fact, by this period in world history, we don’t even think of the Moslem world as particularly civilized.”

  Cliff said defensively, “The Bible doesn’t encourage original thinking either. A fundamentalist …”

  “Sure,” Crawford interrupted. “Those elements who take the Bible the way Islam took the Q’ran wind up in the same rut. But as a whole, Europe was sparked enough by the original Islamic explosion that the Renaissance resulted, with what world results we all know. Be …”

  * * * *

  There was a roar of confusion outside. A blasting of guns, a shrieking of Ul-Ul-Ul-Allah Akbar!

  Crawford came to his feet unhappily. “Another contingent of Tuareg,” he said. “I’ll have to give them a quick welcoming to the colors speech.”

  The guns outside continued their booming.

  “Confound it,” he growled, “I wish I could break them of that habit of blasting away their ammunition. They’ll have better targets before the week is out.”

  He pushed open the tent flap and, followed by Isobel and Cliff, emerged into the stretch of clearing between his tents and the hovercraft, and the growing Tuareg encampment. His diagnosis had been correct. A contingent of possibly two score Tuareg camelmen had come a-galloping up, shaking rifles above their heads in a small scale gymhana, or fantasia as the Moors called them.

  “At least it’s a larger group than usual,” Cliff said from behind. “But at this rate, it’ll still take a month for us to equal the Arab Legion in Tamanrasset.” He added in disgust, “And look at this bunch of ragamuffins. Half of them are carrying muzzleloaders.”

  The booming muskets and the cracking rifles suddenly began to fall off in intensity and the camelmen and the hordes of Tuareg women and naked children who had swarmed from the tents to greet them were falling silent. Here and there a hand pointed upward.

  Homer, Cliff and Isobel swung their own eyes up to the sky in dreaded anticipation. The hover-lorry was camouflaged to blend in with the sands and rock outcroppings of this area, but it was possible that an aircraft might have determined that this was El Hassan’s base, possibly through some act of a traitor, in which case …

  They found the spot in the sky that the tribesmen were pointing out. It seemed to move slowly for a military craft, but for that matter it might be a helio-jet and considerably more dangerous, so far as they being spotted was concerned, than a fast moving fighter.

  * * * *

  Guémama, was barking to his men to take cover. Two days before Crawford had checked out several of the more bright-eyed on the flac rifle and now three of them ran to where it was set up at a high point.

  But hardly had the confused milling got under way than it fell off again. Movement stopped, and the Tuareg faced the approaching dot in the sky.

  “Djinn…!”

  “Afrit…!”

  Cliff had darted back into the tent, now he emerged with binoculars.

  “What the devil is it?” Crawford snapped. Desert trained eyes were evidently considerably more effective than his own. He couldn’t see what the tribesmen were gaping at.

  “It’s the smallest heliohopper I’ve ever seen,” Cliff snorted. “It’s so small practically all you can see are the rotors and the passenger. He doesn’t even look as though he’s got a seat.”

  Guémama came hurrying up, his eyes wide beneath his teguelmoust. “El Hassan! A witchman…come out of the sky!”

  Homer said evenly, “It is nothing. Only post men ready to obey my commands.”

  Guémama hesitated as though to waver out another protest, but then spun and hurried off—military-like, glad to hav
e an order to obey to keep his mind from the impossible.

  “I’m beginning to have a sneaking suspicion—” Crawford began without finishing. “Come on Isobel, Cliff. We’re going to have to make the most of this.”

  * * * *

  Rex Donaldson, ex-field man for the African Department of the British Commonwealth, dropped the lift lever of his heliohopper and settled to the ground immediately before Homer Crawford who stood there flanked by Isobel Cunningham and Cliff Jackson. Further back and in the form of a crescent were possibly two or three hundred Tuareg of all ages and both sexes.

  Donaldson, in the garb of a Dogan juju man consisting of little more than a wisp of cloth about his loins, played it straight, not knowing the setup. On the face of it, he had just flown out of the sky personally. The size of his equipment so small as to be all but meaningless.

  He unstrapped himself from the thin, bicyclelike seat, and, expressionlessly, folded the rotors of his tiny craft back over themselves and the engine, collapsed the whole thing into a manageable packet of some seventy-five pounds, the seat now becoming a handle, and then turned and faced Crawford.

  Donaldson screwed his wizened face into an expression of respect and made a motion of obeisance. Then he waited.

  Isobel said, “El Hassan bids you speak.”

  That was the tip-off, then. Crawford had already revealed himself to these people as El Hassan. Very well.

  Donaldson spoke in Arabic, not knowing the Tamaheq tongue. “Aselamu, Aleikum, El Hassan. I come to obey your wishes.”

  A sigh had gone through the Tuareg. “Aiiiii.” Wallahi, even the djinn obeyed El Hassan!

  With dignity, Homer Crawford said, “Keif halak, all in my house is yours.”

  Rex Donaldson inclined his small bent body again, in respect.

  Crawford said in English, “Let’s not carry this too far. Come on into the tent.”

  Ignoring the Tuareg, who still gaped but held their distance, the four English-speaking Negroes headed for the larger of the two tents that had been set up for El Hassan.

  As they passed Guémama who stood slightly aside from the other Tuareg with his uncle Melchizedek, the Amenokal, Crawford nodded and said, speaking to them both. “A messenger from my people to the south. Continue with your newly arrived warriors, O Guémama.”