"Well," I said, "at least he isn't going to take the poor animal with him."
Hassanein turned to glare at me. All his usual good humor had been burned away. His expression was hard and perhaps a little vindictive.
We urged our camels to their highest speed, and rode down out of the high dunes like a Bedu raiding party. When we were only fifty yards from Nasheeb, he turned to look at us. His face held no fear or anger, but only a kind of immense sadness. He raised an arm and gestured toward us. I didn't know what it meant. Then he turned and ran toward the bright crust of Umm as-Samim.
"Nasheeb!" cried Hassanein in despair. "Wait! Return with us to the Bani Salim, where at least you may be forgiven before I must execute you! Isn't it better to die in the bosom of your tribe, than out here in this desolate place, all alone?"
Nasheeb didn't acknowledge his brother's words. We'd almost caught up with him as he took his first hesitant step onto the sand-covered crust.
"Nasheeb!" shouted Hassanein. This time the murderer did turn around. He touched his chest above the heartbeat, brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them, then touched his forehead.
Finally, after what seemed like the longest moment in the history of the world, he turned again and took a few more steps across the crusted alkaline surface.
"Maybe he'll—" My words were silenced by Nasheeb's cry of utter hopelessness, as his next step broke through the crust, and he fell helplessly into the marshy lake below. His head reappeared briefly, but he was thrashing about helplessly. Knowing how to swim is not high in the list of the Bani Salim's necessary survival skills.
"In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful," wailed Hassanein. "May the blessings of Allah be on him and peace."
"I testify that there is no god but God," I said, almost as shaken as my companion. I closed my eyes, even though there was nothing to see now but the small hole Nasheeb had broken in the salt crust. There was never any other sign of him. He'd died very quickly.
There was nothing else to do here, and the harshness of the environment dictated that we had to find the rest of the tribe at Mughshin as quickly as possible. Hassanein understood that truth better than I did, and so without speaking another word he dismounted and took the head rope of Nasheeb's camel, leading it across the whistling sand to his own mount. If there was grieving to be done, the shaykh would do it quietly, as we lurched our way to the southwest.
I don't recall sharing a single word with Hassanein during the remainder of that day. He pushed our little party to the utmost, and we rode for an hour or two after night fell, stopping only to pray at sunset. The shaykh explained the situation tersely. "The southern part of the Sands is hungry now," he said. "There is little water and little grazing for the camels. This part of the desert is going through a drought."
Well, hell, I was about to ask him how a place as dry as the Empty Quarter could have a drought. I mean, how could you tell? You could probably hold the entire annual rainfall for the region in a ten-ounce tumbler. I could see that Hassanein was not yet in a mood for talking, so I kept my peace.
About two hours after we'd made camp, eaten our meager dinner, and spread our blankets near the fire, we were joined by Hilal and bin Sharif. I was cheered to see them, although the recent events hung over this small reunion like the fear of God.
The two newcomers prepared their places near the fire. "We could see you and Nasheeb from a long way," said Hilal. "As soon as we saw you leave the edge of Umm as-Samim, we realized that Nasheeb must have killed himself. Then we angled across the Sands to intercept you. We would've met you sooner, but you must have kept up an exhausting pace."
"I don't wish to spend any more time here than necessary," said Hassanein in a grim voice. "Our food and water—"
"Is sufficient, I think," said bin Sharif. "You just want to leave what happened behind."
The shaykh stared at him for a long moment. "Are you judging me, Suleiman bin Sharif?" he asked in the fiercest of voices.
"Yaa salaam, I wouldn't dare," said the young man.
"Then spread your blanket and get some sleep. We have a long way to travel in the morning."
"As you say, O Shaykh," said Hilal. In a few minutes, we were all dreaming beneath the cold, black sky of the Rub al-Khali.
The next morning, we broke camp and started off across the desert, with no track to guide us but Hassanein's memory. We traveled for days like that, no one but Hassanein speaking, and he wouldn't utter a word unless it was necessary: "Time to pray!" or "Stop here!" or "Enough for today!" Otherwise, I had plenty of time for introspection, and believe me, I used it all. I'd come to the conclusion that not only had my time among the Bani Salim changed me, but when I got back—not if I got back—to the city, some drastic changes in my behavior were in order. I'd always been fiercely independent, yet somehow I'd come to desire the approval of this rough clan and its taciturn leader.
Finally, we'd traveled so far, over so many days, that thoughts of the city faded from my mind. I thought only of getting safely to another town, another Bedu village on the southern edge of the Sands. And therefore I was immensely happy when Hassanein stopped us and pointed to the horizon, slightly south of southwest. "The mountains," he announced.
I looked. I didn't see any mountains.
"These are the last miles of the Sands. We are in Ghanim now."
Sure, O Shaykh, if you think so. Nothing looked any different at all to me. But we turned a little to the south, and soon we found the centuries-old path worn from Khaba well to Mughshin on the far side of the Qarra Mountains. Mughshin was our goal, where we'd meet the rest of the tribe. The Bani Salim talked about Mughshin as if it were a treasure house of wonders, as if it were Singapore or Edo or New York. I'd already told myself that I'd withhold judgment until I had a chance to wander its alleys myself.
In another two or three days' travel the terrain began to rise, and I no longer doubted that the shaykh knew where he was going. At the base of the mountains that separated us from the seacoast was Mughshin. I'd imagined the place completely, from the stories of my companions, so I wasn't prepared for the shock of the truth. Mughshin consisted of fifty or sixty tents—commercial, European-made tents—strewn across a broad plain so that each occupant had sufficient privacy. A strong, gritty wind blew across the village, and no one was in sight.
Bin Sharif and Hilal were overjoyed to see the village come into view, and they stood on the backs of their camels, waved their rifles, and shouted the conventional pious phrases. "Go," said Hassanein, "and see if our tribe is there. Our usual camping ground looks empty."
"We may well have beaten them here," said bin Sharif. "We can travel faster than the slow procession of the Bani Salim."
The shaykh nodded. "And then we'll abide here until they arrive."
Hilal knelt in his saddle and shouted something I didn't understand. Then he prodded his camel into high gear, followed closely by bin Sharif.
Hassanein pointed toward the village. "Is your city greater than even this?" he asked.
That startled me. I stared at the handful of green and gray tents. "In some ways, yes," I said. "In some ways, definitely no."
The shaykh grunted. The time for talking had ended. He kicked up his camel, and I followed at a moderate pace. I began to feel a great sense of victory, in that I'd survived in this extremely low-tech environment. My skull-amping had been of very little use since my rescue by the Bani Salim; I'd even tried to stop using the pain, hunger, and thirst blockers, because I wanted to prove to myself that I could bear everything that the unmodified Bedu could.
Of course, I wasn't nearly as disciplined as they were. Whenever the pain, hunger, or thirst grew too great, I retreated thankfully behind the numb shield of my intracranial software. There was no point in overdoing anything, especially if only pride was at stake. Pride seemed too expensive in the Sands.
It was true that the Bani Salim had not yet arrived. Shaykh Hassanein led us to the tribe's usual stopping place,
and we pitched a temporary, shelterless camp. How I stared longingly at the permanent tents! I'd have given a lot of money to rent one for myself, because the wind was chill and it carried a full weight of sand in its teeth. An earlier version of Marid Audran would've said, "To hell with this!" and gone to rest within one of the tents. Now it was only my pride, my expensive pride, that kept me from abandoning Hassanein and the two young men. I was more concerned with what they'd think of me than with my own comfort. That was something new.
The next day I was very bored. We had nothing to do until the Bani Salim caught up with us. I explored the village, an accomplishment that took little time. I did discover a small souk where the more ambitious of the Mughshin merchants had spread blankets on the ground covered with various items. There was fresh meat and semifresh meat, vegetables, dates and other fruits, and the staples of the Bedu diet: rice and coffee and dried meat and cabbage, carrots, and other vegetables.
I was rather surprised to see one old man who had just seven little squares of plastic on his blanket: daddies brought across the mountains from Salala, imported from who-knows-where. I examined them with great curiosity, wondering what subjects this canny old fellow thought might sell to the few blazebrains who wandered the Rub al-Khali.
There were two Holy Imam daddies, probably the same as that owned by Hassanein; two medical daddies; a daddy programmed with various Arabic dialects spoken in the southern part of Arabia; an outlaw sex manual; and a compendium of shari'a, or religious law. I thought the latter might make a good gift for the shaykh. I asked the old man how much it cost.
"Two hundred fifty rivals," he said, his voice faint and quavery.
"I have no riyals," I admitted, "only kiam." I had almost four hundred kiam that I'd kept hidden from Sergeant al-Bishah in Najran.
The old man gave me a long, shrewd look. "Kiam, eh? All right, one hundred kiam."
It was my turn to stare. "That's ten times what it's worth!" I said.
He just shrugged. "Someday, someone will think it's worth a hundred, and I'll sell it for a hundred. No, no. Because you're a guest in our village, I'll give it to you for ninety."
"I'll give you fifteen for it," I said.
"Go then, see to your companions. I don't need your money. The Almighty Lord will provide for me in my state of want, inshallah. Eighty kiam."
I spread my hands. "I cannot afford such a steep price. I'll give you twenty-five, but that's as high as I can go. Just because I'm a stranger, that doesn't mean I'm rich, you know."
"Seventy-five," he said, without blinking an eye. His bargaining routine was more of a social custom than a true attempt to extort money from me.
This went on for a few more minutes, until I finally bought the legal-advice daddy for forty kiam. The old man bowed to me as if I were some grand shaykh. Of course, from his point of view, I was.
I took the daddy and headed back toward our campsite. Before I'd walked twenty yards, one of the other villagers intercepted me. "Salaam,"he said.
"Alaykum as-salaam," I replied.
"Would you be interested, O Excellent One, in trying out some particularly fine and rare personality modules?"
"Well," I said, curious, "maybe."
"We've got some so . . . unusual that you won't find their like anywhere, not in Najran or across the mountains in Salala."
I gave him a patient smile. I didn't come from some near-barbarous town like Najran or Salala. I thought I'd tested out some of the strangest and most perverted moddies in the world. Still, I was interested in seeing what this tall, thin camel jockey had by way of merchandise. "Yes," I said, "show them to me."
The man was very nervous, as if he were afraid someone might overhear us. "I could have my hand cut off for showing you the kind of moddies we sell. However, if you go in without any money, it will protect us both."
I didn't quite understand. "What do I do with my money?"
"The merchant who sold you the daddy has some metal cash boxes, O Shaykh. Give him your money, and he'll put it away safely, give you a receipt, and a key to the cash box. Then you go inside my tent, experiment with our moddies as long as you like. When you've decided to buy or not to buy, we come back and get your money. This way, if someone in authority interrupts the demonstration, we can prove you had no intention of buying, and I had no intention of selling, because you won't have any money on your exalted person."
"How often are your 'demonstrations' interrupted?" I asked.
The Bedu hustler looked at me and blinked a couple of times. "Now and then," he said, "now and then, O Shaykh. It's a hazard of this industry."
"Yes, I know. I know very well."
"Then, O Excellent One, come with me and deliver your money to Ali Muhammad, the old merchant."
I was a little suspicious of the younger man, but the old merchant had struck me as honest in an old-fashioned way.
We walked to his blanket. The younger man said, "Ali Muhammad, this lord desired to inspect our stock of number-one moddies. He's prepared to deposit his money with you."
Ali Muhammad squinted at me. "He's not the police or some other kind of troublemaker?"
"Just in speaking to this noble shaykh," the nervous man said, "I've come to trust him completely. I promise you on the shrines of all the imams that he will make no trouble."
"Eh, well, we'll see," said Ali Muhammad grumpily. "How much cash does he have."
"I know not, O Wise One," said my new friend.
I hesitated a moment, then brought out most of my roll. I didn't want to give him all of it, but both men seemed to know I'd do that.
"You must keep none in your pocket," said Ali Muhammad. "Ten riyals would be enough to earn severe chastisement for all three of us."
I nodded. "Here, then," I said, giving him the remainder of the money. In for a penny, in for a pound, I told myself. Except I was in for a few hundred kiam.
The old merchant disappeared inside a nearby tent. He was gone only two or three minutes. When he returned, he handed me a key and a written receipt. We thanked each other in the conventional manner, and then my fidgety guide led me toward another tent.
Before we'd covered half the distance, he said, "Oh, did you pay the five-kiam deposit on the key, O Shaykh?"
"I don't know," I said. "What deposit? You didn't mention the deposit before."
"I'm truly sorry, my lord, but we can't let you see the mod-dies unless you've paid the deposit. Just five kiam."
A warning chill settled into my belly. I let the skinny weasel read my receipt. "Here," I said.
"There's nothing about the deposit here, O Shaykh," he said. "But it's just five kiam more, and then you can play all day with the moddies of your choice."
I'd been too easily seduced by the idea of X-classification moddies. "Right," I said angrily, "you witnessed me giving every damn kiam I had to your old man. I don't have another five kiam."
"Well, that worries me, O Wise One. I can't show you the moddies without the deposit."
I knew right then I'd been had, that there probably were no moddies. "Right," I said fiercely. "Let's go back and get my money."
"Yes, O Shaykh, if that's what you wish."
I turned and headed back to Ali Muhammad's blanket. He was gone. There was no sign of him. Guarding the entrance to the tent that housed the cash boxes was a gigantic man with a dark, glowering face. I went to him and showed my receipt, and asked to be let in to retrieve my money.
"I cannot let you in unless you pay the five-kiam deposit," he said. He growled more than a human being should, I thought.
I tried threatening, pleading, and promises of a large stipend when Friedlander Bey arrived with the rest of the Bani Salim. Nothing worked. Finally, acknowledging that I'd been out-scammed, I turned to my nervous guide. He was gone, too.
So I was left holding a worthless receipt, a key—which probably holds the world record for Most Expensive Worthless Key—and the knowledge that I'd just been given a lesson in pride. It was a very costly
lesson, but a lesson nonetheless. I knew that Ali Muhammad and his young confederate were probably halfway across the Qarra Mountains already, and as soon as I turned my back on Mr. Bedu Muscles, he'd vanish, too. I began to laugh. This was an anecdote I'd never tell Friedlander Bey. I could claim that someone robbed me one night while I slept. It was virtually the truth.
I just walked away, mocking myself and my lost superiority. Dr. Sadiq Abd ar-Razzaq, who'd condemned us to this horrible place, had actually done me a favor. More than one, as I was stripped of many illusions about myself. I'd come out of the desert a vastly different man from the one I was when I dropped in.
In four or five days the Bani Salim arrived, and there were many loud celebrations and reunions. I confirmed that Friedlander Bey was none the worse for the trek, and he seemed happier and healthier than ever. At one of the celebrations, Shaykh Hassanein embraced me as he would a family member, and formally adopted Friedlander Bey and myself into his clan. We were now full-fledged Bani Salim. I wondered if that would ever come in handy. I gave Hassanein the shar’a daddy, and he was greatly pleased.
The next day, we prepared for our departure. Bin Turki was coming with us, and would guide us across the mountains to the coastal town of Salala. From there we'd book passage aboard the first ship bound for Qishn, about two hundred miles to the west, the nearest city with a suborbital-class airfield.
We were going home.
9
Aboard the suborbital craft Imam Muhammad al-Baqir, the amenities were hardly superior to those on the ship that had flown us to Najran, into exile. We weren't prisoners now, but our fare didn't include a meal or even free drinks. "That's what we get for being stranded at the ends of the Earth," I said. "Next time, we should work to be stranded in a more comfortable place."
Friedlander Bey only nodded; he saw no joke in my statement, as if he foresaw many such kidnappings and strandings to come. His lack of humor was something of a trademark with him. It had raised him from a penniless immigrant to one of the two most influential men in the city. It had also left him with an exaggerated sense of caution. He trusted no one, even after testing people again and again over a period of years. I still wasn't entirely sure that he trusted me.
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