by Carl Sargent
With a couple of hours to kill, he checked through his own fake cards and chose the best of them. He also carefully packed the platinum credsticks and a fistful of high-denomination bills into a hidden briefcase compartment.
They'd be discovered by customs, of course, and he would go through the ritual of smiling and greasing the palms of the pleased Azanians who would pretend that there was something illegal about importing credit or notes. After checking once more to see that he’d packed everything he might need, he called for a cab and waited.
* * *
New Hlobane International wasn’t what Serrin had expected. He had vague memories of Johannesburg as a grimy, depressingiy Americanized city with atrocious poverty in its satellite towns and enough crime to make New Yorkers feel at home. But the Zulu airport, the drive to the city through suburbia, and the rising skyline of New Hlobane itself had a quite different air. Pietermaritzburg, as it had been known before the Zulu people renamed it and made it their capital in the accords of 2039, even seemed to have chromed industrial plants ringing it. The country was rich, that much was clear; and if there were pockets of poverty, they were damn well hidden. The impression of elegance and style he’d gotten at the airport was strengthened by the sight of the spacious boulevards of the capital city.
“This is amazing,” he muttered to Michael. “So much for stereotypes of underdeveloped nations.”
“Second highest per capita income on the continent,” Michael said matter-of-factly. “Tourism is a huge industry, because it’s safe here. No bandits and poachers to shoot you out on safari. They’ve got coalfields the size of Nebraska to the north, and the King owns half of PWV into the bargain. They’ve invested their money well. You’ll find a surprising number of Swiss banks with branches here, and not just in New Hlobane either.”
“PWV?” Serrin couldn’t remember what the acronym stood for.
“Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal. The big industrial plex. Pay attention! I thought you’d been here before. It’s only the administrative and judicial capital of the Confederated Azanian Nations, after all. It’s the one thing that holds them all together, the Cape Republic, Zulu Nation, Oranje-Vrystaat, the Trans-Swazi Federation. No one was prepared to give up the PWV to anyone else.”
“Sorry,” Serrin apologized vaguely. He was too busy taking in the lobby of the Imperial after the cab ride from the airport. “Is this just the tourist stuff?” He was impressed. The wall hangings, tapestries, and batik-like prints looked good enough to be worth a lot of nuyen. “Mostly,” Michael said. “Any animal skin is fake, of course. The Zulu Nation is very tough on that one. Poaching carries an automatic death sentence. Being out in the wilds with an unlicensed weapon gets you a minimum twenty years. Death, if they reckon it’s a hunting weapon. One of the little quirks around here is that it’s less dangerous to have an assault cannon in the bush than to have a grotty little rifle, at least as far as the law is concerned. Heavy weaponry ruins the skins.”
“What about rhinos? Aren’t they hunted for their horns?” Serrin asked.
“Where’ve you been for the last thirty years? The only rhinos alive are in zoos, term,” Michael replied. “Or on disk.”
He ambled over to the reception desk. Kristen almost had to be dragged along with Serrin, having already received some distinctly hostile looks.
“Thank you so much,” Michael enthused as he took the key cards for the rooms, “it’s so good to be here. The coach is at ten o’clock tomorrow? Excellent. You’re so efficient. Thank you again.”
“Pass the sick bag,” Serrin muttered as they headed for the elevators.
Michael gave him a sardonic smile. “We’re tourists, remember? Behave like one. Divide your IQ by your boot size and just act unnatural.”
“Kristen’s a tourist?” Serrin asked. It didn’t seem terribly plausible, somehow.
“Well, sort of,” Michael said as the elevator doors swished open. “You haven’t checked all the IDs, I see.”
“What do you mean?” Serrin said suspiciously.
“She’s a distant cousin, old boy. That’s what her ID says. It was my idea,” Michael replied smoothly. “What?” The elf was flummoxed.
“It was the logical thing to do. What better reason for a Cape Town girl to be accompanying a bunch of foreigners. Anything else would look suspicious. I’m afraid one of my male relatives, some licentious old rake or other, must have enjoyed a brief dalliance in the Cape at some time and now I am overjoyed to have discovered my long-lost relative,” Michael grinned.
“It’s all right,” Kristen assured the frowning elf. “He asked my permission to do it.”
“Look on the bright side, old boy. If you weren’t an elf I’d have had her down as your daughter,” Michael sniggered. Avoiding the elf’s swat at his head, he ducked out the elevator doors as they opened to deposit the little group on the fifteenth floor.
“I’ve got to go catch up on some research. See you later,” Michael said as he set off along the carpeted corridor.
“I wanted to ask you something about that,” Serrin called after him. “I wondered—that is, Tom and I had a word—I wondered if we, that is you, could identify the other people who might be possible targets. Those with the right genetic makeup.”
Michael opened his mouth to begin a reply, and then sighed. “Sure, there must be people I haven’t come up with yet. There’s a good reason I can’t do that now. If I tried to get into the medical databases of every country on the globe, someone would eventually sit up and take notice. So far, I’ve only checked those on Kristen’s list and those from the countries with flights into JFK around the time of Serrin’s departure. Which leaves about eighty-five percent of the planet unaccounted for.
“Someone is going to start hearing alarm bells if I set my frames to doing everything. And what if it turned out to be the person we’re looking for? We don’t want him to find us first." Michael sliced a finger across his throat, melodramatically but not without some impact. “Sorry, chummers. What feels right may not be the smartest thing to do.” He didn’t wait for a rejoinder, but slotted his key card into the door and vanished into his room.
“I guess he’s got a point,” Serrin sighed. The troll looked darkly at him and mumbled something inaudible before stomping off to his own quarters.
Kristen looked uncertain, not sure what to do with the little plastic card. Serrin showed her how to use it, realizing that staying in a hotel was another thing she’d never done before.
“It’s automatic. Just slide the thing in. It has your identity and a code number on it,” he said as the door hummed back and the card popped back out of the slot. “Go ahead and enjoy yourself here. Drink the bar dry if you want to. You don’t have to pay.” Then he began limping down the hall to his own room. “See you for dinner. Just knock if you want anything.”
Five minutes later, there was a soft tapping on the door. Serrin left the trid news service flickering on the screen and opened it to let the puzzled-looking girl in.
“Can I talk to you?” she said, parking herself on the huge bed in a way that said she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Looking at her, he was struck by the fact that she was barefoot, her toes curled up, pink soles contrasting with the polished brown of the upper sides of her feet. It was an incongruous perception. But then Serrin always tended to see details when he wanted to avoid the big picture.
“I don’t really understand what’s going on,” she said. Serrin shrugged. “I wish I could say that I do,” he told her. “I’ve been trying to figure out how a bungled kidnapping got me halfway round the world inside less than a week. All I wanted to do was some quiet research in a library somewhere—and now all this.”
“Why did you bring me with you? What use can I possibly be? I never expected to see you anyway. Why didn’t you just up and leave without me?”
The directness of the questions hurt. The elf was acutely aware that a life like hers was eminently disposable. Street kids disappeared every day, in
London, Cape Town, Rio, Seattle, any city you could name. No one cared about them, or their fate. The best chance of survival often came with gang membership, but that usually ended up with the kid dead or maimed in a stabbing or a shootout anyway.
“It just didn’t feel like the right thing to do,” he said lamely, preferring not to think about his own experience of losing his parents at a young age. It wasn’t just the usual disappointment and hurt of goodbyes. There was a lot more to it than that, but he’d never delved much into that whole bundle of confused and powerful emotions. “Why didn’t you ask me in right away?” Kristen said, stretching out a little on the bed. He didn’t understand what she meant.
“You haven’t made a pass at me,” she said coolly.
The elf hesitated. He knew that if he said the wrong thing, it could ruin everything. He decided to wait until he had more of a clue about what she wanted him to say.
“Should I have?” he asked.
“Everyone else does. You’re rich, you wear fine clothes, you stay in hotels. Your face was on the cover of a magazine. When people like you come dockside, there’s only one reason. Usually.”
He wasn’t sure whether there was any hostility lurking in all this. He was very uncomfortable, aware that despite his greater age and experience of the world he was suddenly at a major disadvantage. Trying to buy some time, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. To his surprise, he managed an immaculate smoke ring with the final stages of the exhalation. He sat down beside her.
“I don’t know about everyone else. It’s not that you aren’t pretty. It’s just that I got burned recently,” he said, and then told her about what had happened with Julia Richards. He felt somewhat relieved. It was getting him off the hook.
“But it’s not just that,” he blurted out. “I don’t know, I really don’t. I feel like I’ve known you a long time, which is just plain crazy. And I don’t mean that you remind me of someone else.” It flashed through his mind that in some way that wasn’t quite true, but he was too confused and uncertain to say that. “I care for you, but it isn’t sexual. Somehow. Oh, spirits, I don’t know.”
He gave up on it and sat with elbows on his knees, balled fists on either side of his chin, looking down. Then he smiled and turned to her.
“But you do have the cutest feet,” he laughed, trying to break the tension somehow. She chuckled, letting her toes play with the carpet. She got up, stood before him, and grabbed his forearms with her hands.
“Let’s go dancing,” she cried, taking Serrin utterly by surprise.
“What? In the middle of the afternoon? Hell, I can’t dance. I've got a shot-up leg, Kristen.”
Her grip tightened. “Let’s just do it,” she begged.
“Oh, what the frag,” he said, smiling broadly. “Let’s go dancing.” She took him by the hand and led him through the door.
* * *
“I had a word with one of the tour people,” Michael said quietly to Tom as they sat at the lace-covered table. “Gave them a few bucks. We’ll be able to get into the less, er, authorized places. I didn’t want to mention any names, just told him we were looking for some authentic shamanism, not just the tourist stuff. Of course, he’ll think that we just want the next-to-tourist stuff rather than the real thing. But it gives us a start. I’ll drop this Shakala’s name later and see what reaction I get.”
“Hmmm,” the troll replied. He knew Michael was making an effort to keep him involved, keeping him up on everything that was going on. But Tom felt almost superfluous. He was here as Serrin’s bodyguard, but still hadn’t needed to raise so much as a fist. Michael seemed to be doing everything that needed doing. Not that he’d have expected someone with such an obsession for control to be any other way.
He looked around toward the doorway, saw Kristen and Serrin coming in behind a liveried waiter struggling with an indecently large soup tureen. As soon as the limping elf came into view, he noticed something different. From this distance there was no way Tom could have seen the details, but he sensed them anyway. The lines around Serrin’s eyes were less strained, the tremor in his hands virtually gone. Though he was limping a little more than usual, he seemed almost, well, carefree.
Kristen and Serrin came up to the table, sharing some whispered words that left them both smiling. Serrin made to pull out a chair for her to sit, but she gave him a reproachful look and he left her to it, sitting down opposite her.
“Have a good time?” Michael asked innocently.
Serrin looked sheepish and told him what they’d been doing.
“You should have told me. I’d have lent you a tux,” Michael smiled.
“No need, old boy,” Serrin mocked him. “The waltz isn’t the favored dance around here, I don’t think I’d look good in one anyway.”
“You’ll see how you look in khaki tomorrow. For all the technology of this wonderful century, nothing has replaced it for trekking in heat,” Michael replied. “Now, let’s eat. Apart from the pumpkin, which is habitually boiled into submission, everything looks good. Oh, avoid the farmed hippo. Texture of old boots and it tastes greasy and fishy.”
“But is the crocodile as good as Louisiana gator?” Serrin asked.
* * *
About the time his quarry was turning in for the night, Magellan landed in Cape Town, where it took only a couple of hours on the street to find out what they’d been up to. They’d flashed in, picked up some street girl, and taken off again. Magellan hardly needed to inquire where, though he checked with the airport just in case. Then the Tir elf booked a room for the night in a suitable anonymous airport hotel, needing to snatch a few hours of sleep before his own fight to the Zulu Nation. Serrin was getting warmer now, and if he got to the Babanango plant, he might get too close to the truth.
What will he do with it, though? Magellan wondered.
I don’t want to kill him, not one of my own blood. And the decker, he’s too smart to be fooled and lied to. Spirits, the decker just might be good enough to make the trace, to find out who owns the plant, and then he’s just one little step away from the heart of it all. Luther will destroy him first, but that’s not what worries me. if he finds out the truth, he’ll make sure that everything he knows will automatically be relayed to someone else in case anything happens to him. He’s got some friends who can cause real trouble. Damn, maybe he’s even told someone already. The English lord? That journalist who splashed the elf all over Newsweek? No, not yet, surely. He isn’t certain enough. One thing I can be sure about is that he’s overcautious. He’ll want to know more before he blows the whistle.
Fretting, Magellan tried to sleep in the early hours, but his brain buzzing with plans and schemes kept him awake almost until dawn. He overslept and missed his flight, cursing himself for not requesting a wakeup call. Then he remembered the one person in the Zulu Nation who owed him a favor. He made the call from the airport. It was only a contingency, might not be necessary after all, but the price was fair and a pack of Zulu samurai were always useful. Maybe his earlier idea would turn out to be the correct one after all.
Feeling a lot better, he picked up his tickets and made for the departure gate.
18
Serrin tottered off the plane at Nkandia feeling very groggy. Mistakenly, he’d thought the luxurious coach had arrived at the Imperial to take them to the Umfolozi reserve, but all it did was deposit them back at the airport. The plane, which made the 777 they’d flown in earlier seem like the height of luxury and safety, wasn’t any make Serrin recognized, and had little better than bucket seats inside. The flight was less than sixty miles, but it might have been to Mars for how long it seemed. Serrin had never heard of clear air turbulence before, and suspected it was an invention to disguise the fact that the plane was in the process of falling apart. He only barely managed to retain the contents of his stomach during the trip. Michael had told them they were going to one of the less popular, more out-of-the-way campsites, but he hadn’t expected the transport to be quite so awf
ul.
Michael was appallingly unflappable, resplendent in khaki shorts, shirt, walking boots, and a pith helmet. With his thin white legs and knobby knees, he looked the perfect English tourist. The zinc cream smeared over his nose and lips, added to a generous dosing of lighter sun block over every inch of exposed flesh, looked more than faintly ridiculous. He was clearly loving every minute of it.
“If you haven’t sprayed yourself with repellent, now’s the time to do it,” he said cheerfully, squinting through his shades along the red-brown dirt strip that passed for Nkandla’s runway. “And don’t forget to spray that talc inside your underwear. Sweat chafing can take off a layer of skin in hours out here, even in dry heat. And Tom, even though you’re a troll, in this climate you need sun block. Really. Trust me.”
Tom grunted and hurriedly attempted to extract some of the cream from his plastic bottle as the jeeps roared into sight in a great cloud of dust. He managed to deposit roughly three-quarters of its contents into his huge hands and began busily smearing himself. The heat of the brilliant yellow sun was intense enough for him to feel even through a skin thicker than anyone else’s around, black or white.
Serrin looked around at the handful of other people along for the safari. Most of them, he was pleased to see, looked as absurd in shorts as he might have if he hadn’t opted for long khaki pants instead. Two Americans, a trio of dumpling-shaped Germans, and a pair of Japanese; the standard mix. Only Kristen looked as if she was at home here, neither uncomfortable nor out of place. The half-dozen tour guides pointedly avoided speaking to her, though they were short on conversation anyway. Ruanmi, the leader of the group, was the one who’d done almost all the talking, but most of what he had to say consisted of the standard warnings and reminders to sign the usual disclaimer forms.
