Africa Zero (3 page)

“Do
you think I am responsible?” she asked.

“No,
but you are human.”

Again
she looked at me in confusion. I suppose it was a bit unfair of me. I had all
but forgotten things like aching muscles, blood sugar levels, and a full
bladder. I said to her, “I saw the human race reach its limit, on this planet,
of twelve billion, and the hell that produced. I saw them step into space as a
last resort, before collapse, and save themselves. I watched the space habitats
being built and the bases on the moon. I travelled to Mars and watched Phobos
and Deimos being ignited for the great terraforming project, and I saw the
seed-ships set out for the far stars. Forty or more colonies now thrive at
distances from us that are unimaginable and Earth has become a backwater. I say
to you that the nigh immortality of the human race is assured. But I ask you:
is that the limit of our responsibility? That we survive? No. I say no. I say
that as survival becomes much more easy for us we should take on responsibility
for others not of our genome.”

“The
mammoth,” said Jethro Susan, standing up, then, “I need a piss.” And she
wandered into the jungle leaving me sitting there embarrassed by my pomposity.
Shortly she returned.

“You
know, that’s really easy for you to say. For everyone it is their own survival
which is of most importance. You, of course, can take this moral high ground
because survival for you is so easy.”

She
had me there. There was no getting away from it. I could have stood up then and
gone my way and done what I had to do and in a century or so she would have
been so much decaying matter. Then, for reasons other than my purported morals,
I decided I wanted her as a companion. I saw that here was a woman who might
counter the greatest threat to my life, which was boredom.

Jethro
Susan breakfasted on cold mammoth meat while I looked on. When she was finished
she took up her pack and looked at me in readiness.

“We
follow the trails of the herds south to the plains,” I said, standing also and
taking up my pack.

* * *

And
so we set out, with me leading the way, pushing through the jungle until we
crossed a mammoth trail as wide as a three-lane motorway, where the chewed
remains of cycads littered the crushed vines, and where hundredweight piles of
dung swarmed with busy scarab beetles. We left the Pykani dozing in the trees,
but that night they came to speak with me and play a game with red seeds on a
gridwork board while Jethro Susan slept. As we played and talked I wondered how
rationalized my reasons were for allowing her along and what the Pykani thought
of my delaying for her. That night I asked Spitfire.

“It
is our wish-that you keep Jethro Susan with you.”

I
was surprised, though I should not have been, obviously there was some sort of
bond here. I waited. Spitfire continued. “She is sworn to the herd and we have
braided debt with her. We wish her the opportunity to repay.”

“Only
those who partake of the sustenance can be sworn to the herd. She drinks
blood?”

“It
is so. We saw her when she had left JMCC. She was being hunted by the GAV
himself and had not time to hunt for herself. She ran far and craftily while we
watched and nearly killed the GAV with her rifle. He gave up on her for easier
prey to the east. She could barely walk by then, but she still had her rifle,
and then she came upon one of the little Thunderers.”

Hurricane
took up the dialogue. “She raised her rifle and we were ready to fall on her,
but she did not shoot. She lowered her rifle and told the little one to go in
peace. Then she collapsed.”

I
nodded—so and thus, at the edge of starvation she had refused to kill one of
the baby mammoth for meat. I wondered why. In such a situation I would have
killed, but the point was moot.

“We
came to her then and she was as weak as a fledgling. We gave her the
fledgling’s drink. The blood of Thunderers restored her.”

I
winced at that: regurgitated blood.

“Hence
her swearing to the herd,” I said. I looked to where she lay. She was awake, I
could tell, but she did not move. “How did the debt become braided?”

“Twice
now she has led corporate hunts astray. Once she killed one of her own to
prevent him killing. And we saved her from pursuit by driving an old bull to
stamp a JMCC ground car.”

I
smiled and wondered just how long she had been with the Pykani. I had seen
stranger matches.

* * *

On
our third night-time stop Spitfire and her father flew in with news for us just
as Jethro Susan was bedding herself down. They swept in, to land in a small
clearing next to the one we had made for the fire, and with their eyes averted,
they approached. I gathered it was their intention to be off again, else they would
have been more sociable. But they were nocturnal by nature and did not want to
ruin their night vision with the light of the fire.

“What
is it?” I asked, expecting news of more dead mammoth.

“The
herds move to the east,” said Spitfire.

I
waited.

Her
father said, “In the east there are large cycads and by going there they miss
difficult terrain. It has always been so.”

“We’ll
follow their trail, as we have been.”

Spitfire
shook her head regretfully. “In a few days they will turn to the west again
then resume their course to the south.”

I
began to entertain a nasty suspicion. “This difficult terrain they are
avoiding. Would it have a name by any chance?”

Spitfire
and her father looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. It
was Jethro Susan who spoke.

“Z’gora.”
She said it like a curse.

The
name was familiar.

“Z’gora
. . . Z’gora ...” Then I remembered. “The Zag people. They’re the ones with
some unusual pets. I got a sample there about fifty years ago. Don’t they have
some nasty habits?”

Spitfire
and her father made quick warding gestures.

Jethro
Susan said, “If we went through Z’gora we could make up a day, perhaps more...”

I
looked at her. “I know I should not ask this, but are you up to it?”

She
snorted contemptuously and tapped the side of her rifle. “I’ve been through
there before. They’re easy enough to handle. You just don’t let them get too
close.”

“Very
well then. We go through Z’gora.”

Spitfire
and her father moved away from the fire and took off into the night.

“When
will we get there?” I asked.

“Midday
tomorrow,” said Jethro Susan, and rolled herself up in her blanket.

I
sat through the rest of the night with the patience of a machine.

* * *

In
the morning Jethro Susan climbed an ambatch tree to take sightings back from
the Atlas Mountains, and from some mountains she said should be to the
southeast of us. Once she had scrambled back to the ground again she looked at
her compass and pointed to a wall of jungle to our right.

“That
way,” she said, then removed her pack and dropped it on the ground. I wondered
what she was doing for a moment until she removed a formidable looking panga.

“You
carry my pack. I’ll start.”

I
let her lead on. I picked up her pack and followed. She was being foolish, and
I think perhaps she realised this, but she was a stubborn woman with a point to
prove. She started on the wall of jungle as if it had offered her personal
affront. For two hours she hacked a path for us before she started to show any
signs of slowing. Of course it was not her arm that was tiring, but the rest of
her musculature—the part of her that was flesh. I let her go at it for another
hour before I called a halt.

“Okay,
I’ll take over now,” I said.

Jethro
Susan turned and looked at me as if suspecting me of sarcasm. There was none to
find. I took the panga from her and handed her our packs. I tried not to let
the next few hours look easy for me, but I guess what gave it away was my lack
of sweat. When we broke through into thinner growth we could push through I
handed her panga back and congratulated her on its keenness. She accepted it
with a look of annoyance and threw my pack at me. I caught it and put it on.

At
midday we had not reached Z’gora as predicted and we halted so Jethro Susan
could rest. I took the opportunity to do some scouting. We were close to the
Zag peoples and some of them might be about.

“I’m
just going for a look around.”

Jethro
Susan rubbed at her shoulder and nodded acquiescence. I left my pack by her and
moved off into the jungle as quietly as I could. It is surprising how quietly
you can move when you have accumulated decades of experience, and when there
are no fatigue poisons in you, and no lungs. I circled our stopping place
looking for signs of movement. Like Jethro Susan I climbed a couple of trees.
As I crept back I saw Jethro Susan sitting on a log rummaging through her pack.
I moved very quietly, not for her sake, but for the man decked out in feathers
and dyed hyrax skins who was creeping up behind her.

I
got to about three feet behind him when he was the same distance behind her. He
raised a wooden spike with a suspicious-looking green tarry substance on it. I
tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse
me.”

He
yelled. Jethro Susan yelled and fell off her log. Annoyed, because he had
passed me without me seeing him, I broke his neck.

“Jesu!”

Jethro
Susan came up from behind the log with leaves in her hair and in her mouth. She
spat them out and looked down at the man. Then she looked at me with annoyance.

“Did
you have to make him yell like that?”

I
could not help it. She had fallen off the log and there she was with leaves in
her hair asking questions like that. I started chuckling. Her look of disbelief
turned that into a laugh. I just stood there and laughed.

“You’re
a monster!” she said.

“Oh
dear,” I said, shaking my head and gradually getting myself under control.
Still grinning I stooped down and picked up the wooden spike the man had been
carrying. Then I drove it into the log in front of her.

“I
remember now,” I said, “that tarry substance is a derivative of curare. It will
leave you paralysed but it won’t kill you. They like to keep their prey fresh.”

Jethro
Susan looked at the spike in horror. I picked up the Zag tribesman by his
broken neck and tossed him up into the forked branch of a nearby acacia. Let
him serve as a warning. Or was I just being melodramatic?

Two
hours of travel across relatively-easy terrain from our rest site and first
encounter with the Zag we came out on an open hill top and looked down on
Z’gora. It had once been a city of the third millennium, only the name had been
different then. It had been called New Babylon in defiance of all that was
Western. To the right of it was a wide flat area on which very little grew.
From there, a thousand years in the past, had been launched the vanguard of the
African space effort. The buildings of the city still stood, but now they were
over-grown with vines and dwelt in by primitives, Jethro Susan and I found a
path down into it and proceeded with caution.

We
were about a hundred metres from the first building when I heard them. I turned
to Jethro Susan.

“Put
your hood up and keep your head low—they’re here.”

She
did as instructed.

“Last
time I came through I let off a couple of shots and they kept away from me,”
she said.

I
said, “The last time I was here I snapped a few necks and they kept away. But
as I well know, people are never predictable. Have you any gloves?”

She
unfurled a glove from a pouch pocket on her sleeve and put it on her hand of
flesh.

“Keep
your head down,” I said as we advanced.

As
we moved down into the city I saw that we might soon be in trouble, or rather,
Jethro Susan might. Trees encroached on the path down there and made adequate
cover for an ambush. I looked around on the ground and found a couple of rocks.

“Put
a couple of shots into those trees—that might deter them,” I said.

Obligingly
Jethro Susan unhitched her rifle and put a shot in the trees each side of the
path. Two concussions blew burning foliage into the air. There was some
shouting and the sound of running feet, then silence. As we drew closer to the
trees I thought it might have worked, then something thudded in the side of my
neck. I reached up and pulled out a feathered thorn just as another bounced off
Jethro Susan’s monofilament hood. I saw movement in the bushes and threw a
rock. There was a soggy thud and a cry of pain. Just then Jethro Susan’s rifle
cracked and there was an explosion above. A feathered man fell out of the trees
with all the aerodynamics of a brick. He hit the path and bounced, a hole where
his chest used to be. I heard running feet, retreating.

“Stragglers,”
I told her.

There
were no more attacks from the trees.

We
entered the city with a degree of caution and stayed at the centre of the
streets. A man showed himself at a window and Jethro Susan loosed another shot.
The explosion lit the inside of a room. There was a horrible creaking, then a
large lump of vine-choked wall fell crashing to the ground. Pieces of stone
bounced past us.

“Save
your shots or we’ll have the lot down on us. Building inspectors would have
nightmares about this place.”

I
noticed that under her hood she was grinning.

Halfway
into the city and with no more shots fired, the natives began to show
themselves. In a doorway we saw a naked child of about four with a huge preying
mantis crouching on his shoulder. He was petting it. Jethro Susan shuddered.

“You
were right about the unusual pets. I never saw them before. I was moving fairly
quickly though.”