Africa Zero (10 page)

Religion
was rearing its ugly head all over the place nowadays. I remember when mammoth
had only been food to the Pykani. The Grey Thunderer was the great grey mammoth
in the sky: clouds, the weather, Earth, God, whatever. And running out of
teeth? That is how the mammoth die, mostly.

“I
do not feel pity. I just feel angry. The Silver One will die for this as for
anything else.”

Abruptly
Spitfire launched herself from the tree and landed by the fire. I was surprised
to see that her eyes were dry.

“For
anger or for vengeance’s sake kill the two Protestanti to the north of here.
Kill them for the mammoth they butchered for a belly full of meat. Hurricane
would prefer that.”

I
stood up. “To the north?” I pointed in what I thought to be the right
direction. Spitfire corrected me. “Only two Protestanti, you’re sure?” Spitfire
nodded. I looked to Kephis. “Shall we go?” After rolling up his blanket he
picked up his assegai, hitched on his Optek and pack, stood, and kicked dirt
over the burning skull. We went.

The
pace I set was much the same as the one I had set for Jethro Susan. In a short
time I noticed Kephis was slowing to stay with me. I increased the pace and his
run became a yard-eating lope. It was difficult to judge if this was easy or
not for him.

“Kephis,
you set the pace.”

He
looked at me, nodded. His yard-eating lope developed a spring that made it look
easier and soon I was running at about twenty kilometres an hour to keep up
with him. I wondered just how fast he could move if he meant it. I was destined
to find out.

As
the sky slowly grew lighter we saw the topaz gleam of a campfire far ahead of
us in a small grove of baobab, acacia trees, and acacia thorn scrub, by
scattering of worn boulders. That they had lit a campfire showed the confidence
they had in their new weapons: misplaced confidence. At a certain distance from
the fire Kephis raised his hand and slowed.

“If
we run in from here they will see us,” he said.

I
had to agree. He had to be a better judge of human vision than me. We dropped
to the ground and began to crawl through the elephant grass. It took a long
time, but eventually we came up behind acacia thorn scrub and were able to view
the figures by the fire.

They
were back in their robes now, though they had not abandoned their new weapons.
One of them lay asleep with a blanket slung across his legs. The other sat
looking into the flames. He had an antiphoton rifle across his legs. He did not
look very alert. I turned to Kephis.

“Simple
arrangement. You kill the guard when I start running towards them. I want the
other one alive.”

Kephis
nodded and began to unhitch his Optek. I looked at it doubtfully and unhitched
my own APW. He shook his head.

“I
know this rifle. With that I might kill them both.” With a gentle push he
clicked the tubular magazine into the Optek, wrapped the strap around his arm
and took aim. Then he nodded to me. The next instant I was on my feet and
running.

I
was through the thorn scrub and halfway to the fire before the guard saw me,
and as soon as he did a hole appeared in the centre of his forehead and the
back of his head opened like a hairy trapdoor. The sleeping Protestanti jerked
awake at the sound of the shot and looked blearily at the mess spattered across
his blanket, then at his friend who lay on his back in the dirt, twitching. By
the time he got the idea, and was reaching for his flaming sword, I was on him
and hoisting him to his feet.

“Oh
God!” he managed as I slapped the shear away.

“No,
not really—most of your brothers think I’m a demon, or the Devil, they can’t
seem to make up their minds,” I said, and holding him by the back of his neck
with my uncovered hand, I looked around.

From
the acacia bushes I had not seen it. I had seen the wooden spits across the
fire, but I had not seen the source of the meat cooked on them. Standing by the
fire now I saw that source. As Kephis came up I dragged the Protestanti over to
the mammoth.

They
had hit the mammoth in the side with the APW, then moved in and sliced it into
pieces with the atomic shear, just as their adopted mistress had done. Thirty
tons of meat, a lake of guts, hundreds of gallons of liver. As Spitfire had
said—they killed it for a belly full of meat. I did not consider this too
blameworthy. What was the point? As far as I was concerned they were already
under a death sentence. I dragged the Protestanti back towards the fire while
Kephis took a bag from his backpack. Obviously he hated waste as much as
Spitfire, but for different reasons.

Back
by the fire I shoved the Protestanti to the ground. He sat there and rubbed the
back of his neck, surreptitiously eyeing the APW and shear where they lay.

“Forget
it,” I said, getting his attention. “You try for them and I’ll break your legs
and arms, and we’ll still talk.”

“You
are supposed to be dead,” he said.

“An
ugly rumour put about by my enemies.”

“What
do you want?” he asked.

He
seemed more reasonable than the last fanatic I had questioned— he had not
called me demon once, so I saw no reason to go heavy on the threats. I picked
up the shear and dropped it in my pack. I picked up the APW and hitched it over
my shoulder next to the other one I had acquired. I would give it to Kephis, or
perhaps to Spitfire, so she could be like her namesake.

“I
want to know where the Silver One has gone.”

“I
want to live.” He looked at me directly. “What are the chances of that happening?”

“Answer
my question and you’ll find out.”

He
snorted. “You have a reputation, Collector, for leaving bodies behind you like
footprints in mud.”

“If
you answer my question I promise I will not kill you.” I was thinking Kephis
could do the job just as well. “If you do not answer the question I will
torture you until you do, then kill you. You have a simple choice to make.”

“I
might lie.”

That
was it. I’d had enough. I reached forward to get hold of his arm and pull him
to his feet.

“RUN!!”
It was Kephis bellowing as he went past me like a projectile. I looked behind
him and saw the reason: a matriarch had found what the Protestanti had done to
one of her family group. She was not happy. I ran.

My
body is nigh indestructible, but a thirty ton mammoth foot-press would do it no
good. In a moment I was atop one of the worn boulders and looking down on the
scene in the grove. Kephis had made it to one of the baobabs and as I watched
he went up it like a gibbon. The matriarch stopped below the tree and looked up
at him, showing the whites of her eyes, then she snorted contemptuously and
turned away. I realised she must have been with the other when it was killed
and have run off. She knew Kephis was not one of the killers, else that baobab
would have been flattened, and Kephis with it. I looked to see what had
happened to the Protestanti and could see him nowhere. The matriarch had an
excellent sense of smell, and on turning immediately charged a patch of thorny
scrub, bringing her tusks down in a scoop. There was a castrato yodelling and
the Protestanti shot ten metres into the air trailing a length of intestine
like a kite string. He hit the ground to one side of the scrub and made feeble
scrabbling motions. She was on him in a moment, and she stamped him into a
slushy puddle. So much for my saving him for questioning.

Kephis
tried to get higher into the baobab when the matriarch came to have another
look at him, which was difficult, as it went no higher. Again she snorted and
turned away. His crime had not been so heinous as the Protestanti’s. She
sniffed the air then, but I was not worried. She was too short-sighted to see
me, and she would not smell me. After a moment she walked over to the body by
the fire and absent-mindedly stepped on it a couple of times. Then she went to
the body of the slaughtered mammoth and began to tear up scrub and the
occasional tree to throw over it. This was just the start of her grieving. I
gave her a decent spell at doing this then I unhitched one of the APWs.

My
first shot blew a smoking crater in the ground just behind her. She trumpeted
and lumbered round, holding an acacia tree above her head. I adjusted the beam
width and cut away half of the tree. She dropped the rest and began to charge
at the baobab, an easy mistake to make. Quickly I upped the power and beam
width and blew a hole in front of her. She stumbled in the smoking crater and
backed off. Two more shots and she was on her way to the east, bellowing as she
charged off through the elephant grass, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.

Kephis
took a long time getting to the ground, when he got there I saw why.

“You’re
shaking, Kephis,” I observed.

“You
play strange games, Collector,” he said.

“There
was no need to kill her,” I said.

He
looked towards the retreating figure. “Perhaps not, from where you were
standing.”

I
allowed myself a grin, then I unhitched one of the APWs and handed it to him.
“There, you can defend yourself, but please try not to kill any mammoth,
unnecessarily.”

“Unnecessarily,
yes... “

He
took the rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

“What...
now?” he asked.

“Now
I guess we continue to head north. That seems to be the direction they were
heading so perhaps the rest went that way. Hopefully tonight Spitfire will turn
up and tell us if we are going wrong. Do you still want to come?”

“I
must kill the Protestanti who killed my friends, or see them dead.”

I
nodded. “There are six more of them and the Silver One apparently.”

As
we started walking he asked, “How do you know this . . . that there are six
more of these devils?”

“I
had a chat with one of them in the river valley then gave him to the resident
crocodile.”

“The
Old Man?”

I
turned and looked at him. “He was an old crocodile.”

“That
is right and just. I wish we could give them all to him.”

“Sipana
told me there were crocodiles downstream. She said nothing about this Old Man.”

“We
do not like to talk of him. He is the spirit of the tribe. He is our icon.”

Religion
again. I asked no more.

We
were walking for perhaps two hours when Kephis pointed out tracks in the dirt.
There I saw the birdlike footprint of my wife. We moved with greater alacrity
then, jogging along at Kephis’s fast pace rather than walking. Following the
trail where we could. It went mostly north.

The
day dragged on and on and still there was no sign of our quarry. A couple of
times I considered abandoning my tall companion, as there was more at stake
here than vengeance, but each time I relented. He might come in fairly handy
when it came to the crunch. At least that is what I told myself. Sometimes I do
not like to look too closely at my motivations. I do not like to be reminded of
how human I am.

At
midday we stopped and I showed Kephis how to roast the mammoth flesh he had
taken with a low setting of his APW. He ate his fill, then paused to drink some
water and smoke a foul-smelling reefer. When he had finished we moved on and
did not stop until darkness. Then we found a suitable tree, built a fire, and I
waited while he slept.

Soon
Spitfire flapped in to land by the fire. She was about to speak, but I put my
finger to my lips and pointed at Kephis, who was snoring gently. I thought it
best to let him have his sleep. He’d gone through a trying day. We walked a
short distance from the fire.

“The
matriarch came,” was the first thing Spitfire said.

“Yes,
and she nearly did for Kephis. I had to drive her away.”

“She
knows you were not the killers. She will forgive you.”

Anthropomorphism
again: a common fault with those who got religion. I wondered where that put me
in the Pykani pantheon. I had, after all, resurrected the mammoth. I am legend,
soon to be deified. That was all I needed.

“Whatever,”
I said. “Have you any news of the other Protestanti... the Silver One?”

Spitfire
shook her head slowly. “I have not seen them. Last night I watched the two who
are now dead. This night I dare not fly too high.
He
is abroad.”

I
did not have to ask who
He
was. The GAV was down from the ice again. I
think it was more of a tradition than a fear, that they left the night sky to
him when he hunted. He had not, as yet, killed any Pykani. Perhaps they wanted
to keep it that way. I nodded my head and looked towards Kephis, who was now
sitting upright. We began to walk back towards the fire.

“In
the morning we’ll continue north. It seems the most likely direction,” I said,
for the benefit of both Spitfire and Kephis. Kephis lay back down. Spitfire
squatted by the fire and it almost seemed as if the light of it showed her
bones, shadowlike, through her flesh. She looked thin and fey to me. I wondered
if the death of Hurricane would be the death of her. I looked thoughtfully to
the flames of the fire.

“You
say the GAV is in the area?” I asked.

Spitfire
nodded. Kephis was abruptly sitting upright again. He was looking up at the
night sky dubiously. I went on.

“Then
perhaps he will pay us a visit, and we can ask him if he has seen anything,” I
said.

Without
a word Kephis stood up and moved closer to the fire, then he sat cross-legged
with his back to it and his APW across his lap. Spitfire looked from him to me
then back into the flames of the fire. She did not seem too bothered.

I
said, “If he comes, Kephis, do not shoot at him unless he attacks you.”

He
just nodded.

It
was an hour, perhaps more, before I saw in infrared the red bat-shape occlude
the stars. He circled us then abruptly dropped for a run. I had seen this sort
of thing many years before. I had seen how a GAV could snatch a man from a camp
before anyone had time to react. This was why I had considered the
Protestanti’s confidence in their weapons to be misplaced. Kephis had not seen
him, I noticed, but Spitfire had. She hunched lower to the ground and watched
him. I stood up and fired into the air with my handgun. The purple flash
ignited the night. The GAV broke off his attack run and continued to circle.