Africa Zero (6 page)

The
acerbic voice of an old woman I had known nine hundred years ago replied, “At
the present time JMCC is unable to manufacture this item. Projections for
retooling put capability reclaimable in one hundred and twenty days.”

“Computer.
Do we have any in stock?”

“There
are two thousand square metres of super-conducting micromesh in storage bay one
three two.”

Canard
had difficulty hiding his surprise.

“Computer.
How long have we had this?”

“Nine-hundred-and-twenty-three
years.”

Canard
sat forwards, his face losing colour, then he shook his head and sat back.

“Computer.
JMCC status as to the handling of human brain bio-gridding.”

“Capability
extant. Present medical facilities have sufficient microsurgical equipment and
flash-freeze tooling.”

Canard
turned to me. “There, it can be done. Now will you tell me who you want it done
to?”

“Jethro
Susan will die of radiation sickness no matter what treatment is given to her.
Before she dies I want her cored and as much of her brain and other nerve
tissue as possible to be flash frozen and bio-gridded.”

Canard
looked perplexed. “Why? All you’ll end up with is an organic machine, and not a
particularly efficient one. You need the  hardware and software to make the
grid mutating if you are to give her life. You also need some fantastically
complex sub-systems which I don’t mind admitting we lost the technology to
manufacture ages ago.”

“I
have all that in hand.”

Canard’s
face went blank for the second time. “Then she will live.”

“After
the fashion of myself.”

Canard
stood up and sauntered to a nearby table. From it he picked up an ornate handgun.
Salamanders writhed in it.

“I
cannot allow that, Collector. I am sorry, but Jethro Susan killed a high status
Jethro and must be punished. I also apologise for this,” he nodded at the gun,
“but I am well aware of your capabilities.”

I
leant back and spoke at the ceiling. “Molly, cut all the power to the JMCC
complex.”

“Yes,
Collector,” came the suddenly eager reply.

The
screens went out, then the lights. We were left in twilight tableau. I adjusted
my vision accordingly.

“Computer.
Restore power to the JMCC complex,” said Canard, and I admired him for his
calm.

“I
am sorry but at the present time I am unable to restore power.”

“Computer.
Why are you unable to restore power?”

“Cardinal
instruction was given to shut down power. I can only restore power by cardinal
instruction.”

Canard
closed his eyes. “We always knew that there was sixty eight percent of the
stock unaccounted for.” He put the gun down and walked away from the table to
another where he picked up a decanter and poured himself a drink.

“Will
you do as I request?” I asked.

“Order,
you mean.”

“If
you like.”

“Yes,
of course I will. We live by certain rules and traditions here and one of those
is that what the prime stock holder says, is. Anyway—” he gestured to the
marble desk, “you could go and sit behind that at any time you liked.”

I
said, “It is not my intention to.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Molly, restore
the power.”

The
lights and screens came on.

Canard
said, “Computer. Convey the general instruction that the Collector’s ... requests
have cardinal status.”

I
stood up. He seemed to be taking this very well. He went on. “We have a very
good man in biotech. I’ll put him onto the bio-gridding operation immediately.
You will want to supervise, I presume?”

I
shook my head. “I’ll be leaving you directly. You have my confidence.” Then a
thought occurred to me. “You do, of course, have a lot to gain. I will be
returning with the requirements for grid mutation and the control sub-systems.
The technology will become accessible to you.”

Canard
smiled. “The thought had never occurred to me.

I
saw then why he was chairman. He was sharp.

I
walked over to the table and picked up the gun. “Mind if I take this along with
me?”

He
shrugged. “You hold the controlling interest in it; you might as well retain
possession.”

I
headed for the lift. As it descended I tried not to think too hard about where
the piece of technology I had referred to would be coming from.

* * *

Out
on the plain night had fallen and the moon with its horns sinister frosted the
grass. For a moment I considered what next to do, then I headed for the nearest
acacia, collected fallen branches, which I started burning with a quick blast
from my newly-acquired gun, and sat down to wait. They were not long in coming.

“We
have found you, Collector,” said Spitfire as she settled on the other side of
my fire.

“Yes,
you have. Have any mammoth been killed on the plains?

“Two
have been killed.” The rate of kill had increased.

“Point
me in the direction of where the last one was killed. It is time for this to be
settled.”

Hurricane
then flapped in to land.

“The
Collector is to settle this,” Spitfire said to him.

He
nodded, looked around, then said, “Where is Jethro Susan?”

“She
is dying of radiation poisoning in the JMCC complex.”

Both
Hurricane and Spitfire made a warding gesture.

“We
had hoped she might...” Spitfire began, then trailed off. She appeared to be
very upset. Hurricane had bowed his head and was swaying from side to side.
Similar body language to that of a grieving mammoth.

“Where
must I go?” I asked.

Spitfire
pointed to the south west.

I
said, “I will be on my way then. Grieve, but not for too long. I may need your
eyes.” And with that I set out through the elephant grass. Or perhaps it should
be called mammoth grass.

My
synthetic skin is as sensitive as living skin, though I have more choice as to
what I feel with it—my pain circuits have not been on in centuries. As I walked
I felt something on my face, and I reached up to find out what it was. My
fingers came away wet. The water I had drunk to supply my sweat glands had
supplied my tear-ducts as well.

I
set out at a pace that ate up twenty kilometres every hour. Two hours after
sunrise I slowed down to allow my joints time to cool; an hour after that I had
to stop to take off my boots and remove the syn-thiflesh covering to my feet.
My boots had received quite a hammering from the grass and sandy soil over the
last few days and though well made they would not stand much more of this sort
of treatment. Cera-mal stood up a lot better and my feet could always be
replated at JMCC. Good boots had been notoriously difficult to get hold of for
a couple of hundred years now and I needed them if I was to keep up a pretence
at humanity with anyone I might meet. My trousers were monofilament. I would
not know they were wearing out until they collapsed into dust right off my
legs.

For
the rest of the day I continued at twenty kilometres per hour. That night the
Pykani found me and brought more news.

“Another
mammoth has been killed near the Kiph. The Kiphani Rainman told us the Silver
One was seen in the valley.”

It
was Spitfire who told me. Hurricane was still at the river Kiph, keeping a
watch on a family group of mammoth there. I altered my direction according to
her instructions and increased my pace. I wanted this finished. As I ran I
removed the gun I had from Thomas Canard and checked its charge. It was fully
charged, and at full power would be quite sufficient to blow the head off your
average cyborg.

The
next day the plain began to slope down and develop a few hills. Acacia trees
became acacia groves and in places the odd groundsel grew with distorted
perseverance. By the afternoon the elephant grass was thinning and becoming
scattered with balsams and the occasional patch of bracken. The temperature
began to drop slightly and the humidity increase. Then, as if I had run through
some kind of barrier I was heading down-slope towards a wall of bamboo. At the
wall I halted and removed the panga I had taken from Jethro Susan’s pack. Soon
I was hacking my way through a twilight thicket. It was damp and miasmic there,
and the bamboo crawled with purple slugs.

It
was probably the middle of the night by the time I broke out of the thicket and
I was not entirely sure of where I was in relation to the river Kiph. I damned
myself for only taking the panga from Susan’s pack and not filching her compass
as well. I might have boosted senses and hyperstrength, but to my eternal
embarrassment I could quite easily get lost in a small well-lit room.

Before
me was an acclivity overgrown with flowering groundsels and monolithic giant
lobelias. I pushed over one of the groundsels, dragged it into a nearby glade,
snapped it into metre sections, stacked it, and set it afire with the gun. Then
I amused myself as I waited by watching a snail with a shell the size of a
human head wearily dragging itself up a branch, leaving behind it a trail of
eggs like perfect pearls.

Morning
was announced by the snarl of some big cat and the humming of sun birds round
the lobelias. I had expected the Pykani to see my fire and come, but there was
a lot of river valley for them to cover, so I should not have been as
disappointed as I was. I threw damp moss over the remains of my fire and headed
in the direction I assumed to be west. Soon I found myself in a gorge that
eventually opened out into a papyrus swamp, which was difficult going even for
me. As the swamp deepened I changed direction again and wondered how long it
would be before I ended up going in circles. I had been lost in places of this
sort before. Just as I was beginning to regret not waiting at the bamboo grove
I caught sight of the river through a hanging mat of vines below which bloomed
a fiery swathe of mustard yellow orchids. Eventually the swamp dried up and I
was traversing rocky ground on the bank of the Kiph. Luckily, before this sank
into swamp again, I saw the canoe.

Her
name was Sipana and she was returning to the Kiphani village with a catch of
black bass from the river. At first I hailed her from the bank and she drew
close to look me over, her unbelievably ancient Optek assault rifle resting
across her lap. I thought for a moment she was not going to come to the bank,
but she looked at my feet, and to my surprise, smiled and rowed on in.

“You
are the Collector,” she said cheerfully as I climbed carefully into her canoe.

“That
is so,” said I, then, “and what are you called?”

“I
am Sipana,” she replied. “You are lucky. I do not normally come this far to
fish.” She smiled at me with a perfectly white set of teeth. She was very
attractive: wide dark eyes, angular face, topped with coloured beads woven into
her dark hair. I looked down at her catch. Each of the bass was a good ten
pounds. She had been hand lining for them.

“You
don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“No,
no, our Rainman said you were coming and to look out for you.”

I
was surprised. Normally if anyone had word I was heading in their direction
they were not there when I arrived. As she rowed us out into the centre of the
river I looked down at the bass again.

“You
have a good catch here,” I said. Something about spending a night and a day
pushing through jungle had made me talkative. Human, I guess.

“There
are many black bass up here, and trout, we do not fish down stream.”

“Why’s
that?”

“Crocodiles.”

I
grinned to myself, perhaps somewhat guiltily. I had been responsible for
reintroducing the African crocodile into some of the rivers around that area. I
changed the subject and our conversation lasted for the rest of the journey.

The
Kiphani village was a collection of boxlike wattle huts on stilts on the bank
of the river and sometimes straying into the river itself. As Sipana rowed us
to a jetty I could see almost immediately that something was wrong. A number of
the huts below a huge water oak had been torn apart. As we tied up I could see
the look of shock on Sipana’s face. I quickly stepped up onto the jetty.

“Any
ideas?” I asked.

“It
is the Silverman. He was seen ...”

Silverman?
He?

I
heard a click as she inserted a clip into her Optek, and I turned round to her.

“Wait
here,” I said. I removed the pistol from my pocket.

“I
have family here,” she said.

I
looked at her Optek. Responsibility. If the Silver One were to be here and to
attack, bullets would do nothing. But what right did I have to prevent her from
trying to aid her family? Anyway, I was not so sure the Silver One was
responsible. I nodded and we advanced along the jetty.

It
soon became apparent, as we mounted the bank, that there were bodies scattered
on the ground around the hut. Sipana ran ahead and I did not stop her. There
were people walking amongst the bodies, loading them onto stretchers. There was
a woman on her knees weeping. Whatever had happened here we had missed it.

As
I reached the bodies, five in all, I think—it was difficult to tell. Sipana was
standing talking to a Negro nearly seven feet tall, obviously a throw-back to
the Masai. He wore a decorous green blanket across his shoulders, monofilament
trousers, and leant on a gleaming assegai. Across his back was slung an Optek
even older than Sipana’s. When I approached Sipana tilted her head to look at
me and I could see the same Hamitic pride in her features. She waited until I
was standing close then looked meaningfully towards the water oak. I looked up
and for a moment thought I was looking upon some kind of icon or other object
of worship, then I realised. Hurricane had been crucified there.

Anger
is a rarity to me. I, who over the millennia of my life can be held responsible
for the deaths of millions. How many people had been killed by my creations?
How many more would be killed? One death should be meaningless. But as always,
this was personal. I felt anger then and it was a stark actinic illumination. I
advanced to the tree and looked up. Hurricane had been nailed up like the
Christos of the Old God, flat broken pieces of metal driven through the bones
of his wings and legs, through his body, and into the wood of the tree with
great force. He had bled to death. The bark of the tree was red.