The Exile Kiss (14 page)

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 imag-ined the place completely, from the stories of my com-panions, 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 cam-els, 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 in-tracranial software. There was no point in overdoing any-thing, 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 dis-cover 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 riyals," he said, his voice faint and quavery.
"I have no riyals," I admitted, "only kiam." I had al-most four hundred kiam that I'd kept hidden from Ser-geant 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 camp-site. 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 mod-dies 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 some-one 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 demon-stration, 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, "Ah' 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 remain-der 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 re-turned, 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 moddies 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 wit-nessed 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 blan-ket. 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 de-posit," 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
orthless 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 supe-riority. 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 shari'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 in-clude a meal or even free drinks. "That's what we get for bbeing stranded at the ends of the Earth," I said. "Next time, we should work to be stranded in a more comfort-able 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 en-tirely sure that he trusted me. Bin Turki said hardly a word. He sat with his face pressed against the port, occasionally making excited com-ments or stifled exclamations. It was good to have him with us, because he reminded me of what it was like be-fore I'd become so jaded with modern life. All of this was new to bin Turki, who'd stuck out like a hayseed hick in the poor crossroads town of Salala. I shuddered to think what might happen to him when he got home. I didn't know whether to corrupt him as quickly as possible—so he'd have defenses against the wolves of the Budayeen— or protect his lovely innocence.
"Flight time from Qishn to Damascus will be forty minutes," the captain of the suborbital announced. "Ev-eryone on board should make his connections with plenty of time to spare."
That was good news. Although we wouldn't have the leisure time to explore a bit of Damascus, the world's oldest continually inhabited city, I was glad that travel time back to our city would be at a minimum. We'd have a layover in Damascus of about thirty-five minutes. Then we'd catch another suborbital direct to the city. We'd be home. We'd be powerless to move around in complete freedom, but at least it would be home.
Friedlander Bey stared out of his port for a long while after takeoff, thinking about matters I could only guess at. Finally, he said, "We must decide where we're going when the ship from Damascus to the city touches down."
"Why don't we just go to the house?" I asked.
He regarded me with a blank expression for a few seconds. "Because we're still criminals in the eyes of the law. We're fugitives from what passes for 'justice' there."
I'd forgotten all about that. "They don't know the meaning of the word."
Papa waved impatiently. "In the city, as soon as we showed our faces, your Lieutenant Hajjar would arrest us and put us on trial for that unexplained murder."
"Does everyone in the city speak that mutilated Arabic gibberish?" asked bin Turki. "I can't even make out what you're saying!"
"I'm afraid so," I told him. "But you'll get the hang of the local dialect quickly." I turned back to Papa. His so-bering insight had made me realize that our troubles were far from over. "What do you suggest, O my uncle?" I asked.
"We must, think of someone trustworthy, who'd be willing to house us for a week or so."
I couldn't follow his idea. "A week? What will happen in a week?"
Friedlander Bey turned the full power of his terrifying cold smile on me. "By then," he said, "we'll have arranged for an interview with Shaykh Mahali. We'll make him see that we've been cheated of our final legal recourse, that we're entitled to an appeal, and that we strongly urge the amir to protect our rights because in doing so he'll un-cover official corruption under his very nose."
I shuddered, and then I thanked Allah that I wasn't going to be the target of the investigation—at least, not long enough to get nervous about. I wondered how well Lieutenant Hajjar slept, and Dr. Abd ar-Razzaq. I won-dered if they foresaw events closing in on them. I got a delicious thrill while I imagined their imminent doom.
I must've drifted off to sleep because I was awakened some time later by one of the ship's stewards, who wanted bin Turki and me to make sure that our seat belts were securely fastened prior to landing. Bin Turki studied his and figured out how to work the catch. I cooperated be-cause it seemed to please the steward so much. Now he wouldn't have to worry about my various separated limbs flying toward the cockpit, in case the pilot planted the
aircraft up to its shoulders in the sand dunes beyond the city's gates.
"I think it's an excellent opportunity, O Shaykh," I said.
"What do you mean?" said Papa.
"We're supposed to be dead already," I explained. "We've got an advantage then. It might be some time before Hajjar, Shaykh Reda, and Dr. Abd ar-Razzaq real-ize that their two abandoned corpses are poking around in matters they don't want brought to light. Maybe we should proceed slowly, to delay our eventual discovery as long as possible. If we go charging into the city with ban-ners and bugles, all our sources will dry up immediately."
"Yes, very good, my nephew," said Friedlander Bey. "You are learning the wisdom of reason. Combat rarely ever succeeds without logic to guide the attack."
"Still, I also learned from the Bani Salim the dangers of hesitancy."
"The Bani Salim would not sit in the dark and hatch plans," said bin Turki. "The Bani Salim would ride down upon their enemies and let their rifles speak. Then they'd let their camels trample the bodies in the dust."
"Well," I said, "we don't have any camels to trample with. Still, I like the Bani Salim's approach to the prob-lem."
"You have indeed been changed by our experiences in the desert," said Papa. "Yet we won't be hesitating. We'll go forward slowly but firmly, and if it becomes necessary to dispatch one of the key players, we must be ready to commit that deed without regret."
"Unless, of course, the player is Shaykh Reda Abu Adil," I said.
"Yes, of course."
"I wish I knew the whole story. Why is Shaykh Reda spared when better men—I'm thinking of his pet imam— may be sacrificed to our honor?"
A long sigh came from Papa. "There was a woman," he said, turning his head and gazing out the port again.
"Say no more," I said. "I don't need to hear the de-tails. A woman, well, that alone explains so much."
"A woman and an oath. It appears that Shaykh Reda has forgotten the oath we took, but I have not. After I am dead, you will be released from that oath, but not before."
I let my breath out heavily. "Must've been some woman," I said. This was the most he'd ever discussed the mysterious ground rules of his lifelong conflict with his rival, Abu Adil.
Friedlander Bey did not deign to respond to that. He just stared out at the blackness of the sky and the darkness of the planet we were hurrying to meet.
An announcement came over the PA system in-structing us to remain seated until the suborbital came to a complete stop and then underwent the quarter-hour cooling-down procedure. It was frustrating in a way, be-cause I'd always wanted to visit Damascus, and we'd be there but I wouldn't get a chance to see anything but the terminal building.
The Imam Muhammad al-Baqir slipped into its land-ing configuration, and in a few more minutes we'd be on the ground. I shuddered a little in relief. I always do. It's not that I'm afraid of being shot into the sky in a rocket; it's just that when I'm aboard, suddenly I lose all my faith in modern physics and suborbital-craft design. I always fall back on a frightened child's thought, that they'll never be able to get so many tons of steel into the air, and even if they do, they'll never be able to keep it there. Actually, the time I'm most worried is during takeoff. If the ship doesn't explode in glittering smithereens, I figure we've got it licked and I relax. But for a few minutes, I keep waiting to hear the pilot say something like "Ground Con-trol has decided to abort this flight once we're far enough downrange. It's been a real pleas—"
We came to a nice, smooth landing in Damascus, and then stared out the ports for fifteen minutes while the suborbital shrunk back to its lAA-approved tolerances. Papa and I had only three small bags between us, and we carried them across the tarmac to the terminal. It didn't take us long to figure out where we had to go to catch the suborbital that would take us home.
I went to the small souvenir shop, thinking to buy something for myself and maybe something for Indihar and something for Chiri. I was disappointed to discover that nearly all the souvenirs had "Made in the Western Reserve" or "Made in Occupied Panama" stickers on them. I contented myself with a few holocards.
I began writing one out to Indihar, but I stopped. No doubt the phones in Papa's palace were now tapped, and the mail was probably scrutinized by unfriendly eyes as well. I could blow our cover by sending a holocard an-nouncing our triumphant return.
No doubt weeks ago Indihar and all my friends had reconciled themselves to my tragic demise. What would we find when we got back to the city? I guessed I'd learn a lot about how people felt toward me. Youssef and Tariq were probably maintaining Friedlander Bey's estate, but Kmuzu must have seen his liberation in my death, and would be long gone.
I felt a thrill as I climbed aboard the second subor-bital. Knowing that the Nasrullah would ferry us back to the city made me tingle with anticipation. In under an hour, we'd be back. The uneasy alliances and conspiracies that had tried to kill us would be shaken, perhaps shaken to death, as soon as we got down to work. I looked forward eagerly to our vengeance. The Bani Saiim had taught me that.
It turned out to be the shortest long flight I'd ever taken. My nose was pressed right up against the port, as if by concentrating with all my might, I could help steer the Nasrullah and give it a little extra acceleration. It seemed that we'd just passed through Max Q when the steward came by to tell us to buckle up for landing. I wondered if, say, we should plummet back to Earth and plow a crater a hundred feet deep, would the seat belt provide enough protection so that we could walk away unharmed, through the fireball?
The three of us didn't spend much time in the termi-nal, because Friedlander Bey was too well known to go long without being recognized, and then the word would get back to Abu Adil, and then . . . Sand Dune City again. Or maybe one shot through four cerebral lobes.
"What now, O Shaykh?" I asked Papa.
"Let us walk a bit," he said. I followed him out of the terminal, to a cab stand. Bin Turki, anxious to make him-self useful, carried the bags.
Papa was about to get into the first cab in line, but I stopped him. "These drivers have pretty good memories," I said. "And they're probably bribable. There's a driver I use who's perfectly suited to our needs."
"Ah," said the old man, "You have something on him? Something that he doesn't want to come to light?"
"Better than that, O Shaykh. He is physically unable to remember anything from one hour to the next."
"I don't understand. Does he suffer from some sort of brain injury?"
"You could say that, my uncle." Then I told him all about Bill, the crazy American. Bill had come to the city long before I did. He had no use for cosmetic bodmods— appearances meant nothing to Bill. Or for skull-wiring, either. Instead, he'd done a truly insane thing: he'd paid one of the medical hustlers on the Street to remove one of Bill's lungs and replace it with a sac that dripped a constant, measured dose of lightspeed RPM into his bloodstream.
RPM is to any other hallucinogen as a spoonful of crushed saccharin is to a single granule of sugar. I deeply regret the few times I ever tried it. Its technical name is l-ribopropylmethionine, but nowadays I hear people on the street calling it "hell." The first time I took it, my reaction was so fiercely horrible that I had to take it again because I couldn't believe anything could be that bad. It was an insult to my self-image as the Conqueror of All Sub-stances.
There isn't enough money in the world to get me to try it again.
And this was the stuff Bill had dripping into his arter-ies day and night, day and night. Needless to say, Bill's completely and permanently fried. He doesn't look so much like a cab driver as he does a possessed astrologer who'll probably seduce the entire royal family and end up being assassinated in an icy river at midnight.
Riding with Bill was a lunatic's job, too, because he was always swerving to avoid things in the road only he could see. And he was positive that demons—the afrit— sat beside him in the front, distracting him and tempting him and being just enough of a nuisance that it took all his concentration to keep from dying in a fiery crash on the highway. I always found Bill and his muttered commen-taries fascinating. He was an anti-role model for me. I told myself, "You could end up like him if you don't stop swallowing pills all the time."
"And yet you recommend this driver?" said Fried-lander Bey dubiously.
"Yes," I said, "because Bill's total concentration could pass through the eye of a needle and leave enough room for a five-tier flea pyramid to slide by above. He has no mind. He won't remember us the next day. He may not even remember us as soon as we get out of the cab. Sometimes he zooms off before you can even pay him."
Papa stroked his white beard, which was desperately in need of trimming. "I see. So he truly wouldn't be brib-able, not because he's so honest, but because he won't remember."
I nodded. I was already looking for a public phone. I went to one, dropped in a few coins, and spoke Bill's commcode into the receiver. It took fifteen rings, but at last Bill answered. He was sitting at his customary place, just beyond the Budayeen's eastern gate, on the Boule-vard il-Jameel. It took a couple of minutes for Bill to recall who I was, despite the fact that we'd known each other for years. He said he'd come to the airfield to pick us up.
"Now," said Friedlander Bey, "we must decide care-fully on our destination."
I chewed a fingernail while I thought. "No doubt Chiri's is being watched."
Chiri's was a nightclub on the Street. Papa had forced Chiriga to sell it to him, and then he'd presented it to me. Chiri had been one of my best friends, but after the buyout she could barely bring herself to speak to me. I had persuaded her that it had been all Papa's idea, and then I'd sold her a half-interest in the club. We were pals. again.
"We dare not contact any of your usual friends," he said. "Perhaps I have the answer." He went to the phone and spoke quietly for a short while. When he hung up, he gave me a brief smile and said, "I think I have the solu-tion. Ferrari has a couple of spare rooms above his night-club, and I've let him know that I need help tonight. I also reminded him of a few favors I've done for him over the years."