"I know what you mean. Let's try it out." She flashed a few hand-commands and created a darker gray plane beneath them that stretched to a putative horizon, giving the empty space an up and down. They settled onto the plane and felt it flat and hard beneath their feet.
"Is that the bottom of the tank?" asked !Xabbu.
"No, it's just the gel hardening where the processors tell it to harden. Here." She summoned up a ball the same color as the ground. It felt quite substantial beneath her fingers. She deliberately softened it to the consistency of rubber: the processors obliged. "Catch!"
!Xabbu reached up and plucked the ball from the air. "And this, too, is the gel, hardening where we are supposed to feel an object?"
"That's right. It may not even make a whole object, but just give us the correct tactile impressions on our hands."
"And when I throw it," he lobbed it underhand back to Renie, "it is analyzing the arc that it should make, then recreating that, first in my tank, then in yours?"
"Right. Just like what we did in school, except with better equipment. Your tank could be on the other side of the earth, but if I can see you here, the substance in these tanks will make the experience fit."
!Xabbu shook his rudimentary head in appreciation. "I have said it before, Renie, but your science can indeed do wonderful things."
She snorted. "It's not really my science. Besides, as we've already seen, it can do some pretty dreadful things, too."
They created and arranged a few more objects, checking the calibration of the tactor system and the various effects—temperature, gravity—not available on the Poly's more primitive harness system. Renie found herself wishing she had a more sophisticated simulation to work with, something that would give her a real idea of how the tanks could perform. Still, it had been a good first day. "I think we've done what we needed to," she said. "Anything else you want to try?"
"Yes, actually." !Xabbu—or his featureless sim—turned to face her. "Do not worry. I have something to share with you." He waved several hand-commands. The gray universe disappeared, dropping them into blackness.
"What are you doing?" she asked, alarmed.
"Please. I will show you."
Renie held herself still, fighting hard against the urge to thrash around, to demand answers. She did not like letting someone else control things.
Just when the wait seemed interminable, a glow began to spread before her. It started as a deep red, then broke into marbled patterns of white and gold and scarlet and a deep velvety purple. Broken by this glaring brilliance, the darkness formed itself into strange shapes; light and dark swirled and commingled. The light grew steadily brighter in one spot, coalescing at last into a disk so bright she could not look at it directly. The dark areas took on shape and depth as they settled to the bottom of her field of vision like sand poured into a glass of water.
She stood in the middle of a vast, flat landscape painted in harshly brilliant light, broken only by stunted trees and the humps of red rocks. Overhead the sun smoldered like a white-hot ingot.
"It's a desert," she said. "My God, !Xabbu, where did this come from?"
"I made it."
She turned and her surprise deepened. !Xabbu stood beside her, recognizably himself. Gone was the impersonal sim from the military lab's operating system, replaced by something very close to her friend's own small, slim form. Even the face, despite a certain smooth stiffness, was his own. !Xabbu's sim wore what she guessed was the traditional garb of his people, a loincloth made of hide, sandals, and a string of eggshell beads around the neck. A quiver and bow hung from one shoulder and he held a spear in his hand.
"You made this? All of this?"
He smiled. "It is not as much as it seems, Renie. Parts of it are borrowed from other modules on the Kalahari Desert. There is much free gear available. I found some academic simulations—ecological models, evolutionary biology projects—in the University of Natal databanks. This is my graduate project." His smile widened. "You have not looked at yourself yet."
She looked down. Her legs were bare, and she, too, wore a loincloth. She had more jewelry than !Xabbu, and a sort of shawl of hide that covered her upper body, tied at the waist with rough twine. Remembering that they were supposed to be testing the V-tanks, she fingered it. The cured skin felt slithery and a little tacky, not unlike the thing it was supposed to be.
"That is called a kaross." !Xabbu pointed to the place where the shawl gaped at the back. "The women of my people use it as much more than a garment Nursing babies are carried there, and also forage discovered during the day."
"And this?" She held up the piece of wood clutched in her other hand.
"A digging stick."
She laughed. "This is astonishing, !Xabbu, Where did this come from? I mean, how did it get onto this system? You couldn't have done all this since we got here."
He shook his head, sim face grave. "I copied it from my storage at the Poly."
Renie felt a clutch of alarm. "!Xabbu!"
"I had Martine's help. Just to be safe, we shipped it through . . . what did she call it? An 'offshore router.' And I left you a message."
"What are you talking about?"
"While I was in the Poly's system, I left a message on your account there. I said that I had been trying to reach you, and hoped to speak to you soon about my studies and my graduate project."
Renie shook her head. She heard tinkling, and reached up to touch her dangling earrings. "I don't understand."
"I thought that if someone was looking for your contacts, it would be good if they thought I did not know where you were. Maybe then they would not persecute my landlady. She was not a pleasant person, but she did not deserve the sort of trouble we have had. But, Renie, I am unhappy."
She was finding it hard to keep up. "Why, !Xabbu?"
"Because I realized as I was leaving the message that I was deliberately telling a lie. I have never done that before. I fear that I am changing. It is no surprise that I have lost the song of the sun."
Even behind the mask of his simulation, Renie could see the small man's discomfort.
This is what I was afraid of. She could think of no comfort to give him. With any other friend, she would have argued the ethics of the useful lie, the self-projecting falsehood—but no other friend would feel a lie as a sort of physical corruption; she could not imagine anyone else in her life despairing because he could not hear the sun's voice.
"Show me more." It was all she could say. "Tell me about this place."
"It is only just begun." He reached out and touched her arm, as though to thank her for the distraction. "It is not enough to make something that looks like the home of my people—it must feel like it as well, and I am not yet skilled enough for that." He began to walk, and Renie fell in beside him. "But I have made a small piece, in part to learn the lessons that come from mistakes. Do you see that?" He pointed to the horizon. Above the desert pan, just visible beyond a stand of thorny acacias, loomed a cluster of dark shapes,"Those are the Tsodilo Hills, a very important place for my people, a sacred place you would call it. But I have made them too easily visible, too stark."
She stared. Despite his discontent, there was something compelling about the hills, the only tall things in this wide, flat land. If the real ones were even remotely similar, she could understand the power they must hold over the imaginations of !Xabbu's people.
Renie reached up and stroked her earrings again, then touched the eggshell necklaces at her throat. "How about me? Do I look as much like me as you look like yourself?"
He shook his head. "That would have been presumptuous. No, my own sim was concocted from an earlier project at the Poly. I added to it for this, but at the moment I have only two other sims, male and female. They are made to look like a man and woman of my people." His smile was sad and a little bitter, "In this place, anyway, I shall make sure no one comes onto Bushman land but Bushmen."
He led her down a sandy slope, deeper into the pan. H
e hummed lazily. The sun was so fierce that Renie found herself longing for a drink of water, despite the fact that they had surely been in the tanks less than half an hour. She almost wished they had hooked up the hydration system, despite her dislike of needles.
"Here," said !Xabbu. He squatted on his heels and began to dig with the butt of his spear. "Help me."
"What are we looking for?"
He did not answer, but concentrated on digging. The work was hard, and the heat of the sun made it even more tiring. For a moment, Renie completely forgot that they were in a simulation.
"There." !Xabbu leaned forward. Using his fingers, he unearthed something that looked like a small watermelon from the bottom of the hole. He lifted it triumphantly. "This is a tsama. These melons keep my people alive in the bush during the season of drought, when the springs have no more water." He took his knife and cut the melon's top off, then took the butt of his spear, wiped it clean of dirt, and pushed it into the melon. He worked it like a pestle until the fruit's contents were a liquified pulp. "Now you drink it," he said, smiling.
"But I can't drink—or at least I can't taste anything."
He nodded. "But when my simulation is complete, you will have to drink, whether you can taste it or not. No one can live like my people if they do not struggle to find water and food in this harsh land."
Renie took the tsama rind and upended it over her mouth. There was a curious absence of sensation around her face, but she could feel little splatters of wetness down her neck and belly. !Xabbu took it from her, said something she could not understand, full of clicks and trills, and drank from the melon himself.
"Come," he said. "There are other things I wish to show you."
She stood, troubled. "This is wonderful, but Jeremiah and my father will be worried about us if we're on too long. I didn't tell him how to monitor our conversation, and I doubt he'd be able to figure it out on his own. They might even try to pull us out."
"Knowing I would show you this place, I told them we might be longer than you had planned." !Xabbu looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "But you are right. I am being selfish."
"No, you're not. This is wonderful." She meant it. Even if he had cobbled it together from other modules, he had an incredible flair for virtual engineering. She could only pray that his association with her ended happily. After seeing even this small piece, she thought it would be a crime if his dream went unfulfilled. "It's truly wonderful. I hope to spend a lot more hours here someday soon, !Xabbu."
"Do we have time for something else? It is important to me."
"Of course."
"Then come with me a little way farther." He led her forward. Although they walked what seemed to be only a few hundred yards, the hills were suddenly much closer, looming overhead like stern parents. In their shadow stood a small circle of grass shelters.
"This is unnatural, to move so fast, but I know our time is short." !Xabbu took her wrist and drew her to an empty stretch of sandy soil before one of the shelters. A pile of small sticks was already laid out there. "I must also do one more unnatural thing." He gestured. The sun began to move swiftly; in moments it had completely disappeared behind the hills and the sky had darkened to violet. "Now I will build a fire."
!Xabbu took two sticks from his pouch. "Male stick, female stick," he said with a smile. "That is what we say." He placed one into an indentation in the other, then held the second to the ground with his feet while he rapidly spun the first between his palms. From time to time he plucked bits of dry grass from his pouch and pushed them into the indentation. Within moments, the grass was smoking.
The stars had burst into view in the night sky overhead and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Renie shivered. She hoped her friend would get the fire going soon, even if that meant stretching accuracy a little.
As !Xabbu transferred the smoldering grass to the pile of sticks, she leaned back, looking at the sky. It was so wide! Wider and deeper than it ever seemed over Durban. And the stars seemed so close—she almost felt she could reach up and touch them.
The fire was surprisingly small, but she could feel its warmth. However, !Xabbu did not give her much chance to enjoy it. He took two strings of what appeared to be dried cocoons from his pouch and tied one around each of his ankles. When he shook them, they made a soft buzzing rattle.
"Come." He rose and beckoned. "Now we will dance."
"Dance?"
"Do you see the moon?" He pointed. It floated in the blackness like a pearl in a pool of oil. "And the ring around it? Those are the marks that the spirits make when they dance around it, for they feel it to be a fire, a fire just like this." He reached out and took her hand. Although a part of her could not forget that they were in separate tanks, yards apart, she also felt his familiar presence. However physics might define it, he was definitely holding her hand, leading her into a strange hopping dance.
"I don't know anything about. . . ."
"It is a healing dance. It is important. We have a journey ahead of us, and we have suffered much pain already. Just do as I do."
She did her best to follow his lead. At first she found it difficult, but then, when she stopped trying to think about it, she began to feel the rhythm. After a while, she felt nothing but the rhythm—shake, step, shake, shake, step, head back, arms up—and always there was the quiet whisper of !Xabbu's rattles and the soft slap of their feet on the sand.
They danced on beneath the ringed moon, before the hills that bulked black against the stars. For a while, Renie quite forgot everything else.
She pulled off her mask before she was all the way out of the gel, and for a moment found herself choking. Her father's hands were under her arms and he was pulling her out of the tank.
"No!" she said, fighting for breath. "Not yet." She cleared her throat. "I have to scrape the rest of this stuff off me and put it back in the tank—it's hard to replace, so there's no point dripping it all over the floor."
"You were down a long time," her father said angrily. "We thought the two of you gone brain-dead or something. That man said not to bring you up, that your friend say it's okay."
"I'm sorry, Papa." She looked over to !Xabbu, who was seated on the edge of his own tank scraping gel. Renie smiled at him."It was amazing. You should see what !Xabbu's made. How long were we under?"
"Almost two hours," said Jeremiah disapprovingly.
"Two hours! My God!" Renie was shocked. We must have spent at least an hour of that dancing. "I'm so sorry! You must have been worried to death."
Jeremiah made a disgusted face. "We could see that your breathing and heart and whatnot were all normal. But we were waiting for you to come back and join us because that French woman's been wanting to talk to you. Important message, she said."
"What? What did Martine want? You should have brought us back out."
"We never know what you expect," said her father, scowling. "All this craziness—how someone supposed to know when he going to get shouted at? What he supposed to do?"
"All right, all right. I said I was sorry. What was the message?"
"She say call her when you come out."
Renie wrapped a military-issue bathrobe around her still-sticky form, men called Martine's exchange number. The mystery woman was on the line within moments.
"I am so glad you have called. Was the experiment a successful one?"
"Excellent, but I can tell you about that later. They said you had an urgent message."
"Yes, from Monsieur Singh. He said to tell you that he thinks he may have found a way to beat the Otherland security. But he also said levels of use have gone up dramatically in the past few days—the network is very busy, which may mean something important is about to happen. Perhaps that was the meaning of the hourglass, the calendar. The ten days are almost up, in any case. We dare not wait for another opportunity."
Renie's heart sped. "Which means?"
"Which means that Singh will go in tomorrow. What he cannot do by planning, he
will trust to luck, he said. And if you are joining us, you will have to do it then—there may not be another chance."
CHAPTER 30
In the Emperor's Gardens
NETFEED/NEWS: Malaysian Rebels Warn West To Stay Away
(visual: jungle fighting in North Borneo; rocket casualties)
VO: The Malaysian rebel group which calls itself "Swords of New Malacca" warned Western tourists and business travelers that they are entering a war zone. The rebels, who have waged a six-year war against the Malaysian federal government to overturn Malaysia's secular and pro-Western policies, killed three Portuguese diplomats in an attack last week, and say that they will now treat all Westerners in Malaysia, including Australians and New Zealanders, as "enemy spies."
(visual: Rang Hussein Kawat, New Malaccan rebel spokesman)
HUSSEIN KAWAT: "Europe and America have enforced a regime of hooliganism on the rest of the world for five hundred years, but their day is ending, in blood if necessary. Our own blood may flow, but it will no longer be poisoned by Western credits, Western ideas. The corruption of the federal government infidels in Kuala Lumpur is a stink in the nostrils of heaven."
Hurley Brummond stood at the helm of the airboat, wheel clenched in one hand, his stern, bearded profile silhouetted by the light of Ullamar's two moons.
"We'll tweak their noses, Jonas!" he bellowed over the roar of the wind. "The greenskin priests will learn they can't go fiddling about with an Earthman's fiancée!"
Paul wanted to ask a question, but he didn't have the heart to shout. Brummond had returned to his figurehead pose, staring down on the lantern-lit towers of Tuktubim. Paul had wanted to find the winged woman again, but he was not entirely sure that this was the way he wanted to go about it,
"Hurley's got his blood up now," said Professor Bagwalter. "It really won't do any good to fret. But never fear—he's mad as a March hare, but if anyone can get the job done, he can."
The airboat abruptly lurched downward, making the ship's brass fittings rattle. Paul put out a hand to steady himself, then reached to make sure Gally had not been knocked over. The boy was wide-eyed, but seemed more excited than frightened.