“It was as big as an elephant, but it wasn’t an elephant. This thing was moving on two legs. And it was no gorilla. Way too much hair, way wrong skull shape.” He grimaced as his legs continued to eat up the meters. “Whatever it was, it isn’t apelike.”
“Carnivore or herbivore?” she asked him.
“How the hell should I know?” he replied irritably. “I have a hard enough time telling cats from dogs—never mind the melded ones. I saw enough to know that I don’t want one of whatever it is coming up on me in my sleep—regardless of its diet.”
She looked over her shoulder. There was nothing chasing them but moonbeams. “He must have surprised it while he was watching us. Maybe it’ll eat him.”
“I’d settle for it giving him a warning slap. From what I saw that’d be enough to take his face off.” Raising both hands, he held them nearly a meter apart. “I swear, its claws were this big.”
“Then that’s for sure no cat, modern or resurrected.” She could not keep from wondering what kind of animal it was that had shocked them awake and was confronting Molé. She could only hope that it would kill or incapacitate him.
Because while with his long maniped legs Whispr might be able to outrun the shorter assassin, she knew she could not.
• • •
MORNING DAWNED INCONCLUSIVE AS well as overcast. There was no sign of Molé or the creature that had challenged him. Occasional droplets of tepid rain helped to keep them awake until they couldn’t run anymore.
It was amazing, she thought as she let herself collapse to the ground, how quickly one becomes enamored of even the slightest of comforts. She found that she missed her bed of vines. But not enough to try to make another one. Sensibly, she feared what might come upon them if they stopped to rest. One of them would have to keep watch while the other slept.
She was unable to stay awake long enough to ask Whispr if he would do so.
After what seemed like days but had only been hours a pungent aroma woke her. Her companion was seated on a nearby rock. Something small, quadrupedal, and much too cute was cooking over an open fire. Dripping fat sizzled as it oozed off the body and made contact with the flames. Thankfully he had removed the head and most of the fur. What remained of the latter had been seared black and would provide crunch.
To her utmost disgust, it smelled wonderful.
Aching from sleeping on the bare ground and fighting to slough off the last vestiges of sleep, she felt gingerly of herself. Miraculously, everything still seemed functional. She nodded wordlessly at what appeared to be a broiling bunny.
“Found it sleeping in the grass. Came up on it and bashed its head in with a rock before it woke up and saw me.” He grinned. “Usually I’m sneaking up on prey with two legs. But the hush-walk works on animals, too.”
Staring fixedly at the incipient meal she swallowed hard, her mind at war with her stomach. “How—how did you skin it?”
“Sharpened a stick with my teeth. Took a while. Kept twisting the head until it came off. Once you get the skin started at the neck and begin peeling back, the rest of it comes off pretty easy.”
The image thus conjured might have caused the average listener to puke up their guts, but not Ingrid Seastrom. More than most, she knew what a body looked like with its epidermis removed.
“What about the fire?”
“Used the same stick. Found another couple of pieces that had been sheltered from the rain and started twirling. Amazing what you can pick up watching entertainment vits.” He nodded at their rapidly browning breakfast. “As far as the actual cooking, I learned how to do this from having to live on roof rabbit when I spent a year in Charleston.”
She looked uncertain. “ ‘Roof rabbit’?”
He smiled. “Rats. Capybara is much better, but it’s hard for the cops to overlook somebody roasting a capy in the middle of a city park.” Lifting the stick off the fire he examined the smoking result with a professional eye. “I think it’s done. You want a drumstick?”
She gulped. Observing and analyzing such a phenomenon with academic detachment was one thing; consuming it quite another. In the ensuing argument her stomach won out. She accepted her portion gratefully, but she ate with her eyes closed. It was surprisingly tasty.
Even better, by the time they had finished there was still no sign of their uncompromising pursuer.
“You’d think he would’ve seen the smoke.” Whispr was kicking the coals apart. “Sure it’s a small fire, but that squint bastard Molé is an enhanced Meld. He should have seen it.”
“Unless he got himself eaten or killed.”
The continued absence of the assassin gave Ingrid cause to hope. Surely if their nemesis had survived the encounter with the night monster he would have caught up to them by now. That didn’t mean he was dead. He might be alive but injured. The prospect brought her to her feet. The mystery protein she had consumed had revitalized her. With Whispr’s street skills to rely upon they might survive long enough to reconnect with civilization. Raising her arms high, she stretched.
“I’m full of rat and feeling fine. Let’s get moving.”
They would head north, following the new tributary. Very soon it should flow into the Touws River where, if they were lucky, they might run into some other adventurous tourists.
“Even if he’s limping,” she said as she started off, “I don’t want to give Molé a chance to get close to us.”
Whispr nodded agreement, took a last kick at the dying embers to ensure they would not get a grip on the nearest grass behind them, and broke into a brief jog to catch up to the newly determined doctor.
“You’re learning,” he told her approvingly.
It was later in the day when she finally gave voice to a recurring concern.
“How did he find us? We’ve disguised our appearances not once but twice. We’re continually revamping our identities. He has no idea where we’re going. We’ve made a good show of being nothing but ordinary tourists. Yet he keeps finding us.”
Lowering her head she shook it uncomprehendingly. As her eyes encountered a pudgy dark green beetle crossing her path she found herself wondering what it would taste like. Bitter, probably. Like much of what had happened to her since Whispr and the damnable wonderful thread had come into her life.
Even if she wanted to she couldn’t make things go back to the way they had been. Couldn’t simply step on a plane and slip back into the comfortable, conventional life she had left behind. She still had the mysterious thread. Napun Molé and his employers, whoever they might be, still wanted it. If she just turned it over to the assassin, would he be satisfied with that and leave them alone? Let them go? That was not the attitude he had displayed in Florida. It was more likely that he would kill her to ensure that she would never speak to anyone else about what she had discovered. Or maybe, she reflected with a shiver as she thought back to that horrific final confrontation in the Everglades, he would kill her just for fun.
No—she was stuck with the thread and the unquenchable desire to know where it came from, how it had been fashioned, and what, if anything, was contained on it. Since Molé was as likely to kill her whether she returned the thread or not, she might as well keep on going.
Keeping going would be a lot easier, she told herself, if in addition to the thread she also had possession of a sandwich. Any kind of sandwich. Or even one of the small wild melons Whispr had harvested the previous night. Raising her head she scanned the horizon. The valley through which they were walking had flattened out. There were no melons in view, no nut-carrying trees or berry-bearing bushes. There was only grass, and whatever her resourceful companion might be able to catch with rocks and sharpened sticks. And it was still a long way to the national highway.
At least when the intruder appeared it took her mind off the emptiness in her belly.
Whispr, naturally, saw it first. Shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun, he had stopped just ahead of her and was staring northward into the distance. Panti
ng, she came up alongside him and squinted in the same direction. Not for the first time in such circumstances, she saw nothing.
“What is it?”
“Not sure.” His eyes strained to resolve the object. “It’s coming toward us, though.” He hastened to dampen any expectations. “It’s not a vehicle. Animal of some sort.”
She considered this. “Just one?”
“Near as I can tell. Getting closer.” He lowered his hands. “Getting bigger, too.” Seeing the look on her face he hurried to add, “It’s not a cat. I can tell that much. The general shape is all wrong. I suppose it could be one of those big hairy things like the one that saved us last night.” He nodded in the direction of the oncoming creature. “Moving at a steady pace but not fast. Could be a bear, I suppose, though it would have to be one hell of a big bear. Or maybe a rhino.” He studied their immediate surroundings, which were disconcertingly flat. There wasn’t a suitable tree to climb and the hills behind them and off to the southwest were a disconcerting distance away.
“Might as well wait here until we have a better idea what we’re dealing with. If it is some kind of predator and we run, it’s a lot more likely to come after us, even if it’s not hungry. The last thing we want to do is set it off.”
“Maybe if it catches our scent it’ll turn away,” she opined hopefully.
He shielded his eyes anew. “If it has then it’s either not worried or it’s taking its time.” He paused a moment. “It’s still coming this way.”
She was edging to her left. A downed tree wasn’t much of a hiding place. If whatever was coming toward them decided to attack, the weather-worn wood would not provide much of a deterrent. But it was better than standing straight as a power pole on flat ground in the middle of the dry Karoo. Whispr joined her behind the big disintegrating log. Lying prone on his belly he looked a lot like a fallen tree himself. Huddling side by side they peered through the gap between the earth and the underside of the log. The advancing shape soon resolved itself.
The elephant appeared to be an old bull. Both tusks had been broken off, leaving little in the way of protruding ivory. His skin was a geology of thick gray folds, the heavy creases packed with dirt, dust, and scratches. To Ingrid he looked like a badly layered shipment of used gray rugs perambulating on four pillarlike legs. It made sense that the solitary visitor was an old bull, she knew. Nature vits about such creatures often made mention of the fact that bulls, and especially senior ones, lived alone.
“I don’t think he can smell us down here,” Whispr murmured. “Probably he’ll just keep on going right past us.”
He did not. Slowing to a halt the aged pachyderm stopped just to the right of their hiding place. As Ingrid tried to dig herself in deeper beneath the log, the elephant turned long-lashed eyes to gaze directly at them. She was certain it was staring straight at her. Then the huge bull turned its head forward once again, raised its trunk, and began sampling the air.
As soon as this process was completed, a hatch opened in its belly and a man got out.
He was slightly shorter than Whispr, with skin the color and texture of fried pork rinds. His eyes were blue as those of a Swedish movie star’s ghost and his hair short, kinky, and mostly soot-gray. He wore long pants, no socks, brown sandals on the verge of disintegration, and a sleeveless beige vest open almost to the waist. Instruments and devices of unknown purpose flowered from the vest’s numerous pockets. His muscles were those of a basketball player or swimmer; long, lean, heavily veined, giving a defiant finger to time. In his arms he cradled a flashy long-barreled chromed rifle that tangoed with the sun even as it screamed high-tech danger.
It was pointed in their direction.
“Goeie middag, sawubona—good afternoon, you funny people.” The gleaming muzzle of the rifle did not move as the man raised his gaze to scan the surrounding country. “What you doing out here like this, on foot in the Sanbona Karoo? Don’t you know is dangerous to be out here like this?” He grinned, revealing teeth that were perfect and white except for one incisor that periodically and unsettlingly rotated from gold to silver and back again like a tiny orthodontal carousel. “This is Sanbona Preserve, not Cape Town Zoo. Animals here feed themselves.”
Whispr and Ingrid exchanged a glance before rising from behind the log. The man seemed friendly enough, and his method of transportation was more than intriguing. Still, there was the small matter of the rifle pointed in their direction.
“We’re just tourists,” Ingrid explained blithely. “We had an accident.”
The man nodded. “I bet-say you had an accident. You didn’t walk here from lodge. Where your vehicle?”
Whispr jerked a thumb back the way they had come. “In the river.”
Their interrogator frowned. “River not easy to miss, even in dark. How so-come you end up in the water? Truth no auto-strips here, but even so.… You both asleep at same time? You wafting on drugs? Drunk-o?”
Ingrid looked over at her companion. In the realm of excuses Whispr was easily her master. He did not disappoint.
“We were following a herd of antelope, got lost, and were in the river before we knew it.”
“Ah-hum. What kind antelope?” The oldster was eyeing the much thinner man intently.
More than content to play dumb, Whispr spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “How should I know? We’re tourists.”
“We lost our communicators and everything,” Ingrid added sorrowfully. Though she was not a pro at it she was perfectly capable of instinctive coquettishness. She did not quite bat her eyelashes. “This all happened last night and we’ve been walking for the better part of the day. I’m Inez Sparrow and this is my friend Arthur Cotswold. Can you give us a ride back to the lodge?” She tapped a shirt pocket. “I still have my primary credcard. I’d be happy to make a subsist transfer as an expression of our gratitude.”
“No gratitude necessary,” the man replied without hesitation. “First we go in my transport.” He indicated the artfully constructed pseudo-pachyderm. “We find your vehicle. See if some things valuable are salvageable. Then I must kill you.”
Even the usually unflappable Whispr looked stunned. Overwhelmed at last by the combination of exhaustion, lack of proper food, and now shock, Ingrid simply fell to her knees and dropped her gaze to the ground.
“You’re working for him.” Whispr’s tone was resigned and accusing. “Or with him.”
“What?” Their interrogator looked perplexed. “What you talk-talking about, branch boy? Josini Jay-Joh Umfolozi work for nobody but himself.”
Now it was Whispr’s turn to look confused. “You’re not working with a professional man-tracker named Napun Molé? You’re not working for SICK?”
“Me, working for SICK?” Inclining his head sharply to one side, the older man spat sharply. Thick moisture stained the dust. “I hate SICK! SICK people would kill Umfolozi if they could, py damn. Or at least put me out of business and lock me up for long time. Why you crazy stick-man and about-to-cry pretty lady think I work for SICK?”
From where she was kneeling in dirt and despair, Ingrid looked up at him. “Why else would you want to kill us?” She spread her arms to take in their empty, semi-arid surroundings. “Why else would you be out here by yourself?” She indicated his highly distinctive transportation. “Why else would you be out here in the middle of nowhere in a crazy contraption like that?”
“Yeah,” Whispr added. “Why are you using something like that to get around instead of a proper vehicle or a floater?”
Umfolozi cackled. “Because I would be seen, and being seen would be identified, and being identified would be killed or arrested, like I just told you, py damn. You really are ignorant of this part of world, ya? You really no got way figure it. I am a poacher.”
Ingrid gaped at this admission, but Whispr just nodded knowingly. The faux elephant made sense now.
“That explains the camouflaged transport. It fooled us. I guess it would fool a patrol floater, too.”
He scrutinized the clever construction. Tellingly, it had not moved a muscle ever since Umfolozi had emerged from its belly. “Having now met its owner I’m surprised you didn’t put the doorway in the ass. It would match your crappy sense of hospitality.”
Ingrid tensed—but their captor laughed uproariously. “Oh-hoh, cheap shit stick-man makes jokes on deathbed! I like you, Arthur—if that your name. I still going to kill you, but I like you. You make this hard for me—but not impossible.” He gestured at Ingrid with the end of the rifle. “Pretty lady get on your feet. We walk back to river and you show me where your vehicle make like frog. Then we look for salvage. Then I kill you.”
“Could—could I have something to eat first?” she stammered, licking her lips. “I haven’t had anything to eat since half an overcooked rodent and I don’t think I can make it back to the river without some kind of nourishment.”
Umfolozi pushed out his lower lip and nodded to himself. “One makes jokes, other asks for last meal. Both can be accommodated.”
Whispr stepped forward. The gleaming rifle immediately came up to confront his midsection. “We can’t go back.” He nodded southward. “Someone’s trying to kill us. I mean, someone besides you. He’s been following us for a long time. He was going to kill us last night but he ran into something big and hairy that sounded like a cow giving birth to quadruplets. It might have killed him, or crippled him, but we can’t take the chance of going back to find out. If he survived, then he’s still on our trail.” He met the older man’s gaze without flinching. “If he finds us together he’ll kill you, too. He’s not the kind of shunt who leaves loose ends lying around.”
“Sounds like he go to dancing with Megatherium,” Umfolozi supplied helpfully. “Too bad I not there. Illegal Megatherium pelt is worth thousands of rands. Claws alone are worth thousands. Tastes pretty good, too, but the meat would be just for me and my family. I got three aunties, four uncles, one great-uncle, eight children …”
By the time Umfolozi had finished delineating the members of the extended family who depended on him for sustenance Whispr had developed a certain amount of sympathy for their new captor. Bearing in mind, of course, that he had announced his intention to kill them.