“That’s what sustains me through all this,” she growled back at him. “Your mordant wit.”
He started to bark a rejoinder, then unexpectedly broke into one of his irritatingly ingratiating grins. “Being angry’s healthier than being scared. Go ahead and bitch at me all you want. I can take it. I’m used to being a punching bag.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Why can’t you just stick to one psychological state—sarcastic or pitiable? I never know which way to jump.”
He gestured anew. She was unconscionably gratified to see that his arm was pointed in the same direction she had been preparing to go when she’d thought he had run out on her.
“Might as well jump that way. Without a map, directions, or GPS we don’t have much choice. Or we have a wealth of choices. Depends on how you want to look at it.” His eyes met hers. “Now getting to Nerens is about more than finding out what’s on the thread. Now it’s about finding food and water.” His eyes widened. “You still have the thread, don’t you?”
She started. In all the confusion and confliction she hadn’t … Reaching inside her shirt she felt for the small storage compartment that had been sewn into the inside of the left cup of her brassiere. After a moment’s searching, the tips of her fingers closed around an unyielding cylinder. Finding the storage capsule’s seal intact she let out a sigh of relief.
“Still here.”
He exhaled with relief. “For a moment there all I could think of was having to dig through a few dozen square meters of sand with my bare hands in search of something smaller than a finger joint.” He gestured at the debris-strewn ground. “Let’s see if there’s anything else we can salvage.” His grin returned, crooked as ever. “At least if we get hit with another sandstorm we won’t have to worry about losing all our supplies. Because you already surrendered some to the flood, and me to the storm. Heck of a way to lighten a pack.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” She made herself smile back at him. “You can’t lose what you’ve already lost.”
They searched the immediate surroundings for nearly half an hour without finding anything. The sand had taken everything except his first-aid kit. He was glad to still have it. The sand had nearly taken her companion.
She was glad to still have him.
HIKING THROUGH HEAVILY ERODED hills instead of across a flat plain offered more opportunities to keep under cover and away from the prying eyes of any company searcher drones. It also offered shade from a sun burning through a cloudless sky. But it also made for slower going. Ironically, in a world awash in helpful electronics they now found themselves navigating by the light in the sky.
It helped that both of them had poured over Ouspel’s map and instructions so many times that much of it remained in memory, though they no longer had a communicator with which to confirm their decisions. They did not speak of what would happen if they missed Nerens entirely and continued trudging northward. Beyond the SICK company outpost there were no towns or scientific stations, and the east–west road (the only east–west road) that connected the towns of Lüderitz and Keetmanshoop was farther from Nerens than the SICK facility was from Orangemund. Miss their target destination and they would surely die in the desert.
Even in the most complex world, she reflected as she marched alongside Whispr, life could ultimately be reduced to simplicities.
Actually, there was a simple way to avoid getting lost. All they had to do was head west until they hit the sea and then turn north. But with company diamond mining sites scattered all along the coast and Nerens being supplied from the sea, the chances of approaching the facility undetected via a coastal route was essentially zero. They had no choice but to try to sneak in from the wide-open east. From the desert where no one ventured except fools and the deluded.
Which am I? she wondered. Recently she had told others that she was a scientist. Plenty of fools and the deluded belonged to that profession. Surreptitiously she eyed her slender companion as he trod silently beside her. At least Whispr harbored no such illusions. He was here for the promise of subsist and nothing more. His ruminations were not troubled by elevated hopes. In a way, she envied him. There was something to be said for the peace conveyed to the soul by a complete lack of curiosity.
Worry was being pushed into the background by weariness as they topped a low rise and a sheltered riverbed came into view. They had encountered and crossed many such, but this one was strikingly different. For one thing, it was preponderantly green instead of brown and yellow. Not for the full length of its meandering course, nor heavily so. But there was tall brush, and clusters of reeds, and even a few scattered ivory palms lording it over lesser desert vegetation. A trio of distinctive ungulate shapes with towering horns paused to stare in the direction of the new arrivals before breaking into a gallop for the nearest ridge. As the two tired travelers watched, the three gemsbok disappeared over the rocky crest, still moving at a lazy trot as they vanished.
Conferring, Ingrid and Whispr agreed that this little desert paradise was one of the last main water holes that had been marked on Ouspel’s map.
“I even remember the damn name.” Whispr had to restrain himself from plunging headlong toward the inviting garden. “Kokerboom Oasis.”
“Then we’re not far from Nerens.” Her reply was tinged with barely controlled excitement.
“That’s right. We can look forward to being taken prisoner any day now.” He was licking his lips as they descended the slope on which they had been standing and started across the soft sand and gravel of the largely dry river bottom. “I’ve already decided what I want for my last meal. Assuming SICK allows the condemned a last meal.”
The sight of water oozing out of the sands among the greenery was so inviting that she determined to forgo the dubious pleasure of arguing with him. It formed a pool, not a river, but in the absence of humankind the water was clean and potable. The sensation of it sliding down her throat was indescribable. No liquid derived from a waterpak could taste half so sweet.
As soon as she had drank her fill she laboriously removed her boots and self-inflating socks, rolled the legs of her pants up to her knees, found a suitable rock, and plunged her limbs into the water. It was just deep enough to allow her toes to touch bottom. Curious centimeter-long silvery fish, an amazing presence in so remote a place, finned over to investigate the pale sausagelike intruders that had immersed themselves in their isolated paradise.
She looked toward her companion. Wiping the last invigorating droplets from his lips, Whispr was gazing into the high reeds as he unlimbered his backpack.
“Why don’t you come and join me?” she urged him. “It’ll lower your body temperature and in ten minutes you’ll feel like you’ve spent a weekend in Bermuda.”
“Thought I heard something,” he muttered.
She shook her head sadly. Whispr’s perpetual state of watchfulness had certainly helped him survive a range of dangerous situations, but it also made it impossible for him to relax.
“What could you have heard? There’s nothing here.” She gestured at their gardenlike surroundings. “The oryx have gone. Although I suppose there could be reptiles. Lizards or snakes.” She kicked her feet back and forth, splashing the cool, soothing liquid. “I don’t even care if it’s a viper—I’m willing to share and I’m not moving.”
Someone moaned.
Her stated resolve immediately forgotten, Ingrid scrambled to slip back into her boots and socks. Advancing cautiously, a bent-over Whispr had entered the reeds and was moving in the direction of the sound. By the time Ingrid was back on her feet the moan had been repeated. Louder, and larded with words unknown to her. But from the country research she had done prior to disembarking in Cape Town she thought she recognized the language. The clicks and glottal stops were too distinctive to be anything other than the language of the original indigenous inhabitants of the Southern African desert.
Then they found the creature and she thought she was mistaken. Until
it spoke again.
Lying panting and bleeding among the reeds was the most radical Meld Ingrid had ever seen—so extreme that at first she thought it was an antelope or some other small four-legged creature that had been magified to look human. Only as she moved slowly closer was she able to see for certain that it was a maniped human being. Even Whispr, who had encountered some truly radical melds in Savannah’s underground, was taken aback. What lay before them was more than the usual cosmetic manipulation. The how of it was not in question. The why of it left them utterly bewildered.
Looking up at them, the creature—the person, Ingrid corrected herself—gasped a pair of sentences in her peculiar click-tongue. In the middle of her speech and without warning she abruptly switched over to English.
“You are not—company?”
“No.” Now that her professional as well as personal instincts were aroused Ingrid felt no compunction about moving closer. “We’re—explorers. We mean you no harm.”
Dark doe eyes widened and the feminine voice strengthened slightly. “You are not—SICK security?”
“Hell no,” Whispr assured her. “We don’t want to see them any more than you do.”
Ingrid was kneeling beside the injured—woman. Long bloody gashes streaked her left leg and buttock (haunch?). She wore very little, no more than the equivalent of a bikini top and a short skirt. But the dark fabric was synthetic tough. It imitated animal hide but had not been fashioned from it.
“What happened to you?” Without giving the woman time to answer she added, “My name is Ingrid. This is my friend and traveling companion, Whispr.” As she reached toward the nearest gash the woman Meld pulled away. “Be at ease, relax.” Ingrid smiled. “I’m a doctor. A real doctor.”
“Doctor?” Her puzzling condition notwithstanding, the woman had a right to be surprised at encountering a self-proclaimed physician out in the middle of nowhere.
“Yes, a doctor.” Ingrid adopted her professional mien. “Now, what happened to you?”
“I was gathering certain plants. Medicinal plants that grow along the river. I remember coming here to drink.” Raising her head slightly she nodded upstream. “Leopard, he also came to drink at the same place, at the same time. He surprised me. I surprised him. We argued.” A hint of a shy smile appeared on the dark sweat-stained face. “Leopard always win that argument.”
“But you’re still here,” Whispr observed admiringly. “You’re still alive.”
A slight nod. “He struck at me out of surprise. I fought back.” Reaching down, she touched her waistband and Ingrid saw a leather sheath. It was empty. “Mr. Leopard, he now wears my knife.” Convinced she was not about to be shot or arrested, she struggled to sit up. “I am called !Nisa.” Her name began with a sharp click of tongue against palate.
“Easy—go easy.” Putting an arm behind the young woman to support her, Ingrid looked back at Whispr. “First-aid kit.” He nodded and disappeared back into the brush.
Cleanser was followed by antibiotic. As she applied sprayskin from Whispr’s kit Ingrid was afraid the small travel bottle would run out before she could close the last of the leopard’s wounds, but there was just enough to complete the work to her satisfaction. He regarded her efforts disapprovingly as she set the empty container aside.
“Nothing left for us.”
The Ingrid Seastrom who replied was not the same Dr. Ingrid Seastrom who had left Savannah weeks ago. Her response was curt. “So don’t get cut. Anyway, if somebody shoots you, a travel dispenser of spray isn’t going to close the wound.”
“How reassuring,” he grumbled.
“Prognosis is all part of my job. No extra charge.” I’m starting to sound like him, she thought a little wildly. Bracing herself, she got both arms under the injured woman’s shoulders. “Can you stand?”
A pause, then, “Yes, I can stand.” With the doctor’s help !Nisa proceeded to rise from where she had been lying.
Ingrid initially thought the woman’s back locked on her when she was halfway erect. Then, as she stepped clear, she saw that the woman actually was standing. She just wasn’t standing like a normal human. Or even like a normal Meld.
She was standing on all fours.
In that posture the full extent of her radical meld became clear. Her wrists had been maniped so that the heel of each hand was hardened like a hoof. While still as prehensile as ever, both hands could also serve to support the woman’s upper body as efficiently as any feet. As for the latter, the ankles had been broken, radicalized, bone-ladled, and reset so that both feet faced permanently forward. !Nisa’s legs had been strengthened and every muscle tuned and maximized for running. Her hip joints had been swiveled (that was the only way Ingrid could think of them considering how they were presently positioned). The neck had also been strengthened, given a greater backward arc, and lengthened like that of a melded runway model.
As she contemplated the remarkable reworking of the woman’s body Ingrid wondered if it was even capable of standing erect anymore. No Meld she had ever seen or even read about had been maniped to this extreme. Had she first encountered !Nisa from behind she would have thought she was looking at an animal.
It wasn’t just an animal meld, either. Those were to be found aplenty. Standing before her was an earnest attempt to reimagine a human being as a full-fledged quadruped. It was an extraordinary example of the biosurge’s art. The next step, she supposed, would be to try a complete reversal of bipedal evolution.
“Why?” she heard herself ask. “Why do you look like this? Who made you look like this?”
“There is a fine clinic in Gaborone.” Twisting her head and neck completely around, !Nisa leaned back and showed that she was as capable as any antelope of nibbling on her bruised and damaged hip. “We own it. My people. It is to enable us to be more of what we have always been.” Leaving the treated wounds, she looked up at her new friends. “We are the San. The people of the desert.”
“Are you saying,” an aghast Whispr asked her, “that there are others like you?”
“We are the San,” !Nisa replied simply. “One day we are all to become like this.” She turned. “Come and I will show you.” When they hesitated she kicked out with a hand—or was it a foreleg? “Come—are you afraid?” She cast a meaningful glance skyward. “It is day and we are exposed here. Would you rather go with me or with a company drone?”
After recovering their backpacks Whispr and Ingrid followed the remarkable—and unsettling—Meld upriver. !Nisa explained as they followed the slow-flowing stream that often vanished into the sands.
“For a long time my people were mocked, derided, even hunted by those who invaded our ancestral territories. White, black—it made no difference. All looked down on and despised the San. Before the advent of the SAEC, the last tribe-country that ruled this land tried for many years to make the San live only in cities or on reservations. Neither is for San. In cities we die. On reservations we cry. But like this”—and she gestured down at her bent-over, four-legged self—“we can try. Always the San have lived in these deserts, the Namib and the Kalahari. We live here still. But to live as in days of old we no longer can. Always we have been told by others that we must change. So we change.” She grinned. “But not as others would have us change. This time, these days, we decide on how to change!”
Over the course of the next several hours Ingrid and Whispr were forced to do more actual climbing and scrambling than they had since leaving Savannah. Despite the injuries she had incurred from the claws of the leopard, the tumbled boulders and awkward heights proved no obstacle to !Nisa. Traveling on all fours with greatly maniped leg muscles, she had no difficulty leaping from one ledge to the next. Patient with her charges and ignoring Whispr’s constant cursing, she led them up a side canyon and away from the main river.
Still wondering if so severe a Meld was capable of standing on two legs, Ingrid got her answer when they were confronted by a pair of young men who seemed to materialize out of the rocks
that flanked both sides of the trail. Though equally as radically maniped as their guide, they stood on their hind legs. They also held rifles in their melded fingers. His hands rising reflexively into the air, Whispr nodded at the nearest gun.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s a traditional San weapon?”
!Nisa spoke to the guards in her own remarkable language. They promptly lowered their weapons. “We are traditionalists,” she told Whispr. “Not fools.”
Now advancing escorted by the pair of guards they continued upward into the foothills. Unable to hold their weapons and proceed on all fours, the two men had slipped the rifles into long woven holsters slung across their backs.
“What do you need guns for?” Ingrid asked curiously. “Out here, in this empty place?”
“The desert is only empty to those who do not know how to look. Because we are again become one with the Namib does not mean we must feed ourselves with bows and arrows. Had I brought my own gun with me I could have dealt better with the leopard and would not have needed your help. But then you would not be seeing this place now.” Sitting back on her haunches she gestured ahead.
The hanging canyon was a small paradise high up in the foothills. Where the slope flattened out, the winding trickle of a tributary they had been following expanded to form multiple pools. Surrounded by high rock on all sides, the little valley boasted a surprising amount of vegetation. Traditional hunter-gatherers, the San did not farm the well-watered soil. Nor did they erect or have need of structures. Caves and overhangs provided ample shelter. Their lifestyle did not demand a full reversion to ancient times, however. Traditional culture had its limits.
Sheets of amorphous solar cells colored to match and blend with the surrounding terrain provided power. Small camouflaged satellite pickups allowed for the reception of the same vit programming one would find in Cape Town—or for that matter, Savannah. Noiseless refrigeration allowed food to be stored and kept despite the extremes of temperature experienced in the Namib. Concealed in a large cave near the back of the community were not one but two veiled floaters.