Captured and driven
Like the beasts of the forest
Or the slaves of Man.
Karil and Terry rode side by side across the savannah, their horses breasting the long grass, the mirrored sun blazing down upon them. Every so often a gust of wind would sweep past--Karil could see the grass bowing before it--and wave Terry's mane like a banner. The rainforest hung rich and green above the clouds, all but smothering the river-system that meandered from one end of the valley to the other. On the other side of the sky, the desert was an abstract painting of white sand, red rock, black shadow, and green oasis wherever the date-palms clustered about a well or pool. The savannah was familiar, yet strangely empty. He imagined the impala pronking, the giraffe bobbing like tall ships, the elephants casually ransacking the trees.
"I'm beginning to understand al-Zubair," Karil said. "I'm sure this project was partly inspired by homesickness. Of course, he did intend to keep it all for himself as a fantasy-class High Company estate, but I can see why he wanted to create this little corner of High Earth out here."
"It almost makes him seem sympathetic, doesn't it?"
"Hmmm...no."
Terry reined in. Karil stopped beside her, and she turned in her saddle to face him. "Karil," she said, "would you like to help us finish the project?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, now that Titan has a whole new technology to bargain with, we'll be able to finish stocking the colony."
"What would I have to do?"
"Supervise the capture and shipping of the savannah species, so we can breed them here. You'd be perfect for the job. Charles thinks so, too. You grew up with the animals and know their ways, and yet you're at home in space. That's a pretty rare combination, you know."
"You forget. I'm not exactly welcome on Earth."
"Charles says you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. Titan has some pretty big guns now, thanks to al-Zubair. Relations with Earth should be different now. In the face of a shift in interplanetary relations like that, a little smuggling and Martian sabotage don't seem so important. We'll be able to work together--you and me. There's work for Loris too, and Shagrug. We'll need good pilots."
"It's a tempting offer."
"Of course it is," she laughed. "That's why I was chosen to make it. I'm the resident temptress. You'll be able to watch this place come alive with animals--elephants, lions. You'll feel like God on the Sixth Day."
Karil laughed. Now he knew why Terry had brought him here. Loris and Shagrug had gone off in the Hum Bug, guiding a fuel tanker to Atty's position, Jay had remained with the Professor to prepare for the downloading of the ship's evidence, and Terry had taken Karil to Nova One. He had leaped at the offer, not only to see the savannah and to be alone with Terry, but to postpone as long as possible his next conversation with Jay. Terry had, in some subtle way, come between them, and he was not sure how to deal with it.
Terry suddenly spurred her mount and galloped off toward the distant trees. Karil went after her, flying across the grassland through the wind and sun. His heart began to pound in rhythm to his horse's hooves; a woman's sudden flight like this, when no danger threatened, could only be an invitation to pursuit.
The golden flag of her hair vanished among the trees, and a few minutes later Karil plunged into their shade. He slowed to a trot, looking about for her. The ground was dappled with sunlight and buzzed with cicada-song. He found her horse's spoor and followed it, bending over his own mount's neck.
In time, he found himself beside a small waterhole and looking up, discovered an unexpected sight. It was a treehouse, a round hut with conical roof such as one might find in the High Sudan, but perched halfway up a towering baobab. Beneath it, Terry's mount was quietly grazing, and her clothes were scattered about the shore.
Suddenly she appeared, rising naked from the pond like a blond naiad, and sounded again. Soon he was in the water with her, and soon after that they were lying on the grassy bank as Karil traced patterns with his fingertips on her back.
She turned heavy-lidded eyes to his face, pulled him down to her. There was a lingering kiss, and they were locked in a penetrating embrace. She rolled on top of him, burying him in fragrant tresses. He looked up at her as they made love, her lips parted and her head tossing in ecstasy, the sunlight through the foliage behind her creating a golden corona of her hair.
***
Karil was not surprised to find that the treehouse contained a well-stocked larder, a modern kitchen, and full plumbing. The maze of pipes and wires a few meters below ground apparently thrust upward through the tree-trunk. He wondered how many other trees in the valley were similarly cored.
"Does all this spoil it for you?" Terry asked, as they bustled together, naked, about the kitchen. "We can rough it sometime, if you like. I'm not your average pampered outworlder, you know."
"Maybe we will, someday," he said, lifting her mane and kissing the back of her neck. "Right now, it couldn't be better. I had a tree-house of my own, you know, when I was a boy."
"Really? Back on High Africa?"
"Yes. I had my first sexual encounter there."
"No! In a tree-house?" Terry laughed. "You know, somehow that doesn't surprise me."
They had chilled wine with dinner, by candlelight, listening to the whirr of cicadas and the bellow of frogs in the night, the rustle and snort of the horses tethered below.
"Karil..."
"What, Terry?"
"Don't look so frightened. Why are men always so frightened when a woman starts to speak seriously?"
"Experience, probably," he said, grinning.
"I was just going to tell you something, then ask you something."
"What is it?" He knew what she had to tell him.
"Jay and I are..."
"I guessed," he said. "Do you love him?"
"Yes, don’t you?"
The question surprised him. "I suppose I do. He was my best friend most of my life, after all. No, pretty much my only friend."
"It's hard to imagine. You know that, Karil? I don't know what it's like not to be surrounded by people who care for me, all the time." She paused. "I love you, Karil," she said.
"I love you too," he replied. "But you know that."
"You never said so, you know."
"Didn't I?" It was true. "But neither did you."
"Will you marry me?"
It was a strange fact that Karil had not expected this. He sipped his wine. "What about Jay?" he asked finally.
"He's already accepted."
"Oh, I see." He pushed his plate away. It was obvious that dinner was over for him. "I don't know if I can do that, Terry."
Her words came out in a torrent, as if they could overwhelm and conquer his doubts by sheer force of numbers. "We'll all be working on this project for some time, but eventually it'll be over. Jay and I want to live on Mars. I know there's a tremendous future out this way--Triton will be colonized eventually, and there's the whole outer system to be explored--but there's a future on Mars too. Someday we'll be able to crawl out of our holes and stand on the surface. Jay says it's like our ancestors crawling out of the sea. The project planners are already looking for people with qualifications like Jay's and mine. That's why I came to study here, with the great experts on mega-projects. In the meantime, we can start a little farm, maybe in the Margaritifer. Someday that will be a coastal plain. Jay and I have already started designing the main tunnel complex. There's a room in it we call Karil's room..."
Karil opened his lips to speak, but she placed a finger upon them and continued talking. "I know you don't think as far ahead as we do, and I know how you feel about space. You don't have to live with us all the time. You can drop in whenever you're on Mars. It'll be your home base. You'll have a ship of your own someday. We can incorporate it with our Martian holdings. It's been done before. Our children..."
"There won't be any children by me, Terry. That dose of radiation I got on Io has seen to that."
"That doesn't matter, Karil. Nobody cares who fathers the babies; we're all Progeny's Children. It's just--well, communal life has a way of becoming insular. People outside the family aren't quite the same. I need you to be part of the family."
"Terry," he said, reaching out and placing his hand on hers. "I admire the Martian lifestyle. I love the Martian people. But I don't think I can do it. I'm possessive, Terry, I'm selfish. I wasn't brought up that way."
"Jay wasn't either."
"Jay is not... I mean, he's..."
"He's not as passionate a person as you are, I know that."
There was a moment of silence. In that moment, Karil came to understand. Terry admired Jay, even loved him, and she wanted his genes in her family. But she had been away from Mars for a while, had seen the solar system, and she needed someone for the passionate, adventurous side of her nature. Jay knew this and was intellectual enough to accept it, whatever jealousy he may have harboured in the depths of his heart. In both their minds, Karil filled their needs perfectly. But Karil wasn't so sure.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said finally. "Atty's my ship. She's important to me. And Shagrug can't get along with just anybody, you know. Then, there's Loris. We're good partners too. I don't know."
"Will you think about our idea?"
"Of course I will. There's plenty of time, isn't there?"
***
In the middle of the night, Karil rose and padded about the room naked, looking for a pen and paper, which he found in a kitchen drawer. Terry stirred in bed, her hair cascading over the pillow. Karil sat and wrote:
If I'd been raised like you
in a family that kissed
and touched in Martian style,
it might not be so difficult for me
to reach out with a casual air
and touch the ones I love.
In childhood
most of my companions
were imaginary friends;
for years my treehouse
was a secret place.
But once there was a visitor.
With Tomboy ease she climbed
and, bold, sat in my lap.
She placed my head on budding breasts
to feel her heart, as loud as mine,
and I experienced
my first erection not in sleep.
We looked down through the foliage
and saw her Baba, dressed in black.
All my life there was
a scowling Baba in my soul,
a dark duenna at the dance
of my desires.
Into the secret treehouse
of my mind you climb
and slowly, over time,
convince me I am not alone,
that I can touch, and trust, and share
my thoughts and dare
defy the doubts that chaperone
my soul.
The morning sunlight striped their bodies through the shutters. They lay on a mattress spread on the tatami-mat floor of the treehouse. Karil was busy making snail-tracks with his tongue across Terry's downy, quivering belly. Her hair was flying as she thrashed about. He made a neat detour about the glistening pubic triangle and continued down her thighs.
Suddenly she was up on her elbows, her head cocked sideways. "Something's spooking the horses," she said.
Karil listened. They did seem to be nervous. "They've picked up a lion’s scent," he said, anxious to get back to work.
"There are no lions, remember?"
"That's right. I forgot." He bent down and bit her on the inner thigh.
"Ouch! What's that for?"
"Just marking my place. Shall we check it out?" He leaped to his feet, extended a hand and pulled her up beside him.
Karil paused to draw his laser from the holster hanging on the wall but did not bother to dress. They descended the ladder to the ground, and while Terry comforted the horses with a few pats and a gentle word, Karil prowled about the waterhole, laser at the ready. There did not seem to be anything amiss. He was about to return when he thought he heard a movement in the undergrowth. Nerves tensed, he followed the sound. It led him on through the brush and into deeper bush, until in a clearing he saw the bird crashing about, flapping an apparently broken wing. He started toward it to see how badly hurt it might be, when suddenly it took to the air and streaked away, unhurt. It was a ruse to draw him away from the nest--wherever that might be. Karil grinned at how easily he had been tricked.
Back at the tree, he found that Terry had gone back inside, even though the horses seemed more nervous than ever. They were prancing about now, rolling their eyes. Karil took a moment to calm them and climbed the ladder.
"All I saw was a Guinea fowl," he called out as he stepped inside. "It led me on a wild..."
There was no answer. Karil bounded into the bedroom, found it empty. In a moment he was on the ground again, his senses alert. The horses had destroyed any sign of a struggle at the base of the tree. He prowled in ever-widening circles until he found broken foliage and followed a trail of trampled undergrowth. The sight of a shod man's footprint in a patch of bare ground frightened him.
He was bending down to examine it when he thought he heard a sound behind him. He fell to the ground, rolled away and came up on his feet, swinging his laser about. But there was no one. He was vexed at his own nervousness; anyone could have heard the racket he had just made. The scrub about him was silent, but for the ceaseless drone of the cicadas.
He returned to the trail and picked it up with some difficulty, following it deeper into the bush. Suddenly he ducked silently behind a tree. In a clearing before him, Terry was lying on the ground, bound and gagged, her legs bleeding from thorn-scratches. A man was squatting nearby, a laser-rifle held loosely in the crook of his arm.
Karil crept slowly into the clearing behind the guard's back. He was ready to use his own laser as a club and to catch the rifle with his free hand as it fell. But a voice behind him made him freeze.
"Drop it," the voice said simply. Karil hesitated a moment as the man before him turned slowly, grinning, and Terry rolled over, shaking her head wildly and mumbling. Then he tossed his laser on the ground. The guard, chuckling, picked it up and thrust it into his belt. Karil turned about and saw two other figures behind him, powerful needle-nosed lasers pointed at him. In a moment, his hands were tied behind him.
***
A thousand years had passed since captured tribesmen had last trotted across the plains of Earth's Western Sudan, bound for the Guinea Coast, where their tribal enemies would sell them to white men from across the sea. The jungle and the desert looked down on Karil and Terry, still naked, their hands bound behind them, as they stumbled through the long grass. Their captors rode behind them, lazy in the sun, their weapons loosely held.
Terry tripped and fell. She struggled to get to her feet while Karil watched helplessly, but exhausted as she was and without the use of her hands, it was impossible. One of their captors reached down and hauled her up by the hair. Karil saw the dirty streaks that her tears had left on her dust-caked face. His hatred blotted out the needle-like pain in his arms, the rubbery agony in his legs. He said nothing, only waited for her to gain her feet, and then they went on.
Karil's eyes, half-blinded with sweat, searched the distant end-wall through the clouds. That vast structure was far from deserted. There must be hundreds of people in the skeleton-crew on duty at Nova One. But the tiny party trekking across the plains would be invisible to the naked eye both from the endcaps and from the other valleys. The chance that someone might be observing the plains through magnifying lenses at the moment, might chance to see them, was not worth considering. He and Terry had come here, after all, to be alone.
Ahead of them, a solitary man-made structure thrust up from the plains--a subway entrance. Karil and Terry collapsed in the shade on the ramp inside, as their captors dismounted and sent the horses galloping off. The captives were given a few swallows of water to ease their parched throats and swollen tongues, and then they were prodded at gunpoint down the ramp. A train was waiting for them and in a moment, they were speeding in a great U-turn into the endcap and around into one of the other valleys. Karil and Terry lay on the floor of the car, eyeing their guards. The cool air of the tunnel was a welcome relief, and the opportunity to rest close to bliss.
One of the guards was peering at Karil in the opposite seat. “I recognize you,” he said, “but you don’t recognize me.”
“What do you mean?”
The man laughed. “You were unconscious at the time. In the back of an ambulance. Too bad you didn’t see my parachute jump off the top of Pavonis. It was one for the books.”
“Really? Why don’t you take a running jump right now.”
The man laughed again. “You’ll be jumping soon enough.” Then he went back to ogling Terry.
Too soon the train slowed to a halt, and they were stumbling up another ramp into heat and humidity. They were on the bank of a river, surrounded by lush foliage and the raucous chatter of birds. Mist was clinging to the rainforest, and the other bank of the river loomed indistinct. An archaic hovercraft was waiting at the dock, the sort that once plied the Congo and its tributaries. The prisoners were thrust into the cockpit and, with one of their captors at the helm, the vehicle bobbed into the air and sped downriver, keeping close to the bank and under cover of the overhanging trees.
There was no doubt in Karil's mind that they were being taken to al-Zubair. As the kilometres of eerie, fog-shrouded rain forest rolled by, he realized what a perfect hideout the fugitive had found. There was probably no-one alive who knew the layout of the enormous, nearly deserted, Nova Terra better than al-Zubair. Here in the wilds, with his flagship hidden among the myriad moons and debris of the Saturn system, he could rest without fear of discovery and make his plans.
The hovercraft came to shore near a wooden dock. A collection of huts lay shadowed by a replica of a ruined Kongo city, overgrown with moss and creepers. Karil was not in the mood to be impressed by the reminder of one of Africa's most brilliant ancient civilizations. He and Terry were thrown to the dirt floor of one of the huts, and the door was barred behind them.
"Are you all right?" Karil whispered.
"Quiet. Listen."
"...do you mean, he's not here?" one of their captors was saying. "We've got Stilbon and one of Kelley's people." They moved on, out of earshot.
"That's al-Zubair they're talking about," Karil said.
"That's what I figure too. We've got to get out of here, Karil."
"Maybe we can untie each other."
"I don’t know about you, but my hands are useless." She struggled to her knees and peered through the bamboo. There was only one guard visible, sitting by the fire. He kept glancing toward the hut.
"He seems awfully nervous," Karil said.
"He was fondling me before you came so gallantly to my rescue."
"And so stupidly. He was what?"
"Fondling me."
"Bastard."
"At least he's got a weakness. Listen, Karil, I want you to go to that corner and pretend to be asleep. As if you'd passed out from exhaustion. Don't move until I tell you, no matter what happens."
"What are you up to?"
"Just do it. Okay, Karil?"
"I don't like this," Karil said, but he crawled to the far end of the hut and sprawled on the floor. He heard the crash of flesh against bamboo and decided Terry was kicking the door. In a moment it creaked open.
"What are you doing, Bitch?"
"Please," he heard Terry say, "you've got to let me go. Al-Zubair will kill me."
"Oh? What about your boyfriend?"
"He's the one al-Zubair wants. But if I'm here, he’ll kill me too. Please help me."
Karil could imagine her, kneeling before the man, hair tousled, tears in her eyes, breast heaving. She would be irresistible to a man like that. There was a moment of silence, and then a scream. There was a crack, as of a heavy hand across a face, and Terry fell to the ground with a whimper.
"You Martian pig, you damn near bit my tongue off." The door slammed. "All right, you like rough games? I've got a game for you."
"No. Please."
"Come here, you..."
There was another crack--a sickening, bone-crunching sound--and then Terry's voice. "Okay, Karil."
Terry was kneeling over the man's unconscious body. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth and his jaw had been obviously fractured.
Karil whistled in admiration. "How did you manage that?"
"Can you get his knife? When he hit me, I fell on my back, in the most inviting position I could think of. When he bent over me, I used my hands on the ground for leverage, lifted my ass and got him in the jaw with my heel. It's all a matter of leverage, Karil."
"It must have been like being hit with a crowbar. Pretty fancy work." Karil's numb fingers found the haft of the knife. "Who taught you that?"
"Loris, a couple of days ago. Use your lower-body strength."
Karil grinned. "If he can break your neck with his hands, you can do it with your feet." Karil had managed to slide the man's knife out of its sheath and after a few painful minutes of work, a few cuts, and a great deal of rubbing each other's wrists to bring back circulation, they were peering out through the door.
"Can you pilot one of those things?"
"It rides like a Hum Bug. The controls must be similar."
"You'd better figure it out fast."
They dashed across the clearing and vaulted into the craft. The hue and cry came too soon. A laser-beam flashed overhead. Terry picked up a torque-wrench and swung it toward their pursuers as if it were a gun. They dove for cover, just as the hovercraft lifted. It turned, wallowing in the air for a moment, and then they were racing down the river. Suddenly, just as they rounded the next bend, a second craft flashed by them, barely avoiding a head-on collision.
"Oh shit!" Terry said.
The second hovercraft sidled up to the dock behind them, and the other guards climbed aboard. The vehicle swung about, bobbing and yawing for a second, then sped in pursuit. Karil slammed the speed-lever all the way forward and the foliage flashed by them. They were racing for their lives, bouncing over sandbars, careening past sunken logs, creepers lashing at them when they swung too close to the bank.
"Do you know anything about this valley?" Karil shouted over the roar of the engines.
"Not much. I flew over it in a hang-glider once. I think there's a marsh up ahead. The river opens up into a cypress swamp."
"What's around the perimeter?"
"Cypress forest on that side, low hills over there, leading up to the edge of the valley."
"Then that's our route."
The pursuing hovercraft was not gaining on them, but it was not falling behind. Laser-beams flashed overhead or struck the water nearby with a hiss. Their pursuers seemed to have only handguns, and at this range their beams would not have much of a cutting edge but would probably cause serious burns to the flesh. The river opened into marshland, cutting a dozen criss-crossing channels, and they were ploughing through sawgrass, bouncing over hummocks, startling birds into panic flight. The low hills on the horizon rushed toward them, and what appeared for all the world to be blue sky beyond. Suddenly they were out of the swamp and gliding over short-grass parkland. They weaved among the hills and clumps of bush, avoiding steep grades that would stall the hovercraft, but that was slowing their progress and their pursuers seemed to be gaining.
They crested a rise and shot like a cannonball over a vast plane of blue-tinted glass. Ahead of them stretched a thirteen-kilometre-wide solar of millions of inset quartz panels. Looking down over the side of the craft, as if through clear lagoon-water, Karil could see the mammoth structure of cables and struts, the huge mirror stretching away at an angle into space, and beyond that, the stars. He could feel the sun's heat, see the air shimmer over the surface of the glass.
The climb had slowed the other craft for a while, but it soon appeared behind them and picked up speed over the slick surface of the solar. It was gaining on them visibly now, and Karil glanced at the speedometer to find his own vehicle decelerating rapidly.
"There's something wrong," he said.
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Karil flipped open the power-access panel and groaned.
"What's wrong?"
"About half the cells are missing. They've been pirated, probably for the other craft."
"You mean, we tried to escape in a floater that's about to run out of juice?"
"It looks that way."
Terry was speechless. But Karil glanced about the cockpit frantically. "Here," he said, "take the helm."
Terry took over and he began to rummage through the storage area around the perimeter of the cockpit. He laughed out loud and held up a laser-rifle.
"You're kidding me," Terry said.
"It's not fully charged. Only a few shots left. Hard to tell how many." He found a pair of free-fall coveralls and tossed one to Terry, then took over the helm again. "Put it on," he said. "We'll have to cover the last few kilometres on foot and then hide out in the desert. We'll be cooked without clothing."
"What do you mean, on foot? We've almost stopped. They'll be on us in a few minutes." But she dressed quickly.
Karil ignored her questions. "Take the wheel again," he said, and when he was dressed, he crawled to the stern, stretched out on the cargo-deck, and rested the rifle on the transom.
"For God's sake, don't miss," she said. "You'll hit a panel."
"I won't miss."
"I have to admit, though," she went on, "it would attract attention."
"Too late for us, I'm afraid. They'd have us by the time the repair crew got here. Now concentrate on holding this thing steady. I've got to disable that craft."
Karil lined up the crosshairs on the hovercraft's bow. He would have a clear shot through the air-intake into the fan. He held his breath and pressed the trigger. A beam of coherent light flashed clean and true into the screened opening. There was general consternation aboard and the craft swerved out of the line of fire, but the damage had been done. Smoke billowed from the underside of the craft and for a moment it seemed to be riding on a black cloud. Then it nosed into the slick quartz surface, bounced and slid to a halt, grounded. A moment later, their own craft did the same.
"Quick," Karil said. "We've got to run."
Terry hopped overside with him. Karil took her hand in his and ran, still clutching his weapon. Running on the quartz was difficult, but the rosined soles of their suits gave them a little purchase, and after a while they had the hang of it. Karil glanced back and saw their pursuers hotfooting after them. Fortunately, their weapons were not sufficiently accurate at this distance, but the beams flashing by were disconcerting.
Terry collapsed and tried to rise, but her legs gave way.
"I'm sorry, Karil," she said. "I can't run any farther in this gravity."
Karil hesitated for an instant. A beam flashed by his head. His mind raced. He knew he could outrun them himself but leaving Terry behind was obviously out of the question. And how could he get all three of them? Another beam flashed by.
There was only one course still open to him. He dropped to one knee, raised his rifle to his shoulder and held his breath. The crosshairs focused on a seam, the titanium frame that held two quartz panels together, some meters in front of their pursuers. He pressed the trigger and held it down. A beam of light flashed into vision and held, motionless as only a crack laser-shot like Karil could hold it. Through the telescopic sight, he could see the steel begin to glow, a reddish tinge begin to spread along the juncture.
The pursuers stopped, fired too wildly in his direction. Karil felt the hair on the side of his head curl and crisp, smelled it burn as a beam swept past him. But still he held his aim. The pursuers scattered. Two of them collided like farceurs and fell in a tangle of limbs, scrambled to their feet and ran. Karil's laser ran out of juice, and the beam vanished.
Laughing with relief, the running figures stopped, then turned back toward Karil and Terry.
Suddenly, a black rectangle appeared in the gleaming blue floor before them. The frame had bent and buckled, and a pair of panels had given way. The spinning cylinder flung them into space. Karil raised his rifle, watching grimly as the three figures fell to the surface and began to slide inexorably toward the hole. The sound of whistling reached them. Terry appeared beside him, her eyes on the distant tableau.
"My God," she said.
Three voices had begun to scream. The men clawed at the slick surface beneath them, but their fingers could find no purchase. They were shrieking in terror. The wind howled, drowning out their voices, and Terry's hair whipped about her and Karil as she clung to him. The nearest of the three figures slid to the edge of the hole, the wind tearing at him, and suddenly he was gone, sucked out into space and flung to oblivion. One by one the others followed, grimacing and clawing.
"That was a pretty good jump, you sonofabitch,” Karil yelled, then turned to Terry. “Come on. We've got to get to shelter. There'll be a hell of a sandstorm before that's repaired. They ran as their hovercraft, behind them, began to slide toward the hole into nothingness. Perhaps it would block the opening. Or perhaps it would make it larger. Either way, the alarm was triggered.
The wind tore at them with mounting fury as they stumbled across the glassy plain and finally scrambled over the lip of the valley into desert. Distant sirens could be heard, in counterpoint to the howl of the wind.
"There's a shelter at that oasis, I think," Terry yelled in his ear, pointing toward a row of palms whipping in the clouds of sand. "We'll be able to get in touch with Charles."
They trudged into the mounting sandstorm, slipping and stumbling, their arms held before their faces. It was like a fusillade of millions of tiny needles, and they could not open their eyes to see the way ahead. Every so often, Karil would turn and glance behind him. Through the billowing yellow clouds, he could dimly make out the contrast between the dark bands of the landscapes in the sky, the brighter bands of the solars, and he tried to judge his direction by that. He turned again into the wind and collided with a warm body.
It whinnied in terror, pranced about before him, black and indistinct through sand-stung eyes. There were more such creatures, all about him. Terry shouted something unintelligible. He reached out and took her arm, and she clung to him. The indistinct figures were dancing all around them, whinnying frantically, nightmare shapes. One towered over him now, blocking the wind, and he opened his eyes.
A magnificent Arabian stallion stood before him, its head shrouded in a protective cowl. Astride it sat a man, swathed in the equally magnificent white and gold robes of a Bedouin Sharif. Staring down at Karil, he uncovered his face for just a second--long enough for Karil to recognize the sculptured beard, the piercing eyes, the unmistakeable features.
"You'll have to forgive the formal attire," al-Zubair shouted above the storm’s shriek. "I was on my way to receive an award when I heard the news about Kelley's little visit to Titan, and I haven't had time to change. But then, it's turned out to be rather appropriate, hasn't it?"
Terry screamed as al-Zubair’s foot slipped the stirrup and caught Karil viciously along the side of the head. He fell to the sand at the horse's feet, unconscious.