The generalmajor suddenly frowned and peered inquisitively at his prisoner. “Ja, ja,”he said, thoughtfully. “You, also, were in Africa when all this began. Perhaps you met the Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin of whom I speak? Maybe you can enlighten our historians and tell us how and where he died, for this is a great mystery.”
Burton shook his head. “No, sir, I didn't and I cannot.”
“Hmm, so you say, aber ich denke, dass Sie mehr wissen. Richtig?”
“No. I know nothing more.”
The road bisected a rolling plain then ran through a chaotic jungle that had been burned back from the thoroughfare and was held at bay by tall wire fences.
Lettow-Vorbeck pointed. “You see there, the unkontrollierbare Anlagen!”
The “uncontrollable plants” were lurchers. There were many hundreds of them writhing against the barrier.
“We will see more as we approach the Lake Regions, for they are much more numerous near the Blutdschungel. What a nuisance they are!”
The hot air blew against Burton's face as the vehicle raced along, then the sun set and he fell asleep. When he awoke, it was early morning, and they were leaving the Uyanzi region and entering another blistering desert.
He stretched and yawned and said, “Generalmajor, where is all the wildlife? I haven't seen an elephant for years!”
“Elephants are extinct, mein Freund.As for the other creatures, our Eugenicists have adapted a great many for frontline warfare, and the rest have sought refuge in less battle-torn areas of the country; the South, primarily, where you British have no presence and where civilisation prospers in harmony with nature.”
“No presence? South Africa was part of the British Empire in my day.”
“That is so, and the Boers and the Zulus were not happy about it. My people offered them full independent rule, and, with our military assistance, they overthrew you. It took less than a year to drive the British out. After that, it was simply a case of establishing strong trade and industrial relations, and, before many years had passed, the South was very willingly incorporated into the Greater German Empire.”
They soon left the desert and the road began to snake between small domed hills, finally emerging from a valley into a wide basin. The ground was torn up and dried into grotesque configurations; the trees were nothing but stumps; burned wreckage was strewn about; but there was something in this old battlefield that Burton recognised-its contours told him that this was where the village of Tura had stood. There was no sign of the settlement.
The driver shouted something.
“Ah,” Lettow-Vorbeck said. “Now we leave the road and travel north. Later we shall go west again. You are hungry?”
“Yes.”
The generalmajor snapped an order and the man sitting in front of Burton lifted a hamper onto his lap, opened it, and started to pass back packets of sliced meat, a loaf of bread, fruit, and other comestibles. With a shock, Burton noticed that the soldier's face was covered with short bristly fur and that his jaws extended forward into a blunt muzzle. His mouth was stretched into a permanent and nasty smile. A hyena.
They sped out of the hills onto a wide expanse of flatland broken only by a long ridge that ran along to the north of them.
The sun was high in the sky. The scenery around them jiggled in and out of focus as if struggling to maintain its reality.
“How will the L.59 Zeppelindestroy Tabora?” Burton asked.
Lettow-Vorbeck gave a peal of laughter and slapped his thigh. “Hah! I was wondering how long it would take before you asked me that!”
“I assumed you'd inform me that it's top secret.”
“So warum bitten Sie jetzt?”
“Why do I ask now? Because this journey is interminable, Generalmajor, and I'm bored. Besides, it occurs to me that since I'm your prisoner, and I don't even know where Tabora is, and the attack is imminent, there can be little harm in you telling me.”
“Ja, das ist zutreffend.Very well. In forty-eight hours, the L.59 Zeppelinwill drop an A-Bomb on the city.”
“And what is that?”
“You are aware of the A-Spores, ja?”
“An obscene weapon.”
“Quite so. Quite so. But very effective. The bomb will deliver, from a very high altitude, a concentrated dose of the spores to the entire city. The Destroying Angel mushroom is among the most toxic species of fungus in the world, Herr Burton. Its spores kill instantly when they are breathed, but they are easily resisted with a gas mask. Not so the ones in the bomb, for they have been specially bred to such microscopic size that they will penetrate the pores of a person's skin. No one will escape.”
“Barbaric!”
“Hardly so. It is a very sophisticated weapon.”
“And still you claim the Greater German Empire is a superior civilisation?”
“It is you British who have driven us to such extremes.”
“I hardly think that-”
The plant suddenly lurched to the left and the driver screamed: “Gott im Himmel! Was ist das? Was ist das?”
Burton looked to the right. The most incredible machine he'd ever seen was mounting the ridge. It was completely spherical, a gigantic metal ball about two hundred feet in diameter and painted a dark jungle green. A wide studded track was spinning at high speed vertically around it, providing the motive force. Burton guessed that the same gyroscopic technology that kept penny-farthings upright in his time was here employed to prevent the sphere from rolling to its left or right.
Four long multi-jointed arms extended from the sides of it. The upper pair ended in lobster-like claws, the lower in spinning circular saw blades. These were obviously used to tear through whatever vegetation couldn't be simply rolled over.
Three rows of portholes and cannon ports ran horizontally around the orb, and four curved chimneys pumped steam into the air from just below its apex.
A puff of smoke erupted from its hull. A loud bang followed, and another, even louder, as an explosion threw up the earth ahead of the German transport.
“Warning shot!” Burton shouted. “You have to stop! You'll never outrun it!”
“Halt! Halt!” Lettow-Vorbeck yelled.
The plant jerked to a standstill. The generalmajor stood, drew his pistol, pushed the barrel into the side of Burton's head, and waited as the sphere drew closer.
“I am sorry, Herr Burton, I will kill you rather than allow you back into British hands, but let us first see what they have to say.”
There was a hard thud.
Lettow-Vorbeck looked down at the hole that had just appeared in the middle of his chest and muttered, “Himmelherrgott!Just that?”
He collapsed backward out of the plant.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
One after the other, in quick succession, the Schutztruppenslumped in their seats.
The rolling sphere drew to a stop, casting its shadow over the German vehicle. Burton watched as a thin wedge opened from it, angling down to form a sloping platform with a door at the top. There was a figure framed in the portal.
“Don't just sit there, you chump!” Bertie Wells called. “Come aboard!”
It was named the SS Britannia, and was captained by General Aitken himself-the director of all British military operations in East Africa-whom Burton remembered from the bombing of Dar es Salaam back in 1914.
“It's good to see you again, Bertie!” the famous explorer enthused as Wells and three British Tommies led him through the ship toward the bridge. “What happened to you? And how did you end up aboard this behemoth?”
“Adventures and perils too numerous to recount happened to me, Richard, but eventually I made my way to Tabora like everyone else. Practically every free Britisher in Africa-perhaps in the entire world-is there now.”