"Oh, I see-... yes."
Gresham was doing a stand-up at the edge of camp. Laura circled him, careful to stay out of camera range.
She was shocked by the beauty of his face.. He had shaved and put on full video makeup: eyeliner, lip rouge, powder.
His voice had changed: it was mellifluous, each word pro- nounced with an anchorman's precision.
.. the image of a desolate wasteland. But the Sahel was once the home of black Africa's strongest, most prosperous states. The Songhai empire, the empires of Mali and Ghana, the holy city of Timbuktu with its scholars and libraries. To the Moslem world the Sahel was a byword for dazzling wealth, with. gold, ivory, crops of all kinds. Huge caravans crossed the Sahara, fleets of treasure canoes traveled the
Niger River ... "
She walked past him. The rest of his caravan had arrived, and the Tuaregs had set up camp. Not the rags and lean-tos they'd skulked under while raiding, but six large, sturdy- looking shelters. They were prefabricated domes, covered in desert camo-fabric. Inside they were braced with mesh-linked metallic ribs.
From the backs of their skeletal desert cars, the hooded nomads were unrolling long linked tracks that looked like tank treads. In harsh afternoon sunlight the treads gleamed with black silicon. They were long racks of solar-power cells.
They hooked the buggies' wheel hubs to long jumper cables from the power grid. They moved with fluid ease; it was as if they were watering camels. They chatted quietly in
Tamashek.
While one group was recharging their buggies, the others rolled out mats in the shade of one of the domes. They began brewing. tea with an electric heat coil. Laura joined them.
They seemed mildly embarrassed by her presence, but ac- cepted it as an interesting anomaly. One of them pulled a tube of protein from an ancient leather parcel and cracked it_ open over his knee. He offered her a wet handful, bowing. She scraped it from his long fingertips and ate it and thanked him.
Gresham arrived with his cameraman. He was wiping his powdered face with an oiled rag, fastidiously. "How'd it go in camp?"
"I wasn't sure they'd let me back out."
"They don't work that way," Gresham said. "It's the desert that locks people in there...." He sat beside her.
"Did you tell them about the Bomb?"
She shook her head. "I wanted to, but I just couldn't.
They're so jumpy already, and there's commandos with guns... . But Katje will tell them, if she comes around. It's all so confused-I'm confused. I was afraid they'd panic and lock me away. And you, too."
The thought amused him. "What, come out and tangle with us? I don't think so." He patted the camera. "I had a talk with that para captain, when he came out to give us the once-over... . I know how he's thinking. Classic Afrikaaner tactics: he's got his covered wagons- in a circle, every man to the ramparts, ready to repel the Zulus. Of course he's a Zulu himself, but he's read the rule books... . Got a camp full of childlike savage refugees to keep calm and pacified... . He's got us figured for friendlies, though. So far."
"Vienna's coming, too."
"Christ." Gresham thought about it. "A little Vienna, or a lot of Vienna?"
"They didn't say. I guess it depends on what Vienna wants. They gave me some song-and-dance about protests from the government of Niger."
"Well, Niger's no help, eighty-year-old Soviet tanks and an army that riots and burns down Niamey' every other year... . If there's a lot of Vienna, it could be trouble. But they wouldn't send a lot of Vienna to a refugee camp. If
Vienna were moving in force against Mali they'd just hit Bamako."
"They wouldn't ever do that. They're too afraid of the Bomb."
"I dunno. Spooks make lousy soldiers, but they took out
Grenada six months ago, and that was a tough nut to crack. "
"They did that? Invaded Grenada?"
"Wiped 'em out in their hacker ratholes.... Stupid tactics though, frontal assault, clumsy.... They lost over twelve hundred men." He raised his brows at her shock. "You've been to Grenada, Laura-I thought you knew. FACT should have told you-it was such a triumph for their goddamn policy. "
"They never told me. Anything."
"The cult of secrecy," he said. "They live by it." He paused, glancing toward the camp. "Oh, good. They've sent us but some of their tame Tamashek."
Gresham withdrew within the dome, motioning Laura with him. Half a dozen camp inmates arrived outside, trudging reluctantly.
They were old men. They wore T-shirts and paper baseball hats and Chinese rubber sandals and ragged polyester pants.
The Inadin Tuaregs greeted them with languid, ritual po- liteness. Gresham translated for her. Sir is well? Yes, very well, and yourself? Myself and mine are very well, thank you. And sir's people, they are also well? Yes, very well.
Thanks be to God, then. Yes, thanks be to God, sir.
One of the Inadin lifted the kettle high and began pouring tea with a long, ceremonial trickle. Everyone had tea. They then began boiling it again, pouring some coarse sugar over a kettle already half full of leaves. They spoke for some time about the tea, sitting politely, brushing without irritation at circling flies. The day's most virulent heat faded.
Gresham translated for her-strange bits of solemn plati- tude. They stayed in the back of the tent, out of the circle.
Time passed slowly, but she was happy enough to sit beside him, letting her mind go desert blank.
Then one of the Inadin produced a flute. A second found an intricate xylophone of wood and gourds, bound with leather.
He tapped it experimentally, tightening a cord, while a third reached inside his robe. He tugged a leather thong-at the end was a pocket synthesizer.
The man with the flute opened his veil; his black face was stained blue with sweat-soaked indigo dye. He blew a quick trill on the flute, and they were off.
The rhythm built up, high resonant notes from the buzzing xylophone, the off-scale dipping warble of the flute, the eerie, strangely primeval bass of the synthesizer.
The others punctuated the music with claps and sudden piercing shrieks from behind their veils. Suddenly one began to sing in Tamashek. "He sings about his synthesizer,"
Gresham murmured.
"What does he say?"
I humbly adore the acts of the Most High,
Who has given to the synthesizer what is better than a soul.
So that, when it plays, the men are silent,
And their hands cover their veils to hide their emotions.
The troubles of life were pushing me into the tomb,
But thanks to the synthesizer,
God has given me back my life.
The music stopped. The camp refugees clapped a little, then stopped, confused. Gresham glanced at his watch, then rose to his feet, lugging his camera. "That's just a taste of it," he told Laura. "They'll be back for more, later-and bring their families I hope...."
"Let's do the interview."
He hesitated. "You sure you're up for it?"
"Yeah."
She followed him to another tent. It was guarded by two of the Inadin Tuaregs and heaped with their baggage. There were carpets underfoot and a battery, a spare one from the buggies. Hooked to it, he had a keyboard and screen-a custom model with a console-of hand-carved redwood.
Gresham sat cross-legged before it. "I hate this goddamned machine," he announced, and ran his hand lingeringly over its sleek lines. He hooked his videocam to one of the con- sole's input ports.
"Gresham, where's your makeup case?"
He passed it to her. Laura opened the hand mirror. She was so gaunt and thin-a look like anorexia, rage turned help- lessly in on itself.
The hell. She jabbed her fingertips in powder, smeared her hollow cheeks. Somebody was going to pay.