''But now the Nephs have stepped in,'' David said. ''They've done what nobody else has in a hundred years and invaded. Whatever else Freegypt is, it's a sovereign state, and the Nephs have broken international law. Never mind that they were provoked. They've still done the unthinkable. In crossing the Freegyptian border with a military force, they've crossed a line.''
''The Hegemony will intervene?'' Zafirah sounded doubtful.
''They might. Osirisiacs never need much of an excuse to take a pop at their enemies, and the Horusites will certainly be keen for them to. Jeb Wilkins likes conducting wars by proxy if he can get away with it. No Americans and Canadians coming home in bodybags always plays well with the voters. So he'll be goading the Hegemony on, talking about common interests and the importance of maintaining strategic effectiveness in the Middle Eastern theatre, or some such. If the Hegemony does get involved, that may or may not be to our advantage. We'll have to see. The real question is what the Setics will do.''
''Obvious. Support the Nephthysians.''
''Maybe. There's been plenty of talk coming from the KSD but precious little concrete action so far.''
''Give them time.''
David acknowledged this with a nod, not a full one.
''It's interesting,'' said Zafirah.
''What is?''
''How you've come round to the Lightbringer. How close the two of you have become. He's always conferring with you.''
David nearly blurted it all out then: That's because he's Steven, he's my brother, my long-thought-lost little bro. The secret seemed desperate to leap out of him and latch itself onto someone else, like it was a living entity with a mind of its own, a kind of virus. He only just managed to keep it contained.
''Perhaps he enjoys having someone around he can speak his native tongue with,'' he said.
''He has me,'' Zafirah pointed out.
''Jealous?''
''No. But I remember how sceptical you were to begin with. How hostile. Now look at you — his right-hand man.''
David smirked. ''I saw the light.''
This flippant remark drew unexpected scorn.
''Oh, so now you're so cosy with him, you can make fun of him behind his back,'' Zafirah snapped. ''Is that supposed to impress me?''
''I didn't mean anything by it. It seemed like a witty thing to say.''
''Some of us respect Al Ashraqa deeply, you know. Even revere him.''
''I know.''
''He may be a man, not a god, but this is a land where idols have been in short supply.''
Again the secret squirmed within David. Again he fought to hold it in.
''I meant no offence,'' he said. ''Sorry.''
''Apology accepted — just.'' Zafirah frowned. ''What is it with you, though? I don't get it. Most of the time you're so self-assured, completely in control of whatever you do, and then all of a sudden you're this awkward little boy who doesn't know how to act around grown-ups.''
It stung, because it was true.
''Aren't all men that way?''
''Perhaps, but with you the difference is so marked.'' She fixed her jade-and-topaz gaze on him. ''All I'm trying to say is, I can't figure you out, David Westweenter.''
''But you want to?''
''I think so. For a long time I've felt like I shouldn't be interested in you. I've needed to keep you at a distance. I don't know why. In denial, I suppose.''
''In de Nile,'' David said, regretting it the instant he said it.
''That's just it!'' Zafirah exclaimed. ''That — that pathetic schoolboy humour of yours. Here I am, trying to say something serious, and you just make a joke. I don't know why I bother.''
''No, please bother.''
Somewhere inside herself she found the reserves of tolerance she needed to keep going. ''All I want is for you to understand that I know I have been difficult with you. I admit it. Standoffish. That's a real word, right? I have been that way. But I don't think I can do that any more. I don't think I want to. You confuse me, you infuriate me sometimes, but…''
That was his cue. That was a come-on line if ever David had heard one. And all at once he was reminded, acutely, how good Zafirah looked. Even with her features hemmed in by the turban and seamed with road grime, she was nothing less than striking. And the way she straddled the bike — arms folded, legs straight out in an inverted V, holding the machine upright with the clench of her thighs — was impossibly sexy. He felt a bead of sweat trickling down his torso under his shirt, working its way from collarbone to crotch.
He could reach out to her now. Should. Must. This was it. Now or never.
But then Steven's admonition flashed through his head: Zafirah isn't for you. He could see the words in his mind's eye, as though they were written in letters of fire ten feet tall. They formed a barricade in his thoughts. He couldn't seem to push past them. Steven had put Zafirah off-limits, had made her forbidden territory for him. The two of them could still work together, that was acceptable to him, but nothing more. And somehow David couldn't help but comply with his brother's wishes.
Why? he asked himself as his arms remained limp by his sides and the bead of sweat was absorbed untraceably into his waistband. Why am I letting Steven dictate what I can and can't do regarding this woman?
Zafirah was watching him, waiting for him to make his move.
David felt abject. Helpless.
Seconds passed.
Zafirah turned her face away. Something in the middle distance caught her attention.
''There,'' she said coolly. ''Look. A car in trouble.''
A dinky little runabout had strayed off the hard-packed dirt track the column was following. It had driven onto the soft sand at the edges. It had become bogged down.
Zafirah lowered her goggles and stamped down on the kick-starter. David did the same. He rode after her towards the stricken car, steering his bike along the snaky double-groove her tyres left behind.
The car had to be unloaded. They dug the wheels out. It still couldn't free itself. They used planks so that it could gain traction. Finally, revving hard, the car lurched clear.
An hour's work in the blazing sunshine, David and Zafirah barely exchanging a word.
And that was how it remained with them for the rest of that day and into the next, all the way to Suez. Awkward. Strained. The air between them heavy with silence and disappointment.
Then came the Nephthysian attack. Not the naval bombardment David had predicted. Something much more insidious.
20. Mummies
The process of recycling dead troops in mass quantities had become quite industrialised. There was something of the production line about it.
First, freshly killed corpses were gathered from the battlefield and transported to a Reanimation Facility, usually to be found at a military base as part of its extensive temple complex. In the Reanimation Facility, a pyramidal building naturally, the bodies were sorted into two categories, the relatively intact and the unusable. The latter were discarded; incinerated. The former were cleansed and purified with oils, then sliced open so that certain major organs — liver, lungs, stomach, intestine — could be excised and removed. Each crop of viscera was sealed in a set of Canopic jars, the military-issue version of which was a cubic canister with four separate compartments, designed for compactness and utility.
The corpses' brains were extracted next, scraped out through the nose with hooks and destroyed. Not only was this customary, as the Ancient Egyptians had always believed that the purpose of the brain was nothing more than to provide lubrication for the sinuses, but the last thing unliving shock troops needed was the potential capacity for autonomous thought.
Up until the middle of the twentieth century, natron had been used to dry the bodies out. They were covered with the substance, a kind of salt mixture, and left for forty days while it did its work. Natron, however, was expensive to procure, as well as slow acting, so a cheaper, faster method had been devised. The bodies were hung on racks and rolled into an enormous kiln, to be fired like wet clay. Once they were desiccated, entirely without moisture, they were allowed to cool and then wrapped from head to foot in cerecloths, with an extra layer of plain linen bandage forming a tight, tidy outer casing.