‘That’s the expedition,’ he said.
‘Where are the elephants?’ Javeed asked anxiously.
‘Back in Zavolestan, I expect. Don’t worry, I’m sure Zal will keep his word.’
They turned off the track and headed for the riverbank. As they approached, Martin regarded the thick, reedy vegetation with dismay. That the rushes couldn’t actually scratch their skin raw – or even register as tangible to any part of their body save their hands – offered a certain consolation, but it wouldn’t stop the plants impeding their movement almost as effectively as the real thing.
Martin went first, pushing the springy plants aside with his hands, clearing the way for Javeed to follow close behind him. The plants weren’t quite as tall as he was, so he walked with a crouch to keep himself hidden, grateful that at least his knees were spared the effects of doing that in an ordinary ghal’e. After a while he felt he’d settled into a successful rhythm, and he tried to crank up the speed – but Zendegi was having none of it: the same, only faster didn’t compute. At first he could make no sense of this; he couldn’t believe that the reeds were so heavy or stiff that a faster pace would require superhuman effort. Then he peered down at the mud and saw it adhering to his sandals as he lifted his feet. He couldn’t feel the burning in his calves that might have come from pulling himself free of such sticky ground over and over again, but the bottom line was that Zendegi wouldn’t let him operate his body as if these forces were of no consequence to him.
Perhaps they should have come closer to the camp before taking this arduous detour, but Martin had been paranoid about being spotted, and it probably wouldn’t help if they modified their plans now.
After five minutes Javeed lost patience. ‘You’re too big and noisy!’ he complained. ‘Zal didn’t say for you to come. Let me go by myself!’
Martin did not like the sound of that, but when he looked across the dispiriting expanse of marshland that still lay ahead of them, he finally noticed the fine network of gaps that a smaller body could slip through. Every third step he took was accompanied by the sound of reeds springing back into place, but with a little bending and swaying of his own Javeed could simply pass between them, almost in silence. Being lighter, he sank less deeply into the mud. And once he reached the camp his size was sure to offer similar advantages.
‘All right,’ Martin declared reluctantly. ‘Just remember-’
‘If I’m scared, thumbs-down,’ Javeed replied. ‘Don’t worry, Baba, I’ll be okay.’
Martin turned aside and let him dart ahead. Within half a minute he’d vanished from sight.
Standing alone in the mud, Martin struggled to keep his thoughts from turning self-consciously to the Proxy. It was as if the invisible apprentice who’d been peering over his shoulder all this time, silently observing everything he did, now deserved some form of acknowledgement – and a concise lecture on some fine points of parenting to supplement all this long-winded teaching by example. But that wasn’t how it worked. And since all the Proxy could do was mimic Martin’s thoughts – not receive them, like telepathic messages – the very last thing it needed was reflections on its own creation that might risk transforming its mind into a hall of mirrors.
The proper subject for contemplation was Javeed, the proper mood a celebration of the fact that they could still spend time together. But in the life Martin had once imagined for them this journey would have been a mere rehearsal, whetting their appetite for the real thing. It was hard to swallow the claustrophobic vision of his health declining to the point where they could rule out actually travelling anywhere: not Afghanistan, not Australia, not even the ruins of Persepolis with the other tourists. Just Zendegi, over and over again – with his body laid out flat, as if he were already in the morgue.
He cut off that line of thought and tried to focus on his memories of the real Kabul. He pictured the crowded city of twenty years before; thousands of refugees expelled from Pakistan and Iran had found their villages too dangerous to return to, and had ended up living in bombed-out buildings in the capital, trying to survive the winters with broken roofs and the only fuel whatever dead trees could be found in the city’s parks. He’d met one family – Ali and Zahra and their four young children – not too far from the bend in the river where Zal’s imaginary party was camped. When Javeed was a little older he would need to hear their story, to hear who’d survived that winter and who hadn’t.
Insects hovered over the mud. The sun was almost directly above now; Javeed was taking too long to return. Martin’s thoughts snagged on a complication: the Proxy needed to be ready to make the right judgement, not only for the six-year-old Javeed, but also for the ten-, the twelve-, the fifteen-year-old – for however long it continued to be invoked. It would have no power to form long-term memories, or be shaped by its experience of watching him grow up; it had to work out-of-the-box with Javeed at any age. The last thing Martin wanted it to do was to treat his teenage son like an infant.
And he was supposed to prepare for that… how? By mentally prefacing every action with a conscious acknowledgement that it might not be appropriate at some time in the future? Well, he’d just done that. Back in the here and now, Javeed was a small child, and he’d either got lost or been caught. That he hadn’t pulled the plug on the whole simulation meant almost nothing – least of all that he didn’t need help.
Martin pushed through the rushes as fast as he could. It was only when he drew close to the camp that he attempted a degree of stealth; he was prepared to risk detection, but so long as they remained in Zendegi he wouldn’t lightly throw away any chance they still had to succeed.
He crawled the last few metres on his knees and elbows; easier than in real life, maybe, but the concentration it took to manipulate his icon through the reeds felt almost as draining as any physical task. Charmingly, the game’s designers hadn’t failed to allow Zal’s party a place where they could feed fertiliser to the river’s algae: a tent had been set up backing onto the reeds, and it was sheer luck that Martin spotted it in time to avoid getting too close to its output plume. He crawled up beside the tent, then rose into a squat, partly sheltered as he peered into the camp.
Just out of sight, a man spoke, his voice at the edge of patience as if he’d been repeating the same question for a while. ‘Are you a spy, or a thief? Which one is it?’
‘No!’ came Javeed’s plaintive reply. ‘I just wanted a job to feed the elephants.’
Another man laughed. ‘Do you see any elephants?’
‘No, but you could take me to Lavosestan.’
‘Where?’
The first man said, ‘He’s a crazy little thief. Do you know what we do to thieves who don’t tell the truth?’
‘I’m not a thief!’ Javeed retorted. ‘I’d never take anything – unless someone told me to.’
‘Really? So what were you planning to take? And who is your master who told you to take it?’
‘No one!’ Javeed insisted. ‘I just wanted to see the elephants.’
Martin forced himself to keep some perspective. Javeed wasn’t having an easy time with his captors, but he didn’t sound desperate yet. His priorities were not hard to guess: an attempted rescue that blew their whole mission would not be acceptable.
Martin crept into the camp, steering clear of the interrogators, hoping he hadn’t become disoriented and really was heading south. He wasn’t sure why there were so few people around; maybe they’d already sent a search party into the city, looking for Zal after he’d failed to return from his latest night of passion. The whole arrest scenario had been cooked up last weekend by the game’s software; the original story of Zal and Rudabeh had been a mixture of politics, family obligations and romantic swooning, loaded with proto-Shakespearean possibilities, but of limited interest to a six-year-old.