EarthUnder (The Meteorite Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

“Oh, I promise to be good.” I pledged with fingers crossed, “In fact, I promise never to get injured again. If my arm falls off, I will just tape it back on.”

“Oh,” she said, “you never stop, do you?” Ten years had dragged by and it felt like we had no more than turned a corner and there we were. It felt so comfortable to be there with her. Kadishya released her serious side. I knew I was going to get an earful. “I am telling you, my dear Compri,” she expounded, “I have deep concerns about this direction you are taking. I have often hoped that this thing would bring you back to me. But I have felt that this quest for the stone is somehow integrated into the lost life of my dead husband.” I struggled with envy as I listened to her speak so highly of her lost spouse, Kamal. “He was a happy, healthy, loving, beautiful man. He was a fine, fair, loving father. There was no explainable cause for the stroke that took him. I have been forced to accept something that makes no sense. You will not want to hear this, but I believe that he was discovered in his research and was silenced. Since then part of me has not wanted you to get this close. I fear that now you will be even more intrigued to travel the same path.”

Immediately I began to build my “it will never happen to me” rebuttal of invincibility when she hushed me. She knew where I would go with my defense and she knew my long-winded lecture about what I know of these things.

In her wisdom of my ways she simply said, “For me do this, be careful, be mindful of all those around you and honor your promise to always return to me.” Her deep green eyes peered into my soul. I could feel the depth of her concern. I am not good at remembering that it is a responsibility to take care of oneself for the sake of others who care about your well-being. I felt cared for. I could feel how important it was to her that I keep this promise. I’ve never made promises easily because it meant to me a setup for failure. It was easy to make this promise but it would be much harder to keep it, based on the recent holes in my body and knowing that Laurent and many of his henchmen were on the same trail. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that I needed to leave with this sample.

Part of me felt a dire need to remain here long enough to see a piece of the new fall that had brought me back here in the first place. I spent time poring over this fragment with a hand lens and to my experienced eyes this piece looked like limestone or concrete with fusion crust. That was the clincher: this gorgeous crust that appeared as smoke-tinted glass with ripples and flow lines caused while falling to the ground. I have never seen a piece of meteorite this friable or fine grained. It was absent of any of the typical indicators found in most achondrites except for the lustrous glassy fusion crust.

My fear was that rather than being a new discovery of some unusual planetary material it would turn out to be just another amazing and yet anticlimactic ungrouped achondrite. This was the bane of all meteorite hunters. To find a new and uniquely thrilling type of meteorite only to learn that our researchers don’t have a clue of its genesis was always anticlimactic. Then to have it get dumped into this nondescript, blandly disappointing group of lost toys was agonizing. The math was beginning to show that for every home run with a new chunk of Mars or the moon, there were roughly five new gems that got dumped into the pit of despair that is “Ungrouped Achondrites.” Over the years, this anomaly has taken a great share of the excitement out of the searches. Even once a piece is in your hands, it is still hard to release your emotions and get excited about the possibilities. Pile on top of that the race to be the first to recover a piece. Once a specimen is obtained, then one’s mind turns to all of the possibilities and scenarios whereby your competitor has beaten you to the finish line.

Kadishya had walked back into the other room and had gone back to her singing and humming. From the change in her tone I could tell she was deep in serious thought. I had made my promise to her and I had every intention of keeping it. I had found her and was never letting her go again if I could help that. I could see that there was a great deal she knew that she was withholding, but I felt it would all come out in time. She has such a strong character that I know she can carry a tremendous burden within. Now it was time to go. I walked out to the car, where the hood was up and Samir was checking the oil level with Ali looking over his shoulder. “Everything tip-top?” I asked, walking around to the front of the raised hood.

Head under the hood, Samir replied, “Oh yes, just always check the motor before and after long drives.”

“Yes, professor,” Ali reiterates, “every drive in the desert is long.” He could see the question in my face and he answered it before I had the chance to form the words into a question. “And today we meet this Berber. Today we drive. We drive all day and we stop at the sacred springs to bathe and to drink for our health. Then we meet the nomad with the story and the curious stone. Say your goodbyes, my friend, but I have already told her that we will be coming back after several additional stops. We have a lot to see and many people to visit with.”

Returning to the entry room of the house, I could no longer hear her singing flowing through the halls. Kadishya’s voice called me to a room at the end of the hall lighted by a tall, slender window. She was seated at a massive hand-carved oak desk in the office. There were glorious antiques and ancient artifacts placed throughout the elegant room.

“This was Kamal’s place of peace, solitude, and study,” she said. “He is still here; I feel his spirit around me in this sanctuary.” She gestured for me to sit toward what seemed to be a throne chair with griffins carved into arms, legs and back. It faced the desk as if its position was for interrogation. I could feel a dread that hung in the air as I sat. Kadishya appeared ominous and dark for a moment while we gazed through the dim light into each other’s eyes. This did not feel like my bright little star of the Saharan sky. I felt a pained struggle with the anticipation of the coming words. I was seeing a side of Kahdy that I had never seen. She called for one of the children to close the door to the room.

There was a palpable tension in the air of things most needed to be discussed. I sat quietly as Kadishya placed her clasped hands on the desktop and drew a long, deep, slow breath filling her lungs to begin her words. She stared into a dark corner of the room as if looking into another time or place.

“My beloved Kamal took an interest in your sacred Touchstone. In his travels to ancient sites he began to feel that he was getting very close to its secrets. He wanted very much to meet you, to collaborate with you on this mysterious myth. It began to fill his days and nights with lust and energy beyond any of his prior passions. He was obsessed with its allure. I would challenge him to drop the quest. But no matter my approach he would often say, “My little honey girl, I simply wish to solve this puzzle and see the prize. I don’t need to have it or even touch it.”

“Then why, I would implore him, don’t you please just let it go. Do this for me, I would plead. He would go on to explain the value if it were real and how much time he had invested in the quest. He said that since he felt so close that he had an obligation to finish his research and to document his findings. The more I pleaded with him to cease, the harder he would resist my influence. My husband was extremely determined in trying to solve mysteries of man’s past. He was very much the same as you in this way. This stone, its fabled effects on the people, and the land of this part of the world was the pinnacle of his work. On his last return, he had shared with me that deep in the desert in ancient caverns they had found a place that once lay deep under the sea. He and his research crew had found what they believed was a shrine that might have housed the stone, based on carving they had interpreted. He talked about glyphs that recorded this stone having been carried throughout the land several times to help heal the people. It was from his next journey that he never returned. His men said that he died from an apparent stroke. They said it was caused by dehydration. But not seeing for myself makes me suspect foul play. Maybe he found something important or got too close and he was made to stop.” She went on to say, “I have lost one of the men I love to this mystery and I will not lose another.”

I assured Kadishya that I was only doing what I always do and that I was headed off to acquire some other specimens before heading overseas to meet with researchers. I told her that I was not doing anything beyond routine work in the field and that there was plenty of danger and adventure without looking for more and that I would strive to be extremely safe. This would be a short out and back so that I could spend more time with my dear friend Kahdy. “Besides,” I quipped, “the boys and I could use a break in the action. Remember what I told you years ago, the only secrets these stones carry would be the stories they could tell of drifting through the cold of space for billions of years, if only they could talk.” My eyes asked her not to worry; her eyes asked me not to give her cause to worry. We were held together and apart by the translucent, elastomeric tension in the room. I could feel it was the right time to leave. This was one of those transitional moments when true friends communicate without words.

As I moved to depart, I felt the slightest touch to my shirt sleeve. When I turned to acknowledge the touch, she lifted my arm and so gently placed a small token on a strand of chain in my outstretched hand with an almost ritualistic gesture. She said something softly, almost inaudible, as she ever so slowly released her grip; I heard the words in Berber, something about peace, protect, and let it pass beyond me. She was glancing downward as she folded my fingers into a grip around the gift. She asked me to always wear this medallion around my neck and to bring it back to her. I smiled and bent to press my lips to her hand, then turned to step out of the room. As I walked the hall I could feel that her gesture of the gift held weight and importance to her beyond my understanding. I turned, and looking into her beautiful, soulful, intelligent eyes, I expressed a heartfelt thank-you for the gift.

As I stepped into the full daylight, my eyes winced from the sting of the sun’s illumination. I relaxed the grip on the medallion in my palm and looked down at the golden disk. It was a coin, an extremely rare coin. I had only seen one of these coins at the Natural History Museum in London. It was well-documented, but rarely seen Greek coin showing the image of a meteorite on its face. Around 340 years B.C., Aristotle was said to have written the book
Meteorologica
. Although this book covered many terrestrial and atmospheric phenomena, it also held information on meteor events and meteorites and groups that held them in regard as gifts from the heavens. This coin was said to be used as a talisman by one of those groups. I held ancient history in my hand. Just as we climbed into the car I slipped the coin and chain over my neck. I looked out the back window and saw Kadishya standing in the doorway, Sharif standing by her side. He would remain behind while we made this stab into the desert. She raised a hand over her head to say a last farewell. It hurt so badly to leave her. It just didn’t feel like the right thing to be doing. I felt so safe in her presence.

I could feel Kadishya’s eyes on me as we drove away. I glanced one last time at her face. As we pulled away, I saw the exact same image of her that had been in all of my thoughts and dreams for so long. For years I had thought it was the image in the one picture I had of her with me. Now it felt like I had been looking at her through space and time. There is something mystical about time with her. She seemed so much in control of everything and everyone around her. The only thing that eased the pain of leaving Kadishya was feeling that I would see her again soon after this journey.

Chapter Four

The Boys

O
ff down the dirt road we rolled, headed to our next encounter. None of us knew where this would ultimately take us, but Ali had a list of names and places in his head that we were planning to visit. Random stops along the way could produce any number of opportunities to view specimens found in the desert. You just never knew when asking a few questions would lead to a meeting with a new source. But those encounters could also get us into hot water again. So we were being much more careful about whom we talked to and where.

As we drove, discussion determined that we could swing into the next village to visit Rudy, a German mineral dealer who had moved here in order to get first pick and high-grade minerals for collectors in Europe. His home was a small empire of walled-in acres built on a hillside in his village. We drove up a small hill on the back side of this village to Rudy’s palace.

Inside the twelve-foot stucco-covered stone walls was a paradise of fruit trees and livestock pens. Above an outbuilding was a well–laid-out lapidary shop with saws and polishing wheels, steel racks of cut stones, and wooden crates of rough rock to be worked on eventually. Rudy’s live-in caretakers were hard at work on various projects around the orchard while the housekeeper was busy in the kitchen cooking lamb for our lunch. We were discussing our journey thus far with Rudy, a trusted confidant, when our story turned to the day of my shooting.

Rudy was very deliberate in his intrigue with our encounter. He was firing questions at us while we were distracted by all of the cool material to pore over. He seemed puzzled by the fact that all of the shots were obviously directed at me. Zen stopped him, wanting to know why he looked at it that way. Rudy, who had lived here for many years and had seen and heard of most encounters, turned suddenly and came at me with a strange piece of tech in his hand.

As he drew closer I could hear the obvious ticking of a Geiger counter. His usual application of this instrument was for buying radioactive minerals, but why was he coming at me with obvious intent? Rudy’s face changed from an expression of studious observation to near horror, as he announced what he feared most, “You were shot with bullets of depleted uranium laced with strontium-90 and barium! I have heard this is being done here now. It is a shortcut so that Laurent can track the competition. He is following you and if you spend time in any location, then he will close in to see what you have acquired. But since you have not seen him recently I suspect that he is waiting for something important. If you are after a piece of this new fall that rumors say is Martian, then he is holding back to spring on you when he thinks you are there. That is the only thing keeping you or anyone else safe for now. We need to scrub you and remove any flesh that is heavily contaminated. This will take some time and it is best if we do this here behind high walls. I can bury the waste deep in the ground at the bottom of the property. I’ll plant a tree over it and maybe grow some giant fruit.”

Rudy smiled his wicked, crooked smile of self-gratification. He was very proud of his ability to make light of a dire situation. There was nobody better equipped to have found this problem and certainly nobody better equipped to help us. But we would owe him a lot of business in future years for his help. I was thinking to myself,
How could this have gotten any worse? This is just plain craziness!

Our host went on to say, “Hazards are from shrapnel and alpha particles. Studies show no major risk to you, particularly if we remove all residual material. I can use a detector to find any pieces and we can scrub the particles.” He looked over the rim of his reading glasses and paused as he stared at us. “This is what I used to do in my past life. I studied mineralogy and specialized in radioactive minerals. I worked for Mineral Resources in Germany. We replaced titanium with DU and then replaced Depleted Uranium with Tungsten Nickel Cobalt. I created the Q bullet and the kinetic energy penetrator, two very nasty, effective tank killers. Somewhere here I still have some surplus hazard kits. We’ll get you scrubbed down a couple of times and then we’ll check you for shrapnel. Well, at least you know now why they didn’t kill you; they want you alive and kicking the can down the road. But you must all remember that you have shown your direction for days now. So once we eliminate the signal it will be just like stirring the hornet’s nest with a stick, they will scramble to catch up with you again.”

An uncanny happenstance was eating at me. When we pulled into the village, “the boys” laughed and told me that the interpretation of the name of this village meant “End of the Road.” I was not feeling the humor right now. Rudy went on to explain that the biggest hazards would be caused by inhalation of dust, which he said was slight because I ran upstairs immediately, and from shrapnel, which had the highest degree of hazard and that within two weeks would do damage to the kidneys. So he rushed to give me some pills to swallow that he insisted would help protect me. As I removed my shirt he frowned with puzzlement as he looked at my wounds.

When I saw the look in his eyes I turned to say, “I know, right? Have you ever seen bullet wounds heal this quickly?”

Rudy’s response was comical, “Must have been magical uranium.”

We both let out a sullen chuckle of sarcasm. Rudy waved his detectors over my torso, looking puzzled as he set one on the workbench and returned with another.

“Hmmm,” he frowned, “there is nothing here. I am not finding any contaminated dust particles in your lungs. I find no pieces of shrapnel, not one shred of material. It may be that since the bullets hit you before striking anything else they were smooth enough to simply slice right through undisturbed. Good for you, I should say; you seem to have a very influential guardian angel, eh.”

Just then Rudy unwittingly swung his counter over my rucksack, still over one shoulder, and got a screaming signal on his machine. A bit of digging and we found a piece of bullet that lodged in the heavy fabric at the bottom of the bag. Rudy put the fragment of bullet under a microscope. Moments later, he excitedly proclaimed his new find as a “candy store” of radioactive isotopes. He described the projectile as having been layers of depleted uranium and lead contaminated with an assortment of nasty radioisotopes.

Rudy was obviously excited and intrigued by this new weapon. “Ok, so they are tracing the same signal that I am getting from the counter. This means that they are either close or they are using very expensive technology; either way it would be best if we build a decoy. This should be simple,” he said as he walked off and down the steps to his house.

Rudy shouted back up the stairs to Ali in desert dialect. He would be sending a package back north on the back of a truck that would mirror my signal. We must prepare to depart at the same time his package takes flight. His suggested plan is that we should drive deep into the desert and circle far out towards the coast to return to the north and off the continent. Of course I needed to get a piece of the new fall, which might mean more excitement. Rudy’s housekeeper fixed us a nice basket of lamb, flatbread, and fruit, a rare and welcome gift for the road.

Now we were heading into a part of the planet where I like to say that everything is angry. This is where the fun begins, where the sand can swallow a large truck whole, where large toothy vipers hide under the sand waiting to strike, where scorpions the size of saucers outnumber the roaches, and yet I have more fear of my fellow man. It seems odd to note that this was once the bottom of the Devonian sea and then a lush forested land with endless wetlands, and now a land of rock and sand. As we ventured further into the dry we were approaching some of the oldest tribes of humans. It has been shown that these tribesmen have a direct genetic link to the earliest beginnings of humans on Earth. They remain here as if waiting for life to return to what it once was. And with all of their struggle to survive in a place that threatens to take life from them each day, they remain here and they are happy to be here. Everything I see here raises the question: why?

At this juncture there was no longer a road beneath our tires. This was the beginning of the Great Sand Sea. We approached a tiny village far out in a great basin of bleached hardpan soil. As we rolled closer we could see a fellow waving and jumping for our attention. As we grew closer Ali said, “Ah, this is Liashi, our next contact.” As we pulled up to him, he signaled us to keep rolling and he began to run alongside the car. Zen opened the door and helped pull the winded runner inside. Liashi was frantic as he announced that we are being followed, they are not far behind, and that they have beaten Rudy senseless in the pursuit to catch us. Fortunately, Rudy had a radio and his groundskeeper had called ahead.

Liashi pointed off to the right where a Quat Quat was dusting towards us. Quat Quat is a French abbreviation for Four By Four. Liashi went on to say that he was trading us his Range Rover for our Mercedes. Nothing more need be said. We all scrambled to make the swap to this luxury survival vehicle with the tank filled with fuel and a well-stocked desert kit in the rear. The rack atop this excursion rig was loaded with water and fuel cans, a tent, and blankets. This was a rolling fortress of solitude and it felt at this moment like the game had changed. I was learning just how powerful networking can be. The boys were doing things right and I was just along for the ride.

Living here on the edge of the world, an explorer must be prepared to deal with every possible element. As I looked around our new home, I noticed the rear interior had steel plates bolted inside. This struck me odd since as we pulled the car switch, I had noticed that the outside was lined with beautiful polished sections of checker plate steel. I asked Ali if he knew what was up with the steel plates.

He smiled and called out, “Bullet proof, man; how we rock and roll here, man!” The boys all laughed as I grinned so hard it hurt. This journey had just gone from fear back to fun. For once it felt like we were on top of the situation. Liashi wanted to be dropped at the next village. He said he had some business to do there. Just then Liashi leaned over to dig into his pants pocket. Slowly he lifted out a piece of our next target. He looked over at me and the others and handed over this gorgeous, totally complete, jet-black, fresh-fallen, fusion-crusted individual of the new fall from just weeks ago. He was there; he watched it fall. He said he was there buying fossils when the fireball event occurred and he was one of the first to arrive at ground zero. He said there were stones like this hen’s egg–sized specimen lying every fifty meters. This was the real thing! I could see melted into the fusion crust the angular basaltic, crosshatch structure of the matrix and the rectangular clasts of breccia suspended within that matrix. It was lightweight for a meteorite, and the magnet I religiously carry in my pocket would not stick to it at all. All of these indicators showed a field identifier that this was an achondrite and from my experience this was an SNC.

I looked at Liashi and asked, “How many stones?”

He replied, “I got them all; it was 11 kilograms of stones, 31 stones just like this one.”

My heart stopped. This was what our adversaries were after and they had no leads because the only man to have material was in the Quat Quat with us. Liashi was one of Ali’s team and his loyalty to Ali was dauntless. This kind of loyalty was priceless and it was such an honor to be a part of this brotherhood. I feel compelled to take better care of the team members than even myself. My guys know this, which is the only reason that I get to witness this level of trust and loyalty. I put my hand on Ali’s shoulder and said, “This is great!”

Ali smiled, shook his head back and forth, and waved his index finger in my face, preaching, “We’re not letting the mafia get you, man.” He repeated this to Zen, Samir, and Liashi; they laughed and loosened up a bit. They started talking amongst themselves. I wondered if Samir was trying to learn how he would get his car back.

For me, the journey was complete. I was sitting in silence, thinking that there was no need to continue on into the desert. We had been gifted a piece of the mysterious Touchstone that had been just a legend for thousands of years, and we had a fresh-fallen piece of the latest fall event. It was time to run for the barn. It was time to get these stones into the hands of science. I knew I’d need to address this with Ali and the boys, but first it was on to the next village to drop Liashi. The stop to drop Liashi was abrupt and swift. They had made this part of the plan and there was no time wasted on goodbyes. Liashi knew that Ali would take care of his concerns. He shook my hand and blessed me with a hand on his chest, and off he ran. As we continued, I ask what we would do next.

Ali could apparently read minds. He assured me, “Don’t worry, man, we are finished; other deals can wait. Now we make a big loop into the Sand Sea to leave no trail and then we go back by a different route. It will be long and hard to go this way, but then we have a chance of getting your rocks where they need to go.” Then Ali went on to say, “You know, man, this game is getting more dangerous and I now have childrens.”

It struck me funny that his English had gotten so good and yet there were still these little slip-ups that were so like him to use. It had become his unique way of speaking. Ali had learned my language so much better than I had learned his language, it was an embarrassment for me. He went on to say that this danger was a big worry for him and his wife. It was hard to hear what he was telling me, but I always knew this would come. I also knew that I could never repeat this relationship again. Things change and are never the same again. He could see that I understood his message. For now it was to complete this mission at hand and get his friend home safely. First, we must make this loop through the desert.

There was one final safe place we could head for. Kadishya’s l
ittle sister Jasmina lived here deep in the desert. Kadishya had told me that her sister was out here and living well on her own. She had married young but her husband also had passed away. Jasmina had developed her instincts and skills to manipulate people and had to live where she could take charge of her world. She had become a shaman and she was still using her rare gift to lead. I remember that Jasmina was wickedly beautiful as a young girl, with Kadishya’s eyes and her own youthful look, golden skin, perfect lean build, and just a few impish freckles cast across her nose. She knew how lovely she looked and she used it like a magic wand to help her get what she wanted. She had a devilish smile and she was destined to be a man killer. I felt apprehensive about seeing her. If she was still as gorgeous on top of these years to mature, I might feel uncomfortable spending time with her. We didn’t have the same relationship I had with her sister. She was always against her sister’s friendship with a guy from outside their culture, and I remembered seeing a burning look of envy in her eyes.

Often hatred comes first and is then followed by justifications that don’t need to make sense. At the same time I was bursting with curiosity about what this lovely little sprite was doing, living out here in the sand and rock. She had the love of her family, but she had married a prince of the desert and apparently she was living his life, in charge of their tribe and ruling the roost as only she knew how to rule. It was interesting to me that the girl I knew at a young age was living exactly the life I had figured she was born to live. I knew I would find a young woman completely in command of the world around her, and hopefully a merciful leader of her people. She always had a sweet side, but I saw more of the devil in her and had assumed in my naïve youth just which direction she would follow. I did not know how long it would take to get to Jasmina.

The boys had an idea of where we were headed, but we were getting there much faster in this powerful all-terrain vehicle. There was no need for us to stop; we had food and water and pissed in water bottles. We all figured that a bit of discomfort was better than a bullet to the head. We had to assume that Ali’s “mafia” figured we had reached our goal and were running heavy, meaning we had what we came for. This was our big chance to make the break-away and gain a big lead on our predators. And so we went; the plan was to trade off driving. It was laughable when my turn came up: I had a car full of side-seat drivers watching my every move, and nobody slept with me at the wheel.

Eventually the sun slipped below the edge of the Earth. The guy who said the Earth was flat must have been here once upon a time. We drove past a tiny oasis just at twilight. It was the first open standing water we had seen in three days of driving. This view inspired the thought that water in this desert must feel just like a desert island in an ocean. An oasis is a place of unparalleled beauty with date palm trees, olive trees, fruit, grass, and colors everywhere. The air is filled with the pungent, sweet scent of jasmine. The tiny white desert flower’s delicious fragrance is everywhere in the air. Much like Jasmina living out here in the desert, jasmine—the delicate white flower she is named for—lives in a world of thorns and blistering heat.

Ali spoke, lifting me out of my waking dream. “Hey, man, the plan is to drive late into the night until we are all too tired to go and then we will pull well off the road and sleep for a time. If things go well, we see Jasmina in morning, ok?”

I answered with a simple, “Yep.”

The night droned on. The headlights faded into oblivion out ahead and there was no opposing traffic, which helped keep things simple. We took our turns at the wheel and drove well into the late night and early morning. Ali took over as pilot after we passed a tall, natural stone formation that he uses as a landmark for where to leave the trail and how to return to the same exit point after daybreak. We ran off into the dark and continued far enough that if we slept after dawn, anyone passing would not see us out there. We all groaned as we climbed out to stretch before sleeping for the few remaining hours of dark. It was difficult to know where we were but Ali was confident he could follow Kadishya’s directions to the home of Jasmina.

Morning arrived in a blink. We were all stiff, sore, and hard-pressed to wake, but motivated by concern that our stop might give the bad guys a chance to catch up. The last thing I wished was to draw any risk or hazard towards Jasmina. We climbed into the car after fueling up and turned back on our tracks. Soon we were back to the stone standing at the road and continuing on our way. Looking out my window, I noticed that automobiles were mostly gone, now replaced by donkey-drawn carts and people walking alongside their camel train. I thought about this image for a time and then asked Ali to explain why I never saw Berbers riding camels but often saw them walking alongside their beasts. He laughed at my inquiry.

He chuckled. “People riding camels?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Tourists,” he continued. “Berbers walk, man. Berbers are tough, man; you have no idea how tough these people are. They love the Earth, they love to walk, and they walk all the way across, man.”

One thing I have learned about having curiosity about other cultures: be ready to feel foolish and ignorant. But I don’t know a better way to learn. Poor Ali and his mates rapidly tired of all of my questions. From time to time I had to remind myself to give the boys a break. I really didn’t know what their motivation was for helping me other than the money, but the money wasn’t enough for them to take risks like this. So I felt obliged to cut them as much slack as I could out of consideration for all they do for me. So I watched this strange world fly by and tried to remember my queries for a later opportunity to fire at Ali unfettered. He knew I would hit him with a barrage of inquiries during a quiet moment. Based on the subject matter, Ali would know exactly when I started saving up my curiosities to take advantage of his knowledge and familiarity with this amazing land and its people. Ali is proud of his land and I like to think that my questions remind him of just how fascinating his corner of this world really is. I hope that he gets that message from my constant picking at his brain.

The road diminished to nearly a set of tracks in the dust. Beyond here travel is guesswork for even veteran nomads. This is where the term “safety in numbers” originated. Most traverse these parts in caravans so there is plenty of help when some unlucky member gets stuck. And all carry tracks on or under each vehicle to set out and drive over on soft, fluffy sand. It can be exhausting, rigorous exercise running tracks, but we all prefer running tracks to digging people and rigs out of the sand. And it’s not just the running and the carrying of the tracks. It’s doing this over and over again in soft sand. Some teams will take turns driving. We enjoyed the gamble of drawing short straw. There is a sinfully sweet revenge in getting to drive the tracks on an uncommonly bad day of soft sand pits. Zen and Ali were very good at spotting the pits early and I was learning the indicators; Samir just wanted to go home to his fast-paced city life.