Stand on Zanzibar (77 page)

The river was like a tunnel floored with water. The trees on either bank leaned together overhead, their crowns trailing strands of creeper and dangling moss. Occasionally a nightbird shrieked, and once some monkeys were disturbed, probably by a snake, and Donald’s spine crawled at the unexpected racket.

At the junction where this river joined a larger, they passed a village with not a light showing. In case of someone being wakeful, however, Donald was told to lie down on the bottom boards. When he was allowed to get up again they were well out in the middle of the main stream, riding with the current at a good walking pace, and the boatman had shipped his sweep, holding now a small paddle that served for rudder.

This is the twenty-first century.
The thought crossed Donald’s mind for no special reason.
This is Yatakang, one of the countries best-endowed with natural wealth and certainly not scientifically backward: witness, Sugaiguntung. And here I am being carried through the night in a rowing-boat.

Habitation began to become more frequent along the banks. This was one of the trickiest stages of the journey. Donald got off his thwart again and knelt on the bottom boards, his eyes just above the gunwale. A white police launch was tied up at a post facing a village larger than the first one, but there seemed to be no one on board. They passed it without incident and when it was well astern the boatman resumed his sweep. Their progress without it had slowed. Thinking the matter over, Donald deduced that they were approaching the estuary and running against the influx of the sea.

At the river-mouth itself there was a long necklace-strand of buildings, a small port devoted mainly to fishing to judge by the stretched nets on poles which were revealed by a few dim electric lights along the waterfront. Once more, however, no one was in sight; the boats would be out for their nightly expedition and it would be pointless to sit around and await their return before dawn. Donald began to breathe a little more easily.

A short distance from shore the boatman turned his fragile craft broadside to the direction it had been travelling in, and one of the guerrillas took up a flashlamp from the bottom of the boat. He hung it over the side after switching it on. It glowed pale blue. Donald guessed it was radiating mainly in the ultra-violet.

Ten minutes of interminable waiting passed. Then a larger boat, a fishing-prau, appeared from the drifting night mists that shrouded the surface of the water, exhibiting another lamp of the same blue tint as well as its normal running lights. The boatman went past Donald, tossing fenders over the side. Shortly, the two vessels bumped together, almost without noise for the big soft pads separating them.

Awkwardly, Donald helped the two guerrillas to manhandle Sugaiguntung into a rope sling that the sailors on the fishing-prau threw down. They guided him as he was lifted and vanished over the gunwale; then Donald followed and was seized by several hands.

The skipper of the prau greeted him and told him to put Sugaiguntung into his flotation suit right away because they planned to rely on the mist to make their drop closer to shore than they had anticipated. Donald did not question the wisdom of the decision. Everything had gone from him except a certain wan despair at the idea of returning home. The Donald Hogan who had lived in the world’s wealthiest country was lost forever, and he could not tell how the stranger who bore his old name would respond to the resumption of his former life.

He complied listlessly, easing each of Sugaiguntung’s limp limbs in turn into the soft plastic suit and pressing the valves on the inflation bottles. The scientist should be unconscious for about another hour.

He made a thorough check of the associated survival equipment—water-dye capsules, radio and sonar beacons for dire emergency, lifelines, iron rations, knife … After a little consideration he removed Sugaiguntung’s knife from its sheath and gave it to the skipper. He had said, back at Jogajong’s camp, that he had changed his mind. For the sake of insurance it might be as well to have him unarmed—not that an old man weakened by recent illness could offer any resistance to an eptified killer.

He donned his own suit in the same fashion and the skipper detailed one of his crew to rope them together with their lifelines. There must be no risk of them drifting apart while they were bobbing in the water.

He explained to Donald that they were going to be placed in a current that would carry them directly along the deepest part of the channel where the submarine was hiding. Standing by a few miles distant were units from the bases at Isola ready if necessary to mount a distracting raid on a port known to be used by Chinese ships for refuelling and refitment—a gross breach of Yatakangi neutrality, but one which Sugaiguntung’s defection would well repay. It was hoped, however, that no intervention would be necessary.

And then—over side in a sort of makeshift bosun’s chair, deposited in the water with scarcely a splash, the two of them together, spy and defector.

The crew waved, barely distinguishable for the dark and the swirling mist, and the prau faded into nothing. They were alone in a universe of blurs and ripples.

*   *   *

We must have been here an hour … No: my watch tells me thirty-five minutes.

Apprehensively Donald strained his eyes and saw exactly what he had expected to see—nothing. The bobbing motion was maddening, threatening to make him queasy; he had not eaten well during his stay at Jogajong’s camp although the rebel leader made a point of providing a balanced diet and keeping his followers healthy. The food had been monotonous and untempting. Now he wished he had filled up on something bland like plain boiled rice, for pangs of hunger were starting to quarrel with shadowy nausea in his belly.

Can they really spot us here, rendezvous with us, take us safely aboard?

It was no use reminding himself that this was how Jogajong had been stolen out of the country and sent back, or that Sugaiguntung’s value compelled the authorities at home to adopt the safest available route. The rest of the universe felt infinitely far away, as though there could be no contact between this place and any other. The recession of the galaxies had reached its limit; separated from one another by a gulf no light could pass, they too were beginning to disintegrate.

Is it all going to have been worth while? Shall I have saved the people of Yatakang from being deceived by a monstrous lie, as Sugaiguntung assured me?

But that was back in Gongilung. At Jogajong’s camp, the scientist had spoken of returning, refusing to co-operate after all.

Why did I not question him to find out his reasons?

He tried to disguise the answer to that from himself, and failed.

Because I was afraid to. If I took unfair advantage of superstition and exploited the traditional reward due to me against his will, I would prefer not to know. I want to believe as long as I can that he came voluntarily.

There was a moan. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins. For an instant his fevered imagination interpreted the faint sound as the wail of a police patrol-launch’s siren, far off in the mist. It was an eternal instant before he corrected the idea and realised it was a Yatakangi word in Sugaiguntung’s voice.

They had drifted apart to the limit of the lifeline linking their flotation suits. Hastily he hauled on the rope to bring them together. It must be a terrible shock to awaken here; he must offer reassurance before Sugaiguntung could think his mind deranged.

“Doctor, it’s all right—here I am, Donald Hogan!”

He grasped Sugaiguntung’s arms and peered close under his protective hood. The older man’s eyes were open to their limit and he was staring fearfully straight ahead. After a moment he appeared to relax.

“Where am I?” he said in a feeble voice.

“We’re waiting for an American submarine to come and pick us up,” Donald explained softly.

“What?” Sugaiguntung tensed all over, and the jerk made him bob violently so that Donald almost lost his grip. “You—you
kidnapped
me?”

“You said you wanted to come,” Donald countered. “You were very sick from the fever, you weren’t yourself, it was better not to overstrain you by making you walk through the jungle and—”

“You kidnapped me!” Sugaiguntung repeated. “I said, I
told
you, I had changed my mind about coming with you!”

“You couldn’t have gone back to Gongilung. Once you were committed, there was no turning back. And from here you can’t go back. Only onward.”

One can’t go back from anywhere. One can never, never, never go back!

For a while Sugaiguntung seemed weakened by his outburst. He shook himself free of Donald’s hands. Warily, Donald allowed that, keeping a tight grip on the rope instead so that they would remain within arms’ reach of each other, and watched as the scientist turned his head to this side and that until he was satisfied that they were truly isolated.

Eventually he spoke again, in a voice thin with weariness.

“What is this thing I’m wearing that’s so stiff and hard to move in?”

“It’s inflated to buoy you up. That’s why it’s stiff. It’s—I don’t know. I guess it’s one of the regular survival suits they use for fliers and submarine crews. Jogajong had some ready for use at his camp.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard of them.” There were faint plashing noises as Sugaiguntung inspected the equipment hung about him. “Yes, I see, I understand. There are radar beacons, sonar beacons, to make sure the submarine will find us?”

“Those are only to be used in emergency, when the searchers don’t know where to look. Don’t worry—they’re absolutely sure where to come and collect us.” Donald spoke more optimistically than his mood warranted.

“They’re not operating?” The words were coloured with alarm.

“The risk is too great. There are Yatakangi patrols all over these waters and there’s been a lot of Chinese activity too, they tell me.”

“I see,” Sugaiguntung said again, and after another cautious survey of the suit fell silent.

That was all right by Donald. Once more he strained his eyes into the mist.

Christ, are they never going to turn up? How long should I allow them—one hour, two, three?

Suddenly, without warning, Sugaiguntung said, “You kidnapped me. I’m not here willingly. I shall not co-operate with your foreign government.”

Donald’s heart sank. He said fiercely, “You told me you had been tricked by your bosses! You said your people were being cheated! Solukarta had pretended you could turn them into supermen and that was a disgusting lie!”

“But I can,” Sugaiguntung said.

*   *   *

The words seemed to hang vast leaden weights on every limb of Donald’s body. He said. “You’re crazy. The fever—it must be the fever.”

“No, it was after the fever.” Sugaiguntung spoke without emotion. “It was while I was lying in the cave alone. I had time to think in a way which has not been possible for many years. Always there have been intriguing side-issues that I could not follow up, only assign to some of my students, and not all of them conducted the research properly. Four years ago, or perhaps five, I…”

“You what?”

“I thought of something which struck me as promising. A way of adjusting molecular relationships by compressing a signal in time—by programming a computer to perform the alterations so fast the effects of one would not interfere with the others.”

“Is that how you think you can succeed after all?”

“No. That is how I half-succeeded with my orang-outangs. But not even your famous Shalmaneser, not even K’ung-futse that they have in Peking, can react swiftly enough to eliminate all side-effects.”

“Then how
do
you think you can do it?” Donald demanded. He hauled on the line and brought himself face to face with the scientist, sweat making the interior of his suit clammy.

Sugaiguntung did not answer directly. He continued in the same passionless voice, “Then I tried another method which held promise. I developed a series of template solutions in which one could bathe genetic material, allowing the desired reactions to proceed unhurriedly and avoiding violent deformations of the molecular lattices.”

“Yes, I read about that,” Donald snapped. “Was that the method?”

“It worked on simple genes, but not on ones as complex as the human. The stability of the template organics tended to deteriorate faster than the process could be completed.”

“In God’s name, then, what—?”

“Also I had some success with stabilising genes at the temperature of liquid helium. But the return of the frozen material to normal activity took so long it was clearly uneconomic on the mass scale. Besides, unless the increase of temperature was perfectly smooth, at any moment a deviation of a degree or two could induce a dissociation in the genes and waste all one’s previous trouble. Discarding that, I next investigated the tuned sonic resonances which—”

He’s not telling me anything. He’s talking for the sake of talking. Why?

Donald stared all around. A faint stir of breeze touched him on the cheek. Was it his imagination or was the mist lifting? Christ, yes it was! Over there, distinct against the stars, the cone of Grandfather Loa lowering at him!

Unless the submarine turns up right away, we’ll be exposed as clearly as if we were—

The thought stopped, kicked aside from his mind by the fearful realisation of the reason for Sugaiguntung’s garrulity.

He whispered, “You drecky bleeder! Have you turned on your beacons?”

Not waiting for an answer, he tugged on the line with one hand and fumbled for his suit-knife with the other. He dragged the blade free while his imagination filled the air with the sound of patrol-boats closing in, the hiss of energy-bolts grounding in water and blasting up geysers of steam. He meant only to slash at the thongs holding the beacons on Sugaiguntung’s suit, separate the power-leads and drop them to the ocean-bed.

But Sugaiguntung divined his intention and tried to catch his arm. The water hampered him, and the clumsy suit. A movement halfway between a kick and plunge threw him off his aim. The knife went home.