Beneath that wavy green sky it was easy to forget why they'd come to this part of the world. Time itself seemed to have stopped for a siesta. Tall trees masked the sun. Except for the chirp of birds and the occasional shrill cry of a ground hornbill it was as quiet as good old Burke Lake on a weekday morning. Had the impala been deer, Oak could have imagined he was back home.
He'd wandered a short distance away from the others, inspecting the trees and trying to edge a little closer to the herd, when he thought he detected a rustling in the grass. If it was a snake it was too big to be one of the local venomous ones. Cautiously he leaned forward for a better look.
His legs went out from under him. Something damp and sticky slapped over his mouth as he tried to cry out. He hit the ground hard and found himself being pulled into the bushes. As he rolled over, waving his arms wildly, he saw his companions standing oblivious back by the Land Rover. No one had seen him go down. Kakombe stood on one leg sipping milk. Olkeloki was sitting in the grass contemplating something unseen while Merry was leaning against the car chewing on a strip of goat meat. They were figures on a tiny screen that was getting smaller and smaller as he was dragged backward through the high grass.
In another couple of minutes he would vanish into the bushes. Frantically he tore at the moist tentaclelike limb which was wrapped around his head. If it had covered his nose as well as his mouth he wouldn't be struggling now.
Sudden sight of what had him almost paralyzed his efforts. The first shetani he saw was a short, dark homunculus with long teeth hanging from the four sides of its mouth. A long nose protruded from just above that collection of deadly cutlery, dividing bright, bulging eyes that were watching him expectantly.
It was riding a black chameleon the size of a Shetland pony. The chameleon's eyes were independently motile pools of fire.
There were at least three of the paired nightmares. It was the tongue of the first shetani that was wrapped around his head and mouth. Two more had their tongues fastened securely around his legs. At that moment he knew that if they succeeded in dragging him back into the undergrowth, the only part of him his friends would ever find would be his skeleton.
He dug his nails and teeth into the black, fleshy organ over his mouth and pulled on it with all his strength. It had no effect whatsoever on the squat reptilian shape that was pulling him steadily closer to oblivion. The chameleons worked silently and inexorably, but he could hear the humanoid shetani on their backs beginning to laugh. The short hair on the back of his neck rose. It was a sound he'd heard before. In a restaurant in Washington.
New sounds then, muffled and unexpected, a rumbling moan followed by a breathy chuf. All three shetani turned atop their mounts. Their devilish laughter died along with their predatory smiles. The long damp tongues released Oak's head and legs as the chameleons whirled to vanish into the bushes. As he lay on his belly panting hard he could hear them crashing through the underbrush.
He rolled onto his left side preparatory to standing and something like a gray telephone pole smashed into the ground inches from his right hand, flattening branches and grass and insects. Half a foot to the right and it would have pulverized Oak's fingers as well. The earth shook with the impact. The pole supported a shadow the size of a railroad boxcar. As the shadow moved past him another leg appeared. At the same time his nostrils were overwhelmed by a pungent but not unpleasant odor.
Turning to his left, he saw another immense shape looming over him. Merry's cry reached him from a distance. It was followed by a loud salutation from Olkeloki.
The shadow-shapes halted. Slowly Oak got to his feet and walked backward to rejoin the others.
"Josh!" Merry exclaimed when she got a look at his face.
"Shetani," he told her, wiping unnatural saliva from his forehead and hair. "Riding chameleon shetani. They almost got me."
"They favor the dark places," Olkeloki reminded him. "The Patriarch and his friends arrived just in time."
"Patriarch. Where?"
"I guess he means them, Josh." Merry indicated the glade and the line of elephants that stood staring back at them, trunks weaving, ears flapping rapidly as they strove to cool down enormous bodies.
"You can relax, Joshua Oak. The shetani run from the elephant, as does everything else in Africa. Now I must have my talk with the Patriarch." he strode past a still-dazed Oak, walking confidently toward the waiting herd of behemoths. There were at least thirty of them, though you had to look hard to pick them all out. They blended into the trees with the ease of much smaller animals.
"Saved by elephants. I thought that only happened in old Tarzan movies."
"I think it was an accident," Merry told him. "They were coming to meet with Olkeloki and they just happened to show up in time."
Oak remembered the massive foot that had come down inches from his fingers, whispered softly, "I'm not so sure, Merry. I'm not so sure."
Neither of them knew anything about elephants, but one didn't have to have a degree in vertebrate zoology to know that the mountain which emerged from the forest to confront the waiting Olkeloki was not merely old but ancient. The old male's skin was twisted and wrinkled into huge folds that covered most of his back and legs. It was as if an even bigger body had shrunk over the decades, leaving the skin with less mass to cover. Sad wisdom gazed out from beneath convoluted, overhanging brows and what hair was visible was white as the salts which stained the banks of Maji Moto.
"Remember what Olkeloki said about the Patriarch's teeth," Merry said with unconscious reverence.
Crossed. He said the Patriarch's teeth were crossed, Oak remembered. As indeed they were, the two immense tusks all but scraping the earth where they intersected in gently sweeping curves. In the incredible length of that ivory was a bold declaration of the elephant's age. The Patriarch carried them with dignity. How old was he? Oak wondered. How long did elephants live? The impression of age was overpowering.
"He even walks like an old man," Merry whispered.
True enough. Though supported by four massive legs, he searched out each step carefully. As they stared the Patriarch raised his head slightly, just enough to lift those huge tusks off the ground. He looked like a bulldozer with its blade dropped, Oak thought. The trunk rose slightly further and the tip caressed Olkeloki's waiting hand. Then the two old ones turned and strolled off into the forest together.
Oak became aware he'd been holding his breath. Now he exhaled and sucked in fresh air. So the old man was talking to an elephant. He'd seen too many impossible things the last few days not to believe the evidence of his eyes. What was a little harder to accept was the equally obvious fact that the elephant was answering him. Olkeloki spoke in soft Maasai and the patriarch replied with sounds like an old boiler.
How old? A hundred years? Two? How long had this Ur-elephant wandered the forests and plains of East Africa? Did he remember relatives cloaked in hair who'd had high humps on their shoulders?
"They're talking, aren't they?" said Merry.
Oak managed a weak shrug. "Sure. Isn't that what the old man said they were going to do?"
"You know, it's funny. You watch them in zoos and circuses and you get this feeling that they could talk anytime they wanted to, but that they don't think humans have much to say."
"Maybe they're right. Or maybe Olkeloki has more to say than the rest of us."
"They talk in the manner of the old ones." Kakombe's tone was full of respect. From his great height he looked curiously down at Merry. "You are not afraid?"
"Not now. Once you've had a bunch of shetani try to rape you, nothing much else frightens you."
He glanced at Oak. "This happened and she survived?"
Oak was aware Merry was looking at him too. "I think so, yes."
Kakombe looked back to Merry. "Unusual woman." Then he turned his attention back to the herd.
Oak watched for another couple of minutes, then hunted through the supplies stored in the back end of the Land Rover until he found
a clean towel. There was chameleon slime on the back of his neck, in his ears, and all over his pants and shoes. Bad enough to have to deal with murderous spirits, they had to be slimy spirits as well. Merry helped him dry off.
"Elephants would make good hunters, but they do not hunt," said Kakombe conversationally. "I did not hear them coming. They can move as quietly as any lion, for all their size. There are some laibon who say that when they wish to move quietly their feet do not touch the earth." He held thumb and forefinger almost together. "They walk this far above the ground so that they will not be heard."
Oak said nothing. Back in Washington he would have treated such an assertion with the contempt it deserved. Here in Africa anything seemed possible. How could you tell if Kakombe was telling the truth or a story? Oak had no intention of trying to peer beneath the toes of an elephant to find out.
An hour passed before Olkeloki rejoined them. As he strode back toward the Land Rover the herd turned, the other elephants forming a protective cordon around the Patriarch like so many destroyers escorting an aircraft carrier. As Oak watched they shuffled back into the woods, their extraordinary grace apparent even from behind. They became gray ghosts, then gray shadows, until eventually they again became one with the green.
Oak could hardly believe it was his voice, the even, pragmatic voice of Joshua Burton Oak, that asked the question.
"What did he say?"
Olkeloki looked troubled. "The Lords of the Veldt are disturbed. They are not immediately threatened by the shetani but they worry over the trouble the shetani may cause among men. Shetani they do not fear, but the poisons and weapons of man they fear very much. They worry that the shetani may cause men to loose such poisons upon the whole world." He straightened.
"We cannot go south from here. The shetani will be waiting for us. So claims the Patriarch. Therefore we must go around."
"Won't that cost us a lot of time?" asked Merry worriedly.
"Perhaps not much. The way is longer but the road better. We have to return to the main highway, then go east through Arusha and Moshi before we can again head safely south. We will parallel the ocean all the way to Chalinze, where we should be able to refuel. Then we will turn west toward Iringa and Ruaha. The shetani will not expect us to come from that direction. If they are watching us now it will look like we are giving up and going back to Nairobi. If they continue to follow our scent it will be more difficult for them to do so in the forests along the coast, and in this good vehicle on the better sections of road we can outrun them." He looked thoughtful. "This may be for the best. There is someone in that part of the country I should see." He smiled at Oak. "A man, this time."
"Sounds like a good plan. Tell me one thing, though." Oak nodded toward the forest. "How old is that elephant, anyway?"
"No one knows the age of the Patriarch. He himself does not know. Elephants measure time differently from humans. Once he told me he vaguely remembers a time when men walked with their backs bent and their knuckles scraping the earth, when they were eaters of insects and gatherers of fruit instead of herders of cattle like the Maasai. You ask me how old the Patriarch is. How old is Africa?"
"You'd think an elephant as old as that one would have been photographed a hundred times by now," Merry commented.
"The Patriarch values his privacy. If he does not want to be seen he stands a certain way until the tourists and cameras have left. Elephants can do that. They can stand so still they disappear."
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19
Moscow, USSR—24 June
First there was the inexplicable train derailment outside Chelyabinsk. Forty-three killed, several hundred injured, many excuses, no explanations. If the engine crew knew anything they took their knowledge with them to the grave. The station chief insisted the cause was outside his jurisdiction. Nevertheless, acting rather hurriedly, regional officials had him shot.
No such fate awaited the technicians at the Novosibirsk Nuclear Power Plant, either because the local dispensers of Soviet justice were more circumspect in their use of power or because the people under suspicion were too valuable to be cavalierly disposed of.
In spite of all the safeguards and precautions, in spite of the experience of the monitoring team, meltdown took place. The suburban areas in the immediate vicinity of the plant were hastily evacuated. The loss of the station to the regional power grid was felt immediately. The officials predicted periodic brownouts for months to come. Industry would suffer along with the citizenry. The first heavily shielded experts to take a look at the station reported that the pile could not be approached in safety for twenty to thirty years. A piece of Russia had been rendered unapproachable.
It was only due to great good fortune that no one had been trapped in the reactor housing at the time of the accident. Most assumed that the unknown cause of the catastrophe lay buried somewhere beneath tons of highly radioactive rubble, but a few had other ideas. It could not happen the way it had, they insisted vehemently. There were too many backup systems, too many safeguards to permit so complex an installation to fail so completely without some kind of intervention. The plant had operated safely and efficiently for two decades. If anything, its accident record was superior to that of similar installations.
No, they insisted, the failure had nothing to do with the design, manufacture, or operation of the plant itself. It had to have been caused.
The meltdown was insignificant compared to what nearly happened ten time zones away outside the city of Aldan, near the Aldanskoye Nagorye plateau. Only the last-minute actions of a brave and exceptionally quick-thinking captain of the Rocket Forces prevented the theoretically impossible accidental firing of the big pretargeted SS-18 missile. So near a thing was it that it was not reported immediately. Not from a desire to keep the incident quiet, which could not have been managed in any case, but because everyone at the base who learned about it was too emotionally drained to do anything but try to regain their lost composure. As it was, the base commander was rushed to the city hospital with what proved to be a fatal heart attack.
But the missile was not launched.
There were plenty of other annoyances and catastrophes, though none so potentially cataclysmic as the one that occurred at Aldan. The crash of a small military plane near Omsk, the destruction of the big television tower at Pskov, the inexplicable explosion and fire which gutted the facilities of the largest vodka distillery in the world (which would not have overly troubled the government except that most of the vodka produced at the plant was destined for export), and on and on, a seemingly endless and mystifying litany of catastrophes major and minor.
On one thing the statisticians and experts agreed: at the very least, half of these disasters had to have been caused by outside sources. They could not be attributed to accident or neglect. All that was missing in each case was a motive. Some could be invented, but why would anyone want to sabotage a liquor distillery or make a giant barbecue of half a year's warehoused beef supply?
There was no pattern to the destruction, no rhyme or reason. Just devastation on a broad and increasingly frequent scale. But enough strategically important facilities were targeted to make some people begin to wonder if perhaps the blowing up of meat warehouses and tourist facilities and beach cabanas was merely a cover designed to inflate the overall statistics of destruction and divert attention from some sinister and as yet unperceived plan.
To these doomsayers and jingoists rational people pointed out that the United States and for that matter Western Europe and Japan as well were suffering from similar unexplained disasters. Take for example the utter impossibility of two jumbo jets, one carrying two hundred and fifty-three people, including a U.S. senator, the other three hundred and four, colliding in midair only fifty miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul air control center in perfectly clear weather. Such an aerial accident defied common sense, but it had happened nonetheless. Several similar fatal "accidents" had roused a normally lethargic U.S. C
ongress to fury. Explanations were demanded, and when none were forthcoming, right-wing radicals and fundamentalists were quick to offer their own reasons for what had happened.
That was the Americans' problem, Dorovskoy reflected as he considered the stack of reports on his desk. It had continued to grow throughout the morning and it was threatening to ruin much more than his day.
As he was trying to decide what to do next one of his secretaries, an earnest young man named Nicholas, came stumbling in without so much as buzzing for admittance. As a breach of protocol the intrusion was unprecedented. If Karnovsky found out about it he was going to be furious. But Dorovskoy was not as concerned with the formalities as his predecessors and in any case he was too tired and worried to waste time and energy giving the anxious young man a dressing-down.
"What is it, Nicholas? Please, not another train derailment.
Already this morning we have had three, two on the same line."
"Sir, we…" The youth was having trouble finding the right words, but his face was as easy to read as that of a Kabuki puppet. He was in torment. Unable to speak, he approached the Premier's desk and dumped a printout on the report pile. To Dorovskoy's surprise the young man's eyes were wet with tears. What catastrophe could provoke such a reaction from so solid and stable a youthful assistant? He picked up the printout and began to read.
As Dorovskoy's eyes traveled rapidly down the page his hands began to tremble. Not with fear or sorrow but with anger. When he'd finished, it was all he could do to keep from shouting aloud.
"How dare they!" He repeated it over and over. "How dare they." Anything but this, he thought. The Politburo could handle anything but this.
"They don't know who's responsible yet, sir," said Nicholas. "But they'll find out. The city chief of police and every agent he has been able to conscript are going over the ground and the evidence a centimeter at a time. The culprits cannot escape. The only trouble stems from the investigators being hampered by their own anger."
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