At Elke’s nod, Diesel hitched the bag she was carrying into a more comfortable position. “Okay, let’s go then,” she said. “Show me the way.”
They reached the ruined house after a few minutes’ hard slog through the undergrowth. Ndlela led the way around the back and showed Elke a better place to get up onto the balcony. Once everyone was up, Diesel and Elke dumped their loads against the parapet wall. Isabeau took Robby off leash and he instantly went to work sniffing all around and judiciously lifting his leg on significant spots. Meisje climbed onto what remained of the roof slab and lay there, ears up, scanning the landscape.
“She’s the lookout!” Isabeau said when she saw this. “Nobody will sneak up on us now.”
“Ndlela, have you and Isabeau had supper yet?” Noor began unpacking one of the bags without waiting for an answer. “Why did you pack so many books? Where’s the small pot? I hope you— Oh. Here it is.”
Elke set up her camp stove and lit it while Noor rummaged around in the bags, looking for food and cooking utensils.
“Oh, thanks,” Noor said distractedly when she noticed the stove. “Where’s that water bottle?”
Diesel handed her the big water bottle. “Here you go.”
Noor filled the pot with food and soon had it simmering on the stove. Then she fussed at Isabeau until the girl agreed to wrap a blanket around herself. When she started on Ndlela, he dug in his heels.
“No, Noor. We’ve got to talk. You’ve got to listen to us.”
Noor’s chin came up and it looked as if she was about to snap back at her brother, but then her shoulders slumped. “Okay. You’re right.” She rubbed a hand over her face and blew out a long, tired breath. “Go ahead. Talk.”
“So you believe me?” said Ndlela
Noor looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Do you believe me about what happened? What I told you about those guys? That they threatened us?”
Noor gave an irritable shrug. “I guess.” Then, in a softer voice, said, “No. I believe you.”
“And you really went to talk to them?”
“I went down to the circus after work.” Noor shot a look at Elke. “I thought I’d find out what they wanted. Why they’re there.”
“And did you?” said Isabeau. “Did they tell you anything?”
“They told me who they were and what they’re doing here.” Noor sat back against the parapet wall, her gaze on the flame under the pot. “They’re renters. They’re here looking for Strangeworld biologicals. They got a tipoff that there’s a cache here in the Muara and of course, that’s dangerous stuff if it got loose. They’re going to clean it up.”
“They’re renters?” Isabeau frowned but Noor continued as if she’d not heard.
“They told me that if this stuff got spilled or got into the wrong hands, it could be really dangerous. Viruses. That kind of thing. They showed me their equipment, all this cool stuff they’ve got.” She looked at Ndlela. “You would have loved it. You saw their bikes, didn’t you? Well, each bike has its own portable scanner. And a radio too, strong enough to reach for kilometres. They could send a message all the way to Egoli, if they wanted to.”
“Who did you speak to?” said Ndlela. “Were those men there? Mamba and Buffel?”
Noor shook her head. “Missy. The older woman, and a woman called Moraes. She was really quiet, though. Didn’t really say much. Missy told me all about herself. About the Rent. She had all kinds of stories about you.” She looked at Elke, a spark of challenge in her glance.
“I bet she did,” said Elke dryly. “And what did you tell her?”
Noor looked down, frowning. The silence was broken only by the low hiss of the camp stove and the burble of the pot coming slowly to the boil.
“What did you tell them, Noor?” said Ndlela at last. “Did you tell them about the Cathedral?”
“Of course I did!” Noor looked up, defiantly. “As soon as I knew what they were looking for I thought of the Cathedral and I told them about it right away. They said it was important. There’s a reward. They paid me some of it already.” She touched the bag that had been hanging on the bike’s handlebars. “Chocolate. Flour. Butter. Real tea. Coffee. All expensive stuff.”
Ndlela and Isabeau gaped in dismay and their expressions seemed to goad her on. She flicked back her hair. “There’s a big reward for that cache and Missy’s going to share it with me. A thousand marks, maybe more. Missy promised she’d introduce me to her contacts in the Marine Guard too. She said there should be no problem about my foot. There’s stuff you can do to fix it. She said.”
Another long silence followed this statement, in which the pot started bubbling. Noor crouched forward to turn down the flame, lifted the lid and stirred the food.
Ndlela looked at Elke. “Is it true?” he said. “Are they renters?”
Elke shrugged. “Does it matter?”
Noor, Ndlela, and Isabeau all stared at her. “Of course it matters!” said Isabeau.
“They lied to you, Noor.” Elke held Noor’s gaze. “Yes, it’s true that Missy used to be in the Rent, but that was many years ago, and I don’t know what she is now.”
Elke hesitated, not wanting to push too hard, but driven by the urgency of the moment. “She lied to you. Not about what they’re here for. She told the truth there. They’re here to find what’s in the Cathedral, but I very much doubt they care what damage those biologicals might do. They just want the money and I hate to say this, but I doubt you’ll see any share of that reward. I think Missy just said whatever she had to, to win your trust.”
Noor didn’t respond. She just stared at Elke, her mouth a thin, stubborn line.
“They drew a gun on your brother,” Elke reminded her. “They smashed up your home, and there’s another thing. I didn’t get a chance to tell you this, but last night I crawled into the circus and had a chat with Moraes.”
Ndlela sat up at this. “You got in okay?”
“I did. She told me that Missy and those men are getting their orders from somebody in the Eye. Somebody who knows that the cache is here. And can you guess how they knew that?”
Elke paused, looking at Noor, but she had her head down so that her hair made a curtain over her face.
“Your mother’s friend, Jayden,” said Elke. “He knew about that cache, didn’t he?”
Ndlela nodded and Noor looked up, her eyes large, her face pale as though she guessed what Elke was about to say.
“I think that Jayden took a sample of that stuff—one hardflask, say—to the Eye to see if he could get a buyer.”
“Mom would never have—” Noor’s voice rose in outraged dignity.
“I agree. I doubt your mother knew anything about it,” said Elke. “She had her own reasons to go, didn’t she?”
Noor nodded reluctantly. “He told her he could get her a job, connections of some kind. Maybe even move all of us in there.”
“I don’t have any proof of this.” Elke looked from face to face. “But I do know that a little more than a year ago our customs people confiscated a hardflask of strangeside biologicals on the Ishtar Gate. From somebody coming into the Eye from the Real.”
“They caught Jayden?” said Ndlela. “With a hardflask?”
“I’m only guessing that it was Jayden,” said Elke. “But it fits, doesn’t it? That would be enough to alert whoever was in the Eye where to search for the stuff.”
“But why wait a year?” said Noor. “If they heard there’s a cache of biologicals out here, why wait a year to come and get it?”
“I don’t know.” Elke shrugged. “Maybe it took that long to find somebody like Missy and the rest. Somebody who they could count on to help them in secret. I don’t know.”
“But what about Mom?” said Isabeau. “What happened to her?”
Elke hesitated. Before she could say anything, Diesel spoke up, her voice matter-of-fact. “You know what happens to people caught with contraband in the Eye, right?”
I
sabeau nodded, large-eyed. “They get executed. They get shot.”
“Exactly. If Elke is right, that’s probably what happened to Jayden, but we don’t know if your mother was involved. Right now we simply don’t know what happened to her. When I get back to the Eye I can look in our records. Then we’ll know.”
Isabeau stared at Diesel, her face drained of colour. Ndlela put a hand on her shoulder, then took it away again.
“But this is all just guessing,” said Noor. “You don’t know anything.”
“That’s true,” Elke acknowledged. “But I do know one thing. Missy and those two men, they’re not renters. I don’t believe that for one moment and neither does Crosshatch. No renter would drive around on a beach where birds might be nesting, or let their sewage flow into the sea. Or beat up and threaten a child.”
Noor’s chin wobbled and for a moment Elke thought she might cry. “I never trusted him,” she said softly. “That Jayden. He was always too slick.”
Diesel, who’d been busy at the bags, said, “I can only find two bowls here. And some mugs. Anybody mind eating out of a mug?”
Noor swallowed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose, sniffing a little. “I don’t mind a mug.” She turned to Isabeau. “How about you, Issy?”
“I’m not really hungry.” Isabeau’s voice was a thin thread.
“Just hold it then, for warmth.” Noor took the mug that Diesel had filled with broth from the pot. “Here you go. And don’t you go giving any of it to Robby!”
This made Isabeau’s lips twist into a reluctant smile as she huddled into her blanket, holding the mug. She looked at Elke. “Did you find Xun?”
At Elke’s blank look, Isabeau sat up straighter. “You did warn her, didn’t you?” Her brows snapped into a frown. “You said you were going to warn her. About the price on her head!”
“I’m sorry,” Elke said. “I totally forgot about that.”
Isabeau looked at Elke for a long moment. Then she huddled into her blanket again and took a small sip of broth from her mug.
Elke took the bowl Diesel handed her. A glance up at Meisje reassured her that no danger was in sight. “I guess we’ll all be sleeping up here tonight. At least there’s no chance of rain.”
Ndlela looked up at the dark arch of sky, spangled with stars. “No,” he said. “We’ll be okay.”
¤¤¤
Elke waited till all three children were asleep, huddled in their blankets. Then she turned to Diesel, keeping her voice low.
“So tell me about Maxwell Jali’s hoard.”
Diesel was leaning back against the parapet wall, looking up at the stars. “The stories all say he came out of the Strangeworld with lot of stuff. Nobody agrees on what it was, though. Mostly people say gold and jewels.”
She pulled her jacket shut against the chilly night air. There weren’t enough blankets to go around and Diesel had insisted she didn’t need one. “My mother always told me that he was on a mission to infect the Realworld with seeds from the Strange. She actually met him, you know. When she was a little girl. He made quite an impression on her.”
“Your mom!” said Elke. “She met Maxwell Jali? She must be pretty old then.”
“We do live quite a bit longer than you guys,” Diesel said, her expression neutral.
“I always forget that,” said Elke. “All that editing and gene therapy. But your mom. She’s making that cool garden on Zero level. I saw her. She looked like an impressive lady.”
Diesel chuckled softly. “That’s one way of putting it. She’s been in the Strange for most of my adult life, so we’re not really that close.” She hunched her shoulders. “It’s a bit weird having her in the Eye again. She’s so focused on her garden, she doesn’t really seem all that interested in anything else. I sometimes wonder if she even remembers I exist. I get on much better with my father. Or, I used to, before he got all bent out of shape because I’m not taking over the family business.”
“But how would Maxwell Jali have gotten a whole freight-load of hardflasks through into the Real?” Elke took off her boots and flexed her feet, rolling her ankles to loosen them.
“Oh, you know, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult. Regulations and customs weren’t always so strict. Especially for him. He essentially owned the Eye, at least in the beginning.”
“And the people helping him? They knew what he was doing?”
“I guess.” Diesel shifted into a more comfortable position on the concrete. “Most of them were strangers. They wouldn’t care about infecting another world. They’d done it often enough. Spread the life of their world to whatever realms they made portals to.”
“And he could speak to them? Jali? He knew the language?”
“He had a translator.” Elke could hear the smile in Diesel’s voice, although it was too dark to see her friend’s face. “Actually, I’m surprised you haven’t heard this story, ex-shade as you are.”
“He had a shade translator?” Elke said in surprise. “I suppose that makes sense, but most of the shades I’ve met are not exactly, I mean, they’re pretty, um...” She pulled a wry face.
“How does one say it politely?” Diesel sounded amused. “No, it’s true. Most shades are neurologically tuned to record and remember and can’t do much more than that, but there are translator shades. This one was just a boy. His name was Mare Lapis. Apparently he asked to translate for Jali as he was so eager to see the Real. I don’t know what became of him.”
For a long time, they simply sat and listened to the interwoven chorus of cricket and frogs, and the deep roar of the sea.
“I guess we should take turns keeping watch,” Diesel said at last.
“You go to sleep,” Elke said. “I’ll wake you when I can’t keep my eyes open. Okay?”
“Okay.”
¤¤¤
Deep in the night Elke woke. Diesel was shaking her by the shoulder.
“What—” She struggled to focus. Surely it wasn’t her watch again already? A glance told her that none of the others were awake. Isabeau and Ndlela slept in a huddle of blankets and Noor curled up against the parapet wall. Meisje stood at Elke’s side, body stiff, ears alert.
“Shh.” Diesel held up a hand. “Listen. Do you hear that?”
Elke sat up, listening. The faint rumble of an engine. Sand-bike, if she had to guess, making its way down from the freeway.
“Who—” Elke frowned, then she understood. “Is that him coming in? The boss from the Eye?”
Diesel nodded. “Moraes told you they were going to contact him, didn’t she? As soon as they found the stuff. And that he’d come?”
Elke got up and stood by the parapet wall. The sound was coming from the right direction. Somebody was driving down towards the river mouth.
“You didn’t hear any of them going out on their bikes earlier? This is definitely somebody new coming in?”
“Pretty sure,” said Diesel.
By now the engine sound was faint enough to blend in with the roar of the breakers. Elke stood, staring into the dark. The night felt different, as if everything was alert and waiting.
“What do we do now?” said Diesel.
Elke returned to her sleeping spot and lowered herself reluctantly onto the hard concrete. Suddenly she missed her bed in her cubby in the Eye. She wrapped her blanket around herself, still deep in thought.
“Not much we can do right now,” she said at last. “But we better get moving before sunrise. I want to see that guy. I want to know who he is.”
Gone Again
Elke groaned as she came awake. She rolled onto her side, grimacing at the bone deep ache, but relieved that the sky was barely touched with sunlight. Meisje, who was curled against her, stretched her head out with a sigh, clearly not ready to get up yet.
“Sorry girl,” Elke mumbled, and propped herself up on an elbow.
Diesel should have woken her to take watch. She smiled when she saw the explanation. Diesel was fast asleep, slumped against a l
ump of concrete, her face cushioned on her arm.
Well, nothing happened, and we all need our sleep. Today’s going to be a rough day.
As Elke was about to wake Diesel, a sound attracted her attention. A breathy whine from beyond the parapet wall. Frowning, she got up and went to have a look.
It was Robby, down on the sand below, tied to a shrub by his leash. He rolled his eyes up to Elke, his ears down, his tail tucked between his legs.
What—
Elke spun around. Ndlela was still there, curled up and fast asleep, but the blankets next to him were empty.
“Guys,” Elke said. “Noor. Ndlela? You better get up. Isabeau’s gone.”
¤¤¤
Elke sent Meisje out to scout around and Ndlela went to untie Robby.
“I know where she went,” he said as he heaved himself up onto the balcony again.
“She’s gone to warn Xun,” said Elke.
Ndlela nodded miserably. “I forgot to tell you yesterday but those guys, Mamba and Buffel, they found that reward poster. We heard them talking about it. Issy was kind of freaked out about that.”
“Shit,” said Noor. “Shit, shit, shit.” She looked as if she’d hardly slept at all, strands of dew-wet hair straggling across her face.
Meisje gave a soft bark from below. Elke jumped down the balcony to where the gardag was waiting.
“She’s gone, right?”
Meisje confirmed this with a twist of her ears.
“Did you see her go? Were you awake?”
No.
“How old are her tracks. More than an hour?”
No.
“More like half an hour?”
Yes.
“Okay. Great.” Elke looked up at Diesel who was leaning on the balcony wall, watching the exchange. “You see that? She’s been gone only about half an hour, and she’ll have gone straight to the place we found her with the gardags.”
Elke scrambled back up onto the balcony, still talking. “We need a plan. Somebody can go and—” Her voice dried up.
Diesel was all by herself.
“Where are the others?”
Diesel turned to look. “They were here a second ago—”
The Real Page 21