Adventures in Time and Space

by Raymond J Healy

  Indlovu went on to tell about how Heeky had died, and how Mqhavi, not knowing how to run the machine, had taken him, Indlovu, and his now numerous progeny in an attempt to find his way back to civilization. He had gotten lost in the Delta. Then he had cut his foot somehow, and gotten sick, very sick. Cuff had come out from England. Mqhav must have Mqhavi, had gotten well he had been very weak. So he had settled down with Indlovu and his family. They al ready walked upright and spoke Xosa, which Mqhavi had taught them. Cuff got the idea that the early family relation ships among the ‘fene abantu had of necessity involved close inbreeding. Mqhavi had taught them all he knew, and then died, after warning them not to go within a mile of the machine, which, as far as they knew, was still up at the Chobe Swamp.

  Cuff thought, that blasted machine is an electronic tube of some sort, built to throw short waves of the length to affect animal genes. Probably Indlovu represented one of Hickey’s early experiments. Then Hickey had died, and‌—‌left the thing going. He didn’t know how it got power; some solar system, perhaps.

  Suppose Hickey had died while the thing was turned on. Mqhavi might have dragged his body out and left the door open. He might have been afraid to try to turn it off, or he might not have thought of it. So every animal that passed that doorway got a dose of the rays, and begat monstrous offspring. These super-baboons were one example; whether an accidental or a controlled mutation, might never be known.

  For every useful mutation there were bound to be scores of useless or harmful ones. Mtengeni had been right: it had to be stopped while there was still normal stock left in the Park. He wondered again how to get in touch with the warden. He’d be damned if anything short of the threat of death would get him to walk on that foot, for a few days anyhow.

  Ingwamza entered with a wooden dish full of a mess of some sort. Athelstan Cuff decided resignedly that he was expected to eat it. He couldn’t tell by looking whether it was animal or vegetable in nature. After the first mouthful he was sure it was neither. Nothing in the animal and vegetable worlds could taste as awful as that. It was too bad Mqhavi hadn’t been a Bamangwato; he’d have really known how to cook, and could have taught these monkeys. Still, he had to eat something to support life. He fell to with the wooden spoon they gave him, suppressing an occasional gag and watching the smaller solid particles closely. Sure enough, he had to smack two of them with the spoon to keep them from crawling out.

  “How it is?” asked Ingwamza. Indlovu had gone out.

  “Fine,” lied Cuff. He was chasing a slimy piece of what he suspected was waterbuck tripe around the dish.

  “I am glad. We’ll feed you a lot of that. Do you like scorpions?”

  “You mean to eat?”

  “Of course. What else are they good for?”

  He gulped. “No.”

  “I won’t give you any then. You see I’m glad to know what my future husband likes.”

  “What?” He thought he had misunderstood her.

  “I said, I am glad to know what you like, so I can please you after you are my husband.”

  Athelstan Cuff said nothing for sixty seconds. His naturally prominent eyes bulged even more as her words sank in. Finally he spoke.

  “Gluk,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Gug. Gah. My God. Let me out of here!” His voice jumped two octaves, and he tried to get up. Ingwamza caught his shoulders and pushed him gently, but firmly, back on his pallet. He struggled, but without visibly exerting herself the ‘fene umfazi held him as in a vise.

  “You can’t go,” she said. “If you try to walk on that foot you will get sick.”

  His ruddy face was turning purple! “Let me up! Let me up, I say! l can’t stand this!”

  “Will you promise not to try to go out if I do? Father would be furious if I let you do anything unwise.”

  He promised, getting a grip on himself again. He already felt a bit foolish about his panic. He was in a nasty jam, certainly, but an official of His Majesty didn’t act like a frightened schoolgirl at every crisis.

  “What,” he asked, “is this all about?”

  “Father is so grateful to you for saving my life that he intends to bestow me on you in marriage, without even asking a bride price.”

  “But … but … I’m married already,” he lied.

  “What of it? I’m not afraid of your other wives. If they got fresh, I’d tear them in pieces like this.” She bared her teeth and went through the motions of tearing several Mistresses Cuff in pieces. Athelstan Cuff shut his eyes at the horrid sight.

  “Among my people,” he said, “you’re allowed only one wife.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Ingwamza. “That means that you couldn’t go back to your people after you married me, doesn’t it?”

  Cuff sighed. These ‘fene abantu combined the mental outlook of uneducated Maxosa with physical equipment that would make a lion think twice before attacking one. He’d probably have to shoot his way out. He looked around the hut craftily. His rifle wasn’t in sight. He didn’t dare ask about it for fear of arousing suspicion.

  “Is your father set on this plan?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes, very. Father is a good umntu, but he gets set on ideas like this and nothing will make him change them. And he has a terrible temper. If you cross him when he has his heart set on something, he will tear you in pieces. Small pieces.” She seemed to relish the phrase.

  “How do you feel about it, Ingwamza?”

  “Oh, I do everything father says. He knows more than any of us.”

  “Yes, but I mean you personally. Forget about your father for the moment.”

  She didn’t quite catch on for a moment, but after further explanation she said: “I wouldn’t mind. It would be a great thing for my people if one of us was married to a man.”

  Cuff silently thought that that went double for him.

  Indlovu came in with two other amafene abantu. “Run along, Ingwamza,” he said. The three baboon-men squatted around Athelstan Cuff and began questioning him about men and the world outside the Delta.

  When Cuff stumbled over a phrase, one of the questioners, a scarred fellow named Sondlo, asked why he had difficulty. Cuff explained that Xosa wasn’t his native language.

  “Men do speak other languages?” asked Indlovu. “I remember now, the great Mqhavi once told me something to that effect. But he never taught me Any other languages. Perhaps he and Heeky spoke one of these other languages, but I was too young when Heeky died to remember.”

  Cuff explained something about linguistics. He was immediately pressed to “say something in English.” Then they wanted to learn English, right then, that afternoon.

  Cuff finished his evening meal and looked without enthusiasm at his pallet. No artificial light, so these people rose and set with the sun. He stretched out. The straw rustled. He jumped up, bringing his injured foot down hard. He yelped, swore, and felt the bandage. Yes, he’d started it bleeding again. Oh, to hell with it. He attacked the straw, chasing out a mouse, six cockroaches, and uncounted smaller bugs. Then he stretched out again. Looking up, he felt his scalp prickle. A ten-inch centipede was methodically hunting its prey over the underside of the roof. If it missed its footing when it was right over him‌—‌He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it up over his face. Then the mosquitoes attacked his midriff. IMP foot throbbed.

  A step brought him up; it was Ingwamza.

  “What is it now?” he asked.

  “Ndiya kuhlaha apha,” she answered.

  “Oh no, you’re not going to stay here. We’re not … well, anyway, it simply isn’t done among my people.”

  “But Esselten, somebody must watch you in case you get sick. My father‌—‌”

  “No, I’m sorry, but that’s final. If you’re going to marry me you’ll have to learn how to behave among men. And we’re beginning right now.”

  To his surprise and relief, she went without further objection, albeit sulkily. He’d never have dared to try to
put her out by force.

  When she had gone, he crawled over to the door of the hut. The sun had just set, and the moon would follow it in a couple of hours. Most of the ‘fene abantu had retired. But a couple of them squatted outside their huts, in sight of his place, watchfully.

  Heigh ho, he thought, they aren’t taking any chances. Perhaps the old boy is grateful and all that rot. But I think my fiancé let the cat out when she said that about the desirability of hitching one of the tribe to a human being. Of course the poor things don’t know that it wouldn’t have any legal standing at all. But that fact wouldn’t save me from a jolly unpleasant experience in the meantime. Suppose I haven’t escaped by the time of the ceremony. Would I go through with it? Br-r-r! Of course not. I’m an Englishman and an officer of the Crown. But if it meant my life … I don’t know. I’m dashed if I do. Perhaps I can talk them out of it … being careful not to get them angry in the process.

  He was tied to the straw, and enormous centipedes were dropping off the ceiling onto his face. Then he was running through the swamp, with Ingwamza and her irate pa after him. His feet stuck in the mud so he couldn’t move, and there was a light in his face. Mtengeni‌—‌good old George!‌—‌was riding a two headed rhino. But instead of rescuing him, the warden said: “Mr. Cuff, you must do something about these Bechuana. Them, they are catching all my animals and painting them red with green stripes.” Then he woke up.

  It took him a second to realize that the light was from the setting moon, not the rising sun, and that he therefore had been asleep less than two hours. It took him another second to realize what had wakened him. The straw of the hut wall had been wedged apart, and through the gap a ‘fene umntu was crawling. While Cuff was still wondering why one of his hosts, or captors, should use this peculiar method of getting in, the baboon-man stood up. He looked enormous in the faint light.

  “What is it?” asked Cuff.

  “If you make a noise,” said the stranger, “I will kill you.” “What? What’s the idea? Why should you want to kill me?”

  “You have stolen my Ingwamza.”

  “But … but‌—‌” Cuff was at a loss. Here the gal’s old man would tear him in pieces‌—‌small pieces‌—‌if he didn’t marry her, and a rival or something would kill him if he did. “Let’s talk it over first,” he said, in what he hoped was a normal voice. “Who are you, by the way?”

  “My name is Cukata. I was to have married Ingwamza next month. And then you came.”

  “What … what‌—‌”

  “I won’t kill you. Not if you make no noise. I will just fix you so you won’t marry Ingwamza.” He moved toward the pile of straw.

  Cuff didn’t waste time inquiring into the horrid details. “Wait a minute,” he said, cold sweat bedewing not merely his brow, but his whole torso. “My dear fellow, this marriage wasn’t my idea. It was Indlovu’s, entirely. I don’t want to steal your girl. They just informed me that I was going to marry her, without asking me about it at all. I don’t want to marry her. In fact there’s nothing I want to do less.”

  The ‘fene umntu stood still for a moment, thinking. Then he said softly: “You wouldn’t marry my Ingwamza if you had the chance? You think she is ugly?”

  “Well‌—‌”

  “By u-Qamata, that’s an insult! Nobody shall think such thoughts of my Ingwamza! Now I will kill you for sure!”

  “Wait, wait!” Cuff’s voice, normally a pleasant low baritone, became a squeak. “That isn’t it at all! She’s beautiful, intelligent, industrious, all that a ‘ntu could want. But I can never marry her.” Inspiration! Cuff went on rapidly. Never had he spoken Xosa so fluently. “You know that if lion mates with leopard, there are no offspring.” Cuff wasn’t sure that was so, but he took a chance. “It is that way with my people and yours. We are too different. There would be no issue to our marriage. And Indlovu would not have grandchildren by us to gladden his old age.”

  Cukata, after some thought, saw, or thought he did. “But,” he said, “how can I prevent this marriage without killing you?”

  “You could help me escape.”

  “So. Now that’s an idea. Where do you want to go?” “Do you know where the Hickey machine is?”

  “Yes, though I have never been close to it. That is forbidden. About fifteen miles north of here, on the edge of the Chobe Swamp, is a rock. By the rock are three baobab trees, close together. Between the trees and the swamp are two houses. The machine is in one of those houses.”

  He was silent again. “You can’t travel fast with that wounded foot. They would overtake you. Perhaps Indlovu would tear you in pieces, or perhaps he would bring you back. If he brought you back, we should fail. If he tore you in pieces, I should be sorry, for I like you, even if you are a feeble little isi-pham-pham.” Cuff wished that the simian brain would get around to the point. “I have it. In ten minutes I shall whistle. You will then crawl out through this hole in the wall, making no noise. You understand?”

  When Athelstan Cuff crawled out, he found Cukata in the alley between two rows of huts. There was a strong reptilian stench in the air. Behind the baboon-man was something large and black. It walked with a swaying motion. It brushed against Cuff, and he almost cried out at the touch of cold, leathery hide.

  “This is the largest,” said Cukata. “We hope some day to have a whole herd of them. They are fine for traveling across the swamps, because they can swim as well as run. And they grow much faster than the ordinary crocodile.”

  The thing was a crocodile but such a crocodile! Though not much over fifteen feet in length, it had long, powerful legs that raised its body a good four feet off the ground, giving it a dinosaurian look. It rubbed against Cuff, and the thought occurred to him that it had taken an astonishing mutation indeed to give a brainless and voracious reptile an of fection for human beings.

  Cukata handed Cuff a knobkerry, and explained: “Whistle loudly, when you want him to come. To start him, hit him or the tail with this. To stop him, hit him on the nose. To make him go to the left, hit him on the right side of the neck, not too hard. To make him go to the right, hit him‌—‌”

  “On the left side of the neck, but not too hard,” finished Cuff. “What does he eat?”

  “Anything that is meat. But you needn’t feed him for two or three days; he has been fed recently.”

  “Don’t you use a saddle?”

  “Saddle? What’s that?”

  “Never mind.” Cuff climbed aboard, wincing as he settled onto the sharp dorsal ridges of the animal’s hide.

  “Wait,” said Cukata. “The moon will be completely gone in a moment. Remember, I shall say that I know nothing about your escape, but that you go out and stole him yourself. His name Soga.”

  There were the baobab trees, and there were the houses. There were also a dozen elephants, facing the rider and his bizarre mount and spreading their immense ears. Athelstan Cuff was getting so blase about freaks that he hardly noticed that two of the elephants had two trunks apiece: that another of them was colored a fair imitation of a Scotch tartan; that another of them had short legs like a hippopotamus, so that it looked like something out of a dachshund breeder’s nightmare.

  The elephants, for their part, seemed undecided whether to run or to attack, and finally compromised by doing nothing. Cuff realized when he was already past them that he had done a wickedly reckless thing in going so close to them unarmed except for the useless kerry. But somehow he couldn’t get excited about mere elephants. His whole life for the past forty-eight hours had had a dreamlike quality. Maybe he was dreaming. Or maybe he had a charmed life. Or something. Though there was nothing dreamlike about the throb in his foot, or the acute soreness in his gluteus maximus.

  Soga, being a crocodile, bowed his whole body at every stride. First the head and tail went to the right and the body to the left; then the process was reversed. Which was most unpleasant for his rider.

  Cuff was willing to swear that he’d ridden at least fifty miles
instead of the fifteen Cukata had mentioned. Actually he had done about thirty, not having been able to follow a straight line and having to steer by stars and, when it rose, the sun. A fair portion of the thirty had been hugging Soga’s barrel while the croc’s great tail drove them through the waterlike a racing shell. No hippo or other crocs had bothered them; evidently they knew when they were well off.

  Athelstan Cuff slid‌—‌almost fell‌—‌off, and hobbled up to the entrance of one of the houses. His practiced eye took in the roof cistern, the solar boiler, the steam-electric plant, the batteries, and finally the tube inside. He went in. Yes, by Jove, the tube was in operation after all these years. Hickey must have had something jolly unusual. Cuff found the main switch easily enough and pulled it. All that happened was that the little orange glow in the tube died.

  The house was so silent it made Cuff uncomfortable, except for the faint hum of the solar power plant. As he moved about, using the kerry for a crutch, he stirred up the dust which lay six inches deep on the floor. Maybe there were notebooks or something which ought to be collected. There had been, he soon discovered, but the termites had eaten every scrap of paper, and even the imitation-leather covers, leaving only the metal binding rings and their frames. It was the same with the books.

  Something white caught his eye. It was paper lying on a little metal-legged stand that the termites evidently hadn’t thought well enough of to climb. He limped toward it eagerly. But it was only a newspaper, Umlindi we Nyanga‌—‌ “The Monthly Watchman”‌—‌published in Fast London. Evidently, Stanley H. Mqhavi had subscribed to it. It crumbled at Cuff’s touch.

  Oh, well, he thought, can’t expect much. We’ll run along, and some of the bio-physicist chappies can come in and gather up the scientific apparatus.

  He went out, called Soga, and started east. He figured that he could strike the old wagon road somewhere north of the Mababe, and get down to Mtengeni’s main station that way.