“But why? What’s the hurry now?” Winter inquired perplexed.
Goytom answered her. “Because as soon as they hit their base they will realize that they lost us in Azezo. They certainly saw us further back. And probably assumed that we are fellow Nemesis. If they don’t meet us at their base, they will come look for us. We need to get as far away as possible. And quickly.”
Mekonnen, meanwhile, had been talking to Idris and his people, and they were all heading for their cars.
“Won’t they see us from their cars? If we leave right now?” Yuki anxiously inquired.
“No, Goytom explained that the road northward is twisted and disappears behind some hills before hitting the town of Gondar. Quite a big town apparently. No way they can see us. Not from the road, anyway.” Paul replied. “So hurry on, folks. Let’s get going!”
I turned around to see where Alice was and motioned for her to come over here, and quickly. Then, just as we were all getting into our cars, there were several ear-splitting explosions and a huge black cloud billowed up into the air. General direction where Gondar and that Nemesis base ought to be. For a split second we all stood there as if welded to the ground, than mayhem ensued. Everybody was talking and gesticulating.
“What the heck!” Paul exclaimed.
“Abdella and Serag, I guess.” came Rob’s cool response.
“You’re probably right. They must have hit an ammunition depot. Wow! Absolutely impeccable timing on their part. This explosion must have put us completely off their minds. I hope, Abdella and Serag survived.” Josh mused, a pensive smile on his face.
“I still think that we ought to get going. Really. We ought to get away from here as fast as we could.” Nin chipped in. And Winter and I nodded vigorously.
Yes, I wanted to get away. To get as far down south along Lake Tana as was possible before darkness fell. And mostly, away from this explosion. What if they had used the pathogen? What if the air was now choke full of pathogen. Okay, the wind wasn’t blowing our direction, but, one never knew and we had no shelter at hand where we could have stuck it out a month.
Goytom had come over and was talking excitedly to Paul and Rob. He was totally happy. But when Josh told him that we wanted to get going, he got the message and went to tell Idris and his people.
Finally, after a seemingly endless ten minutes, everybody was in their cars and with Idris’s car leading the way, we left that compound, turned south onto the highway and sped away.
Alice and I turned our heads to watch the ominous black cloud in the sky. She was frightened and nestled close to me.
“Lia, do you think we will get away, or will this cloud come to us and kill us?” She asked in a thin, scared voice.
Before I could answer, Paul chipped in. “Don’t be afraid, princess. We’ll make it. See, we can drive over a hundred kilometres an hour here, and the road is smooth and good. The wind isn’t carrying that cloud our direction. We’ll be safe.”
I rolled my eyes at Paul in the back mirror and he grinned. But I refrained from saying anything. It was a scary thought and I felt like stepping on the gas pedal to make a fly along at top speed. But Paul was right. The cloud seemed to dissolve north- and westwards, not at all toward where we were or were racing to.
Josh, meanwhile, had arranged the map on his lap again. “Idris said that we might make it at least all the way to Addis Zemen, the next bigger town on the way to Bahir Dar. Ah, here it is.” He stabbed his finger at a point on the map. “It’s not quite half way down the length of Lake Tana and about 90 kilometres from here. It the road turns out to be all the way as good as it is here, we ought to be there in no time.”
He sounded happy. And relieved.
But I wasn’t feeling comfortable yet myself. After all, we still had several hours to drive before we could safely turn in for the night. Only once we’d be far, far away from here, would I be able to relax. We weren’t the last car in our little convoy, so it was useless to keep glancing back, but it took an effort not to do it.
Alice kept quiet, which was a bit worrying in itself. But I didn’t feel like chatting myself. If she wanted to know something, she would ask. In the meantime, we would hurry along and would hopefully be safe soon.
We drove on in silence, as fast as we dared going. The scenery was much the same as it had been earlier. Lots of hamlets, a few villages, and agricultural land everywhere. After some twenty odd kilometres, we were level with the northern edge of Lake Tana, but nobody was in the mood to enjoy it much. Sure, it was impressive like hell, but we couldn’t stay and see the sights. The terrain got hillier, that is, the road didn’t follow the flat plain down by the lake but curved up into the mountain chain alongside the Lake. Always parallel to the lake, but winding back and forth. We drove on for about an hour and then the road got really curvy and continued uphill. The vegetation changed and we even drove through a veritable forest. There were less fields and more bushy vegetation. Whatever fields there were, many of them were terraced. And then we saw a bigger settlement ahead and a prominent round building with a red roof just aside of the road.
“That must be a church.” Josh mused. “Anyway, this is Addis Zemen. It didn’t take us as long as I thought.”
“And we may keep on going for at least when it gets dark, which.” Paul glanced at his watch, “shouldn’t be for another two hours. It’s just past five o’clock now.”
Alice glanced at me inquiringly.
“What’s up, sweetie?” I asked.
“I need to pee.” She whispered, a bit embarrassed.
“Josh, Paul, can we put in stop? We ladies are in need of one and I guess we can spare the ten minutes or so it’ll take. Right?”
“Of course, no problem. It would be good to step out of the car a bit.” Paul slowed down the bar and set the indicator.
We had by now already reached the southern end of that little town. And there was another roundish building to the right of the road and about fifty metres away. Some small houses were scattered along the road and Paul stopped the car near one of them. We all got out. And the two cars that followed behind, pulled to a stop too.
“Why did you stop?” Nin shouted, he had opened the door of their car and was leaning out.
“For the ladies.” I yelled back.
“Oh, good. Sound idea.” He laughed and soon everyone else had also trooped out and was disappearing behind building or bushes.
Within five minutes we were back on the road and found that the others were waiting for us just a little ahead.
We all pulled to a stop and got out to discuss how to proceed.
Goytom did most of the talking and explaining. Idris and his people had already decided how far they wanted to go today so there wasn’t much to decide or discuss. He just informed how it would go.
“As you can see, the road runs along quite straight. All the way down to Bahir Dar. Brhane here knows this area quite well and he says, we should stop for the night after a little settlement called Hamusit. There will be a little wooded hill, with a church on top that will afford cover as well as a look-out. Within an hour and something we ought to be there. Is that okay with you?”
“From there, we will have less than fifty kilometres to cover tomorrow morning to reach Bahir Dar.” Josh said; he had been studying the map.
“Sounds good to me.” Rob said. “After all, you are the ones to know this area. We rely on your sound judgement. Don’t we?”
We all nodded to this and Goytom had the decency to grin before turning to Brhane and Idris and informing them that all was okay.
So, we all got back in to our cars and the convoy set out at a brisk pace again. The road ran smoothly and more or less straight in a gentle slope down toward the flood plains. Again, a patchwork of fields could be seen to the left and right of the road. It must be very fertile land. One could see far-and-wide and lake Tana on our right stretched seemingly endless to the West of us, a glittering, silvery mass of water. Incredible. We were quite a dis
tance from the lake, but we could see the dense belts of reed and papyrus on its shores. And also some absolutely huge trees. I had no idea what they were, but they looked splendid.
And after about twenty minutes, the road led across a big meandering river. And here too, a lot of these big trees grew. Now that we were closer up, I could discern what they were.
“Fig trees. Look, they are immense fig trees. How absolutely wonderful. I have never seen such impressive trees!” I exclaimed.
Josh shot me a loving glance and Paul laughed.
“A pity we can’t stop and investigate.” I really would have liked to get a closer look. There was an impressive network of roots and the crowns of these trees spanned over an enormous distance. Like huge, green umbrellas.
“Nobody would guess that your interests lay in biology mostly, you know.” Josh gently teased.
I ducked my head and grinned at him.
“I also would like to have a look at those trees. It’s not just Lia who likes trees. Me too.” Alice told Josh in a serious voice.
“You know, at Uncle Phil’s place, I know all the names of all the trees there. I’ll show you, once we get there.” She had perked up quite a bit since our little -stop and was buoyantly hopping around on her seat. Pointing at different things she saw and commenting all the while.
I let her. It was good that she had plucked up her courage again. Maybe she still thought that we would reached Blue-Hill-Farm within just a few days. Whatever the reason, I was glad that she was chirpy again.
Sure enough, after a bit over an hour we crossed another river bed and then soon came through a tiny settlement.
“Hamusit.” Josh informed us.
And about a kilometre outside of the village, on the left side of the road we found the hill and the church. A little road led around the hill and we followed the lead of Idris and the others and parked our car in a kind of yard between several buildings, well away from the road and covered from view by lots of trees and bushes.
Then we all got out and stretched ourselves. It had been a long day and drive. We were all tired.
But before we could rest, we needed to set up camp.
Brhane led the way up the hill to a longish building near the church. It must have been either a school dormitory or refectory, because it was almost entirely devoid of furniture, safe for two big tables at one end.
Brhane gestured around, and Goytom translated for us. “This used to be a place, where pilgrims or worshippers could stay overnight. Brhane says, it’s only appropriate that we should stay here for the night. And whoever will be on watch-duty, will only have a couple of metres to walk to the out-look. I’ll show you later. We can all sleep in here. We could even make a fire, if we liked, but maybe it is safer without.”
After a short peek around, we all trooped back to the cars and got our gear out.
It didn’t take long to roll out our mats and sleeping bags. We volunteered to cook for everybody, an offer, which, to my astonishment, was accepted. Tigist and Senayit, who had gone to investigate the surroundings for a bit, came back with a foray of green leaves. By the looks of them, they belonged to the cabbage family and we decided to fry them with tomatoes, fry some potatoes with onions and serve everything with spicy rice. We took our camping cookers to cook dinner, hoping that this way, nobody could see our activity in the dark.
“There won’t be any meat, unfortunately.” Nin mused.
But we needn’t have worried. Tilahun and his fellow friends had apparently already taken care of that side of our dinner. They strode around the church, proudly displaying two chicken that they had caught and killed.
We had learned how to pluck and prepare chicken by Aunt Kamene long time ago and even Alice did her bit. Soon we had a nice stew simmering and about an hour after dark, we were ready to serve dinner.
Mekonnen and Goytom had already taken up their position up by the church. They would take over the first watch.
Ifrah took them their dinner, while everybody else sat down in the pilgrim’s shelter to eat.
It was delicious and warm and made me feel sleepy right away.
But before we could call it a day we had to clean up everything. There was a water pump at the back of the building and we could not only wash all the dishes, but also get enough water to wash ourselves. What a relief.
Finally, it was going toward ten, we called it a day, and headed for our sleeping bags. Josh and I would have to take over the watch in two hours. He said he would wake me up in time. I was so sleepy by now that I just cuddle up to him, with Alice nestling close to me on the other side, whispered that I loved them all very much and fell asleep almost instantaneously.
Chapter 6 – what now?
23rd May 2072
When Josh gently woke me up it seemed like only minutes since I had fallen asleep. It took me a few moments to get my bearings.
“Wake up, love. It’s time. Our turn to watch.” Josh whispered into my ear and kissed me.
I yawned and stretched, careful not to wake up Alice. She had curled up in a ball and had nestled closer to Yuki who slept on her other side. She never even stirred while I got up.
Yuki did, though, she whispered that she would take care of Alice and gently pulled her close to her.
I whispered a thank you and followed Josh.
He lead the way out of the house and up toward the church. It was a splendid night, no moon yet, but thousands upon thousands of stars twinkling above. Breathtakingly beautiful, despite the dire situation we were in.
We soon reached the top and found Mekonnen and Goytom at the western edge of the Church, sitting against the wall and talking in low whispers.
They got up and greeted us.
“Anything amiss?” Josh asked.
“No, everything’s alright. We’ve been checking with the night vision googles back toward where we came from. But there was never anything to be seen. And all around, there’s nothing. Nothing, nothing and nothing! Everywhere you look. It’s weird and, honestly, frightening because before this catastrophe happened one would have seen hundreds upon hundreds of lights here at night.” Goytom pointed toward the general direction of Lake Tana.
“Oh yeah, your right. This utter darkness is disconcerting, isn’t it?” Josh replied in a low voice. “It’ll take a while before we are accustomed to this. To being alone out here. And all.”
“Ishi,” Mekonnen replied, which, as we had learnt, meant ‘okay’ in Amharic, and handed his night vision goggles to Josh. He nodded to me, turned around and disappeared into the dark.
“We are tired and I am glad, we can go and get some rest.” Goytom said in an apologetic voice. “Will you two be alright?”
“Of course, no problem, go get some sleep. Thanks” Josh answered and took the gun and night vision goggles that Goytom was handing him.
We settled down where Goytom and Mekonnen had sat, with our backs toward the church wall. Josh made sure that I sat comfortably and not too exposed to the wind. Then he settled next to me and wrapped his arms around me.
“Here we are, on another night watch together.” He mused. “You alright? Not too cold?”
It felt good. That he was so concerned for my well-being. It kind of helped cope with the weirdness of our situation. I cuddled closer to him and replied, “I am fine. It’s a glorious night after all, isn’t it! Just look at all these stars. You are right, though, it’s damn cold. We should have taken some jackets. But we’ll survive.”
Josh pressed a kiss on my hair. “Love you. Just in case I haven’t told you recently.”
“Ditto.”
“How do you feel after this crazy day?” Josh asked while glancing around with the night vision goggles.
“I am okay. I guess. I’m rattled, but okay. I will never forget this racing along through unknown territory. Why, we never even got a real look at the landscape. It seems like ablur. First, we were there at Idris’s cave, now we are here. In between is one big haze.” I paused and took a deep br
eath before I asked what was really worrying me. “Say, Josh, do you really think that we needn’t worry about those Nemesis people back there in Azezo or Gondar? And what about the Pathogen? What if Abdella and Serag discharged Pathogen while they attacked that base in Gondar? Won’t we all be in grave danger? I mean, the wind may blow it toward us. Right? Honestly, it scares me like hell to think about what we left behind there.”
Still glancing around at nothing in particular Josh cautiously answered. “To be honest, I have not a clue as to what we should expect. I’d like to agree with Paul that we are safe here and needn’t worry. But I can’t quite take his view. I agree with him that we probably needn’t worry about being followed any time soon. I mean, they are busy up there sorting out the mess Abdella and Serag created. But eventually they will start wondering what really happened. Who was driving ahead of them. And where the hell these attackers came from.”
“I have been wondering whether the fact that the Pathogen was used may set them on our trail. Not just these Nemesis here, but maybe even Steve and his lot.” I pensively chewed my lips. “Or do you think I am being overanxious?”
Josh lowered his night vision goggles and shot me look. “Why on earth would you worry about that? That isn’t even remotely possible! We made a clean get-away back there in Switzerland. No way can they guess or figure out where we went.”
“But just think, we left that plane in that town called Gedarif. Right along the highway to Ethiopia. There was this Nemesis platoon that came up that road. The ones who followed us all the way to Azezo. Surely they must have seen that plane. And from what is inside they must have guessed where it came from.”
“Yes, but haven’t we all agreed that what they will think is that it was other Nemesis people having entered their territory without prior notice? Rather than anyone else?”
I stood my ground. This was too important an issue to back down easily. “Yes, but now things have changed. Abdella and Serag attacked that Nemesis base. And anyway, surely the Nemesis here must have tried to get in contact with that other, fictional, Nemesis group from our plane, wanting to know who they are and what they are up to. Surely, they must be having some kind of global communications network still in place. Maybe they are even using the communications satellites. These things surely still work. Don’t you think?”
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