“You know that I am very old,” she says, drawing out the “r” so that “very” becomes “verrr-i.”
“Yes,” Arthur prompts. “You were in Egypt before my time.”
“The Egyptians were onto something,” Purrarr continues, “as were those traditions that linked a mage with a familiar animal. Both acknowledged the magic we handless ones have.”
Lovern nods stiffly. He has never bothered with a familiar—although some might argue the Head served a similar purpose—and has already learned that this is a sore point with the Cats.
Purrarr fixes him with her unblinking hazel gaze before continuing, “What I’m saying is that old Stinky Joe back at Frank’s ranch has more magic in the broken tip of his tail than do most of the human-form you’ve been testing for potential. Yet, even though you have been to the OTQ several times these past weeks, you have not tested even one of the animals.”
Lovern glowers at her. “If the other cats have so much potential, why didn’t you tell us?”
“Why didn’t you test them?” Purrarr retorts. “They are as athanor as Arr-thurrrr or Eddie, who you did test. You only brrr-ought us here because we talk and so our magic cannot be ignored.”
Opening his mouth to argue, Lovern snaps it shut with an audible pop, his blue eyes very cold.
“Why have you been holding out on us?” he says at last.
“Prree-cisely what we might have asked you,” Purrarr says. “We think it is because we lack hands. What do you think?”
Arthur interrupts this professional bickering.
“Are you saying, Purrarr, that Frank’s barnyard cats have the magic the Academy needs?”
“I am saying that it is possible.”
“Like batteries?”
“Not quite, nor so easy to use.” She washes her shoulder for a moment, then continues. “Some of the others thought I should not tell you this, but I overruled them. We, too, are athanor and would not see our nonfeline kin suffer in these modern days.”
Purrarr jumps from Lovern’s desk and stalks from the room before either of the human-form thinks to stop her.
“Arrogant, isn’t she?” the wizard says dryly.
Arthur chuckles. “She always has been. I forget, sometimes, that you were not with us in Egypt. I know that you read hieroglyphics, but do you speak the language?”
“Not well,” Lovern admits.
“You may have mistaken ‘Purrarr’ for a cute kitty-cat name,” Arthur continues, “but it is derived from ‘per-aar,’ her name in ancient Egypt—a name, mind you, that she was called by humans and cats alike.”
Lovern looks confused.
“Per-aar,” Arthur explains, taking mercy on his counselor, “can be translated as ‘from the great house’ or ‘from the palace.’ It made its way into modern English as ‘pharaoh.’”
“Oh.”
“Yes. That little puss is the last surviving Egyptian pharaoh and don’t think she ever forgets it, not even for a moment.”
“I won’t,” Lovern says. “Now that I know this, I think I can work with her. I have much experience getting what I want from kings.”
Now it is Arthur’s turn to look rueful.
“I know,” he says. “I know.”
10
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
—Old Testament, Hosea, VIII, 7
The guards come to bring Katsuhiro Oba before Chief General Doctor Regis soon after first light. As before, he causes no difficulty. He notes they are marginally less alert than they had been on their previous trip. He suppresses a derisive snort—any guards he trained would have been more suspicious, not less, when faced with a prisoner’s apparent docility.
Regis’s office is empty when Katsuhiro is brought in, but the chief enters before Katsuhiro has time to do more than note the fact. He is brushing a few crumbs off his lapel and carries a cup of fresh, hot coffee.
Katsuhiro doesn’t like coffee, but this morning the rich scent sets his traitor stomach growling. Regis’s immaculate grooming makes him acutely aware of his own grubby condition. The unlimited supply of fresh water means that he has been able to splash his face and rinse his mouth, but he can do nothing about the ground-in dirt on his trousers or his torn shirt. Today, of course, his jacket is missing.
Regis takes his time getting comfortable at his desk. When he is settled, he motions for the guards to depart, then he nods at Katsuhiro in a businesslike fashion.
“I trust that you have been comfortable.”
Katsuhiro fixes his gaze on a spot just above Regis’s left shoulder. Any answer to such a question could have been turned against him, so no answer is best. Besides, he doesn’t trust his prudence once he gives himself permission to speak. Best to wait until he has something constructive to say.
“I have summoned you here to learn if you have reconsidered my offer that we become partners in the venture that brought you here to Nigeria.”
Katsuhiro’s gaze remains fixed. He is very good at this technique, so good that occasional interrogators have turned to check what he is staring at, making themselves look quite foolish.
“Have you reconsidered my offer?” Regis asks. Then, when he gets no response even to this direct question, he opens his desk drawer and removes a large tan envelope. “During our last interview, I believe I mentioned that I had the means of convincing you to work with me. Since you persist in being stubborn, despite my courteous treatment of you, I believe I must continue my efforts at persuasion.”
Opening the envelope, he pulls something out. When Katsuhiro’s eyes do not move to look at it, Regis, with an odd burst of humor that makes Katsuhiro grudgingly respect him—a lesser man would have simply grown angry—holds a large photo up over his left shoulder where the image must meet Katsuhiro’s unwavering gaze.
“You said something eloquent and dramatic about skies needing to grow dark and something else freezing before you would work with me,” Regis continues pleasantly, “and I promised you that I had the means of convincing you.”
Reluctantly, Katsuhiro permits his eyes to focus on the photograph. What he sees there is so disturbing, not so much in itself alone as in its implications, that he must force his racing thoughts to concentrate on what Regis is saying.
“...short of crude torture, of course. One of the beauties of modern technology is that borders are crossed so easily, even those of an island nation. Don’t you think this is true, Katsuhiro Oba-san?”
Katsuhiro chooses his words carefully. “This looks like a picture of an African with some disease.”
Regis laughs, a truncated version of his movie-villain laugh.
“It is,” he says pedantically, “a photograph of an African—a Yoruban Nigerian to be precise—with an advanced case of smallpox. He died from it right here in lovely Monamona two days after this photo was taken.”
Katsuhiro feigns diffidence. “Photographs are easily faked. It no longer takes much knowledge, only the right technology. Japanese computer technology, of course, is some of the best in the world.”
Smiling thinly, Regis returns the photograph to its envelope. “If that is how you feel, then showing you the other photos in this envelope would be useless. Perhaps we should move on to the tour.”
Katsuhiro’s heart pounds just a little faster. If Regis takes him outside of this prison he will escape, even if it means answering to King Arthur and the Accord for the creation of anomalies that threaten the secret of the athanor. He will go overland to Cameroon, which shares a common border with this part of Nigeria. He will find some way to disguise his Asian features, perhaps a head and face wrap such as some of the desert peoples farther north wear...
No trace of his feverish planning shows in his voice or on his face as he shrugs. “A photo will not convince me, Regis, that you have anything with which to threaten me.”
Regis dips his head slightly, then pushes the intercom button. “Teresa, I want four guards, a set of ankle cuffs, and anothe
r of handcuffs, stat.”
“Yes, Chief General Doctor Regis, sir.”
Katsuhiro is pleased to hear this. Surely Regis wouldn’t take such precautions if they were going to remain within his territory. Freedom seems to touch him in the hot blast of harmattan wind that comes through the partially opened window.
However, he quickly realizes that he has underestimated Regis’s caution. Once his ankles are shackled and his wrists bound behind his back (two impediments he had long ago trained himself to escape), Regis motions for him to follow two guards from the office. A third guard follows Katsuhiro so closely that the muzzle of the gun trained on his back bumps into him every few steps. Regis brings up the rear with the fourth guard.
“To the hospital,” Regis directs.
As they leave the building which contains both prison and offices, Katsuhiro notes that it is four stories high and solidly built, with small windows and heavy steel doors, more like a fortress or bunker than an office building.
They enter an open parade ground, walking slowly enough that Katsuhiro has an opportunity to note that they are within a large compound. The walls are topped with barbed wire, and armed guards stand within watchposts at various strategic points. A quick glance up confirms that there are more guards on the roof of the building they have just left. Since Katsuhiro did not hear Regis give orders for these guards to be posted, he must assume that this is standard procedure.
Once again, he ratchets up his estimate of Regis. He is cautious and apparently has a fair-sized group of followers. He might even be a worthy opponent.
After crossing the parade ground, they come to a long two-story building, probably once a barracks though the windows have been covered with thick shutters that are open only at the top to let in a modicum of air.
At Regis’s command, the guard unlocks the door, then opens it just enough to admit one person.
A reek of sickness so strong that it is like something solid flows out. The stench blends sweat and blood, puss and vomit, the thick odor of uncleaned privies, spoiled food, and decomposing flesh. Moans of pain and suffering eddy out with the stench but, tellingly, there are no cries for help or mercy.
From his pocket, Regis pulls a surgical mask and dons it. Then he permits his guards—one at a time—to do the same.
“I fear we do not have enough to give you one, Oba-san,” he says. “Tell me. Have you been vaccinated against smallpox?”
Katsuhiro nods stiffly. Garrett Kocchiu, the athanor once known as Aesculapius, is a fanatic for preventative health care. Any vaccination, for any disease, no matter how obscure, is available to the athanor for a token fee.
Katsuhiro has never been one to rely solely on the athanor’s natural resistance to disease. To him that is as foolish as waiting to sharpen your sword until the eve of a battle—it is the enemy you don’t know who will have your head.
“Interesting,” Regis says. “So few people are anymore. I assure you, this is not the time to act tough. Viruses have no respect for character.”
Katsuhiro merely waits. After a moment, Regis shrugs and motions for the guards to let Katsuhiro into the “hospital.”
“Go in,” Regis invites him. “We shall wait here. There is no danger of your escaping.”
Only the fact that he has seen as bad or worse in his long centuries of life keeps Katsuhiro Oba from retching at what confronts him. This is not a hospital. It is an abattoir wherein the butcher’s knife has been replaced by disease.
The long barracks is furnished with steel-framed bunk beds set close enough together that a heavyset man would be challenged to move between them. Forty or so beds line each wall. One or more victims are crowded onto each bunk. More of the dying and several who must be dead litter the floor, bodies contorted where they had fallen and lacked the strength to rise.
As far as Katsuhiro can tell, the only source of water is from a faucet set in the wall at the end of the room. A large trough is beneath it, but the water has been contaminated by two bloated bodies, almost certainly those of sufferers who had dragged themselves into the tank, desperate for the relief that the water would offer their sores, and then had died there.
From outside, Regis calmly explains the progression of smallpox.
“It starts with headaches, chills, and fever. Children may even have convulsions—and I should note that one of the prevalent strains of smallpox in Nigeria is particularly fond of children. The fatality rate can be as high as thirty percent, not counting those who are mutilated or blinded.
“On the second day the fever rises very high. The patient becomes delirious. The lucky ones fall into a coma. Then, miracle of miracles, on the third or fourth day, the victim begins to feel better.”
Regis chuckles, as if finding this amusing. “Perhaps there is a little rash or a little hoarseness. That is all. Then the first sores appear in the mouth and throat. They burn terribly and spread rapidly, traveling over the upper arms and trunk, then moving onto the back, and finally to the legs.
“Like some strange fruit they ripen, beginning as red blotches that eventually become terrible pus-filled wounds each as much as a third of an inch in diameter.”
Katsuhiro says in the calmest voice he can manage: “I see ample evidence of that stage here in your hospital. You didn’t mention that the fever returns along with the eruptions.”
Regis sounds admiring of Katsuhiro’s poise. “Yes, it does. And the face swells, too. Many people die at this stage not from the smallpox, but from secondary infections.”
Katsuhiro kneels by the closest victim as if wanting a closer look. Examining the man’s pustules and feeling the heat of his fever against his hands, Katsuhiro becomes certain beyond whatever faint doubt his mind had been trying to retain against this horror, that the man is dying of smallpox. Under the cover of his examination, he crushes the man’s windpipe.
Only his great strength permits him to do this without being detected by the guard watching from the doorway. Thus Katsuhiro gains the small comfort of knowing that, like Adam, this man will soon be beyond Regis’s control.
Regis continues his narration: “Smallpox takes about two weeks to run its course. Another month passes before all the scabs drop off. Did you know that worshipers of the god Shopona once collected those scabs and kept them against future need? My grandfather kept something even better.”
Rising, Katsuhiro turns toward the door and cocks an eyebrow at Regis, who is now peering in. “I did not know,” he says calmly. “Just as I see now that you did not fake those photographs.”
Regis is obviously impressed, despite himself. “No, I did not,” he replies. “Shall we return to my office?”
“Perhaps it would be wise for me to shower,” Katsuhiro says. “I would not wish to spread the contagion to any of your staff.”
Regis considers. “My staff—those whom I value—have already been vaccinated. However, I do receive visitors in my office, and although smallpox is not as contagious as people once feared, why should I take a risk?”
He turns to one of the guards. “Take Oba-san to the showers and let him wash. Watch him at all times. Afterward, give him clean trousers and a shirt from stores, but no shoes, no belt, nothing he can turn to a weapon.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Bring him to my office in fifteen minutes.”
Katsuhiro’s small hope that he might escape when he is permitted to undress for the showers is dashed. His guards cut his soiled suit from him with a razor, so that his cuffs need not be removed. Then he is herded into the shower stall. The water is not heated, but, after sitting in a metal tank in the Nigerian sun, it is not cold either.
He scrubs himself awkwardly with a bar of disinfectant soap. His guards stand just outside of his reach, their guns still pointed at him, and make rude comments in Yoruban about his anatomy. Only the fact that he has decided to conceal his knowledge of their language keeps him from retorting.
After his shower, Katsuhiro is given a small towel with which to wipe
away most of the water, then marched naked across the compound. Only when he is once again safely within the prison building is he unchained, first his feet, then his hands, so that he can dress in the loose cotton trousers and tee shirt provided. Apparently, Regis has given orders that he need not be kept chained in this building, but as at least one of his four guards always holds a gun on him, Katsuhiro must bide his time.
In any case, he does not care to depart until he confirms exactly what pressure Regis is bringing to bear on him. Katsuhiro suspects, but hearing it from the man’s own lips will tell him more about his opponent.
Regis is at his desk once more when Katsuhiro is escorted in. Tiny dewdrops of water on his curly reddish hair confirm that he has also taken the time to shower.
“More comfortable?” Regis says, politely, looking up from a handwritten report. “Good. Some interesting news came in while we were inspecting the hospital. Your cellmate Adam is dead.”
Katsuhiro grunts something noncommittal.
“I was wondering,” Regis continues, “if you had opportunity to speak with him about his role in your being here—and if that might be the reason he died just when he did. I had inspected his injuries the night before we put you in with him. I had no reason to suspect that he would not continue to live indefinitely—in pain, certainly—but at least until he starved to death.”
Regis’s bloodshot eyes study Katsuhiro intently. “Do you have anything to add—that perhaps in your just fury you killed him? I could understand that. Indeed, then we would have something in common.”
Astonished for the first time since he met this strange man, Katsuhiro realizes that Regis has not even considered the possibility that Katsuhiro might have slain Adam out of pity. Vengeful murder he can believe in and even admire, but mercy never occurs to him.
Unwilling to say anything, Katsuhiro settles for a small lifting of one eyebrow and a slight smile. Regis seems to read great meaning into this, for he laughs and pours Katsuhiro a glass of ice water. Then he produces a small package of saltine crackers, which he tosses to his “guest.”
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