The Sum of Her Parts (20 page)

A thin smile appeared on the younger man’s face. “Who said anything about ‘freely’? I’m San. This is my country, and in my country I come and go as I please.”

Ingrid wanted to believe him. Wanted to very badly, because if he was telling the truth then it presented the kind of opportunity she and Whispr could hardly hope existed.

“How can you get in and out of the facility without being picked up by Security? And why would you take that kind of risk?”

He shrugged. “I take the risk because I know I can do it. I like to visit my relatives. And there’s another reason.” When he lowered his voice Ingrid realized it was not for their protection but for his. He didn’t want any of his friends or relatives to overhear. “I’m a musician. As a boy I started here in the village playing modern reproductions of traditional instruments. Just like San language, San music is full of unique rhythms and sounds. I’ve been to Gaborone and played in clubs there. I want to go to Harare and Mombasa, to Mauritius and Antananarivo, and expand my musical horizons.” His voice filled with enthusiasm. “I want to compose, and to play full bandwand!” His right hand gestured. “But I need a sounding meld.” He indicated their surroundings; the peaceful valley, the busy village.

“I love my people, and my family. But a good sounding meld costs real subsist. My people have happiness, but not a lot of money. What they manage to accumulate is used for melding. There is a communal pot, but the subsist in it is not for the use of would-be musicians. That’s why I took the job at Nerens. So that when I slip away from there to come here for a visit, I can take some time along the way to look for diamonds. To pay for my gear and the travels I hope to take.”

“Find any?” Whispr automatically asked.

Gwi’s excitement faded somewhat. “One or two. Poor quality. Not worthless, but far from enough to pay for the music meld I need. So I keep working, and I keep looking. All I need is one good-sized gem-quality stone. That’s all, just one.”

“Get us into Nerens and I’ll pay for your meld,” Ingrid told him without hesitating.

He frowned as he eyed her up and down. “You? What are you, this man’s mistress? Or a wandering hooker from the Cape Flats?”

Ingrid flushed so violently that Whispr worried she would faint.

“I—am—a—
doctor
! And this hair, this body, is just a temporary camo qwikmeld. I don’t normally look like this. In my natural state I am …” She caught hold of herself. “I really am a successful physician, Gwi. Ask !Nisa. While I see that your people have access here to many modern conveniences I suspect that a credit card processor isn’t among them. But I promise you: if you help us to get inside Nerens I will pay for whatever meld you want, no matter how elaborate.”

“I know she doesn’t look like it at the moment,” Whispr added tactlessly, “but she really is a doctor. Good one, too.”

Gwi pondered their responses before replying coolly. “How can you pay for my meld if you are dead? Or do you expect me to get you out of Nerens as well?”

“Just get us in. Of course,” she added with a knowing smile, “if you do want me to pay for your body work then I suppose you
will
have to get us safely out again.”

The young San pursed his lips. “You trouble me like lice. What proof do I have that if I help you to do this thing you will not simply shaft me once you are safely outside again?”

Ingrid spread her hands wide. “We have no communicator and our food is running low. Without your help or that of your people there’s no way we can get out of the Sperrgebeit, much less the
greater Namib.” She gestured beyond him. “We saw that you have floaters. Get us into Nerens and out again, then take us to the nearest town that offers banking access. I’ll transfer the subsist while you watch. If you want, you can bring some armed friends of yours. If we don’t fulfill our side of the bargain you can take compensation on us however you wish.”

Whispr looked alarmed. “Hey now, wait a minute, doc! Leave us maybe discuss this between us before you go promising my blood and bone on your behalf!”

“Too late.” Gwi looked satisfied. “It is a bargain, Ms.…?”

“Alice,” she told him. “Call me Alice.”

“Ah,” he murmured, nodding. “Because I am about to take you through the Looking Glass, yes?”

“Uh, yes, sure—that’s it. And don’t mind my friend Colin here. He gets nervous whenever he thinks about actually being inside Nerens instead of just talking about it.”

“Then he is smarter than he looks.” Amusement faded from the young man’s voice. “There is a real possibility that once inside, you will be discovered. Then you will die. As for myself, I am prepared for such an eventuality. One who dwells in the Namib lives each day side by side with death. But I will keep you alive as long as I can.” He turned to leave. “I will see to it that your packs are topped up with additional food. You will need to carry your own gear. I will guide you but I will not porter for you.”

“That’s understandable.” She rose. “Don’t worry about me, Gwi. I’m tougher than I look. I’m tougher than I was.”

“You will need to be.”

“Just a minute.” Whispr bade the other man pause. “You haven’t told us what it is that you do at Nerens, inside the facility. Are you a scientist?”

Looking back at him, Gwi smiled. “The only scientists among the San are in Gaborone, and a few who work in Joburg. The jobs
SICK makes available to my people at Nerens are of the more mundane variety.”

“Yet you still think you’re clever enough to get us inside?”

“Much of my work is with the facility sewerage system. So I think I am clever enough to get you inside, stick Meld, since I work with shit every day.”

As a suddenly grim Whispr started toward the younger man Ingrid hastened to interpose herself. “I believe you, Gwi.” She looked sharply at her companion. “Just like I believe we won’t get a kilometer from here if we start fighting before we’ve even started.” She turned back to their new guide. “The part of the facility we need to get into involves something called the Big Picture.”

Gwi eyed her blankly. “Never heard of it.”

It was the response she had expected. An honest answer but a discouraging one. They were going to have to find out everything for themselves.

“So despite how smart you are there are areas of the facility that you’re not allowed into?” Whispr queried mockingly.

Gwi replied as if addressing a child. “Of course. I specialize in general sanitation. Why should I be allowed into the Restricted Zone?”

Ingrid perked up. “But you know that such a place exists?”

The young man nodded. “Security there is impossibly strict. If that is your intended destination you will never reach it.”

She smiled. “That’s where we want to go. That’s where we have to go. Where security is tightest. Where casual visitors aren’t allowed.”

“I can direct you toward it,” he told her reluctantly, “but I cannot take you there. It lies on the lowest level of the complex.”

“Of course it does.” Whispr was nodding knowingly. “It
would
be closer to hell than any other part of the facility.”

“You mean you have not already visited that famously warm
place, stick Meld? I would have thought otherwise. Well, not to feel deprived. Once SICK security gets hold of you I am sure they will provide you with a ticket. One-way.” Before Whispr could snarl a reply, Gwi turned back to Ingrid. “Let us find you some additional supplies, Doctor Alice. We can leave tonight if you like. Where company searchers may be about it is always better to move at night.”

Whispr nodded agreement. “What kind of communicator do you use to find your way in the dark?”

“My GPS is in my hard drive.” Reaching up, Gwi touched his head. “In here. Seven thousand years of accumulated intimate, traditional knowledge about this part of the world, learned at the feet of my elders. My communicator is impervious to sand, wind, and even SICK security. All the animal trails are there, all the watering places, all the holes in which to hide from the patrolling drones that will become more frequent the closer we get to Nerens.” He paused, then looked again at Ingrid. “You must understand that if we are stopped by Security I will have no choice but to turn you over to them.”

Her lips tightened. “I would expect nothing less from a representative of the world’s greatest desert survivors.”

Below him and to his left was the wet emptiness called the Southern Atlantic Ocean. To his right was the dry emptiness called the Namib desert. Nature in its vastness and variety was all the same to Molé, who more than ever longed for the puzzle-piece packages called crowds that filled the world’s most densely populated cities. In that regard even Cape Town had its diversions.

That great southern city lay far behind him now, almost as far down the barren, empty coast along which he was traveling as it was possible to go. Quiet, completely controlled anger powered him as efficiently as did the jatropha that fueled the small private VTOL aircraft on which he was the only passenger. Plenty of fury seethed within his small squat frame. He was mad at his employers for sticking him with this assignment. Mad at the foolish mismatched pair who had somehow, impossibly, succeeded in evading him on not one but several occasions. Mad at those who could have helped to bring his chase to a much earlier conclusion. Most of all he was mad at himself for allowing this project to waste, to
burn up, and to occupy time that could have been better spent indulging his simple if unorthodox appetites.

Well, it would be over and done with soon enough, he assured himself as the plane turned inland and began to descend. Blue-green below gave way to yellow-brown. Off to port, beyond the silent pilot who was the aircraft’s only other occupant, a cargo vessel was unloading containers inside a single-quayed harbor. In moments the sight fell behind and out of view. In the distance rose mountains of modest height and forbidding aspect. Molé knew his topography. Were the plane to travel onward in a straight line it would have to cross almost the entire continent before encountering anything resembling a center of population. The advances made by contemporary technology notwithstanding, the west and center of southern Africa was as inhospitable to man now as it had been since the breakup of Gondwanaland.

There was no visible landing strip. The VTOL did not need one. Hidden electronics buried beneath the flat, dry plain guided the plane down. It was an easy site to camouflage, since the surrounding terrain looked exactly the same as the landing site. Only when the whine of the aircraft’s compact jets were subsumed into the overwhelming silence and it taxied forward on battery power alone did a sizable slab of faux rock rise up like a modern drawbridge to reveal a sloping ramp that angled gently downward. Brakes squealing like a saurian hog, the plane slid into the ground like a spider entering its lair.

Lights came on automatically as the hangar cover descended behind them. Figures appeared on both sides of the plane, directing it to a parking place alongside several other aircraft. All save two were the same size as the private craft that had conveyed him here from Cape Town. Wings folded up like giant white butterflies, the two larger planes were executive jets, luxuriously fitted-out and capable
of flying nonstop from Nerens to welcoming metropolises like Abuja, Accra, or even Casablanca.

Thoughts of proper civilized cities replete with the modern amenities he loved depressed him. He forced such images from his mind. All their delights would be open and available to him as soon as he concluded this assignment. When his safety harness released him he rose and made his way to the rear of the plane, picking up his cane as he went. The pilot remained behind, ignoring his passenger as he spoke into the vorec suspended near his mouth. In the course of the flight north from Cape Town the stolid driver had exchanged perhaps two sentences with his passenger.

Must remember to recommend the man for his professionalism
, Molé reminded himself as he waited for the door to rise and the plane’s integrated steps to extend themselves. He did not wait for the pilot to follow him. The Meld could not. True and dedicated flyer that he was, his lower extremities fit tightly into the aircraft itself. He would have to wait for the landing team to disengage him. He did not fly the plane—he
was
the plane.

The burly Natural waiting for Molé near the bottom of the stairs looked as if he would rather be somewhere else doing something worthwhile. His disappointment as his attention shifted between the reader he was carrying and the old man standing at the top of the stairs was plain. Frowning, he leaned slightly to one side as he tried to see past the single figure that blocked the entrance to the plane’s interior.

“I’m here to escort a Napun Molé?”

“That would be me,” Molé replied quietly.

Frown morphed to scowl. “Says here that Molé is a tactical operative, senior classification. You don’t look like a tactical operative to me—of any classification.”

“That is the idea.”

When the escort looked up again from his reader there was no
sign of Molé. Not until he felt the end of a cane tap him on the shoulder and, shocked, turned to see the old man standing behind him.

“How did—how did you …?”

“I jumped. It is not far.” The smaller man’s voice tensed ever so slightly. “I could have landed on you instead of behind you. But then I would have needed a new escort. While momentarily satisfying, that result would have wasted time, and I have a chronic aversion to wasting time.” He smiled pleasantly. “Would you be so kind as to take me to station Chief of Security Het Kruger? I have an appointment.”

“Yes, sure, I …” The much bigger, much younger man swallowed hard and tucked his reader under an arm. His tone had become considerably more respectful. “It’s a bit of a flight up from the Cape. Wouldn’t you like to see your quarters first? Maybe take a shower, unpack …?”

“I have no luggage. Everything I need is in me.”

The frown returned, less put-upon this time. “Don’t you mean ‘on’ you—sir?”

“Yes, of course. ‘On’ me. Mr. Kruger?”

The escort hesitated, but not for long. As he led the visitor from the underground hangar and into the depths of the facility he offered no more suggestions. This was wise.