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There didn't seem to be more to say on that topic. It was probably a lie anyway. "Where do you think they're taking us?"
"North, into the desert-I know that much." Selous thought it over. "Why did they keep you locked away from the rest of us? We never saw you. We used to see your maid, that's all."
"My what?"
"Your cellmate, the little Bambara informer from downstairs."
Selous shrugged. "Sorry. You know how it is in a cell block. People get crazy. We used to call you the' Princess.
Rapunzel, eh."
"People get crazy," Laura said. "I thought I saw my
Optimal Persona. But it was you, wasn't it, doctor. You and I look a lot alike. You came in and treated me after I was beaten, didn't you."
Selous blinked doubtfully. " `Optimal Persona.' That's very American.... Are you from California?"
"Texas. "
"It certainly wasn't me, Laura.... I've never seen you before in my life."
Long, strange pause.
"You really think we look alike?"
"Sure," Laura said.
"But I'm a Boer, an Afrikaaner. And you have that hybrid
American look."
They had reached an impasse. The conversation hung there as heat and dust boiled over the empty end of the truck. She was dealing with an alien. They had missed a co
She struggled to pick up the thread.
"They kept me in solitary because they said I had atomic secrets. "
Selous sat upright, startled. "Have you seen a Bomb?"
"What?'
"There are rumors of a test site in the Malian desert.
Where the F.A.C.T. tried to build a Bomb."
"First I've ever heard of that," Laura said. "I saw their submarine, though. They said it had atomic warheads on- board. The sub did have some missiles. I know that much, because they hit and sank a ship I was on."
"Exocets?" Selous said gravely.
"Yes, that's right, exactly."
"But there could have been other missiles with a longer range, eh? Long enough to hit Pretoria?"
"I guess so. But it doesn't prove they were nuclear bombs."
"But if they take us to this test site, and we find a huge crater of sand melted into glass, that would prove something, wouldn't it?"
Laura said nothing.
"It ties in with something the warden told me once,"
Selous said. "That they didn't really need me as a hostage- that our cities were hostage if we only knew."
"God, why do people talk like that?" Laura said. "Gre- nada, Singapore... " It made her feel very tired.
"You know what I think, Laura? I think they are taking us to their test site. To make a statement, yes? Me, because I am
Azanian, and we Azanians are the people they need to im- press at the moment. You, because you have witnessed their weapon ship. Their delivery system."
"Could be, I guess." Laura thought it over. "What then?
Do they free us?"
Selous's greenish eyes went remote and distant. "I'm a hostage. They will not let Azania attack them without a price."
Laura could not accept it. "That's not much of a price, is it? Killing two helpless prisoners?"
"They'll probably kill us on camera. And send the tape to
Azanian Army Intelligence," Selous said.
"But you Azanians would tell everyone, anyway, wouldn't you?"
"We've been telling people about FACT from the begi
Selous scoffed. "No one would trust us if we said
Mali had the bomb. No one believes what we say. They only sneer at us and call us an 'aggressive imperialist state.' "
"Oh," Laura hedged.
"We are an empire," Selous said firmly. "President Umtali is a great warrior. All Zulus are great warriors."
Laura nodded. "Yeah, we Americans, uh, we had a black president ourselves."
"Oh, that fellow of yours didn't amount to anything,"
Selous said. "You Yankees don't even have a real govern- ment-just capitalist cartels, eh. But President Umtali fought in our civil war. He brought order, where there was savagery.
A brilliant general. A true statesman."
"Glad to hear it's working out," Laura said.
"Azanian black people are the finest black people in the world!"
They sat there sweating. Laura could not let it pass. "Look,
I'm no big Yankee nationalist, but what about... you know
... jazz, blues, Martin Luther King?"
Selous shifted on her bench. "Martin King. He had a di
"Yeah but ...'
"Your Yankee black people aren't even real black people, are they? They're all Coloureds, actually. They look like
Europeans. "
"Wait a minute ... '
"You've never seen my black people, but I've certainly seen yours. Your American blacks crowd all our best restau- rants and gamble their global hard currency in Sun City and so on.... They're rich, and soft."
"Yeah, I come from a tourist town, myself."
"We have a wartime economy, we need the exchange money.... Fighting the chaos...he endless nightmare that is Africa.... We Africans know what it means to sacri- fice." She paused. "It seems harsh, eh? I'm sorry. But you outsiders don't understand."
Laura looked out the back of the truck. "That's true."
"It seems to be the duty of my generation to pay for history's mistakes."
"You're really convinced they'll kill us, aren't you?"
She looked remote. "I'm sorry you should be involved."
"They killed a man in my house," Laura said. "That's where it all started for me. I know it doesn't seem like much, one death compared to what's happened in Africa. But I couldn't let it pass. I couldn't shrug off my responsibility for - what happened on my own home ground. Believe me, I've had a long time to think about it. And I still think I was right, even if it costs me everything."
Selous smiled.
They had picked up a convoy. Two armored half-tracks had swung into action behind them, jouncing over the rutted road, the long, ridged wands of machine guns swaying in the turrets.
"They think they have an answer," Selous said, looking at the half-tracks. "It was worse in Mali before they came."
"I can't imagine anything worse."
"It's not something you can imagine-you have to see it."
"Do you have an answer?"
"We hold on and wait for a miracle-save whoever we can.... We were getting somewhere in the camp, I think, before the F.A.C.T. seized it. They captured me, but the rest of our Corps escaped. We're used to raids-the desert is full of scorpions."
"Were you stationed in Mali?"
"Niger actually, but that's a formality only. No central authority. It's tribal warlords mostly, in the outback. Fulani
Tribal Front, the Sonrai Fraternal Forces, all kinds of bandit armies, thieves, militias. The desert crawls with them. And
FACT's machineries, too."
"What do you mean?"
"That's how they prefer to work. By remote control. When they locate the bandits, they attack them with robot planes.
They pounce on them in the desert. Like steel hyenas killing rats."
"Jesus."
"They're specialists, technicians. They learned things, in
Lebanon, Afghanistan, Namibia. How to fight Third Worlders without letting them touch you. They don't even look at them, except through computer screens."
Laura felt a thrill of recognition. "That's them all right.... I saw all that happen in Grenada."
Selous nodded. "The president of Mali thought they. did fine work. He made them his palace guard. He's a puppet now. I think they keep him drugged."
"I've seen the guy who runs Grenada-I bet this Mali president doesn't even exist. He's probably nothing but an image on a screen and some prerecorded speeches."
"Can they do that?" Selous said.
"Grenada can-I saw their prime minister disappear into thin air."
Selous thought it over. Laura could see it working in her face-wondering if Laura was insane, or she herself was insane, or whether the bright television world was brewing something dark and awful in its deepest voodoo corners. "It's as if they're magicians," she said at last. "And we're just people. "