City of Golden Shadow (81 page)

"What happened?"

"They took the credit card!" Jeremiah seemed stunned, as though this were the strangest thing that had happened so far. "They were going to arrest me!"

"Good God, you didn't use one of Susan's cards, did you?" asked Renie, horrified.

"No, no! My card! Mine! They took it and waved it over the machine, then they told me the manager needed to speak to me. He didn't come for a moment, so I just ran out. My card! How do they know my name?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was just a coincidence. This has all happened so fast." Renie closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. "You'd better drive."

They exchanged places. Jeremiah headed as rapidly as he could toward the parking lot exit. As they joined a line of cars funneling out past the front of the mall, two uniformed guards emerged, talking into their headset microphones.

"Don't look," said Renie. "Just drive."

As they pulled out onto the main thoroughfare, Jeremiah suddenly sat up straight. "If they have my name, what if they go after my mother?" He seemed on the verge of tears. "That's not right! She's just an old woman. She hasn't done anything to anyone!"

Renie put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Neither have we. But don't upset yourself. I don't think anyone would do anything to her-they can't know for sure you're even involved with us."

"I have to go get her." He pulled into a turn lane.

"Jeremiah, no!" Renie reached for an authority she did not feel."Don't do it. If they're really looking for us that seriously, they'll be waiting for you to do just that. You won't do her any good at all, and we'll all be stuck, then." She forced herself to think. "Look, Martine says she thinks she's found something-a place we can go. We need you to get us there. I'm sure you can make some arrangement for your mother."

"Arrangement?" Jeremiah was still wild-eyed.

"Call one of your relatives. Tell them you've had to go out of town on some emergency. Ask them to keep an eye on her. If you stay away, whoever is after us won't have any reason to bother her." She wasn't sure that was true, and she felt like a traitor for saying it, but she could think of nothing else. Without Jeremiah and the mobility of the car, she and !Xabbu and her father stood no chance.

"But what if I want to see my mother? She's an old woman-she'll be lonely and frightened!"

"What about Stephen?" Long Joseph said suddenly from the back seat. "If they chase us and we hide, we can't go see my boy when that quarantine's done."

"For God's sake, I can't think of everything right now!" shouted Renie. "Everyone, just shut up!"

!Xabbu's slender fingers reached over the seat and came to rest on her shoulder. "You are thinking very well," he said. "We must do what we are doing, what you have said."

"I am sorry to interrupt," Martine said from the pad beneath Renie's feet, making her jump, "but do you wish me to give you some directions?"

Renie rolled down the window and took a deep breath. The air was warm and heavy with the threat of rain, but at the moment it smelled like escape.

The Ihlosi was speeding northwest along the N3, for the moment only another anonymous unit in the early thickening of the rush hour. Jeremiah had been able to reach an elderly relative and make arrangements for his mother's well-being, and Renie had dispatched businesslike messages to Stephen's hospital and the Poly that would cover for her with both institutions for a few days. They had sprung themselves free and seemed, at least temporarily, to have eluded their pursuers. The mood in the car was improving.

Martine had set them a destination high in the Drakensberg Range along the Lesotho border, in an area too wild and with roads too primitive to be usefully explored in darkness. As the afternoon came on, Renie began to worry they would not be able to reach the area in time. She was not happy when Jeremiah decided to stop at a highwayside chain restaurant for lunch. Reminding the others that they made an odd-looking party, and that !Xabbu in particular was bound to be remembered, she convinced Jeremiah to go in and order four meals to take away. He came back complaining about having to eat while driving, but they had only lost a quarter of an hour.

Traffic became more sparse as they ascended from the plain and into the foothills. The road grew smaller and the vehicles grew larger as little commuter runabouts were replaced by huge trucks, silver-skinned dinosaurs making their way to Ladysmith or beginning the long haul to Johannesburg. The silent Ihlosi slipped in and out between the bigger vehicles, some of whose wheels were twice as high as the car itself; Renie could not help but feel it was an all-too-accurate analogy for their own situation, the vast difference in scale between themselves and the people they had offended.

Except it would be even more like what's going on, she noted unhappily, if these trucks were trying to run over us.

Luckily, the analogy instead remained loose. They reached the Estcourt sprawl and turned west onto a smaller motorway, then left that after a short while for an even smaller road. As they climbed higher on the tightly winding mountain roads, the sun passed the noon midpoint and then seemed to spiral down the sky, heading for the mantle of black thunderheads that shrouded the distant peaks. Signs of civilization were dwindling, replaced by grassy hillsides and swaying aspens and, increasingly, dark stands of evergreens. Long stretches of these smaller roads seemed deserted, except for occasional signs promising that somewhere in the trees was hidden this lodge or that camp. It seemed that they were not only leaving Durban, but the very world as they had known it.

The passengers had been silent for some time, caught up in the scenery, when !Xabbu spoke. "Do you see that?" He pointed to a high, square section of the looming mountains. "That is Giant's Castle. The picture, the cave-painting in Doctor Van Bleeck's house came from there." The small man's voice was strangely tight. "Many thousands of my people were driven there, trapped between the white man and the black man. This was less than two hundred years ago. They were hunted, shot on sight. A few of their enemies they killed with their spears, but they could not win against guns. They were driven into caves and murdered-men, women, children. That is why there are no more of my people in this part of the world."

No one could think of anything to say. !Xabbu fell into silence again.

The sun was just beginning to pass behind one particularly sharp mountaintop, impaled like an orange on a squeezer, when Martine made contact again.

"That must be Cathkin Peak you are seeing," she said "You are nearly to the turning place. Tell me the names of the towns around you." Jeremiah named the last few they had passed through, unhappy little aggregations of second-hand neon and industrial refit. "Good," Martine said. "In perhaps a dozen kilometers you will reach a town named Pietercouttsburg. Turn on the exit there, then take the first cross-street to the right."

"How do you know this, all the way from France?" asked Jeremiah.

"Survey maps, I think they are called." She sounded amused. "Once I discovered the location of this Wasps' Nest, it was not hard to find a route for you. Really, Mister Dako, you act as though I were a sorceress."

Within minutes, as she had predicted, a sign appeared proclaiming the imminence of Pietercouttsburg. Jeremiah turned off, then turned again at the cross-street. Within moments they were winding up a very narrow road. Cathkin Peak, shrouded in dark clouds and silhouetted by the vanishing sun, loomed high on Renie's left. She remembered the Zulu name for the mountains, Barrier of Spears, but at this moment the Drakensbergs looked more like teeth, a vast, jagged-tusked jaw. She remembered Mister J's and shivered.

Perhaps Long Joseph had also been reminded of mouths. "How we going to eat out here?" he asked suddenly. "I mean, this is nowhere, big nowhere."

"We picked up plenty of food from the store at lunch," Renie reminded him.

"Couple days' worth, maybe. But you said we running away, girl. We going to run away for two days? Then what?"

Renie bit back a snappish reply. For once her father was right. They could certainly buy food in small towns like Pietercouttsburg, but there was a real risk that strangers would draw attention, and certainly strangers who kept coming back again and again would be remarked. And what would they use for money? If Jeremiah's account was frozen, she and her father could expect nothing but the same. They would go through the cash they had with them in days.

"You will not starve," !Xabbu said. He was talking to her father, but she sensed that he was speaking to her and Jeremiah as well. "I have been little use so far, and that has made me unhappy, but there are no people better at finding food than my people."

Long Joseph raised his eyebrows in horror."I remember you talking about the kind of things you eat. You a crazy little man, you think that I'm going to put any of that stuff in my mouth."

"Papa!"

"Have you reached the next road yet?" Martine asked. "When you do, go past it and look for a track leading from the left side of the road, like a driveway to a house."

The food controversy momentarily in abeyance, Jeremiah followed her instructions. A light mist had begun to dot the car windows. Renie heard thunder grumbling in the distance.

The track looked narrow, but that was because it had become overgrown near the road. Once they were past the encroaching thornbushes-and had thoroughly scratched the Ihlosi's finish, almost bringing Jeremiah to tears again-they found themselves on a wide and surprisingly firm road that zigzagged steeply up into the mountains.

Renie watched the deep woods roll by. Bottlebrush plants known as red-hot pokers stood out against the grayness, bright as fireworks. "This looks like a wilderness area. But there weren't any signs. Not to mention fences."

"It is government property," Martine said. "But perhaps they did not want to draw attention with signs and barriers. In any case, I have called Mister Singh on the other line. He will be able to help us through any perimeter security."

"Sure." Singh's lined face appeared on the screen, glowering. "I don't have anything better to do this week, other than about a hundred hours of cracking on this damned Otherland system."

A bend in the road abruptly revealed a gated chain-link fence blocking their way. Jeremiah braked the car, cursing under his breath.

"What you got there?" Singh asked. "Hold up the pad so I can see."

"It's . . . it's just a fence," said Renie. "With a lock on it."

"Oh, I'll be a lot of help with that," he cackled. "Yeah, just turn me loose."

Renie frowned and got out of the car, pulling up her collar against the light patter of rain. There wasn't a person in sight, and she could hear nothing but the wind in the trees. The fence sagged in places. and rust powdered the hinges of the gate, but it still made an effective barrier. A metal sign, all but scrubbed clean, still showed faint traces of the words "Keep Out" Whatever explanatory prose had accompanied the warning was long gone.

"It looks old," she said as she got back into the car. "I don't see anyone around."

"Big secret government place, huh? Doesn't look like nothing to me." Long Joseph opened the door and began to shoulder his way out of the back seat. "I'm going to have a piss."

"Maybe the fence is electrified," suggested Jeremiah hopefully. "You go pee on it, then let us know, old man."

Thunder cracked loud, closer now. "Get back in the car, Papa," Renie said.

"What for?"

"Just get in." She turned to Jeremiah. "Drive through it."

Dako stared at her as though she had suggested he sprout wings. "What are you talking about, woman?"

"Just drive through it. Nobody's opened that thing in years. We can sit here all day while it gets dark, or we can get on with this. Drive through it."

"Oh, no. Not in my car. It will scratch. . . ."

Renie reached over and pushed her foot down on top of Dako's, forcing the accelerator to the floor. The Ihlosi spat dirt from beneath the tires, caught traction, then leaped forward and slammed against the gate, which gave a little.

"What are you doing?" Jeremiah shrieked.

"Do you want to wait until they track us down?" Renie shouted back. "We don't have time for this. What good will a paint-job do you in prison?"

He stared at her for a moment The front bumper was still pushed against the gate, which had sagged back half a meter but still held. Dako swore and thumped his foot on the pedal. For a moment nothing changed except the noise of the engine, which rose to a shrill whine. Then something broke with an audible clank, the windshield spiderwebbed, and the gate burst open before them. Jeremiah had to stomp on the brake to keep the car from rolling into a tree.

"Look at this!" he screeched. He leaped out of the driver's seat and began a dance of rage in front of the car's hood. "Look at my windscreen!"

Renie got out, but walked instead to the gate, which she pushed shut. She found the chain where it had fallen, removed the wreckage of the padlock, and draped it back in place so it would still appear locked to a passing inspection. She looked at the front of the car before getting back in.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll find a way to make it up to you. Can we please just keep going now?"

"It is getting dark," said !Xabbu. "I think Renie is right, Mister Dako."

"Damn!" chortled Singh from the pad's speaker. "I hope you'll tell me what just happened. It sounded pretty entertaining from here."

The road beyond the gate was still unpaved and narrow. "This doesn't look like much," said Long Joseph. Jeremiah, scowling and silent, drove forward.

As they wound on through the evergreens, Renie felt her adrenal surge draining away. What had Singh called her-Shaka Zulu? Perhaps he had been right. It was only a paint-job, but what right did she have to push Jeremiah, anyway? And for what? As of now, they seemed to be going nowhere,

"I smell something odd," !Xabbu began, but before he could complete his sentence, they had negotiated a bend, passing into the shadow of a mountain, and Jeremiah was treading hard on the brake. The road before them had disappeared. They skidded to a stop a few meters away from a featureless cement wall that stood like a vast door in the mountainside.