Dancing the Code Part 15

He gestured towards some tin shacks on the far side of the settlement and began striding towards them. Catriona stood up, hurried to catch him.

'You don't really believe the Americans were behind those - those things, do you?'

Vincent shrugged. 'Do you really believe they came from Mars?'

'Do you think they came from Earth?'

Vincent shrugged again. 'Does it matter?'

'Of course it matters! Jo -' She broke off, remembering again what had happened to Jo. She shook her head slowly, then went on in a quieter tone. 'Jo seemed to know what she was talking about. And she didn't say they were from Mars.'

'Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ura.n.u.s, Neptune, Pluto,' said Vincent, then flashed her a grin. 'You see, I do know about the Solar System, I am not stupid. But does it matter where they come from? It is all the same. Only the Americans or the Russians could get them, and only the Americans would give them to Khalil Benari to use against us.'

'Don't be ridiculous! You know I agree with a lot of what you say about the Americans - but I don't believe they'd make an alliance with beings from another planet and press them into service as subst.i.tutes for the Marines!'

'Are you sure of that?'

Vincent was walking ahead of her now, climbing a slight incline covered with scattered rubble. Catriona saw a bloodstained fragment of clothing on the ground, shuddered.

'Benari lost a thousand men,' she pointed out.

'Lost?' said Vincent, his tone making it clear that the news was no surprise. 'Or temporarily mislaid? I would imagine these things need quite a bit of ground support, wouldn't you?'

Catriona remembered Mohammad Al-Naemi's words: ' They could They could imitate anything made by men ... swords, and spears, and Greek fire imitate anything made by men ... swords, and spears, and Greek fire ... ' '.

She shook her head.

'You're wrong, Vincent. They've been here for hundreds of years.'

'What makes you think that?'

She told him about the Sakir Sakir's story: the merchant Ibrahim, the Al Al Harwaz Harwaz, Dancing the Code, the destruction of Giltat. Vincent snorted with disbelief.

'I didn't believe it at first,' said Catriona. 'I thought it was just a fairy tale. But it's beginning to seem like the simplest explanation. If they're aliens then they could easily have been here for five hundred years.'

Vincent snorted again. 'Those Al-Naemis are in the pay of the French and the Americans. You know that. They'd invent any story to make themselves seem more Western and "democratic". They're probably in it up to their necks.'

Catriona opened her mouth to object, then realized that she'd thought more or less the same thing less than forty-eight hours ago.

'And besides,' Vincent went on, 'even if the creatures have been here for so long, it doesn't mean that Benari or the Americans or the FLNG have not found them and decided to use them against us.'

Catriona took a deep breath. She was beginning to get exasperated by her friend's invincible paranoia. If you listened to him long enough, you'd think everyone in the world was against the Arabs, even other Arabs.

'Vincent,' she said at last. 'Even if it is the Americans, don't you think you ought to move your people from here? I mean, those things might come back; and the Libyans aren't going to help you, not straight away.'

Vincent didn't reply. They had reached the garages now. Though it was still only a couple of hours after sunrise, heat radiated from the metal surfaces as if from an oven. None of the garages had proper doors: some had sheets of metal propped up against the opening, others gaped wide open to the sun and the dust. Vincent pushed aside one of these makes.h.i.+ft barriers, looked inside and scowled.

'No radio,' he said. 'I thought this one had a radio.' He moved to the next garage.

Catriona tried again. 'I think it would be better if you evacuated everyone to Algiers. It's only two hundred miles - less than a day's drive. We could take some samples of the aliens' bodies; I could get them a.n.a.lysed.'

'And if the Algerians decided to hand us all over to the Americans?'

'Don't be ridiculous! You know as well as I do that the Algerians would never - '

'They may not have much choice. Besides, these are my people - I will decide what they need to do!'

Catriona felt her face redden with anger. 'They aren't "yours" at all!

You don't own them! Let them decide what they want for themselves!'

'They are Arabs!' he shouted. 'They are of me and I am of them.

You are from the country of the enemy - you know nothing about it.'

Suddenly Catriona had had enough. Enough of being called the enemy. Enough of being shouted at. Enough of Vincent.

'You've always got to be the b.l.o.o.d.y boss, haven't you?' she yelled.

'That whole Cairo business would never have happened if you hadn't - '

Vincent kicked viciously at one of the sheds: the metal rang.

' Shut up! Shut up! ' '

He kicked the door again, began to swear incoherently in Arabic.

But Catriona knew better than to be intimidated by Vincent's temper. She waited, breathing deeply, conscious of the blood pulsing in her temples. When he had finished, she said quietly, 'Vincent, we're not safe here. You know that.'

Vincent stared at her for a moment, breathing hard. His face was dark with anger and covered in sweat.

Catriona stared back, meeting his eyes.

'Oh, go to Algeria if you want to,' he said at last. 'And you are right - I will take my people to one of the oases.' He paused, looked away. 'I can't tell you which one; you know why.'

In case I get caught and interrogated, thought Catriona. Fair enough.

'I'll need a jeep and a couple of drums of petrol,' she said after a while. 'And some water.'

Vincent nodded. 'Take what you need. We are not short of supplies, at least.' He stalked off, presumably still looking for a radio to contact his Libyan allies.

Catriona turned to the nearest garage and began to inspect the dusty Land Rover parked inside it. She checked the tyres, the oil, the water, the petrol tank. She found the keys and a spare drum of petrol, drove the vehicle down to the hospital and got a barrel of drinking water from Jamil. A woman was cooking cous-cous; Catriona bolted down a little, burning her tongue in her hurry, then left.

It was only when she was on her way, on the road to the Algerian border posts, that she realized that there had been no need for such a hurry; that the reason she had hurried was because she was still angry with Vincent for being so stupid stupid; and that she had left him, and left the settlement, without even saying goodbye.

Twelve.

FJo's Aunt May was telling her how to make a duplicate key.

'It isn't difficult, Josie,' she said, picking up a metal tray indented with the shapes of hundreds of different keys. 'You just take the moulds, like this, and you pour your mixture in, like this.' The mixture was floury-white and sticky, but as Aunt May poured it in it hardened, turning ginger-brown. Aunt May drew the smiles on the faces of the little men, then put the currants in for their eyes. Jo giggled.

'It's fun,' she said, idiotically. 'It's fun, fun, fun.'

Aunt May smiled at her. But there was something funny about the smile, something fixed about her sky-blue eyes. Jo began to get frightened.

'No,' she said, as her aunt took one of the gingerbread men out of the tray, and turned to the heavy metal door behind her. 'No! No! No!'

But it was too late: the key rattled in the lock, the door opened.

Jo screamed as the freezing, tooth-filled blast bowled her over, pa.s.sed through her. Something else was screaming too: something chitinous, gigantic, impossible.

' You have to get the key, Josie You have to get the key, Josie,' Aunt May shouted. ' You have to get You have to get the key the key.'

Jo tried to scream again, but her throat was dry and paralysed. She tried to open her eyes - - and to her surprise they opened.

She could see a rough ceiling of dry earth, dimly illuminated and only a few inches above her face. Cold, dry air blew over her. Just for a moment she thought she might still be dreaming - she could still feel the cold sweat on her skin, could still hear echoes of her aunt's voice - but no, this was too real for that.

Get the key.

She sat up, banged her head against the ceiling. She couldn't see much: just something glowing, with gently waving antennae. Two huge, luminous eyes turned to look at her and a pair of open mandibles advanced through the narrow s.p.a.ce.

Get the key.

Jo rolled sideways, collided with another body. A young man in camouflage fatigues. His eyes opened, stared blankly.

'- honey good good honey -' he muttered.

Jo heard a rustling, clacking sound behind her, felt something clutch at her leg. In desperation she rolled over the young man. She found herself at the top of a steep bank. A blast of cold air blew grit into her eyes.

A ventilation shaft, she thought. Well, the air had to come from somewhere. She scrambled down the slope, but as she did so the light grew steadily dimmer. Something greyish-white loomed ahead. Jo slithered to one side to avoid it, ran into a soft, smooth surface.

Slowly, her eyes picked out more detail. Faint greyish columns, perhaps twice as high as she was, and dark, umbrella-like caps above.

'Mushrooms,' she muttered. 'It's a forest of giant mushrooms.'

There was a rustling, clattering sound from the top of the slope, and the light behind her brightened. Moving as quietly as she could, Jo stepped into the forest.

After a moment her eyes adjusted and she realized that it wasn't completely dark. Small, luminous, wriggling things were chewing their way across the caps of the fungi. Looking up, she saw lights moving in the darkness above the caps, and heard a whisper of wings.

Then she heard a heavier tread, coming from somewhere in the shadows. Crouching down, she moved away from it. The ground grew softer under her feet, then, quite suddenly, gave way altogether.

Before she could react, she was up to her knees in dark, liquid mud.

She tried to step back, fell on her face, felt the mud sucking at her body. With an effort she struggled upright, but she was up to her waist now and still sinking.

'Help,' she called out, shakily. She was pretty sure she didn't want help from the thing with mandibles and luminous eyes, but it was better than dying. 'Help,' she called, louder, as the mud rose around her stomach. ' Help me! Help me! ' '

Mike Yates had been awake for some time when they came for him. He'd been lying on his back on the stone floor of his cell, his feet touching one wall and his head touching the other, wondering how much longer the Kebirians were going to keep him here. Whether they would let him see the other men. Whether they would let him see daylight. So far, he reckoned he'd been incarcerated for more than twenty-four hours - it was hard to tell for sure, because they'd taken away his watch. He'd been brought food three times, had been given a bucket for slops and a plastic jug of cold water to wash with. He'd tried tapping on the walls of the cell, to see if he could communicate with any other prisoners, but there had been no response. He'd even thought about trying to escape, but dismissed the notion as impossible.

When he heard the footsteps approaching, Mike hastily stood up.

The door opened, and a man in the uniform of a Kebirian Army major stepped through. Mike saluted, automatically; the major saluted back, then smiled.

'I am Major Al-Raheb,' he said. 'Good morning.'

'Captain Yates,' said Mike, a little bewildered. Had this man come to interrogate him? Or had the Brigadier managed to get them released at last?

A guard standing behind Al-Raheb stepped forward: Mike's army boots were in his hand.

'Put them on,' said Al-Raheb. He pulled a clothes brush and a comb out of the pocket of his uniform jacket.

'And give your uniform a once over. You are going to meet the Prime Minister.'

Mike hurried to obey, immensely relieved. A meeting with the Prime Minister was hardly likely to amount to an interrogation; more likely a formal ticking-off, hard words to be pa.s.sed on to his superiors when he was released. Not his problem.

'Will my men be released as well?' he asked, as he straightened his jacket.

Al-Raheb shrugged. 'It depends on the Prime Minister. My orders are only to bring you to him.'

Mike hadn't really expected a different reply. But it seemed promising that Al-Raheb gestured for him to leave the cell first.

They walked along the drab prison corridors until they came to a barred gate that Mike recognized from when he had been brought in.

Outside was daylight: morning light. A large, black car was waiting in the street.