Africa Zero Read Online Free Page B

neck.
    “Jesu!”
    Jethro
Susan came up from behind the log with leaves in her hair and in her mouth. She
spat them out and looked down at the man. Then she looked at me with annoyance.
    “Did
you have to make him yell like that?”
    I
could not help it. She had fallen off the log and there she was with leaves in
her hair asking questions like that. I started chuckling. Her look of disbelief
turned that into a laugh. I just stood there and laughed.
    “You’re
a monster!” she said.
    “Oh
dear,” I said, shaking my head and gradually getting myself under control.
Still grinning I stooped down and picked up the wooden spike the man had been
carrying. Then I drove it into the log in front of her.
    “I
remember now,” I said, “that tarry substance is a derivative of curare. It will
leave you paralysed but it won’t kill you. They like to keep their prey fresh.”
    Jethro
Susan looked at the spike in horror. I picked up the Zag tribesman by his
broken neck and tossed him up into the forked branch of a nearby acacia. Let
him serve as a warning. Or was I just being melodramatic?
    Two
hours of travel across relatively-easy terrain from our rest site and first
encounter with the Zag we came out on an open hill top and looked down on
Z’gora. It had once been a city of the third millennium, only the name had been
different then. It had been called New Babylon in defiance of all that was
Western. To the right of it was a wide flat area on which very little grew.
From there, a thousand years in the past, had been launched the vanguard of the
African space effort. The buildings of the city still stood, but now they were
over-grown with vines and dwelt in by primitives, Jethro Susan and I found a
path down into it and proceeded with caution.
    We
were about a hundred metres from the first building when I heard them. I turned
to Jethro Susan.
    “Put
your hood up and keep your head low—they’re here.”
    She
did as instructed.
    “Last
time I came through I let off a couple of shots and they kept away from me,”
she said.
    I
said, “The last time I was here I snapped a few necks and they kept away. But
as I well know, people are never predictable. Have you any gloves?”
    She
unfurled a glove from a pouch pocket on her sleeve and put it on her hand of
flesh.
    “Keep
your head down,” I said as we advanced.
    As
we moved down into the city I saw that we might soon be in trouble, or rather,
Jethro Susan might. Trees encroached on the path down there and made adequate
cover for an ambush. I looked around on the ground and found a couple of rocks.
    “Put
a couple of shots into those trees—that might deter them,” I said.
    Obligingly
Jethro Susan unhitched her rifle and put a shot in the trees each side of the
path. Two concussions blew burning foliage into the air. There was some
shouting and the sound of running feet, then silence. As we drew closer to the
trees I thought it might have worked, then something thudded in the side of my
neck. I reached up and pulled out a feathered thorn just as another bounced off
Jethro Susan’s monofilament hood. I saw movement in the bushes and threw a
rock. There was a soggy thud and a cry of pain. Just then Jethro Susan’s rifle
cracked and there was an explosion above. A feathered man fell out of the trees
with all the aerodynamics of a brick. He hit the path and bounced, a hole where
his chest used to be. I heard running feet, retreating.
    “Stragglers,”
I told her.
    There
were no more attacks from the trees.
    We
entered the city with a degree of caution and stayed at the centre of the
streets. A man showed himself at a window and Jethro Susan loosed another shot.
The explosion lit the inside of a room. There was a horrible creaking, then a
large lump of vine-choked wall fell crashing to the ground. Pieces of stone
bounced past us.
    “Save
your shots or we’ll have the lot down on us. Building inspectors would have
nightmares about this place.”
    I
noticed that under her hood