4

According to some geographers, the Arabian Desert is an extension of the Sahara. Most of the Arabian peninsula is uninhabited waste, with the popu-lated areas situated near the Mediterranean, Red, and Arabian seas, beside the Arabian Gulf—which is our name for what others call the Persian Gulf—and in the fertile crescent of old Mesopotamia.

The Sahara is greater in area, but there is more sand in the Arabian Desert. As a boy, I carried in my mind the image of the Sahara as a burning, endless, empty sand-scape; but that is not very accurate. Most of the Sahara is made up of rocky plateaus, dry gravel plains, and ranges of windswept mountains. Expanses of sand account for only 10 percent of the desert's area. The portion of the Arabian Desert called the Rub al-Khali tops that with 30 percent. It might as well have been nothing but sand from one end to the other, as far as I was concerned. What the hell difference did it make?

I squinted my eyes nearly shut and looked up into the painfully bright sky. One of the minor advantages of being stranded in such a deadly place was that it was too deadly even for vultures. I was spared the unnerving sight of carrion birds circling patiently, waiting for me to have the courtesy to die.

I was pretty determined not to die. I hadn't talked it over with Friedlander Bey, but I was confident he felt the same way. We were sitting on the leeward side of a high, wind-shaped dune. I guessed that the temperature was already a hundred degrees Fahrenheit or more. The sun had climbed up the sky, but it was not yet noon—the day would get even hotter.

"Drink your water when you're thirsty, my nephew," Papa told me. "I've seen men dehydrate and die because they were too stingy with their canteens. Not drinking enough water is like spilling it on the ground. You need about a gallon a day in this heat. Two or three quarts won't keep you alive."

"We only have one gallon each, O Shaykh," I said.
"When it's gone, we'll have to find more. We may stumble across a trail, inshallah. There are trails even in the heart of the Rub al-Khali, and they lead from water hole to water hole. If not, we must pray that rain has fallen here not long ago. Sometimes there is damp sand in the hollow beneath the steep side of a dune."
I was in no hurry to try out my Desert Scout skills. All the talk of water had made me thirstier, so I unscrewed the cap of my canteen. "In the name of Allah, the Com-passionate, the Merciful," I said, and drank a generous quantity. I'd seen holograms of Arab nomads sitting on the sand, using sticks to make tents of their keffiyas for shade. There weren't even sticks in this landscape, how-ever. The wind changed direction, blowing a fine curtain of grit into our faces. I followed Friedlander Bey's example and rested on my side, with my back to the wind. After a few minutes, I sat up and took off my keffiya and gave it to him. He accepted it wordlessly, but I saw gratitude in his red-rimmed eyes. He put on the head cloth, covered his face, and lay back to wait out the sandstorm.
I'd never felt so exposed to the elements before in my life. I kept telling myself, "Maybe it's all a dream." Maybe I'd wake up in my own bed, and my slave, Kmuzu, would be there with a nice mug of hot chocolate. But the broil-ing sun on my head felt too authentic, and the sand that worked its way into my ears and eyes, into my nostrils, and between my lips didn't feel at all dreamlike.
I was distracted from these annoyances by the blood-curdling cries of a small band of men coming over the shoulder of the dune. They dismounted from their camels and ran down on us, waving their rifles and knives. They were the scruffiest, most villainous-looking louts I'd ever seen. They made the worst scum of the Budayeen look like scholars and gentlemen by comparison.
These, I assumed, were the Bayt Tabiti. The leopards of the desert. Their leader was a tall, scrawny man with long stringy hair. He brandished his rifle and screamed at us, and I could see that he had two snaggled teeth on the right side of his upper jaw, and two broken teeth on the left side of his lower jaw. He probably hadn't celebrated occlusion in years. He hadn't taken a bath in that long, either.
He was also the one we were supposed to trust with our lives. I glanced at Friedlander Bey and shook my head slightly. Just in case the Bayt Tabiti felt like murdering us where we sat instead of leading us to water, I got to my feet and drew my ceremonial dagger. I didn't really think that weapon was of much value against the Bedu's rifles, but it was all I had.
The leader came toward me, reached out, and fin-gered my expensive robe. He turned back to his compan-ions and said something, and all six of them broke up with laughter. I just waited.
The leader looked into my face and frowned. He slapped his chest. "Muhammad Musallim bin Ali bin as-Sultan," he announced. As if I was supposed to recognize his name.
I pretended to be impressed. I slapped my own chest. "Marid al-Amin," I said, using the epithet I'd been given by the poor fellahin of the city. It meant "the Trustwor-thy."
Muhammad's eyes grew wide. He turned to his bud-dies again. "Al-Amin," he said in a reverent tone. Then he doubled over with laughter again.
A second Bayt Tahiti went over to Friedlander Bey and stood looking down at the old man. "Ash-shaykh," I said, letting the stinking nomads know that Papa was a man of importance. Muhammad flicked his eyes from me to Papa, then back again. He spoke some rapid words in their puzzling dialect, and the second man left Papa alone and went back to his camel.
Muhammad and I spent some time trying to get an-swers to our questions, but their rough Arabic slowed down our communication. After a while, though, we could understand each other well enough. It turned out that the Bayt Tahiti had received orders from their tribal shaykh to come find us. Muhammad didn't know how his shaykh knew about us in the first place, but we were where they expected us to be, and they'd seen and heard the military chopper from a long way off.
I watched as two of the filthy rogues pulled Fried-lander Bey roughly to his feet and led him to one of the camels. The camel's owner prodded the knees of the beast's forelegs with a stick, and made a sound like "khirr, khirr!" The camel roared its displeasure and didn't seem willing to kneel down. Papa said something to the Bayt Tahiti, who grabbed the animal's head rope and pulled it down. Papa placed a foot on the camel's neck, and it lifted him up where he could scramble into the saddle.
It was obvious that he'd done this before. I, on the other hand, had never ridden a camel in my life, and I didn't feel the need to start now. "I'll walk," I said.
"Please, young shaykh," said Muhammad, grinning through his sparse dentition, "Allah will think we are be-ing inhospitable."
I didn't think Allah had any misconceptions at all about the Bayt Tahiti. "I'll walk," I said again.
Muhammad shrugged and mounted his own camel. Everyone started off around the dune, with me and the Bedu who'd given his camel to Papa walking alongside.
"Come with us!" cried the leader of the party. "We have food, we have water! We take you to our camp!"
I had no doubt that they were heading back to their camp, but I had serious misgivings that Papa and I would arrive there alive.
The man walking beside me must have sensed my thoughts, because he turned to me and winked slowly. "Trust us," he said with a cunning expression. "You are safe now."
You bet, I thought. There was -nothing to do but go along with them. What would happen to us after we ar-rived at the main camp of the Bayt Tahiti was in the hands of God.
We traveled in a southerly direction for several hours. Finally, as I was reaching exhaustion—and about the time my canteen ran out of water—Muhammad called a halt. "We sleep here tonight," he said, indicating a narrow gap between two linked chains of sand dunes.
I was glad that the day's exertions were over; but as I sat beside Papa and watched the Bedu tend to their ani-mals, it occurred to me that it was strange they didn't push on to rejoin the rest of their tribe before dark. Their shaykh had sent them out to find us, and they arrived only a few hours after we'd been dumped out of the chopper. Surely, the main camp of the Bayt Tabiti couldn't have been far away.
They went about their chores, whispering to each other and pointing at us when they thought we weren't watching. I started toward them, offering to help unload their camels. "No, no," said Muhammad, blocking me off from the animals, "please, just rest! We can see to the packs ourselves." Something was wrong here. And Fried-lander Bey sensed it, too.
"I do not like these men," he said to me in a low voice. We were watching one of the Bedu put handfuls of dates in wooden bowls. Another man was boiling water for cof-fee. Muhammad and the rest were hobbling the camels.
'They haven't shown any outward signs of hostility," I said. "At least, not since they first ran down on us, yelling and screaming and waving their weapons."
Papa gave a humorless laugh. "Don't be fooled into thinking that we've won their grudging admiration. Look at that man dividing the dates. You know the packs on the camels are loaded with far better food than that. These Bayt Tabiti are too greedy to share it with us. They will pretend they have nothing better to eat than old, stone-hard dates. Later, after we're gone, they'll prepare them-selves a better meal."
"After we're gone?" I said.
"I don't believe there is a larger camp within a day's journey from here. And I don't believe the Bayt Tabiti are
willing to offer us their hospitality much longer."
I shivered, even though the sun had not yet set, and the heat of the day had not yet dissipated. "Are you afraid, O Shaykh?"
He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I'm not afraid of these creatures, my nephew. I'm wary—I think it would be wise to know what they're up to at every mo-ment. These are not clever men, but their advantages are that they are more than we, and that they know this terrain. Further discussion was interrupted when the Bedu we'd been watching came to us and offered us each a bowl of rancid-smelling dates and a dirty china cup filled with weak coffee. "These poor provisions are all we have," said the man in a flat voice, "but we'd be honored if you'd share them with us."
"Your generosity is a blessing from Allah," said Fried-lander Bey. He took a bowl of dates and a cup of coffee.
"I am quite unable to express my thanks," I said, tak-ing my own supper.
The Bedu grinned, and I saw that his teeth were just as bad as Muhammad's. "No thanks are needed, O Shaykh," he replied. "Hospitality is a duty. You must travel with us and learn our ways. As the proverb says, Who lives with a tribe forty'days becomes one of them.' "
That was a nightmarish thought, traveling with the Bayt Tabiti and becoming one of them!
"Salaam alaykum," said Papa.
"Alaykum as-salaam," the man responded. Then he carried bowls of dates to his fellows.
"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful," I murmured. Then I put one of the dates in my mouth. It didn't stay there long. First, it was completely coated with sand. Second, it was almost hard enough tocrack my teeth; I wondered if these dates had been the downfall of the Bayt Tahiti's dental work. Third, the piece of fruit smelled as if it had been left to decay under a dead camel for a few weeks. I gagged as I spat it out, and I had to wash away the taste with the gritty coffee.
Friedlander Bey put one of the dates in his mouth, and I watched him struggle to maintain a straight face as he chewed it. "Food is food, my nephew," he said. "In the Empty Quarter, you can't afford to be fastidious."
I knew he was right. I rubbed as much sand as I could from another date, and then I ate it. After a few of them, I got used to how rotten they tasted. I thought only about keeping my strength up.
When the sun slipped behind the ridge of a western dune, Friedlander Bey removed his shoes and got slowly to his feet. He used my keffiya to sweep the sand in front of him. I realized he was preparing to pray. Papa opened his canteen and moistened his hands. Because I didn't have any more water in my own canteen, I stood beside him and extended my hands, palms up.
"Allah yisallimak, my nephew," said Papa. God bless you.
As I executed the ablutions, I repeated the ritual for-mula: "I perform the Washing in order to cleanse myself from impurity and to make myself eligible for seeking the nearness to Allah."
Once again, Papa led me in prayer. When we finished, the sun had completely disappeared and the sudden night of the desert had fallen. I imagined that I could already feel the heat leaching out of the sand. It would be a cold night, and we had no blankets.
I decided to see how far I could push the false hospi-tality of the Bayt Tahiti. I went over to their small fire of dried camel dung, where the six bandits were sitting and talking. "You pray to Allah," said Muhammad with a sarcastic grin. "You're good men. We mean to pray, but sometimes we forget." His tribesmen cackled at his wit._ I didn't pay any attention to that. "We'll need water for. tomorrow's journey, O Shaykh," I said. I suppose I could've phrased that more politely.
Muhammad thought about it for a moment. He couldn't very well refuse, but he wasn't happy about part-ing with any of his own supply. He leaned over and mut-tered something to one of the others. The second Bedu got up and fetched a goatskin bag of water and brought it to me. "Here, my brother," he said with a blank expres-sion. "May it be pleasant to you."
"We're obliged," I said. "We'll just fill our canteens, and return the rest of the water to you."
The man nodded, then reached out and touched one of my corymbic implants. "My cousin wants to know what these are," he said.
I shrugged. "Tell your cousin that I like to listen to music on the radio."
"Ah," said the Bayt Tahiti. I don't know if he believed me. He came with me while I filled my canteen and Papa's. Then the Bedu took the goatskin bag and returned to his friends.
"The sons of bitches didn't invite us to join them by the fire," I said, sitting down on the sand beside Papa.
He only turned one hand over. "It means nothing, my nephew," he said. "Now, I must sleep. It would be well if you remained awake and watchful."
"Of course, O Shaykh." Papa made himself as com-fortable as he could on the hard-packed sand of the desert floor. I sat for a little while longer, lost in thought. I re-membered what Papa had said about revenge, and from the pocket of my gallebeya I took the paper the qadi had given me. It was a copy of the charges against Friedlander Bey and rne, the verdict, and the order for our deportation. It was signed by Dr. Sadiq Abd ar-Razzaq, imam of the Shimaal Mosque and adviser to the amir on the inter-pretation of shari'a, or religious law. I was happy to see that Shaykh Mahali had apparently played no part in our kidnapping.
Finally, I decided to lie down and pretend to be asleep, because I realized that the Bayt Tabiti were watching me, and that they wouldn't retire for the night until I did. I stretched out not far from Friedlander Bey, but I didn't close my eyes. I was sleepy, but I didn't dare drift off. If I did, I might never awaken again.
I could see the top of a gracefully curved dune about a hundred yards away. This particular sand hill must have been two hundred feet high, and the wind had blown it into a delicate, sinuous fold. I thought I could see a stately cedar tree growing from the very crest of the dune. I knew the mirage was a product of my fatigue, or perhaps I was already dreaming.
I wondered how the cedar tree could live in this wa-terless place, and I told myself that the only answer was that someone must be cultivating it. Someone had planned for that cedar to be there, and had worked very hard to make it grow.
I opened my eyes and realized that there was no cedar tree on that dune. Maybe it had been a vision from Allah. Maybe God was telling me that I had to make plans, and work very hard and persevere. There was no time now for rest.
I lifted my head a little, and saw that the Bayt Tabiti had thrown themselves on the ground near their fire, which had died down to pale, weakly glowing embers. One of the Bedu had been ordered to keep watch, but he sat against a wall of sand with his head thrown back and his mouth open. His rifle lay discarded beside him on the ground. I believed all six of them were sound asleep, but I did not stir. I did nothing for another hour but stare at the seconds as they flicked by in the window of my watch. When I was certain that all the Bayt Tabiti were in deep slumber, I sat up quietly and touched Friedlander Bey on the shoulder. He came awake quickly. Neither of us said a word. We picked up our canteens and rose as silently as we could. I agonized for a few moments about trying to steal food and rifles, but at last I knew it would be suicidal to approach the camels or the sleeping Bedu. Instead, Papa and I just sk'pped away into the night.
We marched westward for a long time before either of us spoke. "Will they follow us when they find we're miss-ing?" I asked.
Papa frowned. "I can't say, my nephew. Perhaps they'll just let us go. They're sure we'll die in the desert anyway."
There wasn't much I could say to that. From then on, we just concentrated on putting as much distance be-tween us and them as we could, heading off at a right angle to the direction we'd traveled with them during the day, I prayed that if we crossed a desert track in the night we'd see it. It was our only hope of finding a well.
We had the stars as guides, and we trudged westward for two hours, until Papa announced that he had to stop and rest. We'd been traveling against the dunes, which ran from west to east, due to the prevailing winds. The westward slope of each dune was smooth and gradual, but the east side, which we'd have to climb, was usually high and steep. Consequently, we were making long detours as we tried to cross each hill at one of its low shoulders. It was slow, tiring, zigzag progress, and we couldn't have covered more than a mile or two as the sand grouse flies. We sat panting beside each other at the base of yet another monstrous cliff of sand. I opened my canteen and gulped down a mouthful before I realized how brackish and alkaline it was. "Praise Allah," I groaned, "well be lucky if this water doesn't kill us before the sun does."
Papa had drunk his fill, too. "It is not sweet water, my nephew," he said, "but there is very little sweet water in the desert. This is the water the Bedu drink almost every day of their lives."
I'd known that the nomads lived harsh, desperate lives, but I was beginning to learn that I'd undervalued their skill at forcing a living from this most inclement environment. "Why don't they just go somewhere else?" I asked, capping my canteen again.
Papa smiled. "They are proud people. They get satis-faction in their ability to exist here, in a place that means death for any outsider. They scorn the softness and luxury of villages and towns."
"Yeah, you right. Luxuries like fresh water and actual food."
We stood up and started walking again. It was now about midnight. The path across the dunes didn't get any easier, and in a little while I could hear Papa's heavy breathing. I worried about the old man's condition. My own body was beginning to protest this unaccustomed ex-ercise.
The stars turned slowly overhead, and when I looked at my watch again, it was half past one. Maybe we'd come" another mile.
Papa estimated that the Rub al-Khali was about seven hundred and fifty miles west to east, and three hundred miles north to south. I figured it was likely that the mili-tary chopper had dropped us smack in the middle, so figuring a generous mile per hour, walking eight hours a night, we could get out of the Empty Quarter in, oh, just under forty-seven days. If we could also have a gigantic caravan of support equipment and supplies trailing along behind us.₍
We rested again, drank some more of the bitter water, and headed off on the last leg of the night's journey. We were both too tired to talk. I lowered my head against the wind, which was constantly flinging sand into our faces. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I told myself that if Friedlander Bey had the resolve to keep i moving, so did I.
We reached our limit about four o'clock, and col-lapsed in utter exhaustion. The sun wouldn't rise for an-other hour or so, but the idea of going any farther that night was out of the question. We stopped beneath the ; vertical face of a gigantic dune, which would give us some protection from the wind. There we drank as much water as we could hold, and then prepared to sleep. I removed my beautiful royal blue robe and covered Papa with it. Then I huddled in a fetal position within my gallebeya and fell into cold, restless sleep. I kept waking and falling back to sleep, and I was troubled by confused, anxious dreams. I was aware after a while that the sun had risen, and I knew the best thing would be to stay asleep as long as possible during the hot day. I pulled the gallebeya up over my head, to protect my face and scalp from burning. Then I pretended that everything was just fine, and closed my eyes. It was about ten o'clock when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to sleep any later. The sun was beating down on me, and I could feel the exposed areas of skin burning. Friedlander Bey woke up then, too, and he didn't look as if he'd rested any better than I had.
"Now we must pray," he said. His voice sounded peculiar and hoarse. He struck the sand in front of him with his palms, and rubbed the sand on his face and hands. I did the same. Together we prayed, thanking Allah for giving us His protection, and asking that if it was His will, we might survive this ordeal. Each time I joined in worship with Papa, I was filled with peace and hope. Somehow, being lost in this wilder-ness had made the meaning of our religion clear to me. I wish it hadn't taken such a drastic demonstration to make me understand my relationship to Allah.
When we'd finished, we drank as much water as ve could hold. There wasn't much left in our canteens, but we didn't see any reason to discuss that fact. "My nephew," the old man said, "I think it would be wise to bury ourselves in the sand until evening."
That sounded crazy to me. "Why?" I asked. "Won't we bake ourselves like a lamb pie?"
"The deeper sand will be cooler than the surface," he said. "It will keep our skin from burning any further, and it will help reduce our loss of water through perspiration."
Once again, I shut up and learned something. We dug shallow pits and covered ourselves over with the sand. At one point, I noted to myself how very like graves they were. I was surprised to find that my body seemed to enjoy the experience. The warm sand soothed my aching muscles, and I was able to relax for the first time since we'd been snatched at the amir's celebration. In fact, after a while, listening to the murmurous buzzing of insects, I dozed off into a light sleep. The day passed slowly. I had my gallebeya pulled up over my head again, so I couldn't see anything. There was nothing to do but lie there in the sand and think and plan and indulge in fantasies. After a few hours, I was startled to hear a low vibrat-ing hum. I couldn't imagine what it could be, and at first I thought it was only a ringing noise in my ears. It didn't go away, however, and if anything it got louder. "Do you hear that, O Shaykh?" I called.
"Yes, my nephew. It is nothing."
By now I was convinced that it was the warning whine of an approaching aircraft. I didn't know if that was good news or bad. The sound grew louder, until it was almost a shriek. I couldn't stand not being able to see, so I pushed my hands up out of the sand and pulled down the neck ofmy gallebeya.
There was nothing there. The buzzing had increased in volume until the aircraft should have been visible above our heads, but the sky was empty and blue. Then sud-denly, as the wind shifted direction, everything fell silent again. The loud noise did not fade away but disappeared abruptly. "What was that?" I asked, bewildered.
"That, O Clever One, was the famous 'singing sands.' It is a very rare privilege to hear it."
"The sand made that sound? It was like the roaring of an engine!"
"They say it is made by one layer of sand slipping over another, nothing more."
Now I felt dumb for getting so upset over a little hum-ming noise created by a sand dune. Papa, however, was not one to laugh or mock me, and I was grateful for that. I covered myself in the sand again and told myself not to be such a fool.
About five o'clock, we emerged from our sandy beds and prepared for the night's exertions. We prayed and drank the brackish water, and then headed off toward the west again. After we'd walked for half an hour, I had a brilliant idea. I took out my rack of neuralware and chipped in the special daddy that blocked thirst. Immedi-ately, I felt refreshed. This was a dangerous illusion, be-cause although I didn't feel thirsty—and wouldn't again, as long as I had that daddy chipped in—my body was still dehydrating at the same rate. Still, I felt that I could go on without water longer now, and so I gave my canteen to Papa. "I can't take this from you, my nephew," he said.
"Sure you can, O Shaykh," I said. "This add-on will keep me from suffering for as long as our canteens do the same for you. Look, if we don't find more water soon, we'll both die anyway."
"That's true, my darling, but—"
"Let's walk, my grandfather," I said.
The sun began to set and the air began to get cooler. We took a rest stop some time later, and we prayed. Papa finished all the water in one of the canteens. Then we pushed on.
I was beginning to feel very hungry, and I realized that except for the crummy dates of the Bayt Tahiti, the last meal I'd eaten had been almost forty-eight hours ago, at the amir's palace. I was lucky, because I had a daddy that blocked hunger, too. I chipped it in, and the hollow pangs in my belly disappeared. I knew that Papa must be ravenous, but there was nothing I could do about that. I put everything out of my mind except making tracks across the remainder of the Empty Quarter.
Once, when we'd topped the crest of a high dune, I turned to look back. I saw what I thought was a smudge of dust rising in the pale moonlight from behind a distant dune. I prayed to Allah that it wasn't the Bayt Tabiti com-ing after us. When I tried to point it out to Friedlander Bey, I couldn't find the dust cloud again.-Maybe I'd imag-ined it. The vast desert was good for that kind of halluci-nation.
After the second hour, we had to rest. Papa's face was drawn and haggard. He opened his other canteen and drained it dry. All our water was now gone. We looked at each other wordlessly for a moment. "I testify that there is no god but God," said Papa in a quiet voice.
"I testify that Muhammad is the Prophet of God," I added. We got up and continued our march.
After a while, Papa fell to his knees and began retch-ing. He had nothing in his belly to vomit, but his spasms were long and violent. I hoped he wasn't losing much water. I knew that nausea was one of the first signs of severe dehydration. After a few minutes, he waved a hand weakly to let me know he wanted to keep going. From then on, I was more frightened than ever. I had no more illusions that we'd be able to save ourselves without a miracle.
I began to experience severe muscle cramps, and for the third time I turned to my moddy rack. I chipped in the pain-blocking daddy, knowing that I was going to be in pretty terrible shape if I ever lived to pop it out again. As my friend Chiriga likes to say, "Paybacks are a bitch."
About midnight, after another rest period, I noticed that Papa had begun to stagger. I went up to him and touched his shoulder. He faced me, but his eyes seemed unfocused. "What is it, my son?" he said. His voice was thick and his words indistinct.
"How are you feeling, O Shaykh?"
"I feel . . . strange. I'm not hungry anymore, which is a blessing, but I have a terrible headache. There are many little bright spots in front of my eyes; I can barely see in front of me. And there is the most annoying tin-gling in my arms and legs. Unfortunate symptoms."
"Yes, O Shaykh."
He looked up at me. For the first time in all the time I'd known him, he had genuine sadness in his eyes. "I do not wish to walk anymore."
"Yes, O Shaykh," I said. "Then I will carry you."
He protested, but he didn't do a very good job of it. I begged his forgiveness, then picked him up and slung him over my shoulder. I wouldn't have been able to haul him fifty yards without the daddies, which were damping out every last unpleasant signal my body was sending to my brain. I went on with a blithe, completely false sense of well-being. I wasn't hungry, I wasn't thirsty, I wasn't tired, and I didn't even ache. I even had another daddy I could use if I started to feel afraid. In a little while, I realized that Papa was muttering deliriously. It was up to jne to get us both out of this mess. I just gritted my teeth and went on. My amped brain was ridiculously confident that I'd emerge victorious against the most murderous desert in the world.
The night passed. I plodded my way through the swirling sand like a robot. All the while, my body was suffering the same debilitating effects of dehydration that had struck down Papa, and fatigue poisons were building up in my muscles.
The sun came up behind me, and I felt the heat grow on the back of my head and neck. I trudged on through the morning. Papa was no longer making any sounds at all. Once, about 8 a.m., my arms and legs just gave out. I dropped Papa heavily to the ground and fell down beside him. I let myself rest there for a little while. I knew I'd been abusing my body. I thought perhaps lying there mo-tionless for a few minutes would be helpful. I suppose I was unconscious, because the next time I checked my watch, two hours had passed. I got to my feet and picked up Papa and put him across my other shoul-der. Then I walked some more. I kept going until I collapsed again. This became a pattern, and soon I lost all track of time. The sun rose in the sky, the sun went away. The sun rose, the sun went away. I have no idea how far I managed to get. I have a vague memory of sitting on the side of a large dune, pat-ting Friedlander Bey's hand and weeping. I sat there for a long time, and then I thought I heard a voice calling my name. I picked up Papa and stumbled on, in the direction
of the voice. This time, I didn't get far. I crossed two, maybe three great dunes, and then my muscles quit on me again. I could only lie on the ground, my face half-pressed into the hot, red sand. I could see Papa's leg from the corner of my eye. I was pretty sure that I was never going to get up again. "I take refuge . . ."I murmured. I didn't have enough saliva to finish. "I take refuge with the Lord of the Worlds," I said in my mind. I passed out again. The next thing I knew, it was night. I was probably still alive. A man with a stern, lean face dominated by a huge hooked nose was bending over me. I didn't know who he was, or even if he was really there. He said something to me, but I couldn't understand his words. He wet my lips with water, and I tried to grab the goatskin bag out of his hands, but I couldn't seem to work my arms. He said something more to me. Then he reached forward and touched my implants.
With horror, I realized what he was trying to do. "No!" I cried in my cracked voice. "Please, for the love of Allah, no!"
He pulled his hand back and studied me for another few seconds. Then he opened a leather bag, removed an old-fashioned disposable syringe and a vial of some fluid, and gave me an injection. - What I really wanted was about a quart of clean, fresh water. But the shot of Sonneine was okay, too.