Mack Reynolds: The Best Ye Breed

However, Bey cut the rope binding the other and returned the knife to its owner.

He said gently, in Arabic “I was astonished, Colonel, not to see you in the advance of your men in the various attempts to break out of our ambuscade.”

The colonel rubbed his wrists to restore circulation, and said contemptuously, “We are taught at the military institute that a commanding officer must not risk himself. His guidance of his men is more important than heroics. Would Napoleon or Wellington have exposed themselves at Waterloo?”

“It’s been done,” Kenny said mildly. “Our Stonewall Jackson died at Chancellorsville. Even Big Mouth Custer, didn’t get back from the Little Big Horn.”

Bey said, “We’ll return to Tamanrasset immediately. Your wounded will be placed in the lorries and in and on the armored cars. Do you have any medics with you?”

The colonel was evidently taken aback. Like the tribesmen who had brought him up, he had expected immediate execution. He said, “We have one doctor, slightly wounded, and two of his nurse-assistants.”

“Good,” Bey said. “Dr. Smythe, of our Medical Corps, will be able to use their aid.” He looked at Kenny Ballalou. “How about rounding up the fastest of their trucks? We’ll get going soonest. They ought to be faster than our hovercraft.”

“Right,” Kenny said, and went on up the wadi.

Colonel Ibrahim said, not attempting to disguise his suprise, “You do not mean to kill us?”

Bey laughed sourly. “It will give us good marks in world opinion if we refrain from butchering our prisoners—in the manner that has been the wont of the Arab Union.”

The colonel, at least, had the decency to flush. He said, stiffly, “In which vehicle will I ride?”

“You won’t,” Bey told him. “You’ll walk, with your men. The vehicles are needed to carry the wounded.”

Bey made a motion to a couple of the riflemen who had backed his flac rifle and the machine guns and instructed them to return the colonel to the column which was to take up the return march to Tamanrasset and Fort Laperrine.

Kenny came up in a hover jeep. Bey-ag-Akhamouk recognized it cynically as one of the Skoda models from Czechoslovakia in the Soviet Complex. In spite of supposed world detente, the great powers continued to supply the smaller with the tools to slaughter each other.

Kenny came to a halt next to him and said, “This was as fast as anything they had and it leaves more room for the wounded than if we’d taken a truck. Those trucks are going to have to go slowly, or they’ll bounce anybody inside with a bad hit to death.”

Bey could see the flac rifle the other had tucked into the back of the jeep. He lugged his own over and put it in too and then the remaining cannisters of clips.

Kenny Ballalou said, “Should we take Guémamaa along with us?”

And Bey said, “Hell, no. If we did, not a single Arab Union trooper would make it back to Tamanrasset. As it is, he wouldn’t disobey an order of El Hassan under torture.”

They started up, heading back down the wadi in the direction from which the Tuaghi camelmen had come only a short time ago.

Kenny said, “That’s the most gruesome sight I’ve ever seen. There’s more dead than alive in that wadi and more wounded than whole. How many did Guémama’s men knock off when they came up?”

“So far as I know, none.”

Kenny looked over at him from the side of his eyes, even as he wrestled the vehicle down the winding way. “Then why’d you give him all the credit, Bey?”

The other grunted and said, “Because he’s the nephew of Melchizedek, the chief of the Kel Rela clan of the Kel Rela tribe. But that’s not all. The Ahaggar Taureg consist of three tribes each headed by a warrior clan which gives its name to the tribe as a whole; the Kel Rela, the Tégéhé and the Taitog. The chief of the Kel Rela clan is also chief of the Kel Rela tribe and automatically paramount chief, or Amenokal, of the whole confederation. That’s Melchizedek, and though he’s supposedly fighting chief, he’s too old to take the field. Guémama, who’s the apple of his eye, is also his nephew and the son of his favorite sister. Descent among the Tuaghi is in the matriarchal line. Guémama will become Amenokal when the old boy dies. And that’s not all, either. The kid’s the most popular character going among the young Tuaghi. They’d follow him to hell and gone.—And he’d follow Homer the same way.”

Kenny Ballalou looked over at his companion. “How in the hell do you know all this?”

Bey grunted in self-deprecation. “I thought that you knew I was born a Tuareg. A missionary took me to the States when I was only three years old. However, I am a member of the Taitog tribe, which makes me a subject of the Amenokal, in spite of the fact that I hold a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.”

Kenny took him in from the side of his eyes again. Bey-ag-Akhamouk was a handsome physical specimen in the Tuareg tradition. It was debated among anthropologists whether the Tuaghi were of Berber or Hamitic descent. In fact, the more far-out contended that they were descendents of Crusaders who had never made it home from the Holy Land. Be that as it may, he was tall, as the desert men went, wiry and strong, and his well featured face lighter in complexion than was usually found, even among the Tuaghi. Kenny wondered about that missionary. Was Bey his natural son?

They had only been gone a few days in their pursuit of the retreating Arab Union forces and Bey-ag-Akhamouk and Kenny Ballalou were astonished at the changes that had taken place in so short a time. They had left at night, with all the debris of furious battle littering the area, in particular, between Tamanrasset proper and Fort Laperrine. El Hassan’s Tuaghi and other tribesmen had attacked in force, while most of Colonel Ibrahim’s armor and other mechanized equipment was plunging out into the erg and reg in an effort to seize the waterholes upon which El Hassan’s people were dependent. The deciding factor was when the heratin sedentary workers and serfs, stirred up by infiltrated El Hassan propagandists, had erupted from the souks of Tamanrasset, armed largely with hoes, scythes, sickles, axes and other agricultural implements and stormed the fort. They had been cut down in swaths by the few machine guns the colonel had left to defend the area, but nothing could hold them.

The forces of El Hassan, those disciplined enough to take orders, were the only element that prevented a complete destruction of the overwhelmed Arab Union Legionaires.

But now, seemingly overnight, all bodies had been removed, and most signs of the recent combat were already erased, though large squads of native workers were everywhere, still patching, still rebuilding. Most of the material damage had been done on the outskirts of Tamanrasset, rather than on Fort Laperrine. The elements of the Arab Union left behind to hold the almost abandoned fort, had possessed a few motorized recoilless guns and had shelled the town, until overwhelmed. But even this damage was rapidly being repaired. The workers seemed in a holiday mood, despite the arduous labor to which they were subjecting themselves.

Kenny looked over at Bey, as they approached. He said, “Homer’s pulled another rabbit out of the hat. How’n the hell did he ever get these people to work so hard? Traditionally, they’re experts at goofing off.”

“Search me,” Bey said, looking around. “Possibly it’s because it’s the first time they’ve ever done something that would profit themselves. I don’t see the tents. Where are Homer and the rest?”

A Tuareg warrior was passing. Bey called out to him in Tanaheq, asking the whereabouts of El Hassan and his viziers. The other answered and Bey looked back at Kenny. “They’re inside the fort.” he said.