Mack Reynolds - The Best Ye Breed

She came to her feet, in dismissal.

Bryan shot a glance at Meg and shrugged in resignation. But she looked about and saw that no one else was observing her and stuck out her tongue at him, as though pleased with her fortune as compared with his.

After Homer Crawford, Bey, Cliff and Kenny had bypassed Colum-Béchar, the largest town in the northern Sahara and the furtherest south the French had pushed their Trans-Saharan narrow gauge railroad, a century earlier, they headed eastward toward Figuig, the Mountains des Ksour—and Chaambra country. And now they dropped their attempts to keep secret their presence. It was necessary that they learn the whereabouts of Abd-el-Kader and of Elmer Allen, if he still survived.

There was no way to accomplish this without asking questions of every traveler they met, of every sedentary zenata working the date palms and gardens of the few and far between oases. They didn’t reveal their identity, but, on the other hand, there was no manner in which they could keep the locals from jumping to conclusions. They were going to have to move fast or the suspicions of their identity were going to filter through to Abd-el-Kader and his Chaambra and the four of them were in no position to meet head on, the full forces of the Ouled Touameur clan, not to speak of whatever other Chaambra elements he had already recruited to his horsetail banner and to the green pennant of the Moslem in jehad .

What they learned, bit by bit, was disconcerting.

Elmer Allen was indeed still alive, or, at least, had been so until quite recently. Abd-el-Keder had imprisoned him in a round iron birdcage-like affair in which it was impossible to either stand up, stretch out, or even sit. He was given a minimum of garbage in the way of food and enough dirty water to sustain life. The cage was portable and Elmer Allen was being hauled from town to town, from nomad encampment to oasis, and displayed to all as an example of the power of Abd-el-Kader, the newly proclaimed mahdi, and the weakness of the upstart, El Hassan. For here was his closest vizier, powerless before the strength of Abd-el-Kader.

Elmer, from the talks of those who had seen him thus displayed was philosophically enduring the camel dung, stones and mud thrown at him, along with the jeers and laughter at each stop. But Homer and his three companions all knew, inwardly, that it was only a matter of time. A man could not long survive out in the open sun in this climate without shade or headdress. Could not keep from coming down with hemma , one of the endemic fevers of the area, drinking such water and living in his own filth, since the cage, it was told, was never cleaned. Nor, for that matter, was it impossible that some enraged tribesman, perhaps seeking to gain merit in the eyes of the mahdi, might rush in near enough to the cage to spear or knife the prisoner, or even to crush in his head with a stone larger than those ordinarily thrown.

There was other news. The claim of Abd-el-Kader to be the newly arisen mahdi had spread over the northern Sahara and the African lands bordering the Mediterranean. And now to Chaambra country were pouring marabouts and khatibs, muezzins and ulemas, muftis and dervishes, imams, hezzabs and even some green turbaned ones of Shorfu blood, descendents of Hasan, son of Fatima, daughter of Mohammed. For while it is true that there is no equivalent to priests and clergymen in Islam, that is not to say there are no religious officials and holy men of every strata.

It was said to be the greatest djemaa el kebar ever known to man, nor was it only the usual council of elders and chiefs of the Chaambra but one which would be attended by all nomad leaders yearning to drink the milk of war against the false El Hassan, who, as all men knew, was a tool of the hated Roumi whites who would destroy the old ways of the desert.

At the last news, Homer looked thoughtful as they drove along.

He said, “I think I know where this djemaa el Kebar of Abd-el-Kader will be held. There’s a traditional oasis where the Chaambra tribes, the Mouadhi, Bou Rouba, Berazga and Ouled Fredj, meet every few years for a conference. It’s where we first came in contact with our boy, Adb-el-Kader. Not too long ago, at that. He was all hot to form raiding parties against the new dams, the afforestation preserves, the irrigation projects, roads and so forth. I was able to fox him with a bit of karate and haul him off to the slammer but we were hardly out of sight before the corrupt bastards in Colum-Béchar let him loose again.”

“Yeah,” Kenny said, “Bey and I were around, and Elmer and Abe Baker, for that matter. You think they’ll hold this new gathering there?”

“Almost sure to.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Bey said. “You’re not figuring on inviting yourself to that hoedown are you?”

Homer looked over at him. “That’s where Elmer’d be, cage and all.”

“Sure,” Bey said in disgust. “And every Moslem religious fanatic from Egypt to Morocco. They’d tear us apart. They know damn well that El Hassan, though giving lip service to Islam, is their kiss of death, if he ever comes to power.”

Homer said, without denial, “Our ultimate rejection of Mohammedism is a basic of the El Hassan movement. But at this stage we can’t do it openly. Actually, it will wither away eventually of its own accord. It’s already doing so. Among the educated elements in Tangier, Casablanca, Algiers, Cairo and the other centers they pretend to follow Islam but actually are no more Orthodox Moslems than the average educated American is a fundamentalist Christian. Who in America today believes literally in the books of Genesis? Only the most ignorant, largely located in the benighted Bible Belt of the South. And the Q’ran is even more nonsensical than the early chapters of the Bible. Let me see if I can quote that sutra describing Paradise, the Garden of Allah.

He narrowed his eyes and recited. “… the water of the brooks is never bad; the rivers of milk are always fresh; the rivers of wine are a delight; the rivers of honey are pure, the faithful lie on carpets of brocaded richness, and they are shaded by trees which let down their fruits of themselves. The just shall be served in silver goblets and served by boys eternally young; at their feet will run streams of limpid water; they will have as wives dedicated virgins with round breasts, big black eyes, and complexions like ostrich eggs hidden with care in the sand; and concubines specially created for them, having been touched by neither man nor genie .”

“Jesus,” Cliff muttered, “What does an ostrich egg hidden in the sand look like?”

Homer said, “Or that bit from Mohammed about women. God has created two things for the pleasure of man: woman and perfumes. Your women are your field. Go to your field and plough it as often as you like. How can one attribute to God, as his offspring, woman who, because of her lack of reason, is always ready to quarrel without motive ?”

He snorted. “Now consider that crap. Obviously, the Islamic position on women, the fact that they have no souls, not having been created by Allah, and will hence not go to Paradise, but will be replaced there by houris , especially created for the men, is ridiculous. The Islamic position on women can’t endure in an advanced society. Women’s lib, in its time, will come to Islam as it did the West. And take that description of Paradise. It makes about as much sense as the Biblical one. Heaven with its streets of gold. Maybe that Paradise makes sense to an uneducated nomad, but to his city living, educated, sons and daughters?”

“All right, all right, so you’ve wooed us away from Islam, get back to the point,” Bey said. “We can’t go busting into that nest of fanatics, all four of us, and come out as anything more than chunks of meat to be eaten with the couscous.”