Luana Read online

  “It’s because of her, isn’t it? It’s because of her!”

  “Luana,” he began pleadingly, “Luana, believe me when I . . . Luana!”

  She’d dashed past him into the camp. Oh mother, he thought, and pounded after her.

  There was a scream from inside Isabel’s tent. Then yelling and confusion. Men tumbled out of their tents, some terrified, some trying to run and buckle their shorts at the same time, others with machetes in their hands and frantic eyes hunting unknown enemies. Barrett went straight to Isabel’s tent and yanked aside the door flap.

  Her cot was overturned and the two of them were locked together on the floor, chicks-in-blankets.

  Under normal circumstances, Luana would have beaten the other girl to a pulp in a few minutes. But Isabel, resisting with the strength of the utterly terrified, somehow managed to keep Luana at bay.

  “Luana!” he shouted, coming quickly up behind them, “that’s not nice!” He grabbed her under the arms and hauled her bodily off Isabel.

  “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m no damned speechmaker, and . . .”

  Everything was suddenly upside down. It was followed by blackness and a suffocating heaviness. He flailed about wildly at the unknown smotherer, then relaxed. Murin’s voice was close, and reassuring.

  “We’ll have you out in a minute, George. Take it easy.”

  The clinging weight was gone and light once more filled the tent, reinforced by lantern fire. Two of the bearers continued to rearrange things.

  Isabel sat to one side, unmindful of her state of attractive undress. She had both hands at her mouth and was panting heavily. Barrett rose slowly, painfully, and arched his back. There was a thumping bruise on the back of his neck.

  “I’m a little disoriented,” he admitted, sitting down next to Isabel and putting an arm around her. “Did you see what happened?”

  Her hands dropped to her lap and she looked uneasy.

  “She threw you into the tent pole. Pretty hard. You went right into it and the whole tent came down on us. Are you . . .?”

  “Fine, I’m fine. But what about you? She looked like she was trying to kill you.”

  Isabel smiled faintly, shook her head. “No, not kill me, I think. Just trying to mess me up. But she was so mad she couldn’t see straight. George,” she asked earnestly, “what made her so mad?”

  “Nothing at all. We’ll go into it some other time. You sure you’re okay?”

  She rubbed at herself. “Couple of scratches, that’s all. It was a helluva way to wake up, though.”

  Barrett grunted, suddenly looked around the restored tent.

  “Mur, where is she?”

  “Waiting outside,” the Breeded replied, somewhat surprisingly. He grinned. “I think she wants to make sure you’re not hurt. What’s between you two, anyway?”

  “Why is everyone harping on that all of a sudden?” he said irritably. “Nothing, damnit!” He looked back at Isabel. “Wouldn’t help if you hid inside. You feel up to seeing her again?”

  She smiled. “Sure.” Then she rubbed at the low neck of the filmy nightgown. As she did so, something small and shiny glinted there. Barrett blinked, nearly fell. She noticed his stare.

  “Something wrong?” Then she grinned. “Nothing there you haven’t seen before.” She didn’t move when his hand dipped, raised the tiny chip of metal. It consisted of three coils of silver, a tip of a tail, and a hooded head. It was a charm, in the shape of a striking cobra.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked breathlessly. “How long have you had it?”

  “Hey, slow down!” His interest startled her. “It’s only a little charm.” She fingered the object gently. “No, it’s more than that. I’ve had it since I was a baby. Put it on every night before I go to bed. My father gave it to me. Why? It’s not even real silver, George. George?”

  He stood and left the tent. She hurried to follow.

  Murin had sent the bearers back to their own tents, the excitement over. But Kobenene and Albright were there, a safe distance from Luana. Arms folded, she stood facing away from the tent, towards the campfire.

  “See here, Barrett,” Albright began as the guide appeared, “what’s been going . . .”

  “Shut up, Einstein.” Barrett put a hand on the scientist’s chest and shoved him out of the way. Kobenene jerked slightly, but that was all.

  He put a hand on Luana’s shoulder and spun her around. She was so startled she didn’t resist. His hand went straight between her breasts, into the flimsy halter. When she stood you couldn’t see the small chain. It was dark with grime and exposure. So was the silver cobra.

  “George Barrett,” she began, more in surprise than anger, “what—”

  “Isabel!”

  She walked over, eyeing Luana uneasily. He merely indicated the charm and said nothing, watching her. It was enough.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped, taking a step back. He nodded knowingly.

  “I might’ve guessed. Luana,” he said, turning back to her and gesturing at the silently watching Isabel, “say hello to an old friend. Your sister, I think.”

  “Barrett,” sputtered Albright into the silence that followed, “you’re being preposterous!”

  “Preposterous it is, Albright, but not me. Or maybe she’s not your sister, Isabel. Maybe she’s your cousin, hmmm, or just a good friend of the family?”

  Luana was the most confused of any.

  “Sister?”

  Isabel looked at her but could say nothing. She tried several times, failed, and finally nodded violently. Luana sat down on the dark earth, slowly. She was thoroughly mixed up.

  “And now,” said Barrett, walking over and gently taking Isabel’s hands from her face, “maybe you’d better tell me just what the hell’s going on, huh? I thought there was no one on that plane but your old man.”

  “Isabel,” began Albright anxiously, “I think you should—”

  “You keep out of this, bright boy,” Barrett warned.

  Albright started to say something else, then turned abruptly and stomped back towards his tent. Kobenene trailed.

  “My mother died when I was very small,” Isabel said softly. Then her voice got stronger. “Father never remarried, not formally. He’d been working a long time in Indonesia. He met this woman in Brunei, in Borneo. She claimed to be a princess of some sort. Others said she was just a very high-paid prostitute. Whatever her ancestry, she definitely had a—well—a reputation.

  “Our family was very straight Especially my mother’s. Father’s parents weren’t exactly screaming liberals, either.” She smiled ruefully. “He put them in a very difficult position.

  “Father was world famous and respected in his profession, and as a man. But in Peoria he’d made himself a pariah. Fortunately he wasn’t the party-going type, so he saved a lot of Illinois matrons a lot of embarrassment. From what I was told, you couldn’t imagine two more different people than my father and this woman. I’ve seen pictures of her. She . . . she was many things my natural mother wasn’t. Extraordinarily beautiful, for one thing. Exotic as hell.

  “They never married, though they lived together openly. That sort of thing is a lot more acceptable now, but it wasn’t then. And for a man my father’s age to do so, with a woman half his, an Oriental, a non-Christian, well—” She shrugged.

  “There’s more,” prompted Barrett.

  “Anyhow, when he came to Africa to do his work, she came with him.” Isabel looked over at the silently listening Luana.

  “They had a child—a girl. Both she and the woman were with him when they disappeared. It was naturally assumed they’d all been killed. Especially when they couldn’t even find the plane. My father’s parents and my mother’s were still alive at the time and they,” she paused bitterly, “they wanted to protect his memory, and hers. So whenever Father was mentioned, his . . . his concubine and their child were never discussed. It took me years to find out about it myself.” She sounded anxious.<
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  “I would have told you, George, but there didn’t seem any need to!”

  “Take it easy, Izzy. It’s all right.” Barrett tried to soothe her. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.” He looked over at Luana. “She is your sister, then.”

  Isabel spoke slow and deliberate. “Her name is Lu-Ling Honeysuckle Hardi.” Luana gave a gasp, rose to her feet. Her eyes were wide. “Luana was a baby name, I guess.”

  “It’s true! I remember . . . I remember another little girl.” Her brow twisted and when she spoke again it was a shout. “Bella! You’re Bella!”

  “Yes.” Isabel took a couple of steps forward, her arms outstretched awkwardly. “Dear Lu-Ling . . .” Luana stepped back uncertainly.

  “Lu-Ling is a dead name for a dead person. I am Luana, only.” She smiled sadly. “I cannot fight with you then, it seems. That does not mean I must love you, though.”

  Isabel’s face lit up suddenly. “The plane!” she shouted. “Can you find my father’s . . . our father’s plane?” She was quivering with anticipation.

  The great bird, old Uma had called it. And Wu, too.

  “Is that all you have come all this way for? Yes, I can take you to it. It lies four days march from here and the journey is very, very hard.” She looked meaningfully over at Barrett. “It is not too far from a place where no one goes.”

  Isabel looked puzzled. “What does she mean, George? ‘A place where no one goes’?”

  “Probably nothing, Izzy. But you should be happy. Happy, hell, you should kiss your lucky you-know-what! Looks like you’re going to find your father’s papers after all. If there are any to find.”

  “Yes, oh, yes! Dear Luana, I don’t know how to thank—” She started forward. Luana turned and ran. Vanished into the jungle. Isabel stopped, the words waiting to flood from her lips. Barrett put an arm around her, squeezed gently. They stared at the silent barrier of green, garbed in color of night and touched lightly here and there by the curious campfire light.

  “She hates me, George. Why?”

  Barrett considered. “She doesn’t really hate you, Izzy. It’s something else, and I don’t think she even knows what. Not yet, anyway.” He patted her lightly. “Come on, let’s put the rest of your tent back together.”

  From another nearby tent Albright watched them disappear into Isabel’s. He slammed the flap closed—a more futile gesture would be difficult to imagine—and slumped worriedly onto his cot. The khaki-and-green roof was singularly uninstructive.

  Kobenene lay across from him, watching his partner.

  “Well, that pretty well tears it, doesn’t it?”

  “Be quiet, you fat idiot!” the scientist growled. “I heard.” He was slamming his right fist into the opposite palm over and over. After indulging in a few minutes of this minor masochism he rolled over to stare at the big man.

  “You know what will happen if they find that plane?”

  “Not if,” corrected Kobenene. “When.”

  “All right then, when, when—” Albright was tense and irritable. He had reason to be. Of all the insane developments!

  “We might get lucky,” Kobenene theorized. “Are you sure Hardi knew about your exploiting the drug?”

  “Knew about it?” Albright said in disbelief. “He was going to go to the police when he returned. The jerk! He could have been rich. I know his family was well off. You don’t think he went galavanting around the world with his bunsen burners and crazy experiments on the proceeds from his work, do you? But he could have been really wealthy! A midas!”

  “With you the key-keeper of the vault, ummm?”

  “I would have earned my share, sure, why not?” Albright said righteously. “He was so much better at refining the final product than I.”

  “Why Albright, such unaccustomed modesty is nothing short of overwhelming. Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Modest, hell,” the chemist grumbled. “I see no shame in confessing inferiority to a genius. A stupid one, but a genius nonetheless. And that’s not the contradiction it seems. It’s sad such a great mind had to be so, well, confused.”

  “Are you so sure,” Kobenene continued, shifting his weight on the groaning cot, “that Hardi would have left any evidence that could incriminate you?”

  Albright chuckled harshly. “You didn’t know Hardi. I told you, the man was a genius. If he fell over a cliff he’d take the time to note the color and approximate age of the passing strata. He’d have made complete and thorough notes before he splattered.

  “We’ve got one hope—no, two, maybe. One is that this jungle sister is talking off the top of her head. Her mind might be filling in gruesome details with more pleasant pictures. It’s likely the plane came down in bloody pieces, and she’s taking us to see a few of the pieces. That wouldn’t be dangerous.”

  “And the other?” Kobenene asked.

  “That if the old bugger managed to commit something lethal to posterity before he expired, it’s been lost or dismembered by the jungle.”

  “And if neither of these fortuitous possibilities happens to have occurred?”

  “Well then,” continued Albright determinedly, “we’ll just have to do a little dismembering of our own.

  “Otherwise you’re going to find yourself in the uncomfortable, not to mention unhealthy, position of a drug dealer with no drug to deal. Certain people would find that upsetting. That venomous old hag you ship through, for one. Of course, you could always find some other chemist to manufacture it.”

  “Sadly,” said Kobenene with a lazy smile, “you’ve taken the unfriendly position of refusing to commit the formula to paper. To me the raw materials are so much powder and vegetable. How about jotting it down now, in case things get depressing?”

  “Fat chance, fat man,” Albright sneered. He reached up and turned out the lantern. “I’m not ready to become expendable. Besides, I’d hate to break a beautiful friendship.” Sheets rustled as he rolled over.

  Kobenene lay awake on his cot, thinking. It was too near dawn for him to sleep, anyway.

  As Albright had mentioned, Isabel Hardi would be no problem. He grinned in the dark. Far from it. On some things he and Albright readily agreed. Murin he could handle, and the bearers would swing to whoever would pay them. Trouble, then, came back as it always did, to Barrett.

  He glanced over at the snoring Albright. The chemist would opt in a crucial moment for something direct and unsubtle. That was hardly surprising. It was his neck on the block. He’d probably manage to have surprise on his side, but classroom manner wouldn’t help him against a desperate Barrett.

  Kobenene considered, then slipped quietly out of his bunk. There was no need to disturb his partner. No, it wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to take a little action on his own.

  Chapter VIII

  In the following days, Barrett saw more unexplored territory than he ever wanted to. It was at his legs, in his nose and ears, crawling through his hair. Only the magnificent, the impossible diamond necklace in his pocket kept him going. Just patting his pocket and feeling the hard, unyielding shape there kept him going.

  The country degenerated into the worst sort of topography. Volcanic hills rose like knife blades, clad in permanent coats of perpendicular jungle. They would pause and rest near the top . . . near it, because the crest was too narrow and sharp to sit on . . . before plunging exhaustedly into steaming lowlands again. Thank God the mountains weren’t too high! The descents required more care and caution than the ascents.

  In one broad valley the usual lazy stream had turned the soft silt into mud and roofed it over with a muck-filled lake. The morning they spent crossing that swamp was one of the worst Barrett had experienced in his twenty years in Africa. They could have continued on in daylight, but everyone was so worn out when they reached the other side that they had to quit and waste a whole afternoon.

  Creepers and vines and hanging flowers had grown low over the scummy water. These had to be cut so they could pass. The gook came up t
o their waists in places. It must have been divine providence that kept anyone from stumbling into a clinging bottom hollow or quicksand.

  Now, you know better than that, Barrett! Providence had nothing to do with it. It was Luana, moving gracefully and with maddening ease through the trees overhead, who steered them past the difficult places and danger spots. How the big cats had gotten through Barrett would never know, but they were waiting for them when they finally reached the dry shore.

  About the mosquitoes and flies and ten-centimeter-long water bugs that took out hunks of living flesh, of course, she could do nothing.

  Now and then they would encounter a small hillock of solid earth rising above the water, and then everyone enjoyed a blissful few minutes of rest. Once they’d been approaching such a haven when she suddenly called for everyone to freeze. They stood, wet and damp and thoroughly miserable.

  Luana tossed a dead branch at the dry land, then another. The first hinted at nothing. But when the second crashed into the dead leaves and fronds carpeting the dirt, it drove out a black pipe that shot away into low bushes. Barrett had caught his breath. A black mamba, all of three meters long. As deadly, or worse, than the cobra.

  Unlike its hooded relative, however, the mamba was far from passive. It would have gone for the first person stepping out of the water.

  Barrett hated snakes with an unreasoning passion. Well, not entirely unreasoned. He’d seen too many natives killed by the reptiles, their bodies contorted and nerves paralyzed. But he didn’t hate the tse-tse fly, which had slain thousands of times as many people as all the snakes in Africa. He didn’t hate the rogue lion he’d killed, which had terrorized several villages in the Serengeti. Not even considering what it had done to his right arm and ribs. The government had given him a damn good bounty on that one, he recalled.

  But snakes—every man has his own private terror. The sheer will power required for him to hold up that dead viper Luana had killed—

  That brought back more pleasant memories. He was smiling when he pulled himself out of the last of the ooze. It clung to his bare legs, reluctant to let go. He sat down on the dry bank and unwrapped the towel he’d tied around his neck. Cleaning the shoes would take hours. At least he’d been able to save his pants. His legs were easier to clean than the khaki would have been.