I flew into Mokulgu and found Jubal without difficulty. He was just embarking on one of the Dam Authority’s survey floats with J-Casta.
“You’d better come, too, Rog,” he shouted. “You’ll probably enjoy the flight more than we shall.”
I did enjoy the flight, despite the circumstances. A disturbance on Lake Tanganyika’s eastern fringes had been observed on an earlier survey and we were going to investigate it.
“You’re not afraid the bed will collapse here, too, are you?” I asked.
“It’s not that,” Jubal said. “The two hundred miles between us and Victoria is a faulty region, geologically speaking. I’ll show you a map of the strata when we get back. It’s more than likely that all that runaway subterranean water may be head-ing in our direction; that’s what I’m afraid of. The possibility has been known for a long while.”
“And no precautions taken?”
“What could we do but cross our fingers? The possibility exists that the Moon will spiral to Earth, but we don’t all live in shelters because of it.”
“Justifying yourself, Jubal?”
“Possibly,” he replied, looking away. Again that stupid antagonism.
We flew through a heavy rain shower, which dappled the grey surface of the lake. Then we were over the reported disturbance. A dull brown stain, a blot on a bright new garment, spread over the water, from the steep eastern shore to about half a mile out.
“Put us down, pilot,” Jubal ordered.
We sank, and kissed the lake. Several hundred yards away rose the base of Mount Kangosi. I looked with admiration up the slope; great slabs of rock stood out from the verdure; crouching at the bottom of this colossus was a village, part of it forced by the steepness of the incline to stand out on piles into the lake.
“Leave everything to me, boss,” J-Casta said, grabbing a hand asdic from the port locker and climbing out on to the float. We followed. It seemed likely that the disturbance was due to a slight subsidence in the side of the lake basin. Such subsidences, Jubal said, were not uncommon, but in this case it might provide a link with Lake Victoria. If they could pin-point the position of the new fault, frogmen would be sent down to investigate.
“We’re going to have company,” Jubal remarked to me, waving a hand over the water.
A dozen or so dugouts lay between us and the shore. Each bore two er three shining-skinned fishermen. The two canoes nearest us had swung round and were now being paddled towards our float.
I watched them with more interest than I gave to the asdic sweep. Men like these sturdy fishermen had existed here for countless generations, unchanged: before white men had known of them, before Rome’s legions had destroyed the vine-yards of Carthage, beforewho knows if not before the heady uprush of civilization elsewhere?such men had fished quietly in this great lake. They seemed not to have advanced at all, so rapidly does the world move; but perhaps when all other races have fallen away, burnt out and exhausted, these steady villagers will come into a kingdom of their own. I would elect to live in that realm.
A man in the leading canoe stood up, raising his hand in greeting. I replied, glancing over his shoulder at the curtain of green behind him. Something caught my eye.
Above some yards of bare rock, a hundred feet up the slope of the mountain, two magnificent MvulesAfrican teak treesgrew. A china-blue bird dipped suddenly from one of the trees and sped far and fast away over the water, fighting to outpace its reflection. And the tree itself began to cant slowly from the vertical into a horizontal position.
Jubal had binoculars round his neck. My curiosity aroused, I reached to borrow them. Even as I did so, I saw a spring of water start from the base of the Mvules. A rock was dis-lodged. I saw it hurtle down into the bush below, starting in turn a trail of earth and stones which fell down almost on to the thatched roofs of the village. The spring began to spurt more freely now. It gleamed in the sun: it looked beautiful but I was alarmed.