* * *
The Joburg settlement lay below rocky slopes that in their upper parts steepened into a ridge of broken crags. It was somewhere up there that the probe had gone down. Below the settlement, easier slopes flanked a ravine containing the creek that ran down to join a long, narrow lake oriented roughly north-to-south, lying to the west. Charlie had guessed that this lake formed part of the course of the river they were on, the river entering at its northern end. After coming ashore, therefore, they would have to work around the settlement to get from the lake below to the ridge above, trusting to care and good fortune that they wouldn’t be discovered in the process.
They drifted into the lake without further mishap a little more than an hour before dusk. And it was here that the first difficulty confronted them. For the lake was approximately two miles long, with many inlets and indentations along its eastern bank, and the scale of the map was too small to locate Joburg accurately. They probed their way along the shore, searching the slopes and skyline above for some recognizable landmark—it had become apparent too late that the peaks Keene remembered seeing when he was at Joburg were not visible from the level of the lake. He was beginning to think they would just have to take a chance on landing somewhere and trust to luck, when strange sounds reached their ears: a staccato of five or six reports, muffled and distorted by echos. There was a pause. Then they came again. They seemed to be coming from the far side of a rise sloping down to some bluffs near the water’s edge not far ahead. Then another series sounded. Charlie and Keene stared at each other in bewilderment. Neither of them needed to be told what they were hearing. It was gunfire.
They guided the raft into an inlet below the rise and beached among the rocks, hauling the raft out of the water after them. As soon as they began moving up onto higher ground among the bluffs, it became clear that Charlie wouldn’t be going far anytime soon—at least, not under his own power. His knee had stiffened completely, racking him with a burning pain at every attempted step. And he was feverish.
“You go on, Lan,” he gasped, lowering himself back into a space between the boulders. “There isn’t any choice. We can’t both stay here, and I can’t go on.”
Keene couldn’t argue. On top of that, the light was running out and they needed to know what the shooting was all about. He unpacked one of the foam-filled quilts to help make Charlie as comfortable as he could, and leaving both packs with him, set off following the rise inland, keeping to the side that was sheltered from the direction the sounds were coming from.
When he had gained some height, he risked moving up to the crest to survey the far side and found himself overlooking a small valley with a creek at the bottom, narrowing to a ravine farther on. It had to be the creek that ran past Joburg and down to the lake. Following the creek farther would take him right past the edge of the settlement area, which would be inviting discovery. He had no choice but to make a detour leftward to get past it.
By the time he rejoined the creek above the settlement, dark was closing in and the gunfire had ceased. He crossed over toward the more open slopes beneath the ridge, which was where it had seemed to be coming from. His only guess was that some kind of fighting had broken out as a result of the events that had taken place at Serengeti. But as he moved up the bank to see, he heard voices and laughing, making him duck hastily back down. Peering from a gap between the rocks, he saw a group of Rakki’s Tribesmen moving down in the direction of the huts, some of them swaggering jauntily. All of them were carrying guns. Among them, he recognized Rakki’s lieutenant, Enka, with the missing teeth. Then he caught snatches of a voice that sounded familiar.