"Resnick, Mike - Bibi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"Uganda's not unique," replied Jeremy. "All the African countries have AIDS."
"We're unique," she said adamently. "First Amin, then the other butchers, and now _this_. You know, Kenya has a high HIV incidence, almost as high as ours -- but their people aren't dying like ours. I've even heard former colonials in Nairobi, sitting at their lily-white bars and restaurants, _complaining_ about it. They thought AIDS would return Kenya to them, but hardly anyone's dying and they feel cheated! And here, right next door, in the most beautiful, fertile land on the continent, we're lost entire villages." A look of fury spread across her face. _"It's just not fair!"_
"Maybe we should learn from other countries instead of resenting them," said Jeremy, while deep within him a tiny voice protested in outrage.
"Their time will come," she replied. "What we need is more information. Sooner or later, we're going to find out what it is about non-progressors that makes them fight the disease better. Sooner or later, we're going to find someone with natural immunity..."
"God help the poor sucker," said Jeremy. "You'll make a lab rat out of him for sure."
A rich lab rat. A celebrity lab rat. There'd be fortunes to be made from an AIDS vaccine -- if you'd lost enough of your soul to charge what the market would bear. The market, of course, being guys like him, not women like the ones lying two huts over, fighting off fever and the long defeat of their lives.
"Or _her_," she replied. "Who knows? Maybe this old woman's mother is the one. She's certainly lived long enough."
"So where is she?"
"Who knows?" Elizabeth frowned. "I've been away a long time. My clothing's wrong, my accent's wrong, even my magic's wrong. They don't trust me."
They sat in silence by the flickering firelight for a few more moments. Finally Elizabeth yawned, stretching like one of the children. Jeremy smiled at her. _I'm sorry that you hurt, but I like you even better now that I know you're human._ Maybe he and Elizabeth could adopt each other or something. He could be Uncle Jeremy to any children she would eventually have. If he lived long enough to see her meet a man with more sense than Paul. _Not wisely, but too well,_ Jeremy thought. That went for both of them.
"I really _am_ going to bunk in the truck," he said, picking up his sleeping bag. "The hut's too stuffy for me, even if does get cold out here, and this way I can keep an eye on things."
"While you're sound asleep?" asked Elizabeth. He'd rather hoped she'd be too sleepy to be sarcastic.
"Good night," he told her and trudged wearily toward the battered truck. He spread out his bedding on the back of the truck. If anything tried to get him, he'd at least hear it coming, and he still had the pistol, just in case.
* * *
Jeremy jolted instantly awake, his heart pounding, his body drenched. But this wasn't fever.
_Something was watching him._
He forced himself back into stillness, keeping his eyes shut. His hand, hidden beneath his head, gently released the safety on the pistol. Leopard or bandit or whatever, whatever tried to attack him was going to be very, very surprised, and then very, very dead.
_Steady there. Play possum._ He slowly opened his eyes. When they adjusted to the darkness, he glanced stealthily about. A tiny blot of shadow detached itself from the doorway of the sick woman's hut and paused, staring at the truck.
_Dammit, those kids had no business wandering around here at night!_ He'd seen the fence around the old man's grave. Maybe the local scavengers would like live meat for a change. The children seemed eager to provide it.
_You know perfectly well why their mothers can't watch the kids,_ he told himself. _They're sick or they're dying. Probably both._ Never mind what Elizabeth had said about miracles. The fact that her parents had survived the madness of Idi Amin had made her a cock-eyed optimist.
He'd give the kid five minutes, Jeremy decided. Five. If it didn't do its business in the bush or wherever, then go back into the hut, he personally would escort it back to its mother.
_Wait. Don't move._
The shadow detached itself from the shelter of the hut and moved out into the clearing, toward the fenced-in grave. It squatted there, and Jeremy could see the tremors that shook it. No, shook _her_. Had one of the little ones been a girl? He couldn't remember. There'd been so many children, each to be greeted with a grin and a loop of scarlet ribbon as long as supplies held out, that sometimes he didn't look at them as the individuals they were -- or that they would grow into if they lucked out and lived.
This was a girl, barely four feet tall. Much too small to be out alone. He gathered himself to leap down from the truck and take the child in charge.
_Not yet._
The child's shoulders shook. _Why, she's crying for her father!_ Jeremy's own eyes filled. He blinked frantically, and when his sight cleared, he found that the child had turned around.
_And it was no child._
It had the face of a withered old woman -- with eyes that seemed filled with love and compassion.
_This is crazy! Africa's finally got to me. I must be hallucinating. How can you look at a pair of eyes, especially in that ancient face, and read compassion or anything else into them?_
A cough came from the darkness of the forest, a cough and a rush of paws, followed by a squall of pure rage as the child with the ancient face beat at the predator with a club. Finally Jeremy could make out her attacker: a small, scrawny leopard, made bold by its hunger.
No time for waiting now. Jeremy grabbed for the pistol, aimed as best he could, and fired.
The explosion woke up the village. Jeremy built a huge fire and reconnoitered, pursued by Elizabeth's ironic comments about mighty hunters. A trail of blood and pawprints led back to the bush and vanished there. Upon returning, he insisted on seeing all the children and counting them, and trying fruitlessly to determine which of them had been the one that had beaten off the leopard.
Gradually, the infants stopped screaming. The sick woman in the hut stopped moaning for "Bibi". She even consented to drink some broth and put on a T-shirt that had been donated by Elizabeth.
Finally the village quieted down and went back to sleep. After a long, long while, so did Jeremy. If anyone ventured outside, he didn't hear it -- or anything else.
In the morning, he found that the truck's radio and spark plugs were missing.
"Why would anyone take them?" he asked Elizabeth. "It's not as if this was telephone wire or something they could use for ornaments. The radio's no good to anyone without a power source, and the plugs are totally useless -- unless someone thought they'd look cute stuck through his ears." He paused. "If they don't turn up, we're in deep shit: no transportation and no way of calling for help."
"All we can do is ask," replied Elizabeth wearily.
She walked over to the old woman's hut and entered it.
"Good morning," she said with a smile as the old woman looked up from the daughter-in-law she had been tending.
_"Jambo, Memsaab,"_ responded the woman.
"That is a very formal greeting. I would much rather you called me Elizabeth."
"But _you_ are always formal, and don't call me by _my_ name," the old woman pointed out.
"I apologize, Maroka," said Elizabeth. "I did not mean to offend."
"I am sure you did not." Maroka reached out and touched Elizabeth's arm gently. "You are a good person, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth finally looked down at the younger woman -- and almost did a double-take. Her eyes were alert and animated, and she was no longer covered with sweat. Elizabeth reached out a hand, feeling for signs of the fever, and finding none.
"Has she eaten?"
"Yes, Elizabeth," answered Maroka. "She has had _posho_ and milk. She asked for _pombe_, but I decided she should not have any until tomorrow."
Elizabeth examined the young woman for another few minutes, then straightened up. "It's amazing," she said at last. "My medicine has never been able to do this before."
"Your medicine did not save her," said Maroka. "It was Bibi's magic."
"Bibi came here last night?" asked Elizabeth.