The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [22]
“I’ve been thinking,” said Lara. “Why should they stop for us? After all, you’ve already paid the captain for our passage all the way to the Sudan.”
“I paid him half,” replied Mason. “He gets the other half when we reach our destination.” He shot her a disarming smile. “I may not know hugger-mugger, but I know how to bargain in the Third World!”
The Amenhotep slowed down as it approached them, and the captain leaned over the side.
“I thought you were still on the boat,” he said.
“My wife was waiting for me at Aswan,” lied Mason smoothly. “I decided it was best to avoid her.”
The captain uttered a knowing chuckle. “Just a moment, and we’ll lower a rope ladder for you.” A crew member came up and whispered something to him, and he leaned over the side again. “I have just been informed that one of our lifeboats is missing. Would you happen to know anything about it?”
“You don’t need it,” said Lara. “Ever since they built the High Dam, the Nile’s only five or six feet deep in most places. If your ship springs a leak or capsizes, the passengers can walk to shore.”
“That isn’t the point,” said the captain. “It is ours, and we want it back.”
“I don’t have it any longer,” said Mason. “How would you like to have this boat as a replacement?”
The captain’s eyes narrowed greedily as he computed how much he could sell it for. “Is the motor included?”
“Certainly,” said Mason. “What would I do with a motor and no boat?”
“It’s a deal,” said the captain. He turned to the crewman. “Lower the ladder.”
A minute later Lara and Mason were on deck, and a minute after that the Amenhotep was once again heading upstream, towing the motorboat behind it.
“Four o’clock,” announced Mason, looking at his watch when the two of them were alone again. “It’s been a long night. I think I’m going to bed.”
“I slept before we went to Elephantine Island,” replied Lara. “I’m going to stay on deck for an hour or two. I hate that little cabin. It smells bad and makes me feel claustrophobic.”
“Claustrophobic?” queried Mason in disbelief. “Lara Croft, who’s wiggled her way into places even smaller . . . and smellier, for that matter?”
Lara grimaced. “The last place I wiggled my way into, as you put it, collapsed on top of me and nearly killed me. I guess I haven’t gotten over it yet.”
“Give yourself some time,” said Mason, walking off. “It’s only been a few days. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Lara walked to the area at the stern that housed the three wooden chairs. She pulled one of them to within a foot of the railing, and adjusted another just in front of it. Finally she sat down, leaned back until the chair was balancing against the railing on two of its four legs, and used the other chair as a footstool.
The clouds had vanished, and she stared up at the stars, trying to assimilate everything that she’d undergone since being trapped in the tomb. Most of it still seemed like a dream to her: the unleashing of the evil deity Set, his efforts to plunge the world into total darkness, the battle, even her eventual triumph. The only thing that seemed truly real to her was being trapped, barely able to breathe or move, in the rubble of the tomb.
Finally, refusing to let the memory of her ordeal master her, she began making plans. The logical place to start looking for the Amulet was Khartoum. It had been Gordon’s home for the last year of his life. If he or one of his men actually stole the Amulet from the Mahdi, it made sense that it was brought back to Khartoum. After all, that was the only city under Gordon’s control, the only place that was safe, even temporarily, from the Mahdi’s forces.
But most of the Mahdi’s men were Sudanese. Why hadn’t they just walked in, posing as citizens of Khartoum, and kept an eye on him once they knew the Amulet was gone—and they had to know it after Gordon defeated the Mahdi at Omdurman.
You’re not thinking clearly, Lara, she told herself. Gordon or his men stole it before Omdurman or he wouldn’t have defeated the Mahdi there, and it made sense that possibly excepting the Mahdi, no one knew it until the