The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [195]
Something turned over in my gut, the same heavy lust I experienced when looking at the long-dead magazine models.
Danny said, "Do you speak English, French?"
"I speak English," the woman said in an accent I couldn't place. She looked middle-eastern to my inexperienced eye.
Her henchmen were a feeble mob. They looked starved, emaciated, and a couple were scabbed with ugly melanomas which covered their faces like masks.
"We're from the north," Danny said.
"Old Egypt." The woman inclined her head. "My name is Samara."
"I'm Danny. This is Pierre."
I glanced at the hovercraft. I saw the barrel of a rifle directed at us from an open vent. I nudged Danny, who nodded minimally and said under his breath, "I've seen it."
The woman said, "Do you trade?"
"That depends what you want."
Samara inclined her head again. "Do you have water?"
Beside me, Danny seemed to relax. We were in a position of power in this stand-off. He said, "What do you have to trade?"
The women licked her lips. I found the gesture sensuous. I gazed at her shape, the curve of her torso from breast to hip.
She said, "Solar arrays."
I sensed Danny's interest. "In good working order?"
"Of course. You can check them before the trade."
"How many are you talking about?"
She pointed to a panel which overhung the flank of her craft. "Four, like that."
Danny calculated. "I can give you ... four litres of water in return."
"Ten," she said.
"Six," Danny said with admirable force, "or no deal."
I stared at the woman. She needed water more than we needed the arrays. I saw her look me up and down, and I felt suddenly, oddly, vulnerable.
She nodded, then spoke rapidly to one of her guards in a language I didn't recognize. Two of her men returned to their craft, the weight of the sun-shade taken up by the two who remained.
I was reminded, by her regal stance beneath the shade and her henchmen's quick attention to duty, of an illustration I had seen in a magazine of an Ancient Egyptian Queen.
Her big, dark eyes regarded me again. She smiled. I found myself looking away, flushing.
Her men returned, hauling the solar arrays. They lay them on the sand and backed off. Samara gestured, and Danny stepped forward to examine the arrays while I covered him.
Minutes later he looked back at me and nodded.
"They look okay," he told the woman. "We'll take them."
"I'll have them placed between our vehicles," she said. "If you bring out the water, we will meet halfway."
Danny nodded. He stood and rejoined me. To Samara he said, "What have you been doing for water?"
She paused before replying. "There is a settlement with a rig about 200 kilometres east of here, along the old coast. They have a deep bore. We trade with them every so often. You?"
Danny said, "We trade with a colony up in old Spain."
The woman nodded, and I wondered if she'd seen through the lie. She said, "And how many of you live in the truck?"
"Five," he said. He nodded at the hovercraft. "And you?"
"Just six," she said.
Danny said, "We'll fetch the water."
We turned our backs on the woman and her men and began the slow walk back to the truck. I felt uneasy, presenting such an easy target like that, but I knew I was being irrational. They wanted water, after all; they would gain nothing by shooting us now.
"You hear that?" Danny said. "A mob has a deep bore, east of here. So there is water."
He unlocked the hatch on the side of the truck where we stored the water. We hauled out two plastic canisters and carried them back to where the woman's lackeys had placed the arrays. She stood over the shimmering rectangles, watching us as we placed the canisters on the ground.
She snapped something to one of the men, who opened the canister and tipped a teaspoonful of water into his