Burton groaned. “So the loathsome treatment of this continent now extends even to its flora and fauna? I swear to you, I wish a plague would wipe mankind from the face of this world! How despicable we are!”
The smaller man shrugged. “I don't think a plague is required—we're doing a pretty good job of it ourselves. You know, there was a time in my life when I fancied that we could all work together as equals for the good of the species, when I thought that our true nationality was Mankind. Now I recognise that I vastly overestimated the human race. We disguise imperialism as the spread of higher civilisation, but it's blatantly animalistic in its nature. We are no better than carnivores or carrion eaters. Having beast-men fighting this dreadful war is wholly appropriate.”
He took a canteen from his belt and drank from it.
Burton said, “I remember you saying that Palmerston was responsible.”
“Yes.”
“And now you say the imperialistic drive is an animal impulse. Yet I can think of no one more divorced from nature than Palmerston!”
“Pah!” Wells snorted. He handed the canteen to Burton. “Did it never strike you that in his efforts to conquer the natural in himself, he was merely signposting the trait of his that he felt most vulnerable to? All those Eugenics treatments he paid for, Richard—they were the mark of the Beast!”
“Humph! I suppose.”
“And where was nature better symbolised in your age than in Africa? No wonder this continent fell victim to his paranoia!”
Burton shook his head despairingly. “I don't know how you can endure it.”
“Somehow, I still have hope,” Wells answered, “or I could not live.”
Burton took a gulp from the canteen. He coughed and spluttered as brandy burned its way down his throat.
“I was expecting water!” he croaked.
Wells watched two dragonflies flitting back and forth over the flowers. “It's ironic,” he said softly.
“What is?”
“That I'm fighting the Germans.”
“Really?”
“Yes, for in some respects, since he seized power, Nietzsche has expanded upon the beliefs I held as a younger man, and I feel strongly drawn to his philosophy.” Wells looked at Burton. “You were right, by the way: Nietzsche did seize power in 1914 and Rasputin did die. According to our Intelligence agents, he suffered a brain haemorrhage. It happened in St. Petersburg, so your claim that you were responsible doesn't hold up—unless, that is, you possess extraordinary mediumistic powers, in which case I should deliver you to Colonel Crowley at the soonest possible moment.”
Burton shook his head. “I have no such abilities, Bertie. So what is Nietzsche's philosophy?”
Wells sighed and was silent for a moment. Then he said: “He proposes an entirely new strain of human being. One that transcends the bestial urges.”
A memory squirmed uncomfortably at the back of Burton's mind. He reached out, picked a flower from the mound, and held it in front of his face, examining its petals. They did nothing to aid his powers of recollection.
“The Greek Hyperanthropos?” he asked.
“Similar. The term he uses is Übermensch. A man free from the artificial limitations of moral codes.” Wells snorted contemptuously. “Moral codes! Ha! As much as we invoke God with our exclamations and curses, we all know that he's dead. Your Darwin killed him outright, and the concept of supernaturally defined morals should have died with the deity!”
Burton held up an objecting hand and blew out a breath. “Please!” he exclaimed. “He was never my Darwin!”
“He was a man of your time. Anyway, without a God to impose ideas of right and wrong, mankind is left with a moral vacuum to fill. Nietzsche's Übermensch populates it according to an inner inclination that is entirely divorced from social, cultural, or religious influences. What blossoms within him is therefore utterly authentic. Such an individual will, according to Nietzsche, transcend his animal instincts. Furthermore, from amid all these singular standards of behaviour, certain common values will emerge, and they will be so completely in tune with the zeitgeist that human evolution will accelerate. God left a vacancy. We shall fill it.”
Burton considered this for a moment, then said, “If I understand you correctly, the implication is that the zeitgeist, time itself, has some sort of beneficial purpose.”
“Yes. Nietzsche posits that, through living as we do, we have impeded our proper relationship with time. We misunderstand it. We see only one aspect of it and we allow that to dominate us. It keeps us bound to the natural world. Only by becoming an Übermensch can an individual grow beyond it.”
The sky suddenly grew darker. The sun was beginning to set.
Wells said, “You don't happen to be an Übermensch, I suppose? You have, after all, somehow managed to defy the normal limitations of time.”
Burton gave a wry smile. “I very much doubt that I'm anything Nietzsche might aspire to.”
He reached among the flowers and brushed idly at a flat moss-covered stone. “Beresford. That's who I've been trying to remember. Henry—um—Henry de La Poer Beresford. Yes! The Mad Marquess! Bismillah! Bertie! This Übermensch business is remarkably similar to something the creator of the Libertine and Rake movements came up with. He was obsessed with the idea of what he termed the trans-natural man, and he was inspired in that by—by—bloody hell!”
“What is it?” Wells asked, puzzled.
“By Spring Heeled Jack!”
“By folklore?”
“By Edward Oxford!”
“Are you referring to the man who assassinated Queen Victoria?”
“Yes—and no.”
“You're not making any sense, Richard!”
“I'm—I'm trying to remember!”
Burton scrubbed furiously at the stone, as if cleaning it of moss might also clear his foggy memory.
“The Libertines,” Wells said. “I believe they opposed the Technologists for a period but pretty much died out during the 1870s or 80s.”
Burton didn't answer. He was leaning forward and frowning. Wells looked at him curiously then moved to his side. He reached out, pushed flowers out of the way, and, in the dwindling light, peered at the flat stone.
“Are those letters on it?” he asked.
“Yes,” Burton murmured. “There's some sort of inscription.”
Wells reached into his pocket and pulled out a dagger. “Here, use this.”
Burton took it and used the blade to scrape the moss away. Words were revealed. They read:
Thomas Manfred Honesty
1816-1863
Lost His Life While
Liberating the Enslaved.
R.I.P.
On the morning the expedition departed Nzasa, having stayed there for a single night, Sir Richard Francis Burton sent Pox to Isabel to report his position. When the parakeet returned, it squawked: “Message from Isabel Arundell. We are still harassing the stinky-mouthed enemy. I have so far lost eighteen of my women to them. They are preparing a moronic party to follow you. We will try to hold them back. Grubby pants. Message ends.”
With the threat of pursuit, Burton tried to establish a greater sense of urgency among his porters, but already his safari was assailed by problems. Upon packing to leave the village, it was discovered that two boxes of equipment were missing and three of the Wasawahili had deserted; one of the mules appeared to be dying; and water had found its way into three sacks of flour, rendering them unusable.
The explorer, who from previous experience had resigned himself to such misfortunes, put a bullet through the mule's head, discarded the flour, redistributed the loads, and got his people moving.