“Yes.”
The generalmajor snapped an order and the man sitting in front of Burton lifted a hamper onto his lap, opened it, and started to pass back packets of sliced meat, a loaf of bread, fruit, and other comestibles. With a shock, Burton noticed that the soldier's face was covered with short bristly fur and that his jaws extended forward into a blunt muzzle. His mouth was stretched into a permanent and nasty smile. A hyena.
They sped out of the hills onto a wide expanse of flatland broken only by a long ridge that ran along to the north of them.
The sun was high in the sky. The scenery around them jiggled in and out of focus as if struggling to maintain its reality.
“How will the L.59 Zeppelindestroy Tabora?” Burton asked.
Lettow-Vorbeck gave a peal of laughter and slapped his thigh. “Hah! I was wondering how long it would take before you asked me that!”
“I assumed you'd inform me that it's top secret.”
“So warum bitten Sie jetzt?”
“Why do I ask now? Because this journey is interminable, Generalmajor, and I'm bored. Besides, it occurs to me that since I'm your prisoner, and I don't even know where Tabora is, and the attack is imminent, there can be little harm in you telling me.”
“Ja, das ist zutreffend.Very well. In forty-eight hours, the L.59 Zeppelinwill drop an A-Bomb on the city.”
“And what is that?”
“You are aware of the A-Spores, ja?”
“An obscene weapon.”
“Quite so. Quite so. But very effective. The bomb will deliver, from a very high altitude, a concentrated dose of the spores to the entire city. The Destroying Angel mushroom is among the most toxic species of fungus in the world, Herr Burton. Its spores kill instantly when they are breathed, but they are easily resisted with a gas mask. Not so the ones in the bomb, for they have been specially bred to such microscopic size that they will penetrate the pores of a person's skin. No one will escape.”
“Barbaric!”
“Hardly so. It is a very sophisticated weapon.”
“And still you claim the Greater German Empire is a superior civilisation?”
“It is you British who have driven us to such extremes.”
“I hardly think that-”
The plant suddenly lurched to the left and the driver screamed: “Gott im Himmel! Was ist das? Was ist das?”
Burton looked to the right. The most incredible machine he'd ever seen was mounting the ridge. It was completely spherical, a gigantic metal ball about two hundred feet in diameter and painted a dark jungle green. A wide studded track was spinning at high speed vertically around it, providing the motive force. Burton guessed that the same gyroscopic technology that kept penny-farthings upright in his time was here employed to prevent the sphere from rolling to its left or right.
Four long multi-jointed arms extended from the sides of it. The upper pair ended in lobster-like claws, the lower in spinning circular saw blades. These were obviously used to tear through whatever vegetation couldn't be simply rolled over.
Three rows of portholes and cannon ports ran horizontally around the orb, and four curved chimneys pumped steam into the air from just below its apex.
A puff of smoke erupted from its hull. A loud bang followed, and another, even louder, as an explosion threw up the earth ahead of the German transport.
“Warning shot!” Burton shouted. “You have to stop! You'll never outrun it!”
“Halt! Halt!” Lettow-Vorbeck yelled.
The plant jerked to a standstill. The generalmajor stood, drew his pistol, pushed the barrel into the side of Burton's head, and waited as the sphere drew closer.
“I am sorry, Herr Burton, I will kill you rather than allow you back into British hands, but let us first see what they have to say.”
There was a hard thud.
Lettow-Vorbeck looked down at the hole that had just appeared in the middle of his chest and muttered, “Himmelherrgott!Just that?”
He collapsed backward out of the plant.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
One after the other, in quick succession, the Schutztruppenslumped in their seats.
The rolling sphere drew to a stop, casting its shadow over the German vehicle. Burton watched as a thin wedge opened from it, angling down to form a sloping platform with a door at the top. There was a figure framed in the portal.
“Don't just sit there, you chump!” Bertie Wells called. “Come aboard!”
It was named the SS Britannia, and was captained by General Aitken himself-the director of all British military operations in East Africa-whom Burton remembered from the bombing of Dar es Salaam back in 1914.
“It's good to see you again, Bertie!” the famous explorer enthused as Wells and three British Tommies led him through the ship toward the bridge. “What happened to you? And how did you end up aboard this behemoth?”
“Adventures and perils too numerous to recount happened to me, Richard, but eventually I made my way to Tabora like everyone else. Practically every free Britisher in Africa-perhaps in the entire world-is there now.”
“Bismillah!” Burton swore, grabbing at his friend's arm. “Praise to Allah that you rescued me now and not two minutes earlier!”
“What do you mean?”
“First, answer me this: how were my captors shot with that kind of precision at such a distance? I've never seen anything like it!”
“Marksmen with the new Lee-Enfield sniper rifles. A remarkable weapon-the most accurate long-range rifle ever manufactured.”
“And these marksmen, would they have recognised the men they were shooting?”
“As Germans? Of course! The uniform is unmistakable.”
They passed through a room lined with gun racks then rounded a corner into a corridor along which many men were moving.
“You should have examined the bodies, Bertie, instead of just leaving them there.”
“Why so?”
“Because one of them was Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck.”
Wells stumbled to a halt, his mouth hanging open, eyes wide. His three companions stopped, too, but instinctively retreated a few paces, displaying a typically British sensitivity to Wells and Burton's need for a moment of privacy. Nevertheless, having heard the pronouncement, they gaped.
“Wha-what?” Wells stuttered, then his voice rose to a squeaclass="underline" “We just killed Lettow-Vorbeck? We killed him? Are you sure?”
“He was holding a pistol to my head when he took a bullet through the heart.”
Wells smacked a fist into his palm and let loose a whoop of triumph. “Bloody hell! This could change everything!”
“No, Bertie, it's too late.”
“Too late? What do you mean, it's too late?”
Very quietly, Burton said: “In forty-eight hours, a German flying ship is going to drop a bomb on Tabora.”
“That's nothing new. The plants fly over, we shoot 'em down.”
“This one will be at a high altitude, and it's carrying an A-Bomb.”
“A what?”
In a whisper, Burton explained, and as he did so, his friend's burn-scarred and sun-browned face turned white. Wells looked to the right and left, gestured to the three guards, indicating that they should wait, then pulled Burton back along the passage and into the gun room. He spoke quietly and urgently: “We have to tell Aitken, but don't give away too much about yourself. Keep your true identity under wraps, for starters. The situation is complicated, and there's no time to fill you in right now. Suffice to say, your impossible presence in Africa has been detected. Colonel Crowley himself sent us to rescue you-”
“Your so-called wizard of wizards?”
“Yes. Apparently he's been aware of an anomaly on the continent since 1914 and has been trying to identify it ever since. He finally traced it to the Ugogi Stalag, then homed in on you as you were being transported. He sent the Britanniato intercept the vehicle and retrieve you.”