Muezzinland by Stephen Palmer Page A

crew, genetic outcasts from an earlier decade, doubtless created by some commercial country upstream—Togo-IBM perhaps, a tiny land indicated with a smiley double helix on Msavitar's maps. They pulled hooked poles from the riverboat's bollards and attacked the suckered tentacles, slashing and stamping, blue blood everywhere, until the crew sank below the waters and began wrapping themselves around the rudder. Clearly they were hungry. Afraid, Captain Nfor decided to risk a laser shot. He leaned over the boat and aimed a low power beam into the riverboat's wake, thumbing up the intensity until the water steamed, then boiled. The octopus crew floated away on a tide of blue bubbles and twitching limbs, their bloodshot eyes protruding above the water to send baleful glares.
    But this battle was merely a prelude to a struggle far more unpleasant.
    Late afternoon of the eighth day found them twenty kilometres from Wiaga, bearing east towards Bolgatanga Bridge, which, according to Captain Nfor, they would make the following evening. Msavitar seemed jumpy. Nshalla banished Gmoulaye to her musician friends and tried to talk to him, but he rejected her advances.
    Minutes later, one of the passengers challenged him.
    It was too obvious an act to be mistaken, despite the fact that the challenge was spoken in an unknown language. Everybody scattered. Nshalla ran to Captain Nfor, who followed her to the stern of the boat, where Msavitar and his enemy stood sizing one another up.
    "Get first aid!" Nshalla demanded. "Get your crew."
    "Wait!" Captain Nfor replied in a gruff tone. "Do you not see the haze around their bodies?"
    Nshalla looked. The pair did seem misted. "Well?"
    "This will be no fight of fists and knives. Obviously both are illusionists. This will be a battle of the aether—"
    "But…"
    "—as should have been clear to you."
    Nshalla stood firm. "Don't talk to me like that," she said.
    "Ghana is a long way away," came the nonchalant reply.
    Nshalla spluttered, but the commencement of the battle pulled her attention away from the captain.
    Msavitar attacked first. Nshalla blinked and missed it. He had adopted a warrior guise; skin painted red and black, face caked in white mud, hair piled up into a tower. He glared at his enemy, who took a step back as if shocked.
    "They will probe one another for psychological weak spots," Captain Nfor whispered. He bent over like a reed to reach Nshalla's ear, sucking at his fat toke. "I have seen such duels before. The loser will not be able to stand the victor's image, and will like as not jump over the side of the boat to become octopus supper."
    Nshalla said nothing. Msavitar's opponent was preparing his onslaught, eyes  closed, lips compressed, nostrils flared. Suddenly he was a fat man, monstrously fat, hair tied back with strings, a leather clout around his hips. Nshalla recognised him from schoolbook memories as a wrestler from the old Nippon Empire; a sumo. She gasped as Msavitar quailed, his warrior image departed.
    "The enemy is clever," Captain Nfor whispered. "He is using a cultural attack. That means he must know Msavitar personally. Cultural attack is the most subtle of tortures."
    "Why a sumo?"
    "Nippon is one of the powerhouses of Pacific Rim culture. The Nipponese despise Aphricans because they believe we have achieved nothing. The enemy is using Msavitar's knowledge against him."
    Nshalla awaited Msavitar's response. It came quickly. Instantaneously he changed into a dapper oriental, half moon spectacles gleaming, hair slicked black, wearing a costume of khaki and Docmarten boots. Nshalla recognised him, but…
    "Marvellous!" hissed Captain Nfor.
    "Who is it?"
    "Why, Yang Fu Yuen, of course. The scourge of the civilised world with his nuclear weapon stockpile."
    Nshalla understood. Yang Fu Yuen was the last of the little dictators to refuse the persuasions of the Aetherium. A century earlier his grandfather had overthrown Communist rule. This would strike deep into the