Chapter 1: I Presume?

The woman rode her horse along the riverbank.

She was tall and lean, her hair graying-blonde, worn in a single long ponytail at back under her Stetson.  Muscles like whipcords worked under her khaki shirt, her jeans tucked into her high riding boots.  Holstered to her harness was a scoped bolt action carbine; two pistols in smaller holsters at her hips, a hunting knife sheathed at her belt.  Level blue eyes surveyed her surroundings, taking in the African rainforest.

She rode like she was born to the saddle.  She barely had to use the reins, controlling her horse with subtle motions of her thighs, with occasional low sounds.  She and her horse – a big chestnut mare – moved like a single centauroid creature.

The mare saw something on the bank.  Its ears flickered, went back, its motion changed.  Instantly the woman was aware of it, guided the mare away, leaning and making calming sounds.  The mare sidestepped, and the great crocodile watching from the water moved forward slightly, then subsided in frustration.  The woman’s right hand, which had gone to one of her pistols, relaxed and rebuttoned the flap.

“Not much further, Breeze,” she woman said soothingly, “then we’ll be at her camp, out of this Godforsaken jungle and safe from the crocs and whatever else is out here.”  It was as much for her own benefit as that of the horse.  She’d been in some pretty strange places in her life, but she never liked a close forest which permitted a stealthy ambush.

The forest opened up ahead.  She and the horse both felt freer as the sunlight shone directly down on them.  A cooling breeze blew, welcome to her sweating face after the forest’s humid confines, though it was still hot even by the standards of the American Southwest in which she had spent her childhood.

She knew it would get cooler when the sun set, but the last thing she wanted was to spend the night out on the African savannah, which she knew to be haunted by lions, hyenas and other predators.  They were far from civilization, and there were too many creatures who might imagine Breeze their dinner.  She knew the horse was just a horse, ordinary Equus equus, but that didn’t mean that she thought of her as any less of a friend.  Horses, of one kind or another, had been among the best friends she had ever known.

There, on that rise!  A low mound rose over the military crest, parked slightly hull-down.  She approved of the positioning:  she had never formally served in any military, but had been in over a hundred desperate fights all over this world – and some other places – and understood why the good Doctor had chosen to site her vehicle in such a location.  Maybe she can help me, she let herself think.  Heck, she might even believe the real story.

But no.  That was far too much for which to hope.  Simple assistance – a clue – would be more than enough to reward herself for her troubles in traveling this far off the beaten path.  And she wouldn’t help matters by revealing too much, by being taken for a madwoman.  Though I’ve heard some mighty strange things about her, too, she reflected.  Some of the things they say about her are even stranger than what they say about me.

As she rode up the hill she could see more and more of the vehicle.  It was the size of a large double-decker bus, but wider and squatter.  Its sides were painted in tawny yellow-brown and black dazzle camoflague, and atop and forward was a structure which seemed suspiciously like a weapons turret, though no armament actually showed.  Atop that was a cluster of communications antennae, and what looked like a phased-array radar.

Wow, she thought.  That looks more – well, military – than I expected.  The thought cheered her.  This was a barbaric and dangerous territory, and she’d too often had to deal with well-meaning fellow-scientists who were still mentally living in multi-cultural fantasy lands, even after they’d spent years in Third World hellholes.  She obviously ain’t one of those fools.

She was almost up the hill now.  She could see the vehicle’s suspension – twelve balloon-tired roadwheels, in large wheel-wells.  The bottom of the chassis was high off the ground.  All-terrain with a vengeance, she realized.  She means business.  This sweet truck can fight or run, over almost any ground.  Wonder how often she finds it necessary?

One hatch was open on the side.

Standing in the doorway was the woman she had come all this way to see.  She was young, somewhere in her twenties, and of average height, with frizzy orange-red hair and rimless glasses.  Her face looked highly intelligentl, but her eyes were hard, and under her shirt and shorts rippled unusually-powerful looking muscles, as if she were a body-builder.  No, the rider corrected herself, observing the long smoothness of her lines.  Nothing muscle-bound about her.  She's an athlete, and a very dedicated one.  Stronger’n me, and I ain’t exactly some fragile flower.

Above, the rider saw the muzzle of a rifle poking out from a second-story gunport, pointing right at her head.  Huh, she thought.  I thought she worked alone.  I sure hope that’s a friend of hers.

There was little she could do about this now.  The sniper had the drop on her, and all the ways she could think of to dodge or slip under that rifle’s field of fire would have the distinct disadvantage that an alert sniper could put at least one slug into her before she would have time to get to safety.  Less’n I drop behind Breeze, she thought, and knew as she thought this that she could never use her mare so cruelly.

I’ve been in worse pickles, and I’m still kicking, she told herself.  Might as well just go forward.

She rode right up to the woman, alighted nimbly from her horse, keeping her hands well clear of her holsters.

“Dr. Elizabeth Thornberry, Ah presume?” she asked pleasantly.  “Ah’m Dr. Anderson.  Megan Anderson.”