Wednesday 23/3/2061, Location: 40.24407, 49.52073 Time 10:13

Ten minutes passed, Kai continuing to stare off into the distance as he pondered on the team and what they were going to do, before Aswon called him on the team chat.

"It's all clear up here. Nothing moving until you hit the coastline."

"That's good."

"So – we need fuel. We're almost out, I believe. So we've got to hit the airport next, regardless."

"Ja, that is correct. The airport, or back to the ranch."

"I'm still not keen on going back to the ranch. But either way, we can't really move until Nadia's recovered enough to be safe to drive, right?"

"Yes. I think she needs several hours sleep before we can even attempt to wake her. But once she has recovered, she should be able to head back to the ranch with Junior."

"How risky do you think that is, Aswon? Seriously – not being funny now. If Saeder-Krupp were following us, wouldn't they have hit us by now. And if they're watching us, they'll see Nadia splitting off from us to go back to the ranch, so they know where we're based. So what's the risk?"

"That is true. If they were pursuing us with a satellite or high-altitude recon asset, they could easily trace Nadia back to the ranch. Unless she goes to ground for a few days, but that would be tricky with the baby as well. You may be right – certainly by the time Nadia is recovered enough to drive, if we've not been hit, we probably won't be…"

"So assuming we can stay covert up here, it's probably not going to be a problem. And I can't see tourists coming up here in the middle of summer, let alone this early in the year. Just a big rock with mud…" Hunter's voice made it clear exactly what he thought about this 'tourist attraction'.

"Well, I guess the only thing we really have to worry about is kids coming up here for a smoke or to do something else dodgy – and we can intimidate them into being quiet, I'm sure. Or there's always the option to wipe their memory of what they saw…"

"Not if I've gone to pass on a message to your tribe, there isn't. And if I haven't gone, I'm still not entirely comfortable just stealing thoughts from random people that have done us no harm."

"I suppose not – it is a bit like assaulting them." Aswon admitted. It fell quiet again for a few minutes while the team got on with their various tasks or just sat and relaxed. "Are you happy to go speak with my tribe? To tell them we're coming?"

"Of course. Though I'm going to need some directions. One thing I learnt walking from home to Azerbaijan is how big and varied the world is. I'm going to need something to go on!"

"I'll come down then. There's still nothing moving out here, and I can't see that changing any time soon. "

Aswon headed to the tilt-wing and sat with Tads, coaching her on the environment of his tribal lands, and working with Hunter to identify some geographical features on the way that would show up in astral space. He also managed to teach her how to phonetically say 'do you speak English' in his own dialect.

"So this will work all over Nigeria?" she asked, then gave him an odd look as Aswon gave a rare belly laugh.

"Oh no. Not even remotely close. Our land has hundreds of languages still in use, some only by a handful of villages or a tribe. But most people know English as well, so if in doubt, always fall back on that."

"Really? That's a lot of languages. I mean, your country isn't small, but even so…"

"We have a proud culture and heritage, and long memories. The Igbo tribe has tales spanning thousands of years, passed down from generation to generation. Much like your own people, I suspect."

"I suppose so. Right, I think I'm ready to go – if you can keep an eye on things here?" She made herself comfortable, squirming down into a nest of blankets, and the last thing she saw as she closed her mundane eyes was Aswon grasping his spear and moving to sit next to her and watch over her body – and the first thing she saw with her astral vision was the pure and brilliant form of his aura and a sense of watchfulness. She turned and sped south west, her astral form rising to twenty kilometres in a few heartbeats and speeding south over southern part of the Trans-Caucus League before crossing into Iran. Below her the ground changed from fertile land to scrub, then to desert, greens giving way to browns, then browns to ochres and reds – though to her astral sight the world remained the brilliant range of monochrome, with life being shown in brilliant whites and the all too depressingly common pollution and ecological damage in greys and blacks.

She continued onwards until she encountered the Red Sea, then turned sharply south to run down the coastline of the Arabian Caliphate all the way to the narrows that led to the Gulf of Aden, before stopping for a moment to look around her. A quick glance around and she orientated herself due west, then accelerated again, seeing the blur of the landscape below, slowly increasing in brightness. In the physical world, the ground changed from desert to scrub and back to forest within a short time frame, as she crossed Ethiopia, Sudan and Chad, trying to keep her bearings and following the lines of mountains and ranges of hills, escarpments and looking for the couple of large lakes Aswon had told her about.

She found the Amadu Nura Musa lake, a thirty-kilometre-long mass of water amidst the savannah and slowed, orientating herself once more. Aswon had indicated that this was fairly close to his home, only a few days of walking away. Stopping more frequently now to check for landmarks she closed in on the Kwiambana Game Reserve, finding the section of slightly raised upland, bordered by rocky outcroppings – and eventually the village that Aswon called home. She manifested, her body becoming visible as a translucent and ethereal form, visible to meta-humans and critters alike, and able to see and hear on the physical realm. The first person she saw was a woman scrubbing at some clothing in a tub, and when she called out she gave her a visible start. But once Tads used the phrase Aswon had taught her, and she responded that yes, she knew English, as soon as she asked to speak to the village shaman, the woman relaxed at once. Tads didn't know if this was a common occurrence or if it just fitted into her world view, but the washer-woman seemed to not be bothered by her presence once she knew she was here to speak to the tribal elders about magical things.

She was pointed to the central square of the village, a clear area between a bunch of the ramshackle and rough dwellings that seemed to be the norm here. Roughly formed mud walls and thin thatched rooves were interspersed with the occasional block house, while a few had sheets of tin covering their tops. Waiting in the central area, though, was the shaman – clearly identifiable with his shamanic accoutrements if not from the subtle level of power shining from his aura. Tads stopped a few metres in front of him and raised both her hands in front of her, palms towards him and fingers extended. It wasn't quite a universal greeting, but it showed both as a wave of greeting and that her hands were empty of weapons – not that with the return of magic that means quite as much as it once had…

The shaman didn't seem at all surprised to see her though, and nodded in welcome, then beckoned her to come closer. All around the village people stopped what they were doing to watch, a few drifting a little closer to listen in, but none coming so close as to form a crowd.

"Hello, I am Tadibya. I am a friend of Aswon."

"I am Urwan, speaker of truths. Be welcome, friend of Aswon."

"Aswon has received a message, and says that he needs to return here. But he asked me to come ahead and find out what the situation is, and to find out what we need to come for."

"Aswon needs to come home. The spirits are restless, afraid, and we need a Hunter of great renown. The spirits tell us that Aswon has spent much time in the world, and has grown strong, and we have need of his strength – his and his friends. The omens say he will return riding a mighty winged bird, belching fire to our fires, bringing other mighty hunters with him." The shaman spoke in strongly-accented English, speaking somewhat rapidly and was very animated – his arms waved around with every word, and Tads could see why the other people gathered with him were sitting more than an arm's length away – he didn't seem to pay much attention to where his arms were going, trusting other people not to be in his way!

"Well, I don't know about powerful Hunters, but we are his friends and team-mates. He has helped and protected us in our troubles, so we will do the same for him. But the journey from where we are currently is long, and we have to plan carefully to reach here. So because I can travel like this, Aswon asked me to come ahead."

"It is well." The way the shaman spoke it sounded more like a pronouncement than an empty phrase, as if he had considered their plan and determined it to be acceptable somehow. "How many warriors does Aswon bring home to us? We must carve them masks to prepare."

"Um? Aswon and five more." She wondered briefly if one of the offhand comments made about bringing Nadia and the baby with them, to keep them both in sight and in the ward was worth seriously considering, then dismissed it. "So six of us in total."

"We will make preparations then."

"Is there any message you want taking back to Aswon? Anything you can tell him about the situation?"

"No, he will learn all he needs when he returns. The spirits will guide him, as they guide us." The shaman sounded certain again, and Tads wondered if he was a follower of some kind of sortilege tradition, or used some other method of divination – or was just used to speaking with surety and confidence. Perhaps it was a little of both…

"Then I will return to Aswon and let him know that you await his return. It is a long way, so I don't know how long it will take us, but Aswon is coming as quickly as he can."

"Go with the gods, may they protect your steps and guide your spear."

Tads nodded respectfully to him and gave a briefer nod in general to the people on either side of the village elder, then turned to walk out of the village the way she had come. She could have just faded away, de-manifesting and sending her astral form rocketing skywards, but somehow it didn't feel 'right', so she waited until she was out of sight of the people in the village before she returned to the astral realm and headed home – throwing in a couple of sudden turns and dog-leg course changes as much out of habit as from any fear or sign of active pursuit.

On her return, she 'awoke' and saw Aswon gazing down at her, checking it was really her back in her body.

"It's me. I found the village and chatted with Urwan. He's not got a message specifically for you…look, do you want a quick mindlink, and you can see exactly what happened? Might be easier, and you might get some context from it that I didn't." He nodded in agreement, and she cast the spell, directly exchanging her thoughts with him and letting him experience what she had as closely as she could. When it was done, Aswon sat back for a moment, thinking about what had been said, before he keyed up the transmitter.

"The tribe are carving masks for us – that means everyone needs to pick an animal." He stopped, and a thought raced into his mind, waving its metaphorical arms for attention. "So that means, Hunter, you take it seriously and pick an animal that embodies some aspect of your nature. Not just something with an enormous penis, ok. This is serious."

There was a noise that sounded very much like a disappointed sigh over the channel, so he continued. "If they're carving masks for us, then it means we're being welcomed into the tribe to some extent, and going hunting with the blessings of the gods. So think of an African animal, something that you can embody and work on behalf of. Because if we end up in some areas where the barrier between realms is thin, we might be literally taking on their aspects – or forms. So think about it seriously." He released the transmitter and turned back to Tads. "Maybe once everyone has decided, you could return to let them know, if that's not too much trouble?"

"I'd be fine with that – but the impression I got was that the next time they expected to see any of us, they expected to see ALL of us."

"Yeah, me too. I was hoping I was wrong about that. Right, I'll go see how Hunter is getting on with the route planning. While you were away, we had a quick chat and discussed things, and I think we're pretty much going to transfer down there using the Doctor identities, and go in as a medical mission. We've not got much in the way of contacts down there, and we'd have to get details from someone for fuel stops – so that means we're not keeping a terribly low profile." Just as he was getting up, Shimazu's phone rang. A quick check on the screen made his eyes widen slightly and he hit the accept button.

"Hello, Sato. Are you ok?" Aswon paused in his movement, wanting to hear this as well, and both he and Kai twisted around to face Shimazu directly – who hit the speaker function to let everyone in the back hear the conversation.

"I'm ok – are you ok? I just hadn't heard anything from you. But I got word from the employer that the job was done and they were happy…"

"Yes, we just hadn't reached a payphone or anywhere really anonymous yet to call you. We thought there was trouble after the job you see... we're pretty sure we were burnt!"

"Burnt? In what way?"

"Well, after the rocket exploded, we started to head out from there, and while we were in cover we took missile fire. Or rather the place we'd been hiding took missile fire – so it looked to us like someone trying to tie up loose ends."

"Well, I don't know anything about that – but I've been paid my commission, and I've got a credstick here with a nice payout on it for you. I just wasn't sure how to get it to you!"

"Oh. Well, that's good. Confusing – but good. I think on the whole, whoever the employer was, we don't want to work for them anymore, though. They were a little light on the detail."

"Well, it seemed to go fine from their point of view, they were certainly happy with the outcome. Maybe they were just playing their cards close to their chest with the details. So – how do you want to get this cred? Pay it into an account? Courier it somewhere for you to pick up and hope it doesn't get lost?"

"Give me a minute, please, Sato." Shimazu put the call on hold and looked at Kai and then at the others. "So, what do you want to do?"

"I think paying into the corporate account – especially if we're flying down as legitimate flights. We're going to need money for permits and things like that as well as fuel, so we might as well have it come from something tied to the cover." Kai got a nod from Aswon, and then gave Shimazu a firmer nod. "Yeah, go with that. We don't want it getting lost on a courier transfer or in the post…"

"Sorry about that, Sato. Can you pay it into our corporate account please?"

"Sure can – give me ten minutes and I'll get the transfer sorted out. Anything else?"

"Not right now, thanks – just keep safe. Just in case."

Sato hung up, and was true to his word – less than five minutes later Hunter got an alert from the banking app tied to their corporate account showing a deposit had been made. He pulled himself away from the insurance forms and air-worthiness certificates he was having to fill in to file their legit flight plan, logged into the account and gave a low whistle.

"Guys – you know why someone has just dumped three quarters of a million Nuyen into the Doctor front?"

"How much?" Aswon blurted out.

"Yeah, that's from Sato. Pay from the job – it seems he doesn't know anything about a double-cross, or anything like that, and he got paid fine."

"We'll have to be very careful moving that around – and even using it. That much money we might start falling foul of tax-laws, and different reporting requirements." Aswon followed up, his surprise fading away. "There could be limits on how much we can withdraw without notification or without providing a proper audited set of accounts."

"Hah! Well, don't worry about that. I've got a shopping list for stuff that I want – and I can make most of that disappear into the Russian black market remarkably quickly."

"Buying what?"

"New cyberware. Got some upgrades in mind."

"Well, we might still need to be careful. We'll see. But… if we have that in the bank, I'm sure Nadia will want some more stuff as well. So don't go planning on spending it all! Speaking of Nadia, how is she?"

"She is still sound asleep – and so is Junior. I suspect that neither of them have slept properly for the last two days or more, and both are exhausted. So it is likely to be several more hours before they wake."

"No rush, Marius – just checking in. So, I guess we wait…"

The rest of the team relaxed, pottering about and doing maintenance or miscellaneous small tasks while Hunter continued to batter away at the international flight systems, updating records and inserting fake details from fictious maintenance companies into third tier databases and using that data to corroborate bogus air-worthiness certificates, becoming more and more irate as time went on and the seeming unending flow of forms and permits threatened to fill the active memory on his deck.

Hours crawled by, but eventually he was done. After checking the map they'd worked out a plan, faking a takeoff from Baku and flying down to Khartoum in Sudan, then heading to Zaria airport in Nigeria. Khartoum was busy enough that Hunter needed to schedule their landing and takeoff at the Class III airport, fitting around other corporate activity, while Zaria was only a class II, and had plenty of free capacity for them. Their 'Doctors without Borders' credentials had all been logged against the flight details, visas and travel permits granted, aircraft insurance details logged, maintenance records filed and what felt like a thousand more forms and documents completed, e-signed, submitted, verified and returned to authorise their transit – and Hunter had a nagging headache that made him not want to jack in to the matrix again for at least another couple of days...

The time had at least given Nadia plenty of time to rest and recover, and she woke up as the sun was setting, a little groggy and grumpy, but looking a lot better than she had. The rest of the team smiled as Marius fussed over her, getting her something to drink and a meal from their supplies onboard, then sitting with her and talking with her while she ate and drank.

With preparations sorted, it was agreed that Shimazu would drive the car back to the ranch while the team flew, giving Nadia a little more time to rest without having to worry about the drive – he set off as soon as this was agreed, knowing it would take him an hour to get back while the tilt-wing would cover the same distance in only a few minutes. Tads volunteered to go with him, leaving a few spirits behind to guard and protect the tilt-wing, while she looked after the car – after all, the powerful ward around the aircraft should keep it more than safe from prying eyes.

An hour later they were all back at the ranch – Aswon still a little unsure if it was a good tactical plan or not, but having been mollified by Sato's lack of problems and the significant amount of Nuyen they'd been paid. When they arrived, they refuelled the aircraft and all the reserve tanks from the enormous fuel tank buried near the heli-pad, giving them a four thousand kilometre range in total. It was just over three thousand one hundred kilometres to Khartoum, well beyond a single tank, but Hunter had already picked out a desolate bit of desert with nothing going on within fifty kilometres for them to set down and do a small fuel transfer from the barrels to the main tank to get them enough range to reach the airport.

The second leg was shorter, at two thousand seven hundred kilometres – but again Hunter had identified a quiet bit of the savannah to set down in to do a fuel stop to get them there, and once they'd topped off the tanks at Zaria, it was only a few minutes flight time to Aswon's village.

While Marius and Hunter took care of the fuelling situation, the others unpacked the tilt-wing, cleaned out the cargo area, and then started to re-pack, adding in the drones they'd previously left at the ranch. They didn't know quite what they were going to be doing in Nigeria, but it was probably going to involve a fight of some kind, so they'd agreed that the extra firepower was going to be useful, if not required. It left them with no appreciable cargo space left at all – but they weren't going to be doing much in the way of cargo runs it seemed.

They also spotted some of the fruits of Nadia's previous labour – there was the glinting of star light on one of the hills as the new solar arrays reflected the view, and a few windmills turned lazily with the night breeze, trickle charging the batteries installed near the back of the ranch. There was also a huge pile of concrete pre-cast tunnels lined up around the back of the garage area and a mountain of rebar waiting to be used, along with a number of new pre-fab cabins, that Nadia proudly identified – showing on her map of the ranch where the new guest quarters would go, increasing the capacity for visitors to the resort during the tourist season.

Kai checked in with the family, ensuring they were all ok and finding everything was pretty much as expected. Nadia and the baby had given them all a scare, but it turned out that while they'd offered some advice and made suggestions about what to do, Nadia had apparently had 'firm opinions' on how the situation was going to be handled. Kai tried to supress his smile, instead nodding sagely as they delicately tried to discuss the situation without causing offence or stepping on toes. But, other than the brief medical emergency, Nadia had managed to bring a level of stability to the ranch, and they were showing a small profit for the year so far after a few brief stays – especially now they weren't having to pay protection money to the local mafia.

They did mention to Kai that some street vendors had 'appeared' a little while back, setting up their stalls near the end of the driveway – which immediately raised red flags with him. He called out to Shimazu over the radio, who confirmed that he'd seen them packing up their stalls as they'd arrived back earlier, though they hadn't been acting suspiciously. When Kai questioned Rusudan and Naena more closely, it appeared that the new peddlers had set up on the street not long after the team had left to go to Baikonur, but before the strike on the rocket had been carried out – before they'd gotten in-country even, so the chances are the two things weren't related. He did warn the rest of the team to be on the watch through next time they passed them, to see what was going on.

A little after dusk, they met at the tilt-wing, strapped in and got ready to depart. Marius lifted off with his usual expert touch, sending them up into the air gracefully, spinning on the spot and then nosing down and accelerating away to the south, rotating the engines into forward flight in a carefully balanced choreography between thrust and lift.

"So, Nadia wasn't too upset at you having to leave so soon?" Kai asked.

"Nein. I told her it was all Aswon's fault. She is very upset with him, but not with me."

"HEY!"

"I spoke only the truth. I told her you had a vision, and had been summoned by your village to do something, but it was unclear what – and that as you were going, but needed the team, we all had to go."

"Well it's still not my fault. Not per se."

"You can explain that to Nadia, then. When we get back." There was a certain element of smugness in Marius' voice that indicated that he'd worked very hard to deflect blame for this from himself and wasn't going to back-pedal on it at all. "On the other hand, as I was filling up the fuel tanks, I did have a thought, Tads. I wish you would hurry up and use your magic to make a spell to create aviation fuel. Peanuts and vegetables are nice and all, but fuel would be really good."

"Oh, but I wish it was that easy." She responded with a snort.

"Why is it not? You are ripping holes in the laws of the universe and making apples appear from nothing. Why can you not do this with fuel?" Marius sounded genuine in his confusion, so Tads sat back and through for a moment before answering, going into some depth about magical theory and the complexity of refined materials, and how they interacted with Magic. She was pretty sure that she couldn't have explained all of it without the occasional interruption and clarification from Aswon, but eventually she managed to get her point over. She could probably learn a spell to make crude oil, a somewhat naturally appearing element on the earth – but unless they were fuelling up an eighteenth century ship, probably not that useful. A highly complex refined material such as kerosene, or even worse one of the more modern mixes with their handful of additives and complex branch hydrocarbons specifically engineered for high-performance engines? While theoretically possible, it was monstrously difficult, and even for a shaman of her skills was likely to work only intermittently, and give her a headache afterwards. And even when it worked, it would only likely provide a few tens of litres per effort, at the most. It might work for fuelling up something like the off-road dirt bike they had strapped into the rear of the cargo area – but was barely a drop in the two-thousand litre tanks of the tilt-wing.

"I do have a thought, though, while I've got all your attention." She said, unaware that Hunter had nodded off during her long-winded and rambling explanation about magical theory. "It's about the ranch – and what Aswon was saying after the last job. We've kind of put all of our money and resources into that recently, but I think we should maybe make a backup plan somewhere. Just in case we do find ourselves being pursued some time and can't go back to the ranch. We should have a bolt-hole somewhere, with some food, water and most important of all - fuel, out somewhere quiet, that we can use to refuel at and then disappear."

"That is not a bad idea at all. I agree. I would not want to lead trouble back to the ranch and endanger Nadia and the others. Having an alternative would be good."

"Yeah, maybe something to look at when we get back from Nigeria, then. Something within a hundred or two hundred klicks, but far enough away not to give things away perhaps." Aswon suggested.

"Yup – we should just give Nadia some money and tell her to make it happen and leave her to it."

"Don't you think that's a bit mean, Hunter?"

"Not at all, mate – I think she enjoys it. Have you seen the plans? For all that concrete and rebar and stuff?"

"No… should I?"

"Well, let's just say that once Tads has dug some holes for her and she can get to work, we're looking at a full on underground bunker complex, escape tunnels into the hills, access into the house, room for underground work rooms, accommodation, food storage – that kind of drek. I'm not saying we can survive a nuke, but if the local mafia come back for round two, they're gonna get very disappointed."

The team chatted, discussing the ranch and Nadia's plans, with Hunter having to explain the context of wanting a shark pool and 'frikkin lazors' to them, exposing them to some quintessential British humour along the way.

They flew down over the Arabian desert, landing and refuelling without incident and then continuing on south to Khartoum, landing there just before midnight and settling down for the night in the aircraft once they'd refuelled. Marius was more than willing to push on, but one of the downsides of flying a legitimate flight plan was their insistence on having mandated crew-rest and relief crews for journeys.

In the morning, as soon as they had ticked over the minimum eight hours of rest they took off – at least with a VTOL they didn't have to try and slot into the morning rush of conventional planes all waiting to use the main runways. Angling west, they headed towards Nigeria, seeing the great orange mass of the Sahara to their north while the verdant savannah and forests of central Africa lay off their port wing to the south. They were about two thousand kilometres into the journey, about twenty minutes after having stopped to top of their tanks from the onboard reserve – when Marius felt a ghostly set of fingers drifting down his spine, sending a shiver through him.

"We have been pinged by a sensor system. Bearing zero-zero-five, range unknown. No sighting on our sensors – magic check?"

"On it!" Aswon switched the viewing prism around to check to their starboard side, then gave a shudder. "Eugh – there's a blackspot on the ground – west end of Lake Chad – I can see a huge morass of astral corruption there. On the ground though, and static, not pursuing us or taking hostile activity."

"Ahh – I have spotted them!" Marius continued to refine his sensors and aim them to the north east, boosting his own sensor resolution as far as he could without increasing power. "Looks like a tilt-wing, somewhat similar to our own. They are evading and dropping to low level, and making a run to the north-east at speed."

"Making a run for it?"

"It looks that way to me. Perhaps smugglers or pirates?"

"Make a note on the map, will you, Hunter. Not sure if we want to avoid the area entirely, or come back and investigate – though with that astral corruption I'm not sure we want to make friends with people here."

"Got it. From the sensor feeds and bearings, it looks like the very western end of Lake Chad, which puts it pretty much on the border between Chad, Niger and Nigeria, and not that far north of the tip of Cameroon."

The remaining hour and a half passed without further incident, bringing them into Zaria airport. The city sprawled all around the single runway, with several kilometres of what looked like shanties built with very little discernible order or planning – but the runway was built to an acceptable standard and let Marius come in for a conventional landing. While they were fuelling up from the facilities at the apron, Aswon got on the phone and called his tribe, advising them they were only a few minutes away.

With the internal and reserve tanks both filled to capacity again and the local airport paid for the fuel, taxes and permit inspections, they took off on the last leg, quickly crossing the hundred and twenty kilometres to the village, with Marius setting them down on the edge of the village in a clear area. Once they'd landed and waited for the engines to stop, they grabbed their packs and headed out, Kai gesturing for Aswon to take the lead. Aswon nodded to him courteously and then with his rifle slung over his back and spear in hand, he headed into the centre of the village, head held high and walking with pride, the rest of the team fanning out behind him and following along.

The village was pretty much what they were expecting – both from Tad's description and their general knowledge of Africa outside the bigger cities. It was clear the area was impoverished – nothing looked new or well maintained, with everything from the houses to the battered cars or motorbikes repaired with mismatched parts, and using weird cast-offs to provide make-do materials. There was a strange mix of the old and new in terms of technology – a battered commlink with a broken screen being used by an older man, connected to a hand-made windmill with an old power-flex from a trideo unit, bare wires coiled around a screw that was jammed into the terminals in a way that made Marius wince.

The air was dry and the ground dusty, but there were at least trees and bushes growing and plenty of greenery, and they spotted vegetable patches near some of the houses, blocked off with pallets and logs arranged to make a barricade to stop the goats wandering in and eating the crops.

Warned by the phone call, it appeared that most of the tribe had gathered into the central area, making a path for the team to approach when they were spotted. As they entered the central clearing, they could see a half dozen dancers standing waiting for them, ceremonial masks on along with brightly coloured skirts and ornate leg wrappings. They burst into movement as soon as Aswon crossed the threshold of the square, and drummers around the periphery set off with a fast-paced performance.

On the other side of the square, the village elders, including the shaman were waiting for them, squatting on bent legs or in the case of the oldest man, sitting on an upturned beer crate. The crowd swayed from side to side, slapping thighs or buttocks in time with the drums, and cheering on the dancers as they gyrated around each other, performing the ceremonial steps. Aswon stopped a short distance inside the open area, and the rest of the team bunched up behind him, watching the dancers as they finished their performance. When it was over, Aswon started to beat the ground with the butt of his spear, and many of the people watching did the same – or stamped their feet to created what appeared to be the local equivalent of applause.

"I am Aswon." None of the team were particularly surprised at his announcement, even here in his home village, as the tribesman strode forward to stand in front of the elders.

"You are Aswon." They chanted back in a formal fashion, affirming his identity.

"I have returned, and brought along fine hunters with me. They are not of the tribe though, and they do not know our ways."

"They are welcome here, and we will teach them." Aswon nodded, appearing to relax slightly. "We expected them, warned by your shaman. We have gifts of friendship for them." With a wave of his hand the elder signalled five people to come forward, each holding a slender piece of bone or wood – it was hard to be sure what it was – that had been carved into a whistle, apparently with hand tools. Each had a length of leather or sinew threaded through a hole at the end, allowing it to be placed over the neck. As the villagers approached the team, they bowed their heads slightly, allowing them to be placed over their necks and to hang down over their breastbone. Several of the team murmured thank yous to the villagers, straightening up and then looking at Aswon, unsure of what the next move was.

"So, the vision I received said that there was a grave threat. Pillars of fire, exploding ground. What is it you need us to do?"

"A corporation has come, a newcomer to the land. They are to the south, back in the tribal heartlands. But they are driving a new railroad across the country, destroying much jungle and natural land as they go. That is just the beginning, though. Our cousins to the south tell us they are building a road up the Mountain of Death. They have seen the labourers bought in, the massive machines, the supplies arriving by boat. They talk about the plans to destroy the top of the mountain, to make an explosion so big it destroys the peak itself, and then build monstrous machines there that will kill the jungle for as far as the eye can see."

"Do you know what corporation this is? And have we not fought them?"

"Yes, of course. Our people nearby struck from the jungle. We broke their machines, stole their supplies, drove away their workers. But then the corporation bought new men, new machines, new supplies. And now they have machines to guard them. Our hunters move through the forest, but are intercepted before they can strike. Many have been lost, many more wounded. The guards use their machines, their technology – they drive away the hunters, and continue to despoil the mountain, angering the spirits."

"Sounds like drones with high grade sensors. Ground penetrating radar, capacitance wire, that kind of thing." Marius muttered into his commlink.

"Well, that is troubling. And if they seek to destroy the jungle as far as can be seen from the top of the mountain, that is a thing that would anger the spirits. Do you know which corporation? And have the people not tried to stop them in other ways?"

"They have – but the corporation have lawyers, strong allies that defend them."

Hunter couldn't help himself, sniggering loudly.

"No – this is important. It tells us something about the corporation. They are prepared to fight with contracts, laws and treaties, as well as with force on the ground. That rules out a few of the bigger corps like Saeder-Krupp, Mitsuhama and Aztechnology. They just don't tend to work that way – for them it's slash and burn and lots of big guns to enforce their will. Do you have any pictures of these corporate types?"

The elder nodded, and waved again, and a younger hunter came forward brandishing a very battered commlink – that looked to be more than a decade old, and with a screen so badly pitted and starred it was surprising anything could be seen. Aswon handed it back to Hunter who glanced at the device in horror, then rummaged in his bag, trying to find a combination of cables that would let him translate his deck port into something old enough to talk to the device. After a little jury-rigging, he managed to pull off some of the data files and send it out to the teams' commlinks, letting them view the pictures taken by the hunting parties to the south. Most of them were horribly blurred or out of focus, with leaves obscuring vital details – but there were a few that let them zoom in and see with a little more detail – though even these lacked the clarity of a more modern camera and were badly pixelated. They were clear enough in one shot though that they were able to pick out the corporate logo for the security team guarding a set of massive excavators being carried up a ramshackle road on low-loaders, "Novatech".

"That is both good and bad." Marius said as he examined the image. "They are the newest of the megacorporations, still establishing their reach and power compared to the others. But that also means they are hungry and have less historical baggage to stop them, less tradition and infighting that has built up over generations. It also means that they have pockets deep enough to buy most governments, let alone bribe someone like the minister of planning or the person responsible for the ecological welfare of the country."

"Will you hunt these invaders to our land, Aswon?"

"I will. I am Aswon."

"You are Aswon." He rapped his staff on the floor, and was joined by the villagers that surrounded them, accepting his word. "Now you must plan and prepare. We will talk again soon." He stood, and without another word turned and headed off to his hut. His motion appeared to be a trigger and the rest of the villagers started to disperse, leaving the team in the village square with a bit of time to discuss and plan.

"Hunter, can you get onto the news sites and see what you can find out about Novatech and the area to the south?" Marius asked, firing up his satphone and sharing the link out over the local area for Hunter's deck to latch onto. Hunter pulled out the cable from his deck and slid it into his jack, and then took on that slightly vacant expression as he started a data search – still in his meat body, but with his attention firmly focussed on the glistening data trails of the matrix. It didn't take him long to find some information, and he blinked rapidly, focussing his attention back on the real world.

"Ok, I did a quick search around Novatech, Mining, space launches, that kind of stuff. First thing I found was a press release from SK – they've announced that their Comet probe, something called Duccio, will launch from the Kourou facility in French Guiana. Apparently this is 'as planned' and they were 'never planning to use Baikonur'. Make of that what you will…."

"Next up, I found a fairly recent article in the business news, that Nova have been involved in some mining operations just over the border in Cameroon, bringing out precious metals of some kind from some deep mines in the mountains. Some details about how difficult the terrain is, but apparently the palladium they found is pretty pure and worth the expense of fighting through the jungle."

"And the most recent one is an announcement between Nova and the Nigeria government, where they've done a lease on the mountain and the range around it for 999 years, allowing uncontested use and development for the corp, for an undisclosed sum. That includes permission to drive a rail head to the site from Port Harcourt, which is a deep water port on the Gulf of Guinea and one of the primary export routes for bulk goods from the country.

"What the hell do they want to develop up there, though? It's not somewhere I've been, but I have heard about the mountains. They're not tall against things like the Himalayan range, or maybe even the Cascades – but they're the tallest region in the country, and the terrain is really rough. What could be up there worth blasting in the mountain for?"

"Well, if they've found precious metals on the Cameroon side of the border, it could be that. It's an old volcanic range according to the maps, and they tend to be rich sources of precious metals and usable ore. But I have to wonder if it's a launch pad?"

"What? What makes you say that?"

"Just the talk of blasting the top of the mountain – to make it flat. Think about how flat the area was around the cosmodrome. And, I found a bunch of really old articles about Mount Kilimanjaro. That's way over to the east, and a lot higher – but there's been plans for decades to build a space facility there, blasting off the top of the mountain."

"But why? Surely it's more expensive to build up high on a mountain?" Tads looked confused, racking her brain for an explanation.

"Um… right, look." Hunter glanced around and then walked over to the side of a house and grabbed a brush that was leaning against the wall. He flipped it over, and started to use the end to scrape a diagram into the earth. "Say this is a patch of the sky, ninety kilometres up. You need to get to here," he stabbed a pebble embedded into the ground. "This is space, right. One hundred klicks up. To get there, you need a hundred kilos of fuel to burn in your engine, to lift your ten kilos of payload. I'm making the numbers up, just to keep it simple, ok." He shot a glance at Marius who promptly closed his mouth, prepared to let Hunter carry on as long as he didn't claim it was accurate.

"So, you have ten kilos of payload – a sensor or a bit of spaceship or whatever. And a hundred kilos of fuel. But to get to ninety kilometres up from eighty kilometres up, you have to have fuel to get the whole lot there. So instead of just ten kilos to lift, you have a hundred and ten. And that means you need two hundred kilos of fuel to get you that ten clicks up. So now your spaceship has three hundred and ten kilos of weight to boost. And from seventy kilometres up…"

"Ahh – I get it now. Like a pyramid. You need more and more width to make it higher."

"Exactly. So if you can make your launch platform higher, you save fuel by not having as far to go. But more importantly you save the most amount of fuel by skipping the most expensive part of the journey, the bit that has the greatest compound fuel requirement. So you can either boost a heavier payload into orbit with the same fuel, or you can use less fuel overall – both of which makes your launch much more efficient."

"That sounds… far-fetched." Aswon looked at the stick drawing somewhat sceptically. "I don't doubt your explanation – but why here?"

"Cheap land? Cheap labour? Flexible politicians? Or maybe they got fed up trying on Kilimanjaro. Apparently they have been trying for years, but freak weather, natives and angry spirits keep wrecking any progress they make. Maybe they think the spirits here are a softer touch."

"Sounds like we need to go check on the mountain," Kai said. "See if we can persuade them to change their minds." A slow grin formed on his mouth as he turned to Tads. "Just how big a spirit do you think you can summon?"

"I don't know. Depends if you want me standing afterwards."

"Yeah, let's plan on that. And I don't want to see you hurt yourself. But I think we ought to go see if the mountain has a soul, and go knock on the door if it has. If it works for Kiliman-wotsit, it might work for us." Kai gave them a beaming smile, but his eyes showed no humour at all, and one by one the team nodded to him in agreement.