Mamuset

Chapter 7 of Microcosmia

Microcosmia

Chapter Seven

Mamuset

Precisely one minute and five seconds before the day’s first ray burned across the Great Danakil Depression, a chord like thunder resounded over a dark sea of small hide huts. Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra had been employed theatrically, and with outstanding effect, by everybody from Presley to Kubrick. Although Vane was sincere about using it to make an astronomical point, the power of the piece, the near-audible crack of dawn, and his elevated station before an audience of thousands almost swept him up in his own ego.

Heads, popping out singly and in clusters, ratcheted wonderingly as the ascending theme blew out of a fourteen-foot speaker cabinet. Earlier that morning the cabinet had been toted in by a dozen men, pallbearers to a giant; up the new road’s narrowing asphalt stream and down into the crater proper, around and behind the series of low tapering hills, and so up the final mound to a strategic spot opposite the crater’s eastern rim. A soundless procession had crept behind, bearing computer and amplifier, batteries and hookups, wires and patch cables. Ever so gently, the cabinet was placed facing the uncountable sleeping huts. Vane’s dream had always been to make his entrance a memorable one, but he was way too shy to appear without some kind of dazzling distraction. That shyness was evinced in his five a.m. tiptoe-approach up the southern rim with Mudhead, and in his careful peek at the unconscious village below.

It had been so very still under the stars; for a minute Vane was sure he’d arrived too late. In the darkness the little huts looked like ranks of tombstones. Only the still profiles of sleeping donkeys and camels prevented the scene having all the appearance of a desert cemetery.

He and Mudhead, accompanied by a pair of engineers, had first circumnavigated the crater in Isis, halting at West Rim to conduct tests at the Reservoir, a canvas-covered concrete retaining pool twenty feet deep and holding sixty thousand cubic feet of river water. Flow was controlled by a series of wheeled valves. Months earlier, a chunk had been dynamited out of the rim for Reservoir’s steel conduit, and the new gap filled with cement. Vane’s engineers were checking West Rim for stress fractures at points of ingress and egress. A well-worn path proved the Afar had been hiking over the crater’s wall to collect their drinking water.

The Ridge, folding right up out of the desert to partly bisect the crater, had been planed to provide an access road for tractor trailers. Vane christened this road into Mamuset the Onramp. Like a kid, he took delight in naming everything.

Ridge Highway ended a little over halfway across the crater, where the ridge itself terminated in a few uneven mounds. On the final in the series, a flat table some hundred yards square had been hewn from the hillside. The table faced east, and was known as the Stage. This was Vane’s waiting command center, with short wave radio, amplification system, microphones, and alarm triggers; all patched into an eight-foot-long motherboard. The Stage Wall featured a huge clock showing Greenwich and Danakil times, moon phases, and barometric readings. It would be computer-driven. An enormous canvas canopy, the Big Tarp, was already in place over the Stage. The Stage’s cradle, that final soft hill, was known as the Mount.

Behind the Mount were two great oblong excavations, designated Basement and Cellar (for perishables and beverages, respectively). Both were lined with cinder blocks, and were separated by an area the size of a football field known as Warehouse, the holding zone for materials and dry goods. The Highway’s physical terminus was Dock, a concrete unloading platform abutting Warehouse.

Kitchen, one specialized component of that group of eager young university volunteers, had been hard at work since four that morning, boiling meat and vegetables out on the Onramp over propane in fifty-five gallon drums. Those drums had then been carted back aboard trailers to await transport to Dock post-Strauss, where thousands of half-gallon Bowls would be unloaded and stacked. Bowls were numbered: Sector, Quadrant, Square. They were of high impact plastic, of Vane’s own design, mass produced at one of Honey’s Cairo factories and shipped through Suez to Port Massawa. Part of the Bowl mold was a foot-long, slightly curved handle, making the instrument resemble an outsize ladle. Opposite the handle was a flat protuberance for gripping with forefinger and thumb.

Fighting the urge to play air maestro, Vane now let his finger hover over the stop button on the CD player’s remote.

Recorded music was clearly a new experience for the Afar. They stood outside their little round huts under the lightening sky, their smiles growing as the music peaked.

So that the crescendo and first ray would occur in sync on a daily basis, the computer had been programmed to activate the player at precisely one minute and five seconds before each consecutive sunrise, as regulated by its internal calendar. Computer and amplifiers were powered by marine batteries. Those batteries would be recharging via solar panels arriving on the next convoy.

“Let’s do it,” Vane said nervously.

Mudhead, having raised the microphone to translate, peered aside dubiously.

Vane’s throat clenched. A great unseen brush washed the desert red. Suddenly the African sun was a blinding blood-spotlight. “Good morning!” he blurted out. “And welcome to Mamuset!”

Mudhead’s arm fell. “We fly Delta, Bossman?”

Vane blew out his cheeks. “This isn’t easy for me either, man. I’ve got to come off as a nice guy, not like some kind of holy roller.” Mudhead thereupon delivered what sounded like a scathing diatribe. More people crept around their huts, regarding Vane intently. The American’s stomach knotted.

“What’d you just do, introduce me as the entrée?” He’d never been so aware of his fairness.

“Mudahid tell Afarman whole Bossman story. What say now?”

Vane chewed his lip. “It breaks my heart to have to do it, but I’m gonna have to order them to take down their huts. We need a flat playing field.” He flexed his fingers and forced a few deep breaths. “This could get very ugly very fast.”

“No problem, Bossman.” Mudhead barked out a string of commands and the crowd immediately began dismantling their huts. Vane watched amazed as the hut city dissolved in an uncannily smooth receding sweep. In minutes the nearest huts were neatly rolled bundles.

“What’d you tell them, man?” Bundles were being tied to camels. “They’re leaving! Jesus, Mudhead, you weren’t supposed to threaten them.”

“No threat, Bossman.” Mudhead frowned. “No leave.” He gestured broadly. “No problem!” Those same men were now clearing sitting spaces beside their camels. Distant huts were still coming down. “Mudahid tell everyman what Bossman say. Neighbor pass command to next neighbor. So on, so on. Mudahid tell like Bossman tell Mudahid tell.”

“Yes! We’re on! This’s gonna happen--it‘s got to happen! Keep working ’em, Mudhead.” He skidded down the Mount’s northeast slope, hopped in Isis, and raced to Dock. Volunteers and drivers were already unrolling the eight 30 х 60 canvas spools that would make up the great Warehouse canopy. Vane handed all the young doctors walkie-talkies from the Land Rover, and ordered field reports radioed to Doctor ’Lijah, the group’s pedantic and incomprehensible senior medical officer. He pulled a dozen hyper volunteers aside. Many were still in their teens.

“I want you guys circulating. Pick the healthiest men out of these Afar and lead them to the Mount. I’m designating them ‘Runners.’ They’ll be doing all the distributing, at least until everybody’s able to contribute equally. Tell Kitchen to make sure these Runners get a couple of eggs in with their soup. See that the weakest people out there start on broth, and work your way up. Anybody reasonably fluent in Saho, now’s the time to step up to the plate.”

Three girls and a boy were nudged forward. “Okay,” giggled one of the girls, “‘Bossman’.” A friend punched her arm. Vane shooed them in different directions and strode back up the incline with his juices flowing.

Soon a long line of Afar were snaking through the crowd, directed by doctors, nurses, and a constantly reforming mass of volunteers. These Afar men, strongest of the lot though they were, seemed lamentably lean to the privileged young American. He was surprised by their gentleness and compliance. Each was given a Bowl and shown how to scoop it half-full of broth. Cooks then used elongated colanders to fish out carrots, rice, beans, bits of meat, and two hard-boiled eggs per man. The men wolfed the solid food, greedily but gratefully, and carefully slurped the steaming liquid. Volunteers juggled Bowls of broth to the needier sites, marked by flags on long sticks. The anguish of those not being served was radiant; men and women turned their heads like wolves at the trailing aroma, children wailed as the broth passed them by. These people had been subsisting on Vane’s cold dry care packages for almost half a year.

The sound of want easily pierced Vane’s emotional armor. By the time he reached the Stage he was tearing at his nails. He forced himself to relax. They were only bugs. After a while he said coldly, “Order them to face this way.” The African snarled into his microphone and heads immediately turned. A camel roared at the feedback’s squeal. Children screamed and wept.

“Enough! Tell the damned Runners to scoop quarter-Bowls, food and broth. Tell them to pass them out indiscriminately. That way there won’t be much lost when the crowd starts fighting over food. We can pass around second and third helpings later. Please don’t shout. Just ask everybody to pass the Bowls back when they’re empty.”

Mudhead’s spectacles flashed as he turned. “Africaman not fight food. Afarman gentleman. Accustom very little. Grateful even less.”

“Be right, Mudhead. I’ve had nightmares about this moment. You know the kind. Feeding frenzies. Morsels torn from the mouths of babes.”

“Africaman slow, not greedy. Too much space. Too much time. Not like…State. Americaman rush. Have more than need, but never enough. Never enough space. Never enough time. Whiteman greedy have all.”

“Later. Wait till I’m in the mood for guilt-trips. But you’re absolutely right about Whiteman disease. Now let’s just hope you’re on the money about Afar etiquette.”

Sure enough, Bowls were neither hoarded nor fought over. The Afar sipped broth, plucked morsels with their fingers, shoved the food into their children’s mouths, passed the Bowls along. Though children screamed for more, parents remained patient and dignified. They caressed, rather than scolded. The little ones soon calmed.

Vane needlessly supervised workers securing the pairs of titanic speaker cabinets on either side of the Stage, then ran down to Dock and ordered a replenishing of the drums. Volunteers were refilling the empty Bowls as they trickled back. His confidence continued to grow, but after running around confusing everybody he noted a certain rhythm--a milling, freewheeling progress involving Runners, volunteers, and recipients--taking place outside his command. Was there no one even aware of his awesome burden? He stood baking in the sun, staring at nothing, until the radio in his hand came alive. Doctors were reporting none dead, although the vast majority of his people suffered mildly from malnutrition. A panicky Vane was informed that this was not an unnatural state for pastoralists. He sprinted halfway up the Mount, forgot where he was going and why. Vane looked around. Dozens of people were stopped dead, staring at him. He depressed the transmit button on his walkie-talkie.

“Mudhead, I’ll need a foreman out of the Runners to organize this mob before there’s a riot on our hands. Pick the sharpest guy you can find and get back to me, and I mean pronto. I’m not hip to the currency in this part of the country. Just agree to whatever he demands.”

“Can do. But keep wallet in pant, Ugly American. Try little respect.”

“Can do,” Vane said right back. “Don’t give up on me, Africaman.” He was hyperventilating. “Mudhead, what’d I get us into? What in hell’s name am I doing here?”

“You break up, Joe Washington. Mudahid not receive last transmission. Try talk sense. Then maybe Mudahid understand.”

“Okay. Before I have an aneurysm, I need some perspective. What was I thinking that night we talked in that stupid bar? What did I tell you? Everything seemed so clear back then.”

“Sorry, Bossman. Lose you again. You break up all over place. Relax. Smell manure. Inspiration come. But at own pace.”

“Ten-four, Mudhead. Keep the faith, Muslimman.”

“Faith never go. Faith follow like shadow. Example: Mudahid have new foreman right here. Say hello Bossman, foreman.” There was a sharp command from Mudhead in Saho. A high teenaged voice gushed a lengthy response that was all nonsense to Vane.

“Bossman? New foreman say name Akid.”

“A kid he is,” Vane pronounced. “And so shall he be named ‘Kid.’ Ask him what his demands are.”

“Kid say salary open, Bossman. Kid like radio.”

“Give him one, Mudhead. He’ll need it. Put his on channel 3. You and I’ll communicate on 2, and you’ll be switching back and forth. Now we’re beginning to build an organization! I feel better already. You’re my Operations Director, and I’m your Commanding Officer. Kid is Lead Officer in charge of Manpower, and his workers are hereby christened the Crew. Kid’ll be subservient only to you. You’re the one responsible, as of right now, for all operations departments. We’ll discuss your pay hike over pork rinds and Heinekens.”

“Can be only one Bossman,” Mudhead protested.

“Sorry, but you’re breaking up. Start setting up the Stage Eyes and I’ll get back to you.”

Vane walked round and round the Mount; commanding here, instructing there, commenting, questioning, getting in everyone’s way. He assigned Senior Medical Officer ’Lijah and all medical personnel to channel 4. As SMO, ’Lijah was to communicate up only on 2, to Mudhead or the Commanding Officer, and run the specialists on channel 4 exclusively. Way too busy for conferences or camaraderie, Vane charged up the Mount’s southwest slope, across the Stage, and up the naked hillside to the summit, where he could look over his property. Mudhead, thirty feet below, was setting up two tripod-mounted digital binoculars. Vane was at a good vantage. Mamuset was now fully illuminated, the sun blazing up the sky. That untidy expanse of black bodies was already, in his widening eye, compartmentalizing. Two seconds later he was off like a shot.

Vane scrambled down to the Stage and huddled with Mudhead. The shade was suffocating. Even under the Big Tarp he was perspiring.

“Seven in the morning and it’s already cooking. Now that their little huts are all rolled up, personal shade is going to be Issue Primo, no getting around it. Call Kid and tell him to get Crew humping out the Shade Packets. After that they can bring out the Square Kits.” He stooped for a magnified gander at his infant world. The binoculars, solar-sensitive with digital reads, also functioned in the infrared when properly programmed. Solar-charged batteries powered a range of high-tech functions. Vane experimented with angles, with wide and telescopic zooms, with artificial shade, with white line contrasts, with Near and Far effects. When at last he was able to map quadrants and manipulate details he straightened his aching neck.

“You could almost pick a man’s nose with these.”

Mudhead grunted. “Bowl come back. Everyman eat. There Kid.”

Vane squinted into the lenses again. “Where Kid? Everybody looks the same.”

“Only Kid look like Kid.”

“Make a note, Mudhead. We’re going to need some kind of badge or armband or something for our Crew. We won’t always have the luxury of searching faces.”

Mudhead straightened slowly. “Maybe David star, Bossman?”

“Point well made,” Vane said. “Point well taken. I’m going to rely on your uncanny ability, el Segundo, to distinguish the few from the many. After all, you’re the Operations Director. Whatever works best for you is what works best for me.” He wiped his palms on his thighs. “Okay. Tell everybody to segregate by family. We want isolated units, remember? That means we’ll need as much space as possible between neighbors. Every group includes its stock and property, as well as any orphans they’ll accept. But we want to discourage the old tribal mentality temporarily. The ideal arrangement is a unit of man, woman, child, and stock.”

Mudhead shook his head gravely. “Like we talk…Africaman not happy independentman. No room ego.”

“And like I explained a dozen times, Mudhead, this is still a kind of tribe. It’s just organized differently, that’s all. The name of the new tribe is Mamuset.”

“And new chief Bossman.”

“No. No chief. No rules. Just shining examples. Everyone has the same status in Mamuset. Each member equals One. That’s if he’s Joe Solo. If he’s a member of a family, then his family equals One. Any way that family wants to work out the relationship of its members is its own business. If the unit doesn’t work it can split up, if that’s what’s best. Then each fragment equals One. It becomes Mamuset’s problem then, not the disintegrated unit’s.”

“One,” Mudhead muttered.

“Unum. Everybody equals One. Everything equals One. Nobody’s impressed into anything. And no one’s left out in the cold. If your heart beats, you’re worthy of the basics. There are no Afar, no Bossmen, no Mudheads in Mamuset, at least so far as status goes. Only Mamusetans. Everybody gets one share of Everything, and everybody contributes equally to Everything. If somebody doesn’t want to contribute, then that one can be exempted, and even expelled, by the greater One. Ostracism. The only punishment, by overall agreement. Majority always rules in Mamuset. But not by vote. By consensus.”

“So, O Bossman no better everyman. Show Mudahid where else idea work.”

“Never been tried before,” Vane said pleasantly. “Nobody ever had the means, along with the lack of good sense and personal ambition, to experiment like this before. Sure it’s doomed. But I’ve got almost unlimited funds, and almost no ego. Plus, there are no sycophants, competitors, or court jesters to muddy the waters. You and I, Mudhead me hearty, are in the crow’s nest. So spend all you can while you can. This ship is going down.”

“All same, Mudahid contribute paycheck Unum fund.”

“Good. Money’s gonna be worthless here, anyway. When it’s all over we can settle up in the ruins. I don’t forget my friends.” Sweat was beading on his forehead, rolling freely down his neck and chest. “It’s absolutely frying in this crater. Step One is shade, then we’ll get started on the Grid. I can’t have my people isolated in the hot sun.” He wiped his eyes. Some of the Afar were so distant as to be lost in the hazy rise of East Rim.

“Let ’em all know I’m about to demonstrate a personal Shade Canopy’s basic assembly. Explain that we’ll be piecing together permanent structures after we’ve situated everybody and laid foundations, but that they should stay under their Canopies, out of the heat, whenever they’re not busy. Tell them they can put up their Canopies anywhere on their land they want, and take them down and put them back up just as they please. It’s easy, man.

“Now--and this is crucial, Mudhead--you’ve got to make it perfectly plain: they’re all responsible for passing instructions along! I don’t expect everything to be just what the doctor ordered, not right off the bat, but I also don’t want anybody getting hurt. Those poles have pretty sharp points.”

Mudhead peered glumly over his glasses.

“Okay,” Vane said. “I’m gone,” and skidded down the slope.

He pitched in, helping Crew create a sigmoid pile of Shade Packets in front of the Mount. Each Packet contained four hollow ten-foot aluminum poles and corresponding threaded stands, two 10 x 10 canvas sheets, four tether stakes, and four tightly wound nylon ropes. The Honey Foundation, dealing directly with the Egyptian Army, bought up warehouses stocked with surplus canvas tents, knapsacks, and the like. Those warehouses were then converted to factories for the manufacture of canopies and mats. Vane personally hired the most wretched souls he could find for the sewing and packing. The retained Egyptian foremen proved to be, in more than a few cases, unspeakably brutal and venal. Honey replaced these monsters with humane supervisors, but Vane insisted his hand-picked sewers and packers be kept on.

The Runners scurried all round with Packets under their arms, dropped the Packets off, and ran back for more. The deposited Packets were passed along man to man, smoothly, without a single visible glitch. Vane directed through his walkie-talkie with mounting confidence, impressed by the Afars’ ability to pick up on ideas and instinctively follow through as a unit. Mudhead translated from the Stage as the Runners grew tiny and the Core units listened intently.

Mamuset was to be built upon Vane’s example.

Adjacent units were to imitate his actions directly and precisely. Their neighbors were to do likewise, and so on. Each unit would be responsible for passing along instructions by both word and example. From this moment on, Vane proclaimed, the granted parcel of land for each unit was to be known as a Square. Mudhead had everyone repeat the word. The response from those within earshot came back roughly as “Squaw”.

“Now,” Vane said excitedly, “follow my lead.” He maneuvered a Shade Packet between the piles and runners, walked out a further forty paces, and methodically erected his Canopy in the sun. Mudhead, watching impassively beneath the Big Tarp, described the proceedings in Saho as his employer laid one of the Canopy’s canvas squares on the dirt, stretched it out flat, and hammered a foot-high pole stand through each of the mat’s corner eyes, almost taking off a toe in the process. Vane then grabbed the second 10 x 10 canvas square and inserted a pole’s n****e-end through one eye, paused to demonstrate the tying of a simple square knot, looped the knot over the n****e, and raised the pole. He slowly screwed the pole into its stand, the hot limp canvas clinging to his back. After standing the pole upright, he repeated the process with the remaining poles, ropes, and stands. His half-done Shade Canopy teetered in the sun.

Vane fought to keep his poles from caving to center while simultaneously reaching for a trailing rope, his struggles accompanied by shy laughter all around. Finally he snatched the rope, looped its knot to a stake, and hammered the stake into place. The other ropes and stakes quickly followed course, and then Canopy #1 was somehow standing taut, exactly ten feet above the crater’s flat parched floor. Vane proudly stepped onto the equally taut canvas mat. The effect of his completed Shade Canopy was immediate.

He and Mudhead listened to the patter of laughter, near and distant, as families struggled with their Packets. Canopies began sprouting about them, clumsily at first, then with increasing efficiency. Rather than sit on their thumbs, the successful Afar rushed to help their neighbors; sometimes they were met with venomous stares or verbal threats. Vane thrilled at the way the Afars’ eyes lit up when confronted by an interesting challenge. He got the feeling that, even without instruction, they’d sooner or later assemble the parts correctly, like clever children around a Christmas tree. He bowed to his neighbors, and they all bowed back. Everyone contributed to erecting Mudhead’s Canopy.

By noon the Bowls, this time heavy with meat and vegetables, had made a second circuit. Vane’s project was ready for a most crucial step. He chugged a Heineken and dragged his Square Kit out next to his Shade Canopy, unwrapped his Square Frame and Extensions.

Square Frames consisted of four identical telescoping aluminum tubes, fifty feet in length when fully extended, kept propped above the ground by adjustable plastic feet. The tubes locked at right angles, their female-end elbows accepting the male-ends of adjoining tubes. Four perfectly locked tubes created a perfect square.

At full extension, aligned perforations were exposed on these tubes, the holes positioned fifteen feet from either extremity. Bolts inserted through these holes would lock the arms of an unfolding internal steel lattice. From above, a fully assembled Square Frame would look pretty much like a bordered tic-tac-toe diagram. Properly assembled Square Frames would observe ninety-degree angles with exactitude, be absolutely rigid when locked, and be lightweight enough to be dragged intact by their builders. These Frames were temporary structures; interlocking pieces for mapping the community’s sprawling Grid of five thousand perfectly equal, interdependent personal sites.

Vane constructed his Frame as he’d constructed so many before, but this time without all the smarmy overseeing engineers, and this time with his indispensable buddy Mudhead tersely describing his efforts in Saho. When he’d finished he found due east on compass #1 and ran out a marker, then kicked, hammered, and hauled his protesting Frame until he’d managed to align one border. His neighbors very politely dragged their own already completed Frames out of his way. He couldn’t make out the progress of distant assemblers, but the facility of their movements bugged him. Vane grudgingly watched his neighbors experimenting with their own markers, lines, and compasses, passing the tools back and forth like exuberant idiot savants. “Hey!” he hollered. “Those things aren’t toys, you know!” and almost passed out.

But at least his aluminum Square Frame was facing dead east. Vane wiped his face and got on his knees to attach his Extensions; connecting rods designed to precisely bridge the gaps between Squares by locking with both crisscrossing lattice rods and Frame corner-studs. Each neighbor would contribute two-of-four per side.

As Vane worked, locking down Extensions on each side of his Square, he became increasingly annoyed by peripheral glimpses of his Core neighbors; their eyes hard on him, at first copying, then anticipating his moves. He felt the vital force on the opposite ends, locking down ahead of him, and suppressed powerful urges to yank his Extensions right back. Behind him, Mudhead’s Square #2 was being ably constructed by competing Afar youngsters while the African, fanning himself under the Big Tarp, farcically described the CO’s mighty efforts in Saho--but even those little showoff brutes were making Vane hustle. Before he’d completed his extended Frame his neighbors were already locked down and pacing. They could barely contain their impatience. Vane knew he should have been proud of them…but were they trying to make him ashamed of himself? Dog-tired, his shirt clinging, he stamped up to the Stage, hacked the cap off a Lowenbrau, and collapsed on a folding chair.

“Afarman good student,” Mudhead noted.

Vane glared. He pushed himself back to his feet and hunched at his binoculars. Including Mudhead’s and his own, he counted twenty-one well-framed proto-Squares, each bordered by perfectly-straight Street outlines of four extensions apiece. Taken together, the laid-out Frames gave the impression of crisscrossed ladders lying flat. He adjusted focus. Work was scrambled farther along, and way down the line certain units were still struggling to set up their Shade Canopies. Some had given up completely. Huts remained standing only at the very foot of East Rim.

“It’s a matter of gradations,” he declared. “Our first set of instructions are still filtering back. The people farthest away are getting what must seem conflicting directions.” He creaked to his full height. “I’m ordering additional walkie-talkies.”

Mudhead fanned himself feebly. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Agreed. I’m plumb wore out m’self. Just tell those with completed Frames to bring their families and animals inside the Frames, and keep them there. And tell them to keep Shade Canopies away from Square centers, so they won’t have to be moved when the real work starts. Get the Runners back in. I’ll go tell Kitchen to start doling from the drums. And this time there’ll be some solid food in those Bowls!”

He stumbled down to Dock, grabbed a full Bowl and sipped critically. He’d tasted better, he’d tasted worse. A young doctor handed him what seemed a ream of preliminary findings. Vane thumbed the pages. The words typhus, diphtheria and cholera leaped out at him. Suddenly he was clinging.

“Mañana,” he said. “I’ve been up, like, some thirty-odd hours.” He fought his walkie-talkie free of its holster. “Mudhead?”

“Bossman?”

“I’m shot, man. If anything comes up while I’m out, you take care of it. Don’t wake me unless it’s an emergency. I’m hitting the sack.” Aching all over, he dragged his feet back to his Square, tripped over a tethered rope and landed on his face. Two poles crossed and his Shade Canopy dipped precariously. Before he could recover, the entire contraption collapsed on his backside. Vane sprawled on his belly, flinching feebly. Somewhere a pair of camels roared in stereo, while the five thousand-plus voices of Mamuset bubbled behind like a purling stream. With the last of his strength, Vane pulled the burning canopy over his face. Before the canvas had fully settled he was fast asleep.