ew my time'd come."

"Up into Chaambra country for you. Take the second lorry. You've got a
distance to go. Try to recruit former members of the French Camel
Corps. Promise just about anything, but only remember that one day
we'll have to keep the promises. El Hassan can't get the label of
phony hung on him."

"Chaambra country," Elmer said. "Oh great. Arabs. I can just see what
luck I'm going to have rousing up Arabs to fight other Arabs, and me
with a complexion black as ..."

Homer snapped at him, "They won't be following you, they'll be
following El Hassan ... or at least the El Hassan dream. Play up the
fact that the Arab Union is largely not of Africa but of the Middle
East. That they're invading the country to swipe the goats and violate
the women. Dig up all the old North African prejudices against the
Syrians and Egyptians, and the Saudi-Arabian slave traders. You'll
make out."

Cliff said, nervously, "How about me, Homer?"

Homer looked at him. Cliff Jackson, in spite of his fabulous build,
hadn't a fighting man's background.

Homer grinned and said, "You'll work with me. We're going into Tuareg
country. Whenever occasion calls for it, whip off that shirt and go
strolling around with that overgrown chest of yours stuck out. The
Tuareg consider themselves the best physical specimens in the Sahara,
which they are. They admire masculine physique. You'll wow them."

Cliff grumbled, "Sounds like vaudeville."

Isobel said softly, "And me, El Hassan? What do I do?"

Homer turned to her. "You're also part of headquarters staff. The
Tuareg women aren't dominated by their men. They still have a strong
element of descent in the matrilinear line and women aren't
second-class citizens. You'll work on pressuring them. Do you speak
Tamaheq?"

"Of course."

Homer Crawford looked up into the sky, swept it. The day was rapidly
coming to an end and nowhere does day become night so quickly as in
the ergs of the Sahara.

"Let's get underway," Crawford said. "Time's a wastin'."

* * * * *

The range of the Ahaggar Tuareg was once known, under French
administration, as the Annexe du Hoggar, and was the most difficult
area ever subdued by French arms--if it was ever subdued. At the
battle of Tit on May 7, 1902 the Camel Corps, under Cottenest, broke
the combined military power of the Tuareg confederations, but this
meant no more than that the tribes and clans carried on nomadic
warfa