in Tanganyika? How can you fault that?”
“Easily,” she responded firmly, “because I just don’t trust him, and until that plane has been thoroughly checked out by our mechanics, it’s not to be relied upon, either.”
They waited three weeks for the heavy equipment to arrive, and spent several days exploring the region just south of the maximum magnetic field they had located. Max thought it a waste of time, but Diana persuaded him by unfolding her map that showed the other focus of interest, some distance away. Of importance was the presence, in the jumble of talus and ash, of rare angular fragments, not obviously metallic. While they could use their rock hammers to shatter obsidian like the volcanic glass it is, and beat hard pumice into powder, they could not make a dent in that unknown material. It looked to be a super-hard ceramic, as if forged in monstrous heat coupled with great pressure. The mystery material was similar to a diamond’s hardness, yet could not be shattered by a sharp blow. It was very light, half the weight of aluminum, allowing them to carry what little they found of it back to camp in their packs for later analysis. Diana pointed out that the material had the exact sheen and color of her pendant.
NINE
Dangers
Father Celestre found the café that had been designated as his rendezvous with his Mafia connection. It was down among a whitewashed block of buildings off the principal street in the Arab quarter of Dar-es-Salaam. Heat from the sun compounded with the glare reflected from the walls made him wish he’d had the forethought to wear Arab garb. He had stuck with Western clothes, including his clerical collar, in order to maintain his identity as a Western cleric of some type.
Tanganyika had been fertile soil for the sowing of the Christian religion, resulting in one-third of the population following one of the several denominations with which all religions were cursed. What was it about belief in the divine, he thought, whether in one or many gods? Starting with something imaginative seems to give the human mind license to engage in all sorts of religious free association, taking spiritual imagination in every direction. Tanganyika, he mused, is crawling with missionaries of every persuasion, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons.
As a priest, he would have been expected to decry this fragmentation of the one true church, except that his superior education, coupled with his having been neglected as a child, allowed him to think for himself. He saw the breakup of Christian unity as part of the doctrine of free will. If the Popes had kept on the path of Jesus and Peter, they could have avoided the evils that spawned the Reformation. The many offshoots of that rebellion against Rome would never have occurred; not then, anyway.
But, thinking of the more recent splintering off from the major Protestant sects that produced such religions as the Latter Day Saints, such subdividing could go on forever. And that wasn't the case just with Christianity. He thought of the Muslims, a strong presence in that region of Africa, especially along the coast, and the Hindus, brought over from India for labor, who had mostly become storekeepers or professionals. How many different sects, practicing their polytheism, have been in that religion generated over the years?
It took time to find the place where he was to meet his fellow Mafioso, a dive run by one of the ubiquitous Omani Arabs. Long before most Europeans arrived, Omani Arabs had established themselves on the coast and along the trade routes into the interior. They had grown rich after they expelled the Portuguese, and thrived until the Europeans returned in force. First it was the Germans, and then the British, who still remained in charge officially. Gradually,
“Easily,” she responded firmly, “because I just don’t trust him, and until that plane has been thoroughly checked out by our mechanics, it’s not to be relied upon, either.”
They waited three weeks for the heavy equipment to arrive, and spent several days exploring the region just south of the maximum magnetic field they had located. Max thought it a waste of time, but Diana persuaded him by unfolding her map that showed the other focus of interest, some distance away. Of importance was the presence, in the jumble of talus and ash, of rare angular fragments, not obviously metallic. While they could use their rock hammers to shatter obsidian like the volcanic glass it is, and beat hard pumice into powder, they could not make a dent in that unknown material. It looked to be a super-hard ceramic, as if forged in monstrous heat coupled with great pressure. The mystery material was similar to a diamond’s hardness, yet could not be shattered by a sharp blow. It was very light, half the weight of aluminum, allowing them to carry what little they found of it back to camp in their packs for later analysis. Diana pointed out that the material had the exact sheen and color of her pendant.
NINE
Dangers
Father Celestre found the café that had been designated as his rendezvous with his Mafia connection. It was down among a whitewashed block of buildings off the principal street in the Arab quarter of Dar-es-Salaam. Heat from the sun compounded with the glare reflected from the walls made him wish he’d had the forethought to wear Arab garb. He had stuck with Western clothes, including his clerical collar, in order to maintain his identity as a Western cleric of some type.
Tanganyika had been fertile soil for the sowing of the Christian religion, resulting in one-third of the population following one of the several denominations with which all religions were cursed. What was it about belief in the divine, he thought, whether in one or many gods? Starting with something imaginative seems to give the human mind license to engage in all sorts of religious free association, taking spiritual imagination in every direction. Tanganyika, he mused, is crawling with missionaries of every persuasion, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons.
As a priest, he would have been expected to decry this fragmentation of the one true church, except that his superior education, coupled with his having been neglected as a child, allowed him to think for himself. He saw the breakup of Christian unity as part of the doctrine of free will. If the Popes had kept on the path of Jesus and Peter, they could have avoided the evils that spawned the Reformation. The many offshoots of that rebellion against Rome would never have occurred; not then, anyway.
But, thinking of the more recent splintering off from the major Protestant sects that produced such religions as the Latter Day Saints, such subdividing could go on forever. And that wasn't the case just with Christianity. He thought of the Muslims, a strong presence in that region of Africa, especially along the coast, and the Hindus, brought over from India for labor, who had mostly become storekeepers or professionals. How many different sects, practicing their polytheism, have been in that religion generated over the years?
It took time to find the place where he was to meet his fellow Mafioso, a dive run by one of the ubiquitous Omani Arabs. Long before most Europeans arrived, Omani Arabs had established themselves on the coast and along the trade routes into the interior. They had grown rich after they expelled the Portuguese, and thrived until the Europeans returned in force. First it was the Germans, and then the British, who still remained in charge officially. Gradually,
Similar Books
