Monsters of the Week

The Crack and the Seal

"I am telling you, Michael, your concession is worthless. I am your friend, yes, but it's as your friend that I'm telling you this. You will lose your money, at the least, and you may very well come to grief and heartache." Nicholas spread his hands and pushed back from the table.

Mike Reizendorfer sighed, fiddling around with an old German army compass, and slid another heavy black Gold Reef chip across the tablecloth. The license for the Dwaasrug had been cheap, so there was a little more give in this than usual, but this was his least favorite part of prospecting out in the bush, and he had spent all this time cultivating Nicholas as a friend specifically so that he had to do less of it when browsing around southern Namibia. Paying off local satraps, he didn't mind, but what he did mind was when they didn't come in with a price clearly defined. Up in the Congo, people were more up-front about what you had to pay them in order to use the contract you'd already paid someone else for. But in the Congo these days, you ended up paying off three and four guys, all of whom came around to your operation unannounced with a truck full of kids with assault rifles, and that was a major reason why he was in Namibia, talking up Nicholas Rooi and trying to see what it would get to get an exploratory team up onto the Dwaasrug.

"Michael, this is not about money. I know you don't want to pay me, and as your friend, then, I won't accept this. The problem is that the Dwaasrug is not workable. Whoever sold you this concession just saw that it was not marked out on the map as claimed yet, and needed to report some good permit sales to their boss. The Dwaasrug is not minable." Nicholas pushed the chip back over.

"Nick, I'll be the judge of that. Sure, the terrain isn't the best, but I've had an early look at the geology and it's pretty promising; no diamonds so I won't be stepping on the cartel's tails, but it's a better than even chance there's some kind of reefed minerals up there. What makes you so sure there's nothing?"

Nicholas smiled behind his wineglass. "Because, Michael, nobody has ever tried. Sure, you may think that back here in the bush, this is all terra nova, terra nullis, but there have been human beings around here for a very long time. None of the local peoples ever took ore out of those mountains for use or for ornament, and the Germans, the Afrikaners, the SWAPO government of today have all been through and around this area, and nobody until you has thought it might be possible to mine up in the Dwaasrug. I know, I know, that as a prospector you must believe that you alone can see things that are invisible to others, but there have been very many people coming through this area, all looking for gold and copper, and they have not seen what you've seen in the Dwaasrug." He paused, becoming more reflective.

"The second reason you cannot mine in the Dwaasrug is that you cannot get to the Dwaasrug. During the conflict, this area was heavily mined, defensively by SWAPO and offensively by South African forces from the air. Most of the farmland and game lands have been cleared, but nobody goes on the Dwaasrug, so it has not been swept at all. You might see it from the road, but when you go offroad towards the mountain, you are heading into a desert full of antipersonnel mines."

Mike laid the compass down and looked hard at Nicholas. "Nobody's going to be surprised at mines in this part of the world, Nick. What you're actually telling me is that I won't be able to hire a mineproof vehicle to get up there, or a mine-sweeping vehicle to clear a trail off if the claim works out. That means there's something else going on here, something you don't want to tell me about this range. Come on, man, what is it? Your cousin have a meth plant up there? Is it a religious site that people don't want to talk about because they think it'll make white people think of them as savages? Come on, Nick, you should know by now that there's only two kinds of white people on this continent: the ones who don't give a hoot how you dress up to practice your religion, and the ones who think you're all savages anyway. Out with it."