human
As shield on shoulder rides, she translated from the Tamaheq Berber tongue into English.
gpt
Hm-m-m. She cast her eyes upward in memory.
human
You aren't plagiarizing Kipling, are you?
gpt
These people like a well turned phrase.
human
And who could turn them better than Rudyard? she said. Her voice dropped the bantering tone.
gpt
What's this bit about making Guémama war-chief of the Tuareg? Isn't he on the young and enthusiastic side?
human
You mean that youngster? Why he can't be more than in his early twenties.
gpt
You mean the age of Napoleon in the Italian campaign, or Alexander at Issus? he asked. Isobel began to respond to that, but he shook his head.
human
He's the Amenokal's nephew, and traditionally would probably get the position anyway. He's the most popular of the young tribesmen, and it's going to be they who do the fighting. Having the appointment come from El Hassan, and at this early point, will just bind him closer. Besides that, he's a natural born warrior. Typical. Enthusiastic, bold, brave and with the military mind.
gpt
What's a military mind?
human
He can take off his shirt without unbuttoning his collar,
gpt
Very funny,
human
What's on the radio, Cliff?
gpt
Let's go get a cup of coffee, he said.
human
All hellzapoppin.
gpt
A message, O El Hassan, from the Department of Logistics, subdepartment Commissary of Headquarters of the Commander in Chief. Unless you get around to capturing some supplies in the near future, your food is going to be prepared over a camel dung fire. This heat unit is fading out on me.
human
Don't bother me with trivialities, Homer told her.
gpt
I've got _big_ things on my mind.
human
Hm-m-m. Such as what?
gpt
Such as whether to put my face on the postage stamps profile or full.
human
I shoulda known. Already, delusions of grandeur.
gpt
Holy Mackerel, Cliff protested.
human
Aren't we ever serious around this place? You two will wind up gagging with the firing squad.
gpt
Sorry, Cliff. What's on your mind?
human
From the radio reports, the Arab Union is consolidating its position. El Hassan is being discredited by the minute. Your followers were in control for a time in Mopti and Bamako, but they're falling away because of lack of direction. The best way I can put reports together, the Reunited Nations is in complete confusion. Everybody accusing everybody of double-dealing.
gpt
Any other good news?
human
Rumors, rumors, rumors. Half the marabouts in North Africa are proclaiming a jihad in support of the Pan-Islam program of the Arab Union. Listen, Homer, we've got to get the backing of the Moslem leaders.
gpt
We need Islam in this part of the world like we need a hole in the head. That's one of the things already wrong with North Africa.
human
What's wrong with Islam? It was probably the most dynamic religion ever to sweep the world.
gpt
Crawford growled, now on one of his favorite peeve subjects.
human
The Moslem religion exploded out of Arabia with some new concepts that set the world in ferment from India to Southern France. For all practical purposes Islam _invented_ science. Sure, the Greeks had logic and the Romans had engineering--without applying the Greek-style logic. But the Arabs amalgamated the two concepts to yield experimental science. They were able to take the intellectual products of a dozen cultures and wield them into one. For a hundred years or so it looked as though they had something.
gpt
And ...
human
And they couldn't get away from that Q'ran of theirs. They took it seriously. They started off in their big universities, such as those at Fez, being the greatest scientists and scholars the world had ever seen. But the fundamentalists won out, and in a couple of hundred years the only thing being taught at Fez was the Q'ran. To even suggest that all necessary information isn't contained therein, is enough to have you clobbered. Islam became the most reactionary force to suppress progress in the civilized world. In fact, by this period in world history, we don't even think of the Moslem world as particularly civilized.
gpt
The Bible doesn't encourage original thinking either. A fundamentalist ...
human
Sure, Crawford interrupted.
gpt
Those elements who take the Bible the way Islam took the Q'ran wind up in the same rut. But _as a whole_, Europe was sparked enough by the original Islamic explosion that the Renaissance resulted, with what world results we all know. Be ...
human
Another contingent of Tuareg, he said.
gpt
I'll have to give them a quick welcoming to the colors speech.
human
Confound it, he growled,
gpt
I wish I could break them of that habit of blasting away their ammunition. They'll have better targets before the week is out.