Five Tribes

by Brian Nelson

  Then he heard a loud voice. “Hello! How is you?” The utterance of these words brought an eruption of laughter from the others. Eric couldn’t help but smile. This was no prank; it was a diplomatic mission.

  “I’m fine, how are you?”

  “Oh, I wonderful!” The boy said emphatically, clearly pleased that he had successfully communicated with the man from the moon. The other children laughed again.

  “Your English is very good. What’s your name?”

  There was a long silence, and Eric realized he’d spoken too quickly. He imagined the look of perplexity on the boy’s face. He repeated himself. This time the boy understood.

  “I am Karuma!” the boy said. The words were delivered with loud aplomb, like an auditioning actor confident of his lines. “Yes, my English great! Others know nothing. Only me.”

  Eric guessed he was perhaps thirteen or fourteen.

  He sat up slowly in his cot, trying to hide his aches and pains, and extended his hand. “I’m Eric. It’s nice to meet you.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Eric almost retracted his hand, fearing that he had committed some cultural taboo. Then he felt Karuma’s hand—small, but rough and strong—in his. From the doorway came a collective ‘ahh’—contact with the strange creature had been made. Their laughter flooded into the room with them. The next moment Eric was being touched and prodded by a dozen curious hands.

  For the next hour they engaged in a most singular conversation—a mix of English, their tribal language, and Eric’s gesturing. Karuma did his best to translate all the children’s questions. “Why do you wear so many clothes? How did your skin get like that? Are you a boy or a girl? What did you eat to get so tall and where can we get some?” They asked him to teach them important words in English, mostly related to bodily functions. He learned some of their words too: |ūá (child), kx’âa (drink), and !nábe (giraffe). He was expected to make a click sound when he said most of the words, and they laughed each time he tried. He deeply appreciated their company and made it a point to remember their names. The youngest girl was Nyando, the shy boy was //Kabbo.

  Finally Karuma said, “Come! Outside! Come!”

  Eric held up his hand. “No, I can’t.”

  “Come, come!” he insisted. Then the other children took up the call. “Coooome, cooome!” and they began to tug and pull at him.

  He stood up uneasily and teetered. He wasn’t at all sure his legs were going to keep him up. He took a cautious step forward, testing the ground like a man roused from sleep in the dark. He felt he might fall, but the children swelled up around him, supporting him, some grabbing his hands and forearms, others his hips and legs.

  “Yes, you can do it!” Karuma said. The children laughed and cheered. A moment later he felt the hot African sun on his face, so intense that it hinted at fire. But he didn’t bow his head. Instead, he lifted it. All around, he heard more shouts and laughter, then more hands touching him. His ears were filled with the clicks of their words along with the sonorous rise and fall of their language. He could sense their goodwill; it was unmistakable, even in the darkness. They were glad he was walking and glad he was with them. For the first time in many days, he did not feel so far from home.

  That night Khamko came to check on him.

  “I understand you made some new friends today.”

  Eric laughed. “I did indeed.”

  “My grandson told me all about it. He is fascinated by you.”

  “Karuma is your grandson?”

  “Yes, and you already know his mother.”

  “Naru?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Karuma’s father?”

  “Ah, he was killed by poachers. Just last year.”

  Eric nodded to himself. Naru’s anger was suddenly easier to understand. The man she loved had been killed so some rich person thousands of miles away could hang elephant tusks on his dining room wall.

  “Khamko, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “How is it that you speak American English? How do you know so much about medicine? And why is someone like you here?”

  Eric heard his warm laugh. “Ah, let’s put it this way: the man standing before you is an experiment, but a failed one. Or to put it another way: I am the unexpected product of a hopeful generation’s flawed dream.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know, I’m speaking in riddles. Let me explain properly. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Airlift?”

  “Yes, it was an exchange program that brought African students to the US in the ’60s.”

  Again he heard Khamko’s easy laughter. “Very good. I am always dismayed at how few Americans have heard of it. Yes, the Airlift was out of east Africa, but it was emblematic of Africa at that time: the belief that in one generation, with the right education, we could catapult Africa into the modern age. All you had to do was take a young man, send him to America, and he would come back a modern man. Then—the logic went—these modern men would teach the rest of us and within a generation we would be just as mighty and strong as America and Europe.”

  Eric nodded, it seemed feasible to him.

  Khamko continued: “Even though I grew up far from Kenya, something similar happened to me. It was when I was sixteen . . .” He gave a whimsical laugh, perhaps sensing how much he—and his world—had changed since then. “That was when something very unusual happened. There was a terrible storm. Absolutely terrible. I had never seen the sky so angry. Lightning and hail and rain pounded the earth. It lasted three days. All the rivers swelled and overflowed, sweeping away whole Bantu villages. On the fourth day, when the rains had subsided, I was hunting with my father near the river. We found an old steamer run aground. I can still see it in my mind. It had been pinned on a small island in the middle of the river. I remember the boat was set on its side, and the watermarks from the storm showed that it had almost been completely covered. We soon learned that most of the crew and passengers had been washed away when they made a desperate attempt to swim to shore. But in the wreckage we found two survivors, an American businessmen and his son. The son had been impaled on a pipe, and the father had refused to leave him. The man told us later that the water had come up to their chins before it finally subsided. My father wanted to help the boy, but the other father would not let us touch his son. He yelled at us and tried to ward us off, but my father knew a few English words, and with these and some gestures he persuaded him. The boy was unconscious, his face was very gray. The wound was deep and dirty and the boy was near death, but my father was very skilled. We got him to safety and slowly, over the course of two weeks, he began to recover. His name was Will, and as my father nursed him back to health, we became friends. I learned a few dozen English words and I taught him some Sān. As you know, for teenagers that is more than enough to communicate.

  “The father, feeling grateful and seeing the connection between his son and me, proposed an idea. He knew about the Airlift and that I wanted to be a healer. What if he took me to America? With all that I already knew about plants and healing from the primitive world, could he make me into a doctor of Western medicine?

  “It was very hard for me to leave my family, to leave the only world I had ever known. I was miserable for a long time in the strange, concrete, landscape of America. Every day I yearned to be home. But in the end, I’m glad I did it. Medicine came easy to me. It made perfect sense, and I was good at it. But I was never at home there, so I returned, and I have used all that I learned to help my people.”

  “Amazing,” Eric said.

  “Yes, but I must be honest, the most important thing about my journey was that it taught me about you. It taught me the wonders of your technology, but it also showed me your flaws. I learned the dangers of your ambitious nature, how you always take and take and take and are never satisfied. I s
till do not understand it, but I saw it everywhere. I still see it today, perhaps worse than before. In this way, Naru is right, the Chinese really are just another version of you.

  “My knowledge of the West is the reason we are the only Khoisan people who still live in the traditional way. We have not been forced off our land and turned into herders for the whites. But we are not as passive as our grandparents were . . . because you cannot be passive with an enemy who is always seeking to take what you have. An enemy who disguises their colonization as assistance, their brainwashing as religious enlightenment, and equates progress with material luxury. All these promises of a ‘better life’ always lead to the pillaging of our land . . . to isolation and confinement . . . to death. We have taken the few things that we need from your world, but we know not to be tempted by the rest.”

  Eric nodded. “But you must have some help from the outside or at least some assistance from the government.”

  “Yes, we have some help that I can tell you about, and there are those in power who look out for us. They keep the multinational corporations out of our territory and are trying to keep out the Chinese. But it is always a struggle. Every year it seems that the foreign pressure increases, and our friends grow weaker.”

  “Is it true that you kill trespassers?”

  “As I said, we cannot survive being as passive as we once were. It is not the way we would like to live, but . . .” He paused. “The Chinese tell stories about us. We are their boogie men, the dark shadows that come in the night. We are the reason they don’t like to venture far from their camps.”

  “Then I guess I’m lucky Naru didn’t . . . you know.”

  Khamko laughed. “Yes, I’m glad we didn’t eat you.”

  “Do you really eat people?”

  “There are a lot fewer animals to hunt than there were just fifteen years ago.”

  Eric paused. “Are you being serious?”

  There was no response.

  “It’s moments like this when I wish I could see your face.”

  “Oh, I’m smiling,” Khamko said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Foreign Aid

  November 8, 2026

  Washington, DC

  Breathing hard, Jane Hunter ran along the Potomac River Trail toward base. The sun was just setting in the west, painting purple and orange strokes across a hazy blue sky. She passed Moffett Hangar, an enormous structure big enough to hold a zeppelin, then a row of F-35 jump jets. She sprinted the last quarter mile to her apartment block. Once inside, she passed the elevator and took the stairs three at a time. This was key to her survival—to keep moving. If she stopped, she knew she’d go crazy. The five-mile run had given her a good dose of endorphins, and with any luck that would keep her dark thoughts at bay for an hour or two.

  She pushed into her apartment and began peeling off her clothes. She resisted the urge to throw them on her bedroom floor and put them in the hamper instead. Stay organized. Stay disciplined. She felt she was living in a house of cards; one little mistake could be disastrous.

  She entered the bathroom. The medicine cabinet door was open, and she instinctively closed it, forgetting that she’d left it open for a reason.

  She looked into the mirror, and there he was. A snapshot of the two of them that she’d wedged in the tin frame of the mirror. The camera had caught him just after a laugh, the happiness still clear on his face, his eyes bright and mischievous, as if he knew he’d been misbehaving. Too clever for his own good, she said. And now she could see that in his eyes. She touched her chest between her breasts where it suddenly hurt.

  That had been such a perfect night. The Navy Birthday Ball, the dancing, surrounded by friends. Now it seemed impossibly distant, from a different lifetime. In the photo she was behind him, chin on his shoulder, arms around him, squeezing and smiling. He’d only been home a month when the picture was taken. Back when every day had been a gift, when they’d been grateful just to be alive and together and safe.

  He had been her first. First real boyfriend, first true confidant, first lover. He was the one. How else could you explain what had happened? She had lost him once, but he had been delivered, against all odds, back to her. So he must be alive now too. His heart was still beating. If it had stopped she would have felt it. But her logical mind reminded her that wasn’t how it worked. That he had probably died near the crash site. His body eaten or carried off by some animal. A lion, hyenas. Her scientific mind insisted she face the ugly truth.

  You don’t know that, she told herself. You don’t know anything.

  She looked past the picture, at the reflection of herself, naked and vulnerable in the mirror. She tried to remind herself that she was strong and beautiful and tough. But right now she didn’t believe it, and she didn’t see it. In the mirror she saw a nervous wreck. Bags under her eyes, fatigue pulling at her cheeks.

  A knock came from the door. She grabbed a T-shirt and pulled on some sweatpants.

  It was CPO Adams, Curtiss’s assistant.

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but the admiral would like to see you.”

  Ten minutes later, she was in Curtiss’s study at his residence. It was a big room, with a dark wood desk opposite the door, and an open area on her right with a conference table. Curtiss rose from his desk and greeted her.

  “Sorry to bring you here so late, but I wanted to give you the news first. This morning the Namibians authorized the Chinese to reenter their airspace.”

  “Shit! And what about us?”

  “We’re still not welcome.”

  “Why them and not us?”

  “Because the Chinese just authorized a seven-hundred-million-dollar aid package to the Namibian government.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was. I’m trying to get State to offer a similar package, but these things take time.”

  “Take time? But you’re talking days or weeks. He could be hurt. He needs help now!”

  Curtiss gave her a reluctant nod. “I know, and I’m stressing to everyone the importance of getting him back. Unfortunately, some of the Joint Chiefs are fighting me.”

  She looked away in disgust. “Walden?”

  “Yes, Walden. He wants to wash his hands of the whole situation, says it’s not worth wasting money on someone who is likely dead.”

  “Fuck . . . ”

  “So I called the president today.”

  A look of hopeful amazement spread across Jane’s face.

  Curtiss continued, “Walden is going to be furious when he finds out. But I explained to the president everything that Eric has done for his country. He didn’t say yes, but he said he would do what he could. He’s worried about the midterm elections, you know, and he wants to keep it as quiet as possible. But I should know something within forty-eight hours.”

  She felt like hugging him but stopped herself. “Thank you.”

  “There’s something else. It could be both good and bad.”

  “What is it?”

  “We are still watching the crash site via satellite. The Chinese have been very interested in the Valor, they’re treating it like an archaeological dig. But they’re also looking for someone.”

  “Someone?”

  “We’re pretty sure they’re looking for Eric.”

  She brought her hand to her mouth.

  “They began searching where Eric fell and have been broadening the search from there. But this is the good news: they’re still looking.”

  A wave of relief rolled through her. “He’s alive! If they haven’t found him, he must be!”

  “Now hold on, Jane, we don’t know that, and you have to be prepared for the worst. All we know is that they haven’t found whatever they’re looking for. But yes, it could be him.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. God, she wanted to believe t
hat his heart still beat. Then a suspicion rose in her heart, and she stepped back from Curtiss. It could be both good and bad.

  “If the Chinese find him and he’s alive, what will you do?”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “No, no, no! Don’t lie to me!” she felt her anger rising. “Tell me the truth. If the Chinese found him and were taking him back to their carrier, what would you do?” She caught her breath. “Oh, God . . . You’d blow them all out of the sky, wouldn’t you? You’d kill him to keep him from falling into their hands again!”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” he said holding up one hand. “The situation is different now. China is shifting into our orbit. It’s not there yet, but in a month it could be, and that gives us diplomatic options. In Tangshan we were running out of time, and I had to act or the whole mission would have failed. And let’s be clear, I wasn’t trying to kill Eric that day, I was trying to kill Ryan Lee before he fell into enemy hands. He was the only one who could have aborted the countdown.”

  Jane wasn’t convinced.

  “Despite what you may think, I don’t enjoy sacrificing people’s lives. It . . . it weighs on me . . . every time. But it’s part of war. You can trust me this time. I won’t have to do anything so desperate. There’s no reason for it.”

  She returned to the apartment block and headed to Ryan’s place. She needed to talk to someone she trusted, to tell him what she had discovered, to share it, and to get his advice. She wasn’t crazy, right? It really meant he was alive? And Curtiss, could she believe him? Why would he call the president if he wasn’t sincere?

  She knocked on Ryan’s apartment door, but he wasn’t home. She called him, but his phone appeared to be off. Probably working late.

  She headed to the main lab. It was almost nine, but Ryan often worked until two or three in the morning.

  The fifth floor was deserted when she got there. The energy-saving night lights had kicked on, leaving the hallway almost dark. As she approached his office, she could see Ryan’s door was slightly ajar, a wedge of light cutting a rectangle on the hallway floor.