Five Tribes

by Brian Nelson

  And the gemsbok! He could feel her heart beating. He literally felt her thoughts. She tried to lose him twice more by dashing into brambles and doubling back. But he knew her mind now, and he knew her ultimate goal. To get back to the herd.

  After what must have been two miles, going at a full run, he began to tire. He tasted blood in his mouth from overtaxing the capillaries in his lungs. He would have to stop soon. But the gemsbok was now only forty yards ahead.

  He heard his inner voice: You must end this. Not for yourself. But for her. Remember the poison. She will die. The longer she lives, the more she suffers.

  He summoned his courage and raised the spear, balancing it as he ran. He imagined its flight in his mind, pictured it sailing high and striking her. Then he gathered his strength and hurled the spear.

  He watched it arch into the air, just as he had seen it in his mind. Down it came.

  It struck her between the tail head and the hip bone, sinking deep. She whinnied in pain then bolted, running with renewed panic. Eric hoped she would last only a few seconds and fall, but no. On she ran with amazing energy. Eric slowed his pace to a trot, knowing he had lost his chance. He bent down, hands on knees and tried to catch his breath, occasionally glancing up to catch sight of her as she raced off.

  Then he heard movement in the grass. He stood to see Naru dashing by, about thirty meters on his right, only her torso was above the tall grass, her arms churning. She gave him a signal with her hands.

  He replied with a puzzled look. She called out to him. “Keep to her left and hurry up.”

  He didn’t think he could keep going, yet he also realized it was the first time she had spoken to him in a voice that was not laced with contempt and scorn. So he ran on but the best he could manage was a pathetic jog.

  He thought back to the link he had felt. The closer he got to her, the stronger it became. Even now he felt it. Her heart was beating faster than ever, and seemed almost ready to burst. The spear was still in her, slowing her down. Every step with her right hind leg was painful. And the poison, it had now spread throughout her body, speeded by her frantic heart. It was beginning to bind her muscles. Making every movement harder, making her tired heart work harder. She had to stop more often, panting out her heat. He imagined how weary she was. Barely able to go on. A feeling that it didn’t matter anymore. Death was now equal to life.

  He quickened his pace, sensing that he needed to see it, to bear witness when Naru caught her.

  Suddenly he felt another shift. Something about her had changed. Had Naru killed her? No, she was still alive. But that hopelessness that had been building inside her had filled her up. She understood that there was no escape. And that brought another decision.

  If he guessed right, he might have time. He changed course, bearing north again, away from where the herd should be. She’s an old mother, he thought, she won’t escort death back to her young.

  After he had covered another mile at a steady run, he came to the lip of a dale—a shallow crater in the plain. And there, at the bottom of the basin, he saw them.

  The gemsbok stood motionless, so weak she could neither walk nor raise her head. Her mouth was covered in foam, and her ribcage inflated and deflated enormously.

  Naru stood less than ten feet away. Her chest was heaving, too, her skin shiny with sweat.

  There had been no final sprint. No dramatic hurling of the spear. This was how it ends—in pure exhaustion.

  As Eric approached, Naru raised both spears to the sky, touching their tips together above her head. She prayed to Cagn, thanking him for the hunt and the meat that would keep her people strong. Then she spoke to the old mother, thanking her for giving herself to them.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  But then the old mother took a step and then another. She stumbled as she moved. The exhaustion, the heat, and the poison making every motion hard. But her intent was unmistakable. She was walking toward Eric.

  Without hesitation, Naru handed him one of her spears.

  “Why?”

  “She has chosen you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must. And you must do it quickly. You owe it to her.”

  Eric gave a heavy sigh and looked at the gemsbok. He saw the knowing in her eye.

  “You must strike just above the front leg. Throw hard so that you penetrate deep.”

  He couldn’t look at her face anymore; he stared only at the point he had to hit.

  As he raised his spear, the tears began to well up in his eyes.

  He felt her heartbeat racing in his own chest.

  Then he gritted his teeth and cast.

  The spear entered her, and she instantly collapsed on to her front knees then slouched to her side.

  “Now you must push in the spear and twist.”

  He did as he was told. But even though the old mother’s heart had resigned itself to death, the other parts of her body had not. As he twisted the spear, she kicked and tossed her head. The long rapier horns swiped upward, Eric jumped back, but not quick enough. The sharp tip of the horn caught raked along his ribs, cut open his chest and split the skin on his jaw and cheek.

  It happened so quickly, and he was so focused on his task, that he barely felt the pain. He had to finish this. He seized the spear again and twisted, this time Naru helped him.

  Finally, he felt the mother’s heart stop. Eric stepped back, his chest heaving and bloody, and beheld her, his vision blurry with tears. The life energy seemed to dissipate around her, along with her fear and anxiety, like mist in the air.

  Fifteen minutes later Naru had gutted the gemsbok and started a fire. They made a sort of tepee over the flames with ling branches, then, methodically, she began to cut long strips of meat which she lay across them.

  “A gemsbok is too big for us to carry, so we will wait for Khamko and Karuma. Once they arrive, we can go and tell the others. By nightfall, the whole camp will be here.”

  An hour later Khamko and Karuma arrived. When Naru finished telling the story of the hunt, Khamko nodded thoughtfully and smiled. Then his eyes locked on Eric and he laughed.

  “I never expected you to go running off like that. Perhaps I should have said something, but I’m glad I didn’t. You brought us luck today.”

  “All I did was almost get you killed.”

  “No, when you stepped on that stick, you flushed the herd closer to me. I was not in danger. And later you hit the gemsbok with your spear, which shortened the hunt by hours.”

  Eric nodded noncommittally. “But why did she come to me like that? At the end?”

  Khamko pursed his lips as if he were choosing his words carefully. “Just as you felt a connection with her, she felt a connection with you. When you stood over her on the tree, you showed compassion. She remembered.”

  “Killing her was so hard. I never want to do that again.”

  Khamko nodded slowly. “It makes me happy to hear you say that. All good hunters should feel that way after their first kill, for it means that you treasure life and you will only kill when you must. But don’t be too hard on yourself. All animals must eat to survive. We are no different. What you did is not a crime. It is only a crime if it is done with greed and waste and excess. And while it is true that you killed a beautiful animal, you will also feed your people. Karuma, Nyando, and the other children will grow stronger because of you.”

  Khamko placed a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “It is good to be sad, it means you will keep her in your heart.

  “Now come, let me look at these cuts.” Khamko examined his wounds. “Your face and ribs will be fine, but here on your chest it is deep. I will need to clean it well and stitch it.”

  He then spoke to Naru. She went to the gemsbok’s entrails and pulled out the rumen, the first stomach. Gently she cut it open and began pouring the intestinal water into their
empty ostrich eggs. Then she took the masticated grass from inside and squeezed the liquid into the shells. Finally, she put one of the eggs on the fire to boil.

  “That water you see there has saved my people from death countless times,” Khamko said. “Through long droughts, fire, and famine, the ability to find as much as seven gallons of water inside an animal, has often meant the difference between life and death.” Then he laughed. “Maybe it will save your life, too.”

  Then Khamko stood for a moment looking around. He pointed to one plant about a hundred yards off. “There . . .” he said, then scanned the horizon some more, “. . . and there. I can use the leaves from a bush willow and eland’s bean as an antibiotic. While you are gone, I’ll prepare what I need.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yes, you three need to walk back to camp and get the others.”

  Karuma gave a groan and began to protest. “I want to stay with you and set up camp. Besides, what if a lion comes to steal the meat?”

  “Don’t worry. I will be fine,” Khamko said.

  Karuma lay down on the ground in protest. “It’s not fair.”

  “Stop stalling,” his mother said. “Get up!”

  Just then Karuma made a strange sound: it was a loud hum followed by a grunt.

  “No more tricks!” his mother said. Apparently the noise was some sort of ploy.

  But Khamko stood up and began to look around excitedly. “Are you just playing?”

  Karuma made the strange sound again and pointed to an acacia tree about thirty yards away. He made the call two more times.

  “I see him,” Khamko said excitedly.

  Suddenly a small bird, just a bit smaller than a robin, alighted from the tree and swooped down among them. Its head and back were dark brown, its belly a light tan, its beak bright pink. It circled around Karuma for a moment, chirping loudly. Karuma responded with his own chirps, and they began to carry on what could only be described as a conversation.

  Eric found himself laughing at the strange spectacle. It was as if they were two happy strangers, pleased to meet you, how are you feeling today, isn’t the weather something? They were looking for a reason to become friends, trying to find common ground, dropping names perhaps, in hopes of sealing some sort of deal. In under a minute some agreement was apparently struck.

  The bird darted away, and in the time it took Eric’s heart to beat twice, Karuma and Naru had snatched up their spears and were racing after it.

  Eric turned to Khamko for some sort of explanation but got none. “Go on!” he said, shooing Eric with his hand, “you don’t want to miss this!”

  Eric picked up his spear and went after them. His legs were stiff as wood, and he hobbled at first, but he eventually caught up with them.

  The little bird was moving from tree to tree, zigzagging around. But it was not trying to get away from them; in fact, it stopped in each one to wait for them before flying off to the next tree. The whole time Karuma and the bird kept up their conversation, calling back and forth to each other. For a time, the bird seemed confused. It went back and forth from the same two trees twice, then it suddenly made an excited chirp, and made a beeline for an area thick with acacia trees and blackthorn bushes.

  “She found something!” Karuma said and ran off. “Come on, Moon-man. Tonight we feast like gods!”

  Eric laughed and ran after him. Naru had now slowed her pace and fallen behind them, relaxed and unworried. Eric glanced back and saw her smiling. She seemed to enjoy watching her son play his game.

  Then it clicked for Eric. Feast like gods.

  Honey!

  Eric and Karuma soon arrived at an impenetrable wall of blackthorn. It was fifty yards wide and a hundred yards deep. In the middle of this natural fortress was a huge acacia tree. Even from this distance Eric could smell the honey, sweet and loamy, warmed in the afternoon sun. The hive must be enormous, he thought. He felt a giddiness from the base of his brainstem, and bit his lower lip. But how could they get to it?

  They began looking for a way in, but the buckthorn—spread out before them like a castle wall—was just too thick. Karuma began pacing back and forth, probing with his spear, trying to find a way in.

  Then several things happened very fast, things that Eric would not quite understand until much later. First, Eric sensed something. Just as he had learned to perceive a nearby presence when he was blind, now he felt something similar. Very close and very big.

  At almost the same instant, the bird came racing out of the thicket, chirping a different call. One of imminent danger.

  Chapter Thirty

  The End

  The New York Times

  new york, NovemBer 21, 2026

  one-party rule ends in china

  Elections in 90 Days

  by Scott Brookings

  And so it was on November 21, 2026—fifty years after his first death—that Mao Zedong died a second time. Chairman Mao was declared dead at 2:15 p.m. local time in Beijing, when the Central Committee announced an end to one-party rule and mandated new elections in ninety days. Within hours of the announcement, sixteen political parties had been registered. Thus ended what will likely be known in world history as the Mao Dynasty.

  Washington, DC

  Admiral James Curtiss had been looking forward to this day for many years. The day when America’s most potent enemy finally fell. The day when America would once again be the world’s sole superpower. The day when 1.5 billion people would finally escape from brutal totalitarian rule.

  Yet as he dressed in his formal whites that morning, adjusted his epaulets and ribbons, and checked himself in the mirror, he did not feel the exhilaration he had imagined he would.

  He reminded himself that a wise man is neither elated by victory nor demoralized by defeat. After all, there was still much to be done. They had created a power vacuum, so they would have to be very careful about who filled it. A lot could still go wrong.

  However, it felt like more than that. He felt like he had been stretched too thin. Here, at the end, he was able to fully realize just how much he had been through in the last twenty-two months and how it had pushed him to his limit. It had begun with the daunting task of turning the NRL around, beating the Chinese to Replication, then sabotaging their weapons program. Next came the deployment of the new technology to transform the geopolitical landscape—first Cuba, then Zimbabwe, El Salvador, Venezuela, and finally China. All the while trying to keep control of the technology and deal with the subversion of people like Walden and Rosario. Then came the raid in Namibia, the death of four servicemen and losing Eric Hill. One problem on top of the other. He felt he was managing it, but in a desperate way . . . in a way that made him fear that he must have made a mistake along the way, some oversight that was going to come back to haunt him.

  Or maybe he simply didn’t think he deserved to win. Perhaps deep down, he knew there was a certain injustice that a man like him, who had been responsible for so much death, should really get away with it.

  His mind flashed to all the flag-draped coffins that had returned from Syria. Then to the dust-covered bodies of operators killed in Iraq. For much of his career he’d been responsible for the terrible calculations that resulted in other people’s deaths. He chose how many marines would clear a house in Basra or how much air support was needed for a team of operators in Fallujah. And it had been he who had approved Operation Ajax, the assault on Damascus that had resulted in the death of two hundred marines. And what about the other side? What about the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Syrians? How many women and children had died in airstrikes he had ordered? How many children had been orphaned because his soldiers had shot their fathers or mothers?

  These were the questions that plagued him. That he could never fully answer. Why should a man like him be honored? Why should he even be allowed to live?

  He had hoped that movin
g into the job at the NRL might be a path to redemption. Working with scientists instead of soldiers, trying to find a better way to wage war.

  Now it appeared that they had actually succeeded. China had fallen.

  You should be content. You did this.

  As he descended the staircase to the kitchen for his first cup of coffee, his iSheet vibrated.

  He looked at the message from Sawyer. “The Liaoning and all her escorts have just departed Namibian waters.”

  It was another piece of good news, yet this too did not make him feel better. Once again, he didn’t feel like he deserved it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  All Seeing

  November 21, 2026

  Washington, DC

  The four iSheets sat in a row on Jane’s bench. Each one displayed the gruesome image of a dead goat with its legs splayed open and blood all over its abdomen.

  Test Subject Seven—Shot at ten meters with .223 round. Died of blood loss in forty-seven minutes.

  Test Subject Eleven—Shot at ten meters with .223 round. Died of blood loss in fifty-three minutes.

  She moved from one image to the next, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. Too much blood loss, too fast. Why?

  She looked up at the ceiling, searching the alabaster tiles for an answer. She pounded her fist on the table. “Shit!” she seethed. “I can’t think straight anymore.”

  That’s because you’re exhausted, another voice in her head replied. When was the last time you slept more than a couple of hours?

  That was an easy question to answer: the night before Eric disappeared.

  On one hand she was proud of herself. She hadn’t let his disappearance drive her crazy. She’d resigned herself to the fact that she couldn’t do anything about it and had dived into her work. Yet now and again, the thoughts and fears would come. When would the call finally come?