by Greg Keyes
The “present”—to his delight—turned out to be a motorcycle.
* * *
Algiers was rubble, so they dropped him in Tunis, where he began the dangerous, dubious business of crossing the Sahara.
The days blurred together. Few of the roads he traveled were paved for any great length, and many were little more than tracks. Finding fuel was at times challenging. He had American dollars, in addition to his pounds, which some people were still accepting. At other times he had to perform chores to fill up. On those occasions he felt more honest.
Most of the great cities on the African continent were on or near the sea, so the interior hadn’t been as severely affected, especially the rural regions. Life went on for many people as it had for centuries. In some villages he was met with great hospitality and offered food, drink, and shelter, even when the people had little for themselves.
There were hot spots, places where old tribal grievances were stirring up, just as there had been before the aliens came. Some borders were virtually unmanned, others were heavily guarded, and a few seemed to have shifted. On the way he heard a great deal of rumor and few facts. Nairobi had been destroyed, and Kinshasa, of that he could be fairly certain. The rest he took with a grain of salt.
At the end of a week, home was close enough he could almost smell it. The last of his journey took him through a mosaic of woodland and savanna. It was well into the wet season, and the enormous sky was always changing. Rain and wind bent the tall grass in long waves, like a restless pale green sea. Golden spears of sunlight struck through the charcoal hearts of the clouds. Come early afternoon, a double rainbow arced across the heavens. In the far distance, amongst the storm clouds clinging to the horizon, he thought he made out a peculiarly regular shape, almost like a vast, shallow dome. He thought that it might be the smoke of a massive grass fire, obscured by the clouds and distance.
On the downside, when the rains let up he plowed through swarms of mosquitos and gnats so thick that he and the bike were thoroughly, unpleasantly coated in spattered bug.
He realized how unconsciously claustrophobic he’d felt in England, how constrained. He had never known until now what a claim this place had on him, that his blood and bones were the rainwater and bedrock of this country. Even his name, his beloved name. He was beginning to understand his father’s obsession with it.
Umbutu was this place as much as it was a word.
He rolled into a village he knew, where he hoped to learn something of current events. He found it savaged and abandoned, most of its few structures burned to the ground. The wet char of it had a sharp smell of lye. He didn’t see any bodies, thankfully.
He pressed on as the deep of the sky darkened. The tall grass and isolated trees rustled in a hot, inconstant breeze, and he smelled something else, another burnt scent, but this one more industrial, somehow, as if a chemical plant had exploded or a load of polyester slacks had been set aflame.
As the sky shifted from gray to gunmetal, he saw lights in the distance. It was hard to tell, but he thought they might be automobile headlamps. Then something big moved in the grass off to his right. He couldn’t tell what sort of animal he had disturbed, but it probably wasn’t good. He pushed forward on the throttle, glancing back, trying to get a better look, but all he saw was a shadow—following him, and at terrific speed.
Something was off to his left as well, and he abruptly realized he was being driven. By what? Wild dogs? Hyenas? He bore down on the gas, but they began closing in, whatever they were. The light from his lamp picked out one ahead of him, and with a sudden chill as from fever he saw a mass of tentacles writhing about, like a nest of snakes all striking toward him at once.
“Merde,” he yelped.
Then there was a flash of light and something struck the front wheel of the bike. With an awful rush the vehicle flipped end-over-end. He heard a sort of demented chattering, felt bubbles of nightmare forming in his brain. Then he bounced on the hard-packed savanna dirt.
Hurting in every bone and muscle, Dikembe scrambled to his feet in time to see it stoop over him. He had seen a few images. He hadn’t expected them to be so big. Tentacles reached for him and he backpedaled, balling his fists. The noise in his head grew louder, more insistent.
Suddenly something went hurtling past him from behind. It rolled between the weird, bent-the-wrong-way legs of the monster and then sprang up at its back, the shadow of a giant. The scene was instantly flooded with light, also coming from behind him. An intense, ammonia-like smell burnt its way into his nostrils.
The alien tried to turn to face its attacker, but it was too late. Its assailant was a man, a big man wielding a pair of machetes, and he had already cut off most of the thing’s tentacles. Although mouthless, the creature somehow managed to scream. More men came running by him, also armed with machetes, uttering war cries as they went at the aliens in the tall grass.
In a few moments, the creatures were all down. The man who had saved him stood up from the twitching remains of the thing and grinned. Dikembe recognized the face.
It was his own, or very nearly so.
“Nice work, big brother,” the man said. “You led them straight to us.”
“Bakari?” he gasped.
“Don’t be so surprised,” Dikembe’s twin said. “Didn’t you think we could get along without you?”
* * *
Bakari and his men took Dikembe to a temporary camp on some high ground about a half a mile away. There he had meat for the first time since leaving the yacht, unless he counted caterpillars. It was probably bush meat of some sort, but he didn’t ask what kind.
By the flickering fire, watching the sparks rise like star seeds, Dikembe listened as his brother told him of the war.
“Mom was in Kinshasa, on a shopping trip,” he said.
“Oh, no—” Dikembe began.
“Easy,” his twin said. “She made it out. The ship that hit Lagos went to Kinshasa next, but it took a bit of time. Dad sent a helicopter.”
“You might have started with her being okay—” Dikembe said “—to spare me the cardiac arrest.”
“He tried like hell to get hold of you, too,” Bakari said. “We thought you died in London.”
“I was visiting a friend,” Dikembe said. “I tried to call, but the lines were all tied up.” He poked at the fire. “How is the old man?”
“Stubborn, as usual. The whole world is turned upside down. It’s not even clear who is in charge, nationally. All Dad knows is, that this is his territory, Umbutu territory, and he won’t budge. He was stubborn enough when we had a working government, such as it was. Now… well, we’ve had a few offers of help in troops and materiel from other places.”
“How did that go?”
“He didn’t chop the emissaries’ hands off before sending them packing, at least, but he’s not letting anyone in.”
“So where is the ship these things are coming from?” Dikembe asked.
“Northeast, near Little Babale.”
“That’s not far,” Dikembe said.
“No it isn’t,” his brother agreed. “It’s far too near. If it was light now, you would see it. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it coming in.”
“There were clouds covering the horizon,” Dikembe said, but he remembered the vague dome shape.
“That wasn’t all clouds,” Bakari said. “It’s… big.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. “You were supposed to bring the Scotch, remember? When you finally returned.”
Dikembe smiled and nodded his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Getting a good single malt wasn’t exactly the thing on the top of my head. I only wanted to get back here, even if only to die. Bakari, I’ve never felt anything so powerfully in my life.”
“And here you are,” Bakari said. “You and I, reunited for our drink. Though we’ll have to make do with a blend.”
“I think I’ll manage,” Dikembe said. He took a sip from the bottle. �
��Good,” he said.
“It isn’t bad,” Bakari said.
“So how did you shoot it down?” Dikembe asked. “The spaceship. I mean, where was it going? I heard a different ship was taken down near Nairobi?”
“Oh,” Bakari said. “We didn’t shoot it down. We’re pretty sure it just fell, and not from far up. It may even have landed.”
“So how many aliens…?”
“We’ve killed more than two thousand,” Bakari said. “They just keep coming, and we’ve lost…” He sighed and shook his head. “A lot. They’re everywhere, and they do things to our minds. I know it sounds strange to say.”
“No,” Dikembe said. “I felt something, just before you killed them. Like insects in my skull.”
Bakari tapped his head. “They can get in here, make us do things if they get those tentacles on us—sometimes when they don’t, if they’re close enough. And they can feel us, track us the way a dog can follow a scent. It’s hard to surprise them, but we’re figuring it out. And we have some artillery, which they don’t. We’ve also managed to capture some of their energy weapons, although they’re a little strange to use.”
“Plus you have your very high-tech machetes,” Dikembe said.
“Machetes don’t jam or run out of ammunition,” Bakari pointed out. “In some ways they work better than guns—there’s a sort of seam in their armor—well, you’ll learn.” He took another drink. “If I had tried to shoot it, I might have killed you.”
“Very thoughtful,” Dikembe said. “I appreciate it.” As he took another drink, he noticed something on his twin’s arm—it appeared as if a series of hash marks had been tattooed there.
“What’s that?” he asked. “The number of hearts you’ve broken?”
Bakari uttered a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh.
“In a sense,” he said. He pulled the short sleeve of his shirt up to reveal his shoulder. Above the hash marks was tattooed the image of an alien head.
“Oh,” Dikembe said. “I see.”
“You’ll have your own tally soon enough,” Bakari said. Then his brother patted him on the shoulder. “You look like a man who could use some sleep. Share my tent. Tomorrow I’ll take you home.”
* * *
When morning came, Dikembe saw the ship. It dominated the savanna like a mountain. He had seen footage of the ships in flight, of course, as well as crashed. Like Bakari said, this was neither. Instead, it was opened up on the bottom like a flower, each vast petal supporting the ship well above the ground. Beneath was shadow, of course, but within it lay a deeper umbra.
“We haven’t been able to get that close,” Bakari said, “but it appears they were digging a hole of some sort.”
“A very big hole,” Dikembe said.
It took two hours bumping along unpaved roads to reach his father’s compound. Word had gone ahead, however, and Dikembe received a greeting that was nothing short of royal. In the village outside of the compound, children lined the streets, waving and cheering. Young women, as well, most demure and a few dressed to be noticed.
He was caught off-guard by how good it was to see the house where he had grown up. It was old and rambling, a colonial structure that went back to Belgian times. It was raised up three meters on thick wooden columns, both to keep the first floor higher than mosquitos tended to fly and as a precaution against the floods that sometimes came in the rainy season. Wide stairs led to a long veranda, with the doors to the interior just beyond. An upper story jutted up from the middle, with a peaked roof and a little tower on the very top.
An honor guard in faultless uniform met them on the dusty plaza in front of the house. More military were assembled in the compound, along with his mother, the female servants in their blue-gray dresses—and of course, his father.
Upanga Umbutu was a big man in every dimension—even his fingers were thick, and Dikembe had forgotten how bone-crushing his handshake could be. After the grasp, his father pulled him in for a hug, then turned to the crowd that mostly was soldiers and held up Dikembe’s hand as if he had just won a prize fight.
“The eldest son of Umbutu has returned to us!” he shouted. “It is a sign, as you all can see. Our victory is near at hand.” There followed a cheer that sounded a little flat and ragged to Dikembe’s ear. He was noticing that many of the “soldiers” seemed to be no more than fourteen or fifteen.
His father wore military attire, as well, with several decorations Dikembe did not recognize. He continued his speech for a few more moments, then put his arm around Dikembe’s shoulder and walked with him toward the house.
“I had almost despaired of you, boy,” he said softly, “but now I see you understand at last where your true loyalties lie. It is good you have returned.”
“Thank you, Papa,” he said. “It is good to be back.”
“Let’s have some breakfast, and you can tell me of your journey.”
The morning meal felt more like a debriefing. The only women present were the serving girls—even his mother was excluded. His spirits rose when he saw his childhood friend Zuberi across the table and he was bemused to see he had somehow risen to the rank of colonel in the few years Dikembe had been gone.
When he was finished relating the somewhat expurgated tale of his return, his father began rambling about the war with the aliens. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t learned from Bakari, although the slant of it was quite different, much more optimistic in tone.
After breakfast broke up, Zuberi came over and clasped hands with him.
“Dikembe, old man,” he said. “Trust you to run toward the fire, rather than away from it.”
“Had I known there was a fire here, I might not have been so hasty,” he replied.
“Well, it’s good to have you back,” Zuberi said.
“How is Eshe? The kids?”
“They are well,” Zuberi said soberly. “The reason I fight, my friend.”
“I can think of no better motivation,” Dikembe said. “We need to catch up, old friend—but I haven’t seen my mother yet.”
“I understand,” Zuberi said. “Soon, though.”
* * *
He met his mother on the veranda. It was raining, and water was pouring in sheets from the eaves. A small, round-faced woman, she was sitting next to a table, a cup of tea in front of her.
“It’s good to see you, Mama,” he said.
She rose and embraced him.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” she said. “The signs were all against it.”
“Well, I’m glad to say the signs were wrong,” he replied.
He saw she was weeping, and took her hand.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” he asked.
“I wish you had not come home,” she said.
“Why?” he asked, surprised.
“Because I fear you have only come here to die.”
* * *
The next day, his father summoned him to his office, which had largely been furnished by taxidermists. As a younger man, Upanga Umbutu had been fiercely proud of his hunting prowess. Growing up, Dikembe and Bakari had often accompanied him, but Dikembe had never felt particularly proud of the pursuit. The animals were always at such a disadvantage, it hardly seemed fair, but he had loved being with his father, and valued the memories of their time on the trail and in camp.
“Dikembe,” his father said. “I am considering what rank to begin you at.”
“What?” Dikembe said. “Father, I am of course willing to fight, but I need not have any rank.”
“You’re an Umbutu,” his father insisted. “You’re my son. It will not do for you to possess no rank in the national army.”
“National army?” Dikembe said. “What do you mean?”
“The army of the Republique Nationale d’Umbutu.”
For a moment, Dikembe was at a loss for words.
“Father,” he finally said. “There is no such country. This is a province.”
His father’s chin lifted a little fr
om his chest.
“Son, at the moment there is no government other than what you see sitting in this chair. One day, hopefully, that will change. Until then, we must defend ourselves.”
“Against the aliens, you mean,” Dikembe said.
“Against everyone,” he said. “In times like this, there are those who will take advantage. I will not let them.”
“Bakari said you had been offered aid against the aliens,” Dikembe said carefully.
“Aid,” his father replied dryly. “Aid in the form of foreign troops. Planes in our airspace—and who is to say that when the war is over, this ‘aid’ won’t stay here and continue to ‘help’ us? I know the lessons of colonialism, son. We can—and will—do this ourselves. And you, I think, will start as a colonel.”
“Papa,” he said, “don’t you think that will anger those who have earned their ranks?”
His father regarded him silently for a moment. He cut the end from a cigar and lit it with a pocket lighter, then took a puff. For a long moment he remained silent.
“It’s no secret I was unhappy with your choice of studies,” he said. “I did not ask that you become a military man, like me, only that you bring some contribution to our country. You could have been a scientist, an engineer, a city planner—a physician. Not so far from here, there is a spacecraft from another world. They came here to kill us all, and they are still trying. But they also have advanced technology, weapons of great power. Some sort of alien plant is breeding at incredible speed, displacing our native species. Do you have the faintest idea how useful it would be to have a scientist or an engineer standing before me right now? Instead I have a… a scribbler. Can you paint our enemies away, Dikembe?”
“I could not plan my life for an event that no one could have foreseen,” Dikembe said.
“Yes,” his father said. “You could have. So much of what happens in the world is unforeseen. That very fact requires us to have skills of universal usefulness.”
“Humanity is bettered by art,” Dikembe said.
“That is an argument of the elite,” his father snapped. “Go ask a poor villager, whose children have died from drinking polluted water, what use the Mona Lisa is. Ask the survivors who lost entire families in the cities.” He sighed and rubbed his head.
