“Do you…”
“… deny that we …
“… found it in the…”
“… gorge?” demanded the Twins.
“I believe you,” said the Historian. “I simply state that it seems to be an anachronism.”
“It is our find, and…”
“… it will bear our name.”
“No one is denying your right of discovery,” said Bellidore. “It is simply that you have presented us with a mystery.”
“Give it to…”
“… He Who Views, and he…”
“… will solve the mystery.”
“I will do my best,” I said. “But it has not been long enough since I assimilated the stylus. I must rest and regain my strength.”
“That is…”
“… acceptable.”
We let the Moriteu go about brushing and cleaning the artifact, while we speculated on why a primitive fetish should exist in the starfaring age. Finally the Exobiologist got to her feet.
“I am going back into the gorge,” she announced. “If the Stardust Twins could find this, perhaps there are other things we have overlooked. After all, it is an enormous area.” She paused and looked at the rest of us. “Would anyone care to come with me?”
It was nearing the end of the day, and no one volunteered, and finally the Exobiologist turned and began walking toward the path that led down into the depths of Olduvai Gorge.
It was dark when I finally felt strong enough to assimilate the jewelry. I spread my essence about the bones and the wire and soon became one with them …
* * *
His name was Joseph Meromo, and he could live with the money but not the guilt.
It had begun with the communication from Brussels, and the veiled suggestion from the head of the multinational conglomerate headquartered there. They had a certain commodity to get rid of. They had no place to get rid of it. Could Tanzania help?
Meromo had told them he would look into it, but he doubted that his government could be of use.
Just try, came the reply.
In fact, more than the reply came. The next day a private courier delivered a huge wad of large-denomination bills, with a polite note thanking Meromo for his efforts on their behalf.
Meromo knew a bribe when he saw one—he’d certainly taken enough in his career—but he’d never seen one remotely the size of this one. And not even for helping them, but merely for being willing to explore possibilities.
Well, he had thought, why not? What could they conceivably have? A couple of containers of toxic waste? A few plutonium rods? You bury them deep enough in the earth and no one would ever know or care. Wasn’t that what the Western countries did?
Of course, there was the Denver Disaster, and that little accident that made the Thames undrinkable for almost a century, but the only reason they popped so quickly to mind is because they were the exceptions, not the rule. There were thousands of dumping sites around the world, and ninety-nine percent of them caused no problems at all.
Meromo had his computer cast a holographic map of Tanzania above his desk. He looked at it, frowned, added topographical features, then began studying it in earnest.
If he decided to help them dump the stuff, whatever it was—and he told himself that he was still uncommitted—where would be the best place to dispose of it?
Off the coast? No, the fishermen would pull it up two minutes later, take it to the press, and raise enough hell to get him fired, and possibly even cause the rest of the government to resign. The party really couldn’t handle any more scandals this year.
The Selous Province? Maybe five centuries ago, when it was the last wilderness on the continent, but not now, not with a thriving, semi-autonomous city-state of fifty-two million people where once there had been nothing but elephants and almost-impenetrable thorn bush.
Lake Victoria? No. Same problem with the fishermen. Dar es Salaam? It was a possibility. Close enough to the coast to make transport easy, practically deserted since Dodoma had become the new capital of the country.
But Dar es Salaam had been hit by an earthquake twenty years ago, when Meromo was still a boy, and he couldn’t take the chance of another one exposing or breaking open whatever it was that he planned to hide.
He continued going over the map: Gombe, Ruaha, Iringa, Mbeya, Mtwara, Tarengire, Olduvai …
He stopped and stared at Olduvai, then called up all available data.
Almost a mile deep. That was in its favor. No animals left. Better still. No settlements on its steep slopes. Only a handful of Maasai still living in the area, no more than two dozen families, and they were too arrogant to pay any attention to what the government was doing. Of that Meromo was sure: he himself was a Maasai.
So he strung it out for as long as he could, collected cash gifts for almost two years, and finally gave them a delivery date.
Meromo stared out the window of his thirty-fourth floor office, past the bustling city of Dodoma, off to the east, to where he imagined Olduvai Gorge was.
It had seemed so simple. Yes, he was paid a lot of money, a disproportionate amount—but these multinationals had money to burn. It was just supposed to be a few dozen plutonium rods, or so he had thought. How was he to know that they were speaking of forty-two tons of nuclear waste?
There was no returning the money. Even if he wanted to, he could hardly expect them to come back and pull all that deadly material back out of the ground. Probably it was safe, probably no one would ever know …
But it haunted his days, and even worse, it began haunting his nights as well, appearing in various guises in his dreams. Sometimes it was as carefully sealed containers, sometimes it was as ticking bombs, sometimes a disaster had already occurred and all he could see were the charred bodies of Maasai children spread across the lip of the gorge.
For almost eight months he fought his devils alone, but eventually he realized that he must have help. The dreams not only haunted him at night, but invaded the day as well. He would be sitting at a staff meeting, and suddenly he would imagine he was sitting among the emaciated, sorecovered bodies of the Olduvai Maasai. He would be reading a book, and the words seemed to change and he would be reading that Joseph Meromo had been sentenced to death for his greed. He would watch a holo of the Titanic disaster, and suddenly he was viewing some variation of the Olduvai Disaster.
Finally he went to a psychiatrist, and because he was a Maasai, he chose a Maasai psychiatrist. Fearing the doctor’s contempt, Meromo would not state explicitly what was causing the nightmares and intrusions, and after almost half a year’s worth of futile attempts to cure him, the psychiatrist announced that he could do no more.
“Then am I to be cursed with these dreams forever?” asked Meromo.
“Perhaps not,” said the psychiatrist. “I cannot help you, but just possibly there is one man who can.”
He rummaged through his desk and came up with a small white card. On it was written a single word: MULEWO.
“This is his business card,” said the psychiatrist. “Take it.”
“There is no address on it, no means of communicating with him,” said Meromo. “How will I contact him?”
“He will contact you.”
“You will give him my name?”
The psychiatrist shook his head. “I will not have to. Just keep the card on your person. He will know you require his services.”
Meromo felt like he was being made the butt of some joke he didn’t understand, but he dutifully put the card in his pocket and soon forgot about it.
Two weeks later, as he was drinking at a bar, putting off going home to sleep as long as he could, a small woman approached him.
“Are you Joseph Meromo?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Please follow me.”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“You have business with Mulewo, do you not?” she said.
Meromo fell into step behind her, at least as much to
avoid going home as from any belief that this mysterious man with no first name could help him. They went out to the street, turned left, walked in silence for three blocks, and turned right, coming to a halt at the front door to a steel-and-glass skyscraper.
“The sixty-third floor,” she said. “He is expecting you.”
“You’re not coming with me?” asked Meromo.
She shook her head. “My job is done.” She turned and walked off into the night.
Meromo looked up at the top of the building. It seemed residential. He considered his options, finally shrugged, and walk into the lobby.
“You’re here for Mulewo,” said the doorman. It was not a question. “Go to the elevator on the left.”
Meromo did as he was told. The elevator was paneled with an oiled wood, and smelled fresh and sweet. It operated on voice command and quickly took him to the sixty-third floor. When he emerged he found himself in an elegantly decorated corridor, with ebony wainscotting and discreetly placed mirrors. He walked past three unmarked doors, wondering how he was supposed to know which apartment belonged to Mulewo, and finally came to one that was partially open.
“Come in, Joseph Meromo,” said a hoarse voice from within.
Meromo opened the door the rest of the way, stepped into the apartment, and blinked.
Sitting on a torn rug was an old man, wearing nothing but a red cloth gathered at the shoulder. The walls were covered by reed matting, and a noxious-smelling caldron bubbled in the fireplace. A torch provided the only illumination.
“What is this?” asked Meromo, ready to step back into the corridor if the old man appeared as irrational as his surroundings.
“Come sit across from me, Joseph Meromo,” said the old man. “Surely this is less frightening than your nightmares.”
“What do you know about my nightmares?” demanded Meromo.
“I know why you have them. I know what lies buried at the bottom of Olduvai Gorge.”
Meromo shut the door quickly. “Who told you?”
“No one told me. I have peered into your dreams, and sifted through them until I found the truth. Come sit.”
Meromo walked to where the old man indicated and sat down carefully, trying not to get too much dirt on his freshly pressed outfit.
“Are you Mulewo?” he asked.
The old man nodded. “I am Mulewo.”
“How do you know these things about me?”
“I am a laibon,” said Mulewo.
“A witch doctor?”
“It is a dying art,” answered Mulewo. “I am the last practitioner.”
“I thought laibons cast spells and created curses.”
“They also remove curses—and your nights, and even your days, are cursed, are they not?”
“You seem to know all about it.”
“I know that you have done a wicked thing, and that you are haunted not only by the ghost of it, but by the ghosts of the future as well.”
“And you can end the dreams?”
“That is why I have summoned you here.”
“But if I did such a terrible thing, why do you want to help me?”
“I do not make moral judgments. I am here only to help the Maasai.”
“And what about the Maasai who live by the gorge?” asked Meromo. “The ones who haunt my dreams?”
“When they ask for help, then I will help them.”
“Can you cause the material that’s buried there to vanish?”
Mulewo shook his head. “I cannot undo what has been done. I cannot even assuage your guilt, for it is a just guilt. All I can do is banish it from your dreams.”
“I’ll settle for that,” said Meromo.
There was an uneasy silence.
“What do I do now?” asked Meromo.
“Bring me a tribute befitting the magnitude of the service I shall perform.”
“I can write you a check right now, or have money transferred from my account to your own.”
“I have more money than I need. I must have a tribute.”
“But—”
“Bring it back tomorrow night,” said Mulewo.
Meromo stared at the old laibon for a long minute, then got up and left without another word.
He called in sick the next morning, then went to two of Dodoma’s better antique shops. Finally he found what he was looking for, charged it to his personal account, and took it home with him. He was afraid to nap before dinner, so he simply read a book all afternoon, then ate a hasty meal and returned to Mulewo’s apartment.
“What have you brought me?” asked Mulewo.
Meromo laid the package down in front of the old man. “A headdress made from the skin of a lion,” he answered. “They told me it was worn by Sendayo himself, the greatest of all laibons.”
“It was not,” said Mulewo, without unwrapping the package. “But it is a sufficient tribute nonetheless.” He reached beneath his red cloth and withdrew a small necklace, holding it out for Meromo.
“What is this for?” asked Meromo, examining the necklace. It was made of small bones that had been strung together.
“You must wear it tonight when you go to sleep,” explained the old man. “It will take all your visions unto itself. Then, tomorrow, you must go to Olduvai Gorge and throw it down to the bottom, so that the visions may lie side by side with the reality.”
“And that’s all?”
“That is all.”
Meromo went back to his apartment, donned the necklace, and went to sleep. That night his dreams were worse than they had ever been before.
In the morning he put the necklace into a pocket and had a government plane fly him to Arusha. From there he rented a ground vehicle, and two hours later he was standing on the edge of the gorge. There was no sign of the buried material.
He took the necklace in his hand and hurled it far out over the lip of the gorge.
His nightmares vanished that night.
* * *
One hundred thirty-four years later, mighty Kilimanjaro shuddered as the long-dormant volcano within it came briefly to life.
One hundred miles away, the ground shifted on the floor of Olduvai Gorge, and three of the lead-lined containers broke open.
Joseph Meromo was long dead by that time; and, unfortunately, there were no laibons remaining to aid those people who were now compelled to live Meromo’s nightmares.
* * *
I had examined the necklace in my own quarters, and when I came out to report my findings, I discovered that the entire camp was in a tumultuous state.
“What has happened?” I asked Bellidore.
“The Exobiologist has not returned from the gorge,” he said.
“How long has she been gone?”
“She left at sunset last night. It is now morning, and she has not returned or attempted to use her communicator.”
“We fear…”
“… that she might…”
“… have fallen and…”
“… become immobile. Or perhaps even…”
“… unconscious…” said the Stardust Twins.
“I have sent the Historian and the Appraiser to look for her,” said Bellidore.
“I can help, too,” I offered.
“No, you have the last artifact to examine,” he said. “When the Moriteu awakens, I will send it as well.”
“What about the Mystic?” I asked.
Bellidore looked at the Mystic and sighed. “She has not said a word since landing on this world. In truth, I do not understand her function. At any rate, I do not know how to communicate with her.”
The Stardust Twins kicked at the earth together, sending up a pair of reddish dust clouds.
“It seems ridiculous…” said one.
“… that we can find the tiniest artifact…” said the other.
“… but we cannot find…”
“… an entire exobiologist.”
“Why do you not help search for it?” I asked.
“They
get vertigo,” explained Bellidore.
“We searched…”
“… the entire camp,” they added defensively.
“I can put off assimilating the last piece until tomorrow, and help with the search,” I volunteered.
“No,” replied Bellidore. “I have sent for the ship. We will leave tomorrow, and I want all of our major finds examined by then. It is my job to find the Exobiologist; it is yours to read the history of the last artifact.”
“If that is your desire,” I said. “Where is it?”
He led me to a table where the Historian and the Appraiser had been examining it.
“Even I know what this is,” said Bellidore. “An unspent cartridge.” He paused. “Along with the fact that we have found no human artifacts on any higher strata, I would say this in itself is unique: a bullet that a man chose not to fire.”
“When you state it in those terms, it does arouse the curiosity,” I acknowledged.
“Are you…”
“… going to examine it…”
“… now?” asked the Stardust Twins apprehensively.
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“Wait!” they shouted in unison.
I paused above the cartridge while they began backing away.
“We mean…”
“… no disrespect…”
“… but watching you examine artifacts…”
“… is too unsettling.”
And with that, they raced off to hide behind some of the camp structures.
“What about you?” I asked Bellidore. “Would you like me to wait until you leave?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I find diversity fascinating. With your permission, I would like to stay and observe.”
“As you wish,” I said, allowing my body to melt around the cartridge until it had become a part of myself, and its history became my own history, as clear and precise as if it had all occurred yesterday …
* * *
“They are coming!”
Thomas Naikosiai looked across the table at his wife.
“Was there ever any doubt that they would?”
The Year's Best SF 12 # 1994 Page 60
