The Mack Reynolds Megapack

by Mack Reynolds

  He was a small man, clad only in a loincloth, and could well have been a Dogon himself. Surely he was black as a Dogon, clad as a Dogon, and he spoke the native language which is a tongue little known outside the semi-desert land of Dogon covered with its sand, rocks, scrub bush and baobab trees. It is not a land which sees many strangers.

  The headmen gathered with trepidation. All had seen the juju man descend from the skies. It had been with considerable relief that most had noted that he finally sank to earth in the village of Irèli instead of their own. But now all were summoned. Those among them who were Kanaga dancers wore their masks and costumes, and above all their gris gris charms, but it was a feeble gesture. Such magic as this was unknown. To fly through the air personally!

  Dolo Anah was seated to one end of the largest room of the largest house of Irèli when they crowded in to answer his blunt summons. He was seated cross-legged on the floor and staring at the ground before him.

  The others seemed tongue-tied, both headmen and Hogons, the highly honored elders of the Dogon people. So Amadijuè as senior witchman took over the responsibility of addressing this mystery juju come out of the skies.

  “Oh, powerful stranger, how is your health?”

  “Good,” Dolo Anah said.

  “How is the health of thy wife?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy children?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy mother?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy father?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy kinswomen?”

  “Good.”

  “How is the health of thy kinsmen?”

  “Good.”

  To the traditional greeting of the Dogon, Amadijuè added hopefully, “Welcome to the villages of Sangha.”

  His voice registering nothing beyond the impatience which had marked it from the beginning, Dolo Anah repeated the routine.

  “Men of Sangha,” he snapped, “how is your health?”

  “Good,” they chorused.

  “How is the health of thy wives?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy children?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy mothers?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy fathers?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy kinswomen?”

  “Good!”

  “How is the health of thy kinsmen?”

  “Good!”

  “I accept thy welcome,” Dolo Anah bit out. “And now heed me well for I am known as Dolo Anah and I have instructions from above for the people of the Dogon.”

  Sweat glistened on the faces and bodies of the assembled Dogon headmen, their uncharacteristically silent witchmen, the Hogons and the sons of the headmen.

  “Speak, oh juju come out of the sky,” Amadijuè fluttered, but proud of his ability to find speech at all when all the others were stricken dumb with fear.

  * * * *

  Dolo Anah stared down at the ground before him. The others, their eyes fascinated as though by a cobra preparing to strike its death, focused on the spot as well.

  Dolo Anah raised a hand very slowly and very gently and a sigh went through his audience. The dirt on the hut floor had stirred. It stirred again and slowly, ever so slowly, up through the floor emerged a milky, translucent ball. When it had fully emerged, Dolo Anah took it up in his hands and stared at it for a long moment.

  It came to sudden light and a startled gasp flushed over the room, a gasp shared by even the witchmen, Amadijuè included.

  Dolo Anah looked up at them. “Each of you must come in turn and look into the ball,” he said.

  Faltering, though all eyes were turned to him, Amadijuè led the way. His eyes rounded, he stared, and they widened still further. For within, mystery upon mystery, men danced in seeming celebration. It was as though it was a funeral party but of dimensions never known before, for there were scores of Kanaga dancers, and, yes, above all other wonders, some of the dancers were Dogon, without doubt, but others were Mosse and others were even Tellum!

  Amadijuè turned away, shaken, and Dolo Anah spoke sharply, “The rest, one by one.”

  They came. The headmen, the Hogons, the witchmen and finally the sons of the headmen, and each in turn stared into the ball and saw the tiny men within, doing their dance of celebration, Dogon, Mosse and Tellum together.

  When all had seen, Dolo Anah placed the ball back on the ground and stared at it and slowly it returned to from whence it came, and Dolo Anah gently spread dust over the spot. When the floor was as it had been, he looked up at them, his eyes striking.

  “What did you see?” he spoke sharply to Amadijuè.

  There was a tremor in the village witchman’s voice. “Oh juju, come out of the sky, I saw a great festival and Dogon danced with their enemies the Mosse and the Tellum—and, all seemed happy beyond belief.”

  The stranger looked piercingly at the rest. “And what did you see?”

  Some mumbled, “The same. The same,” and others, terrified still, could only nod.

  “That is the message I have come to give you. You will hold a great conference with the people of the Tellum and the people of the Mosse and there will be a great celebration and no longer will there be Dogon, Mosse and Tellum, but all will be one. And there will be trade, and there will be marriage between the tribes, and no longer will there be three tribes, but only one people and no longer will the headmen and witchmen of the tribes resist the coming of the new schools, and all the young people will attend.”

  Amadijuè muttered, “But, great juju come out of the sky, these are our blood enemies. For longer than the memory of the grandfathers of our eldest Hogon we have carried the blood feud with Tellum and Mosse.”

  “No longer,” Dolo Anah said flatly.

  Amadijuè held shaking hands out in supplication, to this dominating juju come out of the skies. “But they will not heed us. Tellum and Mosse have hated the Dogon for all time. They will wreak their vengeance on any delegation come to make such suggestions to them.”

  “I fly to see their headmen and witchmen immediately,” Dolo Anah bit out decisively. “They will heed my message.” His tone turned dangerous. “As will the headmen and witchmen of the Dogon. If any fail to obey the message from above, their eyes will lose sight, their tongues become dumb, and their bellies will crawl with worms.”

  Amadijuè’s face went ashen.

  At long last the headman of all the Sangha villages spoke up, his voice trembling its fear. “But the schools, oh great juju—as all the Dogon have decided, in tribal conference—the schools are evil for our youth. They teach not the old ways—”

  Dolo Anah cut him short with the chop of a commanding hand. “The old ways are fated to die. Already they die. The new ways are the ways of the schools.”

  Amazed at his own temerity, the head chief spoke once more. “But, since the coming of the French, we have rejected the schools.”

  Dolo Anah looked at him in scorn. “These will not be schools of the French. They will be the schools of Bantu, Berber, Sudanese and all the other peoples of the land. And when your young people have attended the schools and learned their wisdom they in turn will teach in the schools and in all the land there will be wisdom and good life. Now I have spoken and all of you will withdraw save only the sons of the headmen.”

  They withdrew, making a point each and every one not to turn their backs to this bringer of disastrous news and leaving only the terror-stricken young men behind them.

  * * * *

  When all were gone save the dozen youngsters, Dolo Anah looked at them contemplatively. He shrugged finally and said, pointing with his finger, “You, you and you may leave. The others will remain.” The three darted out, glad of the reprieve.

  He looked at the remainder. “Be unafraid,” he snapped. “There is no reason to fe
ar me. Your fathers and the Hogons and the so-called witchmen, are fools, nothing-men. Fools and cowards, because they are impressed by foolish tricks.”

  He pointed suddenly. “You, there, what is your name?”

  The youth stuttered, “Hinnan.”

  “Very well, Hinnan. Did you see me approach by the air?”

  “Yes…yes…juju man.”

  “Don’t call me a juju man. There is no such thing as juju. It is nonsense made by the cunning to fool the stupid, as you will learn when you attend the schools.”

  Hinnan took courage. “But I saw you fly.”

  “Have you never seen the great aircraft of the white men of Europe and America go flying over? Or have none of you witnessed these craft sitting on the ground at Mopti or Niamey. Surely some of you have journeyed to Mopti.”

  “Yes, but they are great craft. And you flew alone and without the great wings and propellers of the white-man’s aircraft.”

  Dolo Anah chuckled. “My son, I flew in a helio-hopper as they are called. They are the smallest of all aircraft, but they are not magic. They are made in the factories of the lands of Europe and America and after you have finished school and have found a position for yourself in the new industries that spread through Africa, then you will be able to purchase one quite cheaply, if you so desire. Others among you might even learn to build them, themselves.”

  Hinnan and the others gasped.

  Dolo Anah went on. “And observe this.” He dug into the ground before him and revealed the crystal ball that had magically appeared before. He showed to them the little elevator device beneath it which he manipulated with a small rubber bulb which pumped air underneath.

  One or two of them ventured a scornful laugh, at the obviousness of the trick.

  Dolo Anah took up the ball and unscrewed the base. Inside were a delicate arrangement of film on a continuous spool so that the scene played over and over again, and a combination of batteries and bulbs to project the scene on the ball’s surface. He explained, in patient detail, the workings of the supposed magic ball. Two of the boys had seen movies on trips to Mopti, the others had heard of them.

  Finally one, highly encouraged now, as were the others, said, “But why do you show us this and shame us for our foolishness?”

  Dolo Anah nodded encouragement at the teen-ager. “I do not shame you, my son, but your fathers and the Hogons and the so-called witchmen. For long ages the Dogon have been led by the oldest members of the tribe, the Hogons. This can be nonsense because in spite of your traditions age does not necessarily bring wisdom. In fact, senility as it is called can bring childish nonsense. A people should be governed by the wisest and best among them, not by tradition, by often silly beliefs handed down from one generation to another.”

  Hinnan, who was eldest son of the head chief, said, “But why do you tell us this, after shaming our fathers and the old men of the Dogon?”

  For the first time since the elders had left, Dolo Anah’s eyes gleamed as before. “Because you will be the leaders of the Dogon tomorrow, most like. And it is necessary to learn these great truths. That you attend the schools and bring to the Dogon tomorrow what they did not have yesterday, and do not have today.”

  “But suppose we tell them of how you have deceived them?” the other articulate Dogon lad said.

  Dolo Anah chuckled and shook his head. “They will not believe you, boy. They will be afraid to believe you. And besides, men are almost everywhere the same. It is difficult for an older man to learn from a younger one, especially his own son. It is vanity, but it is true.” His mouth twisted in memory. “When I was a lad myself, on the beaches of an island far from here in the Bahamas, my father beat me on more than one occasion, indignant that I should wish to attend the white man’s schools, while he and his father before him had been fishermen. Beneath his indignation was the fear that one day I would excel him.”

  “You are right,” Hinnan said uncomfortably, “they would not believe us.” Instinctively, the son of the head chief assumed leadership of the others. “We will keep this secret between us,” he said to them.

  Dolo Anah came to his feet, yawned, stretched his legs and began to pack his gadgets into the small valise he carried. “Good luck, boys,” he said unthinkingly in English.

  As he left the hut, he emerged into a respectfully cleared area around the hut. Without looking left or right he approached his folded helio-hopper, made the few adjustments that were needed to make it air-borne, strapped himself into the tiny saddle, flicked the start control and to the accompaniment of a gasp from the entire village of Irèli, took off in a swoop.

  In a matter of moments, he had disappeared to the north in the direction of the Mosse villages.

  III

  The Emir Alhaji Mohammadu, the Galadima Dawakin, Kudo of Kano, boiled furiously within as his gold plated Rolls Royce progressed through the Saba N’Gari section of town, the quarter outside the dirt walls of the millennium old city. He rode seated alone in the middle of the rear seat and his single counselor sat beside the chauffeur. Before them, a jeep load of his bodyguard, dressed in their uniforms of red and green, cleared the way. Another jeep followed similarly laden.

  They entered through one of the ancient gates and swept up the principal street. They stopped before the recently constructed luxury hotel in the center of town and the bodyguard leapt from the jeeps and took positions to each side of the entry. The counselor popped out from his side of the car and beat the chauffeur to the task of opening the Emir’s door.

  Emir Alhaji Mohammadu was a tall man and a heavy one, his white robed figure towered some six and a half feet and his scales put him over the three hundred mark. He was in his mid fifties and almost a quarter century of autocratic position had marked his face with permanent scowl. He stomped now into the western style hotel.

  His counselor, Ahmadu Abdullah, had already procured the information necessary to locate the source of the Emir’s ire and now scurried before his chief, leading the way to the suite occupied by the mysterious strangers. He banged heavily on the door, then stepped behind his master as it opened.

  One of the strangers, clad western style, opened the door and stepped aside courteously motioning to the large inner room. The Emir strutted arrogantly inside and stared in high irritation at the second and elder stranger who sat there at a heavy table. This one came to his feet, but there was no sign of acknowledgment of the Emir’s rank. It was not too long a time before that men prostrated themselves in Alhaji Mohammadu’s presence.

  He looked at them. Though both were of dark complexion, there seemed no manner of typing them. Certainly they were neither Hausa nor Fulani, there being no signs of Hamitic features, but neither were they Ibo or Yoruba from farther south. The Emir’s eyes narrowed and he wondered if these two were Nigerians at all!

  He barked at them in Hausa and the older answered him in the same language, though there seemed a certain awkwardness in its use.

  Emir Alhaji Mohammadu blared, “You dare summon me, Kudo of this city? You presume—”

  They had resumed seats behind the table and the two of them looked at him questioningly. The older one interrupted with a gently raised hand. “Why did you come?”

  Still glaring, the Emir turned to the cringing Ahmadu Abdullah and motioned curtly for the counselor to speak. Meanwhile, the ruler’s eyes went around the room, decided that the couch was the only seat that would accommodate his bulk, and descended upon it.

  Ahmadu Abdullah brought a paper from the folds of his robes. “This lying letter. This shameless attack upon the Galadima Dawakin!”

  The younger stranger said mildly, “If the charges contained there are incorrect, then why did you come?”

  The Emir rumbled dangerously, ignoring the question. “What is your purpose? I am not a patient man. There has never been need for my patience.”

  The spokesman of the two, the older, leaned back in his chair and said carefully, “We have come to demand your resignation and sel
f-exile.”

  A vein beat suddenly and wildly at the gigantic Emir’s temple and for a full minute the potentate was speechless with outrage.

  Ahmadu Abdullah said quickly, “Fantastic! Ridiculous! The Galadima Dawakin is lawful ruler and religious potentate of three million devoted followers. You are lying strangers come to cause dissention among the people of Kano and—”

  The spokesman for the newcomers took up a sheaf of papers from the table and said, his voice emotionless, “The reason you came here at our request is because the charges made in that letter you bear are valid ones. For a quarter century, you, Alhaji Mohammadu, have milked your people to your own profit. You have lived like a god on the wealth you have extracted from them. You have gone far, far beyond the legal and even traditional demands you have on the local population. Funds supposedly to be devoted to education, sanitation, roads, hospitals and a multitude of other developments that would improve this whole benighted area, have gone into your private pocket. In short, you have been a cancer on your people for the better part of your life.”

  “All lies!” roared the Kudo.

  The other shook his head. “No. We have carefully gathered proof. We can submit evidence to back every charge we have made. Above all, we can prove the existence of large sums of money you have smuggled out of the country to Switzerland, London and New York to create a reserve for yourself in case of emergency. Needless to say, these funds, too, were originally meant for the betterment of the area.”

  The Emir’s eyes were narrow with hate. “Who are you? Whom do you represent?”

  “What difference does it make? This is of no importance.”

  “You represent my son, Alhaji Fodio! This is what comes of his studies in England and America. This is what comes of his leaving Kano and spending long years in Lagos among those unbeliever communists in the south!”

  The younger stranger chuckled easily. “That is about the last tag I would hang on your son’s associates,” he said in English.