by Gavin Chait
She looks away.
On the horizon, far to the north-east, she sees another helicopter. A twin to this one. Below it hangs a large black shape on a long cable. It is heading away, towards Calabar.
When she looks again, Samara is running up the bank and around the jetty.
Esther and Joshua are crouched beside Isaiah. The child has a hole the size of a coconut in his guts. You can see the blood-soaked path through his back. He is alive but –
Esther is hysterical. Miriam is behind her, trying to hold her, but she is flailing uncontrollably. ‘My son! My son! My child!’ she weeps.
Joshua is silent. His hands are balls of pain. He holds Isaiah’s head, cradling him, loving him. He kisses his forehead tenderly. His tears fall into Isaiah’s hair.
Samara comes up the bank. He slows. There is compassion on his face. A cut on his cheek is already healing, the skin knitting closed.
Joshua stares, pleading. ‘Help him! Help him! Please?’ closing his eyes.
People from within the walls are gathering silently. They hold each other, reaching and touching.
[Samara.] The voice is scared.
‘Look after them. Do not cause harm.’
[Samara.] The voice accepts.
‘Farewell, old friend. We will meet again.’
[Samara.] The voice is an embrace.
Samara pushes people away, physically picks up Esther and hands her to two scouts. ‘Keep her back, no matter what.’
‘Joshua, please stay back. Keep everyone back.’
As Joshua rises, hope and despair competing across his face, Samara is already at the hole in Isaiah’s stomach.
He places one hand over the child’s eyes and then plunges his other inside the wound. That hand splits open and silver fluid jets out. Soon the hole is filled. Electricity, like a net of lightning, writhes and crackles over both of them. The crowd is forced back further.
Esther is silent, numb. Joshua touches her, holds her hand. He pulls her to him. Wraps his arms around her.
In the path, an ever-widening space between them and the crowd, Isaiah is now covered in the silver fluid. Over the roar of the electrical discharge Samara is screaming. His face pointing at the sky, his eyes tightly closed, his lips drawn back in anguish.
Then it stops and he collapses over the boy. The silver fluid dissolves into the path, dissipates and is gone.
Joshua is first to move. He gingerly approaches them. He touches Samara. Crouching, he pulls him back and is surprised at how little he weighs.
Underneath, the boy is whole and unmarked. He coughs. Opens his eyes.
‘Father,’ he smiles. ‘I had the strangest dream.’
II
A REQUIEM FOR THE JOURNEY
The Party cannot rule here. Class division does not hold in a world where everyone is a scholar. If the Party does not recognize this, then we must seek independence.
Liao Zhi, pro-independence activist on Yuèliàng, the Chinese government-built space station, 2087, speech at protest rally in Tiangong Square attended by 7,000
There is no way we would permit our colony to leave. We will shoot them out of the sky if we have to. Citizenship is not a popularity contest. You don’t get to choose when you’re not a citizen. These jackal lawyers with their ‘rights’; what of our citizen’s responsibilities to us?
Svetlana Shkrebneva, president of the United Russian Federation, 2099, informal comments overheard at G27 Summit, after plenary session on property rights in space
For hundreds of years, the best and brightest have travelled across the world to study at the greatest institutions of learning. For more than a century our university has been privileged to be considered such a place. We must, however, be honest with ourselves. We no longer produce research worthy of more than a middle-school intellect. If I am to follow my calling, then I must follow my students. They have chosen to go to space, and so shall I.
Dr Francis Calvino, Head of Department of Forensic Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2103, letter of resignation to the university board
17
Joshua is in a familiar position, seated in a chair in the simple room where Samara was nursed before. Samara is on a bed this time, the frame properly in place.
He still weighs almost as much as two men, but that is so much less than before. No one knows what it means, or how his biology works. He appears physically unharmed, but he has been unconscious for hours.
Outside, the clean-up has started. They have either been lucky or the raiders intended no more than to cause chaos. A distraction from their main purpose for being here. They have lost nothing that cannot be repaired, and the clinic is coping with the injuries: some caused by falls and a few from shrapnel or bullet wounds.
The village remains on alert, unsure if the militia will be back.
There were two serious injuries. One he must still attend to, the other was Isaiah, and he – he is with the other children, receiving counselling and playing near the jetty.
Scouts return confirming what Abishai has seen, that the second helicopter picked up the fake meteorite and carried it away.
‘I have no idea what that means,’ says Daniel. ‘Could we have made a mistake? Could the boulder have been valuable in some way?’
Joshua is as mystified as the others. Mary Ikemba, one of the chemists, says she will conduct an assay of the ground around it to see if there are any traces. It will be a few hours before she can give them an answer.
‘How is he?’ asks Esther, looking pale and drained, standing hesitantly at the door.
‘No change. He just lies there, barely breathing,’ says Joshua.
Esther leans close against him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders and across his chest. He places his hands over hers.
‘If he had not chosen our village, this would never have happened. But if he had not been here –’ his voice trails off.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘But I am grateful, nevertheless. The militia could have chosen to attack us this way at any time. We do not know what drives them.’
They stay in silence: he seated, her standing and embracing him from behind.
Edith comes and goes. There is nothing she can do, but she visits. Hours pass. Morning turns to afternoon. Esther leaves to find Isaiah and bring him home. Joshua continues to sit.
A message comes. The rock was bauxite. It contains thirty per cent aluminium by mass. There may be two or three tons in that ore. More than enough reason to charter helicopters and steal it.
Daniel arrives, ‘It is my fault. I should have been more careful.’
‘You could as easily blame me. I gave them the piece to take with them. I marked the location on their map. It is simply a thing.’
‘At least we know they have what they want. They are unlikely to return. It should be safe to stand the alert down,’ says Daniel, but he looks troubled as he leaves.
Joshua is bitter, but there is no one to blame. One of those things that happens when everyone is being careful.
‘Joshua,’ the words are soft, oddly clipped. His body has not moved at all.
‘Samara?’
‘Joshua.’ His eyes open and he sits slowly upright. His face is a blank, no animation, none of the warmth or character that Joshua has come to associate with his friend.
‘You are not Samara,’ he says. ‘Symon?’
‘Hello, Joshua. I am pleased to meet you in person.’ The voice is metallic, a blade sharpened on a whetstone.
‘What does this mean? Where is Samara?’ He feels dread rising from the pit of his stomach.
‘Joshua, you asked Samara once if he was a threat to your people. He said no. The situation has changed. I am going to become a danger. Samara and I have become disassociated. He is lost somewhere in his mind.’ His voice is even, calm.
‘Our balance has been disrupted. To do what he did and save Isaiah meant that I had to extend outside of this controlled environment. The mass of my shift was too great; th
e system could not hold.
‘Samara said that I should protect your people and do no harm. I cannot guarantee that I will always have a clear understanding of what defines harm. Samara may return for brief periods, but we have no ability to communicate with each other.’
‘What does that mean? Where is Samara?’ Joshua is feeling nauseous.
‘I am not sure where Samara is, or what he is experiencing, but he cannot guide me any longer. I am designed for war. The reason I do not fight is because of Samara’s morality. His ability to empathize, to interpret. I do not have this. I am also less than I was. I am not quite mortal, but I am not as good as I could be.’
Joshua is remaining calm by force of will. He wants to run and warn everyone and then get Symon out of the village as fast as possible.
‘If you become dangerous, how do we stop you?’
Symon does not hesitate: ‘Shoot me in the head at close range.’
‘Will that not kill you?’ Joshua feels as if his heart has stopped.
‘No, but it will knock me out for a while. Then get me home. Once I’m in the Achenian connect, the link will be restored.’
Joshua makes a decision. If Symon is dangerous, best get him far away. ‘We should go to Calabar first thing the day after tomorrow. That is two days earlier than we intended, but we must get you there immediately.’
‘I could leave now.’
‘There was a fatality, Symon. We have lost someone. Someone important. Someone loved. My place is at her funeral tomorrow.’
Symon stares blankly.
‘I am worried, Symon. Worried that this death becomes a trigger for unrest. You will need to remain out of sight.’
Symon nods agreement.
A thought: ‘Can you not repair the helicopter. Use that instead?’
‘No, it was in a poor state when it got here and is not designed for that range anyway. Now it is junk at the bottom of a river.’
Joshua frowns, pinches his brow. Sighs and nods.
‘Please, Symon, hold in there.’ He stands, heading for the door. Then he looks back, ‘Look after my friend,’ and is gone.
18
‘H/a/z/a/a/k–’ The sound rings in his ears: conversation echoing up a pipe. It is indistinct. Non-words that he struggles to make sense of.
‘Us/ga/rh/ ha/la/ah–’ Figures now. Prismatic, sharding. He blinks, trying to clear his vision. Stomps on one foot as if emptying water from his ear. Samara realizes he is standing.
The image focuses. He is in a room. There is a plush eggshell-blue rug on the floor, the Seal of the President of the United States at its centre, detailed in varying shades of blue. There are heavy sofas in an arc about an intricately carved wooden desk. The room is oval-shaped, a dark-wooden floor around the edges beyond the rug. Windows before him look out on to a green lawn.
He feels as if he is suspended within himself. Looking out on a scene frozen in a fragment of time.
There are paintings of George Washington and Bill Clinton, busts of Barack Obama and Hillary Osmani. A man is standing before him, in front of the desk, indicating people standing alongside him. He recognizes him. Eduardo Ortega, the president.
He is present.
Ortega is charming. His hair greying at the temples in the approved fashion. His teeth, well formed, regular and the exact shade of Presidential White required to hold office. ‘– and this is Robert Alvarez, my Chief of Staff, whom I believe you already know?’
He is a step behind Oktar Samboa and aligned with his left shoulder. He can see the back of the man’s neck where it rises out of his formal white cloak. Oktar has chosen a very pale-green skin-shade today, which he seems to believe will complement the rug he is standing on.
This is a memory, thinks Samara. I have been here. This has already happened. ‘Symon?’
But Symon is silent.
Oktar turns to Samara, a smirk on his sharp face. Oktar always smirks. He is 131 years old and has been considered one of the world’s smartest negotiators for more than a century. Samara hears him in his head.
‘Are you ready, Samara?’
Samara can feel the quiet space of the connect. There are others present. He recognizes the members of the Five and the remaining Seven gathered, looking out through him, into the room. They sense what he senses, know what he knows – as much as he permits within the confines of the meeting room he has created for them.
‘This is Samara Adaro, who is accompanying me and observing for my colleagues on Achenia. I am of the Seven and entrusted with negotiating for our people.’ Oktar is managing to sound only slightly patronizing.
Samara can feel, in the separate connection they share, Shakiso fuming. She does not like Oktar and believes that she should be there for Achenia. The others had felt that it would be inappropriate for both a husband and wife to represent them. Independence is not a family affair.
‘We have prepared a formal document stating our intentions,’ says Oktar and, turning to Alvarez, hands him a cellulose tube containing the handwritten one-page sheet of vellum they have prepared.
Alvarez holds it in confusion before he realizes the tube is hollow. He draws out the document, unrolling it. The penmanship is beautiful. The ink is black iridescence in the light streaming in from outside.
‘What is this? “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the universe –”’ he reads.
‘So, it has come to this,’ says Ortega bitterly. He motions at the scroll, ‘Not a long document for a declaration of such import?’
‘We thought you would appreciate the symmetry,’ says Samara.
‘What are you, security detail?’ asks Ortega, his voice caustic.
‘My dear President Ortega,’ says Oktar, honey and cinnamon now as he dances through the words. ‘This is a properly constituted document. You will see there the signatures of each of the Five and the Seven, as well as the heads of the six current polities. It has also been ratified by The Three.’
He pauses for a carefully calculated three heartbeats and then, almost casually, ‘And be kind to Samara. You realize we have only one form of “security detail” in Achenia?’
The others can feel Oktar’s smirk through the connect as Ortega jumps and General Marilyn Graham thrusts herself between them.
‘You dare bring a member of the Nine here? To the White House?’
Oktar’s voice is a blade slicing across the tension, ‘We are not at war, President Ortega. Samara is not in a battleskin and he is unarmed. He is here under the direct authority of the Five, and he will not exceed the mandate given him. That mandate is merely to observe and provide security support. Your security is here too, after all.’
‘Yes,’ says Graham, ‘but our security detail couldn’t blow up half the state while having a shit!’
‘Enough,’ says Hollis Agado, one of the Five justices, through the connect to Oktar.
‘My apologies, Hollis, I am merely ensuring they know that we’re not actually negotiating. This is a foregone conclusion. Our independence is not for discussion.’
‘We know, but there is no need to antagonize them further.’
Oktar addresses the president once more. ‘Mr President. Our declaration should not be a surprise. We have been discussing this for years. There is no debate here. You will be receiving a list of our offers, from technology transfers to payments for assets we believe the US Government may regard as its property. This includes the space elevator. You will see that it is more than fair, but we are open to negotiation on these points.’
‘And you want us to negotiate, with him as a gun to our heads?’ says Alvarez.
‘No,’ says Oktar. ‘If we can take independence as accepted, then he can wait outside.’ He pauses again, ‘With your security detail.’
Ortega and Alvarez share a glance. The president nods, motioning at the security officers in their dark suits linin
g the walls.
Samara is led to the lobby. It is a surprisingly hideous room with unpleasant furniture picked out in baffling shades of orange. Samara refrains from sitting. Or trying the tea. He stands comfortably in a corner and watches through the connect as Oktar negotiates.
‘I may not like him, but he is extremely good,’ says Shakiso. She appears before him, her hair swept back behind her ears and her green-cobalt eyes shining at him. He laughs with her.
‘My darling.’
‘My love.’
He can feel her hand as it caresses his face. He cups her head in his hands, kisses her gently on the forehead.
Across the room, a secretary watches Samara standing silently, motionless and expressionless in the corner. She yawns, bored, and scratches at an insect bite inside her shoe. Looking up again at him she thinks, strange people these spacers.
‘I am preparing your favourite for dinner when you get back,’ says Shakiso.
‘What, that thing with the sage leaves?’ he asks.
‘Yes, that thing with the sage leaves. And fresh tuna. And some yellow creatures.’ She chuckles, a sound filled with pure delight.
‘That would be lovely, my darling,’ laughter filling his soul. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, we both have some serious negotiations to monitor.’
‘If we don’t watch out, Oktar will have them begging for independence from us,’ and then she is only present in the meeting channel. He is left with a lingering memory of her scent, her laughter bubbling in his breast.
The room swims, his vision distorting again.
19
Red comes the dawn. Colours bleached and muted through the early-morning haze. A sombre boom from Ekpe House as the great drum is slowly struck.
And come the people. They sing as they walk through the village. Streaming out of their houses, gathering strength as they fill the streets. They are dressed in ochre reds and yellows, ukara cloth wrapped or draped, white and red beads around their necks. Their feet are naked and their heads are covered.
