by Gavin Chait
Then he begins to sing, a rap-beat at first, adding new voices. He is a choir of one.
An ugly man in a bad hat tries to hit him as he passes. Ismael turns the punch into a dance and touches the man lightly on the nose. The man in the bad hat, completely against his will, stands still and begins to sing in a deep baritone. Ismael continues, touching each of the ugly man’s companions until they are all singing.
They join him in his dance and follow him back on stage where, despite the horrified anguish in their eyes, they continue to dance and sing as Ismael conducts them and the laughing, jubilant audience.
People are crowding in from the streets. The Celebration of the City has never been heard in Ewuru, and Joshua, Sarah, Daniel, David, Jason and Abishai dance, their souls open with joy.
29
He has a distorted vision of a plain white room. Three single beds, one double. ‘What’s that?’ asks Samara.
Then he is back in the warehouse, a lathe before him, metal pipes on the bench.
Now that they know the exact dimensions of the rocket engines, he is able to build tubes to contain them. This leaves little space for the gyroscope. He begins turning long aluminium bars into the gimbals he will need. He will have to crouch inside.
He builds, tracking down heat-reflecting tiles, bearings and other components. It takes three days to complete.
Seymour and Henry have been waiting for a fourth. ‘Seeing as how you’re eating, mister, would you like to join us to play a few hands?’
‘Yes,’ he nods, ‘I would enjoy that.’
Sancho has never played. He learns as they bid.
‘No, no,’ says Henry, only slightly frustrated with his partner, ‘if I open you have to bid. Return it to me so I can choose a suit.’
Samara has diplomatically instructed Symon to interfere with his game-play so that he performs rather worse than the abject Sancho.
Just as diplomatically, the others rotate partners so that each gets a chance to win.
‘I hope that there ship flies better ’n’ you play, mister,’ laughs Seymour.
‘Me too,’ he says.
Samara has measured his food intake carefully. Work for three hours, eat for an hour, repeat. He never sleeps.
While the men go back to other card games, or perform chores, or simply stare at him, Samara works.
The most complex mechanism, after the gyroscope and rocket controllers, is the spring-loaded bearing ring. This will grip the space elevator cable and adjust to its varying diameter. An electromagnet connects it to the pod. The umbilical itself provides energy to the mechanism.
‘It looks like a propeller, mister. You going to be able to get that through the double seal?’ asks Seymour.
‘It should just fit,’ says Samara, picking it up and carrying it to the doorway. He is almost up to his target weight, and the floor seems to bend slightly at each step.
‘Mister, where all that food going? It never comes out,’ observes Sancho.
‘Where it needs to,’ he smiles.
‘You’re real strange, mister, but we like you,’ says Seymour, beaming. ‘When you going?’
‘Eighteen hours,’ he says. ‘I’ll be at full weight by then.’
‘Well, then,’ says Henry, ‘we have time for a few more games.’
Samara inspects the pallet beneath the conveyor. There is a pressure switch there that opens the doors and starts the exit process.
‘I’ll remove the boxes, place the pod on it. When I get to the other side, I’ll discard the pallet so that it doesn’t attract attention. Just place the boxes back on a pallet and the systems will never know.’
They play cards, and Samara continues eating one packet after another.
‘We sure gonna miss playing bridge. Ain’ really work without four,’ says Sancho.
The men sleep as he polishes down the outer shell. Eventually, everything is done.
He wakes them before he goes. He shakes their hands. Seymour’s eyes are red, moist.
Slipping off his cloak for the last time, Samara picks up the wing and steps on to the pallet. The pressure sensor is triggered, opening the inner entrance door, and he is pulled smoothly into the airlock. The door closes behind him and seals.
A few moments as the antechamber is reduced to a vacuum. Samara stops breathing. His body changes, silver fluid diffusing out of his skin, filling his mouth, ears, nose, every pore and space. His eyes are now unblinking solid hemispheres of silver. His fingers and toes appear to be encased in silver gloves. He can feel as the great mass he has built up focuses in density around his surface, protecting him from the vacuum of space. His body completes its adjustments to the pressure change.
The opposite door rolls open, and he is drawn out into the cargo bay.
Empty clear-plastic stretchers from prisoner arrivals are piled against the walls. The palette stops against a stack of boxes. There is gravity here, but no atmosphere.
Samara picks up the pod and carries it to the opening. The umbilical cable is suspended a platform’s length away. This is where the elevator arrives, sealing the space.
He returns to the empty pallet, picks it up and flings it out and away from the entrance. It tumbles, drifting off to join the rest of the debris cloud.
He stares down the safe channel.
[Any words of return?]
‘No.’ He looks only at the planet below. There is a very long and lonely journey ahead.
He opens the escape pod hatch, holds the inside with one hand and the door handle with the other. Orientating the wing ahead of him. He walks to the edge.
And leaps.
He grabs the cable. Slots the bearing ring about it. Orientating the pod to face straight down, he carefully climbs inside. The door seals closed as he slips inside the rings of the gyroscope, crouching and pushing his back into the moulded body-rest on the inner gimbal. His hands grip two short crossbars, his feet slip inside two brackets. Magnetic fasteners clamp shut about his arms, legs, wrists, ankles, forehead and torso. He is immobilized.
A rocket fires.
His mind goes blank.
30
‘I am awake,’ says Samara, disbelief in his voice.
Daniel and Jason are flat on their backs, snoring loudly. David is lying in the double bed, alongside Jason, his arms crossed behind his head. They lost a game of akamokwu – war fingers – and were forced to share when they returned last night. He turns his face to Samara and grins.
Joshua emerges from the bathroom, a towel around his waist and an old scar visible diagonally across his chest. ‘Welcome back, my friend,’ he smiles. ‘We have much to tell you.’
Joshua dresses and, while David showers, starts to fill Samara in on what has happened over the past few days. David returns and, ungraciously, drizzles water into Jason’s open mouth as he lies snoring.
‘That is for keeping me awake all night, you sack of frogs,’ he says, laughing.
Daniel rolls over and covers his head with his pillow as Jason splutters and howls.
Joshua ignores them and continues. ‘Symon arranged the battery, and I hope you will know if it is fully charged?’
‘Not as well as if we were still associated, but I should be able to tell.’
‘Come, shall we have breakfast? David, please see if Sarah and Abishai are ready to join us,’ says Joshua, rising and opening the door.
Behzad is downstairs looking pleased with himself. Would that the Marabout would visit every night.
‘My friends, I had no knowledge that you were friends with the Marabout,’ he greets Joshua and Samara as they come down the stairs past the reception counter. ‘How wonderful for you.’
‘We know him as the Balladeer,’ says Joshua, ‘and you are doubly blessed that he chooses your restaurant to perform.’
‘Ismael was here?’ asks Samara.
‘Ah, but he left this morning,’ says Behzad, looking curiously at Samara. Something is different about him today. ‘Come, have breakfast. I brin
g you tea and sweet breads.’
David and the others join them. Daniel wandering down the stairs, bleary-eyed, a few minutes later.
‘I’m sorry I missed him,’ says Samara. ‘When I was a boy, he would stay with my parents and tell me the funniest tales. We would both laugh so much I thought I would burst.’
‘He told us the strangest story. I think it was about his people,’ says Abishai. ‘Who are they?’
‘Joshua tells me Ismael told you about China?’ asks Samara.
They nod.
‘The war changed everything. Many cities survived the debris cloud by breaking orbit and heading out into space. There are two cities around Mars, a few around Titan and the rest just touring the planets. There are few cities left in orbit.
‘Before, our struggles had been for independence. Now it wasn’t so peculiar to hear people discussing leaving the solar system.
‘The griots are different, more interested in the journey of our culture than in being in any particular place,’ he says. ‘There are tourists who visit the different orbital cities, and there are artists and musicians who travel into orbit to perform. The griots were drawn from the best of these artists. Soon after we developed the symbionts, a group of fifteen or so griots developed their own version. They wanted to be able to make music out of any physical thing.
‘They chose to manage their symbionts without a synthetic intelligence. That is incredibly difficult and takes decades of training. They lack our connection to each other. It is impractical, but the control it gives them is remarkable.
‘Their performances, particularly in our enhanced environment, are –’ Samara struggles to find a way to describe his experience, and gives up. ‘There are no words.’
‘No,’ agrees Sarah. ‘There are no words.’
Food arrives, along with a steaming pot of tea, which Jason pours into mugs for each of them. The dough-like breads are sweet and very hot. Each tears off chunks and chews happily.
‘After the war, six of them formed an agreement and came back to earth. They spread out across the planet, each choosing a region. They broke out of our connect long ago, but I understand they are always in contact with each other. They travel constantly, carrying stories and music from place to place.’
‘Why?’ asks Daniel. ‘We all appreciate them. I do not think the harvest would feel the same without them, but I am not sure of what this achieves?’
‘When Pazzo and his men came to Ewuru, I wondered why the Balladeer stayed an extra night. I had the feeling that Pazzo was going to cause trouble, but when he saw the Balladeer he panicked. They did nothing. I imagine we do not always see the changes that he brings about,’ says Joshua.
‘Why would anyone fear them?’ asks Daniel.
Samara grins, ‘They’re not helpless. The right frequency, like the right story, in the right place can move mountains.
‘They believe that by telling stories and music from different cultures, people will set aside their differences and freely choose a peaceful path. They are not thinking in terms of decades but in terms of thousands of years. They have no intention of going anywhere.’
‘And you, and your people?’ asks Sarah.
‘We will go out into the unknown. A group intend to return in one thousand years. My wife is keen. I have agreed I will follow her.’
‘It seems so strange to plan for so long into the future,’ says David.
‘Well, yes,’ says Daniel, ‘but, for myself, what are we to do today?’ he asks to laughter.
‘I am not sure,’ says Joshua, ‘but I believe Behzad will have a cousin?’ They are relaxed, happy together.
‘I thought Calabar was too dangerous for us?’ asks Samara.
‘It is not a war zone,’ says Joshua. ‘It is dangerous to attract attention. Being too smart, too creative, too successful – these things attract the men with guns; but we are simple villagers here to sell our goods, be amazed at the sights of the great city and stock up on essentials before we go home. We can disappear amongst the thousands who do this every day.’
Behzad has, indeed, a cousin. ‘He can take you to the marina and Tinapa; he has a jeep. I will call him for you.’
‘What is Tinapa?’ asks Sarah.
‘You will see,’ he waves his hands. ‘We show many visitors. Very cultural.’
Samara feels as if it is his first day alive. Everything is new. The sounds, the smells, the people. He realizes Shakiso is right: there is a difference between reality and the synthesized world of the connect.
They wait outside in Henshaw Market for Behzad’s cousin.
Cheering from a group of people attracts them. They sit and stand in ranks, all craning to see two men sitting in the dust beneath a rubber tree doing battle over a wooden board.
‘It is nsa isong,’ says Daniel, indicating the two rows of six pits in the board. ‘You play by capturing seeds.’ He pauses, deciding that the explanation is too much hard work. Grinning instead, ‘You watch.’
The men glare at each other, sweat sheening their brows. Their hands moving swiftly, picking up and sowing the seeds clockwise around the board. Scarce has one distributed his load before the other is moving. They try to give each other as little time to think as possible. Each time a pit contains only four seeds the gathered crowd howls in support and the seeds are rapidly captured.
They watch for only a few minutes before an antique electric jeep shudders to a halt behind them. It is one of the old platform chassis, with the motors sealed in oval-shaped modules over each wheel. The battery is inside the short bonnet. Its lid is a badly fitting cellulosic reprint held on with bits of string. White steam rises from around the gaps.
The main driver’s compartment is still mostly there, but the back consists of two narrow sofas bolted on to the chassis and facing each other, with a striped awning mounted on a frame over the top providing some shade. You can almost see tread on one of the tyres.
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ says the young man scraping his way out of the navigator’s seat. The door hangs lifelessly. He carefully picks it up, putting it back in place. The door on the passenger side looks absolutely immaculate. It probably is not used much.
‘My name is Thomas. I will be your guide. Please, give me a few minutes and then we can go.’
He starts fiddling with the knots holding down the bonnet, teasing them loose. As he raises it, a cloud of steam erupts from the open-cast battery. He has two big bottles of acid stored inside the battery compartment.
Thomas’s faded red djellaba is flecked with yellow, acid-scorched holes from regularly tending to the battery. The others take a respectful step backwards.
‘That is going to catch fire some time today,’ says Samara, merely as observation.
‘Oh, no, it’s always like this,’ Thomas assures them.
‘Past good fortune does not imply continued success,’ says Samara, again, merely as observation.
Thomas looks vacantly at him, then, closing the bonnet and carefully retying his knots, ‘It is done now. Please, wait for me to get in and then you can get in, too.’
Jason reaches for the passenger handle as Thomas climbs back inside. The handle comes off in Jason’s hand. He stares at it inanely.
Inside the cockpit, Thomas soundlessly clutches at his face with one hand while snapping his fingers with the other. He looks like a man who has just been abandoned by his gods. The others stand around quietly, mournfully contemplating the violated door handle in Jason’s numb fingers.
Thomas scrapes his way out once more. Settling his door in place. Straightening his djellaba. Walking in a short, hoppy, fastidious stride around the vehicle. Delicately taking the handle from Jason. ‘I told you to wait. Why didn’t you wait?’ He deflates, pulls a tube of glue from his pocket and carefully reseals the handle to the door.
Nobody moves as he returns to his seat.
He leans across and opens the passenger door from the inside. ‘You get in now,’ he says.
Still, nobody moves.
‘Please, you get in now.’
Jason climbs into the front while everyone else settles themselves into the sofas at the back, their knees jammed uncomfortably together. Thomas scrolls about on the console map setting waypoints before delicately pressing the big green ‘go’ button. The vehicle reverses, gently easing its way out of the market and on to Calabar Road.
There are few other vehicles and none appear in any better condition than the one they are in.
‘Can they not print more?’ asks Daniel.
‘It’s a little more complex than that,’ says Samara. ‘You can’t print a whole vehicle in one of those machines. Which means you need people who know how to conceptualize an entire vehicle across different fabricators, create a manifest of all the appropriate components, print them and then put the whole thing together afterwards. Then there are the control systems that have to be loaded.’
They cross over a large intersection with Mary Slessor Road. A giant statue of the great lady cradling twins stands on an island in the traffic circle.
Hundreds of people are walking by the sides of the road. They carry umbrellas and bags of shopping. There is an endless series of tables, covered in fruit, meat, fish and other basics. Umbrellas and sheets protect the stalls from the sun.
Angular crosses from churches, interspersed with mosque minarets, tower above the shacks.
‘There are those here who have the skills to build those components,’ says Abishai. ‘So why no new vehicles?’
‘The militia are dangerous in this city, and the printers are careful. They have little incentive to produce what only the militia could afford but will only steal. The printers keep these vehicles repaired, but little else,’ says Joshua.
‘And the helicopters?’ asks David.
A fire station, its garage doors wide open, is filled with gutted trucks that have long since stopped responding to alarms.
