Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  “Lies! Lies!” screeched Kuya Adowa. “Can’t you see this is a creature of evil, a thing that deserves death? Her very appearance is a lie!”

  Amma turned her gaze to the tyinbibi, and the elder gasped and shrank back a step. Then Amma’s eyes returned to those of the stricken farmer.

  “A kambu can love, Babakar,” she said softly.

  With an abrupt move, she bolted through the circle of men around her. One of them managed to grasp her asokaba, but Amma tore free and raced on, a naked shadow in the moonlight.

  “Stop her!” Kuya Adowa screamed.

  One of the farmers hurled his staff. Whirling end-over-end, it struck Amma on the back of her head. She fell heavily. Before she could rise, the farmers were upon her, striking hard with their staves. They hit her with the frenzy of men killing a poisonous snake.

  Crazed with sorrow and rage, Babakar broke free from Atuye and Mwiya and rushed toward Amma’s attackers. Just as he reached them, an unearthly shriek rose. With a ferocity he had not felt since the last days of the war, he seized two of the men and hurled them violently to the ground.

  Then he stopped, looked down and swayed like a man drunk on palm-wine. For the broken, bleeding body sprawled before him was not that of a woman. A dead gazelle lay there, its eyes staring emptily upward—as emptily as Babakar’s eyes stared down. He dropped to his knees and reached out to touch the head of the fallen creature.

  “That sound,” Falil iri Nyadi said nervously. “It was just like the one she made when she summoned the gazelles.”

  “Listen!” Atuye said suddenly. “Can you hear it, coming from the west? A rumbling sound ….”

  Though they did not answer him, the others had, indeed, heard it. The sound grew louder. It was like the beat of an insistent drum, growing in intensity, yet retaining an underlying delicacy of tone.

  “Look!” cried Falil, pointing to the dark western horizon.

  The others followed his gaze, and beheld a shadowy mass detaching itself from the black gloom. Individual shapes became discernible: graceful forms advancing rapidly in breathtaking bounds. Spiraled horns flashed and glittered in the moonlight.

  “Gazelles,” whispered Kuya Adowa.

  Her hands clutched convulsively at her tira; strange words of sorcerous import spilled from her lips.

  “What’s wrong with you, woman?” snarled Atuye. “What harm can a herd of timid gazelles do?”

  “They don’t look so timid to me,” said Mwiya. “I thought you said there were scores of them, Falil. Looks more like hundreds now.”

  “She called them,” Falil muttered.

  “I cannot stop them!” cried Kuya Adowa. “Run!”

  “From gazelles?” Atuye scoffed.

  A four-legged body arrowed toward him—head down, horns pointed outward. The sharp tips of the horns hit Atuye full in the chest. With a strangled cry, he went down, eyes wide in incredulity even as blood spurted from his mouth.

  Terrified, the others turned and fled, dropping staves and torches alike in the panic that clawed at their souls. They were too slow. Living projectiles of hoof and horn hurtled like lightning among them. The speed that served the gazelles so well in flight from the great beasts of prey had now become a weapon, deadly and inescapable. Screams rose amid the quiet thunder of hooves as the antelope plunged their horns through the bodies of their human prey.

  Babakar had not moved when the others fled. He seemed unaware of anything other than the still form lying in front of him … until a flying body caught him on the shoulder and bowled him over onto his back. He raised his arms defensively. The gesture was not quick enough; a pair of fore-hooves struck him in the stomach. His breath whooshed out and he doubled over in pain.

  It was then that he saw the leaping messengers of death, and heard the cries of their victims. There was a curious absence of fear as he awaited his own death. But the finishing blow never came.

  Clutching his injured abdomen, Babakar looked up into the eyes of a large male gazelle. In those dark orbs, he saw … recognition? Compassion? Pity? He thought he could detect those things in the glimmer of the gazelle’s eyes, but he knew only that the antelope did not further attack him.

  Grunting with the pain the effort caused him, Babakar raised himself on an elbow and looked upon a scene of sad carnage. Falil, Mwiya, Kuya Adowa and all the others lay as dead as the thing that had been his Amma. The huge herd of gazelles stood still now, blood dripping from their horns and caking their hooves. Silver trails glimmered down their narrow muzzles. They were weeping.

  And Babakar wept with them, for what man could endure the tears of those beautiful killers, tears that mixed with the blood trickling down the graceful spirals of their horns?

  The leader of the herd came toward Babakar. The beast bent its head; its tongue flickered from its mouth and licked the blood from the wounds its hooves had made on Babakar’s abdomen. Then the gazelle turned and bounded off to the west. As if on signal, the other antelope followed, and within an eyeblink they were gone, only the fading drum of their hooves attesting that they had been there at all. That … and the unmoving bodies of Amma’s murderers.

  Disregarding the pain that shot from stomach to spine, Babakar iri Sounkalo gathered the broken form of Amma into his arms. He rose. Cradling her close to him, he crooned her name as tears coursed down his ebony cheeks.

  A kambu can love, she had said before she died. Were these her own true words, Babakar wondered. Or had she merely repeated the desperate thought that had leaped into his mind at the end?

  He would never know the truth. And, knowing that, Babakar wept bitterly.

  By the time the griot’s tale is ended, a fair-sized crowd congregates at the saffiyeh. For a moment, the people are silent. Then the jeering begins.

  “You’ll never make a living in Gao telling tales like that, griot!”

  “Whoever heard of gazelles attacking people?”

  “And a gazelle turning into a woman? Hah!”

  “I come from a village near Gadou, and I never heard of anything like this.”

  Already some of the listeners have turned to leave when the griot stands up. He is a tall man—taller than he had appeared in his squatting posture. Old fires kindle in his eyes. With a savage motion he pulls his upper garment over his head. Naked to the waist, his body is spare and gaunt, though stretched over a large frame.

  It is not his bare torso, though, that elicits sharp exclamations of surprise from the crowd. It is the two scars that stand out against the dark skin of his abdomen … scars in the shape of two sharp, narrow hooves—the hooves of a gazelle ….

  The coins and quills of the listeners fill the tortoise shell of the griot. But the griot pays no heed to their generosity.

  “Amma,” Babakar iri Sounkalo murmurs softly as he plucks at the strings of his ko. “Amma ….”

  The Homecoming

  Chinelo Onwualu

  I know you have heard what they say about me. That I am a murderer; I killed my mistress, no? I tell you this: it is a lie. I am innocent. Listen to me, my mistress died by her own hand—I had nothing to do with it.

  So how did I come to be here, a shackled prisoner breaking my back on the rocks of the granite pits? It was him—the husband. He did this to me. He sacrificed us all on the altar of his ambition—may he never know a day of happiness!

  You do not believe me. I can see it on your face. He is a Civilized Man, you say. The Civilized Men hold that all life is sacred; they will not even eat flesh, you say. And what of it? Are they not men still? Do they not laugh when they are amused and cry when they despair?

  It was him, I tell you. I swear by the four faces of the Goddess, I did not do this thing.

  It all started the day he came home ….

  She was nervous that day, I remember. It’s hard to tell such things with Civilized Men, for their faces rarely show emotion, but I had come to read her body. Her hands fluttered about like wounded birds. Five years is no small time to be in someo
ne’s service, you know. You learn things.

  She was running her hands over every surface, looking for dust. She did this nearly every day, but she never found anything. I am too careful for that ….

  She dressed impeccably every day as if ready to receive visitors, though no one ever came to the house. But today she had made a special effort. She wore an ornate long-sleeved robe he had never seen before. It must have been something she had brought from her land. Wide padded shoulders that tapered to a tiny waist, a wide belt neatly knotted in front and a full skirt, each pleat ironed to a careful stiffness.

  Her husband was coming home.

  She wandered through the house once more, running her pale fingertips over every surface, looking for dust. She found none. She stopped in front of the spotless mirror in the front room and examined her reflection. Her jet-black hair was lacquered into a high coif and locked in place with ivory combs. She had applied her make-up with her usual care. Her face and hands were powdered white and her large dark, eyes heavily lined with kohl. A spot of colour at the centre of each lip made her mouth look like tiny red rosebuds. Only then did she allow herself a small smile. Watching her, Maltoush let out an inward sigh. Everything was perfect.

  The bell rang just then. Maltoush waited while she sank gracefully onto the immaculate white couch that faced the front door, arranging her robes to drape just so, before he went to open the door. The first thing he noticed was that her husband was wearing a rour, the thin coral necklace worn by men of the Forest who had been taken as a mate. Maltoush had taken off his own rour when he left the Hive. He had forfeited his right to wear it when he came to the city without his mate’s permission. They exchanged a quiet look.

  “Welcome home,” Maltoush said.

  The door slid open. She rose, careful to maintain the drapery of her robes. She fought to steady her breath. It had been so long, it would not do to lose her composure now. They had been married only a few months before his position as an officer in the Imperial Army brought them to this forsaken place at the edge of the Forest. She had not wanted to come, but neither of them had any family in their homeland—and he had sworn it would only be for a year. But at the first opportunity, he had dashed off on an expedition to the interior, leaving her to try to build a life in this backward hole of a place. A year had turned into two, then five.

  It hadn’t been easy without him. It wasn’t the housekeeping; she was lucky in that regard. Other women complained constantly about their native servants, but her boy was as docile as a kitten. He knew all her preferences; it was almost as if he could read her mind. And his cleaning was impeccable. No, that was not the problem. She hated to admit it, but it had been lonely without her husband.

  Now, he was back. And they would be going home.

  “Darling, I’m home!” He called as he stepped in. She frowned, the man before her looked like her husband, but something was not right. It was not just that his hair was dishevelled, or his robe askew or even the strange necklace he wore. Something about him had shifted, like a painting hung ever so slightly off centre. Even his smile was untidy.

  “Welcome, dear. I did not expect you back so soon,” she lied.

  “Oh darling, I’ve had the most wonderful time,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. She would have liked nothing better than to be wrapped in his embrace, but such a display would be unseemly beyond the bedroom. Then she saw he was still wearing his outside shoes—inside the house!

  “Would you like some tea?” she asked, proud of her cool, controlled tone. A well-bred woman never raised her voice.

  “Perfect!” He plopped down on the couch, and she took the opportunity to slip his shoes off his feet, taking care not to touch the soles.

  “Kundun,” she called to her boy who had been standing in the corner. Her boy, a stocky, dark-skinned man in his middle years, came forward. She passed him the shoes. “Please, get the master some tea.”

  “Kundun?” her husband asked. “Why Kundun? That’s not his name.”

  “I know, but these native names are impossible to pronounce. So, we came to a compromise: I call him ‘Kundun,’ he calls me ‘Madam,’” she laughed lightly. “I never did like that first name thing some servants do.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a compromise to me.”

  “But we’ve always done it this way.”

  “Well, stop it now. I don’t like it. His name is Maltoush.”

  She opened her mouth to speak as her boy returned with a porcelain tea set. She had planned to perform a full tea ceremony for him, but in her current state, it would be far from perfect. Instead, she poured him a cup and watched him drink. They sat in silence for a time. Presently he sighed.

  “Everything will be so different when we go back,” he said.

  “Yes, it will.”

  “I shall miss it all.”

  She did not answer.

  “We should have a party,” he said, suddenly excited.

  “A what?”

  “A party, something to celebrate our life here before we leave it all behind.”

  She could not think of anything about her life in this place she wished to celebrate.

  “But I thought you hated parties.”

  “Well, I do. I mean I hate those awful get-togethers our people have, where everyone mills about with a small plate of food, asking politely after each other’s possessions. Among the natives, when they celebrate, they raise a great canopied platform of bamboo and banana leaves and dance all night on it until it collapses.”

  “That sounds awful—and dangerous.”

  “Of course we wouldn’t want ours to collapse. But it would liven things up, what do you think?”

  She did not know what to say. It was as if she was talking to a caricature of her husband.

  “I don’t know ….” To her horror, she could feel tears welling up. She fought to control them. It would not be proper to cry at one’s husband’s homecoming. One would think he had died. She rose quickly. “Why don’t we talk about this after you’ve had a hot meal and a bath? I made your favourite—fish stew and dumplings.”

  He smiled and nodded.

  From his position just beyond the door to the kitchen, Maltoush had listened to them talk. Their casual ignorance amused him. Neither of them knew his true name, so what did it matter what he was called? The canopies that had so fascinated the husband were only used for namings, matings and burials. Their destruction signalled the end of one phase and the beginning of another. To raise a canopy without the complex blessings of a priestess would portend doom for the transition it was meant to mark. And to fail to break it would be worse. But who was he to correct their errors? He was only a simple servant.

  After they had retired, Maltoush sat on the veranda of the small hut behind the main house that served as his quarters and smoked a clay pipe of dog’s gold. He thought of the couple sleeping peacefully upstairs and he frowned. He wondered whether to tell his mistress of her husband’s second marriage.

  According to the customs of his people, a male could only be mated to one fem at a time, though fems could mate as many times as they liked. He had always wondered why his mistress never took another mate. He was sure she would not be so desperately unhappy if she had.

  He recalled when his own mate had taken a second to him. He had felt a mixture of relief and envy. Relief that there would be extra hands to help with the compound’s chores, envy that she had tired of his pleasures so quickly. They had circled each other like caged animals, he and this new mate, but in the end Maltoush had given way.

  His mistress was not likely to bend with the winds of change, though. She was far too brittle for that. In the five years he had served her, Maltoush had grown oddly protective of the woman. She had taught him how to speak their language and cook their food. He had heard stories of other Imperial households—the beatings, the constant work until a mal dropped from exhaustion— but life with her was no more onerous than it had been in the Hive. Less
, for she demanded nothing of his body.

  No, he decided, he would not tell her of her husband’s violation.

  Maltoush was a boy the first time imperial soldiers came to his Hive. He and the other children of the nursery had hidden in the bushes and watched as the boats carrying the strange men sailed down the river. They were slight, these Civilized Men, with skin the colour of river sand and small almond-shaped eyes. He had never seen a mal stand so straight, who looked without fear upon the faces of fems. He had been fascinated by their clipped, sing-song language and their bright ornate robes. And he knew, even as their coming meant the lines of his world had shifted, that his future lay beyond the Hive.

  A cool wind picked up, skittering leaves and bits of rubbish across the dark lawn. Far away, he heard the rumble of thunder. The rains were coming.

  Dawn found her awake. Light streamed in through slats in the blinds laying alternating stripes of light and darkness across the bed. She propped herself on one elbow and stared down at her husband’s face. Asleep, he looked so peaceful—just as she remembered him. Even the crease between his thick eyebrows was smoothed away. His hair was a nest of black curls and she ran her fingers through it to smooth it down. The more she stared at him, the more she was convinced that last night had been no more than a misunderstanding. He had been tired from his journey and she had been so preoccupied with preparations for his homecoming, it was natural that there would be some friction. But today was a new day; she would try harder to be more accommodating. Her husband was back and they would be going home soon.

  She kissed his forehead to wake him, just the way she used to.

  “Good morning, husband,” she said.

  “Good morning, my love,” he said.

  “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Yes, please; I’m starving.”

  “I’ll have the boy make you some rice and miso soup, just the way you like them.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer some maize porridge—with bean cakes, if we have any.”