by Mike Resnick
And that is what we did.
The ship came later that day, and took us off the planet, and it is only now, safely removed from its influence, that I can reconstruct what I learned on that last morning.
I lied to Bellidore—to the entire party—for once I made my discovery I knew that my primary duty was to get them away from Earth as quickly as possible. Had I told them the truth, one or more of them would have wanted to remain behind, for they are scientists with curious, probing minds, and I would never be able to convince them that a curious, probing mind is no match for what I found in my seventh and final view of Olduvai Gorge.
The bone was not a part of the Exobiologist. The Historian, or even the Moriteu, would have known that had they not been too horrified to examine it. It was the tibia of a Man.
Man has been extinct for five thousand years, at least as we citizens of the galaxy have come to understand him. But those lumbering, ungainly creatures of the night, who seemed so attracted to our campfires, are what Man has become. Even the pollution and radiation he spread across his own planet could not kill him off. It merely changed him to the extent that we were no longer able to recognize him.
I could have told them the simple facts, I suppose: that a tribe of these pseudo-Men stalked the Exobiologist down the gorge, then attacked and killed and, yes, ate her. Predators are not unknown throughout the worlds of the galaxy.
But as I became one with the tibia, as I felt it crashing down again and again upon our companion’s head and shoulders, I felt a sense of power, of exultation I had never experienced before. I suddenly seemed to see the world through the eyes of the bone’s possessor. I saw how he had killed his own companion to create the weapon, I saw how he planned to plunder the bodies of the old and the infirm for more weapons, I saw visions of conquest against other tribes living near the gorge.
And finally, at the moment of triumph, he and I looked up at the sky, and we knew that someday all that we could see would be ours.
And this is the knowledge that I have lived with for two days. I do not know who to share it with, for it is patently immoral to exterminate a race simply because of the vastness of its dreams or the ruthlessness of its ambition.
But this is a race that refuses to die, and somehow I must warn the rest of us, who have lived in harmony for almost five millennia.
It’s not over.
INTRODUCTION TO “WHEN THE OLD GODS DIE”
Michael Stackpole
A criticism of science fiction often leveled by the literary elite is that because the stories take place on other worlds, at other times, they cannot be reflective of the human condition. To be fair to them, a great deal of science fiction and fantasy does concern itself more with the “gee whiz” and “whizbang” than it does character motivations and the consequences of action. Mike Resnick’s “When the Old Gods Die” is an exception to that general rule. It is a story that deals with the human condition in a brilliantly poignant and painful way.
It’s a story based in multiple conflicts: generational, cultural, political, spiritual, and even personal. Normally all that would require a novel or three, but Mike does it so adroitly that a few words or a scene has the impact of many chapters. Each character acts in his own enlightened self-interest; and that these self-interests work to destroy each other gives the story great heart and supplies its great tragedy.
“When the Old Gods Die” has at its center a very human character faced with an unspeakable choice, and Mike Resnick does not shrink from having him deliver a very human answer to the troubles he faces. It is a wonderful story, and one that you will not easily forget.
The Kirinyaga saga was drawing to a close. As much as Koriba tried to hold back progress and create the culture that existed before it was corrupted by the Europeans, he was losing the battle inch by inch, and then came an incident that decided his and Kirinyaga’s future once and for all. “When the Old Gods Die” was a 1996 Hugo and Nebula nominee for Best Novelette.
WHEN THE OLD GODS DIE
NGAI, WHO RULES THE UNIVERSE from His golden throne atop the holy mountain Kirinyaga, which men now call Mount Kenya, created the Sun and the Moon, and declared that they should have equal domain over the Earth.
The Sun would bring warmth to the world, and all of Ngai’s creatures would thrive and grow strong in the light. But even Ngai must sleep, and when He slept He ordered the Moon to watch over His creations.
But the Moon was duplicitous, and formed a secret alliance with the Lion and the Leopard and the Hyena, and many nights, while Ngai slept, it would turn only a part of its face to the Earth. At such times the predators would go forth to maim and kill and eat their fellow creatures.
Finally one man, a mundumugu—a witch doctor—realized that the Moon had tricked Ngai, and he made up his mind to correct the problem. He might have appealed to Ngai, but he was a proud man, and so he took it upon himself to make certain that the flesh eaters would no longer have a partnership with the darkness.
He retired to his boma and allowed no visitors. For nine days and nine nights he rolled his bones and arranged his charms and mixed his potions, and when he emerged on the morning of the tenth day, he was ready to do what must be done.
The Sun was overhead, and he knew that there could be no darkness as long as the Sun shone down upon the Earth. He uttered a mystic chant, and soon he was flying into the sky to confront the Sun.
“Halt!” he said. “Your brother the Moon is evil. You must remain where you are, lest Ngai’s creatures continue to die.”
“What is that to me?” responded the Sun. “I cannot shirk my duty simply because my brother shirks his.”
The mundumugu held up a hand. “I will not let you pass,” he said.
But the Sun merely laughed, and proceeded on its path, and when it reached the mundumugu it gobbled him up and spat out the ashes, for even the greatest mundumugu cannot stay the Sun from its course. That story has been known to every mundumugu since Ngai created Gikuyu, the first man. Of them all, only one ignored it.
I am that mundumugu.
* * *
It is said that from the moment of birth, even of conception, every living thing has embarked upon an inevitable trajectory that culminates in its death. If this is true of all living things, and it seems to be, then it is also true of man. And if it is true of man, then it must be true of the gods who made man in their image.
Yet this knowledge does not lessen the pain of death. I had just come back from comforting Katuma, whose father, old Siboki, had finally died, not from disease or injury, but rather from the awful burden of his years. Siboki had been one of the original colonists on our terraformed world of Kirinyaga, a member of the Council of Elders, and though he had grown feeble in mind as well as body, I knew I would miss him as I missed few others.
As I walked back through the village, on the long, winding path by the river that eventually led to my own boma, I was very much aware of my own mortality. I was not that much younger than Siboki, and indeed was already an old man when we left Kenya and emigrated to Kirinyaga. I knew my death could not be too far away, and yet I hoped that it was, not from selfishness, but because Kirinyaga was not yet ready to do without me. The mundumugu is more than a shaman who utters curses and creates spells; he is the repository of all the moral and civil laws, all the customs and traditions, of the Kikuyu people, and I was not convinced that Kirinyaga had yet produced a competent successor.
It is a harsh and lonely life, the life of a mundumugu. He is more feared than loved by the people he serves. This is not his fault, but rather the nature of his position. He must do what he knows to be right for his people, and that means he must sometimes make unpopular decisions.
How strange, then, that the decision that brought me down had nothing at all to do with my people.
I should have had a premonition about it, for no conversation is ever truly random. As I was walking past the scarecrows in the fields on the way to my boma, I came across Kimanti, t
he young son of Ngobe, driving two of his goats home from their morning’s grazing.
“Jambo, Koriba,” he greeted me, shading his eyes from the bright overhead sun.
“Jambo, Kimanti,” I said. “I see that your father now allows you to tend to his goats. Soon the day will come that he puts you in charge of his cattle.”
“Soon,” he agreed, offering me a water gourd. “It is a warm day. Would you like something to drink?”
“That is very generous of you,” I said, taking the gourd and holding it to my mouth.
“I have always been generous to you, have I not, Koriba?” he said.
“Yes, you have,” I replied suspiciously, wondering what favor he was preparing to request.
“Then why do you allow my father’s right arm to remain shriveled and useless?” he asked. “Why do you not cast a spell and make it like other men’s arms?”
“It is not that simple, Kimanti,” I said. “It is not I who shriveled your father’s arm, but Ngai. He would not have done so without a purpose.”
“What purpose is served by crippling my father?” asked Kimanti.
“If you wish, I shall sacrifice a goat and ask Ngai why He has allowed it,” I said.
He considered my offer and then shook his head. “I do not care to hear Ngai’s answer, for it will change nothing.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “How long do you think Ngai will be our god?”
“Forever,” I said, surprised at his question.
“That cannot be,” he replied seriously. “Surely Ngai was not our god when He was just a mtoto. He must have killed the old gods when He was young and powerful. But He has been god for a long time now, and it is time someone killed Him. Maybe the new god will show more compassion toward my father.”
“Ngai created the world,” I said. “He created the Kikuyu and the Maasai and the Wakamba, and even the European, and He created the holy mountain Kirinyaga, for which our world is named. He has existed since time began, and He will exist until it ends.”
Kimanti shook his head again. “If He has been here that long, He is ready to die. It is just a matter of who will kill Him.” He paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps I myself will, when I am older and stronger.”
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “But before you do, let me tell you the story of the King of the Zebras.”
“Is this story about Ngai or zebras?” he asked.
“Why don’t you listen?” I said. “Then you can tell me what it was about.” I gently lowered myself to the ground, and he squatted down next to me.
“There was a time,” I began, “when zebras did not have stripes. They were as brown as the dried grasses on the savannah, as dull to the eye as the bole of the acacia tree. And because their color protected them, they were rarely taken by the lion and the leopard, who found it much easier to find and stalk the wildebeest and the topi and the impala.
“Then one day a son was born to the King of the Zebras—but it was not a normal son, for it had no nostrils. The King of the Zebras was first saddened for his son, and then outraged that such a thing should be allowed. The more he dwelt upon it, the more angry he became. Finally he ascended the holy mountain, and came at last to the peak, where Ngai ruled the world from His golden throne.
“‘Have you come to sing my praises?’ asked Ngai.
“‘No!’ answered the King of the Zebras. ‘I have come to tell you that you are a terrible god, and that I am here to kill you.’
“‘What have I done to you that you should wish to kill me?’ asked Ngai.
“‘You gave me a son who has no nostrils, so he cannot sense when the lion and the leopard are approaching him, and because of that they will surely find and kill him when at last he leaves his mother’s side. You have been a god too long, and you have forgotten how to be compassionate.’
“‘Wait!’ said Ngai, and suddenly there was such power in his voice that the King of the Zebras froze where he was. ‘I will give your son nostrils, since that is what you want.’
“‘Why were you so cruel in the first place?’ demanded the King of the Zebras, his anger not fully assuaged.
“‘Gods work in mysterious ways,’ answered Ngai, ‘and what seems cruel to you may actually be compassionate. Because you had been a good and noble king, I gave your son eyes that could see in the dark, that could see through bushes, that could even see around trees, so that he could never be surprised by the lion and the leopard, even should the wind’s direction favor them. And because of this gift, he did not need his nostrils. I took them away so that he would not have to breathe in the dust that chokes his fellow zebras during the dry season. But now I have given him back his sense of smell, and taken away his special vision, because you have demanded it.’
“‘Then you did have a reason,’ moaned the King of the Zebras. ‘When did I become so foolish?’
“‘The moment you thought you were greater than me,’ answer Ngai, rising to His true height, which was taller than the clouds. ‘And to punish you for your audacity, I decree that from this moment forward you and all your kind shall no longer be brown like the dried grasses, but will be covered with black and white stripes that will attract the lion and the leopard from miles away. No matter where you go on the face of the world, you will never again be able to hide from them.’
“And so saying, Ngai waved a hand and every zebra in the world was suddenly covered with the same stripes you see today.”
I stopped and stared at Kimanti.
“That is the end?” he asked.
“That is the end.”
Kimanti stared at a millipede crawling in the dirt.
“The zebra was a baby, and could not explain to its father that it had special eyes,” he said at last. “My father’s arm has been shriveled for many long rains, and the only explanation he has received is that Ngai works in mysterious ways. He has been given no special senses to make up for it, for if he had been he would surely know about them by now.” Kimanti looked at me thoughtfully. “It is an interesting story, Koriba, and I am sorry for the King of the Zebras, but I think a new god must come along and kill Ngai very soon.”
There we sat, the wise old mundumugu who had a parable for every problem, and the foolish young kehee—an uncircumsized boy—who had no more knowledge of his world than a tadpole, in total opposition to each other.
Only a god with Ngai’s sense of humor would have arranged for the kehee to be right.
* * *
It began when the ship crashed.
(There are those embittered men and women who would say it began the day Kirinyaga received its charter from the Eutopian Council, but they are wrong.)
Maintenance ships fly among the Eutopian worlds, delivering goods to some, mail to others, services to a few. Only Kirinyaga has no traffic with Maintenance. They are permitted to observe us—indeed, that is one of the conditions of our charter—but they may not interfere, and since we have tried to create a Kikuyu Utopia, we have no interest in commerce with Europeans.
Still, Maintenance ships have landed on Kirinyaga from time to time. One of the conditions of our charter is that if a citizen is unhappy with our world, he need only walk to that area known as Haven, and a Maintenance ship will pick him up and take him either to Earth or to another Eutopian world. Once a Maintenance ship landed to disgorge two immigrants, and very early in Kirinyaga’s existence Maintenance sent a representative to interfere with our religious practices.
I don’t know why the ship was so close to Kirinyaga to begin with. I had not ordered Maintenance to make any orbital adjustments lately, for the short rains were not due for another two months, and it was right that the days passed, hot and bright and unchanging. To the best of my knowledge, none of the villagers had made the pilgrimage to Haven, so no Maintenance ship should have been sent to Kirinyaga. But the fact remains that one moment the sky was clear and blue, and the next there was a streak of light plunging down to the surface of the planet. An explosion followed; though I could not see i
t, I could both hear it and see the results, for the cattle became very nervous and herds of impala and zebra bolted this way and that in panic.
It was about twenty minutes later that young Jinja, the son of Kichanta, ran up the hill to my boma.
“You must come, Koriba!” he said as he gasped for breath.
“What has happened?” I asked.
“A Maintenance ship has crashed!” he said. “The pilot is still alive!”
“Is he badly hurt?”
Jinja nodded. “Very badly. I think he may die soon.”
“I am an old man, and it would take me a very long time to walk to the pilot,” I said. “It would be better for you to take three young men from the village and bring him back to me on a litter.”
Jinja raced off while I went into my hut to see what I had that might ease the pilot’s pain. There were some qat leaves, if he was strong enough to chew them, and a few ointments if he wasn’t. I contacted Maintenance on my computer, and told them that I would apprise them of the man’s condition after I examined him.
In years past, I would have sent my assistant to the river to bring back water which I would boil in preparation for washing out the pilot’s wounds, but I no longer had an assistant, and the mundumugu does not carry water, so I simply waited atop my hill, my gaze turned toward the direction of the crash. A grass fire had started, and a column of smoke rose from it. I saw Jinja and the others trotting across the savannah with the litter; I saw topi and impala and even buffalo race out of their way; and then I could not see them for almost ten minutes. When they once again came into view, they were walking, and it was obvious that they were carrying a man on the litter.
Before they reached my boma, however, Karenja came up the long, winding path from the village.
“Jambo, Koriba,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“The whole village knows that a Maintenance ship has crashed,” he replied. “I have never seen a European before. I came to see if his face is really as white as milk.”
