Lament for the Fallen (10 page)

‘We started about a hundred and fifty years ago. My father was amongst the first children born in orbit. My mother was brought up as a child.’

Joshua looks across the water. ‘Violence, war, we knew how to survive. But the land stopped being fruitful. The climate changed. The soil became barren. People fled the countryside for the cities. Zango was abandoned. The resources were scarce and many died. Then, when we thought things could get no worse, there was fire in space.’

Joshua is silent for a few moments, lost in thought. He does not notice Samara’s distress at the mention of the war in orbit, source of the debris that falls to earth. He picks up a stick, makes patterns in the water. He has been crouching for a while, so he stands and looks about for a place to sit. A tree has fallen on the bank, and he goes and leans against it. The roots stick out vertically, clotted earth still hanging on tenaciously.

‘No one wanted what our nation had to sell, and we could not afford to buy anything anyway. There was nothing left for anyone in the cities, but there was less in the rural areas. That is the state of this place called Nigeria. It is much the same north and south.

‘My great-grandfather had seen that things would not improve without some decisive act. After he graduated, he formed a pact of Ekpe with others and they set out, back into the wilderness. He was already old when they finally rebuilt the abandoned ruins of Ewuru. My grandfather took over from him. The first settlers worked as a community, saved as a community. They bought the sphere, a few fabricators. Their dream, his dream, was a string of independent cities along the Akwayafe.’

A fish jumps out of the water, the swirl and ripples swallowed by the currents.

‘Their plan was simple. Re-establish the towns, become self-sufficient and provide nothing to the militia. Starve them into the cities and let them die there. Each village needed to be large enough to be self-sufficient, and densely populated enough to be capable of self-defence. The first high-end fabricator they purchased was the DNA printer. We solved our technology problems. The physical has been easier than the spiritual.

‘The founders of Ewuru did not want rule by voting. They saw how that was used for corruption and violence against the losers. We returned to the old ways of consensus and paternal rule. We know that is not perfect. Our people are changing, we struggle with integrating new arrivals, but we are still unsure how we should govern differently.’ He shrugs.

Samara is listening intently, crouching on his heels alongside the river.

‘We are outside the connect and must conduct our own research. The university was built around the sphere, and soon we started to specialize. The safety and stability of the village has permitted people to pursue their own interests. Twenty years ago, one of the teachers encouraged the students to reimagine our world. My wife was then a girl. She came to this island. She printed seeds and planted them here, making this island a new beginning.’

Joshua’s face softens as he remembers the day Esther proudly brought a group of students and teachers here. Her apprehension and joy, showing how the trees were growing well and that birds were returning to nest from where they had been hiding, waiting for just such an opportunity.

‘She was such a quiet girl. We could never have imagined what she was doing. She was fifteen. I fell in love with her that day.

‘If you want to know more, you should speak to her. She engineered the microbes that have restored the soils. She now runs the research group that is gradually rehabilitating the forests. It was one of her team, fifteen years ago, who began reintroducing animals, birds and the drill.’

‘They use the sphere?’

‘Yes. We could not have achieved so much without the techniques and knowledge it holds. It is not in the university any more. Too many people need to consult it. Its broadcast range is not far, but many people can sit in the market and work.’

‘As far as I can make out, the sphere looks as if it has been in this village for, what, over one hundred years?’

Joshua nods, lifting himself off the trunk and retrieving his shirt and shoes.

‘No wonder you have no information on our cities. You will have received no updates. We broadcast throughout the connect.’

‘It is not a secret?’

‘No, we are happy to share.’ [Except] ‘Oh, yes, except for dark fusion technology.’ [Because] ‘Well, we’re worried you’ll blow yourselves up.’ Samara looks bashful. ‘We don’t trust Earth-based engineers any more.’

‘We are not short of energy,’ says Joshua, perhaps a tad tartly.

‘For your current needs, but it takes vast stores of energy to produce the nanobiological devices that make the symbiotic intelligences. And gravity. And, well, many things.’

[And.] ‘And artificial intelligence. There are no details on how to manufacture these. We will not permit a new class of slaves.’

Joshua grimaces but Samara seems not to notice.

A heron flies slowly up the river. It lands on the island shore, focusing on an eddy of water in the shadows of an overhanging branch. Ever so slowly, it moves until its head is in line with a cluster of leaves. It waits, patiently, then thrusts into the water. As it comes up, it points its beak to the sky, swallowing its catch.

‘What happened to your great-grandfather’s friend? You said there were two boys?’

‘We do not know. He did not join us in Ewuru.’ Joshua looks at the sky. ‘We should return,’ he says. ‘I am happy to swim back?’

‘It is about seven kilometres along the river? Tell you what, you swim, I’ll see if I can hold my breath the entire distance.’ And then Samara crouches and springs in a giant arc, before slicing cleanly into the water ten metres off the bank.

Joshua waits, hoping to spot some trail of bubbles. Then he knots his shoes into his shirt, ties this around his neck and scrambles into the water. The current is swift and pushes against him as he angles across the river to the centre.

He allows the water to carry him, enjoying the slight coolness. He wonders if he will see river dolphin today. They are not native, but his wife likes dolphins.

The river is calming, and he needs to relieve his tension. Samara has thrown the village into turmoil. Already a small group of students have started studying artificial intelligence, hunting in the vastness of the sphere’s knowledge for hints on where the breakthroughs may come. He is not sure this is a good idea. Samara’s warning is also in his mind. Others have started looking at energy-dense weapons. Also not something he is comfortable with.

Too much change, too fast. We do not wish to attract attention. We must keep a balance between our ambitions and the waning power of the militias.

The river is wide and deep. Trees form a dense wall along the bank. An occasional cleft, where a giant has fallen and smashed a brief opening in the canopy, exposes plants battling for light and space. There are still ancient rubber trees and oil palms from the plantations that covered most of Nigeria, but these are being gradually displaced.

He wonders how long before the forest frontier that the string of villages along the Akwayafe has put in motion will reach the cities. It should touch the outskirts of Calabar in only a few years. How will they respond? Will they even notice? So few people leave the cities to brave the wilderness.

He ducks round a tree trunk floating in the middle, its branches splayed out and trapping leaves and other debris caught in the water. He still has not seen Samara. No doubt he is swimming faster than him anyway, but he wonders how it is possible to hold his breath for so long.

He needs to be careful as he approaches this end of the village. The turbine is at the bottom of the river, and there are nets and shields to channel anything that may clog it – like that tree – but he has no wish to become trapped himself.

He swims back across towards the bank and spots the orange buoys marking the approach. A line of smaller white buoys lines the channel he needs to take, and he slips rapidly by.

Past the turbine are a series of small floating platforms consisting of fine-net cages. These are the hatcheries where they protect the various fish stocks before release. Much further downstream, just past the town, are fish traps designed to catch full-sized catfish and tilapia.

Soon he comes to the jetty, where he grabs on to the edge of the floating platform below the concrete landing. Dragging himself out of the water he looks around for Samara.

A group of children, usually twenty to thirty, would normally be here after school, jumping off the landing in an exuberance of ever-more elaborate dives. Today they are sitting rapt on the bank, in the shade of a kola tree, listening to Samara as he tells a story.

Samara’s tale
Wall of Souls

The village supporting the School is set up on a forested hill sloping down to a beautiful lake.

Children play and the village is quietly prosperous, for many come to visit as pilgrims or as students for the School.

Behind the village is a plain. Dominating the stony, mossy ground of that plain is the amber treacle light of the Wall of Souls. Within, the anguished, tortured faces of the dead. Souls drifting in random mobs, rows, singly – haunting and haunted.

The School is run by the weak, by the cowardly. Men and women who trained to run the Wall of Souls but never conquered their fears, never made more than passing forays into the amber. How could it be any different? For – one way or another – none who run the amber ever come back.

Through the wall is the promised land. Perhaps there is a School there, refining the most perfect candidates ever further. Perhaps there is a perfect world. No one knows. None return.

While the children train, learning what is known of the amber – its wiles, its terrors – the Wooden Spoon Samurai merely sits under a tree and watches the Wall of Souls.

It is a clear day: the Festival of Colours. The School is open to visitors and a market grows up before the Wall. Today is the final exam, when graduates will run the amber.

Younger students run short sorties into the amber, laughing. None will go more than a few body-lengths into the wall. It cannot distract the Souls from the real runners; there are just too many. No one knows how many, how thick the wall, how far the run.

One laughing boy runs in. As has been taught for hundreds of years, on the interpulse he runs for clear space, and on the pulse – when everything slows to glacial and terrifying frozen motion – he turns towards the ghosts so that, on the next interpulse, he will be thrust through them. Too slow. He is caught. The ghosts tear his soul from him. He gives one anguished look back at his friends, his life, then he joins the Wall of Souls.

The Wooden Spoon Samurai has been watching. He understands, and he will break orthodoxy. He does not ask. He does not wait. Even as the festival-goers mourn the death, he makes his run into the amber.

It is a no-light, no-warmth, no-cold, no-sound, no-smell, no-space inside the amber. In his head, the pulse. On the interpulse, the Wooden Spoon Samurai runs towards the ghosts. On the pulse, as the ghosts swipe at him – their fingers brushing against his clothes – he turns away, to open space.

He runs for hours in the no-space of the amber. Twisting, turning: towards and away. They reach for him, the Wall of Souls, but they do not touch him.

And then he is through.

Beyond is a plain. Barren, stony, covered in lichen and moss. There is no School. There is no promise. The horizon is unbroken. The air is still and cold.

He finds one old man still wearing the scarf of a graduate. He has been here many years, he says. There is nothing here. If you walk for a month, you will come to a cold, black, flat ocean. There could be fish in it, but he has no way of knowing. Neither is there any way of building a boat. He survives on lichen and moss.

There were others, braver than he, who tried to run back. To warn the others not to come, but – by the Samurai’s presence – he must assume they all failed. ‘Warn them,’ he says, ‘and take my scarf as a sign for any who would remember me.’

The Wooden Spoon Samurai does not hesitate. He does not flinch. He turns and enters the amber.

It is cold, dark, inside the amber. The ghosts are larger, faster.

He runs, turning towards and away. Then he is confronted by a ghost the size of a world. He looks up, stares at it. Then he turns away and towards.

He is through.

There is no point in talking to the adults. They are the weak and the cowards. The ones who were too scared to make the run and who are invested in the tradition of the School, hundreds of years in the making. He starts with the young.

He shows them the scarf. He tells them of the barren plain. There is no promise, there is no hope, only the land of the dead. They listen; they follow him. They convince their parents. They overwhelm the School. The School falls.

Now the village has a new purpose. They protect; they inform. The Wall of Souls is still there, but none run the amber. ‘Look if you must, mourn the dead, then go. Live your life. For we are already in the promise.’

And the Wooden Spoon Samurai? Why, that is part of legend.

11

‘– and now he is running around with the others and they all want wooden spoons!’ Esther has the part-exasperated, part-mystified voice of a parent whose child has reached an age where running around shouting and hitting things with sticks is a very cool thing.