Lament for the Fallen (14 page)

Joshua is slow to respond. The path is wide enough for them to walk abreast without crowding each other. They share the comfortable silence of old friends.

‘I am not entirely certain,’ looking at Samara, as if searching for the answer there.

‘Even as we try to suffocate the warlords we struggle to accept each other. Prejudice and violence. They follow us home.

‘I do not know. I hope there will be a time of harmony and I may even live to see it. Your people are ahead, but not so far that I cannot see what we could be.’

They are walking slowly, ambling.

‘I believe we will build a new society over the old one. We do not need to wait for it to die first.’

Samara nods in understanding. ‘We had to do something similar. Not in the same way. We had to overcome the resistance of a long-lived people who had no wish to change. The new way has created satisfaction. It is not perfect. I don’t wish to deceive you, but we have developed something that works well.’

Joshua stops, Samara stopping with him. ‘You know how we are. I said I would like to know more about the way—’

Joshua’s words are cut short as Samara seizes his arm. He is looking at the sky.

‘Helicopter. At the village. Screams.’ And then Samara is sprinting, straight for the village.

[It is a ghost. One of those pesky near-silent ones. Expect mounted artillery, perhaps grenade launchers. They can carry six. This will be the outer limit of its range and it must return soon. If it came from Calabar.]

Joshua stands still, shocked, and then runs to catch him. Samara is disappearing into the forest ahead of him. He can hear gunfire now and the warning screams of the sentinels. He bursts from the trees.

Across the fruit orchard he can see figures running. Some fleeing behind the village walls, others racing out, carrying rifles.

Daniel is shouting from the top of the wall, directing scouts to emplacements along the slopes. Children are running up from the river, crying in fright. The artillery tower is firing back, but the helicopter is armoured. He can see sparks as it takes direct hits, but none penetrate. Even this close he cannot hear the rotors.

A group of scouts along the west path crouch and fire their rifles up at the helicopter. It fires a grenade towards them and they flee, diving to the ground as the explosion flings up a fountain of earth and torn cassava.

Joshua is frozen, watching in fascination as the path begins to shower up in a line towards him. Then he is flung to the ground as Abishai tackles him. The helicopter turns back towards the village.

‘Here,’ shouts Abishai, shoving a rifle into his hands before standing and running back towards the village. Joshua runs after her. Then he sees Samara.

He is amongst the children coming up from the jetty, shielding them and getting them to safety. He is carrying one in his arms. The child looks very familiar.

‘Isaiah!’ and Joshua is running. Samara gently passes the child to one of the scouts. His shirt is scarlet with blood. Then, faster than a man, he sprints directly at the village wall.

The wall is made of pounded clay. Readily available, easily maintained, extremely robust. It is five metres high, and there are now deep pockmarks from where artillery shells have drilled along it. Samara hurtles along the fortification, using the holes to fling himself upwards. He somersaults over the edge and on to the broad walkway at the top. Then he is racing along the parapet towards the helicopter.

Daniel stares aghast as Samara leaps from the edge. The helicopter is ten metres away and still four metres higher than the wall. It is tilted down, firing into the maize fields at the scouts there. He can see the two men in the cockpit, concentrating on the ground, four men in the crew cabin firing bullets and grenades from behind shielded canopies. They are laughing.

Samara lands on the transparent canopy in front of the pilot. The helicopter rolls and goes screaming upwards. The pilot twists and turns, trying to shake him loose. Samara does not move. The helicopter rises up over the village and is gone from Daniel’s view.

Abishai, guiding the last stragglers into the heavy buildings in the apex of the market, sees the helicopter come overhead. She runs up Ekpe Road and around the amphitheatre to the edge of the cliff. The helicopter is hovering over the river, still careening and rolling in an effort to shake Samara loose.

Samara’s eyes glow gold. His face is wrath. The men inside the helicopter are screaming. She holds her breath.

Samara does not break his gaze as he raises his right arm. He leans back. He snaps forward. Once. The canopy cracks. Twice. The canopy evaporates.

Samara is inside.

Abishai tries not to remember what happens next. She sees the top half of a man, his intestines and spine hanging loose, flung out of the cockpit. A body follows. This one is headless. The helicopter points at the centre of the river.

A moment before it hits the water she sees Samara leap out and to the side. The helicopter smashes into the river downstream from the fish traps. It sinks. Vanishes. No one escapes. A trickle of blood drifts in the current.

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; the 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.’