“Is that so?” Taran asked and took a step back, toward the path. “Well, unfortunately, you have done nothing but waste my time tonight. I may be a business man, and a greedy one at that, but to play partner with wholesale murder on such a large scale as your project so surely portends is not something that I want on my resume. To be quite frank, sir, you can tell your people and the thugs who support them that they will get no help from me on this. Tell them to test their medicine on themselves and see how willing they are then.”
“Some of them already have, sir,” the man said. “And, none of them are dead though they are all quite thoroughly cured of their particular ailments.”
“Good for them,” Taran quipped and started back toward the path. “Nevertheless, your drug sounds interesting and, with a bit more work, something that the people of the Grids will no doubt benefit greatly from once it is perfected. However, what you propose is for me to help you sign ten death warrants for every million of your drug’s recipients. I, good sir, will not do that.”
“Please reconsider, Councilman,” the man said, with a hint of desperation entering his voice for the first time that night. “The people I represent can be very persuasive, very persuasive indeed.”
Taran twirled about to face the shadows once more and pointed a long bony finger toward the darkness. “If that is a threat you are implying you would do well to keep such vulgarity to yourself. If you or any of your henchmen come near me, my family or anyone else however loosely associated with me I shall…”
Several men dressed in black revealed themselves just then, cutting Taran’s words short and pointing the muzzles of several lethal looking weapons in his direction. The man who he had been speaking with all that time stepped forward from the shadows, a wicked smile on his face. “I told you, they can be very persuasive, Councilman.”
“What is this?” Taran asked, a cold feeling of dread creeping up from deep within his stomach.
“What does it look like? It is what it is,” the man said. “So, what will it be, Mr. Taran? Can we count on your support at this time?”
“And if I answer in the negative?”
“Then we will have to look for our next co-conspirator,” the man said, that wicked smile touching his lips again. “Due to the regrettable loss of our first choice.”
“You can’t expect to get away with this…” Taran said.
“Is that a yes or a no, Mr. Taran?” the man growled.
Anger flashed behind Taran’s eyes, hot and painful, as he imagined his own death, shot in this park, left to die. “It is a…”
The park lit up like broad day as several powerful weapons discharged. The noise was phenomenal, bouncing through Taran’s skull, as he dove to the wet cool grass and tumbled down the slope back into the valley. All around him, weapons erupted, bodies flew and the realization that he was still among the living swept like a wave through his conscience.
He stopped rolling and immediately felt strong hands grab his right arm, lift him to a standing position. He whirled to fight off his aggressor but was quickly shoved to the ground, that strong hand again, now at the back of his neck.
Suddenly all in the park was silent. All except for the sound of Pamlico Taran’s ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart. From his vantage point on the ground, with his head being pressed mercilessly into the moist damp dirt, he could see the bodies of several black-clad men lying dead in the valley. No words had yet been uttered by anyone since the initial explosions that had caused him to dive. Then the sounds of the hustle and bustle of Cazara Center once again entered his head, the sounds of civilization going about its business not very far away, and he knew that he was going to be fine.
That strong hand left his neck, grabbed his arm and lifted him effortlessly, once again, to his feet. Taran’s eyes met those of a tall man, dressed in black as well, and sporting an ugly black weapon that reeked of military.
“Councilman,” this man said, brushing bits of grass and dirt lightly from Taran’s overcoat. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes,” Taran muttered. “What in the hell is going on here?”
“Councilman, you are to be commended,” the man said and stuck out his black gloved hand. Taran took the hand, felt the strong grip and was riveted to the eyes of the man standing before him. “You chose wisely this night, sir. Very wisely indeed.”
“What? Are you…”
“Just know that you have gained a new respect among those of us in the Guarder Squadron, Councilman Taran,” the man said and let go of his hand. “Also know that, if you had chosen the other way, we wouldn’t be standing here having this discussion.”
Taran’s eyes widened in surprise and he realized for the second time in the last five minutes just how close to death he’d been in the deep dark recesses of Profits Park.
“Now, go on back to your home, Councilman,” the man with the riveting eyes and close cropped black hair said. “Don’t worry. We’ll clean up the mess and be gone from here as if it never happened.”
“Right…” Taran said and turned to go.
“Just know this as well,” the man said, his voice no longer warm and inviting. “We’ll follow this trail of garbage back where it came from and clean up the mess there, too.”
“Very good,” Taran said and took another uncertain step. “About this, tonight, what happened here…”
“It’s forgotten…for now,” the man in black said. “But, please remember, we will be watching.”
Pamlico Taran nodded once at that, turned and headed briskly down the path he had just followed to the valley. As the entrance to Profits Park became visible ahead and the sounds of traffic mixed with the lights of the city, Taran found himself shaking and eager to turn his eyes back toward the mysterious men in black. Somehow, he resisted the urge and gulped back the tears of shock that were threatening to tumble forth from his eyes.
“Guarders…” he muttered under his breath as he stepped on to the sidewalk that encircled the park’s perimeter. “Watching me…this will ruin everything…”
THE END.
GROWTH INDUSTRIES by Jim Lee
Kenneth Tanu stood ramrod straight, stubbornly ignoring the cousin who had once been his best friend. His long arms were thrust downward, rigid at his sides. His intelligent if unhandsome face was taut with willfully controlled concentration. With the exception of two slowly pulsing nostrils, only his eyes moved.
Those eyes were now downcast, grim beyond their years despite what he faced.
His parents’ vegetable garden was innocuous enough and now even more prosperous and healthy-looking than he recalled from early childhood.
But reminders of those long-gone times also recalled for him Kristan Ngola: A full year older than he, an adventurous child of seven years—until the Hot Rains came. That had been twenty years ago and in a time when Kenneth still mistook his father for a great man.
Then the fallout came and Stephen Tanu could do nothing—nothing to ease the agony of the burns and welts that broke out wherever the monstrous cocktail of nuclear, chemical and biological contaminants assaulted Kristan’s previously smooth flesh; nothing to save the island’s vegetation, including the endless rows of clove-producing trees upon which the local economy had rested. The great man could not even save his beloved fishing grounds or the leaky wooden trawler he and Old Ali had jointly owned and operated. And somehow, against all logic, young Kenneth had never been able to fully forgive his father’s inability to put it all right.
Today, a grown man, he knew it was all quite absurd. His father had been a simple boatman then. Honest and hardworking, but hardly the leader or the hero Old Ali painted in his tall-tales of seagoing wonder.
No man, regardless of his circumstances, could resist or neutralize the searing residue of that distant madness. The Fourth Indo-Pakistani War was a brief and ‘limited’ affair. In two fateful days, it killed 75,000,000 million outright and far more in the longterm. Pemba Islanders could just be grateful
that only a single freakish storm front, born of the swirling unpredictability of raging Climate Change colliding headlong with a Little Dose of Nuclear Winter had carried the Hot Rains so far south and west across the ocean.
Ocean currents were slower yet more thorough spreaders of doom.
Within weeks, the fishing industry was as dead as most of its intended catch. What was left would be toxic for years to come.
No man could be expected to overcome all that.
Yet in the eyes of a trusting six-year-old, one’s father was no mere man. He was a god, personified. And even now, knowing how idiotic it was, the screaming boy inside the young man still resented his father’s impotence in the face of utter disaster.
To his child-mind, Father had simply refused to put everything right!
Kenneth snorted at his own foolishness and closed his eyes. He felt a strong but bony hand close about his elbow and knew his cousin had mistaken his internal dismay for grief.
It wasn’t so, of course.
Kenneth had done his grieving for his onetime playmate long ago—long before last week, when she finally died.
“Your mother attended Kristan even more-so than before, these last six months. Did not share much about it to me—or to you either, I expect? Not wanting to upset us, I suppose.” Walter’s voice was a solemn rasp, the thin new mustache on his lip wiggled as he spoke. “I plan on visiting the memorial while I’m here, put out something for her. Do you recall what sort of flower she favored?”
“Sorry, no.” Kenneth shook his head. “Perhaps she had none?”
“Perhaps.” Walter paused, released his cousin’s elbow and gestured. “But you shall accompany me? I mean . . . .”
“Most certainly.” Kenneth turned from the vibrantly growing vegetables. He glared at the family compost heap. Kristan had been just across the way when caught by the crippling downpour and had never recovered. Accordingly, it seemed to Kenneth a far more fitting image to focus on—a more appropriate metaphor for their past and the waking nightmare that her life had been from that day forward.
Kenneth sighed.
The kitchen seemed smaller than he remembered, but serviceable and as exceptionally neat as he recalled. Much like their entire house, in fact.
Kenneth shook his head, thinking of a time when the whole family had clung together—miserable and hungry for days on end. ‘Home’ just then had been a temporary, dirt-floored emergency shelter and they had been pathetically glad for it.
He tilted his head, gazed past his cousin to observe the uncomplaining woman of the house. Kenneth’s mother was preparing a salad and some fresh-picked beans, while periodically glancing at the solar-powered stove and the modest hunk of beef (a luxury imported from the mainland!) roasting within it.
Meanwhile, his cousin sliced cassava with a sharp knife as a preliminary to cooking then mashing the starchy root.
It had the makings of a plain, but entirely decent meal.
How many times in the desperate days after the Hot Rains had Kenneth yearned for such bounty? And now it all seemed so ordinary, so . . . basic! The years away at University—in the old Capital then down in Johannesburg, followed by the recent and still more wondrous beginning of his career had left him jaded.
A cry of unmanly pain, a muttered curse in Swahili broke his revelry.
“Walter!” Jasmine Tanu moved quickly. The longtime nurse’s aide surveyed the cut on the young man’s finger. She pronounced it less than serious. “Such a lad, you are! Skilled mechanic and technician, yet still so clumsy with a kitchen knife! Hold this cloth to it for a bit. Yes—there, like that. Don’t worry. You see? Already the blood slows. Yes, good. Yes.”
Kenneth’s mother bent abruptly forward. She grabbed a single slice of the root vegetable then handed the bowl and knife to Kenneth.
“Your turn, engineer—show me if the space power expert is not as careless as the earthbound oil driller!” She nodded once before returning her eyes to Kenneth’s cousin. “Now, Walter, let me see. Hmm, good—bleeding has stopped. But best rub this on the wound.” She pressed the chunk of cassava, cut end down against his finger.
“That’s one old wise-woman’s tale I’ve never heard of,” Kenneth remarked.
“Oh?” His mother made a face. “Possibly because it isn’t one! But engineer, I might point out how much of modern medicine evolved from folkways.”
Kenneth studied his cousin’s face. He saw puzzlement then surprise and relief there.
“Mama Jasmine,” Walter said, reverting to his childhood manner of addressing his Aunt. “The juice of the cassava—it makes the injury tingle.”
“Of course.” She looked back and forth between the two young men. “Now it’ll heal quicker, and with almost no chance of infection.”
“Mother?”
“Mama Jasmine?”
“Oh, you men!” She gave both playful nudges. “You all keep up with nothing outside your precious ‘chosen fields!’ Your father is the same, Kenneth—if it doesn’t involve growing new building supplies, he is uninterested. Until, of course, he needs something.”
She turned aside with a theatrical flourish.
The two young men exchanged helpless grins, one gesturing to the other while still clutching the root to his wounded finger.
“Very well, Mother. We concede our many faults—and those of our entire gender, if it makes you happy. But please—reveal the untold magic of cassava root to us?”
“Not magic,” she sniffed. “Science—two such fine products of Africa’s best Universities may have encountered hints of such a thing? In this case, it involves genetic engineering. Way back in the 1990s an American produced the first so-called ‘Superspuds’—protein-rich potatoes with all sorts of useful amino acids, courtesy a synthesized gene.
“The idea was improving the nutrition of poor folk, who lacked the resources to afford a truly balanced diet. Before you two were born, another group—in Taiwan, I believe—did the same for rice. Then, just about a decade ago, the West African Institute in Accra, Ghana perfected the technique for plantains.”
“And cassava?” Walter prompted.
“Don’t interrupt, young one. Our own University of Dar es Salaam did the same for cassava, two years back. In another year or so, most all the cassava in the world will be so enriched. If we’re lucky, the world will then have seen its last outright famine—barring another catastrophic war, of course!”
“I doubt the Reformulated UN will allow that,” Walter murmured.
“Let us hope so,” Jasmine replied tartly. “But with men still mostly running things, can anything be certain?”
“But of Walter’s cut?” Kenneth shrugged at his mother’s glare. “Apologies—as you were saying . . . ?”
The glare persisted a few more seconds. Then Jasmine grinned. “One of the amino acids carries with it a small bonus—a certain peptide compound. It promotes healing and sterilizes the affected area, all in one step.”
“See?” Walter nudged his cousin. “Didn’t I say your mother shall be the finest nurse in Tanzania, maybe all of the Alliance even before completing her last courses?”
“There was never any doubt,” Kenneth deadpanned, right on cue.
“You two dare mock me?” Jasmine joked then chased both from her kitchen, purportedly so she could finish preparing their homecoming supper in peace.
“It’s a matter of ujamaa, plain and simple!”
Kenneth rolled his eyes, sinking deeper into the cushions and declining to take part in this tiresome—and so predictable—political debate. His cousin and father had no such compunctions, however.
Kenneth’s father snorted. “Plain foolish and simple-minded, you mean.”
Like his late older brother, Omar’s ruddy complexion proclaimed a heritage more Arab than African. But that was hardly uncommon in these islands.
“Ujamaa,” the man repeated. “It is more important than anything!”
“Mr. Rubeho,” Walter said, attempting to sound di
spassionate yet soothing. “Of course our Swahili traditions of Familyhood are important. Neither my Uncle nor myself dispute that.”
“Indeed,” Stephen Tanu agreed. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand, the gesture taking in Walter and the silent Kenneth. “Behold—it is in that very spirit that my boys have come home!”
Though only Kenneth was his son, Stephen habitually referred them collectively as ‘my boys.’ It, like the invocation of that ancient and seemingly omnipresent code of duty, upset Kenneth as much as ever.
Walter noted the set of his cousin’s jaw and moved to steer the conversation in another direction. “Ujamaa is a fine and worthy part of our culture, Mr. Rubeho. But the old, narrow political philosophy that used it as a byword is sadly outdated. Why, when you come down to it, Tanzania isn’t even a fully separate nation any longer.”
The aged part-Arab grumbled under his breath—something about that being the crux of the whole problem. But then he looked up and saw his wife, ready to depart. He stumbled to his feet, mumbled gruff thanks for the hospitality they had received.
“Of course, Omar.” Stephen Tanu gave the shoulder of his former partner’s surviving brother a pat and guided him to the door.
“I shall be voting for Kigoma nonetheless,” Omar said then he and Tula were gone.
Stephen Tanu eyed the front door then his nephew and wife. “The man has no program, little experience—yet that old fool and others like him will vote for him. If elected, he’ll be a total embarrassment—especially when our turn to hold the Combined Presidency rolls around in 2109! Nationalism, in this day and age—it defies understanding!”
Jasmine put a calming hand on her husband’s arm. “I think Tula will vote for Sokoine, though.”
“Good!” Stephen and Walter chorused, but Kenneth hardly cared who would be the next Tanzanian President, and therefore the two-year leader of the overall East African Alliance, three years beyond that. All the leading contenders supported the EAA’s continued membership in the hugely popular Pan-African Space Program, albeit rather grudgingly in Mr. Kagoma’s case. Accordingly, Kenneth could afford his indifference.
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