A History of What Comes Next

by Sylvain Neuvel

  Hey, Good Lookin’

  I’m proud of you, Son.

  That’s what he said. Those were his last words. What an idiot. His brother, Uncle Hans, he knew better. Hans didn’t go easy. My brothers and I had to chase him down. It took us almost a year to catch up to him. He called us dimwits before we slit his throat. He always called us dimwits, but I think he meant it more that time. He said: “You fools have no idea what the hell you’re doing.” Back then, I thought he was just a coward. Now I think he might have been on to something.

  I was always proud to be the eldest. I thought that made me—I don’t know—more me than my brothers. I worshiped my dad as a kid, and being allowed children sounded like quite a gas. Damn. I don’t wish our life on anyone, but when my son was born, I kind of looked forward to teaching him what I know.

  Ha! The little buggers can’t do anything when they’re born. They don’t even speak. I mean, I knew all that going in, but I didn’t realize I’d be twiddling my thumbs for years while a tiny me makes spit bubbles and shits himself all day. I also didn’t realize he’d spend all his time with his mother, which meant I’d have to spend time with his mother. I must have not done a very good job at that, because she took the kid and ran after two years.

  I had it all worked out. I wasn’t gonna kill her. I wasn’t even gonna yell. We’d both admit to our wrongs and start anew. It was all in my head, but I honestly thought it would work, and I was even a little proud of myself. She took a bunch of pills and drove her car right off a cliff. What kind of sick person does that to a child? I barely knew the kid but he was one of us. He didn’t deserve that. I took it hard. There was some drinking, some unfortunate incidents. I had to move a couple of times. It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that I wasted five years and I don’t even have one son, let alone four.

  Now Charles and Leonard are in Washington. Lord knows what William is doing. And I’m here, thirty-four years old, trying to sway the ladies. I had plenty of hunt left in me when I retired. I still do. I’m sure my brothers would say the same, but I was good at this. I hated every moment but I had instinct. They wouldn’t be in America right now if it weren’t for me. I found that photograph. Me. Thousands of years we didn’t know what the traitors looked like, until I came along. We might have found them already if I’d gone with them.

  That made me think. If my son were still alive, I’d show him things, teach him about our ways, but really, there isn’t that much to teach. Find the traitors, get the device, save the world. There. I could show him how to fight, whatever, but I couldn’t teach him what it meant to have spent an entire lifetime chasing after someone, the connection you develop, the intimacy. I know these women. No kid of mine will know them as much as I do, not until they reach my age and then, bam. Start all over again. I love tradition as much as the next guy, and I get how we don’t want to reproduce like rabbits, but this system of ours is really lossy. What a waste.

  I dream of our world at night, I see its moons traverse the red sky, but I know now what I see can’t be real. I’ve only heard my father describe a place he’d never seen for himself. We’re playing telephone. Our dreams get garbled with every generation. Colors get diluted, details are erased. We lose a bit of who we are every time we’re born. We’re watered down like cheap drinks.

  When the children I don’t have are old enough and they come to kill us, what will I say? “I’m proud of you, Son”? Fat chance. I’ll tell them: “You dimwits have no idea what the hell you’re doing.”

  I need a drink.

  39

  Hymne à l’Amour

  —You lied to me, Mia!

  She lied and I did not see it. She said it was done. I do not know what upsets me most, Mia’s deception, or that I cannot read my own daughter anymore.

  —I had to! You would have killed her. I couldn’t let you do that.

  Mia has killed before. It nearly destroyed her, but she did what had to be done. She followed the rules. How can I leave three thousand years of work and sacrifice in her hands if she will risk it all for one person?

  —I trusted you, Mia! What you did put us both in danger. Billie could have told them everything. I am still not sure why she did not. We could have been arrested, executed. Or sent to die in a mine somewhere. Billie could have had us both killed. She still can.

  —She didn’t! I knew she wouldn’t.

  —How could you know? She was screaming for you to leave!

  —I think …

  —What do you think? That you were being selfish? Dishonest?

  —I think she didn’t want me to see her that way.

  —Mia, she—

  —She gave me her hand! My hand was on the bed and she … She put her hand in mine.

  —That is not good enough, Mia. You put your feelings ahead of everything we hold dear. We cannot take that kind of risk. If both of us were to die, it would mean—

  —You would have done the same thing.

  —…

  —You would have let her live if you’d been in my place. You would have, Mother, or everything you told me about us is a lie. We’re the same, aren’t we?

  Is that what upsets me so much? That I have it in me to risk it all on someone? That I would give up everything we worked for? I think of those who came before me, of my mother, and all I see is strength. Would they have sacrificed everything for the person they loved? Survive at all costs. That is the rule. That is the only reason I am here, the only reason Mia lives. We are the Kibsu. We survive. Is it really Mia I am upset about? I have felt my own conviction waver ever since we moved to Russia. Have we lost our way, or have we always been weaker than I thought?

  —Perhaps, Mia. Perhaps I would have, but it does not make it right.

  —Why are we here, Mother?

  —Here where? I do not understand.

  —Why do we do what we do?

  A rhetorical question if there was ever one.

  —You know the answer, Mia.

  —Take them to the stars, I know. But that’s what we do. I’m asking you why?

  —Before Evil comes and kills them all. We do what we do to protect people.

  —From what? Who will come? What Evil?

  —Where is this all coming from, Mia! What are you trying to tell me?

  —Who’s coming? It’s not the Tracker. He’s been here all along if he exists at all. More people like him?

  —Mia, it is—

  —Answer me.

  —I assume it is people like him, yes.

  —People like us?

  My daughter thinks we are monsters, like the Tracker. Perhaps we are … related to him, like sun and moon, day and night.

  —Does it matter?

  —No, it doesn’t. What I’m trying to say is that this is all about them. Take them to the stars. We’re not going, Mother. We’re doing it for them. Not us.

  —I do not see how this has anything to do w—

  —Then if we can’t trust a single one of them, if they’re all so fucking aw—

  —Watch your tongue, Mi—

  —If they’re so fucking awful, all of them, that we can’t believe in the ones we love, what’s the point? Tell me, Mother. Why are we doing all this if they’re not worth our love, or our trust? You want me to lead us. You want us to be the One Hundred. I’ll do it, I will, but I have to know why. It has to mean something.

  Now I understand what Mia was doing. She was saving one life to give meaning to another. This was my doing in some way. I asked her to take charge. I asked her to pursue a goal she did not set, for a purpose she did not believe in. Letting Billie live was … science. We are creatures of facts and empirical evidence. We trust what can be proven or observed. She was asked to believe in something she could not see, and so she devised the only experiment she could think of to prove its existence. She took a leap of faith.

  I wonder how many of us did the same. How many times throughout history did we need proof that our path was righteous, that the goals we
pursued were worthy of the effort? I imagine that moment would come with a new generation, or the promise of one. It is one thing to extend the self for a nebulous purpose. It is another to ask your child to spend a lifetime doing the same. Perhaps this is how our entire journey began, with a leap of faith in someone.

  ENTR’ACTE

  Rule #2: Survive at All Costs

  AD 921

  At the young age of twenty-six, al-Muqtadir bi-llāh had been the Abbasid caliph for as many years as he had not. Though he would rule the caliphate for over a quarter century, al-Muqtadir bi-llāh showed little or no interest in the affairs of government, leaving most decisions to his viziers and members of his harem, including his mother. The caliph was thus unaware that the king of Volga Bulgaria, who had converted to Islam, had asked for his assistance in establishing a proper Muslim kingdom. He was also unaware that he had agreed to the king’s demand and sent a delegation from Baghdad.

  Among the small group forming the diplomatic mission were Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, who served as secretary to the ambassador, and the Sixty-Five, one of his many servants. She—her name was Nabia—was good with numbers and proved a valuable asset when matters of trade or taxation were at hand. Ibn Fadlan was kind, and Nabia was thankful for the opportunity to live among men and travel to foreign lands. She had read the ahadith stories of fierce Muslim women warriors, of the women poets and rebels, but a lot had changed in the last century. Slave or not, Abbasid women were now kept behind closed doors, treated as objects of pleasure to be possessed or traded.

  From the Caspian Sea, the mission made its way up the Volga River through the Khazar Khaganate. Relations between the Khazars and the Abbasids were cordial at the time, and all hoped for an uneventful journey. On the seventh morning, the Sixty-Five spotted a silhouette on the riverbank ahead of them and woke her master. It wasn’t a Khazar. The man didn’t wear a tunic, nothing but a cloak covering half his body. He was holding an ax in one hand and his penis in the other, peeing in the river. The boat drew closer, but the man didn’t turn or hide, showing no sign of modesty. Nabia’s master told her he was Rusiyyah, a Viking. They ruled all of Kievan Rus’ to the north and west and had been using the Volga as a trade route for over a century. They sold goods and slaves to the Abbasids and often traveled all the way to Baghdad. Neither Nabia nor her master had ever seen one up close.

  When the man was done peeing, he gestured to them to come ashore. The Vikings wanted to trade.

  Nabia was well traveled and her master thought she might prove useful in bargaining. They made their way to the small camp the Vikings had set up next to their ship. The camp was filthy by Abbasid standards, but it was the Vikings’ physique that struck them. In the middle of camp, a man was having intercourse with one of his slaves out in the open. Nabia and her master tried their best not to stare, but both were aroused by the scene. In his journals, Ibn Fadlan would write: “I have never seen bodies as nearly perfect as theirs. As tall as palm trees, fair and reddish.”

  The Abbasids had nothing to trade with. The riches they were carrying were meant for the king of Volga Bulgaria. The Vikings also had very little to offer: a couple of slaves, some fur and honey.

  Nabia was taller than most, and she stood with unusual confidence. She was unique. The leader of the Viking party thought something unique would make for a proper tribute to his earl, and he asked to buy her for a handful of coins. He did not take kindly to Ibn Fadlan’s refusal but reluctantly added one of their slaves to the offer. A slave for a slave, plus what was already a fair price for a slave. Ibn Fadlan knew that another no would amount to an insult. The Vikings could easily slaughter all of them and leave with whatever they wanted, or simply take Nabia. There was little anyone could do to stop them. It was certainly better to leave with something than with nothing, but Ibn Fadlan reminded himself the Vikings had made a very generous offer, and when he waved Nabia goodbye from the deck of his boat, he did so with pride and a smile.

  The Viking ship followed for more than a day. It was not until they split that Nabia fully realized what was happening to her. She sat up front with every man to her back. Each carried an ax or a blade, and the scars on their arms and legs were a stark reminder that the Norsemen had seen battle before. Their ships were fast and agile. The Kibsu were never good swimmers. She could neither fight nor flee and chose to rest as best she could for whatever came next.

  They arrived in Novgorod a few days later. She was presented to the earl during a visit from Igor of Kiev, son of Oleg, descendant of the great Rurik and supreme ruler of the Rus’. Igor looked into Nabia’s eyes and saw something he had not seen before. It wasn’t defiance, or the hatred he had seen so many times. She looked at him as her equal. And so, instead of spending her days milking cows serving the earl of Novgorod, Nabia got back on a ship and took the Oka River all the way to Kiev. Igor’s wife had died, and his infant son needed a mother. The Sixty-Five needed a daughter, and while her consent was not necessary, she embarked on that voyage willingly.

  The wedding was a wild and chaotic event. Neither of the newlyweds remembered much of it. Life in Kiev was better than what she expected. The Vikings, for all their brutality, were genuine and honest. They showed a profound sense of community. The city was lively, and Olga—that was the name she had taken—felt at home almost instantly. She adored Sviatoslav, her adoptive son, and grew to love her husband almost as much. Viking women enjoyed quite a bit of freedom. They could own property. They ran the affairs of the house as they saw fit. Konnungar and earl women also shared their husbands’ power and privilege. If Igor were to die, Olga would rule until their son was old enough to reign.

  Come spring, Olga gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Hilde. “She has her mother’s eyes,” said Igor when he saw her for the first time. As pleased as he was, what Igor needed was another heir, and while holding his daughter for the first time, he told Olga she would soon give him a boy. Seven slaves were strangled and stabbed to ensure the gods’ goodwill. Olga knew the rules—the Kibsu come in twos, not threes—but she chose to be a wife and mother first, Kibsu second. Hilde might not survive winter, and she convinced herself another daughter was a good insurance policy.

  Hilde did survive to see her sister born. Brynhild also had her mother’s eyes. She and her sister had their mother’s cheeks, her smile, her everything. Igor did not have another son. Hilde was reminding him of his wife a bit more every day. Brynhild reminded him of both. Igor tried his best to see something of himself in his girls. They were bold, fearless. Olga hoped that would be enough. She knew full well it was time to leave, but she chose not to. She loved her husband and could not fathom leaving her son behind.

  When Sviatoslav was six, Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians. After they captured him, they bent two birch trees, tied one to each of his legs, and watched Igor tear in half as they released the trees. Olga thought this might be the work of the Tracker, but she did not care. There would be no running. The Drevlians sent emissaries to Kiev to tell Olga of her husband’s death. They asked that she return with them to marry their prince and settle peace between their people. Olga thanked them for their offer and said she would welcome them to her court the next day. She had her people carry the emissaries inside their boats as if they were palanquins, and dropped them inside a trench she had dug during the night. All of Kiev watched as the messengers were buried alive.

  Their death did little to quench Olga’s thirst for revenge. She requested the Drevlians send a proper diplomatic party so that she could return with them and meet the prince with distinction. The Drevlians sent a group of noblemen, whom she received with the highest honors. While they were bathing, Olga locked the doors and set the bathhouse on fire.

  She sent a second message to the Drevlians and asked that they prepare a feast on the site of her husband’s death so that she might mourn him properly before marrying the prince. They did. Mead flowed profusely that night, and when Olga felt she had mourned enough, she and her p
arty slaughtered the five thousand Drevlians who had gathered with them. Olga returned home to prepare an army and kill anyone left alive. The Drevlians knew better than to fight the Rus’ again, and they retreated behind their walls. Olga did not want a siege to drag on for years, and she offered to leave if the Drevlians simply gave her pigeons and sparrows as tribute. The Drevlians were suspicious but thought they had nothing to lose by answering such a small request. Olga wrapped some sulfur inside small strips of cloth and attached one to each of the bird’s feet before lighting them on fire. The scared birds returned to their nests at once and set the city ablaze.

  When the Vikings returned home, Olga told her children their father had been avenged, but when she approached Sviatoslav to hug him, the boy cowered in fear. Consumed as she was with wrath, she failed to notice that her son had watched her through it all. He had seen her drink blood and slaughter children his age. The boy’s mother had died. All that remained was a monster. Olga could not bear to see herself through her son’s eyes. She took a small ship and headed south with her two daughters.

  Wife and mother first, Kibsu second. Olga had bet it all on a man and a boy, and she had lost both of them. She had lost her family, her home, and most of herself. Olga had broken the rules, and it had caught up with her. She fought when she should have run. She stayed when she should have gone. She had two daughters. That night, Olga held Hilde for hours, until she fell asleep in her arms. When Hilde was dead, her mother kissed her on the head and gave her body to the Dnieper. Olga had broken the rules, and she had paid the price. She had lost the will to live, but she would not dare break the rules again. Survive at all costs.

  Mother and daughter changed their names. Don’t leave a trace. Olga became Eurybia, goddess of the sea. She arrived in Athens a month later with her daughter Zosime, the survivor.

  ACT  V

  40