After the Flare

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  “We can deal with that after the launch. They just saw his film, and people will be more eager than ever to help out if they think he’ll be here.”

  “What if someone finds out?”

  “The end result is the same—they’ll walk off the job. Bello is the reason these people are here, Josephine. You’ve worked them hard enough and you can’t ask for more hours without a good reason.”

  “Fine,” she agreed, seeing the logic in his plan. “You’re the only one who knows the truth. I’ve got to call seven other people now.”

  She signed off before Bracket could change his mind.

  INTERLUDE

  All of Masha Kornokova’s dreams were of spinning: A chip of paint flexing like a butterfly. An errant screw gyrating like a worm. Whirls of motion filled her mind as she drifted off to sleep, fearing that one of these little objects would rip through the soft protective shells of the module and pull her into the vacuum of space. The satellites around her were no longer a constellation of man-made stars that corrected their own orbits, but free-floating missiles being sucked in by Earth’s gravity. The ISS was falling too, and with each passing orbit she saw distinct features sharpen through the porthole: the equatorial band of Asia seemed to swoon with mysterious light, as if it had captured the moon itself, and Africa pulsed with a bright yellow eminence. It was easy to miss the United States now, when it slid by on the dark side, pale illumination trickling out of the military bases before a quick speckle in the Silicon Territories. Ukraine was the same: darkness flecked with searching tendrils of light. This was the world now.

  Masha felt weak and hungry all the time, yet Josephine was constantly urging her to cut back on rations, turning her sustenance into a sort of game, varying her consumption targets: today mashed peas, and Wednesday a cup of rice, but tomorrow, a thick thigh of chicken. These surprises in her diet were designed to liven her up. Meanwhile, she was urged to exercise and spin like a top to prevent her spinal fluid from warping her vision permanently. So she spun and she spun, until she saw paint flecks and bolts turning beneath her eyelids.

  Masha wanted to gaze upon Josephine’s eyes again, not the polished, simulated image she was beaming up from Nigeria—blue eyes and white skin—but the frazzled, impassioned woman whom she had known on the surface. It would only be fair. Josephine could see Masha’s real face, after all, and Masha knew that her own sunken cheeks, which had once looked fetching when they had first met during astronaut training, now appeared hollowed and made her eyes bulge.

  Still, when she demanded the data, Josephine would give it to her. And the data told her that the Flare had unleashed thirty thousand pieces of debris, which were spinning, spinning now until they flamed out in the atmosphere, and on each orbit the chances increased that one would strike Masha first. Would it be a wingnut? A flake of silicon? Or her own hunger that tore her apart as she returned to whence she came?

  CHAPTER 18

  Bracket left Wale Olufunmi in the mess hall, where the scientist heaped a plate of Nigerian food so high that the cassava spilled off the sides. As the doctor dug in, Bracket went to the rocket platform to look for Seeta, who was conducting final acoustic tests on the rocket platform. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail and was wearing a white lab coat and baggy cargo pants. A dark lock fell over her cheek as he leaned in for a kiss.

  “Josephine has been riding me,” she said, looking down at a clipboard, “and it’s driving me bloody crazy.”

  “It’s not only you. She’s moved up all our schedules.”

  “You’re defending her?”

  “I happen to agree with her this time.”

  “I don’t give a fig if Bello is coming here. We had politicians come through Sriharikota all the time. They only care about themselves. They try to snap photos with you, tell you about some bullshit physics fact they read about on the Internet. Then they squeeze your ass.”

  “She doesn’t think he’s coming.”

  “She doesn’t?” Seeta asked. Then, thinking it through: “Smart move. All the bootlickers are climbing over themselves to impress him.”

  Bracket nodded. “That lunar geologist I wrote to just flew in from South Africa.”

  “I heard that he was here. At lunch everyone was talking about it. They were excited to meet a founder of Moonstream.”

  “He didn’t say anything to me about that.”

  “You’ve heard of the Moonlight Sect?”

  “Rumors of it. Something people cooked up to distract themselves from the Flare.”

  “It’s not a rumor. I forget how little information reaches the U.S. sometimes. There are millions of lighting systems using Moonstream technology right now. They were originally designed in South Africa to provide lighting during electricity blackouts. When the Flare hit, Moonstream was in the right place at the right time. We have entire cities running on Moonstream in India. In Bhutan, Moonstream is even believed to be divine; the president said it brought people closer to the gods, and that raised the gross national happiness index by ten percent. It was invented by a man named Dayo Olufunmi. Wale Olufunmi is his father.”

  “Wale told me he was a scientist, not a businessman. Bragged about his PhD.”

  “Find me a PhD who hasn’t. Maybe he was a scientist before. Now he lives off his son’s fortune. They’re one of the great Nigerian success stories.”

  “You think I can trust him?”

  “Can you trust any rich people who don’t need you?”

  She said she would finish up what she was doing and meet him over at Naijapool with the artifact. Everywhere scientists were scurrying in a frenzy of motion, encouraged by Bello’s impending arrival. Bracket found Dr. Olufunmi seated alone in the cafeteria polishing off his plate, his bodyguard standing silently above him. Not far away, though, tables of young scientists were eyeing his every movement.

  “I’ve found the artifact, Dr. Olufunmi.”

  “Call me Wale,” Olufunmi said.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re mispronouncing my name anyway.”

  “I say it the way you say it.”

  “It’s a tonal language.” He cracked a turkey bone with his molars and slurped out the marrow. Then he wiped his hands with a handkerchief and grabbed his cane. “All right, let’s go.”

  As they exited the cafeteria, Wale limping along, one of the young women asked the scientist for his autograph.

  “My son’s still not married,” he said, as he scrawled on a photo of himself sporting a colorful business suit. He gave her a business card. “Call my assistant and we can arrange a conversation. He likes smart women.”

  She curtsied in the Yoruba custom before scurrying away, Bracket thinking that Wale had said that his son likes smart women, which implied that Wale did not. He wondered what he’d think of Seeta.

  “We need a safe space,” Wale said quietly.

  “My crew needs to use the operations room,” Bracket explained. “Naijapool is too busy right now for any privacy.”

  “How about your quarters?”

  Bracket did not intend to let the man into his own home.

  “Fine,” Wale said, leaning heavily on his cane. “Let’s go to my plane. No one will bother us in there. Clarence, put in a call to Nanjala.”

  “You want to leave?” Clarence asked.

  “Have her fetch us.”

  Fifteen minutes later, a friendly Kenyan woman, about forty, with close-cropped hair arrived in a golf cart. She offered Wale a glass of cold water, which he declined as they motored out to the private jet, a sleek two-engine plane of Brazilian design with about eight portholes on each side. The tail fin was painted with two intertwining yellow crescent moons against a midnight-blue background. They climbed the small staircase into the passenger section of the plane, and Nanjala left again in the golf cart to pick up Seeta from the rocket platform. Inside, a leather couch lined one wall of the cabin, and walnut coffee tables were perched between four leather chairs that could recline. Clarence poste
d himself at the entrance, scanning for any threats.

  “No one’s coming, Clarence,” Wale said, sitting heavily in one of the armchairs. His paralyzed leg must have made standing uncomfortable for him, but he was too proud to ask for help. “Drinks.”

  “Coming right up, Doctor.”

  Clarence shut the cabin door and disappeared behind a cloth partition, where Bracket saw what he guessed was a shower and bathroom, ringed by handrails for Wale to hold. A painting hung at the front of the cabin, a portrait of a handsome young black man wearing a stylish T-shirt that read CRESCENT.

  “My son,” Wale explained. “He’s in Manila right now for a business opportunity. Can never get him to wear a collared shirt.” He pointed at the lights on the ceiling. “Here’s how we make our money.” He pressed a button on a control panel built into one of the armchairs, and the windows of the plane darkened as liquid crystal coursed through the glass. Soon it was pitch-dark. The next thing Bracket knew, the interior had been flooded by moonlight, exceptionally pure light that turned the cabin into a haunting parallel image of what he had seen a moment before. The armchairs, tables, and couch were all there. But they were different, magical. He waved his hand through the light, which made his skin look at once natural and exotic. He felt nostalgia for the cold, moonlit nights he’d once experienced in Massachusetts as a child, as if they were right there. With that memory: his mother, and then regret.

  The moonlight slowly faded and became regular white light again, sourced from an LED bulb. “We normally ease people into it,” Wale said, “but I thought you might enjoy the total effect. Those are our latest Moonstream bulbs. They’re not on the market yet.”

  “Strange things,” Bracket grunted, trying to hide his amazement. He felt disoriented and very much alone in the plane, even with the scientist sitting there beside him. He was relieved when the hatch opened again and Seeta stepped in.

  “I’ve got until seventeen hundred hours,” she announced. If she was impressed by the opulence of the jet, she didn’t show it. Clarence returned from the rear, carrying a tray with Guinness beer and chilled mugs, which he set down on one of the coffee tables.

  “Beer?” he asked.

  “Bloody hate Guinness,” Seeta said, “but yes.”

  “It’s an acquired taste,” Wale said. He was being more than polite, though, and seemed to be assessing Seeta as he passed her a bottle. “Seventeen hundred hours, you say? About four hours from now?”

  “Yes, until I have to test the platform again.”

  “Should be enough time. Nanjala?”

  The Kenyan woman emerged from the front of the plane and he whispered in her ear, and then she left again. Wale struck up a conversation with Seeta, and far from being intimidated by her intelligence, he appeared to warm to her.

  “And where did you attend school?” Wale continued.

  “I got my doctorate from Trinity College, Oxford, and I had a postdoc at LIGO.”

  “The gravitational-wave observatory? That’s quite impressive. LIGO Hanford or LIGO Livingston?”

  “Both. My research focused on eliminating noise, so I calibrated the mirrors at both sites,” Seeta said, flattered.

  “Seeta Chandrasekhan,” Wale went on. “You wouldn’t by any chance be connected to the prominent textile family from Gujarat? They’re investors in Moonstream.”

  Again, she was taken aback. “I’m connected to my uncle by blood. But he would deny that he’s connected to me.”

  “I see.”

  “I doubt you do.”

  Bracket heard something clunk below him in the cabin and the sound of the turbines powering on. Probably for the electricity, he guessed.

  Seeta set the cloth-wrapped artifact down on one of the walnut coffee tables, causing a smile to spread across Wale’s face from ear to ear.

  “Fantastic!” he said. “You haven’t touched it, have you? It should be in a glove box.”

  “We don’t have one,” Bracket said.

  “Then latex gloves. A clean surface to work on. This is standard protocol.”

  They waited as Clarence searched around in the hold and returned with some latex gloves and a dusting brush. Once he had the proper equipment, Wale marveled at the little pottery as he unwrapped it from the handkerchief with a pair of tweezers.

  “Look at the markings!” he said. “Extraordinary! I’ve seen these symbols on other specimens, but rarely as clear as these.”

  “Has anyone deciphered them?” Bracket asked.

  “No, there aren’t enough to begin unraveling the text. It’s one of the great mysteries of African archaeology. But this is a fine specimen that will surely make a contribution.”

  Outside, the engines were growing louder, and Bracket felt the plane begin to move. “What are you doing, Wale? We didn’t come here to get on a flight.”

  “I can spend these four hours explaining everything on paper, or I can show you directly.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Seeta said, getting up from her seat. “Turn off the engines. Let us out of here.”

  “You want to know about this artifact? I can take you there to see who made it right now.”

  Bracket looked at Seeta, trying to gauge her reaction. He didn’t like Wale’s assumption that they would go along with him, but he couldn’t help but be intrigued. “Where?”

  “Lake Chad,” Wale said.

  “You can’t just fly into Lake Chad,” Seeta said. “It’s a full day’s drive along terrible roads.”

  “Not where we’re going. We’ll be southwest. I can give you my word that we’ll be back on time for your schedule. But please—we’re wasting time as we speak. What do you want to do?”

  “All right,” Seeta said.

  Bracket nodded his agreement, and Wale whispered something into his cane. The engines increased their power, and the jet began to turn on the runway, then they were rushing forward and lifting off, the nose banking upward at a sharp angle. Seeta grabbed on to the artifact as they all leaned backward during the long climb into the sky. Bracket hadn’t flown since he’d first arrived in Nigeria, and he had forgotten the power and speed of an airplane. And unlike a commercial flight, no warning lights came on and the pilot didn’t make any grating announcements. They were simply flying. He peered out the window at the rocket towers and the Nest.

  As the jet leveled out at cruising altitude, Wale explained that he couldn’t confirm the artifact contained a meteorite without taking a sample and analyzing it in his geology lab in Cape Town.

  “Perhaps you yourself could run a deep acoustic scan?” Wale suggested. “You evidently have the expertise.”

  “It might help,” Seeta acknowledged, enjoying the compliment. “But my equipment is designed to analyze much larger structures. To do it properly, I’ll need a controlled environment and a full day to conduct the test. A full day that I don’t have.”

  “Then that will have to wait,” Wale decided, suddenly reasonable.

  “You said you know who made it,” Bracket said.

  “I have a theory,” Wale admitted. “But it is rather complex.” He took another slug of the Guinness, his eyes fixed on the orange recessed lighting of the cabin.

  Trying to figure out how to explain it to us, Bracket thought.

  “Are you familiar with celestial navigation?” Wale asked.

  “It was standard training at NASA,” Bracket said.

  “Manual or on a computer?”

  “On a computer.”

  “What I am about to tell you is not taught in your standard trainings. In fact, it is rarely taught at all.”

  Bracket looked out the window as they pulled free of Kano, nothing but dry Sahel and fields of Guinea corn interspersed with dust-laden roads. He thought he saw a lone cattle munching away at some bramble.

  “Man has been looking up at the sky from the moment he slept on his back. No country can claim the right to own this experience, you see. It’s a universal desire to understand what we’re looking a
t. My research in lunar geology was always a metaphor for me to ask that question, mediated through the lens of science. But I’m a dreamer just like anyone else. So I began learning more about the explorers and astronomers who came before us, when the notion of space meant something, when it bridged the spiritual and the physical, when it was not just another equation for an engineer to calculate.”

  “Come on, you’re talking like you were born a hundred years ago,” Seeta argued. “You didn’t use a slide rule, Dr. Olufunmi. You’re not that old.”

  Wale held up a finger excitedly. “That’s exactly my point, young lady. The slide rule! The slide rule can be traced back literally thousands of years. It was introduced in the sixteen hundreds to make calculations based on a logarithmic scale, but the slide rule wasn’t invented out of thin air. It has a direct line to celestial navigation. Want another?”

  Grabbing a bottle from the tray, Wale opened it ritualistically, giving it one shake and then tapping on the bottle top twice with his middle finger. “It tastes better here than South Africa, it truly does. Nigerians brew the best Guinness in the world. See the curve in this bottle? There was a time when counterfeiters in Lagos had copied the old bottle exactly, and you never knew what the beer would taste like. They sorted that problem out, fortunately, by making the bottle almost impossible to manufacture, stretching their injection molds to the very limit. Delicious.

  “As I was saying, while I was in exile I studied a time when lunar geology mattered, when meteorites mattered. That’s when I found out about the ancient city of Harran, a tremendous culture that sat at the nexus of Mesopotamian civilizations. In Harran, they worshipped the moon. As a scientist I wanted to know how the Harranians had measured the stars. They used astrolabes, which are almost like analog computers—the progenitors of the slide rule—that operate from the vantage point of man on Earth. By identifying key stars with the instrument, they could predict sunrises, sunsets, the passing of comets, and even solar eclipses. With a little trigonometry, they could also measure distances and angles with precision. Astrolabes were invented by the Greeks, passed along to the Arabs, then to the Jews, and eventually to European culture. They enabled navigation by the stars. And the city of Harran sat in the middle of these cultures, inheriting a rich tradition. Most Harranian astrolabes were lost, of course, because they were made of wood. Metal astrolabes were only available to the very rich or to powerful religious leaders, and crafted by renowned builders such as Bastulus and Ali ibn Surad.”