After the Flare

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  Out the window, Bracket saw what may have been an old bus abandoned by the side of the road, then a cluster of huts nearby, but no people.

  “I was able to find an astrolabe by al-Ijliya, the first known woman astrolabe maker. I convinced the Kunstmuseum to allow me to examine it, which they did after a generous donation. The briefcase, Clarence.”

  The bodyguard picked up their empty bottles and disappeared toward the rear of the plane, returning with a silver attaché briefcase, which he handed to Wale. Wale used his thumbprint to open it and removed a metal object from a velvet bag.

  “You bought the astrolabe?” Seeta asked.

  “It’s not the original. I took high-resolution photos and had it modeled with a 3-D printer. I hired a metallurgist to re-create it. It cost a small fortune to make, nearly as much as the real astrolabe. Would have been easier to buy it, frankly.” Something in his look told Bracket that he regretted not having done that. Bracket found himself reaching for it. Maybe it was the curves on its face, or the way the polished brass caught the light, but he wanted the astrolabe in his hands.

  It looked like a giant pocket watch, a circular metal plate with looping lines and miniature heads of dragons, ornamented around the edges with topiary motifs. Wale explained the various pieces, such as the alidade and the rete or ankabut, which pointed to the bright stars of major constellations. The arcing lines marked off the tropics, the equator, the horizon, azimuths, and times for prayer.

  Wale let them each hold the astrolabe for a moment. Heavier than Bracket expected. It could endure. This object was made with the long view, not years but generations. Centuries. He felt a sort of reverence, a connection to the seekers of before. He could only imagine what impression the original would have had upon the ancients. The precision of each arc was extraordinary, as if diamond-cut.

  “This astrolabe was forged in the tenth century,” Wale explained. “Look at these symbols along the edge. Most astrolabes were designed to work locally, so that you could navigate in the general region where they had been designed. But al-Ijliya crafted hers as a universal astrolabe with interlocking plates called tympans.” He removed three metal disks from the cloth. “These tympans were interchangeable—if you moved several hundred kilometers to the west, for example, you could swap in this tympan and still navigate perfectly; to the east, this one.” Wale was growing animated now. “But this tympan intrigued me the most.” The tympan fit snugly within the astrolabe and was circled by a chain of engraved insects around its edge.

  Bracket felt a subtle thump as the pilot nosed the plane down, and they began their descent. They seemed to be following a river, which was dotted with canoes, and the land around it was lush with vegetation.

  Seeta was still focused on the astrolabe. “Are those ants?”

  “That is what I thought at first glance. Except I could identify no culture in the region that worshipped ants or gave them any particular importance. You can use this magnifying glass.”

  “There is something connecting them,” Bracket chimed in. “Their antennae—or a string, maybe. And they have four legs instead of six.”

  “That’s correct. Look here.”

  “Waves,” Seeta guessed. “They’re by the sea.”

  Wale slapped the desk with glee. “Not waves: sand. They’re camels.”

  “It was a desert?”

  “You have it precisely, young lady! This tympan was used to cross the desert, and not just any desert, but the Sahara itself. We had always known that the Arabs penetrated into North Africa, but this tympan means that the trade routes had been established much earlier than suspected. The image is a caravanserai. The only question that I needed to solve was where in the Sahara the tympan was meant to be used. My natural guess, of course, was Timbuktu, which is an ancient trade route and city. But when I traveled to Mali, the astrolabe did not work. This was to be expected, because of the precession of the equinoxes and the wobbling motion of the Earth that occurs over the centuries, but I had made adjustments for that. I tried it again in Alexandria in Egypt and Tamanrasset in Algeria. Still nothing. And then I decided to head further south to the Lake Chad region—and that is where it worked again.”

  “That’s where you’re taking us,” Bracket said.

  “Precisely,” Wale said triumphantly. “But there is a deeper question, isn’t there?”

  “Yes,” Seeta agreed. “Why would the tympan work there? What was there that deserved it?”

  “Exactly, young lady. Up until that point, the great Arab centers of civilization fell within the Maghreb region, spreading from Aleppo to Córdoba, Spain. Yet there was clearly a city in Nigeria important enough for travelers from Harran to cross the desert.”

  The landing gear opened, and the plane began drifting in for the landing. Bracket couldn’t see a runway or anything approaching a road, and he braced himself for an impact. He looked for a seat belt, but he couldn’t find one in the lounge chair. And then suddenly there was a spit of concrete and the plane landed smoothly on the runway. They coasted for a quarter of a kilometer before the pilot stepped on the brakes, causing them all to pitch forward in their seats.

  “Short runway,” Wale explained, still focused on the astrolabe. “Look here, below the caravanserai: it’s a figure, a head. See the features? It looks like a black African.”

  “It’s hard to tell,” Bracket said, trying to catch a view of the landscape outside.

  “I’ve blown up the image a dozen times. It most resembles carvings from the Nok civilization. The Nok people lived all over northern Nigeria and are known for their intricate terra-cotta sculptures, which show realistic portraits of their people—even their hairstyles. They traded gold, slaves, and ivory for salt, cowries, and metals.”

  Clarence peered out the porthole and opened up the hatch. “Let me check it out, boss.” He drew his pistol, but there was little to see besides dusty scrubland. Not even a road or a village. They must have long since left behind the rivers they had been following in the air. It was a low-flung plain, and the heat poured into the cabin, somehow even hotter than at the spaceport, and on the horizon Bracket could see thunderclouds so far away they appeared like foamy waves cresting over a beach.

  Clarence seemed on edge as he scanned the area. “Hold on, boss. Let me get the rifle.” He unlocked a compartment and emerged carrying a large rifle that was so big it even looked heavy for him. He stepped out onto the runway and signaled that they could join him.

  “Where’s the airport?” Seeta asked, making her way down the steps.

  “There isn’t one,” Wale explained. “I built this to facilitate our research. The lake is still another ten kilometers north of here. You’re making them nervous, Clarence.”

  “This is for your safety,” the bodyguard explained. He was now in his element and wasn’t going to let Wale order him around. “Nanjala,” he said, speaking into a small walkie-talkie, “turn the plane around while we’re out there, hey?”

  “You got it,” the pilot replied.

  “All right,” Clarence explained to them. “Most predator attacks come from the front. So I want you in a line behind me.”

  “Oh, come on, Clarence,” Wale said. “You see one lion out here and you think we’ll get eaten alive.”

  “I think we should listen to him,” Bracket said.

  “Yeah,” Seeta agreed, glancing around.

  Wale set a quick pace with his cane, forcing the bodyguard to keep ahead of him with his elephant gun. Now they were walking through scrubland that rose above head height, and Bracket could barely see a few meters on each side, the vegetation drawing in close. Seeta crowded near him. Clarence spotted a cobra slithering away into the bush, but otherwise they saw little.

  “Our excavations here,” Wale said over his shoulder, “point to an advanced Iron Age culture that suddenly collapsed. But oral traditions in the region suggest the Nok culture continued as isolates. These descendants were sometimes called the Sao. The Nok—or the Sao—ar
e the only trading culture that was powerful enough to have merited their own astrolabe. You’ll see soon enough—we’re not far away.”

  They were climbing a small embankment and Bracket felt his anticipation rising, eager to learn more about the people who had made the artifact that had caused him so much trouble.

  Clarence motioned for them to stop walking, peering down at the ground and running his fingers through the dust.

  “Lion?” Bracket whispered, surprised at how casual the word sounded on his lips.

  “No.” Clarence shook his head. “Someone’s been here.”

  He crawled forward on his arms as the scientists waited nervously behind him. He looked into the scope of his rifle, before standing up and shouldering the weapon.

  “They’re gone. But we shouldn’t stay long.”

  Finally they came to the rise of the hill. Before him Bracket saw three shipping containers, probably airlifted in, spread out in a U shape over about an acre of land cleared of brush. Between the containers was a long pit, which appeared to have been excavated about four meters at its deepest end, with different gradations in other places. Indeed, nearby was a backhoe, but its tires had been slashed through, and the machine seemed to be melting into the earth itself.

  “No!” Wale shouted. “They couldn’t have!”

  He practically hopped down the hill to the edge of the pit. Here, there were numerous cavities in the earth, with the soil clumsily turned over. They continued walking along the dig until they found the remains of an old brick wall. This too had been chipped away, and the center of it was gone, hacked with a pickax.

  Wale turned accusingly toward Clarence. “How could they have gotten through the perimeter security? You told me it was a state-of-the-art system.”

  Clarence scanned the area with his rifle scope, shaking his head. “The tripods are still there, but they don’t look online. I don’t know. I’ll check it out.”

  Wale was beside himself with anger. “This was one of the world’s best-preserved sites of Nok archaeology,” he said, pointing to the old brick wall. “This tunnel was one of only three that have been recorded around Nigeria. I suspect it goes back several hundred yards, and it’s hewn directly from the rock with incredible precision. The Nok are the only known culture to have built such tunnels. Thankfully the thieves only took the keystone of the arch, so we could in theory resume our work. It was heavily carved and quite beautiful, but mostly ornamental. We’ve been excavating here for months, carefully documenting and preserving the find. Everything points to successive settlements over the centuries.”

  “What do you think happened?” Seeta asked.

  “Looted,” Bracket said. He recalled what Detective Idriss had told him, that artifacts held value on the black market.

  Clarence busied himself by inspecting the perimeter, holding the rifle at the ready in both hands.

  “But who would do this?” Seeta asked.

  “Vagabonds,” Wale sneered, “trying to make a little money, destroying their own heritage in the process.” Then, suddenly remembering himself: “Where’s Ahmat? He should be here. Clarence, do you see Ahmat anywhere?”

  Ahmat looked after the site and was the lead researcher, Wale explained, stooping down to pick up different artifacts, shaking his head as he did so.

  “This is the largest Nok site to date. We’ve found beads made from quartz, glass, and carnelian in the alluvial soil—Lake Chad once extended this far south. This indicates a cross-Sahara trade. See these shards here, the comblike marks carved into the terra-cotta? These were once giant storage pots. Ahmat has been analyzing the patterns, and our best guess—it’s still inconclusive—is that the Nok used a special accounting system. And an accounting system suggests that—”

  “There was someone to account to,” Seeta said. “You’re saying that they had to keep track of their trades because someone else was in charge. This was an outpost.”

  “Yes,” Wale said, growing increasingly impressed with Seeta. “This site was not the center of the Nok empire. We suspect that location is farther to the south based on our analysis of the trade routes. Of course, now the site has been spoiled. Not totally ruined, but the looters have likely stolen specimens that contained more of the script. Hopefully, if they’re like typical thieves, they only stole things that looked valuable and left behind the most important archaeological evidence.”

  Clarence called the group over to one of the shipping containers, which was closed shut. There was a ventilation chimney spinning slowly on top, and the roof was lined with solar cells.

  “Stay back,” Clarence warned, loading his rifle. “Someone’s in there.”

  Bracket could hear it too: nervous scampering movements inside.

  “Ahmat!” Wale shouted. “Don’t be afraid. We’re coming inside. It’s Dr. Olufunmi. I’m here with Clarence and some fellow researchers.”

  But they heard only a muffled whimper.

  Crying? Seeta mouthed at Bracket.

  Clarence motioned for them to stand back. He tried the door, but it had been wedged shut by a drift of sand. He plowed some away with his boot and then yanked the door open.

  He was met with a rush of fur.

  “Yissus!” he shouted. The beast knocked him to the ground with its full force. He shot his rifle into the air, blowing a hole through the side of the cargo container. The hyena lunged for him as he scrambled to his feet, but seeing the giant man rear up to his full height, it crouched from fear and then turned and sprinted away into the bush.

  Bracket ran over to him. “You all right, man?”

  “Tore me up,” Clarence said, chest heaving. “But he couldn’t bite through my armor.” Beneath the torn shirt, Bracket could see a thick layer of Kevlar protecting the bodyguard’s chest. Once Clarence dusted himself off, he picked up the rifle, reloaded it, and stepped inside the container. Bracket smelled a terrible stench.

  “He’s here, boss,” Clarence shouted from inside.

  “Dr. Chandresekhan, you may want to wait here,” Wale advised.

  “Don’t bloody coddle me,” she said.

  Inside, splayed out on the ground, they found Ahmat, a squat, balding man with a thin goatee. He had been shot through the back of the head, and blood and grime covered the desk above him. Half his chest had been stripped away in mangled shreds.

  “Hyena had a go at him,” Clarence concluded, gritting his teeth. “Must have gotten trapped in here by the sand.”

  Ahmat’s hand had been severed and it was dangling from the lightbulb on the ceiling of the container, buzzing with flies. Red string had been tied around one of the fingers.

  “Jarumi,” Clarence concluded. “The string.”

  “The computer?” Wale asked.

  “Stolen.”

  Wale’s eyes teared over. “He was one of the best archaeologists in Nigeria, a brilliant mind. Let’s get him out of here. We can put him in one of the pits. He would have wanted that, to be close to his ancestors.”

  “I’ll tell Nanjala to put out a call on the emergency band,” Clarence said. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and walked off to warn the pilot. “I’m going to inspect the other containers. Stay close together and within sight.”

  “He lived out here all by himself?” Seeta asked.

  Wale shook his head. “He often had a team of graduate students with him, but he was closing down the site before the Harmattan comes. This was all meant to be covered in tarpaulin and locked up by now.”

  Together, Seeta and Bracket dragged the putrescent body over to one of the pits, trying to avoid touching the stump of an arm as they did so, Wale circling about giving unhelpful instructions. Now that the corpse was in the open, hooded vultures began wheeling in the sky at the scent. Bracket and Seeta shoveled dirt over the dead researcher as best they could, and then piled stones on top to prevent the animals from returning to defile him even more.

  Dusty, thirsty, and exhausted, the group sat down at the edge of the dig to rest. Seeta hadn
’t said a word since first touching the body. Bracket could smell the stench on his fingertips.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking about Addama,” she said. “The singer I recorded. What will happen to her if the Jarumi come to her village? She lives close to here.”

  Bracket put his arm around her shoulders, unsure of what to say. The heat and the smell had stained his nostrils. After finishing his inspections of the site, Clarence returned with more bad news. “They managed to break into the food storage container,” he said. “But they couldn’t break the lock on the equipment container.”

  “So our equipment is still there?” Wale asked.

  “For the time being,” Clarence said. “My guess is that they’ll be back again soon for it, boss. We should get going. I checked out the tripods, and someone disrupted the perimeter lasers with mirrors and took out the guns with a drone. It was a carefully coordinated attack.”

  “That system cost me a million cowries,” Wale said. “And you’re telling me a bunch of illiterate bandits disabled it?”

  Bracket recalled the trader Musa’s words about the Jarumi: These men are ignorant but not stupid. Their struggle has made them inventive.

  “Ahmat wouldn’t have had a chance,” Clarence added, “once they disabled it.”

  “No, he was a gentle soul,” Wale lamented. “We were so close to finding the southern capital of the Nok. This will set us back months. Perhaps years.”

  “What about the artifact we found?” Bracket asked.

  “It could help,” Wale admitted. “The artifact has certainly narrowed down the possible range of their trade routes, but without the accounting records, we’ll be guessing blindly. It could be near the spaceport or Kano—which would fit, given how old the city is—but an area of twenty square kilometers can take a decade to properly explore. Even then it might only be another trade outpost.”