After the Flare

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  “It appears that some recent seismic activity weakened the structure of that tunnel considerably,” he observed. “The next rocket launch may do even more damage, so we must act quickly.” Then, noticing the women: “The children?”

  Bracket shook his head. He was the one who had promised the women they would find their stolen children, a promise he should never have made, and he felt partly responsible for the failure, even if they had managed to capture Latif, whose ankle had swollen up like a balloon. Seeta explained to Wale how the women had taken the Jarumi camp with their Songstones, breaking their siege against the spaceport. They had released the rest of the captive women and children, who had set down along the road to Kano.

  “It seems the two of you made it out in good stead,” Wale said, finally giving them his full attention.

  “We’re fine,” Bracket said.

  “Good. I’ll need your help maintaining the integrity of this site. There are no radiocarbon dating labs in this country, a situation that I will soon rectify. We can’t disturb anything, not until we have preserved samples, especially from quadrants A4 through A10.” He ushered them away from those areas. “I humbly ask that you confine your activities to these designated sections.”

  Wale used his cane to capture images of the quadrants. When he noticed Latif, who was now lying down against the wall, he warned Durel: “You can’t go on killing people. It only takes a day to disgrace yourself and you’ll feel it for the rest of your lives. That won’t bring your families back to you.”

  “You are free to go,” Durel said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to study this site properly, for the sake of our own history. This discovery deserves careful, responsible documentation.”

  “Wale,” Seeta said, “this isn’t up to us. You know what that man did to them.”

  “He acted like a barbarian. Yes. I understand. But look what they did to Clarence. Did they show him any mercy?”

  Bracket now saw that the scientist had dragged his bodyguard into the corner, where his giant frame was turned away from the wall. The man’s eyes were closed. It must have been a considerable effort with Wale’s paralysis.

  “He would have shot them,” Seeta said.

  “Clarence was defending me. Besides, they’ll only harm themselves. I’ve been trying to understand this technology. It’s dangerous—dangerous to their enemies and also dangerous to their bodies. Come with me, I’ll show you.”

  He led them down a dark tunnel, which split in two and then split again. He limped to the left for a couple of minutes before it opened to a small chamber with shelves like a catacomb—the same chamber in which Bracket had first arrived with Seeta. The air felt close and heavy. He could still smell the reek of Abdul Haruna’s body.

  “This is a burial chamber. I’ve uncovered two of the skeletons. Carefully, of course. You’ll see that their legs are folded to the side and their hands rest on their skulls as if they’re asleep, a common way of burying the dead among the Nok. But look at this clavicle.”

  “It’s like a bone spur,” Bracket said.

  “Yes, it’s warped. And this skull. That is the cranium itself, you’ll see. It’s also abnormal.”

  “It looks like a growth.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” Seeta argued. “You need time to gather more evidence, and then even more time to analyze it. We don’t have the tools to understand this place—you said it yourself. You should get some rest. We’ve been through a lot.”

  “No, I’ve said from the beginning that these aren’t typical meteorites. I’m not sure what’s given them the power they have, but there must be an explanation.”

  “The carvings amplify the sound,” Seeta countered. “So does the architecture of these rooms.”

  “Yes, but there must be more. They’re too powerful. I think the meteorites may have been annealed to isotopes, radioactive isotopes. The charged particles from the Flare reignited the radiation, awakening them, as it were. Every time these women sing, they are probably exposing themselves to more radiation. That’s what I believe happened to the Nok. They didn’t just disappear. This technology, whatever it is, killed them in the end.”

  The scientist went to great pains to explain his suspicions to the Wodaabe women, but they seemed not to comprehend or remained unconvinced. And Bracket could understand why. They knew the full power of the Songstones, the energy they had unleashed. They had discovered the strength to shape their own futures. Now Wale wanted to take that strength away from them.

  “We need to get going,” Bracket said.

  “Yes, we should take Clarence’s body to his family,” Wale agreed, leaning on his cane, suddenly looking old again, exhausted even. They were all tired. “Clarence deserves better. He deserves better than this. No one should be left to die alone here. Not anymore. Not after what we know now.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “How did you do it?” Josephine asked. “We saw light moving near the Jarumi. We captured it in the infrared and UV spectrums, but we saw no bodies, we saw no faces, no weapons. And then you two return here as if everything were perfectly normal. The least you could do is tell me how you chased them away.”

  “We listened—” Bracket began.

  “To our conscience,” Seeta chimed in.

  “And what conscience is that?” Josephine asked skeptically. “The conscience that had you abandoning your responsibilities right before launch, Dr. Chandrasekhan?”

  “Give it up, Josephine,” Seeta said, folding her arms. “We’re not going to tell you.”

  They were standing inside the Nest, where Josephine was busy managing the launch from her command chair in the center of the room. She explained that Op-Sec had disarmed the rest of the militants, but nobody could share the specifics of what had happened or why. The militants weren’t talking. Neither was Bracket nor Seeta, because they had agreed to keep the Songstones secret for now. The women had been through enough pain already, the scientists figured, and were still reeling from the discovery that the Jarumi had sold off their children like chattel. The Wodaabe had decided to leave Kano altogether to begin their search near Cameroon, where Latif had confessed he had last seen the children.

  Besides, it wasn’t so easy. Josephine would probably consider the women heroes now because she was in a generous mood, but she might change her opinion of the Wodaabe once she witnessed what they had done to Abdul Haruna and Clarence.

  On the main console of the Nest, stretched across the wall, he could see Masha Kornokova suiting up for an EVA walk, preparing to exit from her module so that she could rendezvous with the Masquerade. The Naijanauts would no doubt be simulating the rendezvous in Naijapool, which meant it was time for Bracket to get back.

  “One more thing,” Josephine said, as he and Seeta turned to leave. “Bello’s on his way.”

  “He’s safe?” Bracket asked, incredulous.

  “He’s coming with the NAF. An entire battalion.”

  “But how?”

  “Listened to his conscience probably,” she said, and smiled. “Damned if I know. He’ll be here at sixteen hundred hours. And he wants to see you, Kwesi. Now, if you please, we have a mission to launch.”

  The Capstone, as Nurudeen Bello called his offices, was set back from the main compound behind the Nest, surrounded by a moat about two meters deep (it was not filled with water) and ringed with a wire fence behind that. The one-story building was located about fifty paces from the fence. Bello had installed a fountain shaped like an eagle that gurgled clear water. Passing through security, Bracket felt a blast of cool air once he entered the dimly lit vestibule.

  There were three rooms inside the building. One served as Bello’s office, the second was a vault, and the third was a lounge where the politician could greet visiting dignitaries and investors.

  “Come in, Mr. Bracket.”

  Bello was wearing thick rimless glasses that made his eyeballs seem to pop out. He h
ad on a lightweight gray alpaca suit with a lavender tie, a burst of vivid color against his dark skin. His wide desk was covered with monitors, including one depicting Josephine giving orders in the Nest. He pointed at her as she paced on the screen.

  “Josephine tells me,” Bello said, “that you rose to the occasion during my absence.”

  “It was my job to support our mission. We’ve invested a lot in this space program and it’s something I believe in.”

  Bello chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head. “You sound like a Naijanaut, humble and exactly on message. I thought you were more imaginative than that. You deserve a reward and you’ll get one—I can’t express my gratitude enough. But is that really how you feel about everything that happened? You were threatened by an intruder in your quarters, according to Op-Sec, and survived an ambush in downtown Kano. And then, by Josephine’s account, you personally repelled the Jarumi. Yet somehow you made it out alive with Dr. Chandrasekhan and, I might add, Dr. Wale Olufunmi, one of Africa’s foremost archaeologists.”

  Bracket felt trapped by the voluble politician, who used words so effortlessly to propel himself forward. His movements were slow and measured, but he spoke quickly and eagerly, showing his boundless energy. Bracket, by contrast, was tired of posturing.

  “I’ve been through a hell of a lot, Mr. Bello. I’ve barely slept and I’ve seen friends die around me, and frankly I helped save the spaceport because it was the right thing to do. I respect what you’ve accomplished here, but I think you have some explaining to do yourself—like why you disappeared.”

  “Now that’s more like it, Mr. Bracket. That I can work with.”

  “Where did you go, Mr. Bello? We thought you had been kidnapped.”

  Bello raised an eyebrow. “By Senator Kidibe, was it?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I’m impressed that you figured it out. Kidibe has always been jealous that he hasn’t been able to siphon money from the spaceport, like he did as a criminal in the delta region. He knew I was trying to gather more funds from the Senate for our project, and I suspected he had tapped my Geckofone. He seemed to be one step ahead of me during my negotiations for a budget allocation. So I set a trap for him by making a note on my G-fone that I was going to send a bribe of forty thousand cowries to another senator. A ruse, of course—I had no intention of doing so. Kidibe threatened to expose me for exactly forty thousand—the same amount—so I knew he had infiltrated my device. Now that I was sure he was tracking me, I sent my G-fone with my fiancée to distract him.”

  “Omotola Taiwo,” Bracket said.

  “That’s right. You’ve met her—and you did an excellent job with her film, I might add. It nearly forced a vote on the Senate floor if Kidibe hadn’t blocked it. I sent Omotola on a diversionary trip to lure away Kidibe and his people. He wasn’t going to kidnap me—you’re mistaken about that—but he did intend to blackmail me. Extortion is his specialty. By the time he discovered Omotola was traveling by herself, it was too late. Because I had already flown to Yola to convince the Task Force Battalion of the Nigerian Armed Forces to defend the spaceport. They’re securing Kano as we speak, watching for stragglers from the Jarumi. But I’ll admit that you had made my efforts almost inconsequential by the time I arrived.”

  Bracket found himself piqued by Bello’s scheming when so much had been at risk. “You should have told Josephine, or someone, that you were all right.”

  “For all I knew, our communications were compromised. There was no easy way for me to tell her when I was in Abuja, not when so much was at stake. And now, thanks to you, I have Kidibe cornered. The Senate will have to approve my request to fund the program beyond the mission.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” Bracket said, tired of Bello’s political games. He lived in a different realm altogether. “I’ve got to get back to Naijapool to prepare for the launch.”

  “Always focused on the task at hand. Just like Josephine. I admire that, Mr. Bracket. I’ll walk along with you.”

  Outside the Capstone, warmed by a late-evening breeze, Bello enthusiastically greeted an astronaut as she walked by, taking a moment to congratulate her and wish her luck, even though she was a backup pilot who wouldn’t be traveling on the rescue mission. She delighted in the politician’s praise, unaware of his far-flung schemes.

  “She’s not going on the mission,” Bracket explained as they continued walking.

  “Not on this mission,” Bello agreed. “We’ve got long-term plans for her. I suppose it’s time you know why I was really in Abuja—before Kidibe intervened, that is. You’ve proven yourself trustworthy. The rescue mission is hardly worthwhile to build an entire space program around, wouldn’t you say? We could have more easily let the Americans or Europeans operate our facilities for the rescue. Or even the Japanese. And, in fact, they even offered.”

  Bracket contemplated this as Bello smiled and waved at an Indian engineer scurrying from the Nest. He had never questioned Bello’s ambition, convinced by his incessant propaganda and visionary thinking. But maybe he should have. “You’re talking about proof of concept,” he guessed.

  “That’s it. Proof of concept has value in the market. If we can show that the Masquerade can run a successful crewed mission, we can make some cowries off repairing satellites or joy rides for space tourists. But our national ambitions are much greater than that. What is abundant in space that no one else can exploit at the moment? Asteroid mining.”

  “No one has found a way to make money from that,” Bracket objected. “The fuel efficiencies aren’t there.”

  “That’s because we’ve never had a good staging ground to launch missions to capture those resources. And they’ve never had a country in charge that has thrived on extraction. Nigeria’s greatest expertise is oil extraction, and it’s been the lynchpin of our economy for decades, for better and for worse. We are experts in monetizing the extraction process.”

  “I’ve seen where that money goes,” Bracket said. “You only have to look at the potholes on the roads here to know whose pockets have been filled. You’d be no different than Senator Kidibe.”

  “That was the old mode of operating, Mr. Bracket, one not backed by rigorous contracts and consummate transparency. I’m talking about a new destination, a new launchpad for our ventures: a colossal space station that can be used as a staging ground to accomplish all of those things. The LaGrangian points. It’s the place where the gravity of Earth, the moon, and the centripetal forces of the Earth-moon system are balanced. Specifically point L4. The space powers are fixated on L5, so we believe L4 will more than suit our aspirations. We can place hundreds of thousands of tons of objects there and use it to mine the cosmos. It will be a true space station controlled by Africans. The Indians are fully aware of the risks involved, of course. We’ve got a contract for the next fifty years using their rockets and the Masquerade to build the station. They’ll take a cut of the profits, but the station will be all ours.”

  Bracket stepped back to take in the politician, whose limitless optimism continued to fuel his grand vision. It was an ambitious, almost impossible project.

  “I think you’ve lost your mind.”

  Bello burst out laughing, amused by the thought. “I’m sure you do,” he smiled. “I’m sure you do.”

  They had stopped beneath the bronze replica of the Masquerade. Up close, reflected in the spotlights illuminating the statue, Bracket could see the sculptor had mixed silver flecks of mica into the patina coating the thrusters, simulating the ice particles that would form on a real launch.

  “So I’ve shared my crazy secret with you, Mr. Bracket. Now it’s time you shared your secret with me. How did you do it? How did you repel the Jarumi? The NAF has reviewed the recordings and found only strange vocalizations, but they can’t identify what made them. Was it some new stealth technology? Cybernetics?”

  Old technology, Bracket thought. Not new, but old.

  He watched Bello, trying to determine if, like his
other questions, he already knew the answer to this one and was one step ahead in his thinking, laying a trap of sorts. But how could Bracket explain what he’d seen the women do? The elegance of their movements? The power of their voices? Even in the pitched battle, the Wodaabe had refrained from killing anyone, allowing the militants to destroy themselves. And anyway, the scientists had all agreed to keep the Songstones secret until the women had left.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Bello nodded. “I admire your discretion.” He pointed at a stain on a corner of the statue of the Masquerade. “See these streaks here? It’s blood. Chicken blood, most likely, but possibly blood from a ram. Someone brought it here as an offering during the night, a blessing for the voyage. You see, there’s no contradiction between our heritage and our ambition if the conditions are right. That’s a myth perpetrated by people who want to keep their privilege. They can thrive together harmoniously.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Thousands of people assembled to watch the launch of the Masquerade. Cars lined the entrance road to the spaceport, and merchants were selling binoculars, key chains, fresh fruit, sacks of water, folding chairs, charring strips of suya, hot tea from samovars, and plastic masks painted with spaceships to commemorate the launch. A band set up an enormous sound system to belt out catchy Fuji music, spurring people to throw open their arms to dance, the lead singer interjecting the word Masquerade into every song, even when it didn’t rhyme. Electric okada motorcycles busily transported people to the area before zipping off again to collect another fare.

  In the spacecraft, the astronauts were on their backs in their molded chairs, running through the final safety checks with Josephine at mission control. The Wodaabe women melted into the teeming crowd, bidding Seeta good-bye as they waited for Max to take them to the border with Cameroon to find their children. The fixer somehow maneuvered his pickup truck through the throngs of onlookers to meet them near the entrance road to the spaceport.