The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “I served you more selflessly than any other,” I whispered, staring at a flickering, verdant star, “and you betrayed me. Worse, you have betrayed Ngai. Neither He nor I shall ever seek you out again.”

  I laid my head back down, turned away from the window, and closed my eyes, determined to look into the skies no more.

  * * *

  In the morning, my son stopped by my room.

  “You have slept on the floor again,” he noted.

  “Have they passed a law against that now?” I asked.

  He sighed deeply. “Sleep any way you want.”

  I stared at him. “You look very impressive.…,” I began.

  “Thank you.”

  “… in your European clothes,” I concluded.

  “I have an important meeting with the Finance Minister today.”

  He looked at his timepiece. “In fact, I must leave now or I will be late.” He paused uneasily. “Have you considered what we spoke about yesterday?”

  “We spoke of many things,” I said.

  “I am referring to the Kikuyu retirement village.”

  “I have lived in a village,” I said. “And that is not one. It is a twenty-story tower of steel and glass, built to imprison the elderly.”

  “We have been through all this before,” said my son. “It would be a place for you to make new friends.”

  “I have a new friend,” I said. “I shall be visiting him this evening.”

  “Good!” he said. “Maybe he’ll keep you out of trouble.”

  * * *

  I arrived at the huge titanium-and-glass laboratory complex just before midnight. The night had turned cool, and a breeze was blowing gently from the south. The moon had passed behind a cloud, and it was difficult to find the side gate in the darkness. Eventually I did find it, though, and Kamau was waiting for me. He deactivated a small section of the electronic barrier long enough for me to step through.

  “Jambo, mzee,” he said. Hello, wise old man.

  “Jambo, mzee,” I replied, for he was almost as old as I myself was. “I have come to see with my own eyes if you were telling the truth.”

  He nodded and turned, and I followed him between the tall, angular buildings that hovered over us, casting eerie shadows along the narrow walkways and channeling all the noises of the city in our direction. Our path was lined with whistling thorn and yellow fever trees, cloned from the few remaining specimens, rather than the usual introduced European shrubbery. Here and there were ornamental displays of grasses from the vanished savannahs.

  “It is strange to see so much true African vegetation here in Kenya,” I remarked. “Since I have returned from Kirinyaga, my eyes have hungered for it.”

  “You have seen a whole world of it,” he replied with unconcealed envy.

  “There is more to a world than greenery,” I said. “When all is said and done, there is little difference between Kirinyaga and Kenya. Both have turned their backs on Ngai.”

  Kamau came to a halt, and gestured around him at the looming metal and glass and concrete buildings that totally covered the cool swamps from which Nairobi took its name. “I do not know how you can prefer this to Kirinyaga.”

  “I did not say I preferred it,” I replied, suddenly aware that the ever-present noises of the city had been overshadowed by the droning hum of machines.

  “Then you do miss Kirinyaga.”

  “I miss what Kirinyaga might have been. As for these,” I said, indicating the immense structures, “they are just buildings.”

  “They are European buildings,” he said bitterly. “They were built by men who are no longer Kikuyu or Luo or Embu, but merely Kenyans. They are filled with corners.” He paused, and I thought, approvingly, How much you sound like me! No wonder you sought me out when I returned to Kenya. “Nairobi is home to eleven million people,” he continued. “It stinks of sewage. The air is so polluted there are days when you can actually see it. The people wear European clothes and worship the Europeans’ god. How could you turn your back on Utopia for this?”

  I held up my hands. “I have only ten fingers.”

  He frowned. “I do not understand.”

  “Do you remember the story of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike?”

  Kamau shook his head and spat contemptuously on the ground. “I do not listen to European stories.”

  “Perhaps you are wise not to,” I acknowledged. “At any rate, the dike of tradition with which I had surrounded Kirinyaga began to spring leaks. They were few and easily plugged at first, but as the society kept evolving and growing they became many, and soon I did not have enough fingers to plug them all.” I shrugged. “So I left before I was washed away.”

  “Have they another mundumugu to replace you?” he asked.

  “I am told that they have a doctor to cure the sick, and a Christian minister to tell them how to worship the god of the Europeans, and a computer to tell them how to react to any situation that might arise,” I said. “They no longer need a mundumugu.”

  “Then Ngai has forsaken them,” he stated.

  “No,” I corrected him. “They have forsaken Ngai.”

  “I apologize, mundumugu,” he said with deference. “You are right, of course.”

  He began walking again, and soon a strong, pungent odor came to my nostrils, a scent I had never encountered before, but which stirred some memory deep within my soul.

  “We are almost there,” said Kamau.

  I heard a low rumbling sound, not like a predator growling, but rather like a vast machine purring with power.

  “He is very nervous,” continued Kamau, speaking in a soft monotone. “Make no sudden movements. He has already tried to kill two of his daytime attendants.”

  And then we were there, just as the moon emerged from its cloud cover and shone down on the awesome creature that stood facing us.

  “He is magnificent!” I whispered.

  “A perfect replication,” agreed Kamau. “Height, ten feet eight inches at the shoulder, weight seven tons—and each tusk is exactly one hundred and forty-eight pounds.”

  The huge animal stared at me through the flickering force field that surrounded it and tested the cool night breeze, striving to pick up my scent.

  “Remarkable!” I said.

  “You understand the cloning process, do you not?” asked Kamau.

  “I understand what cloning is,” I answered. “I know nothing of the exact process.”

  “In this case, they took some cells from his tusks, which have been on display in the museum for more than two centuries, created the proper nutrient solution, and this is the result: Ahmed of Marsabit, the only elephant ever protected by presidential decree, lives again.”

  “I read that he was always accompanied by two guards no matter where he roamed on Mount Marsabit,” I said. “Have they also ignored tradition? I see no one but you. Where is the other guard?”

  “There are no guards. The entire complex is protected by a sophisticated electronic security system.”

  “Are you not a guard?” I asked.

  He kept the shame from his voice, but he could not banish it from his face: Even in the moonlight I could see it. “I am a paid companion.”

  “Of the elephant?”

  “Of Ahmed.”

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “We cannot all be mundumugus,” he answered. “When you are my age in a culture that worships youth, you take what is offered to you.”

  “True,” I said. I looked back at the elephant. “I wonder if he has any memories of his former life? Of the days when he was the greatest of all living creatures, and Mount Marsabit was his kingdom.”

  “He knows nothing of Marsabit,” answered Kamau. “But he knows something is wrong. He knows he was not born to spend his life in a tiny yard, surrounded by a glowing force field.” He paused. “Sometimes, late at night, he faces the north and lifts his trunk and cries out his loneliness and misery. To the technicians it is just
an annoyance. Usually they tell me to feed him, as if food will assuage his sorrow. It is not even real food, but something they have concocted in their laboratories.”

  “He does not belong here,” I agreed.

  “I know,” said Kamau. “But then, neither do you, mzee. You should be back on Kirinyaga, living as the Kikuyu were meant to live.”

  I frowned. “No one on Kirinyaga is living as the Kikuyu were meant to live.” I sighed deeply. “I think perhaps the time for mundumugus is past.”

  “This cannot be true,” he protested. “Who else can be the repository of our traditions, the interpreter of our laws?”

  “Our traditions are as dead as his,” I said, gesturing toward Ahmed. Then I turned back to Kamau. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly not, mundumugu.”

  “I am glad you sought me out, and I have enjoyed our conversations since I returned to Kenya,” I told him. “But something puzzles me: Since you feel so strongly about the Kikuyu, why did I not know you during our struggle to find a homeland? Why did you remain behind when we emigrated to Kirinyaga?”

  I could see him wrestling with himself to produce an answer. Finally the battle was over, and the old man seemed to shrink an inch or two.

  “I was terrified,” he admitted.

  “Of the spaceship?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what frightened you?”

  Another internal struggle, and then an answer: “You did, mzee.”

  “Me?” I repeated, surprised.

  “You were always so sure of yourself,” he said. “Always such a perfect Kikuyu. You made me afraid that I wasn’t good enough.”

  “That was ridiculous,” I said firmly.

  “Was it?” he countered. “My wife was a Catholic. My son and daughter bore Christian names. And I myself had grown used to European clothes and European conveniences.” He paused. “I was afraid if I went with you—and I wanted to; I have been cursing myself for my cowardice ever since—that soon I would complain about missing the technology and comfort I had left behind, and that you would banish me.” He would not meet my gaze, but stared at the ground. “I did not wish to become an outcast on the world that was the last hope of my people.”

  You are wiser than I suspected, I thought. Aloud I uttered a compassionate lie: “You would not have been an outcast.”

  “You are sure?”

  “I am sure,” I said, laying a comforting hand on his bony shoulder. “In fact, I wish you had been there to support me when the end came.”

  “What good would the support of an old man have been?”

  “You are not just any old man,” I answered. “The word of a descendant of Johnstone Kamau would have carried much weight among the Council of Elders.”

  “That was another reason I was afraid to come,” he replied, the words flowing a little more easily this time. “How could I live up to my name—for everyone knows that Johnstone Kamau became Jomo Kenyatta, the great Burning Spear of the Kikuyu. How could I possibly compare to such a man as that?”

  “You compare more favorably than you think,” I said reassuringly. “I could have used the passion of your belief.”

  “Surely you had support from the people,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Even my own apprentice, who I was preparing to succeed me, abandoned me; in fact, I believe he is at the university just down the road even as we speak. In the end, the people rejected the discipline of our traditions and the teachings of Ngai for the miracles and comforts of the Europeans. I suppose I should not be surprised, considering how many times it has happened here in Africa.” I looked thoughtfully at the elephant. “I am as much an anachronism as Ahmed. Time has forgotten us both.”

  “But Ngai has not.”

  “Ngai too, my friend,” I said. “Our day has passed. There is no place left for us, not in Kenya, not on Kirinyaga, not anywhere.”

  Perhaps it was something in the tone of my voice, or perhaps in some mystic way Ahmed understood what I was saying. Whatever the reason, the elephant stepped forward to the edge of the force field and stared directly at me.

  “It is lucky we have the field for protection,” remarked Kamau.

  “He would not hurt me,” I said confidently.

  “He has hurt men whom he had less reason to attack.”

  “But not me,” I said. “Lower the field to a height of five feet.”

  “But…”

  “Do as I say,” I ordered him.

  “Yes, mundumugu,” he replied unhappily, going to a small control box and punching in a code.

  Suddenly the mild visual distortion vanished at eye level. I reached out a reassuring hand, and a moment later Ahmed ran the tip of his trunk gently across my face and body, then sighed deeply and stood there, swaying gently as he transferred his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I would not have believed it if I had not seen it!” said Kamau, almost reverently.

  “Are we not all Ngai’s creations?” I said.

  “Even Ahmed?” asked Kamau.

  “Who do you think created him?”

  He shrugged again, and did not answer.

  I remained for a few more minutes, watching the magnificent creature, while Kamau returned the force field to its former position. Then the night air became uncomfortably cold, as so often happened at this altitude, and I turned to Kamau.

  “I must leave now,” I said. “I thank you for inviting me here. I would not have believed this miracle had I not seen it with my own eyes.”

  “The scientists think it is their miracle,” he said.

  “You and I know better,” I replied.

  He frowned. “But why do you think Ngai has allowed Ahmed to live again, at this time and in this place?”

  I paused for a long moment, trying to formulate an answer, and found that I couldn’t.

  “There was a time when I knew with absolute certainty why Ngai did what He did,” I said at last. “Now I am not so sure.”

  “What kind of talk is that from a mundumugu?” demanded Kamau.

  “It was not long ago that I would wake up to the song of birds,” I said as we left Ahmed’s enclosure and walked to the side gate through which I had entered. “And I would look across the river that wound by my village on Kirinyaga and see impala and zebra grazing on the savannah. Now I wake up to the sound and smell of modern Nairobi and then I look out and see a featureless gray wall that separates my son’s house from that of his neighbor.” I paused. “I think this must be my punishment for failing to bring Ngai’s word to my people.”

  “Will I see you again?” he asked as we reached the gate and he deactivated a small section long enough for me to pass through.

  “If it will not be an imposition,” I said.

  “The great Koriba an imposition?” he said with a smile.

  “My son finds me so,” I replied. “He gives me a room in his house, but he would prefer I lived elsewhere. And his wife is ashamed of my bare feet and my kikoi; she is constantly buying European shoes and clothing for me to wear.”

  “My son works inside the laboratory,” said Kamau, pointing to his son’s third-floor office with some pride. “He has seventeen men working for him. Seventeen!”

  I must not have looked impressed, for he continued, less enthusiastically, “It is he who got me this job, so that I wouldn’t have to live with him.”

  “The job of paid companion,” I said.

  A bittersweet expression crossed his face. “I love my son, Koriba, and I know that he loves me—but I think that he is also a little bit ashamed of me.”

  “There is a thin line between shame and embarrassment,” I said. “My son glides between one and the other like the pendulum of a clock.”

  Kamau seemed grateful to hear that his situation was not unique. “You are welcome to live with me, mundumugu,” he said, and I could tell that it was an earnest offer, not just a polite lie that he hoped I would reject. “We would have much to
talk about.”

  “That is very considerate of you,” I said. “But it will be enough if I may visit you from time to time, on those days when I find Kenyans unbearable and must speak to another Kikuyu.”

  “As often as you wish,” he said. “Kwaheri, mzee,”

  “Kwaheri,” I responded. Farewell.

  I took the slidewalk down the noisy, crowded streets and boulevards that had once been the sprawling Athi Plains, an area that had swarmed with a different kind of life, and got off when I came to the airbus platform. An airbus glided up a few minutes later, almost empty at this late hour, and began going north, floating perhaps ten inches above the ground.

  The trees that lined the migration route had been replaced by a dense angular forest of steel and glass and tightly bonded alloys. As I peered through a window into the night, it seemed for a few moments that I was also peering into the past. Here, where the titanium-and-glass courthouse stood, was the very spot where the Burning Spear had first been arrested for having the temerity to suggest that his country did not belong to the British. And there, by the new eight-story post-office building, was where the last lion had died. Over there, by the water-recycling plant, my people had vanquished the Wakamba in glorious and bloody battle some three hundred years ago.

  “We have arrived, mzee,” said the driver, and the bus hovered a few inches above the ground while I made my way to the door. “Aren’t you chilly, dressed in just a blanket like that?”

  I did not deign to answer him, but stepped out to the sidewalk, which did not move here in the suburbs as did the slidewalks of the city. I prefered it, for man was meant to walk, not be transported effortlessly by miles-long beltways.

  I approached my son’s enclave and greeted the guards, who all knew me, for I often wandered through the area at night. They passed me through with no difficulty, and as I walked I tried to look across the centuries once more, to see the mud-and-grass huts, the bomas and shambas of my people, but the vision was blotted out by enormous mock-Tudor and mock-Victorian and mock-Colonial and mock-contemporary houses, interspersed with needlelike apartment buildings that reached up to stab the clouds.

  I had no desire to speak to Edward or Susan, for they would question me endlessly about where I had been. My son would once again warn me about the thieves and muggers who prey on old men after dark in Nairobi, and my daughter-in-law would try to subtly suggest that I would be warmer in a coat and pants. So I went past their house and walked aimlessly through the enclave until all the lights in the house had gone out. When I was sure they were asleep, I went to a side door and waited for the security system to identify my retina and skeletal structure, as it had on so many similar nights. Then I quietly made my way to my room.