Galileo's Children: Tales of Science vs. Superstition

by Gardner Dozois

  He retired to his boma and allowed no visitors. For nine days and nine nights he rolled his bones and arranged his charms and mixed his potions, and when he emerged on the morning of the tenth day, he was ready to do what must be done.

  The Sun was overhead, and he knew that there could be no darkness as long as the Sun shone down upon the Earth. He uttered a mystic chant, and soon he was flying into the sky to confront the Sun.

  “Halt!” he said. “Your brother the Moon is evil. You must remain where you are, lest Ngai’s creatures continue to die.”

  “What is that to me?” responded the Sun. “I cannot shirk my duty simply because my brother shirks his.”

  The mundumugu held up a hand. “I will not let you pass,” he said.

  But the Sun merely laughed, and proceeded on its path, and when it reached the mundumugu, it gobbled him up and spat out the ashes, for even the greatest mundumugu cannot stay the Sun from its course.

  That story has been known to every mundumugu since Ngai created Gikuyu, the first man. Of them all, only one ignored it.

  I am that mundumugu.

  ###

  It is said that from the moment of birth, even of conception, every living thing has embarked upon an inevitable trajectory that culminates in its death. If this is true of all living things, and it seems to be, then it is also true of man. And if it is true of man, then it must be true of the gods who made man in their image.

  Yet this knowledge does not lessen the pain of death. I had just come back from comforting Katuma, whose father, old Siboki, had finally died, not from disease or injury, but rather from the awful burden of his years. Siboki had been one of the original colonists on our terra-formed world of Kirinyaga, a member of the Council of Elders, and though he had grown feeble in mind as well as body, I knew I would miss him as I missed few others.

  As I walked back through the village, on the long, winding path by the river that eventually led to my own boma, I was very much aware of my own mortality. I was not that much younger than Siboki, and indeed was already an old man when we left Kenya and emigrated to Kirinyaga. I knew my death could not be too far away, and yet I hoped that it was, not from selfishness, but because Kirinyaga was not yet ready to do without me. The mundumugu is more than a shaman who utters curses and creates spells; he is the repository of all the moral and civil laws, all the customs and traditions, of the Kikuyu people, and I was not convinced that Kirinyaga had yet produced a competent successor.

  It is a harsh and lonely life, the life of a mundumugu. He is more feared than loved by the people he serves. This is not his fault, but rather the nature of his position. He must do what he knows to be right for his people, and that means he must sometimes make unpopular decisions.

  How strange, then, that the decision that brought me down had nothing at all to do with my people but rather with a stranger.

  Still, I should have had a premonition about it, for no conversation is ever truly random. As I was walking past the scarecrows in the fields on the way to my boma, I came across Kimanti, the young son of Ngobe, driving two of his goats home from their morning’s grazing.

  “Jambo, Koriba,” he greeted me, shading his eyes from the bright overhead sun.

  “Jambo, Kimanti,” I said. “I see that your father now allows you to tend to his goats. Soon the day will come that he puts you in charge of his cattle.”

  “Soon,” he agreed, offering me a water gourd. “It is a warm day. Would you like something to drink?”

  “That is very generous of you,” I said, taking the gourd and holding it to my mouth.

  “I have always been generous to you, have I not, Koriba?” he said.

  “Yes, you have,” I replied suspiciously, wondering what favor he was preparing to request.

  “Then why do you allow my father’s right arm to remain shriveled and useless?” he asked. “Why do you not cast a spell and make it like other men’s arms?”

  “It is not that simple, Kimanti,” I said. “It is not I who shriveled your father’s arm, but Ngai. He would not have done so without a purpose.”

  “What purpose is served by crippling my father?” asked Kimanti.

  “If you wish, I shall sacrifice a goat and ask Ngai why He has allowed it,” I said.

  He considered my offer and then shook his head. “I do not care to hear Ngai’s answer, for it will change nothing.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “How long do you think Ngai will be our god?”

  “Forever,” I said, surprised at his question.

  “That cannot be,” he replied seriously. “Surely Ngai was not our god when He was just a mtoto. He must have killed the old gods when He was young and powerful. But He has been god for a long time now, and it is time someone killed Him. Maybe the new god will show more compassion toward my father.”

  “Ngai created the world,” I said. “He created the Kikuyu and the Maasai and the Wakamba, and even the Europeans, and He created the holy mountain Kirinyaga, for which our world is named. He has existed since time began, and He will exist until it ends.”

  Kimanti shook his head again. “If He has been here that long, He is ready to die. It is just a matter of who will kill Him.” He paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps I myself will, when I am older and stronger.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed. “But before you do, let me tell you the story of the King of the Zebras.”

  “Is this story about Ngai or zebras?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you listen?” I said. “Then, when I have finished, you can tell me what it was about?”

  I gently lowered myself to the ground, and he squatted down next to me.

  “There was a time,” I began, “when zebras did not have stripes. They were as brown as the dried grasses on the savannah, as dull to the eye as the bole of the acacia tree. And because their color protected them, they were rarely taken by the lion and the leopard, who found it much easier to find and stalk the wildebeest and the topi and the impala.

  “Then one day a son was born to the King of the Zebras—but it was not a normal son, for it had no nostrils. The King of the Zebras was first saddened for his son, and then outraged that such a thing should be allowed. The more he dwelt upon it, the more angry he became. Finally he ascended the holy mountain, and came at last to the peak, where Ngai ruled the world from His golden throne.

  “ ‘Have you come to sing my praises?’ asked Ngai.

  “ ‘No!’ answered the King of the Zebras. ‘I have come to tell you that you are a terrible god, and that I am here to kill you.’

  “ ‘What have I done to you that you should wish to kill me?’ asked Ngai.

  “ ‘You gave me a son who has no nostrils, so he cannot sense when the lion and the leopard are approaching him, and because of that they will surely find and kill him when at last he leaves his mother’s side. You have been a god too long, and you have forgotten how to be compassionate.’

  “ ‘Wait!’ said Ngai, and suddenly there was such power in his voice that the King of the Zebras froze where he was. ‘I will give your son nostrils, since that is what you want.’

  “ ‘Why were you so cruel in the first place?’ demanded the King of the Zebras, his anger not fully assuaged.

  “ ‘Gods work in mysterious ways,’ answered Ngai, ‘and what seems cruel to you may actually be compassionate. Because you had been a good and noble king, I gave your son eyes that could see in the dark, that could see through bushes, that could even see around trees, so that he could never be surprised by the lion and the leopard, even should the wind’s direction favor them. And because of this gift, he did not need his nostrils. I took them away so that he would not have to breathe in the dust that chokes his fellow zebras during the dry season. But now I have given him back his sense of smell, and taken away his special vision, because you have demanded it.’

  “ ‘Then you did have a reason,’ moaned the King of the Zebras. ‘When did I become so foolish?’

  “ ‘The moment you thought you we
re greater than me,’ answered Ngai, rising to His true height, which was taller than the clouds. ‘And to punish you for your audacity, I decree that from this moment forward you and all your kind shall no longer be brown like the dried grasses, but will be covered with black and white stripes that will attract the lion and the leopard from miles away. No matter where you go on the face of the world, you will never again be able to hide from them.’

  “And so saying, Ngai waved a hand and every zebra in the world was suddenly covered with the same stripes you see today.”

  I stopped and stared at Kimanti.

  “That is the end?” he asked.

  “That is the end.”

  Kimanti stared at a millipede crawling in the dirt.

  “The zebra was a baby, and could not explain to its father that it had special eyes,” he said at last. “My father’s arm has been shriveled for many long rains, and the only explanation he has received is that Ngai works in mysterious ways. He has been given no special senses to make up for it, for if he had been he would surely know about them by now.” Kimanti looked at me thoughtfully. “It is an interesting story, Koriba, and I am sorry for the King of the Zebras, but I think a new god must come along and kill Ngai very soon.”

  There we sat, the wise old mundumugu who had a parable for every problem, and the foolish young kehee—an uncircumcised boy—who had no more knowledge of his world than a tadpole, in total opposition to each other.

  Only a god with Ngai’s sense of humor would have arranged for the kehee to be right.

  ###

  It began when the ship crashed. (There are those embittered men and women who would say it began the day Kirinyaga received its charter from the Eutopian Council, but they are wrong.)

  Maintenance ships fly among the Utopian worlds, delivering goods to some, mail to others, services to a few. Only Kirinyaga has no traffic with Maintenance. They are permitted to observe us—indeed, that is one of the conditions of our charter—but they may not interfere, and since we have tried to create a Kikuyu Utopia, we have no interest in commerce with Europeans.

  Still, Maintenance ships have landed on Kirinyaga from time to time. One of the conditions of our charter is that if a citizen is unhappy with our world, he need only walk to that area known as Haven, and a Maintenance ship will pick him up and take him either to Earth or to another Eutopian world. Once a Maintenance ship landed to disgorge two immigrants, and very early in Kirinyaga’s existence Maintenance sent a representative to interfere with our religious practices.

  I don’t know why the ship was so close to Kirinyaga to begin with. I had not ordered Maintenance to make any orbital adjustments lately, for the short rains were not due for another two months, and it was right that the days passed, hot and bright and unchanging. To the best of my knowledge, none of the villagers had made the pilgrimage to Haven, so no Maintenance ship should have been sent to Kirinyaga. But the fact remains that one moment the sky was clear and blue, and the next there was a streak of light plunging down to the surface of the planet. An explosion followed; though I could not see it, I could both hear it and see the results, for the cattle became very nervous and herds of impala and zebra bolted this way and that in panic.

  It was about twenty minutes later that young Jinja, the son of Kichanta, ran up the hill to my boma.

  “You must come, Koriba!” he said as he gasped for breath.

  “What has happened?” I asked.

  “A Maintenance ship has crashed!” he said. “The pilot is still alive!”

  “Is he badly hurt?”

  Jinja nodded. “Very badly. I think he may die soon.”

  “I am an old man, and it would take me a very long time to walk to the pilot,” I said. “It would be better for you to take three young men from the village and bring him back to me on a litter.”

  Jinja raced off while I went into my hut to see what I had that might ease the pilot’s pain. There were some qat leaves, if he was strong enough to chew them, and a few ointments if he wasn’t. I contacted Maintenance on my computer, and told them that I would apprise them of the man’s condition after I examined him.

  In years past, I would have sent my assistant to the river to bring back water which I would boil in preparation for washing out the pilot’s wounds, but I no longer had an assistant, and the mundumugu does not carry water, so I simply waited atop my hill, my gaze turned toward the direction of the crash. A grass fire had started, and a column of smoke rose from it. I saw Jinja and the others trotting across the savannah with the litter; I saw topi and impala and even buffalo race out of their way; and then I could not see them for almost ten minutes. When they once again came into view, they were walking, and it was obvious that they were carrying a man on the litter.

  Before they reached my boma, however, Karenja came up the long, winding path from the village.

  “Jambo, Koriba,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “The whole village knows that a Maintenance ship has crashed,” he replied. “I have never seen a European before. I came to see if his face is really as white as milk.”

  “You are doomed to be disappointed,” I said. “We call them white, but in reality they are shades of pink and tan.”

  “Even so,” he said, squatting down, “I have never seen one.”

  I shrugged. “As you will.”

  Jinja and the young men arrived a few minutes later with the litter. On it lay the twisted body of the pilot. His arms and legs were broken, and there was very little skin on him that was not burned. He had lost a lot of blood, and some still seeped through his wounds. He was unconscious, but breathing regularly.

  “Asante sana,” I said to the four young men. “Thank you. You have done well this day.”

  I had one of them fill my gourds with water. The other three bowed and began walking down the hill, while I went through my various ointments, choosing the one that would cause the least discomfort when placed on the burns.

  Karenja watched in rapt fascination. Twice I had to rebuke him for touching the pilot’s blond hair in wonderment. As the sun changed positions in the sky, I had him help me move the pilot into the shade.

  Then, after I had tended to the pilot’s wounds, I went into my hut, activated my computer, and contacted Maintenance again. I explained that the pilot was still alive, but that all of his limbs were broken, his body was covered with burns, and that he was in a coma and would probably die soon.

  Their answer was that they had already dispatched a medic, who would arrive within half an hour, and they told me to have someone waiting at Haven to guide the medic to my boma. Since Karenja was still looking at the pilot, I ordered him to greet the ship and bring the medic to me.

  The pilot did not stir for the next hour. At least, I do not think he did, but I dozed with my back against a tree for a few minutes, so I cannot be sure. What woke me was a woman’s voice speaking a language I had not heard for many years. I got painfully to my feet just in time to greet the medic that Maintenance had sent.

  “You must be Koriba,” she said in English. “I have been trying to communicate with the gentleman who accompanied me, but I don’t think he understood a word I said.”

  “I am Koriba,” I said in English.

  She extended her hand. “I am Doctor Joyce Witherspoon. May I see the patient?”

  I led her over to where the pilot lay.

  “Do you know his name?” I asked. “We could not find any identification.”

  “Samuel or Samuels, I’m not sure,” she said, kneeling down next to him. “He’s in a bad way.” She gave him a perfunctory examination, lasting less than a minute. “We could do much more for him back at Base, but I hate to move him in this condition.”

  “I can have him moved to Haven within an hour,” I said. “The sooner you have him in your hospital, the better.”

  She shook her head. “I think he’ll have to remain here until he’s a little stronger.”

  “I w
ill have to consider it,” I said.

  “There’s nothing to consider,” she said. “In my medical opinion, he’s too weak to move.” She pointed to a piece of his shin bone that had broken through the skin of his leg. “I need to set most of the broken bones, and make sure there’s no infection.”

  “You could do this at your hospital,” I said.

  “I can do it here at much less cost to the patient’s remaining vitality,” she said. “What’s the problem, Koriba?”

  “The problem, Memsaab Witherspoon,” I said, “is that Kirinyaga is a Kikuyu Utopia. This means a rejection of all things European, including your medicine.”

  “I’m not practicing it on any Kikuyu,” she said. “I’m trying to save a Maintenance pilot who just happened to crash on your world.”

  I stared at the pilot for a long moment. “All right,” I said at last. “That is a logical argument. You may minister to his wounds.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “But he must leave in three days’ time,” I said. “I will not risk contamination beyond that.”

  She looked at me as if she was about to argue, but said nothing. Instead, she opened the medical kit she had brought, and injected something—a sedative, I assumed, or a pain killer, or a combination of the two—into his arm.

  “She is a witch!” said Karenja. “See how she punctures his skin with a metal thorn!” He stared at the pilot, fascinated. “Now he will surely die.”

  Joyce Witherspoon worked well into the night, cleansing the pilot’s wounds, setting his broken bones, breaking his fever. I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but when I woke up, shivering, in the cold morning air just after sunrise, she was sleeping and Karenja was gone.

  I built a fire, then sat near it with my blanket wrapped around me, until the sun began warming the air. Joyce Witherspoon woke up shortly thereafter.