by Mike Resnick
“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 will 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.
“Good morning,” she said when she saw me sitting a short distance away from her.
“Good morning, Memsaab Witherspoon,” I replied.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It is morning.”
“I mean, what hour and minute is it?”
“We do not have hours and minutes on Kirinyaga,” I told her. “Only days.”
“I should look at Mr. Samuels.”
“He is still alive,” I said.
“Of course he is,” she replied. “But the poor man will need skin grafts, and he may lose that right leg. He’ll be a long time recovering.” She paused and looked around. “Uh…where do I wash up around here?”
“The river runs by the foot of my hill,” I said. “Be sure you beat the water first, to frighten away the crocodiles.”
“What kind of Utopia has crocodiles?” she asked with a smile.
“What Eden has no serpents?” I replied.
She laughed and walked down the hill. I took a sip from my water gourd, then killed the fire and spread the ashes. One of the boys from the village came by to take my goats out to graze, and another brought firewood and took my gourds down to the river to fill them.
When Joyce Witherspoon returned from the river some twenty minutes later, she was not alone. With her was Kibo, the third and youngest wife of Koinnage, the paramount chief of the village, and in Kibo’s arms was Katabo, her infant son. His left arm was swollen to twice it’s size, and was badly miscolored.
“I found this woman laundering her clothes by the river,” said Joyce Witherspoon, “and I noticed that her child had a badly infected arm. It looks like some kind of insect bite. I managed through sign language to convince her to follow me up here.”
“Why did you not bring Katabo to me?” I asked Kibo in Swahili.
“Last time you charged me two goats, and he remained sick for many days, and Koinnage beat me for wasting the goats,” she said, so terrified she had made me angry that she could not think of a lie.
Even as Kibo spoke, Joyce Witherspoon began approaching her and Katabo with a syringe in her hand.
“This is a broad-spectrum antibiotic,” she explained to me. “It also contains a steroid that will prevent itching or any discomfort while the infection remains.”
“Stop!” I said harshly in English.
“What’s the matter?”
“You may not do this,” I said. “You are here to minister to the pilot only.”
“This is a baby, and it’s suffering,” she said. “It’ll take me two seconds to give it a shot and cure it.”
“I cannot permit it.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “I read your biography. You may dress like a savage and sit in the dirt next to your fire, but you were educated at Cambridge and received your post-graduate degrees from Yale. Surely you know how easily I can end this child’s suffering.”
“That’s not the point,” I said.
“Then what is the point?”
“You may not medicate this child. It seems like a blessing now—but once before we accepted the Europeans’ medicine, and then their religion, and their clothing, and their laws, and their customs, and eventually we ceased to be Kikuyu and became a ne
w race, a race of black Europeans known only as Kenyans. We came to Kirinyaga to make sure that such a thing does not happen to us again.”
“He won’t know why he feels better. You can credit it to your god or yourself for all I care.”
I shook my head. “I appreciate your sentiment, but I cannot let you corrupt our Utopia.”
“Look at him,” she said, pointing to Katabo’s swollen arm. “Is Kirinyaga a Utopia for him? Where is it written that Utopias must have sick and suffering children?”
“Nowhere.”
“Well, then?”
“It is not written,” I continued, “because the Kikuyu do not have a written language.”
“Will you at least let the mother decide?”
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“The mother will think only of her child,” I answered. “I must think of an entire world.”
“Perhaps her child is more important to her than your world is to you.”
“She is incapable of making a reasoned decision,” I said. “Only I can foresee all the consequences.”
Suddenly Kibo, who understood not a word of English, turned to me.
“Will the European witch make my little Katabo better?” she asked. “Why are you two arguing?”
“The European witch is here only for the European,” I answered. “She has no power to help the Kikuyu.”
“Can she not try?” asked Kibo.
“I am your mundumugu,” I said harshly.
“But look at the pilot,” said Kibo, pointing to Samuels. “Yesterday he was all but dead. Today his skin is already healing, and his arms and legs are straight again.”
“Her god is the god of the Europeans,” I answered, “just as her magic is the magic of the Europeans. Her spells do not work on the Kikuyu.”
Kibo fell silent, and clutched Katabo to her breast.
I turned to Joyce Witherspoon. “I apologize for speaking in Swahili, but Kibo knows no other language.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I had no difficulty following it.”
“I thought you told me you only spoke English.”
“Sometimes you needn’t understand the words to translate. I believe you were saying, in essence, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’”
The pilot moaned just then, and suddenly all of her attention was focused upon him. He was coming into a state of semi-consciousness, unfocused and unintelligible but no longer comatose, and she began administering medications into the tubes that were already attached to his arms and legs. Kibo watched in wonderment, but kept her distance.
I remained on my hill most of the morning. I offered to remove the curse from Katabo’s arm and give him some soothing lotions, but Kibo refused, saying that Koinnage steadfastly refused to part with any more goats.
“I will not charge you this time,” I said, for I wanted Koinnage on my side. I uttered a spell over the child, then treated his arm with a salve made from the pulped bark of the acacia tree. I ordered Kibo to return to her shamba with him, and told her that the child’s arm would return to normal within five days.
Finally it was time for me to go into the village to bless the scarecrows and give Leibo, who had lost her baby, ointment to ease the pain in her breasts. I would meet with Bakada, who had accepted the bride price for his daughter and wanted me to preside at the wedding, and finally I would join Koinnage and the Council of Elders as they discussed the weighty issues of the day.
As I walked down the long, winding path beside the river, I found myself thinking how much like the Europeans’ Garden of Eden this world looked.
How was I to know that the serpent had already arrived?
* * *
After I had tended to my chores in the village, I stopped at Ngobe’s hut to share a gourd of pombe with him. He asked about the pilot, for by now everyone in the village had heard about him, and I explained that the European’s mundumugu was curing him and would take him back to Maintenance headquarters in two more days.
“She must have powerful magic,” he said, “for I am told that the man’s body was badly broken.” He paused. “It is too bad,” he added wistfully, “that such magic will not work for the Kikuyu.”
“My magic has always been sufficient,” I said.
“True,” he said uneasily. “But I remember the day when we brought Tabari’s son back after the hyenas had attacked him and chewed off one of his legs. You eased his pain, but you could not save him. Perhaps the witch from Maintenance could have.”
“The pilot had broken his legs, but they were not chewed off,” I said defensively. “No one could have saved Tabari’s son after the hyenas had finished with him.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he said.
My first inclination was to pounce on the word “perhaps,” but then I decided that he meant no insult by it, so I finished my pombe, cast the bones and read that he would have a successful harvest, and left his hut.
I stopped in the center of the village to recite a fable to the children, then went over to Koinnage’s shamba and entered his boma for the daily meeting of the Council of Elders. Most of them were already there, grim-faced and silent. Finally Koinnage emerged from his hut and joined us.
“We have serious business to discuss today,” he announced. “Perhaps the most serious we have ever discussed,” he added, staring straight at me. Suddenly he faced his wives’ huts. “Kibo!” he shouted. “Come here!”
Kibo emerged from her hut and walked over to us, carrying little Katabo in her arms.
“You all saw my son’s arm yesterday,” said Koinnage. “It was swollen to twice it’s normal size, and was the color of death.” He took the child and held it above his head. “Now look at him!” he cried.
Katabo’s arm was once again a healthy color, and almost all of the swelling had vanished.
“My medicine worked faster than I had anticipated,” I said.
“This is not your medicine at all!” he said accusingly. “This is the European witch’s medicine!”
I looked at Kibo. “I ordered you to leave my boma ahead of me!” I said sternly.
“You did not order me not to return,” she said, her face filled with defiance as she stood next to Koinnage. “The witch pierced Katabo’s arm with a metal thorn, and before I could climb back down your hill the swelling was already half gone.”
“You disobeyed my command,” I said ominously.
“I am the paramount chief, and I absolve her,” interjected Koinnage.
“I am the mundumugu, and I do not!” I said, and suddenly Kibo’s defiance was replaced by terror.
“We have more important things to discuss,” snapped Koinnage. This startled me, for when I am angry, no one has the courage to confront or contradict me.
I pulled some luminescent powder, made from the ground-up bodies of night-stalking beetles, out of my pouch, held it on the palm of my hand, raised my hand to my mouth, and blew the power in Kibo’s direction. She screamed in terror and fell writhing to the ground.
“What have you done to her?” demanded Koinnage.
I have terrified her beyond your ability to comprehend, which is a just and fitting punishment for disobeying me, I thought. Aloud I said, “I have marked her spirit so that all the predators of the Other World can find it at night when she sleeps. If she swears never to disobey her mundumugu again, if she shows proper contrition for disobeying me today, then I shall remove the markings before she goes to sleep this evening. If not…” I shrugged and let the threat hang in the air.
“Then perhaps the European witch will remove the markings,” said Koinnage.
“Do you think the god of the Europeans is mightier than Ngai?” I demanded.
“I do not know,” replied Koinnage. “But he healed my son’s arm in moments, when Ngai would have taken days.”
“For years you have told us to reject all things European,” added Karenja, “yet I myself have seen the witch use her magic on the dying pilot
, and I think it is stronger than your magic.”
“It is a magic for Europeans only,” I said.
“This is not so,” answered Koinnage. “For did the witch not offer it to Katabo? If she can halt the suffering of our sick and our injured faster than Ngai can, then we must consider accepting her offer.”
“If you accept her offer,” I said, “before long you will be asked to accept her god, and her science, and her clothing, and her customs.”
“Her science is what created Kirinyaga and flew us here,” said Ngobe. “How can it be bad if it made Kirinyaga possible?”
“It is not bad for the Europeans,” I said, “because it is part of their culture. But we must never forget why we came to Kirinyaga in the first place: to create a Kikuyu world and re-establish a Kikuyu culture.”
“We must think seriously about this,” said Koinnage. “For years we have believed that every facet of the Europeans’ culture was evil, for we had no examples of it. But now that we see that even a female can cure our illness faster than Ngai can, it is time to reconsider.”
“If her magic could have cured my withered arm when I was still a boy,” added Ngobe, “why would that have been evil?”
“It would have been against the will of Ngai,” I said.
“Does not Ngai rule the universe?” he asked.
“You know that He does,” I replied.
“Then nothing that happens can be contrary to His wishes, and if she could have cured me, it would not have been against Ngai’s will.”
I shook my head. “You do not understand.”
“We are trying to understand,” said Koinnage. “Enlighten us.”
“The Europeans have many wonders, and these wonders will entice you, as they are doing right now…but if you accept one European thing, soon they will insist that you accept them all. Koinnage, their religion only allows a man to have one wife. Which two will you divorce?”
I turned to the others. “Ngobe, they will make Kimanti attend a school where he will learn to read and write. But since we do not have a written language, he will learn to write only in a European language, and the things and people he reads about and learns about will all be European.”