And if his guilt destroyed him, only he would know.
* * *
Roca stood at a window on the top level of the castle with Colonel Majda at her side. Dressed in the green uniform of an army officer in Imperial Space Command, Majda cut an imposing figure. Iron gray streaked the dark hair she wore pulled back from her aristocratic face. At their vantage point, they could see Eldrinson’s army coming through the plains toward Dalvador. They had won the most dramatic battle in the known history of Lyshriol, yet they rode in subdued silence. Althor no longer covered the laser carbine strapped across his back. The weapon jutted up above his shoulder, its silver and black surfaces glinting in the sunlight.
“We knew as soon as he fired,” Colonel Majda said. “It raised alarms in the orbital systems.”
Roca felt too numb from shock to process it yet. Nor could she absorb that the golden child she carried as a baby had become this silent giant. “Will you arrest him?”
The colonel turned to her. “For what?”
“He killed over three hundred people.” Roca heard the disbelief in her own voice.
“Your husband took him to fight.” The colonel regarded her steadily. “So he fought.”
Bitterness edged Roca’s voice. “We give our children games of war, train them to kill, and then mourn when they do exactly what we taught them to do.” Althor hadn’t even stolen the carbine; as a member of the Ruby Dynasty, technically she owned the transport. She was a civilian, an elected member of a democratic Assembly, but she still carried the ancient title and was third in line for a red throne that no longer existed.
Majda spoke quietly. “I am sorry, Councilor. None of us wants our children killed or scarred by war. But even I’ve heard the news spreading among the people in Dalvador, and I can barely speak their language. The legend is already growing. Your husband will fight no more wars.” She met Roca’s gaze. “Yesterday, Althor made it possible for the people of Lyshriol to achieve a peace that may last for centuries, as long as your family and their descendants protect this world.”
Roca turned to watch the army pouring from the plains into the village. She could see Althor better now, but his face remained unreadable. Softly, she said, “At what price?”
* * *
By the time Roca came down to the Great Hall, using a discreet side entrance, Eldrinson was taking his seat on the dais. The anthropologists who chronicled life on Lyshriol loved to call him a king because his house resembled a castle and he had a big chair, but Roca knew the title baffled him. As the Bard, he did more than sing for his people, he also acted as a judge and commanded a relatively small army, but that hardly made him a “king.” His chair wasn’t a throne; it was simply where he sat when people came to him for rulings on their conflicts.
Today, all of that would change.
Eldrinson’s warriors filed into the great hall. Althor appeared in the doorway. As he walked the length of the room, the soldiers all throughout the hall went down on one knee. They didn’t rise until after he passed. Roca tried to feel his mood, but he had closed himself to all of them. He was terrifying, the huge warrior who commanded the lightning. But she knew the sixteen-year-old boy under that silent exterior; for all that Althor betrayed no emotion, inside he grieved.
Althor climbed the steps of the dais and went to stand next to his father, towering over the chair. Eldrinson glanced in Roca’s direction. When he saw her and beckoned, she shook her head.
“You should go,” Colonel Majda said.
Roca scowled at her. “I won’t have these people thinking I am some fake goddess.”
“They will think what they think. You should stand with your family. Let your husband’s people know you support him.” She put a hand on Roca’s shoulder. “And Althor.”
As much as Roca had no desire to feed the myths that had grown around her, she knew Majda was right. After what had happened, it could destabilize the stunned population of Dalvador if they thought the Bard’s son and his wife were set against each other. She walked to the dais and went up the stairs. Standing on the other side of Eldrinson’s chair from Althor, she looked out at the warriors in the hall. Three men entered at the far end, two Dalvador fighters with a third warrior between them, a youth in the gold-and-black armor of Lord Avaril’s army. Roca thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t tell why from so far away.
The Dalvador men came forward, gripping the younger man’s biceps, forcing him to walk with them. When they reached the dais, they shoved the youth. He stumbled and then stopped, looking up at Eldrinson. Taking a deep breath, he went up the dais steps. As he knelt to Eldrinson with his head bowed, Roca finally recognized him. Karl of Avaril—Lord Avaril’s oldest son. The father must have died in the battle.
Althor spoke, and his deep voice rumbled. “Do you swear fealty to Dalvador?”
Karl looked up with a jerk, staring at Althor as if he had heard a war god instead of a youth his own age. “Yes.” He looked at Eldrinson. “I swear my fealty.”
“Do you swear,” Althor said, “never to make war against Dalvador again, not against my family, not against the villages of the Plains, the Rillian Vales, the mountains of Ryder’s Lost Memory, the Blue Dales, or any of the outlying provinces?”
“Yes.” Karl’s face paled. “I swear.”
So it begins, Roca thought. Today they entered a new era, one born in great pain and yet offering an age of peace. No more of her children would ride into battle, not on Lyshriol. But as she watched Karl, she wondered if any of their children, here or among the stars, would ever heal from the violence their parents bequeathed to them.
* * *
The holo-stage in the console room of the castle was discreet, set in a corner, small and unassuming, with a screen curving around one side. Althor waited on the stage. The holo of a man formed in front of him, the two of them facing each other as if they stood in the same room instead of light years apart. Eldrin seemed much the same now as during the concert, except his hair was tousled and his clothes less formal, a blue pullover and grey slacks.
He nodded to Althor. “My greetings.”
“You look well.” Althor thought of Eldrin’s phenomenal performance, of how his brother’s talent could lift the human spirit to such heights. “I liked your concert.”
Eldrin spoke awkwardly. “Thanks.”
Althor paused, uncertain how to talk to his brother. “So are you and Dehya staying in her home on the Orbiter?” He had yet to figure out how he felt about Eldrin’s marriage.
“Always.” Eldrin smiled. “You’d never know we were on a space habitat. The valley where we live is beautiful. The sky is bluer than on Lyshriol.” He hesitated. “It’s not a real sky. I mean, I could walk on it if I wanted to. But it looks real.”
It had always struck Althor as odd, using so much of a habitat for a “sky,” but he supposed it didn’t matter. The Orbiter had plenty of room. “I’ve seen images. It’s beautiful.”
“Yes.” Eldrin started to add more, then stopped. After a moment, he said, “I read about what happened.”
Althor knew he meant the Plains of Tyroll. “How?”
“Dehya had a briefing report.”
It suddenly hit Althor what his brother had said. “You read it? Yourself?”
“It took a while. But, yes. I’m learning.” Eldrin’s smile faded. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
They stood in silence. When it became strained, Althor said, “Which of us do you think was right?” He regretted the question the moment he spoke. What could Eldrin say? Either he condemned himself or he condemned Althor.
“I don’t know.” Eldrin exhaled. “I truly don’t, Althor. Maybe I never will.”
“I’m sorry.” Althor raked his hand through his curls. “I don’t know why I bothered you.”
Eldrin’s voice gentled in a way Althor hadn’t heard since they were too young to know what rivalry meant. “We chose different paths, you and I, but for each of us it was t
he right decision. You acted for what, ultimately, was the greater good.”
Althor spoke in a flat voice. “It was an act of cowardice.”
Eldrin shook his head. “You had the courage to do what you believed right. How many lives have you saved from future wars? We’ll never know, Althor, because those people will never die. They will live. Because of you.”
He heard the words, but they couldn’t ease the darkness within him. “Perhaps.”
“Give yourself time.”
“You’ve changed.” Althor smiled. “We’ve been here five minutes and haven’t fought once.”
Eldrin laughed, a resonant sound. “So we haven’t.”
They talked a while longer and then signed off. Afterward, Althor went to a balcony and gazed across the plains. His sister Aniece was running through the reeds, chasing bubbles. Farther on, Vyrl and his girlfriend Lily were spinning around. Soz and Chaniece ran circles around Del, daring him to catch them as he laughed. Kelric toddled along with Denric, who was holding his hand. Even Shannon had joined them today, running with his arms outstretched, stirring pollen into the air.
Althor doubted he would ever again share that freedom of spirit. He would help his father deal with the aftermath of the battle, and his mother would use her gifts of diplomacy to handle relations with the grieving Tyroll villages. Althor would go to the counselor his parents and Colonel Majda insisted he see, even if he couldn’t talk about what had happened, not yet. Next year he would apply to the Dieshan Military Academy. Perhaps someday he could learn to deal with his inner darkness.
Watching his family helped. Lyshriol existed in an idyllic bubble protected from the greater battles that raged across the stars. For now, the people he loved were safe, and at least in that, he could find some small peace.
One of my favorite voices in science fiction today, Nnedi Okorafor writes from her Nigerian American heritage, telling stories from the point of view of African peoples and cultures that make her voice unique and compelling. Our next story won both the Hugo and the Nebula in 2016 as well as the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella. It is the first in an ongoing series of novellas (so far) of space opera about Africans in space. Awesome stuff. A sequel came out early in 2017, and here’s hoping for lots more in this series.
BINTI
NNEDI OKORAFOR
I
I powered up the transporter and said a silent prayer. I had no idea what I was going to do if it didn’t work. My transporter was cheap, so even a droplet of moisture, or more likely, a grain of sand, would cause it to short. It was faulty and most of the time I had to restart it over and over before it worked. Please not now, please not now, I thought.
The transporter shivered in the sand and I held my breath. Tiny, flat, and black as a prayer stone, it buzzed softly and then slowly rose from the sand. Finally, it produced the baggage-lifting force. I grinned. Now I could make it to the shuttle. I swiped otjize from my forehead with my index finger and knelt down. Then I touched the finger to the sand, grounding the sweet-smelling red clay into it. “Thank you,” I whispered. It was a half-mile walk along the dark desert road. With the transporter working, I would make it there on time.
Straightening up, I paused and shut my eyes. Now the weight of my entire life was pressing on my shoulders. I was defying the most traditional part of myself for the first time in my entire life. I was leaving in the dead of night and they had no clue. My nine siblings, all older than me except for my younger sister and brother, would never see this coming. My parents would never imagine I’d do such a thing in a million years. By the time they all realized what I’d done and where I was going, I’d have left the planet. In my absence, my parents would growl to each other that I was to never set foot in their home again. My four aunties and two uncles who lived down the road would shout and gossip among themselves about how I’d scandalized our entire bloodline. I was going to be a pariah.
“Go,” I softly whispered to the transporter, stamping my foot. The thin metal rings I wore around each ankle jingled noisily, but I stamped my foot again. Once on, the transporter worked best when I didn’t touch it. “Go,” I said again, sweat forming on my brow. When nothing moved, I chanced giving the two large suitcases sitting atop the force field a shove. They moved smoothly and I breathed another sigh of relief. At least some luck was on my side.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later I purchased a ticket and boarded the shuttle. The sun was barely beginning to peak over the horizon. As I moved past seated passengers far too aware of the bushy ends of my plaited hair softly slapping people in the face, I cast my eyes to the floor. Our hair is thick and mine has always been very thick. My old auntie liked to call it “ododo” because it grew wild and dense like ododo grass. Just before leaving, I’d rolled my plaited hair with fresh sweet-smelling otjize I’d made specifically for this trip. Who knew what I looked like to these people who didn’t know my people so well.
A woman leaned away from me as I passed, her face pinched as if she smelled something foul. “Sorry,” I whispered, watching my feet and trying to ignore the stares of almost everyone in the shuttle. Still, I couldn’t help glancing around. Two girls who might have been a few years older than me, covered their mouths with hands so pale that they looked untouched by the sun. Everyone looked as if the sun was his or her enemy. I was the only Himba on the shuttle. I quickly found and moved to a seat.
The shuttle was one of the new sleek models that looked like the bullets my teachers used to calculate ballistic coefficients during my A-levels when I was growing up. These ones glided fast over land using a combination of air current, magnetic fields, and exponential energy—an easy craft to build if you had the equipment and the time. It was also a nice vehicle for hot desert terrain where the roads leading out of town were terribly maintained. My people didn’t like to leave the homeland. I sat in the back so I could look out the large window.
I could see the lights from my father’s astrolabe shop and the sand storm analyzer my brother had built at the top of the Root—that’s what we called my parents’ big, big house. Six generations of my family had lived there. It was the oldest house in my village, maybe the oldest in the city. It was made of stone and concrete, cool in the night, hot in the day. And it was patched with solar planes and covered with bioluminescent plants that liked to stop glowing just before sunrise. My bedroom was at the top of the house. The shuttle began to move and I stared until I couldn’t see it anymore. “What am I doing?” I whispered.
An hour and a half later, the shuttle arrived at the launch port. I was the last off, which was good because the sight of the launch port overwhelmed me so much that all I could do for several moments was stand there. I was wearing a long red skirt, one that was silky like water, a light orange wind-top that was stiff and durable, thin leather sandals, and my anklets. No one around me wore such an outfit. All I saw were light flowing garments and veils; not one woman’s ankles were exposed, let alone jingling with steel anklets. I breathed through my mouth and felt my face grow hot.
“Stupid stupid stupid,” I whispered. We Himba don’t travel. We stay put. Our ancestral land is life; move away from it and you diminish. We even cover our bodies with it. Otjize is red land. Here in the launch port, most were Khoush and a few other non-Himba. Here, I was an outsider; I was outside. “What was I thinking?” I whispered.
I was sixteen years old and had never been beyond my city, let alone near a launch station. I was by myself and I had just left my family. My prospects of marriage had been 100 percent and now they would be zero. No man wanted a woman who’d run away. However, beyond my prospects of normal life being ruined, I had scored so high on the planetary exams in mathematics that the Oomza University had not only admitted me, but promised to pay for whatever I needed in order to attend. No matter what choice I made, I was never going to have a normal life, really.
I looked around and immediately knew what to do next. I walked to the help desk.
*
* *
The travel security officer scanned my astrolabe, a full deep scan. Dizzy with shock, I shut my eyes and breathed through my mouth to steady myself. Just to leave the planet, I had to give them access to my entire life—me, my family, and all forecasts of my future. I stood there, frozen, hearing my mother’s voice in my head. “There is a reason why our people do not go to that university. Oomza Uni wants you for its own gain, Binti. You go to that school and you become its slave.” I couldn’t help but contemplate the possible truth in her words. I hadn’t even gotten there yet and already I’d given them my life. I wanted to ask the officer if he did this for everyone, but I was afraid now that he’d done it. They could do anything to me, at this point. Best not to make trouble.
When the officer handed me my astrolabe, I resisted the urge to snatch it back. He was an old Khoush man, so old that he was privileged to wear the blackest turban and face veil. His shaky hands were so gnarled and arthritic that he nearly dropped my astrolabe. He was bent like a dying palm tree and when he’d said, “You have never traveled; I must do a full scan. Remain where you are,” his voice was drier than the red desert outside my city. But he read my astrolabe as fast as my father, which both impressed and scared me. He’d coaxed it open by whispering a few choice equations and his suddenly steady hands worked the dials as if they were his own.
When he finished, he looked up at me with his light green piercing eyes that seemed to see deeper into me than his scan of my astrolabe. There were people behind me and I was aware of their whispers, soft laughter and a young child murmuring. It was cool in the terminal, but I felt the heat of social pressure. My temples ached and my feet tingled.
“Congratulations,” he said to me in his parched voice, holding out my astrolabe.
I frowned at him, confused. “What for?”
“You are the pride of your people, child,” he said, looking me in the eye. Then he smiled broadly and patted my shoulder. He’d just seen my entire life. He knew of my admission into Oomza Uni.
Infinite Stars Page 31