Kirinyaga

by Mike Resnick

  Suddenly he was alert and enthused. “The problem is the young men who killed themselves, isn't it?” he said.

  “That is correct,” I answered him. “Why do you suppose they did it?”

  He shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “I do not know, Koriba. Perhaps they were crazy.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  He shrugged again. “No, not really. Probably an enemy has cursed them.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “It must be so,” he said firmly. “Is not Kirinyaga a Utopia? Why else would anyone not wish to live here?”

  “I want you to think back, Ndemi, to the time before you started coming to my boma every day.”

  “I can remember,” he said. “It was not that long ago.”

  “Good,” I replied. “Now, can you also remember what you wanted to do?”

  He smiled. “To play. And to hunt.”

  I shook my head. “I do not mean what you wanted to do then? I said. “Can you remember what you wanted to do when you were a man?”

  He frowned. “Take a wife, I suppose, and start a shamba”

  “Why do you frown, Ndemi?” I asked.

  “Because that is not really what I wanted,” he replied. “But it was all I could think of to answer.”

  “Think harder,” I said. “Take as much time as you wish, for this is very important. I will wait.”

  We sat in silence for a long moment, and then he turned to me.

  “I do not know. But I would not have wanted to live as my father and my brothers live.”

  “What would you have wanted?”

  He shrugged helplessly “Something different.”

  “Different in what way?”

  “I do not know,” he said again. “Something more …”—he searched for the word—”more exciting” He considered his answer, then nodded, satisfied. “Even the impala grazing in the fields lives a more exciting life, for he must ever be wary of the hyena.”

  “But wouldn't the impala rather that there were no hyenas?” I suggested.

  “Of course,” said Ndemi, “for then he could not be killed and eaten.” He furrowed his brow in thought. “But if there were no hyenas, he would not need to be fleet of foot, and if he were no longer fleet of foot, he would no longer be an impala.”

  And with that, I began to see the solution.

  “So it is the hyena that makes the impala what he is,” I said. “And therefore, even something that seems to be a bad or dangerous thing can be necessary to the impala.”

  He stared at me. “I do not understand, Koriba.”

  “I think that I must become a hyena,” I said thoughtfully.

  “Right now?” asked Ndemi excitedly. “May I watch?”

  I shook my head. “No, not right now But soon.”

  For if it was the threat of the hyena that defined the impala, then I had to find a way to define those young men who had ceased to be true Kikuyus and yet could not leave Kirinyaga.

  “Will you have spots and legs and a tail?” asked Ndemi eagerly.

  “No,” I replied. “But I will be a hyena nonetheless.”

  “I do not understand,” said Ndemi.

  “I do not expect you to,” I said. “But Murumbi will.”

  For I realized that what he needed was a challenge that could be provided by only one person on Kirinyaga.

  And that person was myself.

  I sent Ndemi to the village to tell Koinnage that I wanted to address the Council of Elders. Then, later that day, I put on my ceremonial headdress, painted my face to look its most frightening, and, filling my pouch with various charms, I made my way to the village, where Koinnage had assembled all the Elders in his boma. I waited patiently for him to announce that I had important matters to discuss with them—for even the mundumugu may not speak before the paramount chief—and then I got to my feet and faced them.

  “I have cast the bones,” I said. “I have read the entrails of a goat, and I have studied the pattern of the flies on a newly dead lizard. And now I know why Ngala walked unarmed among the hyenas, and why Keino and Njupo died.”

  I paused for dramatic effect, and made sure that I had everyone's attention.

  “Tell us who caused the thahu” said Koinnage, “that we may destroy him.”

  “It is not that simple,” I answered. “Hear me out. The carrier of the thahu is Murumbi.”

  “I will kill him!” cried Kibanja, who had been Ngala's father. “He is the reason my son is dead!”

  “No,” I said. “You must not kill him, for he is not the source of the thahu. He is merely the carrier.”

  “If a cow drinks poisoned water, she is not the source of her bad milk, but we must kill her anyway,” insisted Kibanja.

  “It is not Murumbi's fault,” I said firmly. “He is as innocent as your own son, and he must not be killed.”

  “Then who is responsible for the thahu}'“ demanded Kibanja. “I will have blood for my son's blood!”

  “It is an old thahu, cast upon us by a Maasai back when we still lived in Kenya,” I said. “He is dead now, but he was a very clever mundumugu, for his thahu lives on long after him.” I paused. “I have fought him in the spirit world, and most of the time I have won, but once in a while my magic is weak, and on those occasions the thahu is visited upon one of our young men.”

  “How can we know which of our young men bears the thahu}'“ asked Koinnage. “Must we wait for them to die before we know they have been cursed?”

  “There are ways,” I answered. “But they are known only to myself. When I have finished telling you what you must do, I will visit all the other villages and seek out the colonies of young men to see if any of them also bears the thahu”

  “Tell us what we must do,” said old Siboki, who had come to hear me despite the pain in his joints.

  “You will not kill Murumbi,” I repeated, “for it is not his fault that he carries this thahu. But we do not want him passing it to others, so from this day forward he is an outcast. He must be driven from his hut and never allowed back. Should any of you offer him food or shelter, the same thahu will befall you and your families. I want runners sent to all the nearby villages, so that by tomorrow morning they all know that he must be shunned, and I want them in turn to send out still more runners, so that within three days no village on Kirin-yaga will welcome him.”

  “That is a terrible punishment,” said Koinnage, for the Kikuyu are a compassionate people. “If the thahu is not his fault, can we not at least set food out for him at the edge of the village? Perhaps if he comes alone by night, and sees and speaks to no one else, the thahu will remain with him alone.”

  I shook my head. “It must be as I say, or I cannot promise that the thahu will not spread to all of you.”

  “If we see him in the fields, can we not acknowledge him?” persisted Koinnage.

  “If you see him, you must threaten him with your spears and drive him away,” I answered.

  Koinnage sighed deeply. “Then it shall be as you say. We will drive him from his hut today, and we will shun him forever.”

  “So be it,” I said, and left the boma to return to my hill.

  All right, Murumbi, I thought. Now you have your challenge. You have been raised not to use your spear; now you will eat only what your spear can kill You have been raised to let your women build your huts; now you will be safe from the elements only in those huts that you yourself build. You have been raised to live a life of ease; now you will live only by your wits and your energies. No one will help you, no one will give you food or shelter, and I will not rescind my order. It is not a perfect solution, but it is the best I can contrive under the circumstances. You needed a challenge and an enemy; now I have provided you with both.

  I visited every village on Kirinyaga during the next month, and spent much time speaking to the young men. I found two more who had to be driven out and forced to live in the wilderness, and now, along with my other duties, such visits have become part of my reg
ular schedule.

  There have been no more suicides, and no more unexplained deaths among our young men. But from time to time I cannot help wondering what must become of a society, even a Utopia such as Kirinyaga, where our best and our brightest are turned into outcasts, and all that remains are those who are content to eat the fruit of the lotus.

  7

  A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

  {JULY 2136}

  There was a time when animals could speak.

  Lions and zebras, elephants and leopards, birds and men all shared the Earth. They labored side by side, they met and spoke of many things, they exchanged visits and gifts.

  Then one day Ngai summoned all of His creations to meet with Him.

  “I have done everything I can to make life good for all My creatures,” said Ngai. The assembled animals and men began to sing His praises, but Ngai held up His hand, and they immediately stopped.

  “I have made life too good for you,” He continued. “None among you has died for the past year.”

  “What is wrong with that?” asked the zebra.

  “Just as you are constrained by your natures,” said Ngai, “just as the elephant cannot fly and the impala cannot climb trees, so I cannot be dishonest. Since no one has died, I cannot feel compassion for you, and without compassion, I cannot water the savannah and the forest with my tears. And without water, the grasses and the trees will shrivel and die.”

  There was much moaning and wailing from the creatures, but again Ngai silenced them.

  “I will tell you a story,” He said, “and you must learn from it.

  “Once there were two colonies of ants. One colony was very wise, and one colony was very foolish, and they lived next to each other. One day they received word that an aardvark, a creature that eats ants, was coming to their land. The foolish colony went about their business, hoping that the aardvark would ignore them and attack their neighbors. But the wise colony built a mound that could withstand even the efforts of an aardvark, and they gathered sugar and honey, and stockpiled it in the mound.

  “When the aardvark reached the kingdom of the ants, he immediately attacked the wise ants, but the mound withstood his greatest efforts, and the ants within survived by eating their sugar and honey Finally, after many fruitless days, the aardvark wandered over to the kingdom of the foolish ants, and dined well that evening.”

  Ngai fell silent, and none of His creatures dared ask Him to speak further. Instead, they returned to their homes and discussed His story, and made their preparations for the coming drought.

  A year passed, and finally the men decided to sacrifice an innocent goat, and that very day Ngai's tears fell upon the parched and barren land. The next morning Ngai again summoned His creatures to the holy mountain.

  “How have you fared during the past year?” He asked each of them.

  “Very badly,” moaned the elephant, who was very thin and weak. “We did as you instructed us, and built a mound, and gathered sugar and honey—but we grew hot and uncomfortable within the mound, and there is not enough sugar and honey in all the world to feed a family of elephants.”

  “We have fared even worse,” wailed the lion, who was even thinner, “for lions cannot eat sugar and honey at all, but must have meat.”

  And so it went, as each animal poured out its misery. Finally Ngai turned to the man and asked him the same question.

  “We have fared very well,” replied the man. “We built a container for water, and filled it before the drought came, and we stockpiled enough grain to last us to this day.”

  “I am very proud of you,” said Ngai. “Of all my creatures, only you understood my story”

  “It is not fair!” protested the other animals. “We built mounds and saved sugar and honey, as you told us to!”

  “What I told you was a parable,” said Ngai, “and you have mistaken the facts of it for the truth that lay beneath. I gave you the power to think, but since you have not used it, I hereby take it away And as a further punishment, you will no longer have the ability to speak, for creatures that do not think have nothing to say.”

  And from that day forth, only man, among all Ngai's creations, has had the power to think and speak, for only man can pierce through the facts to find the truth.

  You think you know a person when you have worked with him and trained him and guided his thinking since he was a small boy. You think you can foresee his reactions to various situations. You think you know how his mind works.

  And if the person in question has been chosen by you, selected from the mass of his companions and groomed for something special, as young Ndemi was selected and groomed by me to be my successor as the mundumugu to our terraformed world of Kirinyaga, the one thing you think above all else is that you possess his loyalty and his gratitude.

  But even a mundumugu can be wrong.

  I do not know exactly when or how it began. I had chosen Ndemi to be my assistant when he was still a kehee—an uncircumcised child—and I had worked diligently with him to prepare him for the position he would one day inherit from me. I chose him not for his boldness, though he feared nothing, nor for his enthusiasm, which was boundless, but rather for his intellect, for with the exception of one small girl, long since dead, he was by far the brightest of the children on Kirinyaga. And since we had emigrated to this world to create a Kikuyu paradise, far from the corrupt imitation of Europe that Kenya had become, it was imperative that the mundumugu be the wisest of men, for the mundumugu not only reads omens and casts spells, but is also the repository for the collected wisdom and culture of his tribe.

  Day by day I added to Ndemi's limited storehouse of knowledge. I taught him how to make medicine from the bark and pods of the acacia tree, I showed him how to create the ointments that would ease the discomfort of the aged when the weather turned cold and wet, I made him memorize the hundred spells that were used to bless the scarecrows in the field. I told him a thousand parables, for the Kikuyu have a parable for every need and every occasion, and the wise mundumugu is the one who finds the right parable for each situation.

  And finally, after he had served me faithfully for six long years, coming up my hill every morning, feeding my chickens and goats, lighting the fire in my boma, and filling my empty water gourds before his daily lessons began, I took him into my hut and showed him how my computer worked.

  There are only four computers on all of Kirinyaga. The others belong to Koinnage, the paramount chief of our village, and to two chiefs of distant clans, but their computers can do nothing but send and receive messages. Only mine is tied into the data banks of the Eutopian Council, the ruling body that had given Kirinyaga its charter, for only the mundumugu has the strength and the vision to be exposed to European culture without becoming corrupted by it.

  One of the primary purposes of my computer was to plot the orbital adjustments that would bring seasonal changes to Kirinyaga, so that the rains would come on schedule and the crops would flourish and the harvest would be successful. It was perhaps the mundumugus most important obligation to his people, since it assured their survival. I spent many long days teaching Ndemi all the many intricacies of the computer, until he knew its workings as well as I myself did, and could speak to it with perfect ease.

  The morning that I first noticed the change in him began like any other. I awoke, wrapped my blanket around my withered shoulders, and walked painfully out of my hut to sit by my fire until the warming rays of the sun took the chill from the air. And, as always, there was no fire.

  Ndemi came up the path to my hill a few minutes later.

  “fambo, Koriba,” he said, greeting me with his usual smile.

  “fambo, Ndemi,” I said. “How many times have I explained to you that I am an old man, and that I must sit by my fire until the air becomes warmer?”

  “I am sorry, Koriba,” he said. “But as I was leaving my father's shamba, I saw a hyena stalking one of our goats, and I had to drive it off.” He held his spear up, as if that were pr
oof of his statement.

  I could not help but admire his ingenuity. It was perhaps the thousandth time he had been late, and never had he given the same excuse twice. Still, the situation was becoming intolerable, and when he finished his chores and the fire had warmed my bones and eased my pain, I told him to sit down opposite me.

  “What is our lesson for today?” he asked as he squatted down.

  “The lesson will come later,” I said, finally letting my blanket fall from my shoulders as the first warm breeze of the day blew a fine cloud of dust past my face. “But first I will tell you a story.”

  He nodded, and stared intently at me as I began speaking.

  “Once there was a Kikuyu chief,” I said. “He had many admirable qualities. He was a mighty warrior, and in council his words carried great weight. But along with his many good qualities, he also had a flaw.

  “One day he saw a maiden tilling the fields in her father's shamba, and he was smitten with her. He meant to tell her of his love the very next day, but as he set out to see her, his way was blocked by an elephant, and he retreated and waited until the elephant had passed. When he finally arrived at the maiden's boma, he discovered that a young warrior was paying her court. Nevertheless, she smiled at him when their eyes met, and, undiscouraged, he made up his mind to visit her the following day. This time a deadly snake blocked his way, and once again, when he arrived he found the maiden being courted by his rival. Once more she gave him an encouraging smile, and so he decided to come back a third time.

  “On the morning of the third day, he lay on his blanket in his hut, and thought about all the many things he wanted to tell her to impress her with his ardor. By the time he had decided upon the best approach to win her favor, the sun was setting. He ran all the way from his boma to that of the maiden, only to find that his rival had just paid her father five cattle and thirty goats for her hand in marriage.

  “He managed to get the maiden alone for a moment, and poured forth his litany of love.