Hidden Empire

by Orson Scott Card

  "Get used to it," said one of the soldiers serving them. "Yams are the staple of the Nigerian diet. When in Calabar, do as the Nigerians do. Except for their spices. These people think jalapeno peppers are boring."

  Cecily thought of how Chinma had said American food was bad. But as far as she could tell, these yams were as bland as plain macaroni. "These yams don't taste all that spicy," said Cecily.

  "Yeah, well, that's because this is food for Americans. If we served you what the Nigerian cooking staff eat out in the kitchen, you'd cry like a baby."

  It took more than an hour, and two loads of food, before everyone was fed. Then there was the bathroom problem. The base supposedly had all the comforts of home, and the military kept everything absolutely clean—no slacker when it came to discipline, was General Cole—but there were suddenly more than a hundred new people on pretty much the same toilet schedule, and there just weren't enough holes in the latrines for everybody, without leaving a lot of people to dance around or hold very still outside the doors, waiting their turn.

  Finally a doctor—judging from the lab coat—came into the room and talked for a few minutes with the lieutenant in charge, a different one from the one she had talked to before. The lieutenant called out in a loud voice, "Please quiet down and pay attention, folks! This is Doctor Miller and he's about to give you your training."

  "Such as it is," said Miller. And then he was off and running.

  It was badly organized and sometimes incoherent. He talked about the course of the disease, but then kept interrupting himself with meaningless or depressing anecdotes that always seemed to end with him saying, "Of course, he died." Cecily wanted to say, Does anybody live through it?

  But when he started to repeat anecdotes, it dawned on her that he had not personally seen any cases of the disease. He was going on rumors.

  Get us out of here to a place where we can be trained by somebody who actually knows what he's talking about!

  Then he got onto the topic of safety. "Gloves! Masks! Wash everything! Touch no one!" The same message over and over. The third time he said, "Staying safe is your absolute highest priority!" someone raised his hand and Doctor Miller called on him.

  Oh, it was Mark.

  "If staying safe was our highest priority, sir, I don't think we'd be here."

  The doctor was about to erupt with anger at this insult to his dignity, but many of the adults in the room laughed and some of them even clapped, and he got the message. His lecture was not going over very well.

  "We came to help people," said a man. "I'm a doctor back in the States, I'm prepared to train people on antiseptic procedures. What we need are the masks, the gloves, the equipment we're going to be using."

  "There is no equipment," said Dr. Miller. Angry now, he had decided on brutal candor. "There is no treatment. Don't you understand that? You get this disease. You sneeze. You cough. It feels like nothing. And then the fever creeps up on you and you feel like you're going to explode out of your skin and you start to bleed in random places and then you either die or you get better—very, very slowly. The whole thing takes about two and a half weeks if you die, two months to get back to full health if you happen not to die. There's no medicine except ibuprofen. What do you think you're going to do for these people?"

  There was enough hostility in the room that Cecily decided to speak up, using her we're-all-friends-here voice. "We can wash them. Bring them food and water. Try to keep the fever down. Help them understand that they're not alone, that someone cares whether they live or die. We can pray with them and for them. We can read to them, tell them stories, take their minds off what they're going through. We can give them human company. And we'd like to get started, please. Where are the masks and gloves? Where do we wash? Where are the sick people?"

  Her little speech was punctuated by a fair number of amens—something Catholics would never do, but it was actually kind of fun to be part of a vociferously Christian group.

  But as the evening wore on, several things became clear. Nobody knew where the patients were, because the hospitals were all closed. There weren't enough beds in Nigerian hospitals to hold even a tiny fraction of the sick—they were told to stay home, keep off the streets, try to stop the disease from spreading. The result was that markets didn't open. Food was running short. Desperate people were breaking into the houses of the sick and stealing what food they had—then getting sick themselves. There was no place to take them.

  "This is a university," said Cecily. "There are dormitories? The students aren't here?"

  "Correct, ma'am, but Americans would not like Nigerian accommodations."

  "What we don't like," said Cecily, "is this very hot and way-too-small room. We'll get used to Nigerian student dorms, and if there aren't enough of them, then find us some empty houses or classrooms and we'll make do. And tomorrow we'll go out and find patients to feed and take care of. We didn't come here for you to entertain us, Doctor Miller. We came to help sick Nigerians."

  She got so much applause from the others that Miller apparently felt the need to take her down a peg.

  "And what about when you get sick? Do you think we're going to let you back in here with our healthy soldiers?"

  "No, we don't!" shouted a man.

  Cecily came forward and put a gentle hand on Dr. Miller's shoulder. "It's okay, Doctor Miller," she said. "It's okay. We don't work for you. We're not your responsibility. Almost all of us are adults who are used to running things in our regular jobs. We'll organize ourselves, we'll look after one another. Some of us will probably get sick. Some of us may die. But it won't be your fault. Nobody will blame you. You aren't responsible for us. All we ask is that you get us the basic equipment—the masks, the gloves, sponges, basins, bedpans, ibuprofen, clean water. All of those things were supposed to come on the planes with us, so we aren't even using your supplies. Just point us to the city and let us get started. What we do after that is up to us."

  And that speech was how Cecily got herself elected manager of the Calabar Relief Operation. She didn't want the job, but somebody had to be in charge enough to say, Yes, do that, or No, try this instead, so that things could move forward.

  What Cecily couldn't understand was why Cole hadn't already arranged for this before they arrived. For that matter, where was he? Surely as the major general in charge of the whole African campaign, he should have put in an appearance. Surely as her friend—even if their last parting had been a little testy—he could show up and …

  Something was wrong. If not Cole, then one of Reuben's jeesh, somebody should have been there.

  They must be out on an operation.

  But why wouldn't somebody just say that? "General Cole would like to be here, but he's out doing his job and he won't be back for a day or two." How hard was that to explain?

  All this incompetence, all this disorganization, this is not how the army works. Something is seriously wrong.

  Never mind that by the time she thought of this, it was dark and she was lying on top of the most uncomfortable mattress she had ever lain on in her life. Gravel would be more comfortable—smaller lumps.

  She got up and put her clothes back on. They were still damp with her sweat from traveling. She had a tiny LED flashlight in her purse and used that to find her way. The three other women in the room didn't even stir as she left.

  Cecily thought of looking for Mark in the men's dorm, but that would be disruptive. It was soldiers she wanted right now, and since this was an Army base in a foreign country, there'd be plenty of them awake already.

  Sure enough, it took no searching at all—the duty officer found her.

  "Excuse me ma'am," he said apologetically. "This city isn't safe at night. Stray bullets, all kinds of things."

  "You're just the man I'm looking for," she said, which was true, since any soldier would do. "I'm a good friend of General Coleman. My husband and he served together. I'd really like to see him."

  He said nothing. He tried to hold
his face still. But his reaction was as clear as day.

  "No, don't tell me the lie you were trying to think of," she said. "My husband was Reuben Malich. When I say he and General Coleman served together, I'm talking about the day of the assassination. Do you understand?"

  She could see from his expression that he knew now who her husband was, and he was suitably impressed. It worked much better with soldiers than saying she was an adviser to President Torrent. Dozens of people could say that. But Reuben Malich had only one widow.

  "Whatever's wrong here," she went on, "I'm going to find out about it. Above all, I'm going to see General Coleman, and I'm going to see him tonight. If you help me, it'll cause a minimum of bother and then I can get to sleep and you can go on about your business."

  Ten minutes later, she found herself in a room with a very sleepy and irritated Dr. Miller, the duty officer, and two very tough-looking captains. It was obvious that their plan was to stonewall her. The fact that they thought there was a need to stonewall told her almost everything she needed to know.

  "General Coleman is here on this base," she said, "or you'd simply tell me he was not. If he knew I was here, he'd let me come see him. So he doesn't know I'm here, and that suggests some kind of mutiny or that he is badly injured. Which is it?"

  "Neither," said one of the captains.

  "Very well," she said. "I may have resigned my position as an adviser to President Torrent, but I still have a private cellphone connection to him. It's still early evening in Washington, D.C., so I will certainly reach him and he will certainly want to know what's going on here. And if you try to prevent me from making that call—"

  Dr. Miller sighed. "Oh, Lord, she's one of those. 'Do you know who I am?'"

  "Who I am," said Cecily, "is a friend of Cole's, and I'm going to find out what's going on with him, come hell or high water."

  "Well, he's sick," said Dr. Miller. "Isn't that obvious?"

  It was clear that one of the captains wanted to do something non-lethal but memorable to Dr. Miller, while the other captain was relieved. Cecily turned to the relieved one. "He has the nictovirus?" she asked.

  "He's been exposed," said the captain. "No symptoms yet, but he's quarantined himself. And the rest of his team. They were all exposed. Captain Camacho and Captain Black are symptomatic."

  "Well, that sounds like a championship-level screwup," said Cecily. "Nevertheless, I'm here to deal with sick people. I'll wear a mask and gloves and I won't kiss him on both cheeks as we Washington policy wonks are apt to do. But I'll see the general now, please. And I promise I won't say much about how badly you're all handling this situation."

  "This is none of your business," said the hostile captain.

  "As the President's personal representative in the Christian relief effort, Captain, it is most definitely my business, and you in particular are my business. If I see you again tonight, or hear your voice, or see any evidence of your existence, then you will be my business for a long, long time. Have I made myself clear?"

  The captain was eager to put her in her place, but he wasn't quite sure what her place was, and apparently he began to think that she might have as much clout as she claimed. While he stood there in an agony of indecision, Cecily helped him. "You aren't actually needed in this room right now, Captain. Perhaps there are other duties you could attend to while Doctor Miller helps me find a mask and gloves." Then she turned her back on him and led the doctor and the cooperative captain out of the room.

  Of course she knew perfectly well that the hostile captain was actually the more competent of the two—the other one caved in far too easily—but only one of them was useful to her right now, and it wasn't the competent one.

  A few minutes later, she was in Cole's quarters. Apparently it was the office of the head of the medical school, converted to military use, and the bed looked comfortable. Cole was not in it, however. He was stiffly sitting in a chair behind the desk, in full uniform.

  "Cecily," he said. "How dreadful to see you here tonight."

  "Everything" is too long a list to work with.

  No one knows everything about anything.

  No one knows something about everything.

  Everyone knows something about some things.

  Anyone could be the world's foremost expert on something.

  Anyone who thinks that just because they didn't already know a thing, it must not be true or important, is an idiot.

  Chinma studied hard, trying to make sense of Lettie's math textbook. She was only ten years old, and yet she was far ahead of any knowledge Chinma had acquired at the village school.

  There were people in Nigeria who got very good schooling. Ire had been given an accountant's education. He would have known everything in this book. But Ire was firstborn son of the second wife. He was expected to amount to something.

  Or maybe it was Chinma's own fault. The little marks on the pages seemed to run away from him, and the more closely he looked, the harder it was to see them. He could always see the ones he wasn't looking at, but as soon as he thought about one he could see, he'd look at it and it would run away. So he always had to look at a place that was different from the letter or number he was supposed to be looking at, and so he was very slow at reading and calculating.

  No wonder the teacher had told Father there was no reason to keep Chinma in school. Only Mother's stubborn insistence had kept him there. And what had Chinma done with her hardwon victory? Spent every moment he could up in trees. That had worked out so very well.

  He still had his money from monkey-catching, but when he exchanged it, his 27,000 naira had turned out to be only 180 dollars. Nick and Lettie had been impressed that he had so much, but Mark had told him just what his money would and wouldn't buy. Forty-eight Big Macs, or one iPod Nano and forty-five tracks from iTunes, or a round-trip train ticket to New York plus a couple of cab rides.

  Why would he want any of those things? But he could see Mark's point—that his 180 dollars would disappear very quickly if he spent any of it. He could see how useful it was to know how to do the numbers and figure things out, but Lettie's math book didn't talk about the things he wanted to calculate. And yet when Mark told him what his money would buy, he had understood instantly how Mark figured it out. He just couldn't do it.

  Chinma didn't like being stupid in Oyi, and he didn't like being stupid in America. He wasn't stupid, he was sure of it. But everything came so much more easily to other people than to him.

  The army doctor had given him glasses, but they were no good, they made everything blurry. Maybe that was because when the doctor had him look through the machine at the eye chart, none of the settings worked to solve his problem of letters that ran away. So Chinma finally told the doctor that the setting he had right at that moment was perfect. It wasn't, but what could he do? The doctor was so eager to help him.

  I see everything, Chinma wanted to say. I see things mat other people miss. I see perfectly. But when I look at something very small and close to me, it disappears. Do you have a lens for that? But that would have been rude and presumptuous of him. The doctor never asked him anything to which that information would have been the right answer.

  I should have said it anyway, Chinma thought. Americans say what they want to, instead of politely waiting to be asked the right question. Americans are rude. But they get their point across quickly and easily and then things work out right.

  "There you are," said Aunt Margaret.

  Chinma looked up from the book.

  "Why don't you wear your glasses?" asked Aunt Margaret. "You look all bleary-eyed."

  "I forgot," said Chinma.

  "I need to tape them to your head," said Aunt Margaret. "You always forget."

  Chinma had no answer to this, so he continued to look off into space—not challenging her by looking her in the eye, but not turning back to what he had been doing before, as if she were unimportant.

  "Oh, yes," said Aunt Margaret. "I received the oddest email
from Cecily—Mother—"

  "Mrs. Malich," Chinma prompted.

  "She wanted to know if you could write to her. She has some questions. Did you have an email address in Nigeria?"

  "I don't think so," he said, truly distressed to disappoint her, for he had no idea what she was talking about.

  "Don't they have the internet in Nigeria? They must, or Cecily could not have emailed me!"

  If I knew what it was, perhaps I could tell you. But she seemed to take it for granted that he knew what she was talking about, so if he admitted that he didn't, he would look stupid.

  "Well, you can write her a letter using my account."

  That was how Chinma ended up in front of a computer screen, staring at a bunch of letters, all of which fled when he looked at them. Plus the screen was too bright.

  "Just type what you want to say, I'll take care of addressing it."

  But I don't have anything to say, thought Chinma. It was Mrs. Malich who wanted to write to me. "All right," he said.

  He looked down at the keyboard. He could see that all the keys had letters and numbers on them, and sometimes tiny words, but whichever one he looked at became invisible. This was not going to work.

  He bent closer to the keyboard and now he could see the letters.

  "What in the world," said Aunt Margaret. "Where are your glasses?"

  They won't help. "I don't know," said Chinma.

  "Did you lose them?"

  He could see her wasting time searching for the glasses, and if she did, he'd have to wear them, and then there was no hope of his seeing the keys. "What should I write?" he said.

  "Just say hello," said Aunt Margaret, "so she'll know she can write to you at my address."

  Just in time he realized she didn't mean "say hello," she meant "write hello." Chinma looked for the H. He found it. It disappeared. He looked again, and this time kept his face very close to the keyboard. It stayed visible. He pressed it.