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by Ivor W Hartmann


  I hate this annual pilgrimage.

  I want to go back to Earth.

  When chirimo, the planting season, comes, we leave our cushy office jobs, pack our bags and go kumusha to help with the farming. We all have two homes, our true home being kumusha where our ancestors are buried. Mine is on Earth, in Manhenga: Tarisai belongs here on this desert world, which she abandoned to be with me.

  Yet each time we visit, I hate it more and more, though I try not to let on.

  I know it’s the magnetosphere that causes my toothache. The doctors say that’s impossible, but it never happens when I’m on Earth. I refuse to take painkillers. I want to suffer like my son did, alone and scared in the dark.

  Don’t cry.

  A star moves swiftly across the sky, one of the three satellites orbiting Ceres.

  Tarisai comes into the room. Her hard, sculpted body moves slowly, solid pecs showing under the white vest she wears.

  ‘You left early,’ she says without reproach.

  ‘That voodoo isn’t going to bring my son back,’ I reply. ‘Do you honestly think some mythical creature took him?’

  ‘He was with his cousins. They’re experienced Ceresmen. They walk over that pond practically every day, mudiwa. It’s virtually impossible for anyone to drown here. The gravity is far too weak, you couldn’t break the surface tension of the water to go under. But somehow Anesu did. His thrusters must have malfunctioned, pushing him down under the water. We’re trying to figure it out. They were walking in a group, he was a little behind. They got to the far bank and he was gone. For some reason, his transponder isn’t working either.’

  ‘They were supposed to look after him. He’s an Earth-child.’

  ‘They did their-’

  ‘I want my son back!’ I scream at her.

  ‘We’re doing the best we can. There’ve been search parties.’ She sighs and lowers her voice. ‘You’re not the only one who’s hurting, you know? He was my son too.’

  ‘You never wanted him in the first place.’

  ‘Oh, so now we get to it. Are you really going to fling stuff I said in uni back in my face?’

  ‘You wanted to be free, to explore the solar system, Venus, Europa, Titan, to Pluto and beyond. How many times did you change his nappies? You’d rather have been anywhere else.’

  ‘But I stayed, because I love you.’

  Before I can say the next spiteful thought formed in my mind, she’s on top of me, pinning me down, a rough finger in my dry vagina. We claw, bite, fight like animals as we make desperate love. And when it’s over, we fall back down, sweaty and exhausted, and turn away from one another.

  #

  In my dream, I sink into black water, thick like oil. The silver moon of Earth shines on my face. I wonder why of all moons, ours has no name, as if it is enough to say what it is. Maybe I should give it a name, call it something kind and gentle.

  I sink down, leagues and leagues, down a never-ending abyss.

  Until I meet her, at the bottom of the dark.

  I never truly knew what a njuzu was. For some, she’s a mermaid, half woman half fish. For others a water sprite, spritely and nimble. Since I lost my son, I’ve thought of her as a spiteful siren, the disastrous enchantress, ensnarer of sailors and young boys. But the reality is she’s neither of these: she simply is what she is.

  She sits tall on her throne, Neptune’s daughter. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her flawless skin is black like polished obsidian. Tiny bubbles form against it. Her wise eyes sparkle like pearls. Her hair is green and wild like reeds in the river Tsanga.

  Anesu is still, wearing a copper necklace on his bare torso. At their feet lie herbs, divining bones, a kudu horn and earthenware utensils.

  The njuzu half smiles at me.

  ‘Give me my son back, you bitch!’ I shout, and the water enters my mouth, into my lungs. I cough and gag, drowning. My chest is full of molten lead as I struggle, arms flailing, trying to reach the distant, moonlit surface where Tarisai’s face looks down at me.

  ‘Wake up, you’re having a bad dream,’ she says.

  #

  The stars in the Milky Way lighting my path number less than the kisses I planted on Anesu’s head and brow and lips and feet and every square inch of my baby’s body.

  Fury and fear draw me back to Bhima’s pond like an iron filing to a magnet.

  The sun is yet to rise in the dark green sky.

  The still surface of water meets my boot and I walk on it. It is soft and gently displaces creating ripples that fan out in front of me. I try to peer under the dark surface, in the depths where my Anesu must be. I sing the Song of Life as I walk upon it, each step, recreating him, my gloved hands knitting him piece by piece.

  Tarisai appears on the shore. She’s a tiny figure in her bright red suit. The light on her helmet points at me. I know she hurts, too, but there’s a magnitude of pain only a mother can feel. So, I give her a wave. She stays where she is, my silent guardian.

  When I reach the middle of the pond, I let go of the lie of hope and slowly let it fall into the water. I know my son is lost forever.

  His spirit wanders the cruel, cold depths of Ceres.

  I cry. Large hot tears fill my helmet until I’m blind and I can see his face looking at me again.

  T.L. Huchu’s work has appeared in Interzone, The Apex Book of World SF 5, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Year's Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016, AfroSFv1, and elsewhere. He enjoys working across genres, from crime to sci-fi to literary fiction. Currently, he is working on new fantasy novel. Find him @TendaiHuchu

  The Girl Who Stared at Mars

  Cristy Zinn

  In the distance, hangs Mars. Even though I know none of this is real, I pretend, just for a little while, that I am twelve years old and dreaming of that red planet. I am in my garden on State Street—cool grass under my feet, skin goose-bumped by the fresh night air. The hum of the world has quieted and all that is left is the swelling chorus of insects. It is dark except for the stripe of light that spills from my bedroom where the curtains hang askew. I shift so that the light doesn’t interfere with my view of the stars.

  The pungent smell of the nearby Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow flowers stirs my memories—of childhood, first love, night swims in a humid summer. I feel the vibrations of the pool pump and listen to the lap-lap of the water as the creepy-crawly works just under the surface.

  The sound of muffled laughter drifts from next door—someone is watching a sitcom or having a dinner party.

  I am not distracted by any of it. Mars has my attention. I cannot take my eyes off that small, twinkling planet. A familiar longing settles in; romantic and desperate. It is a longing to be free of this garden, to see space for myself, to walk the empty red hills of Mars. I smile at the irony, considering where I am outside this simulation.

  ‘You’ll do well up there,’ says my step-father, Dumza. His voice is as rich as I remember it.

  He puts an arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. He smells like soap and sweat. I smile.

  ‘You think so?’ I ask.

  He laughs. It’s that barrel-belly laugh that I love so much. ‘Of course.’

  When I turn my head, he is gone. There’s just the garden and the night, and it is no longer easy to pretend.

  I emerge from the simulation with tears on my cheeks. I wipe them away and take a breath, like I was taught. One, two, three, place yourself back in reality. One, two, three, orient yourself. One, two, three, be mindful of your breath. I close my eyes, taking mental notes of how I feel so I can log it later. The garden is gone, the metal shell is back.

  I look out the portal window, into space. Eleven days in, eighteen to go. We’re in limbo now—that dead space between things where we cannot see where we’ve come from or where we’re going. Earth is gone, Mars is nowhere in sight yet. We are wholly alone.

  I place my feet on the ground. The cold seeps through the rubber mats, through my socks, and into
my bones. How is it that they’ve mastered solar sail travel, but they haven’t figured out a way to keep this place warm I wonder.

  Otar is leaning against the frame. He looks exhausted, his blonde hair mussed and unwashed—he’s not sleeping well, none of us are. It’s hard to schedule a body clock that is so accustomed to the sun and moon ordering our days and nights, even with the programmed light sequence that tries to mimic it.

  ‘You done?’ he asks.

  I nod. ‘Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Don’t be long.’ He slips back down the corridor, disinterested in small talk. I’d love to say it’s because he’s a loner but it’s just me he’d rather not be around.

  I bend down, resting my hands on my knees. Dumza has never been in my simulations. I don’t know how he got in there—I didn’t add him to my memory bank. His presence has thrown me. I miss him all over again.

  And of course, the feeling is quickly drowned by a deep, unsettling anxiety.

  They told us to keep people out of the sims—too difficult to distance yourself from Earth if you’re clinging to relationships. Instead, they framed the questions to help us remember places. I guess the garden I chose was too closely linked to my time with Dumza. I take another deep breath. Maybe it was my subconscious kicking in and adding to the mix. Maybe I’m so tired I started dreaming while in the sim. I wipe away another tear, take another deep breath. There is no space in all this vastness for things that bind us to Earth.

  #

  Chapter two of Wendel Nkomo’s philosophical tome, Native in Space, begins with this sentence:

  “In space we all become alien. And yet, in space—travelling between stars—the only thing we have is our humanity. Perhaps it will be here that humans finally let go of their prejudices and embrace true Ubuntu.”

  I wonder if that’s what he found on Mars. Eleven days in space and I’m thinking prejudices are all we bring with us.

  #

  The first week in training we were each asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement that legally bound us not to share what we were about to learn. I don’t think any of us hesitated to sign it. We were hungry enough for Mars to dismiss the usual legal jargon.

  It was then we realised to what extent the MarsCasts were censored and monitored.

  The African Space Alliance must maintain the hope of colonisation, the dream, the great vision. Fear might lead to a cut in funding, and we can’t have that—the recent plethora of economic crashes and wars have ensured that financial backing is meagre enough as it is.

  I must be honest, watching the truth, there were moments when I almost turned my back on Mars—but the promise of something new, something so pregnant with possibility left me unable to resist.

  Not even after I learned the truth:

  The first team to call Mars home are all on heavy medication for mental breakdowns. The second had two suicides in transit. The third was uniquely lacking in drama, while the fourth only had one incident: the brutal beating of Jon McKnamara for constantly making lewd comments about his fellow female officer. He almost died but instead, gets to live on Mars as a paraplegic, with his attackers—because no one, no one, comes back from Mars. Not victims, not perpetrators. Colonisation can be hell.

  Every crew is battered with psychological tests and thrown into a hab in the middle of the Sahara for six months before we go anywhere near space. Then it’s another six months on the New International Space Station. We are monitored and assessed and counselled but none of these well-educated people really knows what it’s like to live on another planet; to live in space entirely divorced from Earth. Now that there are a few more scientists Mars-side, everyone’s hoping they’ll be able to figure out how to better prepare the crews. Hoping. It’s the word that encapsulates this endeavour because, really, no one has ever colonised another planet before. Our colonisation is still in its infancy and mistakes are likely to be made.

  It’s not all bad news though, it wasn’t that Mars had become some sort of arena for the worst of mankind, in fact, once the medication kicked in and the newer teams arrived, a kind of stability began to form. The incidents became less frequent as the crews settled in. And it seems that, for now, things are going well. As wars and famines and natural catastrophes monopolise news headlines here on Earth, Mars really is a colony of hope.

  The trainers at the African Space Agency made it very clear that stability is a fragile tension that we must do our utmost to uphold. It would be hard work—both psychologically and physically.

  But even with the uncertainty of the state of Mars, and our place in it, I still wanted in. Or was it Earth that I wanted out of?

  Nkomo has a premise for this and says, ‘Only those who have nothing to lose will risk uncertainty—even the threat of death—and call it exploration.’

  He’s right about one thing: I have nothing to lose even if Mars has little to offer.

  #

  The cafeteria is a microcosm of our various nations. Our flags are hung around the room and when we enter, we are greeted by the comms in our native language. Outside the portal windows, we can see the counter-weight arch that helps create our artificial gravity. And beyond that, black dotted with pinpricks of light. I’m always thrown by the basic human need for food, and the alien vista of space being so near each other. The mundane beside the extraordinary. I wonder if that will ever feel normal.

  Greta, a Hungarian biologist, sits eating something resembling scrambled eggs. She looks up, startled when she realises it’s me. She glances at the exit and then, realising I’m standing in the only way out, reluctantly nods hello.

  ‘Hungry?’ she asks, overly polite, concentrating on pushing the yellow-grey eggs around.

  I’m so tired of everyone being polite when their insincerity is obvious. ‘Not really,’ I say. My stomach still hasn’t settled.

  ‘It’s horrible.’ She pokes her egg substitute glumly. ‘Think it will be better over there?’ she asks.

  ‘I doubt it. Would be nice though—to arrive there and have them lay on a nice braai or roast?’

  ‘Braai?’

  ‘Barbeque?’

  ‘Ah yes. Outside cooking,’ she says and looks pointedly at me.

  I see the problem. No outdoor cooking on Mars. I’m hit with an inconsolable moment of grief for sishanyama. My stomach rumbles.

  ‘Hungry,’ she says again, frowning.

  ‘I guess I should eat.’ I sit down next to her and she stands, collecting her plate.

  ‘Adventure, they say,’ she laughs awkwardly as she walks away, throwing her half-eaten eggs in the garbage disposal. ‘Adventure tastes like shit.’

  #

  There are ten of us on this crew. They’re hoping the next trip—in twelve months’ time—will carry double that. Gradually, they’re exporting a colony to Mars.

  Most people think we’re foolish for sending so many. They think we’re wasting our energy and efforts on the wrong things. Earth needs us. Our dying planet needs our ideas, ingenuity, and more importantly our funding. But in the thousands of years it takes for Earth to properly die, we could be forging our way into the galaxy and making a new home. We hope.

  I sit in the cockpit, taking my turn, watching the ship fly itself, watching for incoming messages from Earth and ASA. There are never any messages other than software updates and course adjustments. I’m fixated instead on the star-filled blackness outside. Somehow, closer to these heavenly bodies, they feel even further away.

  When you’re a kid and you’re in a dark room, you feel like the room is made smaller by the dark. All that black presses in on you, making you far too close to all the things that might devour you. But out here, in space, the black has an infinite quality about it. All that dark is a detached endlessness which seems as though it could never touch you, and yet, it has found its way inside you.

  Once, I spent the Christmas holidays with a friend at her parents’ beach house in the Transkei. Like only white people could then, they’d amassed the
mselves a little paradise where they could stroll down a grassy hill and be on the beach in seconds. We lived on the beach that summer, and once, even though I’m not that enthusiastic about the sea, we went diving. I remember sticking my head under the surface, staring through goggles, and seeing where the water turned murky and went on forever. I had this sudden panic attack thinking how big that sea was. It was a giant expanse and I was small and powerless in it. And yet, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to know what was beyond where I could see.

  Space feels like that to me sometimes. I think that’s why I chose my small garden for my sim.

  #

  When I go back into the sim they’ve inserted music.

  We were asked to choose music that helps us relax. I chose a few ancient tracks by Abdullah Ibrahim because Dumza and I used to listen to him while we gazed through the telescope. It wasn’t the usual stuff kids my age were listening to—like Four-Fifty Indigo, Shwe-Shwe Rebellion, and Tokx—but then, I wasn’t much of a normal kid. Normal kids didn’t happily spend time in their garden with their step-father, staring at Mars. To hear that piano now, I can almost conjure Dumza and that garden without the sim. I recognise the song; Unfettered Muken, one of my favourites.

  The fact that Dumza is there—dressed in his slippers and persistent lecturing uniform of khaki trousers and vintage Star Wars t-shirt—makes me realise, with a sense of irony, that I built the perfect environment for him to show up: the garden, the music, it’s all inextricably linked to him.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ I say to him.

  He shrugs, nonchalant. ‘I didn’t ask to be here.’

  I bend down to look through the telescope, wondering if I should log this in my journal. It’s important for the developers to keep the sim safe and useful but I don’t know what they’re going to do with me if I tell them I’m hallucinating inside the sim.

  ‘It’s not like they can send you home,’ Dumza says, reading my mind.

 

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