In anguish, Professor Mungwaru Zule, head of the space station Kulinda VII, renamed the planet Pód meaning cold, and Kulinda VII he dubbed Potero: refuge.
However, Interplanetary Law held that as there was still an indigenous Bvukian population, the frozen planet was not open to colonists and prospectors. This law was needlessly enforced by the fact that every mission to Pód, illegal or not, had been a failure. Furthermore, it was now widely understood that only Potero-sanctioned missions could be conducted without fear of violence out in open space. Potero, under Professor Zule’s son, Chimba, became the de facto representative of Pód at the Commonwealth Assembly. The space-station sustained itself at first by selling water prospecting rights, and then investing the proceeds in interplanetary trade across the Commonwealth.
In the past twenty-years, a growing population, an ebb in applications for prospecting licences and a downturn in interplanetary trade had taken their toll on Potero. It was estimated that if there wasn’t any money to pay for repairs, Potero would simply drop into Ve-Haqq in five years. The Pód & Potero Government was yet to make an official request to the Commonwealth for assistance, not while other solutions still seemed possible. Solutions that were not attended by the rattle and clanging of fetters. Such as the privately-communicated proposal by the Emperor of Renje that Potero join his realm. This precipitated threats, also privately communicated, by the other planets that they would see the space station blown up before they let it enter into political union with a rival.
It was then that the Commonwealth Secretariat decided to act. A line of credit was extended to Potero, enabling us to finance what was being described as the first exploratory mission in over forty Standard Years. Chapungu I was a robot mission, meant to conduct a more thorough study of Pód’s climate with a view to finding that one place on the planet where man could begin to reclaim it from nature. We were the follow-up, Chapungu II.
That was the official version of events. Any planet intercepting Chapungu I and II’s transmissions would have deduced that we were in a serious predicament, as the entire planet was frozen. Such a planet would have gloated, convinced that we were too desperate now to refuse any offers of political union. An easy enough deduction to make, since they wouldn’t have suspected Dr Hanga’s presence aboard.
Dr Tambayi Hanga’s grandfather, Jama, had worked on the development of technology to move massive objects, such as a planetoid. It was an experiment in this project that dislodged Bvuku from its orbit. Fearing that they would be charged with genocide, Jama Hanga hid the accumulated knowledge on the one place he was sure no one, even if they somehow learnt of its existence, would ever think to look. Planet Pód.
However, the real reason no one had ever thought to look was because the way in which our homeworld had been dislodged from its orbit remained a closely-guarded secret.
The data Chapungu I and II sent back was all fake, the careful efforts of about thirty graphics experts on Potero. The real objective, Prof. Jama Hanga’s notes, was still down there among those frozen wastes. We were here to retrieve them.
‘Fire laser,’ I commanded.
‘Laser-firing sequence initiated,’ said Kalu, without taking her eyes off her monitor. She was tapping commands with her slim fingers. As the land below heated, a plume of steam erupted to receive the ship, cushioning it against crashing into the mountains of ice and guiding it in an arc towards the surface. It splashed into the lake that had appeared.
‘Flues!’ I said, frantically, as an alarm sounded. We had barely seconds to prepare before all the water froze, trapping us.
‘Flues up!’ said Njike.
Two tubes, like a snail’s antennae, began to prod out of the Chapungu II and burn their way through the ice. At their heads were nuclear-powered pumps, to get the water out of the tunnel we were creating as we seared deeper into the ice. When it was time for us to leave, the water would be allowed to fill the tunnel again, raising the Chapungu II to the surface while the water froze behind us.
The alarm fell silent; so far so good. I turned my head to see how Dr Hanga was doing. The academic seemed alone with his thoughts. There was no time to ask him, but I am sure I could guess what they were. He was reflecting on the fact that his own parents had seen this planet with their own eyes. The planet his parents knew did not exist anymore. Except, I reflected further, he wasn’t actually seeing this planet with his own eyes right now. None of us ever could. Rather, he was seated in a superheated metal shell that was literally burning its way through sheer ice. Our old world was new, waiting to be discovered.
Another alarm sounded as I guided the ship to a rest. Njike looked at me, her face filled with awe. ‘We are here!’ she said in a hushed voice.
‘It is here!’ I said.
For two weeks, our robots bored deeper into the ice. Njike worked them, repaired them, reprogrammed them. I worked the ship. Dr Hanga retreated to his lab. How the Chapungu II was bearing up under the conditions on Pód deviated slightly from the projections the Exploration Lab team had come up with during simulation runs. All this new data could be valuable if we hoped to revive our lucrative prospecting licences sales. Or if we hoped to make such expeditions more affordable in the future.
One hundred and forty-eight Standard Years, nearly to the day our planet was flung from the life-sustaining warmth of the Three Suns, we found Prof. Jama Hanga’s notes, a ndarium-encased cube the size of a human fist. There was no time to celebrate the moment. The cube was programmed to collapse in twenty minutes once the temperature around it changed by just two degrees. I transmitted the ship’s credentials, encrypted in what would seem to a casual scanner the random seismic vibrations of ice under pressure.
‘It should be happening now,’ said Njike, rising from her seat. I followed her to the lab. We paused outside for a moment. This was it, the recovery of our past that would take us to the future.
The door panel slid aside. Dr Hanga was not alone. Another man stood over him, a hologram, dressed in the attire of a planet-side Bvukian. The family resemblance was startling. ‘About two hundred years ago, scientists at the Bvuku Astronomical Institute projected that the Commonwealth of Worlds would face an acute water shortage. The most viable option to confront this disaster lay in harnessing the comets. We were developing a Repulsor Beam that could move massive objects in space. So, the official version of history, that planet Bvuku was dislodged from its orbit when it was hit by three comets at the same time, plunging it into its perpetual winter, is partly true. We, a team of scientists in our bid to sustain the life of millions, are responsible for the death of millions.’
Professor Jama Hanga paused, as if waiting for the full impact of his words on his audience. ‘I cannot predict what conditions my message will find you in. If there are security concerns, and interplanetary intrigue and ambition have escalated since my time, it is likely that you are left with no alternative but to apply the repulsor to military purposes. If that is the case, look upon this world, your world, and think long and hard about the power you would unleash onto the Commonwealth. I pray that you will see at once that a secure future for all lies in returning to our original goal in developing the beam.’
Again, Prof. Hanga paused, this time to change his tone, from that of a pedagogue to a demagogue. ‘Our leaders’ vision was of the immense power we would wield by controlling the system’s water supplies. The power to sustain a population whose growth would be inevitably precipitated by the creation of the Commonwealth.’
This time, the pause was longer, as if the ancient scientist had foreseen that we would need more time to process this ultimate vision. Then, he smiled. ‘I do not know how long it has taken you to raise the funds for this mission. But I am sure that you have come back home, to your past, because your future depends on it now more than ever. I will now transmit to you all our knowledge of the Repulsor Beam. I will also reveal to you the location of the prototype that drew the comets close, and, alas, pushed our homeworld away. You will nee
d it to defend the knowledge that you have now acquired. I leave you with a fervent prayer that the ancestors rise up to guide and protect you now! The millions who died here, the onus of ensuring that their deaths were not entirely for nothing is on you.’
Prof. Hanga leaned forward and made a motion with his right hand. The hologram winked out, leaving us in utter silence. ‘Let’s get started!’ he said, heading to his workstation.
Njike’s robots found the prototype Repulsor after a three-week search. There was enough scrap metal around it to build more bots to execute the engineering programme that she had written. The Chapungu II had been designed to take us back home. Now that our mission had been a success, however, we could modify it to become the first base of operations here, the saved fuel essential for our prolonged stay. Any of the interplanetary eavesdroppers monitoring our transmissions would learn that the Chapungu II met its end after a power failure, and its crew perished. Interest in Pód would wane for a period long enough for us to strengthen our presence.
I was in my quarters when Njike came in, breathless, to announce that a Renjeian ship of the Kodi class was now in orbit around this planet. We rushed to the cockpit. I turned on the transmitter. ‘This is Space Lieutenant Kalu Loma of the Pód and Kalinda VII Space Force. Please be advised that you have illegally entered our territory.’
The response was immediate. ‘That is a matter of formalities, which I have no time for, Loma. Soon, you will join the Empire and whatever it is you have down there will be the property of the Emperor!’
‘My government has not informed me of any intention to join your Empire!’ I said, my voice calm despite a rising anger. ‘Until then, I am under orders to defend this planet.’
There was a mocking laugh at the other end. ‘You and which army? This ship can locate you by the vibrations your equipment is making on that lump of ice and blow you away in seconds.’
It could, at that.
‘The Rombesans would not like that, I am afraid. Come to think of it, neither would your Emperor.’
‘What do the Rombesans have to do with anything?’
‘Planet Rombesa is our first customer,’ I said. ‘They have ordered water from us. That is the purpose of this mission, to obtain water from Pód and transport it to Rombesa. You will find that it was properly documented with the Commonwealth Secretariat.’
The transmitter went off. No doubt a little conference was being held aboard the Kodi. Minutes later, the transmitter came back to life. ‘What if we just came down there and took over this operation? I am sure the Rombesans do not mind who is selling them the water as long as the delivery is made.’
Spoken like a typical Renjeian functionary. I glanced at Njike. ‘Ten minutes,’ she mouthed.
‘You have less than ten minutes to do all that,’ I said, my voice more confident. ‘Because I am about to send you somewhere very far away. Thank you very much for stopping by, but we have work to do right now.’
I cut the transmission, and we waited for the Renjeians to come into range of the repulsor.
Masimba Musodza was born and raised in Zimbabwe but has lived most of his adult life in the United Kingdom. He has been published in Zimbabwe, the US, the UK, Jamaica and online. He has pioneered speculative fiction in his native language, ChiShona. masimbamusodza.co.uk
Safari Nyota: A Prologue
Dilman Dila
The humans were asleep. Not dead, or preserved corpses, which his Adaptive Memory identified as the right technical terms. Asleep, his Base Memory insisted they were asleep. Since B-Mem guided his operating system, it overrode the prejudices of A-Mem, so he saw them as asleep. With their eyes closed, their faces peaceful, their naked bodies floating in cryogenic tanks as though they were embryos in wombs, that is what it looked like. Asleep. But, his A-Mem was built to give him consciousness, to make him think and behave like his human doppelganger—who was in one of the five hundred and sixty-three tanks in this chamber, aptly named the Womb-Tomb—and the A-Mem had images of his father in a coffin. His baba had looked like this, seemingly asleep.
Polar error #985785185385.
Blink twice to autocorrect. Blink once to ignore.
Caution: Some programs may not function if you ignore a polar error.
He blinked twice.
Autocorrect kicked in.
They were on a journey across the stars to a planet called Ensi, which was blue and believed able to sustain life. Humans could not make the journey alive for it would take a thousand Earth years, so they went into a long sleep, to reawaken upon arrival. Not like in the classical folk tale where a prince kissed a beauty to rouse her from a hundred years of sleep. Not like in the horror book where a scientist resurrected a mummy from a thousand years of death. Not like in Frankenstein where another scientist sewed up pieces of different corpses and gave the monster life. It would be very much like Lazarus, though in this case a machine, and not a god, would perform the resurrection, and the dead bodies would have been meticulously preserved for a thousand years, not just four days. It would be very much like hibernation, only that the heart had to be stopped for it could not beat for a thousand years and remain functioning. The Lazarus Machine would revive the heart while the corpse is still in the cryogenic tank, and then ease the reanimated human out of the tank just as though it were plucking a baby from a womb. Like new-born babies, upon awaking, the humans would have no memories. They would have to learn everything, including how to be themselves, from their android doppelgangers.
As part of autocorrect, Otim-droid floated down the Womb-Tomb to the seventh column of the twelfth row, where Otim-man lay in a fluid that made his beard look as though it was smeared with flour. This is an out-of-body-experience, his B-Mem instructed his A-Mem as he looked at his body in the tank. When the right time comes, I’ll return to it, byte by byte, until I’m my old self again, back in my flesh and blood and bone body, in a new world, eleven light-years away from home.
But as he watched his face, as he looked at that all-white beard, which looked like a white flame, the resemblance to his father became so strong that it dragged up memories of his baba in a coffin of bark cloth. It seemed then that Baba’s beard had grown a lot bigger and he had wondered if the mortician had added artificial hair to beautify the dead face? Possibly. His father had died in a boating accident. He had overstayed in the lake during a fishing expedition and the lake became angry. They found his body after five days. Maybe it was so grotesque that the mortician had to make it human, and so added a lot of facial hair.
Otim-man had wanted to look like that. He did not want to let go of the last image he had of his father, and he wanted this image to be the first thing he saw when he woke up in the new world. So, Otim-man did not shave for two years, from the day he became an astronaut. His beard grew wild and he bleached it white, until the resemblance to his father was so strong that some people, on seeing their photographs side-by-side, mistook them for twins.
Now, as Otim-droid watched his own face in the tank, he saw his baba’s face wrapped in bark-cloth. Dead. Asleep, the B-Mem chimed in, like a parrot that had learned a word whose meaning it could not fathom. Dead, his A-Mem whispered. Asleep. Asleep. Asleep. Asleep. Asleep. Dead. Asleep. Dead.
Polar error #985785185385.
Blink twice to autocorrect. Blink once to ignore.
Caution: Some programs may not function if you ignore a polar error.
He did not blink. Otim-man should not have shown him that photo, the last one taken of Baba, but Otim-man had thought it very important.
‘I can’t be me without the memory of my father,’ he had said. ‘You must know about my father and teach my future self to treasure him as I have.’
They had spent countless hours talking about Baba, until Otim-droid could recreate the emotions the memories dragged up. They talked about Baba more than they talked about Nyakwe, even though Nyakwe’s rejection had compelled him to become an astronaut and volunteer to crew the one-way ship. He had loved her
with all his heart. He had wanted nothing but to be with her all his life. Alas! She was in love with another man. He could not live with that. He could not live on the same planet, not even in the same solar-system, where she was in another man’s bed. He signed up for the call to pioneer the journey out into the galaxy, knowing he would never return, that he would die, and awake a thousand years later. He did not want to remember her when he awoke on the other side. He never showed his droid-doppelganger her photos, he never talked about her much. During the Memory-Transfer-Period, the one year before the journey when he lived with a droid so that the droid could learn to be him, he instructed it to ignore anything related to her. To dump it in the TrashDrive and to never bring it up in the reverse Memory-Transfer-Period, when the droid would teach him how to be himself again. He wanted to forget her.
Not Baba. He could not forget Baba.
Otim-man had shown his droid the photo album that told the history of his family. Pictures of his father as a little boy, playing on the shores of the lake, learning to fish. Baba with his first catch, a tiny tilapia, with his first boat, a small dug-out canoe, with the first house he built from selling fish, a mud-walled structure with iron-sheet roofing. Photos of Baba with his first love, who he married and was Otim-man’s mother. Then there were photos of Otim-man as an infant, only that at that time he was just Otim, a little boy without a droid-doppelganger, relishing in the happiness of growing up the only child of a fisherman. There were sad photos, of when Otim-man’s mother fell sick, of the long time it took her to die, of Otim-man and Baba sharing a beer at home after her funeral, of Otim-man crying and Baba holding him to comfort him. Then Otim-man joining the army, and a sense of happiness returning to the family. There were several pages missing, which Otim-droid suspected related to Nyakwe coming into Otim-man’s life. The final pictures were from Baba’s funeral, with the last photo being of Baba in a bark-cloth coffin, just before they lowered him into a grave, looking very much as Otim-man did now in the cryogenic tank.
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