Chapter 6
1835 Words
“Why shouldn"t you be credited with the find?” Dr. Kaonde asked her back at Institute Headquarters.
“Because it was N"anga Bapoko who dug it up.” Nosuma realized it was the third time she"d made the argument, and she remonstrated herself for engaging in such futility. It was clear he wouldn"t relent.
He just looked at her. “It isn"t remarkable at all to me that in your brilliance you should discover on your first day in the field an artifact of such profound importance that it rewrites everything we ever knew about the Shona peoples and the Zimbabwes they occupied.”
She bit her lip, tears threatening to pour down her cheeks. “But did you see them? The way they looked at me? Their utter revulsion? As though I"d spat in their faces?”
As though she herself had given birth to the monstrosity.
He too, she could see, was blinking back tears. “Yes, Doctor Okande, it"s true,” he said, his voice sympathetic, “The figurine casts them in an unflattering light.”
“I don"t want Mother Bapoko blamed for the find,” Nosuma said. She turned to the window, the city of Harare spread out before her, the bustle of a major metropolitan center evident even from this distance, the flare of ships launching and landing at the spaceport, people and commerce shooting through sky tubes like corpuscles in veins, helos like birds darting between towers.
How odd, she thought, to be so warmly received in the morning and to earn their silent, scathing castigation by afternoon.
Outside the building near the entrance, a cluster of media hovers had gathered, their antennae poking in all directions, reporters clustered in knots at the vehicles, an empty podium awaiting Doctor Nosuma Okande, stills and vids of the find already spreading across the galactic news wires, the obscure planet Achernar Tertius and its equally isolated Shona peoples launched to prominence by an archeological find that the tabloid media had already seized upon as human-alien interbreeding.
And all the media hype brought them no closer to the mystery of how or why the Great Zimbabwe and all the lesser Zimbabwes had been abandoned.
She turned to him, stilling her inner turmoil. “You"d like me to take credit for the find.”
His gaze narrowed. “You have a condition.”
“That circus down there,” she said, nodding at the media hovers sprouting their insect antennae. “I didn"t ** for that. You handle them. That"s my condition.”
Doctor Tugulu Kaonde smiled broadly. “My pleasure.”
She left out the back door and drove to her hotel a few miles away. During the year-long interview process, she hadn"t been able to make inquiries into accommodations any more comfortable than a hotel room. She hoped none of the property owners had seen today"s news.
The first one she tried, a kind-faced gentleman with a small selection of cottages muttered a profanity and disconnected the call.
Nosuma"s face on vidscreens throughout the constellation, she wondered as she contacted another prospective property owner whether she"d get a similar response.
“I"m of the Mbizitembo Mutupo,” said the second one, “I don"t care one way or another.”
The Zebra Totem, Nosuma translated instantly. He was available later that evening and she made arrangements to look at the property. She ordered a room service meal, exhausted and caring little about the cost, wanting only to rest an hour or two before venturing forth into Harare. She stood at the window, looking out across the twilight city, waiting for her food.
And waited.
And waited.
Forty-five minutes later, she called room service to inquire into the delay.
The manager"s face appeared on the com. “Forgive me, Doctor Okande, but there is no one willing to bring it to your room. They"ve all seen the news.”
“And what about you?” It sounded like a demand.
His lips went white, blood draining from his face. “Alas, I cannot. Further, I am advised I must ask you to leave the premises in the morning with all your belongings.”
“And not return.”
“Yes, I"m afraid so.”
“I"ll be down in a moment to get the meal myself.” She made no effort to hide her fury.
No one looked at her when she appeared at the kitchen door. Just inside the door was a box with her name on it.
The food was good but even so she barely tasted it. She supposed she wouldn"t have found the notoriety so distressing if she weren"t herself a member of the Madziva totem. On her home planet, Alpha Caeli, a moderate climate world, her family had practiced few of the old ways, and it had only been by chance she"d even discovered her totem. The rejection of the hippopotamus clan stung nonetheless.
She sighed, eating mindlessly, looking out over the city, the darkened suite behind her.
On her way out the door, she left the tray just outside her room and made her way to the parking lot. The hover she"d rented took her into a city ablaze with nightlife.
At the address she"d given stood a set of six bungalows. She parked directly under a streetlight. Occasional hovers whined past, only two vehicles parked along this stretch. A few passersby strolled along the sidewalks, one couple greeting her as they passed.
Good, it"s quiet, she thought.
“Certainly they"re small,” said the landlord, showing her the premises. “For widowers, pensioners, single individuals, or newly-wed couples, they"re perfect.”
It was perfect. Tall ceilings, narrow rooms, quaint wainscoting. The furniture was drab and spare, the washed-out pastel fabric able to absorb personal effects without clashing.
“Please,” she said. “I"ll take it. Can it be ready tomorrow?”
“It is ready now, Doctor Okande.” He brought out a holopad. “Here"s the contract.”
“Dishes extra, utilities not included,” she read aloud, “including holovid.” She glanced at the living room wall, where a blank screen sat dormant, brooding.
“There"s a three-day grace period to get the utilities into your name. Initial here, here, and here. Sign there, and I"ll need a thousand galacti, which includes first, last, and security deposit.”
She initialed and signed and delved in her purse for money. “You said you"re of the Mbizitembo Totem. Why are the totems so important here?” She thought she knew, but wanted to hear it.
“Some cling to the old ways out of familiarity. We are only a hundred years out of isolation, Doctor, and there are just three large cities on Babwe. Ninety percent of the populace still lives as they did before the travelers came down from the sky.” He gave her the key and took his leave.
Nosuma wandered for a few minutes through the three rooms, looking at ways to make it her own. A yawn struck her, reminding her she"d had a long day.
Might as well do the hotel manager a favor, she thought.
Nosuma pulled the door shut behind her and walked toward her hover.
“Don"t believe their lies.”
She whirled.
An older man was sitting on the stoop of the bungalow next door, lit from the side by a streetlamp and from behind by a holoscreen inside the house. She felt his gaze on her, even from a distance.
How does he know who I am? she wondered. “I"m Nosuma, your new neighbor.”
“Bakele Thumodi,” he said. “My second new neighbor in as many weeks. A newly-married couple moved in on the other side of you not long ago.”
She saw he was older, swatches of gray at both his temples, cascades of wrinkles along his jowl. His breathing was heavy, as though from a medical condition. The holoscreen behind him played the news, her face flashing upon it briefly as she approached the bungalow. “What do you mean, "Don"t believe their lies"?”
“Those fat hippos are just throwing their weight around. They don"t want you to know the truth.”
“What truth is that, Mr. Thumodi?”
He snorted and looked away. “The hungwe soar above the savannah and see far more than the fat, lazy hippopotamus.”
Fish eagle, she translated, deciding he preferred his innuendo and aphorism to anything more explicit. “How do I regain their trust, far-seeing Fish Eagle?” she asked in English.
He grunted, returning his gaze to her. “You must seek your truth out there, away from that blather.” He gestured first toward the Guru Zimbabwe, and then over his shoulder at the holoscreen playing relentlessly behind him.
“And you?” she asked. “What is your truth?”
“Mine? That I"m a broken old man, too old and broken to live among my people, awaiting my time to become an ancestor. Go, Doctor Okande, and become the vision seeker that your people and mine sorely need.” He threw his head back and laughed, openly mocking her.
Bemused and bewildered, Nosuma strode to her hover, reminding herself never to dismiss the wisdom of the elderly, particularly among a people who had lacked a written language for nearly a thousand years.
At the hotel, she gathered her things. Seeing her dinner tray still outside her door, untouched, she wondered whether to alert the management. Leave it, she told herself. Tell them I"m departing? she wondered, and decided she"d do so only after she"d left the building. Flying her hover out of the parking lot onto the wide boulevard, Nosuma commed the hotel.
As she unloaded her belongings at her new digs, she left her heaviest satchel, her archeology tools, for last.
The old neighbor was gone from his stoop, his bungalow dark.
Realizing how late it was, she readied herself for bed, wondering what she"d find at the office the next day.
Something woke her in the middle of the night.
Nosuma lay there a moment, wondering what had awakened her. Disoriented by the unfamiliar bungalow around her, she rose, the wooden floor cold on her bare feet, chill air seeping under her nightie.
Slipping on a robe, she went to the window and parted the curtain. Twenty feet away was her neighbor"s window, dark, the old man probably dreaming in innuendos. Nosuma went to the opposite side of her new residence and peeked out.
The window on the newlyweds" bungalow was lit up, the couple silhouetted, doing what newlyweds did.
Nosuma smiled, wondering what they"d do if they knew.
A diaphanous mist surged around the silhouette.
She blinked and looked again.
The mist dissipated, absorbed into the bungalow wall.
She shook her head, wondering if she were dreaming. Shaking her head, she dismissed it. So tired I"m seeing things, she thought, retreating to bed.
- Writer
