The Apex Book of World SF 2 Page 6

  It was hard for Katulo to try to describe what he did when Waking. So many things were happening in his body when he performed a ceremony that it was impossible to break them down. Katulo saw Eyo close his eyes in an effort to concentrate harder. "No. If you close your eyes you are blocking one of your senses and focusing too much on your memories. The present moment is just as important. You must see the rabbit in front of you and everything you are doing.

  Eyo opened his eyes and the knife slit the rabbit's throat. He cut a line across its abdomen. Katulo watched intently, and he felt with his other senses. He felt in the land for any shift. Of course it won't happen, he warned himself. Eyo, stuck his finger into the rabbit's lacerated belly and pulled, at the same time he pushed the blade right under the fur. Eyo continued through the motions of skinning and Katulo realised nothing was going to happen.

  "It's…" he began but then stopped. He felt a slight shift. Nothing large, but for a moment he felt a burst of nausea.

  Eyo stopped. "I guess I can't do it."

  "You just did," Katulo said. He was winded.

  "You don't have to say that."

  "I'm not lying. You did it. I can't believe it."

  "I didn't see a ghost."

  "That comes much later. You Woke an echo of the revulsion either you or some other boy felt the first time that they skinned an animal. I could feel it." He was now shouting with joy. He embraced Eyo hard. He had passed on every other skill he knew in one form or other, but he had never been able to find an apprentice for the most valuable. He realised now just how much he had underestimated Eyo because he had not seemed naturally bright. It took him longer to grasp simple concepts than other apprentices. Katulo had tested each for their capacities to Wake but he had not even considered testing Eyo.

  Katulo began planning to cancel all other instruction for Eyo. Every lesson would now be about Waking. The rest could wait. Tomorrow, they could… And then Katulo stopped dreaming. Tomorrow he had a more important task. Tomorrow he had to try and use reason to stop violence from returning to Burundi. Harsh memories slipped back into his conscious mind. No, he thought, reaching forwards and taking the now skinned and skewered rabbit from Eyo. He thrust it into the fire. There was a spark and a sizzle. Right now, he decided, he would just celebrate; he would laugh and eat well with Eyo. Let all the pain and tears come tomorrow.

  7

  When they got back to the village, the first thing Katulo did was check on Chama. He still was not conscious, but his breathing was easier. He let Eyo sleep—the boy had found it difficult to sleep in the forest—and went looking for Osati. He expected him to be at the market. It was the place where most people would be gathered on a Saturday morning. When he reached the market kiosks, his theory was confirmed.

  Osati stood on a makeshift podium of six upturned crates. He shouted loudly and his arm gestures punctuated his every word. "Too long we have been pushed down," he yelled. There was a chorus of assent. Some listened to him as they shopped but most of the people stood still and listened closely. "Because of history we have stayed quiet. Over and over we are reminded of what our fathers did to their fathers as an excuse. They forget what their fathers did to ours. But why should I expect anything to be fair. That is childish of me. After all, there have been no free elections in twelve years. After all, the high positions of the government are all occupied by Hutus. After all, when there is a drought their families get relief while ours have to struggle.

  "We have not always been weak and subjugated. We once had influence and Tutsi children could walk with pride. Our children…"

  Osati continued on the theme of children for a few minutes and then ended by promising that a new future for Burundi could be shaped. There was clapping and chanting when he finished. Katulo had to admit Osati's words were stirring. Osati walked through the crowd shaking hands. People looked at him with the reverence they would give a prophet.

  When Osati saw Katulo he smiled. "I would not have expected to see you here. You've never come to see me speak before."

  "I didn't want to encourage you."

  "You've finally given up hope that I'll give it all up and decide to be a healer?"

  "Maybe."

  "How is Chama?"

  "He's recovering. Not conscious yet."

  "I must apologise to you," there was a fervour in Osati's voice. "When I brought Chama to you, I was tired and angry. I did not treat you with respect."

  "I understand."

  "I have been angry with you for a long time. At the wedding, when you did the Waking, I realised part of me resented that you never could teach me that skill."

  "I pushed you too hard."

  "You were right when you said the wedding should go on," Osati admitted. "We needed that beauty in this time of struggle."

  Katulo felt bothered by Osati's use of the word "struggle". His former apprentice fancied himself as a hero, leading Burundi boldly to a Third Revolution. "There are some things that I also have to admit you are right about," Katulo conceded. "There have been no elections, and the government is mostly Hutu. You are right that changes are needed, but this is not the right way."

  "What way do you think this is?"

  "Violence."

  "Did you hear me say one word about violence?"

  "You were throwing stones in the city."

  "We hurt nobody. Chama is the one lying in your clinic."

  "I went to see Minister Kalé."

  "And what did he say?" Osati's voice was rich with contempt.

  "He will get the boys who attacked you to apologise publicly, if you apologise publicly for the vandalism."

  Osati laughed raucously.

  "It would just be to calm things down."

  "Things don't need to be calmed down. I can't believe you expected me to agree to this. Maybe if they are put on trial."

  "Maybe later."

  "Go away, Katulo. Stick to tending patients in your clinic."

  Osati started to turn away.

  "If you had only been alive during the massacres."

  Osati whirled, filled with rage. "It always comes back to that with you old people. Oh, oh, our terrible past. Oh, the lives lost in the massacres. It's the past. What? We should be docile and let ourselves be ground under the boot of the Hutus because of a memory? "

  "You can't know how bad it was. When I was fourteen I followed my father and some men to a school…"

  "I mourn for all the dead but I am not dead. These people here are not dead. Right now, right here, we are being oppressed." A woman standing nearby clapped her hands at Osati's words. Osati turned and delivered her all his attention.

  Katulo leant heavily on his walking stick. What did I expect when I came here? That he would agree? No. I knew this is what would happen, but I had to try anyway. Katulo walked away from the market slowly. His body felt more exhausted than it had in a long time.

  8

  When Katulo walked into the clinic, he knew with just one look at Chama. He walked forwards and pressed a finger against his pulse. It was as he had feared. Chama was dead.

  How could it have happened? He had been recovering, but Katulo knew as he thought this that nothing was certain after a wound like Chama's. A sudden seizure or a spasm could change everything. If I had only been here, he cursed himself. Why did I have to go to that bloody market? Maybe I could have…

  The thoughts faded away and Katulo let go of his walking staff. He crumpled to the floor. His eyes were focused on Chama's corpse. He knew what he was meant to do next. Contact the family, tell them what had happened, say those empty words of condolence, and then…what? Osati would find out. The rage of the villagers would be at a peak. And then…what? Suddenly, he was fourteen years old again, standing in the corridor of the primary school. He felt dizzy. He wished he could hide somewhere no-one could find him. If only he could disappear with Chama's body and if no-one knew, if it had never happened, if he went into a dark cave far away, if no-one ever found out, if he never told any
one, if maybe…

  The door opened. "…I thought I heard you. I didn't know where you…" Eyo saw Katulo on the floor. He crouched beside him. "Are you all right? Did you fall?"

  Katulo spoke slowly. "Go to the home of Chama's family. You must tell them…"

  Eyo looked at the corpse. "When… How?"

  "Go."

  Eyo grabbed hold of Katulo's arms and tried to pull him up.

  "Just go." He said the words harshly.

  The wind blew the door shut after Eyo had left.

  Katulo sat there for a long time. His only movement was the rise and fall of his chest. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. His mind was only partly in the clinic. The rest drifted into the past as it did when he was performing a Waking. His muscles sagged, pulling down his bones with their weight. Sweat made his clothes stick to him. His head span. An hour passed.

  The door flew open. Chama ran in. He was gasping. "You have to come." He saw Katulo was still on the ground and his face filled with shock. He repeated himself. "You have to come. Osati was at Chama's father's house. When he found out, he started shouting and people came to listen. Then… They are going to Bujumbura."

  Katulo was still not responding.

  "Chama's father. He opened the police station. He gave them guns."

  Katulo looked up now.

  "They said they will take Chama's killers by force."

  Katulo could see it as clearly as if it had already happened. There would be shouting and screaming. The police would be called. The mob would be angry, scared, and carrying guns. The police would be nervous, angry, and carry guns. Someone would shoot first. It wouldn't matter which side. There would be a death, Hutu or Tutsi. And that would just be the beginning. It would begin in Bujumbura and spread to the rest of the country. Rage, beatings, killings, accusations, running, hiding, homes being burnt down…things that people swore would never happen again. And he could do nothing.

  "You have to come," Eyo said for a third time. "Please."

  And what can I do? Eyo was looking at him with so much hope. Eyo, who symbolised his own hopes to pass on the skill of Waking. "I will come," he said at last. His skills as a healer would be needed.

  He got up. "How long ago did they go?"

  "I ran here. They were on the way to the police station."

  "We won't be able to catch them but if we hurry we will arrive in Bujumbura just after them."

  Katulo wished there was a car they could take but the only car in the village had no gasoline. Burundi's petrol reserves had run dry over a decade ago. Katulo accepted Eyo's help to stand up. He and Eyo collected up his medical supplies and stuffed them into a leather bag. Katulo went to his house and packed the extra bandages he kept underneath a closet. Beside the boxes of medicines, he saw a machete. He used it occasionally to garden behind his house. It made him think of Chama's wound, the catalyst for the violence that was sure to happen later. He picked up the machete and stuffed it into the bag.

  9

  Osati and four hundred and seventeen men and women from Azamé village were shouting in Bujumbura's streets by the time Katulo and Eyo arrived. They were demanding the killers of Chama be brought in front of them. Twenty of them were carrying guns and the rest had rakes, machetes, spades and broom handles. Osati was standing on top of a cart shouting, "We want them. Bring them out."

  There were hundreds of other people there, too. "Go away, you Tutsi scum," Katulo heard someone shout. There was a group of Bujumbura citizens facing the villagers. Many of them were also carrying makeshift weapons. Osati tried to make his way through the entropy. His walking stick was knocked from under him. He started to fall but Eyo caught him and the wooden staff. They continued through.

  A shrill whistle sounded. It announced the arrival of a third group. The police. They were wearing riot gear and holding up batons. A few were holding up guns. One of them spoke through a megaphone. "Go home, go home now."

  The presence of the police added more volatility to the already tense masses. Unease rippled through the mob. Eyo shouted something but Katulo could not hear him through the din. Katulo saw a woman whose son he had treated for tonsillitis, crouch. She had two sons, a six-year-old and a ten-year-old. When she stood up, she was holding a stone. She flung it and it struck the side of a face. In response, a wooden pole rose and was brought down on the head of a Tutsi villager. Beside the man the pole had struck stood a man with a gun. He pointed it. The trigger was squeezed. The bullet tore through the shoulder of the man holding the pole.

  Katulo reached into his medical bag. He had wished it would not be necessary but this was only the beginning of the bloodshed. Soon, people would begin to die. There was only one thing Katulo could do. His hand was trembling. He grabbed the hilt of the machete and he pulled it out. He opened himself to the land. He felt the streets around him and reached into them. He pulled out the past. In his mind, he was fourteen years old again, out of breath and desperately afraid his father was dead. He was sprinting down that school corridor again, with every step getting closer to those terrible sounds: shrieks and gurgles and wails. At the end of the corridor, opposite a sign that said "EMERGENCY EXIT", there was a half-open door. Katulo looked in and he saw a pile of bodies. They were tiny, frail children's bodies stacked up like bricks of flesh and bone. The children who were still alive were standing in a line and clutching each other. Katulo saw his father and the other men walking down the line. He saw his father push a uniform-clad six-year-old Hutu to the floor and swing his machete. He did not slash her only once. He lifted it again and then brought it down over and over again. Hacking.

  The revulsion and confusion Katulo had felt returned to him. He had run away. He had hidden in the forest, wept alone, and then returned home before nightfall. He did not mention what he had seen. When he saw his father again, he hugged him and pretended he had not been there. He had never mentioned that day. He had decided never to let that memory control him but now he had to let it. It suffused him. But the memory was not enough. Katulo had never killed so the land could not Wake unless…

  His fingers tensed against the machete's hilt and with an abrupt swipe he brought the blade down against Eyo's neck. He saw shock in Eyo's eyes for a split-second and then the blade crushed his apprentice's throat. Blood sprayed and dripped down the blade onto his clenched fingers.

  All around Katulo, people gasped. Suddenly, smoky figures had appeared in their midst. Most Wakings called a few. Forty or fifty spirits was the most Katulo had seen at a Waking. But the streets of Bujumbura were deeply scarred. Wounds that had been closed and ignored for seven decades ripped open. Screams deafened Katulo and all around, echoes of viciousness were reanimated. Hundreds of spectral men appeared in the streets strangling each other, lashing bare backs with vine whips, stabbing, shooting and rejoicing. Near one wall, a vague figure lifted a baby and smashed its head against the wall. On the floor in front of some Azamé villagers, a man in a soldier's uniform raped a woman with the sharp end of a kitchen knife. The living watched with horror.

  The Waking was not restricted to the streets. Throughout Bujumbura men and women saw monstrosities. In a bar, laughing patrons were choked into silence when six figures materialised in front of them. Five of them stood around a single man and were beating him mercilessly. In one house, a couple's conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a man kneeling on the floor with his face in a mound of dung. Behind him, another man was laughing and pressing a gun against his temple. There was a loud bang and the kneeling man died.

  There was blood, so much blood. The living could smell it so strongly they could taste it. They felt the rage and desperate lust for revenge consuming the awakened spirits. Some of the living ran to escape the horrors they were witnessing, but in every street they ran into there was more. Old pain and old death celebrated at being rekindled. Forgotten cruelty ran rampant.

  Katulo stood looking, not at the spirits around him, but at the broken body of Eyo. The corpse lay in front of him, eyes
and mouth still open. His neck bone was exposed. Somewhere in Bujumbura, a group of terrified people watched an echo of Katulo's father murder fifteen schoolchildren. Katulo did not care about that memory any more. What he had done was the only thing in his mind. His body quaked and his voice cracked. He howled like an infant, hating every person in Bujumbura, but none as much as he loathed himself. The rampage of the spirits continued for an hour. Katulo was blind to them. When they finally disappeared, he, too, was gone.

  10

  The murderers of Chama were never punished. There was no trial, but there was also no slaughter. The Azamé villagers returned home.

  Katulo was never seen again. Some said he had died but no body was found. At marriages, harvests and initiations there was no longer a Waking ceremony. Waking was now a part of legend like rainmaking and giants.

  If Katulo had lived on, it cannot have been for long. There were occasional rumours that he had been seen walking alone in the streets or by a river in ragged clothes. One of his ex-apprentices said that he had seen Katulo one morning, bent over the place where Eyo had died. He could not be sure. The old man he had seen rushed off. Where the old man had been, between gravel and weeds, a slender white sapling had been planted.

  The First Peruvian in Space

  Daniel Salvo

  Translated by Jose B. Adolph

  Peruvian Daniel Salvo is the creator of Ciencia Ficción Perú, a web site devoted to science fiction. He is a writer and researcher in the field of fantasy and science fiction and has written the first survey of Peruvian SF. The following story appears in English for the first time.

  Anatolio Pomahuanca had reason enough to hate whites. Hundreds of years ago they had invaded and conquered his world and reduced his forebears to the sad condition of serfs or second-class citizens. There were historic changes like independence wars, rebellions and revolutions. But, be it as it may, whites were still those who ruled and decided everything in Peru and throughout the rest of the world. "Now we live in a democracy, we have made great progress in human rights and integration," they proclaimed. Anatolio smiled crookedly every time he heard such used-up and false sayings. Weren't the president, the military and the priests white? Had anyone ever seen a native holding a decisive post? If he could, he would have spat on the floor. All whites were shit.