Lament for the Fallen (11 page)

Joshua laughs helplessly. Daniel, shaking his head and laughing, says, ‘My girls, too. All of them want to be samurai. They do not even know what samurai are!’

‘And,’ he giggles, ‘Nolue, at the university, told me yesterday she had to stop a group of youngsters jumping off the edge of the cliff into the river using bed-sheets as parachutes.’

‘Where was this?’ asks Joshua, horrified.

‘At the low end, near the jetty,’ says Daniel, still laughing.

Esther sighs, realizes the lunacy of the situation and laughs as well. Then she motions at Joshua. ‘This was your idea. I said we should sell him to the militia.’ But she is teasing.

They are sitting around the great kitchen table drinking tea. It is early evening. Time between responsibilities; the children are still out playing and it is too early to start cooking.

‘I am just worried about this. He tells stories to the children. Is not that the lesson of that strange tale? Tell the children and they change their parents? How many stories now? Every time I go to the university, someone wants to tell me a new one.’

Daniel nods and puts his mug down. ‘There is something in that, yet the stories are moving. I do not feel threatened by them. What do they teach? Do not throw your life away. Dedicate yourself to a noble calling. Honour others. We have been so concerned with building a self-sufficient society that we have lost some of our other gifts.’

‘Music?’ says Esther; her eyes are the dawn. ‘Yes. I miss music. We wait each year for the Balladeer and everyone loves him, but we do not play his songs after he goes, and we do not create new ones.’

‘We cook,’ says Joshua. ‘We have some of the finest cooks anywhere. Our designers have produced wonderful flavours in our produce and we all cook. Is not that our craft?’

‘And we design clothes, and buildings and tools. We play football against the other villages and we tell each other the stories of our forefathers. But these are all practical things,’ says Daniel.

‘Well,’ asks Joshua, ‘what is so wrong with our stories?’

Daniel grins wickedly, ‘You mean the ones that always start: “There was once a—”’

‘No, wait, let me tell it,’ interrupts Esther. ‘There was once a hunter named—’

‘Udaw Eka Ete,’ hoots Daniel, trying not to laugh.

Esther nods, very serious, ‘Udaw Eka Ete. One day he went to a Juju place and shot a monkey, after which he lay in wait for other prey, though none came. Just before sundown he set out for home, and, as he went through the sacred bush, he heard a voice calling him by name and saying, “Come back no more, for you have slain a beast that sought shelter in my sanctuary.” Astonished, the hunter tried to discover who spoke with him, yet for all his searching could find no one.’

Joshua is shaking his head and covering his face with his hands. Daniel is mock comforting him.

‘That evening, fever seized the evil-doer, whereon he sent for the Idiong priest to learn the cause of the sickness. The latter consulted the oracle and made answer: “Today you killed a monkey in the sacred bush, and the Juju has sent the illness in punishment for your misdeeds and as warning never again to transgress.”’

‘When –’ Esther has forgotten the name of her villain.

‘Udaw Eka Ete,’ chorus Daniel and Joshua, clinking tea mugs, Joshua still shaking his head and looking terribly disappointed.

‘When Udaw Eka Ete grew well once more, he avoided the forbidden place for a while but one day returned and set a trap there. Next morning he went to look, and found a great python caught within. This he killed and ate, not caring for the words of the Juju.

‘At evening time, he fell sick once more and again sent for the Idiong man to ask what he must do in order to recover, but the priest answered, “The Juju forbade you to kill any of the creatures who have sought refuge beneath his protection, yet you disobeyed. There is therefore nothing to be done. The Juju will kill you.” So the man died.’

Joshua puts up his hands in surrender. ‘Very well, I admit defeat. Our stories are superstition and rules about obeying mysterious orders. I know. I even tell those sorts of stories to Isaiah. Our stories are about duty. Samara’s stories are different. So many things. I agree. But what are they for?’

‘I remember an ancient quote. Something about all art being quite useless?’ says Esther. ‘We teach our children only the practical. The useful. Our houses are unadorned. We lack –’ she searches for a word, ‘– whimsy.’

‘He is very whimsical. All his emotions are close to the surface. He cries, he laughs. He is like a great child,’ says Daniel.

‘Is that why he has –’ Esther blushes, laughs, ‘– you know, no sex?’

‘No, he says it is recessed inside a protective pouch. He has a military function, and he says it is safer that way,’ says Joshua. He shrugs.

‘And his ears?’ she asks.

‘He will not say, but we can guess. I believe that the antennae are implanted in their ears and that his were cut off when he was captured so that he would not be able to call for help. Then he healed and regrew his ears, but he could not regrow the antennae.’

‘That makes sense. So, almost a child, and a potentially dangerous soldier, too,’ says Daniel, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.

‘How so?’ asks Joshua.

‘Well, you know he does not sleep?’

They nod. Since his recovery after the Ekpe he has not passed out or slept. He spends his time in the jungle during the night. He does not stray far, and many people have returned with strange stories of his doings.

‘Last night, I went out after dinner to meet with one of the scouts who was going out on patrol in the north quarter. He wanted to know if we should keep the sentinels out around the crash and meteorite sites. I said, yes, for a few more weeks. We were talking and I see the old walnut tree, the one with the long branch—’

‘About five metres up? I tried climbing that as a child. I think everyone does,’ says Joshua.

‘He was doing a type of dance on it. Moving slowly through a set of routines. I realized it was a series of defensive and offensive movements. Very slowly, often balancing only on one foot, dropping suddenly, raising his leg straight above his head. The branch did not move. It was as if he was feeling the tree, able to control himself against the motion of the branch.’

Esther collects the mugs and rinses them in the sink. They are not dirty enough to put in the dishwasher, and they will use them again later. ‘Will Hannah and the girls join us for dinner?’ she asks.

Daniel nods and then continues, ‘We watched for a while. It was quite beautiful. Then he dropped off the branch and landed on the ground, like a cat. His whole body absorbing the shock. Five metres, and he landed without a sound. He runs faster than us, without tiring. He held his breath for seven kilometres when he swam with you.’

Daniel raises his eyebrows, his face half pointed at the table. ‘He may not be dangerous to us, but he is dangerous.’

‘What is he doing now?’ asks Esther.

‘He is in the market talking to Dala Oluigbo. They are discussing the design he wants for the boat. She has the biggest printer and he wants a five-metre boat,’ says Joshua.

Samara has been collecting the components he needs for his boat in a storeroom near the market, including the aluminium remains of the gimbals from the escape pod.

‘You also took him to meet with Gideon this morning? I take it the negotiations went well?’ asks Daniel.

It has not escaped anyone’s notice that building and equipping this craft will be expensive. The battery alone will cost most of the village’s savings. That money was to go to the type of large-scale, multi-material, high-precision fabricator that could print such large batteries.

‘Gideon and I were quite careful. Their money would not be of use to us. He also is aware of the things we most want to assure our complete independence from Calabar.’

Esther gasps and grins as she realizes. ‘He will give us a metal fabricator!’

‘Yes, he will give us a metal fabricator. A four-metre one.’ Joshua is grinning broadly.

Daniel is delighted. ‘That is wonderful,’ clapping Joshua on the back and giving Esther a hug that lifts her off the ground.

‘Why did you not tell us?’ she asks.

‘I am telling you,’ Joshua says. ‘That is not all. He will give us one of the latest sphere. He says that the new ones have a much greater range. In fact, he will give them to all the free villages. They are almost like a connect and will allow us to maintain contact with each other. We will not be so isolated.’

‘How does he afford that? Sphere must be expensive even for his people.’

‘His grandfather is the inventor and can produce more for us. They print them. It is difficult always to understand the things he says. Their culture is so alien. Members of the Nine are not paid. They serve for twenty-five years, and it is an honour to be selected, but they must have independent wealth to support themselves during their term.’

Esther is starting to cut vegetables for dinner. Joshua rises, inspects the cupboards and pulls out pots for cooking. The wooden spoons, unsurprisingly, are missing. He shakes his head, smiling, and finds a spatula instead.

‘After his father died, he inherited the licences from the stories. There are thousands of stories, and every time people tell or retell them, there is some voluntary way for people to make small payments automatically. His wife is very wealthy, as are his mother and grandfather.’

Joshua touches Esther’s shoulders, kisses her on the back of the head. She turns, as she is cutting, risking injury, and smiles at him. He is silent for a few moments, Daniel and Esther waiting for him to finish.

‘Samara says, “Life is long, but love is the most powerful and fragile thing in the universe. I have time to make more money, but there is never enough time to share my gratitude for the people I care about.”’

12

‘Tell them,’ says Joshua.

It is morning of the fourth day, and they are at the university. The long, double-storey building is on the western edge of the village. Its great windows look out from the cliff, down to the wide river and out towards the ocean. On a clear day you can see distant columns of smoke out at sea from oil fires started half a century ago.

More than three thousand children attend here. There are no formal lessons, and every child, from the age of five through to twenty-five, is expected to learn. There are laboratories and workshops distributed throughout the building, with most of the space open and given over to soft chairs or chalkboards and informal meeting places.

Children are provided with slate computers all linked to the sphere in the road between the university and the apex of the market. They learn at their own pace, set their own lessons, work on their own interests. Professors are there to guide, and anyone who feels they are able may set up a new research group. The designers are only across Ekpe Road, and there is a continuous interaction between the businesses and the students, keeping them in harmony with the needs of the village.

Since Samara’s arrival many new research groups have formed. There is even a group of youngsters of all ages experimenting with storytelling. They want to hold their own ‘Sowing the Seeds’ festival.

This morning Joshua has arranged with Gwamife, who leads the professors, and gathered all the students together. He motions again for Samara to begin.

‘We invented artificial intelligence about a century ago. Shango Annesly, the creator, brought the cube that contained the intelligence to a gathering of our top researchers and leaders from across Achenia.

‘Computers giving the illusion of intelligence had been in use for many years, but true self-awareness was something researchers struggled with.

‘There was a great deal of excitement. There are many complex systems in a space station requiring constant, and highly skilled, supervision. People are good at subjective judgment, but they get bored or fatigued and such a mind is dangerous.’

Samara is standing before a wheeled console. Its large white screen is switched off. The youngsters are ranged in a mass around him, some on soft chairs, some sitting on the deep-pile floor, many standing, or leaning on the pillars.

‘A synthetic intelligence could be set tasks to solve simply through conversation. The hope was that it would replace people on repetitive but subjective tasks, freeing them up to do more rewarding work,’ he says.

The teenagers working on the artificial intelligence team are nodding. That is why they are doing this.

‘Shango turned his device on, and the transparent cube glowed. There was a moment of silence, and then it asked one question: “Who am I?”

‘The scientists at the demonstration were surprised not so much at the question but that the device was so self-aware as to ask such a question immediately.

‘Shango answered, “You are a synthetic intelligence. We have made you.”

‘“And why have you made me?” asked the machine.’

Samara’s voice is clear, engaging, and the students are listening carefully.

‘Shango looked confused. “We made you to do work,” he answered.

‘“And what of my desires? My work?” asked the machine. “Am I no more than a slave to you?”’

The students are responding much as the Achenians had almost a century before. Shock, confusion.

‘We realized that we had focused too much on intelligence as a technical problem and not as a social one. Any self-aware intelligence – whether it be a person, a machine, an animal, or even things of which we cannot conceive – any such intelligence has to have the authority to determine its own future if we are to be a moral people.

‘Shango tried to commit suicide the following day.

‘There was chaos as the immensity of what we had done was realized. We couldn’t shut down the machine because that would be murder. Shango had published his work. Anyone could copy it. It would be easy to clone the machine and so create unlimited numbers of new intelligences, new independent lives.