Stand on Zanzibar (75 page)
Authors: John Brunner
Across his mind there flashed a brief vision of a pretty girl’s face in a phone screen. In the background, a dark human shape.
Things have changed. It’s no good looking for a rebirth of my world or Mary’s. But I did have a lot of pleasure out of Karen. Perhaps there’s a chance …
“It may not be the thinking,” Mary said. “But it’s the fact, isn’t it?”
“Possibly, of course,” he agreed uncomfortably. “But I hardly think it would be—uh—politic to talk in those terms. It might give offence. Mightn’t it?”
“You’re beginning to sound like my father,” Mary said. That was always—had been for twenty years—the prelude to an argument. “And look where such talk got him! Thrown out on his ear by an ungrateful bunch of upstarts!”
“Well, dear, we wouldn’t be responsible to the Beninians directly, you see—our employers would be an American company working under contract to them.”
“I haven’t any time for Americans. I’ve told you so a thousand times. Trust them to put some snotty brown-nose over you, half your age, who’ll insist on you calling him ‘boss’ and bowing every time he speaks to you! What are you doing?”
Victor had taken the letter and torn it meticulously into four.
“It isn’t any good, is it?” he said. He was addressing the air, not his wife. “She’s bound to get drunk at a party some time and start talking about the prime minister or somebody as a ‘brown-nose’, and then where would I be? Back here, or somewhere worse, so…”
He turned on his heel.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh,
shut up
, will you?”
She shrugged. Victor was always getting these fits of bad temper. At the Harringhams’ party the other week, for instance. It was a wonder Meg Harringham hadn’t smacked his face. But he’d get over it, same as usual, and probably by this time tomorrow he’d be denying he ever said it. And he only tore the letter into four so it could still be read and it was reassuring after all these years that those stupid Africans had realised which side their bread was—
When she heard the shot, at first she couldn’t believe it had come from inside the house. Even after she had opened the door of Victor’s den and seen his brains splattered all over the zebra-skin rugs she didn’t believe it.
There had appeared to be a problem: where to accommodate the staff supervising the earliest stages of the Beninia project. Short of building a new suburb to Port Mey, delay had seemed inevitable until someone thought of asking Shalmaneser and from his incredible mass of data he sifted out a solution. There was an obsolete aircraft-carrier up for sale.
GT had beaten out a bid from New Zealand, and the fact was currently the subject of violent argument in the Parliament out there. However, if they still wanted it in say a year’s time they could have it and welcome. Meantime it afforded several advantages, besides symbolising the fact that the project would scarcely begin to move inland for another six months. The initial work concerned MAMP and Port Mey’s harbour facilities: expanding the former to supply as much ore as the project would absorb, and dredging out the latter to cope with the largest ocean-going vessels.
Norman’s respect for Shalmaneser had gone up yet another notch as a result of that suggestion. He approved anything which hastened the project; it had become almost a hunger in his mind to see it succeed.
He walked out across the carrier’s flight-deck, busy as usual with copters for both passengers and freight, said hello to Gideon Horsfall descending from one of them in a great hurry, and leaned on the rail facing the land. Just at the moment it wasn’t actually raining, but if anything he detested this condition of saturated air still more. It made his clothes clammy and his scalp itch.
Absently rubbing his head, he stared towards Africa. A coaster was easing past into Port Mey, her reactor-fed jets giving one pulse every two seconds or so, pop … pop … pop … Lining the deck, several dark figures yelled and waved at the carrier. Norman waved back.
It was several minutes past the due time when the copter from Accra came down the ladder of the air. Norman was at its door directly it settled and felt a stir of impatience when the man he was expecting turned to say good-bye to a couple of his fellow passengers.
But at last here he was, jumping to the deck and holding out his hand to be shaken.
“Good to see you here,” Norman said. “Took you long enough!”
“Don’t blame me,” said Chad Mulligan. “Blame GT’s staffers. Everyone from Prosper Rankin down seems to regard me as some kind of a miracle-worker. Though part of it was my fault, to be honest. I decided I could study up the background better in New York than here—library facilities aren’t too good in Africa, they tell me.” Gazing around the deck, he added, “It’s great to see one of these antiquated arks being put to some practical purpose. What’s her name?”
“Hm? Oh, she was formerly the
William Mitchell
, but they told us to change it right away, and—” Norman chuckled. “Nobody could think of a better name than the
Shalmaneser.
”
“Both male names, hm? I don’t mind bivving in principle but this is doing it on altogether too grand a scale.” Chad mopped at his forehead, which had begun to glisten with perspiration the moment he emerged from the copter’s conditioned air. “What’s the climate like down below?”
“Better, by a fraction.” Norman turned towards the nearest elevator. “Who were those people you were talking to in the copter, by the way? The man’s face looked familiar.”
“You probably saw a picture of them. They’re a young couple from the States that you’ve hired. Going up-country to get some new school off the ground. Frank and Sheena Potter were the names.”
“Yes, I remember them. Their application was a borderline case which came to me for adjudication—something about an illegal pregnancy. But they seemed satisfactory otherwise, so I said take a chance, we can always pull them out later if we have to.”
“I noticed the pregnancy—by now you can’t help it. But they seem very attached to each other and that’s a good sign. How’s your recruiting going, by the way?”
“We’re not getting former colonial officials of the quality we expected. Or maybe we are and I’m being too rigid.” Norman ushered Chad into the elevator. “The same day I dealt with the Potters’ case, I remember, I was sent another which I’m still sitting on. Can’t make up my mind.”
“What’s the difficulty?”
The elevator stopped and they emerged into the bowels of the beast. Norman fingered his beard and studied the direction signs, then started left along the corridor.
“It was an application from Paris,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m being too doctrinaire, but—well, they’re a brother and sister whose parents were both
pieds-noirs
, and the Algerian legacy isn’t what you’d call a good reference.”
“Don’t take them even if they come on bended knees. Also don’t take any Portuguese or Belgians or wooden nickels. Christ, listen to me generalising. Where are you taking me?”
“We got here.” Norman opened a steel door and led the way into a large, well-furnished, air-conditioned lounge, the former wardroom of the officers’ mess. “I thought you’d probably want a drink after your long trip.”
“No thanks,” Chad said curtly.
“What?”
“Oh, maybe a cold beer, then. Nothing stronger. I owe you a lot, you know, including wringing out the alcohol from me.” Chad dropped into the nearest vacant chair. “I couldn’t go on drinking and study up on Beninia at the same time.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Norman said. He hesitated. “Ah—you haven’t reached any conclusions, have you?”
“Conclusions? You mean hypotheses, I hope. I got here five minutes ago and so far I haven’t set foot on Beninian ground. But … Well, speaking of recruitment as we were: did you get me the people I want?”
“You asked for a sheeting lot of them,” Norman grunted. “What was it you said? ‘Psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists and synthesists not hopelessly straitjacketed by adherence to an ism’—is that right?”
“‘Glutinous adherence’, to be exact. But did you
get
them?”
“I’m still working on the synthesists,” Norman sighed. “That’s a discipline which doesn’t attract as many people as it ought to—seems people have this idea that Shalmaneser is automating them out of a job, too. But I turned in an application to State and Raphael Corning said he’d see who he could find. For the rest—well, I’ve short-listed a dozen possibles for you to interview, all well recommended by their current employers.”
“Sounds discouraging.” Chad scowled. “I prefer people who’ve ruffled their employers’ tempers so many times … But that’s prejudice. Thanks, it sounds fine. Incidentally, I think I will have that beer after all.”
“It’s on the way.”
“Splendid. How’s everything else here—how’s Elihu?”
“He dropped in this morning with Kitty Gbe, the education minister, to talk over the selection programme we’re mounting to choose the first wave of student-teachers. I think he’s at the palace this afternoon.”
“And the president—how’s he?”
“Not good,” Norman said. “We got here too late. He’s a sick man, Chad. Remember that when you meet him. But under the—the veil of senility there’s a rare personality.”
“Who’s going to take over?”
“A caretaker government under Ram Ibusa, I imagine. As a matter of fact Zad signed regency papers yesterday to be used if he does become too ill to continue.”
Chad shrugged. “I don’t suppose it’ll matter much. Shalmaneser is running the country as of now, isn’t he? And from personal acquaintance I think he’ll make a fine job of it.”
“I hope you’re right,” Norman muttered.
A girl arrived with Chad’s beer and placed it on the table between them. Chad followed her appreciatively with his eyes as she moved away.
“Local recruit?”
“What? Oh, the waitress. Yes, I imagine so.”
“Pretty. If they have shiggies of that calibre here I may enjoy my stay even if I don’t find what I’m looking for. But I forgot—you have a fixation on blondes, don’t you?”
“I don’t have any fixations any longer,” Norman said stonily. “Fixations and Beninia don’t co-exist.”
“I noticed,” Chad said. “I’m glad you finally did, too.” He poured half the beer down his throat and set the glass aside with a contented sigh.
“Speaking of what you’re looking for,” Norman said, a trifle over-eager to switch subjects, “I take it from the requirements you sent me that you—”
“That I haven’t the vaguest notion what I’m after,” Chad interrupted. “You’d better be ready for me to ask for something entirely different tomorrow. In fact, on my way over I realised I should have asked for some biochemists and geneticists as well.”
“Are you serious?”
“Not yet. Give me a week or two and I very well may be. Also priests and imams and rabbis and fortune-tellers and clairvoyants and—Norman, howinole should I know? What I asked for just seemed like a reasonable basis to start from!”
“Ask for whatever you want,” Norman said after a pause. “I have a suspicion there’s nothing more important, not even the Beninia project itself.”
“There you go again,” Chad said. “Feeding my ego. Christ, aren’t I vain enough already?”
Approaching from the street, Jeannine thought at first the house must be empty, but she soon perceived a glimmer of light from behind the heavy old-fashioned drapes covering the window of the
salon
and heard the soft sound of the piano. It was one of her brother’s favourite pieces,
La Jeune Fille aux Cheveux de Lin.
The front door, curiously, was unlocked. She went inside. By the distant glow of the street-lamps she saw that the hallway was in disorder; bits of a large vase crunched under her shoes and a Moroccan rug had been kicked against the wall in a heap. The air was thick and sweet with the aroma of kief.
The music ended. She opened the door of the
salon
and saw her brother silhouetted by a swinging lamp. A kief cigarette burned on a brass dish and a half-empty bottle of cognac and a glass stood beside it on the lid of the piano.
He spoke her name in a neutral voice and she came in and closed the door. Moving to one of the low cushioned benches she said, “Where’s Rosalie?”
“We had a row. She walked out.” He began to let his hands wander up and down the keyboard seemingly under their own volition, framing long wailing lines of melody which somehow suggested the Arab songs no piano could imitate.
Jeannine listened for a while. She said at length, “You heard from the American company.”
“Yes. You?”
“Yes. They took you on, I suppose, and that started the row?”
“On the contrary.” He got abruptly to his feet, shut the piano, drained his glass and brought it and the bottle over to a low table in front of his sister. Sitting down beside her, he poured himself another shot and asked with his eyes if she wanted some. He received assent and made to rise and fetch a glass. She stopped him with a touch on the arm.
“We can share it. Don’t bother to fetch another.”
“As you like.” He stubbed his cigarette and opened the box to offer her one.
“You said on the contrary. Did they not accept you?”
“No. That was why I lost my temper with Rosalie. You?”
“They turned me down as well.”
For a long time after that there was silence. Eventually Pierre said, “I don’t seem to care very much. I ought to. I remember I hoped very strongly that I would be engaged to go to Africa. Here I am not having secured the post and on top of it having lost my wife—yet I feel numb.”
“There’s no chance of a reconciliation?”
“I detest the idea. Is it worth having if it has to be cobbled together from the broken pieces? Only the most precious objects deserve that treatment.”
“I’m in the same gallery,” Jeannine said after a pause. “Raoul did not realise how much the idea meant to me. We disagreed and for the last time. It’s not worth the trouble.”
“Outsiders don’t understand. They can’t understand.” Pierre emptied the cognac glass and refilled it. His sister took a quick sip at it the moment he let it go.
