Watson, Ian - SSC (17 page)

 
          
Thought Simeon: he identifies himself as a corpse, yet his erotic
clamorings nightly deny this—unless we regard it as a form of necrophilia in
reverse.

 
          
“Oh Subby!
Please!”

 
          
But
oh, how the mere presence of the Indian scientist spelt imperfection and
untidiness in a God-given clearance programme, to Major Wolt- jer’s mind!

 
          
“Many
more creatures besides us colored people need not feel guilty at taking up room
any more!” And oh, how he was exploiting Andrea.
“Such as all
large mammels—a good thing, Major?
Byebye elephants,
giraffes and camels.
Byebye whales and seals and
dolphins.
Byebye crows and eagles, doves and hawks.
Byebye byebye.”

 
          
Lord
God, Who in Thy mercy didst send the plagues upon Egypt to save Thy people, did
You also send this plague from the Dog Star to save Your people—that this human
race might not entirely destroy itself by its own hand, as seemed so very
likely, and thus rob Thy Earth of its fairest crown of creation? Too soon, Dear
Lord, too soon, to terminate Thy plan?

 
          
“Second Deliverance?
Second
Bethlehem
?”
Simeon murmured the words aloud; and Sub-
baiah Sharma greedily battened on them.

 
          
“Those
that
have,
shall have more, Simeon. That is the new
Bible. Those that have
little,
shall have nothing.
Even the dignity of burial is denied them.”

 
          
The
halftrack crushed another African skeleton. Many lay bunched about here—like a
migration.
A resumptiqn of the Bantu migrations of old.

 
          
Woltjer
merely smirked. “God helps those that help themselves.”

 
          
They
passed through heaps of dry bones which the new grass was forcing between: a
thousand cattle skeletons, a thousand human skeletons. Though we drive through
the valley of dry bones, let us fear no evil, prayed Simeon to God, Who must
know.

 
          
Anonymous bonemeal in rags and tatters of cast-off European
garments.

 
          
“They
did not ought
to be in this zone!” grumbled Woltjer.
“Wasn’t authorized for Bantu, you know, hereabouts. Silly Kafirs must have
thought they could make the jump on us when we evacuated.”

 
          
“Maybe
their only remaining dignity,” the Indian said quietly, “was to be walking across
this land that was once theirs, when the roentgen storms arrived. To die
saying: this is our land after all, and you can’t ever take it from us again.
Because now there’s nobody to take it away from!”

 
          
“You
can see the cultivations ahead,” Kruger pointed.

 
          
As
they worked among the queerly prolific corn and mealies and sorghum, Woltjer
strode about kicking the occasional bone. Kruger left his driver’s seat,
approaching Andrea and Sharma with a leer on his face.

 
          
“You
think there’ll be mutations? You think
there’s mutations
in insects and things? Read about mutants in a book once. What monsters there
might be after an atomic
war.
What miscegenations.”

 
          
Sharma
eyed him distastefully. “But it wasn’t a nuclear war, Sir. So no radioactive
isotopes lie around. The radioactivity of isotopes made by cosmic rays is a
very secondary matter. There shan’t be any monsters breeding to roam the
earth.”

 
          
“Is
that so?”

 
          
“Sorry,
nothing so interesting.
Just a kill-off process.
Most
exposed fauna. From now on it will be a world of very little things—and Man.
Man will be big and overwhelming. Otherwise, insects and micro-organisms and of
course some fish in the sea. But mainly man: six foot tall man towering over
it all. Seeds are highly radio-resistant, so man will manage to feed himself
cereals and vegetables. A vegetarian world at last! A few million more people
will die before enough food is available.
In the more
impoverished countries, needless to say.”

 
          
“That so?”

 
          
“Then
Western Man will have the planet to himself.
European
Man.
Man of the Future.
What a rich technological civilization he
will enjoy in another few decades, when all this unpleasantness is no longer
remembered—-no more social irritants or aberrations to disturb the order of
things!”

 
          
“Don’t,
Subby. Don’t demean yourself talking to him. You’re worth ten Afrikaners.”

 
          
Petulantly
Sharma shook off Andrea’s hand.

 
          
“Ten Indians and a dog!
A westerner’s dog used to eat ten
Indians’ food, did you know? I wonder how many dogs and cats were saved in the
shelters of the
West?
”

 
          
“There
were rules, Subby. They were strict. But there had to be some kind of Noah’s
Ark
operation.”

 
          
“Ha, ha.”

 
          
“For chickens and pigs and such.
If only
to restock.
We must have some animal protein.” “How many Indians was an
English pig worth? Or an English chicken?”

           
“But we lost our people too, Subby!”

 
          
“Yes,
your Indians and West Indians.
How careless of you.”

 
          
“We
lost white people too.”

 
          
He
shrugged.
“The working class.”

 
          
Andrea
turned back to her botany. Her eyes seemed moist but Simeon couldn’t be
certain, for just then Kruger let out a shout of surprise and sprinted back to
the halftrack. He brought a couple of rifles with telescopic sights and tossed
one to Woltjer.

 
          
Simeon
stared at the hills, shading his eyes against the bright sun—and shading his
mind against those dancing veils of heaven high above the fleeting cottonball
clouds.

 
          
He
saw a ragged column of raggy people trekking down from the direction of
Broederskop, led by a tall bearded white man carrying a red and white flag
flying from a gilded Latin cross.

 
          
As
they came closer Simeon worked out the design of the flag. It was a white skull
on a blood- red background.

 
          
Alpha Canis Majoris A, Sirius the Dog
Star—an energy spendthrift not quite nine light years distant from the Earth,
twice as massive as the Sun and twenty-five times as bright, though only one
third as dense, and hardly a candidate for supernova status judged by its
place in the Hertz- sprung-Russell diagram—exploded nevertheless, discharging
between 10
⁴⁹
and 10
^so
ergs as cosmic rays, producing a
massive flux at the top of the Earth's atmosphere and a worldwide radiation
dosage at sea-level, over a three day period, peaking at 8,500 roentgens—where
the normal natural background dosage is only 0.03 roentgens per year . . .

           
Three
billion human beings died as a consequence.
Those who were
unsheltered.

           
Most
birds and beasts and shallow-water fishes died.

           
Most
flora
was defoliated (but would recuperate asexually
or through seeds and spores).

           
The
sky flamed rose and green and violet with charged particles trapped in Earth's
magnetic field. The sky had never been more beautiful.

           
However,
few stood up to praise the glory in the sky.

           
In
a million years, the reason why would appear in the record of the rocks . . .

           
“I thought you didn’t grant shelter
to any Africans, Major?” said Sharma innocently.

 
          
“Africans?
What Africans? We are the Africans. Is what
Afrikaner means!
Bantu,
is what you mean.”

 
          
“The terminology of a twisted mind.”

 
          
“No,
it is accurate. We
was
here first, before the Bantu.”

 
          
“And
you’re still here, after them?’’

 
          
“Damn
right!’’

 
          
Woltjer
gripped the rifle tighter, squinting through the sights.

 
          
“You’re
not just going to shoot, for no reason?’’

 
          
“Naw,
Miss Diversley. I’m looking at them. But they’re crossing a non-permitted zone,
those Bantu.”

 
          
“A
what?” cackled
Sharma.
“You must be mad!”

 
          
“Unless they are servants or hired labor with passes.”

 
          
“Oh
fine—that lets me in! I qualify as hired labor, don’t I? Thank you for
reassuring me, Major.”

 
          
“Subby—!”

 
          
“Yes,
all right Andrea.” Yes, it would be all right for Subby later on, thought
Simeon, with a smirk of the mind which he couldn’t quite control. Subby would
sublimate his racial humiliations later on. Feeling ashamed of himself,
Simeon caught a fold of flesh between his fingers and pinched hard till it
ached.

 
          
“Unh,
I know the fellow with the flag, Frensch > is his name, was a pastor. I
thought he’d have died; must have found shelter. Wonder where he’s been the
past year?

           
“Kaffir-lover,” the Major added.

 
          
“It
looks like they plan on coming on down through the plantings, Major.”

 
          
“So
I see, Mr. Marholm. Spoil the plantings. Trample our food with their dirty
feet.”

 
          
Woltjer
swung his rifle away from the column and fired off a shot. It crashed horridly,
leaving a silence of deafness behind it. Andrea covered her ears, bottling up
the sound of the gunshot in her head.

 
          
Marholm
laid a calming hand on Woltjer’s arm.

 
          
“I’m
a good shot, don’t worry. I aim to miss. Send them round the plantings.
Just looking now.
Watching.”

 
          
The
column did veer away, to angle round one comer of the plantings.

 
          
“Good
enough,” grunted Woltjer, lowering his rifle. “I recognize one of the Bantu.
Name of Stephen Ambola.
Had trouble with
him.
Not a political extremist exactly.
A religious
agitator, like Alice Lenshina.
Remember her
Native
African
Church
?”

 
          
The
gilded cross, the white skull flag, tottered round the perimeter of the
cultivated area and headed their way again.

 
          
At
first, the column struck Simeon as a parody of nineteenth century explorations
of
Africa
with its white leader bearing aloft the
symbol of empire, pursued by a gang of skinny black bodies. Then his vision
readjusted and the troop was . . . a wretched medieval crusade. Not of knights
and squires, but of starving people.
Of diseased people,
burning with blind faith.
It belonged in the corner of some medieval
horror by Hieronymous Bosch.
A children’s crusade.
A crusade of innocents and wretched.