Year's Best SF 17

I laughed weakly. The water was cold. “Okay, okay,” I said, pushing myself up. Cupping some of the water in my hands, I looked closely at it, searching for bacteria or strange microorganisms that might make me sick. The water was wonderfully fresh and clean, so much better than the water my capture station pulled from the clouds. I drank like crazy.

After having my fill, I laid my mat under a tree, sat down, and ate some bread and dried goat meat as I gazed at the ship. Don’t they want to come out? I wondered. They had to have been on that shuttle for weeks. I brushed my teeth and lay down. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought, Tomorrow.

I woke an hour later to Plantain’s soft warning grunt. I opened my eyes to a star-filled sky. Something was humming and splashing in the pond. I listened harder. It sounded like a person. Finally. Someone’s come out, I thought, sitting up. But the shuttle looked as it had an hour ago, no openings anywhere. Maybe the door’s on the other side? I crept to the pond for a better look.

He was standing thigh deep in the water wearing only his blue pants. As he waded deeper in, he hissed with pain. The way he moved, with his hands out, it didn’t seem like he could see in the dark at all. I stood up for a better look. His things were on the ground, closer to me than him. A ripped satchel, a tattered blue shirt, and a silver, very sharp looking dagger.

Quietly, I snuck to his things. I was about to reach for his dagger when he suddenly stopped. He was up to his belly; his back to me. He whirled around and before I realized what was happening, he flew at me. Fast like a hawk! I leapt to the side, grabbing his satchel. Items fell from its large hole.

He landed and snatched another small dagger from his wet pocket. Then he eyed me with such rage and disgust that I stumbled back. He addressed me in Arabic, his dagger pointed at me, “Filthy abid bitch,” he spat. “I’ll slice your belly open just for touching my things.” His wet face was scratched up, and one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut. There were more fresh scratches and bruises on his arms and his chest.

I blinked, understanding several things at once. First, he’d been recently beaten. Second, he was a windseeker, one born with the ability to fly, a product of the Great Change, tainted like me. Third, this meant he could not have been from the ship.

I was so appalled by his mauled condition and his words that I just stood there. He took this as further evidence that I couldn’t possibly understand him.

“Allah protect me,” he said, lowering his dagger. “Can this night get any worse?” He looked my age, had skin the color of milky tea and a hint of a beard capping his chin. And he had the usual windseeker features: somewhat large wild eyes and long onyx black hair braided into seven very thick braids with copper bands on the ends.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked in Arabic, regaining my composure. He looked obviously shocked that I could speak his oh-so-sacred language. Most black Africans in Niger spoke Hausa or Fulanese. I deliberately looked him up and down and slowly enunciating my words said, “There are no slaves in these lands.” Abid meant slave in Arabic.

“Hand me my things,” he demanded. “Now.”

Instead, I read him. I was close enough to him. The first thing was the scent of turmeric. I tasted something spicy, garlicky … a dish called muhammara. Ahmed, that is his name. He’s from … Saudi Arabia.

He flew this far? I wondered as I swam within his past, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. I was me but I was him. Duality. My heart was slamming in my chest as it always did when I read people.

As fast as I could, I soaked information from him like a sponge. … From a lavish home. The seventh of five sons and four daughters. All normal. Except him. Ahmed’s father loomed large to me. Larger than Ahmed. Father did not smoke or drink. Father prayed five times a day. Father hated spontaneous forests and the fact that the way to the nearby village was not always the same whenever he walked there. Father owned three black African slaves and he often cursed their black skin and burned hair.