Category: Butterfly and Serpent

Sanity’s Edge 1

[I’ve been sitting on this for years. I’ve had a lot of bad years recently, we’ve all had. This novel has been gestating for decades–really. But sometimes, it’s hard to dream about a future if you don’t believe we have any future. I’m struggling to see past the narrow vision, or absence of one, in our tech brothers oligarchy or the presidency destroying us. We have to believe we’ll survive these bastards.

[I’m posting this section just to see if anyone thinks it’s worth pursuing. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

[This is an original work. No AI was involved in its creation.]

Poem: A CHILD’S SONG TO NYOKA

Oh wise Nyoka, may I nestle in your coils?

I have done a wicked thing

And I crave your indulgence

You sigh, little butterfly

What have I to do with thee?

For you are little and my hunger satiated

Why sleekest thou my embrace?

Oh wise python, may I sing of my sorrows?

I heard my friend call my name

And I behaved most shamefully

Sing on, sing on, sad child

You have aroused me at last

Thine heart is heavy, my blood cold

Bask on my scales and sing on, sing on

Wise Nyoka, cast your rainbow about me

The life of my friend is expired

And her spirit taken wing

Rest, rest, little child

For I perceive thy disparities

Thy skin is as the copper

Which flows through our soils

Thine emerald hued eyes glow with spirit power

Are we two not alike

We who embody the twin aspects of the other realm?

Thou art the light and I the darkness

Could the one be without the other?

Oh Nyoka, how thy skin ripples ‘gainst mine

Your coils are glossy and supple to the touch

Have your scales been born anew?

They have, they have, little butterfly

My old skin now basks on the summer stones

Soon the rains fall, lifting its colors from the dirt

And renewing the bow in the sky

But you grow still, little child

Thy limbs do not squirm so freely

Dost thou find my embrace too heavy to bear?

Dost thou fear me?

Oh grandfather of serpents, of you I have no fear

I have watched you in the twilight of the hunter’s stream

Clinging by my fingertips to the slippery stones

Wishing I could be your friend

For though I am small, I perceive that the same holds for you

Your giant brothers have all been forgotten

Except in rainbows and folklore

Alas, alas little spirit

Truly the days of my brothers are done

In this too we are allied

Both spirits shorn of relations

I of my brothers and you, your sister

Thou seekest counsel, warm skinned one

Such has been Man’s way in all the ages

From Natal to the shores of Delphi

I have counselled thy kind

What insights, pray tell, would I offer thee?

Oh Nyoka, my friend cried to me for shelter

But my foolish anxiety had undone her

Panic seized my heart and shut her from my thoughts

Listen, Nyoka! Even the drums condemn my trespass

My friend’s spirit has been cast away

And I know not where it has gone

Attend, attend little child

And heed, for what thou seekest is near

Search not the other realm

Mine eyes have beheld all its trespasses

Of thy spirit-kin I have seen none

Thy friend lives in spirit still

It is for thou to find her earthly vessel–

Ah! Thou squirmiest in me most pleasurably

Do you find my counsel not comfortable?

Oh wise python it is, but I am afraid

My strength is feeble, my inner sight poor

How can I accomplish this task?

You will try, little butterfly

Because you wish it–but not this night

Snuggle thyself tight, child, slumber in my blanket of coils

And we two will share thy warmth

Tonight the darkness and light are one

Dawn’s light shall find thee alone

But fear not

I will be near, to guide thee in thy quest

Though you see me not…

Prelude: RAW NERVE

The writer dropped everything when he received the cable. Laptop, medicine satchel all hit the mattress of his rented suite. The message was in the form of a text. Oddly enough it hadn’t come from Youssou but his uncle, Ismalla. Of course Jamai had sent him periodic updates, though recently at fewer and fewer intervals. He slumped onto the edge of the too-puffy mattress and re-read the message: 

MADRID; JAMAI IN HOSPITAL. SITUATION CRITICAL. KEEP HER IN PRAYERS. YOUSSOU NOT WELL. ISMALLA 

 The second question he had after the state of Jamai’s condition, was how in the hell had they both gotten to Spain. What kind of adventures had she been dragged into this time? He hesitated a bit longer, concerned that this might be a bad time. Mutual sympathy and more than a little of his writer’s curiosity compelled him to make the call.  

At first Youssou was unresponsive on his end of the connection. The writer tried twice more, and on the third try got his head bit off.  

“What the hell do you want? I suppose you want the whole story, do you? Haven’t you done enough already?”

            The writer was stunned into silence. Well, yes eventually he probably did. But he’s spent close to a decade getting to know her, digging into her past and yes he’d become a bit fond of them both, despite Youssou’s overprotective nature. Right now all he was concerned with was her safety–

 “I can’t talk to you right now!” Youssou growled. “The doctor’s already beaten me. He thinks this is my fault!” 

This? This what? What was happening–? He never got to ask those questions, never got one word in edgewise before Youssou shut him down. 

Now that the connection was severed a part of him was livid. He wasn’t after another juicy scoop, he was only responding to a desperate call! How the hell was he supposed to know what’d been going on?  Why hadn’t anybody told him they were in trouble? 

Over the next couple of hours he talked the situation over with his editor and family. He’d invested not only a lot of time but a lot of himself in those two feisty Africans. Whatever slow boil was consuming Youssou, he couldn’t let this go.

The best advice anyone could give was patience. Standby but don’t contact them. This was a time for family to come together. When the time was right, they’d be sure to open up. 

Fine advice, up to a point. Jamai didn’t have much family to pull around her. In fact her father was the one who’d exiled her in the mountains in the first place. By nightfall he was still in his newly wrinkled shirt, half-swallowed by the bed when Youssou called back. 

He seemed very much contrite this time around. While only a couple of years has passed since the last time they’d talked, Youssou’s voice seemed ages older. He apologized for his emotional outburst. Jamai was still critical, they’d know more in a few hours, but he felt he owed the writer this much. He’d been a good friend for many years, Youssou said, and didn’t deserve his antipathy. 

The writer assured him it wasn’t necessary, but Youssou couldn’t stop now. Whatever stress the pair of them had been through together had apparently been bottled away for a long time; he had to get it out. He didn’t know if another chance to talk would come.   The writer didn’t understand; why “if” and not “when”? He resisted the instinct to grab pad and scribbler; it seemed far too cold and insensitive given Jamai’s condition. Then Youssou began the painful journey, explaining that for a long time he and Jamai hadn’t actually been together at all. As quietly as possible, while Youssou spoke, the writer gave in to instinct. 

EXTRACT        

Counseling Session

Location: Undisclosed

Subject: Goukoni Hadebe/ suicide watch

–You tried to commit suicide two nights ago, correct?

–No, not correct. 

–You were discovered in your isolation cell hanging from your surveillance lens fixture, using a rope fashioned from strips of your own trousers. Must we confine you naked as well as alone? 

–If you’d read any of my court transcripts, or any of the interrogation logs kept by the Rangers, you’d understand I was simply trying to connect with our Mistress.

–But, according to Interrogation Log 7, you are supposed to perceive the entity known as ‘Mistress’ as your ‘Mother’. ‘Mistress’ implies a sexual context. 

–That is one interpretation. Another viewpoint is to conceive of her as our chief in exile, the agent on whose behalf we have operated. 

–And where would this personage be today?  

–Where? Where? Ha! If I knew that, would I have wasted my time feeding the unworthy to her?  

–Your parents have expressed an interest in communicating with you periodically.  

–I have no parents. 

–Now that is not correct. DNA/RNA comparisons…    

–They left me! I was abandoned in the Nairobi market and left to die!

–And who told you this?

–The Father, what others may call our Master, Bren Auflauring. 

–He was the one who told you they hadn’t looked for you. 

–Yes. Haven’t we gone over this before?

–Do you understand that this simply is not true? That they conducted a systematic search, ongoing for 19 months… 

–Now, that is the lie! That was their intention, to leave me alone, trembling in the market, surrounding by shopping, screaming parasites.  

–Would you accept the truth of what I have suggested, should I present the proof, search logs, diaries… 

–All that can be fabricated. All of it obviously was, if you were stupid enough to be taken in by it.

–Would you be at all interested in establishing a communication with your brother? 

–[static] 

–Mr. Hadebe? Is that a no? 

–I don’t know that he’d care to carry on such a dialogue. We parted on very strained feelings. 

–If you’d allow, we can establish a format for dialogue. It will be under strict control. Restrictions will be applied as to the topics of conversation you will be allowed to pursue. 

–Yes. Yes, I understand. I should like some time to consider. 

–I understand. You may give me your answer at our next session.

SHE’S LEAVING HOME

One: Continental Drift

Jamai: The one hope I’d clung to throughout this whole unpleasant adventure was that I’d be able to reconcile with my father. That I could tell him I forgave him for what he’d done. How could he know I wouldn’t understand why he abandoned me in the mountains? How could he know that I’d be stupid enough to come home, that I’d kill those Poppy Girls…

            Well, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t there and I didn’t see him. His possessions were either packed in our crawlspace or gone. Even our basement, which once overflowed with clutter, was a hollow shell. Only crickets skritched across the empty walls of our home.

            Youssou’s lost brother had been behind everything, from the murder of Bren Auflauring to the kidnapping of Mama Hadebe to the murder of his sister Ahela. The Children of Sydelle had taken over an abandoned rock church in Gondar, Ethiopia. That little misadventure had cost me the second hand I’d lost in barely two years as well as the life of our local Magistrate Jomoro al-Amain.

            I didn’t know of the bargain between Youssou and Jomoro. In exchange for liberating me from the Abyei-Bentiu prison barge, for what I then assumed was a temporary assignment, Youssou had essentially agreed to take me into exile, away from Baba Elgonyi forever.

Yousou’s father told us Mama Hadebe had commissioned two new holo-displays in our memories, one for Youssou and one for me to sit alongside Ahela’s holo on their bedroom mantle, so she could feel close to us even though we were gone.

I’d miss the Rangers. Though we’d only spent a few days rescuing Youssou’s mother from the Children of Sydelle, in the end I think they treated me as an honorary member. 

At Captain Cobalt’s direction, we spent the next several days convalescing at a veteran’s hospital in Addis. I hadn’t told anyone about the fist that closed on my chest when Massoud poured through the breach. Or the shade leering down at me through the vision of Sydelle’s home sphere. It was probably nothing; it’d passed. Youssou’s family had already done so much for me. Why add any unneccesary worry?

Youssou was interned in the Ocular Ward, where they fitted him with a prosthetic eye. This was purely functional. It had no special abilities, apart from the perpetual glassy stare it projected, even when he was blinking normally.

As for me, it was a bit of a shock to us both when a party of bare-headed monks greeted us one fine morning. I was convalescing in my recovery room, my arm all swathed in wraps. In appearance, they were very much like the ghosts at Menes Tabot. My nurse flanked me as they unfolded a silk wrap from a box of exquisite wood. Holy symbols were carved in each corner, connected by swirling rosettes. The lid cranked open stiffly and lying inside, cushioned in red velvet, was a new prosthetic hand.  

The epidermal covering was as supple as real tissue and even matched my dead mother’s Somali complexion. The lead priest explained that It had been handcrafted in the monks’ workshop in the Valley of Kings, in honor of my ‘purifying’ Menes Tabot. They had collected some of my stem cells from the Eukaryotic Cell Banks in Nairobi, with my father’s permission. That came as a great surprise to us both. Since the lab-grown tissue was essentially the same as mine, there would be little danger of tissue rejection.

An elderly monk with shriveled eyes, more of a dry husk than a man, smiled unnervingly as he lifted the instrument from the box. His little hands were quite warm as he unwrapped the bandages around my left wrist. He fitted the new member with a sharp ‘clack’ and stepped back as I tried to rotate it several degrees.

We all laughed as it did indeed rotate–360 degrees, and might have gone on doing so all day if I hadn’t slapped my right hand over it. “It will take some getting used to,” the old monk allowed.

Our final days mopping up at Menes Tabot were uneventful. While Youssou was being debriefed by Captain Cobalt, sometimes shouting, I stood in the mausoleum with the Rangers’ Medical Examiner as we removed the encapsulated bodies from their desecrated tombs.

I’d discovered late in our recent adventures that some of the bodies the COS had stored in these amber capsules were still alive. Sometimes I couldn’t help seeing the spirits of dead children, waiting until their particular coffin was catalogued. Sometimes they directed me to an amber capsule where another  poor soul might still be languishing.    

It took a great many days, and the ME managed to revive several trapped souls. By the end, a cue of spirits was standing around me, waiting to be taken.

            I suppose I should be glad to leave those fisis in Baba Elgonyi behind. Our people were a quarrelsome lot at best, and with few exceptions they’d shown the least consideration towards me. No, I wouldn’t miss them.

            What stirred the most trepidation was the certainty that I’d never raise the tinted sunscreen over my bed, and gaze at the first rays of dawn glinting off the peaks of the sacred mountain. I’d never cool myself in the waters of Mokoyo Springs, or relax in Nyoka’s coils under the pale moonlight. Ngai help me, I didn’t know where Youssou was taking me.

            I hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye to Grandfather Esaias. Even if I could have explained that particular relation to Captain Cobalt, time wouldn’t have permitted it. The Council of Elders, now that it was coherent and aware of the bargains made, had voted to expel me on the completion of our mission. Well, that was done.

            At least they allowed us to stay for Ahela’s funeral. It was a special ceremony intended to re-inter her body, now that it had finally been recovered.  I thought it best if I declined the Hadebe’s invitation to attend the service. Mama Hadebe was very persistent; but my being there, among people who thought I was the one who’d brought last month’s attack down on them, would only be a magnet for trouble. Besides, I couldn’t tell her…couldn’t hurt her.          

No, that wasn’t true. I was being selfish. In a sense, Mama Hadebe had lost a son and a daughter all over again. If she’d known what I’d done, or hadn’t done…

They dressed in all their finery. I stayed behind in mzee Hadebe’s den with the aquarium. Before leaving they showered me with gratitude and hugs, a close circle of love I didn’t deserve. Then they filed out in solemn procession, mzee Hadebe first, followed by his wife and Youssou. He forced a smile but it was a façade, a pleasant face over the Krakatoa of anger boiling inside him.

It was scary to be near him now. I never knew when he’d snap, usually over the simplest things. And we were always together since coming home from Menes Tabot.   

What few possessions I still had had been sent in a duffle bag from Abyei-Bentiu, with a hand written ‘good-luck’ letter from Kimora. Youssou had been parceling out most of his possessions to his age-mates over the past week, distilled his property down to a pair of duffle bags. I stayed inside his family home, out of sight. 

            The quiet should have been soothing. The bubbling of Baba Hadebe’s aquarium had always been his den’s chief attraction. Now it only reminds me of the years Ahela and I used to play there as tots. There were not even ghosts here. Almost no ghosts, anyhow. A blanket settled around my shoulders. Gentle hands followed, easing me onto a heap of cushions below the aquarium, casting green shades over Mama and me.

            After the funeral, Cobalt’s men bundled our bags into the boot of Youssou’s rented skiff. Cobalt would allow us to take the rental as far as the rail station, and no further. There were no hugs, no parting gifts. We simply stood awkwardly nodding until Youssou helped me into the skiff. 

            Our journey on the speed-train was something of a blur. Youssou made liberal use of our dining car credits. As for me, I slept most of the way in our ‘stateroom’. Truthfully it was more of a hole in the wall; we barely had room to shuffle around ourselves to get to the washroom, an even smaller closeted affair.

            Our room was provided with a pair of sleep tubes, similar to the type used in Japan for rail travel. Each one was also provided with a Catch-&-Release strap, in case one or the other of us got stuck in our tubes. And tubes they were, transparent lozenges that barely accommodated my height, and Yousou’s less so.

            Still, at least I could watch the continent blaze past. The ride was so smooth that we barely knew we were in motion but for the savannah rushing past. Perhaps it was precisely because of that speed that grassland became forest, as abruptly as though we’d stepped through a door from one environment to another.

Sand sprayed across the undercarriage as we passed through the Sahara. I wondered what our ancestors would think of the changes we’d made in the past few centuries. Wouldn’t they have been surprised and pleased at the advance of the palm trees and the thick gen-altered grasses and shrubs converting the desert into a new playground.

            Part of me still hoped to see my father, even if it was only a passing glance. This reclamation project was his life’s work. I wondered what he was doing now, if he was alone or with Ms. Duma. Then I’d blink away the wetness and order the tube to go to transition phase. The tube’s surface shifted from glassine to darkness, and I kept sleeping.   

            Several hundred kilometers short of our destination we transferred, not to another rail line, but a boat. Our stop was at Bamako, an ancient city mingling among the forest. Its tall spires tantalized us from beyond the rail station, which was a short reddish soiled walk along a forested path to the port connecting to the Niger River.  

We used the remainder of our travel allowance to buy some snack packs from a shop on the dock beside the river. We grazed in silence while we waited for our ferry to plod up to its berth. Every pier was jostled with covered fishing boats. A fishers’ market buzzed with transactions and people alike. For all that, we sat alone, unminded by the people rushing about their business. The river sloshed beneath the piers, a soft susurration that might lull the unwary into its embrace.

We boarded a spear-shaped, flat-topped launch which soon coasted beneath a pair of oxidized bridges over the Niger River, as cinnamon as the foot paths on the shore. Centuries ago, these spans might have been hundreds of meters above the water, yet now as they blotted out the daylight they seemed only a couple stories above, so huge I could brush it with my hand, if they were as close as they appeared.

I assumed it was an official launch by its austerity; just two rows of double-seats on starboard and port, facing each other across a a narrow walkway. Ahead of us lay a hatch leading to the wheelhouse. To the rear the engines churned the river to a white froth behind an open deck.

My stomach was doing lurches as we weaved among the boats clogging the river as in days of old. Still they allowed for a broad passage between barges to keep the light green river traffic flowing, and to allow space for smaller pirogues to make their berth. I use these terms with experience, but at the time I really didn’t know anything.

A solitary egret balanced impossibly on one twig-like limb a few meters out from the mangroves hemming in the river from one end of the horizon to forever. I had the window seat. Beside me Youssou napped with his chin tucked into his chest, just like my–his father. In the rear pocket of the seat facing me was a small palm padd.

As I picked it up a small antenna extended. I plugged the buds in both ears for privacy, mine and Youssou’s as he snored. Good thing too, as the internal AI boomed through my buds, “Welcome to the West African Data Annex, sister. I will be your server for today. Please state your preferred language: Standard, Bamanakan, Arabic, Chinese–“

West Africa. That was another thing I’d have to get used to. “New Swahili,” I interrupted.

“Jambo, sister. What do you wish to know?”

My gaze followed the current churning past these huge floating cabins cruising amidst the endless barges. Cheery bare-chested folk in outriggers paddled between the larger boats, waving to us as they stroked past, at times tying up to a cabin for a meal or supplies.  “Everything, I guess.”

“Certainly, but let’s narrow our information field a little.”

“Oh. Well, what about these barges we keep passing. There doesn’t seem to be an end to them. Why is this?”

“Adaptation, sister. The inhabitants live on these large vessels by necessity. What little arable land they had to begin with, was lost due to oceanic thermal expansion. What you see are not ‘barges’ per se but communities, cooperatives wherein peoples’ needs are grown and stored with the whole–“

“I’m sorry, grown?

“Yes. As you can now see, on several of these cabins are fishermen casting their nets as they have for times untold. Thse vessels closest to the mangrove shore, settled more deeply in the current, employ the science of hydroponics. In effect they are floating rice-growing factories, if we may use such quaint terms. It is not so different from the commerce that was conducted on the Niger ages ago, and is to this day. Have faith, sister. It is but a short journey to Al Zayati.”

So much had indeed changed. Old rivers such as the Senegal and the Gambia, and their namesake nations, were drowned in the polar meltdowns instigated by Western industry. Even the groundwater had been poisoned, by slow degrees, by saltwater infiltration.

I can barely grasp the numbers, but it’s well known that up to five million of my West African brothers and sisters were driven inland, all along our Atlantic coastline, refugees to forces beyond their control. Surely it was worse than the tribulations celebrated by our elders back in Baba Elgonyi. Refugees clustered in camps that could almost be cities of the forgotten. Now look at it.

It seemed we passed under one last overhanging bramble, and then the river opened up onto a vast gulf, like a bowl had been hallowed out of the jungle and green water just flowed in. This was an odd sight indeed that so much water seemed to spread out for kilometers, yet at the same time was bracketed by  dense mango forests that retreated along the far horizon.

Dotted around the gulf like dominos were glossy black turrets. I would later discover these were filtration towers, extracting fresh water from the saline that had infiltrated the river from the ocean that now lay not far beyond the forest. Tubes leading like dinosaur necks from each tower transported the extracted salt to onshore depots, for packaging as culinary additives. For now this first sight was a wonder to behold.

Al Zayati was small even by the low standards set by Baba Elgonyi. There was a clinic adjacent to a one-block school house. Across the village’s main courtyard was a mosque and then a cottage hidden among the mango trees, home to the resident fetichers, though again I hadn’t known of this yet.

Along the shoreline, behind the port, ran a market whose stalls brimmed with fresh produce and fish. Admittedly even this was modest in comparison to the market in Addis, though it certainly lacked for nothing.

The docks Yousou led me along seemed a curious mélange of retractable piers extending like fingerlings into the gulf. The reek floating off the water was like the stench of rot that rose from the Sudd many nights around Abyei-Bentiu. This scent was carried on the wind, salt and mangos and algae seething to a fine petruscence.

The dockmaster’s house was a small bubble at the hub of port-side activity. Encircled around it was a gaggle of open-air cafes, servng a hundred sailors a day. Youssou made some inquiries among these fellows, who directed him to Pier 47, to where what we would call home for the next few months was berthed.

The pier was certainly solid enough, though a soft metallic rattle was returned to us with each footstep. The boat we approached seemed much like a cabin supported on pontoons. Good, solid guardrails circled round the boat at waist-height. The pontoons, or transoms, were equipped with swim steps built into their frames. A spread of netting was cast between them.

Right behind the mast, at the approximate center of a raised upper deck–the bridge deck, as I was to discover–lay the pilothouse. This was situated under a hardtop roof, with the helm station and wheel facing aft, to the bathing platform connecting the transoms. The pilothouse gave access to a walkthrough entryway into a salon.

Through this a little man darted across the deck with gangly limbs like a monkey. A thick goatee padded his chin while the hairs of his straggly mustache dangled into his mouth. Bare-chested, he was casually attired in khaki shorts that came to his knees and salt stained slip-ons that seemed better suited for bedtime than sailing. This was topped with a cap that we’d soon discover he was never without.

            “Jambo, Uncle,” Youssou called. “Kukuwazuka, this is my uncle, Captain Ismalla. This is his ship, the Broadside Brawn.”

            We exchanged greetings, though mine might have been a little awkward. He gripped Youssou’s arm to steady him as he pulled him onto the stern-deck. Though they were as skinny as vines, the captain’s sinews highlighted every meter of arm. The boat seemed to jimmy beneath my feet as he did the same for me, with a grip like a lion’s jaw.

            Now that we were aboard, he seized Youssou in a full-body embrace full of joie de vivre. We followed him into the pilothouse, where he bid me wait in the salon. Once I was past the walkthrough, a screen slid across the entry. Whatever I could hear of their conversation was cut down to a murmur.

            The salon was a crescent-shaped dining area with maroon seating around the walls and a table down the middle. It was a beautiful room laid out in teak and false wood panels. Stairs to either side of the salon led down to the port and starboard hulls.

            The boat shimmied again, twice. Hearty greetings were exchanged, and I was treated to three shadows thumping along the starboard hull outside my hideyhole. Three young men appeared on the midships deck, all in tank tops and trunks. Each bore a massive crate across their shoulders. Each set their load down carefully as they gazed into the salon at me. I waved, but found myself without words.

            The one I assumed was the eldest was the largest. He was of average height, that being compensated for by a thick barreled chest and limbs like pythons. The next one, though leaner than his sibling, was no less strong. His smile belied a gregarious nature that practically beamed from his spirit. The last man smiled at me, then headed back up the pier, returning with more crates he unloaded onto the deck before going back for more.

I kept my gaze on the deck as the eldest one approached me with a curious swaying seaman’s stroll. He took both my hands in his in a meaty grip and said, “Welcome aboard, sister. How may we be of service?”

“Jambo,” I replied. “I came here with my friend Youssou. I don’t know what we’re doing here.”

His eyes alighted with an inner glow. “Ah! Father said you would be coming. Miss Jamai, is it? Good! I’m Leonard Howell, the captain’s eldest son. That one is Marcus Garvey, and the skinny one running up and down the boards is the youngest, little Marley. Don’t worry, he’s flighty but very dependable.”

I was running their names through my mind. “I’m sensing a theme,” I smiled.

“Yes. Father named us for the heroes of Rastafars,” Marcus boomed from the deck amidst a growing stockpile of boxes. Something in that deep basso voice made me feel more welcome. “The fathers of our religion, you might say.”

“There’ll be time enough for that,” young Marley said, dropping what was apparently the last crate on the pile already assembled. “Don’t you think we ought to offer our cousin a bite to eat?”

That would have to wait. I jumped as the pilothouse screen slatted aside so that Captain Ismalla and Youssou could join us. “We’re all here,” the captain said. “Good! Let’s get acquainted.”

“We already have, Father,” Leonard Howell said.

“I see you’ve met my boys. Aye then! Well, my elder bra,  Youssou’s father, has acquainted me with your situation. New hands are always welcome.” At last he approached me. “I remember you as a babe. Told the Council to get off‘a their bums an’ get ridda of that stupid Ant effigy. Dey wouldn’t believe but I knew it was a bad duppy that hurt you. 

“I can put you two up for a spell. I don’t know what duties I can assign to you, but we’ll find something.”

“I-I don’t understand,” I said. “What am I supposed to do? I’ve never been on a boat in my life…not in real life, anyway…”

“Jamai,” Youssou cut in, “we don’t have a lot of options.”

But the captain squirreled between us, waving his hands in an absurd fashion that was probably meant to be calming. “Ahhh, let me explain exactly what we do here. The Broadside Brawn, she is a cat…that is, a multihull catamaran me sons and I built at the docks of Bamako. She’s vitually unsinkable. We’ve made our berth here. There’s a fair amount of traffic, and fewer people here. Not so many questions about who you are or where you came from.

“We rent ourselves out as a charter boat, ferrying interested parties to the sites of undersea ruins so they can dive among the cities that were inundated when the ice caps melted.” He illustrated his words with upper-body pantomimes of swimming bodies and an upward sway of his palms.

“There have been times we been contracted out to actual scientific parties, underwater anthropologists, to have a swim an’ see how marine life made themselves at home in our deluged premises. Everyone pitches in. it’s not the most lucrative enterprise, but we manage.

“One more thing. It’s a sore point my elder bra raised. Do you have a swimsuit?”

“What? No!” That seemed an odd and very inappropriate question. I’d never needed one for my swims in Mokoyo Springs at home.

“See, we know you’re free-spirited, but we’ll be having a great many guests on this boat. Some of them can be more conservative-minded than others. I try to be careful with my clientele but, well, men can’t always be trusted.”

His boys, I noticed, were all nodding while trying very hard to avert their stares. Surely my body couldn’t be that…Still, I fastened the top snaps on my blouse. For all that helped, since it was already soaking in perspiration. “Will I have time to shop before we leave port?” I asked.

“Aye, we have a few days to stow provisions an’ get the pair of you settled in. That’ll be no problem. Tell me, nephew, do you have any mechanical aptitude?” Youssou shook his head. “Nephew,” said Ismalla with a grin, “I guess we got your berth all lined up.”

Coils Everywhere

Where the devil was this place? The Minister was expecting her. He’d told Kiana, oh it’s only a half hour drive at most from the Storehouse. So far, all Kiana had come across was mile upon mile of dry season veldt. She couldn’t be late. This meeting would determine the level of security she and her crew received over the next couple of seasons. After that last attempt on her life in JoBerg by the self-styled Colonel Welles, they’d need it. Well, she certainly could use some.

            Mile upon mile stretched ahead of her beat-up Jeep, and while she loved the outdoors Kiana did have somewhere to be tonight. The Moon shone full upon the South African grasslands. That could be a good or a bad sign, depending on your superstition, she mused. And she was gonna be late, she just knew it.

            She only hoped she hadn’t gotten herself dolled up for nothing. She preferred shorts and tank tops, but tonight she needed to make the best impression. She had showered and shimmied into a brand-new shimmering indigo gown and opera gloves, all of it faux leather. Joshua thought it suited her tanned complexion and short strawberry blonde hair. He could be such a sweetheart. She’d put a clean towel on the dusty car seat so as not to stain her bottom–a rare consideration given how raw she lived–and set out. She would meet Joshua Mzima, her second in command at the Storehouse, as well as the Minister at the field station.

            That had been the plan, anyway. Had she taken a wrong turn? According to the Jeep’s onboard GPS she was pointed in the right direction. “Alia,” Kiana addressed the dashboard’s AI unit, “give Joshua a ring. Tell him I may be a little late.”

            “That line is unavailable,” the prim AI responded.

            “What do you…? Never mind. Try again.”

            “That line is unavailable.”      

            Kiana tried to keep her focus on the ‘road’ and not how stuffy it was inside this motorized coffin. She darted a glance to her pocket cell, which was turning out to be a useless slip of plastic. “Why? Is the battery not charged enough?”

            “Your cell’s battery capacity is at 92 percent. There is a connection error.”

            Kiana slowed down. “Explain.”

            “There appears to be a counter signal interfering with reception.”

            “What, we’re being jammed?”

            “Affirmative.”

            “Alia, has someone been hacking into your base program again?”

            The reply was almost tart. “My cognitive functions have not been penetrated.”

            She’d been relying on the GPS too much to guide her. Kiana realized as she drove on into the dark that might have been a mistake. Ahead loomed a tree with incandescent bulbs strung through its branches. “All right. Stand by, I’m pulling over…So stupid, should have pulled over sooner.”

            “Is that an inquiry–?”

            “NO! Shut off!” Grass rustled beneath the undercarriage as the Jeep rolled to a stop under the tree’s arching branches. Kiana slipped off her fancy indigo flats; no point getting them dirty, given what she’d already spent on this outfit for this ONE evening. Then she popped her Poppa’s compass from the glove box. It was his gift to her, upon announcing that she was returning to continue his work collecting gene samples of all the wildlife in South Africa for restoration, once present-day disruptions to the climate settled down.

            This tree being here, so very conspicuous, screamed ‘too much coincidence!’, but she had to stop somewhere to get her bearings. She stepped out, hiking the trailing fabric of her gown off the grass in her left hand. Using the Southern Cross as a base point, she ought to be able to take a reckoning and gauge exactly how far off the mark she was.

            Welles. Huh. She wouldn’t need security if not for his pranks, disrupting her work and that of her crew. She couldn’t figure that man before. The authorities billed him as some kind of ecoterrorist but that just did not fly. They shared the same goals, or so she thought. Surely they could work together. A conversation with Stempf brought some welcome insight.

            Stempf had been involved with Welles’ organization prior to joining her staff. Circumstances had apparently disillusioned him toward the good colonel’s methodology, so, on a recent tagging mission involving two displaced lionesses, she got him to open up. She wasn’t sure now whether that had been a good thing.

            “I was outside his door, ready for the day’s assignment,” Stempf said in his clipped Germanic tone. “I don’t think I was meant to overhear but…he, uh, he sees your relationship with Dr. Mzima as unnatural, as normalizing relations between races. Apparently it was a notion Colonel Welles found repellent.”

            The lioness beneath Kiana jerked as she clipped too hard on the tag she’d just put in its ear. It was 120 degrees in the shade, but her skin suddenly felt chilled. “Not you, though,” she prompted.

            Stempf smirked. “I never gave it a thought. It’s obvious you’re both crazy about each other. Everyone knows it. I think it’s kind of adorable, but I’m young. It’s not like my grandfather’s generation, when they still had all that racial separation shit–sorry, didn’t mean to curse.”

            Kiana smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t sick the other lioness on you.”

            “There’s also the fact that you’re American. You know some people in your country still consider it the greatest nation in the world, even now that it’s broken into several nationalist provinces.”

            “Yeah, I know. Here, help me get her into the shade so she can shake off the tranq without boiling alive.” Thus endeth that conversation.

            She took her bearings beneath a string of small white bulbs, groaning at the anomalous readings. Well, the compass worked fine. She knew where the field station was. But it was stupid easy to use that GPS, and that thing in her Jeep had steered her in a polar opposite direction from where she should have been. But as she tipped the flash on her cell toward those lights, her eyes adjusted to the dark. And this tree with its long spindly branches seemingly supporting the sky had taken on a familiar aspect.

            Once a season she and Joshua would come here to volunteer alongside a team from the Ministry of Health to vaccinate the children and give adults boosters for their AIDS and Ebola shots, welcome diluted strains from once fearsome diseases. Then she and Joshua would picnic in the shade at this tree’s base, now defaced with smooth bore holes from some joker’s router saw or some other tool.

            She imagined this was the kind of tree George Schaller would lounge beneath to write a thesis, or Dian Fossey interacting with her gorillas at Karisake, right before–

            “AAAAA!”

            Why did this crap always happen when she was thinking of Dian Fossey? A scrape above alerted her too late. Suddenly she found herself the victim of an ice bucket challenge. Kiana screamed as much from frustration as anything. Stupid, sticky, gooey–! She noticed a note clinging to her soaked bare right shoulder. As she peeled it away, she also became aware of the pungent sickly-sweet perfume, almost muskine, bathing her skin.

            At least that bucket wouldn’t come crashing down on her head. Her motion beneath the lights probably triggered a pulley trap that yanked the line attached to its rim. The handle was still secure by an outdated ol’ zip-tie. More scrapes, like tarps against wood, sounded from lower down. Now, something else. A hiss in the dark. In fact a whole chorus of them. A fleshy plop of muscle issued…from inside the tree?

            Kiana rotated the flash on her cell toward its bole, as a half-dozen thick oily roots seemed to pour out of those bore holes. And she was suddenly aware of how very alone she was. This wasn’t natural behavior, she told herself shakily. Pythons are not naturally gregarious creatures. They’d never nest in the same tree in such numbers, unless… “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said.

            The sheer isolation she so often craved was its own kind of enemy. The snakes had cleared the holes in the tree, oozing along the dry grass toward her. Perspiration dribbled from her pits as her empathic sense detected the echo of an unnatural…no, not actual hunger. Their bellies seemed full at least. This was a stronger, overpowering urge. If they were human, she’d have called it by its name among the Seven Deadlies, lust.

            She sniffed her arm in sudden suspicion, aware now of a pheromonal element in the greasy crap Welles’ bucket had spilled all over her. It was surely overwhelming the natural pheromones her body normally produced, as a means of gaining an animal’s trust and fitting into any environment. God, but they were so glossy and gorgeous, the mottled patterns in their hides rippling with each sinuous movement. Even the weight of the closest fellow on her bare feet enticed–

            Kiana yanked her foot away with unexpected reluctance. Her breathing shouldn’t be this deep, so HUNGRY– Crap crap crap! She thought. Don’t tell me this goo was affecting me the same way! “The latest temptation,” she gasped, chilled in her flimsy clingy gown. Someone had stashed those snakes in those improvised dens. When that bucket tipped and the lights switched off, that probably engaged a separate control that released these cuddlies.

            “No wonder lust was one of the Seven Deadlies,” she whispered, her breath a bit shallower than she preferred. Between her and the Jeep lay five slithering tubes, all issuing long extended hisses. Her feet backpedaled on the gritty soil. It should be possible to lure them around, she reasoned, angle back toward the Jeep. Once she winced as the sharp edge of a stone bit into her left heel. Despite that she kept her feet, nimbly prancing backward. Anyway, that wasn’t what tripped her up.

            A thick muscular tube slapped her behind the knees. Kiana swayed for balance. The sky rushed away from her as the ground punched the air out of her lungs. Her mouth worked like a fish but she wasn’t getting any air. Her arms, legs, chest, nothing would obey her. Why didn’t she have any energy…? After a quarter of a minute she started to take in a few small breaths as the first serpent flopped across her chest.

            Two of the pythons joined as one, corkscrewing around Kiana’s waist in opposing directions. Another thrust between her legs, spreading them apart. She pushed herself up, despite being bundled up to her stomach. Her left hand slipped on a rubbery hide, plunging right up to her armpit into a fistful of coils. This particular herp seemed to take delight in the sudden bounty. Like a fist the loops tightened, and a moan was torn from Kiana. Needle pricks stung up and down her imprisoned arm as the circulation began to die.

            Kiana dropped, but this time the snakes squirming under her bare back cushioned the impact. She’d grabbed one of the buggers with her free hand by the scruff of its neck. The problem was they were ALL neck, and these stupid faux latex gloves didn’t allow for a sure grip. In the space of a breath it’d slipped through her hand, and with her other hand trapped there was no way to catch a firmer grip. She stared half in fascination while circles of reptilian muscle flopped around her wrist and arm.

            The boys were in no hurry now. Drawn by her empathic nature, as well as her extraordinary body heat, the serpents had enveloped Kiana in seconds, pressing her to the ground, helpless in their glistening coils. A writhing mass of slick hoops like Medusa’s hairdo enveloped her, binding her legs and piling on double, one on top of another, weighing on her ribs. Latex crinkled as she flexed her fingers, in tandem with the firming of those reptilian bodies. Kiana’s small nose wrinkled as a trunk the thickness of her thighs–which she was thinking way too much about right now–oozed across her left shoulder, and the sensation of its sheer weight, its scales clinging to her skin, rocked her with shivers.

            Her teeth chattered while a rounded body crept along her throat, brushing her chin. A tail slid into her open palm, cinching tight around her thumb. The noose draped around her neck was pushed up as a second loop landed with a fleshy plop beneath the first. Usually, she was the one who initiated these interactions. This was one instance where she might have no control over the outcome, and no backup to extract her if the situation turned sour.

            She might never wear this gown again. It was too stupid easy for these snakes to push beneath its folds. At times like these Kiana was uncomfortably reminded of what a small petite thing she was. Still they piled on, thick meaty coils nestling to her torso, pushing the fabric down, down until her breasts flopped like two pale protuberances sweating under the moonlight. Perspiration tickled her nakedness as a second tail stroked her right breast. She rarely gave them much thought, as other girls she knew in the church were ‘more blessed’. She wasn’t sure if pride or embarrassment were more evident as the flesh mounded over the tail securing a firm grip on her.

            “Please…stop…”

            More thick bodies like trees pushed from beneath, lifting her back off the ground, winding around the coils already encircling her. Her feet could no longer touch the ground, pedaling incrementally, her range of movement restricted by the loops binding her to the ankles. Yet another tail insinuated itself in the space between her left thigh and her womanhood. Worse still, some primal sinful instinct compelled her to clench her thighs around the supple elastic skin rippling against her bare skin, stirring shameful desires she usually kept to herself.

            “No no no no no–! Not again,” she wheezed. Her hips wouldn’t obey her conscious directive, rocking inside her muscular cocoon. At least before she’d had a choice. She would go to the savannah, alone, when she couldn’t take her mind off of Joshua, when the urges became too strong. All alone, when she was sure there was no one around for miles, she would relieve her tensions.

            But this–! Her bare thighs tightened around the sinuous trunk thrust between them, a spasm building as an irresistible urge, body jerking as tears burned her eyes. The leathery hides crinkled as the coils oozed over her, firm and inescapable. A coil slipped over her chin, brushing her lips. Shame drove her to bury her face into the folds of its coils, muffling her screams. Her nostrils flared, drinking precious air as creeping death compressed her cheeks.

            Finally, blessed release! Her limbs jerked spasmodically one last time, every muscle straining to the bone. Then she’d gone limp, finally sated.  Kiana wheezed in her serpentine cocoon, a slick coat of perspiration coating every inch of skin, her body devoid of all energy. The coil willingly slipped off her chin as her head sank into a cushioned mass snuggling firmly to her cheeks. Chest still heaving, Kiana struggled to lift enough of the weight off her ribs to breath deep.

            Why weren’t they constricting? That was probably what Welles had been counting on. For now, her companions seemed content to continue this bestial embrace, muscles softly contracting and relaxing, treating Kiana to a full body massage she could never hope to escape. That forked tongue lapping at the bare soles of her right foot wasn’t helping. A brief tickle brought the giggles on top of her shortness of breath.

            In the moment when her foot slid along a moist cushion, clarity snapped back to her. A double row of recurved teeth stabbed into her ankle. If she’d had the air she would have screamed. Her leg jerked but the predator wouldn’t be denied. Mucous dribbled thick as its jaws worked its way up her calf, skin stretched tight, just as a second carnal urge pulsed in her loins.

            “You can’t be serious,” she moaned. “Not again–AAAA! N-no, think nasty things… autopsy…think autopsies, yeah–GAAA!–scat! Raw, putrid, diarrhetic dog shi–AAA!”

            Sweat poured afresh as her heart hammered triple-time against the creeping snakes. Oh God, what if these other brutes turned on her? The rest of them seemed quiescent enough, for now. That bastard had chewed halfway up her thigh, each bite a thousand needles sinking into skin and muscle. The only thing that stopped it was when it reached her crotch and couldn’t engorge her anymore. She had no idea whether her foot had pushed into its stomach or not. Her entire right leg was crushed in a mucous filled tube, tugging at her in a relentless swallow.

            Her stomach gurgled, an empathic echo of the juices swirling in her devourer’s empty belly. It was to be expected that at least one of these coiling monstrosities would need to eat. Odds are that was exactly the intent. Think positive, girl, Kiana told herself, one of them could have gone for your head.

            Its snout pushed up beneath the coil binding her already-enfolded arm to her hip, glaring into her eyes. It was her first good look at one of her aggressors, and her attention was drawn to the pinhead, a small round red button set between the bony ridges over its eyes. Its distinctive design was intended to commemorate a doomed state, featuring two red diagonal bars symbolizing the cross of Saint Andrew; overlaid on top of that were images of a palmetto tree, a steamboat and a Seminole woman scattering flowers. Just like that, Kiana knew with perfect clarity where Welles’ goons had acquired these herps. Breasts crushed between their obscene caress, Kiana sank slowly, inexorably into their hungry embrace.

            Morning brought little relief. Everything was actually kind of a blur. Her ribs ached and her limbs cramped, what she could feel of them. She had no feeling in her left arm; her fingers felt like five bloated sausages. The overhanging canopy of leaves would probably protect her from the worst of the Sun’s heat. A tongue flicked into her gloved hand. The empath in her rubbed her fingers across the top of its head as it nudged her palm.

            If the Minister didn’t kill her, she thought…Teeth sank patiently into her thigh, bringing fresh tears. Those red eyes fixed on hers, willing her to die. The snake in her hand gazed down on her almost dispassionately. They were all so beautiful and sleek, glossy and patterned in gorgeous spots. Every coil glistened with each fresh contraction. If only she could be certain this was the naturalist in her talking and not those stupid pheromones…

            A subtle vibration jiggled her deep inside her cocoon. Kiana craned her neck, only a few inches. But the only thing in sight was a mound of coils. Still, the supple scales peeled away from her cheeks, reluctantly, high enough that her ears pricked at a distant putter of engine…engines? It was impossible to pinpoint whether those Jeeps were closing in on or speeding past her position. Joshua and the others must have been out searching for her. They would know she wouldn’t have just blown off the Minister.

            She had an inspiration for how she might attract their attention, too. The keys to her Jeep had a miniature touchpad that set off the alarm if she even breathed on it. She’d always thought it’d been a bit too touch sensitive, but that just might be the thing. Please tell me I didn’t leave them in the Jeep, she prayed. No, she remembered pocketing them automatically as she slipped out onto the grass. She could feel them poking around in her right pocket… her head slumped onto the meaty coil supporting her neck. “Of course it was,” she grumbled.

            Her keys were practically sitting under that snake’s palette. Fine. She grit her teeth and closed her eyes. It had to be done, she told herself, before the guys drove right past her. Yet even an incremental shift of her right hip set off a fresh round of constriction. Whatever feeling she still retained returned full-force as stinging needles in her cramping limbs. She still wriggled, trying to nudge the padd that was suddenly too stubborn to activate. Damn it, usually it was too sensitive, why did this have to be the one time–?

            Even with both ears cushioned in a muscular embrace, the sudden muffled hooting startled her. Were the Jeep’s headlights also strobing, or was that just the effect of the constriction?

            The snake’s head oozed out of her palm, rising on a stalk half a meter high as its jaws distended. Saliva dribbled over its jaws, onto her lips. Funny, it wasn’t really glaring at her; there was something off to the side. What–? Then a blur, and that head exploded. Moments later Joshua dropped his bloodied prybar and skid to the ground, his stricken face over hers muttering “No no no no no no–!” Another python’s head rose, to be snared in a burlap sack as Joshua unwound the coils drooping around her neck.

            His gaze drifted down, widening over her exposed nipples before he snapped away. Someone swore in Afrikaans, and then Stempf peeled his shirt over the top of his head and tossed it to Joshua. Then he too swung away as Joshua carefully draped it over her breasts. “I’m sorry,” she kept repeating, to which they both answered with a shake of their heads.

            “We’ll have those things off you in a minute,” Joshua smiled. “First, we thought now would be an opportune time to discuss our wage increases for the coming year.” He winked. Even knowing it for the joke it was, Mkosi still swatted him on the shoulder.

            “Yeah? How’d you like to wake up with these herps in your sleeping bag?” Kiana retorted. It hurt too much to grin.

            Joshua spread his big hands to take in the spectacle enfolding her. “How the fu–how is this even possible?” Maybe Joshua was just trying to keep her lucid while a second Jeep coasted to a stop near them.

            “Welles…” Kiana moaned. “He set this up, disabled GPS…he doused me with a pheromone extract to attract ’em…sexually–“

            “Sexually? Kiana, what…?”
            “I-I couldn’t help myself…” but he didn’t seem to hear her. He was screaming orders, about hazmat conditions, fresh clothes, a portable boma, stuff…

            “I’ll kill him for this,” Joshua muttered, bare seconds before he spotted the snake that had swallowed her leg. She practically felt the profanity before he blurted it. “Get my knife from the truck!” he shouted to Stempf. “Get it now! We’ve got to get this off her–!”

            “Don’t kill it,” Kiana wheezed.

            Joshua hesitated. “Kiana, I know you value life, but there are limits. That thing must have been chewing on your leg all night. It might be infected. I don’t know if we can even save it now–“

            “Just sedate it, please! It’s just following its instincts. There’s no malice on its part–“

            “I don’t care!”

            “This is what Welles wants, don’t you see, to drive us apart. He knows I wouldn’t lift a finger to harm these creatures. Please, you and me. Don’t give him this victory.”

            Joshua ducked his head, shaking it. Eyes brimming, he looked left and right, but the others were either not paying attention or pretending not to. “Kiana I can’t stand this. It pains me to see you violated like this.” That last string of words was spat with venom; towards who, it wasn’t hard to guess. But she knew him. With that one mighty clap of his hands, Joshua was on board.

            “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he began. “Mkosi, Stempf, you and I are going to sedate these things. We’re going to peel them off Kiana, and then we’ll sort how to get this monster to regurgitate her leg. Call the Storehouse, we’ll need as many sedatives and as many transport pods as are available. All right, chop-chop!”

            The other snakes were relatively easy to extract, excepting the brute chewing her thigh. Between the three of them, Joshua, Mkosi and Stempf took the time to safely slip a hood over the head of each successive constrictor, then uncoiling them. Each animal would then be piled into the very transport pods that she and Joshua had ordered for crating injured animals they usually brought back to the Storehouse for recovery and later, release. As the coilee, Kiana had little input into the process.

            “Where the devil did he acquire these things? Most of them aren’t indigenous to this ecosystem,” Joshua groused to himself as he snapped on a disposable glove, the kind they normally used when sterilizing equipment. He whispered, “I’m sorry,” as he reached beneath her right breast to unwind the tail digging into it. This was done quickly, with as little contact with her fleshy nodes as possible.

            “They’re not,” Kiana said. Stempf offered her a waterskin, which she sipped from slowly. “Welles’ goons stole them from the holding area in Joberg we’re using for our cooperative reintroduction program with Florida.”

            A collective groan rose from all parties. These snakes were part of a program the South African Ministry of Ecology had initiated with the former state of Florida, now a member body of the New American Confederacy. This was an effort to relocate what had been an invasive species anyway, back to their natural environment. This had become necessary with saltwater encroachment into Florida’s aquifer and the steady loss of land that could no longer be denied, which had actually begun decades ago, in her father’s young adult life.

            Finally, they’d come to the real challenge. This whole time Stempf has been preoccupied being the middleman as it were, cradling the midsection of the first five snakes they’d peeled off her. Now suddenly he’d dropped to his knees, eyes wide and bloodshot, sweat pouring off his brow as he stared at the beast where Kiana’s leg should be, blood filling every puncture mark in her thigh where its teeth remained sunken in. A lump rocked up and down in Stempf’s throat, and for a moment she thought he might throw up on her.

            Kiana thought he might when Joshua’s big hand clamped on his shoulder. But his voice was surprisingly mellow. “Stempf–this wasn’t you. You had no part in this. You’d parted ways with Welles’ organization a long time before he planned this. Look at me, young man. The best thing you can do is to help us get this thing off Kiana and get her some medical help.” A brotherly thump at the self-same shoulder followed. “Okay? You ready?” The young man forced a smile and nodded.

            “Begging your pardon, sir, but why don’t we just have Kiana summon a lion?” the others stared at Stempf then like he’d just landed from Mars. “I mean it’d regurgitate her if it was threatened! She can control animals, can’t she? Uhh, no offense, miss.”

            “There’s no lions around…” Kiana panted. Every rib ached from last night’s ordeal. “Dry season…they followed the herds to a moderate climate…”

            “She’s in no condition to control wild predators, even if any were nearby,” Joshua confirmed. “Those things squeezed all the strength out of her.” He rubbed one hand over his scalp with a sigh. Kiana’s soft whisper galvanized their attention.

            “a-5, in the genetics tanks…you could use the coolant reserve in the Jeeps…”

            “Yes–lower environmental temperatures,” Joshua nodded, glancing toward his compatriots. “That’s also what forces a constrictor to regurgitate its prey. Threat or lower temperatures–“

            “…guys…? Right here…I can hear you…”

            “Sorry,” the three men chorused. Joshua beckoned them to follow him a ways off. Apparently he was outlining a plan, judging by the speed his hands chopped at the air. The huddle broke up, while each man pelted toward a Jeep. Joshua seemed to have chosen hers. Kiana was left to stare down the length of her small body, criss-crossed in black and blue bruises, down to the mouth gushing fresh gobs of saliva over her crotch.

            “…don’t suppose you’re ready to just let me go…?” Her burning eyes widened as instead the jaws yawned ever wider. Somehow it inched around her right buttock, its gums pressing to her roundness. “…guys…!”

            Three sets of knees scuffed to the ground around her. Their hands were bundled in double layers of haz-mat gloves, each man cradling a thermos-sized coolant tank. The hoses trailing from each tank were now deployed along the python’s flanks. “Brace yourself,” Joshua said as he aimed the tip of his hose right at its broad snout. By either fortune or sheer luck, at that moment the beast opened wide to take in more of her hip.

            “No you don’t!” Joshua snarled. His hands twisted a knob. A jet of Antarctic coolant hissed down its gullet. Two more jets sprayed its glossy neck from both flanks. While on their expeditions to collect gene samples from wild animals, Kiana’s crew stored the collected sequences in insulated iceboxes stowed in the back of each Jeep. The iceboxes were chilled with the most recent innovation in coolant technology, ironically dubbed ‘Antarctic ice’, or a-5 for short. That was shorthand, her dad used to say, for ‘it’s five times colder than a witch’s teats.’

            This might not have been the use its makers intended, but it achieved the desired goal. The snake’s jaw stretched impossibly wide, gagging as all four meters contracted, roiling backwards as its mouth slid off her butt. Her thigh, a mass of tiny punctures, was suddenly chilled as its muscular embrace oozed from her too-pale skin.

            Stempf’s tank was the first to spit and sputter out of coolant. Joshua and Mkosi kept up the pressure, practically jamming their hoses in its mouth. It was a slow motion swallow in reverse. Once it had vomited itself past Kiana’s knee, Joshua dropped his tank and slapped his hands beneath Kiana’s armpits, tensing, waiting. Mkosi and Stempf did the same, tossing their now-useless tanks to one side and hefting a lump of python in their arms. Then Joshua called, “Go!”

            Joshua scrambled to the rear, dragging Kiana finally free of its death swallow. Which led to a new problem: now Stempf and Mkosi were stumbling to control an angry, hurting python denied its meal, writhing in their arms. Fog clouded the edges of Kiana’s vision, so she couldn’t be sure if Mkosi was really pressing one foot on a length of coil bucking beneath him. It seemed only seconds passed between the time Joshua laid her head down and bolted, to the moment he was standing over that livid python, pumping one tranq dart after another into its exposed neck. After that, she didn’t know.

            Two strong arms bundled her into a blanket. Then Joshua lifted her and padded across the swishing grass. A tailgate rattled down, and tender hands eased them both into the open bed of one of their Jeeps. She drank in his strong man scent, sprinkled with the eggs and jam he must’ve wolfed for breakfast. Joshua held her close, plucking sprigs of grass from her auburn mane. “I’m such a mess,” she moaned. “How can you stand me…?”

            “Must be your shining personality,” Joshua quipped. “It’s okay, the Minister was quite concerned about your absence, after his initial tantrum. I don’t think we’ll have much of an issue getting that extra security now.”

            Just then Mkosi dashed up to the tailgate with a message. “Magistrate Malaza is sending an air-foil,” Mkosi reported. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

            “That was quick on his part,” Joshua said. “How did you persuade him to do that?”

            “I said it was Welles and, ummm, that there might have been sexual crimes involved. I hope I, mmm, haven’t overstepped my bounds.”

            Joshua glanced at Kiana, dabbing a damp cloth to her cheeks. “I only wish it wasn’t. No, you haven’t, my friend. Well,” he added, smacking his hand together again, “I suppose after what happened in Joberg and this incident, we can now officially declare that Colonel Welles is a fetishist.” 

            A flare of light in the south-eastern sky, like the light of Bethlehem, preceded a rush of air, like a rocket falling from space. The Magistrate’s supersonic airfoil wasn’t that far away now. Kiana pawed kitten-soft at Joshua’s wrist. “Hey, I’m curious. How’d you resist Welles’ pheromones?”

            He smiled. “I didn’t, not completely. But I’d wrestled with my hormones back in our college days. I knew your religion would never permit a mixed-race relation any more than Welles would. We’ve been friends since childhood, Kiana. I valued that too much. So I could either cut myself off from you, completely, or I could choose to live with it. I chose the latter. And I can always hope.”

            Kiana stared down into her lap. “I’ll always love you.”

            He nodded, “I know.”

Excerpt: Midnight Interruption

A short excerpt from my next novel in progress, Sanity’s Edge. Enjoy.

midnight interruption 300

I slipped off the ship after dark, once I could sense that everyone in the village was asleep. The forest was new but Mama had found me a new friend. We stared at each other under the shade of a mango tree as the Moon climbed into the sky.    Its tongue flicked the air in the three-meter space that divided us. This wasn’t one of the gen-altered snakes I was accustomed to from my home. This bugger was all wild, possibly the first of its kind that I’d seen since childhood, possibly the first I’d ever seen in my life. Sweet Ngai, was she massive! Her trunk was thicker around than my thighs.

I sensed her full belly, so I had no worries on that score. Her scales had a fresh gloss, as though she had just completed shedding not too long ago. I suppose she wouldn’t object to a warm body to enfold. I closed the distance between us and stepped into her embrace.

I knew this would be a problem as soon as a hundred kilos seemed to land on my hips, pressing me down. My knees buckled at first, but I kept to my feet as a second curl of muscle wound behind my legs, brushing the skin of my thighs before plopping atop the first coil, in the process pushing up my breasts.

Both were solid rippling muscle. A thrill shuddered through my chest, and perhaps a little excitement. I’d never given myself to such a beast before. A third coil slipped past my shoulders, pressing my breasts into flattened ovals between them. Sweat trickled over them and down the middle of my back; but that was probably just the heat of this place. For now, I was content.       As I held out my hand, the last meter of its tail settled in my palm, circling twice before cinching tight. With my eyes shut, we dropped as one bundled mass into the soft grass.

Of course that wasn’t the end of it. When was it ever so? The sun had barely emerged as a pink fingernail on the horizon when my hand comm chirruped in my waist pouch. This was ten meters away, along with the rest of my clothes.

Brutus, for so I named her, showed no inclination to release such a rich source of warmth, and gods, I didn’t want to leave this body hug just yet, either. Oh well. I stretched forth my free hand, the new new left one.

The hand comm made an oddly hard thump as it whipped through the grass into the false meat of my false hand. I settled back in Brutus’s coils, pillowing my neck on hers as I put the comm to my ear. “Jambo?”

“The correct greeting would be I ni sogoma, young miss, but we will let it pass this time,” a firm male voice replied. “Am I speaking to Miss Jamai Dlamini?”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly a little nervous.

“My name is Magistrate Oumar Hadad, the local prefect for this hamlet. Would it be possible for you to spare me a few minutes?”

“H-have I done something wrong?”

“Not at all. Your Captain Ismalla discovered you missing this morning and got it into his head that you would be in the fields, with a snake. And so you are.”

My body seemed to have frozen, even snug in Brutus’ coils, though my stare darted left and right. “Don’t be alarmed. The local children spotted you sleeping from some trees they were climbing. They almost took you for dead, but for the fact that you were snoring.”

“I snore…?”

“My deputy has been watching you via long-range glasses, to see to your safety. He will escort you to my office, in your own time.”

My own time…I could make them wait another hour…No, best to be done with it. “Whenever he’s done masterbating, I’d like to dress in peace.”

A deliberate pause followed. “Let me speak with him. You can pull yourself together while I’m berating him.” And the comm chirrped off.

mango-trees

Preview: Sanity’s Edge, progress report

This is a short excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Sanity’s Edge. Our protagonists Jamai and Youssou have left their homeland in exile; Jamai has chosen to leave Youssou, due to his erratic mood swings, and has joined a branch of the Order of Elias in the hopes of finding a place among people of her own kind. This is proving not so simple as she believed.

This is still a draft version and will be liable to revision. Comments and critiques are welcome. Enjoy.

The debriefing began that afternoon. Cyrano had the appearance of a well groomed wild man. He was taller than average and had to duck stepping over the threshold into Alejandro’s casa. His was a thick body with a flat nose that might have been broken on more than one occasion. And he had a mane, a literal flame red mane and beard with no hint of a mustache. All that was stuffed inside a deep blue dress suit whose creases had seen better care than his beard.

The other fellow, Lloyd George, was not so tall but unnaturally thin and clean shaven, even to his scalp which bore the signs of week-old stubble. He was also in a dress uniform, though his seemed more comfortably ivied-in than Cyrano’s. His stare darted here and there, taking in the surroundings while being unfailingly polite to Alejandro and me.

I found the big man’s interrogatories usually came in the form of a one-way shouting match. That, combined with the fact that apparently I might have been a little soft spoken, made for a bit of a tense session.

“I suppose the first time was when I was seven and the village ant totem–”

“SPEAK UP, GIRL! I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU!”

“–and that’s when I found out our elder Odu Molefe had been collaborating with them the whole time, can you believe–”

“DON’T MIX SUPPOSITION WITH THE FACTS! FOCUS, GIRL!”

I had to endure two days of this interrogation before I could even slip in one question, perhaps the only one that mattered to me. The small fellow, Lloyd George, tapped his padd like a mad keyboardist while the fat guy Cyrano sat as a rock on the Mara Plains, glowering directly at me. Alejandro was getting up to fetch us all coffee when I blurted, “Is there anyone else like me?”

Alejandro paused, recalling the one occasion I’d put the same query to him. Cyrano scoffed, “Certainly not. That kind of power in so youthful–”

“No, I mean, are there any other gifted people out there?”

“Like you?” Lloyd George prompted.

“Yes.”

The two interlopers exchanged arched glances. Perhaps it wasn’t so much a telepathic exchange as they’d worked together so long as a team that they thought along the same patterns. At any rate it was Lloyd George who answered.

“Why yes, we have wards much like you in our branches all across the globe,” he beamed. “Some have similar power levels to your own, some can be quite innocuous. Alejandro for example–”

“There’s nobody exactly like you,” Cyrano emphasized, and here his bushy mustache twitched at the right cheek. “Your powers are unique. That is why we’ve taken such an interest in you.” He seemed prepared to move along but I wasn’t done.

“I had another question.”

“Oh, what now?”

“I was wondering if you could help me find something to do with myself. Some kind of employment…”

“You want a job?”

“Y-yes,” I nodded. “I want to do something useful. It doesn’t have to be anything big. In fact I’d prefer it if I could find someplace not so public, where I could disappear in the back or something.”

“What do we look like, an unemployment office?”

“No, but you must have connections.”

“For Chrissakes, what do you think you’re doing here? You’re a murderess!”

Some dishes clattered in the kitchen. “I’m sorry…?”

“Huh, she’s sorry,” Cyrano huffed, nudging his companion. “You damn well ought to be. You should be grateful we’re even taking you in. we could be breaking ten thousand laws just hiding your sorry ass!”

“I didn’t mean to kill them, I panicked!”

“And how do we know you won’t panic in the future? What’s to stop you from doing it again?”

“Because I remember it! Because I can’t get it out of my mind!”

I had to stop; I’d started breathing in shallow gulps. Alejandro had to catch me as I slumped over the table with one hand bracing me up. Cyrano was noticeably silent, though his spirit matched the slow boil in mine. “Getting back to this business with Sydney,” Lloyd George interjected, “may I ask, umm, how did you know all that?”

“She told me. I already explained that.”

“Impossible,” Cyrano said. “We–!” He hesitated, cracking his fists as he huffed more deeply than before. “These are things known to only a handful of us on the Order’s Inner Circle. Sydney Merryman is gone. That’s established fact.”

“You may be wrong,” I said. “From what I could perceive Massoud didn’t want to steal our bodies. I don’t think the vast majority of Sydelle’s kin want to. They’re not after our bodies, our children, for their own pleasure. That’s just what we think based on what Sydelle has told us. I think they just want their purgatory to end. I think they just want to die.”

Our guests exchanged another doubtful glance. Lloyd George began, “Cyrano, maybe we should consider–”

“Oh don’t you be stupid too, man! It’s pure bullshit. Talking spirits? That’s never happened before. In the last five hundred years not one soul has been recovered, not one! Am I supposed to take this shit to the Inner Council, tell them everything we KNOW is wrong, based on the word of a stupid girl?”

“But my vision–what I saw–!”

“Maybe you filtered what your thought was a vision through your own perceptions,” Lloyd George suggested. That creature suffocated you. Perhaps oxygen deprivation caused you to fashion your ideas into a comfortable narrative.”

“No.”

“Miss, it is a possibility we should consider–”

“I said NO. I know what I saw and I won’t be dissuaded from that by the Fat Guy here.”

“Settle down, girl,” Cyrano growled.

“Who the hell do you think you–”

“SETTLE DOWN!”

Was it me, or did the rafters shudder? Dust sifted down from above as he continued. “Our people have been watching those maniacs for five hundred years. You can’t come crawling up out of the bush at nineteen years old telling us how to run our affairs. You’re barely out of diapers.”

“I’ve lived more in those twenty years,” I corrected him, heat rising into my cheeks, “than either of you fucking toubabs.”

“Cyrano…” Lloyd George’s eyes shone bright. He slapped a palm onto his companion’s knee. The fat one’s brow furrowed as his knuckles popped with what should have been a painful balling of the fist I was glaring at.

I had no idea what he could do and didn’t much care. “Oh please, try it.”

“Senores,” Alejandro called, though honestly I think his voice only penetrated the periphery of our mutual glares. “Let’s call it a day, debemos? We should give these tense sessions time to rest before we resume.” Lloyd George nodded at least. After a few more moments where our eyes locked, Cyrano swerved his gaze away.

I pushed off the divan without a backward glance at either of my two acosters. “You can see them to the door, padre. I don’t know why I’m wasting my time with you people.”

Alejandro followed me as far as the circular stairwell leading upstairs. “Thanks for standing up for me,” I muttered. “You don’t believe me either, do you?”

“You have to understand it goes against everything we know,” he said.

Sweet Ngai, I didn’t want to talk about this. “Maybe I’ll just leave.”

Both hands slapped on his hips. “And where will you go?”

“I DON’T KNOW! Maybe I’ll go back to the bushes I crawled from, or maybe I’ll see if they’ll have me back at Abyei-Bentiu! That’ll make everybody happy!” it should have been satisfying to slam the door to my room on his face, but somehow it wasn’t.

 

Mikes’ latest book, FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS, is available at amazon.com.         Mike’s Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Mr.-Michael-Robbins/e/B00CMHSMYA

f & d cover

Butterfly & Serpent: Smile

B&S Jamai smilie (2)300

Looking ahead a bit, I think. This sketch details where I want to take Jamai, although to be perfectly frank, this brash happy version, confident in herself and her sexuality, will have to pass through fire getting to this point. That’s where the third book in the trilogy, Sanity’s Edge, will take her. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Mikes’ latest book, FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS, is still available at amazon.com.  Mike’s Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Mr.-Michael-Robbins/e/B00CMHSMYA

 

Book update: thinking Spanish

The third book in the Butterfly & Serpent series has logged another chapter, so I am making progress. The challenge is getting into another culture, another mindset, which might be hampered a bit by an inability to travel. The problem is compounded by the fact that just in the first section of the new book, I’ve had to learn not one but two cultures, diametrically opposed. But I’m keeping at it.

My biggest regret in this regard is that I wasn’t ready until now. I would have loved to have asked my grandmother Elsy about Spain, she was very knowledgeable about all things Spanish. That’s my bad. I’ve finished Vicente Blasco Ibanez’s classic novel Blood and Sand. If nothing else I’ve come away sharing the author’s healthy disgust with the whole ‘sport’ of bullfighting. I feel more for the bulls than the matadors. I can’t even talk to my wife about what happens to the poor horses. The people who go to these things are animals.

cover blood and sand

That’s where I’m at. I’m moving on to the next chapter. Thanks for the support, everyone.

 

Mikes’ latest book, FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS, is available at amazon.com.

f & d cover

Mike’s Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Mr.-Michael-Robbins/e/B00CMHSMYA

Interview Extract

Jamai Independent Woman Metoo GIF-downsized_large

BLOG–You’ve consistently refused being termed a ‘mutant’, ‘psychic’, ‘medium’ et al. May I ask why?

JAMAI–Because they’re just labels. They’re another way of saying ‘you’re a freak, you don’t belong.’

B–I take it you’re not fond of labels.

J–I despise them. It’s just another way of dividing people, of keeping them down. Listen, my husband’s uncle once told me that words have a profound effect on our social relations. When I was young I was stupid enough to let myself be blinkered by these insults.

B–I’d never call you stupid.

J–Appreciated. I’ll give you an example of what I mean from your own day and age. The great Miles Davis was invited to participate in a charity record–“Sun City”, and the umbrella title for the group was Artists United Against Apartheid. The project was spearheaded by Steven Van Zandt. Miles’ part was to be edited into a jazz track, but at some point in his performance, Miles started muttering, “you can’t go in there, you’re the wrong color.”

B–“The Struggle Continues,” that was the track.

J–Good. There’s hope for you yet. Well, Miles’ rap was entirely spontaneous, but so truthful, that they built that whole track around it.

B–I guess what you’re saying is today, right now, you’re comfortable with who you are?

J–Why shouldn’t I be? I tried to fit in, to be like ‘everybody else’. But the truth is, people or bosses or your leaders will never be satisfied no matter how much you try to fit in. Why should I change to satisfy them? Why make myself uncomfortable with myself? I’m a person and I’m different. So what? I don’t have to prove anything to anyone but myself. And neither do you. If who you are isn’t good enough form “them”, whoever “they” are, they can get stuffed!

(shared laughter)

FATHERS & DAUGHTERS, the second book in the BUTTERFLY & SERPENT book series, is now out on http://www.amazon.com as a paperback & Kindle.

B & S new cover      f & d cover

Butterfly & Serpent–thoughts

b-B & S Book Cover Image

We’re in the final stages of proofing and I’m looking forward to putting this baby to bed.

I never really intended this to be a trilogy at all. I hate trilogies; they’re as bad as cliffhangers, or major motion pictures of books that stretch ONE book into two–or three- pictures. Thank you very much, Harry Potter, for starting that trend. I thought this series would wind up at two books, at best.

Well, the first book, Butterfly & Serpent (above) was already clocking in at over 200 pages. Once I finished the first section of the follow-up volumes, I realized this section would be completely different from the rest of the material and would probably work best as a stand-alone.

Not to give away too much, but in Book 2, Fathers & Daughters, Youssou is forced to call on Jamai’s help when a new situation rises, and he has to confront his family’s pains of the past. Jamai will come forward as a stronger, more assertive personality.

For Book 3, because of their actions in the previous adventure Jamai & Youssou find themselves thrown into the wider world. Their relationship will be tested, with the usual troubles one can expect from two very young people.

Strolling the Shores of Lake Tana

That’s all for now. I’ll keep everybody up to date as things move along.