"Resnick, Mike - Kirinyaga 2 - Kirinyaga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

By the time of the evening meal, no one had a thought for the dead baby. I ate alone in my boma, as befitted my status, for the mundumugu always lives and eats apart from his people. When I had finished I wrapped a blanket around my body to protect me from the cold and walked down the dirt path to where all the other bomas were clustered. The cattle and goats and chickens were penned up for the night, and my people, who had slaughtered and eaten a cow, were now singing and dancing and drinking great quantities of pombe. As they made way for me, I walked over to the caldron and took a drink of pombe, and then, at Kanjara's request, I slit open a goat and read its entrails and saw that his youngest wife would soon conceive, which was cause for more celebration. Finally the children urged me to tell them a story.
"But not a story of Earth," complained one of the taller boys. "We hear those all the time. This must be a story about Kirinyaga."
"All right," I said. "If you will all gather around, I will tell you a story of Kirinyaga." The youngsters all moved closer. "This," I said, "is the story of the Lion and the Hare." I paused until I was sure that I had everyone's attention, especially that of the adults. "A hare was chosen by his people to be sacrificed to a lion, so that the lion would not bring disaster to their village. The hare might have run away, but he knew that sooner or later the lion would catch him, so instead he sought out the lion and walked right up to him, and as the lion opened his mouth to swallow him, the hare said, 'I apologize, Great Lion.'
"'For what?' asked the lion curiously.
"'Because I am such a small meal,' answered the hare, 'For that reason, I brought honey for you as well.'
"'I see no honey,' said the lion.
"'That is why I apologized,' answered the hare. 'Another lion stole it from me. He is a ferocious creature, and says that he is not afraid of you.'
"The lion rose to his feet. 'Where is this other lion?' he roared.
"The hare pointed to a hole in the earth. 'Down there,' he said, 'but he will not give you back your honey.'
"'We shall see about that!' growled the lion.
"He jumped into the hole, roaring furiously, and was never seen again, for the hare had chosen a very deep hole indeed. Then the hare went home to his people and told them that the lion would never bother them again."
Most of the children laughed and clapped their hands in delight, but the same young boy voiced his objection.
"That is not a story of Kirinyaga," he said scornfully. "We have no lions here."
"It is a story of Kirinyaga," I replied. "What is important about the story is not that it concerned a lion and a hare, but that it shows that the weaker can defeat the stronger if he uses his intelligence."
"What has that to do with Kirinyaga?" asked the boy.
"What if we pretend that the men of Maintenance, who have ships and weapons, are the lion, and the Kikuyu are the hares?" I suggested. "What shall the hares do if the lion demands a sacrifice?"
The boy suddenly grinned. "Now I understand! We shall throw the lion down a hole!"
"But we have no holes here," I pointed out.
"Then what shall we do?"
"The hare did not know that he would find the lion near a hole," I replied. "Had he found him by a deep lake, he would have said that a large fish took the honey."
"We have no deep lakes."
"But we do have intelligence," I said. "And if Maintenance ever interferes with us, we will use our intelligence to destroy the lion of Maintenance, just as the hare used his intelligence to destroy the lion of the fable."
"Let us think how to destroy Maintenance right now!" cried the boy. He picked up a stick and brandished it at an imaginary lion as if it were a spear and he a great hunter.
I shook my head. "The hare does not hunt the lion, and the Kikuyu do not make war. The hare merely protects himself, and the Kikuyu do the same."
"Why would Maintenance interfere with us?" asked another boy, pushing his way to the front of the group. "They are our friends."
"Perhaps they will not," I answered reassuringly. "But you must always remember that the Kikuyu have no true friends except themselves."
"Tell us another story, Koriba!" cried a young girl.
"I am an old man," I said. "The night has turned cold, and I must have my sleep."
"Tomorrow?" she asked. "Will you tell us another tomorrow?"
I smiled. "Ask me tomorrow, after all the fields are planted and the cattle and goats are in their enclosures and the food has been made and the fabrics have been woven."
"But girls do not herd the cattle and goats," she protested. "What if my brothers do not bring all their animals to the enclosure?"
"Then I will tell a story just to the girls," I said.
"It must be a long story," she insisted seriously, "for we work much harder than the boys."
"I will watch you in particular, little one," I replied, "and the story will be as long or as short as your work merits."
The adults all laughed and suddenly she looked very uncomfortable, but then I chuckled and hugged her and patted her head, for it was necessary that the children learned to love their mundumugu as well as hold him in awe, and finally she ran off to play and dance with the other girls, while I retired to my boma.
Once inside, I activated my computer and discovered that a message was waiting for me from Maintenance, informing me that one of their number would be visiting me the following morning. I made a very brief reply -- "Article II, Paragraph 5", which is the ordinance forbidding intervention -- and lay down on my sleeping blanket, letting the rhytmic chanting of the singers carry me off to sleep.
I awoke with the sun the next morning and instructed my computer to let me know when the Maintenance ship had landed. Then I inspected my cattle and my goats -- I, alone of my people, planted no crops, for the Kikuyu feed their mundumugu, just as they tend his herds and weave his blankets and keep his boma clean -- and stopped by Simani's boma to deliver a balm to fight the disease that was afflicting his joints. Then, as the sun began warming the earth, I returned to my own boma, skirting the pastures where the young men were tending their animals. When I arrived, I knew the ship had landed, for I found the droppings of a hyena on the ground near my hut, and that is the surest sign of a curse.
I learned what I could from the computer, then walked outside and scanned the horizon while two naked children took turns chasing a small dog and running away from it. When they began frightening my chickens, I gently sent them back to their own boma, and then seated myself beside my fire. At last I saw my visitor from Maintenance, coming up the path from Haven. She was obviously uncomfortable in the heat, and she slapped futilely at the flies that circled her head. Her blonde hair was starting to turn grey, and I could tell by the ungainly way she negotiated the steep, rocky path that she was unused to such terrain. She almost lost her balance a number of times, and it was obvious that her proximity to so many animals frightened her, but she never slowed her pace, and within another ten minutes she stood before me.
"Good morning," she said.
"Jambo, Memsaab," I replied.
"You are Koriba, are you not?"
I briefly studied the face of my enemy; middle-aged and weary, it did not appear formidable. "I am Koriba," I replied.
"Good," she said. "My name is -- "
"I know who you are," I said, for it is best, if conflict cannot be avoided, to take the offensive.
"You do?"
I pulled the bones out of my pouch and cast them on the dirt. "You are Barbara Eaton, born of Earth," I intoned, studying her reactions as I picked up the bones and cast them again. "You are married to Robert Eaton, and you have worked for Maintenance for nine years." A final cast of the bones. "You are 41 years old, and you are barren."
"How did you know all that?" she asked with an expression of surprise.
"Am I not the mundumugu?"
She stared at me for a long minute. "You read my biography on your computer," she concluded at last.
"As long as the facts are correct, what difference does it make whether I read them from the bones or the computer?" I responded, refusing to confirm her statement. "Please sit down, Memsaab Eaton."