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

In the evening, after I ate my solitary meal, I returned to the village, for Njogu, one of our young men, was to marry Kamiri, a girl from the next village. The bride-price had been decided upon, and the two families were waiting for me to preside at the ceremony.
Njogu, his faced streaked with paint, wore an ostrich-feather headdress, and looked very uneasy as he and his betrothed stood before me. I slit the throat of a fat ram that Kamiri's father had brought for the occasion, and then I turned to Njogu.
"What have you to say?" I asked.
He took a step forward. "I want Kamiri to come and till the fields of my shamba," he said, his voice cracking with nervousness as he spoke the prescribed words, "for I am a man, and I need a woman to tend to my shamba and dig deep around the roots of my plantings, that they may grow well and bring prosperity to my house."
He spit on both his hands to show his sincerity, and then, exhaling deeply with relief, he stepped back.
I turned to Kamiri.
"Do you consent to till the shamba of Njogu, son of Muchiri?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said softly, bowing her head. "I consent."
I held out my right hand, and the bride's mother placed a gourd of pombe in it.
"If this man does not please you," I said to Kamiri, "I will spill the pombe upon the ground."
"Do not spill it," she replied.
"Then drink," I said, handing the gourd to her.
She lifted it to her lips and took a swallow, then handed it to Njogu, who did the same.
When the gourd was empty, the parents of Njogu and Kamiri stuffed it with grass, signifying the friendship between the two clans.
Then a cheer rose from the onlookers, the ram was carried off to be roasted, more pombe appeared as if by magic, and while the groom took the bride off to his boma, the remainder of the people celebrated far into the night. They stopped only when the bleating of the goats told them that some hyenas were nearby, and then the women and children went off to their bomas while the men took their spears and went into the fields to frighten the hyenas away.
Koinnage came up to me as I was about to leave.
"Did you speak to the woman from Maintenance?" he asked.
"I did," I replied.
"What did she say?"
"She said that they do not approve of killing babies who are born feet-first."
"And what did you say?" he asked nervously.
"I told her that we did not need the approval of Maintenance to practice our religion," I replied.
"Will Maintenance listen?"
"They have no choice," I said. "And we have no choice, either," I added. "Let them dictate one thing that we must or must not do, and soon they will dictate all things. Give them their way, and Njogu and Kamiri would have recited wedding vows from the Bible or the Koran. It happened to us in Kenya; we cannot permit it to happen on Kirinyaga."
"But they will not punish us?" he persisted.
"They will not punish us," I replied.
Satisfied, he walked off to his boma while I took the narrow, winding path to my own. I stopped by the enclosure where my animals were kept and saw that there were two new goats there, gifts from the bride's and groom's families in gratitude for my services. A few minutes later I was asleep within the walls of my own boma.
The computer woke me a few minutes before sunrise. I stood up, splashed my face with water from the gourd I keep by my sleeping blanket, and walked over to the terminal.
There was a message for me from Barbara Eaton, brief and to the point:
It is the preliminary finding of Maintenance that infanticide, for any reason, is a direct violation of Kirinyaga's charter. No action will be taken for past offenses.
We are also evaluating your practice of euthanasia, and may require further testimony from you at some point in the future.

-- Barbara Eaton
A runner from Koinnage arrived a moment later, asking me to attend a meeting of the Council of Elders, and I knew that he had received the same message.
I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and began walking to Koinnage's shamba, which consisted of his boma, as well as those of his three sons and their wives. When I arrived I found not only the local elders waiting for me, but also two chiefs from neighboring villages.
"Did you receive the message from Maintenance?" demanded Koinnage, as I seated myself opposite him.
"I did."
"I warned you that this would happen!" he said. "What will we do now?"
"We will do what we have always done," I answered calmly.
"We cannot," said one of the neighboring chiefs. "They have forbidden it."
"They have no right to forbid it," I replied.
"There is a woman in my village whose time is near," continued the chief, "and all of the signs and omens point to the birth of twins. We have been taught that the firstborn must be killed, for one mother cannot produce two souls -- but now Maintenance has forbidden it. What are we to do?"
"We must kill the firstborn," I said, "for it will be a demon."
"And then Maintenance will make us leave Kirinyaga!" said Koinnage bitterly.
"Perhaps we could let the child live," said the chief. "That might satisfy them, and then they might leave us alone."
I shook my head. "They will not leave you alone. Already they speak about the way we leave the old and the feeble out for the hyenas, as if this were some enormous sin against their God. If you give in on the one, the day will come when you must give in on the other."
"Would that be so terrible?" persisted the chief. "They have medicines that we do not possess; perhaps they could make the old young again."
"You do not understand," I said, rising to my feet. "Our society is not a collection of separate people and customs and traditions. No, it is a complex system, with all the pieces as dependant upon each other as the animals and vegetation of the savannah. If you burn the grass, you will not only kill the impala who feeds upon it, but the predator who feeds upon the impala, and the ticks and flies who live upon the predator, and the vultures and maribou storks who feed upon his remains when he dies. You cannot destroy the part without destroying the whole."
I paused to let them consider what I had said, and then continued speaking: "Kirinyaga is like the savannah. If we do not leave the old and the feeble out for the hyenas, the hyenas will starve. If the hyenas starve, the grass eaters will become so numerous that there is no land left for our cattle and goats to graze. If the old and the feeble do not die when Ngai decrees it, then soon we will not have enough food to go around."
I picked up a stick and balanced it precariously on my forefinger.