United States managed to place its bases here?”
“You’re not immune to a little dash dealing either, are you?”
The Great Man bridled, slipped voodoo needles into Joshua’s body with his eyes. “I was referring to the bounders in the motorcade, Kampa. The provincial commissioner, the district officer, the minister of science, and the other pettifogging mucky-mucks who’ve come up here from Marakoi for the day.”
“You sound like a closet Klansman.”
“Rubbish, Joshua! The WaBenzi are a persistent scourge on the backs of our citizenry. I’d despise their venality even if it came cloaked in Anglo-Saxon pinkness. You can stop that adolescent smirking. It’s a measure of your ignorance.”
“My ignorance? About what?”
“Africa. I’m a white man, granted, but this is my bloody country, and these are my people. You’re a black man, but you’re still a cultural dilettante and an outsider when it comes to comprehending what you see here.”
Joshua said, “That’ll put me in my place.”
Blair expressed his contempt for this comeback by snorting like a bush pig. Meanwhile, the President’s cavalcade—eight automobiles and a pair of khaki-clad outriders on motorcycles—passed behind a row of whitewashed administration buildings and turned onto an access road leading to the testing ranges in the salt flats. Two American air policemen on motorcycles and a navy-blue staff car belonging to the base commander had joined the procession at the main gate, and they were dutifully bringing up the rear, maintaining a discreet distance between themselves and the WaBenzi. This was a low-key reception for the leader of the air base’s host country, but Mzee Tharaka, the fabled Zarakali freedom fighter, vacillated between pomp and austerity in matters of governance, and you could never be sure what occasions would provoke which response. Today, apparently, it was a little of both, a motorcade but no fanfare.
“Let’s go,” Blair said. “The President wants to meet you.”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
Joshua followed the Great Man to a Land Rover parked on the edge of the parade ground and abashedly climbed in on the passenger’s side. Blair was put out with him. He had offended his mentor with that Klansman slur, then compounded the insult by smarting off. What a clumsy comedy. This was Africa, all right, but he was a long way from home. The Land Rover accelerated to overtake Mzee Tharaka and his obsequious WaBenzi retinue. The Great Man played the gear-shift knob as if it were the handle on an unforthcoming slot machine.
“At least there’s youth to excuse my petulant behavior.”
Blair glanced sidelong at Joshua. “Ha,” he said, grudgingly amused. “He got here earlier than I expected. We should have been out there waiting for him. Delays annoy him.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Do you know why Mzee Tharaka values your presence here?”
“No, sir. Not really.”
“You’re part of his modernization program. You’ll be visiting the realm of yesterday for the greater glory of Zarakal’s tomorrow. Integrating the technological with the spiritual is a passion of his, even if he is sometimes unsure how to accomplish that goal.”
The Land Rover sprinted up the access road until it was cruising three or four car lengths behind the base commander’s vehicle. One of the American air policemen dropped back on his motorcycle to see who they were, then saluted and waved them on.
Ten minutes later the procession slowed. Ahead of them Joshua saw a barricade of chain-link fence and another boxlike sentry post. On duty here was a young African soldier wearing pinks, rose-colored khakis, and a helmet like a deep-dish silver hubcap. He held his awkward, palm-outward salute until even the Land Rover had passed through the gate, upon which hung a large sign stenciled in Day-Glo red letters:
Authorized Personnel Only—
By Order of ZAPPA
“ZAPPA?” Joshua said.
“It’s an acronym for Zarakali Administration for Peace and Prosperity through Astronautics.”
“Astronautics?”
“Surely that doesn’t boggle your bourgeois brain, Joshua. After all, you’re a Zarakali chrononaut.”
“Yes, but—”
“Astro-, chrono-, what matters the prefix? President Tharaka is visiting all his nauts today. That’s why you’ve been summoned.”
“Yes, sir. But I’m a special case, aren’t I? It’s a little hard to believe that Zarakal has a space program, too.”
“What Mzee Tharaka wants, Mzee Tharaka gets.”
A wooden reviewing stand with a high oblong hutch resembling a press box appeared in the hazy middle distance, bleacher-green against the dirty beige of the desert. A pair of revolving sprinklers watered the narrow travesty of lawn in front of these bleachers, and six spiky palm trees in tubs lined the walkway that bisected the reviewing stand. Not an especially auspicious site for a football or soccer stadium. As it