when the President bowed ritually to the paleontologist and warmly clasped his hands. This skull, Joshua knew, was genuine, not a plaster cast or a clever facsimile. Blair had yielded it to the President, under stern and probably injudicious protest, only after his staff at the National Museum had obtained a plaster duplicate from an American physical anthropologist and had catalogued for posterity every known fact about the valuable fossil.
This episode in recent Zarakali history had provoked worldwide interest and comment. The Times of London had run an article predicting Blair’s expulsion from the native government and his possible arraignment for criticism detrimental to the country’s best interests, but the affair had blown over in a fortnight, the President privately placating Blair by promising to restore the hominid crown to the National Museum at his death, and Blair appeasing Mzee Tharaka by agreeing to refuse public comment on the issue and to reaffirm his loyalty pledge to the old man at an open session of the National Assembly. The paleontologist had kept his promises. What Mzee Tharaka would do no one could say. He might choose to be buried wearing the crown. In the meantime, however, he was by universal acknowledgment the only head of state who periodically proclaimed his sovereignty by donning the skull of a human ancestor nearly three million years old.
“Sit,” said the President, indicating the padded swivel chairs in front of the window. “Sit, sit. Mr. Kampa is our guest. He must see that Zarakal is pursuing its future as actively as any other great nation.”
“His especial interest is the past,” Blair said.
“But not for its own sake, surely. Very few people are interested in the past for its own sake. Where we have been, gentlemen, shapes what we are. Further, it implies where we may be going.” The President patted Joshua on the hand. “Zarakal is humanity’s birthplace, young man, and it will not be a negligible factor in determining our species’ ultimate destiny.” He gestured at the merciless blue sky, at the rugged yawn of the gorge. “Here you behold the primitive but fateful beginnings of Project Umuntu, the diaspora of our evolving intelligence to the stars.”
Joshua looked out the window at the Weightlessness Simulation Incline. Three of Zarakal’s astronauts-in-training stood on the opposite ridge, paying homage to their Commander in Chief with the stiff, palm-outward salute that was a relic of the days of British colonialism. They were dwindled by distance, these trainees, but their white uniforms and tight-fitting headgear reminded Joshua of hospital workers in rubber bathing caps. Each man was standing by a large, upright barrel, and each barrel was balanced on the edge of the incline by wires connected to cables strung across the gorge like an unfinished suspension bridge. Red, yellow, and blue, the barrels appeared to be made of a hard, dent-resistant plastic. They were perforated with air holes, and at the moment their hatch covers were up, quite like toilet seats.
Looking down the counter to an official hunched over a microphone, Mzee Tharaka said, “It’s time to begin.”
“Prepare for drop-off,” said the man at the microphone. “One minute and counting.”
The official’s amplified voice echoed over the bleak desert landscape like the voice of God. The astronauts climbed into their capsules and closed the hatch covers.
Mzee Tharaka said, “It’s ridiculous that of all the nations of the earth only the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and perhaps the People’s Republic of China, should be trying to conquer the frontiers of space.”
“Isn’t it equally ridiculous for a nation with insufficient resources and personnel to be making the attempt?” Joshua asked. “Zarakal has more pressing business to attend to, hasn’t it?”
The President’s flinty eyes flashed, but with delight rather than disapproval. “One need not be a giant to have great dreams, Mr. Kampa. As you well know.”
“Yes, Mzee.” The shrewd old bastard.
“For just that reason, and for the reason that although Zarakal may be no giant, Africa is a colossus stirring with a newfound sense of its strength, I am the champion of African astronautics, Mr. Kampa. It was I, incidentally, who initially convinced President Kaunda of Zambia that we must put an African on the moon without the assistance of the so-called superpowers. Zambia’s fledgling space program collapsed under the weight of a staggering economy, but our program is taking wing.”
“We’ve recently replaced our obsolescent beer kegs,” said Blair, wryly, “with expertly engineered ‘descent cylinders.’ ”
“True, very true.” The President laughed, not at