This was the way things were going to be, and she stopped crying as soon as she accepted it. Her mind closed the door to questions of other routes history might have taken. This time, injustice would be met with force. And thus the voices continued, each answering all—each of them inevitable.
“The Moriori vote against.”
“The Tsitsistas vote in favor.”
“The Ovimbundu vote in favor.”
“The Otomi vote in favor.”
“The Rejang vote in favor.”
“The Ayoreo vote in favor.”
“The Batswana vote in favor.”
“The Witotos vote in favor.”
“The Enets vote in favor.”
“The Wolastoqiyik vote in favor.”
“The Cabécar vote in favor.”
“The Tujia vote in favor.”
“The Sambals vote in favor.”
“The Wolaytta vote in favor.”
“The Lakota vote in favor.”
“The Bamana vote in favor.”
“The Kanienkehaka vote in favor.”
“The Buryats vote in favor.”
“The Ngasanans vote in favor.”
“The Hmong vote in favor.”
“The Orochen vote in favor.”
“The Ifugaos vote in favor.”
“The Bunun vote in favor.”
“The Dharug vote in favor.”
“The Ovambo vote in favor.”
“The Selknam vote in favor.”
Morning, August 17 (Julian), 1999
Namib Desert
The effects of the vote were not immediate. Whereas each of the big empires had developed its signature weapon unimpeded, the Alliance of Survivor Peoples had needed to conduct its research in hiding while its members continued to live under an odious yoke.
Completing their study of fissile matter until a prototype was ready for demonstration had taken more years than Neema Farnana had had left.
In the eyes of Yakub ben Jekuthiel Nahari, the newly appointed delegate from the Teimanim, in those years the world had finally started to move away from its stagnation, but it was taking a heated route. Danish India had issued a declaration that only formalized what had for long been a gainless war with Iberian India. Northwest from there, seeking to avoid a prolonged siege and the ruin it would cause, the tiny kingdom of Russia had petitioned to join the Great Ming, leaving Lithuanian Catholics unprotected and creating for the first time an open route from the dominions of the Heavenly Followers and the Holy Lands of the True Cross. Meanwhile, Denmark had expressed support for a twofold plan to build a canal through the Swedish Protectorate of Sinai and another through Scottish Darién; in response, the king of Iberia had reminded the Danes that he owned colonies next to both regions and he would not tolerate the unfair disadvantage posed by the creation of artificial trade routes. The fact that Iberian trade was conducted by air didn’t seem to weigh in the discussion. At the other side of the world, Encoberta’s indigenous peoples had started an independence campaign that the Spanish viceroy was handling with the accustomed brutality. Novadania had started charging Canutic ships a toll for crossing the Munk Strait between the Arctic and the Pacific; since the former colony had submarines of its own to enforce payment, the situation had at first turned to its favor, but Yakub had been informed that the Novadanian Senate expected Denmark to switch back to its previous ship designs and escalate the disagreement to a full-scale submarine war. Worst of all, oil deposits had been found in Arabia, much more than Persia could offer for fueling the Chinese steel army. A quick scheme of bribes had shifted the Arabian princes’ allegiance from Istanbul to Beijing, after which the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Great Ming was only a matter of time. For Yakub the question facing the survivor peoples was no longer whether to bring war back to the empires, but whether to stop them from igniting the world again.
While preparations for the bomb test were being finished, Yakub waited in his tent for Gilberto and his entourage to join him and the team of builders camping with him. Because the agreement signed with regard to the demonstration stipulated that each side in the voting should be represented, Gilberto would be bringing a few other observers smuggled into Zaire by various routes. All the duties of the delegate from the Esikongo had been passed from Neema to Gilberto years before her death, but in subsequent Alliance meetings many said they could still detect her impassionate pleas against war in her successor’s voice. Yakub didn’t share that recollection; he was a novice practitioner in the still incomplete art of international diplomacy. His predecessor had voted in favor of attacking, and had in fact hurried to convince several undecided delegates to support what had in a matter of minutes become the majority position. Other members of the Alliance were very little informed, or concerned, about the living conditions of the Teimanim, but Yakub knew that the likelihood of Ottoman possessions passing into Chinese hands was everyone’s business.
On the Monday that the Canutic colonial authorities in Namib counted as the 17th of the month and their Portuguese neighbors in Angola counted as the 30th, Yakub saw the approaching shape of the camel caravan that brought Gilberto and his travel companions to the test site. The quickly rising heat of the morning made Yakub tremble with the question of how many days they must have endured on the unimaginably ancient dunes. He’d been involved with the planning of this meeting, and felt lucky that his part of the journey had required him to hop between the hundreds of minor heavenly islands just north of Madagascar, avoiding Danish patrols until he could enter the continent from the east. Making arrangements to bring the rest of the delegates into Zaire, creating false papers for each of them and providing them with the means to support themselves on a walk through the world’s less populated desert had been a considerable challenge, but for those who couldn’t follow Yakub it had been judged the least risky option. Airship traffic was forbidden in Canutic colonies, and the treacherously foggy coast of Namib made sea access dubious. However, given the unpredictable duration of an arrival by land, the bomb test had not been scheduled to occur on a fixed date of that month, but on whichever day all the conspirators could make it to the designated site.
To give his eyes rest, Yakub looked away from the bright horizon and reviewed the notes he kept in his tent. The first half of Gilberto’s journey had to pass through Angola, which shared with Zaire the same colonial administration. From the assortment of identity papers his fellow independentist operatives had forged for him, Gilberto would be using the ones that stated his profession as priest. As a general rule, imperial authorities treated black travelers with suspicion, especially those coming from the outrageously freethinking and therefore papally damned colony of Zaire, but someone wearing the trappings of a minister of the true faith could hope to travel relatively unmolested. The difficult part was the final crossing into Namib, a Canutic possession, where Catholics were not welcome. Different documents and different stories were needed there.
The sound of people conversing and camels grunting grew nearer until he left his tent again and noticed that the bomb builders had gathered to greet the caravan. He’d met Gilberto only once, during the planning stages of the bomb project, but he might still have recognized his face if the sun and the dehydration hadn’t shriveled it.
Yakub called for his secretary and said to him in Arabic, “Get to the rations tent and fetch enough water for them.” He walked to Gilberto’s camel and helped him dismount as he greeted him in Spanish. “Welcome to the inaugural day of the future.”