After the Flare Read online

  Praise for Nigerians in Space by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  “Olukotun reminds us of some of the most exciting pan-Africanist and anti-colonial futures of the twentieth century. Olukotun crafts a knowing, Afrofuturist pastiche of traditional pulp cliché — reproducing the cocksure attitude, over-the-top descriptions, and authoritative tone of the radio play, while inventing an alternate-history for a covert African space program launched in the 1960s and coming into its own at the cusp of the twenty-first century.”

  — Los Angeles Review of Books

  “An exquisite blend of unpredictable twists and lightning-speed plot.”

  — The Guardian

  “A madcap first novel that unravels like a spy thriller.”

  — Flavorwire

  “Fast-paced, well-written and packed with insight and humor. Olukotun is a very talented storyteller.”

  — Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

  “You can taste Cape Town, you can hear it in the dialogue, see its beauty in the descriptions. Deji Olukotun has my city’s number: especially its nasty underbelly, the dangerous dealing of abalone poachers.”

  — Mike Nicol, author of the Revenge Trilogy

  “Nigerians in Space is one of the most entertaining novels about Africa to come out this year. It’s a quirky, multi-city, fast-paced noir fiction piece about a Nigerian lunar geologist who dreams of leading a Nigerian space mission.”

  — Brittle Paper

  “A crime thriller that is out of this world.”

  — The Brooklyn Paper

  “A deft mingling of satirical humor, Noirish twists…and a keen-eyed yet accessible take on cultural displacement in contemporary times.”

  — Olufemi Terry, winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing

  The Unnamed Press

  P.O. Box 411272

  Los Angeles, CA 90041

  Published in North America by The Unnamed Press.

  13579108642

  Copyright © 2017 by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  ISBN: 9781944700331

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949599

  This book is distributed by Publishers Group West

  Cover design & typeset by Jaya Nicely

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are wholly fictional or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Permissions inquiries may be directed to [email protected].

  For Carolynn

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  That was the night the sun wrapped the Earth in colors like glowing sheets of cellophane. Masha Kornokova was peering through a porthole facing the dark side of the planet, Moscow and Berlin dotting the matte black surface as pinpricks of light. She had just finished a six-hour space walk with Stankov and had swiveled to look back, like she always did. It was her ritual—to remind herself that she had fulfilled her dream and that she was actually here, in space, floating above it all.

  Through the porthole, intense light blinded her momentarily, and when she could see again, Earth was bathed in lime, purple, and tangerine light, the colors dancing like playful sprites along the crest of the globe. Almost as quickly, the light dissipated, and the entire hemisphere fell dark. Moscow and Berlin were gone, extinguished. The moon was the only source of illumination, reflecting onto carded-wool clouds as the Atlantic Ocean slid away beneath them.

  “Did you see that?” Stankov whispered, having come alongside her.

  “Kornokova! Stankov!” the comms erupted. “Get to the capsule!”

  “Prepare for evacuation!”

  “Get your suits on!”

  The two astronauts hurtled through the station, clutching handhold after handhold, passing the mess room, then the Destiny module, control panels shorting out around them. The emergency lighting cast a washed-out pall over the place. Kornokova, just behind Stankov, saw a bright trail of sparks erupt above his helmet.

  “Stankov! Watch out!”

  But her comms were dead. She pulled him away by the arm, spotting a lick of flame shooting along his suit liner as he clutched his head. His oxygen line was torn. The gas was hissing out of it. If the flame touched it, he would go up in a fireball.

  “Steady, Stankov. I’ve got you!”

  She pushed off toward the opposite wall and wrested a canister from its Velcro strap, while Stankov swatted blindly at his head, trying to extinguish the source of the heat. With his own comms lost, he was shouting uselessly into his microphone. She pulled the pin from the canister and showered him with foam suppressant.

  Immediately Stankov twisted off his helmet, and she saw that the skullcap of his suit liner was smoldering, so she doused that too. It looked bad. The cream-colored liner had melted onto his skin, and Stankov was already clutching at his scalp with his eyes shut tight. He was a tough man—trained in the Bulgarian Special Forces—who never complained. But he was in excruciating pain.

  They tried to hail CapCom from within the JEM module but couldn’t get a signal, and moved quickly to the Columbus, but still no one responded. Everyone seemed to have disappeared. They kept pulling themselves along toward the Russian end of the space station, where they found the rest of the crew sealed in the Soyuz escape capsule.

  There were four astronauts on the station, including Masha and Stankov, and the other two, Jeppsen and Hiroyuki, were huddled inside the capsule. Kornokova rapped her glove on the hatch until someone opened the door.

  “Everything’s offline,” Kornokova said.

  “Battery power?” Jeppsen asked.

  “Limited. Only emergency lighting.”

  “Are you injured?”

  Kornokova noticed then the smeared blood on her suit. “No, it’s Stankov.”

  “I’m fine,” Stankov urged.

  “What’s our status over here?” Kornokova asked.

  “This capsule was shielded and withstood the bulk of the flare,” Hiroyuki explained. “We’re talking to CapCom now.”

  On the comms, Kornokova could hear their mission director, Josephine Gauthier, barking information. “We’re sending you an updated emergency plan. We weren’t prepared for a coronal mass ejection of this intensity. Even radiation-hardened electronics have been pulverized by it. We’ll be on generators down here within four hours.” Then, noticing her for the first time: “Masha, you’re okay?”

  Josephine never called Kornokova “Masha” on an open channel. Kornokova could register the concern in her voice, the subtle uplift as she pronounced her name.

  “I’m all right,” Kornokova said. “What’s the new plan?”

  “We have detected that the Zarya module has adequate power to support a crew member for s
ix months. There are enough supplies in the offline modules to last much longer, recoverable through EVAs. Our primary concern is orbital decay.”

  “Propulsion is out too?”

  “Yes, both engines on the station have been damaged. The current plan is to evacuate.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kornokova said. “We can stay in orbit for three years, even without propulsion.”

  “Our projections show that the CME will cause the atmosphere to expand, increasing drag on the station. You’ll fall out of orbit within twenty-four months, if not sooner. We expect to lose thousands of low Earth orbit satellites.”

  “All from a solar flare?”

  “Listen to me, Masha. Nothing is working.”

  She registered a hint of fear in Josephine’s voice.

  “We’ve got about two hours of emergency power left here in Paris. This is global. By our estimates, all electricity transformers have been destroyed in North America, Europe, and Asia. The Arianes were in the loading docks at Marseille. They’re finished. All of the North American rockets are fried. No one else has one ready. Conservative estimates suggest an eighteen-month recovery time for basic infrastructure. For all intents and purposes, most of the world has gone dark. There is”—Josephine paused, trying to find the right words—“total chaos down here.”

  “What are our orders?” Kornokova said.

  “Commander Kornokova, Rilke, and Kazuhito will take the Soyuz down using the instructions I’m uplinking to you now.”

  Calling me Kornokova again, Masha thought. Back to work. That is good.

  “The capsule’s designed for two,” Josephine went on, “but it can accommodate a third passenger with some modifications. We can’t guarantee an extraction if you land in the sea, so you’ll have to guide it to land. Stankov will remain behind for a rescue mission.”

  “Stankov should get in the capsule,” Kornokova said. “His suit caught fire.”

  “I am fine,” Stankov intoned.

  “No, you’re not. It’s a substantial burn.”

  Kornokova caught a furrow appear over Josephine’s eyebrow.

  “Hiroyuki, take a look,” Josephine ordered.

  The medic maneuvered out of the capsule to examine Stankov’s scalp. He turned the astronaut’s head this way and that, Stankov wincing from the pain.

  “Masha’s right, third-degree burn,” Hiroyuki concluded. “He can’t remain on board without being operated on—he’ll need a skin graft. Antibiotics could stave off an infection for about six weeks.”

  On-screen, Josephine tied her dreadlocks into a ponytail. She couldn’t bring herself to give the order, so Kornokova did it for her.

  “I’ll stay behind.”

  “The evacuation plan says that you should go, Masha.”

  “You wrote that plan, Josephine. The plan says that the most able-bodied crew members should always remain. I have no injuries. I’ve trained for this.”

  “You’ve been up there for six months already, Masha. You’ve lost a lot of bone mass.”

  It hurt to watch Josephine pleading with her in front of the crew, something she would never have done under normal circumstances. In fact, Josephine rarely acknowledged that they had known each other for more than the duration of the mission. Six months since they had last awoken in each other’s arms, pushed together by gravity. Six months since feeling the slip of skin on skin. She missed Josephine more than she missed anything else on Earth.

  “I choose to remain here,” Stankov tried to insist. He had a strong machismo impulse.

  “You’re evacuating, Stankov,” Josephine decided. “That’s an order. You all will be. We’ll come back for you, Masha. If this station falls out of orbit, there is an eighty-five percent chance it will strike land. Our current projections show a deorbital footprint landing on Mumbai, India. Most of the station will burn up, but some of it will certainly fall in a populated area. Let’s get to work. There is no time for arguments. Follow the procedures.” But she didn’t sign off. Her face lingered on the screen, as if afraid to cut the connection. “I’ll see you soon, Masha.”

  “I love you,” Kornokova said out loud.

  She didn’t care anymore. The crew all knew anyway. They had kept their relationship off the air so that the media wouldn’t cover it. Their love had always been tempestuous, passionate: two fiercely ambitious women who bowed before no one. Yet they were cautious when separated, cold even, repelling everyone around them and sometimes even each other.

  Josephine touched her finger to her lips.

  Later, as the rest of the crew finalized their evacuation procedures, Kornokova began her inventory of the items that would keep her alive. This cramped place, which she had shared with three other people for six months, would now be her own. Perhaps there would be comfort in that. No dependence. No passive-aggressive comments about escaped boluses, or body wipes, or rehydrated packets of soybeans. Then again: no conversations at all.

  Everyone on Earth would soon be offline, Josephine had indicated. What did that mean? When Kornokova became homesick—which was rare—she could take solace in the fact that Josephine stood on firm ground. What would happen to Josephine now? Yesterday she had said she was going to drive to Montpellier for a holiday by the sea, her first day off in months. She would have to cancel that trip now. Maybe Josephine would sleep more soundly without the electric hum of the world. But she had always slept fitfully without Kornokova by her side, complaining when she slipped into bed late.

  Kornokova pushed herself farther from the capsule. Time to focus. Time to get away from the cloying emotions. Get things started. This was temporary. This was just another assignment, one that they would finish together.

  I am three hundred kilometers above you, Josephine, and falling all the time. I will be a streak in the night when I come to you.

  CHAPTER 1

  Kano, Nigeria—1 year later

  The door to the office burst open, the hinge nearly ripping off, as a throng of workers surrounded Kwesi Bracket’s desk.

  “Oyibo, oyibo, we can’t work anymore!”

  They all seemed to be shouting at once. Bracket, by custom, was expected to respond with an equal amount of enthusiasm, but he preferred not to excite his crew even further. Instead, he calmly took a sip of water.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  The workers’ voices erupted again. They came mostly from the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups, with a few Igbos sprinkled among them. Their skin ranged in color from rich loam to lighter walnut, all of them darker than Bracket himself.

  “Oyibo, the dig is finished,” one worker announced over the others, placing a ceramic knickknack on his desk. Bracket didn’t pick up the thing as a hush came over the room.

  “Is that right? I thought that was my call.”

  “Yes, call! Call the police. They should know about this.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Bracket shook his head. Sarcasm wasn’t their strong suit either. “I meant it’s my decision. It’s a sports term.”

  “Sports. There’s no sports. Just this!” And everyone pointed at the little vessel.

  “Never mind.”

  The police in Kano, in Bracket’s experience, were completely unreliable, and they were the last people he would ever call. If anything, protocol demanded that he notify the spaceport’s own security office, Op-Sec. But the strange lump of fired clay currently sitting on his desk didn’t merit such a response, regardless of what the laborers thought. Their work stoppages for prayer he’d expected and even encouraged, thinking they were good for morale, in a way, but he was still trying to grasp the rhythmic subtleties of employment here. His crew worked hard but not when he expected them to.

  “Everyone out but you two,” he said, pointing at the man who had carried the thing in and another guy standing next to him. The rest shuffled out, though he was certain they wouldn’t resume the dig until the matter was settled.

  After the room cleared and the door was shut, he
picked up the little mass of clay. It was encrusted with dirt, shaped like a teardrop, and about the size of an apple. He could tell it was made by hand, and it was surprisingly heavy. It reminded him of old Navajo pottery he’d once seen on a trip to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona when his marriage was dissolving (cottonwood pollen circling in the air; his daughter pointing at an ancient granary in a cliffside ruin; and he and his wife quietly bickering at each other). At the base of the teardrop he found a small crack, and through the crack he could see a dark rock like a lump of coal. The vessel, if that’s what it was, was ringed by strange script.

  “This Arabic?”

  “No, oyibo, it’s not.”

  “Can you read it?” He handed the vessel to the second man, a devout Muslim named Abdul from the city of Maiduguri.

  “I can’t read it, oyibo. It’s very old.”

  “It’s not Arabic, then?”

  “I don’t recognize this writing.”

  “If you don’t know what it is, Abdul, then why should we stop digging?”

  That was the only question that mattered, after all, but he should have paid closer attention to Abdul’s posture. As soon as Bracket placed the relic in his hand, Abdul clutched it tightly and began twisting it about, trying hard, it seemed, not to look at it. Then he flung a stack of papers in Bracket’s face and hurtled out the door.

  “Wait!” Bracket yelled. He was around the desk in an instant, but the man caught everyone by surprise and slipped by before they could grab him, heading down the stairs, around the heavy machinery of the dig, and out into the blazing heat of the Sahel. Bracket knew there was no hope of returning to work now, not when one of his own crew had stolen from him. They would expect retribution—or justice. The other workers dropped what they were doing and joined the chase after Abdul without Bracket having to say a word, weaving among the bulldozers and excavators that were salting the air with dust.

  Far beyond the work site, a rocket platform towered in the distance, draped in webs of scaffolding. A second platform had already been completed, hulking imperiously in green and white a kilometer away. Closer to the work site lay the prep rooms, the mission control tower, the long administrative buildings, the cafeteria, and the airstrip, all dotted with thorn shrubs and wild grasses. At the center of the complex stood a ten-meter-tall bronze spaceship, a stylized replica of the Masquerade—the ship being built to rescue Masha Kornokova—festooned with black-painted ziggurats and Gelede masks peering into new realms of time, the cultural heritage of Nigeria forged into a colossal sculptural vision of the future.