top and bottom, into the middle of the room. Tchaka was indicating the routes he wanted them to patrol, where he wanted them to station their ships, when Mbatha pulled out a ceramic dagger, which hadn’t registered on the security devices, and tried to stab him between the shoulder blades.
I don’t know how he knew it—there was no reflection in the galactic map, and Mbatha was absolutely silent —but Tchaka turned just as the colonel’s hand was coming down. His own hand shot out, grabbed Mbatha by the wrist, and the two of them stood, motionless, for a few seconds. Then there was a loud cracking sound, Mbatha screamed, and the knife fell to the floor.
Tchaka placed his hands around Mbatha’s throat, and Mbatha tried to pull his hands apart. Again, the two were motionless, this time for almost a full minute. Mbatha’s eyes began bulging, and his attempts to free himself grew first more frantic, then progressively weaker. Tchaka stood still as a statue, no expression at all on his face, his fingers turning pale from the pressure he put on them. Then Mbatha went limp, and Tchaka let him fall to the floor.
He turned to another officer. “Shoot him,” he said.
The man stared at him, startled, but didn’t pull his laser pistol.
“He may not be dead yet,” said Tchaka. “Am I expected to show him mercy so that he can try to kill me again?”
The officer withdrew his pistol, pointed it at Mbatha, but did not fire. “I think he’s dead, sir. I see no sign of breathing.”
Tchaka walked over, took the pistol from him, and fired a blast of solid light into the back of Mbatha’s head.
“Now he is dead,” announced Tchaka. He turned the pistol onto its owner, aimed it between his eyes, and fired again.
There was a stunned silence among the other officers.
“He would not obey me with an incapacitated enemy,” said Tchaka coldly. “How could I—or you—trust him to do his duty against any enemy that was preparing to engage him in battle?” Another pause. “We will continue our briefing tomorrow.”
They filed out, and he signaled me to remain behind.
“That was the second,” he said when we were alone in the room.
“There was another?” I said, surprised.
“Two days ago.” He seemed unconcerned. “There will be more.”
“We must double—no, triple—the guard around you,” I said.
He shook his head. “I am more capable of protecting myself than any half-dozen men I could assign to the task. I just want you to know that it has happened, and it will happen again.”
I stared at him curiously, unable to see where this was leading.
“How many of our siblings are currently in Pretoria?” he asked.
It was not the question I was expecting. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe one, maybe two.”
“Can you find the others?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Some of them may not wish to be found. What do you want of them?”
“Mbatha was a Shona. The man who tried to kill me two days ago was a Swazi. I must surround myself with officers and advisors whose loyalty is unquestioned. From this day forth, every advisor, every aide, every senior officer, must be Zulus. And my siblings will be favored above all others.”
“But you don’t even know them!” I exclaimed, surprised. “You haven’t seen most of them since we were children.”
“I know that,” he said calmly.
“They may not agree with your policies,” I continued. “They may dislike you personally.”
“I know that too.”
“Then why—”
“I expected more of you, my brother,” he said. “It matters nothing to me that they may hate or fear me. Before I am done, most people will either hate me or fear me, or both. But more to the point, my enemies will hate and fear those who serve me, and especially those who carry my blood in their veins. My siblings may not like me, but they will like my protection. They do not need it where they are, but once they are by my side, serving me, they will be targets, just as I am—and I will be the only thing keeping them alive. Therefore, they will serve me loyally, and do everything they can to keep me safe and in power.”
It was selfish, it was savage, it was cruel…but it made sense, and I knew I would not be able to talk him out of it.
“And if some of them do not want to come?” I asked at last.
“You will explain their options, and they will come.”
“Their options?”
“If they will not serve me, I have no reason to keep them alive,” he replied.
And it was just as he said. Within two weeks, his entire staff were Zulus, and his closest advisors—always excepting his astrologer Hlatshwayo— were his half-brothers and half-sisters.
12.
Anyone who thought Tchaka would stay on Earth, trust his officers, and await news of the conflict in comfort and luxury clearly didn’t know him.
He named his flagship Great Elephant, the Zulu sobriquet for the original Shaka, and it was actually the first of our fleet to take off. I was the only sibling aboard the ship, but five other brothers and sisters were on other ships as our navy entered the wormhole just beyond the Port Cloud and emerged eighteen light-years away, precisely where Tchaka wanted us, midway on a wide arc between Delta Pavonis and DX Cancri.
As soon as we emerged and found that we were not confronting the enemy, Tchaka ordered one of his officers to pinpoint all the uncolonized oxygen worlds within five light-years of where we were.
“We might as well put the time to good use,” he told me. “If we wait, sooner or later these worlds will be claimed in the name of Earth”—a contemptuous grimace—“as if Earth was a nation or a government.”
Within a day the answer came back: there were seven such worlds. Tchaka immediately sent a small scout ship out to plant the flag, not of South Africa but of the Zulu nation, on each of them. It would take the better part of two months, but if we were attacked in the interim the scout ship would be no more use to us than a lifeboat would have been to a seafaring battleship of old.
As it happened, we did not encounter the enemy for almost three months. By then we were so bored with our dull, daily routine that the presence of a small fleet of ships, doubtless carrying cargo to the embattled ships around Delta Pavonis, actually surprised us. We had almost come to the conclusion (which none dared voice) that Tchaka had guessed wrong, and that the supply lines would be established elsewhere.
“There are fourteen ships, sir,” said an officer. “Shall we engage them?”
Tchaka looked at the viewscreen and frowned. “Something is wrong here,” he said, more to himself than to us.
“Sir?” said the officer.
“Their configuration is wrong.”
“Their formation, sir?”
He shook his head in irritation. “Their configuration.”
“They are probably not human or humanoid, sir,” said the officer. “Their ships will naturally be configured differently.”
“Shut up,” said Tchaka, still staring intently at the screen. “It’s more than their configuration. There are no welds.”
“What difference does that make, sir?” asked another officer.
“And the motive power,” continued Tchaka. “It’s wrong.”
“I beg your pardon?”
