“Are you satisfied with your work?” he asked. Then: “With your life?”
“They need me,” I replied. “I just wish I made more of a difference.”
“Perhaps someday you will,” he said.
“Perhaps.” I secretly doubted it, and decided it was time to change the subject. “What has brought you back?” I asked.
“The world—the real world—thinks that we are a backwater, barely worthy of their notice. If we are to reclaim our former glory, to stride across the planet like gods, there is much to be done, and I have no time to waste.”
I expected him to smile, or chuckle, to do something, anything, to show me that he was joking, but his expression never changed.
“Are we to stride across the planet like gods?” I asked at last.
“Oh, yes,” he said with certainty. “That much is written in the Book of Fate.”
“I have never seen that,” I said.
“You have flawed vision,” he replied.
“Who wrote this passage that I have not seen?” I continued.
“I am writing it even as we speak.”
“Have you a place to stay?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “I had hoped to stay with my older brother.”
“And have you any money?”
He reached into a pocket and pulled out some coins. “Less than a rand.”
“No luggage?”
“I travel light.”
“So you are homeless, destitute, without a rand to your name, and with only the clothing on your back,” I said. “And you are going to bring us back the primacy we possessed when Shaka walked the land five centuries ago.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Will you stand in my way?”
“No,” I said. “Why should I?”
He smiled. “You see? I have one acolyte already.”
“I am not an acolyte,” I said firmly. “I am an unhostile observer, nothing more.”
He shrugged. “Semantics.”
“So,” I said, “will you establish your kingdom here in my living room, and eventually conquer the dining room and kitchen?”
He stared at me, so silently and coldly that for a moment I thought he was going to get to his feet and attack me. Then he shrugged.
“You can join me now,” he said, “or you can join me later, when you have no choice in the matter. But do not ever make fun of me again.”
It was a simple statement, simply delivered, but for the first time in my adult life I was frightened.
“I apologize, Robert,” I said. “Seriously, what are your plans?”
“There is to be an election next month,” he said.
“You are mistaken,” I told him. “The President has another year and a half to serve.”
He stared at me again and I fell silent. “It is a minor office,” he said. “Clerk of Records in Natal. But I must start somewhere, and I need not think about the presidency for another year.”
I had thought I knew him, but I was amazed by the audacity of his ambition—not running for Clerk of Records, but planning on running for the presidency in a mere eighteen months. I was afraid if I commented on it, I would receive another hate-filled glare and sullen silence, so I decided to change the subject.
“Where have you been for the past decade?” I asked.
“In the world of the ibhunu,” he said. In the Zulu language, calling a white man ibhunu is like calling a black man nigger in English.
“There are very few white men left here,” I said. “Where did you go?”
“Europe,” he said. “Then America. Then further afield.”
“How much farther can you go than America?” I asked.
“Just as there is a world beyond South Africa, there is a solar system beyond the world, and a galaxy beyond the solar system.”
“You’ve been out there?” I asked, impressed.
“I spent four years in the American Space Fleet,” he replied.
“Did you see action against…against whatever they were, those things that attacked our colonies on Io and Ganymede?”
He nodded. “They had technology that was far superior to ours. Of course, we have it now.”
“How did you defeat them?” I asked. “I know that for a year all the news coming from the front was bad, and then one day it was over and we were victorious.”
“They were fools,” he said, a look of contempt on his face. “They sent a signal asking for more munitions. We tracked the signal and wiped out their home world. Their remaining ships surrendered.”
“Where was their home world?” I asked. “Most of the experts thought it must circle Centauri.”
“It was the sixth planet circling Wolf 359,” he answered.
I frowned. “That can’t be. Wolf is a Class M star. Nothing can live in orbit around a Class M star.”
“Nothing does now,” he said meaningfully. “You should not be so quick to believe European and American astronomers. What we killed would give you nightmares for the rest of your life. You should be grateful such things can’t evolve on a Class G star.”
“Did they give you nightmares?” I asked.
He looked almost amused. “I am not like you,” he said.
It wouldn’t be long before I learned just how unlike me he was.
3.
When he was a child, he always found a way to get what he wanted. He never cried, never screamed, never threatened—but somehow things would always work out for him. His methods were subtle. The children who stood in his way never showed up cowed or beaten…but twice they never showed up again at all.
Robert told me that his opponent for the office he wanted was Hector ole Kunene, a nondescript little civil servant who was being given the job as payment for his loyalty to the party over the years. Both sides agreed that he deserved the office, and he was running unopposed.
“Will you run as an independent, then?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I have a party.”
“Oh?”
“The Zulu Party.”
I frowned. “There is no Zulu Party,” I said.
“There is now.”
“Shall I assume you are its only member?” I asked with a smile.
“You would be mistaken,” he said seriously. “You are also a member.”
“I am?” I said, surprised.
He nodded. “I must repay you for the generosity you have shown me tonight,” he said. “You will come to Ulundi with me and be my assistant.”
“I have a job and a home right here.”
“Leave them,” he said with a look of contempt. “Come with me and you shall be rewarded beyond your expectations.”
“I am happy where I am,” I said. “I love the children I teach, and Ulundi is a crowded, filthy, dangerous city.”
That amused smile again. “Do you think Ulundi is my destination? It is merely a brief stop along the way,
