The Tourist (An Azanian Scifi)

The Tourist  

by Khaya Maseko

“I am not lost. It’s the way that’s lost me. You don’t get it. Nx!”  Ulani clicks his tongue in a gesture of mild frustration and looks forward, again. Well, what is relatively forward.

“This land is forever trying to lose us. To protect its self, seen? The most sensitive spots in this jungle are the least explored. Same goes for this entire planet. Look, I’ve been to a static world once. Pass me that drink.”

He takes a hearty gulp of the tourist’s stim-coffee and shudders quite visibly at the buzz. 

“Whoo! Yeah! Didn’t even know what was in that stuff. Whoo buoy!”

The tourist finally gets a word in and he squeezes a few more in with it while he’s got the gap.

“’Conscious, speedily transforming land’ is what one planetologist called it.”

“Yeah buoy. What you say your name was? Julian?”

“Julin. Without the ‘a’ It means to go deeply in.”

“Ah, yes, yes. I see. And you’re from Planet Azania, huh? An entire Afrikan planet, but static. No moving land?”

“Yep. And lots of holes in the ground We’ve found a way of slowing their growth but they’re still eating our planet from the inside.”

“That so? So no, we’re not lost. We just have to check with the Bureau where the next safest travel direction is. A swamp could pop up anytime, you know. And is doing so right now. You can see it, bubbling up from below, and the trees back away and give it room. Then they block up a few pedestrian pathways while doing it. Thanks, Urtu, thanks.”

“Isn’t Urtu an evil deity?”

“Nah man, just naughty. The whimsical aspect of what we nguniversally call ‘nature’ is Urtu in action. This planet is called Urtu because our ancient people believed this planet to be his citadel. Well, these days most of us accept that Urtu is just the name we’ve given to the conscious chaotic aspect of existence. We can talk about it through mathematics but maths doesn’t have enough fingers to really get a grip on the truth. The truth is a water-snake, slipping through the snare of reason. Maybe that old idiom is why one of Urtu’s physical forms is a serpent.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the holographs in my research.”

“Yeah, yeah! You’ll only find holographs of that stuff. Cause it’s so old. We use tactile mnemonic tape ’round here.”

“We mainly use liquid storage.”

“Ah, still in the digital era over there, huh? I feel for you. Oi, look over there, Julin! See those grazing ornislags? They’re the same cluster that was grazing in front of us when we entered Ondo Pass.”

Now the cluster is before them inside Ngozi Jungle. Their bulky bodies are mostly, hollow, with hollow bones like birds and 4 small, fleshy, bat-like wings on the back of each. The most amazing fact of Urtu is that everything is mobile. The flora, the fauna and even the ground its self moved around at will. Will being an interesting and tricky concept to grasp if you were not a local. Most beings understand will to be the gift and quality of living things. Will is the faculty to make deliberate choices and actions, as far as we see it. Most beings understand will to be a product of processing. Where do you think the soil processes? Or a rock that is made of nothing else but minerals? How do the boulders of Tirik Gorge move the entire gorge to where Ondo Pass was now? Some of these phenomena take years, but from a satellite view, one can see the boulders migrating to what is commonly referred to as southward. The bigger things of this jungle took weeks to move. Some botanic areas could travel in a matter of minutes, uprooting and flying to a better place. No place looked the same for long on Urtu. 

“Alright, Azanian buoy. Bureau says we can head day southwest, heading evening south.  Told you we’re not lost. Who wouldn’t want to be lost in paradise, anyway? You’ll be fine as long as you’re with me.”  He reaches for a handheld device in his bag and waves it over the ground pensively. You can see the patience in how his elbow and shoulder dances in the sweeping motion.  

We’ve migrated, you know. Most of us just said ‘Urtu, you can keep this world’ and moved to the planetoid next door. Bendel, where you landed. Bendel only moves in one, predictable direction.  Only natives are left in this grand, shifting utopia.”

Julin thumbs the plunger of his stim-coffee but never actually drinks it. As he’s directing the bottle towards his mouth, a question interrupts. 

“The holos said that the original natives weren’t nomads, in the strict sense. How’d they handle the constant change?”

They walk past a river that’s currently bending to flow in the opposite direction to which it’s been flowing all day. Evening is coming and south will soon be north. Trogs, which are frogs the size of a human head, with 3 legs, are jumping out into their grassy woven nests. A little trog the size of Julin’s hand hangs upside down on a nest which will soon be right side up and looks at them as they cross the curving waters. It blinks its trifurcated eyelids together and croaks that deep croaking that starts the cascade that all the other male trogs join into. It soon gets very loud. The Forest of Ngozi is becoming Mizu Swamp. 

“Planetary orbiters spotting the changes before they happen. Organic and synth-organic telemetry. I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re not big on microb- microprocessor technol. Personally I like Urtu and his volatility. It’s why I took the job, see. By now the Bureau of The Change deals with all data on the shifting land, sky and waters. We’ll be meeting up with the Mizu people soon come. You ready buoy? Look over there.” His finger points. 

Those methane balloons are the most utilized form of travel ‘round here. We came on a bloated lander. Six legs and a bit hardier than those things, as you may have noticed. What do you guys orbit your world in? And landing pods?”

Julin finally takes a swig of his stim-coffee and bags the decanter before Ulani makes another go for it. He answers with a bit of a gruff edge to his voice as the stim-coffee cauterizes its way down his throat. 

“We don’t do much space travel on my world. Not for a while. Nor orbiting and landing. There were a couple of space stations before the G.O.D. hit, but after that, we didn’t leave the surface much. Methane, huh? For buoyancy and for burning as fuel. Smart. I read that there is a methane geyser place the size of many cities.”

“Hehehe. Oh Julin buoy, you’re fortunate Urtu is merciful. Geyser Province is the least mobile place on this entire planet. We call it ‘the anus of Urtu.’ Best believe it is that important to us. Without that much methane, we would have never made it off-planet. And trips like yours wouldn’t be so affordable. Give thanks.”

Julin makes a mental thank you to Urtu and says something in Zulu under his breath. His lips barely move. 

“ ‘Happiness is the ability to be wherever you want,’ my den mother used to say. You know, she had us swop bedrooms every day? She said she was preparing us for the world out there. I still think about her word- watch your head!”

Julin dodges a silent but fast-moving branch with a couple of trog nests on it. Something spits into his ear. 

“Godsdamnit! What is this? It’s sticky and smells fungy.”

“Ah, easy, Julin. That’s trog remedy. The bad news is the good news. You won’t be thirsty for at least 16 hours. Consider it a blessing. Trogs don’t just give up their sacred water to strangers. The natives send little children to gather it because trogs don’t let adults get close enough to even touch them. You need to stroke the underside of their chin gently…”

He makes a scratching motion in the air with his index finger.  

“Notice how the balloons are following O Moon to navigate their way to today’s home. Hlaza Moon is behind them, and true to its name, is green as we tend towards evening. Mizu village will be just over that rise. We’re gonna use the vine slide to get to the lower valley. One should have formed already.”

“The air smells fresher. Swamps tend to smell a lot worse where I come from.”

“Must be the remedy kicking in. I can’t even smell the rising waters. Nose filters, see? But for you, the remedy should be altering skin lining inside your mouth and nose. Do you taste a subtle sweetness in your mouth? Does your nose seem clearer when earlier it was congested? Urtu gives, Julin. Urtu gives gifts. You should be breathing purer air now after the trog remedy has kicked in and your metabolization of air should be maximized. Your blood pressure should also be slightly lower than normal and water retention increased. Hey, got something special to show you. We’re super in luck today. Super in.”

The last tree of Ngozi Jungle is uprooting. Ulani digs with his bare hands to expose the shifting roots. Grabbing onto the coiling and squirming tendrils, small colourful worms are pulsating in a bioluminous rainbow. It is a visual cacophony of joy. 

“These ani worms only latch onto the very last tree of the migration. They’re a kind of sign that the changeover is good. That the land is happy. Their brightness only ever gets exposed when they dig themselves out of the new soil to lay eggs. They decompose over their own eggs to fertilize them. And that decomposition smell is like Pelutian roses when the moons rise. We’re here.”

Looking down at Mizu Gorge, Julin can hear the groaning of ancient vines as the last ones join to complete the navigable vine slide which will take them to Mizu Village. Azania is quite a few galaxies away. This beautiful world is the utopia while they are the dystopia. Even in the perfection of Urtu. Even with the filtered air careening through his nostrils and wonder-gaping mouth. Even with the beauty blessing his ocular nerves. He still misses home. But he is present and being present swallows him hole. He looks down the kilometer long slide, breathes in…and makes the jump. 

“Woo hoo!” is his message to the world as he bullets his way down to the native village.