‘Why were you blown up?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Aminat —’
‘You’ll have to respect the integrity of my job, Kaaro. I cannot, will not tell you about my assignment. I can say it has nothing to do with you, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.’
I nod.
‘Wake me up. Get me out of this place,’ she says.
Back in the flat she holds my face in both her hands and kisses me.
‘Kaaro, I love you. I will never let you come to harm. I will always protect you. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you believe me?’
‘Yes.’
She kisses me again, and does not let go.
We live our lives, Aminat and I. She takes absences from time to time, but she does not explain and I do not ask. She is unknowable, or rather she prefers not to be known, and I will never open her mind. I too am untranslatable she often says, quoting Whitman.
I take Yaro in after he recovers and he keeps me company when Aminat is away. He finds it difficult adjusting to domestication, but I am hopeful. He follows me to the pitch when I play football.
Silently, inexorably, despite the efforts of people like Oyin Da and Eleja, the invasion continues. Humanity dies one cell at a time. I don’t know what will happen when we all become full xeno, but it’s like climate change or that asteroid that will collide with the Earth and wipe us out. We all think we’ll be dead and gone by the time the carnage begins.
The alien in me says that is delusional thinking. For this disaster we will all be present.
For this we will all have front row seats.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
You can’t write a book without the help of your family. Thanks to Beth and Hunter for giving me the stability and forgiving all the time I spent locked away in the attic.
Thanks to Jide Afolabi, constant reader; to Tricia Sullivan for long phone calls and encouragement; to my writing and arting posse: Rochita, Aliette, Mia, Victor, Miss Cindy, Zen, Isabel, Vida, Nene, Karin; to my partner in crime, Nick Wood (Amandla!); to my miscellaneous mothers Kari, Liz Williams, Athena Andreadis, Laura Mixon, Kate Elliott, Pat Cadigan; to Chikodili Emelumadu for keeping me humble; to Carmelo Rafala; to Milton Davis; to Rob White; to Jason and Lesley at Apex for doing a kick-ass job on Rosewater; to all my people at the African Fantasy Readers Group and the State of Black Science Fiction; to Jack “The King” Kirby for a lifetime of inspiration.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Front Matter
Copyright © 2016 by Tade Thompson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
TPB ISBN 978-1-937009-29-8
Cover art © Igor Vitkovskiy
Frontispiece “Fascinator” © 2016 Tade Thompson
Jacket design by Russell Dickerson
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Apex Publications, LLC, PO Box 24323, Lexington, KY 40524
First Edition: November 2016
Visit us at www.apexbookcompany.com.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Interlude: Mission 1
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Interlude: Mission 2
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Interlude: Mission 3
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Interlude: Mission 4
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Interlude: Mission 5
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Interlude: Health Check
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Interlude: Mission 6
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Interlude: Mission 7
Chapter Thirty-one
Front Matter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Tade Thompson / Rosewater