Binti (Binti, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

Everyone looked as if the sun was his or her enemy. I was the only Himba on the shuttle.

My father didn’t believe in war. He said war was evil, but if it came he would revel in it like sand in a storm.

Government security guards were only educated up to age ten, yet because of their jobs, they were used to ordering people around.

My tribe is obsessed with innovation and technology, but it is small, private, and, as I said, we don’t like to leave Earth. We prefer to explore the universe by traveling inward, as opposed to outward. No Himba has ever gone to Oomza Uni. So me being the only one on the ship was not that surprising. However, just because something isn’t surprising doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with.

studying, obsessing, revealing. The people on the ship weren’t Himba, but I soon understood that they were still my people.

I wanted to tell him that there was a code, that the pattern spoke my family’s bloodline, culture, and history. That my father had designed the code and my mother and aunties had shown me how to braid it into my hair.

Then someone screamed and Heru’s chest burst open, spattering me with his warm blood. There was a Meduse right behind him.

I prayed to the mystery metal my edan was made of because that had to be the only thing keeping me alive at this moment.

The Meduse were hovering less than a foot away. One had launched itself at me but then froze an inch from my flesh; it had reached a tentacle toward my edan and then suddenly collapsed, the tentacle turning ash gray as it quickly dried up like a dead leaf.

Moojh-ha ki-bira means the “great wave.”

The trouble between the Meduse and the Khoush was an old fight and an older disagreement. Somehow, they had agreed to a treaty not to attack each other’s ships. Yet here the Meduse were performing moojh-ha ki-bira.

For no reason at all, I focused on the number five. Over and over, I thought, 5–5–5–5–5–5–5–5–5, as Heru’s eyes went from shocked to blank.

Heru was dead. Olo, Remi, Kwuga, Nur, Anajama, Rhoden, and Dullaz were dead. Everyone was dead. The dinner hall stank of blood.

My parents said nothing, not even congratulations. Their silence was answer enough.

I come from a family of Bitolus; my father is a master harmonizer and I was to be his successor.

We Bitolus know true deep mathematics and we can control their current, we know systems. We are few and we are happy and uninterested in weapons and war, but we can protect ourselves. And as my father says, “God favors us.”

“I am Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib,” I whispered. This is what my father always reminded me when he saw my face go blank and I started to tree. He would then loudly speak his lessons to me about astrolabes, including how they worked, the art of them, the true negotiation of them, the lineage. While I was in this state, my father passed me three hundred years of oral knowledge about circuits, wire, metals, oils, heat, electricity, math current, sand bar.

They say that when faced with a fight you cannot win, you can never predict what you will do next. But I’d always known I’d fight until I was killed.

“Humans must be killed before they kill us,” the voice said.

“You are the foundation of evil,” it said. It was the one called Okwu. I nearly laughed. Why did this one hate me so strongly?

“She still holds the shame,” I heard one say from near the door.

That tentacle had been different when Okwu had accidently touched me and rubbed off my otjize.

I stared, weighing my options. I didn’t have any.

“I wish I could just kill you.” I paused. “Like my mother always says, ‘we all wish for many things,’” I said, touching a last bit of fish in my back tooth.

His anger was rightful, but all that he said was from what he didn’t truly know.

My father said that my curiosity was the last obstacle I had to overcome to be a true master harmonizer. If there was one thing my father and I disagreed on, it was that; I believed I could only be great if I were curious enough to seek greatness.

And just like that, I understood. They would get through the university’s security if the security people thought the ship was still full of living breathing unmurdered professors and students. Then the Meduse would be able to invade Oomza Uni.

“We know of the attack and mutilation of our chief, but we do not know how it got there. We do not care. We will land on Oomza Uni and take it back. So you see? We have purpose.”

“This is Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib, the one . . . the one who survives,” Okwu said.

The Meduse were right. I could not have represented them if I was holding the edan. This was Oomza Uni. Someone there would know everything there was to know about the edan and thus its toxicity to the Meduse. No one at Oomza Uni would have really believed I was their ambassador unless I let go.

Now I could never go back. The Meduse. The Meduse are not what we humans think. They are truth. They are clarity. They are decisive. There are sharp lines and edges. They understand honor and dishonor. I had to earn their honor and the only way to do that was by dying a second time.

You understand, because you truly are what you say you are—a harmonizer.”

At once, I felt both part of something historic and very alone. Would my family even comprehend it all when I explained it to them? Or would they just fixate on the fact that I’d almost died,

My hair was no longer hair. There was a ringing in my ear as I began to breathe heavily, still in meditation. I wanted to tear off my clothes and inspect every part of my body. To see what else that sting had changed. It had not been a sting. A sting would have torn out my insides, as it did for Heru.

“Binti, you will forever hold the highest honor among the Meduse. My destiny is stronger for leading me to you.” Then it left.

“Tribal”: that’s what they called humans from ethnic groups too remote and “uncivilized” to regularly send students to attend Oomza Uni.

“Whether you carry the substance that can heal and bring life back to my people or not, I am your friend. I am honored to know you.”

When I rubbed off the otjize the burn was gone.