Nnedi Okorafor - Binti - The Complete Trilogy

“Did you feel the edan open even slightly?” my professor asked.

“What?” I asked, still facing the edge of her office. I looked down at the edan in my left hand and quickly said, “I don’t know… I…”

“Were you even trying when… it went wrong?”

“Yes,” I said. “And a part of me was still focused on getting the edan open. How does that happen?”

“ Edans are tricky powerful things,” she said getting up. “Their pull can be wildly intense. And you’re a very interesting student. But this was a failure, Binti. Our next session needs to be better.”

She sent me on my way ten minutes later, telling me that I’d be expected at the ANE, the Alien Non-Emergency Medic Building. I left her office with a pounding headache. Once downstairs, in the lobby, I paused, feeling the tears coming like a rainstorm. I started walking when I noticed students were looking at me as they passed. I’d nearly died to get to Oomza Uni and already I was a failure.

The moment I stepped into the sunshine, I felt better. I paused on the steps in front of the tower, students walking in and out of the building. A professor who looked like a large slug, slithered around me and muttered, “Go get drunk on the sun in the fields, student hero. This is a place of study.”

But I needed my moment, so I dropped my satchel beside me, tilted my face up, and let the sunshine roll over me. I sighed, smiling, “Ah, I miss the desert.”

Crack!

I screeched and jumped, stumbling to the side, nearly tripping over my satchel. I smelled smoke, my face prickling with the rush of adrenaline. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my edan with my left hand. Smoke was rising from the hem of my skirt! I jumped again, shoved my edan back into my pocket and dropped down. I smacked at the black smoking circles in the material, ignoring the pain in my right hand. Coughing, I smacked harder until the flames were out, bits of grey ash floating up.

Snickering.

I looked up. Two Khoush boys were looking down at me, grins on their faces. With my peripheral vision I saw someone step up beside me from behind and grab my satchel. I snatched it back and pulled it to me, looking up. It was a girl, and like the boys and most of the humans at Oomza Uni, she was Khoush. She looked down her nose at me, smirking. I frowned. I couldn’t tell who threw the current that singed my skirt, but it was definitely one of these three.

“Stay down,” the taller boy said. His hair was black and shiny, reaching his chest in ringlets and he wore the tight green jumpsuit that weapons majors wore if they had humanoid bodies. “You must be used to that position, doesn’t the word ‘Himba’ mean ‘beggar’?”

I stood up. “Himba” did mean “beggar” in otjihimba. But that was an ancient coinage no one really cared about anymore. “Why would you do that?” I asked, my voice higher than normal.

“I don’t need a reason, traitor,” he spat. “Department heads and students who don’t know any better celebrate you, but plenty of us detest you. Meduse sympathizer. You’re planets away from earth, yet you betray your own homeland. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Should have died on the ship,” the other boy said. “We’d be better off. The pilot would have come up with a better plan.” This boy I knew. He was in two of my math classes and he came from one of the few Khoush villages that existed near Himba country. His name was Abd, which meant “servant” in Khoush.

I grabbed my satchel and tried to walk away, but the two boys stepped in front of me. I groaned, looking at the girl who hadn’t said a word yet. Deeply irritated, I aimed my question at her. “What do you want?”

“What we want,” the tall boy said. “… what many of us who know better want is for you to take that Meduse ingrate you brought here back into space.”

My left eye twitched and my hands shook, the right one throbbing more because of it. Since I’d arrived, most students, professors and staff had been warm and welcoming to me. There’d even been a party thrown for Okwu and me in the walkways outside my dorm. That day, so many had surrounded Okwu, fascinated to meet a “friendly” Meduse, that Okwu had to stay at the party until it ended. Of course, these students and faculty quickly learned that though Okwu was “friendly”, it wasn’t exactly nice. I must say, it was entertaining to watch them realize this fact.

However, there were a few who strongly opposed a Meduse presence on Oomza Uni and they made themselves known. These students (Khoush and otherwise) deeply feared Okwu, so they accosted me. It had happened a few times since my arrival on Oomza Uni. These individuals feared and or hated the Meduse; the Meduse were a powerful and principled yet warlike people and so they had many enemies. Just after orientation, in the halls of my dorm, in passing when I was in Central City, when Okwu was not with me, these particular anti-Meduse students let me know what they thought and it was always the hatred, the rage. To an extent, I understood some of them.

For example, Abd’s family had been deeply affected by the war, as he’d angrily told me on my fourth day on Oomza Uni, during our second day of Math 101 class. Several of his family members had been killed by Meduse moojh-ha ki-bara -style, he’d told me, and how dare I expose him to the presence of one of these monsters. I was a “shameful typical silly foolish lowly Himba girl”, according to him. I didn’t agree with this, of course, but I felt his pain.

My hand ached as I turned again, trying to step around them. I nearly bumped into a crab-like person side-walking into the building. It clicked its claws at me and then, in Meduse, said, “Leave it be, Himba hero. What’s done is done. Stop walking into people.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, cradling my right hand. Through my tear-blurred eyes, I met the Khoush girl’s cold light brown eyes.

“Why didn’t you stop them,” the girl asked.

“What?”

“You could have asked for anything during that meeting, once you got them to listen,” she said. “Why would you ask them to admit a Meduse into Oomza?”

“I didn’t! It wasn’t even my idea. But I…” I blinked and shook my head. “Wait, why am I even talking to you? Get out of my way!” My head throbbed harder and I could have sworn I felt tingling in the tips of my okuoko .

Then the three of them were staring at me with shock, as if I’d roared in the voice of a djinn or sacred snake. They were frozen there like stone. I didn’t know what I’d done, but seeing them like this gave me a deep satisfaction so profound that more tears squeezed from my eyes. When the dark wet spot appeared in the crotch of the tall boy’s jumpsuit and Abd began to hyperventilate, his mouth hanging open, I understood. I straightened up, my satisfaction deepening.

“What are you called, girl?” Okwu asked in Khoush. It was hovering directly behind me. Then it exhaled a great puff of gas. I knew to hold my breath, but the others immediately began coughing.

“Zerlin,” the girl replied in a high-pitched voice when her fit of coughing subsided.

“Zerlin, Abd, Eyad, walk away from the Binti right now,” Okwu said.

The two boys turned and shakily walked off. They didn’t run, they walked because Okwu had said to walk. Zerlin stayed. Tears now in her eyes, she said, “You shouldn’t be at this university! You killed my sister’s best friend on that ship.” She hugged herself, stumbling back. She pointed a finger at Okwu that shook so badly, it was almost comical. “Monster!”

Okwu blew out a puff of gas and said, “It wasn’t me specifically. But we are a hive mind. If need be, we are monstrous.”