Shaka II by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online Page B

am more capable of protecting myself than any half-dozen men I could assign to the task. I just want you to know that it has happened, and it will happen again.”
        I stared at him curiously, unable to see where this was leading.
        “How many of our siblings are currently in Pretoria?” he asked.
        It was not the question I was expecting. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe one, maybe two.”
        “Can you find the others?”
        “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Some of them may not wish to be found. What do you want of them?”
        “Mbatha was a Shona. The man who tried to kill me two days ago was a Swazi. I must surround myself with officers and advisors whose loyalty is unquestioned. From this day forth, every advisor, every aide, every senior officer, must be Zulus. And my siblings will be favored above all others.”
        “But you don’t even know them!” I exclaimed, surprised. “You haven’t seen most of them since we were children.”
        “I know that,” he said calmly.
        “They may not agree with your policies,” I continued. “They may dislike you personally.”
        “I know that too.”
        “Then why-”
        “I expected more of you, my brother,” he said. “It matters nothing to me that they may hate or fear me. Before I am done, most people will either hate me or fear me, or both. But more to the point, my enemies will hate and fear those who serve me, and especially those who carry my blood in their veins. My siblings may not like me, but they will like my protection. They do not need it where they are, but once they are by my side, serving me, they will be targets, just as I am-and I will be the only thing keeping them alive. Therefore, they will serve me loyally, and do everything they can to keep me safe and in power.”
        It was selfish, it was savage, it was cruel…but it made sense, and I knew I would not be able to talk him out of it.
        “And if some of them do not want to come?” I asked at last.
        “You will explain their options, and they will come.”
        “Their options?”
        “If they will not serve me, I have no reason to keep them alive,” he replied.
        And it was just as he said. Within two weeks, his entire staff were Zulus, and his closest advisors-always excepting his astrologer Hlatshwayo- were his half-brothers and half-sisters.
        

12.
        
        Anyone who thought Tchaka would stay on Earth, trust his officers, and await news of the conflict in comfort and luxury clearly didn’t know him.
        He named his flagship Great Elephant, the Zulu sobriquet for the original Shaka, and it was actually the first of our fleet to take off. I was the only sibling aboard the ship, but five other brothers and sisters were on other ships as our navy entered the wormhole just beyond the Port Cloud and emerged eighteen light-years away, precisely where Tchaka wanted us, midway on a wide arc between Delta Pavonis and DX Cancri.
        As soon as we emerged and found that we were not confronting the enemy, Tchaka ordered one of his officers to pinpoint all the uncolonized oxygen worlds within five light-years of where we were.
        “We might as well put the time to good use,” he told me. “If we wait, sooner or later these worlds will be claimed in the name of Earth”-a contemptuous grimace-“as if Earth was a nation or a government.”
        Within a day the answer came back: there were seven such worlds. Tchaka immediately sent a small scout ship out to plant the flag, not of South Africa but of the Zulu nation, on each of them. It would take the better part of two months, but if we were attacked in the interim the scout ship would be no more use to us than a lifeboat would have been to a seafaring battleship of old.
        As it happened, we did not encounter the enemy for almost three months. By then we were so bored