Chapter 3

Onder was alive. But he expected to the slick bites of the sharks to come at any moment. Would they take a leg first? Grab him by the torso, shake him and drag him into the deep? He kicked and punched out in all directions. Bubbles escaped his mouth in the aquamarine darkness. Which way was up? The light, follow the light. He swam up, his eyes on the sparkling rays of the sun, kicking, his lungs aching, desperate to breathe.

The surface was close now and Onder thrilled. To not be taken immediately, with so many sharks here, that was something. That was a story he could–

A stony head flew from the darkness and rammed Onder in the side and lower back. It wasn’t panic that took him now, only the certainty of death. He made peace with it. He laughed at his earlier pride. This was his fate all along. He was but meat to be recycled into a new generation of life. The salt water burned him and a dark liquid curled around him.

But a brute, unspeaking part of him refused to give up. His stunned lungs cried for breath. His legs kicked once more. The light approached again, then darkness closed in around him. Feeling receded from his limbs and he fell, the light ebbing, sharks circling, their tail fins kicking greedily.

Onder fell and fell. A soft bed caught him. A cool evening breeze wafted over him. He sighed. Something moved to his right and he turned.

“What are you doing here, son! Get up! Your people depend on you!” The gaunt, dusty black man towered over his son. Onder scooted backwards.

“Father?” Onder studied his face. He had his father’s squinting eyes, wide cheekbones and sense of both impending doom and inexhaustible love.

“Onder!” The older man smacked him across the face and Onder awoke under water, the pink open mouth of a shark racing towards him. Onder found himself magnetically pulled in towards its rows of razor white teeth, his head angling to slide down its cavernous gullet.

What if they are still alive? And, if not, what of my revenge? The thought energized him. Onder drew back a fist and slammed it into the shark’s nose. The shark wriggled, its rough skin scraping Onder’s arm, then flew off into the murk. Onder pushed himself to the surface and drank deep of the air, his chest rising and falling on its own as if someone else’s heart beat within his breast.

A strong wave propelled Onder against the rocky cliffside, his head bouncing off the dark stone. He grabbed a rough outcropping and held firm. The receding water pulled on him but he stood firm. He found footing on a boulder, stood up and put his back to the wall. His head ached and bile rose in his throat. Sharks circled meters from him. He wouldn’t swim out of here.

He looked up. The cliffside was at least twenty meters tall and the robots might still be up there. He cupped his hand over his ear to hear Philani’s protestations or the cries of the twenty-eight children. But the crashes of the waves at his feet tolerated no other sound to reach him.

Damn the robots. He’d climb. The water receded from his feet. Onder spotted the wave. Taller than him and but a dozen meters away, it carried a long, finned shadow within it.

Onder turned, found footing and hand over hand began to climb the mossy, slippery black rock. Don’t look back. It will only slow you.

Onder looked back. The wave crashed over his legs, the body of the shark pressing his kneecaps into the harsh stone. The beast’s jaws snapped, its eyes wild. Onder reached a hand back, his other fingers slipping and jabbed a finger at the shark’s wide eye. It recoiled. The wave receded.

Onder climbed again. Halfway up he stopped and listened. The surf still crashed below but a scream sounded far away. Philani’s scream. If the Gaian robots cannot quiet her, how could I ever hope to?

He wouldn’t have to listen to her nagging voice now. Now there would only be one mouth to feed, instead of twenty-nine. A genuine sense of relief swept over him. He was free. Now he could do what he want.

Guilt spilled over and wiped away his newfound independence. His father’s voice spoke to him. You have a duty, son. You have a responsibility. That is your wife. Those are your children. There is no one else. You are the last Khoisan. You are, in fact, the last man in all of Africa.

But they’re not my children, he screamed at his father.

They became yours when you took them in. They are yours because they are your people and there is no other father for them.

Onder’s chest tightened and a weight grew within him. He reached the top of the cliff and hung just below it, waiting for the familiar vibration of the robots’ heavy tread. But none came.

He raised his eyes above the edge and scanned the horizon. Far away to the Northeast a dust trail flittered in the wind. He would track them, find them and free them. His course was set. He climbed up and crouched at the edge of the cliff, dreaming of his father’s face.

And what if you must die? his father’s spirit asked him.

Then I will die, for my people and my family. I swear it. “And,” Onder added out loud, “I will avenge you, father, by destroying the Gaian leader, whatever it takes.”

“No. You will die.” The robot - the same silicon-wrapped giant now with a slashed flap hanging under its eye - stepped from its hiding place behind a rock twenty meters to Onder’s right and raised its arm to fire.