Free The Apex Book of World SF 2 by Lavie Tidhar Page B

used-up and
false sayings. Weren't the president, the military and the priests white? Had
anyone ever seen a native holding a decisive post? If he could, he would have
spat on the floor. All whites were shit.
     
    He couldn't spit
because of where he was: a metallic, softly illuminated cubicle full of
controls and screens. It was the command post of an orbiting spaceship. Like
all spaceships, it belonged to the United Nations. Its mission was routine—to
measure solar winds—but this time it had an additional element: Anatolio
Pomahuanca, the first Peruvian in space.
    Everybody considered
his appointment to the ship's crew an honour; although he had no illusions. His
tasks as maintenance engineer were like those of an attendant at a gas station.
The ship, built with the best of the white's technology, was an enormous
automatic mechanism destined to follow a precisely sequenced program of
instructions. In truth, he and the rest of the crew were mere passengers. The
navigation and registry instruments would do it all.
    He yawned. His brief
turn at the command bridge would soon be over. He had completed his assigned
tasks. To check a screen, to verify a measurement, report some co-ordinates…all
activities that led nowhere. They have to keep me busy somehow, he thought bitterly.
    The captain of the
ship and chief of the mission entered the cabin. He smiled winningly at
Anatolio, who nodded. An indifferent expression on his face, he rose.
    "Everything okay,
Pomahuanca?" asked the captain in perfect Spanish.
    Anatolio hated
whites in general, but more so those who tried to win his confidence or his
friendship. It was always easy to notice their intentions, the false mask of
respect hiding the contempt whites felt or, even worse, their pity for Anatolio's
race.
    "Everything in
order, captain."
    "Up to now, you've
done very well. It's a great opportunity for a young engineer to be a part of
this mission. A lot of Peruvians would like to be in your place."
    "Oh, yeah?" Anatolio
knew the whites were incapable of catching the contempt in his words. He knew
the whites really considered them an inferior race, a sort of animal that, in
the past, was exploited without pity but now had to be better treated. But they
would never accept them as equals.
    "Of course,
Pomahuanca. You have shown the ability of the true Peruvian man to take part in
the exploration of space, to go upwards and always upwards, as Jorge Chávez,
your aviation pioneer, said."
    "What ability are
you talking about, captain? Of the ability to work in a mine? Of the ability to
push a plough? Of the ability to be a servant in the home of a white?"
Anatolio, without meaning to, had ended up screaming the last few words.
    The captain kept
smiling. Anatolio sighed. In the past, when Anatolio had asked the same
questions of other whites, there had been different reactions. Some left
silently, others insulted him. Anatolio preferred the insults because they at
least expressed what they felt. The captain belonged to the worst: those who
believed there was already a harmonic conviviality between whites and natives
as a result of centuries of history that had erased past wounds. In books and
official speeches there was no more talk of invasion or conquest; now it was all
about the meeting of two worlds or two cultures. He thought it incredible that
the whites also believed their lies.
    "There are—whites,
as you call them—who also do jobs like those you described. Anyway, work
dignifies us all."
    "But we always get
those jobs! Do you let us be presidents, ministers or ambassadors?"
    "Everything in its
own time, Pomahuanca. I am sorry that things were different in our common past,
and that we now have to carry that burden…"
    "What burden do the
whites carry? Is being entrepreneurs, big landowners or generals a burden? To
drive luxurious vehicles is a burden? To appear in the media? There are no
changes, captain; we are still the conquered and you the conquerors."
    "Then how