A Sip of Pombé
By Gustavo Bondoni
Illustrated by Frank Schurter
The antique Land Rover, fifty years old if a day, bounced over the rutted track, between trees that had been intentionally left untrimmed. Samuel Kyanbadde would have preferred to launch much earlier—his nerves had become more and more frayed as the days passed—but the delays mounted as niggling issues came up. In the end, the Russian had put his foot down: either the launch happened before the end of the week or they’d miss the window.
Armed guards stopped them at the last checkpoint, but smiled and waved when they recognized Samuel sitting in the passenger seat. 
A gap opened in the jungle. Two rockets came into view and his stomach jumped. He turned to his companion in the back seat. “They’ve taken off the camouflage netting!”
Happy Odongo didn’t smile. The serious young man almost never smiled. “We must really be going, then.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“If they managed to get everything working, it is.”
Samuel studied the vehicles. It was the first time he’d seen them without the dense camouflage designed to shield them from spy satellites and especially from Google Earth. The Americans and Chinese only occasionally watched Uganda, but Google was omnipresent.
He felt dizzy for a moment. They looked much taller without their disguise. As the Land Rover approached the nearest one, he couldn’t help feeling that the giant booster was going to topple onto his head at any moment.
The President himself met them at the barracks. He was wearing a shirt in the western style with the top three buttons open. He smiled his politician’s smile and shook their hands respectfully. “You two are heroes. By tomorrow, the entire world will know your names.”
One way or another, it was true. Either two Ugandans would be on their way to Mars, violating every missile proliferation agreement in existence, or they’d have died horribly in an explosion too large to cover up. Their names would be released in both cases—only the context would differ.
“Thank you, sir.”
They walked off to join the Russian. The project leader looked like a giant snowman: a round torso all wrapped in white and with an equally round head, clean-shaven and pale-skinned. The ensemble was topped by a wide-brimmed pith helmet. He smiled at them and rubbed his hands. “So, the day is finally here. How are you feeling?”
“We’re fine,” Samuel said, before Happy could ruin the mood. “We can’t wait to get up there and show everyone that we’re not backward savages.”
“They won’t think that. Imagine it. This will be the first mission to Mars that leaves directly from Earth and not from some moon installation or Lagrange point. It’s the most technically advanced attempt humanity has ever made. We’ll show them.”
Even Happy refrained from reminding the man that they already knew all that. They both had degrees in astrophysics—Happy had a doctorate from Oxford—but the Russian always seemed to treat them like children. Still, it was hard not to like him; he was completely obsessed with getting his planned mission to Mars, and today, it was he who was acting like a child, bouncing around like a kid patiently waiting for Christmas gifts.
“Let’s get you into your suits.”
They walked into the barracks building which had been converted into a dressing room for the astronauts. Samuel chuckled. This was probably the only space facility in the world where getting a malaria-carrying mosquito in your suit was not only a real risk, but specifically listed as a pre-flight check item.
It would serve, wooden floors and all. There was no need to keep up appearances. No one was going to broadcast this takeoff live. It had to happen in complete secrecy. Hell, if anyone found out about it, they’d come here and shut it down. They’d also take the Russian away and quietly shoot him: the man only cared about getting a Mars mission up, but attempting to sell rocket designs with deep space capabilities to the North Koreans probably hadn’t been a great idea, no matter how politically innocent the man was.
Once suited, the two Ugandans rode up the elevator. The Russian chattered the whole way. “We swept both rockets for bombs today. They were clean. The insurgents don’t seem to have gotten through. We might even have been able to keep them from finding out about this.”
“I’m much more worried about the Americans shooting us down,” Happy replied.
“No. No. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
Their rocket was called the Kabalega II, in honor of the man who’d fought the British —one of the most noble and perseverant of African freedom fighters— in the very place where the spaceport was located. Kabalega I was standing four hundred meters away on another pad. It was going to launch first, carrying their rover and the Mars habitat. Their own rocket contained the transit ship which, if everything worked as planned, would become their orbiter.
The Russian strapped them in and connected all the hoses himself while the technical team looked on with bemused smiles. It was a mark of the esteem he was held in that no one corrected his mistakes until, after an emotional good luck speech, he left. Only then did the techs reconnect the hoses and recheck the straps. One of them furtively handed Samuel a flask containing pombé, the local beer, brewed by his ancestors since before the British had decided to come looking for the source of the Nile.
They shut the hatch with a solid thunk, and the noise of the insects and the birds was left on the outside.
Samuel, born and raised right there in Bunyoro, always missed that sound when it wasn’t present. It had been the soundtrack for his entire life except for the stint at the University of Arizona and then, later, at MIT. But other than those seven years, the buzzing and chirping had been a constant companion.
He wondered if he’d ever hear it again.
Ignoring the chatter over the radio, Samuel looked out of the single porthole. All he could see was the tip of their sister rocket and a cloudless sky.
He wondered if he would survive. All the odds were against it. Even if the Americans and the Chinese had been deceived by the official story that the Ugandan government was modernizing the Kagadi Hospital, or the unofficial one that the government was building a high-tech subterranean prison for rebels, the likelihood of survival was slim.
The land grab in space had reignited tensions that had seemed buried in the early years of the century. Back then, space cooperation had been a unifying force, a check on the nationalist ambitions of the major players in the Great Game.
But then the world had polarized. Authoritarian régimes on the extremes of the political spectrum had turned their eyes skyward and seen endless resources in the asteroid field and even on Mars. Their dreams had been fueled more by desire and demagoguery than by science, but it was enough to rekindle a race towards the outer reaches of the system. And enough to create a state of near war on Earth.
Fortunately, there were more immediate concerns. He and Happy were perched atop one of two heavily modified and strengthened N1 rockets—boosters that had originally been designed to take Soviet cosmonauts to the moon. The failure of the N1 had been the main cause for the Americans reaching the lunar surface first. These tricky rockets had exploded one after another. And now he was strapped into one.
The Russian had assured everyone that the rockets—with his modifications—would work. But the truth was that the boosters had only really been tested underground and the flight characteristics of the giant vehicles in atmosphere had only been tested in simulation. In the computerized fluid dynamics programs, they had worked flawlessly.
Of course, if the foreigners hadn’t bought Uganda’s cover stories it was all moot. The rocket would be blasted out of the sky as soon as one of the anti-missile satellites could be brought to bear. The Chinese were unpredictable, the Europeans timid, and the Russians simply didn’t care, but the Americans would shoot first and ask questions, lots and lots of questions, afterwards.
The countdown reached two minutes and Samuel glanced over at Happy. He had his eyes closed and was moving his lips. 
Praying? It might not be a bad idea. Samuel himself held out until the countdown reached ten before closing his own eyes. Then the shaking started, followed by crushing acceleration. He didn’t open them again until he felt the first stage disengage. There was no question of hearing the updates through the radio, the noise was tremendous, but he felt the metallic clank and the small explosion used to jettison the used-up rocket through his backside. 
But then the world had polarized. Authoritarian régimes on the extremes of the political spectrum had turned their eyes skyward and seen endless resources in the asteroid field and even on Mars.
“Kampala, this is the Kalabega II, everything is nominal,” he reported.
“Nominal for you, perhaps. We’ve got every major government asking us what the hell is going on. And how CNN got a crew here so fast is anyone’s guess.”
“Well, I’ll let you deal with them. We’re getting into Mars trajectory burn position in thirty-five minutes. How are our base and rover doing?” It wasn’t critical that the base and rover survived, of course. They had enough fuel to return. But it would be a terrible disappointment to go all the way out to Mars only to shrug, take a few pictures, and come home. Especially considering that he’d have Happy for a shipmate all the way there and back again.
“Everything looks good so far. They tell me the Russian had to be carried away. He was so surprised that it actually worked that he fainted.”
“Comforting thought. We have a few million more kilometers for him to fail at something.”
But they were on their way. A launch explosion in a fully fueled rocket was the only thing Samuel hadn’t been trained to deal with. It was clear to everyone that, if anything happened, he was expected to die heroically in the explosion.
News followed them across the solar system. The enraged Americans had sent the Sixth Fleet to perform exercises and maneuvers off the coast of Tanzania. The Chinese had cut off all financial aid to Uganda, while several European nations had denounced the launch in the UN. Of the countries with people on Mars, only India had remained silent. After all, the reaction to their own space program decades before had been the same.
The most interesting reaction of all was that of the Russians. While not exactly condoning the launch, they did make a point of mentioning that it had been made possible by Russian technology, and that if any other country needed such technology for their own space programs, they knew whom to call. Fortunately, no one mentioned the role of a certain Russian head engineer in all of this.
The President of Uganda—dressed in traditional ceremonial robes—spoke at the emergency meeting of the U.N. He explained that Ugandan rockets were meant for peaceful uses only. He told the assorted angry white faces that Uganda had as much right to the solar system as any other nation on Earth. More, in fact.
Uganda was a nation synonymous with exploration. At one time, it had been a central part of the mystery of the Nile. A blank space on the map. When men made reference to “darkest Africa,” Uganda was part of what they were talking about. It had drawn European explorers like honey drew flies.
Whether those men—Livingstone, Stanley, Burton, Gordon—had done more harm than good was open to debate but one thing was certain: they’d taught the Ugandan nation that determined men, working on solid principles, could overcome obstacles and shine light on the unknown. The country had learned their lesson well.
“And besides,” the President had concluded defiantly, “the launch window is closed and you can’t stop them. The men are going to Mars and, barring a technical problem, they will be landing there. You’ll have to learn to deal with that fact.” And he’d walked away.
Watching the live—well, somewhat distance delayed broadcast—Samuel had applauded. Happy, of course, had been less sanguine.
“You know what this means, of course.”
“That the Europeans and the Americans have been rightly told off?”
“That the Europeans and the Americans on Mars aren’t going to come help us if something goes wrong. They’ll want us to fail, so they can tell all the other governments thinking of doing something like this that Mars is too dangerous for anyone but the big boys to consider. That way, they can carve it up amongst themselves.”
“Don’t be silly.”
But Happy, like pessimists everywhere, seemed to be right all the time. A few days after the president’s speech, Brazil announced its intention to hit the next launch window using Similar N1 technology licensed from Russia. Argentina then shocked the world by saying that it was reviving its Condor project and that it would brook no outside interference in its manned space project. A number of Asian nations followed suit, led, predictably, by North Korea, who’d been waiting for the opportunity all along.
“We’re not going to be popular at all, now,” Happy prophesized.
Again, the man was correct. Uganda became the subject of sanctions as the First World attempted to make an example of them. Arms inspectors swarmed over the launch site. The Lord’s Renaissance Army issued a statement demanding that control of the country be given over to them, and that, if the west had only supported them in the civil war against the government, none of this would have happened in the first place.
Amazingly, the government survived. The program had caught the people’s imagination, and they stood staunchly behind their leadership…and became global pariahs.
“Good morning,” Samuel said.
“It’s not morning. And I doubt it will be too good.”
Samuel wondered how Happy had been selected for the mission. The man’s personality made him a prime candidate to become a murder victim even if one didn’t have to be locked up with him for nearly seven months. A quick psychological screening should have eliminated him.
Of course, there weren’t all that many Ugandan astrophysics PhDs who’d volunteered for a mission to Mars on unproven Russian rockets, so he’d probably been Hobson’s choice.
“It will for me. I’m coming to the end of War and Peace,” Samuel replied impassively. “Should have it done before the next sleep cycle.”
“I can’t believe you’d subject yourself to that. It’s all Russians whining about being Russians.”
Samuel didn’t even bother to correct him. Happy had spent the entire mission to date, all three months’ worth, using what spare time he had to amass high scores on the ships Tetris emulator and thinking up new ways in which the mission could go wrong. 
Samuel’s ancestors had never been cannibals—the tribes of Bunyoro had committed different atrocities—but men like Happy made him understand what might drive someone to bite the flesh off a vanquished foe.
But he contented himself with one thought: only four months to go.
The report from Earth did not bear good news.
“I hate to admit it, but you were right,” Samuel said.
“Of course I was right.”
“So, are you satisfied?”
“I’d rather have been wrong,” Happy replied glumly. 
“Yeah. Me, too. But too late for that, now.”
The object they’d picked up on the long-range scan, the one Happy had immediately decided was an American missile had turned out, after consulting with Earth to be… a missile. No one planet side had taken responsibility for it, but it had been launched from L4, which limited the number of suspects considerably.
“What do we do?” Samuel said.
“Let me think. We have a few hours before it hits.” He set himself in front of the flight computer and began punching in numbers. Samuel knew better than to interrupt him.
“All right. There’s good news and there’s bad news.” Happy looked as if the news was all bad, though.
“Start with the good news. I’ve been giving myself an ulcer thinking about all the possible ways the news could be bad.”
“The missile won’t hit us.”
“Wow. That actually is good news.” Samuel had been prepared for a death sentence, which made everything else wonderful by comparison.
“The bad news is that we now have a choice. What planet would you like to see: Mars or Earth? We can’t do both.”
“What?”
“The missile is on a perfectly calculated trajectory, but it must have spent all its fuel. I doubt it can maneuver. We have plenty of fuel to move out of its way. But once we burn it, we can’t use it for anything else. That means we won’t have enough to brake on Mars, accelerate away and brake again in Earth orbit. I tried everything. Slingshot maneuvers, moon gravity assist, everything. It doesn’t work out.”
“You mean they weren’t trying to kill us?”
“Maybe they’d love to…Maybe it’s a nuclear warhead and they will. But they must know we’d have to be incompetent to get hit. They just want us to move out of the way and fail. So now what?”
“What do you mean, now what?”
“I mean what I said. You’re the mission commander. Which planet are we going to grace with our presence?”
“How much time do I have?”
Happy checked the display. “None.” The answer appeared to bring him a certain amount of joy.
“And we’ll die if we go to Mars?”
“Unless our equipment works as designed? Yes.”
“I don’t care. We came all this way. Onward.”
Happy said nothing. He just leaned over the controls and began to program instructions very, very quickly.
“We made it!” Samuel said as the computer confirmed that their orbit was both stable and following the trajectory that would allow them to reach the habitat module on the planet. 
Even Happy had nothing negative to say. Against all odds, the ship was in orbit around Mars and, if the telemetry could be believed, the habitat had landed and was working correctly on the surface. 
But perhaps the spirit of Happy had simply been relocated. Thirty minutes after he informed Kampala of their arrival, they received a message from mission control. “Orbiter Kabalega, congratulations on your astounding achievement. We’re delighted that you have arrived safely. It’s a proud moment for everyone in Uganda, and our exploratory spirit is vindicated.
“We have also received a recommendation from the United Nations that you don’t descend to the surface. The international community feels it would send the wrong message; therefore, we cannot give the order for you to land. We will shortly be sending you a new set of flight parameters so that you can return to Earth quickly and safely. The Chinese government has agreed to supply you with the fuel you lost earlier. Be patient; it will take some time to figure out a refueling procedure.”
Samuel was stunned. How could they do this? Why had the Ugandan President suddenly caved to the international interests he’d taken such glee in thumbing his nose at previously? Had the situation back on Earth truly gotten that bad?
He put his head in his hands and sobbed for nearly ten minutes.
It was Happy who broke the silence.
“They didn’t order us not to land,” the other man said quietly.
“What?”
“They didn’t order us not to land. They told us what the U.N. recommended, and they told us they were sending over new flight course parameters and some nonsense about refueling, but he didn’t tell us not to land.”
“So? It was implied. He told us he couldn’t give us the order to land.”
“He doesn’t need to. We were given orders to evaluate the situation once we got here, and we haven’t been given a single order to contradict that. Since it’s your job to evaluate the situation, I’d like to know what you feel the situation is.”
“Everything is in good shape for a landing.”
“Then that is what we’ll do.” It seemed to Samuel that Happy nearly smiled, but the other man got hold of his emotions quickly. “Besides, I’d much rather die horribly of radiation exposure on Mars than go home and get shot for disobeying orders.”
“Those aren’t our only options!” Samuel scolded. But his heart wasn’t in it. Right then, he could have kissed the sour bastard.
Fifteen minutes later, he had programmed the lander’s trajectory. They had to get into the ship within the next hour and twelve minutes to hit their window. That meant that he had a long wait before he could communicate with Earth. Their current orbital position put them at near maximum message travel time, nearly half an hour. 
Five minutes before the lander disengaged and began its flight down to the red surface, Samuel began his transmission. “Thank you for informing us of the situation in the United Nations and for sending us the new return solutions. Nevertheless, after evaluating the situation per our standing orders, we have decided to press forward, to Mars.”
“I told you we were going to die,” Happy said. The man seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction from the fact.
“We’re not dead yet,” Samuel responded.
“You are correct, we’re still about eighteen hours away from that.”
Samuel sighed. He wanted to argue, but there was no way he could fix the oxygen scrubber, which had, a mere three days into their planetary stay, gone up in smoke. The air inside the habitat would soon become unbreathable and they’d die. Simple as that. 
The next launch window to their orbiter was five days off. The spacecraft might as well have been on Earth for all the good it did them. “I’m going for help.”
“Help? The only base in range of the air tanks on our rover is the Chinese settlement. They haven’t answered a single one of our radio messages. And we don’t know the terrain.” Seeing that Samuel was suiting up anyway, Happy insisted. “Even if you make it there, you won’t make it back.”
“Look, I’m going with you or without you. So, you need to decide what you’re going to do right now.”
“I told you we were going to die,” Happy said. The man seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction from the fact.
“We’re not dead yet,” Samuel responded.
Uncharacteristically, Happy chose that moment to chuckle. “Well, since I’ve come all this way…”
The rover was a near-direct copy of the model the ESA was using in the Polar regions, and like most European things was much more safety oriented than fast. But under Happy’s skillful guidance—the man might have been unbearable, but he was an excellent driver—they navigated the boulder fields and arrived at their destination in just under four hours. That meant they actually did have enough air to get back!
A baffling sight met them. Four people in suits of three different designs, two red and one each of bright white and off-white, were furiously packing a six-wheeled truck-like rover the size of the Ugandan Mars Habitat. Samuel identified it immediately, he’d seen it in countless photographs during his training: the Russian Laika heavy utility vehicle. What was it doing at the Chinese base?
As soon as they saw them, the frantic work came to a screeching halt. The four astronauts stopped to stare, until one of the red-suited figures reacted. He stepped forward and stood beside the Ugandan rover waiting for them to descend.
Samuel, his head spinning, did so. He strode to the red suit and saw the unmistakable oriental features of the leader of the Chinese mission. The red-suited man put his index finger in front of his helmet.
“Excuse us…”
The man waved his arm agitatedly and repeated the gesture. It almost looked as if he was asking Samuel to be silent.
“The reason…”
The man removed a firearm from a holster, pointed it at Samuel’s helmet and made the sign with his finger yet again. 
The Ugandan shut up.
Seemingly satisfied, the man gestured with the weapon for Happy and Samuel to walk forward towards the enormous Chinese camp, a palatial facility which made the Ugandan habitat look like an abandoned water tank. He led them to the airlock at gunpoint, and the other red-suited figure rushed ahead to open it.
They were silently ordered inside. The gun never wavered, and Samuel never even dreamed of trying to take it away. The man looked deadly serious.
On the other side of the airlock, the leader of the Chinese expedition unclipped his visor and took a deep breath. 
“Remove your helmets.” He ordered, waving the gun. “Do not speak.”
Samuel and Happy complied.
“Now, are your radios disconnected? Nod if they are.”
The Ugandans nodded.
“Good,” the Taikonaut replied. He smiled, holstered the weapon and gestured. “Then, on behalf of every other human on the planet, I’m delighted to welcome you to Mars. We’ve all been admiring your bravery from afar, and it’s an honor to finally meet you.”
“Wait, what?” Samuel stammered. “Why did you threaten us with the gun?”
“It seemed the simplest way. I apologize if you were frightened.”
A woman’s voice cut in. “We couldn’t answer your radio communications. We’ve all been ordered by our governments to make no contact with you and offer you no aid. Even the Russians. But we’ve been monitoring your progress, listening in on your chats with Kampala. We knew you were in trouble.” 
They turned to see a short-haired woman with ice-blue eyes sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was wearing a white t-shirt with the NASA logo emblazoned on it. She absolutely, positively had no right to be where she was.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“The radio is the problem,” the Chinese commander explained. His English was excellent, with a British accent. “Everything said over the radio on the surface, even over local channels, gets picked up by one of the NASA orbiters —we think it’s MAVEN III— and beamed back to Earth through the Deep Space Network. So we couldn’t respond, not even to tell you that you were welcome here.”
“But she…”
“It’s a delicate situation. The Russians are the only ones whose government has no problem with them talking to all the rest of us. So we use their truck to get around. Of course, the Americans and the Euros are perfectly friendly, but only the Russians are allowed any contact with the Chinese. No one is really supposed to be talking to the Indians, but ever since you came onto the scene, they haven’t been policing that, which is why you saw Nehru loading the truck.”
“Nehru? An Indian on the Chinese base?”
The three astronauts who’d been loading the truck entered through the airlock and Samuel looked at each in turn. There was another taikonaut, a Russian and the cream-colored suit… Indian?
“As I said, it’s delicate. When we first arrived, a sandstorm crippled our main generator. We were told by our government to die honorably. And we would have, except that Salenko,” he nodded towards the Russian, who’d taken his helmet off to reveal a face as grizzled as it was famous: the first man to walk on Mars, “arrived with his truck and a couple of mechanics and a generator. We had no warning, no radio contact. He just showed up and saved us. That was when we agreed to extend the same treatment to any human being on this world, regardless of nationality. None of the expeditions would still be alive without the help of all the others. We’ve all been at the edge of death. Of course, we can’t advertise the fact. And we definitely can’t call you over the radio to tell you that. The Americans are listening, and they’re also watching, but all they see is a Russian truck getting a lot of mileage.”
“And you all agreed to this?”
“Almost everyone did. Unfortunately, our political officer failed to survive the discussion. It is very sad, but he died a hero of the People’s Republic.”
Samuel let that sink in. It was an admission, but it was also a warning. A warning that the men and women living on this planet had cut certain cords with the mother world, and that the same would be expected of the Ugandans. Or else.
“But what are you all doing here?”
“We were loading the Laika,” Salenko said. “We were going to save you. It sounded like you needed it. If we’d known you were brave enough to risk the journey between your base and this one, we wouldn’t have bothered.” The big Russian placed the container he was carrying on the ground and enclosed them each in a bear hug. “Welcome to Mars, my friends.”
Samuel was overwhelmed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just don’t report on what’s happening here,” Salenko replied. “I personally don’t care. If I ever go back to Earth, I’ll be too famous to shoot for treason. But the rest of these guys could be in deep trouble if you talk.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Happy said. “With our luck, we’d land in China and they’d shoot us in your place.”
“Anyone alive on this planet is very lucky indeed,” the woman said. “Forty-one people who tried before us, and three from a British expedition that we couldn’t get to in time, bear witness to that. We won’t let anyone else die on our watch, even if we have to openly defy our governments to do it. We’re all agreed on that.”
Samuel felt tears well up but he refused to give them free rein. “Then count on us to help.”
“Good, because the first people you’re going to need to help are yourselves.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“You can’t stay here indefinitely, of course. We need to get you back and to get your scrubbers fixed, and we need to do it before anyone suspects what’s going on here. And you’ll need to find a convincing way to tell the world how you managed it on your own.”
Samuel shrugged. “I’ll tell them only the casing was broken and it started working again when we sealed it. It’s a typical launch and landing failure.” He chuckled. “And they can’t really come here and check it, can they?”
“They might ask us to do it for them,” Nehru interjected. “But don’t worry. We’ll lie for you. I assume your hothouse supplies are alright. You can survive here if we give you the air?”
“Yes. It should work.”
“That brings us to the next question,” the American woman said. “We’re technically traitors for helping you. In all our countries, treason is punishable by death. Some of us might want to return someday.”
The atmosphere, celebratory a moment before, suddenly chilled. Salenko broke the silence. “I think what she’s trying to ask is whether we can count on you, even in the face of the questions your government might have about what happened here. Will you lie for us?”
This time, the silence stretched uncomfortably. Unusually, it was Happy who replied. “I’ll lie for you. We can’t go back to Earth anyway, so I see little point in sucking up to them.”
Samuel chuckled. “My pragmatic friend is right. We’re with you to wherever this might go.”
“Good. If your actions match your words, we’ll even tell you what we have in mind for the future of Mars. You might be surprised.”
Samuel studied the faces around him, each a hero in their own land. “I’m sure I will.”
The tension drained from the air and they each received another round of back slapping and hugs.
Salenko started. “Oh, I almost forgot. We have a gift for you. We began brewing it when we heard you were coming.”
“Brewing it?”
The man opened the case he’d laid on the floor and pulled out two containers. He handed one to each Ugandan. “Here, drink this. It’s pombé. We investigated what the alcoholic drink where you come from is. We had to pool all our resources for the ingredients, so I hope you like it.”
Samuel took a sip. It was the worst pombé he’d ever had.
“It’s fantastic,” he replied with a smile, and took a long drink. The flavor might have been terrible, but it tasted of friendship. And he couldn’t keep the tears back any longer.