Earthborn (Homecoming) Read online

  “It leads to my feeling as though I had one intelligent friend in the world,” said Edhadeya. “Or perhaps that isn’t good, in the eyes of the king.”

  “Don’t be snippy, Edhadeya. I didn’t make the rules, I inherited them.”

  “And you’ve done nothing to change them.”

  “I sent an army because of your dream.”

  “Sixteen men. And you sent them because Mon said it was a true dream.”

  “Oh, am I condemned because the Keeper gave you a witness to support your claim?”

  “Father, I’ll never condemn you. But Akmaro and his family have to be brought here. Don’t you understand? The things that Akmaro teaches—that a man and woman are equal partners, that a family should rejoice at the birth of a daughter as much as at the birth of a son—”

  “How do you know what he teaches?” asked Father.

  “I saw them, didn’t I?” she said defiantly. “And I’ll bet the daughter’s name is Luet, and the son’s name is the same as the father’s. Except the honorific, of course.”

  Motiak frowned at her, but she knew from his anger that she was right, those were the names. “Are you using the gift of the Keeper to show off?” said Father sternly. “To try to force me to do your bidding?”

  “Father, why do you have to say it that way? Why can’t you say, Oh, Edhadeya, how wonderful that the Keeper tells you so much! How wonderful that the Keeper is alive in you!”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “And difficult. Khideo is furious at having been humiliated by my letting a girl speak so boldly before him.”

  “Well, the poor man. Let him go back to the Elemaki then!”

  “He’s a genuine hero, Edhadeya, a man of great honor and not the sort of man that I want to have as my enemy!”

  “He’s also a bigot of the first stripe, and you know it! You’re going to have to settle these people off by themselves somewhere, or there’ll be trouble.”

  “I know that. They know it, too. There’s land along the valley of the Jatvarek, after it has fallen down from the gornaya but before it enters the flatlands. No angels live there, because the jaguars and the lesser cats are too prevalent there in the rainy season. So it will suit them.”

  “Wherever humans go, angels can safely live,” said Edhadeya. She was taunting him with his own law, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

  “A good king can tolerate reasonable variation among his people. It costs the sky people nothing to avoid settling among the Zenifi, as long as the Zenifi give them free and safe passage, and respect their right to trade. In a few generations . . .”

  “I know,” she said. “I know it’s a wise choice.”

  “But you’re in the mood to argue with me about everything.”

  “Because I think that none of this has anything to do with the people I saw in my dream. What about them, Father?”

  “I can’t send another party to search for Akmaro,” said Motiak.

  “ Won’t you mean.”

  “Won’t, then. But for a good reason.”

  “Because a woman is asking you to.”

  “You’re hardly a woman yet,” said Motiak. “Right now the entire enterprise we just concluded is regarded as a great success. But if I send out another army, it will look as though the first attempt was a failure.”

  “It was a failure.”

  “No it wasn’t,” said Motiak. “Do you think you’re the only one who hears the voice of the Keeper?”

  Edhadeya gasped and blushed. “Oh, Father! Has the Keeper sent you a dream?”

  “I have the Index of the Oversoul, Dedaya. I was consulting it for another reason, but as I held it in my hands, I heard a voice clearly speak to me. Let me bring Akmaro home, said the voice.”

  “Oh, Father! The Index is still alive, after all these years?”

  “I don’t think it’s any more alive than a stone,” said Motiak. “But the Keeper is alive.”

  “The Oversoul, you mean,” said Edhadeya. “It’s the Index of the Oversoul.”

  “I know that the ancient records make a great deal of distinction between them, but I’ve never understood it myself,” said Motiak.

  “So the Keeper will bring Chebeya and her family home to Darakemba?”

  Motiak narrowed his eyes, pretending to glare at her. “Do you think I don’t notice when you do that?”

  “Do what?” asked Edhadeya, all wide-eyed innocence.

  “Not Akmaro and his people—no, you say ‘Chebeya and her family.’ ”

  Edhadeya shrugged.

  “The way you women persist in calling the Keeper ‘she’ all the time. You know that the priests are always after me to forbid women to do that, at least in front of men. I always say to them, when the ancient records no longer show us Luet, Rasa, Chveya, and Hushidh speaking of the Oversoul and the Keeper as ‘she’ and ‘her,’ then in that same moment I’ll forbid the women to do as the ancients did. That shuts them up—though I’ll bet more than a few of them have wondered how serious I am, and whether they could somehow alter the ancient records without my noticing.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!”

  “That’s right, they wouldn’t,” said Motiak.

  “You could also ask those priests to show you the anatomical chart of the Keeper that shows him to have a—”

  “Mind your language,” said Motiak. “I’m your father, and I’m the king. There should be a certain dignity in both offices. And I’m not about to convince the priests that I’ve turned against the old religion now, am I?”

  “A bunch of old—”

  “There are things that I may not hear, as head of the worship of men.”

  “Worship of men is right,” muttered Edhadeya.

  “What was that?’ asked Motiak.

  “Nothing.”

  “Worship of men, you said? What did that—oh, I see. Well, think how you like. Just remember that I won’t always be king, and you can’t be sure that my successor will be as tolerant of your subversive little attacks on the men’s religion. I’m content to let women worship as they please, and so was my father and his father before him. But there’s always agitation to change things, to shut down the heresies of women. Every wife who strikes her husband or scolds him publicly is taken as one more proof that letting the women have their own religion makes them disrespectful and destructive.”

  “What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because the priests force us or because we’re afraid that they might force us?”

  “If you can’t see the difference, you’re not as bright as I thought.”

  “Do you really think I’m intelligent, Father?”

  “What, are you really fishing for more praise than I already give you?”

  “I just want to believe you.”

  “I’ve heard enough from you, when you start doubting my word.” He got up and started for the door.

  “I’m not doubting your honesty, Father!” she cried out. “I know you think that you think I’m intelligent. But I think that in the back of your mind, you always have another little phrase: ‘for a woman.’ I’m intelligent—for a woman. I’m wise—for a woman.”

  “I can promise you,” said Motiak, “that the phrase ‘for a woman’ never comes to my mind in reference to you. But the phrase ‘for a child’ is there, I can assure you—and often.”

  She felt as if he had slapped her.

  “I meant you to,” said Father.

  Only when he answered did she realize she had muttered the words. Feel slapped.

  “I respect your intelligence enough,” said Father, “that I think a verbal slap teaches you better than a physical one. Now trust in the Keeper to bring this Akmaro—and Chebeya—to Darakemba. And in the meantime, don’t expect me to be able to stand custom on its head. A king can’t lead his people faster and farther than they’re willing to follow.”

  “What if the people insist on doing wrong?” asked Edhadeya.

  “What, am I in my schoolroom, being tossed hyp
othetical questions by my tutors?”

  “Is that how the heir to the king gets taught?” she asked defiantly. “Where are the tutors asking me hypothetical questions about kingship?”

  “I’ll answer your original question, not these impossible ones. If the people insist on doing wrong, and the king can’t persuade them to do right, then the king steps down from the throne. If his son has honor, he refuses to take the throne after him, and so do all his sons. Let the people do evil if they choose, but with a new king of their own choosing.”

  In awe, Edhadeya whispered, “Could you do that, Father? Could you give up the throne?”

  “I’ll never have to,” he said. “My people are basically good, and they’re learning. If I push too hard, I gain nothing and the resistance gets stronger. During the long slow years of transformation I need the trust and patience of those who want me to make changes in their favor.” He leaned down and kissed the crown of her head, where the hair was parted. “If I had no sons, but you were still my daughter, then I would hurry the changes so that you could have the throne in my place. But I have sons, good ones, as you well know. And so I will let the change come gradually, generation after generation, as my father and grandfather did before me. Now I have work to do, and I’ll spend no more time on you. There are whole nations under my rule who get less of my attention than you do.”

  Giving him her best demure smile, she said, in a simpering courtly ladylike voice, “Oh, Father, you’re so incredibly kind to me.”

  “One of my ancestors walled up a recalcitrant daughter in a cave with only bread and water to eat until she became properly obedient,” said Father.

  “As I recall, she dug her way out of the cave with her fingernails and ran off and married the Elemaki king.”

  “You read too much,” said Father.

  She stuck out her tongue at him, but he didn’t see, because he was gone.

  Behind her, Uss-Uss spoke up again. “Aren’t you the brave little soldier?”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” said Edhadeya.

  “I’m not,” said Uss-Uss. “You know, one of the stories that circulates among us devil slaves—”

  “No one calls you devils anymore.”

  “Don’t interrupt your elders,” said Uss-Uss. “We all tell each other the story of the digger who was cleaning a chamber when two traitors spoke together, plotting the death of the king. The slave went straight to the king and told him, whereupon the king had the digger killed, for daring to hear what humans said in front of him.”

  “What, do you think I’m going to—”

  “I’m just telling you that if you think you’re suffering because you’re a human woman, remember that your father didn’t even bother to send me out of the room in order to talk to you. Why is that?”

  “Because he trusts you.”

  “He doesn’t know me. He only knows that I know what the penalty is for daring to repeat what I hear. Don’t tell me how oppressed the women of Darakemba are when most of us diggers are slaves that can be killed for the slightest infraction—even for an act of great loyalty.”

  “I’ve never heard that story,” said Edhadeya.

  “Just because you haven’t heard it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “So Father thinks I’m a troublemaker and you think I’m a proud insensitive—”

  “And aren’t you?”

  Edhadeya shrugged. “I’d free you if I could.”

  “At least your father pretended that he was trying to change your place in society. But in all your pleading, have you ever asked for the earth people of Darakemba to be set free?”

  Edhadeya was furious; she didn’t like being called a hypocrite. “It’s completely different!”

  “So eager to get this Chebeya and Akmaro out of captivity, but not a thought about getting old Uss-Uss her freedom.”

  “What would you do with it if you had it?” demanded Edhadeya. “Go back to the Elemaki? The soldiers would have to kill you before you got halfway there, so you couldn’t tell them all our secrets.”

  “Go back to the Elemaki? Child, my great grandfather was born a slave to the kings of the Nafari. Back to a place I’ve never been?”

  “Do you really hate me?” asked Edhadeya.

  “I never said I hated you,” said Uss-Uss.

  “But you want to be free of me.”

  “I would like it, when my day’s work was done, when you were fast asleep, I would like it, to go home to my own little house, and kiss the noses of my own fat little grandchildren, and share with my husband the wages I was paid for serving in the king’s house. Do you think I’d give you any less faithful service, just because I was doing it freely instead of because I knew I could be killed or at least sold out of the house if I made the slightest mistake?”

  Edhadeya thought about this. “But you’d live in a hole in the ground, if you were free,” she said.

  Uss-Uss cackled and hooted. “Of course I would! So what if I did?”

  “But that’s . . .”

  “That’s inhuman” said Uss-Uss, still laughing.

  Edhadeya finally got the joke, and laughed with her.

  Later, when it was dark, when Edhadeya was supposed to be asleep, she was wakened by a slight sound at the window. She saw there in the moonlight the silhouette of Uss-Uss, her head bobbing up and down. Thinking something might be wrong, Edhadeya got up and padded to the window.

  Hearing her, Uss-Uss turned around and waited for her.

  “Do you do this every night?” asked Edhadeya.

  “No,” said Uss-Uss. “Only tonight. But you were worried about these humans who are held captive by diggers in some far-off place.”

  “So you pray to the Keeper for them?”

  “Why should I do that?” asked Uss-Uss. “The Keeper knows they’re there—it was the Keeper sent you the dream you had, wasn’t it? I don’t figure it’s my business to tell the Mother what she already knows! No, I was praying to the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried. She lives in that star, that high one. The one that’s always overhead.”

  “No one can live in a star,” said Edhadeya.

  “An immortal can,” said Uss-Uss. “I pray to her.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “A very sacred one,” said Uss-Uss.

  “Can you tell it to me?”

  Uss-Uss lifted up the hem of Edhadeya’s long nightgown and draped it onto her head, so that the cloth was over Edhadeya’s ear. “My name is Voozhum,” said Uss-Uss. “Now that you know my true name, I can tell you the name of the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried.” Then Uss-Uss waited.

  “Please,” said Edhadeya, trembling. “Please, Voozhum.” What was she supposed to do or say now? All she could think of was to offer the most formal and official version of her own name in answer. “My true name is Ya-Edhad.”

  “The One-Who-Was-Never-Buried is the one to whom Nafai gave the cloak of the starmaster. Did they think this was a secret from the earth people? The blessed ancestors saw her skin tremble with light. She is Shedemei, and she is the one who took the tower up into the sky and made a star of it.”

  “And she’s still alive?”

  “She has been seen twice in the years since then. Both times tending a garden, once in a high mountain valley, and once on the side of a cliff in the lowest reaches of the gornaya. She is the gardener, and she watches over the whole Earth. She will know what to do about Chebeya and her husband, about Luet and her brother.”

  For the first time Edhadeya realized that there might be things that the diggers knew that they didn’t learn from the humans, and it filled her with a sudden and unfamiliar blush of humility. “Teach me how to speak to the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried.”

  “You fix your eye on the permanent star, the one they call Basilica.”

  Edhadeya looked up and found it easily—as every child could do.

  “Then you bob your head, like this,” said Uss-Uss.

  “Can she see us?”

  “I don’t know
,” said Uss-Uss. “I only know that this is what we do when we pray to her. I think it started because that was how she moved her head that time when she was seen in a high valley.”

  So Edhadeya joined her slave in the unfamiliar ritual. Together they asked the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried to watch out for Chebeya and Luet and their people, and set them free. Uss-Uss would say a phrase, and Edhadeya would repeat it. At the end, Edhadeya added a few words of her own. “And help set all women free from captivity,” she said. “Women of the sky, women of the earth, and women of the middle.”

  Uss-Uss cackled for a moment, then repeated the phrase. “And just think,” she said. “Someday they’ll marry you off to some second-rate potentate somewhere and I’ll be dead and you’ll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!” Then she bustled Edhadeya back to bed, where she slept fitfully, dreaming meaningless dreams about dead women with sparkling skin whom no one had remembered to bury.

  “If I didn’t think this whole thing might be a mistake, I’d think it was funny,” said the Oversoul.

  “You don’t have a sense of humor,” said Shedemei, “and if you thought it was a mistake you wouldn’t have done it.”

  “I can make a decision when I’m still eighty percent unsure of the outcome,” said the Oversoul. “It’s built into my programming, to help keep me from dithering to the point of inaction.”

  “I think sending Motiak that message through the Index was a good idea,” said Shedemei. “Prevent them sending another expedition. Force the Keeper to act.”

  “Easy for you to decide, Shedemei,” said the Oversoul. “You have no compassion for them.”

  Shedemei felt those words cut her to the heart. “A machine tells me that I have no compassion?”

  “I have a sort of virtual compassion,” said the Oversoul. “I do take human suffering into account, though not usually the suffering of individuals. Akmaro and Chebeya have a large enough group there that, yes, I feel some compassion for them. But you have the normal human ability to dehumanize people at will, especially strangers, especially in large groups.”

  “You’re saying I’m a monster.”