Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 15

  And, of course, she did. But it was a hopeless love and one that she had never, never shown to anyone.

  “Whom did you mean, then?”

  “Him.”

  “Say the name, Proya. Names aren’t magic. It won’t poison you to put the name on your lips.”

  “Nafai.”

  “Uncle Nafai,” she corrected. “Have respect for your elders.”

  “You love him.”

  “I would hope that I have a decent love for all my brothers-in-law, as I hope you will also love all your uncles. It would be nice if your father had a decent love for all his brothers. But perhaps you don’t see it that way. Look at Menya, lying there asleep. He is the fourth son in our family. He stands in relation to you as Nafai stands to your father. Tell me, Proya, are you planning someday to tie up little Menya and break his bones with a rod?”

  Protchnu started to cry in earnest now. Relenting, Eiadh sat up and reached out for him, gathered him into her arms, pulling him down to sit beside her on the bed. “I’ll never hurt Menya,” he said. “I’ll protect him and keep him safe.”

  “I know you will, Proya, I know it. And it’s not the same thing between your father and Nafai. The difference in their ages is much greater. Nafai and Elya didn’t have the same mother. And Elemak had a brother even older.”

  Protchnu’s eyes opened wide. “I thought Father was the oldest.”

  “He’s the oldest son of your grandfather Volemak. Back in the days when he was the Wetchik, in the land of Basilica. But Elemak’s mother had other sons before she married Volemak. And the oldest of those was named Gaballufix.”

  “Does Father hate Uncle Nafai because he killed his brother Gaballufix?”

  “They hated each other before that. And Gaballufix was trying to kill Nafai and your father and Issib and Meb.”

  “Why would he want to kill Issib?”

  Eiadh noted with amusement that Protchnu didn’t wonder why someone would want to kill his uncle Meb. “He wanted to rule Basilica, and the sons of the Wetchik stood in his way. Your grandfather was a very rich and powerful man, back in the land of Basilica.”

  “What does ‘rich’ mean?”

  What have I done to you, my poor child, that you don’t even know what the word means? All wealth and grace have gone from life, and since you have seen nothing but poverty, even the words for the beautiful life are lost to you. “It means that you have more money than….”

  But of course he didn’t know what money meant, either.

  “It means you have a more beautiful house than other people. A larger house, and fine clothing, many changes of clothing. And you go to better schools, with wiser teachers, and you have better food to eat, and more of it. All you could want, and more.”

  “But then you should share,” said Protchnu. “You told me that if you have more than you need, you should share.”

  “And you do share. But…you won’t understand, Proya. That kind of life is lost to us forever. You’ll never understand it.”

  They were quiet for a few moments.

  “Mother,” said Protchnu.

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t hate me because I chose Father? In the library that day?”

  “Every mother knows there’ll come a time when her sons will choose their father. It’s a part of growing up. I never thought it would come to you so young, but that wasn’t your fault.”

  A pause. Then his voice was very small indeed. “But I don’t choose him.”

  “No, Protchnu, I didn’t think you would ever really choose the bad things he’s doing. You’re not that kind of boy.” In truth, though, Eiadh sometimes feared that he was that kind of boy. She had seen him playing, had seen him lording it over the other boys, teasing some of them cruelly, until they cried, and then laughing at them. It had frightened her, back on Harmony, to see her son be so unkind to those smaller than him. And yet she had also been proud of how he led the other boys in everything, how they all looked up to him, how even Aunt Rasa’s Oykib stepped back and let Protchnu take the first place among the boys.

  Can it ever be one without the other? The leadership without the lack of compassion? The pride without the cruelty?

  “But of course you choose your father,” said Eiadh. “The man you know he really is, the good, brave, strong man you love so much. That’s the man you were choosing that day, I know it.”

  She could feel how Protchnu’s body moved within her embrace as he steeled himself to say the hard thing. “He’s really unhappy without you,” he said.

  “Did he send you to tell me that?”

  “I sent myself,” said Protchnu.

  Or did the Oversoul send you? Eiadh wondered sometimes. Hadn’t Luet said that they were all chosen by the Oversoul? That they were all unusually receptive to her promptings? Then why shouldn’t one of her children have these extraordinary gifts, like the one that had popped up in Chveya, for instance?

  “So your father in unhappy without me. Let him release Nafai, restore peace to the ship, and he won’t have to be without me anymore.”

  “He can’t stop,” said Protchnu. “Not without help.”

  He’s only eight years old? And he can see this deeply? Perhaps the crisis has awakened some hidden power of empathy within him. The Oversoul knows that at his age I was utterly without understanding or compassion for anyone. I was a moral wasteland, caring only for who was prettiest and who sang the best and who would be famous someday and who was rich. If I had only grown out of that childishness earlier, I might have seen which of the brothers was the better man, back before I married Elemak, back when Nafai was gazing at me with the calf eyes of adolescent love. I made a terrible mistake then. I looked at Elemak and couldn’t see him without thinking, he’s the heir of the Wetchik, oldest son of one of the richest and most prestigious men of Basilica. What was Nafai?

  Of course, if I’d been truly wise, I’d have married neither of them and I’d still be in Basilica. Though if Volemak was right, Basilica has already been destroyed, the city demolished and its few survivors scattered to the wind.

  “And what sort of help does your father need?” asked Eiadh.

  “He needs a way to change his mind without admitting that he’s wrong.”

  “Don’t we all,” she murmured.

  “Mother, I can hardly breathe sometimes. I wake up in the morning feeling like somebody’s pressing on my chest. I just can’t breathe in deeply enough. Sometimes I get dizzy and fall down. And I’m doing better than most. We have to help Father.”

  She knew that this was true. But she also knew that after that scene in the library, she didn’t have the power to help him. Now, though, with Protchnu beside her, she could do it. Had this eight-year-old that much power?

  Eight years old, but he had seen. He had understood what was needed, and he had taken the responsibility for acting on that understanding. It filled her with hope, not just for the immediate future, but for a time far distant. She knew that the community would divide, at the death of Volemak if not sooner, and when it did, Elemak would be the ruler of one of the halves. He would be angry, embittered, filled with loathing and violence. But Elemak would not live forever. Someday his place as ruler would be filled by someone else, and the most likely man was this one sitting beside her on the bed, this eight-year-old. If he grew in wisdom over the years, instead of growing in rage as his father had done, then when he took his father’s place as ruler of the people he would be like autumn rains on the cities of the plain, bringing relief after the dry fire of summer.

  For you, Protchnu, I will do what must be done. I will humble myself before Elemak, unworthy as he is, for your sake, so that you will have a future, so that someday you can fill the role that nature has suited you to.

  “At the next mealtime in the library,” she said. “Come to me then, and with you beside me I’ll do what must be done.”

  Elemak was with them during the meal, of course. He always was, now, ever since Volemak had used his abse
nce as an opportunity to give the oath. The meals were more sparsely attended these days. After watching Elemak beat Nafai, Volemak and Rasa had taken to their beds. The lack of oxygen was affecting them as badly as the youngest of the babies. They hadn’t the strength to move, and those who tended to them—Dol and Sevet—reported that they kept slipping into and out of unconsciousness and were delirious much of the time. “They’re dying,” they whispered—but loudly enough that Elemak could surely hear them during meals. He showed no reaction.

  At the noon meal of the fourth day of the waking, Elemak was sitting alone, his food untouched, when Protchnu got up from the table and walked to his mother. Elemak watched him go, his face darkening. But it was clear to everyone there that Protchnu was not joining himself to his mother’s cause. Rather he was fetching her, bringing her along. He might be only two-thirds her height, but he was in control. Slowly they approached the table where Elemak sat.

  “Mother has something to tell you,” said Protchnu.

  Suddenly Eiadh burst into tears and dropped to her knees. “Elemak,” she sobbed, “I am so ashamed. I turned against my husband.”

  Elemak sighed. “It’s not going to work, Eiadh. I know what a good actress you are. Like Dolya. You can turn the tears on and off like a faucet.”

  She wept all the harder. “Why should you ever believe me or trust me again? I deserve whatever terrible things you want to say to me. But I am your true wife. Without you I’m nothing, I’d rather die than not be part of you and your life. Please forgive me, take me back.”

  Everyone could see how Elemak struggled between belief and skepticism. It was not as if he had it in him to be subtle or clever. Everyone was getting logy and stupid from the lack of oxygen. They could remember that once they had good, quick judgment, but they couldn’t remember what it even felt like. Elemak blinked slowly, looking at her.

  “I know who the strongest, best man is,” she said. “Not one who relies on tricks and machines, on lies and deception. You’re the honest one.”

  His lip curled in contempt at her obvious flattery. Yet he was also affected by it. Someone understands. Even if she’s just mouthing empty words, the words are being said.

  “But the liars have the upper hand. They’re the ones who are holding our babies hostage, not you. Sometimes a man has to give in to evil in order to save his children.”

  Most of those listening knew that they were hearing a distortion of the truth. And yet they wanted it to be believed, wanted Elemak at least to believe it, because if he did, it would provide him with a way to surrender and still be noble and heroic in his own eyes. Let this be the version of history that Elemak believes in, so that our history can go on beyond this hour.

  “Do you think I’ll be fooled when Nafai starts strutting around here again? Him and his sparkling cloak embedded in his flesh, making him look like a machine himself—I’ll be grateful to go back into suspended animation for the rest of the voyage, so I don’t have to look at him. When I wake up, let it be on Earth, with you beside me, and our children still to raise. They’ll grow older. Time will pass. And you’ll still be my husband and a great man in the eyes of all who know the truth.”

  Elemak looked at her sharply. Or at least he tried to be sharp. Now and then she simply went out of focus.

  She opened her mouth to speak again, but Protchnu laid a hand on her shoulder and she settled back, sitting on her ankles, as Protchnu stepped forward and spoke quietly, where few but Elemak could hear. “Pick the time of battle,” he said quietly. “You taught me that back in Vusadka. Pick the time of battle.”

  Elemak answered him just as softly. “They’ve won already, Protchnu. By the time I awoke they had already cheated you out of your inheritance. Look at you, so young, so small.”

  “Do what it takes to let us all live, Father. Someday I will not be small, and then we’ll have vengeance on our enemies.”

  Elemak studied his face. “Our enemies?”

  “What they have done to the father, they have done to the son,” whispered Protchnu. “I will never, never, never, never, never forget.”

  It filled Elemak with hope, to hear such resolve, such hatred in his son’s voice.

  He rose to his feet. All eyes were upon him, watching as he took Protchnu by the hand and led him to the ladderway in the middle of the room. He turned back. “Meb. Obring.”

  They got up slowly.

  “Come with me.”

  “Who’ll watch these people, then?” asked Obring.

  “I don’t care,” said Elemak. “I’m tired of looking at them.”

  He dropped down the ladderway, Protchnu after him, and then Obring and Meb.

  As soon as they were gone, the women gathered around Eiadh. “Thank you,” they said softly. “It was brave of you.” “You were wonderful.” “Thank you.”

  Even Luet took Eiadh’s hands in hers. “Today you were the greatest among women. It’s over now, because of you.”

  Eiadh could only press her face into her hands and weep. For she had overheard the words that Protchnu said to Elemak, had heard the hatred in his voice, and she knew that Protchnu was not putting on a performance as she had done, not now, anyway. Protchnu would carry on his father’s hatred into the next generation. It was all for nothing. She had humbled herself for nothing. “For nothing,” she murmured.

  “Not for nothing,” said Luet. “For our children. For all the children. I say it again, Eiadh. Today you were the greatest among women.”

  Luet knelt beside her; Eiadh reached out to her and wept against her shoulder.

  The door opened and the light came on. Nafai’s eyes adjusted quickly. Elemak, Mebbekew, Obring, and Elya’s son, Protchnu. He could see the hatred in their eyes, all of them.

  They’ve come to kill me.

  To Nafai’s surprise, the thought did not come as a relief. Despite all his words of desperation to the Oversoul, he did not really want to die. But he would do it, he would submit to it, if that’s what would bring peace.

  To his surprise, Elemak knelt down at his feet and began fumbling with the knots at his ankles. Mebbekew joined him, working on the knots at his wrists.

  His skin was sore there, and their working chafed him painfully. After his beating, after the Oversoul had caused the cloak to heal him, Nafai had resumed letting the sores at his ankles and wrists go unhealed. Now it made the moment of release almost excruciating.

  “We’ve taken an oath,” Elemak said quietly. “The oath Father administered to everyone else on the ship. He is the sole ruler of the colony. No one else is his second in command or his chief adviser or any other such fiction that disguises power. He will rule. I’ve taken the oath, and so have Meb and Obring. And my son Protchnu. As long as Volemak lives, we obey him and no other.”

  “That’s a good oath,” said Nafai softly. He did not add: If only you had taken it earlier and lived by it, as I did from my childhood on. It would have spared us a lot of trouble.

  “You go straight from here and take the oath as well,” said Meb.

  The cords at his neck, the cords that had pulled his body in a backward arch, suddenly released. Pain shot up and down his back. He moaned.

  “Stop the histrionics,” said Meb contemptuously. “We know you could heal this in a moment if you wanted to.”

  His feet and hands were numb; they felt like heavy clubs, sluggish, not obeying what he told them to do. As he rolled onto his stomach, his back ached and he could hardly pull himself up onto his knees. Bracing himself on the wall, he finally stood on unsteady legs. “Where’s Father?” asked Nafai. “I must go and take the oath.”

  “Oykib and Chveya haven’t taken it yet, either,” said Obring.

  “Go get them, then,” Elemak answered scornfully. “Are you still waiting for me to command you? I’m not in charge here anymore.”

  “And neither am I,” said Nafai.

  But he was. Already the cloak was giving him whatever information he wanted. “There is enough oxygen in the
working reserve to bring us up near normal for two hours. That will be enough time to oxygenate everyone’s blood and for all of us to enter suspended animation. Then the ship can replenish itself before anybody else wakes up.”

  Elemak laughed nastily. “What, aren’t you going to promise us to stay asleep till we reach Earth?”

  “I’m going to resume the school where we left off,” said Nafai. “If Father says I should.”

  “I have no doubt that he’ll say whatever you want him to say.”

  “Then you don’t know him or me at all. Because Father will say whatever the Oversoul wants him to say, and nothing else.”

  “Oh, let’s not argue, Nafai,” said Elemak, with exaggerated cheeriness. “We must be friends now.”

  Nafai walked in silence, leaning against the corridor walls as he needed to, grateful for the low gravity. “Is this really what you want for Protchnu, Elemak? To feed him this steady diet of hate?”

  “Hate is the richest of foods,” said Elemak. “It makes you strong, it fills you with power. And I have a banquet of it to give my children.”

  “Let there be peace between your children and mine, Elya,” said Nafai.

  “Between your big, tall children and my little tiny ones?” asked Elemak. “Of course there’ll be peace, the way there’s peace between the lion and the fly.”

  They reached the door of Volemak’s and Rasa’s room just as Obring returned with Oykib and Chveya. Wordlessly Chveya embraced her father, and he leaned on her as they went into the room.

  Nafai knelt and took the oath, holding his father’s hand as he did it. Chveya and Oykib followed him.

  Feebly, Volemak spoke from the bed. “Then it’s done. All have taken the oath. Give us the oxygen now, and let us return to sleep.”

  In only a few seconds, they began to feel the difference, all of them. The breaths they were taking were deep enough, and in a few moments their panting, their gasping, began to cause them to feel drunk on oxygen, faint with air. Then their bodies adjusted, their breathing went back to normal, and it was as if nothing had ever been wrong. Mothers wept over their babies, now breathing normally. Children began to laugh and shout and run, because at last they could.