Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 16

  Long before the two hours were up, however, the laughing and shouting had ended. Parents put their children to sleep. Zdorab and Shedemei put all the adults to sleep then, except for Nafai, who stayed apart from all the others so as not to cause needless offense to Elemak and those who regretted his defeat.

  Once again Nafai and Shedemei stood over the chamber where Zdorab lay. “Forgive me, Nafai,” said Zdorab.

  “I already have,” said Nafai. “Luet explained to me what you were thinking at the time. And how you regretted it after.”

  “No more surprises,” said Zdorab. “I’m with you till I die.”

  “Your oath is to my father,” said Nafai. “But I’m glad of your friendship, and you may be sure that you have mine.”

  Alone with Shedemei, Nafai could allow the sores on his wrists and ankles to heal at last. “Who would have guessed,” he said.

  “What?” she answered.

  “That Zdorab’s mistake would end up accomplishing something that would have been impossible otherwise.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I expected that as soon as we reached Earth, Elemak would go out of control and we’d be at war. I think the Oversoul expected it, too. But now we’ve had the war, and I think the peace will hold.”

  “Until your father dies,” said Shedemei pointedly.

  “Father isn’t old yet,” said Nafai. “It gives us time. Who knows what might happen in the years to come?”

  “I don’t want to be there,” said Shedemei.

  “It’s a little late to decide that now,” said Nafai.

  “I don’t want to be there for the conflict. For the fighting. I came here to do some gardening.” She laughed self-deprecatingly. “To tinker around with the plant and animal life of Earth. That’s the dream the Keeper sent to me. Not like you others. I’m just the gardener.”

  “Just? You’ll be the most important person among us.”

  “I lied to you too, you know, Nafai. When I told you that it would be safe for cousins to marry. Just like Zdorab, I held something back.”

  “That’s all right,” said Nafai. “Everyone holds something back, whether they know it or not.”

  “But your children—the consequences may be terrible.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Nafai.

  “Oh.” She grimaced. “So the Oversoul told me what to say?”

  “Suggested it. Every word was true.”

  Shedemei laughed sardonically. “Or at least as true as every other word of the Oversoul.”

  “I trust him,” said Nafai.

  “Trust her to say whatever is necessary to accomplish her purposes. That’s as far as she can be trusted,” said Shedemei.

  “Ah, but you see, Shedya, the Oversoul’s purposes are my purposes. So I can trust him completely.”

  She patted his cheek. “You may be technically about as old as I am by now, what with staying awake continuously during the voyage. But Nyef, I must say, you still have a lot to learn.”

  With that she swung into place in her chamber. Nafai raised the side, locked it, then activated the suspension process. The lid slipped closed. He watched as she drifted to sleep in the airtight compartment. He was alone again.

 

  I’m hurrying.

 

  I have an idea. Just don’t talk to me for a little while. Let me go to sleep with only my own thoughts in my head.

 

  I can handle it.

 

  I wish you were better company, then.

 

  I wish he were.

 

  I’m just the puppet you want, is that it?

 

  Let me go to sleep in peace, and maybe when I wake up I’ll be willing again.

 

  The skyscreen in the library showed it, the globe of Earth, blue and white, with patches of brown and green here and there. Since they had slept through the launch, they had never seen a world like this, like a ball floating in the black of night.

  “Like a moon,” said Chveya.

  Oykib reached out and took her hand. She looked up at him and smiled. The last three and a half years had been both wonderful and excruciating, to know that he loved her, and yet to know that it was impossible to marry and have children during the voyage. They didn’t speak of what they felt—it was easier for both of them that way. The others had been just as discreet in their pairing up. But now, as they made their reconnaissance, orbitting the Earth again and again, reading the reports the instruments made, studying the maps, searching for the landing place, waiting for the Oversoul to make a decision, or for a dream from the Keeper to tell them what to do, it was impossible for Oykib to keep himself from thinking about Chveya, about what lay ahead for them. A new world, hard work, farming and exploring, and who knew what sort of dangers from disease or animals or weather—but set against all this was the thought of Chveya in his arms, of babies, of starting the cycle over again, of being part of the living world.

  “We once fled from this world in shame and fear,” said Chveya. “We once fouled it and slaughtered each other.”

  She did not need to add the fear that it would happen again. They all knew that the time of real peace would be over, that even if the oath to Volemak held, the tension would still be alive underneath the civility. And how long would Volemak live? Then war might come again. Human blood might once again be shed on Earth.

  Oykib heard Chveya speaking to the Oversoul. Why did you bring us here, when we’re no better and no wiser than the ones who left?

  “But we are,” said Oykib. “Better and wiser, I mean.”

  She turned to him, her eyes wide. “What is it that you do? Back in the crisis, you spoke so knowledgeably. Of what the Oversoul wanted. Of what Nafai wanted, when you hadn’t even spoken to him. What is it you do?”

  “I eavesdrop,” he said. “It’s been that way all my life. Anything that’s said on the channels of the Oversoul, I hear. What he says. What you say.”

  She looked horrified. Is this true? she was saying to the Oversoul. That’s horrible!

  “Now you know why I’ve never told anyone. Though I certainly showed it clearly enough during the crisis. I’m surprised no one guessed.”

  “What I say to the Oversoul—it’s so private.”

  “I know that,” said Oykib. “I didn’t ask to hear it. It just came to me. I grew up knowing a great deal more than any child should know. I understand what’s going on in others’ lives to a degree that—well, let’s just say that I’d much rather take people at face value than to know what really troubles them. Or, with the ones who never speak to the Oversoul, what things he has to do to keep them from doing the worst things they desire. It’s not a pleasant burden to carry.”

  “I can imagine,” said Chveya. “Or maybe not. Maybe I can’t imagine. I’m not even trying to imagine right now. All I’m doing is trying to remember what I’ve said to the Oversoul, what secrets you know.”

  “I’ll tell you one secret I know, Veya. I know that of all the people on this starship, no one is more honest and good than you, no one more
loving and careful of other people’s feelings. Of all the people on this ship, there’s no one who is so at peace with herself, no one who adds less to the burden of shame and guilt that I carry around with me. Of all the people on this ship, Veya, you are the only one that I would be glad to be close to forever, because all your secrets are bright and good and I love you for them.”

  “Some of my secrets are not bright and good, you liar.”

  “On the contrary. The evil secrets you’re ashamed of are so mild and pathetic that to me, having seen real evil to a degree I hope you’ll never understand, to me even your darkest, most shameful secrets are dazzling.”

  “I think,” said Chveya, “that you’re hinting around that you want to marry me.”

  “As if it could ever be a secret to you, who senses the connections between people just like Aunt Hushidh. Talk about invasion of privacy.”

  “I do know your secret, Okya,” she said, smiling, facing him, putting her arms around his waist, holding his hips against hers. “I know what you want. I know how much you love me. I see us bound by bright cords, tied so tightly that there’s no escape ever as long as either of us lives. You are my captive, and I’m never going to have mercy and let you go.”

  “Those bonds aren’t bondage at all, Veya,” said Oykib. “They’re freedom. This whole voyage I’ve been in captivity because I couldn’t have you. When we step out on that new world, that old world, and I’m tied to you at last, openly, so we can begin our life together—that’s when I will truly be unbound.”

  “My answer is yes,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “I heard you tell the Oversoul.”

  2

  Landfall

  Nine

  Watchers

  There were many things for a young man to do, many duties that the community required of him, even if he was already married, and to a remarkable woman like Iguo. Because of pTo’s extraordinary advancement, people looked to him for achievement, looked for him to be a model of young manhood.

  Well, perhaps not always. Many of them looked to pTo for disappointment at best, scandal at worst. He was too young. Iguo had only married a mere boy like that because her great grandmother Upua had done the same with Kiti. It had become something of a family tradition for the women of that line, to marry a man who was too young—and pTo was no Kiti, as many were quick to point out.

  “You’re no Kiti, you know,” said pTo’s own otherself, Poto.

  “As well for you I’m not,” said pTo. “His otherself was dead the year he made his sculpture and was chosen by Upua.”

  “You can’t go doing crazy things. They’re not going to forgive you anything. If you’re brilliant they’ll say you’re arrogant. If you falter, they’ll say you overreached. If you’re friendly they’ll say you’re condescending. If you’re aloof they’ll say you’re arrogant.”

  “So I might as well do what I want.”

  “Just remember that it’s my name you’re dragging through the mud. If you’re a madman, what am I?”

  “A helpless victim of my lunacy,” said pTo. “I want to go to the tower.”

  Resting on the stout limb of a tree, they were watching over a flock of fat turkeys. The turkeys themselves were docile enough, too stupid to know the fate that the people had in store for them. The danger was from devils, who liked nothing better than to steal from the herds of the people. Lazy creatures, devils never did their own work except digging their nasty little holes in the ground and carving out the hearts of trees. During the birthing season, they came in force, stealing sometimes as many as a third of each year’s newborns—that was why so many people had lost their otherself. During the rest of the year, though, it was the flocks and herds they were after.

  “We’re on watch,” said Poto.

  “We’re watching the wrong thing,” pTo insisted. “The Old Ones at the tower are the most important creatures in the world.”

  “Boboi says they’re our enemies.”

  “Why was my wife’s ancestor shown the face of an Old One, then, if they aren’t to be our friends?”

  “To warn us,” said Poto.

  “The Old Ones know secrets, and if we don’t make friends with them, they’ll give those secrets to the devils. Then we really will have them as enemies.”

  “It’s forbidden,” said Poto, “and we have responsibilities here, and no matter how young you might have been when you got married, you are not Kiti.”

  pTo knew that his otherself was right. He usually was. But pTo couldn’t bear to concede the point, because he knew that if he didn’t learn about the Old Ones, no one else would. No one else dared. “I’m not Kiti,” said pTo, “but I also am the only man who doesn’t fear that he’ll be rejected by all the women because of flouting Boboi’s ban on visiting the Old Ones.”

  “You’re not the only married man.”

  “You know what I mean. The older men don’t want to go. They get a little slow, a little fat. It’s too dangerous for them to go down there into the heart of devil country.”

  One of the turkeys decided, as turkeys will, that it was urgently required to be somewhere out in the brush, and it suddenly started gobbling and running. Without a word, Poto swooped down from the limb and flew in front of the bird, shouting. The bird stopped, gazing stupidly at the man beating his wings in the air in front of him. Poto dropped to the ground, then jumped into the air again and, on the leap, kicked the turkey in the face. It screeched, turned around, and trotted back to the herd.

  When Poto rejoined him on the limb, pTo couldn’t resist. “What you just did to that turkey is what Boboi is doing to all the men.”

  Poto sighed. “Give me a little peace, pTo.”

  “What I’m saying, Poto, is that I’m going. You can tend the herd alone.”

  “We herd in twos because a man is needed to watch the turkeys, and another to watch the man so he isn’t taken by surprise.”

  “Then come with me,” said pTo. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m afraid to go alone.”

  “I’m afraid to go at all, and you should be, too.”

  “Then goodbye, my otherself, my bettermind. Perhaps my Iguo will marry you after I’m dead.” In the old days, they would both be married to her already. Sometimes pTo wished it had not changed.

  “Yes, everything’s a poem to you,” said Poto scornfully, but pTo was not deaf to the emotion behind his hard words.

  “My death, when it comes, will be one that the poets sing of.”

  “Better to have a life that your children remember with joy than a death that the poets remember with song.”

  “Hard to believe you’re not an old man, when you quote nonsense like that.”

  “Go if you must.”

  pTo immediately leapt from the branch. Moments after his glide began, he rose up, circling higher than the treetops. He shouted down at Poto. “Watch your back, Obedient One!”

  “No!” shouted Poto, truly angry. “I won’t do your work for you!”

  His words stung, but pTo flew on, down the valley. He knew that others would see him, and he knew that while Poto was high enough up the valley to be in little danger, others would say that he was so unnatural as not to love his otherself. Let them say what they would. Boboi was wrong. There was great danger in ignoring the Old Ones. pTo would study them, learn about them, perhaps enter into conversation with them. Learn their language. Become their friend. Bring back their ancient secrets. Better to bring knowledge back to the people than mere trinkets. Their trove of Old One artifacts was not large, but it had taken many generations to collect it. All of it was worthless, because none of it meant anything. It was knowledge that was needed, secrets that must be told. Not to the devils, either. To us.

  It wasn’t far. pTo wasn’t even tired when the tower came into view. He had seen it before, from afar, and marveled at it every time. Who could shape a thing as smooth and tall as that? Like sunlight on the water, it was so bright, and the trees looked like bushes bowing dow
n to worship it.

  Why had the Old Ones come to dwell among the devils, and not among the people? Was it possible that the Old Ones were hellfolk and not from the gods at all? Yet they had not burst upward from the ground. They came from the sky. How then could they be hellfolk?

  They could be hellfolk because they rested their tower right beside a stand of thick, ancient trees. The signs of a devil city were all around. Dead trees here and there; depressions here and there from old tunnels that had given way; and nearby, the rocky hills that held miles of caves for their obscene cannibalistic worship. The Old Ones must have seen all this, must have known, and yet they built their own village where the devils could watch them without leaving their holes. Why would the Old Ones do this, if they didn’t intend to befriend the devils? They probably already had. It was already too late.

  But if it is too late, then I’ll see signs of their alliance, I’ll get some idea of what the danger is, and I’ll come home and report. When the danger is clear enough, they’ll stop listening to Boboi. But then we’ll come down here for war instead of learning, and the Old Ones will probably strike us out of the sky with magic. The Old Ones live in a tower that stands on a foundation of fire. Even the greatest warrior of the people would be no more irritating to them than a gnat.

  It must not be war. It must be friendship. I must find a way to make it friendship.

  The devils had no doubt already noticed him. Flight was the salvation of the people, but it was also their bane, at least in the daytime. They could leap to the sky to escape an enemy; but their enemy could look to the sky to watch them approach. Much had been made of the difference: The people were open and honest, the devils stealthy and deceptive. The people lived in the realm of the sun and stars, the devils in the realm of the worms and grubs. The people were as light as air, and therefore spiritual, akin to the gods; the devils were heavy and plodding, and therefore earthy, akin to stone.