Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 4

  “Meb,” said Elemak, “have you forgotten that we aren’t rich anymore? Life in Basilica would be miserable. If they didn’t throw us in prison. Or kill us on sight.”

  “And the journey would be miserable, with little children,” added Zdorab. “Not to mention the fact that Shedemei and I don’t want to do that.”

  “So fly with Nafai,” said Mebbekew. “I don’t care what you do.”

  Elemak listened to Mebbekew with disgust. What kind of fool was he, anyway? Zdorab had brought them the story of what Chveya had said. Zdorab had never been an ally before, but now, his children threatened, they had a good chance to wean him away from Nafai for good. Then Nafai’s party would consist only of himself, Father, and Issib—in other words, Nyef, the old man, and the cripple.

  “Zdorab,” said Elemak, “I take this very seriously. I think that we have no choice but to seem to go along with Nafai’s plans. But surely there’s some way to get into the ship’s computer and set it up to waken us well into the voyage, at a time when Nafai will think he’s having everything his own way and so he won’t be expecting us. The suspended animation chambers are far from the living quarters of the ship. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s stupid,” said Mebbekew. “Have you forgotten what the ship’s computer is?”

  “Is it?” Elemak asked Zdorab. “Is the ship’s computer identical with the so-called Oversoul?”

  “Well,” said Zdorab, “when you think about it, maybe not. I mean, the Oversoul was set into place after the starships first came here. He’s loading part of himself into the ship’s computers, but he’s not as familiar with it as he is with the hardware he’s been inhabiting for the past forty million years.”

  “He,” muttered Mebbekew scornfully. “It, you mean.”

  Elemak never let his gaze waver from Zdorab’s face.

  “Um,” said Zdorab. “I’m not sure. But I don’t think the original voyagers would have…I mean, they didn’t turn their own lives over to the Oversoul. It was the next generation, not themselves. So maybe the ship’s computers….”

  “And maybe,” said Elemak, “if you find some way to be clever about it.”

  “Misdirection,” said Zdorab. “There’s a calendar program, for scheduling events during the voyage. Course corrections, and so on. But the Oversoul would be checking that often, I imagine.”

  “Think about it,” said Elemak. “It’s really not the sort of thing I do well.”

  Zdorab preened visibly. Elemak had expected that. Zdorab, like all weak and studious little men, was flattered to have the respect of someone like Elemak, a large, strong man, a leader, charismatic and dangerous. It was easy to win him over. After all these years of seeing Zdorab in Nafai’s pocket, it had been astonishingly easy after all. It took patience. Waiting. Burning no bridges.

  “I’m counting on you,” said Elemak. “But whatever you do, don’t talk about it afterward. Not even to me. Who knows what the computer can hear?”

  “As in, for instance, it’s probably heard everything we said here,” said Mebbekew snottily.

  “As I say, Zdorab, do your best. It might not be possible. But if you can do something, it’s more than Meb or I can do.”

  Zdorab nodded thoughtfully.

  He’s mine now, thought Elemak. I have him. No matter what happens, Nyef has lost him, and all because he or his wife didn’t keep their mouths shut in front of their children. Weak and foolish, that’s what Nafai was. Weak, foolish, and unfit to lead.

  And if he did anything to harm Elemak’s children, then it wouldn’t be just Nafai’s position of leadership that he’d lose. But then, it was only a matter of time, anyway. Perhaps after Father died, but the day would come when all the insults and humiliations would be redressed. Men of honor do not forgive their lying, cheating, spying, traitorous enemy.

  “Let’s take a walk,” said Nafai to Luet.

  She smiled at him. “Aren’t we tired enough already?”

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said again.

  He led her from the maintenance building where they all lived, out across the hard, flat ground of the landing field. He led her, not toward the starships, but out into the open, until they were far from anyone else.

  “Luet,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “We’re upset about something.”

  “I don’t know about us,” he said. “But I’m upset.”

  “What did I do?”

  “I don’t know if you did anything,” he said. “But Zdorab entered a wake-up date into the ship’s calendar.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He set it for halfway through the voyage. It was to wake up him. And Shedemei. And Elemak.”

  “Elemak?”

  “Why would Zdorab do that?” asked Nafai.

  “I have no idea,” said Luet.

  “Well, can you think about it for a minute? Can you think about something that you might know, that might allow you to figure it out?”

  Luet was getting angry now. “What is this, Nafai? If you know something, if you want to accuse me of something, then—”

  “But I don’t know anything,” said Nafai. “The Oversoul told me about finding Zdorab’s little wake-up schedule. And then I said, Why? And then he said, Ask Luet.”

  Luet blushed. Nafai raised an eyebrow. “So,” he said. “Now it all comes together?”

  “It’s the Oversoul that’s playing games with us.”

  “Oh, really?” said Nafai.

  “It shouldn’t surprise us,” said Luet. “That’s what she’s been doing all along.”

  “Do you mind letting me know what the game is this time?”

  “It has to be related, though I don’t see…oh, yes I do. Chveya heard me.”

  Nafai put his fingers to his forehead. “Oh, now it’s all clear. Chveya heard you what?”

  “Talking to the Oversoul. Last night. About—you know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  “More serious by the minute.”

  “You mean the Oversoul hasn’t even brought it up with you? About keeping the children awake on the voyage?”

  “Don’t be absurd. We don’t have enough supplies to keep everybody awake. It’s ten years!”

  “I don’t know,” said Luet. “The Oversoul said that we had enough supplies to keep you and me and twelve of the children awake through most of the voyage.”

  “And why would we do that?” asked Nafai. “The whole point of the suspended animation is that ten years in a starship will be incredibly boring. I’m not even planning to be awake the whole time. Should our children spend ten years of their lives—more than half!—sitting around inside that metal pot?”

  “The Oversoul never talked to you about it,” she said. “That makes me so angry.”

  Nafai looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

  “It would be our older children, all but the twins, and Shuya’s down to Netsya, and Shedemei’s boy and girl, and your brothers Oykib and Yasai.”

  “Why not the little ones?”

  “You can’t spend your first two years of life in low gravity.”

  “It can’t work,” said Nafai. “Even if the others would stand for it, the children would have no one their own age to marry except Shedya’s two. The rest would be siblings or double first cousins or, at the best, Oykib and Yasai, and they’re single first cousins.”

  “Nyef, I’ve said this to her over and over. Do you think I don’t know what a stupid idea it is? That’s what Chveya must have heard last night. I was arguing with the Oversoul.”

  “You don’t have to talk out loud to the Oversoul, Luet,” he said.

  “I do,” she said.

  “Well, whatever happened, Zdorab apparently thinks he has to wake up in the middle of the voyage to check up on me.”

  “I imagine he’s angry,” said Luet.

  “Well, there’s only one thing we can do.” Nafai took her by
the hand. They headed back to the maintenance building.

  It took only a few minutes to gather all the adults into the kitchen, surrounding the large table where they ate their meals in shifts. As usual, Elemak looked quietly annoyed, while Mebbekew was openly hostile. “What’s all this?” he demanded. “Can’t we even go to sleep at a normal hour anymore?”

  “There’s something that needs straightening out right now,” said Nafai.

  “Oh, did one of us do something bad?” asked Meb, tauntingly.

  “No,” said Nafai. “But some of you think that Luet is planning something—no, come to think of it, you probably think that I’m planning it—and I want to get it out in the open right now.”

  “Openness,” said Hushidh. “What a novel idea.”

  Nafai ignored her. “Apparently the Oversoul has been trying to persuade Luet that we should do something foolish with some of the children on the voyage.”

  “Foolish?” Volemak, Nafai’s father, looked puzzled.

  “Foolish,” said Nafai. “Like keeping some of them awake during the voyage.”

  “But that would be so boring for them” said Nafai’s older sister, Kokor.

  Nafai did not answer her, just looked around from face to face. It was gratifying to see that even Elemak, who surely knew about the idea of keeping children awake and understood all the implications, was not looking a bit surprised by what Nafai was doing. “I know that some of you were aware of this even before I was. The only reason I found out about it at all was because the Oversoul found the wake-up signal you put into the ship’s calendar, Zdorab.”

  Mebbekew’s quick glance at Zdorab, and his equally quick glance away, confirmed that he, too, had known about the wake-up signal. He probably even thought Zdorab’s little alarm clock would wake him up along with the others. But of course Zdorab knew that waking Mebbekew would be useless. If only Meb understood the contempt that everyone held him in. But then, he probably did, which was why he was so relentlessly belligerent.

  “I think, Zdorab, that it’s a good idea,” said Nafai. “Of course the Oversoul removed your wake-up signal, but I will put a new one in. At midpoint of the voyage, all the adults will be wakened. Just for a day, so you can inspect all your sleeping children and make sure that they’re the age they were when you left them. I can’t think of any better way for you to make sure that the Oversoul did not get his way in this.”

  Volemak chuckled. “Do you really think you can fool the Oversoul?”

  Luet spoke up. “The Oversoul understands many things, but she is not a human being. She doesn’t understand what it would cost us, if our children’s childhood was taken away from us. How would you feel, Aunt Rasa, if you woke up and found that Okya and Yaya were eighteen- and seventeen-year-old men? That you had missed all the years in between?”

  Rasa smiled thinly. “I would never forgive anyone who did that to me. Even the Oversoul.”

  “I was trying to explain that to the Oversoul. She doesn’t understand human feelings sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” murmured Elemak.

  “I…I spoke out loud. In the privacy of my room. Nafai was working late. But Chveya got up and she must have listened for a rather long time before she knocked.”

  “Are you saying that your daughter is a sneak?” said Mebbekew, pretending to be shocked.

  Luet didn’t look at him. “Chveya didn’t understand what she was hearing. I’m sorry that it caused everyone to be disturbed. I know some of you knew about it, and some of you did not, but when Nafai learned about it a few minutes ago he and I rushed back here and…here we are.”

  “Tomorrow, Zdorab can verify that the wake-up signal is set for midvoyage. The only way that it won’t wake us up is if the Oversoul cancels it during one of the many times that I’ll be asleep myself. But I don’t think that’s likely, because as soon as I woke up again, I’d waken you all myself manually. I’m telling you now, once and for all, that there will be no games played with the passage of time. Our children will be, when we arrive, the same ages they were when they left. The only person who will have aged during the voyage is me, and believe me, I have no interest in aging any more than the minimum necessary to operate the ship safely.”

  “Why are you needed awake at all?” asked Obring, Kokor’s husband, a little snake of a man, in Nafai’s considered opinion.

  “The ships weren’t designed to be run by the Oversoul,” said Nafai. “In fact, the Oversoul’s program wasn’t fully written until after the original fleet arrived on Harmony. The computers here can hold the Oversoul’s program, but no single program is able to control all the computers on the ship at once. It’s for safety. Redundancy. The systems can’t all fail at once. Anyway, there are things that I have to do from time to time.”

  “That someone has to do,” murmured Elemak.

  “I have the cloak,” said Nafai. “And that point was settled a while ago, I think. Do you really want to dredge up old arguments?”

  Nobody wanted to, apparently.

  “Son,” said Volemak, “you won’t be able to stop the Oversoul from doing what it knows is right.”

  “The Oversoul is wrong,” said Nafai. “It’s that simple. None of you would ever forgive me if I obeyed the Oversoul in this.”

  “That’s right,” said Mebbekew.

  “And I would never forgive myself,” said Nafai. “So the issue is closed. Zdorab will see the calendar tomorrow, and he and anybody else who cares can look at it again just before we launch.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Elemak. “I think we can all sleep more easily tonight knowing that nothing is being planned behind our backs. Thank you for being so honest and open with us.” He arose from the table.

  “No,” said Volemak. “You can’t get away with rebellion against the Oversoul. No one can! Not even you, Nafai.”

  “You and Nafai can discuss this all you want, Father,” said Elemak. “But Edhya and I are going to bed.” He got up from the table and, putting his arm around his wife, led her out of the room. Most of the others followed—Kokor and her husband Obring, Sevet and her husband Vas, Meb and his wife Dolya. On their way out, Hushidh and Issib stopped for a few words with Nafai and Luet. “Very good idea,” Hushidh said, “calling everybody together like this. It was very persuasive. Except that Elemak won’t believe anything you do. So it just convinced him you were being devious.”

  “Thanks for the instant analysis,” Luet said nastily.

  “I appreciate it,” Nafai said quickly. “I don’t expect Elemak to take anything I do at face value.”

  “I just wanted you to know,” said Hushidh, “that the barrier between you and Elemak is stronger and deeper than any bond between any two people here. In a way, that’s a kind of bond, too. But if you thought that this little scene today was going to win him over, you failed.”

  “And what about you?” said Luet. “Did it win you over?”

  Hushidh smiled wanly. “I still see you separated from everyone else except your husband and children, Luet. When that changes, I’ll start believing your husband’s promises.” Then she turned and left. Issib smiled and shrugged helplessly and drifted out after her.

  Zdorab and Shedemei lingered. “Nafai,” said Zdorab, “I want to apologize. I should have known that you wouldn’t—”

  “I understand perfectly,” said Nafai. “It looked to you as if we were planning something behind your back. I would have done the same, if I’d thought of it.”

  “No,” said Zdorab. “I should have spoken to you privately. I should have found out what was happening.”

  “Zdorab, I would never do anything to your children without your consent.”

  “And I would never give it,” he said. “We have fewer children than anyone. To think of the two of them—having their childhood taken away from us—”

  “It won’t happen,” said Nafai. “I don’t want your children. I want the voyage to pass quickly and uneventfully and for us to establish our new colo
ny on Earth. Nothing else. I’m sorry you had to even worry about it.”

  Zdorab smiled then. Shedemei didn’t. She glared at Nafai and then at Luet. “I didn’t ask to come on this journey, you know.”

  “It would be impossible for us to succeed without you,” said Nafai.

  “But there is one question,” said Luet.

  “No, Lutya,” said Nafai. “Haven’t we already—”

  “It’s something we have to know!” said Luet. “No matter what. I mean it has to be obvious to you, Shedya, that your two children are the only ones who won’t face a consanguinity problem.”

  “Obviously,” said Shedemei.

  “But what about the others? I mean, isn’t it dangerous for all of us?”

  “I don’t think it will be a problem,” said Shedemei.

  “Why not?” asked Luet.

  “The only time it’s bad for cousins to marry is when there’s a recessive gene that leads to problems. When cousins marry, their children can get the recessive gene from both sides, and therefore it expresses itself. Mental retardation. Physical deformity. Debilitating disease. That sort of thing.”

  “And that’s not a problem?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention?” asked Shedemei. “Didn’t you learn anything back in Basilica? The Oversoul has been breeding you all for years. Bringing your father and mother together, for instance, Luet, all the way from opposite sides of the sea. The Oversoul has already made sure your genetic molecules are clean. You don’t have any recessive traits that will cause harm.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because if you did, they would already have expressed themselves. Don’t you get it? The Oversoul has been marrying cousins together for years to get you people who are so receptive to her influence. Any idiots or cripples have already shown up and been bred out.”

  “Not all,” said Rasa. Everyone knew at once that she was thinking of Issib, Nafai’s older full brother. His large muscles hopelessly uncontrollable from birth, he had never been able to walk or move without the help of magnetic floats or a flying chair.

  “No,” said Shedemei. “Of course not all.”

  “So if my children, for instance, married Hushidh’s children….” Luet didn’t finish the sentence.