Earthfall (Homecoming) Read online

  When it all ended with Elemak and Mebbekew humbled before the power of the starmaster’s cloak, Yaya was in awe of Oykib’s insights more than ever. But Oykib was exhausted. He didn’t want to know so much. And yet, underneath it all, he wanted to know more. He wanted the Oversoul to speak to him.

  Why should he? Oykib was only an eight-year-old boy, and not strong and domineering like Elemak’s boy Protchnu, either, even though Proya was a few weeks younger. What would the Oversoul have to say to him?

  Now, sitting with the others in the library of the starship Basilica, Oykib already knew exactly what was going to be explained to them, because he had heard the Oversoul arguing with the adults about it before the ship was launched, and he could hear the Oversoul arguing with Luet and Nafai even now. He wanted to shout at them to just shut up and do it. But instead he held his peace, and listened patiently as Nafai and Luet explained it all.

  He didn’t like the way they handled it. They told the truth, of course—he had learned to expect that from them, more perhaps than from any of the other adults—but they left out a lot of the real reasons for what they were doing. They only talked about it as a wonderful chance for the children to learn a lot of things they’d need to know in order to make the colony work when they got to Earth. “And because you’ll be fourteen or fifteen or sixteen—or even, some of you, eighteen years old—when we arrive, you can do the work of a man or a woman. You’ll be grownups, not children. At the same time, though, you’ll only see your mothers and fathers now and then during the voyage, because we can’t afford the life support to keep more than two adults awake at a time.”

  Yes yes, all of that is true, thought Oykib. But what about the fact that only a dozen of us children will be in this little school of yours? What about the fact that when I am an eighteen-year-old at the end of the voyage, Protchnu will still be eight? What about friendships like the one between Mebbekew’s daughter Tiya and Hushidh’s daughter Shyada? Will they still be friends when Shyada is sixteen and Tiya is still six? Not very likely. Are you going to explain that?

  But he said nothing. Waiting. Perhaps they would get to that part.

  “Any questions?” asked Nafai.

  “There’s plenty of time,” said Luet. “If you want to go back to sleep, you can do it a few days from now—there’s no rush.”

  “Is there anything fun to do on this ship?” asked Xodhya, Hushidh’s oldest boy. That was the most obvious question, since the adults had spent a lot of time before the launch assuring the kids that they wanted to sleep through the voyage because it would be so dull.

  “There are a lot of things you can’t do,” said Luet. “The centrifuge will provide Earth-normal gravity for exercise, but you can only run in a straight line. You can’t play ball or swim or lie in the grass because there’s no pool and no grass and even in the centrifuge, it wouldn’t be practical to throw and catch a ball. But you can still wrestle, and I think you could get used to playing tag and hide-and-seek in low gravity.”

  “And there are computer games,” said Nafai. “You’ve never had a chance to play them, growing up without computers as you did, but Issib and I found quite a few—”

  “You won’t be able to play those very much, though,” interrupted Luet. “We wouldn’t want you to get too used to them, because we won’t have computers like that on Earth.”

  Playing tag in low gravity—that alone probably would have won most of them over. Oykib found himself getting angry that they would pretend to be giving a choice when all they told about were mostly the good things and none of the worst.

  He might have said something then, but Chveya spoke up first. “I think it all depends on what Dazya decides.”

  Dza, always full of herself as the most important child because she was firstborn, visibly preened. Oykib was disgusted, mostly because he had never seen Chveya kiss up to Dza like this before—he had always thought she was the most sensible of the girls.

  “Chveya, you children have to make up your own minds about this.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Chveya. “Whatever Dazya decides, I’m going to do the opposite.”

  Dazya stuck out her tongue at Chveya. “That’s just what I’d expect from you,” she said. “You’re always so immature.”

  “Veya,” said Luet, “I’m embarrassed that you would say something so hurtful. And would you really change your whole future, just to spite Dazya?”

  Chveya blushed and said nothing.

  At last Oykib reached the point where he could not maintain silence. “I know what you should do,” he said. “Put Dazya back to sleep for three days. Then when she gets up, Dza and Chveya would be exactly the same age.”

  Chveya rolled her eyes as if to say, That wouldn’t solve anything. But Dazya went crazy. “My birthday would always be first no matter what!” she shouted. “I’m the first child and nobody else is! So I’m going to stay awake and still be the oldest when we get there! Nobody else is ever going to boss me around.”

  Oykib saw with satisfaction that Dazya had shown Nafai and Luet exactly why Chveya didn’t want to stay awake if Dazya did.

  “Actually,” said Luet, “nobody has the right to boss other people around just because she’s oldest or smartest or anything else.”

  Several of the younger children laughed. “Dazya bosses everybody,” said Shyada, who, as Dazya’s next younger sister, bore the brunt of Dazya’s whims.

  “I do not,” said Dazya. “I don’t boss Oykib or Protchnu.”

  “No, you only boss people who are weaker than you, you big bully!” said Shyada.

  “Be quiet, all of you,” said Nafai. “What you’ve just seen here is one of the problems with keeping you awake for school during the voyage. The ship isn’t very large inside. You’re going to be cooped up together for years. We let a lot of things slide back on Harmony, figuring that you’d work things out as the years went by. But during the voyage, we won’t tolerate older children bossing the younger children around.”

  “Why not?” said Dazya. “Grown-ups boss children around all the time.”

  “Dza,” said Luet quietly, “I believe you’re intelligent enough to grasp the idea that the three days between you and Veya are not as significant as the fifteen years between you and me.”

  Chveya followed up this idea at once. “If I stay awake, Mother, then when we reach Earth I’ll be three years older than you were when I was born.”

  “Yes, but she was married,” said Rokya, Zdorab’s and Shedemei’s boy. Then, suddenly, he seemed to realize what he had just said, because he blushed and clamped his mouth shut.

  “I don’t think marriage is something you need to worry about now,” said Luet.

  “Why not?” said Chveya. “You worry about it. Rokya is the only boy here who isn’t an uncle or a double first cousin of mine.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Luet. “Shedemei said that there will be no genetic problems, so if it should happen that as you get older, you fall in love with a cousin or an uncle—”

  Most of the children made groaning or puking noises.

  “I say, as you get older, when the idea is no longer repulsive to you, there will be no genetic barrier.”

  But Oykib knew that before the launch, Shedemei had begged the Oversoul to forgive her for having told that lie to Nafai, and asked the Oversoul to tell Nafai to forbid marriages between close cousins if there would be any danger from it. He also knew something else, though, something Shedemei herself didn’t know: that what she said about everyone being carefully bred by the Oversoul so as to be without any defects had been given to her by the Oversoul. He had overheard it as a very powerful sending. And so he was at peace with the idea of marrying a cousin. The Oversoul had better be right—Oykib and Yaya couldn’t both marry Shedemei’s and Zdorab’s daughter Dabrota, and therefore one of them was going to marry a niece or die unmarried.

  Chveya wasn’t satisfied. “That’s not what you said that night—”

  �
��Veya,” said Luet, trying to be patient. “You didn’t hear both sides of that conversation, and besides, I learned some new information since then. Have a little trust, dear.”

  Motiga spoke up then. Caring nothing about the marriage issue, he had been thinking about something else. “If the people who stay asleep don’t get any older, then will the ones who aren’t here now still be little? I mean, will I be bigger than Protchnu?”

  Luet and Nafai glanced at each other. Clearly they had wanted to avoid facing this question. “Yes,” Nafai finally said. “That’s what it means.”

  “Great,” said Motiga.

  But others weren’t so sure. “That’s stupid,” said Shyada, who had a six-year-old’s crush on Protchnu. “Why don’t you just have us take turns being up, like you’re going to do with the grownups?”

  Oykib was surprised that a six-year-old would have thought of this most sensible of solutions. So were Nafai and Luet. They were obviously at a loss as to what to say, how to explain.

  So Oykib, always looking for a chance to help, plunged in. “Look, we’re not awake right now because Nafai and Luet like us best or anything like that. We’re here because our parents are on Nafai’s side, and the kids who are still asleep, their parents are on Elemak’s side.”

  Nafai looked angry. Oykib heard him saying to the Oversoul, Any chance of teaching this boy how and when to keep his mouth shut?

  Oykib also heard the Oversoul’s answer: Didn’t I warn you not to offer them a choice?

  “I think it’s good for us all to decide knowing the real reason for things,” said Oykib, looking Nafai right in the eye. “I know that you and my parents and Issib and Hushidh and Shedemei and Zdorab are the ones who obey the Oversoul, and I know that Elemak and Mebbekew and Obring and Vas tried to kill you and the Oversoul thinks they’ll try again as soon as we reach Earth.” He knew he had probably said too much, had given away things that he wasn’t supposed to know. So Oykib turned to the other children, to explain it to them. “It’s like a war,” he said. “Even though Nafai and Elemak are both my brothers, and even though Nafai doesn’t want there to be a fight between them, Elemak is going to try to kill Nafai when we get to Earth.”

  The other children were looking at him with very serious faces. Oykib didn’t talk all that much, but when he did, they listened; and what he was saying was serious. It was no longer about trivial matters like who was the boss of the children. That had been Luet’s and Nafai’s mistake. They wanted the children to choose, but they meant to make them do it without knowing the real issues involved. Well, Oykib knew these children better than the grownups did. He knew that they would understand, and he knew how they would choose.

  “So you see,” Oykib went on, “the real reason they woke us up is so that Yasai and Xodhya and Rokya and Zhyat and Motya and I will be men. Big men. While Elya’s and Kokor’s and Sevet’s and Meb’s sons are all nothing but little kids. That way, Elemak won’t just be facing an old man like my father or a cripple like Issib. He’ll be facing us, and we’ll stand beside Nafai and fight for him if we have to. And we will, won’t we!”

  Oykib looked from one boy to the next, and each one nodded in turn. “And it’s not just the boys,” he added. “The twelve of us will marry and have children, and our children will be born before the others ever have children, and so we’ll always be stronger. It’s the only way to keep Elemak from killing Nafai. And not just Nafai, either. Because they’d have to kill Father, too. And Issya. And maybe Zdorab, too. Or if they didn’t kill them, they’d treat them like slaves. And us, too. Unless we stay awake on this voyage. Elemak and Mebbekew are my brothers, but they aren’t nice.”

  Luet’s face was buried in her hands. Nafai was looking at the ceiling.

  “How do you know all this, Okya?” asked Chveya.

  “I just know it, all right?” Oykib answered. “I just know it.”

  Her voice got very quiet. “Did the Oversoul tell you?” she asked.

  In a way, yes—but for some reason Oykib didn’t want to lie or even mislead Chveya. Better not to answer at all. “That’s private,” he said.

  “A lot of what you just said is private, Oykib,” said Nafai. “But now you’ve said it, and we have to deal with it. It’s true that the Oversoul thinks that there’s going to be a division in our community when we reach Earth. And it’s true that the Oversoul planned all this so that you children would be old enough to stand with your parents against Elemak and his followers and their children. But I don’t think there has to be a division like that. I don’t want a division. So my reason for this is because it would be a good thing to have twelve more adults to help with the work of building the colony—and twelve fewer children who have to be looked after and protected and fed. Everybody will prosper more because of it.”

  “You weren’t going to tell us any of this till Oykib said it, though,” said Chveya, just a little angry.

  “I didn’t think you’d understand it,” said Nafai.

  “I don’t,” said Shyada, truthfully.

  “I’m staying awake,” said Padarok. “I’m on your side, because I know my mother and father are. I’ve heard them talking.”

  “Me too,” said his little sister Dabya. One by one, they all assented.

  At the end, Dazya turned to Chveya and added, “And I’m sorry if you hate me so much that you’d rather stay a little girl than have to be with me.”

  “You’re the one who hates me,” said Chveya.

  “I really don’t,” said Dazya.

  There was silence for a long moment.

  “When it comes right down to it,” Chveya said, “we’re on the same side.”

  “That’s right,” said Dazya.

  And then, because Chveya really wasn’t good at thinking how things would sound before she said them, she added, “And you can marry Padarok. That’s fine with me.”

  Padarok at once cried out in protest as most of the other children hooted and laughed. Only Oykib noticed that after she said this, Chveya looked straight at him before dropping her eyes down to her lap.

  So I’m the chosen one, he thought. Sweet of you to make up my mind for me.

  But it was also obvious. Of this group of twelve children, Oykib and Padarok were the only boys born in the first year, and Chveya and Dza were the only girls. If Dza and Padarok ended up together, Chveya would either have to marry Oykib or else one of the younger boys or else nobody.

  The thought was faintly repulsive. He thought of the one time he had gotten roped into playing dolls with Dza and some of the younger girls. It was excruciatingly boring to pretend to be the father and the husband, and he fled after only a few minutes of the game. He imagined playing dolls with Chveya and couldn’t imagine that it would be any better. But maybe it was different when the dolls were real babies. The adult men didn’t seem to mind it, anyway. Maybe there was something missing when they played dolls. Maybe in real marriages, wives weren’t so bossy about making the husbands do everything their way.

  Padarok had better hope so, because if he ended up with Dazya he wasn’t going to be able to think his own thoughts without her permission. She really was about as bossy a person as ever lived. Chveya, on the other hand, was merely stubborn. That was different. She wanted to do things her own way, but at least she didn’t insist that you had to do them her way, too. Maybe they could be married and live in separate houses and only take turns tending the children. That would work.

  Nafai was taking the other children now to show them where they would sleep—the girls’ room and the boys’ room. Oykib, lost in speculation about marriage, had lingered in the library, and now found himself alone with Luet.

  “You certainly had a lot to say just now,” said Luet. “Usually you don’t.”

  “You two weren’t saying it,” said Oykib.

  “No, we weren’t,” she answered. “And maybe we had good reason for that, don’t you suppose?”

  “No, you didn’t have a good reason,” answered Oykib.
He knew it was outrageous for him to say such a thing to a grownup, but at this point he didn’t care. He was Nafai’s brother, after all, not his son.

  “Are you so very sure of that?” She was angry, oh yes.

  “You weren’t telling us the real reason for everything because you thought we wouldn’t understand it, but we did. All of us did. And then when we made up our minds, we knew what we were choosing.”

  “You may think you understand, but you don’t,” said Luet. “It’s a lot more complicated than you think, and—”

  Oykib got really angry now. He had heard their arguments with the Oversoul, all the nuances and possible problems they had worried about, and even though he wasn’t going to tell them how he knew these things, he certainly wasn’t going to pretend now that he couldn’t understand them. “Did you ever think, Lutya, that maybe it’s a lot more complicated than you think, too?”

  Maybe it was because he called her—an adult!—by her quick-name, or maybe it was because she recognized the truth of what he said, but she fell silent and stared at him.

  “You don’t understand everything,” said Oykib, “but you still make decisions. Well, we don’t understand everything, either. But we decided, didn’t we? And we made the right choice, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Maybe children aren’t as stupid as you think,” Oykib added. It was something he had been wanting to say to an adult for a long time. This seemed like the appropriate occasion.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid at all, not you or any of the….”

  But before she could finish her sentence, he was out of the library, bounding up the corridor in search of the others. If he wasn’t there when they picked, he’d end up with the worst bed.

  It turned out that he ended up with the worst bed anyway, the bunk on the bottom right by the door where he’d be in plain view to anybody coming down the corridor so he couldn’t get away with anything. He had chosen the best bed, and since he was first boy, none of the others had argued with him. But then he saw how miserable Motya was at having the worst spot—especially when Yaya and Zhyat teased him about it. So now he was stuck with the worst bed and he knew nobody was going to want to trade later. Ten years, he thought. I’m going to have to sleep here ten lousy years.