Earthfall (Homecoming) (20 page)

So while he could tell her most of what he overheard, he couldn’t tell her the worst things; for this past week, he couldn’t explain to her why he woke up sweating and gagging in the middle of the night, or why he had grown silent in the past few days, barely speaking to her or to anyone.

Tonight, though, tonight had answered so many questions. For when this bat with its leathery wings came down and landed on the roof of a nearby storage tent, Oykib had sensed a different kind of being entirely. This creature, too, was getting an almost continuous stream of communication from the Keeper in yet another unfamiliar language of desires; but it was brighter and clearer, though more fearful as well. There were questions, and they were formed in ideas that Oykib could understand; best yet, they were linked with language. He didn’t understand the words, but he knew that the language could be learned.

The desires, though, he understood very well indeed. A wish not to disappoint others; a desire to protect his wife and children; a hunger for secrets.

Hunger for secrets. Into Oykib’s mind, as he watched the creature there on the tent roof, came an image of
whose
secrets the flyer was trying to decipher. Two pictures came into his mind almost at once. A vague image of a human head made of unfired clay, large and monstrous; and then, much more clearly, the image of Nafai in the flesh. Only it wasn’t Nafai. It was a creature just like this one, only with patchy hair and tattered wings, unable to fly, and yet respected, being listened to by all the others.

It was Nafai, but it was also not-Nafai.

Then, suddenly, he understood. It’s this creature’s word for us, for human beings. Old man. Old people. We’re the old people.

But that would imply that they knew that humans had once lived on Earth before. That was absurd. Nothing could possibly be remembered for forty million years. And how could they remember anyway? As far as he knew, these creatures had not yet evolved into sentient beings when humans last walked upon the Earth.

Then the creature leapt from the tent and swept quickly over the clearing to the base of the starship. There, as he touched the metal, then rapped upon it with his fingers, he was speaking to the Keeper—no, singing to the Keeper, so rapturous was his mood. Oykib felt as if this creature’s awe and rejoicing were inside him. He had a thought, as clear as if it were his own thought: “The Old Ones still put music into the things they make.”

He had understood it, even though the words attached to the idea were in a language he had never heard before. No real sound had been uttered, and yet he knew inside his memory what this creature’s voice would sound like. High and musical, rich in subtle lingering vowels, but with no sibilants or nasals or even fricatives. The only consonants were plosives and stops, and yet they were no less musical than the tonguing of a flautist, making fluttering interruptions in a tune. T’s and K’s, G’s and P’s, B’s and D’s, and a guttural consonant that Oykib knew his own throat could not possibly make. Sometimes these consonants had an extra puff of air; sometimes they were stopped. It was a beautiful language.

More important, though, was the fact that the desires were not dark and violent, and the Keeper did not seem to be struggling to restrain this creature. Rather than distracting him, the Keeper was encouraging him, reinforcing his desires. The contrast came as such a relief to Oykib after all these weeks and days of confusion and darkness that he spoke aloud. “At last the Keeper has brought a friend to us,” he said.

He had forgotten how careful and watchful the creature—no, the angel—had been. He hadn’t realized that the angel hadn’t seen him there in the darkness. But as soon as he heard his own voice, he knew it was too loud, too sudden. The angel leapt almost a man’s height into the air and then beat his wings in a frenzy to rise higher, out of harm’s way.

But terror didn’t rule him. He flew back, swooping around as if to get a good look at Oykib. Well, look to your heart’s content, said Oykib, standing with his hands open and spread wide. I’ll not harm you, Oykib tried to say with his body.

And then to the Keeper he said, Help him to know I’m not his enemy.

As usual, there was no answer. Others could get their dreams and their whispered silent words of guidance; Oykib could only overhear them, never receive them directly for himself. For once, though, with the memory of the angel’s language and desires still fresh, Oykib did not regret the lack. Perhaps it was the better gift, to hear others.

When the angel winged its way into the night sky, heading up the canyon in moonlight, Oykib walked around the starship and headed back to his house. He could see the flash of the lantern. Who was on duty tonight? Meb? Vas? One of the Elemaki, at any rate.

Obring, that’s who it was. Obring always swung the lantern as he walked, making it impossible for him to see any strange motions, for the lantern itself created moving shadows that would mask any real movement that might take place. Oykib had heard Elemak remonstrating with Obring about it once. Obring had only laughed and said, “There’s nothing to see, Elya. And besides, it’s Volemak we all obey now, not you, remember?”

Elemak remembered. Oykib knew
that
. And while Elemak never spoke to the Oversoul in prayer or conversation, he did curse, and when his curses had real intent behind them, their very intensity moved them into the pattern of communication with the Oversoul, so Oykib could hear him. Silent curses, but nothing said aloud. The man was controlling himself. And at the end there
was
a prayer, or perhaps only a mantra: I am no wordbreaker. I will keep the oath.

Oykib had no doubt which oath he meant—it was the oath to Father, to obey him as long as he was alive to rule over them. Better than anyone except Hushidh and Chveya, who could see the loyalties of the colony laid out like a map before them, Oykib knew that peace in the colony was only skin deep. Everyone knew who the Elemaki were, and who the Nafari; everyone could see that the village was virtually divided down the middle, with Nafari on the east and Elemaki on the west. The colony was not united and never would be. Health to you, Volemak. Health and long life. Let there be no war among us before my children are safely born and grown. Live forever, old man. You are the only cord that holds this harvest together in a single sheaf.

So there was Obring, on watch but worthless at it, while Oykib was aware of dark mutterings and savage prayers out in the darkness and dared not speak to anyone about it.

And tonight, was there some new urgency about it? Some sense of triumph tinged with fear? Daring, that’s what it was. Someone was daring something that they had not dared before. And the Keeper was sending a constant stream of distractions. Something’s happening. What is it? Speak to me, Keeper! Speak to me, Oversoul!

Chveya was asleep when he came into the house. It was often this way. Up at dawn, Chveya worked hard all day, as if her pregnancy should make no difference in her schedule. Then she would come home and fall asleep without undressing, wherever she happened to sit or lie down. Once Oykib came home and found her asleep standing up, not leaning on anything, just standing like a flagpole in the middle of the single room of the house, her eyes closed. Breathing heavily—had she been lying down, it would have been a snore.

Tonight she was on the bed, but fully dressed, her feet still dangling to the floor. He wanted not to waken her—but her legs would be asleep in the morning and it would cause her much discomfort, especially if she woke up needing to void her bladder in the night, and her legs wouldn’t support her.

Besides, it was important. What had happened tonight, the angel coming to him, or at least to the ship, touching it, and the clarity of his voice to the Keeper and of the Keeper’s voice to him. The fact that Oykib could hear his language and understand it. And the murmurings and stirrings of the other, darker beings who surrounded the village.

He moved her feet onto the bed. Chveya awoke.

“Oh, again?” she murmured. “I meant to wait up for you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Sleep when you can, you need it.”

“But you’re upset,” she said.

“Happy and worried,” he corrected her. Then he told her all that had happened and what he thought it might mean.

“So the angels are starting to come to us,” she said.

“But you know that it tells us who the others we’ve been seeing are. Those rat-creatures. Out there in the dark.”

“I think you’re right,” said Chveya.

“Didn’t Hushidh have a dream of them stealing her children?”

“And you feel as though something has broken tonight?” asked Chveya. “I think we have to give warning. Put on extra watches.”

“And tell them what? Explain what?” asked Oykib.

“Explain nothing. When we ask Grandfather to double, triple the watch tonight, he’ll do it even if we tell him it’s just a feeling. He has respect for feelings.”

They headed for the door, but no sooner had they opened it than a scream sounded from the Elemaki side of the village. It came from a human throat, and all the grief of the world was in it.

Eiadh was the one who had screamed. In moments the adults were gathered around her. She wasn’t screaming now, but it took great effort for her to control her voice as she explained.

“Zhivya’s gone!” she said. “The baby. Taken from her crib. I woke up to see them, like low shadows, running.” Now she did lose control, the horror of it filling her voice. “They were holding the four corners of her blanket. My baby was stolen away by
animals
!”

Elemak had been—somewhere. Not in the house with her, that was certain. Now, though, he was on his knees in the doorway. “Look at this footprint,” he said. “An animal made this. Coming in and going out—two animals, actually. And heavily burdened when they left.” He got up and looked at them. “I saw a flying creature go down into the fields, then up onto the food storage tent, and then down behind the ship. A moment later it took off, flying up the canyon. No doubt it went to get its friends.” He touched the footprint. “That…
thing
…could have made this print. I’m going to follow it up the canyon.”

But Oykib looked at the footprint and knew that Elemak was wrong. The angel’s feet had been like hands, or perhaps more like powerful visegrips. These footprints came from a creature with flatter feet and long heavy-clawed toes. The feet of a runner or a digger. Not a creature that flies, that clings to branches.

“The angel didn’t make this print,” said Oykib.

Elemak looked up at him with steely hatred in his eyes.

Nafai at once interrupted. “Elemak is the one who knows how to read the tracks of animals, Oykib.”

“But I saw the angel—”

“So did Elemak,” said Nafai, “and it’s his daughter.” He turned to Elemak. “Tell us what to do, Elemak.”

Chveya turned to Oykib and, for a moment, silently buried her face in his shoulder. It was the way she responded when Nafai said exactly the wrong thing—which was surprisingly often, for a man as bright as he was. Nafai was correct as far as he knew; it was quite proper for everyone to defer to Elemak’s judgment in this matter. But he should have known by now that Elemak would not be grateful to prevail because Nafai told everyone to let him have his way.

Besides, Elemak should
not
prevail, because he was wrong. Oykib knew that angels hadn’t taken the child. The kidnappers were no flyers. They had to be searched for on the ground. Worse, those who did take Zhivya had among them at least a few who hungered to eat the living flesh of an infant. There was real urgency in the search, and it would be a criminal waste of time to go off trying to track flying creatures who didn’t have the baby.

As if she could hear his thoughts, Mother put a hand on Oykib’s shoulder. “Be patient, my son,” she said. “You know what you know, and you’ll be heard in due time.”

Due time? Oykib looked down at Chveya. Her lips were pursed; she was as worried as he was, and as frustrated.

Elemak was organizing his search party, assigning men where to go.

Volemak spoke up. “Are all the adults gathered here? Who’s watching the children, when we already know that they aren’t safe in their homes?”

At once the women with children began rushing out of the house, back to their homes.

“Elemak,” said Volemak. “Leave me a few men here, to protect the village while you’re gone.”

Elemak agreed at once. “You keep Nafai and Oykib here—he can tell you his theories to his heart’s content. Give me the other men, though.”

“I’m a man,” said Yasai.

Oykib restrained himself from saying, “Yes, if a dandelion is a tree.” This wasn’t the time for teasing. And Yasai
was
a man.

“If there’s an attack,” said Volemak, “we’ll need more. Perhaps the younger men.”

Now Elemak dug in his heels. “Nafai has the cloak. If you need more, you have the older boys. We’re trying to track creatures who fly. I can’t do it without as many men as possible.”

“I can protect the village,” said Protchnu, trying to look older than his nine years.

Elemak looked at him with a serious expression. “You’ll have to. Obey your grandfather without question.”

Protchnu nodded. Oykib could not help but think that if Elemak had ever followed his own advice, everyone’s lives would have been a lot happier over the past few months.

Moments later Elemak was off, leaving behind, of the men, only Nafai, Issib, Volemak, and Oykib.

“Welcome to the ranks of the useless,” said Issib wryly.

“Useless? I hardly think so,” said Volemak. “All right, now, Oykib. Tell us what you know.”

“I saw an angel tonight,” said Oykib. “The same one Elemak saw. But he was only a couple of meters from me, and I saw his foot. It couldn’t possibly have made this print.”

“Who, then?” asked Nafai.

“There are others,” said Chveya. “I’ve caught glimpses of them. Never anything I could see clearly, but enough that I’ve begun to make connections. Hushidh has got some hints of this, too. They’re all around us. But they’re low, in the underbrush. Like Eiadh said, low shadows. Sometimes in the trees.”

“You know this, and you haven’t
seen
them?” asked Issib.

“I see the connections among them. Faintly.” Chveya smiled grimly. “It’s the best we’ve got.”

“Not enough,” said Nafai. He fixed Oykib with a cold stare. “Stop playing games, Oykib. What do you
know
?”

For the first time it occurred to Oykib that maybe he hadn’t kept his secret as well as he thought. “What I
know
is that there was no malice in the angel. In his mind we’re the Old Ones, and he’s filled with respect and awe. But there are other minds, and they’ve been watching us for months, and some of them….” He glanced at Eiadh, realized that he had to be careful how he said it. “Some of them might be dangerous to Zhivya.”

“The ones that we’ve been calling diggers,” said Nafai.

Volemak nodded. “And they live nearby.”

Issib laughed. “What, we get shovels and start digging?” He waved his arm to show the vast area they’d have to dig up.

“Burrows have entrances,” said Nafai.

“We’ve been exploring all around here,” said Protchnu. “We’ve never seen any holes.”

“Why don’t we do the obvious thing?” said Oykib. “The thing that Elemak would have done, if he hadn’t been so sure that the kidnappers could fly. Follow the footprints.”

The diggers’ prints were lost almost at once in the mess that their own feet had made when they ran in response to Eiadh’s scream. It didn’t help that Rasa was leading the women in gathering the little children out of their beds and into the schoolhouse. Despite the tumult, though, Volemak managed to get lanterns distributed to the men and the older boys, and in a few minutes Protchnu gave a cry. “Here!” he shouted. “They weren’t dodging or anything, they just ran in a straight line.”

It was true—the trail picked up just where it might have been expected from the direction the diggers first ran upon leaving Elemak’s and Eiadh’s door. The others ran to join Protchnu, but stayed behind as he led the way toward the edge of the woods.

“Wait,” said Volemak. “Nafai, Oykib—you spread out to the sides and keep watch. I don’t want Protchnu walking head down into a trap.”

Carrying lanterns in one hand, gardening tools as makeshift weapons in the other, the ragtag little army entered the verge of the forest. Four adult men, a bunch of little boys, and the young women who had no children yet—that would strike terror in their enemies. As soon as they entered the woods, the tracking became harder—leaves on the forest floor didn’t hold footprints very clearly. It took Protchnu a while to get even six meters into the woods, and then he lost the trail.

Moving slowly and carefully, they all scouted an ever-widening circle, trying to pick up the trail again. Then Oykib heard a low cry from Protchnu, standing only a few paces off. The boy was looking up into the branches. “I’m so stupid!” he said, and immediately ran back to where he had lost the trail.

Oykib followed him. “You think they carried the baby through the trees?”

“Up into one tree,” said Protchnu. “Remember the hollow stumps we found when we were felling trees?”

“Shedemei said it wasn’t impossible for some disease to have….”

By then, though, Protchnu had clambered up the tree and was pressing against the trunk here and there, pressing hard. “Protchnu, you aren’t looking for secret passages, are you?”

“We burned the hollow trees because we couldn’t use them for construction,” said Protchnu. “We should have studied them. The prints lead right to this tree and disappear. They went
somewhere
.”

Protchnu suddenly stopped and grinned. “It gave a little here. Hold your torch up,
Uncle
Oykib. I found me a door.” Using the blade of the hoe he was carrying, Protchnu pried into a fissure in the bark and sure enough, an oblong patch of trunk opened up like a door. It had been a seamless part of the trunk until that moment.

“Protchnu, remind me never to call you stupid,” said Oykib.

Protchnu barely heard him. He had already turned around and had his legs into the opening.

Oykib set down his lantern and fairly leapt up the trunk to grab Protchnu’s arm. “No!” he cried. “We don’t need to be trying to rescue
two
of Elemak’s children!”

“I’m the only one who can fit through the door!” Protchnu yelled, struggling to get free of Oykib’s grip.

“Proya, you’ve been brilliant, so don’t turn stupid on me!” Oykib shouted back. “You can’t go feetfirst into their den! You don’t know whether there’ll even be room down there to use the hoe. Come on, get your legs out before they cut off your feet!”

Reluctantly, Protchnu backed out of the door.

By now, the others had gathered. Nafai was carrying an ax, as was Oykib. When Protchnu was out of the tree, they began to work quickly, chopping into the trunk. In only a few minutes, they had torn away so much of the surviving trunk that the tree toppled.

Now the opening wasn’t just a tiny doorway. It was large enough that any of the adults could drop down into the hole. And, lowering his lantern as far down into the opening as he could, Nafai announced that the chamber was tall enough for a human to stand, and the tunnels large enough for humans to use them—on all fours.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea at the moment,” said Volemak.

“We don’t have time to waste, Father,” said Nafai.

“Stand up and look around you, Nyef.”

They raised their lanterns and looked. In the trees, on the ground, hundreds of diggers surrounded them, brandishing clubs and stone-tipped spears.

“I think they’ve got the numbers on us,” said Issib.

“They’re ugly,” said Sevet’s son Umene. “Their skin’s all pink and hairless.”

“Ugly is the least of our problems,” said Volemak.

“Any idea who their leader is?” asked Nafai.

“Didn’t Chveya come with us?” asked Oykib.

She was already scanning the diggers. She frowned, then pointed. “He’s there, behind those others.”

At once Nafai stripped his shirt off over his head, baring the skin of his chest and back. As he did, his skin began to glow, to shine. The cloak of the starmaster, normally invisible as it lived under his skin, was now radiating light in order to make a god of Nafai—at least in these diggers’ eyes. At once Oykib heard a cacophony of prayers and curses. “It’s working,” Oykib said quietly. “The sphincter muscles are loosening. There’s going to be a circle of extrafertile ground when this night is over.”

A couple of the boys laughed. None of the adults did.

Nafai walked over and stood before the place that Chveya had pointed out. “Which one of these little monsters do I want?” he asked.

Chveya came up beside him, careful not to touch his glowing skin. Now she could pick out the leader, a large, strong one, wearing a necklace of small bones around his neck. “The one with the trophy necklace.”

Nafai raised his hand and pointed. His finger glowed. Suddenly a spark leapt from his hand to the leader of the diggers. The trophy necklace wasn’t much help to him—he immediately sprawled flat on the ground, trembling.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” asked Chveya.

Oykib could barely hear her. The tumult of terrified prayers from the diggers drowned out almost all other perceptions in his mind. Yet even their terror was tainted with rage and with lust for vengeance. They feared Nafai, but they hated him and wanted him destroyed. “If you think you’re making friends,” Oykib murmured.

“Oykib,” said Nafai, ignoring both their comments, “I need you to do the speaking. I’m busy being a god. I can’t let them see me struggling to communicate. Besides, you’re the only one with a hope of understanding their responses.”

Oykib was astonished. “How can I talk to them? I don’t know their language.”

“You caught some of the angel language, didn’t you? The Oversoul said you did.”

“But I’ve never understood or even heard their—”

“You’re about to hear it now,” said Nafai.

So the Oversoul
is
aware of me and knows what I can do, thought Oykib. It was the first confirmation of this that he had ever had. But did the Oversoul know how much he
couldn’t
do?

He stepped forward, walking toward the leader, who was being helped back to his feet. “The baby,” said Oykib. He pantomimed rocking a baby in his arms. The diggers had been watching the humans long enough to understand what the gesture represented.

The digger king babbled something. Oykib was surprised by the language. It was the opposite of the angel language—all sibilants, fricatives, nasals, with a sound, not of music, but of spitting and humming. Does it only sound like an evil and slimy language to me because of what I know about their prayers and hungers?

When the digger king was speaking to his followers, Oykib understood nothing, of course. In a few moments the diggers dragged forward four of their soldiers and threw them down at Nafai’s feet. Now Oykib
could
get a clear sense of the terror, the cursing and prayers of the four. “These are the ones who did the kidnapping,” said Oykib. “I think they’re giving them to you for punishment.”