Earthfall (Homecoming) (5 page)

When the two songs had passed, when the flock of ladies and men arose and went on to the next man, dark shapes emerged from the shadows of the trees. They, too, circled the strange sculpture, and then finally picked it up and carried it away, though it was uncommonly large and heavy and they did not understand it.

It just slipped out. Chveya didn’t intend to tell anyone what she had heard outside Mother’s door last night. She could keep a secret. Even a devastating secret like the fact that Mother was planning for Dazya to grow up and marry Rokya during the voyage. What did
that
mean, that Chveya was supposed to marry Proya or something? That would be fun, wouldn’t it. He should marry Dazya, so the two bossiest children could boss each other to their heart’s content. Why did Chveya’s own mother want Dazya to get the best boy who wasn’t a double first cousin?

Chveya was still brooding about this when Dazya started yelling at her for some stupid thing—leaving a door open that Dazya wanted closed, or closing it when Dazya wanted it open—and Chveya just blurted out, “Oh, shut up, Dazya, you’re going to grow up and marry Rokya during the voyage anyway, so you can at least let me decide about doors.”

And it wasn’t Chveya’s fault that Rokya happened to be coming through the door with his father right then, carrying baskets of bread to be frozen for the voyage.

“What are you talking about?” said Rokya. “I wouldn’t marry
either
of you.”

It wasn’t Rokya’s reaction that worried Chveya. It was Rokya’s father, little Zdorab. “Why are you thinking about who will marry Padarok?” asked Zdorab.

“He’s just the only one who’s not a cousin or something,” said Chveya, blushing.

“Veya always thinks about marriage,” said Dazya. Then, helpfully, she added, “She’s sick in the head.”

“You’re only eight years old,” said Zdorab, smiling with amusement. “Why would you think marriages would be happening during the voyage?”

Chveya clamped her mouth shut and shrugged. She knew that she shouldn’t have repeated anything she heard outside her mother’s door. If she said nothing more now, perhaps Zdorab and Rokya and Dazya would forget about it and then Mother would never know that Chveya was a spy and a blabber.

Elemak listened to Zdorab impassively. Mebbekew was not so calm. “I should have known. Planning to steal our children from us!”

“I doubt it,” said Elemak.

“You heard him!” cried Mebbekew. “You don’t think
Chveya
would invent this scheme of keeping children awake so they’d grow up during the voyage, do you?”

“I mean,” said Elemak, “that I doubt Nyef would choose to keep
our
children awake.”

“Why not? He could have ten years to poison their minds against us.”

“He knows that if he did that to me, I would kill him,” said Elemak.

“And he knows that
I
would
not
,” said Zdorab. “Imagine—telling his daughter about it, but not even mentioning a hint of it to us.”

Elemak thought about that for a moment. Such carelessness wouldn’t be unheard of in Nafai, but still he doubted it. “It may not be Nafai’s plan, you know. It might be Chveya’s mother. Perhaps the Waterseer still misses the influence she had back in Basilica.”

“Perhaps she fancies the idea of running a school like her mother did,” said Mebbekew.

“But what can we do about it, anyway?” asked Zdorab. “He has the cloak of the starmaster. He has the Index. He controls the ship. No matter what he says, what’s to stop him from waking our children during the voyage and doing whatever he wants?”

“The food supply isn’t infinite,” said Elemak. “He can’t wake everybody.”

“Think about it, though,” said Mebbekew. “What if we wake up and his son Zhatva is a tall seventeen-year-old? Nyef was tall at that age. While our children are still little. And Father’s last two boys, Oykib and Yasai. And your Padarok, Zdorab.”

Zdorab smiled wanly. “Padarok won’t be tall.”

“He’ll be a man. It’s not a stupid plan,” said Mebbekew. “He’ll have indoctrinated them during the voyage to see things his way.”

Elemak nodded. He had already thought of all this. “The question is, what will we do about it?”

“Stay awake ourselves.”

Elemak shook his head. “He’s already said that the ship won’t launch until everyone but him is asleep.”

“Then we won’t go at all!” said Mebbekew. “Let him take off for Earth and as soon as he’s gone, we can take our families back to Basilica.”

“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.”