Earthfall (Homecoming) (8 page)

“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.

Emeez’s mother took her to the holy cave when she was six years old. It was a miraculous place, because it was underground and yet it had not been carved by the people. Instead it grew this way, a gift from the gods; they had created it, and so this was where the gods were brought to be worshipped.

The cave was strange, all jagged and wet, not dry and smooth-walled like the burrows of the city. Limey water dripped everywhere. Mother explained how the water left a tiny amount of lime behind with each drop, and in time that’s what formed the massive pillars. But how could that be? Weren’t the pillars holding up the roof of the cave? If the pillars weren’t forming until the water dripped for years and years, what would have held the roof up at the beginning? But Mother explained that this cave was made of stone. “The gods break holes in the mountain the way we chip off flakes of stone for our blades,” Mother said. “They can hold up a roof of stone so wide that you can’t see the other side, even with the brightest torch. And there is no wind so strong that it can tear the roof off the burrow of the gods.”

That’s why they’re gods, I suppose, thought Emeez. She had seen what the storm did to the uphill end of the city, knocking down three rooftrees so that rain and later sunlight poured into what had once been nurseries and meeting halls. It took days to seal up the tunnels and create new burrows elsewhere to replace the lost space, and during that time two cousins and three nieces stayed with them. Mother nearly went crazy, and Emeez wasn’t far behind. They were private, quiet people, and didn’t deal very well with busybodies constantly prying into their business. Oh, what’s
this
, are we learning to weave at such a young age? Oh, I’ll bet you’ve already set your heart on some young fellow who’s just now out on his first hunt, you pretty little thing you.

Such a lie. Because Emeez was not a pretty little thing. She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t little. And she wasn’t a
thing
, either, though people often treated her that way. She was too hairy, for one thing. Men liked a woman with very downy hair, not dark and coarse like hers. And her voice wasn’t lovely, either. She tried to sound like Mother, but Emeez just didn’t have that kind of music in her. One time when Cousin Issess—
there
was an undistinguished name for you!—didn’t know Emeez was nearby, she said to her stupid daughter Aamuv, “Poor Emeez. She’s a throwback, you know. They’re just as hairy as that back on the east slope of the mountain. I hope she doesn’t have any of their
other
traits!” The story was, of course, that the hairy east-slopers ate the hearts and livers of their enemies, and some said they simply spitted their victims and roasted them whole. Monsters. And that’s what people thought of Emeez, because she was so hairy.

Well, she couldn’t help what grew on her body. At least it wasn’t a horrible fungus infection like the one that made poor Bomossoss stink so badly. He was a mighty warrior, but nobody could really enjoy being around him because of the odor. Very sad. The gods do what they want with us. At least I don’t smell.

There wasn’t any worship going on here—of course, since that was a man thing, and not for women, and
certainly
not for little girls. But she had heard that the men worshipped the gods by licking them until they were wet and soft and then rubbing them all over their bodies. She hadn’t really believed it, until she came into the first of the prayer chambers.

Some of the gods were very intricately carved, with startlingly beautiful faces. There were pictures of fierce warriors and of the hideous skymeat beasts, of goats and deer, of coiled snakes and dragonflies perched on cattails. But when Mother started pointing out the very holiest of the gods, the ones most worshipped, to Emeez’s surprise
these
were not intricately carved at all. The very holiest of them were nothing but smooth lumps of clay.

“Why are the beautiful ones not as holy as the ones that don’t look like anything?”

“Ah,” said Mother, “but you have to understand, they were once the most beautiful of all. But they have been worshipped most fervently, and they have given us good babies and good hunting. So of course they’ve been worn smooth. But we remember what they were.”

The smooth lumpy ones disturbed her. “Couldn’t somebody carve new faces on them?”

“Don’t be absurd. That would be blasphemy.” Mother looked annoyed. “Honestly, Emeez, I don’t understand how your mind works. Nobody carves the gods. They would have no power if men and women just made them up out of clay.”

“Well who
does
make them, then?”

“We bring them home,” said Mother. “We find them and bring them home.”

“But who makes them?”

“They make themselves,” said Mother. “They rise up from the clay of the riverbank by themselves.”

“Can I watch sometime?”

“No,” said Mother.

“I want to watch a god coming forth.”

Mother sighed. “I suppose you’re old enough. If you promise you won’t go telling the younger children.”

“I promise.”

“There is a certain time of year. In the dry season. The skymeat come down and shape the mud by the riverbank.”

“Skymeat?” Emeez was appalled. “You can’t be serious. That’s disgusting.”

“Of course it
would
be disgusting,” said Mother, “if you thought the skymeat actually understood what they were doing. But they don’t. The god comes awake inside them and they just start mindlessly shaping the clay in fantastic intricate patterns. Then, when they’re done, they just go away. Leave them behind. For us.”

The skymeat. Those nasty flying things that sometimes trapped and killed hunters. Their young were brought home and roasted and fed to pregnant women. They were dangerous, mindless beasts, treacherous and sneaky, and
they
made the
gods
?

“I’m not feeling well, Mother,” said Emeez.

“Well, then, sit down here for a few minutes and rest,” said Mother. “I’m supposed to meet the priestess three rooms up—that way—and I can’t be late. But you can come after me and find me, right? You won’t wander off the main path and get lost, will you?”

“I don’t think I suddenly turned
stupid
, Mother.”

“But you did suddenly turn rude. I don’t like that in you, Emeez.”

Well, nobody likes much of anything in me, she thought. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them.
I
think I’m excellent company. I’m much smarter than any of my other friends, and so everything I say to myself is scintillating and exciting and has never been said before. Unlike those who say over and over, endlessly, the same bits of “wisdom” they picked up from their mothers. And I’m certainly better company than the boys, always throwing things and breaking things and cutting things. Much better to dig and to weave, the way women do, to gather things rather than kill them, to combine leaves and fruit and meat and roots together in a way that tastes good. I will be a fine woman, hairy or not, and whatever man ends up getting stuck with me will make a big show about how disappointed he is, but in secret he’ll be glad, and I’ll make him a whole bunch of smart hairy babies and they’ll be just as ugly and just as smart and clever as I am until someday they wake up and realize that the hairy ones make the best wives and mothers and the hairless ones are just slimy and
cold
all the time, like skinned melons.

Angry now, Emeez got up and started looking closer at the gods. She couldn’t help it—there was nothing interesting about the overworshipped gods. It was the pristine, intricate ones that fascinated her. Maybe that was her whole problem—she was attracted to gods with poor reputations, and that’s why she was cursed with ugliness, because the really effective gods knew that she wouldn’t like them. That was terrible, though, to punish her from birth for a sin she wouldn’t even commit until she was six, only two years before she became a woman.

Well, as long as I’ve already been punished for it, I’m going to go right ahead and
deserve
the punishment. I’m going to find the very most beautiful, most
un
worshipped god of all and choose that one for my favorite.

So she began searching seriously for one that was in perfect condition. But of course all the gods had received at least
some
worship, so even though she could find sections of them that still had the most beautiful details, there was none that was unmarred.

Until she found the most astonishing one, in the back corner of a small side chamber. It looked like none of the others. In fact, it looked like no beast that she had ever seen before. And the carving was absolutely pristine. It had been smoothed nowhere, which meant that it had never been worshipped by anyone.

Well, she said to the ugly god.
I
am your worshipper now. And I will worship you the best way, not like any of the others. I won’t lick you or rub you or whatever other disgusting thing they do with those other muddy gods. I’m going to worship you by looking at you and saying that you are a
beautiful
carving.

Of course, it was a beautiful carving of an astonishingly ugly creature. Or rather, just the head of the creature. It had a mouth like a person, and two eyes like a person, but the nose pointed downward and its jaw was amazingly pointed, and down at the base of the head it narrowed down until the neck was much, much thinner than the head. How does it hold up such a massive head on such a skinny neck? And why would a stupid skymeat even think of making something that no one had ever seen?

The answer to that last question was obvious enough, of course, when she thought of it. The skymeat carved this head because this was what the god looked like.

No. What god would choose to look like
that
?

Unless—and here was an astonishing thought—unless the gods couldn’t help the way they looked. Unless this god was just like her and grew up ugly and yet he didn’t think that meant he didn’t have a right to have a statue and be worshipped, and so he got a skymeat to carve his head but then when it was brought down here not one soul ever worshipped him and he got stuck off in a dark corner, only now
I’ve
found you, and I may be ugly but I’m the only worshipper you’ve got so don’t tell me you’re going to reject me now!

She heard it as clear as if someone had spoken behind her. She turned around to look, but there was no one in this darkish room, no one but her.

“Did you speak to me?” she whispered.

There was no answer. But as she looked at the ugly beautiful statue, she suddenly knew something, knew something so important that she had to tell Mother at once. She ran from the room and up the main road until she reached the room where Mother and the priestess were conversing animatedly. “I see you feel better, Emeez,” said Mother, patting her head.

“Mother, I have to tell you—”

“Later,” said Mother. “We’ve just about decided something wonderful for you and—”

“Mother, I have to tell you
now
.”

Mother looked embarrassed and annoyed. “Emeez, you’re going to make Vleezheesumuunuun think that I haven’t raised you well.”

From the priestess’s name, Emeez realized that she must be somebody very important and distinguished, and suddenly she was shy. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, that’s all right,” the old priestess said. “It’s the hairy ones who still hear the voice of the gods, they say.”

Oh, great, thought Emeez. Don’t tell me that because I’m ugly I might have to end up as a
priestess
.

“What was it you wanted to tell us, child?” asked the priestess.

“I just—I was looking at a really beautiful god, only it was really ugly, and suddenly I knew something. That’s all.”

The priestess went down on all fours. Immediately Mother did, too, and Emeez was well-bred enough to know that
she
must also assume that posture. It was exhilarating, though, because it meant that the priestess was taking her seriously. “What did you suddenly know?” asked Vleezheesumuunuun.

“Well now that I think about it, I don’t even know what it means.”

“Tell us anyway,” said Mother, and the priestess blinked a slow
yes
.

“The ones that were lost are coming back home.”

Mother and the priestess looked at her blankly. Finally Mother spoke. “That’s
all
?”

“That’s enough,” the priestess whispered. “Tell no one.” The priestess’s eyes were closed.

“Then you know what this means?” asked Mother.

“I don’t,” said the priestess. “Not what it
means
. But don’t you remember from the song of creation, where the great prophet Zz says, ‘There will be no more meat from the sky on the day when the lost ones are found, and no more gods from the river when the wanderers come home’?”

“No, I don’t remember that one,” said Mother, “and if you’ll notice, Zz didn’t say anything about lost ones coming home. She said the lost ones are found, and the ones who come home are the wanderers. So I don’t think you need to take this so seriously and frighten my poor daughter to death.”

But it was obviously Mother who was frightened. Emeez certainly wasn’t. She was exhilarated. The god had told her he accepted her worship, and then had given her a gift, that bit of knowledge that meant nothing to her, but apparently meant a great deal to the priestess—and to Mother, too, despite her protests to the contrary.

“This changes everything,” the priestess said.

“I was afraid of that,” Mother said with a small voice.

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” said the priestess. “I’m still going to find a mate for your daughter.”

Find a mate! Oh, what awful shame! An arranged marriage! Mother was
so
sure that no man would ever want her that she had gone to the priestess to arrange for a
sacrifice
marriage? Some man would be forced to take her as a wife in order to make up for some offense? Emeez had seen that happen twice before, and both times the woman who was offered that way had also been an offender, and that was
her
penance, to be forced upon a man like some nasty herb to heal a wound.