Earthborn

THREE - RESISTANCE

"Nafai told me something once," said Shedemei to the Oversoul.

The Oversoul, being endlessly patient, waited for her to go on.

"Back before you... chose him."

"I remember the time," said the Oversoul, perhaps not endlessly patient after all.

"Back when you were still trying to keep him and Issib from discovering too much about you."

"It was Issib who was the real problem, you know. He's the one who thought of opposing me."

"Yes, well, but he didn't succeed until Nafai joined him."

"It was a concern for a while."

"Yes, I imagine. Both of them, struggling as hard as they could. You had to devote all your resources to dealing with them."

"Never all. Never even close to all."

"Enough that you finally gave up."

"Took them into my confidence."

"Stopped struggling against them and enlisted them on your side. You had no choice, right?"

"I knew all along that they were valuable. I decided at that point that they were the ones I would use to assemble a working starship."

"Would you have chosen them if they hadn't been causing so much trouble for you?"

"I had already chosen their father to ... start things moving."

"But it was Luet you wanted, wasn't it."

"Nafai was very insistent. Very ambitious. He couldn't stand not to be in the midst of whatever was going on. I decided that was useful. And I never had to choose between him and Luet, because they ended up together."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure everything worked out exactly according to plan."

"I was programmed to be infinitely adaptable, as long as I continue working toward the highest priorities. My plan changed, but its goal never did."

"All right then, that's the entire point I was trying to make." Shed-emei laughed. "If I didn't know better, Lady Oversoul, I would suppose you were protecting your pride."

"I have no pride."

"I'm relieved to hear it," said Shedemei. "I discarded my own long ago."

"What was the point you were trying to make?"

"Nafai forced you to listen to him, to notice him, to take him into account."

"Nafai and Issib."

"They did it by resisting you, and doing it in such a way that you had to adapt your plans to fit their... what did you say? Their ambition."

"Issib was stubborn. Nafai was ambitious."

"I'm sure you have lists of adjectives appended to all our names in your files."

"Don't be snippy, Shedemei. It isn't becoming to a woman who has abandoned her pride."

"Will you listen to my plan?"

"Oh, not a point then, a plan."

"You still have the power to influence human beings."

"In a small area of the world, yes."

"It doesn't have to be on the other side of the planet, you know. Just there in the gornaya."

"Anywhere in the gornaya, yes, I can have some influence."

"And that technique you used back on Harmony, to keep us from developing dangerous technologies-"

"Making people temporarily stupid."

"And you can still send dreams."

"Not the powerful dreams the Keeper sends."

"Dreams, though. Clear ones."

"Much clearer than the Keeper's dreams," said the Oversoul.

"Well then. We have a party of Nafari soldiers headed up the valley of the Tsidorek. When they come near Lake Sidonod, the area is so thickly settled with Elemaki that they'll have to take a dangerous route high up on the mountainside. But the mountain range is ragged there. At some points the crest is very low, so the valleys connect through a narrow pass. If they can sneak through that pass, they'll come down a canyon that will lead them straight to Chelem, where Akmaro's people are held as slaves to the Elemaki."

"Slaves to Pabulog and his sons, you mean."

"So when they near that pass, the Keeper will naturally try to steer them that way."

"One would think," said the Oversoul.

"So why not make them very stupid until they've missed the chance?"

"The Keeper will just send them back," said the Oversoul. "And why would I want to keep them from rescuing Akmaro?"

"The Keeper will try to send them back. But in the meantime, you'll lead them along the mountainside until they drop down into the canyon where the river Zidomeg forms."

"Zinom," said the Oversoul, understanding now. "Where the main body of the Zenifi are also enslaved, more or less, by the Elemaki."

"Exactly," said Shedemei. "Monush will think he's fulfilled his mission. He'll have found a group of Zenifi in bondage to diggers. He'll figure out a way to bring them to safety. He'll bring them home."

"He can't take that whole population along the mountainside."

"No," said Shedemei. "You'll have to send him dreams that will ‘bring him home by going up the valley of the Ureg and then over the pass that leads down to the valley of the Padurek."

"That takes them right past Akmaro's group."

"And the Keeper will try to get Monush to find Akmaro's people again."

"And I interfere again," said the Oversoul. "That's not what I'm supposed to do, Shedemei. My purpose is not to interfere with the Keeper of Earth."

"No, your purpose is to get the Keeper's help so you can return to Harmony. Well, if you cause her enough trouble, my dear, perhaps she'll send you back to Harmony in order to stop you from interfering."

"I don't think I can do that." The Oversoul paused. "My programming may stop me from consciously rebelling against what I think the Keeper wants."

"Well, you figure it out," said Shedemei. "But in the meantime, keep this in mind: As long as the Keeper isn't telling you anything, how do you know the Keeper doesn't want you to pull exactly the kind of stunt I'm suggesting? Just to prove your mettle?"

"Shedemei, you're romanticizing again," said the Oversoul. "I'm a machine, not a puppet wishing to be made alive. There are no tests. I do what I'm programmed to do."

"Do you?" asked Shedemei. "You're programmed to take initiative. Here's a chance. If the Keeper doesn't like it, all she has to do is tell you to stop. But at least you'll be talking then."

"I'll think about it," said the Oversoul.

"Good," said Shedemei.

"All right," said the Oversoul. "I've thought about it. We'll do it."

"That quickly?" Shedemei knew the Oversoul was a computer, but it still surprised her how much the old machine could do in the time it took a human to say a single word.

"I made a test run and found that nothing in my programming interferes. I can do it. So we'll give it a try when Monush gets to the right place, and find out how much the Keeper will put up with before deigning to make contact with me."

Shedemei laughed. "Why can't you admit it, you old fake?"

"Admit what?"

"You're really pissed off at the Keeper."

"I am not," said the Oversoul. "I'm worried about what might be happening on Harmony."

"Relax," said Shedemei. "Your otherself is there, as the angels would say."

"I'm not an angel," said the Oversoul.

"Neither am I, my friend," said Shedemei.

"You sound wistful."

"I'm a gardener. I miss the feel of earth under my feet."

"Time for another trip to the surface?"

"No," said Shedemei. "No point in it. Nothing I planted last time will be ready for measurement. It would be a waste and a risk."

"You are allowed to have fun," said the Oversoul. "Even the one who wears the cloak of the starmaster is allowed to do a few things simply because of the joy of doing them."

"Yes, and I'll do it. When the time comes."

"You have a will of steel," said the Oversoul.

"And a heart of glass," said Shedemei. "Brittle and cold. I'm going to take a nap. Why don't you use the time to design a dream?"

"Don't you have dreams enough on your own?"

"Not for me," said Shedemei. "For Monush."

"I was making a joke," said the Oversoul.

"Well next time wink at me or something so I know." Shedemei got up from the terminal and padded off to bed.

Monush and his men slept yet another night on yet another narrow shelf of rock high above the valley floor. The torches in the digger village far below burned late; Monush's fifteen companions watched most of them until they guttered and winked out. It was hard to sleep, weary as they were, for if they rolled over in the night they would plunge twenty rods before so much as a knob of stone would break their fall-and, no doubt, the first of many bones. They all pushed sharp stakes into the rock or, if there was no slight crevice to hold them, they piled them so they might feel them if they started to roll toward the edge in their sleep. But all in all, it was a precarious slumber indeed, and there was probably no moment when more than half the men were asleep.

Despite all this, tonight Monush slept well enough to dream, and when he awoke, he knew the path that he had to take in order to find the Zenifi. This high path would widen and slope downward, but at a certain place, if he should climb, he would come to a pass over these mountains and down into another valley. There he would see a large lake, and by passing down the valley of the river that flowed from it, in due time he would come to the place that Edhadeya had dreamed of.

He awoke from the dream just as the sky was beginning to lighten overhead. Carefully he pulled out the stakes he had pushed by hand into the stone and put them back into his bag. Then he gnawed on the cold maizecake that would be his only meal of the day, unless they found food somewhere on the journey-unlikely on such steep cliffs, and so high in the thin air. This was the region called "Crown of the Gornaya," the highest region of the great massif of mountain ranges that had long harbored earth people, middle people, and sky people. It was here that the seven lakes had formed, all of them holy, but none holier than Sidonod, the pure source of the Tsidorek, the sacred river that flowed through the heart of Darakemba. Some of the men had hoped to set eyes on Sidonod itself, but now Monush knew that they would not. The pass would come too soon. Within the first hour.

Wordlessly-for sound carried far in the thin dry mountain air- Monush gave the signal to move. All the men were awake now, and they walked, slowly and stiffly at first, along the narrow shelf of rock. Twice they came to places where the shelf gave out and they had to climb, once up, once down, to another shelf that allowed them to walk on.

Then they reached a spot where the shelf widened and started to lead downward to an area of easier travel. Monush recognized the place at once, and thought... .

Thought what? He couldn't remember. Something about this spot.

"What is it?" asked Chem, his second. In a whisper, of course.

Monush shook his head. It kept coming just to the tip of his tongue, some word, some idea, but he couldn't remember why. Ah! A dream!

But the dream had fled. He couldn't think of what the dream had been or what it meant at all.

How foolish, thought Monush. Foolish of me, to think my dreams could tell me true things the way Edhadeya's did.

He beckoned the men to follow him as he led onward, down the broadening path. Within half an hour they rounded a curve and saw what so many men dreamed of but never dared to hope to see: Holy Sidonod, shining in the first sunlight to crest the mountain.

Below them, along the shores of the lake, there were villages, each with its cookfires. Of course only the humans would live in the huts and, now and then, houses; the diggers lived in hollowed trees and in tunnels under the earth nearby. The scene looked so peaceful. Yet they knew that if the men there, diggers or humans, knew of the Nafari walking along this narrow shelf of land, there would be such an outcry, and soon war parties would be scaling the cliff walls. Not that this spelled sure death, outnumbered though they might be. Even diggers, born to climb, would have a hard time getting up the rocks. But eventually the Elemaki would either reach their shelf and force them to fight to the last man, or the Nafari would have to climb higher and higher until they reached the altitudes where men freeze or faint or grow mad.

So they continued to move silently and smoothly along the rock, wearing their earth-colored tunics and leggings, their earth-colored blankets draped and pinned over their shoulders, their very skin and hair smeared with dirt to make them blend better into the stony cliff.

If only we could find a way to go up and over these mountains and avoid this heavily-populated lake, thought Monush. And then a thought burst into his mind. Of course we can! Just back there behind us there's a. ... there's a. ... He couldn't remember. What was it he was thinking of? Something behind them? Why? There were no pursuers. Had he forgotten one of his men? He stopped and made a quick count. All were there-and, because they had stopped, most were gaping down at the holy lake below them. Monush beckoned them on. The shelf rose again. They passed by the long lake, sleeping only two nights with it in view.

After the lake, they passed through easier country, though it was all the more dangerous. It was a large region of lowish mountains, green to their tops, and every valley had at least some people in it, usually diggers, often humans as well, and now and then an isolated settlement of angels, though most of these were either slaves to a nearby Elemaki village or were "free"-but still tributary to one Elemaki king or another. Several times they were spotted by angels soaring overhead, but instead of crying out a warning, the angels always flew on, ignoring them. One angel even swooped low and landed on a nearby branch, then pointed down the ridge that Monush and his men were following and shook his head. Don't go this way, he was saying. Monush nodded, bowed to him as to a friend, and the angel rose up into the air and flew away.

It's good for us, at least, thought Monush, that the Elemaki are so harsh on the few angels forced to live among them. It gives us friends wherever we go. Weak friends, it's true, but friends are all welcome in the land of our enemies.

On the fortieth day of their expedition, they came to a place where four streams met within a few rods. The water was turbulent, and yet no diggers or humans or angels lived near it. "A holy place like this," whispered Chem, "and yet no one dwells here to receive the gift?"

Monush nodded, then smiled. "Perhaps they receive the gift downstream."

He led them on, just a little way, and as they moved downstream they saw that no new hills seemed to rise up ahead of them. The land was about to change.

And suddenly they understood. For the ground dropped away in front of them. The water of the river soared out like an arrow's flight, spouting into the air and then falling as perpetual rain down onto the valley below. It was a place of power, the only place that Monush had ever seen or heard of where water from a stream turned directly into rain without first rising up into the sky as clouds.

"Is there a way down?" asked Chem.

"As you said," answered Monush. "It's a holy place. See? Many feet have come up this cliff."

It was almost a stairway, the descent was so artificial, steps cut into the stone, earth held in place by planks. "A cripple could climb here," said Alekiam, the one who spoke the dialect of digger language that was most common among the Elemaki. Not that they were likely to run across many diggers who hadn't adopted Torg, the trading language that was mostly the original human language, with pronunciations adapted to the mouths of diggers and angels and thousands of their words thrown in. But it was possible, here in these high mountains, where it was said that in some remote valleys diggers and angels still lived together in the old way, the diggers stealing statues made by the angels and bringing them home to worship them as gods- even as they sent raiding parties to kidnap the children of the angels and eat them. No one in living memory had run across such a place, but few doubted that people like that might yet survive-diggers who called the angels "skymeat," and angels who called the diggers "devils," both with good reason.

"Quiet," said Monush. "This place is well traveled. Who knows who might be at the bottom?"

But there was no one at the bottom, and the land, being lower, had different fruits in season. Monush led his men to the brow of a hill overlooking the river that flowed away from the perpetual rainstorm at the base of the cliff. He told twelve of them to stay there and keep watch, eating what fruit they could find within sight of each other, while Monush himself took Alekiam, Chem, and a strong soldier named Lemech, who could break a man's neck just by slapping him on the ear.

As they moved carefully along the rivercourse, they could see signs that once this land had been heavily settled. The boundaries of old fields could still be clearly seen, though they were overgrown. And here and there they passed an area that had been cleared and crusted over with stone, so that no diggers could get silently underneath and burrow their way into people's homes.

"Where are all the people?" asked Chem, as they stood in the middle of one such place. "They built well, and now they're gone."

"No they're not," said Lemech.

A tall young human stood at the forest's edge. He had not been there a moment before.

"Hail, friend," said Monush, for he could hardly hope to avoid an encounter now.

At a signal from the tall young man, at least thirty soldiers stepped onto the platform of stone. Where had they been? Hadn't they circled this place before stepping out onto it?

"Lay down your weapons," said Monush softly.

"In a digger's heart I will," said Lemech.

"They have us," said Monush. "If we surrender, perhaps we'll live long enough for the others to find us."

"For all we know these are the people we've come to find," said Chem. "Not a digger among them."

That was true enough. So they laid down their weapons on the stone floor of the platform.

At once the strangers closed on them, seized them, bound them, and forced them to run with them through the woods until they came to a place where twenty such platforms were clustered. On them many buildings rose, most of them houses, but not humble ones, and some of the buildings could not have been houses at all, but rather were palaces and gamecourts, temples and, most prominent of all, one solitary tower rising taller than any of the trees. From that tower you could sure look out over this whole land, thought Monush, and see any enemies that might be approaching.

If the soldiers hadn't gagged Monush and his men, he might have asked them if they were the Zenifi. As it was, they were thrown into a room that must have been built for storing food, but now was empty except for the four bound prisoners.

In Edhadeya's dream, thought Monush, weren't the Zenifi asking to be rescued?

Akma awoke from his dream, trembling with fear. But he dared not cry aloud, for they had learned that the diggers who guarded them regarded all loud voices in the night as prayers to the Keeper-and Pabulog had decreed that any praying to the Keeper by these followers of Akmaro was blasphemy, to be punished by death. Not that a single cry in the night would have a child killed-but the diggers would have dragged them out of their tent and beaten them, demanding that they confess that one of them had been praying. The children had learned to waken silently, no matter how terrible the dream.

Still, he had to speak of it while it was fresh in mind. He wanted to waken his mother, wanted her to enfold him in her arms and comfort him. But he was too old for that, he knew; he would be ashamed of needing her comfort even as he gratefully received it.

So it was his father, Akmaro, that he nudged until his father rolled over and whispered, "What is it, Akma?"

"I dreamed."

"A true dream?"

"The Keeper sent men to rescue us. But a cloud of darkness and a mist of water blocked their view and they lost the path to us. Now they will never come."

"How did you know the Keeper sent them?" -

"I just knew."

"Very well," said Akmaro. "I will think about this. Go back to sleep."

Akma knew that he had done all he could do. Now it was in his father's hands. He should have been satisfied, but he was not satisfied at all. In fact, he was angry. He didn't want his father to think about it, he wanted his father to talk about it. He wanted to help come up with the interpretation of the dream. It was his own dream, after all. But his father listened, took the dream seriously enough, but then assumed that it was up to him alone to decide what to do about it, as if Akma were a machine like the Index in the ancient stories.

I'm not a machine, said Akma silently, and I can think of what this means as well as anyone.

It means ... it means... .

That the Keeper sent men to rescue us and they lost the way. What else could it mean? How could Father interpret it any differently?

Maybe it isn't the interpretation of the dream that Father is thinking about. Maybe he's thinking about what to do next. If the Keeper was just going to send another party of rescuers, then why send me such a dream? It must mean that there will be no other rescuers. So it's up to us to save ourselves.

And Akma drifted off to sleep with dreams of battle in his mind, standing sword-in-hand, facing down his tormentors. He saw himself standing over the beheaded body of Pabul; he heard Udad groan with his guts spilled out into his lap as he sat on the ground, marveling at the mess young Akma had made of his body. As for Didul, Akma imagined a long confrontation between them, with Didul finally pleading for his life, the arrogance wiped off his face, his beautiful cheeks streaked with tears. Shall I let you live, after you beat me and taunted me every day for weeks and weeks? For the insult to me, I might forgive you. But shall I let you live, after you slapped my sister so many times until she cried? Shall I let you live, after you drove the other children to exhaustion until the weakest of them collapsed in the hot sun and you laughed as you covered them with mud as if they were dead? Shall I let you live, as you did all these things in front of the parents of these children, knowing that they were helpless to protect their young ones? That was the crudest thing, to humiliate our parents, to make them weak in front of their own children. And for that, Didul ... for that, the blade through the neck, your head spinning in the air, bouncing and dancing along the ground before it rolls to rest at the feet of your own father. Let him weep, that cruel tyrant, let him try to push your head back into place and make your vicious little smile come back to your lips, but he can't do it, can he? Powerless, isn't he? Standing there with little Muwu clinging to his leg, begging me to spare him at least one son, at least the last of his boys, but I'll spare no one because you spared no one. With such wistful imaginings did Akma go back to sleep.

Monush was dragged out of his sleep by two men, who seized him by his bound arms and hauled him out of the dank storehouse. He could hear that the others were being treated the same, but he could see nothing because the light of day dazzled his eyes. He was barely able to see clearly when he was hauled before the court of the king.

For that is who it clearly was, though he was the same man who had shown himself before them on the day they were taken. He had not looked like a king then, and even now, Monush thought he was young and seemed unsure of himself. He sat well on the throne, and he commanded with certainty and assurance, but... Monush couldn't place what was wrong. Except, perhaps, that this man did not seem to want to be where he was.

What was this strange reluctance? Did he not want to be sitting in judgment on these strangers? Or did he not want to be king?

"Do you understand my language?" asked the king.

"Yes," said Monush. The accent was a little odd, but nothing to be much remarked upon. No one in Darakemba would have mistaken him for one of the Elemaki.

"I am Ak-Ilihi, son of Nuab, who once was Nuak, the king of the Zenifi. My grandfather, Zenifab, led our people out of the land of Darakemba to possess again the land of Nafai, which was the proper inheritance of the Nafari, and he was made king by the voice of the people. It is by that same right that I now rule. Now tell me why you were so bold as to come near the walls of the city of Zidom, while I myself was outside the city with my guards. It was because of your boldness and fearlessness that I decided not to allow my guards to put you to death without first knowing from your own lips how you dared to violate every treaty and defy our rule within the boundaries of that small kingdom that the Elemaki have left to us."

The king waited.

"You are now permitted to speak," the king said.

Monush took a step forward and bowed before Ilihiak. "O King, I am very grateful before the Keeper of Earth that I have been left alive, and that you permit me to speak, and I will speak freely because I know now that if you had realized who I am, and who these are that follow me, you would never have suffered us to be bound and held prisoner. My name, O King, is Mon, and it was by the pleasure of King Motiak of Darakemba that men now call me Monush."

"Motiak!" said the king.

"Not Motiab, who ruled when your grandfather left Darakemba, but his grandson. He was the one who sent us to search for the Zenifi, for there was a dream from the Keeper that said that the Zenifi were in bondage to the Elemaki and yearning to be free."

Ilihiak rose to his feet. "Now I will rejoice, and when I tell the people, they will rejoice, also." His words were formal, but Monush could see that they were also heartfelt. "Unbind them," he said to his guards.

With the bands removed from his arms and legs, Monush could hardly stand upright for a few moments, but the guards who had before dragged him now held him up with steady hands.

"I tell you freely, Monush-for I'm sure you deserve that name from all kings, if Motiak has so named you-that if our brothers from Darakemba can set us free of the heavy taxes and the cruelty of the Elemaki, we will gladly be your slaves, for it is better to be slaves to the Nafari than to have the Elemaki rip from us all that we produce."

"Ilihiak," said Monush, "I am not the great Ak-Moti, but I can assure you that he is not such a man as to send us to find you, only to make you slaves in Darakemba. Whether he will allow you to continue to be a separate people within the borders of Darakemba, and whether he will confirm your throne as underking, I have no power to say. But I do know that Motiak is a kind and just man, chosen by the Keeper, and he will not enslave those who wish to be loyal citizens."

"If he allows us to dwell within his borders and under his protection, we will feel it to be the greatest kindness ever offered, and we would not think to ask for more."

Monush heard this, but knew enough of the doings of kings to know perfectly well that Ilihiak would no doubt be a tough bargainer, holding out for all the independence and power he could get from Motiak. But that was a matter for kings, not soldiers. "Ilihiak, we are not many, but we are more than four. Will you permit me to-"

"Go at once. You are free men. If you want to punish us for imprisoning you, you have only to leave and we will make no effort to stop you. But if you have mercy on us, come back with the rest of your companions and let us counsel together on what we can do to win free of the Elemaki."

Chebeya worked in silence, trying not to watch as two of Pabulog's sons kept knocking Luet down. It made her want to scream, and yet she knew that any protest would only make things worse for everyone. Yet what kind of woman can bear to let her little child be mistreated by thugs and do nothing, say nothing, simply continue to work as if she didn't care?

Luet began to cry.

Chebeya stood upright. Immediately two of the diggers started toward her with their heavy whips. Of course they were watching her, every move she made, because she was Luet's mother. So she stopped, she said nothing, just stood there.

"Back to work!" said the digger.

Chebeya looked at him defiantly for a moment, then bowed down again to hoe the maize.

Where was the Keeper of Earth? In the days since Akma had his dream that the rescuers weren't coming, Chebeya had asked the same question over and over. If the Keeper cares enough about us to send Akma a dream, why doesn't she do something? Akmaro said that the Keeper is testing us, but what is the test and how do we pass it? Does the Keeper want us to turn into a nation of cowards? Or does she want us to revolt against Pabulog's hideous children and so die? We must each think of a way, Akmaro had said. We must find a way out of this dilemma ourselves, that is the test that the Keeper has set for us. And once we find that way, the Keeper will help us.

Well, if the Keeper was so smart, why didn't she come up with a few suggestions herself?

No one knew better than Chebeya how their slavery was destroying them. Few knew of her gift, and those only women, except of course for her husband; but where once she had been able to alert Akmaro to small rifts in the community before they could become open quarrels, now all she could do was watch in despair as the bonds connecting friend to friend, parent to child, brother to sister all weakened, thinned to almost nothingness. They are making us into animals, depriving us of our human affections. All we care about now is survival, avoiding the whip. Each time we cower and let our children be mistreated, we love those children a little less, because it is only by not loving them as much that we can bear it to see them suffer.

Not Akmaro, though. He loved his children more and more; in the night he whispered to her how proud he was of their strength, their courage, their understanding. But perhaps this was because Akmaro had a seemingly limitless tolerance for emotional pain. He could suffer for his children-no one knew better than Chebeya how much he suffered-and yet he clung all the tighter to them because of it. He is not afraid of his own love for them, the way so many other parents are. Am I like him? Or like them?

What worried Chebeya most in her own family was the way young Akma seemed to be growing more and more distant from his father. Could the boy be blaming Akmaro for not saving him from the persecution of the sons of Pabulog? It couldn't be that-if Luet could understand, Akma could also. So what was it that made Akma flee from what had once been a tight connection between him and his father?

Chebeya mocked herself silently. Why am I worrying about tension between father and son? In a week or a month or a year we'll all be dead-murdered or dead of hunger or disease. Then what will it matter why Akma didn't have the same loyalty to his father that he used to have?

I wish I could talk to Hushidh or Chveya, one of the ancient rav-elers. They must have understood better than I do the things that I see. Does Akma hate his father? Is it anger? Fear? I watch the loyalties shift and change, and sometimes it's obvious why the changes come, and sometimes I have almost no idea. Hushidh and Chveya were never uncertain. They always knew what to do, they were always wise.

But I am not wise. I only know that my husband is losing our son's love. And what will I be in Luet's eyes, her own mother, when I stand by in silence and let these bullies mistreat her?

Chebeya felt herself filled with a sudden and irresistible resolve. They mean to kill us eventually. Better to die with Luet certain that her mother loves her.

Chebeya stood upright again.

The diggers had already looked away from her, but they noticed soon enough that she had stopped her work. They moved toward her.

Chebeya pitched her voice to be heard clearly by the sons of Pabulog. "Why are you so frightened of me?" she said.

It worked-one of the boys answered her. The third son, the one called Didul. "I'm not frightened of you!"

"Then why don't you push me down, instead of a little girl half your size?" Chebeya let her voice fill with scorn, and saw with pleasure how Didul's face flushed.

Around her, other adults were muttering. "Hush. Enough. Quiet now. They'll beat us all."

Chebeya ignored them. She also ignored the digger guards with their upraised whips, who were already almost upon her. "Didul, if you aren't a coward, take a whip and beat me yourself!"

One of the digger's whips landed on her back. She winced and staggered under the weight of the blow.

"You're just like your father!" she cried out to him. "Afraid to do anything yourself!"

Another blow fell. But then Didul called out. "Stop!"

The diggers each let one more blow fall before they obeyed him. It brought Chebeya to her knees, and she could feel the blood flowing down her back. But Didul was coming to her, and so she used the precious moments before he arrived. Rising slowly to her feet, she looked him in the eye and spoke to him. "So, the boy Didul has some pride. How could that happen? The children of Akmaro have courage-no matter how you torment them, have you ever heard them beg for mercy? Do you think that if your father were beaten the way you beat these little children, be would be as brave?"

"Don't speak of my father, blasphemer!" shouted Didul. But Chebeya could see what Didul could not-that she had troubled him. The connection between him and his brothers was just a little weaker because of her words.

"See what your father teaches you? To bully little children. But you have pride. It makes you ashamed to do what your father tells you to do."

Didul took the whip from the hands of one of the diggers. "I'll show you my pride, blasphemer!"

"Is it your pride that lets you raise a whip against an unarmed woman?"

Ah, the words stung, she could see it.

"No, a true son of Pabulog can only strike out at people who are helpless. Have you ever seen your father stand in battle like a man?"

"He would if he had any real men to fight!" shouted Didul.

Chebeya searched her mind for the retort that would work the best. "I think that in your heart, Didul, you understand what your father is doing to you. Why do you think he sent you here to torment us? Why do you think he told you to mistreat the little children? Because he knew that you would be ashamed of yourself for doing it. Because he knew that once you had made little children cry, you would know that you were as low and cowardly as he is, so that he would never have to hear his children taunt him, for he will always be able to answer you, ‘Yes, but who was it who beat up on little girls?' "

Infuriated, Didul lashed out. The whip caught her across the shoulder and the end of it wrapped around her and caught her on the cheek. Blood splashed into her eyes and she was blinded for a moment.

"Don't call my father a coward!" cried Didul.

"Even at this very moment," she said, "you hate him for making you the kind of coward who answers a woman's words with a whip. If the things I said were not the truth, Didul, they wouldn't make you so angry."

"Nothing that you said is true!"

"Everything I said is true, and the proof of it is that when you walk away from here, these guards will beat me to death, just so you never have to listen to me again." Chebeya spoke with conviction; she feared that what she was saying just might be the truth.

"If they beat you it will be to punish you for lying."

"If you didn't believe me, Didul, you would just laugh at what I said."

Now she had him. She could see the new thread that bound him to her. She was winning him away, tearing at his loyalty to his father.

"I don't believe you," he said.

"You believe me, Didul, because every time you hit one of these little children you're ashamed. I can see it in your eyes. You laugh, just like your brothers, but you hate yourself for it. You're afraid that you're just like your father."

"I want to be just like my father."

"Really? Then why are you here? Your father doesn't dirty himself by beating up on children with his own hands. He always sends thugs and bullies to do it for him. No, you can't be like your father, because there's still a man inside you. But don't worry-a few more years of beating up on babies and there'll be no trace of manhood left in your heart."

As she talked, Udad, Didul's next older brother, had come up behind him. "Why are you listening to this witch?" Udad demanded.

"Have them kill her."

"That's the voice of your father," said Chebeya. "Kill anyone who dares to tell you the truth. Only don't do it yourself. Have someone else do it for you."

Udad turned to the diggers. "Why are you standing there, letting her do this? She's got some kind of magic control of my stupid brother-"

With a cry of rage, Didul turned around and made as if to lash his brother with the whip. Udad cringed and covered his face with his hands and screeched, "Don't hit me! Don't hit me!"

"There you see it," said Chebeya. "That's what you'll become, when your father is through with you."

She could see the last threads binding Didul to Udad turn to rage and shame-a negative connection.

"But are you already like him, Didul? Or is there a man inside you?" Udad, shamed now, backed away. "I'm going to tell Pabul that you're letting Akmaro's wife turn you against us all!"

"Does that frighten you, Didul?" asked Chebeya. "He's going to tell on you. Does that frighten you?"

"I'm leaving," said Didul. "I don't want to hear any more of your lies." ‘

"Yes, leaving me so the guards can kill me," said Chebeya. "But I promise you that if I die here today, you'll hear my voice inside your heart forever."

Defiant anger sparking in his eyes, Didul turned to the diggers. "I want to see her alive tomorrow, with no more lashes on her than she already has."

"That's not what your father said," one of them retorted.

Didul grinned savagely at him. "He said to obey his sons. If this woman is harmed, I'll have you skinned alive. Do you doubt me?"

Ah, the fire in his eyes! Chebeya could see that he had the gift of command. She had kindled his pride and now it was burning, burning in his heart.

The diggers backed off.

Didul tossed the whip back to the one who had lent it to him. Then he spoke one more time to Chebeya. "Get back to work, woman."

She looked him in the eye. "I obey the lash. But someday, wouldn't you like to see someone obey you out of true respect?" Despite the pain of the wounds on her back and the blood in her eye, she bent over and picked up her hoe. She scratched ineffectually at the soil. She could hear him walk away.

"I'll kill her," said one of the diggers. "What can he do about it? His father would never approve of him listening to her."

"Fool," said the other. "If he wants his father to kill us, do you think he'll tell him the truth?"

"So let's us tell him first."

"Oh, great idea. Go to Pabulog and tell him that his son let this woman talk him down? How long do you think we'd live if we were going around telling that story?"

Chebeya listened to them with amusement. Her words had had their effect on these diggers, too. It wasn't much of a plan, to stir up trouble among Pabulog's sons and soldiers. And they might kill her yet. As it was, she'd be paying for this day's work in pain for many days to come.

"That was a stupid thing to do," someone muttered. "You could have got us all killed."

"Who cares?" someone else whispered. "Didn't Akmaro spread the word for us to think of how we might deliver ourselves? At least she thought of something."

Didul and Udad were back near where Luet and Akma worked. Luet flinched from them, but Akma stood his ground. How much of what she said had he heard? Perhaps all of it; perhaps little. But he stood his ground.

Udad reached out and pushed at Akma, who staggered backward but did not fall. There was no surprise in that. No, the surprise came when Didul lunged at Udad and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Udad immediately sprang up, ready to fight his younger brother. "What was that! Do you want me to beat you up?"

Didul stood and looked him in the eye. "Is that all you can do? Beat up on people who are smaller than you? If you touch me, then you prove that everything she said about us is true."

Udad stood there, flustered, confused. Chebeya could see the ties of loyalty shifting even as she watched. Udad, uncertain now, suddenly wanted Didul's good opinion more than anything, for he was ashamed not to have it; just as Didul, in turn, wanted Chebeya's good opinion. That was the beginning of loyalty. Wouldn't that be the perfect vengeance, to turn Pabulog's own sons against him?

No, not vengeance. Deliverance. That's what we're trying for, to save ourselves, since the Keeper seems unwilling to do it.

"I can't tell," said the Oversoul. "Is our plan working or not?"

Shedemei chuckled wryly. "Well, at least the Keeper noticed us. That dream she sent to Akma. And Chebeya's sudden impulse to defy Pabulog's sons. If that was theKeeper."

"Yet the Keeper still says nothing to us. We're a gnat buzzing in the Keeper's ear. We are brushed away."

"So let's go back and keep buzzing."

"The Keeper's plans will go forward regardless of what we do or don't do," said the Oversoul.

"I hope so," said Shedemei. "But I do think she cares very much what people do. Down there on Earth, of course, but also here in this ship. She cares what happens."

"Maybe all the Keeper cares about is the people of Earth. Maybe she no longer cares about the people of Harmony. Maybe I should go home to Harmony now and tell my otherself that our mission is over and we can let humans there do whatever they want."

"Or maybe the Keeper still wants you here," said Shedemei. Then a new thought occurred to her. "Maybe she still needs the powers of the starship. The cloak of the starmaster."

"Maybe the Keeper needs you," said the Oversoul.

Shedemei laughed. "What, I have some seeds and embryos up here that she wants me to put down somewhere on Earth? All she has to do is send me a dream and I'll plant wherever she says."

"So we go on waiting," said the Oversoul.

"No, we go on prodding," answered Shedemei. "Like Chebeya did. We roust the old she-bear from her den and goad her."

"I'm not sure I like the implications of your metaphor. She-bears are destructive and dangerous when they've been goaded."

"But they do give you their undivided attention." Shedemei laughed again.

"I don't think you have enough respect yet for the power of the Keeper."

"What power? All we've seen from the Keeper up to now is dreams."

"If that's all you've seen," said the Oversoul, "then you haven't been looking."

"Really?"

"The gornaya, for instance. That massif of impossibly high mountains. The ancient geological data from before the departure of humans forty million years ago shows no tectonic formation or movement that could have caused this. The plates in this area weren't moving in the right direction to cause such incredible folding and uplift. Then, suddenly, the Cocos plate started moving northward with far more speed and force than any tectonic movement ever recorded. It attacked the Caribbean plate far faster than it could be subducted."

Shedemei sighed. "I'm a biologist. Geology is barely comprehensible to me."

"You understand this, though. A dozen ranges of mountains with peaks above ten kilometers in height. And they were lifted up within the first ten million years."

"Is that fast?"

"Even now, the Cocos plate is still moving northward three times faster than any other plate on Earth. That means that underneath the Earth's crust, there's a current of molten rock that is flowing northward very rapidly-the same current that caused North America to rift along the Mississippi Valley, the same current that crumpled all of Central America into pieces and jammed them together and... ."

The Oversoul fell silent.

"What?"

"I'm doing a little research for a moment."

"Well, pardon me for interrupting," said Shedemei.

"This has to have begun before humans left Earth," said the Over-soul.

"Yes?"

"The earthquakes, the volcanos out along the Galapagos ridge- what was it that encased the Earth in ice for a while? In my memory, it was all linked with human misbehavior-with wars, nuclear and biological weapons. But how exactly did those things cause the Earth to become uninhabitable?"

"I love watching a brilliant mind at work," said Shedemei.

"I will have to search all my records from that time period," said the Oversoul, "and see whether I can rule out the possibility that it was the movement of the Cocos plate, and not the warfare directly, that caused the destruction of the habitable zones of Earth."

"You're saying that the warfare might have caused the Cocos plate to move? That's absurd."

The Oversoul ignored her scoffing. "Why did all human life leave Earth? The diggers and angels managed to survive. I never thought to question it till now, starmaster, but don't you find it a bit suspicious? Surely some group of humans could have survived. In some equatorial zone."

"Please, I know creativity and serendipity are designed into your thinking algorithms," said Shedemei, "but are you seriously entertaining the notion that human misdeeds could have caused the Cocos plate to move?"

"I'm saying that perhaps human misdeeds could cause the Keeper of Earth to cause the Cocos plate to move."

"And how could she possibly do that?"

"I can't imagine any entity of any kind with power enough to move the currents of magma under the crust of the planet," said the Over-soul. "But I also can't imagine any natural force that could have caused the many anomalies that created the gornaya. The world is full of strange and unnatural things, Shedemei. Like the symbiotic interdependence that the diggers and angels used to have. You said yourself that it was artificial."

"And my hypothesis is that these changes were deliberately introduced by human beings before they left."

"But why would they do it, Shedemei? Whose purpose were they fulfilling? Why would they even care, knowing that they would leave this planet and believing that they would never come back?"

"I think it's possible for us to ascribe too many events to the plots and plans of the Keeper of Earth," said Shedemei. "She causes dreams and influences human behavior. We have no evidence for anything else."

"We have no evidence. Or we have the most obvious evidence imaginable. I must do research. There are gaps in my knowledge. The truth has been hidden from me, but I know that the Keeper is involved in all of this."

"Search all you want. I'll be fascinated to know the outcome."

"It may be that I'm programmed not to find the truth, you know," said the Oversoul. "And that I'm programmed not to find the way I've been programmed to hide the truth from me."

"How circular."

"I may need your help."

"I may need a nap." She yawned. "I don't believe that any computer, even the Keeper of Earth, has power over such things as currents of magma. But I'll help, if I can. Maybe in pursuing this worthless hypothesis you'll come across something useful."

"At least you're keeping an open mind," said the Oversoul.

"I'm sure you meant that in the nicest possible way," said Shedemei.

That night, in their hut, Akmaro and Akma washed and dressed Che-beya's wounds.

"You could have been killed, Mother," said Akma quietly.

"It was the bravest thing I ever saw," said Akmaro.

Chebeya wept silently-in relief that she hadn't been slaughtered in the field; in delayed fear at what she had dared to do; in gratitude to her husband for praising what she did.

"Do you see, Akma, what your mother is doing?" said Akmaro.

"She defied them," said Akma. "And they didn't kill her."

"There's more to it than that, Akma," said Akmaro. "It's a gift that your mother has had all her life. She's a raveler."

"Hushidh," whispered Luet. The tales of Hushidh the Raveler were well known among the women and girls. Not to mention Chveya, Nafai's and Luet's daughter, the Ancient One for whom Chebeya had been named.

"She sees the connections between people," Akmaro explained to Akma.

"I know what a raveler is," said Akma.

"To be a raveler is a gift of the Keeper," said Akmaro. "The Keeper must have seen, years ago, the dilemma we'd be in today, and so he gave a great gift to Chebeya so that when this day came, she could begin to unravel the conspiracy of evil that rules over us. We had with us all along the power to do what your mother began today. The Keeper only waited for us to realize it. For your mother to find the right moment to act."

"It looked to me," said Akma, "as if Mother stood alone."

"Is that what you saw?" asked Akmaro. "Then your vision is still very young and blurred. For your mother stood with the power of the Keeper in her, and with the love of her husband and children inside her. If you and Luet and I had not been in the field with her, do you think she would have done it?"

"We were there," said Akma. "But where was the Keeper?"

"Someday," said Akmaro, "you will learn to see the Keeper's hand in many things."

When the children were asleep, Chebeya rested her head on her husband's chest and clung to him and wept. "Oh, Kmadaro, Kma-daro, I was so frightened that I would make things worse."

"Tell me your plan," he said. "If I know your plan I can help you."

"I don't know my plan. I have no plan."

"Then here is the plan that came into my mind as I watched you and listened to you. I thought at first that you were simply trying to get those boys to rebel against their father. But then I realized that you wete doing something far more subtle."

"I was?"

"You were winning Didul's heart."

"If he has one."

"You were teaching him how to be a man. It's a new idea to him. I think he'd like to be a good man, Bedaya."

She thought about it. "Yes, I think you're right."

"So we won't tear these boys away from each other. Instead we'll make friends and allies of them."

"Do you think we can?" asked Chebeya.

"You mean, Do I think we should? Yes, Bedaya. They can't help being what their father taught them to be. But if we can teach them to be something else, they might be good men yet. That is what the Keeper wants us to do-not destroy our enemies, but make friends of them if we can."

"They've hurt my children so many times," said Chebeya.

"Then how sweet the day will be when they kneel and ask your forgiveness, and your children's forgiveness, and the three of you say, We know that you are no longer the men you were then. Now you are our brothers."

"I can't ever say that to them."

"You can't say that to them now," said Akmaro. "But you, too, will have a change of heart, when you see them also change."

"You always believe the best of other people, Kmadaro."

"Not always," said Akmaro. "But in that boy today, I saw a spark of decency. Let's blow on that spark and give it fuel."

"I'll try," said Chebeya.

Lying on his mat, Akma heard his parents' conversation and thought, What kind of man is he, to talk to Mother about making friends with the very ones who lashed her skin and made her bleed today? I will never forgive these men, never, no matter how they seem to change. Men who are friends with diggers can never be trusted. They have become just like diggers, low filthy creatures who belong in holes under the earth like worms.

For Father to talk of teaching and forgiving a worm like Didul was just another sign of his weakness. Always running, hiding, teaching, forgiving, fleeing, submitting, bowing, enduring-where in Father's heart was the courage to stand and fight? It was Mother, not Father, who stood against Didul and the diggers today. If Father really loved Mother, he would have spent tonight vowing revenge for her bloody wounds.