Earthfall

"And they'll say that you're just a computer and of course you didn't understand how humans would feel, but we understood, and we should have refused to do it."

"I already refused. I refuse again now."

"No!" cried Luet.

"Mother?" It was Chveya's voice, through the door of Luet's room.

"What is it, Veya?"

"Who are you talking to?"

"Myself, in a dream. All foolishness. Go back to sleep."

"Is Father home yet?"

"Still in the ship with Issib."

"Mother?"

"Go to sleep now, Chveya. I mean it,"

She heard the scuffing sound of Chveya's sandals on the floor. What had Chveya heard? How long had she been listening at the door?

Why didn't you warn me?

Because when I speak out loud my thoughts are clearer, that's why. What's your plan, to get Chveya to carry out your plot?

Why couldn't you just talk to him yourself?

That's because he's a very wise man. That's why I love him.

You leave my children alone.

"And to think I once thought of you as ... as a god."

"If I didn't know you were a computer program, I'd say you were a meddlesome, loathsome old bitch."

"Yes, your view is so long that you hardly notice how you ruin the lives of little mayflies like us."

"Let's just say that it hasn't gone as expected."

"Shut up and leave me alone."

Luet threw herself back down on the bed and tried to sleep. But she kept remembering: Hushidh saw that I am no longer connected to the others in the community. That means that somewhere in my heart I already have the unconscious intention of doing what the Over-soul has planned. So I might as well give up and do it consciously.

Do it and then spend the rest of my life knowing that my sister and Aunt Rasa and dear Shedemei all hate me and that I absolutely, completely deserve their hatred.

TWO - THE FACE OF THE OLD ONE

Everyone expected that Kiti's sculpture this year would be a portrait of his otherself, kTi. That was Kiti's intention, too, right up to the moment when he found his day by the riverbank and set to work, prying and loosening it with his spear. There had been no more beloved young man in the village than kTi, none more hoped-for; there was talk that one of the great ladies would choose him for her husband, an offer of life-marriage, extraordinary for one so young. If that had happened, then Kiti, as kTFs otherself, would have been taken into the marriage as well. After all, since he and kTi were identical, it made no difference which of them might be the sire of a particular child.

But he and kTi were not identical, Kiti knew. Oh, their bodies were the same, as with every other birthpair. Since about a quarter of all birthpairs both lived to maturity, it wasn't all that rare to have two identical young men preparing to offer themselves to the ladies of the village, to be taken or rejected as a pair.

So by custom and courtesy, everyone showed Kiti the same respect they showed his otherself. But everyone knew that it was kTi, not Kiti who had earned their reputation for cleverness and strength.

I wasn't entirely right for kTi to get all the credit for cleverness. Often when the two of them were flying together, watching over one of the village herds or scouting for devils or chasing crows away from the maizefields, it was Kiti who said, One of the goats is bound to try to go that way, or, That tree is one that's likely for the devils to use. And at the beginning of their most famous exploit, it was Kiti who said, Let me pretend to be injured on that branch, while you wait with your spear on that higher perch. But when the story was told, it always seemed to be kTi who thought of everything. Why should people assume otherwise? It was always kTi who acted, it was always kTi whose boldness carried the day, while Kiti followed behind, helping, sometimes saving, but never leading.

Of course he could never explain this to anyone. It would be deeply shameful for one of a birthpair to try to take glory away from his otherself. And besides, as far as Kiti was concerned it was perfectly fair. For no matter how good an idea of Kiti's might have been, it was always kTi's boldness that brought it off.

Why did it turn out that way? Kiti wasn't lacking in courage, was he? Didn't he always fly right with kTi on his most daring adventures? Wasn't it Kiti who had to sit trembling on a branch, pretending to be injured and terrified, as he heard the faint sounds of a devildoor opening in the tree trunk and the tiny noises of the devil's hands and feet inching their way along the branch behind him? Why was it that no one realized that the greatest courage was the courage to sit still, waiting, trusting that kTi would come with his spear in time? No, the story that was told in the village was all about kTi's daring plan, kTi's triumph over the devil.

It was evil of me to be so angry, thought Kiti. That's why my otherself was taken from me. That's why when the storm caught us out in the open, kTi was the one whose feet and fingers Wind pried away from the branch, kTi was who was taken up into heaven to fly with the gods. Kiti was not worthy, and so his grip on the branch help until Wind went away. It was as if Wind were saying to him, You envied your otherself, so I have torn you apart to show you how worthless you are without him.

This was why Kiti meant to sculpt the face of his otherself. And this was why, in the end, he could not. For to sculpt the face of kTi was also to sculpt his own face, and he could not, in his deep unworthiness, bear to do that.

Yet he had to sculpt something. Already the saliva was flowing in his mouth to moisten the clay, to lick it and smooth it, to give a lustrous patina to the finished sculpture. But if he did not sculpt his otherself s face, so soon after kTi's death, it would be scandalous. He would be seen as lacking in natural affection. The ladies would think that he didn't love his brother, and so they wouldn't want his seed in their family. Only some mere woman would offer to him. And he, overwhelmed with clay fever, would accept that offer like any eager boy, and she would bear his children, and he would look at them every year from then on remembering that he was the father of such low children because he could not bring himself to sculpt the face of his beloved kTi.

I did love him, he insisted silently. With all my heart I loved him. Didn't I follow him wherever he decided? Didn't I trust him with my life again and again? Didn't I save him time after time, when his impetuosity brought him into peril? Didn't I even urge him to turn back, a storm was coming, let's find shelter, we have to find shelter, what does it matter if we find the devilpath on this flight or the next, turn back, turn back, and he wouldn't, he ignored me as if I didn't exist, as if I were nothing, as if I didn't even get a vote on my own survival, let alone his.

The clay was growing moist, balling up and beginning to flow in his hands, but it was as much tears as saliva that moistened it. O Wind, thou tookest my otherself, and now I cannot find his face in the clay. Give me a shape, O Wind, if I am worthy! O Maize, if I am to bring you daughters to tend your fields, then give my fingers knowledge even if my mind is dull! O Rain, flow with my saliva and my tears and make the clay live under my hands! O Earth, thou deep-burning mother, make my bones wise, for they will someday belong to you again. Let me bring other bones, young bones, child bones out of your clay, O Earth! Let me bring young wings into your hands, O Wind! Let me make new grains of life for thee, O Maize! Let me bring new waterdrinkers, new weepers, new sculptors for dice to taste, O Rain!

Yet despite his pleading, the gods put no shape under his hands.

His tears blinded him. Should he give up? Should he fly up into the sky of the dry season and search for some faraway village that might want a sturdy male and never see Da'aqebla again? Or should his despair go even further? Should he put the clay out of his hands and yet remain there at the riverbank, exposed, for the watching devils to see that he had no sculpture in him? Then they would take him like an infant back to their caves, and devour him alive, so that in his dying moments he would see the devil queen eating his own heart. That was how his end should come. Carried down into hell, because he was not worthy to be taken by Wind up into heaven. kTi would have all the honor then, and not have to share it with his low, unworthy otherself.

His fingers worked, though he could not see what they shaped.

And as they worked, he stopped mourning his own failure, for he realized that there was a shape now under his hands. It was being given to him, in a way that he had only heard about. As a child, playing at sculpture with the other boys, he had been the cleverest every time, but he had never felt the gods interceding with his hands. What he shaped was always from his own mind and memory.

Now, though, he didn't even know what it was that was growing under his hands, not at first. But soon, no longer grieving, no longer fearful, his vision cleared and he saw. It was a head. A strange head, not of a person or a devil or any creature Kiti had ever seen before. It had a high forehead, and its nose was pointed, hairless, smooth, the nostrils opening downward. Of what use was such a snout as this? The lips were thick and the jaw was incredibly strong, the chin jutting out as if it was competing with the nose to lead this creature forward into the world. The ears were rounded and stuck Out from the middle of the sides of the head. What kind of creature is this that I am shaping? Why is something so ugly growing under my hands?

Then, suddenly, the answer came into his mind: This is an Old One.

His wings trembled even as his hands continued, sure and strong, to shape the details of the face. An Old One. How could he know this? No one had ever seen an Old One. Only here and there, in some sheltered cave, was there found some inexplicable relic of their time upon the earth. Da'aqebla had only three such relics, and Da'aqebla was one of the oldest villages. How could he dare to tell the ladies of the village that this grotesque, malformed head that he was shaping was an Old One? They would laugh at him. No, they would be outraged that he would think they were foolish enough to believe such a nonsensical claim. How can we judge your sculpture, if you insist on shaping something that has never been seen by any living soul? You might have done better to leave the clay in a shapeless ball and say that it was a sculpture of a river stone!

Despite his doubts, his hands and fingers moved. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that there must be hair on the bony ridge over the eyes, that the fur of the head must be long, that there must be a depression centered under the nose and leading down to the lip. And when he was through, he did not know how he knew that it was finished. He contemplated what he had made and was appalled by it. It was ugly, strange, and far too large. Yet this way how it had to be.

What have you done to me, O gods?

He still sat, contemplating the head of the Old One, when the ladies came soaring, swooping down to the riverbank. At the fringes were the men whose sculptures had already been seen. Kiti knew them all, of course, and could easily guess at what their work was like. A couple of them were husbands, and because their lady was married to them for life their sculptures were no longer in competition with the others. Some of them were young, like Kiti, offering sculptures for the first time-and from their slightly hangdog expressions, Kiti could tell that they hadn't made the impression that they hoped for. Nevertheless, the clay fever was on all the males, and so they hardly looked at him or his sculpture; their eyes were on the ladies.

The ladies stared in silence at his sculpture. Some of them moved, to study it from another angle. Kiti knew that the workmanship of his sculpture was exceptionally good, and that the sheer size of it was audacious. He felt the clay fever stirring within him, and all the ladies looked beautiful to him. He saw their skeptical expressions with dread-he longed now for them to choose him.

Finally the silence was broken, "What is this supposed to be?" whispered a lady. Kiti looked for the voice. It was Upua, a lady who had never married and who, in some years, had not even mated. It gave her a reputation for being arrogant, the hardest of the ladies to please. Of course she would be the lady who would interrogate him in front of all the others.

"It grew under my hands," he said, not daring to tell them what it really was.

"Everyone thought that you would do honor to your otherself," said another lady, emboldened by Upua's disdainful question.

The hardest question. He dared not dodge it. Did he dare to tell the truth? "I meant to, but it was also my own face, and I wasn't worthy to have my face sculpted in the clay."

There was a murmur at that. Some thought that was a stupid reason; some thought it was deceptive; some gave it thought.

Finally the ladies began deciding. "Not for me." "Ugly." "Very odd." "Interesting." Whatever their comment, they took flight, rising up and circling, drifting toward the branches of the nearest trees. The men, no doubt feeling quite triumphant at the complete rejection of the supposedly talented Kiti, joined them there.

At last only Kiti and Upua remained upon the river-bank.

"I know what this is," said Upua.

Kiti dared not answer.

"This is the head of an Old One," she said.

Her voice carried to the ladies and men in the branches. They heard her, and many gasped or whistled their astonishment.

"Yes, Lady Upua," said Kiti, ashamed at having his arrogance caught out. "But it was given to me under my hands. I never meant to sculpt such a thing."

Upua said nothing for a long time, walking around the sculpture, circling it again and again.

"The day is short!" called one of the leading ladies from her perch in the trees.

Upua looked up at her, startled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wanted to see this and remember it, because we have been given a great gift by the gods, to see the face of the Old Ones."

There was some laughter at this. Did she really think Kiti could somehow sculpt what no one had ever seen?

She turned to Kiti, who was so filled with clay fever now that he could only barely keep himself from throwing himself at her feet and begging her to let him mate with her.

"Marry me," she said.

Surely he had misunderstood.

"Marry me," she said again. "I want only your children from now on until I die."

"Yes," he said.

No other man had been so honored in a thousand years. On his first sculpting, to be offered marriage, and by a lady of such prestige? Many of the others, ladies and men alike, were outraged. "Nonsense, Lady Upua," said another of the leading ladies. "You cheapen the institution of marriage by offering it to one so young, and for such a ridiculous sculpture."

"He has been given the face of an Old One by the gods. Let all of you come down here and study this sculpture again. We will not leave here for two songs, so that all of us will remember the face of the Old Ones and we can teach our children what we've seen this day."

And because she was the lady who had offered marriage and been accepted on this spot, the others had to do her will for the space of two songs. They studied the head of the Old One, and together Kiti and Upua entered into the legends of the village of Da'aqebla forever. They also entered into marriage, and Kiti, who would have trembled at the thought of being the husband of such a terrifying lady, would soon learn that she was a kind and loving wife, and that to be an attentive and protective husband to her would bring him only joy. He would still miss kTi from time to time after that, but never again would he think that Wind had punished him by not catching him up to heaven with kTi.

On this day, however, they did not know what the future would bring. They only knew that Kiti was the boldest sculptor who had ever lived, and because his boldness had won him a lady as his wife, it raised him at once in their estimation. He was truly kTi's otherself, and though kTi was taken from them, in Kiti his courage and cleverness would live on until, with age, they would become strength and wisdom.

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.

THREE - SECRETS

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 fan, 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 feet 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 Oversold?"

"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 kd 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 Over-soul 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 sec ... 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 tiling 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 Mcbbekew 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."

Mebbekew's quick glance at Zdorab, and his equally quick glance away, confirmed that he, too, had known about the wake-up signal. He probably even thought Zdorab's little alarm clock would wake him up along with the others. But of course Zdorab knew that waking Mebbekew would be useless. If only Meb understood the contempt that everyone held him in. But then, he probably did, which was why he was so relentlessly belligerent.

"I think, Zdorab, that it's a good idea," said Nafai. "Of course the Oversoul removed your wake-up signal, but I will put a new one in. At midpoint of the voyage, all the adults will be wakened. Just for a day, so you can inspect all your sleeping children and make sure that they're the age they were when you left them. I can't think of any better way for you to make sure that the Oversoul did not get his way in this."

Volemak chuckled. "Do you really think you can fool the Oversoul?"

Luet spoke up. "The Oversoul understands many things, but she is not a human being. She doesn't understand what it would cost us, if our children's childhood was taken away from us. How would you feel, Aunt Rasa, if you woke up and found that Okya and Yaya were eighteen- and seventeen-year-old men? That you had missed all the years in between?"

Rasa smiled thinly. "I would never forgive anyone who did that to me. Even the Oversoul."

"I was trying to explain that to the Oversoul. She doesn't understand human feelings sometimes."

"Sometimes?" murmured Elemak,

"I ... I spoke out loud. In the privacy of my room. Nafai was working late. But Chveya got up and she must have listened for a rather long time before she knocked."

"Are you saying that your daughter is a sneak?" said Mebbekew, pretending to be shocked.

Luet didn't look at him. "Chveya didn't understand what she was hearing. I'm sorry that it caused everyone to be disturbed. I know some of you knew about it, and some of you did not, but when Nafai learned about it a few minutes ago he and I rushed back here and... here we are."

"Tomorrow, Zdorab can verify that the wake-up signal is set for midvoyage. The only way that it won't wake us up is if the Oversoul cancels it during one of the many times that I'll be asleep myself. But I don't think that's likely, because as soon as I woke up again, I'd waken you all myself manually. I'm telling you now, once and for all, that there will be no games played with the passage of time. Our children will be, when we arrive, the same ages they were when they left. The only person who will have aged during the voyage is me, and believe me, I have no interest in aging any more than the minimum necessary to operate the ship safely."

"Why are you needed awake at all?" asked Obring, Kokor's husband, a little snake of a man, in Nafai's considered opinion.

"The ships weren't designed to be run by the Over-soul," said Nafai. "In fact, the Oversoul's program wasn't fully written until after the original fleet arrived on Harmony. The computers here can hold the Over-soul's program, but no single program is able to control all the computers on the ship at once. It's for safety. Redundancy. The systems can't all fail at once. Anyway, there are things that I have to do from time to time."

"That someone has to do," murmured Elemak.

"I have the cloak," said Nafai. "And that point was settled a while ago, I think. Do you really want to dredge up old arguments?"

Nobody wanted to, apparently.

"Son," said Volemak, "you won't be able to stop the Oversoul from doing what it knows is right."

"The Oversoul is wrong," said Nafai. "It's that simple. None of you would ever forgive me if I obeyed the Oversoul in this."

"That's right," said Mebbekew.

"And I would never forgive myself," said Nafai. "So the issue is closed. Zdorab will see the calendar tomorrow, and he and anybody else who cares can look at it again just before we launch."

"That's very kind of you," said Elemak. "I think we can all sleep more easily tonight knowing that nothing is being planned behind our backs. Thank you for being so honest and open with us." He arose from the table.

"No," said Volemak. "You can't get away with rebellion against the Oversoul. No one can! Not even you, Nafai."

"You and Nafai can discuss this all you want, Father," said Elemak. "But Edhya and I are going to bed." He got up from the table and, putting his arm around his wife, led her out of the room. Most of the others followed-Kokor and her husband Obring, Sevet and her husband Vas, Meb and his wife Dolya. On their way out, Hushidh and Issib stopped for a few words with Nafai and Luet. "Very good idea," Hushidh said, "calling everybody together like this. It was very persuasive. Except that Elemak won't believe anything you do. So it just convinced him you were being devious."

"Thanks for the instant analysis," Luet said nastily.

"I appreciate it," Nafai said quickly. "I don't expect Elemak to take anything I do at face value."

"I just wanted you to know," said Hushidh, "that the barrier between you and Elemak is stronger and deeper than any bond between any two people here. In a way, that's a kind of bond, too. But if you thought that this little scene today was going to win him over, you failed."

"And what about you?" said Luet. "Did it win you over?"

Hushidh smiled wanly. "I still see you separated from everyone else except your husband and children, Luet. When that changes, I'll start believing your husband's promises." Then she turned and left. Issib smiled and shrugged helplessly and drifted out after her.

Zdorab and Shedemei lingered. "Nafai," said Zdorab, "I want to apologize. I should have known that you wouldn't-"

"I understand perfectly," said Nafai. "It looked to you as if we were planning something behind your back. I would have done the same, if I'd thought of it."

"No," said Zdorab. "I should have spoken to you privately. I should have found out what was happening."

"Zdorab, I would never do anything to your children without your consent."

"And I would never give it," he said. "We have fewer children than anyone. To think of the two of them- having their childhood taken away from us-"

"It won't happen," said Nafai. "I don't want your children. I want the voyage to pass quickly and uneventfully and for us to establish our new colony on Earth. Nothing else. I'm sorry you had to even worry about it."

Zdorab smiled then. Shedemei didn't. She glared at Nafai and then at Luet. "I didn't ask to come on this journey, you know."

"It would be impossible for us to succeed without you," said Nafai.

"But there is one question," said Luet.

"No, Lutya," said Nafai. "Haven't we already-"

"It's something we have to know!" said Luet. "No matter what. I mean it has to be obvious to you, Shedya, that your two children are the only ones who won't face a consanguinity problem."

"Obviously," said Shedemei.

"But what about the others? I mean, isn't it dangerous for all of us?"

"I don't think it will be a problem," said Shedemei.

"Why not?" asked Luet.

"The only time it's bad for cousins to marry is when there's a recessive gene that leads to problems. When cousins marry, their children can get the recessive gene from both sides, and therefore it expresses itself. Mental retardation. Physical deformity. Debilitating disease. That sort of thing."

"And that's not a problem?"

"Haven't you been paying attention?" asked Shedemei. "Didn't you learn anything back in Basilica? The Oversoul has been breeding you all for years. Bringing your father and mother together, for instance, Luet, all the way from opposite sides of the sea. The Oversoul has already made sure your genetic molecules are clean. You don't have any recessive traits that will cause harm."

"How do you know that?"

"Because if you did, they would already have expressed themselves. Don't you get it? The Oversoul has been marrying cousins together for years to get you people who are so receptive to her influence. Any idiots or cripples have already shown up and been bred out."

"Not all," said Rasa. Everyone knew at once that she was thinking of Issib, Nafai's older full brother. His large muscles hopelessly uncontrollable from birth, he had never been able to walk or move without the help of magnetic floats or a flying chair.

"No," said Shedemei. "Of course not all."

"So if my children, for instance, married Hushidh's children... ." Luet didn't finish the sentence.

"Hushidh already asked me this years ago," said Shedemei. "I thought she would have told you."

"She didn't," said Luet.

"Issib's problem is not genetic. It was prenatal trauma." Shedemei looked at Rasa. "I imagine Aunt Rasa didn't know she was pregnant when it happened."

Rasa shook her head. No one asked her what it was that she had, in all innocence, done to Issib in the womb.

"It won't be passed on in your children's genes," said Shedemei. "You can marry your children off to your heart's content. If that means you'll be leaving my children alone now, I'll be very thankful."

"We weren't planning anything!" cried Luet, outraged.

"I believe that Nafai wasn't," said Shedemei, "because he discussed it with us all at once."

"I wasn't going to do it either!" insisted Luet.

"I think you were," said Shedemei. "I think you still intend to." She turned and left the room, Zdorab following nervously behind her.

In the corridor outside, Zdorab found Elemak waiting. Letting Shedemei stalk on ahead, Zdorab and Elemak fell in beside each other. "So you were very subtle about it, I see," said Elemak.

Zdorab looked up at him and smiled. "I was certainly clumsy, wasn't I? The Oversoul found my wake-up signal right away." Then he winked and walked faster, leaving Elemak behind. Elemak walked slowly, thinking. Then he smiled slightly and turned down the corridor leading to his family's rooms.

Back in the kitchen, only Volemak and Rasa remained with Nafai and Luet. "You're being foolish," said Volemak. "You must do what the Oversoul commands."

"What the Oversoul commands," said Luet, "is for us to concede that our colony will be permanently split into two irreconcilable factions, and to act in such a way as to make the rift so deep it will last for generations."

"Then do it," said Volemak.

"This discussion is pointless," said Nafai. "Isn't it, Mother?" Rasa signed. "There are things that no decent person will do," she said. "Even for the Oversold."

"There are larger issues," said Volemak.

"I have these three last children," said Rasa. "Oykib, Yasai, and my little precious daughter. I would hate forever anyone who took them away from me. Even you." She looked from Nafai to Luet. "Or you." And then she looked at her husband, "Or you." She stood up and left the room.

Volemak sighed and rose to his feet. "You'll see," he said. "The Oversold isn't to be flouted."

"Somewhere along in here," said Nafai, "the Over-soul has to take into account our feelings."

But Volemak didn't stay to hear him finish his sentence.

Luet put her arms around Nafai and held him. "I should have told you before," she said. "But I was afraid you'd just do whatever the Oversold told you."

"The Oversold knows me better than you do, apparently," said Nafai. "That's why he didn't tell me at all."

"Come to bed, husband," said Luet.

"I have some work to do," he said.

"So we leave a day later," she said.

"I have some work to do."

She signed, kissed him, and left.

Nafai cut himself a slice of bread, wrapped it around a slightly overripe podoroshny, and bit off chunks of it as he left the maintenance building and walked back to the starship.

I think so, answered Nafai silently.

You never did.

It was never a discussion. It won't happen.

You can't see the future.

He won't punish chddren for what their parents do.

It won't happen.

Nafai shook his head. They'll never agree to it, he said silently.

FOUR - PERSUASION

Shedemei checked the children again. The third time that night. When she came back to bed, Zdorab was awake.

"I'm sorry,".she said. "I had a dream."

"A nightmare, you mean," he said.

For a moment she misunderstood. "Did you have it too?"

"No," he answered, faintly disgusted. "Was it one of those?"

"No, no," she said. "Not from the Keeper of Earth, if that's what you're asking."

"Bats and weasels."

"Giant rats. I don't really have those. I dream of gardens when it's that kind of dream."

"But that's not what you dreamed tonight."

She shook her head.

"And you're not going to tell me."

"If you want, I will."

He waited.

"Zdorab, I kept seeing ... us, arriving on Earth. All of us coming out of the ship. You and me, unchanged, just as we are now. But then I saw this fine young man and young woman that I had never known before. He was handsome and bright-faced, cheerful and strong. She was dark but her smile was dazzling, and she laughed and there was such intelligence in her eyes."

"And he was eighteen and she was sixteen." His voice sounded sour.

"Royka and Dabya are the only children I'm ever going to have," she said.

"Are you going to accuse me because of that? After all these years?"

"I'm not accusing anyone. I'm just ... I went to look at them. To make sure they were all right. To make sure they weren't... having the same dream."

"And how did you know they weren't? Did you waken them and ask?"

"I don't know what they're dreaming. I only know that they're so young. And I'm looking forward so much to what they'll be. To next week and next month and next year and... but then I also saw that... ."

"What?" asked Zdorab.

"I remembered how they were. The little babies they were. When they suckled. When they first walked. When they first spoke, when they first played, when they first learned to read and write, I remember everything, and those children are gone."

"Not gone, just grown."

"Grown, I know, but each age of them, that goes. You lose those years no matter what you do. They grow past them, they push their own childhood out of the way, they don't thank you for remembering it."

Zdorab shook his head. "I've seen how this overgrown computer works on people, Shedemei. You know you don't want to give your children to Nafai and Luet to raise. They're children themselves."

"I know I don't want to. But what's best for them?

What's best for all of them? People have given their children to war. They've given their children to great acts of heroism."

"And when they've lost them, they've grieved and never stopped grieving."

"But don't you see? We won't lose them. It will be as if ... as if we sent them away to school. People did it all the time in Basilica. Sent their children to someone else's house to be raised. If we'd stayed there, I would have done it too. They would already be gone, both of them. All we'd really be missing is the holidays."

Zdorab raised himself on his elbow. "As you say, Shedemei, these are our only two children. I never thought I'd have any. I did it only as a favor to you, because you're my ... friend. And you wanted them so much. And if you had asked me back then, when they were conceived, whether you could give them up, I would have said, Fine, whatever you want, they're yours. But they're not just yours now. I fathered them, incredible as that is to me, and I have taught them and cared for them and loved them and I'll tell you something. I don't want to lose a day with them."

She shook her head. "Neither do I."

"So forget these dreams, Shedya. Let the big computer in the sky plan what it wants to plan. We aren't part of it."

She lay back down in the bed beside him. "Oh, I'm part of it, all right."

"And how is that?" he asked.

She took his hand and held it. "That nonsense I said. About genes. Recessive ones expressing themselves, all that."

The bed shook. Zdorab was laughing.

"It's not funny."

"None of it was true?"

"I have no idea if it's true or not. They know I'm an expert in genetics, they think I know what I'm talking about. But I don't. Nobody does. I mean, we can catalogue the genomes, but most of each genetic molecule is still undeciphered. They used to believe that it was junk, meaningless. But it isn't. That much I've learned from working with plants. It's all just... quiet. Waiting. Who knows what will show up if they let those cousins marry each other?"

Zdorab laughed some more.

"It isn't funny," said Shedemei. "I really should tell them the truth."

"No," said Zdorab. "What you told them made it so they won't feel any need to include our children with theirs in any experiment they decide to perform. Fine. That's how it should be."

"But look at Issib."

"What, was his condition genetic after all?"

"No, that part was true enough. But how he's suffered, Zodya. It's not right to let other children go through that, other parents, I can't... ."

Zdorab sighed. "You pretend to be hard-nosed, Shedya, but you're soft as cheese on a summer day."

"Thanks for choosing such a foul-smelling analogy."

"Shedya, if what you said wasn't true, how did you think of it?"

"I don't know. The words just came to my mouth. Because I needed something to say to turn them away from our children."

"That's right. Now, the Oversoul is perfectly capable of telling them things, right?"

"Constantly."

"So let the Oversoul tell them not to let their children intermarry."

Shedemei thought about that for a moment. "I never thought of that," she said. "I'm not one of those people who ‘leaves things up to the Oversoul.' "

"And besides," said Zdorab. "How do you know the Oversoul didn't put the words into your mouth?"

"Oh, don't be so-"

"I'm quite serious. You said the words just came to you. How do you know it wasn't from the Oversoul? How do you know that it wasn't truer"

"Well, I don't know."

"There you are. You don't need to say anything to them about anything."

She had no answer to that. He was right.

They lay there in silence for a long time. She thought he was asleep. Then he spoke, a whisper just on the edge of voice. "We aren't just a man with children and a woman with children, sharing the same house, sharing the same children. Are we?"

"No, not just that," said Shedemei.

"I mean, how much does a husband have to desire his wife, sexually, for his feelings toward her to be love?"

She felt her way carefully toward an answer. "I don't know if the feelings have to be sexual at all," she said.

"Because I admire you so much. And the way you are with Rokya and Dabya, I ... delight in that. And the way you teach them, all the children. And the way you are with... with me. The way you're so kind to me."

"And what else would I do? Beat you? Scream at you? You're the most aggravatingly unannoying man I've ever known. You don't do anything wrong."

"Except that I don't satisfy you."

She shrugged. "I don't complain,"

"But I do love you. Like a sister. A friend. More than either of those, like a. ..."

"Like a wife," said Shedemei.

"Yes," said Zdorab. "Like that."

"And I love you as my husband, Zdorab. As you are. Like that." She rolled over, reached for him, kissed his cheek. "Like that," she said again. Then she rolled back onto her other side, her back to him, and soon enough she was asleep.

The dreams came, night after night, those last weeks before the starship Basilica was launched. And toward the end, one by one, the dreamers came to him.

Hushidh was first, telling him that the Oversoul was right, that the breach between him and Elemak would never be healed, so he had to be ready. "Don't keep your promise, either," she said, "Don't wake anybody up in midvoyage. It would be a disaster, when we're all confined in that tiny space together."

"Thanks for the suggestion," Nafai said.

"Ignore me if you want," said Hushidh. "You're the one with the cloak, after all."

"Don't snipe at me," said Nafai. "You're Luet's older sister, not mine."

"And we all know what fine specimens your older sisters are."

They both burst out laughing.

"Tell Luet for me," said Hushidh, "that once I made up my mind to obey the Oversoul and give my four oldest to you to raise during the voyage, I found that the bonds between Luet and me returned, as strong as ever. The barrier might have been her fault when it began. But it was my fault it wasn't healed till now."

"I'll tell her that," said Nafai. "But better if you tell her yourself."

"I knew you'd say that," said Hushidh. "That's why I hate you." She kissed his cheek and left.

Then Rasa and Volemak came to him together. "It was selfish of us to want to withhold our sons from you. They were born late," said Rasa. "This will be a way for them to catch up with their older brothers."

Volemak smiled thinly. "I'm not so interested in that as Rasa is. As usual, she thinks of people's feelings more than I do. I just remember all that we've given up to get this far, and how stupid it would be for us to repudiate the Oversoul now. There's such a thing as trust, Nafai. Don't risk the survival of the whole colony, particularly of your own family, solely in order to protect your own image of yourself as a man who always does the ‘right' thing."

Nafai listened to his father but found no comfort in his words. "I lost that image of myself when I cut Gaballufix's head from his shoulders, Father. I've regretted that every day of my life since then. Foolish of me, wasn't it, to want to spare myself another source of guilt."

Volemak fell silent then, but Rasa did not. "Wallowing a bit, are we?" she said. "Well, Nafai, you're still young, so you still think the whole universe revolves around you. But the fact is it doesn't. The Oversoul has persuaded us that it's best if our youngest sons are kept awake for the voyage. Now it's up to you to decide if you have the courage to face down Elemak's anger when it's all done."

"And it doesn't matter to you that I gave him-that I gave everyone-my word that I wouldn't do this?"

"I am your father," said Volemak, "and Rasa is your mother. We release you from your oath."

"I'm sure Elemak will calm right down when he hears that."

Rasa laughed lightly. "Come now, Nafai. Elemak is the one person out of this whole community who has never believed for a moment that you would keep your word. And do you know why he doesn't believe it? Because he knows that if the situation were reversed, he would break that promise in an instant."

"But I'm not Elemak."

"Yes you are," said Volemak. "You are exactly what Elemak would have been, except he never had the goodness of heart."

Nafai wasn't sure if he had been praised or slapped.

After Hushidh, after Father and Mother, Issib came, bringing with him, as usual, not just the dreams the Oversoul had given him, but also ideas to make things work better.

"We need to talk," Issib said.

Nafai nodded.

"I keep having these dreams."

"The Oversoul," said Nafai. "I know, I have them too."

"Not the same ones, Nyef," said Issib. "I see my oldest boy, Xodhya, as he comes out of the starship-"

"As I see Zhyat-"

"And he looks just like me. Which is silly, because there's so much of his mother's face in his, but in my dream, he's me. Except he's tall and strong, his arms, his chest-like a god. Like one of those statues around the old orchestra."

"Of course. The Oversoul is just manipulating you, Issib."

"Yes, I know that," said Issib. "I was with you when we first withstood him, don't you remember? We did it together."

"I haven't forgotten."

"We proved that we didn't have to do what the Over-soul wanted, didn't we, Nafai? But then we decided to help the Oversoul because we wanted to. Because we agreed with what he was trying to accomplish."

"And as long as I agreed, I've cooperated. At great cost, too, I might add."

"Cost? You? With the cloak of the starmaster?"

"I'd trade the cloak in a minute to know that my brothers loved me,"

"I love you, Nyef. Have you ever doubted that?"

"No, I didn't mean-"

"And Okya and Yaya love you. Are they not your brothers? Am I not your brother?"

"All of you are."

"And I don't really think you give a rat's ass whether Meb likes you or not."

"All right, Elemak. I'd trade the starmaster's cloak for Elemak's respect if I thought I could ever have it."

"Don't you see, Nyef? You can never have his respect."

"Because I'll never be worthy of it."

"Stupid." Issib laughed at him. "You are dense, Nafai. You can't have his respect precisely because you are worthy of it."

"I always hated paradoxes in school. I think they're the conclusion that philosophers reach when-"

"When they've given up on thinking, I know, it's not the first time you've said it. But this isn't a paradox. Elemak hates you because you're his younger brother and he knows, he knows, that you have more of Father's respect and love than he has. That's why he hates you, because he knows that in Father's eyes, you're a better man than he is."

"I wish."

"You know it's true. But if you gave it all up, if you surrendered everything to Elemak, if you gave up the cloak, if you repudiated the Oversoul, do you think he'd respect you then? Of course not, because then you really would be contemptible. Weak. A nothing."

"You've persuaded me. I'll keep the cloak."

"The cloak is nothing. You're already doing something far worse."

Nafai regarded him steadily. "Am I to understand that you're really here trying to persuade me to keep your four oldest children awake during the voyage, teaching them, raising them for you, so that when you awake you'll find them already grown?"

"Not at all," said Issib. "I'd hate that."

"Well, then, what is all this about?"

"Keep them awake, but bring me awake too, sometimes. Once a year for a few weeks. Let me teach all the children computers, for instance. Nobody's better at that than me."

"They won't need computers in the new colony."

"Mathematics then. Surveying. Triangulation. I can read the same books as you and teach them just like you. Or were you planning on having an agricultural laboratory here? Forestry, perhaps? When were we going to bring the trees aboard?"

"I never thought of that."

"You mean the Oversoul never thought of that."

"Whatever."

"Do it in shifts. Wake Luet up for a while, but then let her sleep again. Wake me, wake Hushidh. Wake Mother and Father. A few weeks at a time. We'll see the children grow, then. We won't miss it all. And when we reach Earth, they'll be men and women. Ready to stand beside you against the others,"

Nafai didn't answer right away. "That's not the way the Oversoul explained it to Luet."

"So, where is it engraved on stone that you have to do everything the Oversoul's way? As long as you do what he wants, the methodology hardly matters, does it?"

"Does Hushidh feel the same way?"

"She might. In a while."

"I won't take anyone's child without their agreement."

"Really? And what about the children themselves? Going to ask them?"

"I really ought to," said Nafai. "I'll think about this, Issib. Maybe this compromise will work."

"Good," said Issib. "Because I think the Oversoul's right. If we don't do this, if we don't give you strong young men and women to back you up, then when we get away from the starship, when the Oversoul's influence weakens, you'll be a dead man, and so will I."

"I'll think about it," said Nafai.

Issib rose up from the chair and leaned toward the door, then stepped lightly toward it, the floats bearing almost all of his weight. At the door he turned.

"And something else," said Issib.

"What?" asked Nafai.

"I know you better than you think."

"Do you?"

"For instance, I know that the Oversoul talked to you about this whole thing long before Luet ever let anything slip."

"Really?"

"And I know that you wanted it to happen all along. You just didn't want it to be your idea. You wanted it to be us persuading you. That way we can never blame you later. Because you tried to talk us out of it."

"Am I really that clever?" asked Nafai.

"Yes," said Issib. "And I'm really clever enough to figure it all out."

"Well, then, I'm not so clever after all."

"Yes you are," said Issib. "Because I really do want you to do it. And I never will be able to blame you if I don't like the results. So it worked."

Nafai smiled wanly. "I wish you were completely right," said Nafai.

"Oh? And how am I wrong?"

"I would rather, with all my heart, let all our children sleep through the voyage, Because I would rather have there be no division between us all in the new colony. Because I would rather make my brother Elemak the king of us all and let him rule over us, than to have him as my enemy."

"So why don't you?"

"Because he hates the Oversold. And when we get to Earth, he'll resist just as much whatever it is the Keeper of Earth wants us to do. He'll end up destroying us all because of his stubbornness. He can't be the ruler over us."

"I'm glad you understand that," said Issib, "Because if you ever start to think that he ought to rule, that's when he'll destroy you."

Volemak, Rasa, Hushidh, Issib; and then at last Shedemei and Zdorab came to him, only an hour before they were all supposed to go to sleep for the voyage. "I don't want to do it," said Zdorab.

"Then I won't waken your children," said Nafai. "I'm not sure yet that I'm going to waken anyone's children."

"Oh, you are," said Shedemei. "And you're going to waken us, too, from time to time, to help teach them. That's the deal."

"And when we get to Earth, and our children are all ten years older than Elya's and Meb's and Vasya's and Briya's, you'll stand up to them with me? You'll say, We thought it was a good idea? We asked him to do it?"

"I'll never say I thought it was a good idea," said Zdorab, "But I'll admit that I asked you to do it."

"Not good enough," said Nafai. "If you don't think it's a good idea, why are you asking me to let your only two children take part in it?"

"Because," said Zdorab, "my son would never forgive me if he knew that he had a chance to reach Earth as a man, and I made him arrive there as a boy."

Nafai nodded. "That's a good reason."

"But remember, Nafai," said Zdorab. "The same thing goes for the other children. Do you think that when Elya's boy Protchnu wakes up and finds that your younger son, Motya, is eight years older than him instead of two years younger, do you think that Protchnu will ever forgive you, or Motya either? This will cause hatred that will never be healed, generation after generation. They will always believe that something was stolen from them."

"And they'll be right," said Nafai. "But the thing that was stolen, it wasn't taken away until they had already rejected it."

"They'll never remember that."

"But will you?"

Zdorab thought about it for a moment.

"If he doesn't," said Shedemei, "I'll remind him."

Zdorab smiled grimly at her. "Let's go to bed," he said.

No matter who would be wakened later, all would be asleep for the launch itself. There was too much stress, too much pain to pass through it consciously. Instead they would be encased in foam inside their sleep chambers.

Each couple put their own young children to bed, laying them into their suspended animation chambers, kissing them, then dosing the lid and watching through the window until they drifted into the drugged sleep that began the process. There was some fear in the children, especially the older ones who understood something of what was going on, but there was also excitement, anticipation. "And when we wake up, we'll be on Earth?" they asked, over and over. "Yes," their parents said.

Then Nafai took the parents to the control room and showed them the calendar with the midvoyage waking scheduled. "You'll be able to check all your children and make sure that they're sleeping safely," Nafai assured them.

"Now I can sleep peacefully indeed," Elemak answered with dry irony.

Nafai watched them all go to sleep, one by one, and one by one he authorized the life support computers to drug them, surround them with foam, chill them until their bodies were barely alive at all. Then he, too, climbed into his chamber and drew the lid closed after him.

No human being saw the ship rise silently into the air, a hundred meters, a thousand, until it was as high as the magnetics of the landing field could raise it. Then the launching rockets fired, blasting downward as the starship rose up into the night sky.

Far away, on the other side of the narrow sea, travelers on the caravan road looked up and saw the shooting star. "But it's rising," said one of them. "No," said another. "That's just an illusion, because it's coming toward us."

"No," said the first again. "It's rising into the sky. And it's much too slow to be a shooting star."

"Really?" scoffed the other. "Then what is it?"

"I don't know," said the first. "But I thank the Over-soul that we could see it."

"And why is that?"

"Because after millions of years, fool, there's not a thing that any man can see that hasn't been seen a hundred or a thousand or a million times before. But we've seen something that no one else has ever seen."

"You think."

"Yes, I think."

"And what good is it? To see something wondrous, and have no idea what it is you saw?"

The starship Basilica rose higher, out of the gravity well of the planet Harmony. When it was far enough away, the rockets stopped. They would not be used again until it was time for the ship to land on another world. Instead, a web unfolded itself from the sides of the ship, made of strands so fine that they could not be seen were it not for the dazzle of light upon the wires when a molecule of hydrogen or some particle even smaller fell into the energy field the web generated. Then the shape of it could be seen, like a vast spiderweb, gathering the dust of space to fuel the onward progress of the starship. The Basilica began to accelerate, faster and faster, until Harmony was left behind, just another dot of light indistinguishable by the naked eye from any other. After forty million years, human beings had left the surface of this world, and, against all expectations, they were going home.

FIVE - THE EAVESDROPPER

The other children all supposed, upon waking, that they must have arrived at Earth. That's what they had been told upon going to sleep in the suspended-animation chambers-when you wake up, it will be Earth.

Oykib, however, already knew that he would be waking long before then. He was not surprised that instead of normal gravity, he seemed unbelievably light and strong, each step sending him bounding up to touch the ceiling. That's the way it was in space, when instead of a planet to hold you down, you had only the acceleration of the ship. And if he had any doubts, they were dispelled by the fact that as Nafai and Luet gathered the children into the ship's library-the largest open space in the starship, except for the centrifuge-Oykib could hear the faint murmurings of the Oversoul to Nafai and Luet: This is a bad idea. Don't give them a choice. Children that age are too young to decide something this important. Their parents have already agreed. If you tell them they have a choice when they really don't, they'll only hate you for it. And so on, and so on.

Oykib had been hearing scraps of conversation like this since earliest childhood. He couldn't remember a time without it. At first, though, it was like music, like wind, like the sound of waves for a child who grows up by the sea. He thought nothing of it, did not search for meaning in it. But gradually, by the time he was four or five, he began to realize that this background noise contained names; that there were ideas in it, ideas that later showed up in discussions among the adults.

Though the voices were all in his mind, and therefore soundless, he began to associate certain ways of thinking with certain people. He began to notice that sometimes, when he was with Mother or Father, Nafai or Issib, Luet or Hushidh, the conversation that he heard most clearly was one that seemed appropriate to what they were talking about with someone else. He would see Luet trying to deal with a quarrel between Chveya and Dazya, for instance, and hear someone saying: Why won't she hold her own with Dazya? Why does she back off like this? And someone else-the most constant voice, the strongest voice-saying, She's holding her own, she's doing fine, have patience, she doesn't need to win openly as long as you assure her of your respect for her. Thus he knew that a particular passionate, intimate manner meant that he was hearing Luet; a cooler, calmer, but more uncertain way of thought belonged to Hushidh. The most matter-of-fact, impatient, argumentative voice was Nafai's.

Yet even so, he was young enough that he didn't realize that he wasn't supposed to be hearing these things. It first became clear to him because of the dreams, for that was one of the Oversoul's most powerful ways of talking to people. One time when Oykib was a very little boy, Luet had come to the house to talk to Mother about a dream she had had. When she finished, Oykib had piped up and said, "I had that dream, too," and then repeated the things that Luet had seen.

Mother answered him then with a smile, but he knew that she didn't believe that he had seen the same dream. The second time it happened, with a dream of Father's, Mother took Oykib aside and gently explained to him that there was no need to pretend to have the same dreams as other people. It was better to tell only his own dreams.

Oykib was bothered by not being believed, and the older he got, the more it bothered him. Why, with so much communication between these adults and the Oversoul, did they all assume that he, as a three-year-old, as a four-year-old, could not have had the same communication? Eventually he decided that the problem was that the dream really was sent to someone else-it was appropriate for their situation, and not at all appropriate for Oykib. Therefore, the adults knew that the Oversoul would never have sent such a dream to him, because it had nothing to do with his life. And in fact the Oversoul hadn't sent the dream to him. The dreams and the background conversations were all real enough, but they were also not his own.

He wondered: Why doesn't the Oversoul have anything to say to me?

By the time Oykib turned eight, he had long since learned to keep what he overheard to himself. He was naturally quiet and reserved, preferring to be silent in a large group, listening to everything, helping when he was needed. He understood far more than anyone thought he did, partly because he had grown up overhearing adult problems being discussed with an adult vocabulary, and partly because he could hear, along with the vocal conversation, scraps and snatches of internal dialogues as the Oversoul made suggestions, tried to influence mood, and occasionally attempted to distract someone from what they were thinking or doing. The trouble was that it always distracted Oykib, so that he could hardly have any thoughts of his own, so busy was his mind in trying to follow all that was going on around him. When he did open his mouth to speak, he could never be sure if he was responding to what had been said aloud, or to things that he understood only because of overhearing that which he really shouldn't have been hearing.

There was also another reason why Oykib said little. He had learned about privacy and secrets, and he knew people wouldn't be happy if they ever guessed how much he knew. He suspected that it would make them angry to know that their most intimate thoughts, framed in their own minds where only the Oversoul could hear, were being heard and noted and stored away in the mind of a six- or seven- or eight-year-old boy.

Sometimes, the burden of all these secrets was more than Oykib could bear. That was why he had begun having little talks with Yasai, his younger brother. He never told Yaya how he was learning the things he learned. Instead he always said tilings like, "I'll bet that Luet is angry because of the way Hushidh never stops Dazya from bossing the younger children," or "Father doesn't really love Nafai more than everybody else, it's just that Nafai is the only one who understands what Father is doing and can help him to do it." Oykib knew that Yaya was dazzled by how often Oykib's "insights" turned out to be right, and that Yaya was also flattered to be included in his "wise" older brother's confidence; sometimes it made him feel like a cheater, to let Yaya think that Oykib had simply figured things out. But he knew, without knowing why, that it was a bad idea to tell even Yaya about how all communication with the Oversoul spilled over into Oykib's mind. Yaya was good about keeping secrets, but something that important was bound to slip out sometime.

So Oykib kept his secrets to himself. The hardest time was a few months back, when Nafai went out to the mountains and broke through the perimeter and found the starships. Oykib heard some terrible, frightening things. Luet pleading for the Oversoul to protect her husband. The Oversoul urging someone else to be calm, be calm, don't kill your brother, you don't want to live with yourself afterward if you kill your brother. He understood the community well enough by then to know who it was who was planning to kill Nafai. Oykib longed to be able to do something, but he couldn't; in fact, he was almost immobilized by the maelstrom of needs and hungers, shouts and demands, pleas and griefs. He was so frightened; he went to Mother and clung to her, and heard her say to Volemak, "See how the children pick up on things without understanding them?" He wanted to say, "I understand perfectly well that Elemak and Mebbekew are planning to kill Nafai and then rule over all of us-I know it because I've heard the Oversoul trying to get them to stop. I know that Luet is terrified and so are you, that Nafai might be killed. But I also know that the Oversoul is saying a torrent of things to Nafai, important things, beautiful things, only he's so far away that I only catch glimmers of it, and I know that Nafai himself has no fear at all, he's just excited, he keeps shouting inside himself, "Now I get it! So that's it! Now I understand it! Yes!" But he could explain none of this. All he could do was ding to his mother until she had to push him away to get on with her work, and then talk it out with Yasai. "I think Elya and Meb are going to try to kill Nyef today, when he comes back," he said, and Yaya's eyes grew wide. "I think Nyef isn't worried, though, because he's become so strong that nobody can hurt him."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Any questions?" asked Nafai.

"There's plenty of time," said Luet. "If you want to go back to sleep, you can do it a few days from now- there's no rush."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You don't understand," said Chveya. "Whatever Dazya decides, I'm going to do the opposite."

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

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

Chveya blushed and said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

"I do not," said Dazya. "I don't boss Oykib or Protchnu."

"No, you only boss people who are weaker than you, you big bully!" said Shyada,

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

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

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

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

"Yes, but she was married" said Rokya, Zdorab's and Shedemei's boy. Then, suddenly, he seemed to realize what he had just said, because he blushed and damped 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 of 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 Oversold, and I know that Elemak and Meb-bekew and Obring and Vas tried to kill you and the Oversold 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 faindy 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 baWes. The adult men didn't seem to mind it, anyway. Maybe there wa3 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 Oversold, 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 skep here ten lousy years.

SIX - THE UGLY GOD

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 con-standy 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 unworshipped 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 heck? 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!