THREE - RESISTANCE

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

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

“Back before you . . . chose him.”

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

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

“It was Issib who was the real problem, you know. He’s the one who thought of opposing me.”

“Yes, well, but he didn’t succeed until Nafai joined him.”

“It was a concern for a while.”

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

“Never all. Never even close to all.”

“Enough that you finally gave up.”

“Took them into my confidence.”

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

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

“Would you have chosen them if they hadn’t been causing so much trouble for you?”

“I had already chosen their father to ... start things moving.”

“But it was Luet you wanted, wasn’t it.”

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

“Yes, yes, I’m sure everything worked out exactly according to plan.”

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

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

“I have no pride.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” said Shedemei. “I discarded my own long ago.”

“What was the point you were trying to make?”

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

“Nafai and Issib.”

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

“Issib was stubborn. Nafai was ambitious.”

“I’m sure you have lists of adjectives appended to all our names in your files.”

“Don’t be snippy, Shedemei. It isn’t becoming to a woman who has abandoned her pride.”

“Will you listen to my plan?”

“Oh, not a point then, a plan.”

“You still have the power to influence human beings.”

“In a small area of the world, yes.”

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

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

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

“Making people temporarily stupid.”

“And you can still send dreams.”

“Not the powerful dreams the Keeper sends.”

“Dreams, though. Clear ones.”

“Much clearer than the Keeper’s dreams,” said the Oversoul.

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

“Slaves to Pabulog and his sons, you mean.”

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

“One would think,” said the Oversoul.

“So why not make them very stupid until they’ve missed the chance?”

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

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

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

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

“He can’t take that whole population along the mountainside.”

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

“That takes them right past Akmaro’s group.”

“And the Keeper will try to get Monush to find Akmaro’s people again.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll think about it,” said the Oversoul.

“Good,” said Shedemei.

“All right,” said the Oversoul. “I’ve thought about it. We’ll do it.”

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

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

Shedemei laughed. “Why can’t you admit it, you old fake?”

“Admit what?”

“You’re really pissed off at the Keeper.”

“I am not,” said the Oversoul. “I’m worried about what might be happening on Harmony.”

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

“I’m not an angel,” said the Oversoul.

“Neither am I, my friend,” said Shedemei.

“You sound wistful.”

“I’m a gardener. I miss the feel of earth under my feet.”

“Time for another trip to the surface?”

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

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

“Yes, and I’ll do it. When the time comes.”

“You have a will of steel,” said the Oversoul.

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

“Don’t you have dreams enough on your own?”

“Not for me,” said Shedemei. “For Monush.”

“I was making a joke,” said the Oversoul.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is there a way down?” asked Chem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No they’re not,” said Lemech.

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

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

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

“Lay down your weapons,” said Monush softly.

“In a digger’s heart I will,” said Lemech.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I dreamed.”

“A true dream?”

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

“How did you know the Keeper sent them?” -

“I just knew.”

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

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

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

It means ... it means. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you understand my language?” asked the king.

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

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

The king waited.

“You are now permitted to speak,” the king said.

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

“Motiak!” said the king.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luet began to cry.

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

“Back to work!” said the digger.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chebeya stood upright again.

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

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

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

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

Around her, other adults were muttering. “Hush. Enough. Quiet now. They’ll beat us all.”

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

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

“You’re just like your father!” she cried out to him. “Afraid to do anything yourself!”

Another blow fell. But then Didul called out. “Stop!”

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

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

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

Didul took the whip from the hands of one of the diggers. “I’ll show you my pride, blasphemer!”

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

Ah, the words stung, she could see it.

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

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

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

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

“Don’t call my father a coward!” cried Didul.

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

“Nothing that you said is true!”

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

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

“If you didn’t believe me, Didul, you would just laugh at what I said.”

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

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

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

“I want to be just like my father.”

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

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

“Have them kill her.”

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

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

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

“There you see it,” said Chebeya. “That’s what you’ll become, when your father is through with you.”

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

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

“Does that frighten you, Didul?” asked Chebeya. “He’s going to tell on you. Does that frighten you?”

“I’m leaving,” said Didul. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.” ‘

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

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

“That’s not what your father said,” one of them retorted.

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

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

The diggers backed off.

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

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

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

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

“So let’s us tell him first.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I can’t tell,” said the Oversoul. “Is our plan working or not?”

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

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

“So let’s go back and keep buzzing.”

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

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

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

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

“Maybe the Keeper needs you,” said the Oversoul.

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

“So we go on waiting,” said the Oversoul.

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

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

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

“I don’t think you have enough respect yet for the power of the Keeper.”

“What power? All we’ve seen from the Keeper up to now is dreams.”

“If that’s all you’ve seen,” said the Oversoul, “then you haven’t been looking.”

“Really?”

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

Shedemei sighed. “I’m a biologist. Geology is barely comprehensible to me.”

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

“Is that fast?”

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

The Oversoul fell silent.

“What?”

“I’m doing a little research for a moment.”

“Well, pardon me for interrupting,” said Shedemei.

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

“Yes?”

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

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

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

“You’re saying that the warfare might have caused the Cocos plate to move? That’s absurd.”

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

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

“I’m saying that perhaps human misdeeds could cause the Keeper of Earth to cause the Cocos plate to move.”

“And how could she possibly do that?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Search all you want. I’ll be fascinated to know the outcome.”

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

“How circular.”

“I may need your help.”

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

“At least you’re keeping an open mind,” said the Oversoul.

“I’m sure you meant that in the nicest possible way,” said Shedemei.

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

“You could have been killed, Mother,” said Akma quietly.

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

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

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

“She defied them,” said Akma. “And they didn’t kill her.”

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

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

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

“I know what a raveler is,” said Akma.

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

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

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

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

“Someday,” said Akmaro, “you will learn to see the Keeper’s hand in many things.”

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

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

“I don’t know my plan. I have no plan.”

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

“I was?”

“You were winning Didul’s heart.”

“If he has one.”

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

She thought about it. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

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

“Do you think we can?” asked Chebeya.

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

“They’ve hurt my children so many times,” said Chebeya.

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

“I can’t ever say that to them.”

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

“You always believe the best of other people, Kmadaro.”

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

“I’ll try,” said Chebeya.

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

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

FOUR - DELIVERANCE

Monush followed Ilihiak into his private chamber and watched as the king barred the door behind him. “What I’m going to show you,” said Ilihiak, “is a great secret, Monush.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t show me,” said Monush. “My loyalty is sworn to Ak-Moti, and I will keep no secret from him.”

“But that’s why I brought you here, Ush-Mon. You have the deepest trust of your great king. Do you think that I don’t know that my kingdom would be hardly a small district of the empire of Darakemba? The stories reach us even here, that the Nafari who went down the Tsidorek have now become the greatest kingdom in the gornaya. What I have here is a matter for a great king, a king like Motiak, I think. I know it’s beyond me.”

Monush felt strongly that if there were two men, one would be greater than the other, and somewhere else there would always be one greater than either. True nobility consisted of recognizing one’s betters as well as one’s inferiors, and giving proper respect to all, never pretending to be above one’s natural place. Ilihiak clearly understood that he had a greater rank and authority than Monush, but that Motiak was greater than either of them. It made Monush feel more confident in the man.

“Show me without fear, then,” said Monush, “for I will reveal what I see to no man except my lord Motiak.”

“To no man,” said Ilihiak. “According to our ancient lore, the humans of Darakemba include male angels and male diggers in the word man.”

“That’s right,” said Monush. “A male of the sky people, the earth people, or the middle people is a true man in the eyes of our law.”

Ilihiak shuddered. “My people will have a hard time with this. We came to this land to get away from living with the wings of angels always in our faces. And here we’ve had ample cause to hate the diggers-our crops have been watered with the blood of many good men. Men. And diggers.”

“I think King Motiak will not try to humiliate you, but will allow you to find a valley where you can buy the land of whatever angels dwell there and live without giving or receiving offense. But of course this would make you a subject nation instead of full citizens, for among citizens there can be no difference between people over, under, and on the earth.”

“It won’t be my choice, Monush. It will be the choice of my people.” Ilihiak sighed. “Our hatred for the diggers has increased by being close to them. The only angels we see here are slaves or subject people, and they shun us. It will be hard for our young men to learn that it isn’t decent sport to shoot arrows at them when they fly too near.”

Monush shuddered. It was a good thing that Husu had not flown along with them, to hear this.

“I see how you judge us,” said Ilihiak. “I fear you may be right. There was a man who came among us, an old man named Binadi. He told us that our way of life was an affront to the Keeper. That we mistreated the angels and that the Keeper loved angels, diggers, and humans as equals. That what mattered was whether a man was kind to all others, and whether he kept the laws of decency. He was . . . very specific in pointing out the many ways that the king my father failed to measure up. And his priests.”

“You killed him.”

“My father . . . was ambivalent. The man spoke very powerfully. Some believed him-including one of Father’s priests. The best of them. He was my teacher, a man named Akmadi. No, that was Father’s name for him. I called him Akmaro, because he was my honored teacher, not a traitor. I was there at the trial of Binadi, when Akmaro rose to his feet and said, ‘This man is Binaroak, the greatest teacher. I believe him, and I want to change my life to measure up to his teachings.’ That was the crudest moment for my father-he loved Akmaro.”

“Loved? He’s dead?”

“I don’t know. We sent an army after him, but he and his followers must have been warned. They fled into the wilderness. We have no idea where they are now.”

“Those are the ones who believe that men of every kind are equal before the Keeper?”

“If only driving away Akmadi-Akmaro-were our worst crime.” Ilihiak stopped to draw a breath; it was a tale he didn’t want to tell. “Father was afraid of Binadi. He didn’t want to kill him, just to exile him again. But Pabulog, the chief priest-he insisted. Goaded Father.” Ilihiak stroked his hair back from his face. “Father was a man who was very susceptible to fear. Pabulog made him afraid to leave Binadi alive. ‘If he can trick and trap even Akmadi, then how will you ever be safe?’ That sort of thing.”

“Your father had bad counselors,” said Monush.

“And I fear that you think he also had a disloyal son. But I wasn’t disloyal during his lifetime, Monush. It was only when I was forced into ruling in his place, after he was murdered-”

“Do your troubles have no end?”

Ilihiak went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Only then did I realize the extent of his corruption. It was Binadi-Binaro-who understood my father. Well, he’s dead now, and I’m king over Zinom, such as it is. Half the men have been killed in wars with the Elemaki. After the last one, we bowed down and let them put their foot on our neck. It was then, in slavery, that we began to lose our arrogance and realize that if we had only stayed in Darakemba, wings in our faces or not, we would at least not be slaves to diggers. Our children would have enough to eat. We wouldn’t have to bear with insult every day of our lives.”

“So you let Binaro out of prison?”

“Out of prison?” Ilihiak laughed bitterly. “He was put to death, Monush. Burned to death, limb by limb. Pabulog saw to it personally.”

“I think,” said Monush, “that it would be wise for this Pabulog not to come to Darakemba. Motiak will apply his laws even over actions committed while Pabulog was in the service of your father.”

“Pabulog isn’t among us. Do you think he would be alive today if he were? He fled at the time they killed my father, taking his sons with him. Like Akmaro, we have no idea where he is.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Ilihiak. Your people have done terrible things, as a nation.”

“And we’ve been punished for them,” said Ilihiak, his temper flaring for a moment.

“Motiak isn’t interested in punishment, except for a man who tortures one chosen by the Keeper. But Motiak can’t allow people who have done the things you’ve done to come into Darakemba.”

Ilihiak kept his kingly posture, but Monush could see the almost imperceptible sagging of his shoulders. “Then I shall teach my people to bear their burdens bravely.”

“You misunderstand,” said Monush. “You can come to Darakemba. But you will have to be new people when you arrive.”

“New people?”

“When you cross the Tsidorek the last time, you won’t use the bridge. Instead your people, all of them except the little children, must walk through the water and then symbolically die and be buried in the river. When you rise up out of the water, you have no name and no one knows you. You walk to the riverbank, and there you take the most solemn oath to the Keeper. From then on you have no past, but your future is as a true citizen of Darakemba.”

“Let us take the oath at once-we have a river here, and at the waters of Oromono, where the rains fall from the cliff forever, there is water as holy as any in the Tsidorek.”

“It’s not the water-or, rather, not the water alone,” said Monush. “You can teach your people the covenant, so they understand the law they’ll be accepting when they leave here for Darakemba. But the passage through the water has to take place near the capital-I don’t have the authority to make you new men and women.”

Ilihiak nodded. “Akmaro did.”

“The passage through the water? That’s only done in Darakemba.”

“The rumor we heard was that when he was in hiding at Oromono, he took people through the water and made them new.” Ilihiak laughed bitterly. “The way Pabulog explained it, they were drowning babies. As if anyone would believe such a thing.”

Monush wouldn’t bother trying to explain to Ilihiak that it was only the king of the Nafari who had the right to make new men and women. Whoever and wherever this Akmaro was, his usurpation of the power of Motiak had nothing to do with the negotiations today. “Ilihiak, I think you have nothing to fear from Motiak. And whether your people choose to take the covenant or not, one way or another you’ll find peace within the borders of Darakemba.”

The king shook his head. “They’ll take the covenant, or I won’t lead them. We’ve had enough of trying to live as humans alone. It not only can’t be done, but also isn’t worth doing.”

“That’s settled, then,” said Monush, and he started for the door.

“But where are you going?” asked Ilihiak.

“Wasn’t this the secret you wanted to tell me?” asked Monush. “What your father and Pabulog did to Binadi?”

“No,” said Ilihiak. “I could have told you that in front of my council. They all know how I feel about these things. No, I brought you here to show you something else. If the Elemaki knew about this, if even a hint of a rumor reached their ears. ...”

Hadn’t he already promised to keep all secrets except from Motiak? “Show me, then,” said Monush.

Ilihiak walked to his bed, a thick mat that lay on the floor in the center of his chamber. Sliding it out of the way, he brushed aside the reeds and rushes and then his fingers probed a certain spot in one of the stones of the floor and suddenly another large flagstone dropped away. It was on hinges, and where it had been, a dark hole gaped.

“Do you want me to bring you a torch?” asked Monush.

“No need,” said Ilihiak. “I’ll bring it up.”

The king dropped down into the hole. In the darkness it had looked as though it went down forever, but in fact when Ilihiak stood upright his shoulders rose out of the hole. He bent down, picked up something heavy, and lifted it to the floor of the chamber. Then he climbed out.

The object was wrapped in a dirty cloth; the king unwound it, revealing a basket, which he opened, then took out a wooden box. Finally that, too, was open, and inside was the gleam of pure gold.

“What is it?” asked Monush.

“Look at the writing,” said Ilihiak. “Can you read it?”

Monush looked at the characters engraved into the gold leaves. “No,” he said. “But I’m not a scholar.”

“Nor am I, but I’ll tell you this much-it isn’t in any language I’ve ever heard. These letters have almost no similarities with any alphabet, and the patterns are wrong for our language, too. Where are the suffixes and prefixes? Instead there are all these tiny words-what could they be? I tell you, this was not written by Nafari or Elemaki.”

“Angels?” asked Monush.

“Did they have writing before the humans came?”

Monush shrugged. “Who knows? It doesn’t look like their language, either. The words are all too short. As you said. Where did you get it?”

“As soon as I became king, I sent out a group of men to search for Darakemba so we could find our way back. My grandfather deliberately destroyed all records of the route he took to lead our people here from Darakemba and he refused to let anyone ever tell. He said it was because such information was useless-we were never going back.” Ilihiak smiled wryly. “We knew we had come up the Tsido-rek-that’s not hard-but it’s not as if my men could ask directions from the local Elemaki. We had trouble enough already without them finding us sending out exploring parties. So they found a likely river and followed it. It was a very strange river, Monush-they followed it down and down and down till they reached a place where the water was very turbulent. And then the river continued in a straight line, but now the water was flowing the opposite way!”

“I’ve heard of the place,” said Monush. “They found the Issibek. It’s the next river over. It’s really two rivers flowing directly toward each other. Where they meet, there’s a tunnel leading through solid rock for many leagues until the river spouts out of the rock and forms a new river flowing to the sea.”

“That explains it. To my men it seemed to be a miracle. They thought it was a sign they were on the right path.”

“They found this writing there?”

“No. They followed the river to its northern head, and then found their way among ever lower valleys until at last they must have left the gornaya entirely. It was a hot, dry land, and to their horror it was covered by the bones of dead humans. As if there had been a terrible battle. Thousands and thousands and thousands of humans were slain, Monush-beyond all numbering. And all the dead were human, make no mistake about it. Not a digger, not an angel among them.”

“I’ve never heard of such a place, though the desert is real enough. We call it Opustoshen-the place of desolation.”

“That sounds like the right name for it,” said Ilihiak. “My men were sure that they had found what happened to the people of Darakemba, and why they hadn’t found the city anywhere along the river.”

“They thought these dead humans were us?’

“Yes,” said Ilihiak. “Who can tell, in a desert, how long anything has been dead? Or so they said to me. But as they searched among the bodies, they found these.”

“What, lying on the ground, and nobody had already looted them?”

“Hidden in a cleft of the rock,” said Ilihiak. “In a place that looks too small to get anything inside. One of the men had had a dream the night before, and in the dream he found something marvelous in a cleft of rock that he said was just like the one he found near the battlefield. So he reached inside-”

“The fool! Doesn’t he know there are deadly snakes in the desert? They hide in shaded clefts like that during the day.”

“There were a dozen snakes in there, the kind that make dancing music with their tails-”

“Deadly!”

“But they were as harmless as earthworms,” said Ilihiak. “That’s how my men knew that the Keeper really meant them to get these. And now here they are. The Elemaki would melt them down in a moment and make them into ornaments. But I was hoping that Mo-tiak. . . .”

Monush nodded. “Motiak has the Index.” He looked Ilihiak in the eye. “That, too, is a secret. Not that people don’t suppose that he has it. But it’s better if people are unsure, so they don’t bother trying to find it and see it or, worse, steal it. The Index knows all languages. Motiak can translate these records if any man on Earth can do it.”

“Then I’ll give them to him,” said Ilihiak, already rewrapping the leaves of gold. “I didn’t dare ask you if the Index was still had among the kings of the Nafari.”

“It is,” said Monush. “And while the Index sat silent for many generations, it awoke in the days of Motiak’s grandfather, Motiab, and told him to get down to Darakemba.”

“Yes,” said Ilihiak. “And my grandfather rejected that decision.”

“It’s never good to argue with the Index,” said Monush.

“All messengers of the Keeper are sacred,” said Ilihiak, and shuddered.

“The blood of Binaro is not on your head,” said Monush.

“It’s on the heads of my people, and therefore it is on my head. You weren’t here, Monush. The mob gave full approval and cheered when Binadi cried out in agony. Those who hated what we did- they’re with Akmaro wherever he is.”

“Then it’s time, isn’t it, for us to teach them what the covenant will mean and let them decide whether they want to go to Darakemba.”

Ilihiak pulled his bed back over the hidden trove. “Though how we’re going to win our freedom from the place without bloody war I have no idea.”

Monush helped him arrange the bed just as it had been. “When they’ve agreed to take the covenant, Ilihiak, then the Keeper will show us how to escape.”

Ilihiak smiled. “Just so I don’t have to think of a way, I’m content.”

Monush looked at him intently. Did he mean that?

“I never wanted to be king,” said Ilihiak. “I’ll gladly give up all thrones and privileges, when I can set aside the burdens of office as well.”

“A man who wouid willingly set aside the throne? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Monush.

“If you knew all the pain that reigning here had brought me,” said Ilihiak, “you’d call me a fool for staying in the job so long.”

“Ilihiak, sir,” said Monush, “I would never call you a fool, or permit another man to call you that in my presence.”

Ilihiak smiled. “Then may I hope, Monush, that when I am no longer king, I might still have the honor of being your friend?”

Monush took Ilihiak’s hands and placed them flat on his own cheeks. “My life is between your hands forever, my friend,” said Monush.

Ilihiak took Monush’s hands and repeated the gesture. “My life was worthless until the Keeper brought you to me. You were the awakening of all my hope. I know you came here only to do your duty to your king. But a man may see the worth of another man, regardless of rank or mission. My life is between your hands forever.”

They embraced and touched lips in a kiss of friendship. Then, smiling, tears shamelessly on his cheeks, Ilihiak unbarred the door and returned to the tiny world where he was friend of no man, because he had to be king of all.

When Mon missed his target for the third time, Husu flew to him and stopped him. Others-most of them young angels in the earliest stages of training for Husu’s flying army of spies-continued their practicing, filling their mouths with darts, the points protruding, then rapidly firing them one-handed through their blowtubes, trying to get them somewhere near the targets. Someday they would learn to shoot accurately while they beat their wings in flight, one foot holding the blowtube, the other foot holding a burden. For now, though, they practiced while standing on one foot. Mon was usually furious with himself when he missed-after all, he could hold the tube with two hands, could aim while standing on two feet. But today he could hardly bring himself to care.

“Mon, my young friend, you’re tired, I think,” said Husu.

Mon shrugged. “Haven’t slept well?”

Mon shook his head. He hated having to explain himself. He was usually a better shot than this, he took pride in it.

“You’re a better shot than this,” said Husu. “If you had wings, I would already have promoted you.”

Husu could not have said words more likely to sting, but of course he couldn’t know that. “I knew the shot wasn’t right when I blew,” said Mon.

“And yet you blew.”

Mon shrugged again.

“Children shrug,” said Husu. “Soldiers analyze.”

“I blew the dart because I didn’t care,” said Mon.

“Ah,” said Husu. “If the target had been an Elemaki soldier, intent on cutting the throats of young angels standing in their roost, would you have cared?”

“I wake up in the night, again and again,” said Mon. “Something’s wrong.”

“Such precision,” said Husu. “And when you aim your darts, do you aim them at ‘something’? Why, then, you’re sure to hit your target every time. Because you’ll always hit ‘something.’ “

“Something with Monush’s expedition.”

Husu looked concerned at once. “Have they been harmed?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think that’s it. I don’t get this feeling when bad things happen or I’d never sleep at all, would I, because something bad is happening all the time. It only happens from bad choices. Mistakes. Monush has made a mistake.”

Husu chuckled. “And you don’t get that feeling all the time?”

“A mistake about something that matters to me.”

“I should think, then, that all mistakes that harm your father’s kingdom would keep you awake, and believe me, there are plenty of those.”

Mon turned to Husu and looked him in the eye. “I knew my explanation wouldn’t please you, sir, but you wouldn’t accept my shrug.”

Husu stopped chuckling. “No, I want the truth.”

“If I were heir to the king, then the whole kingdom would matter to me. As it stands, what matters to me is a very small thing indeed. Monush’s expedition matters to me because. ...”

“Because you sent them.”

“Father sent them.”

“They went because of your word.”

“They’ve made a mistake,” said Mon.

Husu nodded. “But you can’t do anything about it, can you? They aren’t within your reach, are they? No one can fly into Elemaki territory-they hunt down angels and shoot them out of the sky, and at those elevations the air is too thin for us to fly long distances, or very high, either. So-all you could possibly do about this feeling you have is tell your superior officer.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Mon. oc

“And now I’ve been told,” said Husu. “So-back to training. I’ll let you take a nap when you hit the target in the heart three times in a row.”

Which Mon did with his next three shots.

“Apparently you feel better,” said Husu. “Now go and take a nap.”

“You’ll tell my father?”

“I’ll tell your father that Monush has made a mistake. We’ll have to wait and see what that mistake might be.”

Monush sat in council with Ilihiak and several of his military advisers. Ilihiak’s wife, Wissedwa, sat behind him. This was quite unusual, but Monush said nothing about having a woman present in a council of war. The Zenifi had their own customs, their own reasons for doing things. Monush knew enough-had learned well enough from Mo-tiak-that you don’t take offense at the strange customs of other nations, you seek to learn from them. Still, was he wrong to think that some of the men studiously avoided looking at Wissedwa?

It took no time at all for the council to conclude that there was no point in trying to win their freedom through open rebellion. “Before you ever came here, Monush,” said Ilihiak sadly, “we fought too many times and lost too many men. We can win a victory in the battlefield, and the underking we defeated merely comes back with armies of his brotherkings.”

“Besides,” said one of the old men, “the diggers breed like the maggots they are.”

Ilihiak winced slightly. The people had agreed that they would take the covenant-that didn’t mean their opinion of nonhumans was going to change. And when it came to diggers, it wouldn’t much matter, anyway. Most diggers in Darakemba were slaves-captives of war or their descendants to the third generation. The Zenifi could hate diggers and not much bother their fellow citizens in Darakemba. It was their loathing for sky people that would cause problems.

During the early part of the meeting, Monush quickly learned that of all Ilihiak’s advisers, it was Khideo who had the king’s ear, and rightly so, because he spoke with calm wisdom and without passion. So it was a surprise that he had not been named Ush-Khideo by Ilihiak-that he had no title of honor at all. Now Khideo raised a hand slightly from his lap, and the others fell silent.

“O king,” he said, “you have listened to my words many times when we went to war against the Elemaki. Now, O king, if my counsel has ever been of service to you, I beg you to listen to me now and I will be your true servant and deliver this nation out of bondage.”

Monush wondered at the formality of Khideo’s speech-hadn’t he already spoken up several times, just like any of the other men?

Ilihiak touched his hand to his own lips, then opened his palm toward Khideo. “I give my voice to Khideo now.”

Ah, so that was it. Khideo wasn’t just giving casual counsel. He was asserting a privilege, and Ilihiak had granted it. More was at stake here than just advising the king. If Khideo’s plan was accepted, apparently he would be the one to lead the exodus. No doubt Khideo feared that Monush would try to lead the Zenifi out of captivity; Khideo was forestalling any such possibility. Monush would have to be their guide back to Darakemba, and it would be Monush who would introduce them to the great Motiak. But Khideo had no intention of letting Monush supplant him-or Ilihiak-as leader of the nation until the last possible moment. How needless this maneuvering was; Monush was not a man who cared who was in command, as long as the plan they followed was a wise one.

“The great Motiak sent so few men to find us because any larger group would surely have been caught and destroyed by the Elemaki,” said Khideo.

Of course Khideo would remind everyone of how few men Monush had brought with him. But Monush took no offense. Instead, he raised his hand from his lap and Khideo nodded, giving him the privilege of speech. “As it was, if the enemy had not been made stupid by the power of the Keeper, we would have been caught.” Even as he said the formulaic words, he wondered if perhaps they might not be true, at least in this case. Why hadn’t any of the Elemaki looked up at one of the many times when Monush’s men would have been visible moving across the face of the mountains?

“Now we propose to win the freedom of our whole people,” said Khideo. “You know at this table that I do not shrink from battle. You know that I don’t think even assassination is beneath my honor.”

The others nodded gravely, and now Monush began to suppose that he knew why Khideo had no honorific. It could not have been Ilihiak that he once tried to assassinate-but Nuab must have had some enemies when he was still alive as a truly terrible king. Ilihiak could accept Khideo’s counsel and even let him lead his armies, but he could never give an honorific to a man who tried to kill a king- especially his father, as unworthy as the old king might have been.

“Our only hope is to flee from this place,” said Khideo. “But to do it, we have to take at least enough of our herds with us to feed us on our journey. Has anyone ever tried to keep turkeys quiet? Will our pigs move as swiftly as a fleeing army needs to move? Not to mention our women and children-the nursing babies, the toddlers-will we take them along the faces of cliffs? March them for half a day or more at top speed?”

“At least the Elemaki know how impossible it is for you to escape as a people,” said Monush. “Therefore they post only a few guards here.”

“Exactly,” said Khideo.

“So we kill them and go!” cried one of the other men.

Khideo did not answer, but waited instead for Ilihiak to gently chide the man and return the voice to Khideo.

“I read again in the record we keep of the history of the Nafari,” said Khideo. “When Nafai led his people away from the traitorous lying murderer Elemak and the foul diggers who served him, he had the help of the Keeper of Earth, who made all the Elemaki sleep so soundly that they didn’t wake up.”

“Nafai was a hero,” said an old man. “The Keeper says nothing to us.”

“The Keeper spoke to Binaro,” said Ilihiak mildly.

“Binadi,” muttered another man.

Khideo shook his head. “The Keeper also sent the dream that brought Monush to us. We will trust that after we have done all we can do, the Keeper must do the rest to keep us safe. But my plan does not require us to pray to the Keeper and then hope our prayer is granted. You all know that we are forbidden to ferment any of our barley, even though it makes the water safer from disease. Why is that?”

“Because the beer makes the diggers crazy,” said an old man.

“It makes them stupid,” said Khideo. “It makes them drunk. Rowdy, noisy, happy, stupid-and then they pass out. This is why we’re forbidden to make it-because the dirt-eaters don’t have any self-control.”

“If we offer them beer,” said Ilihiak, “even presuming we can find any-”

Several of the men laughed. Apparently clandestine brewing was not unheard of.

“-what’s to stop them from arresting and imprisoning whoever offers it to them?”

Khideo only nodded at the king.

No, not at the king at all. At the king’s wife, Wissedwa. She turned her face away, so she didn’t look directly at any of the men, but she spoke boldly so all could hear her. “We know that to the diggers all women are sacred. Even if they refuse the beer they will not lay hands on us. So we will offer it to them as the last share of the harvest. They’ll know they can’t legally turn it in to their superiors without also turning in the criminals who gave it to them; they’ll have no choice but to drink it.”

“The queen speaks my plan from her own lips,” said Khideo.

Monush thought that Khideo bore the shame of deferring to a woman in council with great dignity. He would have to ask, later, why the voice of the woman was heard. In the meantime, though, it was obvious that she was no fool and had followed the discussion completely. Monush tried to imagine a woman at one of Motiak’s councils. Who would it be? Not Dudagu, that was certain-had she ever uttered an intelligent word? And Toeledwa, before she died, had always been quiet, refusing even to ask about matters outside the rearing of her children and the affairs of the king’s house. But Edhadeya, now- Monush could imagine her speaking boldly in council. There’d be no silencing her if once she was given the right to speak. This was definitely an idea that should never be suggested to Motiak. He doted on Edhadeya enough that he might just decide to grant her the privilege of speech, and that would be the end of all dignity for the king’s council. I have not the humility of this Khideo, thought Monush.

“Now we must know,” said Khideo, “whether Monush knows another way back to Darakemba that won’t take us through the heart of the land of Nafai.”

Monush spoke immediately. “Motiak and I looked at all the maps before my men and I set out. We had no choice but to come up the Tsidorek in search of you, because that was the route of your great king Zenifab when your ancestors left. But for the return, if you know the way to the river Mebberek-”

“It’s called Mebbereg in this country,” said an old man, “if it’s the same river.”

“Does it have a tributary with a pure source?” asked Monush.

“Mebbereg’s largest tributary is the Ureg. It begins in a lake called Uprod, which is a pure source,” said the old man.

“That’s the one,” said Monush. “There’s an ancient pass above Uprod leading into the land northward. I know how to find it, I think, if the land hasn’t changed too much since our maps were made. It comes out not far from a bend in the Padurek, which is the great pure-source tributary of the Tsidorek. From the moment we emerge from that pass, we will be in lands ruled by Motiak.”

Khideo nodded. “Then we will leave through the back of the city, away from the river. And we’ll only need to give the beer to the Elemaki guards who are stationed here in the city. The guards downriver and upriver will never hear us, nor will the ones crossriver know anything is going on. And when the guards discover us gone, they won’t dare go to their king to report their failure, because they know that they’ll all be slaughtered. Instead they’ll flee into the forest themselves and become outlaws and vagabonds, and it will be many days before the king of the Elemaki knows what we’ve done. That is my plan, O king, and now I return your voice to you.”

“I receive back my voice,” said Ilihiak. “And I declare that it truly was my voice, and Khideo is now my hands and my feet in leading this nation to freedom. He will set the day, and all will obey him as if he were king until we are at the shores of the Mebbereg.”

Monush watched as all the other men in the council immediately knelt and touched their palms to the floor, doing obeisance to Khideo. Monush nodded toward him, as befitted the dignity of the emissary of Motiak. Khideo looked at him under a raised eyebrow. Monush didn’t let his benign expression waver. After a moment, Khideo must have decided that Monush’s nod was enough, for he raised his hands to release the others, and then knelt himself before the king, putting his face between the king’s knees and his hands flat on the king’s feet.

“All I do in your name will bring you honor, O king, until the day I give you back your hands and feet.”

Monush found it interesting that these rituals could have emerged so quickly, after only three generations of separation from Darakemba. Then it dawned on him that these rituals might be much older-but they had been learned from the Elemaki in the years since the Zenifi came to this place. How ironic if the Zenifi came here to be the purest Nafari, only to be the ones who adapted themselves to the ways of the Elemaki.

Ilihiak laid his hands on Khideo’s head for a moment. That apparently ended the ritual, and Khideo arose and returned to his seat. Ilihiak smiled at them all. “Act with courage, my friends, for the time is now if the Keeper is to deliver us at all.”

By evening, to Monush’s astonishment, all the people had been notified, the allotted herds had been assembled, and the guards stationed in the city were roaring drunk. Hours before dawn, in bright moonlight, the people moved with astonishing quietness out of the city, past the stupefied diggers, out into the forest. Khideo and his scouts were excellent guides, and in three days they were at the shores of the Mebbereg. From there, Ilihiak, once again the sole ruler of the Zenifi, used Monush’s services as a scout and guide-but Monush did not ask for, nor did Ilihiak offer, the kind of authority that had been given to Khideo.

When I get to Motiak, thought Monush, I will tell him that he would be wise to give great respect to these people, for even in their small, oppressed kingdom, they found a few who are worthy of authority and skilled in its use.

Edhadeya watched anxiously from her place among the women as the Zenifi passed through the river, coming out of it as new people. She saw how they shied away from the watching sky people; it made her feel sad to see how, even cleansed by the water of Tsidorek, they still kept the old prejudices they were raised with. We can wash people in the water all we want, she thought, but we can never wash their parents out of their hearts.

She was not watching for real change in these people, of course- she knew that rituals existed to point the way, not to actually accomplish anything in themselves. They provided a marking point in people’s lives, a public memory. Someday the children or grandchildren of the Zenifi would say, On the day our ancestors passed through the water they emerged as new people, and from that day forward we welcomed the sky people as our brothers, fellow children of the Keeper of Earth. But the truth would be very different, for in all likelihood it would be those very children or grandchildren who were the first of the Zenifi to embrace the brotherhood of angel and human. Yet their parents would not all deny what their children believed-the ritual was the marker, and in the end, it would become the truth even if it didn’t begin that way.

The women-even the waterkeepers-did not greet the people rising out of the icy water; it was the priests of Motiak who met them and laid hands on them to make them new people and give them names which were, oddly enough, identical to their old names with the addition of the title “citizen.” Edhadeya was old enough now to have learned the stories of the old days, when Luet stood as Nafai’s equal, as Chveya and Oykib stood side by side. She was also old enough to have heard the priests talk about how the old records were misinterpreted, for it was the custom among the ancients to show so much honor to the Heroes that even their wives were treated like Heroes-but it was entirely because of their husbands that these women were remembered. Edhadeya read several passages from the Book of Nafai aloud to Uss-Uss, her digger teacher-slave. “How can the priests interpret this any way but that Luet was a waterseer before she even met Nafai? And Hushidh was a raveler long before she married Issib?”

To which Uss-Uss replied, “Why should it surprise you that these male humans have to lie even about their own sacred records? The earth people honor their women; so do the sky people; therefore the middle people must deny their women.”

It seemed to Edhadeya at the time to be too simple an explanation, and now, watching the priests, she realized that most human men did not treat their wives and daughters as if they were nothing. Hadn’t Father sent the expedition to find the Zenifi solely because of her own dream, the dream of a woman? That must have made the priests’ skin crawl! And now every single man and woman who came out of the water was proof that the Keeper showed a woman what she never showed any of these priests!

But it was not to gloat or boast that Edhadeya stood pressed to the rail of the bridge to watch the Zenifi become citizens. She was looking for the faces she had seen in her dream. Surely that family would be one of the people who came. But when the last of them passed through the water, Edhadeya knew that she hadn’t seen them.

How tragic, that the people she dreamed of should have been among the ones who died.

It was not until hours later, after the presentations of this dignitary and that one to Father, that Edhadeya was able to get a moment with Monush-though certainly not a private moment, since Aronha and Mon both stayed as near the great soldier as they could get without wearing his clothing.

“Monush,” she said, “how sad that they died, the people I saw in my dream.”

“Died?” he asked. “No one died. We came away from Zinom without losing a single one of the people of Ilihiak.”

“But Monush, how can you explain to me why the people I dreamed of are not among these people?”

Monush looked confused. “Perhaps you remember them wrong.”

Edhadeya shook her head. “Do you think I see such a vision every day? It was a true dream-and the people I truly saw aren’t among these.”

Within a few minutes, Edhadeya was alone with Father, Monush, and two men of the Zenifi-their king, Ilihiak, and Khideo, who seemed to be Ilihiak’s most honored friend.

“Tell me of the people you saw,” said Ilihiak kindly, when Motiak had indicated he should speak.

Edhadeya described them, and Ilihiak and Khideo both nodded. “We know who it was she saw,” said Ilihiak. “It was Akmaro and his wife Chebeya.”

“Who are they?” asked Motiak.

Once again Ilihiak explained about the one priest who had opposed the killing of Binadi, how he had fled the kingdom and gathered a few hundred supporters before disappearing to escape the army Nuak sent against them. “If you dreamed of them,” said Ilihiak, “and it was a true dream, it must mean that they are still alive. I rejoice to hear this.”

“But then that means we rescued the wrong people,” said Monush. Ilihiak bowed his head. “My lord Motiak, I hope that you do not regret having redeemed my poor kingdom from captivity.” Motiak stared silently into the empty air in front of him. “Motiak,” said Monush, “I remember now that there was a brief time on the ledge of the cliff, before we passed near Sidonod, when I was confused. I had dreamed something but couldn’t remember the dream. Now I realize that the Keeper must have been trying to show me the right way, and the mischievous Jaguar must have-”

“No Jaguar,” said Motiak. “The Jaguar has no power over the Keeper of Earth.”

“But over such a weak man as myself,” said Monush. “There is no Jaguar except the stupid cats themselves,” said Motiak impatiently. “I don’t understand how you missed the right way, Monush. But I do know it was a good thing to find the Zenifi and bring them home to Darakemba. It was also a good thing for them to take the covenant and give up their old hatred of the sky people. The Keeper must be happy with this, so I refuse to call this a mistake.”

Motiak turned his gaze to Edhadeya. “Are you sure you interpreted your dream correctly? Perhaps this Akmaro was asking the Keeper to send help for the people of Ilihiak.”

“He and his wife and their children were frightened because of their own captivity,” said Edhadeya.

“But a girl can hardly interpret a true dream,” said Khideo, sounding as if he were only pointing out the obvious.

“You were not asked to speak,” said Motiak mildly, “and my daughter is like my ancient mother-of-mothers, Luet-when she dreams true, she can be trusted. I hope you don’t doubt that, my friend.”

Khideo bowed his head. “I have spent many years listening to a woman speak in a king’s council,” he said quietly. “She was the woman who saved the lives of our people, by leading our young girls out to plead with the invading Elemaki, knowing that the diggers among them would not raise their weapons against a female, but uncertain of what the bloodthirsty humans among them might do. But even she did not dare to interpret dreams in the council. And she was not a child.”

Motiak looked at him in silence, at his bowed head. “I see that you’re ashamed of the way I conduct my council,” said Motiak. “But if I had not heeded this girl’s dream, my friend, Monush would never have been sent, and you would never have been brought here to freedom and safety.”

Ilihiak, obviously embarrassed, said, “It was never an easy thing for Khideo to break from the old ways, even to hear my wife speak in council, though she was very circumspect. But there has been no braver war leader nor truer friend-”

“I’m not angry at Khideo,” said Motiak. “I only ask him to understand that I do not shame him, I honor him by letting him be present when I hear my daughter’s words. If he feels himself unprepared for this honor, he may withdraw and I will not be offended.”

“I beg to be allowed to stay,” murmured Khideo.

“Very well,” said Motiak. Then he turned to the whole group. “We sent one expedition, and Monush tells me that it was very dangerous- they could have been discovered at any time.”

Edhadeya, sensing where this discussion was leading, plunged in. “But they weren’t discovered,” she said, “because the Keeper was protecting them and-”

Father’s cold stare and the shocked silence of the other men, their eyes wide, their mouths open-it was enough to silence her even as she pleaded for the people of the dream.

“Perhaps my daughter could study the ancient stories, and learn that Luet showed proper respect at all times.”

Edhadeya had read the ancient stories already, many times, and she distinctly remembered that there were at least a few occasions when Luet showed that she thought her visions were more important than any kind of courtesy. But it would not be wise to contradict Father. She had already said too much-after all, most of the men here thought it improper for her even to be present at a council of the King. “Father, I should have confined my pleadings to a time when we are alone.”

“There is nothing to plead,” said Motiak. “I obeyed the Keeper’s dream and sent Monush and his men. They found the Zenifi and brought them home, and it seems plain to me that they had the protection of the Keeper all the way. Now if the Keeper wants me to send another expedition, he must first send another dream.”

“To a man this time, perhaps,” said Khideo softly.

Motiak smiled wanly. “I don’t presume to tell the Keeper of Earth which of his children’s minds should be the receptacle for his messages to us.”

Lesser men might have withered; Khideo managed to bow his head without seeming to give way at all. It seemed to Edhadeya that he might not always be content to bow to other men.

“Edhadeya, you may leave us,” said Father. “Trust in the Keeper of Earth. And also trust in me.”

Trust in Father? Of course she did-she trusted in him to be kind to her, to keep his word, to be a just king and a wise father. But she could also trust him to ignore her most of the time, to allow custom to keep her in the women’s part of the house where she was supposed to give respect to a jealous witling like Dudagu Dermo. If all women were like Edhadeya’s stepmother, the customs would make sense- why should men have to waste time listening to her? But I am nothing like Dudagu, thought Edhadeya, and Father knows it. He knows it, and yet out of respect for custom he treats me as if all women were equally worthless. He gives custom more respect than he gives me.

As she worked angrily on her pointless weaving in her room, Edhadeya had to be honest enough with herself to admit that Father treated her with more respect than she ever saw other men treat women-and that Father was criticized for it, too. Now that Monush had come home with the Zenifi, who really did need saving, everyone admitted that Motiak had not been foolish to listen to his daughter. But then, in front of everyone, Edhadeya had insisted that Monush brought back the wrong people. It was a stupid thing for her to do. Why spoil a triumph? There would have been chances to talk to him privately. She just wasn’t used to thinking politically, that was all.

But it was hardly her fault if she didn’t understand about politics, was it? It wasn’t her decision to keep her out of court except on women’s days, when she was trotted out for display, to smile at the simpering ladies who drifted in like down from a baby duck. She wanted to scream at them that they were the most worthless creatures on earth, dressed in their fine clothing and never deigning to dirty their hands with work. Be like the sky women! Be like the earth women! Accomplish something! Be like the poorest of the middle women, if you can’t think of anything else to do-learn a skill that isn’t just decorative, have a thought of your own and sustain it with an argument!

Be fair, be fair, she told herself. Many of these women are smarter than they seem. They learn their light manners and display their beauty to help increase their family’s status and honor in the kingdom. What are they supposed to do? They aren’t the daughter of an indulgent king who lets his daughter strut around as if she were a boy, standing on the roof with that mad child Mon who wants to be an angel. . . .

I like to be with Mon, because he doesn’t condescend to me. And why shouldn’t he want to be an angel? He doesn’t talk about it, does he? He doesn’t make wings out of feathers and string and try to jump off the roof, does he? He isn’t insane, he’s simply as trapped in his life as I am in mine. That makes us friends.

Friends, a man and a woman. It was possible. You’d think to hear some people talk that a human man had more in common with an angel man than with a human woman.

Edhadeya thought back to her dream. She knew she thought of it too much. As she discovered more and more in the dream, she couldn’t trust her new conclusions; it was obvious that she must be adding her own needs and desires and ideas to the one vision that the Keeper had given her. Still, she was sure, thinking back to the sight of that family, that the father thought of the mother as his equal or even-yes, she knew it!-his superior in at least some ways. He thought she was braver than he was, that was certain. Stronger. And he would admit it. And both parents valued the daughter as much as they valued the son. Even though they lived as slaves among the diggers, this was the great truth that they would bring back to Darakemba if only they could be liberated. For they would have the courage to preach this idea to everyone. That Akmaro was not diminished by his respect for Chebeya, and they did not honor their son Akma any less just because they honored Luet as much.

Luet? Akma? No one had said these names. They had spoken of Akmaro and Chebeya, but had they mentioned the children’s names?

It wasn’t hard to guess that the wife of Ro-Akma would insist on naming her firstborn son Akma after his father, but how did she know they had named their daughter Luet?

I knew because the Keeper of Earth is still speaking to me through the same dream, through my memories of the dream.

Even as the thought came into her mind, she knew she must not tell anyone. It would be claiming too much. It would sound to others as if she were simply trying to exploit her triumphant dream and go on telling people what to do. She would have to be careful to assert special knowledge of the Keeper only rarely.

But whether she could speak of it or not, the Keeper was still aware of her, still speaking to her, and that was such joyful news it could hardly be contained.

“So? What is it? Don’t just wiggle like you have to void yourself.” Edhadeya screeched at the first sound of Uss-Uss’s voice. She hadn’t realized the digger slave was even in the room.

“I was here in plain sight when you came in, foolish girl,” said Uss-Uss. “If you hadn’t been so angry at your father, you would have seen me.”

“I didn’t say anything,” said Edhadeya.

“Oh, didn’t you? Muttering under your breath about how you’re not as stupid as Dudagu Dermo and you don’t deserve to be shut out of everything and Mon isn’t crazy because he wants to be an angel because why shouldn’t worthless people like the king’s daughter and the king’s second son wish they could be anythingbut what they are-”

“Oh be quiet!” said Edhadeya with mock petulance. “Making fun of me like that.”

“I’ve told you muttering isn’t a good habit. Keen ears can hear.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t say anything about kings’ daughters or kings’ second sons-”

“You are losing your mind, girl. And I notice while you’re talking about what you and Mon wish you were, you didn’t come up with no old diggers, did you!”

“Even if I wanted to be a digger and live with my nose in the dirt,” said Edhadeya nastily, “I certainly wouldn’t want to be old.”

“May the Mother forgive you,” said Uss-Uss quickly, “and let you live to be old despite your careless words.”

Edhadeya smiled at Uss-Uss’s concern for her. “The Keeper isn’t going to strike me dead for saying things like that.”

“So far, you mean,” said Uss-Uss.

“Does the Keeper ever speak to you, Uss-Uss?”

“In the thrumming of the roots of trees under the earth, she speaks to me,” said Uss-Uss.

“What does she say?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t speak the language of trees,” said Uss-Uss. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Something about how stupid young girls are, that’s all I get from her.”

“How odd, that the Keeper would tell the truth to me, and lie to you.”

Uss-Uss cackled with delight at the repartee-and then stopped abruptly. Edhadeya turned and saw her father in the doorway.

“Father,” she said. “Come in.”

“Did I hear a servant calling her mistress stupid?” asked Father.

“We were joking with each other,” said Edhadeya.

“It doesn’t lead to anything good, to be too familiar with servants, whether they’re diggers or not.”

“It leads to my feeling as though I had one intelligent friend in the world,” said Edhadeya. “Or perhaps that isn’t good, in the eyes of the king.”

“Don’t be snippy, Edhadeya. I didn’t make the rules, I inherited them.”

“And you’ve done nothing to change them.”

“I sent an army because of your dream.”

“Sixteen men. And you sent them because Mon said it was a true dream.”

“Oh, am I condemned because the Keeper gave you a witness to support your claim?”

“Father, I’ll never condemn you. But Akmaro and his family have to be brought here. Don’t you understand? The things that Akmaro teaches-that a man and woman are equal partners, that a family should rejoice at the birth of a daughter as much as at the birth of a son-”

“How do you know what he teaches?” asked Father.

“I saw them, didn’t I?” she said defiantly. “And I’ll bet the daughter’s name is Luet, and the son’s name is the same as the father’s. Except the honorific, of course.”

Motiak frowned at her, but she knew from his anger that she was right, those were the names. “Are you using the gift of the Keeper to show off?” said Father sternly. “To try to force me to do your bidding?”

“Father, why do you have to say it that way? Why can’t you say, Oh, Edhadeya, how wonderful that the Keeper tells you so much! How wonderful that the Keeper is alive in you!”

“Wonderful,” he said. “And difficult. Khideo is furious at having been humiliated by my letting a girl speak so boldly before him.”

“Well, the poor man. Let him go back to the Elemaki then!”

“He’s a genuine hero, Edhadeya, a man of great honor and not the sort of man that I want to have as my enemy!”

“He’s also a bigot of the first stripe, and you know it! You’re going to have to settle these people off by themselves somewhere, or there’ll be trouble.”

“I know that. They know it, too. There’s land along the valley of the Jatvarek, after it has fallen down from the gornaya but before it enters the flatlands. No angels live there, because the jaguars and the lesser cats are too prevalent there in the rainy season. So it will suit them.”

“Wherever humans go, angels can safely live,” said Edhadeya. She was taunting him with his own law, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

“A good king can tolerate reasonable variation among his people. It costs the sky people nothing to avoid settling among the Zenifi, as long as the Zenifi give them free and safe passage, and respect their right to trade. In a few generations. ...”

“I know,” she said. “I know it’s a wise choice.”

“But you’re in the mood to argue with me about everything.”

“Because I think that none of this has anything to do with the people I saw in my dream. What about them, Father?”

“I can’t send another party to search for Akmaro,” said Mctiak.

“Won’t, you mean.”

“Won’t, then. But for a good reason.”

“Because a woman is asking you to.”

“You’re hardly a woman yet,” said Motiak. “Right now the entire enterprise we just concluded is regarded as a great success. But if I send out another army, it will look as though the first attempt was a failure.”

“It was a failure.”

“No it wasn’t,” said Motiak. “Do you think you’re the only one who hears the voice of the Keeper?”

Edhadeya gasped and blushed. “Oh, Father! Has the Keeper sent you a dream?”

“I have the Index of the Oversoul, Dedaya. I was consulting it for another reason, but as I held it in my hands, I heard a voice clearly speak to me. Let me bring Akmaro home, said the voice.”

“Oh, Father! The Index is still alive, after all these years?”

“I don’t think it’s any more alive than a stone,” said Motiak. “But the Keeper is alive.”

“The Oversoul, you mean,” said Edhadeya. “It’s the Index of the Oversoul.”

“I know that the ancient records make a great deal of distinction between them, but I’ve never understood it myself,” said Motiak.

“So the Keeper will bring Chebeya and her family home to Darakemba?”

Motiak narrowed his eyes, pretending to glare at her. “Do you think I don’t notice when you do that?”

“Do what?” asked Edhadeya, all wide-eyed innocence.

“Not Akmaro and his people-no, you say ‘Chebeya and her fam-ily.’ “

Edhadeya shrugged.

“The way you women persist in calling the Keeper ‘she’ all the time. You know that the priests are always after me to forbid women to do that, at least in front of men. I always say to them, when the ancient records no longer show us Luet, Rasa, Chveya, and Hushidh speaking of the Oversoul and the Keeper as ‘she’ and ‘her,’ then in that same moment I’ll forbid the women to do as the ancients did. That shuts them up-though I’ll bet more than a few of them have wondered how serious I am, and whether they could somehow alter the ancient records without my noticing.”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“That’s right, they wouldn’t,” said Motiak.

“You could also ask those priests to show you the anatomical chart of the Keeper that shows him to have a-”

“Mind your language,” said Motiak. “I’m your father, and I’m the king. There should be a certain dignity in both offices. And I’m not about to convince the priests that I’ve turned against the old religion now, am I?”

“A bunch of old-”

“There are things that I may not hear, as head of the worship of men.”

“Worship of men is right,” muttered Edhadeya.

“What was that?” asked Motiak.

“Nothing.”

“Worship of men, you said? What did that-oh, I see. Well, think how you like. Just remember that I won’t always be king, and you can’t be sure that my successor will be as tolerant of your subversive little attacks on the men’s religion. I’m content to let women worship as they please, and so was my father and his father before him. But there’s always agitation to change things, to shut down the heresies of women. Every wife who strikes her husband or scolds him publicly is taken as one more proof that letting the women have their own religion makes them disrespectful and destructive.”

“What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because the priests force us or because we’re afraid that they might force us?”

“If you can’t see the difference, you’re not as bright as I thought.”

“Do you really think I’m intelligent, Father?”

“What, are you really fishing for more praise than I already give you?”

“I just want to believe you.”

“I’ve heard enough from you, when you start doubting my word.” He got up and started for the door.

“I’m not doubting your honesty, Father!” she cried out. “I know you think that you think I’m intelligent. But I think that in the back of your mind, you always have another little phrase: ‘for a woman.’ I’m intelligent-for a woman. I’m wise-for a woman.”

“I can promise you,” said Motiak, “that the phrase ‘for a woman’ never comes to my mind in reference to you. But the phrase ‘for a child’ is there, I can assure you-and often.” She felt as if he had slapped her. “I meant you to,” said Father.

Only when he answered did she realize she had muttered the words. Feel slapped.

“I respect your intelligence enough,” said Father, “that I think a verbal slap teaches you better than a physical one. Now trust in the Keeper to bring this Akmaro-and Chebeya-to Darakemba. And in the meantime, don’t expect me to be able to stand custom on its head. A king can’t lead his people faster and farther than they’re willing to follow.”

“What if the people insist on doing wrong?” asked Edhadeya.

“What, am I in my schoolroom, being tossed hypothetical questions by my tutors?”

“Is that how the heir to the king gets taught?” she asked defiantly. “Where are the tutors asking me hypothetical questions about kingship?”

“I’ll answer your original question, not these impossible ones. If the people insist on doing wrong, and the king can’t persuade them to do right, then the king steps down from the throne. If his son has honor, he refuses to take the throne after him, and so do all his sons. Let the people do evil if they choose, but with a new king of their own choosing.”

In awe, Edhadeya whispered, “Could you do that, Father? Could you give up the throne?”

“I’ll never have to,” he said. “My people are basically good, and they’re learning. If I push too hard, I gain nothing and the resistance gets stronger. During the long slow years of transformation I need the trust and patience of those who want me to make changes in their favor.” He leaned down and kissed the crown of her head, where the hair was parted. “If I had no sons, but you were still my daughter, then I would hurry the changes so that you could have the throne in my place. But I have sons, good ones, as you well know. And so I will let the change come gradually, generation after generation, as my father and grandfather did before me. Now I have work to do, and I’ll spend no more time on you. There are whole nations under my rule who get less of my attention than you do.”

Giving him her best demure smile, she said, in a simpering courtly ladylike voice, “Oh, Father, you’re so incredibly kind to me.”

“One of my ancestors walled up a recalcitrant daughter in a cave with only bread and water to eat until she became properly obedient,” said Father.

“As I recall, she dug her way out of the cave with her fingernails and ran off and married the Elemaki king.”

“You read too much,” said Father.

She stuck out her tongue at him, but he didn’t see, because he was gone.

Behind her, Uss-Uss spoke up again. “Aren’t you the brave little soldier?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” said Edhadeya.

“I’m not,” said Uss-Uss. “You know, one of the stories that circulates among us devil slaves-”

“No one calls you devils anymore.”

“Don’t interrupt your elders,” said Uss-Uss. “We all tell each other the story of the digger who was cleaning a chamber when two traitors spoke together, plotting the death of the king. The slave went straight to the king and told him, whereupon the king had the digger killed, for daring to hear what humans said in front of him.”

“What, do you think I’m going to-”

“I’m just telling you that if you think you’re suffering because you’re a human woman, remember that your father didn’t even bother to send me out of the room in order to talk to you. Why is that?”

“Because he trusts you.”

“He doesn’t know me. He only knows that I know what the penalty is for daring to repeat what I hear. Don’t tell me how oppressed the women of Darakemba are when most of us diggers are slaves that can be killed for the slightest infraction-even for an act of great loyalty.”

“I’ve never heard that story,” said Edhadeya.

“Just because you haven’t heard it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“So Father thinks I’m a troublemaker and you think I’m a proud insensitive-”

“And aren’t you?”

Edhadeya shrugged. “I’d free you if I could.”

“At least your father pretended that he was trying to change your place in society. But in all your pleading, have you ever asked for the earth people of Darakemba to be set free?”

Edhadeya was furious; she didn’t like being called a hypocrite. “It’s completely different!”

“So eager to get this Chebeya and Akmaro out of captivity, but not a thought about getting old Uss-Uss her freedom.”

“What would you do with it if you had it?” demanded Edhadeya. “Go back to the Elemaki? The soldiers would have to kill you before you got halfway there, so you couldn’t tell them all our secrets.”

“Go back to the Elemaki? Child, my great grandfather was born a slave to the kings of the Nafari. Back to a place I’ve never been?”

“Do you really hate me?” asked Edhadeya.

“I never said I hated you,” said Uss-Uss.

“But you want to be free of me.”

“I would like it, when my day’s work was done, when you were fast asleep, I would like it, to go home to my own little house, and kiss the noses of my own fat little grandchildren, and share with my husband the wages I was paid for serving in the king’s house. Do you think I’d give you any less faithful service, just because I was doing it freely instead of because I knew I could be killed or at least sold out of the house if I made the slightest mistake?”

Edhadeya thought about this. “But you’d live in a hole in the ground, if you were free,” she said.

Uss-Uss cackled and hooted. “Of course I would! So what if I did?”

“But that’s. . . .”

“That’s inhuman” said Uss-Uss, still laughing.

Edhadeya finally got the joke, and laughed with her.

Later, when it was dark, when Edhadeya was supposed to be asleep, she was wakened by a slight sound at the window. She saw there in the moonlight the silhouette of Uss-Uss, her head bobbing up and down. Thinking something might be wrong, Edhadeya got up and padded to the window.

Hearing her, Uss-Uss turned around and waited for her.

“Do you do this every night?” asked Edhadeya.

“No,” said Uss-Uss. “Only tonight. But you were worried about these humans who are held captive by diggers in some far-off place.”

“So you pray to the Keeper for them?”

“Why should I do that?” asked Uss-Uss. “The Keeper knows they’re there-it was the Keeper sent you the dream you had, wasn’t it? I don’t figure it’s my business to tell the Mother what she already knows! No, I was praying to the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried. She lives in that star, that high one. The one that’s always overhead.”

“No one can live in a star,” said Edhadeya.

“An immortal can,” said Uss-Uss. “I pray to her.”

“Does she have a name?”

“A very sacred one,” said Uss-Uss.

“Can you tell it to me?”

Uss-Uss lifted up the hem of Edhadeya’s long nightgown and draped it onto her head, so that the cloth was over Edhadeya’s ear. “My name is Voozhum,” said Uss-Uss. “Now that you know my true name, I can tell you the name of the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried.” Then Uss-Uss waited.

“Please,” said Edhadeya, trembling. “Please, Voozhum.” What was she supposed to do or say now? All she could think of was to offer the most formal and official version of her own name in answer. “My true name is Ya-Edhad.”

“The One-Who-Was-Never-Buried is the one to whom Nafai gave the cloak of the starmaster. Did they think this was a secret from the earth people? The blessed ancestors saw her skin tremble with light. She is Shedemei, and she is the one who took the tower up into the sky and made a star of it.”

“And she’s still alive?”

“She has been seen twice in the years since then. Both times tending a garden, once in a high mountain valley, and once on the side of a cliff in the lowest reaches of the gornaya. She is the gardener, and she watches over the whole Earth. She will know what to do about Che-beya and her husband, about Luet and her brother.”

For the first time Edhadeya realized that there might be things that the diggers knew that they didn’t learn from the humans, and it filled her with a sudden and unfamiliar blush of humility. “Teach me how to speak to the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried.”

“You fix your eye on the permanent star, the one they call Basilica.”

Edhadeya looked up and found it easily-as every child could do.

“Then you bob your head, like this,” said Uss-Uss.

“Can she see us?”

“I don’t know,” said Uss-Uss. “I only know that this is what we do when we pray to her. I think it started because that was how she moved her head that time when she was seen in a high valley.”

So Edhadeya joined her slave in the unfamiliar ritual. Together they asked the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried to watch out for Chebeya and Luet and their people, and set them free. Uss-Uss would say a phrase, and Edhadeya would repeat it. At the end, Edhadeya added a few words of her own. “And help set all women free from captivity,” she said. “Women of the sky, women of the earth, and women of the middle.”

Uss-Uss cackled for a moment, then repeated the phrase. “And just think,” she said. “Someday they’ll marry you off to some second-rate potentate somewhere and I’ll be dead and you’ll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!” Then she bustled Edhadeya back to bed, where she slept fitfully, dreaming meaningless dreams about dead women with sparkling skin whom no one had remembered to bury.

“If I didn’t think this whole thing might be a mistake, I’d think it was funny,” said the Oversoul.

“You don’t have a sense of humor,” said Shedemei, “and if you thought it was a mistake you wouldn’t have done it.”

“I can make a decision when I’m still eighty percent unsure of the outcome,” said the Oversoul. “It’s built into my programming, to help keep me from dithering to the point of inaction.”

“I think sending Motiak that message through the Index was a good idea,” said Shedemei. “Prevent them sending another expedition. Force the Keeper to act.”

“Easy for you to decide, Shedemei,” said the Oversoul. “Tow have no compassion for them.

Shedemei felt those words cut her to the heart. “A machine tells me that I have no compassion?”

“I have a sort of virtual compassion,” said the Oversoul. “I do take human suffering into account, though not usually the suffering of individuals. Akmaro and Chebeya have a large enough group there that, yes, I feel some compassion for them. But you have the normal human ability to dehumanize people at will, especially strangers, especially in large groups.”

“You’re saying I’m a monster.”

“I’m saying the humans feel compassion primarily for those they conceive of as being part of themselves. You don’t know these people, so you can use them as bait for the Keeper of Earth. If it was just one person being tortured, however, you wouldn’t do it-because then you would empathize with her and couldn’t live with yourself for letting her suffer.”

Shedemei was so agitated she left the library and went to tend her seedlings in the high-altitude room, where she was trying to breed a legume that would produce useful quantities of high-protein, high-energy beans in the highest mountain valleys of the gornaya. It was unspeakable, what the Oversoul had said, but it also made a kind of sense. As primates evolved toward depending on a community for cooperative survival, they would evolve empathy first for their own children, then for the children of others, then for the adult parents of those other children-but as the circle grew wider, the empathy would grow weaker.

Finally, humans had to evolve what no other primate had: a sense of identity with a group so powerful that it could swallow up the individual identity, at least to a large degree. Humans couldn’t have this deep, self-sacrificing loyalty to more than one or two communities at a time. Thus communities were inevitably in conflict with each other, competing for the loyalty of their members. The tribe had to break down the solidarity of the family; religion had to compete with nation for loyalty. But once a community had that loyalty, the most ardent members would gladly die for it. Not for the other individuals directly, but for the interests of the group as a whole, because in the human mind, that group was the self, and the individual was able to regard himself as merely one iteration of the pattern of the whole. Humans, in order to rise above animals, had learned how to convert themselves into nothing more than organs or limbs or even the disposable fingernails and hair of a larger metaphorical organism.

The Oversoul is right. If I knew Chebeya and her people as individuals, then even with no more moral insight than a baboon, I would reach out to protect them. Or if I conceived myself to be one of them, I would subsume my own interests in the needs of the group as a whole, and would not dream of making them serve as bait in an attempt to serve the Keeper of Earth.

The Oversoul, on the other hand, was created to look out for the needs of humanity as a whole. The powers she had were tremendous, and her programmers had to build some kind of compassion into her. But it was an intellectual compassion, a historical compassion-the more people who were suffering, the greater the priority of easing their pain. Thus the Oversoul could overlook individual accidents, the intermittent deaths from the ordinary course of a disease cycling through a region; but the Oversoul would dread and try to avoid the large group suffering that came from war, drought, flood, epidemic. In those cases, the Oversoul could act, guiding individuals to actions that would help the whole affected population-not to save individual lives, but to reduce the scale of the suffering.

Between the two of us, though, thought Shedemei, we are left untouched by the suffering of Chebeya’s people. There aren’t enough of them to force the Oversoul to intervene on their behalf-though there are enough to make her uncomfortable. And I, on my isolated perch in the outer reaches of the atmosphere, I am no part of them. All my people are gone; my community is dead. As the digger women speak of me: I am the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried. That is the only difference between me and the dead, for a person who has no living community is dead. Haven’t I seen it in old people? Spouse gone, friends gone, family gone except for later generations that barely remember the old one-they become annoyed to discover that they’re still alive. Have I reached that point?

Not yet, she thought, sliding her fingers behind the tiny trowel in order to lift out a seedling that needed transplanting into a larger tray. Because my plants have become my people. My little animals, going through generation after generation as I play genetic games with them-they are the ones I think of as part of myself.

So is this good or bad? The Oversoul needs to get advice from the Keeper of Earth in order to alleviate the suffering of the people of Harmony. To accomplish that, we need to interfere with the Keeper’s plans. The Keeper wants to rescue Chebeya and Akmaro; therefore we’ll make it harder. It’s not an unreasonable plan. In the end, it will be to the benefit of millions and millions of people on Harmony.

But we’re doing it blindly. We don’t know what the Keeper is trying to accomplish. Why is she trying to save the Akmari? Maybe we should have tried to understand her purpose before we started fiddling around with her ability to accomplish it.

Yet how can we understand her purpose if she won’t talk to us? It’s so circular.

<Yes, it is.>

“Don’t talk into my mind,” she said to the Oversoul. “I hate that.”

<If you won’t go where I have a comfortable voice, I’ll use an uncomfortable one.>

“I wasn’t talking to you, I was thinking to myself.” <If you don’t want me to hear you, don’t think.> Shedemei snorted. “Very funny.”

<Let’s think about what reasons the Keeper might have for saving the people of Akma and Chebeya.>

“While we’re at it, why not also think about what or who in the world the Keeper of Earth is.”

<Do you think I haven’t been researching that very question? I tell you it’s either hidden from me, or it was never included in my memory, or the people who built me didn’t even know.>

“If we can’t find the Keeper using physical evidence or recorded memory,” said Shedemei, “then maybe we should study what she wants and what she does, and then search for some mechanism by which it is possible for her to do it, or some entity that might benefit from her doing it.”

<You think the Keeper’s motives might be selfish, then?> “Not at all. Any more than I will ever benefit from the expanded habitat that these little legumes will provide, if they are ever successful at producing useful nutrition in the low-oxygen, short-growing-season, thin-soil environment I intend them for. But someone will benefit. Therefore if some stranger who had no way of discovering me directly wanted to know something about me, she could at least start her reasoning from the fact that I have particular care for enhancing the ability of humans, diggers, and angels to expand into new habitats with improved nutrition. They might then look for me to be of a body-type that allowed me to identify with these creatures. Or at least they could gather from my actions that it is important to me that these creatures be protected.”

<But would anything they learned ever cause them to look up in the sky?>

“I have no idea,” Shedemei said wearily. “But I also know that if somebody wanted to get my attention, all they’d need to do is start stomping out all my gardens on Earth. Then I’d notice them, all right.”

<So that’s what we’re doing. Stomping down the gardens of the Keeper of Earth.>

“Not so destructive, I hope.”

<Yes, and Chebeya and Akmaro and their people had better hope so,too.>

“If you keep goading me this way, you’ll end up persuading me to care so much about them that I stop worrying about the people of Harmony altogether. Is that what you want?”

<No.>

“Basilica was ruined half a millennium ago. My people are all dead. My nation of birth is irretrievable. Everything I ever felt myself to be a part of is dead, except my gardens. Do you really want me to become part of Akmaro and Chebeya, to begin to feel about them the way I once felt about Rasa and her household, about my friends, about my husband and my children?”

<No.>

“Then leave me alone.”

<I can’t. You’re the starmaster. I’m programmed to maintain the health of the starmaster.>

“Health! What does this have to do with health?”

<It isn’t good for you to be alone.>

Shedemei shuddered. She didn’t want the Oversoul meddling like this. She was just fine on her own. Zdorab was gone, her children were gone, and that was fine, she had work to do, she didn’t need distractions. Her health indeed!

Akma sat on the brow of the hill, exhausted from the day’s work, but so filled with fury that even lying down wouldn’t have been rest. And lying down he couldn’t have watched his father stand there teaching the people-with Pabulog’s vile sons sitting in the front row of the listeners. After all they had done to him, Father could bring them in and seat them in the place of honor? Of course Father and Mother made a great show of wanting him to sit there in the center of the front row, where he had always sat till now. But to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the lying Didul, the arrogant Pabul, the brutal Udad, the pathetic slimy sneaky little Muwu-Father had to know that it was more shame than Akma could bear.

So he sat here on the hilltop, looking now at the campfires of the digger guards, now down at the gathering of Akma’s people. I can’t sort friends from enemies anymore. The diggers hurt nothing but my body; the Pabulogi stabbed at my pride; and my own father has told me that I’m nothing to him, nothing compared to the sons of his enemy.

Your enemies were my enemies, Father. For your sake, for loyalty to you, I bore whatever came to me and bore it proudly, because it was for you. And then you take my tormentors and talk to them as if they were also your sons. You even call them, call them sons. You dared to call that hypocritical encrustation of a skunk’s rectum “Di-duldis”-beloved son! Whose son? Only the son of the man who tried to kill you, Father, who drove you out! Only the son of the man that for your sake I hated. And now you have given him a name that you should never have spoken to anyone but me. I am Akmadis-but not if he has the name Diduldis from your lips. If he is your son then I am not.

Again, as so many times before, Akma felt tears come to his eyes. But he fought them off-and he was getting better at that, hiding his true feelings. Though of course sitting up here as the lone recusant certainly made it plain that he wasn’t happy about something.

Mother was coming up the hill. Hadn’t she given up yet?

Oh, yes, she had. Luet was with her, and now Mother stopped and Luet came on ahead. Ah, of course. Father can’t do anything with nasty little Akma, and Mother can’t make any headway with him, either. So send little Luet and see what she can do.

“Kmada!” she cried, when she was near enough.

“Why don’t you go back down and listen to Father?” said Akma coldly. But the hesitation in her eyes forced him to relent. What did she know of these matters? She was innocent, and he wasn’t going to be unjust to her. “Come here, Lutya, Ludayet.”

“Oooh, Kmada, that name is so ugly.”

“I think Ludayet is cute.”

“But Lutya is the name of the Hero.”

“The Hero’s wife,” said Akma.

“Father says the ancient women were heroes as much as the men.”

“Yes, well, that’s Father’s opinion. Father thinks diggers are people.”

“They are, you know. Because they have language. And there are good diggers and bad diggers.”

“Yes, I know,” said Akma. “Because most diggers are dead-those are the good ones.”

“Are you mad at me like you’re mad at Father?” asked Luet.

“I’m never mad at you.”

“Then why do you make me sit with that nasty pig boy?”

Akma laughed at her characterization of Muwu. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“It’s your idea to come up here and leave me alone.”

“Luet, I love you. But I won’t sit with the sons of Pabulog. Including Muwu.”

Luet nodded gravely. “All right. That’s what Father said-he said you weren’t ready.”

“Ready! I’ll never be ready.”

“So Mother said I can come up here and take my lessons from you.”

Inadvertently, taken by surprise, Akma looked down at his mother, who stood at the base of the hill, watching them. She must have sensed or at least guessed what turn the conversation had taken, for she nodded her head just once and then turned away, walking back to the group that still listened to Akmaro teaching.

“I’m not a teacher,” said Akma.

“You know more than me” said Luet.

Akma knew what Mother was doing-and it had to be with Father’s consent, so really it was Father doing it, too. If Akma won’t stay involved listening to the great teacher Akmaro-or should it be what Pabulog called him, Akmadi, the traitor?-then we’ll keep him involved by having him teach Luet. He won’t dare be unkind to her, nor will he be dishonest enough to teach her falsehood or vent his anger against his father.

It would serve them right if I taught Luet exactly how Father betrayed me. How he has been betraying us all along. Father decides to believe that crazy old man Binadi and ends up getting us all thrown out of the city, forced to live in the wilderness. And then, even as we’re being whipped by digger slavedrivers and tormented by Pabu-log’s evil sons, Father teaches us that Binadi said that the Keeper wants us to think of diggers and angels as our brothers, to think of women as our equals, when anyone can see that women are smaller and weaker than men, and that diggers and angels aren’t even the same species. We might as well say we’re brothers of trees and uncles of termites. We might as well call snails our fathers and dungbeetles our sons.

But he said none of this to Luet. Instead he got a stick, pulled out enough tufts of grass to have a clear writing surface of dirt, and began writing words and quizzing her on them. He could teach his sister. It would be better than sitting here alone, being burned alive inside by rage. And he would not use Luet as a weapon to strike out at Father. That was another matter, to be settled at another time. A time when Didul wasn’t sitting there smirking at every word that Akma uttered. A time when he didn’t have to smell the musk that Pabul gave off like a randy buck. A time when he and Father could look each other in the face and speak the truth.

I won’t rest until Father admits how disloyal he’s been. Admits that he loves them more than me, and that it’s wrong for him to have been so unnatural as to forgive them without asking me first, without asking me to forgive him. How could he have acted as if forgiving them were the most natural thing in the world! And what right did he have to forgive them, when Akma still had not? It was Akma who had borne the worst of it. Everyone knew that. And in front of everyone, Father forgave them and took them through the water to make new men of them. Of course he made them say those stupid empty words of apology. We’re so sorry, Akma. We’re sorry, Luet. We’re sorry, everybody. We are no longer the evil men who did that. We’re now new men and true believers.

Am I the only one who isn’t fooled? Am I the only one who sees that they still plan to betray us? That someday soon their father will come and they’ll turn on us and we’ll pay for having trusted them? I’ll pay.

Akma shuddered, imagining what the sons of Pabulog would do to him, when they had once again revealed their true nature of pure evil. Father would be sorry then, but it would be Akma that would be punished for Father’s foolishness. “Are you cold?” asked Luet. “Only a little,” said Akma.

“It’s very warm tonight,” said Luet. “You shouldn’t be cold unless you’re sick.”

“All right,” said Akma. “I won’t be cold anymore.”

“I can sit close up beside you and help you stay warmer.”

So she sat by him and he kept his arm around her shoulder as they studied the words he wrote in the dirt. She was very quick, this little girl. Smarter than any boy Akma knew. So maybe that part of Father’s teaching was true. Maybe girls were every bit as good as boys, when it came to learning, anyway. But anybody who could teach that a female digger was somehow equal to this sweet, trusting little girl was either insane or dishonest. Which was Father? Did it matter?

They came down in the hill in near darkness; the meeting was over. Luet led the way into the hut, chattering to Mother about the things that Akma had taught her.

“Thank you, Akma,” said Mother.

Akma nodded. “Gladly, Mother,” he said quietly.

But to his father he said nothing, and his father said nothing to him.