Fifteen
Divisions
When peace depends on the life of one man, then each new day becomes a deathwatch. Each new plan must include the thought: Can this be finished before he dies? Each new child is welcomed with the prayer: Let safety last another year. Another month, another week.
Not that people talked about it much—about how old Volemak was looking, how his back was stooping, how he winced with arthritis when he walked, how he tended to lose breath when he worked hard, how he now called meetings in the schoolhouse instead of up the ladder inside the starship. It was something they saw, regretted, feared, but kept to themselves, pretending that it wasn’t that bad, he had plenty of time left, no need to worry yet.
Then Emeezem died and Fusum seized full power among the diggers. She had started losing heart when her son Nen was killed by a panther while hunting. Later, the desecration of the Untouched God was a harsh blow, and her heart died then; the death of her husband Mufruzhuuzh was merely an afterthought compared to those. The world has ended, Emeezem, and, oh yes, your husband is dead and the brutal boy who says he tried to save your son is now both blood king and war king and when you die he will destroy all peace among your people and there’s nothing you can do except teach the women to look for a day of peace in some distant day only the women seem to barely listen anymore, and the only one who does you honor is the human Nafai whose face was your salvation long ago. When death finally came to her, coughing out of her lungs as she lay in her deep chamber, in darkness, attended by silent women and a few men watching for the exact moment of death so they could begin destroying her memory—when death finally came to her, she welcomed it with bitter relief. What took you so long? And where are Nen and Mufruzhuuzh? And for that matter, where’s my mother? Why has my life turned out to be so worthless?
Only just as she was on the edge of death there came a dream into her mind even though she had thought she was awake. She saw a human, a digger, and an angel, standing together on the brow of a hill as a host of people of all three species gathered round them, weeping, laughing for joy, surging forward to touch them, and each one who touched them sang out loud, the same glad song, and then the human, the digger, and the angel looked at her, at Emeezem the deep mother who was dying, and said to her, Thank you for setting your people on this road.
The dream did not bring Nen back to life, or give her hope that Fusum’s reign would not be bloody and terrible, and it certainly did not take her from the brink of death. All it did was let her step off that brink into the dark unknown with a smile on her face and pride in her heart. It made death sweet to her.
Fusum saw to it that she was given great honor, and in his funeral oration he praised her for preparing the people for the coming of the humans—even if she misunderstood what the gods meant their people to do. Then, over the next several days, all his rivals and opponents disappeared and were never heard of again. The message was clear: The supreme law of the digger people was Fusum, for Fusum was blood king, war king, deep mother, and, yes, god, all in one, and for all time. Most of the young men were happy with this, for he would make warriors of them once again, after so many years of being in the shadow of the humans and under the thumb of women. And if the young men were happy with him, no one else dared to be unhappy.
Fusum respectfully asked Oykib to stop teaching his silly ideas about the Keeper of Earth. Fusum took Chveya aside and told her that her presence was intimidating to the digger women and they would be happier if she stopped helping them learn about the safe storage and preservation of food. One by one the other humans were kindly asked to desist, until at last only Elemak, Mebbekew, and Protchnu were allowed to visit with the diggers.
What could Volemak do? He asked Elemak to protest to Fusum. Elemak said that he would, then came back and said that he had, and conveyed Fusum’s assurance that nothing had changed except that diggers would be taking the responsibility for educating their own people. “He said that we should be happy, Father, because now we have more time to devote to our own families.”
It was all handled so quietly, so politely, that it left Volemak helpless to interfere. He knew—everybody knew—that in effect the diggers were in revolt against human overlordship, even though until the revolt none of the humans had thought of themselves as overlords. They also knew that Elemak had somehow pulled off a coup, for he now controlled all access to the diggers even though until that moment Oykib and Chveya had been the dominant human presence among the digger people. Everyone was sure that Elemak had planned and worked on this for years, that in all likelihood he and Fusum had struck some kind of bargain twenty years before when Fusum was a hostage and Elemak was learning digger speech from him and supposedly winning him over to friendship with the humans.
“Fusum kidnapped Elemak’s child,” Chveya said, unbelieving. “How could Elemak have made friends with him?”
“I think,” said Oykib, “that Elemak understood that there was nothing personal about Fusum’s choice of kidnap victim. And I don’t think that what they made between them was what you or I would understand as friendship.”
It didn’t matter now what any of the rest of them thought of it. It was done.
That was when they started watching Volemak’s health in earnest. Even Volemak began to speak of it, quietly, to a few.
He and Nafai got together with Hushidh and Chveya and made a list of who was clearly loyal to Nafari and who was loyal to Elemak. “We’re divided into Nafari and Elemaki again,” said Chveya. “I thought for a while that those days might be behind us.”
Volemak looked sad, but not grim. “I knew that Elemak had changed, but what he learned was patience, not generosity. The Oversoul knew it all along.”
Among the humans, Nafari outnumbered Elemaki overwhelmingly, and of the adult men who might serve as soldiers, there would be no contest if it ever came to battle among humans only. But of course, everyone understood now that the battle, if it came, would be between Nafai’s humans and Fusum’s army of diggers. On that scale, Nafai’s soldiers were the merest handful, and no one had the slightest confidence that the angels, however willing they might be, could really stand against the diggers in an open war. It could not be allowed to come to battle. Nafai and his people would have to leave.
Yet even among the children of Kokor and Sevet, more than half were loyal to Nafai—in part because of the open secret that their mothers were Elemak’s mistresses. “The real complication,” said Hushidh, “is that Eiadh is perhaps the most loyal of all to Nafai, and she’ll want to take as many of her children and grandchildren with her as she can.”
“How many of them would come?” asked Nafai.
“Most. Most of Elemak’s children would come with you, though not Protchnu or Nadya and their children. But Elemak won’t stand for it if you take any of them, even if you take just Eiadh. He’d follow us wherever we might go. We can’t bring her with us if we ever hope for peace.”
Volemak listened and listened to their discussion, and then made his decision. “You’ll take everyone whose loyalty to Nafai is genuine and deep, if they want to go. You’ll have to trust in the Keeper of Earth to help you.”
If any of them thought to say, That’s easy for you to decide, Volemak, because you’ll be dead when the wars begin, they kept it to themselves.
As Volemak’s health weakened, he began to call people to him, one by one. Just for a conversation, he said, but they all came away rather shaken by the experience. He would sit with them and tell them with almost brutal frankness what he thought of them. The words could sting, but when he praised the good in them, their talents, their virtues, their accomplishments, his words were like gold. Some of them remembered mostly the criticism, of course, and some mostly the praise, but each of these meetings was recorded and later, Nafai or Oykib wrote down the words on the golden leaves of the book. Someday, when they wanted to remember what Volemak said, the words would be there for them to read.
It was an open secret that V
olemak was saying goodbye. And when he took sick, the pace quickened.
He met with pTo and Poto, who came down the canyon to him because even in the launch he couldn’t stand the strain of traveling to their village one more time. “We will fight and die for Nafai,” they told him.
“I don’t want you to die, and you must fight only if they force you to. The real question, my friends, is this: Will you and all your people follow Nafai into the wilderness, to start over, to build a new colony in another land?”
“We’d rather defeat the diggers,” said pTo. “We’d rather fight like men. Nafai has taught us to fight with new weapons. We can bring down panthers on the run, we can kill them while we’re in flight and they can’t touch us.”
“Diggers are smarter than panthers,” said Volemak.
“But angels are smarter than diggers,” said Poto.
“You don’t understand me,” said Volemak. “I say that diggers are smarter than panthers because it means their lives are more precious. You should not be proud because you can kill diggers, because they’re men, not animals.”
Abashed, pTo and Poto fell silent.
“Will you and your people follow Nafai higher into the mountains?”
“I can tell you with perfect confidence, Father Volemak,” said pTo, “that not only will the people follow Nafai to the moon or to the depths of hell, but also they will beg him to be their king and rule over them, because if he is their ruler they know that they’ll be safe.”
“What if Nafai didn’t have the cloak of the starmaster?” asked Volemak.
They looked at each other for a moment. Finally Poto remembered. “Oh, you mean the thing that lets him glow like a firefly when he wants to?”
“That means nothing to us,” said pTo. “We don’t want him to lead us because he has some kind of magical power, Father Volemak. We want him to lead us because he and Luet and Issib and Hushidh are the best and wisest people that we know, and they love us, and we love them.”
Volemak nodded. “Then you will be my children forever, even after I’m dead.”
They went home and told their people to begin to prepare to leave. They gathered up their belongings and decided which to take and which to leave. They packed their seed and the cuttings of the plants that did not grow from seed. They packed the food that they would need for the journey and to live on until their new fields ripened. And they began to move their children a day’s flight up the valley and over the next ridge, so that they would already be out of the reach of the diggers if the flight should begin in haste.
“How long will Father Volemak live?” everyone asked them.
How could they answer? “Not long enough,” they said, over and over, to everyone who asked.
At last all goodbyes had been said, all blessings given, all hopes and memories and love expressed, and yet Volemak still lingered. Rasa came to Shedemei and said, “Volya and Nyef want to see you, Shedya. Please come quickly.” She smiled at Zdorab. “This time alone, please.” Zdorab nodded.
Shedemei followed the old woman into the house where Volemak lay, his eyes closed, his chest unmoving.
“Is he…” she began.
“Not yet,” answered Volemak softly.
Nafai sat on a stool in the corner. Rasa left the house, saying only, “Be quick.” They understood that she didn’t want to be outside when her husband died.
“Nafai,” whispered Volemak. “Give the cloak of the starmaster to her.”
“What?” said Shedemei.
“Shedemei,” said Volemak. “Take the cloak. Learn how to use it. Take the ship up into the sky, where no man can touch it or use it. Live long—the cloak will sustain you. Watch over the Earth.”
“That’s the Keeper’s job, not mine,” said Shedemei, but in truth her heart wasn’t in her protests. Volemak wants me to have the cloak, me to have the ship! Volemak wants me to have the only decent laboratory in the world, and time enough to use it!
“The Keeper of Earth will be glad of any help that he can get,” said Volemak. “If he could do his work alone he wouldn’t have brought us here.”
Nafai stood up, taking off his clothing as he did. “It will pass from my flesh to yours,” he said. “If you’re willing to receive it. And if I’m willing to let it go.”
“Are you?” asked Shedemei.
“Tend this world as your garden,” said Nafai. “And watch over my people when I sleep.”
Volemak died that night, with only Rasa at his side. By dawn his passing was known from the deepest chamber of the digger city to the highest nest of the angels. The grief was immediate and real among the angels, and among all the diggers who did not lust for war. They knew that peace was ended for them all; and also, they had loved and honored the man Volemak, not just for his authority, but for the way he used it.
At Rasa’s request they did not burn his body, but rather buried it according to the digger custom.
It was only two days later that the test of authority came. Nafai was preparing to go back up to the angel village, where Luet already waited for him. Elemak, flanked by Meb and Protchnu, and with a dozen digger soldiers behind him, intercepted Nafai at the forest’s edge.
“Please don’t go,” said Elemak.
“Luet’s waiting,” said Nafai. “Is there some urgent business?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go,” said Elemak. “I’ll send word to Luet to come down here. I’d rather you live in this village now. The skymeat don’t need you anymore.”
His words and manner were gentle, so that if Nafai showed any resistance he would look like the aggressor, not Elemak. But the message was plain. Elemak was seizing power, and Nafai was his prisoner.
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Nafai. “I thought I still had a great deal of work to do among them, but now I imagine I can just retire.”
“Oh, no, there’s still a lot of work to do down here,” said Elemak. “Fields to be cleared, tunnels to be dug. A lot of work. And your back is still strong, Nafai. I think there’s a lot of labor left in you.”
He was taken to Volemak’s house. Rasa saw at once what was happening, and she did not take it calmly. “You were always a snake, Elemak, but I thought you learned long ago that imprisoning Nafai accomplishes nothing.”
“Nafai’s not my prisoner,” said Elemak. “He’s just another citizen, doing his duty to the community.”
“What, am I supposed to have the good manners to pretend that I believe your lies?” asked Rasa.
“Lady Rasa,” said Elemak, “Nafai is my brother. But you are not my mother.”
“For which I give thanks to the Oversoul, you may be sure.”
Nafai finally broke his silence. “Mother, please. Keep peace. Elemak thinks he rules here, but this world belongs to the Keeper, not to him or any man. He has no power here.”
In another time, Elemak would have flown into a rage at those words, would have blustered and threatened, or lashed out in fury. But he was a different man now, a tempered man, a man of discipline and quiet, ruthless wisdom. He said nothing, merely watched until Nafai went into his father’s house. Then two digger soldiers were left to stand guard at the door.
Rasa went to the ship, to Shedemei. “I don’t think Elemak knows that you have the cloak now, Shedemei. You could use it to stop him, to strike him down.”
Shedemei shook her head. “I don’t know how to use it that well yet. I’m learning. It’s a terrible burden, this cloak. I don’t know how Nafai bore it.”
“Don’t you see that he’s helpless here? Elemak is going to kill him, probably tonight. He won’t let Nafai live till morning.”
“I know,” said Shedemei. “I received a message from Issib, through the Index. I hear him directly now, you know, wearing the cloak. He says that Luet dreamed a true dream last night. In the dream she saw all the digger soldiers asleep, and all those who follow Elemak. Asleep while you and Nafai and all the loyal men and women and children journeyed up the canyon, and then onward
, higher and farther, to a new land.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“I think—she thinks, and so does Issib, and so says the Oversoul—that it was a true dream. The Oversoul has power enough to put the humans to sleep. But since the dream came from the Keeper, perhaps we must trust that she, too, has the power to put her people to sleep.” Shedemei looked away. “I’m not familiar with this sort of thing. I wasn’t one to have visions. Just one dream, really, of a garden.”
Zdorab was sitting sourly in a corner. “She won’t take me with her,” he said. “She insists I have to go with Nafai and help start another damn colony.”
“You don’t have to,” said Shedemei.
“Or stay with Elemak—do you really think that’s a choice?” said Zdorab. “Reason with her, Rasa. I’m a librarian.”
“I’m just doing what the Oversoul advised,” said Shedemei. “She says that Zdorab will be needed.”
“But what about what I want?” demanded Zdorab. “Lady Rasa, haven’t I kept my oath to Nafai all these years? Haven’t I stood by him?”
“Perhaps now,” said Rasa, “is your chance to repay him for his forgiveness of your mistake during the voyage.”
Zdorab looked away.
“Can’t you take him with you?” asked Rasa.
“I want to,” whispered Shedemei. “But the Oversoul says not for now.”
“Then tell him that. Tell him it’s not for now,” said Rasa. “He thinks that it’s forever.”
From the corner Zdorab spoke again, and he was weeping. “Don’t you know, Shedemei, that I love you? Don’t you know that I don’t want to live without you?”
Tears came to Shedemei’s eyes, too. She whispered to Rasa, “I never thought he’d….”
“Love you?” asked Rasa. “You never think anyone will love you, but we do. Let him go with you, Shedemei. The Oversoul doesn’t know everything. She’s just a computer, you know.”
Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 34