Earthfall (Homecoming) (11 page)

In fact, now that she thought about it, it really
was
dangerous to be down here. And she had to get back up and turn the centrifuge back on so its alarm would stop sounding before the main siren finally shut down. Getting out wasn’t as easy as getting down had been, and now that she wasn’t concentrating on getting the Index hidden, she had time to be really terrified. Slow, she kept telling herself. Careful. One slip and they’ll be scraping bits of me off the road for a month.

Finally she was out, spread-eagle over the opening. She spider-walked until she was clear of it, then leaped to her feet and flung the door closed. It slammed into place, the catch engaged, and now she could turn the centrifuge back on. She could barely feel it speeding up—it was so well-engineered that in all that time with the motors off, friction had hardly slowed it down at all.

The siren went off. The silence was like a physical blow; her ears rang. She had made it with only ten or fifteen seconds to spare.

In the silence, she heard the noise of someone on the ladder.

She looked up. Legs. Not Father’s. Not a child’s. If she was found here, for no reason, then Elemak would wonder why she hadn’t gone with the other children.

Without even thinking, she flung herself down to the floor, curled up in fetal position, buried her face in her hands, and began to whimper softly, trembling with fear. Let them think she had panicked, frozen up, terrified by the strange loud noise. Let them think she was weak, that she had lost all control of herself. They would believe it, because nobody knew she was the kind of person who could perform dangerous acrobatics while speeding over a roadway. Why should they? She hadn’t known it herself. She could hardly believe it now.

“Get up,” said the man. “Get yourself together. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

It wasn’t Elemak. It was Vasnya’s and Panya’s father, Vas. Aunt Sevet’s husband. So it wasn’t just Elemak who was awake.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “Loud noise—it gets to some people. You should see how the little ones are. It’s going to take hours to get them quieted down.”

“Little ones?” She realized at once that he didn’t mean the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. “The little children were wakened?”

“Everybody’s awake. When the suspended animation alarm goes off, everybody is awakened at once. Just in case something is wrong with the system.”

“What set it off?” asked Chveya.

Now, for the first time, a dark look of anger came across Uncle Vas’s face. “We’ll have to find that out, won’t we? But if it hadn’t wakened us, we wouldn’t have had a chance to see you as such a pretty little—what—fourteen-year-old?”

“Fifteen,” she said.

“Happy birthday,” he answered dryly. “I’m sure my eight-year-old daughter Vasnaminanya will be delighted to see her dear cousin Veya. You’ll really enjoy playing dolls with her, don’t you think?”

Suddenly Chveya was ashamed. Vasnya had been her friend, the one child of the first year who had been nice to her and included her in things even during the times when Dza decreed that Chveya was untouchable. But because Vasnya’s parents were friends of Elemak instead of Nafai, Vasnya had been left behind. Chveya was already six and a half years older. They would never really be friends again. And why? Was it anything Vasnya had done? No—she was a good person. Yet she had been left behind.

“I’m sorry,” Chveya said quietly.

“Yes, well, we know who’s to blame for this, and it isn’t any of the children.” He held out a hand to her. “Elemak’s in charge now. He should have done it long ago.”

He was trying to seem nice and reassuring, but Chveya wasn’t stupid. “What have you done to Father?”

“Nothing,” said Vas, smiling. “He just didn’t seem terribly interested in contesting Elemak’s authority.”

“But he has the cloak of the—”

“Cloak of the starmaster,” said Vas. “Yes, well, he still has it. Sparking its little heart out. Nafai has the cloak. But Elemak has the twins.”

The twins, Serp and Spel. Chveya’s youngest brothers, so small that they couldn’t be included in the school. Elemak must be holding them hostage, threatening to hurt them if Father doesn’t do what he wants.

“So he’s using babies to get his way?” said Chveya scornfully.

Vas’s expression got very ugly indeed. “Oh, what an awful thing for him to do. Someday you’ll have to explain to me why it’s bad for Elemak to use the children to get his way, but it was all right for your father to do exactly the same thing. Now come with me.”

As she preceded him up the ladder, Chveya tried to find a clear distinction between holding babies hostage, like Elemak, and giving children a free choice to join with him in—in keeping control of the colony. That’s what it came down to, didn’t it? Using the children to get and keep control of the whole community.

But it
was
different. There was a clear moral difference and if she thought hard enough she would be able to explain it and then everybody would understand that the voyage school was a perfectly decent thing to do, while holding the twins as hostages was an unspeakable atrocity. She would think of it any minute now.

Then a completely different thought came to her. Oykib had given her the Index. He had assumed that Dza would lead the other children to safety, but when it came time to hide the Index of the Oversoul, instead of doing it himself he had entrusted it to Chveya. And he hadn’t told her where to hide it, either.

Everyone was gathered in the library. It was the only room large enough to hold them all, since it was a large open room using almost the whole girth of the ship. There were babies crying and little children looking puzzled and afraid. Chveya knew all the little children, of course. They were unchanged, gathered around their mothers. Kokor, Sevet, Dol. And Elemak’s wife, Eiadh. She wasn’t holding her own youngest, though, not Zhivya. No, Aunt Eiadh was holding one of the twins, Spel.

And Elemak, standing at one edge of the library, was holding Serp.

I will never forgive either of you, Chveya said silently. I may not be able to sort out the moral theory of it, but those are my brothers you’re holding, using the threat of harming them to get your own way.

“Chveya,” said Luet, seeing her.

“Shut up,” said Elemak. “Come here,” he said to Chveya.

She walked toward him, stopped a good many paces away.

“Look at you,” said Elemak, contemptuously angry.

“Look at
you
,” said Chveya. “Threatening a baby. Your children must be proud of their brave daddy.”

A hot rage swept over Elemak, and she saw his connection to her take on an almost negative force. For a moment he wanted her dead.

But he did nothing, said nothing until he had calmed himself a little.

“I want the Index,” said Elemak. “Oykib says he gave it to you.”

Chveya whirled on Oykib, who looked back at her impassively. “It’s all right,” Oykib said. “Your father was the one who wanted it hidden. Now the Oversoul is telling him to give the Index to Elemak.”

“Where’s Father?” asked Chveya. “Who are you to speak for him?”

“Your father is safe,” said Elemak. “You’d better listen to your
big
uncle Oykib.”

“Believe me,” said Oykib. “You can tell him. The Oversoul says it’s all right.”

“How can you possibly know what the Oversoul says?” demanded Chveya.

“Why shouldn’t he?” Elemak said snidely. “Everybody else does. This room is
full
of people who love to tell other people what the Oversoul wants them to do.”

“When I hear it from Father’s mouth, I’ll tell you where the Index is.”

“It has to be in the centrifuge,” said Vas, “if she’s the one who hid it.”

Oykib’s eyes grew wide. “There’s no place to hide it in there.”

Elemak snapped at Mebbekew and Obring. “Go and find it,” he said.

Obring got up at once, but Mebbekew was deliberately slow. Chveya could see that his loyalty to Elemak was weak. But then, his loyalty to everybody was weak.

“Just tell them, Veya,” said Oykib. “It’s all right, I mean it.”

I don’t care whether you mean it or not, said Chveya silently. I didn’t risk my life to hide it, only to have a traitor like you talk me into giving it back to them.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Oykib. “The only power the Index has is to enable you to talk to the Oversoul. Do you think the Oversoul is going to have anything to say to a man like
that
?” His voice was thick with scorn as he gestured at Elemak.

Elemak smiled, walked to Oykib, and then with one hand lifted him out of his chair and threw him up against the wall. It knocked the breath out of Oykib, and he slumped, holding his head where it had banged against the cabinets. “You may be tall,” said Elemak, “and you may be full of proud words, but you’ve got nothing to back it up, boy. Did Nafai really think I’d ever be afraid of a ‘man’ like you?”

“You can tell him, Chveya,” Oykib said, not answering Elemak at all. “He can beat up on children, but he can’t control the Oversoul.”

It seemed to be just a flick of Elemak’s hand, but the result was Oykib’s head striking the cabinets again with such force that he fell to the floor.

Chveya saw the great, bright strands of loyalty connecting Oykib to her. It had never been like this before. And she realized that he was undergoing this beating at Elemak’s hands solely to convince her that he was not a traitor, that what he was saying was true. She could give the Index to Elemak.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even if Oykib was right and the Index would be useless, Uncle Elemak didn’t seem to think so. He wanted it. She might be able to get some leverage out of that.

However, she couldn’t very well let Oykib take any more abuse if she could help it. “I’ll tell you where it is,” said Chveya.

Obring and Meb were poised at the ladderway in the center of the library.

“When you let me see that Father is all right,” Chveya added.

“I’ve already told you that he’s all right,” said Elemak.

“You’re also holding a baby to make sure you get your way,” said Chveya. “That proves you’re a decent person who would never tell a lie.”

Elemak’s face flushed. “We’ve grown up with a mouth, have we? Nafai’s influence over these children is such a wonderful thing.” As he spoke, though, he walked to where Mother sat silently with her other children. He handed Serp to her. “I don’t threaten babies,” said Elemak.

“You mean now that you already got Father to surrender to you,” said Chveya.

“Where is the Index?” said Elemak.

“Where is my father?” asked Chveya.

“Safe.”

“So is the Index.”

Elemak strode to her, towered over her. “Are you trying to bargain with me, little girl?”

“Yes,” said Chveya.

“As Oykib said, the Index is useless to me,” said Elemak with a grin.

“Fine,” said Chveya.

He leaned down, cupped his hand behind her head, whispered in her ear. “Veya, I will do whatever it takes to get my way.”

As soon as he pulled away from her, she said loudly, “He said, ‘Veya, I will do whatever it takes to get my way.’”

The others murmured. Perhaps at her audacity in repeating aloud what he had whispered to her. Perhaps at Elemak’s threat. It didn’t matter—the network of relationships was shifting. Elemak’s hold on his friends was a little weaker. Fear and dread still bound all the others to him, of course; his mistreatment of Oykib had strengthened Elemak’s control. But Chveya’s boldness and his blustering against her had weakened the loyalty of those who were following him willingly.

He seemed to sense this—he had been a strong leader of men, taking caravans through dangerous country, and he knew when he was losing ground even if he didn’t have Chveya’s and Hushidh’s gift of seeing ties of loyalty and obedience, love and fear. So he changed tactics. “Try all you like, Veya,” he said, “but you can’t make me the villain of this little scene. It was your father and those who conspired with him who betrayed the rest of us. It was your father who lied when he promised to waken us in mid-voyage. It was your father who cheated our children out of their birthright. Look at them.” He waved his hand to indicate the four-year-olds, the five-year-olds, the eight-year-olds who were still trying to reconcile these tall adolescents with the children of their own age whom they remembered seeing only hours before, when they were put to sleep together before the launch. “Who is it who mistreated children? Who is it who exploited them? Not me.”

Chveya could see that Elemak was winning sympathy again. “Then why is your wife still holding Spel?” asked Chveya.

Eiadh leapt to her feet and spat out her answer. “I don’t hold babies prisoner, you nasty little brat! He was crying and I comforted him.”

“Maybe his own mother might have done it better,” said Chveya. “Maybe your husband doesn’t
want
you to give Spel back to Mother.”

Eiadh’s immediate glance at Elemak and his irritated gesture proved Chveya’s point for her. Eiadh sullenly carried Spel to Luet, who took him and sat him on her other knee. In all this time, however, Luet had said nothing. Why is Mother silent? Chveya wondered. Why have these adults left it to me and Oykib to do all the talking?

The thought came into her mind with such clarity that she knew it came from the Oversoul. She also understood the Oversoul’s meaning at once. Because the adults have little children, they’re afraid of what Elemak might do to them. Only adolescents like Oykib and me are free to be brave, because we don’t have any children to protect.

So if you can talk to me, and it’s all right for me to give the Index to Elemak, why not say so?

But there was no answer.

Chveya didn’t understand what the Oversoul was doing. Why she was telling Oykib one thing while
not
confirming it to her, not telling her anything she needed to know. The Oversoul could pipe up and explain why the grownups weren’t saying anything, but she didn’t have any helpful advice about what Chveya should actually
do
.

Maybe that meant that what she was already doing was fine.