The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming) (16 page)

In Nafai’s mind, the faces of his father and mother flowed together and became one face. For a moment he recognized it as Father; then, without it changing at all, the face became clearly Mother’s face.

I understand, he said silently. They are one person. What does it matter which of them happens to be the voice, whose hands happen to act? One is not above the other. They are together, and so there is no question of rivalry between them.

Can I find such a partnership with Luet? Can I bear it, to have her hear the Oversoul when I cannot? I seethed even now when it was Elya who dreamed a true dream; can I listen to Luet’s dreams, and not be envious?

And what about
her?
Will she accept
me?

Almost at once he was ashamed of the last question. She already
had
accepted him. She had brought him down to the lake of women. She had given him all that she was and all that she had, without hesitation, as far as he could tell. He was the one who was jealous and afraid. She was the one with courage and generosity.

The question is not, Can I bear to live as one with
her. The question is, Am I worthy to be partnered with such a one as that?

He felt a trembling warmth suffuse through him, as if he were filled with light. Yes, said the Oversoul inside his mind. Yes, that is the question. That is the question. That is the question.

And then the trance of his communion with the Oversoul ended, and Nafai suddenly became aware of his surroundings again. Nothing had changed—Meb and Elya still led the way, the camels plodding along. Sweat still dripped on Nafai’s body; the camel still lurched and rolled under him; the dry air of the desert still burned with every breath he drew into his body.

Keep me alive, said Nafai. Keep me alive long enough for me to conquer the animal in myself. Long enough for me to learn to partner myself with a woman who is better and stronger than me. Long enough for me to reconcile myself with my brothers. Long enough to be as good a man as my father, and as good as my mother, too.

If I can, I will. Like a voice in his head, that promise.

And if
I
can, I’ll make it soon. I’ll become worthy soon.

Shedemei awoke from her dream, and wanted to tell someone, but there was no one there beside her. No one, and yet she had to tell the dream. It was too powerful and real; it had to be spoken, for fear that if she didn’t say what she had seen, it would slip away from her memory the way most dreams slipped away. It was the first time she wished that she had a husband. Someone who would have to listen to her dream, even if all he did then was grunt and roll over and go back to sleep. It would relieve her so, to tell the dream aloud.

But where would a husband have slept, anyway, in the clutter of her rooms? There was barely room for her cot. The rest of the place was given over to her research. The lab tables, the basins and beakers, the dishes and tubes, the sinks and the freezers. And, above all, the great dryboxes lining the walls, filled with desiccated seeds and embryos, so she could keep samples of every
stage of her research into redundancy as a natural mechanism for creating and controlling genetic drift.

Though she was only twenty-six years old, she already had a worldwide reputation among scientists in her field. It was the only kind of fame that mattered to her. Unlike so many of the other brilliant women who had grown up in Rasa’s house, Shedemei had never been interested in a career that would win her fame in Basilica. She knew from childhood on that Basilica was not the center of the universe, that fame here was no better than fame in any other place—soon to be forgotten. Humanity had been forty million years on this world of Harmony, more than forty thousand times longer than all of recorded human history on the ancient home planet of Earth. If there was any lesson to be learned, it was that a singer or actress, a politician or soldier, all would be forgotten soon enough. Songs and plays were usually forgotten in a lifetime; borders and constitutions were redrawn within a thousand years at most. But science! Knowledge! If that was what you wrought, it might be remembered forever. That it was you who discovered something,
that
might be forgotten . . . but the thing you learned, it would be remembered, it would have echoes and reverberations down all the years to come. The plants you created, the animals you enhanced,
they
would endure, if you wrought well enough. Hadn’t the plant trader Wetchik, dear Rasa’s favorite husband, carried Shedemei’s Dryflower plant throughout all the lands on the edges of the desert? As long as Dryflower bloomed, as long as its rich and heavy perfume could make a whole house in the desert smell like a jungle garden, Shedemei’s works would be alive in the world. As long as scientists all over the world received copies of her reports from the Oversoul, she had the only fame that mattered.

So this was her husband: the works of her own hands. Her creations were a husband that would never betray her, the way Rasa’s poor little daughter Kokor had been betrayed. Her research was a husband that would never rampage through the city, raping and looting, beating and burning, the way the men of the Palwashantu had done, until the Gorayni brought order. Her research would never cause any woman to cower in her rooms, all lights off, a pulse in her hands though she doubted she would even know how to use it against an intruder. No one had come, though twice the shouting seemed almost to be in her street. But she would have fought to protect her seeds and embryos. Would have fought and, if she could figure out how to do it, would have killed to protect her life’s work.

Yet now this dream had come. A disturbing dream. A powerful dream. And she could not rest until she had told the dream to someone.

To Rasa. Who was there that she could tell, besides Aunt Rasa?

So Shedemei arose, made a half-hearted effort to straighten her hair from sleep, and headed out into the street. She did not think to change her clothing, though she had slept in it; she often slept in her clothing, and only thought to change what she wore on those occasions when she thought to bathe.

There were a good number of people in the street. It had not been so for many days; the fear and distrust that Gaballufix had brought upon the city had kept many indoors. Thus it was almost a relief to see the turbulent flow of pedestrians rushing hither and thither. Almost a pleasure to jostle with them. The dead bodies of the mercenaries no longer hung from the second stories of the buildings, no longer slumped in the streets. They had been hauled away and buried with more or
less ceremony in the men’s cemeteries outside the city. Only the occasional sight of a pair of men in the uniform of the Basilican guards reminded Shedemei that the city was still under military rule. And the council was set to vote today on how to repay the Gorayni soldiers, send them on their way, and put the city guard back at gate duty. No more soldiers on the streets, then, except when answering an emergency call. All would be well. All would be as before.

A proof of the restoration of peace was the fact that on the porch of Rasa’s house were two classes of young girls, listening to teachers and occasionally asking questions. Shedemei paused for just a moment as she so often did, to hear the lessons and remember her own time, so long ago, as a pupil on this very porch, or in the classrooms and gardens within Rasa’s house. There were many girls of aristocratic parentage here, but Rasa’s was not a house for snobs. The curriculum was rigorous, and there was always room for many girls of ordinary family, or of no family at all. Shedemei’s parents had been farmers, not even citizens; only her mother’s distant cousinship with a Basilican servant woman had allowed Shedemei to enter the city in the first place. And yet Rasa had taken her in, solely because of an interview when Shedemei was seven. Shedemei couldn’t even read at the time, because neither of her parents could read . . . but her mother had ambitions for her, and, thanks to Rasa, Shedemei had been able to fulfill them all. Her mother had lived to see Shedemei in her own rooms, and with her first money from the keen-eyed roach-killing shrew she had developed, Shedemei was able to buy her parents’ farm from their landlord, so that they spent their last few years of life as freeholders instead of tenants.

All because Aunt Rasa would take in a poor, illiterate
seven-year-old girl because she liked the way the girl’s mind worked when she conversed with her. For this alone, Rasa would deserve to be one of the great women of Basilica. And this was why, instead of teaching classes in the higher schools, the only teaching Shedemei did was here in Rasa’s house, where twice a year she taught a class of Aunt Rasa’s most prized science students. Indeed, officially Shedemei was still a resident here in Rasa’s house—she even had a bedroom here, though she hadn’t used it since the last time she taught, and always half expected to find it occupied by someone else. It never was, though, no matter how consistently Shedemei slept on the cot in her rooms. Rasa always kept a place for her.

Inside the house, Shedemei soon learned that Rasa’s very greatness meant that it would not be possible to see her till later in the day. Though Rasa was not at present a member of the city council, she had been asked to attend this morning’s meeting. Shedemei had not expected this. It made her feel lost. For the dream still burned within her, and had to be spoken aloud.

“Perhaps,” said the girl who had noticed her and spoken to her, “perhaps there’s something I could help you with.”

“I don’t think so,” said Shedemei, smiling kindly. “It was foolishness anyway.”

“Foolishness is my specialty,” the girl said. “I know you. You’re
Shedemei.”
She said the name with such reverence that Shedemei was quite embarrassed.

“I am. Forgive me for not remembering your name. I’ve seen you here many times before, though.”

“I’m Luet,” said the girl.

“Ah,” said Shedemei. The name brought associations with it. “The waterseer,” she said. “The Lady of the Lake.”

The girl was clearly flattered that Shedemei knew who she was. But what woman in Basilica had not heard of her? “Not yet,” said Luet. “Perhaps not ever. I’m only thirteen.”

“No, I imagine you have years yet to wait. And it isn’t automatic, is it?”

“It all depends,” said Luet, “on the quality of my dreams.”

Shedemei laughed. “And isn’t that true of all of us?”

“I suppose,” said Luet, smiling.

Shedemei turned to go. And then realized again whom she was talking with. “Waterseer,” she said. “You must have some idea of the meanings of dreams.”

Luet shook her head. “For dream interpretation you have to pay the truthmongers in the Inner Market.”

“No,” said Shedemei. “I don’t mean that kind of dream. Or that kind of meaning. It was very strange. I never remember my dreams. But this time it felt . . . very compelling. Perhaps even . . . perhaps the kind of dream that I imagine one like
you
would have.”

Luet cocked her head and looked at her. “If your dream might come from the Oversoul, Shedemei, then I need to hear it. But not here.”

Shedemei followed the younger girl—half my age, she realized—into the back of the house and up a flight of stairs that Shedemei barely knew existed, for this region of the house was used for storage of old artifacts and furniture and classroom materials. They went up two more flights, into the attic space under a roof, where it was hot and dark.

“My dream was not so secret that we needed to come
here
to tell it,” said Shedemei.

“You don’t understand,” said Luet. “There’s someone else who must hear, if the dream is truly from the Oversoul.” With that, Luet removed a grating from the
gable wall and stooped through it, out into the bright air.

Shedemei, half blinded by the sunlight, could not see at first that there was a flat porch-like roof directly under the opening in the wall. She thought that Luet had stepped into nothingness and floated on the air. Then her eyes adjusted and, by squinting, she could see what Luet was walking on. She followed.

This flat area was invisible from the street, or from anywhere else, for that matter. A half dozen different sloping roofs came together here, and a large drainage hole in the center of the flat area made it clear why this place existed. In a heavy rain, it could fill up with roof runoff as much as four feet deep, until the drain could carry the water away, It was more of a pool than a porch.

It was also a perfect hiding place, since not even the residents of Rasa’s house had any notion that this place existed—except, obviously, Luet and whoever was hiding here.

Her eyes adjusted further. In the shade of a portable awning sat an older girl who looked enough like Luet that Shedemei was not surprised to hear her introduced as Hushidh the Raveler, Luet’s older sister. And across a low table from Hushidh sat a young man of large stature, but still too young to shave.

“Don’t you know me, Shedemei?” said the boy.

“I think so,” she said.

“I was much shorter when last you lived in Mother’s house,” he said.

“Nafai,” she said. “I heard you had gone to the desert.”

“Gone and come again too often, I fear,” said Nafai. “I never thought to see a day when Gorayni soldiers would be keeping the gate of Basilica.”

“Not for long,” said Shedemei.

“I’ve never heard of the Gorayni giving up a city, once they had captured it,” said Nafai.

“But they didn’t capture Basilica,” said Shedemei. “They only stepped in and protected us in a time of trouble.”

“There are ashes from dozens and dozens of bonfires out on the desert,” said Nafai, “and yet no sign of any encampment there. The story I hear is that the Gorayni leader pretended to have a huge army, led by General Moozh the Monster, when in fact he had only a thousand men.”

“He explained it as a necessary ruse in order to psychologically overwhelm the Palwashantu mercenaries who were running wild.”

“Or psychologically overwhelm the city guard?” said Nafai. “Never mind. Luet has brought you here. Do you know why?”