The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming) (40 page)

Yet when the soldiers left, it was not Elemak that they saluted, but rather Lady Rasa, and Luet the waterseer, and Hushidh the raveler—and, for reasons Elemak could not begin to understand, Nafai.

As soon as the soldiers had ridden off, the quarreling began.

“May beetles crawl into your nose and ears and eat your brain out!” Mebbekew screamed at Nafai, at Rasa, at everyone within earshot. “Why did you have to include
me
in this suicidal caravan?”

Shedemei was no less angry, merely quieter. “I never agreed to come along. I was only going to
teach
you how to revive the embryos. You had no
right
to force me to come.”

Kokor and Sevet wept, and Obring added his grumbling to Mebbekew’s screams of rage. Nothing that Rasa, Hushidh, or Luet could say would calm them, and as for Nafai, when he tried to open his mouth to speak, Mebbekew threw sand in his face and left him gasping and spitting—and silent.

Elemak watched it all and then, when he figured the rage had about spent itself, he stepped into the middle of the group and said, “No matter what else we do, my beloved company, the sun is down and the desert will soon be cold. Into the tents, and be silent, so you don’t draw robbers to us in the night.”

Of course there was no danger of robbers here, so close to Basilica and with so large a company. Besides, Elemak suspected that the Gorayni soldiers were camped only a little way off, ready to come at a moment’s notice to protect them, if the need arose. And to prevent anyone from returning to Basilica, no doubt.

But they weren’t desert men, as Elemak was. If I decide to return to Basilica, he said silently to the unseen Gorayni soldiers, then I will go to Basilica, and even
you,
the greatest soldiers in the world, won’t stop me, won’t even know that I have passed you by.

Then Elemak went to his tent, where Eiadh waited for him, weeping softly. Soon enough she forgot her tears. But Elemak did not forget his anger. He had not screamed like Mebbekew, had not howled or whined or
grumbled or argued. But that did not mean he was any less angry than the others. Only that when he acted, it would be to some effect.

Moozh might not have been able to stand against the plots and plans of the Oversoul, but that doesn’t mean that
I
can’t, thought Elemak. And then he slept.

Overhead a satellite was slowly passing, reflecting a pinpoint of sunlight from over the horizon. One of the eyes of the Oversoul, seeing all that happened, receiving all the thoughts that passed through the minds of the people under its cone of influence. As one by one they fell asleep, the Oversoul began to watch their dreams, waiting, hoping, eager, for some arcane message from the Keeper of Earth. But there were no visions of hairy angels tonight, no giant rats, no dreams but the random firings of thirteen human brains asleep, made into meaningless stories that they would forget as soon as they awoke.

General Moozh succeeded as he had hoped. He united the Cities of the Plain and Seggidugu, and thousands of Gorayni soldiers deserted and joined with him. The Imperator’s troops melted away, and before the summer was out, the Sotchitsiya lands were free. That winter the Imperator huddled in the snows of Gollod, while his spies and ambassadors worked to persuade Potokgavan to put an army like a dagger in Moozh’s back.

But Moozh had foreseen this, and when the Potoku fleet arrived, it was met by General Bitanke and ten thousand soldiers, men and women of a militia he had trained himself. The Potoku soldiers died in the water, most of them, their ships burning, their blood leaving red foam with every wave that broke upon the beach. And in the spring, Gollod fell and the Imperator died
by his own hand, before Moozh could reach him. Moozh stood in the Imperator’s summer palace and declared that there
was
no incarnation of God on Harmony, and never had been— except for one unknown woman who came to him as the body of the Oversoul, and bore two daughters for the husband of the Oversoul.

Moozh died the next year, poisoned by a Potoku dart as he besieged the floodbound capital of Potokgavan. Three Sotchitsiya kinsmen, a half-dozen Gorayni officers, and Rashgallivak of Basilica all claimed to be his successor. In the course of the civil wars that followed, three armies converged on Basilica and the inhabitants fled. Despite Bitanke’s brave defense, the city fell. The walls and buildings all were broken down, and the teams of war captives cast the stones into the lake of women until all were gone, and the lake was wide and shallow.

The next summer there was nothing but old roads to show that once there had been a city in that place. And even though some few priestesses returned, and built a little temple beside the lake of women, the hot and cold waters now mixed far below the new surface of the lake, and so the thick fogs no longer rose and the place was not so holy anymore. Few pilgrims came.

The former citizens of Basilica spread far and wide throughout the world, but many of them remembered who they were, and passed the stories on, generation after generation. We were of Basilica, they told their children, and so the Oversoul is still alive within our hearts.

“The emphasis in
The Call of Earth
is on a family saga, centering around the remarkable matron in Basilica, and a political upheaval instituted by one brilliant, ambitious general. A genuinely interesting feminist quasi-utopia clashes with power politics, while the Oversoul plies its wiles and the book’s Biblical elements raise odd echoes, with their patriarchs and Cities of the Plain, their prophets and tempters, Jezebels and wise virgins.”

—Faren Miller,
Locus

“Like any Card book, this sequel to
The Memory of Earth
involves many complicated decisions made by machines as well as humans. . . . Well-rounded characters keep [the plot] viable, and the dialog is superb.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Involving and persuasive.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“As a maker of visions and a creator of heroes whose prime directive is compassion, Card is not to be outdone.”

—
Library Journal

“Some science fiction series are simply accretions of novels tied together by common characters or settings, but Mr. Card’s ’Ender’ books form one long philosophical rumination on the question of whether taking life can ever be morally justified.
The Memory of Earth
poses the same question in the context of a planetary civilization, 40 million years in the future, that has been preserved in a kind of stasis by a nearly omniscient global computer. ... As always, Mr. Card writes with energy and conviction.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

T
OR
B
OOKS BY
O
RSON
S
COTT
C
ARD

Empire
The Folk of the Fringe
Future on Fire
(editor)
Future on Ice
(editor)
Hart’s Hope
Lovelock
(with Kathryn Kidd)
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Saints
Songmaster
The Worthing Saga
Wyrms

E
NDER
Ender’s Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Ender’s Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant

T
HE
T
ALES OF
A
LVIN
M
AKER

Seventh Son
Alvin Journeyman
Prentice Alvin
Red Prophet
Heartfire
The Crystal City

H
OMECOMING
The Memory of Earth
The Call of Earth
The Ships of Earth
Earthfall
Earthborn

W
OMEN OF
G
ENESIS
Sarah
Rebekah
Rachel & Leah

S
HORT
F
ICTION
Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card
(hardcover)
Maps in a Mirror, Volume 1: The Changed Man
(paperback)
Maps in a Mirror, Volume 2: Flux
(paperback)
Maps in a Mirror, Volume 3: Cruel Miracles
(paperback)
Maps in a Mirror, Volume 4: Monkey Sonatas
(paperback)

“The Memory of Earth
promises to be volume one of five in the Homecoming series. And I’m hooked.... A thoroughly enjoyable piece of storytelling. What the heck—bring on number two.”

—Chicago
Tribune

T
HE
C
ALL OF
E
ARTH

As Harmony’s Oversoul grows weaker, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. His name is Moozh, and he has won control of an army using forbidden technology. Now he is aiming his soldiers at the city of Basilica, that strong fortress above the Plain.

Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop an army. Can Rasa and her allies defeat him through intrigue, or will Moozh take the city and all who are in it?

“Superb.”—
Publishers Weekly