The Memory of Earth (25 page)

Wetchik had pitched his tents away from any road, in a narrow river valley near the shores of the Rumen Sea. They had reached it at sunset, just as a troop of baboons moved away from their feeding area near the river’s mouth, toward their sleeping niches in the steepest, craggiest cliff in the valley wall. It was the baboons’ calls and hoots that guided them during the last of their journey; Elemak was careful to lead them well upstream of the baboons. “So we don’t disturb them?” Issib asked.

“So they don’t foul our water and steal our food,” said Elemak.

Before Father allowed them to unburden the camels and water them, before they ate or drank anything themselves, Father sat atop his camel and gestured toward the stream. “Look—the end of the dry season, and yet it still has water in it. The name of this place is Elemak from now on. I name it for you, my eldest son.
Be like the river, so that the purpose of your life is to flow forever toward the great ocean of the Oversoul.”

Nafai glanced at Elemak and saw that he was taking the peroration with dignity. It was a sacred moment, the naming of a place, and even if Father laced the occasion with a sermon, Elemak knew that it was an honor, a sign that Father acknowledged him.

“And as for this green valley,” said Father, “I name it Mebbekew, for my second son. Be like this valley, Mebbekew, a firm channel through which the waters of life can flow, and where life can take root and thrive.”

Mebbekew nodded graciously.

There was nothing named for Issib and Nafai. Only a silence, and then Father’s groan as his camel knelt for him to dismount. It was well after dark before they finally had the tents pitched, the scorpions swept outside, and the repellents set in place. Three tents—Father’s, of course, the largest though he was only one man. The next largest for Elya and Meb. And the smallest for Issib and Nafai, even though Issib’s chair took up an exorbitant amount of room inside.

Nafai couldn’t help but brood about the inequities, and when, in the darkness of the tent, Issib asked him what he was thinking, Nafai went ahead and voiced his resentment. “He names the river and the valley for
them
, when Elemak’s the one who was working with Gaballufix, and Mebbekew’s the one who said all those terrible things to him and left home and everything.”

“So?” said Issib, ever sympathetic.

“So here we are in the smallest tent. We’ve got two extras, still packed up, both of them larger than this one.” Having undressed himself, Nafai now helped Issib undress—it was too hard for him, without his floats.

“Father’s making a statement,” said Issib.

“Yes, and I’m hearing it, and I don’t like it. He’s saying, Issib and Nafai, you’re
nothing
.”

“What was he going to do, name a
cloud
after us?” Issib fell silent for a moment as Nafai pulled the shirt off over Issib’s head. “Or did you want him to name a bush for you?”

“I don’t care about the naming, I care about justice.”

“Get some perspective, Nafai. Father isn’t going to sort out his children according to who’s the most obedient or cooperative or polite from hour to hour. There’s a clear ranking involved in the assignment of tent space here.” Nafai laid his brother on his mat, farthest from the door. “The fact that Elya doesn’t have a tent to himself, but shares with Meb,” said Issib, “that’s putting him in his place, reminding him that he’s
not
the Wetchik, he’s just the Wetchik’s boy. But then putting us in such a tiny tent tells Elya and Meb that he
does
value them and honor them as his oldest sons. He’s at once rebuking and encouraging them. I think he’s been rather deft.”

Nafai lay down on his own mat, near the door, in the traditional servant’s position. “What about us?”

“What
about
us? Are you going to rebel against the Oversoul because your papa gave you a tiny tent?”

“No.”

“Father trusts us to be loyal while he works on Elya and Meb. Father’s trust is the greatest honor of all. I’m proud to be in this tent.”

“When you put it that way,” said Nafai, “so am I.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Wake me if you need anything.”

“What can I need,” said Issib, “when I have my chair beside me?”

Actually, the chair was down near his feet, and it was almost completely useless when Issib wasn’t sitting in it. Nafai was puzzled for a moment, until he realized that
Issib was giving him a small rebuke: Why are
you
complaining, Nafai, when being away from the magnetics of the city means that I can’t use my floats, and have to be tended to like an infant? It must be humiliating for Issib to have me undress him, thought Nafai. And yet he bears it uncomplaining, for Father’s sake.

Deep in the night, Nafai awoke, instantly alert. He lay there listening. Was it Issib who had called him? No—his brother was still taking the heavy, rhythmic breaths of sleep. Did he wake, then, because he was uncomfortable? No, for the sand under his mat made the floor more, not less, comfortable than his room at home. Nor was it the cold, nor the distant howling of a wild dog, and it could not have been the baboons, because they always slept the night in perfect silence.

The last time Nafai had awakened like this, he had found Luet outside in the traveler’s room, and the Oversoul had spoken in the night to Father.

Was I dreaming, then? Did the Oversoul teach me in my sleep? But Nafai could remember no dreams. Just the sudden wakefulness.

He got up from his mat—quietly, so as not to disturb Issya—and slid under the netted fabric draped across the door. It was cooler outside the tent than inside, of course, but they had traveled far enough south that autumn hadn’t yet arrived in this place, and the waters of the Rumen Sea were much warmer and more placid than the ocean that swept along the coastline east of Basilica.

The camels were peacefully asleep in their small temporary corral. The wards at the corners kept away even the smallest of animals not yet inured to the sound frequencies and pheromones the wards gave off. The stream splashed a syncopated music over the rocks. The leaves in the trees rustled now and then in the night
breeze. If there is any place in all of Harmony where a man could sleep in peace, it’s here, thought Nafai. And yet I couldn’t sleep.

Nafai walked upstream and sat on a stone beside the water. The breeze was cool enough to chill him a little; for a moment he wished he had dressed before leaving the tent. But he hadn’t intended to get up for the day. Soon enough he’d go back inside.

He looked around him, at the low hills not that far off. Unless a person stood on one of those hills, there was no sign of a watered valley here. Still, it was a wonder that no one lived here but the tribe of baboons downstream of them, that there wasn’t even a sign of human habitation. Perhaps it had not been settled because it was so far from any trade route. The land here was barely enough to support a few dozen people, if it were all cultivated. It would be too lonely or unprofitable to settle here. Robbers might use it as a refuge, but it was too far from the caravan routes to be convenient for them. It was exactly what Father’s family needed, during this time of exile from Basilica. As if it had been prepared for them.

For a moment Nafai wondered if perhaps this valley had not even existed until they needed it. Did the Oversoul have such power that it could transform land-forms at will?

Impossible. The Oversoul might have such powers in myth and legend, but in the real world, the Oversoul’s powers seemed to be entirely confined to communication—the sharing of works of art throughout the world, and mental influence over those who received visions or, more commonly, the stupor of thought that the Oversoul used to turn people away from forbidden ideas.

That’s why this place was empty till we came, thought Nafai. It would be a simple thing for the Oversoul to
make desert travelers get stupid whenever they thought of turning toward the Rumen Sea near here. The Oversoul prepared it for us, not by creating it out of the rock, not by causing some hidden pool of water to burst forth into a spring, a stream for us, but rather by keeping other people away from here, so that it was empty and ready for us when we came.

The Oversoul has some great purpose here, plans within plans. We listen for its voice, we heed the visions it puts into our minds, but we’re still puppets, uncertain why our strings are being pulled, or what our dance will lead to in the end. It isn’t right, thought Nafai. It isn’t even good, for if the followers of the Oversoul are kept blind, if they can’t judge the Oversoul’s purpose for themselves, then they aren’t freely choosing between good and evil, or between wise and foolish, but are only choosing to subsume themselves in the purposes of the Oversoul. How can the Oversoul’s plans be well-served, if all its followers are the kind of weak-souled people who are willing to obey the Oversoul without understanding?

I will serve you, Oversoul, with my whole heart I’ll serve you, if I understand what you’re trying to do, what it
means
. And if your purpose is a good one.

Who am I to judge what’s good and what isn’t?

The thought came into Nafai’s mind, and he laughed silently at his own arrogance. Who am I, to set myself up as the judge of the Oversoul?

Then he shuddered. What put such a thought into my mind? Couldn’t it have been the Oversoul itself, trying to tame me? I will
not
be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied—I am willing only to be convinced. If you don’t trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you’re trying to do, Oversoul, then you’re confessing your own moral weakness and I’ll never serve you.

The moonlight sparkling on the shifting surface of the stream suddenly became sunlight reflected from metal satellites orbiting perpetually around the planet Harmony. In his mind’s eye, Nafai saw how, one by one, the satellites stumbled in their orbit and fell, burning themselves into dust as they entered the atmosphere. The first human settlers of this world had built tools that would last ten or twenty million years. To them that had seemed like forever—it was longer than the existence of the human species, many times over. But now it had been forty million years, and the Oversoul had to do its work with only a quarter as many satellites as it had had in the beginning, barely half as many as it had had for the first thirty million years. No wonder the Oversoul had weakened.

But its plans were no less important. Its purpose still needed to be served. Issib and Nafai were right—the Oversoul had been set in place by the first human settlers in this place, for one purpose only: to make Harmony a world where humanity would never have the power to destroy itself.

Wouldn’t it have been better, thought Nafai, to change humanity so it no longer
desired
to destroy itself?

The answer came into his mind with such clarity that he knew it was the answer of the Oversoul. No, it would not have been better.

But why? Nafai demanded.

An answer, many answers poured into his mind all at once, in such a burst that he could make no sense of them. But in the moments after, the moments of growing clarity, some of the ideas found language. Sentences as clear as if they had been spoken by another voice. But it was not another voice—it was Nafai’s own voice, making a feeble attempt to capture in words some straggling remnant of what the Oversoul had said to him.

What the voice of the Oversoul said inside Nafai’s mind was this: If I had taken away the desire for violence then humanity would not have been humanity. Not that human beings need to be violent in order to be human, but if you ever lose the will to control, the will to destroy, then it must be because you
chose
to lose it. My role was not to force you to be gentle and kind; it was to keep you alive while you decided for yourselves what kind of people you wanted to be.

Nafai was afraid to ask another question, for fear of drowning in the mental flood that might follow. And yet he couldn’t leave the question unasked. Tell me slowly. Tell me gently. But
tell
me: What have we decided?

To his relief, the answer wasn’t that same rush of pure unspeakable idea. This time it seemed to him as if a window had been opened in his mind, through which he could see. All the actual scenes, all the faces he saw, they were memories, things he had seen or heard of in Basilica, things that were already in his mind, ready for the Oversoul to draw on them, to bring them to the surface of his mind. But now he saw them with such clear understanding that they took on power and meaning beyond anything in his experience before. He saw memories of business dealings he had seen. He saw plays and satires he had watched. Conversations in the street. A holy woman being raped by a gang of drunken worshipers. The scheming of men who were trying to win a mating contract with a woman of note. The casual cruelty of women who played their suitors against each other. Even the way Elemak and Mebbekew had treated Nafai—and the way he had treated them. It all spoke of the willingness of people to hurt each other, the burning passion to control what other people thought and did. So many people, in secret, subtle ways, acted to destroy people—and not just their enemies, either, but also their
friends. Destroying them for the pleasure of knowing that they had the power to cause pain. And so few who devoted their lives to building other people’s strength and confidence. So few who were true teachers, genuine mates.

That’s what Father and Mother are, thought Nafai. They stay together, not because of any gain, but because of the gift. Father doesn’t stay with Mother because she is good for
him
, but rather because together they can do good for us, and for many others. Father entered into the politics of Basilica these last few weeks, not because he hoped to gain by it, the way Gaballufix did, but because he genuinely cared more about the good of Basilica than about his own fortune, his own life. He could walk away from his fortune without a second look. And Mother, her life is what she creates in the minds of her students. Through her girls, her boys, she is trying to create tomorrow’s Basilica. Every word she breathes in the school is designed to keep the city from decay.