The Memory of Earth (38 page)

Nor did they walk straight across the road. Rather they angled across, as if they were really going
with
the road, but losing their way in the dark, or being tipped in one direction by the drunk they were helping. Finally they were across, and slipped off into the bushes.

Nafai caught up with them as they were untangling Issib, helping him adjust his floats. “That was so good,” he whispered. “A thousand people could have seen you and nobody would have thought twice about it.”

“Elemak thought of it,” said Issib.

“You should be leading,” said Nafai.

“Not according to the Oversoul,” said Elemak.

“Issib’s chair, you mean,” said Mebbekew.

“It was just as well, Nyef, you going across first,” said Elemak. “The guards will be looking for four men, one of them floating. Instead they saw three, one of them drunk.”

“Where now?” said Issib.

Nafai shrugged. “This way, I guess.” He led the way, angling through the empty ground between High Road and the Funnel.

He got distracted. He couldn’t think of what to do next. He couldn’t think of anything.

“Stop,” he said. He thought of leading them onward, and it felt wrong. What felt right was for him to go on alone. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going into the city alone.”

“Brilliant,” said Mebbekew. “We could have waited back with the camels.”

“No,” said Nafai. “Please. I need you
here.
I need to be sure I can come out of the gate and find you here.”

“How long will you be?” asked Issib.

“I don’t know,” said Nafai.

“Well, what are you planning to
do
?”

He couldn’t very well tell them that he hadn’t the faintest idea. “Elemak didn’t tell us what
he
was planning,” said Nafai.

“Right,” said Mebbekew. “Play at being the big man.”

“We’ll wait,” said Elemak. “But if the sun rises with us here, we’re out in the open and we’ll be caught for sure. You understand that.”

“At the first lightening of the sky, if I’m not back, get Issib’s chair and head for the camels,” said Nafai.

“We’ll do it,” said Elemak.

“If we feel like it,” said Mebbekew.

“We’ll feel like it,” said Elemak. “Meb will be here, just like the rest of us.”

Nafai knew that Elemak still hated him, still felt contempt for him—but he also knew that Elemak would do what he said. That even though Elemak was expecting him to fail, he was also giving him a reasonable chance to succeed. “Thank you,” said Nafai.

“Get the Index,” said Elemak. “You’re the Oversoul’s boy, get the Index.”

Nafai left them then, walking toward the Funnel. As he got nearer, he could hear the guards talking. There were too many of them—six or seven, not the usual two. Why? He moved to the wall and then slipped closer, to where he could hear fairly well what they were saying.

“It’s Gaballufix himself,
I
say,” said one guard. “Probably killed Wetchik’s boy first, so he couldn’t leave the city, and then killed Roptat and put the blame where nobody could answer.”

“Sounds like Gaballufix,” another answered him. “Pure slime, him and all his men.”

Roptat was dead. Nafai felt a thrill of fear. After all the failed plots, it had finally happened—Gaballufix had finally committed a murder. And blamed it on one of Wetchik’s boys.

Me, Nafai realized. He blamed it on me. I’m the only one who didn’t leave the city through a monitored gate. So as far as the city computer knows, I’m still inside. Of course Gaballufix would know that. So he seized the chance, had Roptat killed, and put out the word that it was the youngest son of Wetchik who did it.

But the women know. The women know he’s lying. He doesn’t realize it yet, but by tomorrow every woman in Basilica will know the truth—that when Roptat was being killed I was at the lake with Luet. I don’t even have to go inside tonight. Gaballufix will be destroyed by his own stupidity, and we can wait outside the walls and laugh!

Only he couldn’t think of waiting outside. The Oversoul didn’t want that. The Oversoul didn’t care about Gaballufix getting caught in his lies. The Oversoul cared about the Index, and the fall of Gaballufix wouldn’t put the Index into Father’s hands.

How do I get past the guards? Nafai asked.

In answer, all he felt was his own fear. He knew
that
didn’t come from the Oversoul.

So he waited. After a while, the guards’ conversation lagged. “Let’s do a walk through Dogtown,” said one of them. Five of them walked out of the gate, into the darkness of the Dogtown streets. If they had turned back to look at the gate, they would have seen Nafai standing there, leaning against the wall not two meters from the opening. But they didn’t look back.

It was time, he knew that; his fear was undiminished,
but now there was also a hunger to act, to get moving. The Oversoul? It was hard to know, but he had to do
something
. So, holding his breath, Nafai stepped out into the light falling through the gate.

One guard sat on a stool, leaning against the gate. Asleep, or nearly so. The other was relieving himself against the opposite wall, his back to the opening. Nafai walked quietly through. Neither one stirred from his position until Nafai was away from the gatelight. Then he heard their voices behind him, talking—but not about him, not raising an alarm. This must be how it was for Luet, he thought, the night she came to give us warning. The Oversoul making the guards stupid enough to let her pass as if she were invisible. The way I passed through.

The moon was rising now. The night was more than half spent. The city was asleep, except probably Dolltown and the Inner Market, and even those were bound to be a bit subdued in these days of tension and turmoil, with soldiers patrolling the streets. In this district, though, a fairly safe one, with no night life at all, there was no one out and about. Nafai wasn’t sure whether the emptiness of the streets was good or bad. It was good because there’d be fewer people to see him; bad because if he
was
seen, he’d be noticed for sure.

Except tonight the Oversoul was helping him
not
to be noticed. He kept to the shadows, not tempting fate, and once when a troop of soldiers did come by, he ducked into a doorway and they passed him without notice.

This must be the limit to the power of the Oversoul, thought Nafai. With Luet and Father and me, the Oversoul can communicate real ideas. And through a machine—through Issib’s chair—but who can guess how much that cost the Oversoul? Reaching directly into the minds of these other people, it can’t do much more than distract them, the way it steers people away from forbidden
ideas. It can’t turn the soldiers out of the road, but it
can
discourage them from noticing the fellow standing in the shadowed doorway, it
can
distract them from wanting to investigate, to see what he’s doing. It can’t keep the guards at the gate from doing their duty, but it
can
help the dozing guard to dream, so that the sound of Nafai’s footsteps are part of the story of the dream, and he doesn’t look up.

And even to do that much, the Oversoul must have its whole attention focused on this street tonight, thought Nafai. On this very place. On me.

Where am. I going?

Doesn’t matter. Turn off my mind and wander, that’s what I have to do. Let the Oversoul lead me by the hand, the way Luet did.

It was hard, though, to empty his mind, to keep himself from recognizing each street he came to, keep himself from thinking of all the people or shops he knew of on that street, and how they might relate to getting the Index. His mind was too involved even now.

And why shouldn’t it be? he thought. What am I supposed to do, stop being a sentient being? Become infinitely stupid so that the Oversoul can control me? Is my highest ambition in life to be a
puppet
?

No, came the answer. It was as clear as that night by the stream, in the desert. You’re no puppet. You’re here because you chose to be here. But now, to hear my voice, you have to empty your mind. Not because I want you to be stupid, but because you have to be able to hear me. Soon enough you’ll need all your wits about you again. Fools are no good to me.

Nafai found himself leaning against a wall, gasping for breath, when the voice faded. It was no joke, to have the Oversoul
push
into his thoughts like that. What did our ancestors do to their children, when they changed us so
that a computer could put things into our minds like this? In those early days, did all the children hear the voice of the Oversoul as I hear it now? Or was it always a rare thing, to be a hearer of that voice?

Move on. He felt it like a hunger. And he moved. Moved the way he had twice before in the last few weeks—going from street to street almost in a trance, uncertain of where he was, not caring. The way he had been only this afternoon, running from the assassins.

I don’t even have a weapon.

The thought brought him up short. Pulled him out of his walking trance. He wasn’t sure where he was. But there, half in shadow, there was a man lying in the street. Nafai came closer, curious. Some drunk, perhaps. Or it might be a victim of tolchocks, or soldiers, or assassins. A victim of Gaballufix.

No. Not a victim at all. It was one of Gaballufix’s identical soldiers lying there, and from the stench of piss and alcohol, it wasn’t any injury that put him on the ground.

Nafai almost walked away, until it dawned on him that here was the best disguise he could possibly hope for. It would be much simpler to get near Gaballufix if he was wearing one of the holographic soldier costumes—and here lay just such a costume, a gift that was his for the taking.

He knelt beside the man and rolled him over onto his back. It was impossible to
see
the box that controlled the holograph, but by running his hands through the image, he found it by touch, on a belt near the waist. He unfastened it, but even then it wouldn’t come away from the man more than a few centimeters.

Oh, that’s right, thought Nafai. Elemak said it was a kind of cloak, and the box was just a part of that.

Sure enough, when he pulled the box up the man’s
body, it slid easily. By half-rolling the man this way and that, he was finally able to get the holographic costume off his arms, out from under his body, and then off the man’s head.

Only then did Nafai realize that the Oversoul had provided him with more than a costume. This wasn’t a hired thug with a soldier suit. It was Gaballufix himself.

Drunk out of his mind, lying in his own urine and vomit, but nevertheless, without any doubt, it was Gaballufix.

But what could Nafai
do
with this drunk? He certainly didn’t have the Index with him. And Nafai harbored no delusion that by dragging him home he could win Gaballufix’s undying gratitude.

The bastard must have been out celebrating the death of Roptat. A murderer lying here in the street, only he’ll never be punished for it. In fact, he’s trying to get
me
blamed for it. Nafai was filled with anger. He thought of putting his foot on Gaballufix’s head and grinding his face down into the vomit-covered street. It would feel so good, so—

Kill him.

The thought was as clear as if someone behind him had spoken it.

No, thought Nafai. I can’t do that. I can’t kill a man.

Why do you think I brought you here? He’s a killer. The law decrees his death.

The law decreed
my
death for seeing the Lake of Women, Nafai answered silently. Yet I was shown mercy.

I brought you to the lake, Nafai. As I brought you here. To do what must be done. You’ll never get the Index while he’s alive.

I can’t kill a man. A helpless man like this—it would be murder.

It would be simple justice.

Not if it came from my hand. I hate him too much. I want him dead. For the humiliation of my family. For stealing my father’s title. For taking our fortune. For the beating I got at my brother’s hands. For the soldiers and the tolchocks, for the way he has blotted the light of hope out of my city. For the way he turned Rashgallivak, that good man, into a weak and foolish tool. For all those things I want him to die, I want to crush him under my foot. If I kill him now I’m a coward and an assassin, not a justicer.

He tried to kill you. His assassins had you marked for death.

I know it. So it would be private vengeance if I killed him now.

Think of what you’re doing, Nafai. Think.

I’m not going to be a murderer.

That’s right. You’re going to
save
lives. There’s only one hope of saving this world from the slaughter that destroyed Earth forty million years ago, and leaving this man alive will obliterate that hope. Should the billion souls of the planet Harmony all die, so that you can keep your hands clean? I tell you that this is not murder, not assassination, but justice. I have tried him and found him guilty. He ordered the death of Roptat, and your death, and your brothers’ death, and the death of your father. He plots a war that will kill thousands and bring this city under subjugation. You aren’t sparing him out of mercy, Nafai, because only his death will be merciful to the city and the people that you love, only his death will show mercy to the world. You’re sparing him out of pure vanity. So that you can look at your hands and find them unstained with blood. I tell you that if you don’t kill this man, the blood of millions will be on your head.

No!

Nafai’s cry was all the more anguished for being silent, for being contained inside his mind.

The voice inside his head did not relent: The Index opens the deepest library in the world, Nafai. With it, all things are possible to my servants. Without it, I have no clearer voice than the one you hear now, constantly changed and distorted by your own fears and hopes and expectations. Without the Index, I can’t help you and you can’t help me. My powers will continue to fade, and my law will dwindle among the people, until at last the fires come again, and another world is laid waste. The Index, Nafai. Take from this man what the law requires, and then go and get the Index.

Nafai reached down and took the charged-wire blade that was hooked to Gaballufix’s belt.