THE SHIPS OF EARTH

by Orson Scott Card

  "Listen to me, "said Eiadh. "Not to him. You're the one who is the father of the child within me—how do you know I don't have a child within me? If you hurt him, if you disobey him, then you'll die, and my child will be fatherless!"

  At first Luet feared that Elemak would interpret Eiadh's pleading for Nafai's life as yet another proof that his wife loved Nafai more than him. But no. Her pleading was that he must save his own life by not harming Nafai. Therefore he could only take it as proof that she loved him, for it was his life she was trying to save.

  Vas had also come back to Elemak, and now laid a hand on his other shoulder. "Elya, don't kill him. We won't go back to the city—none of us will, none of us!" He turned back to face the others. "Will we! We're all content to go on to join Volemak, aren't we!"

  "We've seen the power of the Oversold," said Eiadh. "None of us would have asked to return to the city if we had understood. Please, we all agree. Our purpose is one now, no division among us. Please, Elemak. Don't make me a widow over this. I'm your wife forever, if you turn away from killing him. But what am I if you rebel against the Oversoul and die?"

  "You're still our travel leader," said Lady Rasa. "Nothing changes that. Only the destination, and you said yourself that the destination wasn't yours to choose alone. Now we see that the choice belongs to none of us, but only to the Oversoul."

  Eiadh wept, and the tears were hot and real. "Oh, Elya, my husband, why do you hate me so much that you want to die!"

  Luet could almost have predicted what would happen next. Dol, seeing how affecting Eiadh's tears were, could not bear to have her performance hold the center of everyone's attention. So she now clung to her husband, and wailed loudly—with very real-seeming tears indeed—that he, too, must refrain from harming Nafai. As if Mebbekew would ever have dared to act alone! As if her tears would ever have moved him! Luet would have laughed aloud, if she hadn't been so aware of the fact that Nafai's life depended now on how Elemak reacted to all the wailing.

  She could almost see the change happening on his face. His determination to kill Nafai, which had not yielded to the influence of the Oversoul, now melted before the pleas of his wife. And as that will to murder faded, the Oversoul had more and more opportunity to seize upon and magnify his fears. So from being a dangerous killer, in only a few moments he turned into a trembling wreck of a man, appalled at what he had almost done. He looked down at the pulse in his hands and shuddered, then threw it away from him. It landed at Luet's feet.

  "Oh, Nafai, my brother, what was I doing!" Elemak cried.

  Mebbekew was even more abject. He flung himself belly-down on the ground. "Forgive me, Nafai! Forgive me for tying you up like an animal—don't let the Oversoul kill me!"

  You're overdoing this, Luet said silently to the Oversoul. They're going to be deeply humiliated when they remember how they acted, no matter whether they figure out it was you making cowards of them or not.

  (What, do you think I have some kind of fine control over this? I can shout fear at them, and they don't hear me and they don't hear me and then suddenly they hear me and collapse like this. I think I'm doing pretty well, for not having done this before.)

  I'm just suggesting that you lighten up on them a little. The job is done.

  "Elemak, Mebbekew, of course I forgive you," said Nafai. "What does it matter what happens to me? It's the Oversoul whose forgiveness matters, not mine."

  "Kneel to the Oversoul," said Eiadh, urgently pulling Elemak downward. "Kneel and beg for forgiveness, please. Don't you see that your life is in danger?"

  Elemak turned to her, and spoke almost calmly, despite the fear that Luet knew was gnawing at him. "And do you care so much whether I live or die?"

  "You're my life," said Eiadh. "Haven't we all sworn an oath to stay married forever?"

  As a matter of fact, they hadn't, thought Luet. All they had done was listen to Elemak's edict and raise their hands to show they understood. But she prudently said nothing.

  Elemak sank to his knees. "Oversoul," he said, his voice trembling. "I'll go where you want me to go."

  "Me too," said Mebbekew. "Count me in." He didn't raise his head from the sand.

  "As long as Eiadh is mine," said Elemak, "I'm content, whether I'm in the desert or the city, on Harmony or on Earth."

  "Oh, Elya!" cried Eiadh. She flung her arms around him and wept into his shoulder.

  Luet bent over and picked up the pulse from the sand at her feet. It wouldn't do to risk losing a precious weapon. Who knew when they might need it for hunting?

  Nafai walked over to her. It meant more than Luet could say, that he came first to her, his wife of only a few days, rather than to his mother. He embraced her, and she held him. She could feel his trembling. He had been afraid, despite his confidence in the Oversoul. And it had been a near thing, too.

  "Did you know how it would all come out?" she whispered.

  "The Oversoul wasn't sure it could bring off the rope thing," he murmured back to her. "Especially when he actually walked up to inspect the knot."

  "He had to do that, if he was going to believe it was miraculous when you broke free."

  "You know what I was thinking, when I was kneeling there with the pulse at my head, saying those things that were goading him to kill me? I was thinking—I'll never know what our baby looks like."

  "And now you will."

  He pulled away from her, then reached out and took the pulse out of her hand.

  Hushidh stepped close and put her hand on the pulse. "Nyef,' she said, "if you hold that, there's no hope of healing."

  "What if I give it back to him?"

  Hushidh nodded. "The best thing," she said.

  No one understood better than Hushidh the Raveler what bound and unbound people. Nafai at once strode to Elemak and held out the pulse to him. "Please," he said. "I don't even know how to use this. We need you to lead us back to Father's camp."

  Elemak paused just a moment before taking the pulse. Luet knew that he hated receiving it from Nafai's hand. But at the same time he also knew that Nafai didn't have to give it to him. That Nafai didn't have to give him back his place of leadership. And he needed that place, needed it so much that he would even take it from Nafai.

  "Glad to," said Elemak. He took the pulse.

  "Oh, thank you, Nafai," said Eiadh.

  Luet felt a stab of fear through her heart. Does Elemak hear it in her voice? Can he see it in her face? How she looks with such awe at Nafai? She's a woman who loves only strength and courage and power—it is the alpha male in the tribe who attracts her. And in her eyes, Nafai is clearly that most desirable of men. She was the best actress of all today, thought Luet. She was the one who was able to convince Elemak of her love for him, in order to save the man she really loved. I can't help but admire her for that, thought Luet. She's really something.

  Those thoughts of admiration were themselves lies, though, and Luet could not long fool herself. Beautiful Eiadh is still in love with my husband, and even though his love for me is strong right now, there'll come a day when the primate male in him overcomes the civilized man, and he'll look at Eiadh with desire, and she'll see it and in that moment I will surely lose him.

  She shook the jealous thought from her, and walked with Lady Rasa, who was trembling with relief, in order to help her clamber onto her camel. "I thought he was dead," said Rasa softly, clinging to Luet's hand. "I thought I had lost him."

  "So did I, for a few moments there," said Luet.

  "I can tell you this," said Lady Rasa. "Elemak would have died before nightfall, if he had gone through with it."

  "I was plotting his death in my own heart, too," said Luet.

  "That's how close we are to animals. Did you ever dream of such a thing? That we would be ready to do murder all so suddenly?"

  "Just like baboons, protecting the troop," said Luet.

  "I think it's rather a grand discovery, don't you?"

  Luet grinned at her and squeezed her hand. "Let's
not tell anybody, though," she said. "It would make the men so nervous, to know how dangerous we really are."

  "It doesn't matter now," said Rasa. "The Oversoul was stronger than I thought possible. It's all over and done with now."

  But as Luet walked back to find her own camel, she knew it was not finished. It had only been postponed. The day would come again when there would be a struggle for power. And next time there was no guarantee that the Oversoul would be able to bring off such a sweet little trick. If Elemak had once decided to fire off the pulse, it would have been over; next time he might realize that, and not let himself be sidetracked by something so foolish as Lady Rasa's plea that he only tie Nafai up and abandon him. It was that close, such a near thing. And at the end, Luet knew that Elemak's hatred for Nafai was stronger than ever, even though for a time at least he would deny it, would pretend even to himself that his hate was gone. You can fool the others, Elemak, but I'll be watching you. And if anything happens to my husband, you can be sure of it, you'd better kill me too. You'd better be sure I'm dead, and even then, if I can find a way, I'll come back and wreak some vengeance on you from the grave.

  "You're trembling, Lutya," said Hushidh.

  "Am I?" Perhaps that was why she was having so much trouble making certain of the cinch on her camel's saddle.

  "Like a dragonfly's wing."

  "It was a very emotional thing," said Luet. "I suppose that I'm still upset."

  "Still jealous of Eiadh, that's what you are," said Hushidh.

  "Not even a speck," said Luet. "He loves me absolutely and completely."

  "Yes, he does," said Hushidh. "But still I see such rage in you toward Eiadh."

  Luet knew that she did, yes, feel some jealousy toward Eiadh. But Hushidh had called it rage, and that was a far stronger feeling than she had been aware of in herself. "I'm not angry because she loves Nafai," said Luet, "truly I'm not."

  "Oh, I know that," said Hushidh. "Or rather, I see that now. No, I think you're angry at her and jealous of her because she was able to save your husband's life, when you couldn't do it."

  Yes, thought Luet. That was it. And now that Hushidh had named it, she could feel the agonizing frustration of it wash through her, and hot tears of rage and shame flooded out of her eyes and down her cheeks. "There," said Hushidh, holding her. "It's good to let it out. It's good."

  "That's nice," said Luet. "Because apparently I'm going to cry like a ninny whether it's good to let it out or not, so it might as well be good."

  She was still crying when Nafai came back to find her and help her on her beast. "You're the last one," said Nafai.

  "I think I just needed to feel you touch me one more time," she said. "To be sure you were alive."

  "Still breathing," he said. "Are you going to cry like that for long? Because all that moisture on your face is bound to attract flies."

  "Whatever happened to those bandits?" she said, wiping her tears with her sleeve.

  "The Oversoul managed to put them to sleep just before it started getting serious about influencing the others. They'll wake up in a couple of hours. Why did you think about them?"

  "I was just thinking how stupid we would all have felt, if they had come running up and hacked us all to pieces while we stood there bickering about whether or not to kill you."

  "Yes," said Nafai. "I know what you mean. To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."

  She laughed and held his hand for just a moment. Just another moment, and then another long, long moment.

  "They're waiting for us," said Nafai. "And the bandits will wake up eventually."

  So she let go of him, and as soon as he headed toward his own camel, hers lurched to its feet and she rose high above the desert floor. It was like riding atop an unsteady tower in an earthquake, and she didn't usually like it. But today it felt as lovely as she had ever imagined it might be to sit upon a throne. For there, on the camel before her, sat Nafai, her husband. Even if it had not been Luet herself who saved him, what of it? It was enough that he was alive, and he was still in love with her.

  THREE—HUNTING

  They came down into Volemak's camp in the evening. They had traveled longer than usual that day, because they were close; yet still there was all the evening work to do, for Volemak had not known they were coming that night, and there were no extra tents pitched, and Zdorab had already washed up from the supper he prepared for himself and Volemak and Issib. The evening work went slower than usual, because they felt safer, and because, having arrived, it seemed so unfair to have as much work to do as during the journey.

  Hushidh stayed as close to Luet and Nafai as she could. She caught glimpses of Issib now and then as he floated somewhere on his chair. There was nothing surprising to her about his appearance—she had known him for years, since he was Lady Rasa's oldest son and had studied at Rasa's house as long as Hushidh had been there herself. But she had always thought of him as the crippled one, and paid him little mind. Then, back in Basilica, as she came to realize that she was going out onto the desert with Nafai and Luet, it came clear to her—for she could always see the connections between people—that in the pairings of male and female in the Oversoul's expedition, she would end up with Issib. The Oversoul wanted his genes to go on, and hers as well, and for good or ill they would be making that effort together.

  It had been a hard thing to accept. Especially on the wedding night, as Luet and Nafai, Elemak and Eiadh, Mebbekew and Dolya all were married by Lady Rasa and then went, two by two, to their bridal beds, Hushidh could hardly bear the rage and fear and bitter disappointment in her heart, that she could not have the kind of love that her sister Luet had.

  In answer, the Oversoul—or so she had thought at first—sent her a dream that night. In it she saw herself linked with Issib; she saw him flying and flew with him; she understood from that that his body did not express his true nature, and that she would find that marriage with him was not something that would grind her down but rather would lift her up. And she saw herself bearing children with him, saw herself standing in the door of a desert tent with him, watching their children play, and she saw that in that future scene she would love him, would be bound with him by gold and silver threads tying them back through generations, and leading them also forward into the future, year by year, child by child, generation by generation. There were other parts of the dream, some of them terrifying, but she clung to the comfort of it all these days. As she had stood with General Moozh, forced to marry the conqueror of Basilica, she had thought about the dream and knew that she would not really end up with him, and sure enough, the Oversoul brought Hushidh's and Luet's mother, the woman named Thirsty, who named them as her daughters—with Moozh as their father. No marriage then, and within hours they were in the desert, on their way to join Volemak in the desert.

  But since then she had had time to think—time to remember her fears. Of course she tried not to, tried instead to cling to the comfort of the dream, or to Nafai's reassurances, for he had told her that Issib was very bright and funny, a man of good company, which of course she had never had much chance to see at school.

  Yet despite the dream, despite Nafai, her old impressions, the ones she had held for so many years, remained. All the way through the desert she kept seeing the almost macabre way his arms and legs used to move in the city, where he could wear lifts under his clothing, so that he always seemed to be bouncing through the air like gamboling ghost, or like a—what was it that Kokor had once called him?—like a rabbit under water. How they had laughed! And now, how disloyal she felt, although it had been Issib's own sister who made the joke. Hushidh could not have guessed that someday the cripple, the ghost, the underwater rabbit would be her husband. The old fear and strangeness remained as an undercurrent, despite all her attempts to reassure herself.

  Until now, seeing him, she realized that she was not afraid of him. The dream had given her too much hope. No, she w
as afraid of what he would think of her— an even older and darker fear. Did Issib know yet what Aunt Rasa and the Oversoul had planned for him? Was he already eyeing her as she worked at tent-pitching, sizing her up? No doubt that if he was, he would be bitterly disappointed. She could imagine him thinking, Of course the cripple gets the plain one, the one too tall, the sour-faced one whose body has never caused a man to take a second glance. The studious one, who has no gift for causing anyone to laugh, except sometimes her younger sister Luet (ah, so bright! but she belongs to Nafai). He must be thinking: I'll have to make the best of it, because I'm a cripple and have no choice. Just as I'm thinking, I'll have to make do with the cripple, because no other man would have me.

  How many marriages have begun with such feelings as these? Were any of them ever happy, in the end?

  She delayed as long as she could, lingering over supper—which was better than anything they had eaten while traveling. Zdorab and Volemak had found wild greens and roots in this valley and simmered them down into a stew, so much better than handfuls of raisins and jerky, and the bread was fresh and leavened, instead of the crackers and hard biscuits they had made do with while traveling. Soon it would be better still, for Volemak had planted a garden here, and within a few weeks there would be melons and squashes, carrots and onions and radishes.

  Everyone was tired and awkward with each other through supper. The memory of Nafai's near-execution still lingered in their minds, all the more embarrassing to them now that they had returned to Volemak and could see how easily he held command over all of them, being a man of true leadership, so much more powerful than Elemak's swaggering, bullying style. It made them all dread some kind of accounting with the old man, for how many of them, except perhaps Eiadh—and of course Nafai himself—were truly proud of how they acted? So, good as the food was, no one but Hushidh had much desire to stay and chat. There were no fond reminiscences of the journey, no amusing tales to recount to those who had waited here for them. As quickly as the supper was cleared away, the couples went to their tents.