THE SHIPS OF EARTH

by Orson Scott Card

  "And their picture—was it wrong?"

  (They did not understand how much of their behavior was animal, not intellectual. They thought that they had overcome the beast in them, and that with my help all their descendants would drive out the beast in a few generations—or a few hundred, anyway. Their vision was long, but no human being can have that long a vision. Eventually the numbers, the dimensions of time, become meaningless.)

  "But they built well," said Nafai.

  (Well but not perfectly. I have suffered forty million years of cosmic and nuclear radiation that has torn apart much of my memory. I have vast redundancy, and so in my data storage there has been no meaningful loss. Even in my programming, I have monitored all changes and corrected them. What I could not monitor was the area hidden from myself. So when the programs there decayed, I could not know it and could not compensate for it. I couldn't copy those areas and restore them when any one copy decayed.)

  "So they didn't plan well at all," said Nafai, "since those programs were at your very core."

  (You mustn't judge them harshly. It never occurred to them that it would take even a million years for their children's children to learn peace and be worthy to enter this place and learn all about advanced technologies. How could they guess that century after century, millennium after millennium, the humans of Harmony would never learn peace, would never cease trying to rule over one another by force or deception? I was never meant to keep this place closed off for even a million years, let alone forty million. So they built well indeed—the flaws and failures in my secret core were not fatal, were they? After all, you're here, aren't you?)

  Nafai remembered his terror when he had had no air to breathe, and wasn't sure that they hadn't cut it all a little fine.

  "Where are you?" asked Nafai.

  (All around you.)

  Nafai looked, and saw nothing in particular.

  (The sensors there, in the ceiling—those are how I see you right now, and hear you, besides my ways of seeing through your eyes, and hearing your words before you say them. Behind all these walls are bank after bank of static memory—all of that is my self. The machinery pumping air through these underground passages—they are also me.)

  "Then why did you need me at all?" asked Nafai.

  (You are the one who broke me out of my loop and opened up my vision to include my own heart, and you ask me that?)

  "Why do you need me now?"

  (I also need you—all of you—because the Keeper has sent you dreams. The Keeper wants you, and so I will bring you.)

  "Why do you need me?" he asked, clarifying the question even further.

  (Because my robots were all controlled by a place in my memory that has become completely untrustworthy. I have shut them down because they were reporting falsely to me. No one ship of these six has a fully uncorrupted memory. I need you to collect and test the memory in every part of the ships and bring good memory together until we have one perfect ship. I can't do this myself—I have no hands.)

  "So I'm here to replace broken machines."

  (And I need you to pilot the starship.)

  "Don't tell me you can't do that yourself."

  (Your ancestors did not let their starships pass completely under the control of computers like me, Nafai. There must be a starmaster on every ship, to give command. I will carry out those commands, but the ship will be yours. I will be yours.)

  "Not me," said Nafai. "Father should do this."

  (Volemak didn't come here. Volemak didn't open this place.)

  "He would have, if he'd known."

  (He knew what you knew. But you acted. These things are not accidental, Nafai. It isn't coincidence that you are here and no one else is. If Volemak had found this place and forced his way in, risking his own life for the sake of coming here, then he would wear the cloak. Or Elemak, or Zdorab—whoever came would have that responsibility. It was you. It is yours.)

  Almost Nafai said, I don't want it. But that would be a lie. He wanted it with his whole heart. To be the one chosen by the Oversoul to pilot the starship, even though he knew nothing about piloting anything—that would be wonderful. More glory and accomplishment than he ever dreamed of in his childhood. "I'll do it then," said Nafai, "as long as you show me how it's done."

  (You can't do it without tools. I can give you some of them, and teach you how to make the rest. And you can't do it without help.)

  "Help?"

  (There will be thousands of memory plates to move from one ship to another. You will grow old and die if you try to do it all yourself. Your whole village will need to work together, if we are to have a reliable starship that contains all of the memory that I will need to bring to the Keeper of Earth.)

  At once Nafai tried to imagine Elemak doing any job under his direction, and he laughed aloud. "If that's so, then you'd better put someone else in charge. They won't follow me."

  (They will.)

  "Then you don't understand human nature very well after all," said Nafai. "The only reason we've had peace among us these past few years is that I've stayed pretty much in my place, as far as Elya is concerned. If I suddenly come back and tell them that I'm the starmaster and they have to help me put together a starship…"

  (Trust me.)

  "Yeah, right. I always have, haven't I?"

  (Open the door.)

  Nafai opened the door and stepped into a dimly lighted room. The door closed behind him, shutting off much of what light there had been. Blinking, Nafai soon grew accustomed to the dimmer light and saw that in the middle of the room, hanging in the air with no obvious means of support, was a block of—what, ice?

  (Much of it is water.)

  Nafai approached it, reached out, touched it. His finger went in easily.

  (As I said. Water.)

  "How does it hold this shape, then?" asked Nafai. "How does it float in the air?"

  (Why should I explain, when in a few moments the memory will be yours just for the thinking of it?)

  "What do you mean?"

  (Pass through the water and you will emerge wearing the cloak of the starmaster. When that is in place, linked to you, then all my memories will be yours, as if they had been yours all along.)

  "A human mind could never hold such information," said Nafai. "Your memory includes forty million years of history."

  (You will see.)

  "Having Father's memory of his vision in my mind almost drove me mad," said Nafai. "Won't that happen this time, having yours?"

  (I will be with you as I have never been with you before.)

  "Will I still be myself?"

  (You will be more yourself than ever before.)

  "Do I have a choice?"

  (Yes. You can choose to refuse this. Then I will bring another, and she will pass through the water, and then she will be star-master.)

  "She? Luet?"

  (Does it matter? Once you have chosen not to be starmaster, what right do you have to concern yourself with the person I then choose to take your place?)

  Nafai stood there, looking at the miraculous block of water resting in the air, and thought: This is less dangerous than passing through the barrier, and I did that. He also thought: Could I bear to follow the starmaster, knowing for the rest of my life that I could have been starmaster, and refused? And then: I have trusted the Oversoul so far. I have killed for it; I have nearly died for it. Will I now refuse to take the leadership of this voyage?

  "How do I do it?" asked Nafai.

  (Don't you know? Don't you remember when Luet told you of her vision?)

  Only now, with the Oversoul's reminder, did Nafai remember what Luet had said, of seeing him sink down into a block of ice and emerge from the bottom, glowing and sparkling with light. He had thought it had some metaphorical meaning. But here was the block of ice.

  "I sink down from the top," said Nafai. "How do I get above this?"

  Almost at once, a meter-wide platter skimmed across the floor toward him. Nafai understood that he
was to stand on it. But when he did, nothing happened.

  (Your clothing will interfere.)

  So he removed his clothing for the second time that day. Doing so reminded him of all the scratches and bruises he had suffered from the buffeting of the wind. Naked, he stepped again on the disk. Almost at once it rose straight up into the air and carried him above the block.

  (Step off onto the water. It will support you like a floor.)

  Having just put his finger easily into the side of the block, Nafai had his doubts, but he did as he was told—he stepped onto the surface of the block. It was smooth, but not slippery; like the surface of the barrier, it seemed to be moving in every direction at once under his feet.

  (Lie down on your back.)

  Nafai lay down. Almost at once the surface under him changed, and he began to sink down into the water. Soon it would cover his face, he realized. He wouldn't be able to breathe. The memory of his recent suffocation was still fresh inside him—he began to struggle.

  (Peace. Sleep. You'll not lack for air, or anything else. Sleep. Peace.)

  And he slept as he sank down into the water.

  Elemak was surprised to find that it was Shedemei at the door. All things were possible, of course—she might actually be coming here to join him. But he doubted it—it was far more likely that she was here to try to negotiate some settlement on Rasa's behalf. In which case she wasn't a bad choice as an emissary. He had nothing against her, and she had no awkward family connections. Besides, hadn't she and Zdorab stood up at the end of the meeting, accepting Elemak's authority to dismiss it? It was worth hearing what she had to say.

  So he ushered her in and let her sit down at the table, along with Meb, Obring, and Vas. Then, when she was seated, Elemak sat across from her and waited. Let her speak first, and thus let him know what to expect from her.

  "Everyone advised me against coming to you," she said. "But I think they underestimate you, Elemak."

  "They have before," said Elemak.

  Meb chuckled. That annoyed Elemak—he wasn't sure whether Meb was laughing at them for having underestimated Elemak, or laughing at Elemak for making such a claim. One was never sure, with Meb, whom he was mocking. Only that he was mocking somebody.

  "There are some important things that you seem not to understand," said Shedemei. "And I think you need to know everything in order to make wise decisions."

  Ah. So she was here to teach him about "reality." Well, it was worth listening, if only so he could better plan how to undercut her position at the next meeting. He nodded for her to continue.

  "This isn't a conspiracy to take authority away from you."

  Right, thought Elemak. You start out by denying it, and you've as good as confirmed to me that that's exactly what's going on.

  "Most of us know that you're the natural leader of this group, and with some exceptions, we're content with it."

  Oh, yes. "Some" exceptions indeed.

  "And the exceptions are more among your followers than you imagine. Here at this table there is more hatred and jealousy of you than has ever been found among those who gather in the Index House."

  "Enough of that," said Elemak. "If you came here to try to sow distrust among those of us who are trying to protect our families from the meddlers, then you can leave now."

  Shedemei shrugged. "I've said it, you've heard it, I care little what you do with the information. But here's the fact: The only person you're fighting right now is the Oversoul."

  Meb hooted once. Shedemei ignored him.

  "The Oversoul has at last got access to the starships. It's going to take a massive effort by all of us to cannibalize five of the ships to make one ship ready to fly. But it's going to be done, whether you approve or not. The Oversoul is hardly going to let you block her now, when she's come so far."

  Elemak heard with amusement the way Shedemei persisted in referring to the inanimate computer as if it were a woman.

  "When Nafai returns, he's going to be wearing the starmaster's cloak. It's a device that links him almost perfectly to the memory of the Oversoul. He's going to know far more about you than you know about yourself, do you understand me? And there are other powers that come along with the cloak—a focus of energy, for one thing, that makes the pulse look like a toy."

  "Is this a threat?" asked Elemak.

  "I'm telling you the simple truth. The Oversoul chose Nafai because he has the intelligence to pilot the ship, the loyalty to serve the Oversoul's cause well, and the strength of will that broke down a supposedly impenetrable barrier and allowed the expedition to continue. Not because Nafai was conspiring against you. If you had ever shown a scrap of loyalty to the Oversoul's cause, she might have chosen you."

  "Do you think pathetic flattery like this will move me?"

  "I'm not flattering you," said Shedemei. "I already said—we know you're the born leader of this company. But you've chosen not to be the leader of the Oversoul's expedition. That was your own choice, freely made. So when it comes down to it, when you realize that you have lost the leadership of this group forever, you can blame no one but yourself."

  He felt anger growing within him.

  "Nor would you have been the second choice," said Shedemei. "There was some doubt that Nafai would accept the cloak—for the very reason that he knew you would reject his leadership. At that point the Oversoul made her second choice. She asked me whether I would accept the burden of leadership. She explained to me more about what the cloak does and how it works than she even explained to Nafai, though by now he undoubtedly knows all. I accepted the offer. If it hadn't been Nafai, it would have been me. Not you, Elemak. You did not miss this great office narrowly. You were never in the running, because you rejected the Oversoul from the start."

  "Perhaps you had better leave now," said Elemak softly.

  "But this doesn't mean that you can't have a valued, important role in the community," she went on, seeming not to hear him, seeming not to notice that he boiled with rage. "Don't force the issue, don't force Nafai to humiliate you in front of the others. Instead work with him, and he will gladly let you take as much of the leadership as the Oversoul will let him surrender to you. I don't think you've ever realized how Nafai worships you. How he has always wished he could be like you. How he has longed for your love and respect more than that of any other person."

  "Get out of my house," said Elemak.

  "Very well," said Shedemei. "I see that you are a person who refuses to revise his view of the world. You can only bear to live in a world where all the bad things that happen to you are someone else's fault, where everyone must have conspired against you to deprive you of what is your due." She rose and walked to the door. "Unfortunately, that world happens not to be the real world. And so you four will sit here and conspire to take over the rule of Dostatok, and it will come to nothing, and you will be humiliated, and it will have been nobody's fault but your own. Yet even then, Elemak, you have our deep respect and honor for your considerable abilities. Good night."

  She closed the door behind her.

  Elemak could hardly control himself. He longed to leap after her, hit her again and again, beat the unbearable condescension out of her. But that would be a show of weakness; to maintain control of these others, he had to make it clear that he was unaffected by such nonsense. So he smiled wanly at them. "You see how they want to make us stupid by making us angry," said Elemak.

  "Don't tell me you're not angry," said Meb.

  "Of course I am," said Elemak. "But I refuse to let my anger make me stupid. And she also gave us some valuable information. Apparently Nafai's going to be coming back with some kind of magic cloak or something. Maybe it's nothing more than an illusion, like those masks that Gaballufix dredged up to have his soldiers wear back in Basilica, so they all looked alike. Or maybe there's some real power in it. But far from making us back down, that will simply force us to act all the more quickly and cleanly—and permanently."

  "Meaning?" aske
d Vas.

  "Meaning that we will not permit anyone to leave here and go join Nafai, wherever he is. We will make him come to us. And when he does, unless he immediately backs down and accepts our decisions, we'll eliminate his ability to make further problems."

  "Meaning?" insisted Vas.

  "Meaning kill him, you dolt," said Obring. "How stupid do you have to be?"

  "I knew he meant that," said Vas quietly. "I just wanted to hear him say it with his own mouth, so that he can't claim later that he never meant any such thing."

  "Oh, I see," said Elemak. "You're worried about responsibility." Elemak couldn't help but compare Vas with Nafai—for all his other faults, Nyef had never shrunk from his responsibility for the death of Gaballufix. "Well, the responsibility is mine. Mine alone, if you insist on it. But that also means that after we've won, the authority is mine."

  "I'm with you," said Meb. "To the hilt. Does that mean that when it's done, I share authority with you?"

  "Yes, it does," said Elemak. If you even know what authority is, you poor simpering baboon. "It's as simple as that. But if you haven't got the heart to put in the knife along with us, that doesn't mean you're our enemy. Only keep silence about our plan, join with us in preventing others from joining Nafai, and stay out of the way when we kill him—if it comes to that."

  "I'll agree to that," said Obring.

  Vas also nodded.

  "Then it's done."

  Nafai awoke on the floor of the room. Above him hung the block of water. He didn't feel any different.

  That is, until he started trying to think of things. Like when he tried to feel, from the inside, whether anything was different about his own body. All of a sudden a great gush of information flowed into his mind. He was conscious for a moment of all his bodily functions, and had a detailed status report on all of them. The output of his glands; his heartrate; the amount of fecal matter built up in his rectum; the current deficiency of fuel for his body's cells, and how his fat cells were being accessed to make up the shortfall. Also, the rate of healing of all his bruises and scrapes had been accelerated, and he felt much better.