Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle

by Orson Scott Card

  No, said Linkeree. I do not want to be a part of them.

  But I said to him, This is a new thing you have done, and we did not know what to do. When you made the cloth for catching fish, none of us knew what it was for, did we?

  No, he said to me.

  But still it was good, and when we understood we all were made stronger and better by it. Now you also have learned from me and others. Is my woollen cloth not warm? Do you not put cloth in front of your door like I do in the summer?

  But Linkeree said nothing. Then I said to him, Linkeree, my friend, you are wise like J, you think of things that no man has thought of before. We need you. But you also need us. How will you plow and plant without an ox? How will you do it without seeds? And we need you to help us make straight walls and to teach us the things you think of that have never been done before. You are part of us, and we are part of you. I said this to Linkeree.

  Then he said to me, If I promise you to be part of Heaven City always, and obey, you must promise me that what I make with my own hands will belong to me and what Batta and I make together will belong to us.

  And so I promised him this, even though it will surely make J angry, because I think it is more important for us to be together than it is for us to have all things equally. Yet it hurts me to write this, because it seems good to me that all men and women have things the same as each other. For now that Linkeree has his own field to plow and care for, we will be weaker, and he will be weaker, for we will not take care to put food in the mouth of our friend, but only in our own mouth. This is ugly to me.

  When J comes again he will see what has happened and he will know that it is bad and he will not make me Warden anymore. I will be glad. And now I make an end of writing and I will write no more, because I do not want my children to read even this much, for it tells only of my foolishness and my children will be ashamed that I am their father, and J will be ashamed that I am his son. I make an end.

  J comes in the night.

  I thought never to write again, and for several moons I did not. But it is now the moon which at its ends means we will plant, and tonight J came to my house in the night.

  He came quietly and commanded Sara and me to wake no one. This is what he said: Kapock, I come to see what has happened while I was in the Star Tower . But I do not want the others to know I came, for they must expect me only in the harvest moon, and not look for me at other times.

  And so Sara and I promised.

  Then J read all we had written. He cried twice. Once when he read what Sara wrote about J himself, and once at the end of it when I wrote. He said to me: Oh Kapock, you have done wisely, not foolishly. It was a hard choice and no one could have done better, not even me.

  But I said, You could have done better, for you see into men's hearts and you would have known that Linkeree planned to burn the house, and that Hux planned to take it away from him.

  And J said to me: That is true. But my power is not the power of a man, and you did all that a man could do.

  And you, too, Sara, he said. You did wisely and well, and I will say the same punishment on Hux that you said, for there is nothing a man can do that is worse than what Hux did, which is to make another man do your will by striking him without thought for his life. And if a man kills another man, or a woman kills, either one, then the man or woman who has killed man or woman, he will also be killed.

  And who will kill him? Sara asked.

  All the people will kill him, Jason answered. This is an ugly thing, but it is the only way to keep a strong man from killing the weak who will not do his way.

  I will never do it, Sara said.

  But others will, J said. And I thought he looked sad as he said it.

  Then J went out of the house and took me with him. The moon was not full, but it still was bright and so were the stars, and we could see for a long way. We could see even the mountains to the south, which are so far that we could never go to them.

  J said to me, All of this that you can see, it is not even the hundredth part of the world.

  I asked him what is the world.

  He said to me, The world is round like a berry and we stand on its face. And it flies through the air.

  I said to him, Is this why there is wind?

  But he looked sad and said, No Kapock, for we move with it and do not feel its motion. But this I did not understand, for how can a thing move and not know that he moves?

  But I asked him a question because he seemed to be ready to answer questions, and I asked him a question I had thought of often.

  I asked him Who makes all these things? When you bring the Ice People from the Star Tower every year at harvest time and we feed them and teach them to walk and talk, where do they come from? And who made the Star Tower ? And the forests? For I know who made the houses and the fields, for I make them myself. And I know who makes the children and the new lambs and the calf oxen, but I do not know what makes the Ice People.

  Then he said to me a story, and I try to write it as I remember it.

  Once J was in the sky with 333 of the Ice People, and the Star Tower flew like a bird only faster. Then an enemy came and with one hand killed 111 of the Ice People and with the other hand made 111 more of the Ice People sleep so they could never wake up, and then with his spit the enemy made even the last 111 Ice People forget all things.

  Then J killed the enemy and brought the Star Tower to this world. There are many worlds, with many people, but this world was empty, and he brought the 111 Ice People who could waken out of the Star Tower and J said that Sara and I and all the others are these Ice People.

  But there are not 111 of us, I said.

  There will be, he said.

  But I am foolish and I asked him, J, who made the Ice People, then? And who made this world if you only found it?

  Then J shook his head and laughed softly and said, God did, Kapock.

  But this is not an answer, because what is God? I asked him this, but he would say no more, except this: I have told you the truth, but you cannot understand it, neither can any of the others. I will tell you only the truth that you can understand.

  This is why I have written all that J said, for somewhere in what he said must be the answer to my question of who made all these things, or of what this God is.

  Then J and I went inside, and he said to me that the promise I made to Linkeree and that Linkeree made to me is a good promise, and that this will be the law of all men and women: What a man makes with his own hands is his own; what many men make together belongs to all who worked. When a man owns a thing that another needs, the other must give the man something that he needs in trade for this thing, and the trade must be fair, or it is a crime.

  This is a new word, which I shall teach the people. Crime. J said it means those things which if all people did them would make a man want not to live among men.

  J said many other things which I will not write because he said not to. I write these things because he did not say not to, and they are important.

  After many hours in the darkness J left us, and after he left Sara and I could not sleep, and so I write. But now Sara sleeps and I too can sleep, and so I make an end of writing for this time.

  We plow three fields.

  The plowing is done and we have plowed three fields. First the field at Heaven City , which is the first and the largest. Then the field where Linkeree and Batta now live, which is not large, but which has black soil that feels warm and that will grow much food, I think.

  The third field is at the place where Linkeree built the house that later he burned. We have all built a new house there, and into it Hux has moved. And we have plowed a field with Hux, and he will live alone.

  But not alone. Rather only apart from the most of us. For I saw that Hux was truly sorry for all he had done wrong, I believe that he will not let anger make him do such bad things anymore. So I called all the people of Heaven City together and asked them, one by one, saving only Linkeree and Batt
a, if they had any thing bad to think of Hux for anything he had done to them. And not one of them said anything bad except Sara, and she would not speak. Then I said to Hux, Neither do I have anything bad to say of you, Hux. Yet that is because no harm has been done to me.

  I said to him, Linkeree and Batta are the only ones who can speak bad of you. And so I say this: Hux will be allowed to marry Ryanno and live in a new house which we all will build, but only if he asks permission of Linkeree. Then it will be Linkeree who gives Hux a house if he is to have a house. This is only right, for Hux took a house from Linkeree.

  Then Hux went to Linkeree and asked him for a house, and Linkeree and Batta said, We will work with our own hands to help build you a house.

  That is the house that Hux lives in now, and it has the little door just as Linkeree's own house has, and it is a good house, and when Hux and Ryanno moved into it all of us sang and there was dancing and laughing and we caught many fish and ate them because it was a good day, for even though we live in three places instead of two, we are one people.

  And now tonight I thought of what J said to me that night and I think this: When J said, God made all this, he was laughing because I did not know that J made all these things, so he made up a name and said this person did it. Or maybe God is J's other name. But this I am now sure of: J brings the Ice People from the Star Tower , and he is thus the maker of the Ice People. He must also be the maker of other things, for if he can make a man whole, without it growing from a woman, he could surely make all other things. This is what I think. If I am wrong then J will think I am foolish. But then, I am foolish. Why should he not think it?

  We have found another thing. The Star River is large, but it goes only a little way from Heaven City and then it flows into a great river, a river so wide that the other side looks as far away as the mountains, and the water is muddy and not good to drink. It is also deep, and a man or woman can only walk a little way and the water is up to the shoulders and the river pulls as if to sweep you away.

  Now I see something that I did not know before. There are small rivers and larger rivers. Alone, the small rivers are not strong, like the Star River that we can walk across. But when the small rivers flow into the large ones, then the large ones are stronger.

  This is like Heaven City, for Linkeree and Hux live apart, yet they flow into the Heaven City like the Star River flows into this big river. And so I have named the big river Heaven River , and said to the people:

  Flow always into Heaven City as you see the Star River flow into the Heaven River . Then Heaven City will always be as strong as you see this great river to be.

  But if you flow in different ways, like the Star River does when it splits upstream into two rivers that pass on both sides of the hill I live on, then you become weak.

  Not all the people understood me, but many did.

  I did not tell them that J is God who made all these things. This is a thing I will keep without telling, for it is a hard thing, and I do not understand it yet.

  I am no longer afraid to be Warden. For I know that J does not expect me to act always as he would act. Rather he expects only that I act in the best way I know how to act. And this I can do. And I make an end of writing for this time.

  I have thought of J as a father.

  Today Ciel spoke to me and said, Father let me come. I was going to shear the sheep and he said, Father let me come.

  When he said this I knew that he would someday say other things, and I felt then that someday Ciel will grow wise like the Ice People, and a son of my body may speak to me as my friends speak to me.

  And then as I sheared the sheep I thought of J and knew that he is to us as I am to my son Ciel. He is wise and knows many things, all the words and all the names, what to do, when to do it, why it must be done, and what will happen if it is not. None of us knows these things, and we only say to him the things he has taught us to say. Even as I do with Ciel who cannot say all that we can say, J must long to speak to us about things that we could not understand.

  I tried to tell Ciel why he could not play among the sheep, for they might hurt him for he is small, but he did not understand.

  I laughed and shook my head. This is also what J did when I did not understand. Laughed and shook his head.

  J is a father with all the children. He has no one he can talk to as I talk to Sara. He can only talk as I talk to Ciel, in simple words that even then are not always understood.

  J is like a father, but he has neither wife nor friends nor father of his own. Or is that where he goes when he leaves us? Is there a father for him inside the Star Tower ? I do not think so, for now I realize that J always looks sad and alone, not happy like I am with my son Ciel. I think J has no one but us to talk to, and we do not understand.

  But I will try to understand, so that someday when J speaks to me I will be able to answer.

  Then maybe he will take me into the Star Tower and show me all the secrets there and he will teach me how to make Ice People and all the other things he has made.

  Sara is reading this and she is angry. She says that I am truly foolish to think that I will ever know all that J knows. She is surely right.

  But still I hope. If the Star Tower can fly like a bird, will J not take me with him into the sky? When Ciel is old enough and wise enough I will take him with me everywhere I go, and teach him everything I know. Is this surely not what J intends for us as well? And so I say to J as Ciel said to me, Father let me come.

  But for now I will only try to be wise and will study how to not be foolish like a child anymore. J will know when I am ready. And I make an end of writing for this time.

  9

  STIPOCK WOKE with the sleep helmet still on his head, and as he moved his arms to the sides, he realized to his surprise that he was still in his coffin. It had never happened before. His body was soaked in sweat from the waking drugs, and his mind refused to clear. Bright spots appeared in front of his eyes. He blinked. The spots went away.

  He reached up to the sides of the coffin, pulled himself to a sitting position, and looked around.

  Not a Sleeproom at all, he knew instantly. The mass of controls placed within arm's reach of a chair could only be a ship's control board. The space was cramped. Garol Stipock had never been in a warship before, but he had seen loops, and he recognized quickly that this had to be the control cabin of a ship of the fleet.

  He also recognized the man standing at the head of the coffin, who said softly, "Is everything all right, Dr. Stipock?"

  "Jazz Worthing," Stipock said, and his body flushed with heat as everything fit together — waking in a starship, and Jazz Worthing, one of the prime enemies of the people of Capitol, standing by his side.

  "I'm in a colony ship," he breathed, the words not sounding real.

  "Very quick," said Jazz Worthing.

  "Why? I never volunteered —"

  "Not so quick, then?"

  "No," Stipock said. "We must have launched our little coup attempt. We must have lost."

  "In a nutshell," Jazz said, "that's so. There are more ramifications, of course. But I doubt they'd interest you."

  "They interest me very much. Who else was caught?"

  "Everyone."

  Stipock turned away, suddenly conscious of his nakedness, suddenly aware of how vulnerable he was. "Can I have some clothing?"

  "The ship has it ready for you." The clothing landed in a pile in the foot of the coffin. Stipock clambered out of the box.

  "Is there a shower first?"

  The starpilot pointed, and Stipock went in, showered, urinated, and came back out and dressed. His thoughts began to settle down in the process. Colonies. Death. No more somec. The raw emotions never reached panic; instead he began to think: Adjust. Fit in. Get along. Survive.

  "What kind of planet is this?"

  "Agricultural," Jazz answered.

  "Most are," Stipock retorted, "at first."

  "This one always will be," Jazz said. "Fossil
fuels are buried too deep to get to without metal tools. Copper and tin are extractable with wooden tools. Iron is only within three kilometers of the surface at one place, the middle of an uninhabitable desert. This planet will have a very hard time getting out of the bronze age."

  Stipock was surprised at Worthing's attitude. "Don't you have any heavy equipment?"

  "Yes," Jazz said.

  "Then what's this about the bronze age?"

  Jazz smiled. "Awake for three minutes, and already you know more than the captain."

  Stipock flushed with anger, and grew angrier at himself because he knew that his pale skin always turned red when he was angry, making it impossible for him to hide his emotions.

  "What am I supposed to do? Where are the others?"

  "The others are all outside. You're the last."

  Stipock didn't know how to take that. "Why last? Why in here, for that matter? I thought colony ships had a tape–and–tap."

  "They do," Jazz said. "Ours isn't working."

  "Why am I in here alone?"

  "Your situation is unique, Dr. Stipock."

  "Why? I wasn't even one of the leaders of the coup. I'm not about to cause any problems."

  Jazz laughed. "Your existence at this moment is a problem. One which I created myself, I know, but I have to see what'll happen. Experimenting, you know?"

  Stipock felt sick. He had seen the stolen loop, knew that Jazz Worthing was set to lead a rebellion of the Fleet to seize control of somec. But if Jazz's rebellion had succeeded —

  "What are you doing here? I didn't think top level starpilots were exactly thrilled with colony assignments."

  Jazz sighed. "That's the problem with using old tapes to wake you up with. You don't know a damn thing. Follow me." And Jazz turned on his heel and walked to the back of the control room, opened a door, and stepped through. Stipock followed, telling himself that he'd have to humor this man, but knowing that whatever his situation turned out to be, he'd hate it.