Earthfall (Homecoming) (10 page)

Father had talked to her about it, and Mother, too, when she was awake the last time. You spend too much time alone, Chveya. The other children sometimes think you don’t like them. But to Chveya, reading a book was not the same as being alone. Instead she was having a conversation with one person, a sustained conversation that stuck to the subject and didn’t constantly fly off on tangents or get interrupted by someone demanding to tell
her
gossip or talk about
her
problem.

As long as Chveya got her solitary time, though, she could get along peaceably enough with the others—even Dza. Now that she had got over her childish infatuation with being “first child,” Dza was good company, bright and funny. To her credit, Dza had not been jealous when it was discovered that Chveya alone of the third generation had developed the ability to sense the relationships among people, even though it was Dza’s mother, not Chveya’s, who had first learned to do it. When Aunt Hushidh was awake, she spent more time with Chveya than with her own daughters, but Dza did not complain. In fact, Dza once smiled at Chveya and said, “Your father teaches all of us all the time. I’m not going to get mad because my mother spends time teaching you.” Studying with Aunt Hushidh was like reading a book. She was quiet, she was patient, she stuck to the subject. And better than a book: She answered Chveya’s questions. With Aunt Hushidh, Chveya suddenly became the talkative one. Perhaps that was because Aunt Hushidh was the only one who had seen the things that Chveya saw.

“But you see more,” Aunt Hushidh said one day. “You have dreams like your mother, too.”

Chveya rolled her eyes. “There’s no Lake of Women on this starship,” she said. “There’s no City of Women to make a fuss over me and hang on every word of my accounts of my visions.”

“It wasn’t really like that,” said Hushidh.

“Mother said it was.”

“Well, that’s how it seemed to her, perhaps. But your mother never exploited the role of Waterseer.”

“It wasn’t useful, though, like…well, like what we can do.”

Hushidh smiled slightly. “Useful. But sometimes misleading. You can interpret things wrongly. When you know too much about people, it still doesn’t mean that you know enough. Because the one thing you never really know is
why
they’re connected to one person and distant from another. I make guesses. Sometimes it’s easy enough. Sometimes I’m hopelessly wrong.”

“I’m always wrong,” said Chveya, but it didn’t make her ashamed to say this in front of Aunt Hushidh.

“Always
partly
wrong,” said Hushidh. “But often partly right, and sometimes very clever about it indeed. The problem, you see, is that you must care enough about other people to really think about them, to try to imagine the world through their eyes. And you and I—we’re both a little shy about getting to know people. You have to try to spend time with them. To listen to them. To be friends with them. I’m saying this, not because I did it at your age, but because I didn’t, and I know how much it hampered me.”

“So what changed it?” asked Chveya.

“I married a man who lived in such constant inner pain that it made my own fears and shames and sufferings seem like childish whining.”

“Mother says that long before you married Uncle Issib, you faced down a bad man and took the loyalty of his whole army away from him.”

“That’s because they were another man’s army, only that man was dead, and they didn’t have much loyalty to begin with. It wasn’t hard, and I did it by blindly flailing around, trying to say
everything
I could think of that might weaken what loyalty remained.”

“Mother says you looked calm and masterful.”

“The key word is ‘looked.’ Come now, Veya, you know for yourself—when you’re terrified and confused, what do you do?”

Chveya giggled then. “I stand there like a frightened deer.”

“Frozen, right? But to others, it looks like you’re calm as can be. That’s why some of the others tease you so mercilessly sometimes. They think of you as made of stone, and they want to break in and touch human feelings. They just don’t know that when you seem most stony, that’s when you’re most frightened and breakable.”

“Why is that? Why don’t people understand each other better?”

“Because they’re young,” said Hushidh.

“Old people don’t understand each other any better.”

“Some do,” said Hushidh. “The ones who care enough to try.”

“You mean you.”

“And your mother.”

“She doesn’t understand me at
all
.”

“You say that because you’re an adolescent, and when an adolescent says that her mother doesn’t understand her, it means that her mother understands her all too well but won’t let her have her way.”

Chveya grinned. “You are a nasty, conceited, arrogant grownup just like all the others.”

Hushidh smiled back. “See? You’re learning. That smile allowed you to tell me
just
what you thought, but allowed me to take it as a joke so I could hear the truth without having to get angry.”

“I’m trying,” Chveya said with a sigh.

“And you’re doing well, for a short, ignorant, shy adolescent.”

Chveya looked at her in horror. Then Hushidh broke into a smile.

“Too late,” said Chveya. “You meant that.”

“Only a little,” said Hushidh. “But then, all adolescents are ignorant, and you can’t help being short and shy. You’ll get taller.”

“And shyer.”

“But sometimes bolder.”

Well, it was true. Chveya had started a growth spurt soon after Hushidh went back to sleep the last time, and now she was almost as tall as Dza, and taller than any of the boys except Oykib, who was already almost as tall as Father, all bones and angles, constantly bumping into things or smacking his hands into them or stubbing his toes. Chveya liked the way he took the others’ teasing with a wordless grin, and never complained. She also liked the fact that he never used his large size to bully any of the other children, and when he interceded in quarrels, it was with quiet persuasion, not with his greater size and strength, that he brought peace. Since she was probably going to end up married to Oykib, it was nice that she liked the kind of man he was becoming. Too bad that all he thought of when he looked at
her
was “short and boring.” Not that he ever said it. But his eyes always seemed to glide right past her, as if he didn’t notice her enough to even ignore her. And when he was alone with her, he always left as quickly as possible, as if it nearly killed him to spend any time in her company.

Just because we children are going to have to pair up and marry doesn’t mean we’re going to fall in love with each other, Chveya told herself. If I’m a good wife to him, maybe someday he’ll love me.

She didn’t often allow herself to think of the other possibility, that when it came time to marry, Oykib would insist on marrying someone else. Cute little Shyada, for instance. She might be two years younger, but she already knew how to flirt with the boys so that poor Padarok was always tongue-tied around her and Motya watched her all the time with an expression of such pitiful longing that Chveya didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What if Oykib married
her
, and left Chveya to marry one of the younger boys? What if they
made
one of the younger ones marry her?

I’d kill myself, she decided.

Of course she knew that she would not. Not literally, anyway. She’d put the best face on it that she could, and make do.

Sometimes she wondered if that’s how it was for Aunt Hushidh. Had she fallen in love with Issib before she married him? Or did she marry him because he was the only one left? It must be hard, to be married to a man you had to pick up and carry around when he wasn’t in a place where his floats would work. But they seemed happy together.

People can be happy together.

All these thoughts and many more kept playing through Chveya’s mind as she helped Shyada, Netsya, Dabya, and Zuya get through their calisthenics. Since Netsya was a cruel taskmaster when
she
was doing times for the older children, it was rather a pleasure to say, “Faster, Netsya. You did better than this last time,” as Netsya’s face got redder and redder and sweat flew off her hands and nose as she moved.

“You are,” Netsya said, panting, “the queen, of the bitches.”

“And thou art the princess, darling Gonets.”

“Listen to her,” said Zuya, who was
not
panting, because she did all her exercises as easily as if they were a pleasant stroll. “She reads so much she talks like a book now.”

“An old, book,” Netsya panted. “An ancient, decrepit, dusty, yellowed, worm-eaten—”

Her list of Chveya’s virtues was interrupted by a loud ringing sound, followed by a whooping siren that nearly deafened them. Several of the children in the centrifuge screamed; most held their hands over their ears. They had never heard such a thing before.

“Something’s wrong,” Dza said to Chveya. Chveya noticed that Dza was not holding her hands over her ears. She looked as calm as an owl.

“I think we should stay here until Father tells us what to do,” said Chveya.

Dza nodded. “Let’s make sure who we have and not lose track of them.”

It was a good idea. Chveya was momentarily jealous that she hadn’t had the presence of mind to think of it. But then she knew that the wisest thing
she
could do was not to worry about who came up with the good ideas, but simply to use them. And Dza was a natural leader. Chveya should set the example of quick and willing obedience, as long as Dza’s decisions were reasonable ones.

Dza had been working with the younger boys. She quickly counted them up. Motya, the youngest; Xodhya, Yaya, and Zhyat. She herded them to where Chveya had the younger girls. Chveya already had her tally because her girls had been working out together when the alarm went off.

“Just sit here and wait,” shouted Dza to all the children.

“Can’t they turn it off?” wailed Netsya, clearly terrified.

“Cover your ears, but keep looking at the rest of us!” shouted Dza. “Don’t close your eyes.”

Dza thought of things quickly—if the children couldn’t hear, they had to
watch
, so they could receive instructions if they needed to do something. Again Chveya felt a little stab of jealousy. It didn’t help that she could see how clearly everyone’s loyalty, trust,
dependence
on Dza had suddenly increased.

Even my own, thought Chveya. She really
is
first child, now that she doesn’t misuse it.

A pair of legs appeared in the ladderway at the top of the centrifuge. Long legs, with big awkward feet. Oykib. And he was more awkward than usual, because he was carrying something bulky under his arm. Something wrapped in cloth.

When he reached the floor, he turned at once to Dza. As if he had known she would be in charge. “It’s not as loud in the sleeping rooms,” he shouted. “Can you get all the younger ones to their beds?”

Dza nodded.

“That’s where Nafai wants them, then, if you can do it safely without losing any.”

“All right,” said Dza, and immediately she started giving instructions. The younger children started up the ladder, Dza reminding each one to wait in the tube just outside the centrifuge until she got up there. Chveya felt completely unnecessary.

Oykib turned to her and held out the cloth bundle. “It’s the Index,” he said. “Elemak is awake. Hide it.”

Chveya was amazed. None of the children had ever been allowed to touch the Index, even wrapped in cloth. “Did Father tell you to—”

“Do it,” said Oykib. “Where Elemak won’t think to look.”

He shoved the bundle into her stomach and her arms instinctively folded around it. Then he turned and left, following Dza up the ladder.

Chveya looked around the centrifuge. Was there anyplace to hide the Index here? Not really. The exercise space was largely unencumbered, except for the strength machines, and those offered no concealment. So she clutched the Index under her arm and waited for her turn up the ladder.

Then she saw, where the centrifuge floor curved up to make its circle around the girth of the ship, the break in the carpet where the access door was. When the centrifuge was stopped, the access door could be pulled up so that someone could crawl down into the system of wheels that allowed the centrifuge to spin. The trouble was, it would take half an hour for the centrifuge to spin to a stop even if she turned it off right now. And then another hour or more to spin back up to speed. It would be obvious to Elemak that the centrifuge had been stopped for
some
reason. She couldn’t count on his not noticing. Just because he had never been awake during the voyage didn’t mean he wouldn’t be aware of anomalies in the working of the ship.

On the other hand, the very fact that the centrifuge hadn’t been stopped would imply to him that nothing had been hidden there.

She ran to the access door and pulled up on it. It wouldn’t budge—an interlock prevented it from being opened while the centrifuge was spinning. She ran to the nearest emergency stop button and pushed it. The alarm that it sounded was lost in the howling of the main siren. Now the access door could be opened, even though the centrifuge was spinning rapidly. She flopped it back; it formed a slight arch on the curved floor. Through the door she could see the wheels of the centrifuge as the roadway hurtled by beneath them; then her perspective shifted, and she realized that she was on the hurtling surface, and the roadway was really the structure of the rest of the ship, holding still beneath the wheels. Up at the top of the ladder, the spin seemed so much slower. Just as many revolutions per minute, but so close to the center that it wasn’t fast at all.

If I drop the Index, will it be crushed?

More to the point, if I fall or even touch the roadway, will I be killed or just maimed and crippled for life?

Sweating, terrified, she extended one leg, then the other, down through the opening until she was standing on the frame of the nearest wheel assembly. Then, holding her weight on her right hand, she braced the Index against the door while she got her hand under it. Balancing the Index on her palm, she carefully lifted it down into the opening and reached into the top of the other wheel assembly, right up under the centrifuge floor. In a place where four metal bars formed a square, she gingerly tipped the Index out of her hand, so that it rolled off and dropped into place. It was secure there—nothing was going to tip it off and it was far too wide to drop through. Best of all, it couldn’t be seen unless you got down into the opening so far that your head was under the level of the centrifuge floor. Chances were that long before he got down far enough to see it, Elemak would conclude that it was far too dangerous for anyone to have put the Index down here and would give up and search somewhere else.