The Ships of Earth: Homecoming: Volume 3 (2 page)

Most names have diminutive or familiar forms. Thus Gaballufix’s near kin, close friends, current mate, and former mates could call him Gabya. Other nicknames are listed here. (Again, because these names are so unfamiliar, names of female characters are set off in italics.)

Basilikya
—
Syelsika
—
Skiya

Chveya
—
Veya

Dabrota—Dabya

Dol
—
Dolya

Dza
—
Dazya

Eiadh
—
Edhya

Elemak—Elya

Hushidh
—
Shuya

Issib—Issya

Izuchaya
—
Zuya

Kokor
—
Koya

Krasata
—
Krassya

Luet
—
Lutya

Mebbekew—Meb

Motiga—Motya

Nadezhny—Nadya

Nafai—Nyef

Obring—Briya

Oykib—Okya

Padarok—Rokya

Panimanya
—
Panya-Manya

Protchnu—Proya

Rasa
—(no diminutive)

Serp—Sepya

Sevet
—
Sevya

Shedemei
—
Shedya

Spel—Spelya

Umene—Umya

Vas—Vasya

Vasnaminanya
—
Vasnya

Volemak—Volya

Yasai—Yaya

Zalatoya
—
Toya

Zaxodh—Xodhya

Zdorab—Zodya

Zhatva—Zhyat

Zhavaronok—Nokya

For the purpose of reading this story, it hardly matters whether the reader pronounces the names of the characters correctly. But for those who might be interested, here is some information concerning the pronunciation of names.

The rules of vowel formation in the language of Basilica require that in most words, at least one vowel be pronounced with a leading
y
sound. With names, it can be almost any vowel, and it can legitimately be changed at the speaker’s preference. Thus the name Gaballufix could be pronounced
Gyah
-BAH-loo-fix or Gah-BAH-l
yoo
-fix; it happens that Gaballufix himself preferred to pronounce it Gah-BYAH-loo-fix, and of course most people followed that usage.

Basilikya
[byah-see-lee-KEE-ya]

Chveya
[shvey-YA]

Dabrota
[dah-BROH-tyah]

Dol
[DYOHL]

Dza
[dzee-YAH]

Eiadh
[A-yahth]

Elemak
[EL-yeh-mahk]

Hushidh
[HYOO-sheeth]

Issib [IS-yib]

Izuchaya
[yee-zoo-CHA-yah]

Kokor
[KYOH-kor]

Krasata
[krah-SSYAH-tah]

Luet
[LYOO-et]

Mebbekew [MEB-bek-kyoo]

Motiga [myoh-TEE-gah]

Nadezhny [nah-DYEZH-nee]

Nafai [NYAH-fie]

Oykib [OY-kyib]

Padarok [PYAH-dah-rohk]

Protchnu [PRYO-tchnu]

Rasa
[RAHZ-yah]

Serp [SYAIRP]

Sevet
[SEV-yet]

Shedemei
[SHYED-eh-may]

Spel [SPYEHL]

Umene
[ooh-MYEH-neh]

Vas [VYAHSS]

Vasnaminanya
[vahss-nah-mee-NAH-nyah]

Volemak [VOHL-yeh-mak]

Yasai [YAH-sai]

Zalatoya
[zah-lyah-TOH-yah]

Zaxodh [ZYAH-chothe]

Zdorab [ZDOR-yab]

Zhatva [ZHYAT-vah]

Zhavaronok
[zhah-VYA-roh-nohk]

The master computer of the planet Harmony was full of hope at last. The chosen human beings had been drawn together and removed from the city of Basilica. Now they were embarked on the first of two journeys. This one would take them through the desert, through the Valley of Fires, to the southern tip of the island once called Vusadka, to a place where no human being had set foot for forty million years. The second journey would be from that place across a thousand lightyears to the home planet of the human species, Earth, abandoned forty million years ago and ready now for human beings to return.

Not just any human beings.
These
human beings. The ones born, after a million generations of guided evolution, with the strongest ability to communicate with the master computer, mind to mind, memory to memory. However, in encouraging people with this power to mate and therefore enhance it in their offspring, the master computer had not made
any attempt to choose only the nicest or most obedient, or even the most intelligent or skillful. That was not within the purview of the computer’s program. People could be more difficult or less difficult, more or less dangerous, more or less useful, but the master computer had not been programmed to show preference for decency or wit.

The master computer had been set in place by the first settlers on the planet Harmony for one purpose only—to preserve the human species by restraining it from the technologies that allowed wars and empires to spread so far that they could destroy a planet’s ability to sustain human life, as had occurred on Earth. As long as men could fight only with hand weapons and could travel only on horseback, the world could endure, while the humans on it would remain free to be as good or evil as they chose.

Since that original programming, however, the master computer’s hold on humanity had weakened. Some people were able to communicate with the master computer more clearly than anyone had ever imagined would be possible. Others, however, had only the weakest of connections. The result was that new weapons and new methods of transportation were beginning to enter the world, and while it might yet be thousands or tens of thousands of years before the end, the end would still come. And the master computer of Harmony had no idea of how to reverse the process.

This made it urgent enough for the master computer to attempt to return to Earth, where the Keeper of Earth could introduce new programming. But in recent months the master computer and some of its human allies discovered that the Keeper of Earth was already, somehow, introducing change. Different people had dreamed clear and powerful dreams of creatures that had never existed on Harmony, and the master computer itself
discovered subtle alterations in its own programming. It should have been impossible for the Keeper of Earth to influence events so far away … and yet that entity which had dispatched the original refugee ships forty million years before was the only imaginable source of these changes.

How or why the Keeper of Earth was doing this, the master computer of the planet Harmony could not begin to guess. It only knew that forty million years had not been kind to its own systems, and it needed replenishment. It only knew that whatever the Keeper of Earth asked for, the master computer of Harmony would try to supply. It asked now for a group of human beings to recolonize the Earth.

So the master computer chose sixteen people from the population of Basilica. Many were kin to each other; all had unusual ability to communicate with the master computer. However, they were not all terribly bright, and not all were particularly trustworthy or kind. Many of them had strong dislikes or resentments toward others, and while some of them were committed to the master computer’s cause, some were just as committed to thwarting it. The whole enterprise might fail at any time, if the darker impulses of the humans could not be curbed. Civilization was always fragile, even when strong social forces inhibited individual passions; now, cut off from the larger world, would they be able to forge a new, smaller, harmonious society? Or would the expedition be destroyed from the beginning?

The master computer had to plan and act as if the expedition would survive, would succeed. In a certain place the master computer triggered a sequence of events. Machinery that had long been silent began to hum. Robots that had long been in stasis were awakened and set to work, searching for machines that needed repair. They had waited
a long, long time, and even in a stasis field they could not last forever.

It would take several years to determine just how much work would be needed, and how it should or even could be done. But there was no hurry. If the journey took time, then perhaps the people could use that time to make peace with each other. There was no hurry; or rather, no hurry that would be detectable to human beings. To the master computer, accomplishing a task within ten years was a breathless pace, while to humans it could seem unbearably long. For though the master computer could detect the passage of milliseconds, it had memories of forty million years of life on Harmony so far, and on that scale, compared to the normal human lifespan, ten years was as brief a span of time as five minutes.

The master computer would use those years well and productively, and hoped the people could manage to do the same. If they were wise, it would be a time in which they could create their families, bear and begin to raise many children, and develop into a community worthy to return to the Keeper of Earth. However, that would be no easy achievement, and at the moment all the master computer could really hope for was to keep them all alive.

Shedemei was a scientist, not a desert traveler. She had no great need for city comforts—she was as content sleeping on a floor or table as on a bed—but she resented having been dragged away from her laboratory, from her work, from all that gave her life meaning. She had never agreed to join this half-mad expedition. Yet here she was, atop a camel in the dry heat of the desert wind, rocking back and forth as she watched the backside of the camel in front of her sway in another rhythm. It made her faintly sick, the heat and the motion. It gave her a headache.

Several times she almost turned back. She could find the way well enough; all she had to do was get close enough to Basilica and her computer would link up with the city and show her the rest of the way home. Alone, she’d make much better time—perhaps she could even be back before nightfall. And they would surely let her into the city—she wasn’t kin by blood or marriage to anyone else in this group. The only reason she had been exiled with them was because she had arranged for the dryboxes full of seeds and embryos that would reestablish some semblance of the
old flora and fauna on Earth. She had done a favor for her old teacher, that’s all—they could hardly force her into exile for
that
.

Yet that cargo was the reason she did not turn back. Who else would understand how to revive the myriad species carried on these camels? Who else would know which ones needed to go first, to establish themselves before later species came that would have to feed on them?

It’s not fair, thought Shedemei for the thousandth time. I’m the only one in this party who can begin to do this task—but for me, it’s not a challenge at all. It’s not
science
, it’s
agriculture
. I’m here, not because the task the Oversoul has chosen me for is so demanding, but because all the others are so deeply ignorant of it.

“You look angry and miserable.”

Shedemei turned to see that it was Rasa who had brought her camel up beside Shedemei’s on the wide stony path. Rasa, her teacher—almost her mother. But not
really
her mother, not by blood, not by
right
.

“Yes,” said Shedemei.

“At me?” asked Rasa.

“Partly you,” said Shedemei. “You maneuvered us all into this. I have no connection with any of these people, except through you.”

“We all have the same connection,” said Rasa. “The Oversoul sent you a dream, didn’t she?”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“Which of us did?” said Rasa. “No, I do understand what you mean, Shedya. The others all made choices that got them into this. Nafai and Luet and Hushidh and I have come willingly … more or less. And Elemak and Meb, not to mention my daughters, bless their nasty little hearts, are here because they made some stupid and vile decisions. The others are here because they have marriage contracts, though for some of them it’s merely compounding the original mistake to come along. But you, Shedemei, all that brings you here is your dream. And your loyalty to me.”

The Oversoul had sent her a dream of floating through
the air, scattering seeds and watching them grow, turning a desert land into forest and meadow, filled with greenery, abounding with animals. Shedemei looked around at the bleak desert landscape, seeing the few thorny plants that clung to life here and there, knowing that a few lizards lived on the few insects that found water enough to survive. “
This
is not my dream,” said Shedemei.

“But you came,” said Rasa. “Partly for the dream, and partly out of love for me.”

“There’s no hope of succeeding, you know,” said Shedemei. “These aren’t colonizers here. Only Elemak has the skill to survive.”

“He’s the one who’s
most
experienced in desert travel. Nyef and Meb are doing well enough, for their part. And the rest of us will learn.”

Shedemei fell silent, not wanting to argue.

“I hate it when you back away from a quarrel like that,” said Rasa.

“I don’t like conflict,” said Shedemei.

“But you always back off at exactly the moment when you’re about to tell the other person
exactly
what she needs to hear.”

“I don’t know what other people need to hear.”

“Say what you had on your mind a moment ago,” said Rasa. “Tell me why you think our expedition is doomed to failure.”

“Basilica,” said Shedemei.

“We’ve
left
the city. It can’t possibly harm us now.”

“Basilica will harm us in a thousand ways. It will always be our memory of a gentle, easier life. We’ll always be torn with longing to go back.”

“It’s not homesickness that worries you, though, surely,” said Rasa.

“We carry half the city with us,” said Shedemei. “All the diseases of the city, but none of its strengths. We have the custom of leisure, but none of the wealth and property that made it possible. We have become used to indulging too many of our appetites, which can never be indulged in a tiny colony like ours will be.”