Yet it was home, all the same, because here was where her children gathered to sleep, to eat; where Nafai finally came home so late at night, to curl up wearily beside her on their bed. And when the time came to enter the starship they had named Basilica, she would no doubt miss this place also, the memories of frenzied work and excited children and groundless fears. If the fears turned out to be groundless.
Returning to Earth-what did that mean, when no human had been there for millions of years? And those dreams that kept coming into their minds, dreams of giant rats that seemed to be filled with a malevolent intelligence, dreams of batlike creatures who seemed to be allies but were still ugly beyond belief. Even the Over-soul did not know what those dreams meant, or why the Keeper of Earth might have sent them. Still, the overall impression Luet got from everyone's dreams of Earth was that it was not going to be a paradise when they got there.
What really frightened her, though-and, she suspected, frightened everyone else, too-was the voyage itself. A hundred years asleep? And supposedly they would emerge without having aged a day? It seemed like something out of a myth, like the poor girl who pricked her finger on a mouse's tooth and fell asleep, only to find that when she woke up, all the rich and beautiful girls were fat old ladies, while she remained the most youthful and beautiful of all. But still poor. That was an odd ending to that story, Luet always thought, that she was still poor. Surely there ought to be some version of it in which the king chose her be- . cause of her beauty instead of marrying the richest woman to get his hands on her estate. But that had nothing to do with what she was worrying about right now. Why had her mind wandered so far afield? Oh, yes. Because she was thinking about the voyage. About lying down on the ship and letting the life support system poke needles into her and freeze her for the voyage. How did they know that they wouldn't simply die?
Well, they could have died a thousand times since things first started falling apart in Basilica. Instead they had lived this long, and the Oversoul had led them to this place, and so far things were working out reasonably well. They had their children. They had prospered. No one had died or even been seriously injured. Ever since Nafai had got the starmaster's cloak from the Oversoul, even Elemak and Mebbekew, his hate-filled older brothers, had been relatively cooperative-and it was well-known that they hated the idea of voyaging back to Earth.
So why was the Oversoul so grimly determined to ruin everything?
"The starmaster's cloak will protect Nafai," Luet murmured. "And he will protect us."
Your husband, of course. But who are his allies? His father, Volemak?> "Old," murmured Luet. "Even if he stood with Nafai, he isn't much." "Only if Nafai fails to hold everyone together." "You persuade him." "That's because he knows that your plan would be a disaster. It would cause the very thing that you claim to be trying to prevent." "Resentment! Oh, just a little, We reach Earth and all the adults are wakened from suspended animation, only to discover-oops!-Nafai and Luet somehow neglected to go into suspended animation themselves, and-oops again!-they somehow got a dozen of the older children to stay awake with them for the whole ten years of the voyage! So you see, my dear sister Shuya, when you went to bed your daughter Dza was only eight years old, but now she's eighteen, and married to Padarok, who, by the way, is seventeen now- sorry about that, Shedemei and Zdorab, we knew you wouldn't mind if we raised your only son for you. And while we had these children up, we happened to spend the whole time teaching them, so that now they are experts on everything they'll need to know to build our colony. They're also large and strong enough to do adult work. But-oops again!-none of your children, Eiadh and Kokor and Sevet and Dol, none of yours has had any of this training. Yours are still little children who won't be much help at all." "They'll be furious," said Luet. "They'll all hate us- Volemak and Rasa and Issib and Shuya and Shedemei and Zdorab because we stole their oldest children from them, and all the others because we didn't give the same advantage to their children." "They'll always be sure that the only reason the community broke apart was because Nafai and I did such a terrible thing. They'll hate us and blame us and they will certainly never trust us again." "And they'll say that you're just a computer and of course you didn't understand how humans would feel, but we understood, and we should have refused to do it." "I already refused. I refuse again now." "No!" cried Luet. "Mother?" It was Chveya's voice, through the door of Luet's room. "What is it, Veya?" "Who are you talking to?" "Myself, in a dream. All foolishness. Go back to sleep." "Is Father home yet?" "Still in the ship with Issib." "Mother?" "Go to sleep now, Chveya. I mean it," She heard the scuffing sound of Chveya's sandals on the floor. What had Chveya heard? How long had she been listening at the door? Why didn't you warn me? Because when I speak out loud my thoughts are clearer, that's why. What's your plan, to get Chveya to carry out your plot? Why couldn't you just talk to him yourself? That's because he's a very wise man. That's why I love him. You leave my children alone.