Orson Card - THE SHIPS OF EARTH

What does this dream mean?

But since she was asking the question in a dream, she got only a dream answer: She saw the dream Nafai and her dream-self make love, with such passion that she forgot it was a dream and lost herself in the ecstasy of it. And when their coupling was done, she saw the belly of her dreamself grow, and then a baby emerged from her groin and slid shining into Nafai's arms, for the babe, too, was coated with the new skin, alive with light. Ah, the child was beautiful, so beautiful.

(Wake up.)

She heard it like a voice, it was so clear and strong.

(Wake up.)

She sat bolt upright, trying to see who had spoken to her, to recognize the voice that lingered in her memory.

(Get up.)

It was not a voice at all. It was the Oversoul. But why was the Oversoul interrupting her dream, when surely the Oversoul had sent the dream in the first place?

(Get up, Waterseer, rise up in silence, and walk in the moonlight to the place where Vas plans to kill his wife and his rival. On the ledge that saved Nafai's life you must wait for them.)

But I'm not strong enough to stop him, if murder is in his heart.

(Being there will be enough. But you must be there, and you must go now, for he is on watch now, and thinks that he and Sevet are the only ones awake… he will soon be scratching on Obring's tent, and then it will be too late, you'll not make it to the mountain unobserved.)

Luet passed through the door of her tent, so sleepy that she still felt as if she were in a dream.

Why must I go down the mountain? she asked, confused. Why not just tell Obring and Sevet what Vas plans for them?

(Because if they believe you, Vas will be destroyed as a member of this company. And if they don't believe you, Vas will be your enemy and you will never be safe again. Trust me. Do this my way, and all will live, all will live.)

Are you sure of this?

(Of course.)

You're no better at telling the future than anybody else. How sure are you?

(The odds of success are, perhaps, sixty percent.)

Oh, wonderful. What about the forty percent chance of failure?

(You are such an intelligent woman, you'll improvise, you'll make it work.)

I wish I had as much faith in you as you seem to have in me.

(The only reason you don't is because you don't know me as well as I know you.)

You can read my thoughts, dear Oversoul, but you can never know me, because there is no part of you that can feel the way I feel, or think the way I think.

(Do you imagine I don't know that, boastful human? Must you taunt me for it? Go down the mountain. Carefully, carefully. The path is visible by moonlight, but treacherous. Obring is awake now; you have made it just in time. Now stay ahead of them, far enough that they can't hear you, far enough that they can't see.)

Elemak had noticed when Sevet and Obring both took extra flagons from the stores. He knew at once what it meant—that there was a plan to make a run for Dorova. At the same time, though, he could not believe that those two would ever have come up with a plan together—they never spoke to each other privately, if only because Kokor made sure they had no opportunity. No, there was someone else involved, someone who was better at this sort of deception, so that Elemak hadn't noticed his or her theft of an extra flagon.

And then, just before night, Vas had volunteered for the hated late watch, the second-to-last one before morning. Obring had taken the last watch already. It didn't take a genius to realize that they intended to leave on Vas's watch. Fools. Did they think they could make it down the mountain and across the waterless sand of the beach around the bay on two flagons of fresh water each? Not carrying babies they couldn't. They aren't going to take their babies. The thought was so outrageous that Elemak almost didn't believe it. But then he realized that it must be true. His loathing for Obring redoubled. But Vas… it was hard to believe that Vas would do such a thing. The man doted on his daughter. He had even named her for himself—would he leave her, heartlessly?

No. No, he has no intention of leaving her. Obring would leave his baby, yes. Obring would leave Kokor, for that matter—he chafed constantly in his marriage. But Vas would not leave his baby. He has another motive now. And it does not include escaping to the city with Sevet and Obring. On the contrary. His plan is to tell us that Sevet and Obring left for the city after he was asleep from his watch, and he followed them down the mountain, hoping to stop them, but instead he found their dead bodies, fallen from a cliff…

How do I know all this? wondered Elemak. Why is this all so clear to me? And yet he could not doubt it.

So he gave himself the middle watch, and at the end of it, after he had wakened Vas and returned to his tent, Elemak did not let himself sleep, though he lay still with his eyes closed, breathing in a heavy imitation of sleep, in case Vas came to check on him. But no, Vas did not come. Did not come, and did not go to Obring's tent. The watch dragged on and on, and finally against his will Elemak did sleep. Perhaps only for a moment. But he must have slept because he awoke with a start, his heart pounding with alarm. Something… some sound. He sat upright in the darkness, listening. Beside him he could hear Edhya's breathing, and Proya's; it was hard to hear anything else beyond that. As quietly as possible he arose, went to the door of his tent, stepped outside. Vas was not on watch, and neither was anyone else.

Quietly, quietly he went to Vas's tent. Gone, and Sevet, too- but baby Vasnaminanya was still there. Elemak's heart filled with rage at the monstrosity of it. Whatever Vas was planning—either to abandon his daughter or kill the child's mother—it was unspeakable.

I will find him, thought Elemak, and when I do he will pay for this. I knew there were fools on this journey, fools and dolts and weaklings, but I never knew there was someone so cruel-hearted. I never knew that Vas was capable of this. I never knew Vas at all, I think. And I never will, because as soon as I find him he'll be dead.

It was so easy, leading them down the mountain. Their trust in him was complete. It was the payoff for his year of pretending not to mind that they had betrayed him. If he had ever shown even a spark of anger, beyond a certain coldness toward Obring, there was no chance the man would have trusted him enough to come along like a hog to the slaughter. But Obring did trust him, and Sevet too, in her sullen way.

The path itself had some difficulty—more than once he had to help them through a tricky place. But in the moonlight they often couldn't see how very dangerous a passage it was, and whenever it was hard, he would stay and help them. So carefully taking Sevet's hand and guiding her down a slope, or between two rocks. Whispering: "Do you see the limb you must hold on to, Obring?" And Obring's answer, "Yes," or a nod, I see it, I can handle it, Vas, because I'm a man. What a laugh. What a joke on Obring, who is so pathetically proud to be included in this great plan. How I will weep when we come down to carry the bodies back up the mountain. How the others will cry for me as I hold my little daughter in my arms, crooning to her about her lost mother, and how she is an orphan now. An orphan—but one named for her father. And I will raise her so no trace of her traitorous mother remains in her. She will be a woman of honor, who would never betray a good man who would have forgiven her anything but to give her body to her own sister's husband, that contemptible, slimy little social climber. You let him empty his little tin cup into you, Sevet, my dear, and so I will have done with you.

"Here's the place where Nafai and I tried to cross over," he whispered to them. "See how we had to traverse that bare rock, shining in the moonlight?"