Orson Card - Earthfall

When it all ended with Elemak and Mebbekew humbled before the power of the starmaster's cloak, Yaya was in awe of Oykib's insights more than ever. But Oykib was exhausted. He didn't want to know so much. And yet, underneath it all, he wanted to know more. He wanted the Oversoul to speak to him.

Why should he? Oykib was only an eight-year-old boy, and not strong and domineering like Elemak's boy Protchnu, either, even though Proya was a few weeks younger. What would the Oversoul have to say to him?

Now, sitting with the others in the library of the star-ship Basilica, Oykib already knew exactly what was going to be explained to them, because he had heard the Oversoul arguing with the adults about it before the ship was launched, and he could hear the Oversoul arguing with Luet and Nafai even now. He wanted to shout at them to just shut up and do it. But instead he held his peace, and listened patiently as Nafai and Luet explained it all.

He didn't like the way they handled it. They told the truth, of course-he had learned to expect that from them, more perhaps than from any of the other adults-but they left out a lot of the real reasons for what they were doing. They only talked about it as a wonderful chance for the children to learn a lot of things they'd need to know in order to make the colony work when they got to Earth. "And because you'll be fourteen or fifteen or sixteen-or even, some of you, eighteen years old-when we arrive, you can do the work of a man or a woman. You'll be grownups, not children. At the same time, though, you'll only see your mothers and fathers now and then during the voyage, because we can't afford the life support to keep more than two adults awake at a time."

Yes yes, all of that is true, thought Oykib. But what about the fact that only a dozen of us children will be in this little school of yours? What about the fact that when I am an eighteen-year-old at the end of the voyage, Protchnu will still be eight? What about friendships like the one between Mebbekew's daughter Tiya and Hushidh's daughter Shyada? Will they still be friends when Shyada is sixteen and Tiya is still six? Not very likely. Are you going to explain that?

But he said nothing. Waiting. Perhaps they would get to that part.

"Any questions?" asked Nafai.

"There's plenty of time," said Luet. "If you want to go back to sleep, you can do it a few days from now- there's no rush."

"Is there anything fun to do on this ship?" asked Xodhya, Hushidh's oldest boy. That was the most obvious question, since the adults had spent a lot of time before the launch assuring the kids that they wanted to sleep through the voyage because it would be so dull.

"There are a lot of things you can't do," said Luet. "The centrifuge will provide Earth-normal gravity for exercise, but you can only run in a straight line. You can't play ball or swim or lie in the grass because there's no pool and no grass and even in the centrifuge, it wouldn't be practical to throw and catch a ball. But you can still wrestle, and I think you could get used to playing tag and hide-and-seek in low gravity."

"And there are computer games," said Nafai. "You've never had a chance to play them, growing up without computers as you did, but Issib and I found quite a few-"

"You won't be able to play those very much, though," interrupted Luet. "We wouldn't want you to get too used to them, because we won't have computers like that on Earth."

Playing tag in low gravity-that alone probably would have won most of them over. Oykib found himself getting angry that they would pretend to be giving a choice when all they told about were mostly the good things and none of the worst.

He might have said something then, but Chveya spoke up first, "I think it all depends on what Dazya decides."

Dza, always full of herself as the most important child because she was firstborn, visibly preened. Oykib was disgusted, mostly because he had never seen Chveya kiss up to Dza like this before-he had always thought she was the most sensible of the girls.

"Chveya, you children have to make up your own minds about this."

"You don't understand," said Chveya. "Whatever Dazya decides, I'm going to do the opposite."

Dazya stuck out her tongue at Chveya. "That's just what I'd expect from you," she said. "You're always so immature."

"Veya," said Luet, "I'm embarrassed that you would say something so hurtful. And would you really change your whole future, just to spite Dazya?"

Chveya blushed and said nothing.

At last Oykib reached the point where he could not maintain silence. "I know what you should do," he said. "Put Dazya back to sleep for three days. Then when she gets up, Dza and Chveya would be exactly the same age."

Chveya rolled her eyes as if to say, That wouldn't solve anything. But Dazya went crazy, "My birthday would always be first no matter what!" she shouted. "I'm the first child and nobody else is! So I'm going to stay awake and still be the oldest when we get there! Nobody else is ever going to boss me around."

Oykib saw with satisfaction that Dazya had shown Nafai and Luet exactly why Chveya didn't want to stay awake if Dazya did.

"Actually," said Luet, "nobody has the right to boss other people around just because she's oldest or smartest or anything else."

Several of the younger children laughed. "Dazya bosses everybody," said Shyada, who, as Dazya's next younger sister, bore the brunt of Dazya's whims.

"I do not," said Dazya. "I don't boss Oykib or Protchnu."

"No, you only boss people who are weaker than you, you big bully!" said Shyada,

"Be quiet, all of you," said Nafai. "What you've just seen here is one of the problems with keeping you awake for school during the voyage. The ship isn't very large inside. You're going to be cooped up together for years. We let a lot of things slide back on Harmony, figuring that you'd work things out as the years went by. But during the voyage, we won't tolerate older children bossing the younger children around."

"Why not?" said Dazya. "Grown-ups boss children around all the time."

"Dza," said Luet quietly, "I believe you're intelligent enough to grasp the idea that the three days between you and Veya are not as significant as the fifteen years between you and me."

Chveya followed up this idea at once. "If I stay awake, Mother, then when we reach Earth I'll be three years older than you were when I was born."

"Yes, but she was married" said Rokya, Zdorab's and Shedemei's boy. Then, suddenly, he seemed to realize what he had just said, because he blushed and damped his mouth shut.

"I don't think marriage is something you need to worry about now," said Luet.

"Why not?" said Chveya. "You worry about it. Rokya is the only boy here who isn't an uncle or a double first cousin of mine."

"That won't be a problem," said Luet. "Shedemei said that there will be no genetic problems, so if it should happen that as you get older, you fall in love with a cousin or an uncle-"

Most of the children made groaning or puking noises.

"I say, as you get older, when the idea is no longer repulsive to you, there will be no genetic barrier."

But Oykib knew that before the launch, Shedemei had begged the Oversoul to forgive her for having told that lie to Nafai, and asked the Oversoul to tell Nafai to forbid marriages between close cousins if there would be any danger from it. He also knew something else, though, something Shedemei herself didn't know: that what she said about everyone being carefully bred by the Oversoul so as to be without any defects had been given to her by the Oversoul. He had overheard it as a very powerful sending. And so he was at peace with the idea of marrying a cousin. The Oversoul had better be right-Oykib and Yaya couldn't both marry Shedemei's and Zdorab's daughter Dabrota, and therefore one of them was going to marry a niece or die unmarried.