Orson Card - Earthfall

She sang the entire flute part and Sevet didn't join in. But Kokor could also tell from the stillness of the others-even the angels fell silent to hear her-that she had chosen to do the right thing this time, that for once the others approved of and even appreciated her. And when she began the flute part again at the beginning, Sevet's voice came out at last, singing the melody. Now the strangeness of the melody Kokor had sung began to make sense as harmony to Sevet's voice, and the words Sevet sang brought tears to people's eyes as the death of such worthless men as Obring and Vas never would have. People cried when she sang it in theaters, when nobody had died-how could they help but sob their little hearts out here, with the smell of cooking meat in their nostrils and Obring's and Vas's littlest children crying their poor little eyes out because their papas were such worthless murdering fornicating pieces of digger poo. Kokor loved the way her voice sounded with Sevet's. For Sevet's had changed, had grown richer and more mature, but Kokor's had not, had retained the flutelike simplicity and purity of youth. Kokor had no need to try to sound like Sevet now, nor Sevet to resent the similarity between them. They made different sounds, but they could be beautiful together nonetheless.

When the song ended, the appropriate action was obvious, and Sevet did not fail her. They both extended their arms at once, and weeping copiously they fell into each other's embrace. Kokor enjoyed hearing the collective sigh of the watching humans. The sisters, reconciled at last! She could imagine Mother reaching down and squeezing Volemak's hand, and Volemak whispering to her later, If only my sons could make peace as your daughters have.

While they clung to each other in their embrace of grief and forgiveness, Sevet whispered in Kokor's ear. "I'm going to be Elemak's mistress now, little sister, so don't try to stop me,"

To which Kokor whispered in reply, "So am I. He's cocksman enough for the two of us, don't you think?"

"Share and share alike?" murmured Sevet.

"I'll bet I bear him a baby before you do," whispered Kokor. Of course she had no intention of bearing him a child at all, but it would be lovely if Sevet did, ruining her thick body even more than having three children already had. Let the poor bitch think we're competing to give birth to Elya's bastards-I'll just let her "win" and keep the real victory, which is my youthful body despite having let Obring sire five babies on me. If all five were really his.

They broke the embrace and pulled apart a little.

"Oh, Kokor," said Sevet. "My sister." Then she burst into tears again.

Damn. That would be hard to top.

Kokor reached out and took a tear from Sevct's cheek, then held it up as a glistening patch of wetness on her fingertip. "I will never cause you to shed another one of these, my beloved Sevya."

The sigh from the others was all the applause Kokor needed. I win again, Sevet. You're simply no match for me.

Fusum learned two things from the killing of Obring and Vas.

First, he learned that the humans were, in fact, mortal, and could be killed if enough force were applied using a sufficient weapon in the right way. He had no immediate plans to use this information, but he intended to devote a great deal of thought to it over the months and years to come.

Second, he learned that killing was a powerful device that should not be wasted. You must kill the right person, and at the right time, and always in order to achieve an important purpose. That was why, when Fusum was finally judged to be rehabilitated and returned to his people, he made it a point to become a friend and companion to Nen. As the eldest and most gifted son of Emeezem and Mufruzhuuzh, the deep mother and the war king, Nen was the bright golden hope of the next generation. He spoke the human language almost as fluently as Fusum himself, having learned it through close association with Oykib, and when Emeezem and Mufruzhuuzh coerced Fusum's own father, the blood king Shosseemem, to join them in declaring a ban on the kidnapping and eating of skymeat infants, it was Nen who came forward and swept away the pedestal of bones on which the Untouched God had rested. It was Nen who cried out, "Let friendship everlasting stand between our people and the people of the sky." Oh, Fusum had cheered along with everyone else that day. And he worked hard to win a place at Nen's side, as his most trusted friend.

Then one day they were out hunting together, carrying the traditional stone-tipped spear in one hand, knotty club in the other. They were stalking a peccary through the undergrowth, near enough to hear it grunting now and then, when suddenly Fusum saw his opportunity. A panther, too, was stalking the peccary, but as everyone knew, panthers were only too happy to make a meal of whatever meat was at hand. It had to be living meat, though, so when Fusum struck, he didn't strike hard enough to kill-or at least he hoped not. Nen dropped like a rock, but then almost immediately lifted himself up on his elbows, moaning. Fusum didn't even need to throw a stone to attract the panther's attention. It leapt on Nen and tore his throat out in a moment. Then Fusum charged, driving his spear into the panther's side under the ribs, finding its heart immediately. I am good at this, thought Fusum. Then he clubbed the panther in the head, over and over, so that no one would think to look for traces of Nen's blood and hair and scent on the club.

Minutes later, he came staggering and weeping into the digger city, crying out his grief at the death of his friend Nen, blaming himself for having failed the golden one, the beautiful one. "No man ever had a worse friend than me!" he cried. "Kill me, I beg you! I don't want to live with Ncn's death on my hands." But when they found the scene, the men of the city cleared Fusum of any culpability, and the story of his great grief at the death of his beloved friend swept through the city. Some of Nen's glory thus lingered with Fusum, and many began to look to him as the hope of the future, now that Nen was gone.

FOURTEEN - WORDS

Nafai wasn't sure whether the dream came from the peeper, the Oversoul, or his own concerns. Perhaps it was amply the fact that he realized that in all their teaching of the angels and the diggers, in all their teaching of their own children, the one thing they couldn't give them was a compelling reason to learn how to read and write.

What was it good for? Did it make the crops grow better? Did it keep the flocks in their pens at night? Did it ward off predators? Did it keep children from getting sick? When he talked to Luet about it, she didn't seem worried. "Nyef, we're not recreating Basilica here. We can't. The next generation is going to lack so many things. We have to teach them the herbs that can heal infections or cure different diseases. We have to teach them the principles of sanitation, so they don't foul their own water supply. We have to-" "We have to keep them human." "It isn't writing that makes us human." "Isn't it?" asked Nafai. "Then what is it?"

"The diggers and angels are sentient. They're people. And they don't read and write."

It was unanswerable, what she said, and the way she said it made it clear she didn't think it a problem worth worrying about. Yet hadn't they taught their own children how to read and write? Hadn't they risked destruction on the journey, teaching them how to use the computers, letting them pore over millions of volumes of human learning and history and it would all be extinguished in the next generation.

And the next generation was already here. In the five years since landfall, Chveya's and Oykib's generation had all started families. Their children were growing up and when they turned six or seven or eight would there even be a school for them? No, they would set to work learning the skills of survival. Side by side with diggers and angels in the fields, out gathering in the forest, building fences and walls, gleaning and weeding, planting and harvesting, tanning hides and tooling leather, carding wool and spinning it into yarn-where in all this activity was there a moment when they needed to read something? On the ship they had been preparing for a new life, learning in advance what they would need to know for subsistence in a new world. Now they were in that world, and the new generation learned from the adults, not from books.