Orson Card - Earthfall

Elemak smiled at her, since of course he knew full well that she was trading the freedom of these diggers for the safety of the Nafari. He bent down and helped his son rise, shaking, to his feet.

"Remember, though," said Shedemei. "I said war king. There will be no more blood king among the people. Do you all hear me?"

They heard.

"This one has defiled the office so that it can never be held worthily again. From now on it is forbidden to eat the flesh of angel or human. Any man who eats that forbidden flesh will be as guilty as if he ate the flesh of his own child. That is now the law of all people, through all the world! And you will enforce it over all the diggers of every land!"

"Thanks for the assignment," said Elemak softly.

"I think you'll come to see the wisdom of teaching them not to think of humans as a snack," said She-demei, just as quietly. "If they can eat your enemies, Elya, how long before they decide that you are also a comestible?"

"I got the point already," said Elemak. "Now are you done?"

"No diggers following the Nafari," said Shedemei.

"Do you think we won't be able to follow the trail?" asked Elemak.

"No assassins on the road," she said.

"I know the bargain," said Elemak, "I know that I've been humiliated again, and this time Nafai took my wife and half my family, and you struck down my son. But I can live with that, because you've given me a nation. A nation of ugly rodents who live in dirt, but I've dealt with worse in caravans on Harmony, even though they walked in human shape. I will stand over Nafai's body someday, Shedemei, regardless of what you think. But if it makes you feel better, I won't eat him. And I won't let anybody else eat him, either. Except perhaps the crows and vultures."

"I'm glad to see that you're filled with the spirit of conciliation."

He smiled at her. Then he stepped away from her and spoke to the diggers who held Fusum, "Take the prisoner into my house. And then start bringing me those who think they know of crimes this man has done." He looked again at Shedemei. "That should take up the first day, I imagine."

Shedemei turned from him to Protchnu, whose cheeks were stained with tears. "You shouldn't have done that to me," he whispered. "That was wrong"

"You were such a promising boy," she answered kindly. "Of all the tragedies this lifelong war between brothers has caused, you are the saddest one of all."

He went livid. "I'll kill him, Shedya. I'll kill them all. Every one of them."

"What you're saying, then, is that you're sure your father's going to fail?"

"I meant that I'd kill any he left behind."

"You know the truth, Protchnu. Stop worrying about vengeance and learn how to be a leader. These people need a king far more than your father needs to be justified. All he's ever done, he did for power. Now he's got it. You'll see. He'll go through the motions of war, but he'll lose because his hunger has been satisfied."

"You don't know Father," said Protchnu proudly. "And you don't know me."

"Nobody does," said Shedemei. "So maybe you'll surprise us all."

Eight days later, Zdorab returned to the ship in the launch. He arrived in time to watch as Fusum was executed for his crimes, his throat cut by one of his own soldiers. His body was then hung from the limb of a tree, so that no part of it was touching the sacred earth. Shedemei, her skin aglow, stepped forward then and went through the ritual of naming Elemak to be war king. The people hailed him and cheered him, then watched in silence as Shedemei and Zdorab flew upward in the launch until they entered the tower through the high wide bay where the launch was kept.

The door closed behind them, and Elemak set out at once with two hundred soldiers, leaving Muzhestvo- Mebbekew's youngest, now a man of twenty-three-to rule the people in his absence. Elemak's army was halfway up the canyon when the starship roared to life and rose into the sky.

It became another point of light in the night heaven, circling and circling, now and then changing its position. It was called Basilica, but in time almost no one remembered why, or what it was, or that it had once been a tower standing by the first human village on Earth in forty million years.

Elemak's army tracked the wide path of the Nafari migration, but when they reached the stony cliff that barred the southern passage into the wide high valley of the land of Nafai, angels assaulted them from the air, shooting darts into their exposed backs. Twenty diggers died in that place, and forty more were injured. They struggled back home, and Elemak taught them to make armor so that next year they could try again.

And so it went, year after year. But between the futile wars, both nations prospered and grew, and both sent out traders and teachers to spread the new agriculture and the new modes of warfare and the new myths and legends and religions to every other digger city and angel village.

Generations passed, and the humans became hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and there was not a digger city that didn't have its human houses overhead, not an angel village that didn't have humans joining in the evening song. The term that became common for humans in both societies was middle people, because they stood between the angels in the sky and the diggers in the earth.

In the sky, the starship circled and circled, but it was fall of life. Shedemei and Zdorab slept long and often, but then they would emerge and use the launch to explore, to gather specimens, to introduce new variations, to give shape and strength and variety to the gardens of the Earth. In time, Zdorab's body wore out, and Shedemei laid him to rest in a field of flowers she had brought from Harmony. Then, alone, she woke less often. But still from time to time she visited, she gathered, she tended, and silently she watched as the people spread across the face of the land, always cleverer each time she saw them, yet also angrier, and always at war.

What else could happen? The human race was home again. v1.0 [09-dec-01] 4i Publications. OCR'd 600DPI, Finereader 5, layout, quick proof inW2k . The original paperback was below average, so there'll be some OCR errors. Most common OCR errors have been corrected. If you proofread or change this document, please retain the existing version information. Also indicate what has been improved (proofreading, layout etc). Just reformatting and changing the version number doesn't mean that the actual text has been improved.

We're missing #3 in the Homecoming Saga, so the series will remain incomplete until someone scans it.