Orson S Card Homecoming Omnibus by Orson Scott Card

Author:Orson Scott Card
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TEN-SHIPMASTER

Volemak and Rasa called the community together the moment Zdorab and Issib finished reporting what they had learned from the Index. It had been a long time since a meeting had been called without Elemak knowing in advance what it was about. It worried him. At some level it frightened him, but since he could not live with the idea of fear, he interpreted it as anger. He was angry that a meeting was called without his knowledge, without Father having sought his advice in advance. It suggested to him that the meeting was Rasa's, somehow-that the women were making some play for power and had deliberately cut him out of the process. Someday the old hag will push too hard, thought Elemak, and then she'll find out what power and strength really are-and that she doesn't have any.

This was the filter of interpretation through which Elemak received the morning's news. Chveya and Luet had dreamed… ah, yes, the women trying to assert their spiritual leadership, the waterseer and her no-doubt-well-coached daughter angling for the old dominance Luet had back in Basilica. And then Nafai, Issib, and Zdorab had searched the Index for information, and Nafai-of course, it had to be Luet's husband, the Oversoul's favorite boy-had found a secret place that none of them had visited in all their hunts. Such nonsense! Elemak had covered every kilometer of the surrounding country in his hunts and explorations-there was no hidden place.

So Nafai had taken off on a hunt for a non-existent place, and only this morning had figured out a way past all the barriers. Once a human being made it inside, the barrier came down, and now Nafai was walking among the ancient starships, while in the meantime Issib and Zdorab were able to find things through the Index that no one had guessed at before. "This is the landing place," Father explained. "We are living now at the site of the First City, the oldest human settlement on Harmony. Older than the Cities of the Stars. Older than Basilica."

"There was no city here when we came," said Obring.

"But this place," said Father. "We have brought the human race full circle. And even now, Nafai is walking where the ancient fathers and mothers of us all first set their feet upon the soil of Harmony."

Romantic bushwa, thought Elemak. Nafai could be napping in the noonday sun right now for all anybody here knows. The Index was just a way for the weaklings of their company to assert control over the strong ones.

"You know what this means, of course," said Father.

"It means," said Elemak, "that because of what people who have nothing better to do have supposedly learned from a metal ball, our lives are going to be disrupted again."

Father looked at him in surprise. "Disrupted?" he asked. "What do you think we came here for, except to prepare for a journey to Earth? The Oversoul itself was caught up in a feedback loop, that's all, and Nyef finally broke through and set it free.

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