Earthfall

SEVEN - A STORM AT SEA

Zdorab had been born in the wrong era. He had never realized it until now. Oh, he knew he didn't fit in where he grew up or where he lived in Basilica before Nafai gave him the chance to save his life by coming with him into the desert. But now, at the end of his second stint as Nafai's co-teacher of the children on the starship Basilica, Zdorab knew where he truly belonged. The trouble was, the culture that might have valued him had been gone for forty million years.

Whoever it was that built this starship, with its fineness of design and craftsmanship, was to be admired, of course. It was only after living in it that Zdorab understood that he also loved their way of life. True, they were confined indoors, but as far as Zdorab was concerned, outdoor life was over-rated. He did not miss insects. He did not miss excessive heat and cold, humidity and dryness. He did not miss the defecations of animals and the smells of strange things cooking or overfamiliar things rotting.

But it wasn't the absence of a

He tried explaining it to Nafai, but the young man merely looked at Zdorab in puzzlement and said, "But what about trees?" Obviously Nafai couldn't wait to get to the new planet, which would no doubt be another place with lots of dirt and bugs and plenty of sweaty manual labor to do. Zdorab had played obsequious servant all the way across the desert; he loved the fact that in this starship there were no servants, because all work was either done by machines and computers or was so simple and easy that anyone could do it-and everyone did.

And he loved teaching the children. Some of them were barely children anymore, six years into the voyage. Oykib had shot up to nearly two meters now, at the apparent age of fourteen. He was lanky, but Zdorab had seen him working out in the centrifuge and his body was wiry with hard tight muscles. Zdorab knew he was middle-aged by the fact that he could see that beautiful young body and feel only the memory of desire. If there was any mercy in nature, it was the fading of the male libido with middle age. Some men, feeling the slackening of desire, went to heroic-or criminal- lengths to get the illusi0n of renewed sexual vigor. But for Zdorab it was a relief. It was better to think of Oykib and his even-more-beautiful younger brother, Yasai, as students. As friends of his son, Padarok. As potential mates of his daughter, Dabrota.

My son, he thought. My daughter. Good Lord. Who would ever have guessed, during his years in clandestine love affairs in the men's city outside Basilica, that I would ever have a son and a daughter. And if any man laid hands on either one of them without my consent, I think I'd kill him.

And then he thought: I'm a jungle creature after all.

He was going to sleep again today, as Shedemei wakened to take his place. They would overlap for a few hours-the Oversoul said there was life support enough for that-and it would be good to see her. She was his best friend, the only one who knew his secrets, his inward struggles. He could tell her almost everything.

But he could not tell her about the little program he had set up in a life support computer, one of those not directly part of the Oversoul's memory. Just before scheduling the one wake-up call for midvoyage, the obvious one that the Oversoul had detected at once, Zdorab had written a program that ostensibly took a harmless inventory of supplies. It also checked, however, to see if it was exactly six and a half years into the voyage, and if it was, it would send a new version of the schedule file to the computer where the calendar was executed. The new version would call for Elemak, Zdorab, and Shedemei to be wakened thirty seconds later; then, after another second, the original copy of the schedule would be restored and the inventory program would rewrite itself to eliminate the extra subroutine. It was all very deft and Zdorab was proud of its cleverness.

He also knew that it was potentially lethal to the peace of the community and he kept intending, now that he was taking part in Nafai's little plan, to get into the life support computer and eliminate it before it could go off. The trouble was that it was not as easy to get access to that computer, now that they were in flight. He had duties, and when those were done, the children were everywhere all the time and they would be bound to ask him what he was doing. He told himself that he was looking for a safe opportunity to make the change. Now he was only hours from going back to sleep, and he had found no such opportunity. Why not?

Because he was afraid, that's why. That was the worm in his salad. Not that he was afraid for himself-the hunger for self-preservation was no longer as important to him as the need to protect his children. He had gone along with Nafai's scheme, not because of dreams- those were for Shedemei and others that the Oversoul had bred to be especially receptive to them-but because he did not want some of the children to be given an advantage, and not his own. When Issib came up with the plan of having the adults help teach the children in shifts, Zdorab wouldn't have dreamed of refusing to take part.

At the same time, though, he was afraid of what Elemak would do later on to take vengeance. When he woke up on Earth and found himself surrounded by these strong young men, all committed to Nafai's cause, he would be so rilled with hate that he would never forgive. There would be war, sooner or later, and it would be bloody. Zdorab didn't want his children to suffer from that. Didn't want them to have to take part, or even take sides. What better way to accomplish that than to prove his loyalty to Elemak by letting the wake-up call come through as pla

Of course, Nafai and the Oversoul would have no problem figuring out who had done it-nobody else had the computer skills back on Harmony, and none of the children who had acquired those abilities during the voyage were likely to want to wake up Elemak. Hadn't he heard Izuchaya-who had been so young at launch that she barely remembered Elemak-asking, "Why do we have to wake up Elemak at all, if he's so bad?" "Because that would be murder," Nafai had answered her, and then explained that even when you disagree with someone, they still have a right to live their life and make their own choices. The only time you have a right to kill someone is when they're actually trying to kill you or someone you need to protect.

Someone you need to protect. I need to protect my children. And here's the cold hard truth, Nafai: My children are no blood kin of yours. Therefore, even if we side with you, I can't believe for a moment that you will ever be as careful of them, as loyal to them, as you are to your own children or your parents' young children or your brother Issib's children. I have to find a way to protect them myself, to make it so Elemak won't hate them the way he will hate you and your children- even as I've helped them take advantage of your plan to become older and stronger than Elemak's boys. That's what a father does. Even if his wife wouldn't approve of it.

Shedemei had different ideas of loyalty, Zdorab knew. She was an all-or-nothing kind of person. That's because she hadn't lived in the nightmare world of interweaving treachery that Zdorab had inhabited for so many years. Gaballufix's constant plotting, in which other people's trust was regarded as a weapon to be turned against them; the routine violence and corruption of life in the men's village, where the ameliorating influence of women did not penetrate; and of course the relentless deception of the life of a man who loved men. No one can really be trusted, Shedemei, he said silently.