Earthborn

"Already," said Chebeya.

"Before you asked," said Akmaro.

"I have so much to do." Then he closed his eyes again and slept, this time a natural sleep, a healing sleep. His father and mother knelt over him, held his hands, stroked his face, wept for joy. The Keeper had been merciful and brought their son back home to them again.

THIRTEEN - FORGIVENESS

Shedemei was out of sorts. The merchant who supplied her with fresh food from the countryside had raised his prices again. Of course she could afford it, since she had the Oversoul's knowledge of the location of mineral deposits throughout the gornaya. It took no great effort to fly to a high peak, put on breathing gear, blast some ice into water, chip away at the exposed rock, take a bushel basket of gold ore from the mountain, have it refined in a remote place far from Darakemba, and come back with enough wealth to sustain the school for another year or two.

The trouble was that her goals had changed. The school was no longer just a ploy to allow her to be close to the center of action in Darakemba. The action was over-or, rather, had gone into hiatus- and yet she was still there and not at all interested in resuming her life sealed in a suspended animation chamber on the Basilica, come out only now and then to tend her plants. Her school had become real and important to her, and she wanted to get it on a sound financial footing so that someone could keep it going after she left. Yet every time she was about to get the income just about to the level of the expenses, somebody would raise a price or some new need would become apparent, and back she would go, dipping into her reserves of gold.

It was hard to remember the woman she had once been. In the city of Basilica, she had shut out the rest of the world, refusing most human contact and keeping what she had on a businesslike level as much as possible. At the time she thought it was because she loved science so much-and she did enjoy her work, so it wasn't an entire lie. But what really locked her door against the world was fear. Not fear of physical danger, really, but fear of messiness, fear of untidy entanglements perpetually unresolved. The Oversoul-no, ultimately it was the Keeper of Earth-had forced her out of her laboratory and into the chaos of human life. But she and Zdorab had somehow managed to create an island of neatness, in which they pretended to know exactly what was expected of them both and satisfy those expectations perfectly.

Now she was surrounded by perpetual chaos, children coming and going, teachers whose lives began somewhere outside her life so that they could never be wholly known, questions forever unanswered, needs forever inadequately met ... it was the thing she had feared the most, and now that she was living in it, she couldn't understand why. This was life. This was what the Keeper surrounded herself with. Perpetual irresolution. A picture never framed, a series of chords that never returned to the tonic for more than a fleeting moment. Shedemei could hardly imagine living any other way.

Yet today she was out of sorts, likely to snap at anyone who crossed her path; she knew that the students always passed the word when such a mood was on her. "Thunderstorms," they would say, as if Shedemei were as unavoidable as the weather. The teachers would get the word as well, and they would wait to bring Shedemei their latest problems and requests. Let the weather clear first. And that was fine with Shedemei. Let the teachers decide whether it was really important enough to be worth braving the lion in her den.

So it rather surprised her-and peeved her, too-when someone knocked on the door of her tiny office. "Come in," she said.

Whoever it was had trouble with the latch. One of the little girls, then. Surely a teacher could have dealt with her problem without sending her unassisted to the schoolmaster's office.

Shedemei got up and opened the door. Not one of the little girls at all. It was Voozhum. "Mother Voozhum," she said, "come in, sit down. You don't have to come to my office, just send one of the girls for me and I will come to you."

"That wouldn't be fitting," said Voozhum, easing herself onto one of the stools; chairs were no good for earth people, especially the old and inflexible.

"I won't argue with you," said Shedemei. "But age has its privileges and you should take advantage of them now and then."

"I do," said Voozhum. "With people who are younger than me."

Shedemei hated it when Voozhum tried to get her to admit that she was the One-Who-Was-Never-Buried. It bothered her to lie to Voozhum, but she also couldn't trust the old soul to remember that she was supposed to keep it secret.

"I've never met anybody older than you," said Shedemei. "Now, what business brings you here?"

"I had a dream," said Voozhum. "A real wake-up-with-a-wet-bed humdinger."

Shedemei didn't know whether to be amused or a

Ignoring her gibe, Voozhum said, "I thought you ought to be warned-Akma is coming here today."

Shedemei sighed. Just what she needed. "Have you told Edhad-eya?"

"So she can run off and hide? No, it's time the girl faced her future."

"It's Edhadeya's choice whether Akma has anything to do with her future, don't you think?"

"No I don't," said Voozhum. "She grabs at every scrap of news about the boy. She knows that he's changed. I've seen her pining after him, and then when I mention Akma she gets that prim look on her face and says, I'm glad he's stopped interfering with things, but excuse me I've got work to do. She practically lived at Akmaro's house during the three days that Akma was getting worked over by the Keeper, but as soon as he wakes up she refuses to leave the school. I think she's a coward."

"Akma has changed," said Shedemei. "It's natural for her to fear that his feelings toward her might also have changed."‘

"That's not what she's afraid of," said Voozhum scornfully. "She knows they're bound together heart to heart. She's afraid of you."

"Me?"

"She's afraid that if she marries Akma, you won't let her have the school."

"Have the school! What, am I dying and no one told me? I have the school."

"She has the foolish idea that she's younger than you and might outlive you," said Voozhum nastily. "She doesn't know what I know."

"Well, I suppose that eventually I will give up the school."

"But will you give it to a married woman who has to deal with her husband's demands?"

"It's premature to marry them off," said Shedemei. "And premature to decide whether she'll have the freedom to take the school, and damnably premature to be thinking about when I'm going to leave, because I can promise you it won't be soon."

"Well tell her that! Tell her she'll have time for half a dozen babies before the schoolmastership comes open. Have some consideration for other people's uncertainties, why don't you!"

Shedemei burst into laughter. "You certainly don't talk to me as if you really believed I was a minor deity."

"When gods come down to become women, I think they should get the full experience, no holds barred. Besides, what are you going to do, strike me dead? I could keel over any minute. Every time I make it across the courtyard to my bedroom, I think, Well, it didn't kill me after all."

"I've offered to let you sleep right next to your classroom."

"Don't be absurd. I need the exercise. And unlike some people, I'm not interested in living forever. I don't have to know how things come out."

"Neither do I, really," said Shedemei. "Not anymore."