No sooner had he understood his own role in the beating of that one old woman than a new cruelty came into his mind, a child who cried out in hunger and had nothing to eat because his father had lost his income in the boycott; Akma saw through the child's eyes, and then through the father's, feeling his shame and despair at being unable to give his child relief, and then Akma was the mother in her impotent rage and her complaints against the Keeper and the Kept for having brought this down upon them, and again he followed the chain of suffering and evil-the merchants who once had bought the father's goods, who now refused to buy, some out of fear of reprisal, some out of a personal bias against diggers that now had become respectable-no, patriotic!-because Akma had stood before a crowd and told them that they must all obey the law and not boycott anybody and the audience had laughed because they understood what Akma wanted... .
He wanted the child to weep and the father's pride to break and the mother's loyalty to the Kept to burn out in helpless fury. He wanted this because he had to punish the Keeper for not choosing him back when he was a child desperate to save his little sister from the lash.
Over and over, time after time, scene after scene, he saw all the pain he had caused. How long did it last? It could have been a single minute; it could have been a dozen lifetimes. How could he measure it, having no connection to reality, no sense of time? He saw it all, however long it took; and yet each moment of it was also eternal, because his understanding was so complete.
If he could have made a sound, it would have been an endless scream. It was unbearable to be alone; and worst of all was that in his solitude he had to be with himself, with all his loathsome, contemptible actions.
Long before the parade of crimes was over, Akma was finished. He no longer saw himself leading the parade of conquering soldiers sweeping through the Elemaki lands. He could not bear the thought of anyone ever seeing him again, for now he knew what he truly was and could never hide it from himself or anyone else again. The shame was too great. He no longer wished to be restored to all the things that he had lost. Now all he wanted was to be blotted out. Don't make me face anyone again. Don't make me face myself. Don't make me face even you, Keeper. I can't bear to exist.
Yet each time that he thought he had reached bottom and could suffer no more deeply than at this moment, another image would spring into his mind, another person whose suffering he had caused, and... yes ... he could feel more shame and pain than he had felt only a moment ago, when it had already seemed infinite and unbearable.
Shedemei made her way through the quiet house, where so many people quietly came and went, carrying out their tasks. She saw four young men and recognized them as the sons of Motiak; they didn't recognize her, of course, since all they had seen on the road was un-watchable brightness in a human shape. And in a way she didn't recognize them either, for the strutting, laughing, boastful boys that she had first met were gone; and also gone were the cowering, terrified children who trembled before her and winced at every word she spoke-spoke, of course, into a tiny microphone so that the translation equipment could amplify and distort her voice to make it as painful as possible.
What she saw now were four humans who actually had some hint of manhood about them. It was clear from their ravaged faces that they had shed many tears, but they were making no show of grief and remorse now. Instead, as people came to them-many of them diggers, though most were not-they received them graciously. "All we hope for now is that the Keeper will decide to spare Akma's life, so that he can join us in going about trying to undo the terrible harm we caused. Yes, I know that you forgive me; you're more generous than I deserve, but I accept your forgiveness and I vow to you that for the rest of my life I will do all that I can to earn what you've given me freely. But for now we wait and watch with Akma's family. The Keeper struck him down because loyal and obedient Kept like you pleaded for relief. The Keeper hears you. We beg you to plead again with him for the life and forgiveness of our friend." Their words were not always so clear, but the meaning was the same: We will try to undo the harm we caused; we beg you to plead with the Keeper to save our friend.
Shedemei had no particular wish to speak to them-she knew from the Oversoul that they were sincere, that their true natures had once again emerged, wiser now, with painful memories, but committed to lives of decency. What business did she have with them, then? It was Akma that she came to see.
Chebeya met her at the door to Akma's bedchamber. The room was small and sparse-Akmaro and Chebeya really did live modestly. "Shedemei," Chebeya said. "I'm so glad you got word and came. We were a day's walk from the capital when word reached us that the Keeper had struck down our boy. We got home only a few hours before Motiak's boys brought him here. We kept expecting to pass you on the road."
"I went another way," said Shedemei. "I had some botanical specimens to tend to, among other things." She knelt beside Akma's inert body. He certainly did look dead.
<He practically is. Like a hypothermia victim. Like someone in suspended animation during a voyage. All cell activity is low. The surprising thing is that bacterial action is also nil. Whatever the Keeper did to him, it's not going to kill him.>
Brain activity? asked Shedemei silently.
<There's something going on. But it's purely limbic. None of the higher functions. Nothing I can actually read, beyond the most primitive feelings. >
Well, what is the feeling?
<It looks to me as if... well, as if he were screaming.>
I'm certainly not going to tell his parents that.
<The Keeper is doing something to him, but I have no idea what.>
No prognosis.
<He isn't dead yet, and I have no way of predicting whether he'll recover. I have no idea what's sustaining him, and I won't even know when or whether it's withdrawn.>
It certainly makes me suspect that Sherem didn't just die of a stroke in the midst of his argument with Oykib. ,
<Well, it was a stroke. It was just a convenient one. For all we know, the Keeper can make people keel over whenever she wants.>
Good thing that people don't have powers like that. I have enough of a temper that my path would be strewn with corpses all the day long.
<Oh, don't brag. I doubt you'd kill more than a couple a day.>
Sighing, Shedemei arose from the floor. "He's completely stable. But it's impossible to predict when or whether he will awaken."
"But he's not dying," said Chebeya.
"You're the raveler," said Shedemei. "Is he still bound to this world?"
Chebeya put her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. "No. He's connected to nothing. It's as if he isn't there, as if there isn't anyone at all." Then she did break down and cry, clinging to Akmaro.
"Well, his body isn't dead and it isn't deteriorating, either," said Shedemei, knowing she sounded brusque but unable to think of any gentler way to say what needed saying. "It's in the hands of the Keeper now."
Chebeya nodded.
"Thank you, Shedemei," said Akmaro. "We didn't think that it was something that you could heal, but we had to be sure. You... rumor has it that you can sometimes do remarkable things."
"Nothing as remarkable as what the Keeper can do."
She embraced them both and went her way, back to her students. All the way home, she argued with the Oversoul about what this all meant, what they should have done differently, what might be going on with Akma, if anything.
I wonder, said Shedemei silently, whether the Keeper simply gave him the same dream she gave me-showed him her plan for the world, possessed him with her love, and he was so filled with hate that the experience consumed him.
<Maybe it happened that way, but I never saw him enter the kind of dream state that you were in.>
Don't you sometimes wish that we were like ordinary people, without any unusual sources of information? We might be hearing about these events as nothing more than gossip about famous people.