"Please stop," whispered Nafai. It was more than he could bear, fighting off the panic he felt as he heard these words.
"The Oversoul is not our enemy. In feet, I think-I think it called on Father because it needs help."
"Why haven't you said any of this before?"
"I have-to Father. To Mother. To some teachers. Other students. Other scholars. I even wrote it up in an article, but if nobody ever remembers receiving it, they can never find it. Even when I sent it to the same person four times. I gave up."
"But you told me?
"You came into the library," said Issib. "I thought- why not?"
" Zrakoplov," said Nafai.
"I can't believe you remembered the word," said Issib.
"A machine. The people don't just ... fly. They use a machine."
"Don't push it," said Issib. "You'll just make yourself sick. You have a headache already, right?"
"But I'm right, yes?"
"My best guess is that it was hollow, like a house, and people got inside it to fly. Like a ship, only through the air. With wings. But we had them here, I think. You know the district of Black Fields?"
"Of course, just west of the market."
"The old name of it was Skyport. The name lasted until twenty million years ago, more or less. Skyport. When they changed it, nobody remembered what it even meant."
"I can't think about this anymore," said Nafai.
"Do you want to remember it, though?" asked Issib.
"How can I forget it?"
"You will, you know. If I don't remind you. Every day. Do you want me to? It'll feel like this every time. It'll make you sick. Do you want to just forget this, or do you want me to keep reminding you?"
"Who reminded you ?"
"I left myself notes," said Issib. "In the library computers. Reminders. Why do you think it took me a year to get this far?"
"I want to remember," said Nafai.
"You'll get angry at me."
"Remind me not to."
"It'll make you sick."
"So I'll faint a lot." Nafai slid down the pillar and sat on the porch, looking out toward the street. "Why hasn't anybody noticed us out here? We haven't exactly been whispering."
Issib laughed. "Oh, they noticed. Mother came out once, and a couple of the teachers. They heard us talking for a couple of moments and then they just sort of forgot why they came out."
"This is great. If we want them to leave us alone, all we have to do is talk about the zmkoplovs?
"Well," said Issib, "that only works with people who are still closely tied with the Oversoul."
"Who isn't?"
"Whoever thought of the war wagons, for instance."
"You said the Oversoul had given up on them."
"Sure, recently^ said Issib. "But there were people in Basilica planning to build war wagons, people dealing with the Potoku about them for a long rime. More than a year. They had no trouble with the Oversoul. It's like they're deaf to it now. But most people aren't-which is why Gaballufix and his men were able to keep it secret for so long. Most people who heard anything about war wagons would simply have forgotten they even heard it. In fact," added Issib, "the Oversoul may have deliberately stopped forbidding that idea in the last little while precisely because there had to be open discussion of the war wagon thing in order to stop it."
"So the people who are deaf to the Oversoul-in order to stop them, the Oversoul has to stop controlling the rest of us, too."
"It's a double bind," said Issib. "In order to win, the Oversoul has to give up. I'd say that the Oversoul is in serious trouble."
It was making sense to Nafai, except for one thing. "But why did it start talking to Father ?"
"That's what we need to figure out. That, and what it's going to tell Father to do next."
"Oh, hey, let's let the Oversoul keep a few surprises up its sleeve." Nafai laughed, but he didn't really think it was funny.
Neither did Issib. "Even if we believe in the Oversoul's cause, Nafai, somewhere along in here we may find out that the Oversoul is causing more harm than good. What do we do then?"
"Hey, Issya, it may be doing a bad job these days, but that doesn't mean that we'd do better without it."
"I guess we'll never know, will we?"
SEVEN - PRAYER
For a week Nafai worked with Issib every day. They slept at Mother's house every night-they didn't ask, but then, Mother didn't send them away, either. It was a grueling time, not because the work was so hard but because the interference from the Oversoul was so painful. Issib was right, however. It could be overcome; and even though Nafai's aversive response was stronger than Issib's had been, he was able to get over it more quickly-mostly because Issib was there to help him, to assure him that it was worth doing, to remind him what it was about.
They began to work out a pretty clear picture of what it was that humans had once had, and that the Oversoul had long kept them from reinventing.
A communications system in which a person could talk instantly and directly to a person in any other city in the world.
Machines that could receive artwork and plays and stories transmitted through the air, not just from library to library, but right into people's homes.
Machines that moved swiftly over the ground, without horses.
Machines that flew, not just through the air, but out into space. "Of course there must be space traveling machines, or how did we get to Harmony from Earth?" But until he had punched his way through the aversion, Nafai had never been able to conceive of such a thing.
And the weapons of war: Explosives. Projectile weapons. Some so small that they could be held in the hand. Others so terrible that they could devastate whole cities, and burn up a planet if hundreds were used at once. Self-mutating diseases. Poisonous gases. Seismic disruptors. Missiles. Orbital launch platforms. Gene-wrecking viruses.
The picture that emerged was beautiful and terrible at once.
"I can see why the Oversoul does this to us," said Nafai. "To save us from these weapons. But the cost, Issya, The freedom we gave up."
Issib only nodded. "At least the Oversoul left us something. The ability to get power from the sun. Computers. Libraries. Refrigeration. All the machines of the kitchen, the greenhouses. The magnetics that allow my floats to work. And we do have some pretty sophisticated handweapons. Charged-wire blades. And pulses. So that large strong people don't have any particular advantage over smaller, weaker ones. The Oversoul could have stripped us. Stone and metal tools. Nothing with moving parts. Burning trees for all our heat."
"We wouldn't even be human then."
"Human is human," said Issib. "But civilized-that's the gift of the Oversoul. Civilization without self-destruction."
They tried explaining it to Mother once, but it went nowhere. She stupidly failed to understand anything they were talking about, and left them with a cheerful little jest about how nice it was that they could be friends and play these games together despite the age difference between them. There was no chance to talk to Father.
But there was someone who took an interest in them.
"Why don't you come to class anymore?" asked Hushidh.
She sat down on the porch steps beside Nafai and bit into her bread and cheese. A large mouthful, not the delicate bites that Eiadh took. Never mind that Mother was the one who taught all her girl students to use their mouths when they ate, and not to take the mincing little bites that were in fashion among the young women of Basilica these days. Nafai didn't have to find Hushidh's obedience to Mother attractive.