"I hope you're wrong," said Nafai. "Because I haven't had one like that yet. I haven't seen these rats and angels."
"Neither have I," said Issib. "I was thinking that maybe –"
"But you were in my dream," said Hushidh, "and if the Keeper is calling to me, she wants you, too."
"And we were both in Father's dream," said Nafai. "Which is why we have to find out what it meant. If s obviously more than just telling us to be good. In fact, if that's what it was for it did a pretty lousy job, since it made Elemak and Mebbekew furious to be singled out in the dream because they refused to come to the tree."
"So join us," said Issib. "Touch the Index and ask."
The longer arm of Issib's chair held the Index so he could rest his hand on it; the others gathered near and touched it, too. Touched it and questioned it, asking over and over again, silently in their minds …
"No," said Issib, "nothing's happening. It doesn't work this way. We have to be clear."
"Then speak for us," said Hushidh. "Ask the question for all of us."
With their hands all on the Index, Issib put voice to their questions. He asked; they waited. He asked again. They waited again. Nothing.
"Come on," said Nafai. "We've done everything you asked. Even if all you can tell us is that you're as confused as we are, at least tell us that."
The voice of the Index came at once: "I'm as confused as you are."
"Well, why didn't you say so from the start?" asked Issib in disgust.
"Because you weren't asking me what I thought of it, you were asking what it means. I was trying to figure it out. I can't."
"You mean you haven't yet," said Nafai.
"I mean I can't," said the Index. "I don't have enough information. I can't intuit the way you humans do. My mind is too simple and direct. Don't ask me to do more than I'm capable of. I know everything that is knowable by observation, but I can't guess what the Keeper of Earth is trying to do, and you exhaust me when you demand that I try to do it."
"All right," said Luet. "We're sorry. But if you learn anything…"
"I'll tell you if I think it's appropriate for you to know."
"Tell us even if you don't," demanded Issib.
But the Index's voice did not come again.
"It can be so infuriating dealing with the Oversoul!" said Nafai.
"Speak of her with respect," said Hushidh, "and perhaps she'll be more cooperative with you."
"Show it too much respect and the computer starts thinking that it's really a god," said Issib. "Then it's really hard to deal with."
"Come to bed," said Luet to Nafai. "We'll talk of this again tomorrow, but tonight we need our sleep."
It took little persuasion to get Nafai to follow her to their tent, leaving Hushidh and Issib alone.
They sat in silence for a while. Issib felt the uncomfortableness as if it were smoke in the air; it made it hard to breathe. It was Father's dream that had brought them together here, to speak to the Oversoul through the Index. It was an easy thing to show Hushidh how comfortably he dealt with the Index; he was confident of himself, when it came to the Index, even when the Oversoul was itself confused and couldn't answer aright. But now there was no Index between them—it rested voiceless in its case, where Nafai had placed it, and now only Hushidh and Issib remained, and they were supposed to marry each other and yet Issib couldn't think of anything to say.
"I dreamed of you," said Hushidh.
Ah! She had spoken first! At once the pent-up need to speak brought words to Issib's lips. "And you woke screaming?" No, that was a stupid thing to say. But he had said it, and—yes, she was smiling. She knew it was a joke, so he didn't have to be embarrassed.
"I dreamed of you flying," she said.
"I do that a lot," he said. "But only in other people's dreams. I hope you didn't mind."
And she laughed.
He should have said something else then, something serious, because he knew she was doing all the hard part—she was saying serious things, and he was deflecting them with jokes. That was fine to make them comfortable with each other, but it also kept turning away from the hard things she was trying to say. So he knew he should help her say the hard things, and yet he couldn't think of what they were, not now, sitting here with her in the Index tent, alone. Except that he knew he was afraid, for she needed a husband and it was going to have to be him except he had no idea if he could do any of the husbandly things for her. He could talk, of course, and he knew Hushidh well enough to know that she was a talker, when she knew you—he'd heard her speak passionately in class, and also in private conversations that he'd overheard. So they'd probably be able to talk, except that for talking they wouldn't need to marry, would they? What kind of father will I be? Come here right now, son, or I'll mash you with my chair!
Not to mention the question of how he'd get to be a father in the first place. Oh, he had worked out the mechanics of it in his own mind, but he couldn't imagine any woman actually wanting to go through with her part of it. And so that was the hard question that he couldn't bring himself to ask. Here is the script for how we'll make babies—are you willing to consider taking the starring role? The only drawback is that you'll have to do everything, while I lie back and give you no pleasure whatsoever, and then you'll have the babies while I help you not at all, and finally when we get old you'll have to nurse me till I die except that it won't make much difference since you'll probably have been nursing me all along, since once I have a wife everybody will expect to leave off helping me, so it'll be you, performing personal services that will disgust you, and then you'll be expected to receive my seed and bear me babies after that and there's no words I can bring to my lips that could persuade you to do that.
Hushidh looked at him steadily in the silence. "You're breathing rather heavily," she said.
"Am I?" he asked.
"Is that passion or are you as scared of all this as I am?" she asked.
Yes. More scared. "Passion," he said.
It wasn't very light inside the tent, but it wasn't very dark, either. He could see her make a decision, then reach up under her blouse and do something or other, and when she brought out her hands again, he could see that her breasts now moved freely under the cloth. And because she did that, he was more scared than ever, but he also felt just a touch of desire, because no woman had ever done such a thing in front of him, and certainly not for him, for him to see on purpose. Only he was probably expected to do something now and he had no idea what to do.
"I'm not very experienced at this sort of thing," said Hushidh.
What sort of thing? he wanted to ask, but then decided not to, since he understood exactly what she meant and it wasn't a good moment to joke.
"But I thought we ought to perform a kind of experiment," she said. "Before we decide anything. To see if you could possibly be attracted to me."
"I could," he said.
"And to see if you can give anything to me," she said. "It'll be better if we can both enjoy it, don't you think?"
Her words were so matter-of-fact. He could hear, though, from the trembling in her voice, that it wasn't matter-of-fact to her. And for the first time it occurred to him that she probably didn't think of herself as a beautiful woman. She was never one that the young men in the school had drooled over behind her back; now it occurred to Issib that she might be perfectly aware of that, probably was aware, and that she might be as frightened about whether he would desire her as he was about whether he could please her. It put them on something closer to equal terms. And instead of worrying about whether she'd be disgusted, he could give some thought to what she might enjoy.