Am I ready yet? Nafai asked. The pain had subsided considerably.
(Almost.)
Elemak was keenly aware that no one was with him now, except Meb, who had no choice. Even Vas and Obring were averting their gaze from him—there'd be no support from them. But then, he had never expected any. "Whatever we did," said Elemak, "we did for the sake of our children, our wives—and your wives and children, too. Do you really want to leave here? Is there a one of you who wants to leave this place?"
"None of us want to go," said Luet. "But we all knew that this was the plan from the beginning—to take us to Earth. That was never a secret. No one lied to you."
And then—the crowning insult—Eiadh added her voice to Luet's. "I don't want to leave Dostatok," she said. "But I would rather wander in the desert forever than have a decent man killed to keep us here."
She spoke with fire, and Elemak felt it burn within him. My own wife, and she damns me with her accusations.
"Ah, you're all so brave now!" he cried. "But yesterday you agreed with me. Did any of you really think that our peace and happiness here would be preserved without bloodshed? You've all known it from the beginning—as long as Nafai was free to stir things up, there'd be mutiny and dissension among us. The only hope we have of peace is what I tried to do more than eight years ago."
(Now.)
He rose to his feet. To his surprise, he was unsteady, lightheaded. At once he "remembered" why—the cloak took energy from his own body when it had to, and the process of healing him so quickly was sucking strength from him faster than the cloak could replenish itself from the sunlight. However, he also knew that this temporary weakness would not stop him from doing all that he needed to do.
"Elemak," he said. "I've wept all the way here. It fills me with anguish, what you've tried to do. If only you'd bend enough to accept the Oversoul's plan—I would have followed you gladly if you had only done that. But all along, if s been you, your ambition to rule, that has torn us apart. If you hadn't plotted with them, led them, do you think these weak ones would ever have resisted the Oversoul? Elemak, don't you see that you've brought yourself to the edge of death? The Oversoul is acting for the good of all humanity, and it will not be stopped. Do you have to die before you'll believe that?"
"All I know is that whenever the Oversoul gets mentioned, it's you or your whiny wife or your mother the queen who's angling for control."
"None of us has sought to rule over you or anybody else," said Nafai. "Just because you live every waking moment with dreams of controlling other people doesn't mean that the rest of us do. Do you think that it's my ambition that created this paritka I'm standing on? Do you think it's Mother's plotting that holds it off the ground? Do you think it was Luet's—what did you call it, whining?— that brought me here, a day's journey in an hour?"
"It's an ancient machine, that's all," said Elemak. "An ancient machine, just like the Oversoul. Are we going to take our orders from machines?"
He looked around for support, but the blood on Nafai's throat and tunic was too fresh; no one met his gaze except Mebbekew.
"We're moving the village to the north, near Vusadka," said Nafai. "And all of us, including the older children, will work with the Oversoul's machines to restore one starship. And when it's ready, then all of us will enter the starship and rise up into space. It will take us a hundred years to reach Earth, but to most of us it will seem like a single night, because they'll sleep through the whole voyage, while to the rest of us it will seem like a few months. And when the voyage ends, we will come out of the ship and stand on the soil of Earth, the first humans to do so in forty million years. Are you telling me that you mean to deprive us all of thatadventure?"
Elemak was silent; so was Mebbekew. But Nafai knew what was passing through their minds. A grim resolve to back down now, but at the first opportunity knock him unconscious, slit his throat, and throw his body in the sea.
It would not do. They had to be convinced of the futility of resistance. They had to stop their plotting and concentrate their efforts on making the ship spaceworthy.
"Don't you see that you can't kill me, even though at this very moment, Elemak, you're imagining slitting my throat and throwing my body into the sea?"
Elemak's rage and fear redoubled within him. Nafai could feel it, striking at him in waves.
"Don't you see that already the Oversoul is healing the wounds in my throat, in my chest?"
"If they were real wounds at all!" cried Meb. Poor Meb, who still thought that Elemak's original lie might be revived.
In answer, Nafai plunged his finger into the wound in his own throat. Because the scar tissue was already forming, his finger had to tear its way in—but no one could miss the fact that Nafai's finger was into the wound nearly to the third knuckle. A couple of people gagged; the rest gasped or moaned or cried out in sympathetic pain. And, in truth, the pain was considerable—worse as he pulled his finger out than when he plunged it in. I must learn to avoid theatrical gestures like that, thought Nafai.
He held up his bloody finger. "I forgive you for this, Elemak," said Nafai. "I forgive you, Mebbekew. If I have your solemn oath to help me and the Oversoul as we build a good ship."
It was too much for Elemak. The humiliation was far worse now than it had been in the desert eight years before. It could not be contained. There was nothing in his heart but murderous rage. He cared not at all now what others thought—he knew he had already lost their good opinion anyway. He knew he had lost his wife and his children—what was left? The only thing that could heal any part of the agony he felt inside was to kill Nafai, to drag him to the sea and plunge him in until he stopped kicking and struggling. Then let the others do what they wanted—Elemak would be content, as long as Nafai was dead.
Elemak took a step toward Nafai. Then another.
"Stop him," said Luet. But no one got in his way. No one dared—the look on Elemak's face was too terrible.
Mebbekew smiled and fell in step beside Elemak.
"Don't touch me," said Nafai. "The power of the Oversoul is in me like fire. I'm weak right now, from the wounds you gave me—I may not have the strength to control the power I have. If you touch me, I think you'll die."
He spoke with such simplicity that his words had the plain force of truth. He could feel something crumble inside Elemak. Not that the rage had died; what broke in him was that part of him that could not bear to be afraid. And when that barrier was gone, all the rage turned back into what it had really been all along: fear. Fear that he would lose his place to his younger brother. Fear that people would look at him and see weakness instead of strength. Fear that people wouldn't love him. Above all, fear that he really had no control over anything or anybody in the world. And now, all those fears that he had long hidden from himself were turned loose within him—and they had all, all of them, come true. He had lost his place. He looked weak to everyone, even his children. No one here could love him now. And he had no control at all, not even enough control to kill this boy who had supplanted him.
With Elemak no longer moving forward, Meb, too, stopped—always the opportunist, he seemed to have no will of his own. But Nafai well knew that Meb was less broken in spirit than Elemak. He would go on plotting and sneaking, and with Elemak out of the picture, there would be nothing to restrain him.