Earthfall Page 0,135

bad in itself. It's just that religions have a way of losing track of the truth at the core. The diggers had a religion that kept them rubbing themselves with clay that contained the chemical derived from flatworm eggshells and angel spit-but they had no idea why they were doing it, and so they were enslaved by it. All we'll be doing, then, is teaching our children and their children arbitrary rules. The true reasons will be lost, or converted into myths."

"What can we do about it?" asked Oykib.

"We can write a book," said Nafai.

"You mean like the one you're already writing?" he asked.

Nafai glared at him. "I should have known I couldn't keep a secret from you."

"Yes, you should have," said Oykib. "Especially since you talked to the Oversold about it almost constantly for weeks when you first thought of it. I figured you'd tell me about it when you felt like it."

"Well, I feel like it," said Nafai. "Because I think our descendants aren't going to have access to the ship's computer. The skill of reading and writing will be lost to most of them. But a few of them will be taught to read and write in order to keep a record of what we've learned. We'll write it down as clearly as we can, a true history of our voyage and everything we've learned and done. We'll pass it along from parent to child, and because it's written down it can't be distorted."

"People can distort anything," said Oykib.

"But as long as the original text is there, the next generation or the one after, somewhere along the line, they can go back to the original and discover the truth. The way we learned so much from the Book of Sins"

"Well, fine," said Oykib. "You're already keeping a record."

"I'm keeping one record. But I think we need to keep another. The first one has everything in it, all the details, everything I can remember. But I had a dream last night... ."

"Ah, another dream."

"I know you'd like to have these dreams yourself, Oykib, but-"

"I don't need to have my own dreams," Oykib said. "Not when I have yours. You dreamed of writing a book that you would give to me and Chveya instead of to Zhyat and Netsya."

"A book," said Nafai, "that includes everything from the Book of Sins, written on gold so we don't need a computer to read it and so it won't corrode. We can seal up that part, so no one adds to or changes it. But the rest of the book will be a record, not of the whole history of our people, but just the story of our dealings with the Ovcrsoul and the Keeper of Earth. Just the... ."

"Just the theology," said Oykib.

"To the diggers and angels it will seem like theology," said Nafai.

"And to our children and grandchildren, too," said Oykib. "They won't have lived in the starship. They won't have used the great library. They'll have no idea of what a computer is."

Nafai nodded. "So you've come to the same conclusion."

"No, I've simply seen you and Luet and Chveya all having the same dream. The ship has got to go. We have to cut ourselves off from the machinery of the past and live in the technology of the present. The ship has to go up into orbit."

"We don't have the technology anymore to hide it on the planet's surface, the way our ancestors hid it on Harmony," said Nafai.

"I'll help you with your second book," said Oykib. "You write whatever you want to ki order to start it off. You have to tell the parts where I wasn't born yet anyway. I'll take over when you tell me to. But in the meantime, I can be copying out the Book of Sins"

"The Book of Sins, yes," said Nafai, "And maybe also you should start a record of the dreams the Keeper sent us. Especially the ones that don't seem yet to be completely fulfilled. It's the only guide we have to what the Keeper might have planned for us."

"The Book of Sins and the Book of Dreams" said Oykib. "I'll get those started. And you write the Book of Nafai."

"And in the meantime," said Nafai, "I'm going to start figuring out some kind of weapon that the angels can use in flight, something that can kill a digger despite the diggers' enormously greater strength."

Oykib nodded. "So you think your dreams of war between diggers and angels, you think