Earthfall Page 0,60

thought did not come as a relief. Despite all his words of desperation to the Over-soul, he did not really want to die. But he would do it, he would submit to it, if that's what would bring peace.

To his surprise, Elemak knelt down at his feet and began fumbling with the knots at his ankles. Mebbekew joined him, working on the knots at his wrists.

His skin was sore there, and their working chafed him painfully. After his beating, after the Oversoul had caused the cloak to heal him, Nafai had resumed letting the sores at his ankles and wrists go unhealed. Now it made the moment of release almost excruciating.

"We've taken an oath," Elemak said quietly. "The oath Father administered to everyone else on the ship. He is the sole ruler of the colony. No one else is his second in command or his chief adviser or any other such fiction that disguises power. He will rule. I've taken the oath, and so have Meb and Obring. And my son Protchnu. As long as Volemak lives, we obey him and no other."

"That's a good oath," said Nafai softly. He did not add: If only you had taken it earlier and lived by it, as I did from my childhood on. It would have spared us a lot of trouble.

"You go straight from here and take the oath as well," said Meb.

The cords at his neck, the cords that had pulled his body in a backward arch, suddenly released. Pain shot up and down his back. He moaned.

"Stop the histrionics," said Meb contemptuously, "We know you could heal this in a moment if you wanted to."

His feet and hands were numb; they felt like heavy clubs, sluggish, not obeying what he told them to do. As he rolled onto his stomach, his back ached and he could hardly pull himself up onto his knees. Bracing himself on the wall, he finally stood on unsteady legs. "Where's Father?" asked Nafai. "I must go and take the oath."

"Oykib and Chveya haven't taken it yet, either," said Obring.

"Go get them, then," Elemak answered scornfully. "Are you still waiting for me to command you? I'm not in charge here anymore."

"And neither am I," said Nafai.

But he was. Already the cloak was giving him whatever information he wanted. "There is enough oxygen in the working reserve to bring us up near normal for two hours. That will be enough time to oxygenate everyone's blood and for all of us to enter suspended animation. Then the ship can replenish itself before anybody else wakes up."

Elemak laughed nastily. "What, aren't you going to promise us to stay asleep till we reach Earth?"

"I'm going to resume the school where we left off," said Nafai. "If Father says I should."

"I have no doubt that he'll say whatever you want him to say."

"Then you don't know him or me at all. Because Father will say whatever the Oversoul wants him to say, and nothing else."

"Oh, let's not argue, Nafai," said Elemak, with exaggerated cheeriness. "We must be friends now."

Nafai walked in silence, leaning against the corridor walls as he needed to, grateful for the low gravity. "Is this really what you want for Protchnu, Elemak? To feed him this steady diet of hate?"

"Hate is the richest of foods," said Elemak. "It makes you strong, it fills you with power. And I have a banquet of it to give my children."

"Let there be peace between your children and mine, Elya," said Nafai.

"Between your big, tall children and my little tiny ones?" asked Elemak. "Of course there'll be peace, the way there's peace between the lion and the fly."

They reached the door of Volemak's and Rasa's room just as Obring returned with Oykib and Chveya. Wordlessly Chveya embraced her father, and he leaned on her as they went into the room.

Nafai knell and took the oath, holding his father's hand as he did it. Chveya and Oykib followed him.

Feebly, Volemak spoke from the bed. "Then it's done. All have taken the oath. Give us the oxygen now, and let us return to sleep."

In only a few seconds, they began to feel the difference, all of them. The breaths they were taking were deep enough, and in a few moments their panting, their gasping, began to cause them to feel drunk on oxygen, feint with air. Then their bodies adjusted, their breathing went back to normal, and it was as if nothing had ever been wrong. Mothers wept over their babies, now breathing