Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,49

out why. And you, Kemal, you're doing nothing productive at all, are you? Your great days are behind you, and now you're reduced to going about telling other people that their dreams are not worth accomplishing."

For a moment it seemed that Kemal might strike her, so cruel was her assessment of him. But he did not raise his hand, and after a long moment he turned and left the room.

"Is he right, Mother?" asked Diko.

"More to the point," said Hassan, "will he make trouble for us?"

"I think he'll head the project of finding out what would have happened," said Tagiri. "I think the problem will take hold of him and won't let go and he'll end up working with us."

"Oh good," murmured someone dryly, and they all laughed.

"Kemal as an enemy is formidable, but Kemal as a friend is irreplaceable," said Tagiri. "He found Atlantis, didn't he, when no one believed it even needed to be discovered? He found the great flood. He found Yewesweder. And if anyone can, he'll find what history would have been, or at least a plausible scenario. And we'll be glad to be working with him." She grinned. "We mad people, we're stubborn and unreasonable and impossible to deal with, but there is a certain breed of willing victim that chooses to work with us anyway."

The others laughed, but few of them thought that Kemal was anything like their beloved Tagiri.

"And I think we've all missed one of the biggest points of all in Diko's great discovery. Yes, Diko, great." Tagiri looked around at them. "Can't you see what it is?"

"Of course," said Hassan. "Seeing that little performance by actors pretending to be the Trinity lets us know one fact beyond doubting: We can reach back into the past. If they can send a vision, a deliberately controlled vision, then so can we."

"And maybe," said Tagiri, "maybe we can do better."
Chapter 6 Evidence
According to the Popul Vuh, the holy book of the Mayan people, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane gave birth to two sons, named One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu. One Hunahpu grew to be a man, and he married, and his wife, Xbaquiyalo, gave birth to two sons, One Monkey and One Artisan. Seven Hunahpu never grew up; before he could become a man he and his brother were sacrificed at the ball court when they lost to One and Seven Death. Then One Hunahpu's head was put in the crotch of a calabash tree, which had never before borne fruit. And when it did bear, the fruit looked like a head, and One Hunahpu's head came to look like the fruit, so they were the same.

Then a young virgin named Blood Woman came to the ball court of sacrifice to see the tree, and there she spoke to the head of One Hunahpu, and the head of One Hunahpu spoke to her. When she touched the bone of his head, his spittle came out onto her hand, and soon she conceived a child. Seven Hunahpu consented to this, and so he was also the father of what filled her belly.

Blood Woman refused to tell her father how the child came to be in her womb, since it was forbidden to go to the calabash tree where One Hunahpu's head had been perched. Disgusted that she had conceived a bastard, her father sent her away to be sacrificed. But to save her life, she told the Military Keepers of the Mat, who were sent to kill her, that the child in her came from One Hunahpu's head. Then they didn't want to kill her, but they had to bring her heart back to show her father, Blood Gatherer. So Blood Woman fooled her father by filling a bowl with the red sap of the croton tree, which congealed to look like a bloody heart. All the gods of Xibalba were fooled by her false heart.

Blood Woman went to the house of One Hunahpu's widow, Xbaquiyalo, to bear her child. When the child was born, it was two children, two sons, whom she named Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Xbaquiyalo didn't like the noise the babies made, and she had them thrown out of the house. Her sons, One Monkey and One Artisan, had no wish for new brothers, so they put them out on an anthill. When the babies didn't die there, the older brothers put them in brambles, but still they thrived. The hatred between the older brothers and the younger brothers continued through all the years