their marriage. It was a generous thing to do, on this night of all nights, when it must have seemed to him that his worst fears about Hushidh were true, what with her plunging into their bridal chamber sobbing her eyes out in the middle of the night! If he was willing to try so hard, could she do any less than accept the relationship he wanted to create? She was a raveler, after all. She knew about binding people together, and was glad to help him tie this knot.
So she came back and they sat together on the bed, making a triangle with their crossed legs, knee to knee, as she told her dreams, from beginning to end. She spared herself nothing, confessing her own resentments at the beginning so that they could understand how glad she was for the Oversoul's assurances.
Twice they interrupted her with their astonishment. The first time was when she told of seeing Moozh, and how the Oversoul was ruling him through his very rejection of her. Nafai laughed in wonderment. "Moozh himself-the bloody-handed general of the Gorayni, running away from the Oversoul into the very path the Oversoul laid out for him. Who could have guessed it!"
The second time was when Hushidh told of the winged beasts that caught her and Issib as they fell. "Angels!" cried Luet.
At once Hushidh remembered the dream that Luet had told her days before. "Of course," Hushidh said. "That's why they came into my dream-because I remembered your telling me about those angels and the giant rats."
"Don't reach conclusions now," said Luet. "Tell us the rest of the dream."
So she did, and when it was done, they sat in silence, thinking for a while.
"The first dream, of you and Issib, I think that was from yourself," said Luet at last.
"I think so, too," said Hushidh, "and now that I remember your telling me that dream of hairy angels..."
"Quiet," said Luet. "Don't get ahead of the dream. After that first vision that came from your fears about marrying Issib, you begged the Oversoul to tell you her purpose, and she showed you that wonderful dream of the gold and silver cords binding people together-"
"Breeding us like cattle," said Nafai.
"Don't be irreverent," said Luet.
"Don't be too reverent," said Nafai. "I sincerely doubt that the Oversoul's original programming told it to start a breeding program among the humans of Harmony."
"I know that you're right," said Luet, "that the Oversoul is a computer established at the dawn of our world to watch over human beings and keep us from destroying ourselves, but still in my heart I feel the Oversoul as a woman, as the Mother of the Lake."
"Woman or machine, it's developed purposes of its own, and I'm not comfortable with this one," said Nafai. "Bringing us together to make a journey to Earth, I accept that, I'm glad of it-it's a glorious undertaking. But this breeding thing. My mother and father, coupling like a ewe and a ram brought together to keep the bloodlines pure..."
"They still love each other," said Luet.
He reached out a hand to her and cupped her fingers gently in his. "Lutya, they rf o , as we will love each other. But what we've done, we've done willingly, knowing the Oversoul's purpose and consenting to it, or so we thought. What other plots and plans does the Oversoul have in mind for us, which we'll only discover later?"
"The Oversoul told me this because I asked," said Hushidh. "If she is a computer, as you say-and I believe you, I really do-then perhaps she simply can't tell us what we haven't yet asked to know."
"Then we must ask. We must know exactly what she-what he- what it is planning," said Nafai.
Luet smiled at his confusion but did not laugh. Hushidh was not his loyal wife; she could not suppress a small hoot.
"However we think of the Oversoul," Nafai said patiently, "we have to ask. What it means for Moozh to be here, for instance. Are we supposed to try to bring him out into the desert, too? Is that why the Oversoul brought him here? And these strange creatures, these angels and rats-what do they mean? The Oversoul has to tell us."
"I still think the rats and angels came because Lutya dreamed them and told me about them and there they were, ready to give a face to my fears," said Hushidh.
"But why did they come into Lutya's dream?" asked Nafai. "She didn't fear them."
"And the rats