the meeting was Rasa's, somehow - that the women were making some play for power and had deliberately cut him out of the process. Someday the old hag will push too hard, thought Elemak, and then she'll find out what power and strength really are - and that she doesn't have any.
This was the filter of interpretation through which Elemak received the morning's news. Chveya and Luet had dreamed... ah, yes, the women trying to assert their spiritual leadership, the waterseer and her no-doubt-well-coached daughter angling for the old dominance Luet had back in Basilica. And then Nafai, Issib, and Zdorab had searched the Index for information, and Nafai - of course, it had to be Luet's husband, the Oversoul's favorite boy - had found a secret place that none of them had visited in all their hunts. Such nonsense! Elemak had covered every kilometer of the surrounding country in his hunts and explorations - there was no hidden place.
So Nafai had taken off on a hunt for a non-existent place, and only this morning had figured out a way past all the barriers. Once a human being made it inside, the barrier came down, and now Nafai was walking among the ancient starships, while in the meantime Issib and Zdorab were able to find things through the Index that no one had guessed at before. "This is the landing place," Father explained. "We are living now at the site of the First City, the oldest human settlement on Harmony. Older than the Cities of the Stars. Older than Basilica."
"There was no city here when we came," said Obring.
"But this place," said Father. "We have brought the human race full circle. And even now, Nafai is walking where the ancient fathers and mothers of us all first set their feet upon the soil of Harmony."
Romantic bushwa, thought Elemak. Nafai could be napping in the noonday sun right now for all anybody here knows. The Index was just a way for the weaklings of their company to assert control over the strong ones.
"You know what this means, of course," said Father.
"It means," said Elemak, "that because of what people who have nothing better to do have supposedly learned from a metal ball, our lives are going to be disrupted again."
Father looked at him in surprise. "Disrupted?" he asked. "What do you think we came here for, except to prepare for a journey to Earth? The Oversoul itself was caught up in a feedback loop, that's all, and Nyef finally broke through and set it free. The disruption is over now, Elya."
"Don't pretend that you don't know what I mean," said Elemak. "We have plenty here. A good life. In many ways a better life than we would have had in Basilica, hard as that is for Obring to believe. We have families now - wives and children - and our lives are good. We work hard, but we're happy, and there's room for our children and our children's children here for a thousand years and more. We have no enemies, we have no dangers beyond the normal mishaps of being alive. And you're telling me that this is the disruption, while wasting our time trying to get into space is our normal course? Please, don't insult our intelligence."
Elemak could sense easily enough who was with him in this. As he painted the true picture of what this all would mean, he could see Meb and Vas and Obring nodding grimly, and their wives would go along easily enough. Furthermore, he could see that he had put some doubt in the minds of some of the others. Zdorab and Shedemei especially had thoughtful expressions, and even Luet had glanced around at her children when Elemak spoke of how good their lives were, how they faced no danger, how they could have a good future here in Dostatok.
"I don't know what Nafai found, or if he found anything at all," Elemak went on. "I honestly don't care. Nyef is a good hunter and a bright fellow, but he's hardly suited to lead us into some hideous danger using forty-million-year-old star-ships. My family and I are not going to let my little brother make us waste our time in the foolish pursuit of an impossible project. Nyef s murder of Gaballufix forced us all to leave Basilica as fugitives - but I've forgiven him for that. I certainly won't forgive him if he disrupts our lives again."