"But I think the Keeper knows. I think it has a plan."
"And why is that?"
"Because people keep getting dreams that aren't from the Oversoul."
"People have always had dreams that aren't from the Oversoul," said Rasa. "We had dreams long before there was an Oversoul."
"Yes, but we didn't have the same dreams, carrying clear messages about coming home to Earth, did we?"
"I just don't believe that some computer or whatever that's many light-years from here could possibly send a dream into our minds."
"Who knows what's happened back on Earth?" said Issib. "Maybe the Keeper of Earth has learned things about the universe that we don't begin to understand. That wouldn't be a surprise, either, since we've had the Oversoul making us stupid whenever we tried to think about really advanced physics. For forty million years we've been slapped down whenever we used our brains too well, but in forty million years the Keeper of Earth, whoever or whatever it is, might well have thought of some really useful new stuff. Including how to send dreams to people lighters away."
"And all this you learned from the Index."
"All this I dragged kicking and screaming from the Index, with Zdorab's and Father's help," said Issib. "The Oversoul doesn't like talking about itself, and it keeps trying to make us forget what we've learned about it."
"I thought the Oversoul was cooperating with us."
"No," said Issib. "We're cooperating with it. In the meantime, it's trying to keep us from learning even the tiniest bit of information that isn't directly pertinent to the tasks it has in mind for us."
"So how did you learn all that you just told me? About how the Oversoul's memory works?"
"Either we got around its defenses so well and so persistently that it finally gave up on trying to prevent us from knowing it, or it decided that this was harmless information after all."
"Or," said Rasa.
"Or?"
"Or the information is wrong and so it doesn't matter whether you know it or not."
Issib grinned at her. "But the Oversoul wouldn't lie, would it, Mother?"
Which brought back a conversation they had had when Issib was a child, asking about the Oversoul. What had the question been? Ah, yes - why do men call the Oversoul he and women call the Oversoul she? And Rasa had answered that the Oversoul permitted men to think of her as if she were male, so they'd be more comfortable praying to her. And Issib had asked that same question: But the Oversoul wouldn't lie, would it, Mother?
As Rasa recalled it, she hadn't done very well answering that question the first time, and she wasn't about to embarrass herself by trying to answer it again now. "I interrupted your work, coming here like this," said Rasa.
"Not at all," said Issib. "Father said to explain anything you asked about."
"He knew I'd come here?"
"He said it was important that you understand our work with the Index."
"What is your work with the Index?"
"Trying to get it to tell us what we want to know instead of just what the Oversoul wants us to know."
"Are you getting anywhere?"
"Either yes or no."
"What do you mean?"
"We're finding out a lot of things, but whether that's just because the Oversoul wants us to know them or not is a moot point. Our experience is that the Index does different things for different people."
"Depending on what?"
"That's what we haven't figured out yet," said Issib. "I have days when the Index practically sings to me - it's like it lives inside my head, answering my questions before I even think of them. And then there are days when I think the Oversoul is trying to torture me, leading me on wild goose chases."
"Chasing after what?"
"The whole history of Harmony is wide open to me. I can give you the name of every person who ever came to this stream and drank from it. But I can't find out where the Oversoul is leading us, or how we're going to get to Earth, or even where the original human settlers of Harmony first landed, or where the central mind of the Oversoul is located."
"So she's keeping secrets from you," said Rasa.
"I think it can't tell us," said Issib. "I think it would like to tell, but it can't. A protective system built into it from the start, I assume, to prevent anybody from taking control of the Over-soul and using it to rule the world."
"So we have to follow it blindly, not even knowing where it's leading us?"