and have somebody watching. But he was her husband. He was part of this, and she couldn't send him away. Didn't even want to send him away.
At last she was through puking.
"Not too effective," said Nafai, "if we judge these things by quantity."
"Please shut up," said Luet. "I don't want to be cheered up, I want my baby to be a ten-year-old child already so that I remember all of this as an amusing event from my childhood long ago."
"Your wish is granted," said Nafai. "The baby is here and aged ten. Of course, she's incredibly obnoxious and bratty, the way you were at ten."
"I wasn't."
"You were the waterseer already, and we all knew you bossed and sassed grownups all the time."
"I told them what I saw, that's all!" Then she realized that he was laughing. "Don't tease me, Nafai. I know I'd be sorry later, but I still may lose control and kill you now."
He gathered her into his arms and she had to twist away to keep him from kissing her. "Don't!" she said. "I've got the most awful taste in my mouth, it would probably kill you!"
So he held her and after a while she felt better.
"I think about Keeper of Earth all the time," said Nafai.
I would, too, if I weren't thinking about the baby, Luet said silently.
"I keep thinking that maybe it isn't just another computer," said Nafai. "That maybe it isn't calling us through hundred-year-old dreams, that maybe it knows us, and that it's just waiting for ... for something before it speaks to me."
"It's waiting for the message that only you can receive."
"I don't care," said Nafai. "About it being only me. I'd take Father's dream, if only I could experience what it feels like inside my head. How the Keeper is different from what the Oversoul does inside me. I want to know."
I know you do. You keep coming back to it, day after day.
"I've been trying to talk to the Keeper of Earth. That's how crazy I'm getting, Luet. Show me what you showed Father! I say it over and over."
"And she ignores you."
"It's a hundred light-years away!" said Nafai. "It doesn't know I exist!"
"Well if all you want is the same dream as Volemak, why not get the Oversoul to give it to you?"
"It isn't from the Oversoul."
"But she must have recorded the whole experience inside your father's mind, right? And she can retrieve it, and show it to you. And the way you get everything so much more clearly through the Index - "
"Just like experiencing it myself," said Nafai. "I can't believe I never thought of that. I can't believe the Oversoul never thought of that."
"She's not very creative, you know that."
"She's creatively inert," said Nafai. "But you're not." He kissed her on the cheek, gave her one last hug, and bounded to his feet. "I have to go talk to the Oversoul."
"Give her my love," said Luet mildly.
"I - oh, I see. I can wait - let's walk back together."
"No, really - I wasn't hinting. I want to stay here a while longer. Maybe just to see if they let Yobar back."
"Don't miss supper," said Nafai. "You're eating for - "
"Two," said Luet.
"Maybe three!" said Nafai. "Who knows?"
She groaned theatrically, knowing that was what he wanted to hear. Then he ran off, back up the valley toward the camp.
He really is just a boy, as Aunt Rasa said. But what am I? His mother now? Not really - she'shis mother. I shouldn't expect more of him - he works hard and well, and more than half the meat we eat is from his hunting. And he's kind and gentle with me - I don't know how Issib could be any sweeter and more tender than Nafai, no matter what Shuya says. And I'm his friend - he comes to me to talk about things that he says to no one else, and when I want to talk he listens and answers, unlike some of the other husbands, or so their wives say. By any standard I ever heard of, he's a fine husband, and mature beyond his years - but it isn't what I thought it was going to be. When I took him through the Lake of Women, I thought it meant that he and I were going to do great and majestic things together. I thought we would be like a king and a queen, or at least like a great priestess