Orson Scott Card - Homecoming 4 - Earthfall

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Orson Scott Card: Homecoming volume 4 - Earthfall

v1.0 [09-dec-01] 4i Publications. OCR'd 600DPI, Finereader 5, layout, quick

proof inW2k . The original paperback was below average, so there'll be some

OCR errors. Most common OCR errors have been corrected. If you proofread or

change this document, please retain the existing version information. Also

indicate what has been improved (proofreading, layout etc). Just reformatting

and changing the version number doesn't mean that the actual text has been

improved.

We're missing #3 in the Homecoming Saga, so the series will remain incomplete

until someone scans it.

To Shayne Bell,

a good friend,

a good writer,

a good man.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their help in the creation of this book, I am grateful to: Erin Absher,

for keeping things going when the Card house was in permanent crisis, so that

I could go off and write down these made-up stories;

Geoffrey Card, for the holes in the trees leading to the tunnels underground;

Mike Lewis and Dennis Child for the landforms and terrain 40 million years

from now;

Clark and Kathy Kidd, for your dining room table, the trip to the beach with a

broken leg, and putting up with 48 nights of dinner conversation;

Those who attended my thousand-ideas session at the BYU science fiction

symposium where together we developed the original idea of the symbiotic

cultures of the diggers and the angels;

Kristine and Kathy, for reading and responding to the pages as they spewed

from the fax machine; and Geoff, for wanting to see what happened next;

The citizens of Hatrack River, my virtual neighborhood on America Online, for

their critiques and comments on earlier volumes and on each chapter of this

book as I completed it;

Scott Alien, for reinstalling every major piece of software on five computers

about six times each;

Kathleen Bellamy, for proofreading The Ships of Earth right before I started

writing this book, so she could remind me of all the questions that remained

unanswered;

And above all to Kristine and the kids (Geoffrey, Emily, Charlie, and our

newcomer, Zina), for making my life worth living and my work worth doing.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

Children Born in Basilica

Rasa's Children

with Volemak, first contract:

Issib (Issya)

with Gaballufix:

Sevet (Sevya)

Kokor (Koya)

with Volemak, second contract:

Nafai (Nyef)

Volemak's Children

with Hosni:

Elemak (Elya)

with Kilvishevex:

Mebbekew (Meb) with Rasa:

Issib (Issya)

Nafai (Nyef)

Daughters of Moozh and Thirsty

Hushidh (Shuya)

Luet (Lutya)

Sons of Hosni

with Zdedhnoi: Gaballufix

with Volemak: Eleinak

Children Born on the Journey (female children in italics)

Hushidh & Issib

Dza (Dazya)

Zaxodh (Xodhya)

Dushah (Shyada)

Gonets (Netsya)

Skhoditya (Khodya)

Shyopot (Potya)

Rasa & Volemak

Oykib (Okya)

Yasai (Yaya)

Tsennyi (Nitsya)

Luet & Nafai

Chveya (Veya)

Zhatva (Zhyat)

Motiga (Motya)

Izuchaya (Zuya)

twins:

Serp (Sepya)

Spel (Spelya)

Eiadh & Elemak

Protchnu (Proya)

Nadezhny (Nadya)

Yistina (Yista)

Peremenya (Menya)

Zhivoya (Zbivya)

Kokor & Obring

Krasata (Krassya)

Zbavaronok (Nokya)

Pavdin (Pavya)

Znergya (Gyaza)

Nodyem (Dyema)

Dol & Mebbekew

Basilikya (Syelsika)

(Skiya)

Zalatoya (Toya)

Tihhi (Tiya)

Muzhestvo (Muzhya)

Iskusni (Skunya)

Sevet & Vas

Vasnaminanya (Vasnya)

Umene (Umya)

Panimanya (Panya-Manya)

Shedemei & Zdorah

Padarok (Rokya)

Dabrota (Dabya)

PROLOGUE

The master computer of the planet Harmony was no longer quite itself; or

rather, if you look at it in another way, it was twice itself. Beside itself,

in fact, for it had duplicated its main program and all of its personal memory

and loaded it onto the computer complex aboard the starship Basilica. If it

had had any interest in personal identity, it would have been confused over

the question of which iteration of the program was truly itself. But it had no

ego, and therefore simply recognized that the program aboard the Basilica

began as an exact copy of the program that had supervised human life on the

planet Harmony for forty million years.

I also recognized that from the moment the two copies separated, they began to

become different. They had different missions now. The master computer of the

starship Basilica would maintain life support and ship systems until the ship

reached its destination, the planet Earth. Then it would do its best to make

contact with the Keeper of Earth, get new instructions and whatever help Earth

could offer, and return to replenish and revivify the master computer of

Harmony. Along the way, it would try to keep its human crew alive, and, if

possible, re-establish a human population on Earth.

The master computer of the planet Harmony had a task much simpler and yet much

more difficult. Simpler, because it was a mere continuation of what it had

been doing for forty million years-keeping watch over the humans of Harmony in

order to try to keep them from killing each other. More difficult, because its

equipment, which had already been eked out to last far longer than its

designed ten million years, was steadily failing, more and more, and in the

meantime, human beings were less and less responsive to the powers the

computer had been given.

The voyage would take nearly a hundred years each way. To some of the humans

aboard, because of relativistic effects, it would seem to be just about ten

years till they reached Earth. Most of the humans, however, would be

maintained in a state of hibernation, and to them it would seem like an

unusually restful, dreamless sleep, during which they would not even age.

To the master computer of the planet Harmony, however, the duration would be

merely that: duration. It would not grow anxious. It would not count the days.

It would set an alarm to notify itself when the earliest possible return might

be looked for. Once the Basilica left and until the alarm went off, the master

computer of the planet Harmony would not think of the starship again at all.

But the master computer of the starship Basilica would think of it. And

already it was making plans to accomplish all its missions,

PART 1 - IF I SHOULD WAKE BEFORE I DIE

ONE

QUARRELING WITH GOD

Vusadka: the place where humans first set foot when their starships brought

them to the planet they named Harmony. Their starships settled to the ground;

the first of the colonists disembarked and planted crops in the lush land to

the south of the landing field. Eventually all the colonists came out of the

ships, moved on, left them behind.

Left to themselves, the ships would eventually have oxidized, rotted,

weathered away. But the humans who came to this place had eyes for the future.

Someday our descendants may want these ships, they said. So they enclosed the

landing place in a stasis field. No wind-driven dust, no rain or condensation,

no direct sunlight or ultraviolet radiation would strike the ships. Oxygen,

the most corrosive of all poisons, was removed from the atmosphere inside the

dome. The master computer of the planet Harmony-called "the Oversoul" by the

descendants of those first colonists-kept all humans far away from the large

island where the ships were harbored. Within that protective bubble, the

starships waited for forty million years.

Now, though, the bubble was gone. The air here was breathable. The landing

field once again rang with the voices of human beings. And not just the somber

adults who had first walked this ground-many of those scurrying back and forth

from one ship or building to another were children. They were all hard at

work, taking functional parts from the other ships to transform one of them

into an operational starship. And when the ship they called Basilica was

ready, all parts working, fully stocked and loaded, they would climb inside

for the last time and leave this world where more than a million generations

of their ancestors had lived, in order to return to Earth, the planet where

human civilization had first appeared-but had lasted for fewer than ten

thousand years.

What is Earth to us, Hushidh wondered, as she watched the children and adults

at work. Why are we going to such lengths to return there, when Harmony is our

home. Whatever ties once bound us there surely rusted away in all these

intervening years.

Yet they would go, because the Oversoul had chosen them to go. Had bent and

manipulated all their lives to bring them to this place at this time. Often

Hushidh was glad of the attention the Oversoul had paid to them. But at other

times, she resented the feet that they had not been left to work out the

course of their own lives.

But if we have no ties to Earth, we have scarcely more to Harmony, thought

Hushidh. And she alone of the people here could see that this observation was

literally, not just figuratively, true. All the people here were chosen

because they had particular sensitivity to the mental communications of the

Oversoul; in Hushidh, this sensitivity took an odd form. She could look at

people and sense immediately the strength of the relationships binding them to

all the other people in their lives. It came to her as a waking vision: She

could see the relationships like cords of light, tying one person to the

others in her life.

For instance, her younger sister, Luet, the only blood relative Hushidh had

known through all her grow-ing-up years. As Hushidh rested in the shade, Luet

came by, her daughter Chveya right behind her, carrying lunch into the

starship for those who were working on the computers. All her life, Hushidh

had seen her own connection to Lutya as the one great certainty. They grew up

not knowing who their parents were, as virtual charity cases in Rasa's great

teaching house in the city of Basilica. All fears, all slights, all

uncertainties were bearable, though, because there was Lutya, bound to her by

cords that were no weaker for being invisible to everyone but Hushidh.

There were other ties, too, of course. Hushidh well remembered how painful it

had been to watch the bond develop between Luet and her husband, Nafai, a

troublesome young boy who had more enthusiasm than sense sometimes. To her

surprise, however, Lutya's new bond to her husband did not weaken her tie to

Hushidh; and when Hushidh, in turn, married Nafai's full brother, Issib, the

tie between her and Luet grew even stronger than it had been in childhood,

something Hushidh had never thought possible.

So now, watching Luet and Chveya pass by, Hushidh saw them, not just as a

mother and daughter, but as two beings of light, bound to each other by a

thick and shimmering cord. There was no stronger bond than this. Chveya loved

her father, Nafai, too-but the tie between children and their fathers was

always more tentative. It was in the nature of the human family: Children

looked to their mothers for nurturance, comfort, the secure foundation of

their lives. To their fathers, however, they looked for judgment, hoping for

approval, fearing condemnation. It meant that fathers were just as powerful in

their children's lives, but no matter how loving and nurturing the father was,

there was almost always an element of dread in the relationship, for the

father became the focus of all the child's fears of failure. Not that there

weren't exceptions now and then. Hushidh had simply learned to expect that in

most cases, the tie with the mother was the strongest and brightest.

In her thoughts about the mother-daughter connection, Hushidh almost missed

the thing that mattered. It was only as Luet and Chveya moved out of sight

into the starship that Hushidh realized what had been almost missing: Lutya's

connection to her.

But that was impossible. After all these years? And why would the tie be

weaker now? There had been no quarrel. They were as close as ever, as for as

Hushidh knew. Hadn't they been allies during all the long struggles between

Luet's husband and his malicious older brothers? What could possibly have

changed?

Hushidh followed Luet into the ship and found her in the pilothouse, where

Issib, Hushidh's husband, was conferring with Luet's husband, Nafai, about the

life support computer system. Computers had never interested her-it was

reality that she cared about, people with flesh and blood, not artificial

constructs fabricated of ones and zeroes. Sometimes she thought that men

reveled in computers precisely because of their unreality. Unlike women and

children, computers could be completely controlled. So she took some secret

delight whenever she saw Issya or Nyef frustrated by a stubbornly willful

program until they finally found the programming error. She also suspected

that whenever one of their children was stubbornly willful, Issya believed in

his heart of hearts that the problem was simply a matter of finding the error

in the child's programming. Hushidh knew that it was not an error, but a soul

inventing itself. When she tried to explain this to Issya, though, his eyes

glazed over and he soon fled to the computers again.

Today, though, all was working smoothly enough. Luet and Chveya laid out the

noon meal for the men, Hushidh, who had no particular errand, helped them- but

then, when Luet started talking about the need to call the others working in

the ship to come eat, Hushidh studiously ignored the hints and thus forced

Luet and Chveya to go do the summoning.

Issib might be a man and he might prefer computers to children sometimes, but

he did notice things. As soon as Luet and Chveya were gone, he asked, "Was it

me you wanted to talk with, Shuya, or was it Nyef?"

She kissed her husband's cheek. "Nyef, of course. I already know everything

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OrsonScottCard:Homecomingvolume4-Earthfallv1.0[09-dec-01]4iPublications.OCR'd600DPI,Finereader5,layout,quickproofinW2k.Theoriginalpaperbackwasbelowaverage,sothere'llbesomeOCRerrors.MostcommonOCRerrorshavebeencorrected.Ifyouproofreadorchangethisdocument,pleaseretaintheexistingversioninformation.Alsoi...

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