The Memory of Earth (7 page)

“Definitely. This isn’t a habit of mine, to see visions as I’m walking along the road at night.”

“So you aren’t used to recognizing the meanings that come along with a vision.”

“I suppose not.”

“Yet you
were
receiving messages.”

“Was I?”

“Before you saw the flame, you knew that you were supposed to turn away from the road.”

“Yes, well,
that.”

“What do you think the voice of the Oversoul sounds like? Do you think she speaks Basyat or puts up signposts?”

Luet sounded vaguely scornful—an outrageous tone of voice for her to adopt with a man of Wetchik’s status in the city. Yet he seemed to take no offense, accepting her rebuke as if she had a right to chastise him.

“The Oversoul puts the knowledge pure into our minds, unmixed with any human language,” she said. “We are always given more than we can possibly comprehend, and we can comprehend far more than we’re able to put into words.”

Luet had a voice of such simple power. Not like the chanting sound that the witches and prophets of the inner market used when they were trying to attract business. She spoke as if she knew, as if there was no possibility of doubt.

“Let me ask you, then, sir. When you saw the city on fire, how did you know it was Basilica?”

“I’ve seen it a thousand times, from just that angle, coming in from the desert.”

“But did you see the shape of the city and recognize it from that, or did you know first that it was Basilica on fire, and then your mind called forth the picture of the city that was already in your memory?”

“I don’t know—how can I know that?”

“Think back. Was the knowledge there before the vision, or was the vision first?”

Instead of telling the girl to go away, Father closed his eyes and tried to remember.

“When you put it that way, I think—I knew it before I actually looked in that direction. I don’t think I actually saw it until I was lunging toward it. I saw the
flame
, but not the burning city inside it. And now that you ask, I also knew that Rasa and my children were in terrible danger. I knew that first of all, as I was rounding the rock—that was part of the sense of urgency. I knew that if I left the trail and came to that exact spot, I’d be able to save them from the danger. It was only then that it came to mind what the danger was, and then last of all that I saw the flame and the city inside it.”

“This is a true vision,” said Luet.

Just from that? She knew just from the order of things? She probably would have said the same thing no matter
what
Father remembered. And maybe Father was only remembering it that way because Luet had suggested it that way. This was making Nafai furious, for Father to be nodding in acceptance when this twelve-year-old girl condescendingly treated him like an apprentice in a profession in which she was a widely respected master.

“But it wasn’t true,” said Father. “When I got here, there
was
no danger.”

“No, I didn’t think so,” said Luet. “Back when you first
felt that your mate and your children were in danger, what did you expect to
do
about it?”

“I was going to save them, of course.”

“Specifically
how
?”

Again he closed his eyes. “Not to pull them from a burning building. That never occurred to me until later, as I was walking the rest of the way into the city. At the moment I wanted to shout out that the city was burning, that we had to—”

“What?”

“I was going to say, we had to get out of the city. But that wasn’t what I wanted to say at first. When it started, I felt like I had to come to the city and tell everybody that there was a fire coming.”

“And they had to get out?”

“I guess,” said Father. “Of course, what else?”

Luet said nothing, but her gaze never left his face.

“No,” Father said. “No, that
wasn’t
it.” Father sounded surprised. “I wasn’t going to warn them to get out.”

Luet leaned forward, looking somehow more intense, not so—analytical. “Sir, just a moment ago, when you were saying that you had wanted to warn them to get out of the city—”

“But that
wasn’t
what I was going to do.”

“But when you thought for a moment that—when you
assumed
that you were going to tell them to get out of the city—what did that feel like? When you told us that, why did you know that it was wrong?”

“I don’t know. It just felt . . .
wrong
.”

“This is very important,” said Luet. “How does feeling wrong
feel
?”

Again he closed his eyes. “I’m not used to thinking about how I think. And now I’m trying to remember how it felt when I thought I remembered something that I didn’t actually remember—”

“Don’t talk,” said Luet.

He fell silent.

Nafai wanted to yell at somebody. What were they doing, listening to this ugly stupid little girl, letting her tell Father—the Wetchik himself, in case nobody remembered—to keep his mouth shut!

But everybody else was so intense that Nafai kept his own mouth shut. Issib would be so proud of him for actually refraining from saying something that he had thought of.

“What I felt,” said Father, “was
nothing
.” He nodded slowly. “Right after you asked the question and I answered it—. Of course, what else—then you sat there looking at me and I had nothing in my head at all.”

“Stupid,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. To Nafai’s relief, he was finally noticing how disrespectfully Luet was speaking to him.

“You felt stupid,” she said. “And so you knew that what you’d just said was wrong.”

He nodded. “Yes, I guess that’s it.”

“What’s all this about?” said Issib. “Analyzing your analysis of analyses of a completely subjective hallucination?”

Good work, Issya, said Nafai silently. You took the words right out of my mouth.

“I mean, you can play these games all morning, but you’re just laying meanings on top of a meaningless experience. Dreams are nothing more than random firings of memories, which your brain then interprets so as to invent causal connections, which makes stories out of
nothing
.”

Father looked at Issib for a long moment, then shook his head. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “Even though I was wide awake and I’ve never had a hallucination
before, it was nothing more than a random firing of synapses in my brain.”

Nafai knew, as Issib and Mother certainly knew, that Father was being ironic, that he was telling Issib that his vision of the fire on the rock was
more
than a meaningless night dream. But Luet didn’t know Father, so
she
thought he was backing away from mysticism and retreating into reality.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “It was a true vision, because it came to you the right way. The understanding came
before
the vision—that’s why I was asking those questions. The meaning is there and then your brain supplies the pictures that let you understand it. That’s the way the Oversoul talks to us.”

“Talks to crazy people, you mean,” Nafai said.

He regretted it immediately, but by then it was too late.

“Crazy people like
me
?” said Father.

“And I assure you that Luet is at least as sane as you are,” Mother added.

Issib couldn’t pass up the chance to cast a verbal dart. “As sane as Nyef? Then she’s in deep trouble.”

Father shut down Issib’s teasing immediately. “You were saying the same thing yourself only a minute ago.”

“I wasn’t calling people crazy,” said Issib.

“No, you didn’t have Nafai’s—what shall we call it?—
pointed eloquence
.”

Nafai knew he could save himself now by shutting up and letting Issib deflect the heat. But he was committed to skepticism, and self-control wasn’t his strong suit. “This girl,” said Nafai. “Don’t you see how she was leading you on, Father? She asks you a question, but she doesn’t tell you beforehand what the answer will mean—so no matter what you answer, she can say, That’s it, it’s a true vision, definitely the Oversoul talking.”

Father didn’t have an immediate answer. Nafai glanced at Luet, feeling triumphant, wanting to see her squirm. But she wasn’t squirming. She was looking at him very calmly. The intensity had drained out of her and now she was simply—calm. It bothered him, the steadiness of her gaze. “What are you looking at?” he demanded.

“A fool,” she answered.

Nafai jumped to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to you calling me a—”

“Sit down!” roared Father.

Nafai sat, seething.

“She just listened to
you
calling
her
a fraud,” said Father. “I appreciate how both of my sons are doing exactly what I wanted you here to do—providing a skeptical audience for my story. You analyzed the process very cleverly and your version of things accounts for everything you know about it, just as neatly as Luet’s version does.”

Nafai was ready to help him draw the correct conclusion. “Then the rule of simplicity requires you to—”

“The rule of your father requires you to hold your tongue, Nafai. What you’re both forgetting is that there’s a fundamental difference between you and me.”

Father leaned toward Nafai.

“
I
saw the fire.”

He leaned back again.

“Luet didn’t tell me what to think or feel at the time. And her questions helped me remember—helped
me
remember—the way it really happened. Instead of the way I was already changing it to fit my preconceptions. She
knew
that it would be strange—in exactly the ways that it was strange. Of course, I can’t convince you.”

“No,” said Nafai. “You can only convince yourself.”

“In the end, Nafai, oneself is the only person anyone can convince.”

The battle was lost if Father was already making up aphorisms. Nafai sat back to wait for it all to end. He took consolation from the fact that it had been, after all, merely a dream. It’s not as if it was going to change his life or anything.

Father wasn’t done yet. “Do you know what I actually wanted to do, when I felt such urgency to get to the city? I wanted to warn people—to follow the old ways, to go back to the laws of the Oversoul, or this place would burn.”

“What place?” asked Luet, her intensity back again.

“This place. Basilica. The city. That’s what I saw burning.”

Again Father fell silent, looking into her burning eyes.

“Not the city,” he said at last. “The city was only the picture that my mind supplied, wasn’t it? Not the city. The whole world. All of Harmony, burning.”

Rasa gasped. “Earth,” she whispered.

“Oh, please,” Nafai said. So Mother was going to connect Father’s vision with that old story about the home planet that was burned by the Oversoul to punish humanity for whatever nastiness the current storyteller wanted to preach against. The all-purpose coercive myth: If you don’t do what I say—I mean, what the
Oversoul
says—then the
whole world
will
burn.

“
I
haven’t seen the fire itself,” said Luet, ignoring Nafai. “Maybe I’m not even seeing the same thing.”

“What
have
you seen?” asked Father. Nafai cringed at how respectful he was being toward this girl.

“I saw the Deep Lake of Basilica, crusted over with blood and ashes.”

Nafai waited for her to finish. But she just sat there.

“That’s it? That’s all?” Nafai stood up, preparing to walk out. “This is great, hearing the two of you compare
visions.
I
saw a city on fire. Well,
I
saw a scum-covered lake.’

Luet stood up and faced him. No, faced him down—which was ridiculous, since he was almost half a meter taller than her.

“You’re only arguing against me,” she said hotly, “because you don’t want to believe what I told you about Eiadh.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Nafai.

“You had a vision about Eiadh?” asked Rasa.

“What does Eiadh have to do with
Nyef
?” asked Issib.

Nafai hated her for mentioning it again, in front of his family. “You can make up whatever you want about other people, but you’d better leave
me
out of it.”

“Enough,” said Father. “We’re done.”

Rasa looked at him in surprise. “Are you dismissing me in my own house?”

“I’m dismissing my sons.”

“You have authority over
your
sons, of course.” Mother was smiling, but Nafai knew from her soft speech that she was seriously annoyed. “However, I see no one here in
my
house but
my
students.”

Father nodded, accepting the rebuke, then stood to leave. “Then I’m dismissing myself—I may do
that,
I hope.”

“You may always leave, my adored mate, as long as you promise to come back to me.”

His answer was to kiss her cheek.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“What the Oversoul told me to do.”

“And what is
that
?”

“Warn people to return to the laws of the Oversoul or the world will burn.”

Issib was appalled. “That’s crazy, Father!”

“I’m tired of hearing that word from the lips of my sons.”

“But—prophets of the Oversoul don’t say things like that. They’re like poets, except all their metaphors have some moral lesson or they celebrate the Oversoul or—”

“Issya,” said Wetchik, “all my life I’ve listened to these so-called prophecies—and the psalms and the histories and the temple priests—and I’ve always thought, if
this
is all the Oversoul has to say, why should I bother to listen? Why should the Oversoul even bother
speaking,
if this is all that’s on his mind?”

“Then why did you teach
us
to speak to the Oversoul?” asked Issib.

“Because I believed in the ancient laws. And I
did
speak to the Oversoul myself, though more as a way of clarifying my own thoughts than because I actually thought that he was
listening
. Then last night—this morning—I had an experience that I never conceived of. I never wished for it. I didn’t even know what it
was
until now, these last few minutes, talking to Luet. Now I know—what it feels like to have the Oversoul’s voice inside you. Nothing like these poets and dreamers and deceivers, who write down whatever pops into their heads and then sell it as prophecy. What was in me was not myself, and Luet has shown me that she’s had the same voice inside
her
. It means that the Oversoul is real and alive.”