Shedemei shrugged. "I've said it, you've heard it, I care little what you do with the information. But here's the fact: The only person you're fighting right now is the Oversoul."

Meb hooted once. Shedemei ignored him.

"The Oversoul has at last got access to the starships. It's going to take a massive effort by all of us to cannibalize five of the ships to make one ship ready to fly. But it's going to be done, whether you approve or not. The Oversoul is hardly going to let you block her now, when she's come so far."

Elemak heard with amusement the way Shedemei persisted in referring to the inanimate computer as if it were a woman.

"When Nafai returns, he's going to be wearing the starmaster's cloak. It's a device that links him almost perfectly to the memory of the Oversoul. He's going to know far more about you than you know about yourself, do you understand me? And there are other powers that come along with the cloak—a focus of energy, for one thing, that makes the pulse look like a toy."

"Is this a threat?" asked Elemak.

"I'm telling you the simple truth. The Oversoul chose Nafai because he has the intelligence to pilot the ship, the loyalty to serve the Oversoul's cause well, and the strength of will that broke down a supposedly impenetrable barrier and allowed the expedition to continue. Not because Nafai was conspiring against you. If you had ever shown a scrap of loyalty to the Oversoul's cause, she might have chosen you."

"Do you think pathetic flattery like this will move me?"

"I'm not flattering you," said Shedemei. "I already said—we know you're the born leader of this company. But you've chosen not to be the leader of the Oversoul's expedition. That was your own choice, freely made. So when it comes down to it, when you realize that you have lost the leadership of this group forever, you can blame no one but yourself."

He felt anger growing within him.

"Nor would you have been the second choice," said Shedemei. "There was some doubt that Nafai would accept the cloak—for the very reason that he knew you would reject his leadership. At that point the Oversoul made her second choice. She asked me whether I would accept the burden of leadership. She explained to me more about what the cloak does and how it works than she even explained to Nafai, though by now he undoubtedly knows all. I accepted the offer. If it hadn't been Nafai, it would have been me. Not you, Elemak. You did not miss this great office narrowly. You were never in the running, because you rejected the Oversoul from the start."

"Perhaps you had better leave now," said Elemak softly.

"But this doesn't mean that you can't have a valued, important role in the community," she went on, seeming not to hear him, seeming not to notice that he boiled with rage. "Don't force the issue, don't force Nafai to humiliate you in front of the others. Instead work with him, and he will gladly let you take as much of the leadership as the Oversoul will let him surrender to you. I don't think you've ever realized how Nafai worships you. How he has always wished he could be like you. How he has longed for your love and respect more than that of any other person."

"Get out of my house," said Elemak.

"Very well," said Shedemei. "I see that you are a person who refuses to revise his view of the world. You can only bear to live in a world where all the bad things that happen to you are someone else's fault, where everyone must have conspired against you to deprive you of what is your due." She rose and walked to the door. "Unfortunately, that world happens not to be the real world. And so you four will sit here and conspire to take over the rule of Dostatok, and it will come to nothing, and you will be humiliated, and it will have been nobody's fault but your own. Yet even then, Elemak, you have our deep respect and honor for your considerable abilities. Good night."

She closed the door behind her.

Elemak could hardly control himself. He longed to leap after her, hit her again and again, beat the unbearable condescension out of her. But that would be a show of weakness; to maintain control of these others, he had to make it clear that he was unaffected by such nonsense. So he smiled wanly at them. "You see how they want to make us stupid by making us angry," said Elemak.

"Don't tell me you're not angry," said Meb.

"Of course I am," said Elemak. "But I refuse to let my anger make me stupid. And she also gave us some valuable information. Apparently Nafai's going to be coming back with some kind of magic cloak or something. Maybe it's nothing more than an illusion, like those masks that Gaballufix dredged up to have his soldiers wear back in Basilica, so they all looked alike. Or maybe there's some real power in it. But far from making us back down, that will simply force us to act all the more quickly and cleanly—and permanently."

"Meaning?" asked Vas.

"Meaning that we will not permit anyone to leave here and go join Nafai, wherever he is. We will make him come to us. And when he does, unless he immediately backs down and accepts our decisions, we'll eliminate his ability to make further problems."

"Meaning?" insisted Vas.

"Meaning kill him, you dolt," said Obring. "How stupid do you have to be?"

"I knew he meant that," said Vas quietly. "I just wanted to hear him say it with his own mouth, so that he can't claim later that he never meant any such thing."

"Oh, I see," said Elemak. "You're worried about responsibility." Elemak couldn't help but compare Vas with Nafai—for all his other faults, Nyef had never shrunk from his responsibility for the death of Gaballufix. "Well, the responsibility is mine. Mine alone, if you insist on it. But that also means that after we've won, the authority is mine."

"I'm with you," said Meb. "To the hilt. Does that mean that when it's done, I share authority with you?"

"Yes, it does," said Elemak. If you even know what authority is, you poor simpering baboon. "It's as simple as that. But if you haven't got the heart to put in the knife along with us, that doesn't mean you're our enemy. Only keep silence about our plan, join with us in preventing others from joining Nafai, and stay out of the way when we kill him—if it comes to that."

"I'll agree to that," said Obring.

Vas also nodded.

"Then it's done."

Nafai awoke on the floor of the room. Above him hung the block of water. He didn't feel any different.

That is, until he started trying to think of things. Like when he tried to feel, from the inside, whether anything was different about his own body. All of a sudden a great gush of information flowed into his mind. He was conscious for a moment of all his bodily functions, and had a detailed status report on all of them. The output of his glands; his heartrate; the amount of fecal matter built up in his rectum; the current deficiency of fuel for his body's cells, and how his fat cells were being accessed to make up the shortfall. Also, the rate of healing of all his bruises and scrapes had been accelerated, and he felt much better.

Is this what the Oversoul has always known about me?

At once the answer came, and now it truly was a clear voice—even clearer than when the Oversoul spoke through the Index. (I never knew this much about you before. The cloak has connected with every nerve in your body, and reports on your condition continuously. It also samples your blood in various places and interprets and acts to enhance your condition many times a second.)

Cloak?

At once an image flashed into his mind. He could see himself from the outside, as the Oversoul no doubt saw him through its sensors. He could see his body as he rolled out from under the block and rose to his feet. His skin sparkled with light. He realized that most of the light in the room came from him. He saw himself run his hands over his own skin, trying to feel the cloak. But he felt nothing at all that was different from his normal skin.