"She's noticed it," said Oykib. "But it's hard to see how he can turn it to his advantage."

"Not really," said Nafai. "They'll follow Elemak, if he leads them where they already want to go."

"And where is that?" asked Oykib.

"To slaughter angels. They don't have to leave any angels alive now, because they can propagate without the statues."

Oykib frowned. "Then we made a mistake to wipe out the prophylactic gland?"

"No," said Nafai. "It was right to set both peoples free. But now we have to help them struggle to find a new equilibrium. One that's based on respect and tolerance."

"I wouldn't bet on that anytime soon," said Oykib, "not as long as the diggers think of angels as meat, and angels think of diggers as devils."

"I know," said Nafai. "That's why we have our work cut out for us. Many lifetimes of teaching lie ahead, for us and for those who try to serve the Keeper of Earth after us. And in the meantime, I'm going to come up with some weapons that help even up the combat between angels and diggers. Something that will drive the diggers back into their holes when they dare to make war against the angels."

"So then the angels are masters. How does that help?"

"The angels don't seek out diggers in order to eat them," said Nafai. "They don't want to fight with the diggers at all. They just want to be left alone. As far as I can see, that tips the moral balance heavily onto the side of the angels."

"The diggers aren't monsters," Oykib said. "They're children of their own genetic and cultural heritage. They don't deserve to be slaughtered from the sky."

"I know that," said Nafai. "That's why we have to teach them all as well as we can. And in the meantime, try to keep a balance between them."

"I don't want to choose," said Oykib.

"You have no choice but to choose," said Nafai. "When Elemak takes the diggers to war, you're one of the ones he'll be trying to kill. You'll be on the angels' side because you have nowhere else to turn."

"You know this from dreams?" asked Oykib.

"The Keeper doesn't have to send me dreams to tell me what I can figure out for myself."

Oykib furiously brushed away a tear that had slipped down his cheek. "None of this was necessary," he said. "Why didn't you just kill Elemak when you had the chance?"

"Because I love him," said Nafai.

"So how many of my friends among the diggers and your friends among the angels have to die because of that?"

"Elemak has his hand in it," said Nafai, "but if you think that Fusum or someone else wouldn't have stirred up the diggers to rebellion against us or war against the angels, you don't understand human nature."

"The diggers aren't humans," said Oykib.

"When it comes to hate and rage and envy, yes they are," said Nafai.

"And love and generosity, too," said Oykib. "And trust, and wisdom, and dignity, and-"

"Yes," said Nafai. "They're human in all those ways. So are the angels."

"So how are we different from our ancestors, who got driven off the planet forty million years ago?"

"I don't know," said Nafai. "But maybe, given enough time, we and the diggers and the angels can find our way to peace."

"And in the meantime, you're going to design weapons," said Oykib.

"I'm thinking of blowguns," said Nafai. "With fleched darts. What I don't know is whether they need to be poisoned or not, in order to be effective."

"It's my friends you're talking about killing," said Oykib.

"Do your best to teach your friends to hate war and refuse to take part in it," said Nafai. "Teach them to loathe the very thought of eating infant skymeat. Then they'll never be brought down by an angel's dart."

FIFTEEN - DIVISIONS

When peace depends on the life of one man, then each new day becomes a deathwatch. Each new plan must include the thought: Can this be finished before he dies? Each new child is welcomed with the prayer: Let safety last another year. Another month, another week.

Not that people talked about it much-about how old Volemak was looking, how his back was stooping, how he winced with arthritis when he walked, how he tended to lose breath when he worked hard, how he now called meetings in the schoolhouse instead of up the ladder inside the starship. It was something they saw, regretted, feared, but kept to themselves, pretending that it wasn't that bad, he had plenty of time left, no need to worry yet.

Then Emeezem died and Fusum seized full power among the diggers. She had started losing heart when her son Nen was killed by a panther while hunting. Later, the desecration of the Untouched God was a harsh blow, and her heart died then; the death of her husband Mufruzhuuzh was merely an afterthought compared to those. The world has ended, Emeezem, and, oh yes, your husband is dead and the brutal boy who says he tried to save your son is now both blood king and war king and when you die he will destroy all peace among your people and there's nothing you can do except teach the women to look for a day of peace in some distant day only the women seem to barely listen anymore, and the only one who does you honor is the human Nafai whose face was your salvation long ago. When death finally came to her, coughing out of her lungs as she lay in her deep chamber, in darkness, attended by silent women and a few men watching for the exact moment of death so they could begin destroying her memory-when death finally came to her, she welcomed it with bitter relief. What took you so long? And where are Nen and Mufruzhuuzh? And for that matter, where's my mother? Why has my life turned out to be so worthless?

Only just as she was on the edge of death there came a dream into her mind even though she had thought she was awake. She saw a human, a digger, and an angel, standing together on the brow of a hill as a host of people of all three species gathered round them, weeping, laughing for joy, surging forward to touch them, and each one who touched them sang out loud, the same glad song, and then the human, the digger, and the angel looked at her, at Emeezem the deep mother who was dying, and said to her, Thank you for setting your people on this road.

The dream did not bring Nen back to life, or give her hope that Fusum's reign would not be bloody and terrible, and it certainly did not take her from the brink of death. All it did was let her step off that brink into the dark unknown with a smile on her face and pride in her heart. It made death sweet to her.

Fusum saw to it that she was given great honor, and in his funeral oration he praised her for preparing the people for the coming of the humans-even if she misunderstood what the gods meant their people to do. Then, over the next several days, all his rivals and opponents disappeared and were never heard of again. The message was clear: The supreme law of the digger people was Fusum, for Fusum was blood king, war king, deep mother, and, yes, god, all in one, and for all time. Most of the young men were happy with this, for he would make warriors of them once again, after so many years of being in the shadow of the humans and under the thumb of women. And if the young men were happy with him, no one else dared to be unhappy.

Fusum respectfully asked Oykib to stop teaching his silly ideas about the Keeper of Earth. Fusum took Chveya aside and told her that her presence was intimidating to the digger women and they would be happier if she stopped helping them learn about the safe storage and preservation of food. One by one the other humans were kindly asked to desist, until at last only Elemak, Mebbekew, and Protchnu were allowed to visit with the diggers.

What could Volemak do? He asked Elemak to protest to Fusum. Elemak said that he would, then came back and said that he had, and conveyed Fusum's assurance that nothing had changed except that diggers would be taking the responsibility for educating their own people. "He said that we should be happy, Father, because now we have more time to devote to our own families."