"Good advice, Issya, Now let me go and follow it."
For all her confidence, Shedemei was reluctant to leave the shelter of the starship, to make the door seal itself behind her. Wearing the cloak gave her a feeling of connection and closeness to every part of the ship, but in truth she had felt not very differently before. The ship was where her tools were, her library, her work, her career, herself. Stepping out into the village-the remnant of the village, the mostly deserted human-built houses-she was becoming someone else. Nafai must have relished this, thought Shedemei, this feeling of power, of control. But I don't. I'm not interested to find out how much power can be focused through my flesh. I have no desire to know just how strong a jolt I can give someone without killing him.
To be fair, Nafai might not have loved it cither. But good-hearted as he might be, he was a man, and men seemed to find an obscene amount of pleasure in having the upper hand, in winning. Shedemei, on the other hand, simply wanted to know. But maybe it wasn't a matter of men and women. Maybe it was just that She-demei's connection to other people was never very strong, compared to her love for her work, her devotion to understanding the way life worked. Is that really different, though? she wondered. Nafai and Elemak were born to rule men and determined to win out over each other. But I feel myself also born to rule, not men or women but organisms, genetic codes, life systems, ecologies. And, like Nafai and Elemak, I will have my way.
The problem today would not be Elemak, not really. The problem would be the diggers. Shedemei could easily stop Elemak and his few human followers. But there was no way she could seek out and block all of Fusum's soldiers, and they were the ones who would do the killing if they reached the Nafari while they were traveling, encumbered as they were by children and infants, by supplies and flocks and herds.
So whatever Shedemei did, she would have to persuade the diggers that they must wait; if the diggers did not go, then Elemak would also have to wait.
Thus it was that Shedemei walked through the village, paying no attention to the shouting as Elemak, Mebbekew, and Protchnu searching all the houses, ransacked them, really, screaming to each other about the betrayal, about all those who had gone. Mebbekew saw her and called out to her, then went howling off to find Elemak, crying out that Shedemei had stayed, Shedemei couldn't leave the ship after all. "We have the laboratories! We have the computers! We have the Oversoul!" Time enough to disabuse him of this delusion later.
She made her way to where the digger watchmen were conferring in terror, wondering what would happen to them when Fusum learned that somehow they had all slept through the night, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, as most of the humans slipped away. "Fusum will kill you," she said in her halting digger language.
They answered her in human speech, for which she was grateful. "What can we do? What happened to us? Someone poisoned us!"
"It was the Keeper of Earth," she said. "The Keeper of Earth has rejected you, because a murderer rules over you. You have chosen a murderer to be your blood king and your war king." Then, with some effort, she made her skin begin to glow. "Did you think that when Fusum desecrated the statue of the Untouched God, it would go unnoticed?"
She hated doing this. It had taken a great deal of effort to break them free of superstition, and here she was rekindling all their old fears and faiths. But how else could she control them, given the few powers that she had?
They were supine before her, offering their underbellies in a gesture of submission.
"I don't want your naked bellies," she said. "Stand like men, for once. If you had stood like men before, the Keeper of Earth would not be so angry with you now."
"What should we do, great one?"
"Bring me the friend-killer, the liar who murdered Nen on the hunt."
The charge was like an electric current suddenly flowing through them. "So it was not the panther! Not the panther!" they said.
"There was a panther," said Shedemei, "but the panther killed a man who had been struck down by a blow from a friend." Even as she said it, she wondered if it was true, and, if it was, how she knew it.
Could it be true? she asked.
But we set twelve satellites in orbit, she said. You must be able to see, even if you can't hear their thoughts.
Furiously Shedemei responded, Well, I program you now to treat diggers and angels as if they were human, too.
Then do this, said Shedemei silendy. Remember that because the humans have to live among diggers and angels now, our safety and survival depend on you watching what these sentient aliens do. You must always know.
Do your best.
Within your limits, within a reasonable set of priorities, do your best.
Don't pretend to be helpless. I know what you are, wko you are, and you don't need me to explain things to you. Now do your best to help me understand Elemak.
Shedemei almost said, I wasn't planning to. But then she realized that in the back of her mind that was exactly what she had planned. Fusum and Elemak, both of them dead and therefore the Nafari safe.
Why not kill him? she asked.
I haven't done anything to him yet.
How can you know this?
So Nafai thinks that I need Elemak to keep the diggers in check.
Nafii was planning this all along, wasn't he? When he gave me the cloak, he knew he would need me to do this.
Victory?
They dragged Fusum out of a hole in the ground and spread-eagled him before her He hissed and howled and cursed her. She gave him the mildest of jolts, and his body spasmed. "Hold your tongue," she said.