"What was the dream?" asked Akmaro.

"It was... perhaps nothing. That's why I said nothing until now. But ... I couldn't get it off my mind. It kept coming back and back and back and so I came to tell you."

"Tell me."

"I saw Father arrive. With five hundred Elemaki warriors, some middle people, most of them earth people. He meant to ... he meant to come upon you at dawn, to take you in your sleep, slaughter you all. Now that the fields are ready to harvest. He had a season of labor from you, and then he was going to slaughter your people before your eyes, and then your wife in front of your children, and then your children in front of you, and you last of all."

"And you waited to tell me this until now?"

"Because even though I saw that this was his plan, even though I saw the scene as he imagined it, when he arrived here he found the place empty. All the potatoes still in the ground, and all of you gone. Not a trace. The guards were asleep, and he couldn't waken them, so he killed them in their sleep and then raced off trying to find you in the forest but you were gone."

Akmaro thought about this for a moment. "And where were you?"

"Me? What do you mean?"

"In your dream. Where were you and your brothers?"

"I don't know. I didn't see us."

"Then... don't you think that makes it obvious where you were?"

Didul looked away. "I'm not ashamed to face Father after what we've done here. This was the right way to use the authority he gave us."

"Why didn't he find you here in your dream?"

"Does a son betray his father?" asked Didul.

"If a father commands a son to commit a crime so terrible that the son can't do it and live with himself, then is it betrayal for the son to disobey the father?"

"You always do that," said Didul. "Make all the questions harder."

"I make them truer," said Akmaro.

"Is it a true dream?" asked Didul.

"I think so," said Akmaro.

"How will you get away? The guards are still loyal to Father. They obey us, but they won't let you escape."

"You saw it in the dream. The Keeper did it once before. When the Nafari escaped from the Elemaki, back at the beginning of our time on Earth, the Keeper caused a deep sleep to come upon all the enemies of the Nafari. They slept until the Nafari were safely away."

"You can't be sure that will happen, not from my dream."

"Why not?" asked Akmaro. "We can learn from the dream that your father is coming, but we can't learn from it how the Keeper means to save us?"

Didul laughed nervously. "What if it isn't a true dream?"

"Then the guards will catch us as we leave," said Akmaro. "How will that be worse than waiting for your father to arrive?"

Didul grimaced. "I'm not Binaro. I'm not you. I'm not Chebeya. People don't risk their lives because of a dream of mine."

"Don't worry. They'll be risking their lives because they believe in the Keeper."

Didul shook his head. "It's too much. Too much to decide just on the basis of my dream."

Akmaro laughed. "If your dream came out of nowhere, Didul, then no one would care what you dreamed." He touched Didul's shoulder. "Go tell your brothers that I tell them to think about the fact that in your dream, your father doesn't find you here. It's your choice. But I tell you this. If the Keeper thinks you are the enemy of my people, then in the dark hours of morning you'll be asleep when we leave. So if you awaken as we're leaving, the Keeper is inviting you to come. The Keeper is telling you that you are trusted and you belong with us."

"Or else I have a full bladder and have to get up early to relieve myself."

Akmaro laughed again, then turned away from him. The boy would tell his brothers. They would decide. It was between them and the Keeper.

Almost at once, Akmaro saw his son Akma standing in the field, sweaty from harvesting the potatoes. The boy was looking at him. Looking at Didul as he walked away. What did it look like in Akma's eyes? My touching Didul's shoulder. My laughter. What did that look like? And when I tell the people tonight of Didul's dream, tell them to prepare because the voice of the Keeper has come to us, telling us that tomorrow we will be delivered out of bondage-when I tell them that, the others will rejoice because the Keeper has not forsaken us. But my son will rage in his heart because the dream came to Didul, and not to him.

The afternoon passed; the sun, long since hidden behind the mountains, now at last withdrew its light from the sky. Akmaro gathered the people and told them to prepare, for in the hours before dawn they would depart. He told them of the dream. He told them who dreamed it. And no one raised a doubt or a question. No one said, "Is it a trap? Is it a trick?" Because they all knew the Pabulogi, knew how they had changed.

In the early morning, Akmaro and Chebeya awoke their children. Then Akmaro went out to make sure all the others were awake and preparing to go. They would send no one to spy on the guards. They knew they were either asleep-or not. There was no reason to check, nothing they could do if they had interpreted the dream wrongly.

Inside the hut, as Akma helped fill their traveling bags with the food they would need to carry and the spare clothing and tools and ropes they'd need, Mother spoke to him. "It wasn't Didul, you know. He didn't choose to have the dream, and your father didn't choose to hear it from him. It was the Keeper."

"I know," said Akma.

"It's the Keeper trying to teach you to accept her gifts no matter whom she chooses to give them through. It's the Keeper who wants you to forgive. They're not the same boys they were when they tormented you. They've asked for your forgiveness."

Akma paused in his work and looked her in the eye. Without rancor-without any kind of readable expression-he said, "They've asked, but I refuse."

"I think it's beneath you now, Akma. I could understand it at first. The hurt was still fresh."

"You don't understand," said Akma.

"I know I don't. That's why I'm begging you to explain it to me."

"I didn't forgive them. There was nothing to forgive."

"What do you mean?"

"They were doing as their father taught them. I was doing as my father taught me. That's all. Children are nothing but tools of their parents."

"That's a terrible thing to say."

"It's a terrible thing. But the day will come when I'm no longer a child, Mother. And on that day I'll be no man's tool."

"Akma, it poisons you to hold all this hatred in your heart. Your father teaches people to forgive and to abandon hate and-"

"Hate kept me going when love failed me," said Akma. "Do you think I'm going to give it up now?"

"I think you'd better," said Chebeya. "Before it destroys you."

"Is that a threat? Will the Keeper strike me down?"

"I didn't say before it kills you. You can be ruined as a person long before your body is ready to be put into the ground."

"You and Father can think of me however you like," said Akma. "Ruined, destroyed, whatever. I don't care."

"I don't think you're ruined," said Chebeya.

Luet piped up. "He's not bad, Mother. You and Father shouldn't talk about him as if he's bad."

Chebeya was shocked. "We've never said he was bad, Luet! Why would you say such a thing?"

Akma laughed lightly. "Luet doesn't have to hear you use the word to know the truth. Don't you understand her gifts yet? Or hasn't the Keeper given you a dream about it?"

"Akma, don't you realize it isn't your father or me that you're fighting? It's the Keeper!"

"I don't care if it's the whole world and everything in it, on it, and above it. I ... will... not... bend." And, obviously aware that it was a very dramatic thing to say-and faintly ridiculous coming from one so young-Akma shouldered his burden and left the hut.