"Or even some keen natural insight," said Akma. "For instance, that famous, unforgettable time when Mon helped you translate the Rasulum leaves. Who's to say that he didn't reach his certainties of right and wrong by unconsciously interpreting your own gestures, movements, vocal intonation, facial expressions."

"What good would that do him?" said Bego. "I didn't know."

"Perhaps you knew, but didn't know that you knew," said Akma.

Bego riffled his wings in a shrug.

"What we've been doing, Akma and I, is trying to see if there's anything in the ancient records that constitutes actual proof that there even is a Keeper of Earth."

"No one doubts that there's a Keeper," said Bego. "Look at the histories," said Akma. "All the records from the early Heroes say that all human life had been dispersed from Earth-that until the Keeper brought the Heroes here from the place called Harmony or Basilica-the record is ambiguous-"

"Basilica is the name of the fixed star," said Bego, "and Harmony is the name of the planet orbiting that star."

"Say the scholars," said Akma. "Who know nothing more than we do, since they reach all their conclusions from the same records. And I say the record of the Heroes is obviously wrong. There were people here, the Rasulum."

Bego shrugged. "That has caused a little consternation among the scholars."

"Come on," said Mon. "That's the very fact you keep throwing in our faces every time we discuss history. You want us to discover something from it so don't play innocent now."

Akma went on. "What if humans never left this world at all? What if humans were simply forced to stay away from the gornaya during the era when it was being lifted up by volcanos and earthquakes? The Heroes talk of how there was once a time when the land masses were getting folded into each other and raised high, the tallest mountains in the world. So what if that was what gave rise to the legend of the dispersal? No humans in the gornaya, therefore no humans in the world-but actually humans to the north, in the prairie lands. Then there's a terrible war, and as many humans as can, flee from the Rasulum. Some of them brave the old tabus and come into the gornaya. Perhaps they even come by boat, but they're afraid the gods they worship-the Oversoul and the Keeper of Earth-will be angry at them for doing it, so they talk of having come from the stars instead of from Opustoshen."

"Then why is the language of the leaves so different from our language?" asked Bego.

"Because it hasn't been a mere four hundred or five hundred years since the time of the Heroes. In fact they split off from the Rasulum a thousand years ago, perhaps more. And the languages grew more and more different, until nothing was alike."

"And what does that have to do with angels and diggers?" asked Bego.

"Nothing at all!" cried Mon. "Don't you see? The humans came and dominated everybody, and forced their gods on everybody. But didn't the diggers worship gods that the angels made for them? And didn't the angels have their own gods to worship? None of this Keeper nonsense. The angels and diggers evolved separately here in the gornaya while the humans stayed away in the land northward."

"What about the stories of Shedemei discovering some strange organ in all the sky people and all the earth people that forced us to remain together?" asked Bego.

"The story says that she caused you all to get sick and it made those organs disappear from your children," said Akma. "So now, conveniently enough, there's not a lick of evidence left that those organs ever existed."

"All the stories use for evidence things that can't be checked now," said Mon. "That's a standard rhetorical trick-one that any fool can expose in a public debate or trial. The new star in the sky is Basilica- but how do we know that star wasn't there all along?"

"The records are ambiguous about that," said Bego. "The only evidence we do have," said Akma, "is a flat contradiction of the records of the Heroes. They said there were no other humans on Earth when they arrived. But we have the bones of Opustoshen and the leaves of the Rasulum to prove otherwise. Don't you see? The only evidence denies everything."

Bego looked at them placidly. "Well, this certainly is treasonous," he finally said.

"But it doesn't have to be," said Akma. "That's what I've been explaining to Mon. His father's authority comes from being a direct descendant of the first Nafai. That part of the record isn't being questioned. The kingdom is not challenged."

"No," said Bego. "Only your father is challenged." Akma smiled. "If my father is teaching people to behave in uncomfortable ways, solely because the Keeper says they must, and then it turns out there is no Keeper, then whose will is it that my father is trying to foist onto the people?"

"I think your father is a sincere man," said Bego. "Sincere but wrong," said Akma. "And the people hate what he's teaching."

"The former slaves love it," said Bego.

"The people," said Akma.

"I gather, then, that you don't consider diggers to be people," said Bego.

"I consider them to be the natural enemies of humans and angels.

And I also think that there's no reason why humans should rule over angels."

"Now we're definitely back to treason," said Bego.

"Why not an alliance?" said Mon. "A king of the humans and a king of the angels, both ruling over peoples spread through the same territory?"

"Not possible," said Bego. "One king for one territory. Otherwise there would be war and hatred between humans and angels. The Ele-maki would seize the opportunity and destroy us all."

"But we shouldn't be required to live together, anyway," said Akma.

Bego looked at Mon. "Is that what you want?" he asked. "You, who as a child dreamed of being-"

"My childish dreams are done with!" Mon cried. "In fact if I hadn't been living among angels I wouldn't have had those wishes, would I!"

"I thought they were rather sweet. And perhaps a bit flattering," said Bego. "Considering how many angels grow up wishing they were human."

"None!" cried Mon. "Not one!"

"Many."

"They're all mad, then," Mon replied.

"Quite likely," said Bego. "So let's see if I understand you. There is no Keeper and there never was. Humans never left Earth, just the gornaya. Diggers and angels never needed each other and there was no tiny organ that Shedemei removed from our bodies with a disease. And therefore there is no reason to change our whole way of life, all our customs, just because Akmaro tells us that it's the will of the Keeper that the three species become one people, the Keeper's Children, the People of Earth."

"Exactly," said Akma.

"So what?" asked Bego.

Akma and Mon looked at each other. "What do you mean, so what?" asked Mon.

"So why are you telling me?" asked Bego.

"Because maybe you can talk to Father about this," said Mon. "Get him to stop pushing these laws."

"Take my father away from his position of authority," said Akma.

Bego blinked once at Akma's words. "If I said these things to your father, my dear friends, I would simply be removed immediately from any position of responsibility. That's the only change that would be made."

"Does my father completely control the king, then?" asked Akma.

"Careful," said Mon. "Nobody controls my father."

"You know what I mean," Akma said impatiently.

"And I know Motiak," said Bego. "He's not going to change his mind, because as far as he's concerned, you have no evidence at all. For him, the very fact that true dreams led the soldiers of Ilihiak to find the Rasulum leaves is proof that the Keeper wanted them found. Therefore it is the Keeper who corrects the mistakes of the Heroes- more proof that the Keeper lived then, and the Keeper lives now. You aren't going to dissuade someone who wants so desperately to believe in the Keeper."