Earthborn (Homecoming) by Orson Scott Card Page A

till now, starmaster, but don’t you find it a bit suspicious? Surely some group of humans could have survived. In some equatorial zone.”
    “Please, I know creativity and serendipity are designed into your thinking algorithms,” said Shedemei, “but are you seriously entertaining the notion that human misdeeds could have caused the Cocos plate to move?”
    “I’m saying that perhaps human misdeeds could cause the Keeper of Earth to cause the Cocos plate to move.”
    “And how could she possibly do that?”
    “I can’t imagine any entity of any kind with power enough to move the currents of magma under the crust of the planet,” said the Oversoul. “But I also can’t imagine any natural force that could have caused the many anomalies that created the gornaya. The world is full of strange and unnatural things, Shedemei. Like the symbiotic interdependence that the diggers and angels used to have. You said yourself that it was artificial.”
    “And my hypothesis is that these changes were deliberately introduced by human beings before they left.”
    “But
why
would they do it, Shedemei? Whose purpose were they fulfilling? Why would they even care, knowing that they would leave this planet and believing that they would never come back?”
    “I think it’s possible for us to ascribe too many events to the plots and plans of the Keeper of Earth,” said Shedemei. “She causes dreams and influences human behavior. We have no evidence for anything else.”
    “We have no evidence. Or we have the most obvious evidence imaginable. I must do research. There are gaps in my knowledge. The truth has been hidden from me, but I know that the Keeper is involved in all of this.”
    “Search all you want. I’ll be fascinated to know the outcome.”
    “It may be that I’m programmed not to find the truth, you know,” said the Oversoul. “And that I’m programmed not to find the way I’ve been programmed to hide the truth from me.”
    “How circular.”
    “I may need your help.”
    “I may need a nap.” She yawned. “I don’t believe that any computer, even the Keeper of Earth, has power over such things as currents of magma. But I’ll help, if I can. Maybe in pursuing this worthless hypothesis you’ll come across something useful.”
    “At least you’re keeping an open mind,” said the Oversoul.
    “I’m sure you meant that in the nicest possible way,” said Shedemei.
    That night, in their hut, Akmaro and Akma washed and dressed Chebeya’s wounds.
    “You could have been killed, Mother,” said Akma quietly.
    “It was the bravest thing I ever saw,” said Akmaro.
    Chebeya wept silently—in relief that she hadn’tbeen slaughtered in the field; in delayed fear at what she had dared to do; in gratitude to her husband for praising what she did.
    “Do you see, Akma, what your mother is doing?” said Akmaro.
    “She defied them,” said Akma. “And they didn’t kill her.”
    “There’s more to it than that, Akma,” said Akmaro. “It’s a gift that your mother has had all her life. She’s a raveler.”
    “Hushidh,” whispered Luet. The tales of Hushidh the Raveler were well known among the women and girls. Not to mention Chveya, Nafai’s and Luet’s daughter, the Ancient One for whom Chebeya had been named.
    “She sees the connections between people,” Akmaro explained to Akma.
    “I know what a raveler is,” said Akma.
    “To be a raveler is a gift of the Keeper,” said Akmaro. “The Keeper must have seen, years ago, the dilemma we’d be in today, and so he gave a great gift to Chebeya so that when this day came, she could begin to unravel the conspiracy of evil that rules over us. We had with us all along the power to do what your mother began today. The Keeper only waited for us to realize it. For your mother to find the right moment to act.”
    “It looked to me,” said Akma, “as if Mother stood alone.”
    “Is that what you saw?” asked Akmaro. “Then your vision is still very