Glancing again at Nafai, Shedemei found she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “Please,” said Nafai. “I won’t mock your dream, or tell anyone else. I want to hear it only for whatever truth might be in it.”

  Shedemei laughed nervously. “I just . . . I’m not comfortable speaking in front of a man. It’s nothing against you. Aunt Rasa’s son, of course I trust you, I just . . .”

  “He’s not a man,” said Luet. “Not really.”

  “Thanks,” murmured Nafai.

  “He doesn’t deal with women as men usually do. And not many days ago, the Oversoul commanded me to take him down to the lake. He sailed it, he floated it right along with me. The Oversoul commanded it, and he was not slain.”

  Shedemei looked at him in new awe. “Is this the time when all the prophecies come together?”

  “Tell us your dream,” said Hushidh softly.

  “I dreamt—this will sound so silly!—I dreamt of myself tending a garden in the clouds. Not just the plants and animals I’m working with, but every plant and animal I’d ever heard of. Only it wasn’t a large garden, just a small one. Yet they all fit within it, and all were alive and growing. I floated along in the clouds— forever, it seemed. Through the longest night in the world, a thousand-year night. And then suddenly it was daylight again, and I could look down off the edge of the cloud and see a new land, a green and beautiful land, and I said to myself—in the dream, you understand—This world has no need of my garden after all. So I left the garden and stepped off the cloud—”

  “A dream of falling,” said Luet.

  “I didn’t fall,” said Shedemei. “I just stepped out and there I was, on the ground. And as I wandered through the forests and meadows, I realized that in fact many of the plants from my garden were needed, after all. So I reached up my hand, and the plants I needed rained down on me as seeds. I planted them, and they grew before my eyes. And then I realized that many of my animals were also needed. This was a world that had lost its birds. There were no birds at all, and few reptiles, and none of the beasts of burden or the domesticated meat animals. And yet there were billions of insects for the birds and reptiles to eat, and pastures and meadows to feed the ruminants. So again I lifted my hands toward the clouds, and down from the clouds rained the embryos of the animals I needed, and I watered them and they grew quickly, large and strong. The birds took flight, the cattle and sheep wandered off to the brooks and meadows, and the snakes and lizards all slithered and scampered away. And I heard the words as if someone else had spoken them in my ears, ’No one has ever had such a garden as yours, Shedemei, my daughter.’ But it wasn’t my mother’s or father’s voice. And I wasn’t sure whether the voice was speaking of my garden in the clouds, or this new world where I was restoring the flora and fauna lost so many years before.”

  That was the dream, all she could remember of it.

  At first they said nothing. Then Luet spoke. “I wonder how you knew that the plants and animals you called down to you from the clouds were flora and fauna that had once lived in that place, but had been lost.”

  “I don’t know,” said Shedemei. “But that’s how I felt it to be. How I knew it to be. These plants and animals were not being introduced, they were being restored.”

  “And you couldn’t tell whether the voice was male or female,” said Hushidh.

  “The question didn’t come up. The voice made me think of my parents, until I realized it wasn’t either of them. But I didn’t think to notice whether the voice was actually female or male. I can’t think which it was even now.”

  Luet and Hushidh and Nafai began to confer with each other, but they spoke loudly enough for Shedemei to hear—they were not excluding her at all. “Her dream has a voyage in it,” said Nafai. “That’s consistent with what I was told—and the flora and fauna were being restored. That says Earth to me, and no other place.”

  “It points that way,” said Luet.

  “But the clouds,” said Hushidh. “What of that? Clouds go from continent to continent, perhaps, but never from planet to planet.”

  “Even dreams from the Oversoul don’t come ready made,” said Nafai. “The truth flows into our minds, but then our brain draws on our own mental library to find images with which to express those ideas. A great voyage through the air. Elemak saw it as a strange kind of house; Shedemei sees it as a cloud; I heard it as the voice of the Oversoul, saying we must go to Earth.”

  “Earth,” said Shedemei.

  “Father didn’t hear it, nor Issib either,” said Nafai. “But I’m as sure of it as I am that I’m alive and sitting here. The Oversoul plans to go to Earth.”

  “That makes sense with your dream, Shedemei,” said Luet. “Humankind left the Earth forty million years ago. The deep winter that settled over the Earth may have killed off most species of reptiles and all the birds. Only the fish and the amphibians, and a few small warm-blooded animals would have survived.”

  “But it’s been forty million years since then,” said Shedemei. “Earth must have recovered long ago. There should have been ample time for new speciation.”

  “How long was the Earth encased in ice?” asked Nafai. “How slowly did the ice recede? Where have the landmasses moved in the millions of years since then?”

  “I see,” said Shedemei. “It’s possible.”

  “But that magic trick,” said Hushidh. “Raising her hands and the seeds and embryos coming down, and then watering the embryos to make them grow.”

  “Well, actually, that part made sense to me right off,” said Shedemei. “The way we store our samples in the kind of research I do is to dry-crystallize the seeds and embryos. It essentially locks all their body processes into exactly the moment in which the crystallization took place. We store them bone dry, and then when it’s time to restore them, we just add distilled water and the crystals decrystallize in a very rapid but non-explosive chain reaction. The whole organism, because it’s so small, can be restored to full functions again within a fraction of a second. Of course, with the embryos we have to be able to put them immediately in a liquid growing solution and hook them up to artificial yolks or placentas, so we can’t restore very many at a time.”

  “In order to carry with you enough samples to restore a significant amount of the flora and fauna most likely to have been killed off on Earth, how much equipment would it take?” asked Nafai.

  “How much? A lot—a huge amount. A caravan.”

  “But what if you had to choose the most significant ones—the most useful birds, the most important animals, the plants we most need for food and shelter.”

  “Then any size would do,” said Shedemei. “You just prioritize—if you have only one camel to carry it, then that’s how many you take—two drycases per camel. Plus a camel to carry each set of restoration equipment and materials.”

  “So it could be done,” said Nafai triumphantly.

  “You believe the Oversoul will send you to Earth?” asked Shedemei.

  “We believe it’s the most important thing going on right now in the entire world of Harmony,” said Nafai.

  “My dream?”

  “Your dream is part of it,” said Luet. “So is mine, I think.” She told Shedemei her dream of angels and diggers.

  “It sounds plausible enough as a symbol of a world where new-life forms have evolved,” said Shedemei. “What you’re forgetting is that if your dream comes from the Oversoul, it can’t possibly be literally true.”

  “Why not?” asked Luet. She seemed a little offended.

  “Because how would the Oversoul know what’s happening on Earth? How would it see a true picture of any species there? The Earth is a thousand lightyears away. There has never been an electromagnetic signal tight and true enough to carry significant transmissions that distance. If the Oversoul gave you that dream, she’s only making it up.”

  “Maybe she’s guessing,” said Hushidh.

  “Maybe she’s only guessing about the need for Shedemei’s seeds and embryos,” said Nafai. “But we must still do what the dream commands. Shedemei must collect these seeds and embryos, and prepare to take them to Earth with us.”

  Shedemei looked at them in bafflement. “I came to tell Aunt Rasa a dream, not abandon my career on a mad impossible journey. How do you think you’re going to Earth? By cloud?”

  “The Oversoul has said we’re going,” said Nafai. “When the time comes, the Oversoul will tell us how.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Shedemei. “I’m a scientist. I know the Oversoul exists because our submissions are often transmitted to computers in faraway cities, something that can be done in no other way. But I’ve always assumed that the Oversoul was nothing more than a computer controlling an array of communications satellites.”

  Nafai looked at Luet and Hushidh in consternation. “Issib and I struggled to figure that out,” he said, “and Shedemei knew it all along.”

  “You never asked me,” said Shedemei.

  “We would never have spoken to you,” said Nafai. “After all, you’re Shedemei.”

  “Just another teacher in your mother’s house,” said Shedemei.

  “Yes, like the sun is just another star in the sky,” said Nafai.

  Shedemei laughed and shook her head. It had never occurred to her that the young ones would hold her in such awe. She enjoyed knowing it—it felt good to think that someone admired her—but it also made her feel faintly shy and exposed. She had to live up to this image that they had of her, and she was nothing more than a hardworking woman who had been disturbed by a dream.

  “Shedemei,” said Hushidh, “whether it seems possible or not, the Oversoul is asking us to prepare for this voyage. We would never have dreamed of asking you, but the Oversoul has brought you to us.”

  “Coincidence brought me to you.”

  “Coincidence is just the word we use when we have not yet discovered the cause,” said Luet. “It’s an illusion of the human mind, a way of saying, ’I don’t know why this happened this way, and I have no intention of finding out.’ “

  “That was in another context,” said Shedemei.

  “You had the dream,” said Nafai. “You knew it mattered. It made you want to tell Mother. We were here when you arrived, and she was not. But we, too, were brought together by the Oversoul. Don’t you see that you have been invited?”

  Shedemei shook her head. “My work is here, not on some insane journey whose destination is a thousand lightyears away.”

  “Your work?” said Hushidh. “What is the value of your work, compared to the task of restoring lost species to Earth? Your work has been notable already, but to be the gardener for a planet . . .”

  “If it’s true,” said Shedemei.

  “Well,” said Nafai, “we’ve all faced that same dilemma. if it’s true. None of us can decide that for you, so when you make up your mind, let us know.”

  Shedemei nodded, but privately she knew that she would do everything within her power to avoid seeing these people again. It was too strange. They made too much of her dream. They demanded too much sacrifice of her.

  “She has decided not to help us,” said Luet.

  “Nothing of the kind!” said Shedemei. But in her heart she wondered, guiltily, How did she know?

  “Even if you decide not to go with us,” said Nafai, “will you do this much? Will you gather a fair sampling of seeds and embryos—perhaps two camels’ load? And the equipment we’ll need to restore them? And train some of us in how to do the work?”

  “Gladly,” said Shedemei. “I should be able to find time over the next several months.”

  “We don’t have months,” said Nafai. “We have hours. Or, perhaps, days.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, then,” said Shedemei. “What kind of garden am I supposed to assemble in hours?”

  “Aren’t there bio-libraries here in Basilica?” asked Hushidh.

  “Well, yes—that’s where I get my starting samples.”

  “Then couldn’t you draw from them, and get most of what you’d need?”

  “For two camels’ load, I suppose I could get all of it. But the equipment to restore them, especially the animal embryos—the only equipment I have is my own set, and it would take months to build more.”

  “If you come with us,” said Luet, “then you could bring your own. And if you don’t come with us, you’ll have the months to build more.”

  “You’re asking me to give up my own equipment?”

  “For the Oversoul,” said Luet.

  “So you believe.”

  “For Aunt Rasa’s son,” said Hushidh.

  Of course the raveler would know how to break into my heart, thought Shedemei. “If Aunt Rasa asks me to do it for you,” said Shedemei, “then I’ll do it.”

  Nafai got a glint in his eye. “What if Mother asked you to go with us?”

  “She never would,” said Shedemei.

  “What if Aunt Rasa was going herself?” asked Luet.

  “She never will,” said Shedemei.

  “That’s what Mother herself says,” said Nafai, “but we’ll see.”

  “Which of you will learn to use the equipment?” asked Shedemei.

  “Hushidh and I,” said Luet quickly.

  “Then come this afternoon so I can teach you.”

  “You’ll give us the equipment?” asked Hushidh.

  Was she delighted, or merely surprised?”

  “I’ll consider it,” said Shedemei. “And teaching you how to operate it will cost nothing but time.”

  With that, Shedemei got up from the carpet and stepped out from under the awning. She looked for the grating through which she had come, but Luet must have replaced it, and she couldn’t remember where she needed to go.

  She didn’t need to say anything, however, for Luet must have noticed her confusion instantly, and now the girl was leading her to the place. The grating hadn’t been replaced, it had simply been out of sight behind the roofline. “I know the way from here,” said Shedemei. “You needn’t come with me.”

  “Shedemei,” said Luet. “I dreamed of you once. Not many days ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know you’ll doubt me, and think I’m saying this only to try to persuade you to come, but it’s not a coincidence. I was in the woods, and it was night, and I was afraid. I saw several women. Aunt Rasa, and Hushidh; Eiadh and Dol. And you. I saw you.”

  “I wasn’t there,” said Shedemei. “I never go into the woods.”

  “I know—I told you, it was a dream, though I was awake.”

  “I mean what I said, Luet. I never go into the woods. I never go down to the lake. I’m sure what you do is very important and fine, but it’s not part of my life. It’s no part of my life.”

  “Then perhaps,” said Luet, “you should change your. life.”

  To that Shedemei had nothing civil to say, so she stepped through the opening in the wall. Behind her she could hear the murmuring sound of their conversation resuming, but she couldn’t make out any of the words. Not that she wanted to. This was outrageous, to ask her to do what they were asking her to do.

  And yet it had felt so wonderful, in her dream, to reach up and bring down life from the clouds. Why hadn’t she just left it that way—as a beautiful dream? Why had she told these children? Why couldn’t she just forget what they had said, instead of having these thoughts that now whirled in her mind.

  To return to Earth. Home to Earth.

  What did that mean? In forty million years, human beings had been content on Harmony. Why now should Earth be calling to her? It was madness, contagious madness in these troubled times.

  Still, instead of going home she went to the biolibrary, and spent several hours poring over the catalogue, making up a plausible order for two camels’ load of crystalized seeds and embryos that might restore the more useful plants and animals to an Earth that lost them long, long ago.

  IN THE CITY COUNCIL, AND NOT IN A DREAM

  Rasa had spent her life filled with confidence. There was nothing that could happen, she knew, that she could not handle with a combination of wit, kindness, and determination. People could always be persuaded, or if they could not, then they could be ignored and in time they would fade away. This philosophy had brought her to a point where her household was one of the most respected schools in Basilica, despite the fact that it was so new; it had also made her personally influential in every part of the city’s life, though she had never held any office. She was consulted on most major decisions of the city council; she served on the governing boards of many of the arts councils; and, above all, she was privately consulted by the women—and, yes, even the men—who made most of the important decisions concerning Basilica’s government and business. She was wooed by many men, but stayed happily married to the one man she had ever known who was neither threatened by nor covetous of her power. She had created a perfect role for herself within the city, and loved to live the part.

  What had never occurred to her was how fragile it all was. The fabric of her life had been woven on the loom of Basilica, and now that Basilica was breaking apart, her life was fraying, snagging, tearing apart. Her former husband, Gaballufix, had begun the process, back while they were still married, when he attempted to get her to try to change the laws forbidding men to own property in the city. When she realized what his purpose in marrying her had been, she let the contract lapse and remarried Wetchik—permanendy, as far as she was concerned. But Gaballufix hadn’t given up, building support among the lowest sort of men in the villages outside the walls of the city. Then he brought them in as tolchoks, terrifying the women of the city, and then as mercenary soldiers in those hideous masks, supposedly to protect the city from the tolchoks—but as far as Rasa could tell, the mercenaries were the tolchoks in fancy holographic uniforms.

  But Gaballufix might have been containable, if the Oversoul hadn’t begun to act so strangely. She actually spoke to a man—and not just any man, but Wetchik himself. The problems this caused Rasa were incalculable. Not only was her former husband attacking the ancient laws of the city of women, but now her present husband was telling everyone who would listen that Basilica was going to be destroyed. Her dear friend Dhel remarked to her at the time—only a few weeks ago— that people were surprised that Rasa hadn’t also been married to Roptat, the leader of the pro-Gorayni party. “Perhaps you ought to check your bed for some kind of madness-inducing parasite, my dear,” said Dhel. She was joking, of course, but it was a painful joke.