"Will they go hungry? Yes. Will their poverty grow worse? Yes. But we will not let them starve. I spent years of my childhood with constant hunger because our digger slavedrivers wouldn't give us enough to eat! We are not like them! We will gather food, we will use funds donated to the Assembly of the Ancient Ways, and we will feed every digger in Darakemba if we have to-but only long enough for them to make the journey to the border! And we will feed them only as long as they are on their way! They can have food from the larders of the Ancient Ways-but only at the edge of the city, and then they must walk, they and all their families, along the road toward the border. At stations along the way, we'll have a safe place for them to camp, and food for them to eat, and they will be treated with kindness and courtesy-but in the morning they will rise and eat and be on their way, ever closer to the border. And at the end, they will be given enough to walk on for another week, to find a place within the lands of the Elemaki, where they belong. Let them do their labor there! Let them preserve the precious ‘culture' that certain people prize so much-but not in Darakemba! Not in Darakemba!"
As he no doubt planned, the audience took up the chant; it was only with difficulty that he quieted them again so he could finish. The speech did not go on much longer after that-only long enough for him to rhapsodize again about the beauty of the ancient ways of the Nafari and the Darakembi, about how loving and inclusive tke Assembly of the Ancient Ways would be, and how only among the Ancient, as they would call themselves, could true justice and kindness be found, for diggers as well as angels and humans. They screamed their approval, chanted his name, cried out their love for him.
<Akma knew he would be good at this, but even he is quite surprised by all this adulation.>
He doesn't have mine, Shedemei answered silently.
<For what it's worth, most people weren't with him in the really nasty things he said about diggers. But he does have their support for the relocation program he outlined. For the moment, at least, it sounds like a simple and humane solution to most of those who came.>
And how will it sound to the earth people?
<Like the end of the world.>
Motiak will stop it, won't he?
<He'll try, I'm sure. His agents are already reporting to him on what his sons and Akma said. They'll study the law. But he can't oppose this plan forever, if the people really want it.>
Doesn't he see that to take away their livelihood and drive them from their homes so they can survive at all is every bit as cruel, in the long run?
<Don't argue with me. Argue with him. Maybe if you told people who you are and made a demonstration of the power of the cloak... . >
The Keeper doesn't work like that. He wants people to follow him because they love his way.
<Well, when Nafai gave his oldest brothers a bit of of a shock, he got their cooperation for long enough to get the starship refur-bished.>
And they were back to plotting murder as quickly as they could.
"Let's go home, Shedemei," said one of the students.
"He was so wonderful," said one of the others, shaking her head ruefully. "Too bad that everything he said was pure shit."
Shedemei immediately reproved her coarse wording, but then laughed and hugged her. The students of her school might have been caught up in the moment, but they had been truly educated and not just schooled-they were able to hear something they had never before, analyze it, and decide for themselves that it was worthless, dangerous, vile... .
Maybe her student had used the only possible word for it.
When they got home to the school it was after dark. The girls rushed in to tell the others what had been said at the meeting. Shedemei spent those first few minutes going to the teachers who happened to be earth people. She explained about Akma's strategy of boycotting diggers to compel them to leave. "Your place here is safe," she said. "And I will stop charging tuition for all our students, so their parents can spare more to hire diggers and help those they cannot hire. We will'do all we can."
She didn't pass into the courtyard until the students who had heard the speech were telling about Akma's statements about the diggers. They had good recall; some of it they reported word for word. Ed-hadeya was one of those who had not gone; as she told Shedemei, she didn't know if she would be able to control herself, and besides, she had to prove that one of Motiak's children, at least, had not lost all decency. Now, though, as she heard Akma's statements about inferior digger intelligence, about their unfitness for civilized society, she did lose control. "He knew Voozhum! Not as well as my brothers, but he knew her! He knows that everything he's saying is a lie, he knows it, he knows it!" She was flinging her arms about, ranting, almost screaming. The children were frightened, a little but also admired this display of passion-it was a far cry from the brusque but even temper that Shedemei always showed.
Shedemei went to her and wrapped her in her arms. "It hurts the worst when evil is done by those we love," she said.
"How can I answer his lies? How can I stop people from believing him?"
"You're already doing it. You teach. You speak wherever you can. You refuse to tolerate it when others echo these vile things in your presence."
"I hate him!" Edhadeya said, her voice rough with emotion. "I will never forgive him, Shedemei. The Keeper tells us to forgive our enemies but I won't. If that makes me evil also, then I'm evil, but I will hate him forever for what he did tonight."
One of the students, confused, said, "But he didn't actually do anything, did he? He only talked."
Shedemei, still holding Edhadeya close to her, said, "If I point to a man walking down the street, and I scream to everyone, ‘There he is, there's the man who molested my little girl! There's the man who raped and tortured and killed my daughter, I know him, that's the man!'-if I say that, and the crowd tears him to pieces, and yet I knew all along that he was not the man, that it was all a lie, was it just talk, or did I do something?"
Letting them think about this lesson, she led Edhadeya into the school to the cubicle, just like all the other cubicles, where she slept. "Don't be troubled, Edhadeya. Don't let this tear you apart."
"I hate him," she muttered again.
"Now that the others can't hear, let me insist that you face the truth of your own heart. The reason you're so angry, the reason you feel so betrayed that you can't control your emotions, they burst your dignity, they make you almost crazy with grief-the reason for that, my dear friend, my fellow teacher, my daughter, my sister, is that you still love him and that is what you can't forgive."
"I don't love him," said Edhadeya. "That's a terrible thing to accuse me of."
"Cry yourself to sleep, Dedaya. You have classes to teach in the morning. And I'll need a lot of other help from you as well. Tonight you can grieve and brood and curse and rage until you wear yourself out. But we all need you to be useful after that."
In the morning, Edhadeya was useful indeed, calm and hardworking, wise and compassionate as always. But Shedemei could see that the turmoil had not subsided in her heart. You were named well, she thought-named for Eiadh, who made the tragic error of loving Ele-mak. But you haven't made all of Eiadh's mistakes. You have been constant of heart, where Eiadh kept deciding she loved Nafai more. And you may have chosen more wisely in the first place, because it's not yet altogether certain whether Akma really is as single-minded in his pride as Elemak was. Elemak had proof after proof of the power of the Oversoul and then of the Keeper of Earth, and still defied them and hated all they were trying to do. But Akma has never knowingly had any experience with the Keeper's power-that's an advantage that Akmaro and Chebeya, Edhadeya and Luet, Didul and even I have over him. So it just may be, poor Edhadeya, that you have not bestowed your heart as tragically and foolishly as Eiadh did. Then again, it may turn out that you did even worse.