Where was the Keeper of Earth? In the days since Akma had his dream that the rescuers weren't coming, Chebeya had asked the same question over and over. If the Keeper cares enough about us to send Akma a dream, why doesn't she do something? Akmaro said that the Keeper is testing us, but what is the test and how do we pass it? Does the Keeper want us to turn into a nation of cowards? Or does she want us to revolt against Pabulog's hideous children and so die? We must each think of a way, Akmaro had said. We must find a way out of this dilemma ourselves, that is the test that the Keeper has set for us. And once we find that way, the Keeper will help us.
Well, if the Keeper was so smart, why didn't she come up with a few suggestions herself?
No one knew better than Chebeya how their slavery was destroying them. Few knew of her gift, and those only women, except of course for her husband; but where once she had been able to alert Akmaro to small rifts in the community before they could become open quarrels, now all she could do was watch in despair as the bonds connecting friend to friend, parent to child, brother to sister all weakened, thinned to almost nothingness. They are making us into animals, depriving us of our human affections. All we care about now is survival, avoiding the whip. Each time we cower and let our children be mistreated, we love those children a little less, because it is only by not loving them as much that we can bear it to see them suffer.
Not Akmaro, though. He loved his children more and more; in the night he whispered to her how proud he was of their strength, their courage, their understanding. But perhaps this was because Akmaro had a seemingly limitless tolerance for emotional pain. He could suffer for his children-no one knew better than Chebeya how much he suffered-and yet he clung all the tighter to them because of it. He is not afraid of his own love for them, the way so many other parents are. Am I like him? Or like them?
What worried Chebeya most in her own family was the way young Akma seemed to be growing more and more distant from his father. Could the boy be blaming Akmaro for not saving him from the persecution of the sons of Pabulog? It couldn't be that-if Luet could understand, Akma could also. So what was it that made Akma flee from what had once been a tight connection between him and his father?
Chebeya mocked herself silently. Why am I worrying about tension between father and son? In a week or a month or a year we'll all be dead-murdered or dead of hunger or disease. Then what will it matter why Akma didn't have the same loyalty to his father that he used to have?
I wish I could talk to Hushidh or Chveya, one of the ancient rav-elers. They must have understood better than I do the things that I see. Does Akma hate his father? Is it anger? Fear? I watch the loyalties shift and change, and sometimes it's obvious why the changes come, and sometimes I have almost no idea. Hushidh and Chveya were never uncertain. They always knew what to do, they were always wise.
But I am not wise. I only know that my husband is losing our son's love. And what will I be in Luet's eyes, her own mother, when I stand by in silence and let these bullies mistreat her?
Chebeya felt herself filled with a sudden and irresistible resolve. They mean to kill us eventually. Better to die with Luet certain that her mother loves her.
Chebeya stood upright again.
The diggers had already looked away from her, but they noticed soon enough that she had stopped her work. They moved toward her.
Chebeya pitched her voice to be heard clearly by the sons of Pabulog. "Why are you so frightened of me?" she said.
It worked-one of the boys answered her. The third son, the one called Didul. "I'm not frightened of you!"
"Then why don't you push me down, instead of a little girl half your size?" Chebeya let her voice fill with scorn, and saw with pleasure how Didul's face flushed.
Around her, other adults were muttering. "Hush. Enough. Quiet now. They'll beat us all."
Chebeya ignored them. She also ignored the digger guards with their upraised whips, who were already almost upon her. "Didul, if you aren't a coward, take a whip and beat me yourself!"
One of the digger's whips landed on her back. She winced and staggered under the weight of the blow.
"You're just like your father!" she cried out to him. "Afraid to do anything yourself!"
Another blow fell. But then Didul called out. "Stop!"
The diggers each let one more blow fall before they obeyed him. It brought Chebeya to her knees, and she could feel the blood flowing down her back. But Didul was coming to her, and so she used the precious moments before he arrived. Rising slowly to her feet, she looked him in the eye and spoke to him. "So, the boy Didul has some pride. How could that happen? The children of Akmaro have courage-no matter how you torment them, have you ever heard them beg for mercy? Do you think that if your father were beaten the way you beat these little children, be would be as brave?"
"Don't speak of my father, blasphemer!" shouted Didul. But Chebeya could see what Didul could not-that she had troubled him. The connection between him and his brothers was just a little weaker because of her words.
"See what your father teaches you? To bully little children. But you have pride. It makes you ashamed to do what your father tells you to do."
Didul took the whip from the hands of one of the diggers. "I'll show you my pride, blasphemer!"
"Is it your pride that lets you raise a whip against an unarmed woman?"
Ah, the words stung, she could see it.
"No, a true son of Pabulog can only strike out at people who are helpless. Have you ever seen your father stand in battle like a man?"
"He would if he had any real men to fight!" shouted Didul.
Chebeya searched her mind for the retort that would work the best. "I think that in your heart, Didul, you understand what your father is doing to you. Why do you think he sent you here to torment us? Why do you think he told you to mistreat the little children? Because he knew that you would be ashamed of yourself for doing it. Because he knew that once you had made little children cry, you would know that you were as low and cowardly as he is, so that he would never have to hear his children taunt him, for he will always be able to answer you, ‘Yes, but who was it who beat up on little girls?' "
Infuriated, Didul lashed out. The whip caught her across the shoulder and the end of it wrapped around her and caught her on the cheek. Blood splashed into her eyes and she was blinded for a moment.
"Don't call my father a coward!" cried Didul.
"Even at this very moment," she said, "you hate him for making you the kind of coward who answers a woman's words with a whip. If the things I said were not the truth, Didul, they wouldn't make you so angry."
"Nothing that you said is true!"
"Everything I said is true, and the proof of it is that when you walk away from here, these guards will beat me to death, just so you never have to listen to me again." Chebeya spoke with conviction; she feared that what she was saying just might be the truth.
"If they beat you it will be to punish you for lying."
"If you didn't believe me, Didul, you would just laugh at what I said."
Now she had him. She could see the new thread that bound him to her. She was winning him away, tearing at his loyalty to his father.
"I don't believe you," he said.
"You believe me, Didul, because every time you hit one of these little children you're ashamed. I can see it in your eyes. You laugh, just like your brothers, but you hate yourself for it. You're afraid that you're just like your father."
"I want to be just like my father."
"Really? Then why are you here? Your father doesn't dirty himself by beating up on children with his own hands. He always sends thugs and bullies to do it for him. No, you can't be like your father, because there's still a man inside you. But don't worry-a few more years of beating up on babies and there'll be no trace of manhood left in your heart."