The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card Read Free Book Online Page A

at somebody. What were they doing, listening to this ugly stupid little girl, letting her tell Father—the Wetchik himself, in case nobody remembered—to keep his mouth shut!
    But everybody else was so intense that Nafai kept his own mouth shut. Issib would be so proud of him for actually refraining from saying something that he had thought of.
    “What I felt,” said Father, “was
nothing
.” He nodded slowly. “Right after you asked the question and I answered it—. Of course, what else—then you sat there looking at me and I had nothing in my head at all.”
    “Stupid,” she said.
    He raised an eyebrow. To Nafai’s relief, he was finally noticing how disrespectfully Luet was speaking to him.
    “You felt stupid,” she said. “And so you knew that what you’d just said was wrong.”
    He nodded. “Yes, I guess that’s it.”
    “What’s all this about?” said Issib. “Analyzing your analysis of analyses of a completely subjective hallucination?”
    Good work, Issya, said Nafai silently. You took the words right out of my mouth.
    “I mean, you can play these games all morning, but you’re just laying meanings on top of a meaningless experience. Dreams are nothing more than random firings of memories, which your brain then interprets so as to invent causal connections, which makes stories out of
nothing
.”
    Father looked at Issib for a long moment, then shook his head. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “Even though I was wide awake and I’ve never had a hallucinationbefore, it was nothing more than a random firing of synapses in my brain.”
    Nafai knew, as Issib and Mother certainly knew, that Father was being ironic, that he was telling Issib that his vision of the fire on the rock was
more
than a meaningless night dream. But Luet didn’t know Father, so
she
thought he was backing away from mysticism and retreating into reality.
    “You’re wrong,” she said. “It was a true vision, because it came to you the right way. The understanding came
before
the vision—that’s why I was asking those questions. The meaning is there and then your brain supplies the pictures that let you understand it. That’s the way the Oversoul talks to us.”
    “Talks to crazy people, you mean,” Nafai said.
    He regretted it immediately, but by then it was too late.
    “Crazy people like
me
?” said Father.
    “And I assure you that Luet is at least as sane as you are,” Mother added.
    Issib couldn’t pass up the chance to cast a verbal dart. “As sane as Nyef? Then she’s in deep trouble.”
    Father shut down Issib’s teasing immediately. “You were saying the same thing yourself only a minute ago.”
    “I wasn’t calling people crazy,” said Issib.
    “No, you didn’t have Nafai’s—what shall we call it?—
pointed eloquence
.”
    Nafai knew he could save himself now by shutting up and letting Issib deflect the heat. But he was committed to skepticism, and self-control wasn’t his strong suit. “This girl,” said Nafai. “Don’t you see how she was leading you on, Father? She asks you a question, but she doesn’t tell you beforehand what the answer will mean—so no matter what you answer, she can say, That’s it, it’s a true vision, definitely the Oversoul talking.”
    Father didn’t have an immediate answer. Nafai glanced at Luet, feeling triumphant, wanting to see her squirm. But she wasn’t squirming. She was looking at him very calmly. The intensity had drained out of her and now she was simply—calm. It bothered him, the steadiness of her gaze. “What are you looking at?” he demanded.
    “A fool,” she answered.
    Nafai jumped to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to you calling me a—”
    “Sit down!” roared Father.
    Nafai sat, seething.
    “She just listened to
you
calling
her
a fraud,” said Father. “I appreciate how both of my sons are doing exactly what I wanted you here to do—providing a skeptical audience for my story. You analyzed the process very