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and sent us dreams, and then suddenly she fell silent and we were left to our own devices for so long.
    “It was an old man first, among the Zenifi,” said the Oversoul. Shedemei padded naked along the corridors of the ship and then up the central shaft to the library. “They murdered him. But a priest named Akmaro believed him. I think he also had some dreams, but I’m not sure. With the old man dead and ex-priest living in slavery, I wouldn’t have woken you. But then the daughter of Motiak dreamed. Like Luet. I haven’t seen a dreamer like this since Luet.”
    “What’s her name? She was just a newborn when I . . .”
    “Edhadeya. The women call her Deya. They know she’s something but the men don’t listen, of course.”
    “I really don’t like the way things have developed between men and women among the Nafari, you know. My great-great-granddaughters shouldn’t have to put up with such nonsense.”
    “I’ve seen worse,” said the Oversoul.
    “I have no doubt of
that.
But, forgive me for asking: So what?”
    “It will change,” the Oversoul said. “It always does.”
    “How old is she know? Deya?”
    “Ten.”
    “I sleep ten years and I still don’t feel rested.” She sat down at one of the library computers. “All right, show me what I need to see.”
    The Oversoul showed her Edhadeya’s dream and told her about Mon and his truthsense.
    “Well,” said Shedemei, “the powers of the parents are undiminished in the children.”
    “Shedemei, does any of this make sense to you?”
    Shedemei almost laughed aloud. “Do you hear yourself, my friend? You are the program that posed as a god back on the planet Harmony. You planned your plans, you plotted your plots, and you never asked humans for advice. Instead you roped us in and dragged us to Earth, transformed our lives forever and now you ask
me
if any of this makes sense? What happened to the master plan?”
    “My plan was simple,” said the Oversoul. “Get back to Earth and ask the Keeper what I should do about the weakening power of the Oversoul of Harmony. I fulfilled that plan as far as I could. Here I am.”
    “And here
I
am.”
    “Don’t you see, Shedemei? Your being here wasn’t
my
plan. I needed human help to assemble one workable starship, but I didn’t need to take any humans with me. I brought you because the Keeper of Earthwas somehow sending you dreams—and sending them faster than light, I might add. The Keeper seemed to want you humans here. So I brought you. And I came, expecting to find technological marvels waiting for me. Machines that could repair me, replenish me, send me back to Harmony able to restore the power of the Oversoul. Instead I wait here, I’ve waited nearly five hundred years—”
    “As have I,” added Shedemei.
    “You’ve slept through most of them,” said the Oversoul. “And you don’t have responsibility for a planet a hundred lightyears distant where technology is beginning to blossom and devastating wars are only a few generations away. I don’t have time for this. Except that if the Keeper thinks I have time for it, I probably do. Why doesn’t the Keeper talk to me? When no one was hearing anything for all these years, I could be patient. But now humans are dreaming again, the Keeper is on the move again, and yet still it says nothing to me.”
    “And you ask
me?”
said Shedemei. “You’re the one who should have memories dating back to the time when you were created. The Keeper sent you, right? Where was it then?
What
was it then?”
    “I don’t know.” If a computer could shrug, Shedemei imagined the Oversoul would do it now. “Do you think I haven’t searched my memory? Before your husband died, he helped me search, and we found nothing. I remember the Keeper always being present, I remember knowing that certain vital instructions had been programmed into me by the Keeper—but as to who or what the Keeper is or was or even might have been, I know as little as