The children were gathered around an area of disturbed soil which Zilia assumed was the grave. Saturday welcomed her and offered a blanket, since Zilia had not brought one of her own. The singing resumed, a multiversed chant called “Singing up the Gods,” which told the story of a scene-by-scene, virtually rock-by-rock, ascent to the escarpment. This was followed by storytelling in which Horgy Endure was given the leading, though fictional, part as he explored strange and wonderful places such as the Isles of Flowers. Then there was a quiet perambulation around the grave and then a repetition of the same sequence, with minor variations. The children seemed to know a great many songs which had no real words but very complicated rhythms, songs which had no end but merely went on until everyone was tired. Sometimes they wore masks while singing or perambulating, blank masks with round holes for eyes and mouths, so they all looked alike.
“Why?” Zilia asked, troubled by this facelessness.
“Because we are not here as individuals,” said Saturday. “Who we are isn’t important. It’s the intent that matters.”
“Why do you say who you are isn’t important?”
Saturday frowned, tried to speak, frowned again. “Because … because there’s no … no reward,” she said at last. “We don’t get a gold star or anything.”
“Our name doesn’t get put on a plaque,” said Jep. “Who did it isn’t important. Only the fact it was done.”
Zilia did not understand this. Nothing was being done, that she could see. Whether something was done or not seemed utterly irrelevant, and she could not believe it was important. “What do you think you are doing?” she asked.
“A kindness,” said Saturday. “A kindness of eight.”
It was true there were only eight of them. Jep, and Saturday, and six from other settlements, not as many as Zilia had assumed there would be.
“Where’s your friend Willum R.?” Zilia asked Jep.
“He wasn’t feeling well,” he responded. “Gotoit and some of the others stayed with him.
Nightwatch ten passed, and eleven. Somewhere in the night was the sound of someone or something digging. “Pocket squirrels,” said Jep calmly, in response to Zilia’s questioning glance. “The big kind. I saw one before dark that was as long as my forearm.”
“I didn’t know they got that large,” said Zilia, wonderingly. “Really? Or are you exaggerating?”
“I have seen some very large pocket squirrels,” Jep said stoutly. “And at night they look even bigger.”
The others agreed with him, telling stories of pocket-squirrel oddities from the settlements.
Along about nightwatch thirteen, Zilia fell asleep. When she woke, it was almost dawn, and the children were yawning as they put out the fire and extinguished their lanterns. One more parade around the site, and then they straggled back toward the management complex, Zilia as weary as any, though she had slept four or five periods. She waved them goodbye at the door of her apartment building, washed off the dust of the night, and fell into bed.
Meantime, the weary children trudged back the way they had come, into a small gully, which ran behind the burying ground, where Willum R., Gotoit, and a dozen other shivering children waited for them around a blanket wrapped form.
“You were far enough from the real grave that we could get him up,” said Willum R. tiredly, “but we couldn’t carry him over where we picked for the temple without that woman maybe seeing us.”
“It’s short nights now,” murmured Saturday. “Nobody’ll be awake at Central for a while yet. The grave’s all dug, so we’ve got time if we go quickly.”
The body of Horgy Endure, carried on a blanket folded around two poles, was hustled over a stretch of rolling ground to a small eminence overlooking the management complex and was there shallowly interred together with a scrap of the sticky, whitish God-stuff, which Saturday Wilm had brought in a filmbag in her knapsack.
“It’s about time,” moaned Gotoit, rubbing her aching arms.
“I’ll say,” agreed Jep. “I’m tired. This is the last one.”
“No more vigils,” said Saturday. “I’ll sort of miss the singing.”
“No reason for vigils,” Jep shook his head. “Not anymore.”
“I’ve got four left,” said Saturday, peering into her knapsack. “I cut fifteen when we raised Birribat. We used ten in the settlements and one here, so I’ve got four left. Why did I do that?”
“Don’t throw them away,” said Jep. “If you’ve got them, you’ve probably got them for a reason. Keep them safe.”
“I wonder how long they’re good for?”
Jep only shrugged. He hadn’t any idea.
“Who’ll build the temple at CM?” he wanted to know. “They hardly have any kids here at all.”
They had no answer to the question, and even the most impudent among them could not have foreseen the day when Dern Blass and Zilia Makepeace and Spiggy and Jamice and the rest of the administrative staff would scribe the inner and outer circles of a temple and begin laying stones near the grave which had just been filled. Nor did they foresee the day when those same folk would see to the raising of the God, Horgy Endure.
They went back to their temporary quarters at CM in a straggling procession, yawning and dragging their feet. Jep and Saturday lingered behind the others, hand-in-hand.
“Now we can just live,” said Jep, rather wearily. “Now we can just live, Sats.” He put his arms around her, and they leaned together, two tired children, Ones Who had done everything the God required and were now entitled to rest.
“Now we can just live,” she agreed, kissing him on the cheek, a small kiss, just to say everything was still there, intact, between them.
“Come on,” cried Gotoit, beckoning. “We need to get home.”
Jep stopped abruptly, shivering.
“What’s the matter?” Saturday asked.
“When she said that, I got all cold,” he complained.
“When she
