Ruins

  “Are they right? Is there any wallfold that maintained this level of technology? Or surpassed it?”

  “There are wallfolds where technology is very advanced,” said the voice. “But none of the wallfolds started with this technology and built on it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we did not want any wallfold to develop the field technology that would allow them to bring down the Wall.”

  Oh. That made sense.

  “And we could not allow any wallfold to develop starflight and run the risk of encountering the human race on Earth before it was ready to receive visitors from another world.”

  “Why not?” asked Rigg.

  “Because we know that we did not,” said the ship. “In our timestream, humans from Garden never made any contact with Earth prior to the launching of this ship. Therefore we could not allow starflight to develop.”

  “So you gave us eleven thousand years of development, but made sure we did not develop,” said Rigg.

  “In certain areas.”

  “But those might be precisely the areas where it was most important for us to develop if we were going to counter a threat from Earth,” said Rigg.

  “Ram suggests that we say, ‘Now you’re thinking, Rigg.’ He also suggested that we tell you he suggested it.”

  Rigg couldn’t help it. Angry as he was at his father—and he was very angry—a bit of praise from him still had the power to suffuse him with warmth and pride. He hated it that a machine had that kind of power over him. At the same time, he longed to see his father and sit down and talk with him, instead of this disembodied voice.

  “What would you advise me to do right now?”

  “Take control of all the other wallfolds,” said the voice.

  “And then what?”

  “Make your own decisions.”

  “Then I’ll decide to go back in time and prevent that facemask from getting Loaf.”

  “But that would prevent you from entering this room and having this conversation,” said the voice.

  “You could still tell me all this without my coming here. You could have Vadesh tell me when we first meet him.”

  “We cannot go back in time,” said the voice. “If you prevent yourself from coming here, you won’t be in command of this starship, and none of the commands you give us now will be in force back then.”

  This was so obvious that Rigg was embarrassed that he had not thought of it. But time control was still so new to him that it was impossible for him not to revert to the normal human way of thinking about time.

  “You want it this way,” said Rigg. “You want Loaf to have the facemask.”

  “Vadesh needed to know how his new human-adapted facemask would work. And we needed you to know.”

  “But it’s a monstrous, terrible, evil thing to do to my friend,” said Rigg. “I can’t allow that to remain in place when it’s in my power to eliminate it.”

  “Now you know why the humans from Earth will be dangerous to the people of Garden,” said the voice.

  “No, I don’t know,” said Rigg. “I don’t know anything.”

  But even as he spoke, he understood the point that the voice—that Father—was making. The same revulsion and fear that Rigg felt about the facemask might be felt by the people of Earth when they learned about what Rigg and Umbo and Param could do with the flow of time. Fear, revulsion, rejection. And there might be things in the other wallfolds that Rigg didn’t know about yet, things that would make the facemask look like a cute pet.

  “I have to visit the other wallfolds before anybody gets here from Earth,” said Rigg. “I have to know what they’re going to discover about us. I have to know what resources we can call on to resist them if they decide to suppress us or control us or destroy us.”

  “That is a very good list,” said the voice.

  “Did Father tell you to say that?”

  “No,” said the voice, “but he agrees.”

  Rigg took out the jewels one by one, and applied for control of all the starships. They accepted him as their commander, every one.

  “Can a Wall sense when a human is trying to get through it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can it tell which human is trying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I order all ships to allow me to pass through any Wall whose field I enter.”

  “All ships have signaled their understanding and compliance.”

  Rigg thought a little.

  “And my companions,” said Rigg. “Param, Umbo, Loaf, Olivenko.”

  “What about them?”

  Rigg was going to say, Let them pass through also, but then he thought better of it. “If any two of them attempt to pass through together, then let them through.”

  “But not one alone?”

  “If someone is pursuing them, then let them through alone.”

  “Understood.”

  “Pursuing them with hostile intent,” said Rigg. “If I’m pursuing them, make them wait for me.”

  “Expendable Ram asks what you expect to happen.”

  “I don’t expect anything,” said Rigg testily. “I’m trying to create a set of rules that will give me safety and flexibility.”

  “Without losing control of your companions,” said the voice—but he knew it was Father making the sarcastic comment.

  “I don’t want Umbo to get angry and go off by himself. Or anyone. I want to be able to divide up, but into smaller groups, not individuals.”

  “Except you.”

  “Except me! I didn’t ask for this responsibility, but I have it, so yes, I get to make myself the exception, and that’s what I’ve decided.”

  “Expendable Ram says, ‘Good.’”

  “Expendable Ram can eat poo,” said Rigg.

  “All expendables can process any organic matter they ingest and extract energy from it.”

  “I’m so happy to hear that,” said Rigg. And in fact he was. Father wasn’t dead. Angry as Rigg was, he was also relieved. Even though expendable Ram was not his biological father, he was the one—the man—who had raised him. He occupied the place, deep in Rigg’s brain, that belonged to a father. It was his approval that Rigg needed to earn. His counsel that Rigg could trust, deep in his soul, no matter how he mistrusted him at a conscious level. It would be hard to fully expunge his father from the deepest places in his mind. It might not even be possible. And Rigg didn’t want to. Even if all the expendables were the same, could share their memories, could talk to each other, Rigg knew that there was one expendable that had walked the woods with him, taught him, tested him. Father was alive.

  Alive, but not helping me very much.

  I was trying to get rid of responsibility and leadership, thought Rigg. Now I’m responsible for the survival of the whole world.

  Umbo is going to be so annoyed.

  CHAPTER 8

  Resentment

  Umbo sat on the next-to-bottom step of the stairway where Rigg and Loaf had gone with Vadesh. He had waited at the top with the others for what seemed a long time, but finally had to see what was down here.

  A long tunnel extending in two directions. When he called for Param and Olivenko to come down, they were as nonplussed as he was, until Olivenko said, “It’s a road, and this is a loading dock. They got on a vehicle here and it carried them through the tunnel.”

  When Param doubted him, Olivenko pointed out the wear marks on the floor of the platform and on the floor of the tunnel.

  “I thought this material was impervious,” said Param.

  Umbo thought she was making a good point.

  “It is,” said Olivenko. “These marks are from people’s shoes and from the vehicle itself. This is what wore off of them onto the floor.”

  Umbo thought he was making a good point, too.

  Then Umbo thought: What use is a stupid person like me on a journey like this? Olivenko is a scholar. Loaf is big and strong. Rigg was trained by the Golden Man. Rigg and Param are royal. L
oaf and Olivenko are trained as soldiers.

  And me? Yes, I can go back in time and warn myself not to do stuff I was so stupid I did it in the first place.

  When Param and Olivenko went back up the stairs, Umbo stayed below, staring at the tunnel, thinking of the course his life was taking. He was glad he left Fall Ford. He was glad he had traveled with Rigg, that he had listened to Rigg’s explanation of how Umbo’s brother died. Glad also that they had learned how, together, their gifts allowed them to go back in time.

  In fact, it was all such an adventure that if Umbo had heard the tale about anybody else, he would have been enthralled by all the things that went wrong and how they got out of them. Jumping off the riverboat—well, getting thrown by Loaf. Trying again and again to get into the bank to steal back the jewel—only to have it show up here in a different wallfold. Magical things. Marvelous things.

  It’s a lot more fun to hear stories about other people than to live through them yourself, Umbo decided. Because when somebody told you a story, he knew how it was going to come out. He wouldn’t tell it to you if it wasn’t worth telling, if it didn’t amount to something. But when you’re living through it, you don’t know if it’s going to come out well, or even matter at all. Maybe you come all this way and the story goes on down a tunnel and you’re left behind, no longer part of it.

  Maybe you came back and warned yourself and saved yourself a serious beating—but that’s what ended the story for you. No broken arm, no torn ear—but also doomed to go back out of this building and watch Param and Olivenko fall in love and get married and have babies and populate this wallfold, while you go on and on, wandering, exploring, all to no effect, accomplishing nothing because you listened to your beaten-up time-traveling self and took yourself right out of the story.

  Then a light came on deep in the tunnel. There was a whistling sound. A rustling sound. Air moving through narrow spaces.

  A vehicle hurtled into view, then slowed quickly to a stop. Rigg was there. So was Loaf—but Loaf had a mask on his face.

  “No!” cried Umbo, leaping to his feet, rushing toward them. He had no intention beyond tearing the thing off Loaf’s face.

  Rigg blocked his path. “You can’t! It would kill him!”

  Umbo shoved Rigg out of the way before he registered what he said. His hands were already reaching for Loaf’s face, and Loaf in turn had his hands up, ready to fend him off, when Umbo stopped.

  “Thank you for stopping,” said Rigg, who was lying on the floor of the vehicle now. “Actually, I don’t think taking off the facemask would kill Loaf, because Loaf would kill you before you got close to succeeding.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Vadesh planned it all along,” said Rigg. “I think he picked Loaf as the best choice—he tried to leave me behind here at the station. He told us we were in the starship’s control room, but we weren’t. He got it onto Loaf’s face and that was it. The facemask took control of him. If you’d been there, Umbo—”

  “I would have pried it off him!”

  “Loaf would’ve—the facemask controlling Loaf would have torn you apart as you tried.”

  And that explained future-Umbo’s condition when he came back to warn him to do nothing. Umbo told Rigg about the warning.

  “Exactly right,” said Rigg. “Vadesh was going to get this facemask onto one of us, one way or another. He picked Loaf, and after it was done, Vadesh turned docile. I can command him now. If I can stand to look at him.”

  “Where is he?” asked Umbo.

  “When Loaf and I got on the vehicle, I told Vadesh to walk,” said Rigg. “He’ll be along in a while.” Rigg touched Loaf’s arm. “Loaf understands me when I talk to him. Or maybe it’s the facemask that understands me, using Loaf’s brain. I don’t know. I asked him if he knew me, and he didn’t answer. I don’t think he can talk. I asked him to come with me, to stand up, to do anything that showed Loaf was still in there. Nothing. But when I told him that the only way he’d get out of the starship was if he followed me, he got up and came along.”

  “So you don’t know if that’s Loaf, or the facemask responding to your threat to leave him there,” said Umbo.

  “I think it’s Loaf, or partly Loaf, and the facemask decided to allow it,” said Rigg. “Besides, from what you said about how your future self looked, I think it’s pretty certain Loaf still has some kind of control.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Umbo.

  “Because you weren’t dead,” said Rigg. “If it was just the facemask, using Loaf’s body, using a soldier’s reflexes, and you posed a threat, he’d just have killed you. But he didn’t. He only stopped you.”

  “And you think that means Loaf can still control something?”

  “The facemask soldiers in the battle we saw—”

  “I didn’t see anything,” said Umbo. “I was the anchor, remember?”

  “Those were the original facemasks, completely in charge of their human hosts. They didn’t hesitate to kill the uncontaminated humans. But Loaf hasn’t tried to kill me.”

  “What does that prove?”

  “What Loaf has is a kind of facemask Vadesh has been breeding for thousands of years, to make it compatible with humans. If Vadesh didn’t screw it up, then Loaf is still in there. He might eventually get control. Or at least share control. Vadesh never had a human to try it on. So we won’t know until we see what Loaf does. But he came with me. He’s doing what I ask.”

  “And you made Vadesh walk.”

  “I know, it was childish of me. He’s a machine, it’s not going to bother him. But it made me feel better.”

  “Breaking him into small pieces would make me feel better.”

  “He’s indestructible. Plus if he dies, there are several replacements in there, with all his memories and personality already in them, ready to take over if anything damages this one.”

  “So we can’t do anything to help Loaf, and we can’t do anything to hurt Vadesh.”

  “Oh, there’s one way to hurt him,” said Rigg. “We could leave this wallfold, so he can’t see how his experiment turned out.”

  “I suppose that’s the best we can do.”

  “All the expendables talk to each other, and to the starships,” said Rigg. “So I suppose he’ll find out what happens one way or another.”

  “I really liked your father,” said Umbo. “And Vadesh looks and sounds exactly like him, but he’s vile. He feels different. He did right from the start.”

  “Identical machines,” said Rigg. “But I feel the same way. Maybe being without human company for ten thousand years changed Vadesh.”

  “Or maybe he was already different, and that’s why all the humans in his wallfold died, leaving him without any.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Rigg. “Where are Param and Olivenko?”

  “Upstairs. Are we going to wait for him?”

  “Vadesh? No. He probably knows another way and when we go up the stairs he’ll already be waiting.” Rigg turned to Loaf, who was just standing there, the facemask inert on his head, its tendrils wrapped around his neck, going into his nose, down under his clothing, one of them penetrating the spot just above the collarbone so that it was reaching into his flesh. “Will you come upstairs with us, Loaf?”

  No response. Nothing.

  Rigg turned his back on Loaf and started for the stairs. Umbo started with him, but he had to stop and see if his friend was going to follow.

  Loaf took a staggering step forward, then balanced himself and walked slowly after Rigg. He showed no sign that he knew Umbo was there. That was hard to bear, but also maybe a good thing—at least Loaf wasn’t trying to attack him. There would be no broken arm or torn ear.

  On impulse, Umbo fell in beside Loaf and walked along with him. Loaf showed no aversion to this. So as they climbed the stairs, Umbo slipped his fingers into Loaf’s large, man-sized hand and gripped him.

  Ever so faintly, ever so gently, he felt Loaf’s grip tight
en in response. A hint of a sign that Loaf was still in there. Loaf knew him. That was enough for Umbo. Enough for now, anyway.

  Because if he ever became sure that Loaf was utterly gone, that his body was now completely the property of the monster implanted on his head, Umbo would find a way to kill him. If Loaf couldn’t have his own life, this creature wasn’t going to have it, either.

  But Loaf was there. For now. So far.

  Param had not intended to separate from the others, back outside the city. She simply got anxious, and by long habit, anxiety made her withdraw, becoming invisible to them and, best of all, ceasing to hear anything they said. They could look toward her, but she knew they didn’t see her. It was her perfect instantaneous escape.

  Had she meant to escape? She hadn’t thought so; what would she be escaping from? It was inconvenient. This was not Flacommo’s house, where food would be waiting for her in Mother’s room whenever she chose to arrive there. She needed to stay with the others.

  But look—they were already moving away. Leaving her behind. They didn’t care.

  She knew this was unfair. To them, it would seem they had waited a long time for her to reappear. Nor did they look angry; merely surprised for a moment. She could imagine that Rigg had assumed she wanted to disappear, and he was leaving her to do so freely.

  Yet it still felt to her as if they had decided she didn’t matter enough to wait for.

  Of course, if she had disappeared deliberately, she might have remained invisible for a long time. She was prone to doing that, as both Rigg and Olivenko would know. So waiting would make no sense. They were behaving perfectly rationally. All she had to do was come back to the normal timeflow and call out, “Wait for me.”

  But then they would ask for an explanation, and she didn’t have one, except for the embarrassing admission that the slightest anxiety could make her vanish. Such weakness!

  Or they wouldn’t ask for an explanation, which might be worse, for that would mean they were being understanding, choosing not to mention her little indiscretion, like a drunk’s crude remark or an old lady’s fart.

  So she hesitated longer, not knowing what to do, decided that she must decide right now, and then realized that her hesitation was her decision.