Visitors

by Orson Scott Card

  He could hear Loaf barking orders to a field of clumsy oafs trying to master the use of the short spear. Apparently these were town-born recruits, because they didn’t even know the rudiments of quarterstaff and staff fighting that any child in Fall Ford would know just from rough play with the other children. Even privick girls learned how to defend themselves with the quarter, even if the full staff was too long for them to do more than vault streams with it.

  Loaf would not be happy to be interrupted, so Umbo didn’t interrupt him. There was no urgency—Umbo had taken the flyer out of laziness and a desire not to expend more of his own life in meaningless walking, not because there was any time pressure. No matter how long this errand took, he would return to Larfold at the time he promised, or earlier.

  Loaf noticed him right away, but Umbo deliberately looked off in another direction, then sat on the ground, sending a clear signal that he did not intend to interrupt. Loaf nodded to him, then returned to his work.

  It was near sunset when he dismissed the weary, bruised, limping men to go off and have some of the glorious stew Leaky and her crew would have waiting for them. Some of the men complained about “stew every day,” but Loaf and Leaky had worked that out as the best way to make sure that food was always ready, no matter when Loaf dismissed the men from their training. Since other squads were training elsewhere, and would arrive for meals at different times, stew was the best solution for all.

  And it wasn’t the same stew. Leaky made sure they had mul­tiple cauldrons at multiple hearths, and when one stew ran out, she had the pot washed thoroughly. There were cooks who claimed that never washing the pot, merely adding new water and new ingredients, “enriched” the flavor of the stew. But Leaky said, “I wouldn’t serve my customers a stew with ingredients older than their grandmothers, which is why our roadhouse was worth building a town around!”

  Loaf made his way to Umbo with much more vigor than any of his men showed. “Is Rigg in need of these men?” he asked. “Because they’re not ready.”

  “No, no, I haven’t seen Rigg,” said Umbo. “Nor do I need them. Unless one of them has teats full of milk.”

  “I beat that out of them, if any of them is heavy with milk,” said Loaf with a smile. Then he made the connection. “You were in Larfold. Is something wrong with Square?”

  “I can’t believe you sent him to the Larfolders,” said Umbo. “The burden of staying on land for him is becoming onerous.”

  “I assumed that they’d take turns,” said Loaf. “Auntie Wind could have said no.”

  “She said yes,” said Umbo, “but others are now saying no, and I need to bring your answer to her earlier this afternoon.”

  “Answer to what?”

  “She wants to put a mantle on the boy.”

  Loaf shook his head. “That would make him a Larfolder forever,” he said. “It would cut him off from his brother.”

  “Hasn’t Leaky already done that?” asked Umbo.

  Loaf nodded. “I love her, and she’s worthy of more love than I can give. But I admit that her rejection of Square took me by surprise. Even if she didn’t accept him as her true son, I thought at least she’d take care of him as an orphan.”

  Umbo shrugged. “But he’s not an orphan, and that complicates everything.”

  “The woman who bore him,” said Loaf, “will never exist in this timestream, even if she was named Leaky. I don’t know what to do. I can’t take Square to Ramfold again, because that makes him a hostage if Haddamander and Hagia ever find out who he is. And I don’t think I’d want him among the Odinfolders.”

  “Auntie Wind said that some were saying we should entrust him to the mice that we allowed to infest Larfold,” said Umbo.

  Loaf nodded slowly. “So. They noticed, and they’re not delighted.”

  “I think that even though they don’t till the soil, they still thought of it as their own land.”

  “Well, now it isn’t,” said Loaf. “I don’t think we’d have much luck if we tried to gather up the mice now.”

  “We could ask them to stay out of a zone near the shore,” said Umbo. “I think they might.”

  “Or they might say, Let the Larfolders make us move, if they want us gone.”

  “With their mantles, the Larfolders are the only people in Garden who can all spot the mice no matter how they try to hide and make themselves small.”

  “And the Larfolders are the only ones who can escape the mice completely, by going into the ocean,” said Loaf. “They’ll work it out, and we should stay out of it. But I can see Auntie Wind’s point. Their mantles are bred to be gentle with children, to grow up with them, so to speak. The child is master of his own body.”

  “So you think Square should be given a mantle?” asked Umbo.

  “I don’t want to try to raise a son who can hide from me under the sea,” said Loaf.

  “So you do plan to raise him?”

  “He’s going to know he has a father,” said Loaf. “Even if it’s an ugly old facemasker like me.”

  “Why not keep him here?”

  Loaf shook his head. “You know we tried it. But caring for the son of the . . . whatever I am . . . Sergeant-at-Arms, maybe . . . it was becoming bad for the women, bad for their husbands, and bad for the boy. Spoiled. I meant to leave him with the Larfolders for only a day or two, but I’m so busy here . . .”

  “Auntie Wind isn’t angry,” said Umbo, “and the only person she’s critical of is Leaky, for reasons you can understand even though you don’t agree.”

  “I do agree,” said Loaf. “By Silbom’s left elbow, you’d think Leaky would take the boy in for my sake, if not for his own.”

  “But she won’t, and you don’t want to fight that war.”

  “So I have no choice but to take him back here,” said Loaf, “even if it complicates camp life and keeps Leaky in a perpetual sulk.”

  Umbo had suspected that all the other reasons for exiling Square had been a mask for this one—that as long as Square was in camp, Leaky was surly and that made Loaf nervous and edgy, which damaged his ability to work well with the men. It was as if Square were Loaf’s bastard child by another woman. Which he almost was, in a way, but definitely was not, in another.

  “I think I should take as much responsibility for the boy as you,” said Umbo. “I’m the one who brought him home to you. I didn’t have to. I could have taken him to any number of childless couples.”

  “You had to bring him to us because he was ours, he is ours, even if Leaky is too insane to understand that,” said Loaf. “Of course if you ever quote me as having said that, I’ll kill you. You can’t time-shift fast enough to get away from me.”

  “Yes I can,” said Umbo, “but I would never tell her because Leaky would kill you, and then who would train these miserable revolutionary troops?”

  “They’re more like refugees than an army, though a few of them are really trying to become more soldierlike. Fortunately, since all our attacks come as a complete surprise, coming previous to all the other attacks, we always win with very little fighting, just by showing our numbers and having men who look as if they know how to use their weapons, even if they don’t. If we actually had to fight, I fear any halfway competent regiment could slaughter these poor geese.”

  “But then, Haddamander has a way of removing halfway competent officers because they might pose a threat to him.”

  “I wish we could rely on him to remove all his good officers. But he still has many, and most are at least adequate, and that’s likely to be enough to stop these clowns. But that’s how it looks this week, with this group. Who knows what they’ll be two years from now?”

  “Sick of you, I bet,” said Umbo.

  “Oh, they’re already there, I promise you.”

  “They’re annoyed with you, a bit resentful, but they’re also proud of the skills they’re a
cquiring. That makes them grateful, too. They won’t really hate you until it dawns on them that no matter how hard they work and how much they learn, you’ll never be pleased.”

  “I’ll be pleased when I believe that some of them will stand up against a trained army.”

  “As I said.”

  “What do I do about Square?” said Loaf. “What with all the talk of the Rebel King and the revolution in Ramfold, I think any orphan child would be viewed with suspicion. Whose orphan, they’ll ask. What trouble will it bring down on our house, to take him in? I’d ask those questions, and I wouldn’t want to give him to anyone so stupid they didn’t think of that.” Loaf pursed his lips and sat in silence a moment. “I don’t want to give him to anyone, anyway. Not Larfolders, not Ramfolders, not the mice, not this rebel army. I want him to grow up in the same family with his little brother.”

  “His older brother,” corrected Umbo.

  “In a timestream that doesn’t exist,” said Loaf. “In this reality, Square is obviously older, bigger . . . that might be what Leaky’s afraid of. That by being older, Square will supplant Round, take away his rights as her firstborn child.”

  “What I’m thinking,” said Umbo, “if you want to hear it . . .”

  “From your tone of voice, I assume I’m going to hate to hear it.”

  “The Larfolders’ mantles don’t take over their babies. They join with them, nurture them, protect them, and surrender to their control as they mature.”

  “You’re not arguing for giving him a mantle,” said Loaf.

  “I’m arguing for giving him a facemask,” said Umbo.

  “If Leaky couldn’t even bear a facemask—”

  “Leaky is a woman who is already barely capable of controlling her physical impulses,” said Umbo. “How can we be surprised that the facemask took away such control as she has? But Vadesh learned some things from the Larfold mantles, as he designed this batch of facemasks. And maybe the facemasks act differently when they symbionize with a child.”

  “And maybe they don’t,” said Loaf. “I’m not going to let my baby be destroyed in some insane experiment.”

  “Loaf,” said Umbo. “We can always prevent ourselves from doing it, if it fails. Just as we did with Leaky.”

  “Even with a facemask, it hardly solves our problem,” said Loaf. “He’s a baby, he needs care.”

  “The mantles take care of everything for the Larfold babies,” said Umbo. “I’m betting that if there was no milk to be had, the facemask could wean him. And if not, it would allow him to suckle from a goat or a sheep or a cow.”

  “Or mice?” asked Loaf.

  “I have to take an answer to Auntie Wind,” said Umbo. “I made a suggestion, something we could try. And there’s this: If it works, then you’ll have one son with a facemask like yours, and one without.”

  “And wouldn’t Leaky wreak havoc about that,” said Loaf. “Always accusing me of having a favorite and it wouldn’t be her favorite.”

  “Accuse her first of favoring Round,” said Umbo. “It’ll have the virtue of being the simple truth, long before a facemask was involved.”

  “Don’t you know that my being right only makes Leaky more stubborn?”

  “For a while,” said Umbo. “But she’s smart and she’s fair, and when the anger calms, the argument will hold. She chose a favorite first.”

  “Worth a try,” said Loaf. “Let’s go get the baby, and then see what Vadesh says.”

  “I can bring the baby,” said Umbo.

  “The Larfolders don’t know about diapers,” said Loaf. “He shits everywhere.”

  “I’ve been turded by yahoos,” said Umbo. “I can take it.”

  “No, I’ll bring him,” said Loaf. “I’m his father.”

  “You’ve already put in a full day,” said Umbo.

  “I’ll sleep in the flyer,” said Loaf. “I’m certainly not walking to Larfold.”

  “Can we eat first?” asked Umbo.

  “Good idea,” said Loaf, “as long as you don’t even hint to Leaky about what we’re doing. Let’s face her rage as sinners, rather than as mere contemplators of a sin.”

  Umbo smiled his understanding.

  But he did not understand. His wife was Queen-in-the-Tent, and she caused him far, far less worry, far less conflict than Leaky caused Loaf.

  Then again, thought Umbo, that’s probably because she doesn’t actually care what I do. She married me only to keep my timeshaping abilities in the royal family. Whereas Leaky is really devoted to Loaf, which is why his actions can make her go crazy.

  Don’t think like that, Umbo told himself. Maybe Param loves you as much as she’s capable of love. She’s certainly kinder to you than she could ever have learned from her mother, the Monster Queen Hagia. As royal marriages go, ours is already above ­average: I haven’t been murdered, I haven’t had to flee her presence, and if we haven’t actually done anything together that might conceive a child, that’s only because her being pregnant would be inconvenient and, potentially, dangerous, since we don’t know what time-slicing might do to a fetus in the womb.

  They ate. Leaky and Loaf were perfectly at ease with each other. Umbo was relieved yet also vaguely disappointed at how easy it was for Loaf to hide his intentions from her.

  But he didn’t discuss this with Loaf. He knew the topic would probably be off-limits forever. And it was just as well that husbands and wives could keep secrets from each other, when the thing being concealed was necessary and right, and nothing would be gained from quarreling about it. A soldier always has things he needs to conceal from his family. It’s a good thing that he can, without diminishing the love between them.

  When they reached the shore, it was only ten minutes or so after Umbo had left—but Auntie Wind already had baby Square there with her. And no nursing mother. She knew that the baby would be taken away, not because she had any foreknowledge or any timeshaping ability, but because she knew that there was no solution to the problem that would involve leaving Square in Larfold for even one more day.

  “Better than your word,” said Auntie Wind to Umbo as he and Loaf approached.

  “And you have been better than yours,” said Loaf. “I never meant to leave the boy with you this long.”

  “You’re preparing for war,” said Auntie Wind. “And you’re a man. Now you’ve come to take responsibility, and so there are no hard feelings. We’ll remember this boy fondly. He’s funny and smart and clever and good, insofar as toddlers can be.”

  “We’re going to try a facemask on him,” said Umbo.

  “I think that’s wise,” said Auntie Wind.

  “And if it destroys him, Umbo will go back and prevent it,” said Loaf.

  “It will go well,” said Auntie Wind. “Even in their original state, the mantles and facemasks are gentler on babies. Babies have little control over their bodies—but their will is terrifyingly strong. They get control over the parasite right along with getting control over the body. You’ll see.”

  I hope you’re right, thought Umbo.

  And, in the flyer, Loaf echoed the thought. “I hope she’s right.”

  “If she isn’t,” said Umbo, “we’ll try something else.”

  And then, because he thought of it, and because it was Loaf that he was with, he added, “Square is alive because strangers have cared for him when it was inconvenient. Dangerous. I think Garden wants this boy to live. And with a facemask, and the body you and Leaky made for him, he’ll be a force to reckon with.”

  Loaf heard this in silence.

  After a while, though, Loaf said, “If this works, I think I’ll seek out some adults and invite them to wear facemasks. You can go back and prevent the ones who fail. Then you can take a colony of successful facemaskers a few hundred years into the past and let them be the citizens of Vadeshfold. Let the colony grow. Far from
the city where we first arrived there, but . . . a colony of facemaskers would be the true heirs of the wallfold, don’t you think?”

  “No mice,” said Umbo.

  “Wouldn’t matter,” said Loaf. “With facemasks, the Vadesh­folders could see all the mice, and catch them if they want. Use the mice to sing lullabies to their children. And squish their little mousy heads if they got out of line.”

  “Once the mice get into the millions,” said Umbo, “it would be time-consuming to catch them all. Especially if they developed a disease that weakens facemaskers or slows them down. Or kills the facemask.”

  “All right,” said Loaf. “No mice.”

  “What about timeshapers?” asked Umbo.

  “Rigg already has a facemask.”

  “But maybe he should be the only one,” said Umbo. “Facemasks are one kind of power, timeshaping another. I’m thinking we should keep timeshaping out of the Vadeshfold gene pool.”

  “Can’t be done,” said Loaf. “Timeshaping is already in the Ramfold gene pool, and we have no way to screen it out. It’s going to crop up eventually among the facemaskers.”

  “What we timeshapers do is already so dangerous,” said Umbo. “Undoing vast swaths of history just because we decide to. With facemasks, there’d be no stopping us. We’ve got no guarantee that other timeshaping facemaskers would be as nice as Rigg.”

  “Something to think about,” said Loaf. “But not for you and me to decide just between us. If we actually get a colony of facemaskers in Vadeshfold, they should have a voice on such a decision, too.”

  Umbo shook his head. “It’s all right for us to call them into existence, but . . .”

  “But once they exist,” said Loaf, “they have a right to be consulted about what genetic traits we do and don’t allow into their population.”

  “So sometimes we get to decide for everybody, and sometimes we have to ask their consent.”

  “That about sums it up,” said Loaf.

  “And who decides which times are which?” asked Umbo.

  “Me,” said Loaf. “Because you’re an idiot.”