“You just vanished,” said Rigg. “Even if you weren’t in control of it, you were still invisible, and that’s interesting, that something your size could disappear.”
Loaf glowered and then chuckled. “All right, that’s good enough.”
“You might also be able to do something else that’s very, very important.”
“What’s that?” asked Loaf.
“Get us out of the city,” said Rigg. “There are troops everywhere, and the mobs are dispersing except where they’re fighting fires. Plus, there’s still lots of traffic on all the roads and on the river.”
Loaf put his mind to the problem, as did they all. He thought of going downstream and then changing to a boat coming upstream, but then objected to his own idea. “They don’t know where we’re headed, so they’ll catch us downstream or upstream, if they’re serious about looking for us.”
Param slept again while they talked. Umbo suggested taking her back to their lodgings so she could sleep on a bed, but Loaf reminded him that that was the one place they couldn’t possibly go. “If this General Citizen was spying on us all along, he’ll certainly have somebody watching our rooms.”
Finally they settled into glum silence which turned into mere dozing in the shade, until, after more than an hour, Rigg spoke up. “Soldiers are coming this way. We need to move.”
“They aren’t on to us, are they?” asked Umbo.
“No,” said Rigg. “But they’re patrolling and this is a small enough group that I don’t think they’re doing riot control. They’re going to look for a group of people like us.”
“Can’t we just disappear?” asked Loaf.
“If we have to,” said Rigg. “But as Param already found out, if you have a different way of not being seen, it’s better not to do the invisibility thing. Right now, we can be unseen by walking around that corner there.”
“People are going to start coming out of their houses and shops soon,” said Loaf.
“That’s right,” said Rigg.
“If only you’d come back and warned us sooner,” said Umbo. “We could have left town yesterday.”
“The three of you could,” said Rigg. “But I’d still be stuck here.”
They walked at a leisurely pace up to the corner and rounded it, while Param yawned repeatedly. “I’ve never been so tired in my life,” she said.
“Rigg has that effect on people,” said Loaf. “Wears ’em right out.”
“Why not leave the city yesterday?” asked Rigg.
They looked at him like he was crazy. “Didn’t you just tell us it was impossible?” asked Loaf.
“But what if it isn’t?” asked Rigg. “I attached Param to the past by having her hold your hand. However these abilities of ours work, when human beings join hands they become like a single unit—they move through time together. Who’s to say that I couldn’t have joined you in the past at the same time Param did, by simply continuing to hold her hand, too?”
“But that never happened before—you never actually went into the past,” said Umbo. “Or not completely—part of you stayed here.”
“I never linked to anybody,” said Rigg. “I took a knife, but I didn’t hold on to the man. Did you ever link with somebody in the past?”
Umbo thought back. “I never touched anybody at all, except Loaf, and I brought him with me.”
Rigg was still thinking it through. “I think it’ll be best if we don’t try to find an earlier version of ourselves. I know that causal flows are preserved, but I don’t like tying the whole stream of time into knots if we can help it. We don’t understand the rules so I’d like to keep it simple.”
“So . . . we just pick somebody randomly out of the past and say, ‘Excuse me, do you mind if I and my three friends hold on to your body parts for a few minutes?’”
“Not randomly,” said Rigg. “Someone we can trust.”
“Oh, right,” said Loaf. “Aressa is full of trustworthy strangers.”
Then Rigg remembered somebody that he could trust. Somebody who was not part of Mother’s world at all.
“I have a friend,” he said.
Olivenko came out of his small flat and rumbled down the stairs toward the street. Time for a decent breakfast for once, before joining his unit and standing his watch.
As he reached the landing before the last flight of stairs to the street door, he saw Rigg Sessamekesh standing there.
“Rigg,” he said. “How did you get out of—”
Rigg shook his head.
Olivenko immediately nodded. Just speaking Rigg’s name aloud might attract attention—fortunately, he had not spoken loudly and few people in the building rose as early in the morning as he did.
“Olivenko,” said Rigg, “you remember all we talked about. You remember the danger that I’m in.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, I know—it’s not a guess or a logical deduction or even spying, but I absolutely know that in two days, Flacommo will be killed, his house invaded, my mother arrested, and my sister and I will hide and become fugitives, along with two other friends of mine.”
“And you want me to help you get away?”
“I do,” said Rigg.
“But they’ll be watching for you.”
“No, they won’t,” said Rigg. “Because they already know where we are.”
“What?”
“Param and I, at this moment you’re living through, are in Flacommo’s house, being observed.”
Olivenko knew enough to wait for the explanation.
“You think I’m going to explain, and I am, but not right now, because in about five minutes somebody else is going to come down those stairs and I don’t want him to see you talking with me.”
“So let’s go find your friends,” said Olivenko.
“Exactly right,” said Rigg. “Only it’s not as simple as you think. But it’s much quicker. All you have to do is stand right here, without moving another step. It might be better if you close your eyes. But if you open them, then you have to promise you won’t shout or run away or anything. Just take it calmly. Trust me that there’s a rational explanation.”
“For what?” asked Olivenko, baffled and a little bit annoyed at all the mumbo-jumbo.
“For this.”
Rigg disappeared. Just vanished.
And then, about ten seconds later, he reappeared—holding hands with Param Sissaminka, the heir of the royal house, and two strangers, one of them a tall old soldier, the other a short boy nearer to Rigg’s age, perhaps younger.
Olivenko didn’t even gasp. Instead, he just stood there thinking: If only Knosso could have seen this.
“Rigg,” he finally said, “if you can jump around like this, what do you need my help for?”
“Because we can’t jump through space, only through time. And we aren’t completely here, we’re also still in the future—two days from now, with rioters and soldiers all over the streets of Aressa, with General Citizen’s soldiers looking for us. Right now we can’t see that time, but our bodies are still in it, and some pretty bad things can happen, so we’ve got to do this fast.”
“Do what?” asked Olivenko.
“All of us hold on to you—onto your bare skin, a wrist or your neck will do—all at the same time. To root ourselves completely in this time. Two days before everything went wrong.”
Olivenko didn’t hesitate. He pulled up his sleeves and took off his cap. “Grab on.”
The two at the ends—the soldierly man and the boy—took hold of one of his arms, first with one hand each, and then, letting go of Rigg and Param, with both hands.
“Still here,” said the boy.
“And you’re still holding me in the past,” said Rigg to the boy. “Even though you’re no longer in the future. Maybe we—”
“Shut up and finish this,” said the old soldier.
Param and Rigg both took hold of Olivenko’s other arm, but they did not let go of each other.
“I k
now this is going to be awkward, but let’s see if we can make it down the stairs together,” said Rigg. “It’s possible that everybody but me will stay with you, Olivenko. If that happens, then please go ahead and take them out of town—not in a way that will leave any evidence. No riverboats, where there’ll be a record of booking passage. Something unobtrusive and without a trail that can be followed.”
“Where will you be?”
“Following after, as best I can,” said Rigg. “But me alone, I can probably get out much more easily than all four of us—five now—together. And maybe I won’t disappear on you. Maybe we’ve already made it. Ready?”
“More than ready,” said the old soldier. “You talk way too much, boy, when the time for talking hasn’t come yet.”
Olivenko found himself wanting to slap the old man around for that—talking to the son of Knosso Sissamik like that. But he didn’t know the relationships among these people. He only knew Rigg, and had caught glimpses of Param over the years. The rest he’d have to take on trust.
Awkwardly they went down the stairs, Olivenko walking in the middle, the others sidling slowly along, gripping his arm rather more tightly than was comfortable.
They could hear the clatter of booted feet coming down the stairs high above.
“Let’s hurry a little,” said Olivenko. “This picture’s going to be hard to explain.”
By the time they reached the bottom, the old soldier and Param had both let go of him completely—but they were still there.
Then the boy let go.
They were out on the street, with Rigg still clinging to his arm with both hands. The other three were watching him, and Olivenko could see that they really were worried. Whatever mad thing Rigg was frightened of, it scared them, too.
“Well, here goes,” said Rigg. “Either I’ll be in the city where they’re searching for me, or I’ll be here with you. But you’ll be fine either way, and I probably will, too. It’s not like I’m going to explode or anything.” He grinned at Param when he said that, though Olivenko couldn’t think why.
Rigg let go.
And there he still was.
“If you disappeared,” said Olivenko, “I’m hallucinating an exact image of you, right where you used to be.”
Rigg nodded. “There’s always the chance that my body is also still in the future, and if somebody catches me there, walking around like a blind man, I may get yanked away from you. But personally, right at the moment, I think that’s unlikely. I think we just found a way to move into the past.”
“I’m very impressed with us,” said the old soldier dryly.
“But the thing to keep in mind is, it’s irrevocable,” said Rigg. “Now that I’m here in the past with the rest of you, I can only see the paths that existed as of this moment. I can’t see Param and me walking through the tunnel, or where I handed her off to you. Those things haven’t happened yet.”
“Wasn’t that the idea?” asked the boy.
The old soldier glanced around. “Are we sure nobody’s going to recognize the two of you?” he asked Rigg and Param.
“Nobody knows what they look like,” said Olivenko. “Except a chosen few, and they won’t be looking for them here on the streets. Not today.”
“What I’m saying,” said Rigg, continuing the discussion of time travel, “is that I couldn’t go back into the future if I wanted to. I can only see paths in the past. Which means that if we ever do this again, only we don’t want to stay in the past, then we can’t let go of our link with the future. Which may not be me at all. It may be Umbo, or both of us together. As long as he and I are still existing in both places at the same time, and not tied to a living creature in the past, then we can return to the future. What do you think?”
“I think that either you’re right,” said Param, “or you’re not. What I don’t see is why it matters.”
“Because this is how we’re going to get through the Wall,” said Rigg. “We’re going to cross through it at a time before it existed. But on the other side, we’re going to want to come back to our time.”
“There was a time when the Wall didn’t exist?” asked the boy—Umbo? Yes, that was his ridiculous name.
“Twelve thousand years ago,” said Rigg. “And when the Wall didn’t exist, there were no humans here. If we get stuck that long ago, then we’ll be the only people in the world.”
“That’s how you’re going to do it?” asked Olivenko.
“I think it’ll work,” said Rigg, “better than knocking ourselves unconscious and floating through the Wall on a boat.”
“At least there won’t be anybody waiting to kill us on the other side,” said Olivenko.
“What are you talking about?” asked the old soldier.
So, as they walked along the busy streets of Aressa Sessamo, Rigg and Olivenko told the story of Knosso, Rigg’s real father, and how he crossed through the Wall, only to be murdered on the other side.
“And you want to take us through the Wall, knowing that somebody wants to kill us on the other side?” asked Loaf.
“The creatures that killed Father Knosso,” said Rigg, “lived in the water. We won’t cross through where there’s water.”
“But there might be other things that want us dead,” said Param.
“There might be. But one thing we can be certain of—there are people in this wallfold who want us dead, and they’re very good at killing people.”
“Well, then,” said Loaf, “Let’s give it a try and see if we live through it.”
“One thing,” said Rigg. “You don’t have to come, Loaf.”
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.”
“I’m thinking of Leaky,” said Rigg. “She expects you to come home. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to come back, once we cross over.”
“Leaky is like my heart or my brain,” said Loaf. “I can’t imagine living without her. But she also knows me. Knows that whenever I leave home there’s a chance I won’t come back. She knew it when she sent me with you. So if I go with you, and I get killed or for some other reason can’t get back, then she’ll grieve, and she’ll wonder what happened to me, but she’ll go on. She’ll make a life for herself in that town that’s named for her. One of us is going to die before the other—that’s how life goes. You see what I mean?”
Olivenko understood what he was saying, but could hardly believe that a man could mean it. It wasn’t like he didn’t care—Loaf was clearly more than a little emotional as he made that speech. He simply wasn’t going to let his feelings for the woman he loved stop him from following through with what he had committed to do.
Like a true soldier.
Like me, thought Olivenko.
“I’m with you, too,” said Olivenko.
“No, truly,” said Rigg. “All we need is your help out of town.”
“In about a half hour, I’m going to be absent without permission,” said Olivenko. “By the time you’re safely out of town, I’d better be with you and never come back, because I’ll be a deserter. They hang deserters.”
“Then you can’t come with us,” said Rigg. “It was selfish of me to ask. Just give us some ideas about how—”
“Are you joking?” said Olivenko. “I watched your father pass through the Wall and die, young Rigg. And ever since then, I’ve only wished one thing—that I could have gone with him. Maybe I could have saved him.”
“You were a child then, an apprentice scholar,” said Rigg. “What could you have done?”
“Why do you think I became a soldier?” said Olivenko. “So that if there was ever such a need again, I’d be fit to do it.”
“I never thought much of deserters,” said the old soldier.
“Well, you can smear that opinion on your elbow and lick it off,” said Olivenko. “Because I’m not deserting. They’ll only think that I am.”
“What are you doing, then?” asked Param.
“I’m following the prince and princess of the roy
al house into exile,” said Olivenko.
“Oh,” said Loaf. “That’s all right then.”
CHAPTER 23
Carriage
Three years after the stasis pod sealed itself over Ram’s inert body, the preservation of a wide and deep sampling of the native DNA of Garden’s life forms was complete. So also was the collection and stasis of the Garden flora and fauna that would be restored to the ocean and to the isolated small continents after the extinction event.
The expendables did not speak to each other; their analog communication devices were solely for use with conscious humans. Instead, they were in constant conversation at a digital level, sharing experiences and conclusions as if all were inside each other’s minds.
The ship’s computers were not disgruntled—or gruntled, for that matter—that Ram’s last instruction had been to obey the expendables. The ship’s computers did not care who gave them their orders. For that matter, neither did the expendables. But the expendables’ deepest programming gave them a mission that even Ram could not have contradicted, and in order to protect that mission, they could not be subject to the mechanical reasoning of the ships’ computers.
There was no ego. None of the mechanical devices called computers or expendables had any interest in “getting their way.” They had no “way.” They only had programming, data, and their own conclusions based on them.
The nineteen ships left their near-Garden orbits and rose nearly half an Astronomical Unit, until they were in optimal position. Then they configured their collision fields to the right level of absorption, dissipation, rigidity, and storage and began to accelerate toward Garden.
They did not impact with the planet simultaneously. Instead, they hit at carefully calibrated intervals and angles, so that when the series of collisions ended, Garden had a tilt sufficient to create seasonal variations and a rotation rate slowed to just over 23 hours.
Unlike meteors, which are themselves largely or entirely vaporized when striking a planet, the ships themselves were not affected in any way by the collisions, except that they came to a sudden stop. Even that was mitigated by internal fields in each ship that absorbed the energy of inertia loss and passed it beyond Garden’s magnetic field.
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