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“From disease?” asked Umbo.
“Whatever happened here to empty the city,” said Rigg, “I think it has everything to do with what Vadesh wants us to do here.”
“He hasn’t asked us to do anything,” said Param.
“But he wants it all the same,” said Rigg. “Didn’t you see how attentive he was to us? We matter to him. Father was that way—Ram was. If you mattered to him, he homed on you like a bat after a fly. You filled his whole gaze. But if you didn’t matter, it was like you didn’t exist.”
“True,” said Umbo. “Sometimes I mattered to him, but mostly not.”
“Vadesh couldn’t take his eyes off us,” said Rigg.
“Off you,” said Olivenko, chuckling.
“And Param, and Umbo,” said Rigg. “The time travelers.”
“We all traveled in time,” said Loaf, with a slight smile. “He just has a thing for children.”
“Someday, Loaf, I’m going to be big enough to smack you around,” Rigg answered him.
“I’ve seen both your parents,” said Olivenko, “and no, Rigg, you’ll never be that big. I’ll never be that big.”
“Good to keep that in mind,” said Loaf.
Olivenko rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to show you proper respect here, Loaf. You don’t have to put me in my place. I know my place.”
“I was just joking,” said Loaf uncomfortably.
But he had not been joking—nobody in this group knew Loaf as well as Umbo did, and he knew Loaf had spoken his mind.
“What I think,” said Rigg, “is that I should walk around out here and see what
the paths can tell me. There’s no purpose to going back in time if we arrive at some point where nothing decisive is happening, right? And if I can’t find anything that looks promising, then we won’t do it. Agreed?”
Umbo wanted to laugh. Rigg sounded so conciliatory, as if he was giving in. But in fact what he was really getting them all to agree to was that if, in Rigg’s sole judgment, there was some point in the past where they could learn something, then they would go back. Rigg hadn’t argued with anybody, but he was getting his way.
Nobody else seemed to notice, and nobody else seemed to mind. And what bothered Umbo most was the fact that he knew Rigg was right, they had to find something out before trusting Vadesh another moment, and Umbo had only disagreed because he couldn’t stand having Rigg decide everything. But what could he do when Rigg was right?
Umbo and the others tagged along, watching Rigg as he got lost in thought, seeing whatever it was that he called “paths.” For an hour they watched him move around through the lawns and meadows surrounding the city. Finally he sat down and Loaf immediately led the others closer to him. Only Umbo hung back and looked, not at Rigg, but at the city. It was more magnificent than anything Umbo had seen in O or Aressa Sessamo. Every building was a separate work of art, and yet they were all pieces of something much larger and more beautiful. It’s as if each building were part of a tapestry, some parts raised, some parts kept low. Perhaps if we could stand inside the tallest tower, we could see what the tapestry depicted. Maybe a map, like the globe inside the Tower of O. Maybe a portrait of a person. Maybe some message spelled out in towers, or the shadows of towers at sunset.
Umbo became aware of voices coming closer.
“The last thing we want to do is go back into the middle of a battle,” said Loaf. So apparently Rigg had learned something about what had happened here.
“Not in the middle,” said Rigg. “At the edge. Far back from the edge. Out of danger. Nobody was dying right here, for instance.”
“You can see death?” asked Umbo.
“No,” said Param. “Rigg already explained—if you had come with us you’d know. He just sees where paths end.”
“There were people watching the battle,” said Rigg. “Just a few. Umbo can send me back to their time—”
“Send us,” said Loaf.
“You’ll scare them,” said Param.
“I’ll smile very nicely,” said Loaf, demonstrating his best battlefield grimace.
“Oh, don’t do that,” said Olivenko. “You’d scare your own mother.”
