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“Why not the same one?” asked Noxon. “Then you could have really interesting conversations with the different versions of yourself.”
“Since I don’t know anything,” said Olivenko, “I have no interest in having discussions with myself. From Loaf I could get the common soldier’s perspective. That would be helpful. But even if I have to pass through the same two years ten times over, there’ll come a time when I might actually be useful to you, Param. If not as a general, then at least as a judge of other possible generals. As a counselor. Whatever scholarship and philosophy can make of me, I’ll become, and then I’ll lay my sword at your feet.”
Umbo felt an irresistible thrill at his words. Olivenko had spoken simply, but Umbo could hear how much fire lay behind his offer, and he saw how Param rose within herself and straightened her back. How Olivenko’s offer made her more queenly.
“I will never be worthy of such service,” said Param.
“Yet there is no other possible candidate but you to displace your mother and General Citizen,” said Olivenko. “If you don’t try, at least, then their tyranny continues. Or Ramfold descends into chaos.”
“It’s a good plan,” said Rigg. “I don’t know what I’ll find in the other wallfolds. It may be that Ramfold is the most dangerous, most aggressive civilization. If you can become mistress of that wallfold, Param, then a world without Walls might be safe. Or maybe there will be more dangerous places, and we’ll need the warlike character of the Sessamoto armies to curb the ambitions of even-more-dangerous peoples.”
“It’s too much for me,” said Param.
“If I can make a military counselor out of myself, why can’t you become a queen in fact as well as title?” asked Olivenko.
“We don’t know that you can become what you say you’ll become,” said Param.
“I know I can become far more than I was as a scholar serving your father in the Great Library. Far more than the city guardsman who set out on this journey. Rigg and Loaf with their facemasks, all of you with time-shifting, you aren’t the only ones who can learn and change and grow into something useful.” Olivenko’s voice became even softer, and his gaze at Param was intense. “The very fact that you doubt yourself, my lady, is proof of how much you have learned, and how greatly you have grown.”
At those words, Param burst into tears and covered her face.
But she did not slice time. She did not disappear.
“Thank you for staying with us,” said Loaf softly.
“We all have so much work to do,” said Noxon.
Except me, thought Umbo. Nobody has any plan for me, except to be Loaf’s character witness when he returns to Leaky.
Not fair, he told himself. They don’t dare find jobs for you, because you’re so childish and prickly they know you’ll take offense.
Yet a part of him—the childish, prickly part—still insisted, inside his mind: They aren’t finding a job for me, because now that Rigg has a facemask, and then another copy of himself, there’s no particular need for me at all. “I should get a facemask,” Umbo murmured.
Everyone fell silent.
“Maybe with a facemask I could see the paths like Rigg,” Umbo added.
“We already have twice as many pathfinders as we need,” said Noxon. “That’s why I’m getting out of town.”
“Off the planet, you mean,” said Olivenko.
“We need all the pathfinders we can get,” said Umbo. “And even if I couldn’t see paths, the facemask would make me better at the things I can do.”
“You’re just assuming you have the will to master the facemask,” said Loaf.
“Umbo,” said Param softly, removing her hands from her face. “How can I possibly marry you if you have a facemask? The people would never accept you as their king, if you looked like that.”
CHAPTER 3
Under a Tent
Noxon and Param began their mutual training the obvious way, with Param trying to teach Noxon to develop an ability like hers by teaching him the way the Gardener had once taught her. It kept the two of them away from everyone else for hours at a time.
At first Umbo watched them from a distance, trying not to think of what Param had said. Did it really amount to a royal proposal of marriage? And if it did, why did she completely ignore him now? Instead of thinking about Param, Umbo wished he could be more like Rigg—like Noxon—in the way that he seemed to have endless patience when he needed it.
Rigg had learned his patience by being schooled every waking moment by his father—by the expendable called Ramex—while they tramped in solitude through the forests of Ramfold. Rigg knew how to listen, how to concentrate on what he was hearing, how to analyze and process it.
I’m quiet too, sometimes, thought Umbo. I hold my tongue, I don’t say everything that comes to mind.
