Ruins (Pathfinder Trilogy) (21 page)

“That’s a problem,” said Olivenko. “We figured you’d ask him when we got back together.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know?”

“It didn’t come up,” said Param.

“It’s our mistake,” said Umbo, “not yours.”

“He had some kind of foreknowledge, then,” said Rigg.

“So does that mean that in some version of the past, you actually did take him with you into the past?” asked Olivenko.

“We know there were multiple versions,” said Umbo, “because I came back and warned myself not to go into the tunnel with you.”

“But you could only have done that while you were still there,” said Rigg, trying to think through what those other futures, the lost futures, might have contained.

“Right,” said Umbo. “I think what happened was, the mask got put on
you
. And then we couldn’t go anywhere, because . . .”

Because Rigg was the only one who knew how to keep them alive on a long journey. Because until Rigg was able to take control of the ship’s computers, they had no way to turn off the Wall. They had nowhere to go, and no way to get there if they did.

“So you didn’t go back from here,” said Param. “The future you avoided with your warning—”

“I think that in that future, we waited until Rigg got control of his facemask and could tell us what to do,” said Olivenko.

“No,” said Rigg. “I think I never got control of it, or at least you didn’t wait long enough to find out. I think Loaf told you to go back and change who went into the starship. I think he knew that if he and I were the only ones who went in, Vadesh would have to put the facemask on him first, because if he went for me, Loaf would have been in a position to stop him.”

“Sounds like Loaf,” said Umbo.

“So Loaf chose to be like this?” asked Param doubtfully.

“Good plan,” said Loaf.

“Terrible plan,” said Umbo.

“Excellent plan,” said Loaf. “Because I see clearly now. I have this gift.”

“I wish we could leave the facemask behind the way we got rid of Vadesh,” said Rigg.

“If you knew how to detach it,” said Loaf, “then I’d stay away from you so you couldn’t. I never want to go back to how it was before. It would be like blinding me, deafening me.”

“Says the facemask,” murmured Umbo.

“Says the man who has been awakened to his full potential,” said Loaf.

“‘Man,’ he calls himself,” murmured Param.

“Let’s be careful about suggesting somebody isn’t quite human anymore,” said Rigg. “Someone might say the same thing about a woman who slices up time, Param. Or someone who sees paths, or someone who can go into the past.”

“Can we just go back eighteen days?” said Olivenko.

“Seventeen to be safe,” said Umbo.

It took a while to work his way backward through the paths of the animals, but then Rigg found the right one. They joined hands and in a moment saw the squirrel scampering away.

And on the hill beyond the Wall, there was not a soul to be seen.

Rigg walked toward the Wall and kept walking. He could feel the presence of the Wall, but it was as if from a distance, as if the feelings were happening to somebody else. It didn’t even slow him down. He turned back to face the others. “It’s there, but it’s manageable,” he said.

The first time he had come through a Wall, Umbo had been
holding Param’s hand. This time he held Loaf’s. But Rigg knew Param would not feel abandoned. She had taken Olivenko’s hand already. Param had never needed to learn how to hide yearnings she had never felt before, so it was obvious that she was attracted to Olivenko, that she was offering herself to him in the way that came naturally to women who were filled with desire.

It was impossible that Olivenko did not see this. But as they walked toward Rigg into the Wall, he could see no sign in Olivenko of either fending off Param’s attention or encouraging it. Is he blind? Or is he as inexperienced as Param, and doesn’t realize the significance of the way she stays so very close to him, as if to surround herself with every breath that he exhales?

Why do
I
know these things? thought Rigg.

Because Father taught me to watch people. He taught me how to see.

I don’t need a facemask. I have Father inside my head.

CHAPTER 11

Yahoos

As they walked down the hill, over the stream, and up the broad, grassy, tree-dotted slope on the other side, Umbo watched closely, looking for any sign of the people who would be there seventeen days later to watch the flyer arrive on the hill. It gave him something to do instead of looking at Param holding Olivenko’s hand.

It was no surprise that Umbo didn’t see anybody; he was no pathfinder like Rigg, and wouldn’t see anybody if they didn’t want to be seen. But Rigg would. “Where are they?” asked Umbo.

“Fewer of them,” said Rigg. “Here and there, some of them underground, and not very close. We were noticed when we started through the Wall, and word spread without anybody having to run around passing the news. People stopped what they were doing and went into hiding. No threat to us that I can see.”

“It’s the threat you don’t see,” said Loaf.

“That was definitely not the facemask talking,” said Olivenko. “Unless it’s able to absorb tired old sayings from the military mind.”

Umbo saw that Loaf, who would have taken umbrage before, now merely smiled. “I’m glad to be back with you, too, Olivenko,” said Loaf.

“Silbom’s left butt cheek,” said Umbo. “Has the facemask made you
nice
?”

“I was always nice,” said Loaf. “I was just too shy to let it show.”

“One of the locals is moving,” said Rigg. He pointed toward a thick, tall tree perhaps three hundred meters away.

“They can’t get much closer than that,” said Olivenko. “We’re still inside the Wall.”

“Moving toward us?” asked Loaf.

“Climbing the tree,” said Rigg.

“I see now,” said Loaf. “He’s naked.”

Umbo didn’t see anybody. “Isn’t it nice of the facemask to open gaps for your eyes,” said Umbo.

“The facemask didn’t open gaps,” said Loaf.

“And yet I see your eyes,” said Umbo.

“He’s pretty high in the tree now,” said Loaf.

That was a habit of long standing, for Loaf to dodge answering one question by changing the subject.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Rigg. “Nobody else is coming closer.”

They walked on up the slope.

“What you see on my face,” said Loaf, “are eyes. Not
my
eyes, though I get the use of them.”

“Why did the facemask cover your eyes if it was going to have to grow new ones?” asked Param.

“The facemask dissolved my original eyes,” said Loaf, “and replaced them with better ones. Very sharp. Perfect focus at any distance where there’s anything to focus on.”

Umbo thought of the facemask eating away at Loaf’s eyes and almost retched, then almost cried. There really was no going back now; if Loaf lost the facemask, he’d be blind.

With his sharpened powers of observation, Loaf must have seen Umbo’s physical reaction despite his effort to conceal it. “If I lost the facemask,” said Loaf, “my own eyes would grow back. It’s changed every part of me. My body can regenerate now, just like the facemask can.”

“So if somebody cut off your hand . . .”

“I’d bleed to death, just like anybody else,” said Loaf. “But if you put a tourniquet on my wrist, the stump would heal quickly, and then over the next year or two, I’d get a new hand.”

“Would it be
your
hand,” asked Umbo. “Or the facemask’s hand?”

“Was that you talking?” asked Loaf in reply, “or a fart left over from breakfast?”

It seemed to be Loaf, and yet it wasn’t Loaf. It was hard for Umbo to put his finger on what was wrong. And then it came clear. Loaf was
young
. Not world-weary. Quick of step, not lumbering.

The more the facemask remade and improved Loaf’s body and mind, the less like Loaf he would be.

“The question,” said Rigg, “is whether to avoid the man in that tree, or to approach him and make contact.”

“Avoid him,” said Param. “Let him come out in the open if he wants to talk to us.”

“The people we saw coming here seventeen days from now looked cheerful enough,” said Loaf.

“Maybe they already ate us,” said Param, “and they were there to play with their food.”

“They were wearing clothing,” pointed out Rigg. “Why is this one naked as an animal?”

It was pointless to speculate. Umbo took off at a jog for the tree.

“Umbo!” called Rigg.

But Umbo knew what he was doing. If the person was dangerous, then Umbo, as the least useful person in their group, should put himself at risk. They no longer needed him in order to go back in time, and in all their talk about who should be in charge, nobody ever proposed Umbo’s name. Nobody seemed to know what Umbo was needed for now, least of all Umbo himself. So if there were foolish risks to be taken, he should take them.

As Umbo neared the tree, he slowed to a walk. He still couldn’t see the person—only the movement of twigs and branches. The person said no word, made no sound. Umbo would have called out to him, but didn’t know what language the watcher might understand. The Wall put all languages into their minds, but they could not find them, could not tell one from another, until someone else began to speak. Then the appropriate language was simply
there
.

It turned out that no language was needed at all. When Umbo came quite near the tree, close enough that in two strides he could have touched the three-meter-thick trunk, the watcher flung something out of his lofty perch. It splatted against Umbo’s cheek and shoulder. It stank. It clung.

Umbo reached up a hand to wipe it from his face. It was nightsoil. Presumably the watcher’s own.

Or perhaps not, because here came another wad, this time striking Umbo in the chest.

Umbo’s first impulse was to rush down the hill to the brook, but that would give the wrong impression to the others—that he was running away. They might assume that there was real danger. Instead, Umbo turned and walked out of range. He was able to determine what the watcher’s range was by continuing to walk until fresh fecal wads stopped reaching him.

By now Loaf had run up to him. Of course he had seen everything in perfect detail, and he was laughing. “A fecal greeting!”

“Not so funny to me,” said Umbo.

“If that’s their worst weapon,” said Loaf, “we’re in little danger here.”

“If the idea was to humiliate and repulse me, it worked,” said Umbo. “Is it safe for me to wash in that brook?”

“I don’t know,” said Loaf.

“Can’t you ask the facemask whether it has any cousins in the water?” asked Umbo.

“It doesn’t understand language,” said Loaf. “Besides, it emits a stink that chases off the spores of other masks. So it doesn’t have to be able to detect whether they’re there or not.”

“You know so much, considering that it can’t talk to you.”

“I said I couldn’t talk to
it
. Its own messages come through loud and clear. And I can sense when it emits smells and fluids.”

“Can it eat nightsoil? Because I can offer it a lovely snack.”

“The only mouth it has is mine,” said Loaf, “so forget it.”

“Then I’m going down to the brook to wash.”

Loaf looked up into the tree. “She’s stark naked.”

“She?”

“I saw more detail the closer I got. Hard to tell how old she is. And she moves like an ape or a sloth. Not quick, never taking her eyes off us, but absolutely sure of hand and foot. Short-legged. And look at the feet.”

“I can’t look at anything, I’m going to wash,” Umbo called over his shoulder. The stink was only getting worse. It would probably be in his clothes forever. And he couldn’t expect any compassion or respect. When the danger you run into turns out to be flung poo, nobody remembers that you were the bravest when the danger might have been anything.

While Umbo washed his face and then his shirt in the stream, Loaf sauntered down the slope to talk to him. The others followed him, avoiding the tree.

“For some reason,” said Loaf, “the word that came to mind when I looked at the dung-flinging naked tree-clinger is ‘yahoo.’”

“Did the word come from the facemask or the Wall?” asked Umbo.

“The Wall. Facemasks don’t have language,” said Loaf. “Why are you so obsessed with the facemask?”

“Because he’s still trying to figure out how much of you is Loaf, and how much is this alien thing that makes you so attractive to look at,” said Olivenko.

Thanks for the translation, thought Umbo. Apparently the Wall hadn’t made Umbo’s words intelligible to the others without interpreters.

“The facemask doesn’t connect directly to my brain,” said Loaf.

“You think,” murmured Umbo.

“My hearing is superb, now, Umbo,” said Loaf.

“How do you know it isn’t connected to your brain? Maybe it’s connected and you don’t even realize it.”

Loaf shrugged. “Maybe, but what I
sense
are the chemicals it leaks into my body. It can flood me with emotion and desire. Rage, fear, hate, love, lust, comfortableness, grief. Bodily needs, too—itches. Full bladder, hunger, thirst. Whatever it wants me to do, it makes me want to do it.”

“So you’re a slave,” said Umbo.

“Just because I feel a desire doesn’t mean I have to act on it,” said Loaf. “The desires and needs and feelings are so strong, it took some getting used to. It was terrible at first, because my body automatically responded to these wishes, without any passage through my conscious mind. But I got control of it.”

“You think,” said Umbo again, this time aloud, since there was no point in muttering.

“Because you’re young,” said Loaf, “you think you understand everything about your own body, and everything about mine. But I’m old enough that I could feel my body slackening, my abilities fading, my strength ebbing, my senses weakening, my memory perforating. Now I see better than I ever could, hear better, I’m stronger, I have more endurance, and my memory has no gaps. I think far more quickly. Almost as quickly as brilliant young boys like you and Rigg.”

“Keep me out of this,” said Rigg softly. Maybe he was joking. Probably not.