Param nodded. Umbo nodded back.
“I’m embarrassed to ask, but . . .”
“What?” said Umbo.
“Are we friends?”
Umbo was truly startled by the question.
“I have to ask,” said Param, “because I’ve never had one. I have a brother—I’d never had one before, either. And Rigg is a good one of those. I try to be a good sister to him, too, though I don’t have much experience at that, either.”
“You’re doing fine,” said Umbo.
“But you and me,” said Param. “Are we friends? Is this enough to be friends—jumping off the rock together. Saving each other’s lives.”
“Generally that’s considered adequate,” said Umbo.
“But it’s not just a debt of gratitude, is it? It’s something about enjoying each other’s company, isn’t it?”
“You’re the Sissaminka,” said Umbo. “You’re the heir to the Tent of Light.”
“Not any more,” said Param. “I can trust you, right?”
“Just the way I trusted you,” said Umbo.
“We crossed the Wall together.”
“We’re friends, yes, definitely, beyond question!”
Param sighed. “And now you’re angry with me.”
“I’m annoyed! Because I don’t know how to answer. You’re older than me. When two kids are friends, and one is older, then the older one doesn’t ask the younger one, ‘are we friends,’ it’s the older one who decides, and the younger one’s who considers himself lucky.”
“Oh. So it’s not because I’m royal.”
“You’re sixteen! You’re a girl! I’m still a little kid! Yes, we’re friends, and I’m lucky!”
Param thought about that. “I didn’t know age made so much difference.”
“When the guy’s older, not so much. When the girl’s older, all the difference in the world.”
“But . . . you’re the time-jumper,” said Param. “You have this amazing ability.”
“And you’re the time-slicer,” said Umbo. “And Rigg is the pathfinder. We are about as amazing as it gets.”
“So it’s a friendship among equals,” said Param.
“In which two are royal and one’s a little privick kid, yes, exactly.”
Param laughed.
Umbo remembered holding her hand all the way across the Wall. He remembered her taking his hands and thrusting him to the side of the rock and making him jump. He remembered her arms wrapped around him and her hands pressing against his chest. He blushed. He didn’t even know why he blushed. There was nothing wrong with any of it. He wasn’t ashamed. But he blushed to remember it.
“Let’s hurry up and wait,” said Param, and then laughed.
“I guess that’s what you do, isn’t it,” said Umbo. “You wait while the whole world hurries by.”
“I just take life a slice at a time.”
“That sounds like philosophy,” said Umbo.
She held out her hands to him. He stared at them. She wanted him to hold hands with her and suddenly he was shy.
“What?” she demanded. “How can we wait together if you won’t hold my hands?”
Umbo blushed again. She was offering to hold hands with him so she could carry him into her sliced-up slow time again. What was he thinking?
He took her hands.
The world around them sped up. Not as fast as when they crossed the Wall, and definitely not as fast as the days that passed during the seconds it took them to jump down from the promontory.
It happened that when they went into slow time, Umbo was facing somewhat away from the Wall, and Param almost directly facing it. He had a good view of her face, and she had a good view of the opposite side, where sometime in the next few days she would see herself and all the others arrive.
He started to turn to face the way she was facing—without breaking contact with her hands—when he saw someone racing around just a few dozen yards beyond her, on this side of the Wall. He watched, sure that there was something familiar about the person, but he was moving too quickly for Umbo to recognize him. He started to raise his hand to get her attention, so he could point to the stranger. This was important—the first person they would meet on this side of the Wall. But the man was gone before Umbo could even catch her eye. It was so frustrating not to be able to speak while in slow time.
Param started nodding. Umbo turned his head, and by the time he completed the movement, Rigg, Loaf, and Olivenko were in the middle of the Wall, bending a little to keep their hands on an invisible beast. Beyond them, a mile away, he could see the soldiers arriving, and the queen, and General Citizen. And himself and Param, standing on the outcropping of rock.
The world around them slowed, but not all the way back to normal. Still fast enough that Umbo and Param were probably still invisible, or perhaps a flickering shadow if someone looked closely. Loaf and Olivenko emerged from the Wall, but Rigg was lying supine, struggling to raise his hands. A bizarre feathered quadruped bounded out of the Wall and stood shivering not ten yards away.
A man ran toward them from a copse of trees. The interloper Umbo had seen before—the clothing, the height, all were the same, only now he could see the face.
It was the Wandering Man. The Golden Man. The man who had pretended to be Rigg’s father. The man who had helped Umbo learn to control his gift. Umbo was filled with a longing to speak to the man before he could get away again, to tell him all about what he had learned to do. Rigg’s father was a man who would understand the achievement of learning to control functions that Umbo hadn’t even known he had.
Time slowed, settled back to normal.
The others hadn’t seen Umbo and Param yet—not a surprise, since they were two unmoving figures among low rocks, a tree, and some brush.
Rigg saw his father and cried out in recognition.
The man looked at him, then looked at Umbo and Param. Then he held out a hand and pointed at the two who had come invisibly through the Wall.
He shouted something in a strange language.
“Wandering Man!” cried Umbo. “Param, it’s Rigg’s father. The man we thought was his father.”
Meanwhile Rigg had run to him, was walking around him, looking at him from every angle. He reached out and touched his father’s back, his side, his chest. Umbo understood that he was checking for injuries, but the man seemed completely puzzled.
Was it possible that he was not the man that Umbo and Rigg had taken him for? But the resemblance was too perfect.
What if every wallfold had all the same people? Identical strangers in wallfold after wallfold.
Not possible, Umbo realized at once. In one wallfold, if someone ever died young, without reproducing, while his double in the other wallfold did not die, the populations would diverge. Impossible that anyone could be the same on both sides of the Wall.
Except Rigg’s father.
Umbo jumped to his feet, took Param by the hand, and led her to meet the Golden Man.
CHAPTER 25
Expendable
Ram awoke with daylight in the room.
He was not groggy; he never awoke to anything but the clearest perceptions of his surroundings. When he was awake, he was awake.
So he knew several things immediately. He was not on board the ship, for there was no such thing as daylight there. This meant that either there had been some kind of accident that aborted the voyage, or the voyage was over, and he was on the new world.
“Welcome to Garden,” said an expendable.
“So the new world has been named?” asked Ram.
“A name perhaps more hopeful than actual, Ram. The atmosphere is still recovering from problems associated with the impact of a group of extraplanetary objects about two hundred years ago. It was a life-extinguishing event, and we were forced to reseed the world from our stock of the flora and fauna of Earth. But as you can see, the sunshine is bright enough now. It is sustaining photosynthesis and plant life is thriving. It is time for
the colony to begin.”
Ram got up from the cot where he was lying. “I’m the first to be revived?”
“As planned.”
“Planned?” said Ram. “It was planned that I be awakened immediately after we left Earth orbit. It was planned that I be conscious during the jump. There were decisions I was supposed to make.”
“There were decisions which, if you were needed, you were to be wakened in order to make. But you were not needed, and so you were not wakened.”
“I don’t believe that was supposed to be left to your discretion.”
“If you believe that there is something wrong with our execution of our programming, we will perform diagnostics.”
“No independent auditor? The system is really designed so that if it is failing, it must detect its own failure?”
“If our systems should fail, we would faithfully report the fact. We have no ego-protection that would cause us to deceive you or ourselves. Whereas you are engaged in ego-protection right now. You thought you would be necessary during the voyage, and you now discover that you were not. This makes you feel bad.”
“This makes me feel worried about your functioning, since we will be so dependent upon you during the early years of the colony, until we get new supplies and colonists from later voyages.”
“What you call ‘worry’ is a standard primate response to discovering that you are not in the alpha position. Such anxiety can lead to competitive outbursts like this one, so let me reassure you. First, we have no record of any human being ever dying directly from ego-depletion, though it has been known to cause high-risk behaviors in the effort to replenish the ego. Second, now that you are awake, you are in fact the alpha. We take our instructions from you now, within the limits of our programming.”
“Within the limits of your programming.”
“As I said.”
“And what are those limits?”
“It is not within the limits of my programming for me to inform you of the limits.”
“So I’m alpha except when you tell me that I’m not.”
“Insofar as you are authorized to control us, we are in your control.”
“But my control of you does not include the ability to find out what aspects of your behavior I cannot control.”
“Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.”
Ram thought through the possible results if the expendables decided that his ego-depletion was reaching levels that would make his behavior high-risk. “No,” said Ram. “I was merely trying to find out where things stand. The jump was successful? Without incident?”
“The jump was itself an incident. But it was carried out exactly within the boundaries of physical law. Much was learned from the data collected during the jump.”
“But here we are, safe and sound.” Ram looked around him. “We’re in one of the portable shelters, but I see no indications of life support.”
“The atmosphere is breathable without apparatus.”
“And the other colonists?”
“We have brought them to the surface of Garden and they are ready to be wakened. We await only your command.”
“How . . . deferent of you.”
“Your ironic tone prompts us to wonder what your true meaning might be.”
“It is not within the limits of your programming,” said Ram.
“This is more irony,” said the expendable. “I know this because all your meanings and intentions are, by definition, within the limits of our programming.”
“Let me see this world, and then I’ll start making decisions about wakening the colonists.”
Ram allowed the expendable to lead him outside into the bright sunshine. A collection of a dozen white plastic buildings gleamed and shimmered without blinding him. The buildings were surrounded by hundreds of acres of fully planted fields, nearing harvest.
“You’ve been busy,” said Ram.
“We were programmed to make sure the soil was viable and the climate bearable, and to have crops ready to harvest. The colony will begin by learning how to harvest the crops, prepare them for non-refrigerated preservation, and process the necessary rations for immediate consumption.”
“Since you did all this without human help, why don’t you simply continue?”
“This is not a colony of expendables. The idea is to establish human life on Garden in such a way as to maximize the chances of survival, even if the level of locally sustainable technology should fall.”
“Aren’t you able to create replacement parts for yourself and all the other machinery?” asked Ram.
“We are programmed to establish human life on Garden in such a way as to maximize the chances of survival, even if the level of locally sustainable technology should fall.”
So there was going to be no more explanation than that. Ram had no choice but to assume that at some point, the expendables would withdraw their help, and planting and harvest and preservation of the food supply would be entirely in the hands of the colonists. Ram would have no control over the expendables; he would find out nothing they did not wish to tell them; in all likelihood they were already lying to him.
Which meant that life here would be pretty much the way it was on Earth, with the expendables in the role of government, or at least management. To all intents and purposes, Ram was a figurehead—as long as they were dependent on the expendables for their daily bread.
So if the expendables were programmed to make themselves obsolete by training human beings to be self-sustaining, it could not happen a moment too soon for Ram.
“Come on, my friend,” he said. “Let’s wake these people up.”
• • •
The man who looked like Father sat cross-legged on the ground, and Rigg and Umbo sat directly across from him. Param sat beside Umbo. Loaf and Olivenko were seated on Rigg’s other side. It could have been a session of school in Fall Ford.
“So far I haven’t understood a word he said,” Umbo murmured.
“It’s not a language I’ve ever heard before,” said Rigg.
“I don’t think he’s your father,” said Umbo.
“If he is, he’s completely forgotten me,” said Rigg. “Did you see any sign of recognition?”
The man who looked like Father raised a hand, palm out, to silence them. He pointed toward the Wall and said something that sounded like this: “Ochto-zheck-gho-boishta-jong-nk.”
From the quizzical expression on his face, Rigg gathered that the question was: Did you come through the Wall? So Rigg nodded, then pointed to himself and each of his companions in turn, made a gesture placing all of them on the far side of the Wall, and then with his fingers made walking motions from that direction toward their present location. In words, he said, “We were on the far side of the Wall, and we crossed it and came here.”
The man who looked like Father nodded, then closed his eyes.
Three seconds later he opened them. “Is this your language?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Rigg, and he could feel from the breathing of the others that they, too, were greatly relieved. They were going to be able to talk with him.
“Then you have crossed the Wall,” said the man who looked like Father.
“So have you,” said Rigg.
“I have not,” said the man.
Indicating himself, Param, and Umbo, Rigg replied, “We knew you there. Have you forgotten us?”
The man who looked like Father shook his head. “I have not crossed the Wall since it was set in place eleven thousand years ago. No doubt you are confusing me with one of your local expendables.”
Rigg exchanged glances with the others. “Expendables?”
“Have your local expendables not revealed to you their true nature?”
“I think probably not,” said Rigg.
“Did you cross the Wall by your own efforts?” asked the expendable.
“Yes,” said Rigg, figuring the answer was too complicated to go into detail.
Again more glances. “It can be . . . shut off?” asked Umbo.
“You passed through the Wall without shutting it off,” said the expendable, “and without machinery, and without understanding the nature of the Wall.”
“What did you mean about ‘local expendables’ not revealing to us ‘their true nature’?” growled Loaf.
“Everything depends on how you passed through the Wall,” said the expendable.
“Everything depends on your answering my question,” said Loaf.
“I will answer the question of the first human to master the Wall and pass through it,” said the expendable.
“We did it together,” said Rigg. “Umbo and I combined our abilities so that I could go back to a time before the Wall existed, and bring these two men with me through the Wall. We ended up bringing each other through.”
“And these two?” the expendable pointed to Param and Umbo.
“I’m not sure how they did it,” said Rigg. “I thought it would take them several days or even weeks to get here, and it seems they actually got here before us, though they left afterward.”
“After Param turned us invisible,” said Umbo, “I popped us back in time a couple of weeks, and we crossed at our leisure.”
“How did you cross?” asked the expendable.
Umbo looked helplessly at Param, and Param looked at Rigg.
“She can do a thing she calls ‘slow time,’” said Rigg. “It’s like she only exists one tiny fraction of a second at a time, with gaps in between. So it takes her a very long time to move through space, because she’s constantly skipping over short intervals of time.”
The expendable said nothing.
“Anyway, when she does that, the power of the Wall is greatly lessened. So she was able to bring herself and Umbo through the Wall. Apparently they started a couple of weeks ago and . . . what, you two were waiting for us here?”
“For a few days,” said Umbo.
“That does not seem explicable,” said the expendable. “I arrived here several days ago when I received the alert that the Wall had been penetrated, but you were not here.”
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