Pathfinder

by Orson Scott Card

  “So we will drift genetically, and they will not,” said Ram. “We will evolve and they will not.”

  “Eleven thousand years is not really very long, in terms of evolution,” said the expendable. “Human populations that were separated for seventy thousand years during the great drought in Africa remained capable of interbreeding.”

  “The separation probably wasn’t complete,” said Ram. “If you’re talking about the genetic bottleneck after the explosion of Mount Toba, it only lasted twenty thousand years. And the southern African group was known to be a seafaring one, since they colonized all around the Indian Ocean, including Australia and New Guinea.”

  “I used the longer timespan to make my point clear,” said the expendable, “but even your shorter genetic bottleneck was twice as long as the isolation of this colony is going to last.”

  “And at the end of it, modern humans were far different. Longer-legged, lighter in weight. Endurance runners who could chase prey until it collapsed from oxygen depletion. Spear throwers and expert blade makers. Storytellers who could use language to create a map that others could follow through strange lands to find water. Creative thinkers who could learn from others and then innovate and adapt, and then spread the cultural innovations across hundreds of miles in a single generation.”

  “You seem to have made a detailed study of this,” said the expendable.

  “After your question about the human species, of course I did,” said Ram. “Ten thousand years is plenty of time for real change in the human species, because this time the isolation will be complete.”

  “But you have a question for us, dealing with nineteen starships and one world,” said the expendable.

  “What if we could establish nineteen colonies, each knowing nothing about the others? They would never encounter their genetic doubles. There would be no rivalry. One would not triumph over all the others. These nineteen colonies, plus Earth, would divide the human race into twenty parts. Potentially, our species could explore twenty different paths of development, genetically, culturally, intellectually. All of human history, all the wars and empires and technology and languages and customs and religions, they all evolved in less time than we’ll have here. There is enough land mass to create nineteen enclaves larger than Europe, larger than the land from Egypt to Persia, larger than the Americas from the Aztecs down to the Incas.”

  “No doubt the humans in every enclave will oblige you by becoming Egypt or Athens or Tenochtitlan.”

  “I hope not Tenochtitlan,” said Ram. “I’d like to think we’d retain some of the progress we already made back on Earth, and leave human sacrifice behind.”

  “But you’d keep the pyramids?”

  “Or whatever monuments they build. And if they not only create new things, but also become a new, but still human, species, so much the better, as long as they don’t try to destroy any of the others.”

  “Your optimism and ambition prove that you are truly human, especially because you ignore the strong likelihood that all the enclaves will end up like isolated mountain valleys, where primitive people who once roamed the oceans in boats filled with pigs and babies ended up living naked in mud huts and cannibalizing each other.”

  Ram shrugged. “I won’t be there to see it.”

  “Like a salmon, you spawn and die, letting the younglings hatch and thrive—or not—as chance dictates.”

  “Not chance—their own strength and wit. Chance affects the lives of individuals, yes, but the human species makes its own chances.”

  “We are in awe of your noble vision, while taking due note of the fuzziness of your ‘creative’ thinking, as opposed to the clarity of autistic and animal brains. Yet you have a problem whose solution your wonderfully fuzzy creative mind cannot solve.”

  “Fuzzy creative human minds built you and the ships’ computers,” said Ram, “in order to solve such problems for us.”

  “You want us to find a way to keep the colonies completely isolated from each other—to such a degree that they don’t know of each other’s existence.”

  “You guessed it! And you say you aren’t creative!”

  “We did not guess anything. We deduced it from the plethora of data you provided us, both consciously and unconsciously.”

  “And yet you couldn’t detect the irony in my enthusiasm.”

  “We detected it. As information, however, it was worthless.”

  • • •

  Loaf was a tired old man. He might still look strong to others, and act vigorous enough, but that was the problem: It was all an act. Things needed to be done, and he did them, but if he had been left alone, if he had had no responsibilities, he would have been content to sit in a rocking chair, close his eyes, and dream. Not the dreams of sleep, but the dreams of memory.

  The trouble was that half those memories were unpleasant. Not so much the memories of killing, though Loaf had known his share of battles; in the frenzy of war, it was invigorating to slice and probe and hack and slay, especially considering that if he did not keep his attention fully engaged, he himself would have been sliced, probed, hacked, and slain. Rather his unpleasant memories were of the words he wished he hadn’t said, or the clever things he didn’t say because he only thought of them later.

  The quarrels he could have avoided; the quarrels that would have been worth starting if only he had thought of the witty insults that would have brought him the pleasure of a well-earned split knuckle or sliced lip.

  He could put up with the memories of missed opportunity and other regrets, for there were other memories—childhood friends and enemies, all remembered now with fondness. The dire fears of youth that now he knew were not to be feared at all. The childish longings that, fulfilled or not, he now wished he could feel again.

  His life with Leaky was a good one, and he was not going to disappear from her life, which is what it would amount to, if he were to sit in that chair and dream. They had an inn to run, and it was a thing worth doing—the rivermen, scoundrels though so many of them were, needed a safe haven at this spot on the river, and this town needed somebody to keep the fire of ambition sparking and snapping here in this little strip between the water and the woods. He kept hoping someone else would come along with the spunk to make things happen, but there were no others besides himself and Leaky.

  And Leaky was really the one with the spunk; Loaf merely acted as if he cared as much about things as she, because it made her happy when she believed he shared her feelings.

  So in a way it had been a relief to join the boys on their downriver trip, and get away from the duties of Leaky’s Landing. She would manage splendidly while he was gone, Loaf knew that. And these boys, with their magic and their mirthful talk. They were ambitious, or at least Rigg was. Determined to fulfil his duty to his dead father, or so Rigg said—but Loaf saw in Rigg what he had seen in a few of the commanders he had served under: the fire of hope. Rigg wanted to do something that mattered. He wanted to change the world, and because he was a good lad, he wanted to change it for the better.

  Umbo was more like Loaf—content to follow along, to let Rigg set forth the goals that they’d pursue. Not that Umbo was above grumbling when he didn’t like the duties that Rigg’s ambition imposed on him. Good soldiers grumbled all the time—but they followed the plans laid out for them all the same.

  But when Rigg was taken captive, and Loaf and Umbo fled the boat and went back upriver, Loaf began what might have been the happiest time of his life. Oh, he felt bad that Rigg was arrested and when he thought about what might be happening to him, he worried. But mostly he just lived day to day with Umbo, like a soldier on the march, teaching the boy what he needed to learn, watching as Umbo struggled to do things that Loaf couldn’t imagine doing. Umbo was consumed with his need to learn how to save his friend by traveling backward in time, but since Loaf knew that it was beyond him, he was free to watch, to encourage, to protect, and, as near as Loaf could understand the feeling, to love him the way a fat
her might love a son.

  Back home in Leaky’s Landing, his old duties descended on him, but he bore them lightly, knowing that he would have to leave again, as soon as Umbo figured things out. Leaky noticed it, too, saying to him one time, “It’s like you’re not even here, you lazy man.” Little did she know how the rocking chair called to him even in the best of times, and how gladly he’d slip off into dreams—even into dreams of Leaky herself, so much easier to abide than the demanding woman that he loved but who wearied him out with all the chores that she imposed.

  She did impose them, even when he thought of them himself and didn’t wait to be asked. He always did them because of her, even if she didn’t know it.

  Hurry up, Umbo, he wanted to say. Let’s get back on the river, drift down to O, then on to Aressa Sessamo or the edges of the wallfold, wherever Rigg decides that you must go. I’ll help you do your work for your friend.

  So Loaf was happy on the late afternoon when Umbo came to him in a vision—a waking vision, suddenly standing in front of him where Loaf stood chopping wood behind the inn—and said, “Stop chopping now and go inside so you can keep Leaky from having to kill a mad drunk. And if it happens in the next five minutes, then I’ll be ready to go back to O.”

  Loaf took the ax over his shoulder, walked into the inn, and sure enough, there was a riverman who must have drunk a jug of something stronger than ale before he arrived, and now was threatening Leaky with his heavy staff if she didn’t serve him “the real drink and not that lily-water that rich men dip their fingers in.” The man slammed the staff onto the counter with all his strength—and no one had more strength with a quarterstaff than a poleman.

  Leaky was going for the throwing knife she used to protect herself against men too strong to allow them to come within reach of her. Loaf well knew that the riverman was ten seconds away from lying dead on the floor with a knife in his eye. So without even thinking, Loaf brought down the ax onto the quarterstaff where it lay, careful not to use so much force that he’d damage the oaken counter, but plenty to break the staff in two.

  Horrified at this outrage to his drunken dignity, let alone the damage to his staff, the riverman roared and turned to face Loaf, brandishing the nub of his staff with the broken end ready to jab into the innkeeper’s face. Loaf kicked him in the knee with his heavy boot, again being careful only to bruise the joint, not ruin him by breaking it, for such an injury would be slow to heal and the riverman would run out of money long before he was able to get back on a boat and work again. His offense was being an angry drunk; no doubt he was affable enough when the drink wasn’t in him.

  The riverman lay on the floor yowling with pain. Loaf looked around for the man’s compatriots, and they soon came forward to drag the man out of the inn. “You didn’t need to kick him so hard,” one of them said to Loaf. “He meant no harm.”

  “I saved his life,” said Loaf, “and the knee’s not broke.”

  “Spraint though, most like,” said the sullen man.

  “Keep your friend drinking ale and he’ll come to no grief. The strong spirits are too much for him, and you know it.”

  “He wouldn’t’ve hurt nobody.”

  “My wife had no way of knowing that,” said Loaf, “even if it were true, which it isn’t, because I think this man has killed before.”

  “Only by accident,” said the man.

  He said this just as he was maneuvering his friend through the door, and suddenly there was a thunk and Leaky’s throwing knife quivered in the doorjamb not three inches from his head. The man jumped away from the knife, which meant knocking down the drunk and the man trying to hold him up on the other side. They lay in a jumble on the floor, like eels, and all the other men in the river house laughed as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever seen, which, apart from a drowning landlubber, it probably was.

  The noise brought Umbo in from the kitchen, where he’d been washing glasses and bowls. “Why didn’t you call for me?” he asked Leaky.

  “If I’d needed to throw something as big as you, I’d have called sure enough,” said Leaky. “There’s not a thing you could have done.”

  The drunk and his friends were up and out the door now, and Loaf roared with laughter as Leaky planted her foot in the drunk’s rear and sent him, and his friends, sprawling in the damp dirt outside.

  With the door closed, and the rest of the guests turned back to their food and drink, Loaf pulled Leaky’s knife out of the doorframe and gathered Leaky and Umbo behind the bar. “There was something Umbo could do,” said Loaf. “And he did it. Why do you think I came in here? He warned me that you were about to kill a mad drunk, my love, and sent me inside with my ax in hand.”

  Umbo grinned. “Did I? Or . . . will I?”

  “I don’t know how long you waited to go back in time to give the warning, my lad, but you told me that if it happened within five minutes, you were ready to go back to O.”

  “Well, I hope you didn’t decide to give that message for another month, because there’s too much work to do around here for me to have you gone right now,” said Leaky.

  “We don’t have to wait for him to send the message,” said Loaf. “He already sent it.”

  “That’s the craziest thing you ever said. He doesn’t remember sending it, do you, boy?”

  Umbo laughed in delight.

  “Are you laughing at me?” asked Leaky.

  “He’s laughing because it makes no sense and that’s half the fun,” said Loaf. “You killed that man, and then felt so bad about it—you know you always do, being no soldier—that Umbo went back to warn me so he could stop you. But now you didn’t kill him, so there’s no reason for us to wait a moment longer.”

  “But he hasn’t given the warning!” insisted Leaky.

  “There’s no longer a warning to give,” said Loaf. “The man’s not killed after all.”

  “But if you don’t send the warning . . .” Leaky began.

  “My warning changed things,” said Umbo. “When you killed the man, then there was a warning to give. I gave it, things changed, and now there’s no warning needed.”

  “But you didn’t do it! Not yet!”

  “He already did it,” said Loaf. “Just now.”

  Leaky looked like she was ready to scream with frustration.

  “Lass, it makes no sense to me, either, but that’s just the way it works,” said Loaf. “He warns me in the past, which changes things so the warning is no longer needed. The thing is done.”

  “Then why do you have to go back to O to steal a jewel that Umbo already stole?”

  “Because I don’t have the jewel yet,” said Umbo, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve still got to steal it in order to have it.”

  Leaky lowered her head and shook it like a wet dog. “I hate you both, you drive me mad.” Then she headed back into the kitchen.

  “So when do we leave?” asked Umbo.

  “If we leave right now,” said Loaf, “we have to pack our own food, and everything a day old. If we wait till tomorrow, she’ll bake again.”

  “It’s nearly dark anyway,” said Umbo.

  From the kitchen they could hear Leaky’s voice. “This is my warning from the future! There’ll be no bread for you tomorrow or any other day!”

  “Tonight it is,” said Loaf.

  It took only a few minutes before Loaf had arranged passage for them on a raft of logs heading down to a lumber mill upstream of O. Then they both packed—knapsacks only for each of them, since they were going to travel light, and needed to look poor enough to be not worth robbing, but rich enough to be allowed into inns.

  Leaky came out and threw a head of lettuce at them as they left. “It’s a sign of love,” Loaf explained to Umbo.

  Loaf and Umbo had paid for passage, living on one of the small floored areas scattered about the reef of logs, so they weren’t required to help with anything. But they both manned poles from time to time, for every pair of hands would help in
the difficult task of keeping so large a flow of logs from turning and clogging the channel. And why not? Loaf had strength and mass to him, and Umbo was nimble on the logs and could get quickly to where he was needed. Besides, he was growing—and growing stronger to go with his height. Straining at a pole in the river against the mass of so many logs could only add bulk to the boy, which he sorely needed.

  Instead of booking another passage when the reef of logs came at last to the mill, Loaf and Umbo decided to walk the last thirty miles to O. It meant one night paying to sleep in a farmer’s shed, and rising with the stink of goats on them and their clothing, but the breakfast was large and good, and arriving in O by land, looking privick and smelling of barnyard animals, would keep them from being recognized by any who had known them before.

  Umbo was excited to return to O—to him it was a magical place where marvelous things had happened. But to Loaf, who had been there more than once, and most other places also, it was just another errand on the way. They passed right through the city late in the morning and took a room in a humble boardinghouse well off the main road—just what a frugal traveler would do. The young widow who kept the house was glad to have them, since a mature man traveling with his son (as she thought) was less likely to assume he had privileges with her.

  They were tired enough from all their walking that they decided the next morning would be soon enough to go dig up the jewel. Instead they asked the landlady where they might find a bathhouse, and ended up paying their fee to her for hot water in a decent-sized tub, and soap, and a surprisingly good towel. They didn’t mind sharing the bed—it was big enough for both, and they smelled better than usual. Umbo slept like a brick and woke in the morning ready for a good brisk walk.

  The landlady packed them a lunch to take with them to the Tower of O, their announced destination. The line at the tower was long—the spring weather had brought many tourists and pilgrims to the site. So it was perfectly normal for the man and his son to take their lunch around behind the latrine building. They lingered there near the hiding place of the jewels until there were no others near them. Then Umbo stood up, stretched, and knelt at the spot where they knew the jewels had lain.