Pathfinder sw-1

by Orson Scott Card

  When Rigg got to the other side, Umbo was gone—Rigg could see his path, bright and clear and fresh in the air, heading right down the difficult part of Cliff Road.

  Rigg would like to have taken a different way, in case Umbo set some trap for him, but there was no other way down the cliff, except of course the ever-present option of falling. That was half the reason for Fall Ford’s existence as a town, this road up the cliff. At the bottom it was a road, an ancient one, high-curbed and paved with large stones, switching back and forth up the steep slopes at the base of Upsheer.

  But then the switchbacks got narrower, the ramping road gave way to a high-stepped path, and paving stones gave way to carved and weathered rock, with makeshift repairs or detours where some ancient calamity had torn away the original path. Still, it was just possible for someone to carry a burden in both hands up the road, and for a boy like Umbo, bounding down, energized with grief and rage, it would take very little time to reach the bottom.

  If Rigg still had his huge bundle of pelts and skins, that would be a problem. Umbo would have plenty of time to get to the village and back again, no doubt with men who would believe his story and who, in their rage, might not listen to Rigg’s version of events.

  As it was, if Rigg hurried, he would be at the bottom of Cliff Road and away before Umbo could get back. And unless he or someone else in the village had an ability like Rigg’s, there would be no tracking him. An expert tracker was hard to track, Father had told him, since he knew what signs a fugitive shouldn’t make in the first place.

  Father! Rigg felt another pang of grief, as fresh as the first, and tears came into his eyes. How can I live without you? Why couldn’t you hear the groaning of the wood and get out of the way before the tree fell on you? Always so quick, always so perceptive—it’s almost unbelievable that you could ever be so careless.

  And I still need you. Who will explain to me what caused time to slow, caused all those people from the past to appear, caused that man to block my way so the boy died?

  Tear-filled eyes don’t find a good path. So Rigg stemmed his grief, cleared his eyes, and continued through the woods, looking for the back way to get to Nox’s rooming house.

  CHAPTER 3

  Nox’s Wall

  What training could they have given Ram Odin that would help him when the seven years of tedium ended and it was time for his decision?

  The ship’s computer already knew the entire procedure for the fold. The process was far too complicated for a mere pilot to be able to take part in it. Ram’s job was to read and hear the reports of the computers, and then decide whether to go ahead.

  But the decision was not an easy or an empty one. As the ship began its strangely twisted acceleration into the fold, data would be generated on a vast scale. The computers would begin their reduplicated analyses and fuzzy predictions of what was happening, what might happen, what would happen during the fold itself.

  At any point, Ram could abort the procedure, based on what the computers told him. The computers would generate odds and likelihoods, but Ram was quite aware that the odds were all fiction. It was possible that none of the predictions would resemble the outcome.

  And no matter how many times the computers repeated any one prediction, that did not make it the most likely outcome. It might mean nothing more than this: The computers and the software all contained the identical set of false assumptions or built-in flaws that made all prediction worthless.

  Ram was an expert pilot, a deep-thinking astronomer and mathematician, his creative faculties well-practiced. Everything that training could do had been done. But it still came down to this: Who was Ram Odin? Would he bet his life and the lives of all the colonists on the unknown leap into a fold in spacetime?

  Or would he, in the moment, decide that it was better to use known technology, generate the scoopfield, start harvesting interstellar hydrogen, and drive forward through ninety lightyears of ordinary spacetime?

  Ram knew, or thought he knew, what his decision would be. He had said so, many times, during the testing and screening of potential pilots for the mission: Unless there is information from the computers that makes the jump seem recklessly dangerous, I will proceed. Even failure will be enormously valuable—you will see what happens to the ship, you will harvest the monitors that will be trailing behind us, you will know.

  But now, seeing the reports, talking to the expendable that sat in the copilot position beside him, Ram realized that there was no such thing as “enough” information, and no way to set aside fear. Oh, his own fear he had mastered. What caused him problems was the vicarious fear for all the people sleeping in their berths; the fear that they would jump into the fold but never come out, or come out in a strange place that was much too far from any planet to make colonization possible.

  How did I become the one to make this decision for everyone?

  * * *

  In settled country, even the wildest wood is wound about with paths. Children playing, couples trysting, vagabonds seeking a place to sleep undisturbed. Not to mention the countless practical needs for going into the forest. Mushrooms, snails, nuts, berries—all will bring people across the fields and into the trees.

  Running steadily, lungweary, Rigg could still see the most recent paths. He knew which woods should be empty of people, and those were the paths he chose. Several times he had to abandon wild country and strike out across fields or through orchards, but always he knew from the paths which houses were empty, which roads safe to cross.

  He came at last to the back approaches to Nox’s rooming house. She kept a large vegetable garden with rows of pole beans, where Rigg crouched to scan the house.

  A crowd had already gathered in front of the house. They weren’t a mob—not yet—but Rigg heard their shouted demand that Nox let them search for “that child-murderer.” Because Rigg had taken a roundabout way, Umbo’s version of events had had plenty of time to spread through the village. And it was well known that here was where Father and Rigg always stayed.

  Of course Nox let them in. Since Rigg really wasn’t inside, what reason would she have for refusing them, which would invite them to burn the place down?

  Rigg couldn’t see the men who searched the house—they were behind walls—yet somehow, in a way that blended into vision but wasn’t actual sight, he could still track the men’s paths through the house. All he could sense was the pace at which new paths appeared, and their position relative to each other and the outside wall of the house.

  Yet this was enough for him to know that they were almost frantic in their search. They seemed to run up and down the stairs, and walk all around each room. There was bending, crawling, stretching upward. For all he knew they were slashing open the beds and dumping out trunks.

  But of course they found nothing, since their quarry was outside in the bean patch.

  And if they widened their search and found him here, they would assume Nox knew he was there. It might go very badly for her.

  So as the paths converged again on the front porch, Rigg scampered for the back door and slipped inside the pantry. He dared not go upstairs or to any public room, because the regular residents were there.

  From the pantry, Rigg could sense the movement of members of the crowd. They set two men to watch in front and two in back. Several men did indeed search through the garden.

  I shouldn’t have come here, thought Rigg. Or I should go back out into the wild and wait for a year and then come back. Maybe I’ll be able to grow some kind of beard by then. Maybe I’ll be taller. Maybe I’ll never come back at all—and never know who my mother is, or find my sister . . .

  Why couldn’t Father have simply told him instead of making him come here? But a dying man has the privilege of deciding his own last words, and when to stop talking.

  Rigg tried to imagine what it would be like for Nox, when at last she came to the pantry. If he was standing up and looking at her, she was likely to scream; that would draw attention, cer
tainly of the residents, and perhaps of the guards outside. He needed to be sure she remained silent, which meant she should feel neither shocked nor threatened.

  So he sat down in a corner and hid his face in his hands. She wouldn’t be startled by seeing his eyes, nor face an unexpected stranger looming over her as she opened the door to the room. It was the best he could do.

  It took two hours before Nox was able to calm down the guests, who were, of course, frightened or angry about the intrusion and search. Two of them packed up their things and left. The rest stayed, and finally it was time—past time—for Nox to start preparing dinner.

  “Too late for soup, no time for anything that takes any time to cook,” Nox was grumbling as she opened the pantry door.

  Rigg was not looking up, so he couldn’t be exactly sure she even noticed him, as she unsealed the flour and sugar bins to draw out the ingredients for quickbread. She had to have seen him, but gave no sign. Only when he lifted his head very slightly, enough to see her, did she whisper, “Stay here till after dinner,” though Rigg knew well that the noon meal there hardly deserved the lofty title of dinner. Then Nox was out of the pantry, closing the door behind her.

  Dinner was served, during which the two guests who had left came back—there were no other rooms in town, and after all, the murderer had not been found in the house, so surely that made this the safest rooming house in Fall Ford, since this one had been found most definitely killer-free.

  Finally, when Rigg sensed that all the guests had gone out again, Nox opened the pantry, came inside, and closed the door behind her. Her voice was the tiniest of whispers.

  “How did you keep them from finding you when they searched the house? You haven’t learned how to make yourself invisible, have you?”

  “I came in after they searched.”

  “Well, thanks for dropping by. It’s made everybody’s day.”

  “I didn’t kill that boy.”

  “No one in their right mind thinks you did.”

  “He was hanging from the lip of a stone and I even dropped all my furs so I could try to save him, but Umbo thinks what he thinks.”

  “People always do. Where’s your father?”

  “Dead.”

  That left her silent for a long while.

  Then, finally, “I honestly didn’t think he knew how to die.”

  “A tree fell on him.”

  “And you came back here alone?”

  “He told me to. He told me to come to you.”

  “Nothing about killing an odd child or two on the way?”

  For a moment, Rigg thought of telling her about the man from centuries ago that he might or might not have killed as well. But that would mean telling her about his pathfinding, and things were complicated enough already. She’d probably think he was insane and therefore cease believing that he had not killed Kyokay. So Rigg ignored her provocation. “He told me you’d tell me where my sister and mother are.”

  “He couldn’t tell you himself?”

  “You say that as if you think he might have explained himself to me.”

  “Of course he didn’t.” She sighed. “Trust him to leave the hard jobs to me.”

  “You’ve known my mother was still alive my whole life long, and you never bothered to mention it to me?”

  “I’ve known only since he was about to lead you out on this last jaunt,” she said. “He took me aside and made me memorize some names and an address. He said I’d know when to tell somebody.”

  “It’s now,” said Rigg.

  “Fat lot of good it’ll do you,” said Nox, “with men watching my house.”

  “I’d rather die knowing.”

  “First tell me how that boy died.”

  So Rigg told her what had happened, except that he left out any mention of the man from another time whose hand had covered Kyokay’s. He was sure she could sense that he wasn’t telling the complete story, but it still seemed better not to tell her about his abilities.

  Nox seemed to take it all in stride. “Trust that idiot Umbo to accuse you before trying to find out the truth. And you lost all your furs?”

  “I didn’t really lose them, since I know where they are,” said Rigg. “They’re somewhere downriver, hung up on rocks or branches.”

  “Oh, you can be funny? I’m so glad to hear it.”

  “It’s laugh or cry,” said Rigg.

  “Cry, then. Give the old man his due.”

  For a moment, Rigg thought she meant the ancient man at the top of the falls. But of course she meant Father. “He wasn’t all that old.”

  “How can anyone tell? He was coming to this house when I was a child, and he looked no younger then.”

  “Will you tell me now where I need to go?”

  “I’ll tell you—so you’ll know what address it was you never made it to. Nobody’s letting you out of town today.”

  “Names,” Rigg insisted.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I’ll be eating the flesh of warmed-over rooming house owner if you don’t tell me now.”

  “Threats. Tut tut. Naughty boy. Raised without manners.”

  “Exactly,” said Rigg. “But I do have a lot of experience with killing animals larger than myself.”

  “I get it,” said Nox. “You’re so clever. Your mother was—is—Hagia Sessamin. She lives in Aressa Sessamo.”

  “The ancient capital of the Sessamoto Empire?”

  “That very city,” said Nox.

  “And what is her address?” asked Rigg.

  Nox chuckled. “Not a very good listener. Your father always said, ‘If I could only get him to pay attention.’”

  Rigg was not going to be put off. “Address?”

  “I told you, she’s Hagia Sessamin.”

  “And that means she doesn’t need an address?”

  “Ah,” she said. “Apparently your father omitted any explanations about Sessamoto politics. Which makes sense, come to think of it. If you get out of Fall Ford alive, get to Aressa Sessamo and ask for the house of ‘the Sessamin.’ Ask anyone at all.”

  “I’m some kind of royalty?”

  “You’re a male,” said Nox. “That means you could fart royal blood out of your ears and it wouldn’t matter. It was an empire ruled by women, which was a very good plan while it lasted. Not that most cities and nations and empires aren’t ruled by women, one way or another.” She stopped and studied his face. “I’m trying to figure out what you’re not saying to me.”

  Rigg said the first thing that came to mind. “I have no money for the journey. The furs were all I had.”

  “And you come begging an old housekeeper for a few coins from her stash?”

  “No,” said Rigg. “Nothing, if you can’t spare it. If you have a little, I’ll borrow it, though I don’t know when or if ever it’s going to be possible for me to repay you.”

  “Well, I’m not going to advance you anything, or lend it, or even give it. Though I might ask you for a loan.”

  “A loan? When I have nothing?”

  “Your father left you a little something.”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I just told you.” She pushed a stepladder into place against one of the sets of rough shelves and started to climb. Then she stopped.

  “If you try to look up my skirt, I’ll poke needles into your eyes right through your eyelids while you’re asleep.”

  “I’m looking for help, you give me nightmares, thank you so much.”

  She was on the top step now, reaching up for a bin marked dry beans. Rigg looked up her skirt mostly because she told him not to, and saw nothing at all of interest. He could never understand why Nox and other women, too, were always so sure men wanted to see whatever it is they concealed under their clothes.

  She came down with a small bag. “Wasn’t this nice of your father? To leave this behind for you?”

  She opened the little bag and poured its contents into her palm. Nineteen jewels, large o
nes, of more colors than Rigg had imagined jewels could have, and no two alike.

  “What am I supposed to do with these?”

  “Sell them,” she said. “They’re worth a fortune.”

  “I’m thirteen,” Rigg reminded her. “Everyone will assume I stole these from my mommy. Or a stranger. Nobody will imagine that I have them by right.”

  Out of the bag Nox took a folded sheet of paper. Rigg took it, looked at it. “It’s addressed to a banker in Aressa Sessamo.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can read.”

  Rigg scanned it. “Father taught me about letters of credit.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, since he never taught me any such thing.”

  “It says my name is Rigg Sessamekesh.”

  “Then I suppose that’s what your name is,” said Nox.

  “This is worthless until I get to Aressa Sessamo,” said Rigg.

  “So live off the land, the way you and your father always do.”

  “That works in the forest. But long before I get to Aressa Sessamo, it’ll all be towns and farms and fields. I hear they whip you for stealing.”

  “Or put you in jail, or sell you into slavery, or kill you, depending on the town and what mood they’re in.”

  “So I’ll need money.”

  “If you make it out of Fall Ford.”

  Rigg said nothing. What could he say? She didn’t owe him anything. But she was the closest thing to a friend he had, even if she wasn’t his mother.

  Nox sighed. “I told your father not to count on my giving you money.”

  “He didn’t. He saw to it I had a good-sized bundle of furs—all I could carry.”

  “Yes, yes, so I will give you something, but it won’t be enough for you to ride a carriage. It won’t be enough for you to ride anything. And you’d be wise to keep off the roads for a good long way. I have a feeling that nobody’s going to get new shoes or shoes repaired in Fall Ford until a certain cobbler gives up on finding you and gutting you like a fish.”