Ruins

by Orson Scott Card

  “It’s the simple truth,” said Vadesh.

  “And yet the people without facemasks were not persuaded,” said Rigg.

  “Here’s a thought,” said Umbo. “What if the facemasks let go of the people they possessed, so the people could see how much better it was when they had the parasite? Then they could take them back by their own free choice. Or not.”

  “Impossible,” said Vadesh.

  “So you admit they would never choose to take the facemasks back,” said Loaf.

  “Impossible to detach them. Both would die.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Rigg. “I think the facemask would die, but the human would return to health.”

  “Both would die,” repeated Vadesh. “The bond cannot be undone. It was fatal to both. Always. Do you think we didn’t try, at first?”

  “I’d think that the ability to detach would be the first civilizing virtue you’d get the facemasks to acquire.”

  “They tried,” said Vadesh. “As they incorporated the genes they harvested from their human hosts, each new generation was more compatible. They needed humans more, preserved more of human nature. But the one thing they could not do was make themselves less effective as parasites.”

  Rigg looked at Loaf, Umbo, Olivenko. “Finally, an honest sentence—Vadesh admits that the facemasks are parasites.”

  “Of course they’re parasites,” said Vadesh. “I was the one who warned you not to drink from the stream, wasn’t I? I didn’t want you infected.”

  “Where is all this leading?” asked Loaf. “What do you want from us?”

  “I want you to bring humans back to my wallfold,” said Vadesh.

  “So you can infect them again?”

  “No,” said Vadesh. “Do you think I failed to learn the lesson of the past? Humans do not respond well to seeing other humans parasitized. They think of them as monsters, they destroy them to the last man, and then die out themselves, for fear of becoming infected.”

  “They died out?” asked Loaf.

  “They killed each other,” said Rigg bitterly. “When they were sure they had killed the last facemask-controlled person, they killed themselves—”

  “Each other,” said Vadesh.

  “Collectively killed themselves,” said Rigg, “so there was no chance that their keeper here could breed them with more facemasks.”

  “They didn’t understand that I would never do that,” said Vadesh. “I am incapable of harming human beings.”

  “But you can let them come to harm. Goad them to it, trap them. Aid their enemies.”

  “Humans must be free,” said Vadesh. “It is deeply ingrained in my programming. I cannot defy that. All choices are to be made by humans. I merely help them carry out their plans.”

  Rigg could not let that stand. “You are such a liar,” he said. “I was raised by one of you, and he was certainly not carrying out anybody’s plan.”

  “He wasn’t carrying out your plan, you mean,” said Vadesh.

  “Nor mine,” said Umbo.

  “Nor the plans of General Citizen and Hagia Sessamin,” said Olivenko. “So whose plan was he carrying out?”

  “Neither of us controls the other,” said Vadesh. “But we started out with the same directives—given to us by humans. Our original programmers, and then Ram Odin. He gave us a great work to do. The expendable Ram pursued it his way in your natal wallfold, and I pursued it as best I could here in this wallfold. I made mistakes. I misunderstood the depth of the human fear of the strange and new. They could not be reasoned with.”

  “Meaning you couldn’t find them all and kill them,” said Rigg.

  “I killed no one,” said Vadesh.

  “But you found them,” said Umbo. “And told the facemask people where they were, so they could kill them.”

  “I wanted them reconciled!”

  “But ‘killed’ was almost as good,” said Rigg. “They were waging a war of extermination, and you weighed in on the side of those who were only half human.”

  “There are safeguards now,” said Vadesh. “I’ve worked hard. Ten thousand years I’ve been breeding facemasks until all the obnoxious traits are gone. Humans would remain fully human, in charge of themselves.”

  “We are never going to put on your facemasks,” said Rigg.

  “But you haven’t even seen them!”

  “What we need from you,” said Rigg, “and what I order you to give us, is information about the jewels. How do they work? How can we use them to shut down the Walls?”

  Vadesh looked away—a gesture Father often used, to give the illusion of thinking things over. But it was only an illusion, Rigg understood that now. The mechanical mind made its decisions very quickly, and all this business of “thinking” was part of the pretense that the expendables were similar to humans. But they were nothing like humans.

  “It seems to me,” said Rigg, “that you want us to think this is all about two species—facemasks and humans. But there’s a third species involved.”

  Rigg’s friends looked at him, confused.

  Vadesh understood him, though. “Expendables are not a species,” he said.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “We are not alive. We do not reproduce.”

  “No, but you replace any parts that wear out,” said Rigg. “You don’t have to reproduce if you never die.”

  “We are here to support and enhance human life,” said Vadesh.

  The others laughed or hooted bitterly.

  “Maybe that was your original law,” said Rigg, “but you proved that enhancing human life is the opposite of what you actually have in mind.”

  “The facemasks eventually did enhance human life,” said Vadesh. “That was my great insight, when I finally understood it.”

  “Humans are the only fit judges of what enhances our lives,” said Olivenko.

  “I see that now,” said Vadesh. “I’ve learned. Do you think I don’t understand that I failed here? All the humans preferred murder and death, do you think I regard that as success? That’s why I beg you to bring humans back here, so I can undo my terrible mistakes.”

  “You have the power to bring down the Wall,” said Rigg. “You expendables put it there, didn’t you?”

  “We each have the power to shut down our own protective field. But the Wall consists of two fields, pushed up against each other. I could make the Wall half as wide, but I could not bring it down.”

  “Unless the other expendables agreed with you,” said Rigg. “But they didn’t, did they?”

  Vadesh once again said nothing.

  “Silence from you is a lie,” said Rigg.

  “They would not let me import a new population,” said Vadesh.

  “If the other expendables regard you as so much of a failure that you can’t be trusted with more people,” said Rigg, “why should we contradict their superior wisdom?”

  “Expendables must bow to the will of humans,” said Vadesh. “You can contradict us whenever you want.”

  “Millions of people must have wished they could get through the Wall,” said Loaf. “It never came down for them.”

  “Wishes are not informed decisions,” said Vadesh.

  Rigg chuckled. “But who can possibly inform us, except you expendables?”

  “Exactly,” said Vadesh.

  “So we only know what you tell us,” said Rigg. “Which means that by choosing what to tell, you can shape our decision however you want.”

  “And how did Ram shape your decisions?” asked Vadesh.

  Rigg and his companions were not pretending; they had to think about it.

  “He sent us to the Wall,” said Umbo.

  “He prepared us to come through it,” said Rigg.

  “So both he and I,” said Vadesh, “wanted humans to come through the Wall.”

  “No,” said Rigg. “Father wanted us to have power over the Wall—and other things. Maybe he wanted to trigger General Citizen’s revolt against the People’s Revolut
ionary Council. But he never did anything to suggest he wanted us to come to you.”

  “I’m what’s beyond your Wall!”

  “In this direction,” said Rigg. “But we saw the globe in the Tower of O. If we had gone through the Wall in a different place, we might have come to a different wallfold.”

  “But you came to this one. Did Ram turn you away from here? He knew you might come, and that if you did, you’d talk to me, and he did nothing to warn you against me, did he?”

  “Oh, he warned me well enough,” said Rigg. “He taught me to notice when I’m being lied to and manipulated, and to resist it.”

  “Show us how to shut down the Wall,” said Loaf.

  Rigg looked at him, startled. It felt like betrayal.

  “I want to shut down the Wall,” said Loaf. “These Walls have kept the human race divided into little pieces. In this wallfold, the human race wiped itself out. Who knows what happened in the other seventeen? It’s time for the Walls to come down so we can inform ourselves.”

  “If we bring down the Wall,” said Olivenko, “people will come here and be infected by the facemasks.”

  “We warn them,” said Loaf. “Filtered water only. They’ll find a way. People always do.”

  “We don’t know enough yet,” said Rigg. “We can’t just bring down the Wall when we don’t know what people will find in the other wallfolds.”

  Loaf laughed at him. “You say you don’t want responsibility, but here you are appointing yourself as the guardian of the whole human race.”

  “They murdered Knosso in the wallfold he crossed into,” said Olivenko.

  “Murder, massacre, warfare, disease, parasites,” said Loaf. “It’s the world. We should have the freedom of it. But no, Rigg thinks he can decide everything for everybody, keep everybody safe until he decides the human race is ready. Tell me, Rigg, how are you different from these expendables? Except that you’re not as well-informed?”

  “You can’t just—”

  But Loaf was not disposed to listen. “I can. You’re not in charge, remember? Each of us can go off on our own, if we want.”

  “I thought you said we should stay together,” said Olivenko.

  “Until it no longer makes sense,” said Loaf. “The rest of you can stay with each other—I advise it. You’ll be safer. But I want to get back through the Wall. I want to go home to Leaky. But then maybe I’ll come back. This is a vast empty land. It’s not just this city, it’s the whole wallfold. Who knows what could be built here? Vadesh is a lying snake, but the more people who come, the less attention we’ll have to pay to him. He wants the Wall to come down so immigrants can come in? So do I.”

  Vadesh made an elaborate shrugging motion. “But it’s not just a person I need. It’s the jewels.”

  Loaf looked at Rigg and held out his hand.

  Rigg wanted to say, No, they’re mine, Father gave them to me, they’re my inheritance! But he knew he had no right to keep Loaf here against his will. So he drew out the bag with the stones and handed it to Loaf.

  Loaf opened the bag and poured out the jewels into his hand.

  “Ah,” said Vadesh. “This one is the key to Vadeshfold.” He picked up a pale yellow stone. “With this, a human can turn off this wallfield.”

  “This wallfield is only half the Wall,” said Loaf.

  “The other stone isn’t here,” said Vadesh. “The one that shuts down the field protecting Ramfold.”

  “The one we sold,” said Rigg, realizing.

  “The one that the People’s Council stole from us,” said Loaf.

  “This one?” asked Umbo. He opened his hand, and there in his palm lay a red stone. Just like the one that Rigg had entrusted to Mr. Cooper, the banker in O.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Olivenko.

  “After all the times we tried to break into the bank to get it back, you had it all along?” said Loaf.

  Now Rigg put things together. “He found it yesterday, when we first arrived.”

  “It was just lying there at the edge of the woods where we slept,” said Umbo. “I picked it up.” He turned to Rigg. “You saw me, but you didn’t even ask me what it was.”

  “I figured you’d tell me when it mattered,” said Rigg. “And you did.”

  “So much for Rigg always trying to be in charge of everything,” said Olivenko.

  “I never said that!” said Umbo.

  “Yes you did,” said Olivenko. “About a hundred times, in a hundred ways.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Rigg. “Is that the right stone?”

  Vadesh looked at it, then handed it to Loaf, pairing it with the yellow one from Vadeshfold. “These are the two you’ll need to bring down the Wall between Ramfold and Vadeshfold.”

  “You put it there,” said Rigg. “For Umbo to find.”

  “I did not,” said Vadesh. “I couldn’t.”

  “Don’t all the expendables have a complete set of all the jewels?” asked Rigg. “This is one of yours.”

  “You couldn’t use any of mine,” said Vadesh. “They can only be used by humans who grew up in the same wallfold as the jewels. They imprint on you. What would be the point of leaving one of my jewels for you to find? This jewel is from the Ramfold set.”

  Vadesh spoke so confidently. Yet he seemed untroubled by the question of how the jewel got from Ramfold to this grove of trees. “Who put it there?” Rigg demanded of the others. It was plain Vadesh was not going to tell them, even if he knew, which he probably did.

  “Maybe you did,” said Olivenko.

  “Me?” said Rigg. “I didn’t have it!”

  “Maybe you came back from the future, when you do have it, and you put it there,” said Olivenko. “Isn’t that possible?”

  “Or Umbo did,” said Rigg. “And put it where he knew that he alone would find it.”

  “But that would mean that in the future, I go back to Ramfold, somehow get the jewel, and then come back here and leave it for myself,” said Umbo. “Why?”

  “We’ll never know,” said Loaf. “Because that version of the future is destroyed by the very fact that you now have the missing jewel, so you won’t have to go get it.”

  “Why didn’t I hand it to myself, with an explanation?” asked Umbo. “At least I could have left myself a note.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with yourself, later,” said Loaf. “What matters is, I have the power in my hands now to bring down the Wall and go home.” Loaf rose to his feet and faced Vadesh, looming over him. Loaf was big enough that this move no doubt intimidated most men, but Rigg didn’t imagine Vadesh was all that impressed.

  “Come with me,” said Vadesh. “You can control the Wall now.”

  “Where are you taking him?” demanded Rigg.

  “I thought you weren’t in charge,” said Olivenko.

  “I’m still his friend,” said Rigg. “A friend demands to know where you’re taking him.”

  “Into the starship,” said Vadesh. “Inside the mountain.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Inside the Starship

  “I’m coming with you,” said Rigg.

  Umbo was not surprised. Rigg might talk about how he was tired of being in charge, but he would never stop thinking that everything was his business.

  But Rigg was right, too. Whatever Vadesh had in mind, Loaf should not go alone with him into the mountain, into the starship. Only it wasn’t Rigg who should go with him, it was Umbo, who had been Loaf’s companion during all the time that Rigg was in captivity.

  “I’ll do it,” said Umbo. “Not you.”

  Rigg looked at him steadily. “Someone should stay outside, so that whatever happens in there doesn’t happen to everybody.”

  “Then you stay outside,” said Umbo.

  “I’m happy to stay outside,” said Olivenko. “I can wait for Param Sissaminka and explain what’s happening.”

  “Good idea,” said Umbo.

  “Except that first somebody needs to explain to me
what’s happening,” said Olivenko.

  “Umbo and I are going into the starship with Loaf and Vadesh,” said Rigg.

  “For once can’t I do something without children tagging along?” said Loaf.

  Umbo felt slapped.

  “I think I should carry the jewels,” said Rigg.

  “Whatever we’re going to do with them,” said Loaf, “I think I can do it.”

  “You trusted us with the jewels before,” said Umbo. “We didn’t let you down.”

  “It’s not you that I don’t trust,” said Rigg.

  “It’s me,” said Vadesh. “Ram lied to him so constantly that it’s no wonder he doesn’t trust someone with the same face. I don’t care who holds the jewels.”

  “Then I’ll hold them,” said Umbo.

  “The last time you had them,” said Rigg, “you hid one.”

  “I was experimenting with timeflow,” said Umbo.

  “Why not experiment with letting a grownup do a man’s job?” said Loaf.

  “And where would we find a grownup?” said Umbo.

  Loaf laughed at him. “Such a youthful thing to say. Very refreshing.” He turned to Vadesh. “Lead the way.”

  “I’ll wait here for Param,” said Olivenko.

  Umbo felt a pang of jealousy. Completely irrational, but the thought of leaving Param alone with this handsome young scholar-soldier bothered him. So Umbo defied his own feelings and simply turned his back and walked toward the door.

  “Not that way,” said Vadesh. “It’s farther in.”

  “But we’re far from any mountain,” said Umbo.

  “We’re already on the shoulder of the mountain,” said Vadesh, “and not all roads are on the surface of the world.”

  They walked through a door in the far end of the water room, and found themselves in a huge space filled with machines of inexplicable purpose. They all seemed to be made of the same kind of impervious metal that the outside walls were made of, that the surface of the Tower of O had been made of. Umbo knew that the Tower of O had been attacked in every possible way, not by warriors, but by researchers trying to understand what it was made of. Heat was one of the many things it didn’t respond to. So how could the metal—if it was metal—be poured into molds in order to be shaped into machine parts?