Pathfinder

CHAPTER 16 Blind Spot

Ram looked at the large holographic image of the new world.

“What will you name it?” asked the expendable.

“Does it matter?” asked Ram. “Whatever name I come up with, it will come to mean ‘this world of ours.’ The way ‘Earth’ does now.”

“You think the colonists will forget the world they came from?”

“Of course not,” said Ram. “But the children born here will hear of Earth as a faraway planet where their parents lived. The great-great grandchildren won’t know anyone who ever saw Earth.”

“We expendables are also curious about how you are going to explain to the other colonists about the fact that we are now 11,191 years in the past.”

“Why would I tell them anything about it?” asked Ram.

“In case some of them think follow-up starships will resupply them.”

“Do we know that ships won’t come?”

“Why would they? As far as Earth knows, you didn’t make the jump, you disappeared.”

“On the contrary,” said Ram. “As far as Earth knows, we disappeared, which means we made the jump. To them, not making the jump would mean our ship simply continued on its way, or blew up. Without debris or any detectable sign of us, they can only conclude that the jump was successful. Which means they’ll send ships after us, and they will make the jump, and presumably they will divide into nineteen copies and go back 11,191 years. We should have an incredible amount of resupply.”

“We’ve been thinking about that,” said the expendable. “There is no reason we can find for the backward jump in time or for the replications. As far as the ships’ computers are able to detect, the jump merely succeeded. Which it did, because there’s the new, still-unnamed world.”

“I haven’t forgotten the need to name it,” said Ram testily. “What’s the urgency?”

“We are having ten thousand conversations among us and the ships’ computers every second,” said the expendable. “Our reports will be more efficient if we can use a name.”

“I also haven’t forgotten your previous remarks,” said Ram. “If all the fields we created caused us to make the jump perfectly, why are there nineteen ships 11,191 years in the past?”

“Because of you,” said the expendable.

As breakfast ended, Rigg knew his real work was about to begin. He had to win Mother’s trust now—and forcing her into a public display of affection for him was hardly likely to have been the best first step. Since Param spent her days invisible, it was only Mother who could convey a message to her—only Mother who could earn Param’s trust in him, vicariously.

He rose to his feet. “Mother, I have a son’s curiosity, a desire to know about my father. May I come to your room, where you can tell me candidly who he was and the legacy he left to me?” Rigg turned to the rest of the people at the table. “I speak of no possessions except this body that I wear.”

“What mother could want anything more than time alone with her long-lost son?” said Mother, rising from the table. “No one will begrudge us that, I hope.”

Flacommo stood up as well. “The law declares that you have no right to be alone, but I can say to all within my hearing that anyone who interrupts this tender meeting between mother and son will be no friend of mine, or of my house.”

It was a fine speech, but Rigg knew that there was no such thing as privacy here.

As he and Mother walked side by side from the room—neatly sidestepping Param, who walked invisibly along the wall—he leaned his face close to hers and said, “I’m sure you know that your room is under constant observation.”

She stiffened but did not break stride. “It is not,” she said. They left the breakfast room and made their way across a gallery full of very large paintings of scenes that Rigg knew nothing about.

“There are secret passages in the walls,” said Rigg. “Someone is stationed there to watch you whenever you are in the room.”

Mother stopped now, since no one else was in the gallery with them . . . yet. “How could you know this unless you were a spy yourself?”

“I am as talented as Param, in my own way,” murmured Rigg. “When we get to your room, I will stand directly in front of the peephole the spy is using. That way, if he has another peephole, he’ll move to it and then I’ll go stand in front of that one.”

“You were never in this house even when you were a baby,” Mother whispered fiercely. Apparently she could not think past wondering about the source of his information, instead of assuming there might be more talents in the world than Param’s own.

Rigg put his arms around her in a tender embrace, which put his mouth right against her ear. “I sense the path of every human being back through time. For ten thousand years I see all paths. I see Param. The two of you have been watched every time you were alone together.”

When he pulled away from Mother, smiling his most genuine, affectionate smile, he said. “I know that privacy must be priceless to you, you have so little of it. Thank you for taking me to your safest place.”

She looked ashen. His revelation that she and Param were watched at all times seemed to be devastating—but had she really imagined that the Revolutionary Council would leave her unobserved? And when the royal daughter seemed to disappear, did Mother really think that the Council would accept her explanation and not search for the girl?

Am I better at this than she is, after having spent her whole life in this prison?

Not better, he decided. It is my gift to sense what she could not possibly see; knowing hidden information is not the same thing as being wiser.

As they approached Mother’s room, Rigg could see all her walks up and down the corridor leading to her door. Thousands of times she had taken this walk. Always watched, always mistrusted, hated by many, disdained by more. How had she borne it all these years?

Perhaps she could also feel the pull of the hopes and yearnings of the many others in this land who hated the Council and yearned for a restoration of the monarchy. Perhaps in her heart she was queen after all, bearing what must be borne for the sake of her people.

Perhaps in her heart, as she walked with Rigg toward the room he had just revealed to be no sanctuary at all for her, she was planning his death.

No, he told himself. I have determined to trust her, and to honestly earn her trust in return. No doubts, no second-guessing. Either I will love my mother or I will not, but no halfway measures.

He could hear Father’s voice: “For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.”

Yes, well, Rigg knew enough of the world by now to suspect that by that definition, adults were rare and children could be found at any age. Still, that did not change the fact that Rigg could not help but judge himself by that standard. I will love this woman as long as she allows me to.

Mother opened the door—in semi-obedience to law, it was not locked. Full obedience would have had no door at all, but Rigg imagined it was more useful to the Revolutionary Council for the royals to think they had privacy.

Rigg came inside and closed the door behind him. He made a show of looking at the walls, though he knew exactly where the spy on duty crouched, eye to peephole. “Did they find the very worst art to hang in here?”

“You were rich for how long, three weeks?”

“I got used to it very quickly.”

“And in that time you became an expert on the quality of art?” Mother was only slightly sarcastic.

“I’m an expert on what I like,” said Rigg. “No one paints accurately—it’s always flat and the colors are never quite right. They never catch the thickness of the air. So I learned—as a temporarily rich young man in O—that the paintings that pleased me most were those that did not pretend to be depicting reality. My favorites were the very old ones from the age when O was capital of its own little empire, though it was nothing compared to . . . the lands ruled by the Revolutionary Council.” He had almost said “Stashiland,” but that was the name before the Sessamoto came, and he did not yet know how Mother would feel about that.

“There can’t possibly be any paintings left from the golden age of O,” said Mother. “Those are only copies.”

“Copies of copies of copies,” said Rigg. “But each copy was pronounced a faithful reproduction of the one before.”

“But by the time some artist copied it, the copy he copied from was already deteriorated. For all you know, the original was every bit as pseudo-realistic as the ones you say that you disdain, and it’s only the copying through generations that resulted in the lack of reality that you admire.”

“And yet I admire it no less for being unintentional,” said Rigg. He was now standing directly in front of the peephole where the spy had bent to see. “Now,” he said, “is where the vision is clearest.”

Mother nodded and frowned. No doubt she was remembering what activities had taken place within plain view of that spot.

Meanwhile, the spy was moving, and soon Rigg could see that new path had stopped forming. The spy must be standing on something, for now the peephole was higher than Rigg could block with his body. Instead, he pressed himself against the wall directly under the second peephole, and said, “You could never look at it my way, I know, for some people see from a much loftier position.” Meanwhile, he pointed upward.

Mother was alert enough to heed his warning—“you could never look”—and not stare right at the second peephole. She knew now where the blind spot in the room was—at least as far as these two peepholes were concerned—because Rigg was standing in it.

He could see from the paths Param had walked in this room that she was almost never in the blind spot. Meaning that whenever she became visible—to eat, to sleep, to wash, to change clothes, to use the chamber pot—she was under observation. So much for privacy. So much for the secret of her ability to become invisible.

To Mother’s great credit, she showed no emotion except what would be appropriate in response to her son’s words. Of course she understood the importance of giving the spies no indication that she knew they were there, watching. Still, it would be perfectly understandable if from now on, the chamber pot was located in the blind spot. Also the washstand.

“I’m still deciding whether I like you,” Mother was saying. “You seem very full of yourself. It’s humility that has kept us alive. That and perfect loyalty. We have given the Council no reason to think we’re a threat to the Republic—because we’re not. We do nothing unusual, so the people are barely aware we’re alive. We don’t matter. But your behavior puts us all in danger. Everyone must be talking about you by now. The servants can hardly be expected to keep silence about you.”

“Yes, I see that now,” said Rigg. “Forgive my selfishness. I will be as humble, harmless, and boring as possible from now on.” Unspoken was the statement: Now that everybody knows that I’m alive and here in the same house with you, I can afford to be circumspect. But Rigg was sure she understood exactly what he was doing.

“So what do you plan to do with yourself?”

“I’m in Aressa Sessamo,” said Rigg, as if that were answer enough.

“But you aren’t,” said Mother. “You’re in this house. You could be dancing along the Ring for all that you’ll see of Aressa Sessamo.”

“You misunderstand me, dear mother. I have no intention of going out among the crowds. But my father and I—the man I called ‘Father,’ that is—had always meant to come here to study in the library.”

“There are several hundred libraries in Aressa Sessamo,” said Mother, “and they will not let you visit any of them.”

“I understand completely,” said Rigg. “But the libraries that are grouped together as the Great Library of Aressa—aren’t they public libraries? Aren’t scholars permitted to borrow books for their research and take them home?”

“Are you suggesting that you’re a scholar?” asked Mother, now looking amused.

“My only professor was Father,” said Rigg, “but I think perhaps he was enough. We shared a love of science, before he died. There were questions he had not yet answered, and others to which he did not know any useful answer. All the learning that has survived within this wallfold for the past ten thousand years is in the library—if the answer is knowable, I want it.”

“For what purpose?”

“To know why the Tower of O was built,” said Rigg, and he did not have to fake his passion. “To know what is known about the lands outside the wallfold. Are there people in the other folds? Why was the Wall built at all? How does it work? It can’t be a natural artifact—someone made the Wall. Do you see?”

“And what will you do with these answers when you find them?”

“I’ll know them!” said Rigg. “And if the Council thinks the knowledge I find out might be useful to others, then I’ll publish them. Don’t you see? Don’t they see? As long as they don’t let us do anything, then the only thing we are is the former royal family. But if I can become a credible scholar, publishing papers that only a scientist would want to read, then I’m not royal any more, am I? I’m a scholar!”

“A royal scholar.”

“Of course. But in time, in years, I’ll be an old man who is known for his publications far more than for my parentage. No one will fear me, or put some idiotic revolutionary hopes in me, or any of our family, because we’ll be something else.”

“They won’t let you go to the library anyway.”

“But perhaps your dear friend Flacommo will send a servant to carry my letters to the librarians and help me find the books I need.”

“You aren’t a scholar,” said Mother. “I’m just telling you what I know Flacommo will say.”

“Then why not invite scholars to come and examine me, to see if I’m scholar enough to be worth giving access to the library? I’m not suggesting that we actually talk face to face—the last thing I want is for some scholar who cares nothing for politics to get dragged into contact with us. But let them sit in one room, and send me written questions. Then I’ll answer them aloud, so they can hear my voice and know that someone else is not writing my answers for me. I’ll submit myself completely to their judgment.”

“It sounds complicated, and I can’t think why any scholars would bother to do it.”

“I can’t either. But what if they were willing?”

“It’s worth suggesting to Flacommo.”

“Tell him that my father was a remarkable man. Being educated by him was like attending the finest college in the wallfold.”

“You mean the finest college in the Republic,” said Mother.

“The borders are identical.”

“But someone might think you were saying ‘wallfold’ to avoid saying ‘the Republic.’”

Rigg suddenly grew grave. “Oh, I never thought—yes, I will always say ‘the Republic’ from now on. Let no one think I wish to forget or show disrespect to the Revolutionary Council. I think of the Council and the Wall as being equally everlasting.”

“I have one other concern,” said Mother. “Your father—your real father, my husband, my beloved Knosso Sissamik—was obsessed with the Wall, with the science around the Wall. He spent his life in pursuit of a theoretical way through the Wall. He died in an attempt to cross it.”

“I never heard of the Wall killing anybody,” said Rigg.

“He thought of passing through the Wall in a boat.”

“Surely that’s been tried a thousand times—by accident, if no other way—as fishermen got carried off in a storm.”

“You know the Wall puts a madness on people who try to pass through. The nearer they get to the Wall, the madder, until they either flee from it screaming, or completely lose their minds and wander around in a stupor from which they never emerge. Fishermen who get swept through the Wall are almost certainly madmen when their boat reaches the other side—none have returned.”

“You shared my father Knosso’s interest?”

“Not at all,” said Mother. “But I loved him, and so I listened to all his theories and tried to serve him as I’m serving you now—by raising objections.”

“Then tell me how Father Knosso thought he might solve the problem?”

“His idea was to pass through the Wall unconscious,” said Mother. “There are herbs known to the surgeons. They create distillations and concentrations of them, and then inject them into their patients before cutting them. They can’t be aroused by any pain. And yet in a few hours they wake up, remembering nothing of the surgery.”

“I heard that such things were possible in the past,” said Rigg. “But I also heard that the secrets of those herbs had been lost.”

“Found again,” said Mother.

“In the Great Library?” asked Rigg.

“By your father Knosso,” said Mother. “You see, you weren’t the first royal to think of becoming a scholar.”

“Well, there it is!” cried Rigg. “Did they let Father Knosso have access to the library?”

“They did,” said Mother. “In person. He would walk there—it wasn’t far.”

“And now the surgeons of Aressa Sessamo—and the wallfold, too—I mean, the Republic—have benefitted!”

“Your father lay down in a boat, which was placed in a swift current that moved through the Wall in the north, far beyond the western coast. He injected himself with a dose that the surgeons agreed was right to keep a man of his weight deeply asleep for three hours. There were floats rigged on the boat so it couldn’t capsize, even if it ran into shore breakers before he could wake up. And he brought along more doses, so he could row himself to an inflowing current and repeat the process and return to us.”

“Did he make it through?” asked Rigg.

“Yes—though we have no way of knowing if he was made insane by the passage through the Wall. Because he died without waking.”

“And you know this because he never returned?”

“We know this because no sooner was he beyond the Wall on the far side than his boat sank into the water.”

“Sank!”

“Trusted scientists watched through spyglasses, though he was three miles away. The floats came off and drifted away. Then the boat simply sank straight down into the water. Knosso bobbed on the surface for a few moments, and then he, too, sank.”

“Why would a boat sink like that?” asked Rigg.

“There are those who say the boat was tampered with—that the floats were designed to come loose, and a hole was deliberately placed in the boat with a plug in it that was soluble in salt water.”

“So he was murdered,” said Rigg.

“There are those who say that,” said Mother. “But one of the scholars who was observing it—Tokwire the astronomer—was using a glass of his own making, which was filled with mirrors, so the other scholars did not trust his observations. But he swears it let him see the sinking of your father’s boat much more clearly than anyone else, and he says he saw hands rising up out of the water, first to tear the floats away, and then to pull straight down on the boat.”

“Hands? Human hands?”

“No one believed him. And he quickly dropped the matter, for fear that insisting on the point would ruin his reputation among scholars.”

“You believe him.”

“I believe we don’t know what’s on the other side of the Wall,” said Mother.

“You think there are people there who live in the water? Who can breathe underwater?” asked Rigg.

“I don’t think anything. I neither say ‘possible’ nor ‘impossible’ to anything,” said Mother.

“But he passed through the Wall.”

“And never woke up.”

“Why is the story not known throughout . . . the Republic?”

“Because we didn’t want a thousand idiots making the attempt and meeting the same fate,” said Mother.

“What if there are water people in the next wallfold?” asked Rigg. “They’ve never crossed the Wall, either! Would they even understand what our boats were? What kind of creature Father Knosso was? They might think that because he’s shaped like them, he could breathe underwater as they did.”

“We don’t know how they’re shaped,” said Mother.

“We know they have hands.”

“We know that what Tokwire saw he called hands.”

“Mother, I can see that Father’s plan should not be tried again,” said Rigg. “I would love to see anything he wrote, or failing that to read everything he read from the library. So I can know what he knew, or at least guess what he guessed. But I swear to you most solemnly that I am not fool enough to attempt to cross the Wall myself, certainly not unconscious, and equally not in a boat. If I’m too stupid to learn from other people’s experiences, I’m no scholar.”

“You relieve me greatly. Though you must know how it strikes terror in my heart that within a day of your arrival, you’re already talking about duplicating your father’s fatal research.”

“I was already interested in the Wall before you told me the story of Father Knosso, Mother. Duplicating his research may save me time, but I have ideas of my own.”

“I’ll ask Flacommo what is possible concerning the library. But you must promise me to let me serve you as I served your father. Come and tell me all you learn, all you wonder about, all that you guess.”

“Here?” asked Rigg. “This is your place of privacy, Mother. I’m uncomfortable even now, knowing that I should not be here.”

“Where else, if we’re not to bore the rest of Flacommo’s house with our tedious scholarly conversation?”

“The garden,” said Rigg. “Walking among the trees and bushes and flowers. Sitting on benches. Isn’t it a lovely thing, to be among the living plants?”

“You forget that it’s open to the elements, and winter is almost here.”

“I spent many a winter in the highest mountains of the Upsheer, sleeping outdoors night after night.”

“How will this keep me warm in the garden this winter?” asked Mother.

“We’ll talk together only on sunny days. Maybe my sister will join us, and we can share a bench with you between us—we’d keep you warm enough then, I think!”

“If your sister ever consents to come out of her seclusion.”

“A seclusion that excludes her only brother, lost so long and newly come home, is too much seclusion, I think.”

“It’s what she thinks that counts,” said Mother.

“Then she doesn’t listen to your advice?” asked Rigg.

“Listening isn’t obeying,” said Mother.

“Come with me and show me the house, Mother!” said Rigg. “I think this is an ancient place, with old ways of building.”

“So you study architecture as well?” asked Mother.

“I’m a scholar! In my heart, anyway. Old things intrigue me. Especially old buildings! You can imagine how I loved the Tower of O!”

“I can’t,” said Mother. “I’ve never seen it.”

“Then I’ll draw you sketches of it.”

“I’ve seen sketches,” she said testily.

“But you haven’t seen my sketches!” said Rigg. “Come on, come with me, let’s see this house.”

Mother allowed herself to be drawn to her feet, and together they began walking the corridors, holding hands. Rigg knew that they were leaving Param behind, invisible, but that could not be helped.

When Rigg sensed anyone’s path near enough to overhear them, he would walk apart from Mother, letting their hands clasp in the space between. But when he knew they were alone, and no one could hear, he took her hand in both of his, and leaned close.

It was in those times that he told her about Umbo and Loaf, about going back in time, about the jewel—even now he still mentioned only the one—about his time on the boat with General Citizen, about Shouter’s attempt to kill him, about his own failures to travel back in time without Umbo’s help. She listened to all without interruption.

In return, she told him little, but apologized for the fact that the little she told was all she knew. Param’s gift was not understood—she simply couldn’t be found sometimes, even as a little child, and then she’d turn up somewhere in the house, hungry and cold. Several governesses were dismissed because of their failure to keep track of her, and finally they were moved into Flacommo’s house precisely because it was tightly walled and she could not escape.

“I think it’s because of all the secret passages,” said Rigg. “So they could watch her and see what she does.”

“Then they certainly know what I know. When she was still young, it only happened when she was frightened by something—she’d start turning to run away, and then she faded and was gone before she’d gone far.”

“Then she learned to control it?” asked Rigg.

“Now it’s not fear that drives it, but repugnance. She hates the company of anyone but me.”

“But that wasn’t always so.”

“There was a time when she had many friends. Courtiers, scholars, men of trade—many visited Flacommo, and among them were some who took a great liking to Param. She said one of the scholars inadvertently helped her learn to understand her invisibility. What he said helped her get control of it, to disappear only when she wanted to, and as long as she wanted, no more.”

“That must have been a very wise man.”

“It was a chance thing,” said Mother. “He might have been wise, but he had no idea that the things he said were useful to her, because he couldn’t have known about her invisibility. That’s a story that has not spread. What the servants and courtiers all believe is that Param is painfully shy and hides when she wants no company. They are forbidden to search for her, though of course they couldn’t possibly find her if she didn’t want to be found.”

“Please tell her that I beg her to join us on our garden walks.”

“Beg away,” said Mother. “She’ll do what she wants.”

“Tell her I’m sorry for passing through her in the garden.”

“What!” said Mother. “You did what?”

“I knew where she was and I walked through her.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Oh, I’m reasonably certain it happens often enough. She was in the breakfast hall with us this morning. When we left, I made sure we moved around her, but when she’s invisible she can’t move fast enough to get out of the way. She tends to cling to the walls, but I can’t believe she hasn’t been walked through time and again.”

“She never told me.”

“She doesn’t want to worry you. And she certainly doesn’t want you trying to guess where she is and then walk around her,” said Rigg.

“You’ve never met her, and now you’re telling me what she does and doesn’t want me trying to do?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “Because it’s the obvious assumption. And it explains the twistings and convolutions of her paths, and why she clings to walls.”

At last they had seen the whole house, every floor and room and nook and view—except Flacommo’s private quarters, the few locked rooms, and the secret passages. They passed several of the hidden entrances to the system of passages, but Rigg merely took silent notice of the place and determined to come back later. If Rigg was caught exploring near an entrance, he wanted it to be only himself who was suspected of something dangerous.

Mother retired to her room, and Rigg went back to the kitchen, where the day shift was creating the doughs and batters for the evening’s pies and cakes. He rather liked the symmetry of the two bakers’ each having to bake what the other prepared. He also liked the fact that Lolonga seemed to be competing with her sister to feed more of the excellent bread to Rigg than her sister had. One thing was certain: Rigg would not starve here.

Rigg began to treat himself as an apprentice cook, never attempting what the bakers’ apprentices did, because things could go wrong, but instead working for the cooks: running their errands; learning by name, by sight and smell, and by usage all the herbs of the kitchen garden; and getting yelled at for his mistakes like any other boy in the kitchen. It wasn’t long before the boys who slept behind the hearth accepted him readily and talked to him like an equal. And to them he spoke in the language of a privick from Fall Ford, letting them make fun of his accent.

“So which is the real voice of Rigg?” asked Long one day, hearing him with the cooks’ boys.

“If it comes out of my mouth, it’s my voice,” said Rigg.

“But the coarse country boy from upriver, with the ribald jokes and funny tales of country life—how can you say he’s the same as the boy who speaks in such a lofty style that he withers most of the courtiers with his wit?”

“Do I?” said Rigg. “I don’t recall inflicting any injuries.”

“When everyone laughs at them, they’re destroyed,” said Long. “And you’ve ruined several who haven’t dared come back.”

“And does anyone miss them?”

Long laughed.

“A hunter who carries only one weapon has already decided that all the animals it can’t reach are safe from him.”

“So you have the weapons of country wit and courtly wit?” asked Long.

“Let’s say—half of each.”

“A double halfwit is a wit, I think,” said Long.

“And now you’ve entered the fray!” cried Rigg, and the two of them tussled in the kitchen garden for a few moments, then remembered their errands and got back to work without waiting for someone to yell at them.

It was a week before the answer came. Flacommo announced it at dinner.

“Young Rigg,” said their host. “I have pled your cause before the Revolutionary Council, and they have decided that it’s too much bother for the librarians to have to answer your endless requests and send books back and forth.”

Rigg did not let himself feel disappointed, because the way Flacommo was talking, it was plain that he was only pretending to be doleful—he had good news.

“Instead, if a panel of scholars pronounces you worthy to be numbered as one of them, you will be allowed to travel, under escort, to and from the library once a day—though you may stay there as long as you want, or until supper.”

Rigg leapt to his feet and let out a boyish, privick, unprincely hoot of happiness. Everyone laughed, even Mother.