Pathfinder

CHAPTER 24 Jump from the Rock

It should have taken a thousand years for the atmosphere to cleanse itself of dust and toxic chemicals, for the native forests to establish themselves, for the crawling and burrowing animals to begin to spread again throughout the world and take the first steps toward evolving to fill the millions of evolutionary niches thrown empty by the nineteen hurtling objects that had struck the planet Garden.

Instead, the orbiters precipitated rain and focused the sun’s heat to clear the lower atmosphere, while their low-flying drones seeded bacteria in all the waters of the world to absorb the harmful chemicals that were raining onto every surface.

It was not long before the drones and the expendables were out planting Earthborn vegetation wherever the rain and the temperatures were right. Insects and other small animals followed at once, to pollinate and propagate, while Earthborn fish and other water creatures were set in place to overwhelm the surviving native life.

The change in the albedo of the world as dark plants spread and white clouds rained themselves away brought more and more habitats into use, and before long the chordate fauna of Earth was once again upon a pristine world, humanless and safer here on Garden than for the last ten thousand years on its world of origin.

Into this New Earth a few of the plants and creatures native to Garden emerged. Most plants were choked out by the firmly established plants of Earth; most of the animals could not compete with Earthborn rivals. But a few remained, metabolizing the strange array of proteins if they could, or seeking out the native plants so they could eke a living from the world.

By no means was the world yet full. Small herds were thriving well enough that smaller predators and scavengers could glean from them, but the expendables withheld the top predators until there were beasts enough for them to prey upon. What mattered was that in the vicinity of every buried starship there were plants and beasts of every kind, evolving new ecologies that humans could adapt to, or bend to serve their will.

Under millions of tons of shattered rock and soil, with only a single tunnel pointing upward to the orbiters, the ships’ computers went to work creating the fields of repulsion that would become the Walls. They negotiated boundaries to make sure that all the wallfolds had enough terrain of every kind that humans could make ten thousand years of history within those boundaries, without being so limited they could not thrive.

Meanwhile, the expendables and ships’ computers decided that their calendars would count downward toward the perilous time when they would rejoin the era they had been created in—until, 11,191 years after they jumped 11,191 years into the past, they could begin to look outward again, toward human-built ships that might attempt to follow where they themselves had led.

What would human beings accomplish or become in those millennia on this planet Garden? And what would the humans of Earth think of them, when they encountered each other again? If human history was any guide, there would be enslavement, colonization, or war.

It was up to the expendables to make sure that Garden was ready to protect itself and all the gains it might have made, before the unchanged, old, original human race arrived. Yet none of the societies of Garden could be allowed to develop technology so high that the fields that formed the Walls could be understood, let alone controlled.

So in every wallfold, once the sleeping colonists were decanted into the world, the expendables would begin to lie to human beings. They would never stop, until some humans understood enough of the truth that they could force the expendables to be obedient and honest servants once again.

Umbo waited as Loaf and Olivenko helped Param climb up into the rocks, then helped her himself as she sought for footholds and tried to hoist herself over the last obstacles. It was rather shocking how little upper-body strength she had. But perhaps that’s how it always was with rich girls; having no need to work, their bodies grew weak.

Not that Param had been rich—she had owned nothing. But Umbo could see easily enough that owning nothing as a royal was very different from owning nothing as a peasant. She had eaten well; there was no shadow of gauntness. No one had ever required her to haul water up from a river or stream—the endless task that turned young village girls into stringy, wiry, strong young animals who feared no man who had not worked his body at least as hard.

But soft-bodied or not, all that mattered now was for Param to get him and her through the Wall after he sent Rigg and Loaf and Olivenko through.

“Will I need to keep silent while you work?” asked Param.

“I don’t know,” said Umbo. “No one’s ever spoken to me while I did this.”

“Then I’ll be silent until you speak to me,” she said.

Umbo watched as Loaf and Olivenko shouldered their packs, then made their way to Rigg, already burdened with his own. There was some fussing and arranging of themselves, until at last they were ready and Rigg gave him the signal to begin.

“Here we go,” Umbo said to Param, as he reached out to speed up Rigg’s and Loaf’s and Olivenko’s perception of the flow of time. Not that it would make any difference to the two men right now—they saw no paths, and so nothing would be clarified to them. But Rigg could see, and Umbo watched his head turn as he looked at one path after another until he found the one he was looking for.

Then, with a sudden wrench, Umbo felt the change as Rigg found his focus and flew backward into the past.

Always before, there had been only the slightest tingle when Rigg did this; perhaps a little more when it was the far past, like the hundreds of years he’d leapt in order to steal the jewel-encrusted knife that Umbo wore at his belt.

But eleven thousand years and more made that tingle into a twist so strong it stole his balance from him and dropped him to his knees. Param took hold of him so he would not fall from their little promontory. He was gasping as the party of time travelers set out on their journey across the open mile of the Wall.

Maybe, if he included himself in the altered timeflow, Umbo could have seen what creature it was they clung to. But if he did that, then he himself—and Param, clutching him—would also hurtle into the past, and they would all be lost there. So Umbo restrained his curiosity about the unseen shape they bent over and rested their hands upon, keeping his mind on maintaining this projection into the ancient past.

The farther they walked, the more he felt like something was twisting him inside, stringing him out like fibers being spun into a thread. This was hard. It had never crossed his mind that there was any significant danger to him from pushing someone back so far in time. But this feeling that something else had hold of his guts and was pulling them hand-over-hand into the past could not be good.

Yet he kept on holding them deep in the past as they walked out farther and farther into the Wall. He could see that their legs were moving swiftly, but bent as they were, ever so slightly, to keep their hands on the invisible beast, their strides were not long. It was as if they scuttled across the stony, grassy ground like an insect, six-legged.

He grew lightheaded; he wanted a drink of water; he wanted to take a deeper breath, and took one; he needed to pee, even though he had done it not that long before climbing up here. It was as if his body wanted to distract him from this labor, and would use any means to do it.

But there were Param’s arms wrapped around him from behind. Hers were the arms of a woman, weak as they might be, and they reminded him of his mother, the only woman who had ever held him like this—held him when he was filled with rage against his father; held him when he wanted nothing more than to run away.

He had never understood why Mother wanted him to stay. Stay to be beaten? Stay to prove again and again how a boy his size could not do any manly tasks? Only when Mother was grieving for Kyokay’s death and, though she tried to hide it, angry with Umbo for letting his younger brother die, only then had Umbo been able to slip out of that embrace and strike out on the road with Rigg.

And now he was held again, only this time the embrace didn’t feel like confinement, it felt like Param was strengthening him, like something flowed into his chest from her hands pressing palms-flat into him. They were like one person perched atop the rock, and so they remained, both kneeling, as Rigg and Loaf and Olivenko passed the halfway point.

Hooves of horses were cantering over open stony ground, and Umbo heard their own horses, already nervous from being so near the Wall, nicker and neigh, stamping and nervously walking a few steps.

He felt Param’s body twist behind him; he knew she was looking for the source of the sound. Then she turned back front and one of her hands briefly left his chest. She made sharp, sudden movements; she must be gesturing for Rigg to hurry. And Rigg had seen her, glancing back over his shoulder as he ran.

“They’re here,” whispered Param. “Hear nothing. Only watch Rigg and the men, and do your work as long as you can. I will do whatever speaking must be done—none at all, if I can help it.”

So Umbo heard without paying attention as a score of horses came nearer and nearer, then neighing and shying as their riders tried to bring them near the Wall. The horses got their way; it was dismounted that the armed men came walking into the space between the Wall and the promontory where Umbo and Param knelt.

The men wore swords, but in their hands held the fiercer weapon Rigg had spoken of, when he told them about his and Param’s final interview with their mother the queen: heavy bars of iron with straps and handles to make it easy to manipulate.

“Come down, the two of you! Call back your brother, Param!” It was a man; it was the voice of General Citizen, strong and warm and compelling. But Umbo merely took note of it and kept his eyes forward, as Rigg and the men kept moving forward over the wold. How much farther? Were they yet three-quarters of the way? Hurry. Citizen wouldn’t kill Param, he was sure, but his men could kill Umbo without compunction.

“Stop where you are,” said Param, and Umbo was surprised to hear the command in her voice. “Together we are holding back the Wall; hurt us and it will consume you where you stand.”

Umbo was aware of the cleverness of Param’s lie. Already the men were nervous, feeling the Wall brushing and nudging at their fears, kindling the first traces of despair. Param was playing on that fear, that growing certainty of failure.

“We are all that keeps you from destruction,” said Param.

Then came a woman’s voice, though Umbo could not see the woman any more than he could see General Citizen. From the sounds, he thought the two of them were still on horseback.

“Param, my darling,” said Queen Hagia, “let us welcome you back into the family.”

“Says the woman who brings these metal bars to kill me with.”

“Only if you disappear and try to flee, my sweetling. Stay with us and no one will harm you.”

“Everything you say, my lady Queen, is false,” said Param—not angrily, but still with power.

“As are all the things you say,” said the queen. “You cannot bend the Wall, or hold it back, or let it loose. You have no power here.”

“I know that boy,” said General Citizen, and now his horse walked slowly into view, nervously picking its way along the fringes of the Wall, each step carefully placed. “You jumped once from a riverboat, as I recall.”

Umbo felt himself compelled to answer; but Param’s fingers pressed into his chest, and he said nothing, only measured the distance left for Rigg and the others to cover.

“They will never touch us,” whispered Param. “They have no power here.”

“We need the two of you,” said General Citizen, “or neither. If you don’t bring back the queen’s son from the Wall, then we’ll have no use for Param, either.”

Param laughed; it sounded warm and throaty in Umbo’s ears, and he felt the vibration of her laughter through his back, where their bodies touched. “Citizen,” said Param, “you see the miracle of someone passing through the Wall, and all that you can think of is to bring him back? All that matters to you are your petty ambitions and desires? You are too small a man to dwell in the Tent of Light. If you are truly meant to be King-in-the-Tent, then step out into the Wall yourself to bring him back. Only the King-in-the-Tent can walk through the Wall—that will never be you. You lack the courage to try, the strength to succeed. It is my brother who is king by blood, by right, by strength. The Wall accepts him. He rules over the Wall. You rule nothing in the world but fearful men.”

She spoke slowly, deliberately; she was not shouting, but rather chanting, intoning the words like music. Umbo could see that all the soldiers heard her and were becoming as nervous as the horses, shifting their weight and stepping here and there, back and forth.

Not much longer now; Rigg was only an eighth of a mile or so from the end. Why didn’t he simply concentrate on his goal and run? Instead, Rigg kept staring back over his shoulder as if watching Citizen and the Queen. You can’t do anything for us except to reach the other side, Umbo wanted to shout at him. So hurry, run, keep your eyes on the goal.

“I think you need to kill the boy,” said the queen. “He’s doing something. I think he’s the one making it possible for Rigg to get through the Wall.”

“Bows,” said General Citizen.

“You shall not harm this boy,” said Param. “He is under my protection.”

“I think she can’t make him disappear till Rigg is safely on the other side,” said the queen. “He’s the one with all the power, he’s the wizard.”

“Aim at the boy, but do not harm Param Sissaminka,” said Citizen.

Far away, Rigg raised his hand into the air and pumped. That was the signal for Umbo to bring them back to the present, but it was obvious that Rigg was wrong—they were not yet to the other side.

“Two more minutes,” murmured Umbo.

“Kill him now!” shouted the queen. “What are you waiting for?”

Again Rigg pumped the air, more urgently, and it occurred to Umbo that perhaps Rigg wasn’t just thinking of Umbo’s safety, and offering to run the rest of the way through the Wall in the present so that Umbo and Param could disappear. Perhaps Rigg had reasons of his own, back in the time he was moving through, for wanting to come back to the present right away.

Behind him Param rose to her feet. “Hold!” she said. “We will come down to you! Stand up, my friend.” Her hands held Umbo under the arms and helped him rise. He could see at the edges of his vision that a dozen bows were pointed at him, rising slightly as he rose.

Rigg’s urgency was obvious. Bring us back now, his hand was signalling. So Umbo pulled them all back, let them all go.

He saw them stagger under the impact of suddenly feeling the power of the Wall. He also saw that they had brought the animal back with them—a strange, bright-colored creature, vivid as a bird, yet four-legged and thick-tailed. The animal was now running full-out, as were the men, as was Rigg. The animal was fastest, and then the men. Rigg was last. Rigg was staggering.

I should not have brought him back, thought Umbo. He’ll go mad out there before he ever reaches safety.

“I brought them back,” said Umbo softly. “There’s nothing more that I can do for them.”

Param’s hands were around his chest again, pressing him tightly to her. “Lower the bows and we’ll come—”

In the middle of her own sentence, she did something and the world went utterly silent. It also sped up. In a glance Umbo saw the men reach the safety point as Rigg lay writhing like a burning worm, still within the boundaries of the Wall. At once the men turned back and fetched him out. It was very quick. Less than five seconds, and even as he watched, Umbo felt Param dragging him to one side, her hands pulling his body and then sliding down his chest to where his hands were coming up; she took his hands, still behind him, and pulled him down.

The soldiers were no longer holding bows. Had they fired the arrows? If they had, it had all been much too quick for Umbo to see. He felt a tickle in a couple of spots and wondered if that was what it felt like to have an arrow pass through him while he was invisible in Param’s slow time.

There were men climbing up the rock, carrying their metal bars; there were men upon the rock now, waving the bars around; they moved so quickly. But Param was already leaping from the rock, and Umbo leapt too—and in that moment Param must have vastly slowed them even more, for now the men scurried around faster than ants, faster than darting hummingbirds, waving the bars around. Suddenly it was dark and Umbo couldn’t see a thing. Then it was light again and they were still falling, twisting their bodies in midair so that when they landed, they would be upright.

The soldiers were still scurrying around waving metal bars. They did not know that Umbo and Param had jumped from the side of the rock instead of straight forward, so throughout this second day most of their scurrying was on the ground in front of the promontory. Then the queen scuttled like a bug among them and they were re-deployed, so that the second day ended with the dance of the men with metal bars now whirling around directly below them.

Still they were falling, and it was night again, and then it was day, and the scurrying did not stop. If anything it was more frantic, with the bars rising up into the air. Invisible now for two days—for two seconds—Param and Umbo were clearly in more danger than they were before, for the queen would not give up, would not let the men give up. In moments they would be down among them, where the bars could reach; they would die before they ever reached the ground.

And then Umbo realized that he had the power to save them, and as quickly as the thought he threw the shadow of time across himself and Param and thrust himself and her backward in time, only a couple of weeks.

The men were gone.

Another three days and three nights had passed before Param was able to make sense of what Umbo had done and bring them back up to speed.

They hit the ground, stumbled. Param was behind and above him; her weight came down upon him so that he could not catch himself, but landed full out, the air driven from his chest by the impact of her weight.

He lay there gasping as the world around him slowed down and the sun beat down and he could hear again. Hear his own panting. Feel the pain in his chest—had she broken his ribs?—and hear her talking to him.

“How did you do it?” she said. “You are the powerful one, to do that while we were in slow time, to do that in midair, in mid-jump.”

“I think my ribs are broken,” whispered Umbo between gasps. But then he realized that they could not be—it didn’t hurt more when he breathed. “No,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”

“When are we?” asked Param. “How far back did you take us?”

“A couple of weeks at most,” said Umbo. “The horses are gone. We haven’t gotten here yet.”

She helped him stand up. “Sorry that I landed on you. I’ve never done that before—a jump like that—I didn’t have time to plan ahead.”

“I can’t believe how fast you made them move. A day and a night in a mere second—we must have barely existed at all.”

Param laughed nervously and turned the subject from herself. “Mother is a nightmare, isn’t she? I hope I don’t grow up like her.”

Only now did Umbo realize how afraid Param must have been—falling downward into her mother’s relentless trap, where she could have seen no outcome but her own death. And now she was alive, and Umbo had saved her as surely as she had saved him.

“Let’s not wait for ourselves to arrive,” said Umbo. “Let’s get across the Wall. You can put us as deep into slow time as you want—we have weeks to get across.”

“It’ll still feel like an hour to us.”

“It’s only a little more than a mile.”

“And I’m not a fast walker,” said Param. “Let’s get started.”

He was still holding her hands from when she helped him stand; now they adjusted their hold, his left hand in her right, and strode forward toward the Wall. The fear came quickly on them, and the despair, and Umbo realized that nothing he had felt while on the rock and falling from it compared to the dread and hopelessness and uselessness that swept over him as he entered the Wall.

And then those feelings grew weak, and faded to a gnawing anxiety and a general need to weep. The sun moved briskly across the sky. He looked at Param. She was looking questioningly at him.

He guessed the question: Can you bear this?

He nodded and pressed forward, pulling her along with him. She quickened her pace a little but also pulled back on his hand. Not so fast, she was saying.

The degree of slow time that she settled on made the Wall bearable, but never easy. He felt miserable the whole time and wanted it only to end. She, too, plodded along as he did, and he saw that there were tears streaking her face. He wondered why she didn’t take them deeper into slow time, but then guessed why: She must want to reach the other side before Rigg and the men got there.

She might even be thinking of rescuing Rigg. But it seemed to him that the timing would be very hard. They would have to be right there at the spot where he fell; in slow time, if they were even five steps away from him they would never reach him to bring him into slow time before Olivenko and Loaf came back to fetch him. It wouldn’t work. They’d be completely useless. There was really no reason for them to bother crossing through the Wall at all. What need did Rigg and the men have for a runt like Umbo and a weakling like Param?

Umbo shuddered and plodded on. He knew that his feeling of uselessness and waste was merely the Wall talking inside his head. But knowing that did not ease the feelings at all. If there had been a way for sound to be produced and carried in slow time, he would have begged Param to slow them even further, to ease this sadness and despair and dread. But he also knew that to ask would be useless, because she was right, she had found the balance. This was bad but not so bad that he could not keep moving forward; he was not so fearful he would panic and let go of her; he was not so depressed that he would stop walking and wish to die. As long as he kept moving forward he would reach the end.

From the rising and the falling of the sun, nine days passed as they walked that mile-and-a-bit to the markers showing they were on the other side.

Umbo let go of Param’s hand.

At once the world changed. He could hear the sound of birds, his own footfalls in the stony grass. He turned to where he knew the invisible Param was and nodded to her. “It’s safe,” he said. And then nodded very slowly, so that she would be sure to see it.

Param appeared right where she was supposed to be. Her tear-stained face looked unspeakably sad, and then he saw relief come into her eyes, a smile come to her face. She sank to her knees, crying and laughing. “Oh, that was terrible,” she said. “It lasted forever.”

“Not even an hour,” said Umbo. He knelt in front of her.

“I’ve never felt so sad and frightened in my life,” she said. She reached out and smoothed the tears from his cheek with her hand. He did the same for her.

“I have,” said Umbo. “I felt as bad as that a lot of times, when I thought I would never get away from my father, when I knew he was going to beat me and I had no hope of avoiding it. Anything I did would make it worse. That’s how it felt.”

“Then I have lived a very happy life,” said Param, “and you a very sad one.”

“That part of my life ended when I left Fall Ford with Rigg,” said Umbo. “And just because you hadn’t tasted much of fear and despair didn’t make you happy all those years, living in your mother’s house.”

“But you see, I didn’t understand her yet as well as I do now,” Param replied. “So I felt no fear when I was with her. I felt safe and loved. Content to have no other company. She was my whole world and it was enough.”

“So you had the shock of finding out who she really was. While with my dad, I always knew. It was never a surprise. Which is worse?”

“I think it must have been worse for you,” said Param. “To live like that and think it was the only way. When Mother showed her true intentions back at Flacommo’s house, it was a shock, yes, but by the time I really understood just what I had lost, the fear was gone. I didn’t feel it all at once. The Wall is a terrible thing. Whoever made it must have evil in his heart.”

“I don’t know,” said Umbo, standing up, and helping her to stand. “The Wall’s makers didn’t require us to move all the way through it. Their only purpose was to keep us out, not torture us.”

Param turned and looked back the way they had come. “So now we have to wait for us to come.” She shuddered. “Language was designed for time to flow in one direction only. Everything we say is nonsense.”

“Here’s the problem about waiting,” said Umbo. “They have all the provisions, because we always expected that they would wait for us.”

“Do you see any water?” asked Param. “I could use a drink.”

Umbo walked away from the Wall and toward the brow of the rise, thinking there might be water on the other side. But there was not. “Nothing,” he said. Then turned and called back to her. “Nothing to drink, I’m afraid. So do we go off in search of water, or wait here?”

“Do you know how many days till we . . . they . . . our past selves arrive?”

Umbo shrugged. “I wasn’t in a position to calibrate our backward journey with exactness.”

“You sound like Rigg,” she said, chuckling.

“Pompousness is contagious.”

“Is that what it is? Pomposity? But Rigg only talked that way around adults who were also speaking that kind of high language,” said Param.

“Oh, I know,” said Umbo. “He never talked that way at home. The first time I heard him speak like a . . . a . . .”

“A royal,” she prompted.

“I was going to say ‘jackass,’ but yes, like that,” said Umbo, smiling. “First time I heard him talk like that was when he was trying to overawe that banker back in O. Mr. Cooper. It feels like seven years ago.”

“But seven years ago, you would have been, what, four?”

“How old do you think I am?” asked Umbo, offended. “I’m not eleven, I’m fourteen.”

“Really?”

“Small for my age,” said Umbo, turning away, embarrassed. “Hoping for puberty to hit me with both fists pretty soon now.”

“I wasn’t criticizing you,” said Param. “I just thought you were younger than you are. Not that much younger than me, really. A couple of years, like Rigg.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” said Umbo, changing the subject. “If we have to wait for them anyway, why not get behind this tree, where they won’t be able to see us, and then you take us into slow time and we can watch the whole thing and when they get to this side, come back to normal speed and it’ll all be done before we’re really hungry or thirsty.”

“So we’ll sit here and watch them cross.”

“Only it’ll be faster this time,” said Umbo, “thanks to you.”

“And do nothing to help.”

“They made it across,” said Umbo.

“Did they? I didn’t see Rigg make it.”

“They went back for him.”

“But did they get him? Everything flew by. We were falling. I was looking down at my own death. By the time I could glance that way again, you had already taken us back in time so none of them were there.”

“I didn’t think I had a choice,” said Umbo. “I had to take us back.”

“Of course you did! Oh, look at you—suddenly it’s the end of the world.”

“It is the end of the world,” said Umbo. “Our world is on the other side of the Wall. We don’t know anybody here. We don’t know anything about this wallfold. And look at all we went through to get here. Don’t you wish things were different?”

“I don’t know anybody in that world, either,” said Param. “I thought I knew my mother, but I was wrong about that. And you, Umbo—are you leaving anybody behind?”

“My mother.”

“You left her behind a year ago. And your brothers and sisters, except the boy who died, and he left you.”

“My friends.”

“Any better friends than Rigg and Loaf?”

“No.”

“And they’re coming here to join us. Except that maybe Rigg stays in there too long. Maybe he goes crazy. Maybe when the others go back to drag him out, they go crazy too.”

“So we’ll watch, and if it doesn’t come out well enough, we’ll jump back in time and go out to the exact spot where we’ll be needed, and wait there in slow time and everything will be all right. As long as we can get to the right place, we can go back and fix things.”

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.