Ruins

CHAPTER 24 Destroyers

Having once used Param’s time-slicing ability to skip ahead into the future, Umbo and Param saw no reason to wait three years to see whether they had made the right choice in warning the Visitors about the stowaway mice. Umbo suggested it, but Param agreed at once and she proposed it to the others.

“We can’t go back into Odinfold—for all we know, the mice are planning some kind of vengeance. And even if they’re not, there’s nowhere here in Larfold for us to live while we wait three years.”

“We were spoiled by our life in Odinfold,” said Loaf. “More luxury than during our time as wealthy hotel patrons in O.”

“And a better library,” said Umbo.

“Did we find King Knosso here, alive, only to leave him behind?” asked Olivenko.

“Why not invite him to come into the future with us?” suggested Umbo. “If it turns out the Destroyers arrive on schedule, we’ll be returning to the past in order to try something else to block them. We can take Knosso with us.”

“What about Rigg?” asked Loaf. “He won’t know where we’ve gone. And he can’t skip into the future without Param.”

“If Rigg wants to join us,” said Umbo, “he can come to this spot and find our paths and shift into this moment.”

“If he doesn’t come to us before we begin our journey forward,” said Param, “then it means that he chose not to.”

“And that’s all you have for Rigg?” asked Loaf.

“He’s the one who left us,” said Olivenko.

“We don’t know if he’ll even be himself after he has the facemask,” said Param.

“If Vadesh doesn’t kill him,” said Olivenko. “He chose to walk into danger.”

Loaf sat looking at the sand in front of him.

“Loaf,” said Umbo, “don’t forget who and what we are. If Rigg doesn’t join us at the end of the world, then no matter which way it goes with the Destroyers, we can always go back and find him.”

“And stop him from getting himself destroyed by this?” asked Loaf, gesturing toward his own face.

“Why do you assume that it destroys him?” asked Umbo.

“Because I know how close it came to destroying me.”

“And you think that Rigg is weaker?” asked Param.

“Rigg is a child,” said Loaf.

Umbo laughed. “And so is Param, and so am I.”

“You’re not going up against a facemask,” said Loaf stubbornly.

“We’re going up against Destroyers,” said Umbo.

“We’re going to see if they come,” said Loaf, “and then run away if they do.”

“Rigg is stronger than you think,” said Umbo.

“Stronger than I am?” asked Loaf.

“Strong enough,” said Umbo. “It wasn’t physical stamina that prevailed over the facemask, was it?”

“No,” said Loaf. “It was strength of will.”

“And you think Rigg lacks that?” asked Umbo.

“He’s always been so eager to please,” said Loaf.

“He’s eager to do right,” said Umbo. “That’s not the same thing at all.”

Knosso came to them when the sun was high enough to warm the beach to a tolerable temperature. When they proposed the jaunt into the future, he agreed at once. “I thought my passage through the Wall was the only adventure of my life. Now you’ve brought another to me here at the end of the world.”

“Did you already know it was the end?” asked Umbo.

“Oh yes,” said Knosso. “The Landsman told us—told the people of the sea. Many generations ago. From what you’ve said of the Odinfolders, he told us as soon as the Book of the Future appeared in Odinfold.”

“So Larfold was informed,” said Olivenko, “but not the people of Ramfold.”

“In Ramfold,” said Param, “they made us. And who would have believed such a prophecy, anyway? Here they know what their expendable is. In Ramfold, he’s a legend. A myth. A miracle man.”

“Worldwalker,” said Umbo.

“The Golden Man,” said Olivenko.

“The Undying One,” said Loaf.

“The Gardener,” said Param. “And even Rigg, who called him Father—what would he have done with the information, if Ramex had told him? It would have deformed the history of Ramfold. Whereas Larfold—does it really have a history?”

“Didn’t you hear Auntie Wind’s account?” asked Knosso.

“They have tales and memories,” said Param. “But nothing changes. Life under the sea is—”

“Is filled with infinite variety,” said Knosso.

“But no events,” said Param.

“You don’t even have weather down there,” said Umbo. “Or seasons.”

“Well, that’s not quite true,” said Knosso, “but it’s close enough. I’m happy there. But no, we have no wars, apart from the constant struggle against the great predators of the open sea, which forces us to remain a single tribe, united to defend against them. After eleven thousand years, the monsters have learned to avoid our shore. But the Larfolders have been wise enough never to hunt the great killers of the sea to extinction. They could have done it—the barrier of the Wall keeps the sharks and orcas trapped inside, where they could never have escaped from our harpoons, if we had wanted to kill them all.”

“So you keep your nemesis alive,” said Param.

Umbo noticed that Knosso had switched from “they” to “we.” He’s no longer a man of Ramfold. He might be glad of our adventure, of a chance to slice time with us, but he’s happy with the Larfold life. This is the world he wants to save. He dreams of no triumphant return to Ramfold.

And if we ever went to Ramfold, it might be triumphant for Param and Rigg, as royals; they might be able to rally an army to defeat General Citizen and Hagia Sessamin and take their place in the Tent of Light. But there’d be no place for me.

Then, because he had thought of Rigg and Param as King- or Queen-in-the-Tent, it occurred to Umbo that, Ramfold history being what it was, Rigg and Param might easily become rivals there, and fight a bitter civil war between those who wanted a king and those who still believed that Aptica Sessamin had been right to kill the men of the royal line, allowing only queens to rule in the Tent of Light. And there would be others who wanted to restore the People’s Republic, and probably the loyal followers of General Citizen would make yet another faction, and it would be a thrilling history, and they would all be desperately unhappy and lead exciting, terrible, tragic lives.

Who was to say that Knosso hadn’t made the better choice?

Not that any of it mattered. For Umbo didn’t really think that anything they did would make a difference. Nine times already the Destroyers had come. The only difference this time would be that instead of sending letters or books into the past, they would return themselves, as eyewitnesses. Though with the Destroyers remaining out in space until all life on Garden was extinct, it would be hard to say just what they might witness from a beach in Larfold.

“There’s nothing to wait for,” said Loaf. “We might as well go right now. No need to pack a picnic for the trip. We’ll go forward far enough to see what happens, and then come back.”

“Even if the Destroyers don’t come?” asked Umbo. “How long will we wait to know that things have changed?”

“We can decide once we get there,” said Param.

So they joined hands and Param took them into the future, slicing time in great swaths, leaping forward faster than she had before. Not two times around the seasons, but three, slowing only when they got near the expected time of year, and stopping when they could see a great gathering of Larfolders on the beach.

Larex was there. And Vadesh.

“I didn’t want to watch for this alone,” said Vadesh.

But, as always, Umbo thought that there was more to his presence there than Vadesh was willing to say.

How could Vadesh seem furtive and Larex open and honest? They had the same face, the same voice. They were machines. They were no different in any way from Rigg’s father, Ramex. Or from Odinex, for that matter. Yet when Umbo confided these thoughts to Loaf, the man with facemask perceptions agreed with him. “There are microdifferences,” he said. “Your eye has picked them out, and your ear, even though without a mask of your own, you can’t bring those details into the forefront of your consciousness. In eleven thousand years, even identical, self-repairing machines acquire differences in experience, in wear, in habits. Vadesh has an aversion to solitude. He’s always been so eager for human company, far more than the others.”

“Maybe they’re all eager for it,” said Umbo, “but only Vadesh has been deprived of it long enough for the loneliness to show.”

“Or it’s a deliberate attempt to deceive us into thinking there’s a difference among them,” said Loaf. “But even that would be a real difference, so it amounts to the same thing.”

The people of the sea all gathered around Knosso and celebrated his return—to them, he had disappeared three years ago, and though the Landsman had informed them that Knosso was time-slicing with the Ramfolders, they had missed him and been sad that he had left without bidding them good-bye.

“But I’m coming back, if the Destroyers come,” said Knosso. “I mean to come back anyway.” Then, confused, he turned to the Ramfold party and said, “Should I already have come back? Shouldn’t they already know what happened because I came back and told them?”

“If you go back,” said Umbo patiently, “then you change the causal chain, and this meeting will never happen—not this way—because they will have lived a different life these past three years, a life with you in it, a life in which you were gone barely a day.”

“I’m that important to them, that my presence or absence changes everything?” asked Knosso.

“We’re all that important,” said Umbo. “But it doesn’t change everything. People who are married now will probably be married next time through, and were probably married on the previous pass. There’s really only the one pass.”

“What about babies?” asked Knosso.

“Most of the babies will still be born,” said Umbo. “But they won’t be quite the same. The mix of genes from their parents will be different on each passage through conception. Perhaps conception will happen on a different day. Or a different sperm will win through.”

“Do we have to discuss this so . . . candidly?” asked Param.

“We’re candid about all such things in Larfold,” said Knosso. “But I’ve learned what I needed to. We can drop the subject for a while.” Then he thought of something else. “But will we remember this conversation, once we go back?”

“Our memories will stay with us,” said Umbo. “Whatever happened to us before we went back in time remains in the causal chain—in our causal chain. It isn’t time, it’s causation that can’t be lost. Any cause that still has effects in the time-shifters, we keep in memory. It happened, even if the results that had no effect on us are gone and we can never recover that changed version of the future.”

“You must be geniuses to keep this all in mind,” said Knosso, and then he went back to join the Larfolders who were eager to talk to him.

“There was a time,” said Olivenko, “when he wouldn’t have been able to leave the matter alone until he understood it perfectly.”

“We get older,” said Loaf. “The exuberance of youth is replaced by a knowledge that learning things doesn’t ever bring any clarity.”

“So you stop learning?”

“You keep learning,” said Loaf, “you just have a lot less hope in the results. A lot less faith that what you learn today will still seem true tomorrow.”

“I’ll never be that old,” said Umbo.

“I never was that young,” said Loaf. “But I enjoy watching you lambs cavort upon the lea.”

The hours passed, and then the expendables told them that the exact moment recorded in all the Future Books from Odinfold was nearly upon them.

The time-shifting group gathered together and linked their hands, so Umbo could take them all back into the past before any damage could be done to them by whatever weapon the Destroyers used. “The writers of the Future Books had time to write,” said Olivenko. “We have no reason to think that it will be too quick for us to respond.”

“And if it is,” said Param, “then we’ll be dead and won’t complain about some minor error in our planning.”

Only a minute before the appointed moment, and Rigg appeared. It was Loaf, of course, who noticed him, and for a moment he let go of Umbo’s hand, breaking the chain that linked them.

“Rigg!” he called. “You made it through!”

“You came!” cried Umbo.

Rigg looked terrible, his facemask new and not yet blended to him the way that Loaf’s had gradually done. His eyes were not yet properly placed in the facemask, so they were askew and disturbing to look at. If Umbo had not seen how Loaf’s mask and the Companions of the Larfolders eventually adapted and came to seem natural, he would have grieved for Rigg. He grieved a little anyway, because his friend had once been handsome, in his way, and now he would be forever freakish in the eyes of anyone in Ramfold. There would be no returning to become King-in-the-Tent for Rigg. That was a civil war that would never happen, after all. No one would follow him.

Not that Rigg would ever want to be the king. Umbo understood now that Rigg did not want to be the boss of anything. That he only wanted what was best for everyone, and when he insisted on something, it wasn’t because he had to get his way, it was because he wanted things to turn out right.

Like now, as he bossed everyone about, telling them to get back into their group and link hands again, then inserted himself at the end of the line, holding Olivenko’s hand on the other side from Knosso, who also held Param, who held to Umbo’s hand, who held to Loaf.

“Why aren’t the others joining us?” asked Rigg. “We could all go back, if the Destroyers come.”

“And have two copies of us to live another few years to see this day arrive again?” asked Mother Mock, who had been standing near Knosso, talking with him, when Rigg arrived.

“It’s time,” said Vadesh and Larex, both at once, the same voice double-speaking, perfect twins again.

They waited.

“It’s past time,” said Larex, this time speaking alone, “and there are no sightings of the Destroyers by any of the orbiters.”

“But there wouldn’t be,” said Rigg. “Because the Destroyers never came from Earth.”

Letting go of hands, the others demanded to know what he meant.

“It wasn’t the people of Earth. The Visitors had nothing to do with it,” Rigg explained. “Ram Odin wasn’t dead. He stayed alive in stasis on Vadesh’s starship, waking up now and then to meddle in the world and override my orders to the ships. He was terrified when the Visitors came, because they took control of everything away from him. So before they could come again, to bring new colonists, or to trade with us, or whatever they really intended to do, Ram Odin ordered the destruction of the world. The orbiters slaughtered everyone at his command.”

“So what changed his mind?” asked Umbo.

“The knife he tried to kill me with,” said Rigg. “The facemask helped me take it from his hand, and then I went back in time and killed him. In preemptive self-defense.”

“You fool,” said Vadesh. “Well, at least I understand why you did it. And I believe your claim that he tried to kill you—that’s no surprise. He was afraid of what you’d become with a facemask—that’s why he made me put it on Loaf or Olivenko, and not on you or Umbo or Param.”

Rigg seemed genuinely surprised. “Then why did you put it on me after all?”

Vadesh smiled. “He changed his mind. And then he changed it back again.”

“He’s lying,” murmured Loaf.

“I can’t lie to the keeper of the logs,” said Vadesh. “Please remember that you can’t whisper softly enough for me not to hear you. And now I’d suggest that you join your little hands again, because the only thing that has changed this time around is that the Destroyers are arriving three and a half minutes late.”

“No!” cried Rigg, letting go and striding to the expendable. “I killed him! That’s the end of it!”

“You wasted a murder, my dear boy,” said Vadesh. “Poor Ram. All these years alive, and then assassinated by a child who jumped to false conclusions.”

“I knew he was alive!” cried Rigg. “I was right about everything.”

“Everything except what causes the destruction of the world. Join hands with the others, Rigg, or die with the rest of us—I don’t care which you choose.”

Umbo chose for him, wrapping his arms around Rigg without letting go of Param or Loaf. And then, as fire came out of the sky, Umbo pulled them all with him into the past.