Visitors

Chapter 17 Saving the Baby

When Loaf and Leaky returned to the roadhouse at Leaky’s Landing, they invited Umbo to stay, for a few days at least, before he began his journey back to join Rigg, Param, and Olivenko in Larfold.

Umbo was happy to stay with them. He told them that the food was good, and he was tired of traveling. But they all knew there was more to their friendship than that. Umbo was without a family, but not beyond the need of one. Loaf was not just friend but father to him, and while he knew Leaky far less well, Umbo had helped to restore them to each other.

The roadhouse was beginning to fill up with the evening’s customers. Umbo offered to help serve them, but Leaky bluntly told him no. “You don’t know any of the work of the kitchen or the table, except to eat. So eat, or don’t, but stay out of the way till the work is done.” But she softened her words with a pat on the shoulder. Well, what passed for a pat with Leaky—to someone else it might have looked like a shove, but since it didn’t actually knock Umbo into a wall or onto the floor, it counted as gentle.

Taking a heel of bread and a bit of cheese with him, Umbo stepped out onto the street and began to walk. He didn’t have any great plan in mind as he headed south, though he knew it was the road by which he and Rigg had first come to Leaky’s Landing. Perhaps nostalgia was all that drew him there.

His thoughts turned to the future. He wondered for a time about Rigg—both Riggs, but most especially Noxon, the Rigg that had modestly chosen to designate himself as the mere copy, though he was as much the original Rigg as the other one. Noxon, who had come to know and serve Param far better than Umbo. Noxon, who had left Garden, perhaps never to return, in pursuit of one faint possibility of saving the world.

Saving it for what? For whom? What was the world even for, that it was worth saving? Especially if, like Noxon, you were unlikely to be saving it for yourself?

For me? What will I do with this world, if it’s saved? What will anybody do? Just what they’ve always done. They mate, they bear children in hopes that those children will grow up and have children of their own. The replication of genes. Is that all it is?

Maybe it’s enough. We evolved so that our greatest pleasure comes from sex, and our greatest joy comes from reproductive success, from bonds with our children and with their children. Param has chosen me to share her throne, to help her win power in a great kingdom, but aren’t Loaf and Leaky the ones with the better goal? They want children, and perhaps, with his facemask, Loaf will now be able to father some with Leaky.

Perhaps? Why should Umbo wonder, when all he would need to do is jump forward in time and see?

He had only just discovered the ability to jump ahead at will, to any point in time that he had already lived in. But now that he could do it, why shouldn’t he? He could find out if they have children, and if he learns that they do, well, he’ll know that they were going to be happy. And if they don’t, then… then he would keep that information to himself.

In other words, there was nothing useful he could do with the information, once he got it, except to know it. This wasn’t like the times when he had sent messages back into the past to prevent himself or others from pursuing a disastrous course. This would be nothing better than spying or eavesdropping or reading someone else’s letters. If he told no one, he’d get no joy from the knowledge; it would be hard work to conceal what he knew, good or bad.

And yet the urge to know was insatiable, especially because he knew he could find out without anyone else being the wiser.

He took his last bite of bread and, chewing, stepped off the road into a copse of trees, like any traveler needing to relieve himself. Stands of trees were planted near well-traveled roads for just that purpose.

He stood for a moment to make sure he marked this exact moment on his inner timeline, so he could return to it just after he left. No observer, seeing him emerge from the trees in a few minutes, would know that he had traveled forward in time by several years, stayed for however long he wanted, and then returned.

And with that, Umbo jumped himself forward in time. A ­couple of years. Just to see.

He chose to return to Leaky’s Landing in early afternoon, a warm spring day. He couldn’t go to the roadhouse; it would be embarrassing to admit that he was Umbo-from-the-past, checking on the future to see how things turned out. Besides, what if he ran into himself and inadvertently made a useless copy?

As he walked back toward town, he saw that several of the houses were gone. No, the standing chimneys, the blackened stubs of walls, the collapsed and charred roofs showed that they had burned down.

Closer in, several of the tradesmen’s shops were boarded up, or stood empty and hollow walled. Glass windows had been ­broken out. Shutters had been torn off and lay on the ground.

Yet others seemed to be prosperous enough. Clearly, there was more to be learned here than whether Loaf and Leaky succeeded in conceiving a child.

Umbo saw that the shop of a garrulous old cabinet maker seemed still to be in trade. He heard the sound of a saw being drawn across wood. Inside the shop it took a moment for Umbo’s eyes to adjust, but yes, there was the old man, methodically pulling a miter saw at an exact angle across a slice of fine hardwood.

The man would not know Umbo, though he might remember seeing him. Umbo was not one to linger in a workingman’s shop, not if he had no business. Now his business was information, and he was reasonably sure the man would have it.

“I see that hard times haven’t taken you out of business, sir,” said Umbo.

The man looked up slowly. “Heard you coming. I’m not deaf.”

Since Umbo hadn’t been talking particularly loudly, he had no idea why the man had thought that Umbo might have thought that he was deaf.

“Hard times,” said the man contemptuously.

“Shops standing empty,” said Umbo. “What else am I to think?”

“Times are no harder here than anywhere.”

“Then why are those shops out of trade?” asked Umbo.

The man spat on the floor. “Think you can trap me into saying what I shouldn’t?”

“I have no trap in mind, sir. I’ve been in the forests beyond Upsheer, and kept to myself downriver.”

“You didn’t come down the river, you came along the road.”

So apparently the carpenter had not been sawing the whole time Umbo approached, since the road was not visible from the workbench.

“I walked the last bit,” said Umbo. “I’m young and my legs are quick enough. I saved myself a ping at least, which I hope to spend on my supper tonight.”

“I don’t serve food,” said the carpenter. He started to saw again.

“I didn’t think you would,” said Umbo. “I plan to eat at Leaky’s roadhouse.”

“Oh, do you?” asked the man. “Good luck with that.”

“Why?” asked Umbo, dread coming upon him. “Are they out of business, too?”

“You might say so,” said the carpenter. “Most customers prefer not to be waited on by the dead, or spend the night in the murder house.”

“Dead,” said Umbo softly.

“Then you really have been away a long time,” said the old carpenter. “Happened late last fall. Near six months ago.”

“Sickness?”

“The man, Loaf, that old soldier, he died of sickness, in a way. Came back from his travels with an ugly fungus growing on his face. Didn’t seem to harm him—if anything he was stronger than before. But he wasn’t pretty, and some traveler must have complained about a monster who had taken control of a roadhouse upriver, because soldiers came.”

“Soldiers?”

“Of King Haddamander, nobody local, you can be sure. They came here to try to get me to accuse Loaf of something. Anything. I don’t think they cared what the charge was, but they wanted some pretext, since being ugly isn’t against the law when last I heard. They didn’t like hearing that from me, so I got knocked down and kicked a little for my trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” said Umbo.

“Not your fault, unless you’re with the king, and you don’t look to be one of his, since they’re all rich—either started rich or got made so.”

“I can be sorry without taking blame, sir,” said Umbo.

“And be blamed without being sorry, nor guilty either,” said the old carpenter. “Report me for saying so if you want, I’m only a step away from not caring.”

“I’m not a spy,” said Umbo.

“Just like a spy, to say that,” said the carpenter.

“And also just like an honest man,” said Umbo calmly. “If they found no charge against old Loaf—”

“Treason was the charge,” said the carpenter. “Accused him of being the Rebel King’s Captain Toad, the one as leads raids all over Stashiland. Which was known to all of us to be a lie. Never a more doting father than that one, Loaf didn’t stray farther from the roadhouse than to buy groceries and other such supply. When could he have gone raiding? I know the Toad is supposed to be ugly but you’d think they’d want more proof than that.”

Umbo noticed that he referred to Loaf as a doting father. But the questions that raised could wait a little. “They arrested him, then?” asked Umbo.

“Arrested? You’re thinking of the old days under the Council. They don’t have trials now, nor jails, nor arrestings. At first old Loaf put up a fight but then they dragged out his wife, her so scared she was silent, if you can believe it. Once they had her down on the ground, Loaf got docile enough, though even then he didn’t beg, not for his life and not for hers. They took him out on the dock, cut his throat, and threw him in the river. We all saw—they routed us all out so we could see King Haddamander’s justice. Well, we saw it. And we saw how Leaky howled and fought, but the king’s men didn’t even argue with her, just put a sword in and said, ‘She was a rebel too, you saw her fight against the king.’ We watched it all without a word, you may be sure, because enough houses had already burned down, enough shopkeepers had already disappeared in the night with never a word, only their windows broke or shutters torn down. But when they threw the baby out the upstairs window, we turned away, we had witnessed enough for that day. I think the captain knew he’d gone too far. Didn’t want a revolt on his hands. So he let us walk away, return to our homes. But he did shout something about how the children of monsters could not be allowed to live. Not sure if he meant the monster to be Loaf, because he looked so ugly, or the both of them, because they were accused of fighting against the king.”

“So Loaf and Leaky had a baby,” said Umbo.

The old carpenter looked at him and there was something sly about him. “How could you not know that?”

“Two years gone,” said Umbo—a bit of an understatement, but close enough. He could have named the time to the hour.

“Yes, they had a baby,” said the carpenter. “About old enough to toddle about. But not able to fly, poor boy. Had no wings, not him, and so he broke on the ground, and they threw him into the river along with his ma and da. The river must be near full of the king’s justice by now. They must have a dam of such justice right across the mouth of it, down at Aressa Sessamo.”

“By Silbom,” murmured Umbo. “I didn’t know it was like that.”

“How can you get from Upsheer all the way to here, and not know how it is? Did you fly?”

“I slept, mostly,” said Umbo, “and the rivermen were not disposed to converse with me. Now I think I see why. Not knowing who might be hearing with the king’s ears, or seeing with his eyes.”

The old carpenter grunted and turned back to his saw. “Report me if you want. I’m nearly ready for the river as it is, without any help from the king’s men, nor the queen’s either. My children live far away now, but not far enough. The Wall itself isn’t far enough to suit me.”

I have a way through that Wall, thought Umbo. But not one that I can share with you. Nor would your life be all that much better if you left this wallfold.

Yes it would. Because now Umbo understood it all, or supposed that he must. Stabbing Loaf wouldn’t have killed him. The facemask would have healed him by the time he reached the farther shore. But it would have done nothing for Leaky or their son. They would be dead.

Then Loaf would have gone in search of one of the timeshapers. Then he would go out raiding in the name of the Rebel King, going back in time in order to…

Who is the Rebel King, if not Param’s husband? Wouldn’t that be me?

Or has Rigg decided to claim the throne as firstborn child of Knosso Sissamik and Queen Hagia Sessamin?

Why not the Rebel Queen? Had something happened to Param? Or was this one of the places that preferred a King-in-the-Tent to a Queen?

But no, that wasn’t why it all seemed wrong to Umbo. This whole thing was not possible because as long as there was a timeshaper in the world, this would not be allowed to stand. All of them were friends of Loaf’s. Once they learned what Haddamander Citizen had done, one of them would have gone to Loaf and Leaky and warned them to take their son and flee.

Umbo’s first thought had been that Loaf, with his facemask, must have been the person who, serving the Rebel King, had given rise to the stories of Captain Toad. But the only way Loaf could have traveled back in time to lead raids against Haddamander Citizen would have been with the help of a timeshaper, and any timeshaper would already have prevented the deaths of Leaky and her firstborn son.

So Captain Toad could only have been Rigg. Descriptions of his facemask would match Loaf’s well enough to explain the soldiers’ certainty that they had found their man. It would not excuse what they did, but it would explain why Loaf was ­targeted for retribution.

Umbo understood it all now, or enough of it. Now it was time to set about undoing this disastrous outcome. If he could save his reckless younger brother, he could save his most beloved friends.

Someone came to the door of the carpenter’s shop. The carpenter nodded.

Fearing a trap, Umbo whirled around. But it was only a woman. By no means old enough to be the carpenter’s wife. She held a bundle under one arm.

Not a bundle. A baby. Wrapped so as to look more like a package than a child.

“You have to take him,” said the carpenter.

Umbo said nothing.

“The soldiers didn’t know about their second child,” said the carpenter softly. “Leaky couldn’t nurse, so the boy was at Dariah’s house during the roadhouse working hours. Only the older boy was home, because he was early weaned. We’ve kept this little one safe and not a soul has breathed a word, but he’s a danger to us all the same.”

“Why are you telling me?” asked Umbo. “How can you trust me?”

“Do you think I don’t know you?” asked the carpenter. “So many times you stayed with Loaf and Leaky.”

“In the old days I did,” said Umbo. “But as I said, not for—”

The carpenter grew fierce. “If I was going to betray you, it would have been King Haddamander’s men, and not Dariah at the door. We know who the Rebel King is, Queen Param’s husband, the true master of Stashiland. The bane of the Sissaminka. I’ve said it. If you have to kill me now, do what you must. But take this child, the last that’s left of Loaf and Leaky. And then go on until you bring down this evil king and serve him as he served Loaf and Leaky and their older boy.”

So I am the Rebel King. But how do they know it? What have I been doing during these years? How could my face be known to them? Or how could they guess that the boy who periodically stayed with Loaf and Leaky was now the Rebel King?

If they know, others know. General Citizen must have learned of the connection between me and Loaf—that was why they died, not because of mistaken identity.

But now, this baby. How could Umbo explain that he didn’t need to take the baby, that he would merely go back in time and prevent the murders in the first place?

Then again, how could he know that if he went back and warned them, it might not prevent the birth of this child after all. They might have some child, but once they left Leaky’s Landing, as they surely would, their second child would not be conceived at the same time, and the same sperm was unlikely to fertilize the egg. Umbo would save Loaf and Leaky, and might save their firstborn, if he had already been conceived, but this child would never come into existence.

Umbo reached out his hands and took the child. The baby was not a newborn, as he had expected—but of course he wasn’t, Leaky had been killed nearly half a year ago, and so the newborn had grown since then. “Not weaned?” asked Umbo.

“You’ll have to find somebody,” said the woman, Dariah. “He’s a good baby. Sleeps well. Eats hearty.”

“You’re willing to let him go?” asked Umbo.

“To save his life? How could I say I love him if I did otherwise?”

The baby regarded Umbo steadily. There was intelligence in his gaze, but no fear and yet also no particular eagerness to please.

“What’s his name?” asked Umbo.

“Do you dare to use it?” asked the old carpenter.

“I should know it, all the same,” said Umbo.

“They were strange folk,” said Dariah. “Their own names were proof of that. So I guess nobody was surprised when they named their first boy Round, the name of a shape. And then they named this one Square. But I’ve never called him that.”

“What do you call him?” asked Umbo. “What name has he heard?”

Dariah looked embarrassed. “Well, because his father was named Loaf, you see. I just started calling him Biscuit. Not a name, just a pet name, a silly play name.”

“It’s the name he knows. I’ll call him by neither one for now, but I’ll remember both, and one day he’ll know.”

“I think you’d better go,” said the carpenter. “There are spies in this village, as in all villages. You were no doubt seen coming here, and I know Dariah and the baby would have been seen. They might know all about this baby, and it might be bait for a trap.”

Umbo thought of going back out on the road with a baby in his arms, walking the mile or so back to the copse where he had made the jump in time. If there really was a trap, there was a chance of an arrow out of hiding. Even if he and the baby were uninjured, he might have to make a jump in time right in front of would-be captors. If he and the others had kept the secret of time-shifting all this time, it would be a shame to let it be discovered by their enemies.

“I know a way of escaping,” said Umbo, “that won’t require me to go back out on the road.”

The carpenter nodded. Dariah’s eyes grew a little wider. And brighter.

“We’ve heard that you can disappear, sir,” she said. “Go invisible, like smoke in a high wind.”

“I don’t want you to see what happens,” said Umbo. “You should have a look of honesty in your eyes when you say, ‘The boy who visited here only asked questions about Loaf and Leaky, and then he left, I don’t know how or where he went.’”

“They’ll ask about the baby,” said the carpenter.

“Dariah, everyone knows you were wet-nursing for someone,” said Umbo. “Can’t you say the family sent for the baby and you gave it back?”

“We’ll say something,” said the carpenter. “You pay no heed to that, it’s our affair. With luck nobody saw you or Dariah today, and there’ll be no questions.”

“I hope you don’t end up paying a price for this,” said Umbo.

“Put Queen Param in the Tent of Light in her mother’s place, and your own skinny buttocks on King Haddamander’s horse, and it will be worth whatever price we pay,” said the carpenter.

“St. Silbom care for the baby, and the Wandering Saint bless you on your road,” said Dariah. Then she bent and kissed the baby again.

“Stay here and chat together for a while,” said Umbo. “Perhaps share some bread, so there’s a reason for you to have ­lingered here. I’ll go out through the back room.”

“I keep that door locked against thieves,” said the carpenter.

“Then you must have locked it again after I left,” said Umbo. “If anyone asks.”

What Umbo wanted to ask was for a time, not long after the moment when Umbo took his walk away from Leaky’s roadhouse, when nobody would be present in this shop, so he’d have a safe moment to jump back to undiscovered. If he had Rigg’s and Noxon’s gift, he could look for paths and pick a time when the carpenter stepped out. Instead, he’d have no choice but to guess and hope he picked a good moment. If he guessed wrong, then he’d jump again so quickly that the observer wouldn’t know for sure what he had seen, if anything at all.

He walked into the back room, which was mostly used for storing boards and tools and hardware, and closed the door behind him. He looked for a place that would be unlikely to have furniture moved into it during the intervening years, and settled on a spot just inside the locked outside door.

Then he jumped back to a time six hours after the moment he had come from. It had been first dark when he left; now it was the deepest of dark night, a few hours before dawn. He stood in silence, holding the silent baby in the dark, listening. An old man’s breathing from a room upstairs. The breath of sleep.

Umbo had assumed he would have to go out the front, but no. This was a simpler time, before General Citizen had imposed his authority as King Haddamander. There was no lock on the back door, only a simple latch, clearly visible in the ringlight coming through a high window, which had been left uncurtained and unshuttered.

He raised the latch. It was a fine carpenter’s latch, and a fine carpenter’s door. Everything moved silently and smoothly. Umbo closed the door behind him and then carried the baby behind the row of shops to where the alley debouched into the square. Umbo did not hurry and did not act furtive. He walked easily and naturally to the roadhouse door.

It was barred, of course—no reason to invite thieves or ­burglars. Ordinarily, Umbo would simply have jumped the fence around the kitchen garden, but that wasn’t likely to work out well with a baby in his arms. Umbo walked around the corner of the fence to a spot not visible to passersby on the square, nor from any windows in the nearby shops and houses. Then he shifted himself back to the afternoon, a few moments after he walked into that copse a mile or two out on the south road.

Now the roadhouse was open for business, people coming and going, and this early in the night it was safe for him to pull the rope that rang a bell in the kitchen, announcing a delivery.

He could hear Leaky start cursing in the kitchen. Then she bellowed out the back door. “Come back tomorrow! No more deliveries tonight!”

“I’ll just leave it at the gate then!” he shouted back.

At once the kitchen door flew open and Leaky’s heavy footsteps strode along the path. “I can’t believe what I put up with!” she was shouting, but when she opened the gate she looked worried. She must have recognized his voice. Her eyes took in the bundle in his arms.

“You have not had time to get a girl this pregnant since you left this house,” she said softly.

“This would be pretty pregnant,” Umbo agreed.

“Come in, you daft boy,” said Leaky. “I assume that as a kidnapper you don’t wish to be observed?”

“Not a kidnapper,” said Umbo, “but yes, I’d like to get upstairs without anyone noticing this package.”

She led him into the kitchen, where she wrapped the baby loosely in a washed floursack and handed him back to Umbo. “Take that upstairs and leave it in my room, but mind you I know where everything is!” She spoke loudly enough that Umbo knew she was giving him a reason to hurry upstairs, and enough of an explanation for the bundle in his arms to satisfy the eaters and drinkers who might see him come out of the kitchen and hurry up the stairs.

Umbo unwrapped the baby. The flour sacking came in handy, because little Biscuit stank and all Umbo could think to do, lacking a fresh diaper, was to take off all the baby’s clothes, tear the sack in half, wipe him thoroughly with one half, and then using the other to wrap him more or less securely. Through it, Biscuit watched Umbo’s eyes, only occasionally glancing around the room. Umbo kept up a murmuring commentary.

It was a couple of hours, and the room downstairs was markedly quieter, when the door flew open and Leaky stalked in, half-dragging a frightened young woman behind her.

It was Dariah.

Umbo almost spoke her name, but recovered in time. This was Dariah before she ever heard of Biscuit.

“This is Dariah,” said Leaky. “She has a new baby of her own, and look at those teats. She could feed four babies this size.”

“I don’t think I—”

Leaky didn’t let Dariah finish. “You’re perfect for a wet nurse and you need the money,” said Leaky. “If you don’t like it, you can quit, but not tonight, and not till I find somebody else, understood?”

Dariah nodded and reached for the baby.

“Smells like poo,” said Leaky. “You already cleaned him up?”

Umbo wondered how she knew the baby’s sex. Or maybe she called all babies “he” till she knew better.

“As best I could, but he needs a clean diaper,” said Umbo. “I don’t think that flour sack is going to be absorbent enough.”

“It is, if you fold it properly,” said Leaky. “I thought you had younger brothers and sisters.”

“And a mother who did the diapering and a father who said that baby care was women’s work and no son of his would fertilize his hands with baby manure.”

“You haven’t missed much,” said Dariah.

“He misses almost everything,” said Leaky. “Not an observant boy. What’s the baby’s name?”

For a moment Umbo thought Leaky had been asking Dariah, and he waited for her to answer.

“Well I don’t know,” said Dariah impatiently.

Umbo thought of how Leaky had named the baby, and how naming happened in the land she came from. “I’ve been calling him Square Meal, since that’s all he seems to need to be happy.”

“I didn’t ask what you’ve been calling him,” said Leaky. “I asked his name.”

“Then his name is Square Meal,” said Umbo. “But you can call him Biscuit.”

“That’s only a snack,” said Leaky.

“He’s only a baby,” said Umbo, meeting her gaze.

“Do you want to nurse him here?” asked Leaky. “Not you, Umbo, I’ve seen you with your shirt off and your teats aren’t good for anything.”

“I’ll give him a quick supper and then take him home.” She looked at Umbo. “Is that all right with His Majesty here?”

Because he thought of her as knowing that he was the Rebel King, Umbo was taken aback. “I’m not a—”

Dariah burst into giggles. “Isn’t he precious? Doesn’t recognize a joke when he hears it.”

“Do I need to go with you?” asked Umbo.

“No, you don’t,” said Leaky. “She needs to go with her brothers, who are waiting downstairs. And you need to come help me in the kitchen garden.”

“It’s full dark,” said Umbo.

“The crop we’re planting thrives best by ringlight,” said Leaky.

When they got downstairs and out the back, Loaf was already waiting for them.

“You have some answering to do,” said Loaf.

“And I’ll give you all those answers,” said Umbo. “I’m eager to do it, when the time is right.”

“And when, in your feeble imagination, do you think the time will be right?” asked Leaky.

“When you answer a couple of my questions,” said Umbo.

“If you think—” began Leaky.

Loaf raised a hand. “Leaky, I know this look on his face, and I know this man. Whatever he’s done, it was for a good purpose, and if he needs us to answer questions, we will if we can.”

“It’s going to sound personal, offensive, and irrelevant,” said Umbo.

“That describes most of your questions,” said Loaf, “leaving out only ‘impertinent’ and ‘incomprehensible.’”

Umbo nodded, acknowledging the remark as having some justification. “I only need to know. Leaky, are you pregnant yet?” The question wasn’t completely out of the blue. Given the age the carpenter had told him for the child named Round, it was highly likely that he had been conceived before they went to Vadeshfold, and was already a couple of months along.

“None of your—” said Leaky.

“Yes,” said Loaf. “She is.”

Umbo nodded. “It’s a boy,” he said. “You’re planning to name him Round. That’s a horrible name, by the way.”

“It’s a fine name,” said Loaf mildly. “Far nobler to be named for a geometrical abstract than for a hunk of bread.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Umbo.

“You knew I was pregnant,” said Leaky. “You went into the future and you knew. Is that our baby she’s suckling upstairs?”

“It’s not the baby you’re pregnant with right now,” said Umbo, “but it’s yours all right. This second one you named Square.”

“Why did you kidnap him?” asked Loaf—surprisingly mild about it.

“I didn’t,” said Umbo. “A later version of Dariah kept him safe after the two of you were killed.”

That got their attention, and they listened without interruption as he told the story.

“General Citizen had them kill the baby?” asked Leaky, her voice soft.

“Yes,” said Umbo. “Or so they said. I have no reason to doubt them.”

“And Dariah kept this baby safe,” said Leaky.

“A version of her. A later version,” said Umbo. “But in the future we’re making now, she never will, because you’ll be long gone before your first son is born, let alone the second.”

“Not so hasty,” said Loaf. “These troubles begin more than a year from now.”

“But we don’t know when surveillance started,” said Umbo.

“It’ll arouse suspicion if we simply walk away,” said Loaf. “I need to make a good-faith effort to sell this place. The money will be useful, but mostly it’s so that life goes on normally here, but without us in it. If we can’t sell it in a few weeks, then we’ll walk away, because… Leaky’s mother is dying.”

“I have no idea if she’s alive or dead at this point,” said Leaky.

“Well, mine is definitely dead, if anybody even believes I had a mother,” said Loaf. “So it has to be yours.” He looked searchingly at Umbo. “This really is our baby?”

“It’s ugly and has the personality of grass,” said Umbo. “How can you doubt?”

“Here’s what we’ll do,” said Loaf. “You’ll go to the Wall and summon a flyer. You’ll park it somewhere nearby—in the past, if you need to—and then come get us just after we conclude the sale or give up trying.”

“How will I know when that is?”

“You’ll keep checking in till the answer is yes,” said Leaky impatiently. “If you can’t think of things like that, I’m in awe that you can even dress yourself.”

It took two weeks to find a buyer for the roadhouse. They didn’t even suggest bringing Dariah with them, because, as Leaky said, “There are breasts full of milk in Larfold, too, and Dariah’s in no danger with us gone.”

When they arrived at the meeting beach in Larfold, Rigg and Ram Odin had just arrived themselves.

“I’d comment on the coincidence,” said Umbo, “only I’m betting that Ramex told some expendable or another where we were.”

“Not many people have authority to call for a flyer,” said Rigg. “I always planned to get back here just before you arrived.”

“I think we need to get General Citizen out of the Tent of Light,” said Param. “Is that what the rest of you think?”

It was.

“Then we need to make a plan,” said Param. “Rigg as Captain Toad and Umbo as Rebel King sound fine. But that’s only the start of it. Did anybody think to bring Olivenko? It’s time for whatever military wisdom he’s acquired.”