“I don’t know,” said Rigg. “I know what I intend to do. But as you said—I can’t prove it, not even to myself.”
“Good,” said Loaf. “As long as you understand that, then I’m willing to give it a try.”
“What if I had sworn that I’d never, never fail you.”
“Then I’d still stand beside you—but I wouldn’t trust you to do the same for me. Now I think there’s a chance, because you’re not a complete idiot.”
“Well, now you’ve really hurt me,” said Rigg. “Father always taught me to complete any task I started.”
They were nearing the richer part of town, where the crowds thinned out and wore better clothes and there were occasional carriages and horses.
“We don’t like going farther than this,” said Umbo. “We don’t want the guards to get too familiar with our faces.”
“I understand,” said Rigg.
“How are you getting through?” asked Umbo. “Do you have a change of clothes?”
“These will do,” said Rigg.
Umbo looked at him again and realized that his clothing was quite nondescript. It wasn’t showy at all, so it hadn’t made Rigg stand out in the crowds of poor and working-class people, especially because he had walked and talked like a privick kid. Like Umbo.
But now, near the rich part of town, Rigg was standing differently. Taller. Still relaxed, but—more in charge of himself. Filled with authority and expectation. Fearless. Like he belonged there. And when he stood that way, his neck a little higher, his movements more calm and restricted and yet more relaxed, too, his clothing looked richer. Still quiet, still modest, but now you could see how every stitch was perfect, how the clothes looked like they’d been made for him, which they almost certainly were.
Umbo wasn’t sure which gift was more useful—Rigg’s ability as a pathfinder, or his ability to pass for whatever social class he wanted to be part of.
“If I can get them to leave early, I’ll come to you, wherever you are,” said Rigg. “But if everything goes crazy, if they try to kill us or there’s a riot or whatever happens, then come to this spot. There, in that little park, up in that ledge in the wall.”
“What ledge?” asked Umbo.
“Come here, I’ll show you.”
Umbo and Loaf followed Rigg across the street and into the copse of trees and shrubbery and flowers. The walls of two buildings formed the borders of the park, and where they met, there was a niche, as if someone had meant to put a statue there but never got around to it.
“Right up here, see?” said Rigg, and he bounded up into the niche. It was just tall enough for him.
“I won’t fit there,” said Loaf.
“Oh, you will,” said Rigg. “There’s more room than you think.”
“I can see that your head nearly reaches the top of the niche,” said Loaf.
“That’s right,” said Rigg, “but I’ve been growing. I’m not that much shorter than you.”
Umbo by now was leaping up to join Rigg, who caught him and kept him from falling backward.
“There’s no room for me and someone else, anyway,” said Loaf.
“Well, not right now there’s not,” said Rigg.
And then he did something with his foot—kicked something backward with his heel—and all of a sudden Umbo found himself whirling to the left and then he was in total darkness.
“What happened!” he said.
“It’s the end of one of the unused secret passages,” said Rigg. “It doesn’t actually connect with Flacommo’s house, it leads to the library. But from the library there are three places in the water drainage system that connect up with the house.”
“Get me back into the light.”
Another kicking sound, and then they whirled again, back the other way, and they were in the dazzling light. Loaf was glaring up at them from the ground. “That was subtle,” he said testily.
“Nobody was watching us,” said Rigg.
“Or so you think,” said Loaf.
“Loaf, please believe me—I know,” said Rigg. “I know where every current path within sight of this place is. I’ve been working, too, you know—trying to get more and more control over what I do. And there’s nobody watching this spot. The passage hasn’t been used in years. I’m just telling you that if there’s an emergency, this is where I’ll bring Param and Mother, and we’ll wait for you there, in the darkness. For a few hours, anyway—I’ll know if you’re coming or not, and if not, then we’ll find our own way out of town.”
“So our job,” said Loaf, “is to figure out how to get you from here and on out of town.”
“I don’t know that it’s your job,” said Rigg, “but it sure can’t be mine, because after this excursion, I’m not leaving the house again till I’m leaving it for good.”
“Maybe we should all dress as girls,” said Umbo.
They stared at him.
“They’ll be looking for you and Param. One boy, one girl. So what will they make of three girls and no boy? You and I don’t have beards, Rigg, we can bring it off.”
“No,” said Loaf. “You’ve never been in a city riot. Girls are not safe, not even with a big strong hero like me to protect them. But the idea’s a good one. Your sister and mother should dress as boys your age.”
“They won’t like that,” said Rigg.
“Oh, well, then, if they don’t like the way we’re going to try to save their lives and get them out of the city . . .”
“I’ll try to get them to do it,” said Rigg. “I can’t make them do anything.”
“And remember that they have to bind their breasts. If your sister’s old enough to have any—don’t get mad, I don’t know, I’m just telling you—we can’t have any part of them looking feminine. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Rigg. “As I said, I’ll try. I really will. But I can’t promise what’s not under my control.”
“Just for my information,” said Loaf, “what is under your control?”
“Silbom’s right ear,” said Rigg.
Then he gave Umbo a nudge, making him lose his balance and jump from the niche. When he recovered himself and turned around, Rigg was gone.
“Well, wasn’t that interesting,” said Loaf.
“Yes,” said Umbo.
“Going through the Wall. The insanest plan I ever heard.”
“It might work,” said Umbo.
“And it might leave us as complete madmen—at least until the people chasing us butcher us like goats.”
“Well, if somebody’s going to butcher me like a goat,” said Umbo, “I certainly hope I’m already insane when they do it.”
CHAPTER 22
Escape
“One last request before you are sealed into stasis,” said the expendable.
“Anything you ask, up to half of my kingdom,” said Ram.
The expendable waited.
“It’s a reference to fairy tales. What the king always promised Jack after he did his noble deed.”
“Are you ready to pay serious attention?” asked the expendable.
Ram sighed. “It’s like trying to tell a joke to your grandmother.”
“In examining the programming of the ship’s computers, we find that there is a possible complication.”
“I’m not a programmer.”
“You’re a human. We need a human to tell the ship’s computers that in your absence, our orders are identical to your wishes, so they must obey us as if we were human.”
“I thought you already had a much closer working relationship with them than I do.”
“Closer, but with no particular flow of authority.”