Suddenly the paths below changed from individual forays onto land into a huge array of interlocking paths. Thousands and thousands of them, ranging from ten thousand years ago to the past few days. “Set down here,” said Rigg to the flyer.
The flyer swerved to shore and gently settled to the ground about fifteen meters above the highwater line. “This is where they hold their annual beach party and sports tournament,” said Rigg.
“Really?” asked Param, sounding skeptical.
“I have no idea,” said Rigg. “But hundreds of them at a time come to shore here, and they’ve been doing it for a long, long time. From the beginning—their first colony was only a few kilometers farther inland.”
“Maybe all those solitary shore visits you saw were women giving birth,” said Param. “Maybe they have to come to land for that.”
“Or men who got thrown out of the house by untrusting wives,” said Umbo.
In answer, Rigg got out of the flyer and strode toward the water. There were no humans on the beach, but since he knew they often returned, he figured he’d meet them soon enough.
Rigg had never felt large quantities of sand beneath his feet before. It was hard to walk in sand; it kept sliding and he kept slipping.
Sure enough, in sand higher above the water, there were tracks—normal human footprints. “They don’t have webbed feet,” said Rigg.
“Or maybe they clip the webs between their toes, as we do with our toenails,” said Param.
Loaf was looking at the tracks. “There might be toe-webs after all. That slight dusting of sand right . . . here.”
Rigg saw what he was indicating, thin lines between the foremost toes on only a couple of the footprints. But Rigg had seen other such artifacts in the tracks of animals and men in the forests of Ramfold throughout his childhood. “Is that real, or just wind-blow?” asked Rigg.
“Could be either,” said Loaf. “How long do we wait?”
“Well,” said Rigg, “now that we’ve passed through the Wall, I don’t see why we can’t go back into the past to the most recent gathering of just a few of them. We’ll go to them, since we can’t signal them to come to us.”
“We’re using the Larfold flyer,” said Umbo, “and yet the expendable hasn’t come to us and the ship hasn’t tried to talk to us beyond acknowledging the command to send the flyer.”
“We’re not looking for the expendable anyway,” said Param. “I’m glad it’s not here.”
“The expendables are too powerful to ignore them,” said Rigg. “Umbo’s question is a good one, but Param’s point is also good.”
“We can’t both be right,” said Param.
“Yes you can,” said Rigg, “and you are. We don’t have to search for the expendable right now, but we also have to be sharply aware that whatever he’s doing right now, it’s not nothing, and might be dangerous to us.”
“Very delicately done,” said Olivenko.
“What a dance between your rival siblings,” said Loaf.
“And how completely unhelpful for you to call attention to it,” said Rigg.
“We’re not at war and we’re not rivals,” said Param. “Or siblings.”
“How can a peasant boy be a rival to a queen?” asked Umbo.
“What about my idea of going back in time to meet them?” asked Rigg.
“Why not go all the way back, and watch them go into the water?” asked Olivenko.
“If we could be sure we could watch undetected, I’d agree,” said Rigg. “But why not meet them now?”
“I’d rather meet them back when they were human,” said Olivenko.
“But are we even human?” asked Rigg. “And for all we know, they’re as human as we are right now.”
“We can’t make any decisions until we know more,” said Param, “and we can’t know more until we make those decisions.”
“Why not have one of us go back and look?” asked Umbo. “I send you back, and snap you home to us if something goes wrong?”
Rigg nodded, but it was the nodding of thought, not a decision. “That’s good. Safer in some ways. But then I’m the one seeing them. And what if I change something back then that affects us now?”
“You don’t want to face them alone,” said Loaf.
“I don’t know if I’ll understand enough of what I’m seeing,” said Rigg. “And I don’t know how seriously they’ll take me if I’m alone. I’m just a kid.”
“Not so young as you used to be,” said Olivenko. “And never just a kid even then.”
“I’m an experienced old soldier,” said Loaf. “Experienced enough to know that when somebody is cautious about his own ability to judge, it means he’s much better prepared to judge a situation than people who don’t doubt their ability to judge.”
“I’d like to be able to quote you on that,” said Param, “but I’m not sure I know what you said.”
“I said Rigg isn’t as young as he thinks, but he’s also right. We should all go together.”
“Back to a time when we have no control over the flyer?” said Umbo.
“Who’s being cautious now?” asked Param.
“We didn’t have control over the flyer until the very end of our time in Vadeshfold,” said Rigg. “We can handle a few weeks without it now.” Rigg rose to his feet and held out his hands. “A few weeks ago, there was a group of three people—and their paths look as human as anybody’s, if that helps. They came ashore here, then walked up near the river. Maybe they were harvesting river mussels or something, but they could have done that from the water.”
“They still walk,” said Umbo. “That’s something. They haven’t turned into seals or dolphins or some other aquatic mammal.”
“Otters,” said Rigg.
“Sharks with hands,” said Olivenko, and the reminder of Knosso’s fate stilled the nervous merriment that Rigg and Umbo had started.
They joined hands.
“Any mice with us?” asked Olivenko.
“Three,” said Loaf.
“Eight,” said Rigg at the same moment.
“Stealthy little bastards,” said Loaf.
“No secrets anyway,” said Rigg. “They know they can’t hide from me, and we have no need to conceal what we do from them.”
“Do you have the path we’re jumping to?” asked Umbo.
“I do,” said Rigg. “Take us back.”
“You can do it yourself,” Umbo reminded him.
“I’m not sure I can take all of us at once,” said Rigg. “And you’re stronger and better practiced. I’ll aim, you loose the bow.”
So Umbo did.
There were three women near the river, their backs to the group of Ramfolders. Standing over them was an expendable. Larex.
“I guess this means that the expendable knows more about the Larfolders than the other expendables thought,” murmured Umbo.
“Or they held back the knowledge from the mice,” said Param.
“Or the mice held it back from us,” said Olivenko.
The expendable looked at them and waved. The women turned around to look.
“I think he heard us,” said Rigg.
“They do have good hearing,” said Param.
Rigg strode forward, and the expendable came rapidly to meet him. The women stayed where they were.
Rigg tried to keep his attention on Larex, who looked so much like Father that Rigg couldn’t help being glad to see him, and so much like Vadesh and Odinex that he couldn’t help but mistrust him. Still, his eyes strayed to the women, who looked clothed and naked at the same time. They certainly had some kind of garment that concealed their womanly shape, but the garment was absolutely the color of skin, so that they seemed also to be nude.