“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.
Were they even women, or did he think that only because their hair was so long?
Was that really hair, or something else? It seemed not to hang quite right.
The women stood up, and as they did, their clothing seemed to change, to move, to become something else. They were definitely women, and naked, and the clothing wasn’t clothing at all. It was another creature, one on each woman, which rode them like a mantle, and changed shape to fit on them in different ways. It draped when they were sitting, but now it furled like the sails on a ship, rising up out of the way across their shoulders, so they could fight or run if need be.
And their hair was hair, but it had looked wrong because it was growing as much out of the other creature as out of their heads. No, it was growing entirely from the creature. While it rode atop their heads, the hair seemed to be in the normal place. But now they were bald, and the hair had been furled up in the creature.
“Let me guess,” said Larex. “You’re the folks from Ramfold who crossed the Wall into Vadeshfold a few weeks ago. What brings you here? And what brings you now, for that matter, since as far as I know you’re still in Vadeshfold, heading for Odinfold.”
“We are,” said Rigg. “We made it to Odinfold, learned many interesting things, and then came back to a time only a few weeks from now to come through the Wall into Larfold. And then we shifted in time to here, because I saw the paths of these women.”
“Bet you didn’t see mine,” said Larex with a smile.
“You know that I can’t,” said Rigg. “There’s not much about the Larfolders in the logs of the other ships.”
“Because we know how the Odinfolders blab,” said Larex.
“So you can conceal what you know from the shared logs?” asked Rigg.
“Of course,” said Larex. “When there’s a compelling reason to.”
“And what would that reason be?”
“When you take control of all the ships and expendables, then I imagine I’ll be forced to tell you,” said Larex, still smiling.
“So why not tell me now?” asked Rigg.
“You’re the man from the future,” said Larex. “Why not tell me whether I ever tell you?”
This was a game with no point. Rigg’s instinct to like him had been wrong; his instinct to mistrust him, absolutely right. “We’re here to meet the Larfold people,” said Rigg. “And it seemed practical to meet them first when they happened to be on shore.”
“I saw where your eyes went,” said Larex. “You’re fascinated by their naked bodies.”
“I’m fifteen years old, I think,” said Rigg. “My eye goes to naked women. But I’m more interested in their living clothing.”
“But don’t you recognize it?” asked Larex. He looked pointedly at Loaf.
“They’re wearing facemasks?” asked Rigg.
“A related species,” said Larex. “Let’s say that what lives upriver, in Vadeshfold, is the primitive version. What the first colonists found here in Larfold was a much more evolved cousin.”
“So you helped Vadesh develop this?” asked Loaf.
“Not at all,” said Larex. “I never told him anything about these symbiotes.”
“Why not?” asked Umbo.
“He was having so much fun developing his own,” said Larex.
“You’re a renegade,” said Rigg.
“Not at all,” said Larex. “We all lie to Vadesh.”
For the first time, it occurred to Rigg that this statement might itself be a lie. The one certain thing was that the expendables all lied to humans. It was far more doubtful that they actually lied to each other. Much more likely they lied to humans about lying to Vadesh.
But that was too complicated to sort out now. “Do you have any objection to our talking to these women?” asked Rigg.
“Would it matter if I did?” asked Larex.
Rigg made no reply. It was obvious that Larex stood between the women and the Ramfolders, and that neither group was going to come any nearer to each other than they were, until the expendable made some gesture.
Larex smiled, then strolled off to the side, so he was no longer between them. Then he nodded his head, and waved the two groups together.
The Larfold women moved hesitantly toward them. They were staring as curiously at the Ramfolders as Rigg and his party were at them.
“Hi,” said Umbo.
“Oh, what a diplomat,” murmured Param.
“They’ve never been through the Wall,” said Olivenko. “They don’t understand this language.”
“Until they speak,” said Rigg, “we can’t tell what their language is.” He held out his hand in an open gesture, somewhere between begging for food and offering a handshake.