“At least you know what the job is,” said Umbo. “I’m not even sure I could lift a man-sized sword. Or give great stirring speeches.”
“You could learn,” said Olivenko.
“I have no talent for it,” said Umbo. “And no interest in it. I don’t want to lead people.”
“Well, you certainly don’t want to follow anybody,” said Loaf cheerfully.
Umbo shook his head and looked away. That’s why he couldn’t even imagine leading people—those who knew him best had no respect for him.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” said Olivenko. “I’m going to go somewhere with a library—Odinfold, or maybe the starship in Vadeshfold or Larfold—and I’m going to study military history and theory until a week or so before the end of the world. Then one of you time-shifters is going to come and get me, and if I’m not ready to lead an army, you’ll take me back and I’ll work for another couple of years in a different starship.”
“Why not the same one?” asked Noxon. “Then you could have really interesting conversations with the different versions of yourself.”
“Since I don’t know anything,” said Olivenko, “I have no interest in having discussions with myself. From Loaf I could get the common soldier’s perspective. That would be helpful. But even if I have to pass through the same two years ten times over, there’ll come a time when I might actually be useful to you, Param. If not as a general, then at least as a judge of other possible generals. As a counselor. Whatever scholarship and philosophy can make of me, I’ll become, and then I’ll lay my sword at your feet.”
Umbo felt an irresistible thrill at his words. Olivenko had spoken simply, but Umbo could hear how much fire lay behind his offer, and he saw how Param rose within herself and straightened her back. How Olivenko’s offer made her more queenly.
“I will never be worthy of such service,” said Param.
“Yet there is no other possible candidate but you to displace your mother and General Citizen,” said Olivenko. “If you don’t try, at least, then their tyranny continues. Or Ramfold descends into chaos.”
“It’s a good plan,” said Rigg. “I don’t know what I’ll find in the other wallfolds. It may be that Ramfold is the most dangerous, most aggressive civilization. If you can become mistress of that wallfold, Param, then a world without Walls might be safe. Or maybe there will be more dangerous places, and we’ll need the warlike character of the Sessamoto armies to curb the ambitions of even-more-dangerous peoples.”
“It’s too much for me,” said Param.
“If I can make a military counselor out of myself, why can’t you become a queen in fact as well as title?” asked Olivenko.
“We don’t know that you can become what you say you’ll become,” said Param.
“I know I can become far more than I was as a scholar serving your father in the Great Library. Far more than the city guardsman who set out on this journey. Rigg and Loaf with their facemasks, all of you with time-shifting, you aren’t the only ones who can learn and change and grow into something useful.” Olivenko’s voice became even softer, and his gaze at Param was intense. “The very fact that you doubt yourself, my lady, is proof of how much you have learned, and how greatly you have grown.”
At those words, Param burst into tears and covered her face.
But she did not slice time. She did not disappear.
“Thank you for staying with us,” said Loaf softly.
“We all have so much work to do,” said Noxon.
Except me, thought Umbo. Nobody has any plan for me, except to be Loaf’s character witness when he returns to Leaky.
Not fair, he told himself. They don’t dare find jobs for you, because you’re so childish and prickly they know you’ll take offense.
Yet a part of him—the childish, prickly part—still insisted, inside his mind: They aren’t finding a job for me, because now that Rigg has a facemask, and then another copy of himself, there’s no particular need for me at all. “I should get a facemask,” Umbo murmured.
Everyone fell silent.
“Maybe with a facemask I could see the paths like Rigg,” Umbo added.
“We already have twice as many pathfinders as we need,” said Noxon. “That’s why I’m getting out of town.”
“Off the planet, you mean,” said Olivenko.
“We need all the pathfinders we can get,” said Umbo. “And even if I couldn’t see paths, the facemask would make me better at the things I can do.”
“You’re just assuming you have the will to master the facemask,” said Loaf.
“Umbo,” said Param softly, removing her hands from her face. “How can I possibly marry you if you have a facemask? The people would never accept you as their king, if you looked like that.”
Chapter 3
Under a Tent
Noxon and Param began their mutual training the obvious way, with Param trying to teach Noxon to develop an ability like hers by teaching him the way the Gardener had once taught her. It kept the two of them away from everyone else for hours at a time.
At first Umbo watched them from a distance, trying not to think of what Param had said. Did it really amount to a royal proposal of marriage? And if it did, why did she completely ignore him now? Instead of thinking about Param, Umbo wished he could be more like Rigg—like Noxon—in the way that he seemed to have endless patience when he needed it.
Rigg had learned his patience by being schooled every waking moment by his father—by the expendable called Ramex—while they tramped in solitude through the forests of Ramfold. Rigg knew how to listen, how to concentrate on what he was hearing, how to analyze and process it.
I’m quiet too, sometimes, thought Umbo. I hold my tongue, I don’t say everything that comes to mind.
And that’s the difference, he realized. Rigg learned to concentrate on what Ramex was saying, and devoted himself to memory and analysis. While I, in my silences, I’m thinking of all the things I’m going to decide not to say.
No, I’m storing up things to complain about later.
Is that all I am? No wonder everyone looks to Rigg for leadership—he thinks through ideas, while I think of nothing but myself. How could anyone respect me? I don’t even have ideas that are worthy of respect.
“I wonder if you’re mooning over the princess,” said Olivenko, “or resenting Noxon for having so much time with her.”
Umbo was immediately filled with fury. But, trying to learn a lesson from Rigg, he curbed that first impulse. “I was wishing I had Rigg’s patience.”
“That was a good step, then, to answer me so mildly.”
“You were trying to goad me?”
“Yes,” said Olivenko. “Because it seems to be the only way to get your attention.”
Umbo thought: By hurting my feelings? But he said, “You have it.”
“I think she does like you, Umbo. She’s overcome some of her snobbery and seen you for a good man trying to be better.”
“You think of me as a boy,” said Umbo, “so when you call me a man it sounds like mockery.” But he said it mildly, because it was simply true.
“I’m talking about how Param thinks of you,” said Olivenko. “No matter how she feels, she’ll marry for reasons of state.”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Umbo. He did not say, By no means should you let me nurse the delusion that she might have fallen in love with me.
“If you’re going to marry her, you not only have to know how she thinks, you have to learn how to think the same way. The needs of the kingdom come before your personal desires.”