“It was kind of you to save me from temporal oblivion,” said Square.
“Sometimes you talk way too much like Rigg.”
“He’s your best friend,” said Square.
“Maybe you are, now,” said Umbo.
“Well, maybe I’m his best friend, too. Because he sees the end of these raids coming. And then it’ll be time for real war, against prepared enemies, and a lot of people will die.”
“They all volunteered,” said Umbo.
“That doesn’t mean dying isn’t just as dead,” said Square. “And when they kill Haddamander’s soldiers, won’t it be even worse, because they volunteered to do it?”
“No, Haddamander’s soldiers won’t be any deader because they were slain by volunteers,” said Umbo.
“Morally worse,” said Square. “Wronger. I think that’s how it feels to Rigg.”
Umbo knew he was right, and so said nothing.
“Why can’t you admit when you’re wrong?” said Square.
“You were right,” said Umbo, “but I wasn’t wrong, because I didn’t disagree with you.”
“But you can’t say it.”
It was time to prod him back onto the topic. “What is it that doesn’t feel right to you, Square?”
“For Rigg to have to keep leading raids as Captain Toad.”
Now Umbo understood what Square was getting at. “We’re not bringing any more facemasks into Ramfold.”
“You won’t be,” said Square. “I’m not talking about bringing any more of my people there.”
“Your people!” said Umbo. “There are only six of you who got the masks as babies, and you’re the oldest.”
“I’m not the one who decided when they should arrive here. But you know I’m talking about my future people. The ones who got facemasks as adults, because they wanted to be like Loaf. What are they training for, if not to fight in Ramfold?”
“If we need them,” said Umbo. “If we can’t win any other way.”
“Because what’s wrong becomes right when the need is great,” said Square.
“Because what’s perilous becomes worth the risk when alternatives reduce to zero,” said Umbo. “Not every decision can be framed as right and wrong.”
“Well, actually, every decision can be framed as right or wrong, including the decision whether to frame the decision as right versus wrong.”
“Please, please stop trying to be just like Rigg,” said Umbo. “We had two of him for a while, and we couldn’t stand it so we kicked one of them off the planet.”
“Not even close to true. Rigg told me what really happened.”
“You can’t take Rigg’s place, Square. He may not like war, but Loaf trained him for it and he’s very good.”
“The facemask makes him good,” said Square. “And I have—”
“No training whatsoever,” said Umbo.
“Loaf has trained me a lot.”
“Loaf has trained you how to fight like a child.”
“I’m older than you are,” said Square.
“You know there’s no way to prove that,” said Umbo.
“Not my fault you skip around in time so much you have no idea how old you are. But I’m taller than you.”
“That’s heredity. I’m not overly tall and I was slow to grow. You must have had tall parents.”
“I think you know who my parents are.”
“I know they must have been annoying and stubborn, which is probably why they got killed.”
“ ‘Stubborn’ just means you don’t want to do something somebody else wants you to do, and ‘annoying’ just means somebody else is frustrated that you won’t obey them.”
“Excellent on vocabulary, failing grade on getting the point,” said Umbo.
“Before you try to change the subject,” said Square.
“Too late.”
“Look at this.”
“At what?”
Square didn’t show him anything. Umbo checked both hands, glanced around the meadow where they were sitting. When he turned back to Square, the young man was pointing at his own face.
Except it wasn’t his own face. It was Rigg’s face. Not Rigg’s real face, not his original face. It looked exactly like Rigg’s face with the mask on. It had grown a lot more normal looking in the past year, but he still deserved the moniker “Captain Toad,” and Square’s facemask was shaped exactly like Rigg’s.
This was especially surprising because Square didn’t have that abnormal facemask look. The facemasks that were applied to babies didn’t look toadlike and deformed. By age three, they looked like perfectly normal children. There was no way to guess whether they looked the way the child would have appeared if no facemask had ever been applied, but they didn’t look strange, and they didn’t all look like each other, either.
“You can change the way it looks?”
“I’ve been working on it for a few weeks,” said Square. “I made my pal memorize Rigg’s face the way it looked the last time he was here, and then shape himself to fit. I’ve been checking every reflective surface and tweaking it where it needed, and now I can pop into Rigg’s look whenever I want, and stay that way without even thinking about it.”
“Just because you can look like Rigg doesn’t mean you’re ready to—”
“I can sound like him, too,” said Square, in a voice that was identical to Rigg’s. “I have his voice inside my head, and also the way he talks.”
“Rigg has led men in battle,” said Umbo.
“He did it a first time, didn’t he?”
“The men will know you’re not really him because you don’t even know them.”
“Don’t lie to them,” said Square. “Tell them who I really am.”
“A boy from another wallfold, with a facemask like Rigg’s?”
“Who I really am,” said Square. “They all know Loaf and Leaky. They know Loaf is a great warrior. Tell them I’m their son.”
Umbo was so unprepared he couldn’t answer for a moment, and that was all the confession that a man with a facemask needed.
“Did you think that I’d never guess? I’m taller than you or Rigg, and besides, you don’t look at me the way Loaf does. I’m his height now. He’s proud of me when I put in a good day of combat training with him. And don’t kid yourself that he’s not really training me. Loaf doesn’t know how to do anything halfway.”
“I’m not confirming or denying anything,” said Umbo.
“Come on,” said Square. “You and Rigg can visit me back here two hundred years before the war, because you can both timeshape however you want. But Loaf can’t. Why does he come here, then? One of you always has to send him, and then pick him up and bring him back. I wondered about it when I was little, but when I got as tall as him, it’s the only story that made sense.”
“I told you the truth,” said Umbo.
“I believe you did. I believe you stumbled on a future where Loaf and Leaky had been killed, leaving a baby behind, and that was me. You went back and prevented their deaths, but you took me with you so I wouldn’t be wiped out in the causal shift. But Leaky didn’t want me.”
“Square, that’s not something—”
“Loaf wanted me and so he chose to have me raised by Vadesh and the nursewomen brought here to Vadeshfold. He visits me a lot—as often as he can get one of you to send him. He’s as good a dad as he can be. And you and Rigg are helping him so I never feel alone. But if Leaky wanted to visit me, she could, and she doesn’t, so she doesn’t.”
Umbo had his own inner debate now, about what was right—to keep his promise, or to break it because it was right for Square to know the truth. Truth won. “Square, she had the son she bore out of her own body. That she remembered bearing. His name is Round. But you were a baby who came out of nowhere. She didn’t doubt my story, but it wasn’t her, it was another woman in another timestream. That’s how it felt to her.”
“I already forgave her long ago,” said Square. “If I had a mother who loved me, would you have been able to put a facemask on me?”
“Rigg and I loved you,” said Umbo. “If the facemask had been disastrous, we would have gone back and prevented the attempt.”