“How do you know it wasn’t disastrous?” asked Square. “How do you know I’m the human baby all grown up, and not a facemask that had a real chance to control the human it was given to control?”
“Is that what you want me to think?” asked Umbo.
“I just wondered when you became sure that you had made the right choice?”
Umbo had no answer for that.
Square began to laugh. “By Silbom’s right buttcheek, you haven’t decided yet, have you!”
“Mostly,” said Umbo. “We mostly think you’re mostly human.”
“Except when?” asked Square. “What are my inhuman things?”
“Nothing. Just . . . Loaf only has doubts because he says you’re way smarter than either him or Leaky, and Rigg assures him that you aren’t smart at all, and I tell them everybody’s smarter than them.”
“When it’s really just because my pal helps me remember things,” said Square. “I know the difference between me and him. He’s not in control.”
“I know he’s not,” said Umbo. “I know that you really are yourself. It’s not that we ever picked a day and said, ‘Today we decide whether Square is human or not.’ You’re as human as Rigg or Loaf, or anybody else who made it through the facemask as an adult. Only you and the other babies, you didn’t have any struggle over it. It was peaceful all the way. Which is why we finally believe Vadeshex isn’t a failure. Yes, the first few generations here wiped each other out, but those weren’t these facemasks, and they didn’t get them as babies, the way the Larfolders do.”
“So we’re the real Vadeshfolders, right?” asked Square. “Me and the children, here, now. Not those adults a couple of centuries from now who took on facemasks to become supersoldiers like Loaf and Rigg.”
“That’s right. In fact, we’re talking about offering you and the other kids a chance to go back to a time soon after humans in Vadeshfold became extinct, and let you have almost the whole eleven thousand years. You just have to promise to leave this area empty, so they don’t interfere with us bringing you here.”
“When are you going to offer that?” asked Square.
“When the other kids are old enough to decide,” said Umbo. “And when you take a mate and we find the best way to get facemasks on your babies.”
Square got solemn. “These are my sisters,” he said.
“We’ve been worried about that.”
“I need to find somebody from outside. Somebody who takes the facemask as an adult.”
“They won’t be pretty,” said Umbo.
“You think I haven’t seen Rigg and Loaf? I don’t care about pretty, I care about not mating with somebody I grew up with.”
“I agree with your sentiments. So does the whole civilized species.”
“So my plan really is the best one.”
“I’m shocked that you think you’ve proven your point when I’m not aware of your having done any such thing.”
“Which means you’re not shocked, you just think it’s amusing the way I leap to conclusions and don’t show you my reasoning. You’re as bad as Rigg about that, in your own way.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” said Umbo.
“Here’s my thinking. You can’t decide to bump us back ten thousand years till the younger ones are old enough to make a rational decision. That’s going to be years from now. Meanwhile, you have to test mating, and since I’m the oldest, that means you need me to mate. But I’m not going to mate until I find somebody from outside Vadeshfold, which means you have to take me out of here and then we have to see if the person who falls in love with me can take a facemask.”
“Another few months,” agreed Umbo.
“And during that time, what better way for me to occupy my time than to go along with Rigg on a couple of raids, really get my imitation of him down perfectly, and also learn how he leads other men in war. So I can do it in his place.”
“What makes you think you’ll like killing people any more than Rigg does?” asked Umbo.
“Maybe I’ll hate it,” said Square. “But I’m Loaf’s son, and he went for a soldier, didn’t he? He’s a good man, isn’t he? But he’s killed other men willingly enough, and it didn’t make him a monster.”
“No,” said Umbo. “He’s the best man I know, and I know some good men.”
“Am I a good man?” asked Square.
Umbo didn’t hesitate this time. “You are,” he said, “though you haven’t faced all the tests that will show who you are.”
“Well, here’s a test that will show who you are,” said Square. “I want to prepare to take Rigg’s place as Captain Toad. For Rigg’s sake, to spare him all the killing that’s going to come. And for my sake, so that I’ll know a wider world before I decide to go back and found a colony. You and Rigg and Loaf have taught me a lot, but I want to see farming and commerce and cities and villages. And that way maybe I can find a wife that I really love, who also knows about life in the wider world, who chose me when there were lots of men to choose from.”
“I’m not sure war is the best way to learn about the world,” said Umbo.
“Oh, come on,” said Square. “I’ve learned enough history to know that war is the main way men have learned about the wider world through all of history. In every wallfold of Garden and back on Earth.”
“And don’t forget that you’re dying to go through the Wall,” said Umbo.
“Well, I have been asking about that since I was little,” said Square. “I want to know all the languages, too.”
“So you can swear in them all?”
“I’m already through with my bad-language phase,” said Square.
“No, you’re through with your trying-to-shock-me-and-Rigg-and-Loaf-with-bad-language phase.”
“Close enough,” said Square.
Umbo looked him up and down. He was strong—Loaf had worked him hard, putting solid muscle on his tall and sturdy frame. And he was smart. And wise. And . . . good.
That’s what Umbo was afraid he would lose, if he went to war.
But it was goodness that was prompting him to go—the desire to spare Rigg the pain that was coming. Maybe that would immunize him against the love of killing. Umbo had seen men who got the love of violence into their hearts, and couldn’t get it out again.
The man that he had called Father was such a one. Never a soldier, but he loved to hurt people, to see them submit to his will, weeping, frightened. He also had good sides to him, moments of kindness. But somehow his love of power over the weak had become the ruling force in his life. That would not happen to Square. He could not become such a man as that.
“I’ll talk to them,” said Umbo.
“Will you talk for my plan?” asked Square. “Or against it?”
“Don’t you know me?” asked Umbo.
“You’ll talk for it and against it,” said Square. “So be it.”
“You’ll abide by our decision?”
“Until I get timeshaping powers of my own, do I have a choice?” asked Square.
“Remember this: If we decide to have you wait a few more years, that doesn’t mean we’ll wait a few more years. We may meet, and then immediately come back here at a time two years from now, to see if you still feel the same way.”
“About what? Being Captain Toad in Rigg’s place? Or exogamy?”
“Both,” said Umbo. “Would you be all right by yourself for a couple of years?”
“I’m not by myself. I’ve got the children to look after.”
“You know what I mean. By yourself without Loaf or Rigg or me.”
“Will you be all right without me?” asked Square. “You know that I’m the only thing giving real purpose to your life.”
“I’m King-in-the-Tent,” said Umbo.
“Completely powerless, and you’re not sure Queen Param loves you.”