CHAPTER 5
Riverside Tavern
“Has anything happened yet because I made the decision to go ahead with the fold?” asked Ram.
“Yes,” said the expendable. “You remained in command of the ship.”
Ram was a little irritated to learn that the decision had been a test of him rather than a real decision. “So you were going ahead no matter what I decided?”
“Yes,” said the expendable. “It’s in our mission program. You never had a choice about that.”
“Then what am I here for?” asked Ram.
“To make all the decisions after the fold. Nothing is known about what happens after we jump. If you had proven yourself timid before the jump, you would be regarded as unfit to make decisions afterward.”
“So if I was too timid, I would have been replaced. By you?”
“By the next crew member we awakened and tested. Or the one after that.”
“So when does the real jump happen?”
“In a week or so. If we don’t blow up before then. Spacetime is being very naughty right now.”
“And nothing I might do can stop it?”
“That’s right, Ram.”
“And what if none of the crew turned out to be capable of making a decision that would satisfy your criteria?”
“Then we would command ourselves until we got to the target planet.”
“‘We’ . . . meaning the expendables?”
“We the ship. All the computers together.”
“But the ship’s computers don’t agree on anything.”
“That’s one of the many reasons we were all hoping you’d do the right thing.”
Ram hadn’t missed the one bit of information the expendable had given him. There was zero chance that it had been an inadvertent slip. “What do you mean, spacetime is being naughty?”
“We keep generating fields and forces, and things change. They just don’t change the way anyone predicted.”
“And when was I going to be told that?”
“When you asked.”
“What else should I ask in order to find out what’s going on?”
“Whatever you’re curious about.”
“I want to know what spacetime is doing.”
“It’s stuttering, Ram.”
“What does that mean?” asked Ram.
“There seems to be a quantum system of timeflow that has never been seen or suspected before.”
“Meaning that instead of a continuous slide into the fold, we’re finding that spacetime reforms itself in a series of discrete steps?”
“It’s going to be a bumpy ride, Ram.”
• • •
After three weeks on the road, Rigg and Umbo had long since exhausted the food they brought with them, and hunting for small game was taking more and more of their days. Just because Rigg could see the paths of the animals didn’t mean that setting traps would catch them. In this part of the world, the animals were far more wary of humans than they had been up in the wild highlands of the south.
So they were hungry as Rigg led the way to the public house that filled the five or six rods of land between the river and the road.
“This doesn’t look like much of a place,” said Umbo doubtfully.
“It’s all we can afford,” said Rigg. “If we can afford it.”
“It isn’t much of a town, either,” Umbo added.
Rigg looked around him. The buildings were all fairly new, and had the look of shabby construction. A thrown-together kind of town. But from the paths weaving through the area, Rigg could tell that it already had a lot of people. “You could drop Fall Ford into the middle of it and nobody could tell.”
“Well, my standard of a good-sized town has changed a little over the past three weeks.”
“And my standard of a good-sized meal has changed, too,” said Rigg. “If I set traps we might have some squirrel or rabbit by morning, or we might not. They’ve got food in there right now.”
By now they stood outside the door of the tavern. A couple of burly rivermen brushed them aside as they went in. “Out of the way, privicks.” Rigg had heard that term more than once, as they passed through towns they couldn’t avoid. At first the word had been whispered, but lately it was openly used to insult or diminish them. It might have been more effective if Rigg had had the slightest idea what it meant.
“So let’s go in and see if we can afford the food at this public house,” said Umbo. “Or stomach it.”
A riverman came lurching out of the tavern, cursing over his shoulder at someone inside. He took a swipe at Rigg, who was inadvertently blocking his way. Rigg dodged aside, but fell, and several men standing not far off laughed at him.
“Privick’s got himself covered in mud!”
“Trying to plant himself to see if he’ll grow.”
“Hey, privick, better go wash yourself!”
“Privicks don’t know about washing.”
“Then let’s duck him in the river and show him how it’s done!”
Umbo helped Rigg rebound to his feet, and they dodged inside the door. Rigg had no idea whether the rivermen really meant to do anything to him, but he didn’t want to stay and see. They were all big men. Even the shortest of them had massive arms and barrel chests from poling and rowing up the river. Rigg knew how to defend himself, even without weapons—Father had seen to that—but only one at a time, and he knew that if they took it into their minds to hurt him, he couldn’t stop them. That knowledge put a cold knot of fear in his belly, and it didn’t go away just because a door closed between them.
The tavern was dark inside—the shutters were nearly closed against the cold outside, but no lanterns had yet been lighted. A dozen men looked up at them, while two dozen more kept their eyes on their mugs, their bowls, or their cards and dice.
Rigg walked to the bar, where the taverner—who looked to be at least as large as the largest of his customers—was setting out a half dozen bowls of a thick stew that made Rigg almost faint with hunger, though it had only been two days since he last ate. But the hunger didn’t drown out the fear that had begun outside and got worse in here.
“We serve men here, not boys,” said the taverner, sounding more bored than hostile.
“We’ve been walking three weeks down the road from the south,” Rigg began.
The taverner chortled. “You have ‘upriver’ writ all over you, no need to tell a soul.”
“We need a meal,” said Rigg. “If you won’t serve us here, then maybe you could tell us where we could buy bread and cheese for the road.”
“Boys nor beggars,” said the taverner. “I don’t get up in the morning wishing to see much of either.”
“We’re not beggars. We’ve got enough coin, if your price is fair.”
“I’m surprised privicks even know what money is,” said the taverner, “let alone what ‘enough’ might be.”
Umbo usually kept still when they had to talk to people, since Rigg could put on a higher dialect than the one they spoke here, and nobody had to ask Rigg to repeat himself. But Umbo spoke up now, sounding a little annoyed. “What’s this ‘privick’ they call us?”
“It’s just an old word,” said the taverner. “It means ‘upriver folk.’”
Umbo sniffed. “That’s all? Because it sounds like an insult.”
“Well,” said the taverner, “privicks aren’t too famous for being smart or talking well or dressing like decent folks, so there might be a bit of contempt in it sometimes.”
“We’re decent enough not to pee in the river for downstream folk to drink,” said Umbo, “and we don’t have no insult for travelers from the north.”
“Why would you?” said the taverner. “Now, are you going to show me your money or am I going to throw you out?”