“Can so,” said Loaf. “Just don’t want to.”
Rigg glared at Loaf, who rolled his eyes like a teenage boy and looked away.
“It’s actually possible for each of you to allow the other to speak without contradicting him,” said Rigg. “The fact that you don’t seem to know this is why I’ve had to stay in charge, despite Umbo’s resentment.”
“I don’t resent—” began Umbo.
“ ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt your point-making,’ ” Rigg quoted him. “ ‘Oh, we were pretending.’ I agree with you, Umbo. I have no right to lead, and I’m tired of it anyway.”
“Your father trained you to,” said Umbo grudgingly.
“Everything he trained me for has already happened,” said Rigg. “I got to Aressa Sessamo, I got my sister out of the house, and then with your help she and I got out of the wallfold before General Citizen and our loving mother could kill us. Beyond that, I don’t know what the expendable called Ram had in mind and I don’t care, because what matters now is what we have in mind. Only I don’t have anything in mind. The past few weeks have been all about survival and nothing else.”
“I thought you wanted to find out what happened to Knosso Sissamik,” said Olivenko.
“I do,” said Rigg, “but not so much that I think it’s worth dying for. I want to get out of this wallfold, that’s for certain, because I don’t trust Vadesh here any farther than I can piss, and even on a windless day that’s not far.”
“Where, then?” asked Olivenko. “Back to Ramfold?”
“No,” said Rigg. “I mean, you’re welcome to, but Param and I can’t.”
“I can’t go anywhere,” said Olivenko. “Unless one of you time changers takes me.”
“Maybe Umbo will take you,” said Rigg. “He proved a long time ago that he doesn’t need me to time travel.”
“And you just can’t get over it, can you?” said Umbo.
Rigg heard him and despaired. “Your ability saved my life. Saved my sister’s life. Saved all of us. I admit I felt weak and foolish when you could do it without me, and I couldn’t do it without you. But now we’re even.”
“Oh, definitely,” said Umbo. “You can go back eleven thousand years, and I can barely manage six months, which doesn’t get me through the Wall.”
“And you can stay rooted in the present and always come right back to the time you left,” said Rigg. “We’re different, and we’re both amazing. Now I’m telling you I don’t want to be anybody’s boss, all right? You be boss now. It’s your party.”
“Not me,” said Umbo. “I don’t want to be in charge of anything.”
“I know the feeling,” said Rigg.
“It seems to me you need impartial leadership,” said Vadesh.
Rigg didn’t even glance in his direction. “Loaf?”
“I admit I want to go home.”
“Then go. Please,” said Rigg. “You’ve already done far more than I ever hoped for. Leaky needs you.”
“If I don’t bring the two of you back to Leaky so I can prove you’re all right, my life won’t be worth a piece of bread surrounded by crows.”
“Why do we need anyone in charge?” asked Umbo. “Why can’t we just stay together as long as we feel like it, and split up when we feel like it?”
“Fine with me,” said Olivenko.
“Because you’re a scholar,” said Loaf. “I’m not picking a fight here, I’m just saying that one thing I learned in the army, either we’re together or we’re not. We need to know we can count on everybody who’s with us, or go it alone.”
Rigg buried his face in his hands. “You’re probably right but I’m just so tired of feeling responsible for everybody.”
“You’ve never been responsible for me!” Umbo said, leaping to his feet.
“Yes I have!” Rigg shouted back at him. “It’s my fault you had to run away from home. My fault you had to go to Aressa Sessamo, my fault you had to flee the wallfold, my fault you’re thirsty and under the power of this talking machine.”
“I made my own choices,” said Umbo stubbornly.
“It’s still my responsibility to make things right,” said Rigg, “but I’m not up to it, I can’t do it, I don’t even know what ‘right’ is anymore.”
“I know,” said Vadesh. “I tried to tell my people but they wouldn’t listen. I did what I had to do.”
“Param made a choice, all on her own,” said Rigg. “Without asking me. Which means she really isn’t my responsibility now.”
“She’s your sister,” said Loaf.
“She’s Knosso’s daughter,” said Olivenko.
“But not my responsibility,” said Rigg.
“I’m beginning to get the idea you don’t want to be in charge anymore,” said Loaf.
Rigg nodded wearily. “Communication is finally being achieved.”
“All right,” said Loaf. “Then I’ll be in charge. I say we follow this self-powered puppet to the water and drink up while we hear what he has to say. Everybody agree with that?”
“Yes,” said Olivenko. He shot a look at Rigg, as if to say, See? I can agree with Loaf.
“Fine,” said Umbo. “I’m thirsty.”
“No,” said Rigg.
They all looked at him in consternation.
“Oh, it’s the right plan,” said Rigg, “and Loaf’s in charge. It just felt good to be wrong and have it not matter. Param can follow or not, as she chooses.”
Vadesh, who was still standing close by, seemed a little perplexed. “So you’re going to do what I asked?”
“Yes,” said Loaf.
“Then what was all the discussion about?”
Loaf just shook his head. “It’s a human thing.”
“You’re not really very smart,” said Umbo to Vadesh.
“He’s just pretending not to understand us,” said Rigg.
“I think he never understood humans at all,” said Olivenko.
“Oh, you’re right about that,” said Vadesh. “But I know that if you don’t get water you’ll die, and I have water for you, as much as you want, so let’s go.”
He sounded so cheerful. He sounded just like Father. I cannot let myself trust him, Rigg reminded himself. He isn’t Father. Father wasn’t even Father. They’re all liars.
But following this face, this man, answering his questions, doing what he said—that was how Rigg had spent his entire childhood, his whole life until a year ago. To follow him again felt right; it was the feeling Rigg imagined other people referred to when they spoke of “coming home.”
Back in the same room in the factory, they drank their fill, recharged their canteens and water bags, said little as Vadesh said much. He talked about the days when the city had been productive.
“We kept the technology of the starships, as best we could. Not that we flew anywhere—air travel was too dangerous, what with the Wall. You couldn’t see it, so if a pilot strayed too near, he could go mad and crash the plane.”
Rigg tried to make sense of humans flying and decided that “plane” was a sort of flying carriage. Or boat, since it had a pilot. A flying boat. Would it have to fight the winds the way boats had to struggle upstream on a great river?
But he said nothing, for his project at the moment was trying to learn the way Vadesh thought, since it might help them get out of Vadeshfold safely. And it wasn’t just Vadesh. He was only the second expendable that Rigg had known, and there were things Rigg needed to learn about them. Every wallfold had an expendable, so he would be facing the equivalent of Vadesh or Ram in every one.
The expendables can make us rely on them, need them, love them, thought Rigg. Yet they can also lead us to our own destruction, as Vadesh did with the uninfected humans of the city. Had Father been manipulating humans the same ruthless way? Am I his son, or merely a particularly talented human with royal blood who could be manipulated to cause destruction? Maybe Ram was as careless with human life in his wallfold as Vadesh was in this one. In which case perhaps I should untrain myself, and refuse to see the world as Father trained me to see it.