“No!” cried Param.
“Oh, we arrested him, which means we knocked him down, and the sergeant didn’t understand why I didn’t kick him there on the ground. How could I explain that I agreed with the man’s assessment of me as a soldier? The sergeant was ready to believe I was a coward, and he taunted me, saying that I liked it, come on everyone and pee on Olivenko, it won’t make him mad.”
“How crude,” said Param.
“They didn’t do it,” said Olivenko. “I gave the drunk a couple of kicks. It didn’t hurt him much, there was so much wine in him, and it got the sergeant to shut up.”
“Oh,” said Param, vaguely disappointed.
“If I had principles,” said Olivenko, “I would never have helped a couple of fugitives like you and Rigg get away.”
“Then I supposed I’m glad you don’t.”
And so it went until Rigg and Loaf and Umbo came up the stairs, and Param saw the facemask on Loaf’s head and cried out in sympathy and horror, and she felt Olivenko’s arm around her, his hands on her arm and shoulder, steadying her. “Stay with us,” said Olivenko.
“Vadesh did it,” said Rigg. “He claims this is a different type of facemask, created to blend harmoniously with humans.”
“Loaf is still alive in there,” said Umbo.
“Can’t you take it off?” asked Param.
“It would kill him,” said Rigg. “Or he’d kill us. When you reach to try to pry it off, Loaf turns into a soldier in battle. He’d break us like twigs.”
“Olivenko’s a soldier, too,” said Umbo.
“Not like him,” said Olivenko. He wasn’t going to try to pry off the facemask.
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Param.
“I think now is a good time to get out of Vadeshfold,” said Rigg. “To a wallfold that doesn’t have Vadesh in it. Or facemasks.”
“Might have something worse,” said Umbo.
“Like what?” asked Rigg. “What is worse than this?” He indicated Loaf’s face.
“Death,” said Param.
“Let’s see how Loaf votes,” said Rigg, “on whether death is worse.”
“Where will we go?” asked Param.
“I don’t know,” said Rigg. “Not back to Ramfold. And we don’t know anything about any of the others.”
“We know that sea monsters in the wallfold to the north drowned your father,” said Olivenko.
“Is that a vote to go south?” asked Rigg. “Because I’m open to any suggestions.”
“East,” said a voice that seemed to come from nowhere. A woman’s voice, and yet Param had not spoken.
“Who was that?” demanded Umbo.
“The ship,” said Rigg. He raised his voice, addressing the invisible speaker. “Any particular reason?” he asked.
“No one will harm you there,” said the ship’s voice.
“I vote for that,” said Rigg.
“Can we trust it? Her?” asked Olivenko.
“It gave me control over Vadesh,” said Rigg. “It gave me control over the Wall.”
“Vadesh said you had the power to command him, too, and look how that turned out,” said Umbo.
“If we get to the Wall and it doesn’t let us through, we’ll know that the ship was lying.”
“How can a ship talk?” asked Param.
“Ancient machines,” said Olivenko. “Your father read about them. Machines that talk, but they have no soul.”
Param looked at the machines that brooded around them, wondering if any of them could talk.
“Can you show us the way to the eastern wallfold?” asked Rigg.
Umbo snorted. “Go east,” he said.
“There are very high mountains east of us,” said Rigg. “Wherever the starships crashed, there are now high mountains, like the Upsheer Cliffs.”
“There is no road to the eastern Wall,” said the voice of the starship. “Go around the mountains to the south. Then go east to the sea. If you pass through the Wall near the sea, you’ll enter Odinfold.”
“So presumably we’ll meet an expendable named Odin,” said Olivenko. “Is he a lying snake, too?”
“They all are,” said Rigg. “It’s how they were designed, these machines that talk.”
“Well then,” said Olivenko. “Let’s go look for food and then set out on our journey. The sooner we go, the sooner we find out just what trap this mechanical voice has in store for us.”
Neither Rigg nor the voice said anything to that.
“Can Loaf make a journey like that?” asked Umbo.
“I’m not leaving him behind,” said Rigg.
“I’d stay with him,” said Umbo.
“Let’s see what he decides to do,” said Rigg. “If he doesn’t follow us, then you stay with him.”
“But then we’d be trapped here,” said Umbo.
Rigg hesitated a moment, apparently making a decision. “Any two of you can go through the Wall, whether I’m there or not.”
“When did that happen?” asked Olivenko.
“I used the jewels and gave the command,” said Rigg.
“Any two of us,” said Umbo. “But not one of us alone.”
Param saw that Rigg was embarrassed, but then he stood straighter. “I didn’t want anyone going off alone. We’re safer together.”
“But if you want to go through alone?” asked Umbo.
Rigg sighed. “Then I can do it, yes.”
Umbo was clearly angry, and Param understood why. Rigg had made these rules, giving himself a degree of freedom the others did not have.
It was Olivenko who calmed them down. “The stones are his,” he said. “Not mine. And I’m not planning to go through any Walls by myself. Is anyone else? Then I’m not bothered by not having the power to do something I don’t want to do anyway. And I’m hungry.” He stood up.
Param stood up too. Only after she was standing did she realize that by doing so, she had lent her support to Olivenko’s decision.
And what was that decision? To look for food, yes. And to go along with Rigg and the rules he had set out.
What Param didn’t know was whether that made Rigg the leader of their expedition, or Olivenko.
CHAPTER 9
Responsibility
To Rigg, it was a relief to strike out over untracked country. For one thing, it was familiar—he and Father had done it so often before, and though he half expected to hear Father asking him questions, he also didn’t mind the silence as the others trudged along behind him.
It was also a relief to have no one seeking them, to have no particular hurry. There were dangers, of course—who knew which waters might contain facemasks? But it had not been hard to attach thin branches to tin cups, dip them in a stream, and then boil the water before replenishing their waterskins. It was time-consuming, but they had time. There were no predators large enough to pose a danger to them, for if there had been, Rigg would have seen their paths. As for danger from poisonous plants or insects, all they could do to protect themselves was look before they stepped or leaned or touched.
What was strange, though, was the lack of human paths. The farther they got from the city of Vadesh, the fewer the ten-thousand-year-old paths, and soon enough even those were gone. From then on there were no human paths, except now and then the trace of some ancient hunter from the days before the facemask people and the unadorned humans went to war and wiped each other out.
In all his life, Rigg had never seen a place so empty of a human past. He had heard other people say, “It felt as if we were the first people ever to walk there,” speaking of some wild patch of wood or meadow, but of course Rigg knew that there was hardly a place in Ramfold where no human had ever been, or which no human had seen.