And what about Loaf? Why had Rigg thought he could leave Loaf behind? Just because Umbo was so devoted to Loaf, and had become much closer to him during their time together while Rigg was in Flacommo’s house, didn’t mean that Rigg wasn’t responsible for bringing Loaf, or whatever was left of him, back to Leaky in their inn at Leaky’s Landing.
Rigg carefully put out his fire, stowed the meat he had dried in his pack, and started back the way he had come.
He walked for hours, and saw no other human paths. They had not followed him.
He reached the place where he had parted with them. Far from following him, they had started back toward the Wall.
Well, then, what responsibility did he have? They weren’t trying to rejoin him. They intended to go their own way. If he kept going and caught up with them on the return journey, it would be a complete admission of defeat.
And if he didn’t, Loaf might die.
What kind of leader was he, if he abandoned his people?
But in what sense was he a leader, if he surrendered to them completely like this?
He started down the path they had taken, retracing their steps toward the Wall.
Then he changed his mind and began to climb up again, abandoning them to the consequences of their own choice.
Then he stopped, remembering that Loaf had made no choice, and headed back down.
And then the whole matter was taken out of his hands, because from the crest of a ridge he saw something shiny, flying above the trees, coming rapidly toward him.
It was a vehicle from Vadesh’s starship. Not the wagon he and Loaf had ridden through the tunnel, but something from the same culture, the same technology. It flew. Was this a starship? No, too small, and it didn’t seem designed to withstand the dangers of cold space, as Father had described them to him.
Father had talked about spaceflight. As conjecture, as if it had never happened, but he had talked about it, and enough of it had stuck in Rigg’s memory that he knew this flying coach could not be a starship. What else had Father taught him without Rigg’s guessing its significance?
Everything. Rigg had never known the significance of anything.
The flying machine rose up swiftly to the level of the crest where Rigg was watching. Then it came to rest in the meadow that surrounded him.
A door opened in the side of it, and Vadesh emerged.
“What are you doing here?” asked Rigg.
“The others called me.”
“They’re not here.”
“I know,” said Vadesh. “After I picked them up, I came for you.”
“Thank you for telling me that they’re safe. Now I can go on.”
“There’s no reason for you to keep walking,” said Vadesh. “I’ll take you to the next wallfold, if you want.”
“I don’t trust you to take me where you say you’re taking me,” said Rigg.
“The vehicle obeys the ship, and the ship obeys you,” said Vadesh. “And I am sworn to obey you now.”
“Now that you destroyed my friend,” said Rigg.
“Get in the flyer,” urged Vadesh. “It will take us all to Odinfold.”
“The others wanted to go back to Ramfold,” said Rigg. “Take them there, and let me be.”
“They changed their minds,” said Vadesh.
“Then why aren’t they talking to me? Why did they send you?”
Vadesh turned without another word and headed back to the flyer.
Rigg realized how ridiculous this was. What kind of child was he, to insist that they had to ask him nicely to rejoin him? He didn’t want to lead them, and they didn’t want to be led, so let Vadesh take them wherever they wanted, to do whatever they wanted.
Rigg walked away across the meadow, heading eastward again, retracing paths that he and his one-time companions had already crossed more than once.
Olivenko came out of the flyer and called to him. “Rigg! Wait!”
Rigg just shook his head and went on. He felt foolish. But he would feel foolish no matter what he chose. Somehow, in his hours alone, the wall between him and his erstwhile friends had grown so thick and high that he could not even think of crossing it. They resented him. He was just trying to do his best and they hated him for it. So he was done with them. That was a wall he didn’t even want to get through.
So why were tears spilling from his eyes as he continued walking away?
“Please wait,” called Olivenko. Rigg could hear him running.
Olivenko is my friend, Rigg remembered.
But he didn’t stand with me when the crisis came, he told himself. So he is not my friend.
“Please,” said Olivenko. “I know you’re angry, you have a right, but it doesn’t make sense to pass up a chance to get a ride in this thing. Except for Umbo throwing up the first time it rose into the sky, it’s been exhilarating.”
Good for you, thought Rigg, still walking.
“Vadesh says we could reach Odinfold well before night. But walking, it will take more than three weeks. Well, it won’t take you three weeks, trekking alone. But it would have taken us all three weeks at least, at the pace we were going.”
Rigg didn’t remember deciding to stop walking away from the flyer, but here he was, with Olivenko beside him, at the edge of the meadow. Now he turned to face the man who had once been his real father’s friend. “I wish I hadn’t brought you all here.”
“I distinctly remember Loaf and me carrying you the last few steps through the Wall.”
“It all started with my foolishness in trying to sell a jewel in O.”
“It all started,” said Olivenko, “with the arrival on this planet of starships from a world called Earth. You didn’t cause that.”
“I’ve made mistake after mistake.”
“You didn’t cause any of this, Rigg,” said Olivenko. “The expendables have been running the whole world from the start.”
“But now I’m supposedly in command of all of them.”
“That’s a joke,” said Olivenko. “You only know what they tell you. So by shaping what you know, they shape what you’ll order them to do.”
Rigg had said almost the same thing to the ship’s computer. It was such a relief to know that Olivenko understood the dilemma. “How can I lead anything or anybody when I have no idea what I’m doing?”
“You’re not leading because you know everything,” said Olivenko.
“Why, then? Because my parents were the deposed queen and king of the Sessamid empire? Because the expendable I called Father bred me and Param into existence so we’d have these abilities to manipulate the flow of time?”
“Both of those things,” said Olivenko. “And because your supposed father trained you in all the skills of government, in languages, in finance, in human nature.”
“Trained me like a dog.”
“Trained you like a soldier,” said Olivenko. “Loaf and I were trained like soldiers, too. But look how different we are. Were. Before Loaf acquired his parasitic captor. Loaf was a real soldier. I’m a scholar, pretending to be a soldier because I’m large and strong and because I couldn’t find any other work that would keep me alive.”
“He’s an innkeeper,” said Rigg.
“I’m telling you why you’re the only possible leader of our group,” said Olivenko. “Training is important, which is why the expendable called Ram gave you so much of it. But why did he train you and not someone else? He could have trained Param and Umbo—he did train them, to a point. Yet he chose you to receive his constant attention. Why? He’s a machine—it wasn’t love.”
No, it couldn’t have been love. Having it said out loud like that stabbed Rigg to the heart. He never loved me because he couldn’t possibly love anyone.