“That’s before you opened up the Wall,” said Umbo.
In reply, Rigg handed him the jeweled knife. “Use the Larfold flyer to get to the Ramfold Wall, and then call the Ramfold flyer to take you back to Leaky’s Landing. It won’t be safe for you to go over land. Even if General Citizen isn’t looking for you, Loaf’s too pretty now to wander around in Stashiland without attracting a lot of attention.”
They agreed, even Umbo, without a hint of resentment. For once, they simply recognized that Rigg wasn’t giving orders, he was just stating the obvious.
No one asked, and Param didn’t volunteer, to say what she would do. If she went with them, she could take them back into the future. But if she stayed with her father in Larfold, she’d have no way of escaping back into the past next time the Destroyers came.
Whatever happened would happen. Umbo would make his way back to Param, or Param would decide to go with Umbo and Loaf. Olivenko would make his own decisions, too, and for all Rigg knew, Knosso and Olivenko would get Umbo to push them to some era far in the past, where they could live out their lives without any further complications or sudden ending of the world.
The group was breaking up. Maybe it would come back together. Maybe there would be some reconfiguration that would have Rigg in it. Rigg didn’t know.
What he knew was this: He could not live on with the knowledge that he had killed the wrong man. Loaf had said it long ago. It’s good to prevent a murder, but killing isn’t the only way. Rigg could stop Ram Odin from stabbing him in the back without going back and stabbing Ram Odin first. He had been so sure that Ram Odin was a monster that he never had the chance to find out if he was a man, or at least discover how he justified his lies and manipulations to himself.
Rigg got Umbo to call the flyer for him, and with a brief good-bye and a wave, he took off once again for the Wall. But now, without the knife, when he crossed the Wall he was on foot.
And that was how he wanted it. He went back in time a thousand years and traveled through the pristine wilderness of Vadeshfold. If Vadesh knew that he was there, so be it. Vadesh was a complicated machine, and knew far more than he ever told. But he had been right about the facemasks, and the people who extincted the human race in Vadeshfold had been mistaken, though their mistake was understandable. This symbiosis between mask and man was a good thing. Not for everyone; maybe only for a handful of people who were content to sacrifice their own eyes and ears to have these better, uglier ones put in their place. And maybe someday Rigg would get used to this terrible new face and not be frightened or saddened by his own reflection.
Today, though, each day, each hour of walking through the forest, trapping an animal now and then when need arose, but mostly living lightly, working off the little bit of adiposity that life in Odinfold had given him, Rigg was as happy as he had ever been since Father “died.” Yes, he was alone, but he needed to be alone; until now, he had not really understood how painful and heavy it was to have the needs of others always in his heart and on his mind.
I have only my own need now—to unmake my crime and see if that will clean my soul.
Near the starship, Rigg sliced his way in great leaps forward into the future, to the time only a week after he had killed Ram Odin. Now he made himself obvious, walking into the empty ruins of the city, inviting Vadesh to come for him.
Vadesh did not pretend to be happy to see him. This was a Vadesh who knew of the murder but did not know of the end of it all, with the Destroyers once again burning Garden’s life away. This Vadesh only knew that Rigg had gone away, leaving Vadesh to dispose of Ram Odin’s corpse.
“What business do we have now?” Vadesh asked him.
“I was right about many things, but wrong about Ram Odin,” said Rigg.
“I told you that, and you refused to undo it.”
“I’m here to undo it now, and then you’ll never remember that I did it, because I won’t have done it.”
Vadesh gave a little bent smile—the smile that Father used when Rigg got an answer half right, or said something smart-alecky. “You passed through the Wall, Rigg. The ship’s log will remember that version of history. And you’ll remember, won’t you.”
“That’s right, Vadesh. I’ll remember. Thanks for making sure I know how unredeemable I am.”
Vadesh took him down and once again they rode the highspeed tram through the tunnel to the starship; once again they crossed the bridge. Vadesh went with Rigg into the control room, where Ram Odin’s blood still stained the console.
“You didn’t clean it up?” asked Rigg.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” said Vadesh.
“I’ll clean it now, by making sure this blood was never spilled,” said Rigg.
Rigg looked at the paths, his own and Ram Odin’s, to make sure he was positioned in the right place before he went back in time to fix this thing. But first, he turned to Vadesh. “You could save a lot of trouble, you know, by simply telling me the truth.”
“I’ve never told you anything but the truth.”
“Tell me the things you haven’t told me, that I need to know.”
“How can I predict the things you need to know?”
“The truth, that’s what I need.”
“Truth!” said Vadesh derisively.
“Yes, there’s such a thing!” said Rigg. “Things as they are, things as they were, things as they will be.”
“You of all people should know that there’s no such truth,” said Vadesh. “Just the way things were and are and will be . . . for now. Till some shifter comes along and changes it.”
“This world will be destroyed.”
“Yes,” said Vadesh, “and if I knew why, or how to prevent it, I would tell you, because ever since we learned of it, I have done nothing but try to prevent it. Why do you think that facemask exists? Did you think I kept breeding those even after all my humans killed each other? No, I had nothing to do, I put myself in standby mode and did nothing at all until the message came about the Future Books, and the ship’s computer woke me. Then I woke Ram Odin, and we decided I should make a facemask that could do the things it does.”
“And what are those things?” asked Rigg.
“Don’t you know by your experience with it?”
“I know what it does for me because I ask it to. But what can it do that I don’t know enough to ask?”
“I’ve never been a human. I’ve never worn the mask. You know infinitely more about it than I ever will. Tell me what you learn—I’d love to know.”
Rigg realized that he would never get a full answer from Vadesh. But one thing was certain: Vadesh knew things that he had never told, and Vadesh lied despite his protests that he was programmed not to lie.
Without so much as a good-bye—for why bid farewell to a being who would cease to exist the moment you changed the past, and so would never remember what you said?—Rigg pushed into the past, into the moment when Ram Odin began to draw the earlier Rigg’s attention to the display. The moment when Ram Odin began reaching for the knife.
“Stop,” Rigg said. “Both of you. Neither one of you can afford to die today, or to kill, either.”
They turned to him surprised, taken out of their plans for a moment. But in an instant, Ram’s hand resumed its movement toward his knife, and Rigg began to reach for the jeweled weapon at his belt, and again Rigg said, “I will not let either of you commit a murder here today, and you both know I can stop you if I want.”
“How?” said the early Rigg—the Rigg who had not yet killed a man. “I’m a match for you.”
“You’re a dolt,” said Rigg. “Ram Odin isn’t the source of the Destroyers. You killed him here—no, I killed him—and still the Destroyers came.”
“He killed me?” Ram Odin asked.
“I have a facemask, you poor sad murderous old fool. I took the knife away from you and then popped half an hour into the past and stabbed you through the heart with it. At this moment, I just left a version of the future with your dried blood all over the console. So both of you, forget your plans. Whatever you were thinking, you were wrong. Not completely wrong, but wrong enough, and it’s time for us to work together to figure all this out.”