“No,” said Umbo. “He’s the best man I know, and I know some good men.”
“Am I a good man?” asked Square.
Umbo didn’t hesitate this time. “You are,” he said, “though you haven’t faced all the tests that will show who you are.”
“Well, here’s a test that will show who you are,” said Square. “I want to prepare to take Rigg’s place as Captain Toad. For Rigg’s sake, to spare him all the killing that’s going to come. And for my sake, so that I’ll know a wider world before I decide to go back and found a colony. You and Rigg and Loaf have taught me a lot, but I want to see farming and commerce and cities and villages. And that way maybe I can find a wife that I really love, who also knows about life in the wider world, who chose me when there were lots of men to choose from.”
“I’m not sure war is the best way to learn about the world,” said Umbo.
“Oh, come on,” said Square. “I’ve learned enough history to know that war is the main way men have learned about the wider world through all of history. In every wallfold of Garden and back on Earth.”
“And don’t forget that you’re dying to go through the Wall,” said Umbo.
“Well, I have been asking about that since I was little,” said Square. “I want to know all the languages, too.”
“So you can swear in them all?”
“I’m already through with my bad-language phase,” said Square.
“No, you’re through with your trying-to-shock-me-and-Rigg-and-Loaf-with-bad-language phase.”
“Close enough,” said Square.
Umbo looked him up and down. He was strong—Loaf had worked him hard, putting solid muscle on his tall and sturdy frame. And he was smart. And wise. And… good.
That’s what Umbo was afraid he would lose, if he went to war.
But it was goodness that was prompting him to go—the desire to spare Rigg the pain that was coming. Maybe that would immunize him against the love of killing. Umbo had seen men who got the love of violence into their hearts, and couldn’t get it out again.
The man that he had called Father was such a one. Never a soldier, but he loved to hurt people, to see them submit to his will, weeping, frightened. He also had good sides to him, moments of kindness. But somehow his love of power over the weak had become the ruling force in his life. That would not happen to Square. He could not become such a man as that.
“I’ll talk to them,” said Umbo.
“Will you talk for my plan?” asked Square. “Or against it?”
“Don’t you know me?” asked Umbo.
“You’ll talk for it and against it,” said Square. “So be it.”
“You’ll abide by our decision?”
“Until I get timeshaping powers of my own, do I have a choice?” asked Square.
“Remember this: If we decide to have you wait a few more years, that doesn’t mean we’ll wait a few more years. We may meet, and then immediately come back here at a time two years from now, to see if you still feel the same way.”
“About what? Being Captain Toad in Rigg’s place? Or exogamy?”
“Both,” said Umbo. “Would you be all right by yourself for a couple of years?”
“I’m not by myself. I’ve got the children to look after.”
“You know what I mean. By yourself without Loaf or Rigg or me.”
“Will you be all right without me?” asked Square. “You know that I’m the only thing giving real purpose to your life.”
“I’m King-in-the-Tent,” said Umbo.
“Completely powerless, and you’re not sure Queen Param loves you.”
“What’s not to love?” asked Umbo.
“I’m sure your list is longer than mine.”
“Because I’m humble to a fault.”
“Self-doubting, you mean.”
“A problem you’ll never have,” said Umbo.
“I doubt myself all the time,” said Square. “I just don’t let it make me wonder whether I’m a good person or not.”
“Because you’re sure you are?”
“Because I am whatever I am, and whatever I say, and whatever I do, so I’m finding out what kind of man I am right along with everybody else.”
Umbo chuckled. “I envy you.”
“My astonishingly deep wisdom?” asked Square.
“Your facemask,” said Umbo. “Because you know you can say outrageously stupid things and nobody can slap you because your reaction time is so fast.”
Chapter 25
Preemptive
It wasn’t hard to persuade the younger version of Professor Wheaton that time travel was real, and that the oldish man with them was Wheaton toward the end of his career. Wheaton had always been an open-minded guy, and a few minutes of disappearing into slicetime could be quite convincing. The one thing Wheaton doubted was that his future career was in anthropology. “I’m a philologist,” he said.
“We had to catch him in his philologist phase,” sighed Old Wheaton. “You’ll get over it.”
“I don’t see why,” said Young Wheaton.
“The need for employment,” said Wheaton. “And the fact that whatever could be extracted from philology is already known. Besides, what does it matter that you’ve learned a half dozen languages? This boy can speak all of them.”
Young Wheaton—Georgia—tested Noxon in several ancient languages, then shrugged. “Party trick.”
In Gothic, Noxon said, “The only person who knows I got it right is you.”
“Well, I’m not going to lie. You really are speaking the languages. Badly.”
“My accent is identical to yours,” said Noxon.
“Not it’s not.”
“It has to be. I’m a perfect mimic, and I learned the language from you.”
“When? I never taught a class in Gothic.”
“Just now,” said Noxon. He turned to Ram Odin. “Georgia doesn’t understand how I could have learned Gothic from him, after hearing him speak it for ten seconds.”
“Not possible,” said Georgia. “Not even for a savant.”
“Not possible,” echoed Noxon, “and yet you just saw it.”
“For all I know, being a time traveler, you spent a year with a tribe that spoke Gothic with a particularly wretched accent.”
“Georgia Wheaton is well known to be tone deaf,” said Deborah. “No ear for accents.”
“Not true,” said Young Wheaton. “I speak like a native.”
“Dead languages, so nobody could check,” said Old Wheaton. “Perhaps another reason I abandoned philology. When I had a child to support.”
With theatrical flamboyance, Young Wheaton buried his face in his hands. “He knows all my secrets. Why are you here?”
“To save the life of your brother Arnold and his wife,” said Ram Odin. “And to save Deborah’s eyesight.”
Young Wheaton looked at Deborah. “You’re the baby?”
“All grown up,” she said. “You—he—raised me.”
“Well, aren’t I nice,” said Young Wheaton. He looked at Old Wheaton with some admiration now, instead of annoyance.
“Tomorrow afternoon they will set out on a car trip,” said Old Wheaton. “They’ll get onto the freeway and die in a fiery crash. Deborah is dragged out of her rear carseat by a passerby, but her eyes were already burnt out.”
“He’s the only father I ever knew,” said Deborah. “We’ll continue to exist—without my eyes, without his philology—but you won’t have to devote yourself to raising a baby, and my parents will get to raise a much prettier and better-functioning version of me.”