“Hoping to save the world,” she said with a shrug. “Not everybody thought the yahoo act was worth trying.”
“You intercept the communications among the ships?” asked Olivenko.
The man rolled his eyes. “We said it, didn’t we?”
“What’s your name?” Param asked him.
“Mouse-Breeder, Old-Song-Singer, Lived-in-the-Ruins, Mates-for-Life.”
“What should we call you?” asked Param.
“Is your memory so bad you can’t hold on to such simplified versions of our names?” asked Swims-in-the-Air.
“How did you get the air-swimming part of your name?” Rigg asked her.
“I went through a phase where I jumped out of flyers and off cliffs. With wings I designed myself.”
“Can we see you do that?” asked Olivenko.
“Oh, I gave that up five hundred years ago,” she said, laughing. “A pleasure for children. I’m a grownup now.”
“How old are you?” asked Umbo.
“We’re going to tell you everything in due time,” said Mouse-Breeder. “We can even show you vids of her flights, if you want. And you can meet some of my mice.”
“Those were the short names,” said Loaf, “and yet you know the long
names of every one of the ten thousand people in the wallfold?”
“Ten thousand is easy. I don’t think that even we could have known the names of all the people who lived here before we learned about the end of the world. There were three billion people then.” He laughed, shaking his head.
“Three billion?” asked Umbo. “Where could they fit?”
“We didn’t live in trees then,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “But come, let’s walk through the ruins, and we’ll tell you a few important things.”
“About why Loaf thought of you as yahoos?” asked Umbo.
“Well, that’s part of it, though when we wear clothing, we think of ourselves as Odinfolders. Mostly we need to tell you about you.”
“What do you know about us, that we don’t already know?” asked Param.
“Why you were born,” said Mouse-Breeder.
“Why you have the abilities you have,” said Swims-in-the-Air.
“And what you have to do in order to save the world,” said Mouse-Breeder.
The two Odinfolders led them over another rise, and there before them lay the ruins of a great city.
CHAPTER 12
Ruined Cities
Param’s idea of a city was a fantasy born of literature, with little experience to change things. She had never strayed from whatever house they imprisoned her mother in, so the only cities she saw were illustrations in books or art on the walls. When she fled Flacommo’s house with Rigg, she saw only a few streets of Aressa Sessamo, and then she was in fear every moment.
Besides, Aressa Sessamo was so flat and low that unless you climbed one of the few high towers, it was impossible to get any idea of the size of it. From Umbo and Rigg she had learned something of O, which, according to them, was a real city.
And then there was the empty city in Vadeshfold. But, once again, they had ventured only into the outskirts, had never climbed a tower, had plunged underground almost at once.