“Enough,” said Noxon. “Let’s go watch a gnu get slaughtered and butchered by Erectids. And then go back and save a little girl from being a blind orphan for the rest of her life. And then we can figure out how to save a faraway planet from destruction. I’m no
t putting it to a vote, and any of you who wants to can opt out of any step along the way, and choose your own consequences. But those are the changes I’m going to make.”
“You do realize that the simplest choice would have been to leave me dead,” said Deborah. “Why did they even leave this note to warn us? You can still accomplish your mission whether I’m there or not.”
“Because Professor Wheaton couldn’t bear to live in a world in which you were dead,” said Noxon. “Future me explained it very clearly.”
“So it isn’t me, it’s Father who caused all this annoyance,” said Deborah.
“My fault,” said Wheaton. “I take full responsibility.”
“Are you coming with me, or not?” asked Noxon.
They followed him out the door of the hotel room. They arrived at the parking lot much later than before, and now two rangers tried to persuade them not to go. But they went, and saw the prey stunned by two expertly thrown cobblestones, and then killed with the jab of a wooden spear into the spine. They watched the Erectids flake small blades from their seedstones, and flay and section the body while the blood was still warm, then bind the haunches and slabs of meat with twine and start jogging back toward the camp, where the fires would be waiting, and the women and children and old men were hungry for the meat, which would mean the survival of the tribe for another few days.
CHAPTER 24
Motherless Boy
“Something doesn’t feel right to me,” said Square to Umbo.
Umbo looked at the young man but said nothing. It wasn’t Umbo’s job to draw him out. Square would say what he had to say, when he was ready to say it. If Umbo spoke now, it would become Umbo’s conversation, and since he had no idea what the conversation would be about, it didn’t seem likely to be productive.
“I’m trying to think through everything that everybody has taught me about what’s right and wrong,” said Square. “I know it doesn’t mean legal or illegal—it’s usually right to obey the law, because that’s how civilization works best, but not always. I mean, over in Ramfold, either you’re King-in-the-Tent because you’re married to Param Sessamin and her mother is Sessaminiak, the rightfully deposed queen, or you’re a traitor and a rebel because you and Param make that claim but Hagia is still Sessamin, and Haddamander is King-in-the-Tent and all his actions are right.”
“Is that what you’re trying to make up your mind about?”
“Oh, not at all,” said Square. “I was just showing my thinking about right and wrong versus legal and illegal.”
“I’m not Rigg, and he only demands that from you because that’s how he was raised, one long oral examination.”
“But it’s a good education. I know so much now that I finally understand how little I know.”
“Very wise. But I was born knowing that.”
“Having your supposed father tell you that you’re stupid every hour of the day is not the same thing,” said Square.
“He swore he was teaching me a lesson,” said Umbo. “I was defrauded.”
“The thing that doesn’t feel right,” said Square, “is having Rigg at the head of your army of traitorous rebels.”
“He isn’t, actually,” said Umbo. “Olivenko is the overall commander.”
“But it’s actually worse the way it is, having Rigg lead every raiding party. He hates fighting.”
“No,” said Umbo. “He hates killing.”
“You can’t keep this up forever. Having each of his raids take place before all the others, so each one becomes the first one. Always taking the enemy completely by surprise. Eventually you’re going to go back so far that nobody will want to join the rebellion because it’ll be before Haddamander and Hagia did anything bad. Back when the People’s Revolutionary Council ruled and nobody really hated them all that much, except the royalists.”
“Good grasp of history,” said Umbo.
“Well, it’s not really history, is it? Since at this moment, here in Vadeshfold, those events are still a few centuries ahead. You aren’t even born yet.”
“Nor are you,” said Umbo. “And on the timeline that exists now in Ramfold, you never will be.”
“It was kind of you to save me from temporal oblivion,” said Square.
“Sometimes you talk way too much like Rigg.”