Orson Card - Pathfinder

“I don’t know you, Mother,” said Rigg. “I know only what is said of the royal family, and you can imagine that little of it is kind. I was well taught in history, and I know of the hundreds of times that members of various ruling houses slaughtered each other in pursuit of power, or out of fear of assassination or civil war. But hearing your words and seeing your face as you said them, and knowing something of the constraints under which you live here, I am satisfied that you are my loving mother indeed. Please forgive me for asking, for you know I had no choice but to ask. And thank you for answering at all, and even more for answering as you did.”

Rigg rose from his seat and knelt beside his mother’s chair, as she turned to face him. There was consternation from many of the onlookers, for it was illegal to bow to a royal, and Mother herself began to remonstrate with him. But he spoke loudly, letting his voice fly out like a whip, commanding silence. “I kneel to this woman as a son kneels to his mother. The humblest shepherd may kneel like this before his mother. Am I, because my ancestors were royals, forbidden to show my mother the respect that she deserves from me? Hold your tongues—I would rather die than let fear stop me from showing her how much I honor her and love her!”

Those who had risen sat back down. And now as Rigg bent his forehead to touch his mother’s lap, she reached out and stroked his hair, then raised him up a little and embraced him, and wept into his hair, and kissed him, and called him her baby, her little boy, and thanked the Wandering Saint for bringing him back to her from his long sojourn in the wilderness.

Meanwhile, Rigg wondered what his sister was making of all this, and thought how maddening it must be for her to see everything—but speeded up, and without any words or sounds to help her understand.

As for his mother, Rigg only half-believed her. After all, wasn’t this also how she would act if she wanted him dead? True, her emotions seemed real enough, and few people had the skill to simulate them so effectively. But wasn’t the very fact that she was still alive proof that she knew how to act whatever role was required of her in order to survive?

Yet Rigg had to trust somebody or his life in this place would be impossible. So he decided to believe that his mother had not survived by pretending to feel what she did not feel, but rather by pretending not to feel anything at all—the opposite skill—and therefore this outpouring of emotion was rare and real. She loved him. She did not want him dead. He would trust her. And if he turned out to be wrong in this decision, well, he’d deal with that disappointment when it came. It would be easy enough, since in such a case the disappointment would probably last only a few seconds before he died.

Ram looked at the large holographic image of the new world.

“What will you name it?” asked the expendable.

“Does it matter?” asked Ram. “Whatever name I come up with, it will come to mean ‘this world of ours.’ The way ‘Earth’ does now.”

“You think the colonists will forget the world they came from?”

“Of course not,” said Ram. “But the children born here will hear of Earth as a faraway planet where their parents lived. The great-great grandchildren won’t know anyone who ever saw Earth.”

“We expendables are also curious about how you are going to explain to the other colonists about the fact that we are now 11,191 years in the past.”

“Why would I tell them anything about it?” asked Ram.

“In case some of them think follow-up starships will resupply them.”

“Do we know that ships won’t come?”

“Why would they? As far as Earth knows, you didn’t make the jump, you disappeared.”

“On the contrary,” said Ram. “As far as Earth knows, we disappeared, which means we made the jump. To them, not making the jump would mean our ship simply continued on its way, or blew up. Without debris or any detectable sign of us, they can only conclude that the jump was successful. Which means they’ll send ships after us, and they will make the jump, and presumably they will divide into nineteen copies and go back 11,191 years. We should have an incredible amount of resupply.”

“We’ve been thinking about that,” said the expendable. “There is no reason we can find for the backward jump in time or for the replications. As far as the ships’ computers are able to detect, the jump merely succeeded. Which it did, because there’s the new, still-unnamed world.”

“I haven’t forgotten the need to name it,” said Ram testily. “What’s the urgency?”

“We are having ten thousand conversations among us and the ships’ computers every second,” said the expendable. “Our reports will be more efficient if we can use a name.”

“I also haven’t forgotten your previous remarks,” said Ram. “If all the fields we created caused us to make the jump perfectly, why are there nineteen ships 11,191 years in the past?”

“Because of you,” said the expendable.

As breakfast ended, Rigg knew his real work was about to begin. He had to win Mother’s trust now—and forcing her into a public display of affection for him was hardly likely to have been the best first step. Since Param spent her days invisible, it was only Mother who could convey a message to her—only Mother who could earn Param’s trust in him, vicariously.

He rose to his feet. “Mother, I have a son’s curiosity, a desire to know about my father. May I come to your room, where you can tell me candidly who he was and the legacy he left to me?” Rigg turned to the rest of the people at the table. “I speak of no possessions except this body that I wear.”

“What mother could want anything more than time alone with her long-lost son?” said Mother, rising from the table. “No one will begrudge us that, I hope.”

Flacommo stood up as well. “The law declares that you have no right to be alone, but I can say to all within my hearing that anyone who interrupts this tender meeting between mother and son will be no friend of mine, or of my house.”

It was a fine speech, but Rigg knew that there was no such thing as privacy here.

As he and Mother walked side by side from the room—neatly sidestepping Param, who walked invisibly along the wall—he leaned his face close to hers and said, “I’m sure you know that your room is under constant observation.”

She stiffened but did not break stride. “It is not,” she said. They left the breakfast room and made their way across a gallery full of very large paintings of scenes that Rigg knew nothing about.

“There are secret passages in the walls,” said Rigg. “Someone is stationed there to watch you whenever you are in the room.”

Mother stopped now, since no one else was in the gallery with them . . . yet. “How could you know this unless you were a spy yourself?”

“I am as talented as Param, in my own way,” murmured Rigg. “When we get to your room, I will stand directly in front of the peephole the spy is using. That way, if he has another peephole, he’ll move to it and then I’ll go stand in front of that one.”

“You were never in this house even when you were a baby,” Mother whispered fiercely. Apparently she could not think past wondering about the source of his information, instead of assuming there might be more talents in the world than Param’s own.

Rigg put his arms around her in a tender embrace, which put his mouth right against her ear. “I sense the path of every human being back through time. For ten thousand years I see all paths. I see Param. The two of you have been watched every time you were alone together.”