Orson Card - Ruins

“So you knew I’d give in?”

“You’re a responsible man, Rigg,” said Olivenko. “Don’t you get it? That’s what you are . That’s why you’re our leader. You take responsibility. So even though you’ve had the responsibility for the future of the whole human race of Garden thrust upon you, you also have responsibility for the four of us. I knew that you couldn’t throw off one responsibility for the sake of the other. You had to do both. Of course you’d come back.”

“But you weren’t there when I did.”

“Vadesh came with the flyer.”

“You weren’t moving forward to try to meet me,” said Rigg. “If you had been, I would have seen your paths.”

“We weren’t yet . We were hungry and couldn’t get much beyond nuts and berries to eat. We didn’t even know which water was safe to drink. Umbo couldn’t admit he was wrong—the boy has more pride than a lord. But Param was already condemning herself for her weakness. Saying that she should have stayed with you, that we shouldn’t have let her whining break up our group.”

Rigg had no trouble imagining this, particularly since self-blame was part of her weakness.

Part of mine, too, he admitted to himself.

“You’re trying to persuade me that giving in and riding the flyer doesn’t mean I lost,” said Rigg.

“That’s the plan,” said Olivenko. “How am I doing?”

“You’re proving to me that you’re the real leader of this group.”

“Not possible.”

“It wasn’t possible while Loaf was still himself, because he wouldn’t have followed a member of the city guard. But now—face it, Olivenko, you’re the only grownup in the group. And talk about taking responsibility—you’re the one bringing us back together.”

Olivenko shrugged. “So. Imagine that I’m the leader. Does that mean you shouldn’t get inside this flyer and go to the Wall with us? Are you as proud as Umbo? Can’t you be in a group that someone else is leading?”

“So you admit it.”

“I admit that right now I’m giving you the smartest advice you’re going to get, and yes, if you follow my advice, that means that in this one instance, I’m leading you. It’s a stupid leader who can’t turn follower when somebody offers him a wiser course.”

Rigg knew he was right. About everything. Rigg was the leader by training, disposition, birthright. And Olivenko was the leader at the moment by virtue of talking sense.

So why did it feel like failure and humiliation even to think of entering the flyer and facing the group that had rejected him and left him to go on alone? He wanted to lash out at them, punish them for their pointless defiance. He wanted to cry at his frustration and loneliness. He wanted to go on alone and never see any of them again. He wanted them to admit that he had been right all along and beg for his forgiveness. Yet he didn’t want their subservience. He wanted them to trust him. He wanted them to like him. He wanted Umbo to be his friend. And as far as he could tell, he’d never have any of those things.

So it came down to this: He had a responsibility to take care of these people who had committed their lives to his cause when they came with him out of Aressa Sessamo, when they passed through the Wall with him. And if they were willing to go on to Odinfold with him, then it hardly mattered how they got there, or how miserable he felt about all that had happened in the past few days. The tasks at hand mattered more than how he felt . Feelings would pass. Feelings were a temporary lie. They must be ignored. Sensible plans must be acted upon.

Rigg nodded. He touched Olivenko’s arm. “Thank you for talking to me like a better person than I actually am.”

Then Rigg walked to the flyer, with Olivenko close behind.

And when he went through the door, he sat down in a chair and then looked at Param and Umbo in turn, and at Olivenko when he came through the door and also sat. “Thank you for coming to find me,” he said. “I’m sorry I left you. I was coming back for you.”

“That’s all right,” said Umbo. A little sullenly, and his ungenerous forgiveness galled Rigg, since in Rigg’s view one apology should have been answered with another.

Param reached over to put her hand on Rigg’s. “I needed you more than I needed rest,” she said softly.

That was what Rigg had needed. A word of kindness. A gesture of affection. A recognition that someone needed him. He could go on now. He could do this.

“Let’s go then,” said Rigg. “How is Loaf?”

“No change,” said Umbo.

“Except that he’s stronger and leaner and healthier,” said Vadesh. “His companion is helping his body reach its best possible condition.”

“Shut up and take us to the Wall,” said Rigg.

For the first few minutes, the sensation of flying was overpowering, and Rigg could not stop watching the forest and foothills pass underneath them. Rugged ground that he had covered with such labor now looked like gentle cushions of treetops, soft as clouds.

And within the depths of the forest, he could sense the webs of animal paths, and his own path brightly human among them, until they passed over the places where he had doubled back, and then there were no human paths at all.

Only a few minutes, and they had covered a day’s hiking.

Only a few minutes more, and he was tired of looking. So quickly did he get used to flying. Just as he had quickly gotten used to the velocity of the cart through the tunnel to the buried starship. Sensations that were unimaginable only an hour before were now to be taken for granted.

But Rigg did not stop looking out the window, because it was better than looking at the others.

And then he realized that he had to face them. Was he planning to avoid their gazes forever? So he turned to them and said something safe. “Does any bird ever move this fast over the ground?”

“The fastest bird on Garden can fly as fast as sixty kilometers per hour, unless you count the speed of a stooping hawk,” said Vadesh. “But that’s not so much flying as plummeting.”

Param raised her eyebrows. Umbo rolled his eyes. As if to say, Vadesh is such a know-it-all.

Rigg thought of the food in his pack. “Does anyone want some of the meat I smoked?”

They glanced at each other, embarrassed.

“This vehicle is equipped with a food synthesizer,” said Vadesh. “I had it well-stocked with nutrients, and everyone was able to get what they asked for.”

The meaning of “food synthesizer” was clear enough, but the concept struck Rigg as vaguely nauseating. He took out some of his meat and began gnawing at it. The others looked away, as if he were doing something disgusting. Well, they’d been glad enough to have such fare a few days ago.

“You know,” said Olivenko, “that everything we eat is disgusting.”

“Rotten vegetable matter, rotten animal corpses, and assorted feces and other bodily excretions combine in the soil,” said Rigg, as if he were back at Flacommo’s house being examined by scholars to earn the right to use the library. “From that collection of nutrients, plants draw what they need, combine it with water, air, and sunlight, and grow leaves and branches and fruit, which are consumed by us or by animals that we consume.”

“It sounds delicious,” said Param.

“The food synthesizer apparently skips the plant stage,” said Umbo.

“On the contrary, it skips the rot stage,” said Vadesh. “It takes the nutrients from any plant matter and grows whatever molecular structure is required—flesh or plant.”

“Takes all the fun out of it,” said Umbo. “All the farming.”