Orson Card - Ruins

“First tell me how many recent visits have been made here by Odinfolders.”

“What are you thinking?” asked Olivenko.

“I can’t talk about it now.”

“ You brought the mice,” said Olivenko.

Loaf laughed and gestured at the grass and shrubbery all around them. “Where are there not mice?”

Good point. Which made Rigg all the more curious about why Loaf had brought two of them along from the library. Hostages? Ridiculous. They perched on Loaf’s shoulders, but they could scamper down his body at any moment.

Rigg led them along Umbo’s path. It followed the obvious course—through the increasingly finished-looking tunnel toward the ship. It was only when they reached the beginning of the bridge across the gap between the stone and the starship that Rigg saw something that he couldn’t explain.

“Umbo shifted time here,” he said. “On the bridge.” Rigg stepped out onto the bridge, walking Umbo’s route. “He turned toward the edge, and then suddenly jumped back and stepped here. Then he jumped back again and stepped there. But the paths also fork, as if—but they’re a little different, not quite Umbo, not—”

“See what you can figure out without jumping back to look,” said Loaf.

“You think the expendable was trying something?” asked Olivenko.

“I know he was,” said Loaf. He walked to the edge of the bridge and pointed downward.

Umbo’s dead body lay crumpled on the stone below the ship. Even though Rigg had seen Umbo’s path go on inside the starship, it still made him gasp, still stabbed him with grief.

Not far off, but only visible from the other side of the bridge, lay his dead body again.

“Silbom’s left eye,” whispered Rigg. “Two of him. Two copies. But he’s not dead, Loaf. The main path, the real path, it goes on inside the ship.”

“I’ve always wondered what happens when you or Umbo go back in time and warn yourselves,” said Loaf. “Changing your course of action. Does the old path persist?”

Rigg blushed, embarrassed. “I’ve never looked. I’ve never paid attention.”

“You made your original choice, you took that path, and the effects of it remain real,” said Loaf. “But when you warn yourself—”

Olivenko finished the thought. “Your path takes a different turning. That becomes the real path. But the old one—”

“This is different from a mere warning,” said Rigg. “Umbo didn’t appear to his earlier self, he actually jumped and physically moved himself in time. But that still bent the path of his previous self, because here—he appears in front of his slightly older self. Same thing with the second jump. So his previous self no longer takes the action he used to. Which is why there’s a new path. A slightly different path. Now the Umbo who time-shifted on the previous path doesn’t time-shift.”

“So he stays in existence,” said Loaf.

“He copies himself,” said Olivenko.

“You could make an army of yourself,” said Rigg.

“Didn’t work out so well for these two,” said Olivenko.

Just because one version of Umbo remained alive didn’t change the terror and pain these two Umbos must have felt. Almost by reflex, Rigg prepared to jump back in time, at least to understand the situation, if not to fix it.

“No,” Loaf said to him.

“But I have to—”

“Umbo’s alive,” said Loaf. “There’s nothing to fix here.”

Rigg understood at once. “If I suddenly appear, it might change more than I want to change.”

“We don’t know what Umbo has done. What we might un do by appearing here. Let’s talk to him, if we can, before we start taking action that might cause more harm than good.”

Rigg knew good advice when he heard it. Loaf might not have the ability to time-shift, but that didn’t stop him from having a clear understanding of how it worked, and when it might not be wise to use it. He and Umbo had had enough experience with failure in their attempts to get the jewel from the bank in Aressa Sessamo. Loaf had learned a lot about the unexpected, damaging changes you could make. And that was before Umbo learned how to physically transport more than an image of himself into the past.

“What if one of them isn’t dead?” asked Olivenko.

“They’re dead,” said Rigg.

“How can you be sure from up here?”

“Their paths don’t go off the bridge,” said Rigg. “They were dead before they fell.”

“Careless of the expendable,” said Loaf.

“If you kill a discarded copy of a time-shifter,” said Olivenko, “is it murder?”

“By all means, let’s discuss the definition of murder,” said Loaf.

“You’re the one who said all soldiers are philosophers.”

“There’s a time and place,” said Loaf.

Olivenko grinned.

Rigg led them into the ship.

Umbo’s path led by the shortest possible route directly to the control room. The jewel-reader was open—if Umbo had done what Swims-in-the-Air said he did, this is where he would have attempted to take control of the ship.

Umbo’s path moved around in the room and sat in the pilot’s seat twice. But ultimately the path left the control room. Rigg and the others followed.

Umbo was apparently touring various key areas of the ship—inspecting? Verifying? Or making changes? Impossible for Rigg to know without jumping back in time to see.

They turned a corner and there was Odinex—or so they assumed—walking away from them down the corridor. They were among the storage units where colonists had lain in stasis during the voyage.

“I know you’re there,” said Odinex. “I knew when you entered the ship, and the ship informed Umbo.” But Odinex did not turn around. He was carrying something on a tray in front of him.

Odinex turned where Umbo’s path had turned.

Rigg knew the place at once, as soon as they entered behind the expendable. It was the chamber where colonists were revived from stasis or received medical attention. Umbo didn’t even look up when they came in. The expendable was laying out lunch on a small table—apparently the tray he had been carrying could sprout legs when it needed to.

“Checking up on me?” asked Umbo. He took a bite of his food.

“Swims-in-the-Air seemed anxious to tell me that you had taken control of the ship,” said Rigg. “Is the food any good?”

“So on her word alone, you come here to put me in my place,” said Umbo.

“I came to see if her word bore any relation to the truth,” said Rigg, annoyed that Umbo would leap to the conclusion that Rigg had believed the Odinfolder’s story.

“Well, it does,” said Umbo. “The jewels in the knife are just as effective as the jewels you have. And I took control of the ship.”

The words hung in the air.

“Interesting,” said Rigg. “What do you plan to do with it?”

“What I came to do,” said Umbo. “Study it. See what I can get it to do.”

“And in this room,” said Rigg. “Do you plan to see if you can bring the murdered copies of yourself back to life?”

Umbo leapt to his feet, knocking the table over. The expendable caught it with a swooping motion that kept all the food still on the tray. Very good reflexes, Rigg noted.

“So you went back in time to check on me!” he shouted at Rigg.

“I don’t have to go back in time!” Rigg shouted back. “I can see your path and the bodies aren’t exactly invisible!”

“Did I suffer much when I died?” asked Umbo. “Did you enjoy watching that?”

“Stop it,” said Olivenko. “The two of you are acting like . . .”

Loaf chuckled. “They are children, Olivenko. But in this case, it’s Umbo who’s acting like the biggest baby.”