Orson Card - Ruins

Umbo whirled on him. “It’s nice to know what a facemask thinks of me!”

Loaf slapped Umbo across the face.

Umbo staggered under the blow, and he began to cry as he held a hand to the cheek that had been slapped. “Why me?” he said. “Why is it my fault?”

“Because you’re the liar who wanted to pick a fight, and Rigg is not,” said Loaf.

“I didn’t lie!” cried Umbo.

“You shouldn’t have hit him,” said Rigg. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry at him, either.”

“I’m not angry with him,” said Loaf. “But it was time for him to start paying attention. Time for both of you. This nonsense between you has to stop, and it has to stop now. Don’t you understand that our lives are at stake? Not just some general warning about the end of the world, but your lives, right now, in this place. Umbo has died twice today. When will the two of you start acting like comrades, even if you can’t act like friends anymore?”

“I have no friends,” said Umbo. “I thought I did, but—”

“You ended our friendship when you began asking me whether it was me or the facemask talking, months ago,” said Loaf. “And you ended your friendship with Rigg when you openly rebelled against him months ago for his crime of keeping the whole company alive when you were incompetent to find your way thirty feet without getting lost.”

“So it’s all my fault!”

“Yes,” said Loaf. “And you know it. When Rigg came in here, you deliberately misunderstood his motive for coming. You knew what he had said, and you chose to take offense as if he had said something else. And then you lied.”

“I did not lie!”

“It was a lie to say that you had taken control of the ship, when in fact you only took control of this ship, and only as Rigg’s subordinate.”

Umbo fell silent and looked Loaf in the eye. “How did you know that?”

Loaf smiled. “Oh, so you haven’t lost your ability to hear accurately what other people say.”

Umbo turned to Rigg. “The ship wouldn’t give me control because you were the commander. But Odinex was killing every Umbo he could find, and I had to stop him. So yes, I found a way to get control and stop him. But I’m not admitting that I’m subordinate to you, and I wasn’t about to say so. You would have leapt to false conclusions.”

Rigg had no answer; the loathing in Umbo’s face and voice were beyond his ability to understand or to deal with.

“The only reason the ship respected my control of the jewels on the knife was because you gave it to me,” said Umbo bitterly. “I only exist because you condescend to allow my existence.”

In answer, Rigg held out the bag of jewels. “Here,” he said. “Let the ship witness. Let this murderous expendable witness. I give the jewels to you.”

“I don’t want them!” cried Umbo. “I don’t want anything from you! I only used the knife because it was the only way to stay alive, I—”

At this point Umbo had drawn the knife, and Rigg saw that he was not holding it by the point, as if to offer it to Rigg, but rather as a weapon, ready for use. That was when Loaf’s hand lashed out—every bit as fast as the expendable’s had been, catching the table—and took the knife from him, leaving Umbo holding a painful wrist as he fell back onto his buttocks on the floor.

“Rigg, take up those jewels at once,” said Loaf. “And assert your control of them, right now.”

Rigg could see that Loaf was looking at the expendable, and without turning to see what Loaf was seeing, Rigg grasped the jewels and said, “I rescind my statement. I am still in command of this ship, and all ships; this expendable, and all expendables.”

Only then did he turn toward Odinex, who stood perfectly calmly, holding the tray.

“He was reaching for you,” said Olivenko, “until you spoke.”

“Umbo wasn’t going to stab me,” said Rigg to Loaf. “You didn’t have to hurt him.”

“Umbo didn’t know what he was going to do,” said Loaf.

Olivenko spoke to Loaf. “You never answered Umbo about how you knew that Umbo had taken this ship as Rigg’s subordinate.”

“I’ll answer as soon as Rigg commands this ship and all ships to share none of the information we’re about to discuss on any channel that the Odinfolders can intercept, record, or receive in any way.”

“They’ve already heard you say that,” said Olivenko.

“No they haven’t,” said Loaf. “I want to make sure that none of this gets into the ship’s log.”

“To this ship and all ships,” said Rigg. “To this expendable and all expendables. Nothing that gets said on this ship now and in the future, by me, Umbo, Loaf, or Olivenko, is to be recorded in the ship’s log or transmitted in any way that the Odinfolders can intercept.”

The ship’s voice interrupted. “They intercept all channels of communication.”

“Do they?” asked Loaf. “Or are they merely capable of intercepting those channels?”

The ship didn’t answer.

“Answer him,” said Rigg. “Whatever Loaf asks, answer aloud.”

“They are capable of intercepting all,” said the ship. “Whether they actually listen, I cannot say.”

“I can,” said Loaf. “The Odinfolders haven’t stationed a human to listen to communications in many years. Nor do they use machines to do it anymore, because such machines would easily be found by the Visitors when they come.”

“So they don’t listen at all?” asked Umbo.

“They listen through the mice,” said Rigg, realizing.

“But Loaf brought mice with him,” said Olivenko.

“Loaf communicates with the mice,” said Rigg. “Don’t you?”

“More to the point,” said Loaf, “they communicate with me.”

“How?” asked Umbo, no longer crying. No longer surly, either. It was nice to hear Umbo being curious .

“By talking,” said Loaf.

Both mice were on Loaf’s shoulders, but one was facing Loaf’s ear, moving its mouth.

“High-frequency voices,” said Rigg, as soon as he got it. “Outside the normal human range of hearing. But because of the enhancements of the facemask, Loaf can hear them.”

“I’ve heard them since we arrived here,” said Loaf. “At first I didn’t know where they were coming from, but I heard a constant commentary on everything we were doing, a repetition of everything we said, but in another language. I thought I was going insane. And then we saw the mice at work in the library, and I knew. I heard them issuing commands to each other, and to the machinery embedded behind the walls. The Odinfolders thought the mice only knew one language, but they understood us from the start.”

“That’s why you went out into the prairie,” said Umbo. “Alone.”

“The facemask created an auxiliary pair of vocal folds for me,” said Loaf. “At my request,” he added. “I can produce sounds that only the mice can hear. I can speak their clear and beautiful and very quick language.”

“And the Odinfolders don’t know?” asked Olivenko.

“The Odinfolders aren’t in charge anymore,” said Loaf. “Mouse-Breeder may have put the altered Odinfolder human genes into them centuries ago, but they’ve been in charge of their own breeding, their own genome ever since. They are, collectively, the human race in Odinfold, and the yahoos really are yahoos, compared to them.”

“I did not know this,” said Odinex.

“You don’t know it now, either,” said Rigg. “Expunge this information from your memory and the ship’s memory, and the memories of all ships and all expendables. This must not be available to the Visitors when they come and strip the memories of the starships.”