Orson Card - Ruins

“If you showed yourself to Ram,” said Umbo, “it might wreck everything.”

“Unless we already live in the future that was created by our going back and talking to him,” said Rigg.

“You’d be experimenting with the entire history of Odinfold,” said Olivenko. “You can’t do it. You might destroy everybody.”

“Not us ,” said Rigg. “We’d be safe if we all went together.”

“And the billions of other people?” asked Loaf.

“But we don’t destroy them, do we?” said Rigg. “We know their lives happened because they remain part of our past.”

“The ships’ log keeps memories of lost futures,” said Umbo, “even if we carry the ship’s log back with us through the Wall.”

With that, they all insisted that Umbo recount what he had learned about the ship’s logs, the remote storage of their data on the jewels, the way the ship’s log became the official means of transferring authority and control from one captain, one admiral to the others.

When Umbo was finished, Rigg said, “Good job, Umbo.”

Umbo’s temper flared. “I don’t need your pat on the head,” he snapped.

Loaf reached out and slapped him again. Umbo cried out in pain.

“Stop that,” Rigg said to Loaf. “Stop hitting him.”

“You don’t have control of me ,” said Loaf. “And I’ll hit him like the father he needs would have hit him.”

“My father hit me plenty,” said Umbo. “More than I needed!”

“He wasn’t your father. He hit you because of his needs. But I’m an experienced officer. I’m hitting you because you need to be slapped out of your self-pitying resentment and wakened up to your responsibilities.”

Rigg wanted to intervene, to say something, but he realized that he needed to trust Loaf to help Umbo in ways that Rigg was too young and inexperienced even to attempt.

“I don’t need anybody to wake me to anything!” said Umbo.

“Those very words are proof of how much you need it,” retorted Loaf. “A soldier like you is a danger to every man in his unit. He can’t function as part of the team, he can’t do his part.”

“I’m not one of your mice!” said Umbo.

“But that’s how the mice learned how to do it,” said Loaf. “By getting the genes of humans, by become humans in mouse bodies. Humans who could subsume themselves in the group identity and do their part with perfect trust that others would do theirs—those are the humans who had a better chance to survive, the ones who became the primary vehicles of human evolution. The resentful, suspicious man alone—the alpha male—that’s the gorilla that beats up or drives away all the other males. He wants everything for himself, hates all comers, and he’s stupid and helpless against much weaker primates who act together.”

“You’re saying I’m like that,” said Umbo resentfully.

“I don’t have to say it,” said Loaf. “That’s the way you’ve been thinking and acting for a year. You’re the would-be alpha male who absolutely hates being in the same troop with another alpha. You’re getting ready to challenge, you’ve already challenged, but you back away, waiting, biding your time. But that knife in your hand—it wanted to spring, didn’t it. It wanted Rigg’s heart, didn’t it.”

Umbo’s hands flew to his head, as if to hide both sight and hearing at once, to hide from his own memory, but failing to hide from anything.

“No,” he said. “No, I wasn’t going to hurt him!”

“You feel like your life can’t even begin as long as Rigg is with us,” said Loaf. “You think I didn’t see, feel how you rejoiced when you were able to maneuver things so that Rigg went off by himself, and left you with the whole group?”

“That’s not how it happened!” cried Umbo.

“No, because you weren’t counting on Olivenko being the next leader, were you. He didn’t even want to be leader, but everybody followed him instead of you. Because here’s what you don’t get, Umbo. You don’t get to be boss of the troop because you want it so much and hate the person who has the job. You get to be boss of the troop because you’re fit to do it—or if you get the job, and you aren’t fit, then the whole troop suffers. The whole troop dies . If you weren’t thinking like a chimp, Umbo, you’d realize: Instead of trying to get Rigg out of your way and resenting everything he does, you should be trying to prepare yourself to be as valuable to the troop as he is.”

“How can I!” cried Umbo. “He had his—father, Ramex, the Golden Man—he was trained for everything, and I was trained for nothing—”

“Fool,” said Loaf. “But now you’re just being a baby instead of an alpha male, and I don’t slap babies. Ramex trained Rigg, yes, to prepare him for Aressa Sessamo, for life in court, and that’s why Rigg was able to thrive there. But Ramex didn’t prepare him for anything since then. He didn’t prepare him to get through the Wall without the jewels, he didn’t prepare him for Vadeshfold, he didn’t prepare him for Odinfold, because he didn’t know he was coming to these places. How do you think Rigg managed so well?”

“I haven’t managed anything,” said Rigg. “ You have. Olivenko has, but I don’t even—”

“I don’t slap fools, either, but shut up,” said Loaf. “Listen to yourself, Rigg. You tell me that I was prepared for things, and I was. Olivenko, too. That’s what makes you the natural leader of this troop—you see the strengths in the other members and you use them, you rely on them, you don’t insist that everything has to be your idea, that you have to be boss of everything, make every decision alone. You don’t resent us for knowing things you don’t know and doing things you can’t do, you’re grateful we did them and then you go on.”

Loaf tugged on Umbo’s wrist, pulling his hand away from his head, where he was still using his hands as if to shield himself. “It’s what you should have been doing, Umbo. Being glad that there were people who could do things you couldn’t do, that needed doing. And then being glad when you were able to contribute the things that only you could do. As an officer, I can tell you—a squad of men who think and act like Rigg, they’ll prevail in battle, they’ll survive to fight another day, and even if they die, they’ll take a terrible toll on the enemy, because they aren’t at war with each other, they’re acting as one, as something larger than a bunch of terrified, selfish alpha males trying to climb all over each other to stand on top.”

“You should talk!” cried Umbo.

“I am talking,” said Loaf.

“He’s talking about you and Olivenko,” said Rigg. “Sniping at each other the whole way out of Aressa Sessamo.”

“Yes,” said Loaf. “I thought of him as a toy soldier. I didn’t see his value. So what? Eventually I did. Before that, we weakened each other. But when we passed through the Wall together, when he went back into the Wall as quickly as I did, and ran as fast to rescue you, Rigg—then I knew his worth, and we were together then. Isn’t that right, Olivenko?”

“We still sniped at each other,” said Olivenko. “We still do.”

“But we trust each other,” said Loaf.

“True,” said Olivenko.

“Snipe at Rigg all you want, Umbo,” said Loaf. “He could use a little deflating now and then, when he puts on that lofty Sessamoto voice. But you have to let people deflate you, too, and not take such white-hot umbrage at everything, not want to kill anybody who does something better than you.”

“I don’t want to kill anybody!”