Orson Card - Treason

"Don't tell me his name," I said. "I don't want to know."

"You can't tell me you don't hate these inkers as bad as I do!"

"Maybe worse," I said. "But I break easily under torture. I'd give away all your secrets."

He looked at me slantwise. "I don't believe you."

"I urge you to try," I said.

"Who are you?"

"Lanik Mueller," I said.

He looked startled for a moment, then laughed uproariously. I often used my own name-- it always brought that reaction.

"Might as well claim to be the devil himself. No, Lanik Mueller was swallowed up-- what a joker. His father killed him. Might as well claim to be the devil!"

Might as well. He was still laughing as I walked out onto the street.

The inn faced the main highway, and as I stepped from the inn's wooden frontwalk, a beggar child ran past me, jostling me as he went. I was annoyed, and watched the boy as he ran on, finally to collide head-on with a very important-looking man with clothes whose price would have fed and clothed a beggar family for a month or more. The man had been talking to several younger men, and when the child struck him, he gave the boy a vicious kick in the leg. The child fell to the ground, and the man cursed hun soundly.

It was foolish of me, but this seemed at the moment to be the crowning injustice of all the million injustices I had seen and perpetrated in my life. This time, I decided, I would do something.

So I pushed myself into quicktime, and the people on the street slowed until they were nearly stopped. I threaded my way carefully through the crowd until I stood in front of the man who had kicked the child. His right foot was descending to the ground as he walked along, still in animated discussion with his young friends. It was a simple matter to have the soil of the road sink a decimeter directly under his foot, and to have a puddle of water form there, extending a full two meters on in front of him. With my hands I took one of the large stones used to chock wagon wheels and placed it so it would impede his left foot.

Then I walked to the stable where my horse was being fed and groomed, and leaned against the door. I felt more than a little silly to have gone to such lengths to effect such a small thing. It was more a desire for the prank, I think, than any moral principle that inspired the act.

However, now that I was in quicktime among the crowd, I took a moment to relax. In quicktime I had no need to be wary in case I met someone who would recognize me, instead of know-nothings who laughed when I mentioned my name. Instead I could survey the crowd at my leisure.

Since I was already being childish right then, I even toyed with the idea of picking pockets, not because I needed any money, but because it was possible to do it and never get caught. There is something about knowing you won't get caught that could tempt the most honest man, and I have never claimed to be unusually honest.

I looked over the crowd to see who might be a likely target. A little way down the road a large wagon was coming-- an Nkumai coach, and judging from the large contingent of mounted Nkumai soldiers, it contained somebody important. It was a warm day; the carriage was open; the sole occupant was a middle-aged man, rather stocky and thoroughly bald. To my surprise, he was white. I immediately supposed he was a Mueller returning from a visit to Nkumai. But the Nkumai don't give mounted escorts to foreigners who are leaving. Either this man deserved unusual honor (in which case, why didn't I know him?) or the Nkumai were letting foreigners high in their own government.

Wondering about him put the idea of picking pockets out of my mind. I slid back to real time, turning to watch the result of my prank. Exactly as I planned, the self-important stranger stepped into the rut I had made and fell headlong into the puddle. The splash was formidable, and he arose sputtering and cursing as all the people nearby laughed at him. Even his coterie of admirers couldn't hide their amusement as they solicitously helped him up. And, for all that the gesture was small, I felt a certain satisfaction, particularly when I looked at the laughing child the man had kicked.

The moment passed. People moved to the side of the road to let the Nkumai troop and carriage pass. I glanced at the carriage and was shocked to see, not the middle-aged man, but Mwabao Mawa.

She seemed only a little older-- it had scarcely been two and a half years-- and she held herself very importantly in the carriage. I briefly wondered why I hadn't noticed her in the carriage before, and where the bald-white man had got to. But at the moment that thought was pushed aside, partly because it didn't admit to any ready explanation, but mostly because I let myself remember my days in Mwabao Mawa's house. It seemed impossible to me now that I had once had breasts and passed for a woman. Been a woman, rather. And for a moment as I involuntarily reached up to my cheat I expected to find softness there, and, for that moment, I was surprised to find it gone.

I glanced down, realized the old habit I had fallen into, cursed myself for a fool, and then looked up to see Mwabao Mawa staring at me, at first in mild interest, and then, as the carriage pulled farther away, with recognition and surprise and, yes, fear. The fear was gratifying, but the recognition could be disastrous.

She turned to give instructions to the driver. I used that moment to step back into the stable and get out of sight. I also pushed into quicktime again-- I had to think, quickly. There was no way I could take my horse in quicktime, since Man-Who-Knows-It-All, despite all his efforts, hadn't been able to teach me to extend, my bubble of time control outside myself. In quicktime I could walk faster relative to the rest of the world than a horse could possibly carry me at a full gallop.

I went to my horse, a huge, stupid beast with all the instincts of a hog but with a price I could afford, and unloaded the saddlebags, selecting as much as I could carry, and taking anything that might give a hint as to my identity. There was little enough of that-- I had never been one for embroidered kerchiefs or blazoned leather. Then, carrying the bags, I slipped out a back door into the corral.

When Mwabao Mawa didn't find me quickly, she would forget. the search and figure she had only seen someone who reminded her of me. I didn't think I had made myself so remarkable that anyone would remember me, except perhaps the innkeeper, and he had reasons of his own for not cooperating with the Nkumai.

I tossed the bags over the fence of the corral, climbed after them and walked off down a side street. I'd have to stay in quicktime for several days, which irritated me, because in quicktime, of course, I aged more quickly relative to the real world. I wouldn't end up like Man-Who-Fell-on-His-Ass, but I resented losing days or weeks off my life. How old was I now, anyway? I had gained days and weeks when I was with Saranna in slowtime; I had lost many more days and weeks in quicktime among the Ku Kuei. Was I anywhere near my calendar age of eighteen? Hardly, even if my body seemed that young and strong. I had been through enough, I figured, to have a middle-aged man's memories. As I strode off through the back roads and started on my way to Robles in the south, I decided that quicktime didn't matter anyway. I had no particular desire to live to be old.

Still, I had no intention of letting the Nkumai catch me and realize who I was.

The worst thing about quicktime was the lonehness. No one is safer than a man who moves so quickly that he can't be seen. But it's a bit tough to carry on a conversation with someone who won't even know you're there unless you stand in the same place for a half hour.

I crossed the Rio de Janeiro into Cummings before I let myself back into realtime. No matter how alarmed Mwabao Mawa was, she wouldn't send troops more than a thousand kilometers to look for someone she had seen only a few meters off that very day.