The knife was still there, in the fine leather bag Rigg, in his days of wealth, had bought to keep it in. Umbo paused long enough to tie the bag’s strings around his waist and let the knife hang down inside one pantleg. It was very awkward, but he couldn’t think of a better place to conceal it for the time being.
Up on the passenger deck, Loaf was conversing with the officer again. “The general said we had the run of the ship,” Loaf was saying. “So it’s really none of your business if the boy and I stay together or go our separate ways. If the general wanted us all to stay together, he’d have us in the captain’s quarters with Rigg.”
Rigg. They were abandoning Rigg!
But Umbo knew there was no choice. Rigg was going downriver, and there was no way to stop that from happening without getting somebody killed and probably still losing. Umbo had to stay in O because that was where he had to be to give the warnings that they had already received. Loaf had to stay in O because that’s where he had hidden the money and gems. Rigg would understand that.
“Did you find it?” Loaf asked. Umbo nodded.
“Find what?” demanded the officer.
“Your father’s blade in the box your mother kept it in,” said Loaf.
The officer flared with rage but then backed off. He really was exceeding his authority, and knew it, and didn’t want to have to account to the general because he punished the prisoners for breaking a rule that the general hadn’t imposed.
Loaf pointedly turned his back on the officer and walked Umbo to the railing at the edge of the upper deck. They both looked down at the river.
“Now might be a good time to prove you can swim,” said Loaf.
The river was much narrower in Fall Ford; Umbo had never swum so far. “Can’t we take one of the boats they tow behind?”
“Can you make shore? Figuring that we swim partly with the current and end up well downstream?”
“I suppose this means you can swim after all. Or am I supposed to tow you? “If you really try,” said Loaf, grinning, “you might not die.”
“Might not?”
“Old saying in my village, forget about it. Thing you do, once you’re in the water, swim under the boat and come up the other side, where they’re not looking for us.”
“Want me to dig up some oysters while I’m down there?”
“Either you can hold your breath long enough or you’ll die. But go under the boat or they’ll have bolts in you from their crossbows when you come up for air.”
Umbo started for the stairs. Immediately the officer moved toward them.
“Get back here,” said Loaf loudly. Umbo did.
The officer went back to the opposite rail.
“We go from here,” said Loaf softly.
Umbo looked straight down.
“Don’t look there,” said Loaf.
“What if I can’t clear the deck below?” asked Umbo. “What if I smash against the railing down there and break a leg and then go into the water and drown?”
“I already thought of that,” said Loaf.
And without another word he picked Umbo up by the collar of his tunic and the belt around his waist and pitched him over the railing with such force that he landed far beyond the lower deck.
Not that Umbo had any time to take much note of his surroundings. The shouting began on deck immediately, and when Umbo came up for air the first time, he saw another body hurtling into the water-and to his surprise it was the officer, who was sputtering and choking and calling for help.
Umbo toyed with the idea of helping him, then decided that it wasn’t his job. Instead, he obeyed Loaf’s instruction and started swimming under the boat. He felt more than heard the boom and splash of Loaf’s arrival in the water. But by then he was in the shadow under the boat. He couldn’t see in the murky river water and felt a terrible fear that he would come up for air and bump his head, finding that he hadn’t swum far enough and now he couldn’t breathe, he’d die for sure… but he kept swimming until he felt like his lungs would burst.
When he finally came up, the boat was well downstream from him, and all the crew were on the other side of the boat, dragging the officer out of the water.
In a few moments, Loaf popped up about ten yards downstream from Umbo. He knew enough not to wave or make any kind of greeting-anything they did might be seen, anything they said might be heard-sound was tricky, moving across water. But between Umbo letting the current carry him and Loaf treading water against the current, they were close enough to each other to talk quietly.
Only there was nothing to say except, “Better wait till they’re farther away.”
The most important thing, though, didn’t get said. Umbo hoped with all his heart that Rigg would understand why they deserted him and jumped out of the boat. Though technically Umbo hadn’t jumped at all.
After a while, deeming the boat had gotten far enough ahead, Loaf began swimming diagonally toward the shore, and Umbo did the same, not even trying to keep up with Loaf’s long, strong strokes.
He was in no hurry to get there. Swimming he knew how to do; when he got to shore, he would have to figure out how to go back in time.
CHAPTER 10
Citizen It took a week before the computers finished their nineteen separate calculations and the expendable was able to say, “The computers have come up with a set of physical laws that would have to be in force for the two passages through the fold to use up identical energy.”
“Does this system of physical laws bear any relation to how the real universe has been observed to work?” asked Ram.
“No,” said the expendable.
“Please tell the computers to keep recalculating the transition through the fold and out again, into the past and back again but reversed, until they can find a way to balance the energy without violating any observed laws of physics.” • • • “You will be happy to know,” said the general, closing the cabin door behind him, “that your friend ‘Loaf’-if that’s his name; if that’s a name at all-has been found and brought here, so our company is now complete.”
Rigg did not allow any emotion to register on his face. In truth, he didn’t know what to feel, except disappointment. And even that was tempered by the fact that Loaf may well have allowed himself to be taken; it would be hard to imagine that they could capture him without a bloody struggle if he didn’t consent.
To turn the subject away from things that mattered, Rigg said, “I know your rank, sir, but I don’t know your name.”
He sat at a table across from the general, inside the narrow confines of the captain’s cabin on the riverboat. Outside the room, he could hear the loud sounds of the crew readying the boat for departure.
The general turned to him with a smile. “Ah, so when we’re alone, you observe the civilities.”
“And you do not, since you continue not to tell me who you are.”
“I thought you were so frequently silent because you were frightened. Now I see that, as a royal, you simply did not deign to speak to one of such low station.”
“I put on no airs when I came into money, and as for being royal, I have no idea how royals would behave if such a thing as royalty existed in the People’s Republic.”
“You know perfectly well that the People’s Revolution was bloodless. The royal family is still alive.”
“I believe you said I was dead,” said Rigg. “And those that aren’t dead are no longer royal.”
“No longer in power, if that’s what you mean,” said the general. “As for me, you may either call me by my military rank, which is ‘general,’ or by my station in life, which is ‘citizen.’”
“If the royal family is no longer royal,” said Rigg, “what would I gain by pretending to be one of them?”
“That is what I am trying to figure out,” said the general. “On the one hand, maybe you really are the ignorant bumpkin you pretend to be. On the other hand, you have handled yourself quite deftly, both before I met you and
