that’s so, why wasn’t I trained and indoctrinated to fulfil that role? Why wasn’t I raised to be a king? Because I can assure you, I never had a breath of a hint that I had any connection with royalty, or any great destiny to fulfil. So I have to conclude that the man who raised me was not of that faction.”
Mother said nothing, but smiled slightly.
“Still, you never know what people so insane they would seek the restoration of the royal house might do- surely the ones who want to restore the male line are the craziest of them all.”
“There are so many crazy people in the world,” said Mother. “Some who are crazy and remain silent, and some who in their madness keep talking and talking, annoying everybody.”
“I understand your rebuke, Mother, but I really am trying to learn how things stand, so I can guess where danger might come from.”
“It can come from anywhere,” she said sweetly. “It can come from everywhere at once.”
“I simply wondered if the attempt to kill me came from the faction that supports the restoration of the female line, and regards the existence of the male heir as a great danger. That faction would have been waiting all these years for me to surface again, so I could be killed, in obedience to great-grandmother Aptica Sessamin’s edict.”
“That law was rescinded by the Revolutionary Council,” said Flacommo. “Most people have forgotten it ever existed.”
“But since the law was never rescinded by the Tent of Light,” said Rigg, “there are people insane enough to think that it’s still the law, and that killing me would be a noble act. I say this because the man who tried to kill me on my way here was exactly that kind of madman.”
“Your words dance around like those of the carefulest courtier,” said Mother. “It’s hard to believe you weren’t raised with royalty in mind.”
“The man I called Father taught me to think skeptically and curiously, that’s all. And to say what I think. And he always said, ‘If you want to know something, then ask somebody who already knows it.’ So I ask you, Mother, two questions. First, did you and my real father send me away as an infant in order to protect me from such enemies? Or was I stolen away by somebody else who thought I needed to be protected from you?”
Dead silence in the room. Mother stopped moving, her hand hovering in midair as oat porridge dripped in clumps from her tilted spoon.
Rigg was quite aware of the impression he had made, and pushed it further. “Let me make the question even simpler. Mother, is it your desire that I die? Because if it is, I’ll stop trying to save myself and let the next attempt on my life succeed. I have no desire to make you unhappy by coming home to you after all these years.”
She moved again, setting the spoon back into her bowl. “I am grieved that you could ask such a question.”
“And I am grieved,” said Rigg, “that you decline to answer it.”
“I will answer it, though the question itself torments me. I had nothing to do with your being spirited away. I believed you had been stolen by those who wanted you dead, and assumed they had killed you. I grieved for you every day for the first few years, and as often as I thought of you since then-which was often. I have shed thousands of tears for you. And when I learned that you might be alive I scarcely dared believe that you would be allowed to come to me. Even when you arrived, I tried to behave in such a way as to keep anyone from becoming alarmed at the strength and depth of my rejoicing. I’m glad that you recognize that you are in grave danger; I’m grateful that you were raised to be careful enough not to fall into the trap laid for you. But I’m bitterly disappointed that you would think I might have been behind the laying of it.”
“I don’t know you, Mother,” said Rigg. “I know only what is said of the royal family, and you can imagine that little of it is kind. I was well taught in history, and I know of the hundreds of times that members of various ruling houses slaughtered each other in pursuit of power, or out of fear of assassination or civil war. But hearing your words and seeing your face as you said them, and knowing something of the constraints under which you live here, I am satisfied that you are my loving mother indeed. Please forgive me for asking, for you know I had no choice but to ask. And thank you for answering at all, and even more for answering as you did.”
Rigg rose from his seat and knelt beside his mother’s chair, as she turned to face him. There was consternation from many of the onlookers, for it was illegal to bow to a royal, and Mother herself began to remonstrate with him. But he spoke loudly, letting his voice fly out like a whip, commanding silence. “I kneel to this woman as a son kneels to his mother. The humblest shepherd may kneel like this before his mother. Am I, because my ancestors were royals, forbidden to show my mother the respect that she deserves from me? Hold your tongues-I would rather die than let fear stop me from showing her how much I honor her and love her!”
Those who had risen sat back down. And now as Rigg bent his forehead to touch his mother’s lap, she reached out and stroked his hair, then raised him up a little and embraced him, and wept into his hair, and kissed him, and called him her baby, her little boy, and thanked the Wandering Saint for bringing him back to her from his long sojourn in the wilderness.
Meanwhile, Rigg wondered what his sister was making of all this, and thought how maddening it must be for her to see everything-but speeded up, and without any words or sounds to help her understand.
As for his mother, Rigg only half-believed her. After all, wasn’t this also how she would act if she wanted him dead? True, her emotions seemed real enough, and few people had the skill to simulate them so effectively. But wasn’t the very fact that she was still alive proof that she knew how to act whatever role was required of her in order to survive?
Yet Rigg had to trust somebody or his life in this place would be impossible. So he decided to believe that his mother had not survived by pretending to feel what she did not feel, but rather by pretending not to feel anything at all-the opposite skill-and therefore this outpouring of emotion was rare and real. She loved him. She did not want him dead. He would trust her. And if he turned out to be wrong in this decision, well, he’d deal with that disappointment when it came. It would be easy enough, since in such a case the disappointment would probably last only a few seconds before he died.
CHAPTER 16
Blind Spot Ram looked at the large holographic image of the new world.
“What will you name it?” asked the expendable.
“Does it matter?” asked Ram. “Whatever name I come up with, it will come to mean ‘this world of ours.’ The way ‘Earth’ does now.”
“You think the colonists will forget the world they came from?”
“Of course not,” said Ram. “But the children born here will hear of Earth as a faraway planet where their parents lived. The great-great grandchildren won’t know anyone who ever saw Earth.”
“We expendables are also curious about how you are going to explain to the other colonists about the fact that we are now 11,191 years in the past.”
“Why would I tell them anything about it?” asked Ram.
“In case some of them think follow-up starships will resupply them.”
“Do we know that ships won’t come?”
“Why would they? As far as Earth knows, you didn’t make the jump, you disappeared.”
“On the contrary,” said Ram. “As far as Earth knows, we disappeared, which means we made the jump. To them, not making the jump would mean our ship simply continued on its way, or blew up. Without debris or any detectable sign of us, they can only conclude that the jump was successful. Which means they’ll send ships after us, and they will make the jump, and presumably they will divide into nineteen copies and go back 11,191 years. We should have an incredible amount of resupply.”
“We’ve been thinking about that,” said the expendable. “There is no reason we can find for the backward jump in time or for the replications. As far as the ships’ computers are able to detect, the jump merely succeeded. Which it did, because there’s the new, still-unnamed world.”
“I haven’t forgotten the need to name it,” said Ram testily. “What’s the urgency?”
“We are having ten thousand conversations among us and the ships’ computers every second,” said the expendable. “Our reports will be more efficient if we can use a name.”
