PATHFINDER
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition November 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Orson Scott Card
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The text of this book was set in Cochin.
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Card, Orson Scott.
Pathfinder / Orson Scott Card.—1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Rigg has a secret ability to see the paths of others’ pasts, but revelations after his father’s death set him on a dangerous quest that brings new threats from those who would either control his destiny or kill him.
ISBN 978-1-4169-9176-2
[1. Science fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Psychic ability—Fiction. 4. Time travel—Fiction. 5. Interplanetary voyages—Fiction. 6. Space colonies—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C1897Pat 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2010023243
ISBN 978-1-4424-1427-3 (eBook)
To Barbara Bova
whose boldness made everything possible:
I miss you every day.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 If a Tree Falls
Chapter 2 Upsheer
Chapter 3 Nox’s Wall
Chapter 4 Shrine of the Wandering Saint
Chapter 5 Riverside Tavern
Chapter 6 Leaky and Loaf
Chapter 7 O
Chapter 8 The Tower
Chapter 9 Umbo
Chapter 10 Citizen
Chapter 11 Backward
Chapter 12 In Irons
Chapter 13 Rigg Alone
Chapter 14 Flacommo’s House
Chapter 15 Trust
Chapter 16 Blind Spot
Chapter 17 Scholar
Chapter 18 Digging in the Past
Chapter 19 Aressa Sessamo
Chapter 20 What Knosso Knew
Chapter 21 Noodles
Chapter 22 Escape
Chapter 23 Carriage
Chapter 24 Jump from the Rock
Chapter 25 Expendable
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
If a Tree Falls
Saving the human race is a frantic business. Or a tedious one.
It all depends on what stage of the process you’re taking part in.
• • •
Rigg and Father usually set the traps together, because it was Rigg who had the knack of seeing the paths that the animals they wanted were still using.
Father was blind to it—he could never see the thin shimmering trails in the air that marked the passage of living creatures through the world. But to Rigg it was, and always had been, part of what his eyes could see, without any effort at all. The newer the path, the bluer the shimmer; older ones were green, yellow; the truly ancient ones tended toward red.
As a toddler, Rigg had quickly learned what the shimmering meant, because he could see everyone leaving trails behind them as they went. Besides the color, there was a sort of signature to each one, and over the years Rigg became adept at recognizing them. He could tell at a glance the difference between a human and an animal, or between the different species, and if he looked closely, he could sort out the tracks so clearly that he could follow the path of a single person or an individual beast.
Once, when Father first started taking him out trapping, Rigg had made the mistake of following a greenish trail. When they reached the end of it, there were only a few old bones scattered where animals had torn the carcass many months ago.
Father had not been angry. In fact, he seemed amused. “We need to find animals with their skins still fresh,” said Father. “And a little meat on them for us to eat. But if I had a bone collection, these would do nicely. Don’t worry, Rigg.”
Father never criticized Rigg when it came to his knack for pathfinding. He simply accepted what Rigg could do, and encouraged him to hone his skill. But whenever Rigg started to tell someone about what he could do, or even speak carelessly, so they might be able to figure out that he had some unusual ability, Father was merciless, silencing him at once.
“It’s your life,” said Father. “There are those who would kill you for this. And others who would take you away from me and make you live in a terrible place and make you follow paths for them, and it would lead to them killing the ones you found.” And, to make sure Rigg understood how serious this was, he added, “And they would not be beasts, Rigg. You would be helping them murder people.”
Maybe Father shouldn’t have told him that, because it haunted Rigg’s thoughts for months afterward—and not just by giving him nightmares. It made Rigg feel very powerful, to think that his ability might help men find criminals and outlaws.
But all that was when Rigg was still little—seven or eight years old. Now he was thirteen and his voice was finally changing, and Father kept telling him little things about how to deal with women. They like this, they hate that, they’ll never marry a boy who does this or doesn’t do that. “Washing is the most important thing,” Father said—often. “So you don’t stink. Girls don’t like it when boys stink.”
“But it’s cold,” said Rigg. “I’ll wash later, just before we get back home.”
“You’ll wash every day,” said Father. “I don’t like your stink either.”
Rigg didn’t really believe that. The pelts they took from the trapped animals stank a lot worse than Rigg ever could. In fact, the stink of the animal skins was Rigg’s main odor; it clung to his clothing and hair like burrs. But Rigg didn’t argue. There was no point in arguing.
For instance, this morning, before they separated, they were talking as they walked through the woods. Father encouraged talking. “We’re not hunters, we’re trappers,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the animals run from us right now, because we’ll catch them later, when they can’t see us or hear us or even smell us.”
Thus Father used their endless walks for teaching. “You have a severe case of ignorance, boy,” he often said. “I have to do my best to cure that sickness, but it seems like the more I teach you, the more things you don’t know.”