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 since, which means you have been very well taught.”

“My education was very selective,” said Rigg. “I had no idea how selective, since so much of it seemed useless to me and yet turned out not to be—but my father insisted that I learn what he chose, when he chose.”

“He taught you finance, but not history?”

“He taught me a great deal of history, but I realize now that he left out most of the recent history of the World Within the Walls. I’m sure he had a reason for that, but I find it quite inconvenient at the moment.”

“You speak a very elevated language, befitting a royal.”

“Father taught me to speak this way, but I never used this language with anyone but him. I use it now because you use it, and because it intimidated Mr. Cooper.”

“It didn’t intimidate him enough, apparently,” said the general.

Rigg didn’t want to discuss Mr. Cooper any further. “Someone will tell me your name eventually, if I live. And if I don’t live, then I would take this great and terrible secret with me to the grave.”

“I was not really being elusive,” said the general. “At the time of the revolution, my family dropped their rather-too-prominent gens and took the name ‘Citizen.’ So I truly am General Citizen. My prenomen, however, seems to be what you wish to know, though it would be quite impolite of you to use it, unless you are royal. I am Haddamander Citizen.”

“I am pleased to meet you, sir,” said Rigg. “And unless my father is a liar, I am Rigg Sessamekesh.”

“But we already agreed that your father is a liar, because if Rigg Sessamekesh is in fact your name, then the man who attested to it is not your father. And if he is your father, then that is not your name.”

Apparently Citizen was asking the same questions as during their walk in order to see if Rigg’s answers changed. But since he told the simple truth—except about the number of jewels—it was easy to stick to the same story. “I don’t know which is true.”

“I almost believe you,” said Citizen. “But you see the quandary you put me in. If you are Rigg Sessamekesh, then you are royal, the only son of the woman who, if we still had royalty, would be queen, and her late consort, Knosso Sissamik, who died at the Wall.”

“Either way, then, my father is dead,” observed Rigg. “Though if I’m royal, then it’s illegal for me to own anything valuable.”

“No, it’s illegal for the royal family to own anything, regardless of value, not even the clothing they wear, not even their own hair. If you doubt it, I assure you that from time to time citizens are admitted to whatever house the royals are guesting in, to shave the royal heads and carry away the hair.”

“And their clothing?”

“Whenever they wish,” said Citizen. “In theory. However, in recent years, because of public outrage at the first time Param Sissaminka was denuded after entering on puberty, the courts have deemed that since the clothing the so-called royals wear is borrowed, only the lender of the clothing has the right to take it back. Any other who takes it is a thief and will be punished accordingly. This reversed the earlier court decisions that whatever the royals wear is theirs, no matter who bought it, and therefore could be taken. Times change. The People’s Revolutionary Council does in fact respond, however slowly, to the will of the people.”

Rigg thought about what he had said. “The clothing I wear most certainly is my own, and yet you haven’t taken it.”

“Like your money and other possessions, your clothing is being held in trust for you in case you aren’t a royal, and I’m allowing you to continue to wear it. But if you are not a royal, then your ownership of the jewel you sold is highly questionable, and in all likelihood you’ll be charged with possession and sale of stolen property, fraud, and attempting to impersonate a royal, for which the combined penalty could be death, but since you are so young and almost certainly were put up to this, that sentence would probably be commuted to a few years in prison—provided you told us who induced you to commit these crimes.”