“And indeed you are,” said Umbo, using his most sincere voice. Olivenko could have brought it off and won a smile from the woman, but at Umbo’s clumsy effort she only sneered and left, saying, “If they don’t want my business, so be it, but I don’t have to be mocked by a boy who’s also a stranger.”

“I’ve lived here for months,” said Umbo, because that had been true at the time they set out. “I’m strange enough, but not a stranger.”

His wit was wasted on her—she and her husband (or whatever he was) didn’t show any sign that they could hear Umbo’s clever remark. But after that, Umbo didn’t tell anything like the truth. “A feral cat got in there and peed all over the tables and they have to scrub everything down to get the smell out,” he explained. Oddly enough, the lie was believed instantly, while the truth had been treated with such contempt.

Late at night the door opened. It was Loaf, no covering on his face now. “We’re staying closed, but we can’t leave you outside all night.”

“Like a feral cat,” said Umbo, “I think I’ll pee all over everything.”

“You’ll go to your room and have a good night’s sleep. I assume you already found something to eat.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because you’re Umbo,” said Loaf. “Now come in.”

Umbo wasn’t quite sure how many hours he had been awake in a row, but he fell asleep before he actually got into bed, as attested by the fact that he woke up only half undressed. But it was light outside, so he put his clothes back on and headed for the privy.

He met Leaky coming back. She gave him a curt, preoccupied nod, but he didn’t read anything into that because her idea of manners included the idea that a man was supposed to pretend that he didn’t know that women pee and poop. So obviously they had to pretend they hadn’t seen each other.

It wasn’t till breakfast—with the roadhouse still closed—that Loaf said, “That worked pretty well. Whatever you said.”

“He was bratty and bossy and rude,” said Leaky.

“You stick with that,” said Loaf to Umbo. “You have a talent for it.”

“I didn’t hear any yelling or anything breaking so I guess you two hit it off like newlyweds?”

“On the contrary, our wedding night was full of yelling and breaking,” said Loaf.

“Your five trips to visit me were time well spent,” said Leaky. “Though Loaf was acting like a man who was five years celibate, while I hadn’t even had time to notice he was away.”

“Meaning she hadn’t even had a chance to stuff a lover in a cupboard,” said Loaf.

“But we’re going to leave at once. Today. Close down the roadhouse. I just need time to get some friends to look in on the place so it doesn’t get taken over by squatters till we come back.”

“Where are you going?” asked Umbo.

“To Vadeshfold,” said Loaf. “Apparently having a facemask made me so virile and vigorous that Leaky wants one, too.”

Umbo was stunned. “Are you serious?”

Leaky leaned in close. “Look at my pretty pretty face. You think I’m afraid a facemask might be too much improvement?”

“But why?” asked Umbo.

“She’s afraid she can’t keep up with me,” said Loaf. They laughed like conspirators in a particularly fiendish crime.

Umbo realized it so suddenly that he blurted it out. “You don’t want to wait to see if you can have children now just by rejuvenating Loaf.”

“We don’t want it to be anyone’s fault that we took so long conceiving,” said Loaf. “So she wants a facemask to heal everything that’s wrong with both our bodies.”

“I just want to be as athletic as he is,” said Leaky.

“She just wants to be able to chop wood with exquisite accuracy,” said Umbo. “But it might take more than a facemask to confer a talent like that on her.”

“I need you to come with us so we can get through the Wall,” said Loaf. “But you don’t have to stay with us.”

“Where exactly would I go?” asked Umbo. “I have no reason to come back here without you.”

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than he realized that there was something he needed very badly to do. But it could wait until they got back. That was the nice thing about the past—it stayed right where you put it until you needed to pick it up again.

CHAPTER 5

Burning House

Rigg had planned to make his tour of the wallfolds by himself. He didn’t want to make conversation with anybody, and he didn’t want to have to worry about protecting someone else. Truth to tell, he would have welcomed Umbo. But not the Umbo of today—what he wished for was the Umbo he had set out with years before. Before the rivalry. Though perhaps there was never a time before rivalry—just a time before Rigg knew about it.

What Rigg certainly did not want was to travel with any of the expendables. Even if he thought they could be trusted, he couldn’t get past the fact that they all looked like Father. They all were Father. He had spent his childhood traveling with an expendable. Learning everything from him. It. Subservient to it. Until it pretended to die and thrust him onto this path which was leading . . . somewhere.

Yet if there was anyone Rigg wanted to travel with less than the expendables, it was Ram Odin. And not just because he had such clear memories of Ram trying to kill him, and even clearer ones of killing Ram Odin himself. It was because Ram Odin already knew far more about the wallfolds than Rigg could possibly learn in a few weeks or even years of wandering. Rigg wanted to come up with his own information. Make up his own mind.

So of course, when the flyer arrived to take him to Yinfold, the farthest of the wallfolds, there was Ram Odin, waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” said Ram Odin.

“I’m never happy to see you,” said Rigg. “Though I feel safer when I can see you than when I can’t.”

“I’m going with you,” said Ram Odin.

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Are you sure the flyer will go if I don’t approve it?” said Ram Odin.

“Then I won’t use the flyer,” said Rigg, feeling tired already. “Or I’ll just go back in time and use it yesterday. Or last month.”

“Rigg,” said Ram Odin. “Be reasonable. Your goal is to judge all the wallfolds. I’ve been watching them for ten thousand years, off and on. The expendables have been watching continuously.”

“So a fresh pair of eyes might be helpful.”

“I agree,” said Ram Odin. “But don’t throw away our knowledge. We can help make your visits more efficient and effective.”

“You can make sure I see only the things that will support the conclusions you’ve already reached.”

“That’s always a danger, even if I try not to. But you bring your own biases, too. You’re a child of Ramfold. How long before you stop seeing everything through the lens of your experiences there?”

“I’ll never stop seeing things that way. You’re a child of Earth. How long before—”

“Exactly my point. I see things from the perspective of having known another world, where there was no Wall. But do you think because I grew up on Earth, I know Earth?”

“Better than I do.”

“I grew up where I grew up. I knew my neighborhood, my schools. My college, but even then I only knew the other kids I hung out with, the professors I studied with. I visited a few other countries. Studied in them. Learned a foreign language—which is no joke, when you don’t have the Wall to impose all languages into your brain. By the standards of Earth I was widely read and widely traveled. And I have no idea what it’s like to grow up in China or India or Africa or Brazil. Even if I grew up in one of those countries, I’d only know my village, my schools, my friends.”

“Then I’d better stop talking with you and get busy exploring,” said Rigg.

“You traveled down the Stashik River. First without money, trapping animals for meat as long as open country held out. Then with Loaf to guide you and shape your experience on the river and in O. Then as a prisoner so all you saw were your invisible paths. Then closed up in Flacommo’s house and in the library. You had how many hours on the loose in Aressa Sessamo before you made your escape, and then you were in that carriage heading for the Wall. Rigg, how well do you know Ramfold?”