Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

“This one,” Olivenko said, putting his finger into one. At once it rose into the air, exactly the right distance from his eyes for comfortable reading. It opened. “Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World,” said Rigg. “By Jonathan Swift.”

“Commonly known as Gulliver’s Travels,” said Mouse-Breeder. “Part four, chapter one, in which Gulliver meets the Yahoos.”

“You can’t expect us to believe that he happened to choose that title by chance,” said Loaf.

Mouse-Breeder looked pained. “Of course not. No matter what book he chose, it was going to contain Gulliver’s Travels.”

“Is that what we’re required to read first?” asked Param.

“You’re not required to do anything at all,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “The only way this will work is if you freely choose for yourselves, follow up on whatever interests you. Of course, we expect your most important results will come from studying the culture of the society that launched the colony ships—to us, eleven thousand years ago, but to the Visitors, only half a generation.”

“But I can study the history of Ramfold if I want?” asked Param.

“If you wish,” said Mouse-Breeder.

“And I can study the wallfold where Knosso was killed?” asked Olivenko.

“Unfortunately, they have no writing,” said Mouse-Breeder ruefully. “We can’t collect oral histories from other wallfolds, because our machines can’t pick up sounds. Only things that persist in time.”

“What if I want to roam through Odinfold,” asked Loaf. “To see this place for myself?”

“Go where you want,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “But you should be careful. The predators have no fear of humans, which means they have no respect for us, either. We look like meat to the larger ones, and we carry no weapons.”

“I do,” said Loaf.

“And how effective will they be against a pack of wolves? A pride of lions? A troop of hyenas?” Mouse-Breeder shook his head. “Of course, if you’re killed, your friends can go back in time to rescue you, but it seems a waste of time.”

“I’m not going hunting,” said Loaf. “I want to see the prairie you describe.”

“It’s interesting for about a day,” said Mouse-Breeder. “But be our guest. There are no restrictions. Whatever you think you need to know before you meet the Visitors. Or whatever you simply want to know to satisfy your own curiosity. All our plans have come to nothing. We have no plans for you, beyond providing you with access to all the information we have.”

“Then I want to learn how the starships work,” said Umbo. “And all about the machines that govern them.”

“It’s a lifetime’s study,” said Swims-in-the-Air.

“And your lifetimes are shorter than ours,” said Mouse-Breeder.

“I don’t have to learn how to build one,” said Umbo. “But I assume that the design of whatever the Visitors use to come here will be based on the same principles. They rely on machines, as you do. More than you do. Right?”

Rigg was surprised that Umbo had thought of such a project, and seemed determined to pursue it. Umbo had no particular education in science and technology. He would be duplicating the kind of education that Father had given Rigg as they wandered the forests. Rigg well knew what effort it had taken him with the best teacher in the world.

And then Rigg realized that he was assuming Umbo was less capable of learning than Rigg himself was. But that wasn’t so. Umbo was half Odinfolder, while Rigg and Param were only one-quarter. If they really had bred for superior intelligence, Umbo might be even smarter than the two royal children were.

How quickly I bought into the class biases of the Sessamids, thought Rigg. Thinking I was Father’s son, I assumed I was as smart as he was—he knew everything, I thought. Turns out he was a machine, and I was the son of the Queen- and King-in-the-Tent. So I turned all my sense of superiority toward the royal family, and once again, I was wrong.

Wrong and wrong again, and again, and probably now as well. Let Umbo study what he wants. He’ll learn as quickly as I will, or more quickly.

Soon they all had books, except Loaf, who pleasantly insisted on going out into the world. He asked for a flyer, and they produced one—a duplicate of the one they had ridden in when Vadesh brought them to the Wall. Within three days he was back, saying little about what he saw, and then settled into the same life they were leading: Hours on end sitting or standing or walking about in the library, reading whatever the mice made appear at their request, then discarding what they were done with, which promptly vanished, yet reappeared again upon request, open to the very page they had been on when they closed it.

But it wasn’t all reading. There were meals, and at the meals they talked, and sometimes in between. Umbo and Olivenko were the sort of student who has to talk about or show whatever excites them. Rigg understood the principle, but Father had curbed it in him, if only because whatever Rigg had learned, he had learned from Father—from Ramex—and in the deep forest there was no one to tell but him, and what was the point of that?

Rigg was annoyed sometimes at the interruptions from Umbo and Olivenko, but then he changed his mind when he realized that it was good for him to know the extent of what they learned, as well as their questions and conclusions about it. It’s not that Rigg actually knew everything they knew, but he knew what they had said about what they knew, and didn’t forget it, so that he would be able to ask them questions and have some idea of whether they’d know the answer.

Param, on the other hand, talked about nothing she was learning, and showed her annoyance if anyone asked. For a few hours once he asked the mice to show him what Param had been reading, and he skimmed through the books, finding that she was, indeed, reading histories of the Sessamids. But very quickly he found that she was beyond—before—the royal family, backtracking through the entire history of Ramfold. It was a world she had never really seen, he realized, and by studying the whole history and geography of it, she was, in a way, seeing what she had been kept from seeing her entire life.

Olivenko immersed himself in the culture of Earth, but not the modern history that would be familiar to the Visitors who would come to Garden only a year or so from now. Instead, he was discovering all he could about the evolution of the human race and then about the earliest histories, the movement of ancient tribes, the formation of nations. “I have to know why humans are the way they are,” said Olivenko.

Rigg took note of how Olivenko spoke of humans as “they,” though he wasn’t quite sure what it meant. The Odinfolders looked rather simian, with their shorter legs and semi-grasping feet. It was easy to see that they would not register as fully human. But as far as the Visitors would be able to see, Rigg and his company were fully human. Except for Loaf, and that was only because of the parasite he bore on his face. And Olivenko had no share in the inborn time-centered powers that were the unique achievement of Ramfold. In what sense should he think of humans as other than himself, or of himself as other than human?