Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

“I’m observing that they’re anxious for me to stop Umbo, which makes me very curious to find out what Umbo’s doing. They told me he had taken control of the starship from me. If that’s possible, we should know it; if he did it, we should ask why; if any part of this is a lie, we should find out the truth.”

“And you need us because . . .” said Olivenko.

“I’ll go,” said Loaf. He let go of his sword. Instead of falling, it simply vanished. Was that automatic, Rigg wondered, or had one of the mice in the room caused it to happen?

To Rigg’s surprise, Loaf reached down and scooped a couple of mice into his hand, then put them on his own shoulder.

Rigg almost asked him if he was bringing reading material along for the trip, but just as he was about to begin the jest, he caught Loaf’s expression: A warning. Don’t ask.

Or perhaps: Don’t speak.

“I’ll come, too,” said Olivenko.

“That leaves Param here in the library alone,” said Rigg.

“She’ll be all right,” said Olivenko.

“As far as we know,” said Rigg. “But you’re right, she won’t want to come. She never wants to come.” There had been a time when she would have come along just to be with Olivenko, but these months of study in Odinfold had made them all tired of each other, and whatever romances had been blooming—Umbo’s crush on Param, and Param’s fascination with Olivenko—had either died or gone dormant.

Nothing hopeful thrives here, thought Rigg. We live under the shadow of the Books of the Future, and death is always present.

Rigg continued to follow Loaf’s suggestion of silence during the voyage by talking about nothing—things he’d recently studied about total war. “The humans of Earth keep developing ways to limit the damage of war—pacts about what constitutes a war crime. Banning poison gas, for instance. The formal agreements only last until someone wants to break them, of course, but a surprising number of the agreements lasted for a while—just because of intelligent self-interest. Mutually assured destruction. But eventually, they go back to total war because any other policy turns war into a game, and games only last as long as both sides play by the rules.”

“No rules in war,” said Olivenko knowingly.

“No rules in a war you want to win,” said Loaf. “As long as winning doesn’t matter, then you can have rules and make a game of it.”

“Why fight a war if you don’t intend to win it?”

“When armies benefit from being perceived as necessary, and war provides a means of gaining prestige and leverage over the government,” said Loaf. “Then victory ends a very profitable game. So you play the game of war only fervently enough to keep your military budget high. Nat

ions can get used to a fairly high level of combat attrition without noticing or caring that nobody’s actually trying to win, and nothing but the lives of a few soldiers is at stake.”

“I didn’t know you were a philosopher,” said Rigg.

“Living on the edge of death, with the power to murder always in their hands, all soldiers are philosophers,” said Loaf. “Not necessarily smart ones.”

The flyer landed in the same place where Umbo had disembarked earlier—Rigg could see his path.

“Now is when we could use Param’s ability,” said Loaf. “We could go back in time and then watch what happens, unobserved.”

Rigg studied Umbo’s path as they got out of the flyer. “I think he was talking to somebody, from the way his path bends and doubles back now and then. I assume that means that Odinex met him here. The expendables leave no paths.”

“How precisely can you take us back in time?” asked Loaf.

“This is only a few hours, and I have a clear, recent path,” said Rigg. “I can be as precise as you want. Do you have something in mind?”

“First tell me how many recent visits have been made here by Odinfolders.”

“What are you thinking?” asked Olivenko.

“I can’t talk about it now.”

“You brought the mice,” said Olivenko.

Loaf laughed and gestured at the grass and shrubbery all around them. “Where are there not mice?”

Good point. Which made Rigg all the more curious about why Loaf had brought two of them along from the library. Hostages? Ridiculous. They perched on Loaf’s shoulders, but they could scamper down his body at any moment.