Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“Many are slow to remember the things that most people consider to be essentials of life,” said the botanist, “but all are quick enough to reason, to recognize illogic and error and unlikelihood. And in case you’re wondering, the test has already begun, and I’m not sure I like the cautious way you are trying to influence the ground rules in advance.”

“You leap to the conclusion that my goal is to influence them rather than merely discover them,” said Rigg.

“Discovering the rules will do you no good,” said the botanist, “because you will either think like a scholar or not, and if you don’t, it will be because you can’t, and if you can’t, no advance information will help you.”

“Fair enough,” said Rigg. “One point against me.”

“We are not keeping score,” said the botanist. “We are forming an impression.”

“Then I will stop trying to control things and surrender to your questioning.”

“Even with that statement you are trying to explain yourself, when silence would have been wiser.”

Rigg kept his silence.

The scholars went into the most comfortable parlor. Rigg sat on a backless stool in the next room, where he could not see any of them, but could hear anything they said loudly.

Rigg also noticed that two of the spies-in-the-walls were there to watch him and his examiners.

The questions began innocuously enough. They were so easy, in fact, that Rigg kept trying to find overcomplicated answers, fearing some kind of trick or trap. Until the botanist sighed and said, “If you keep answering like this we’ll never finish before some of us—including, probably, me—have died of old age. We aren’t trying to trick you, we’re trying get to know you. If a question seems simple, it is simple.”

“Oh,” said Rigg.

Now things moved very quickly. Often he could answer in a few words. They checked his general knowledge of history, botany, zoology, grammar, languages, physics, astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, and engineering. They asked him nothing about music or any of the arts; they steered clear of any history that involved the glorious Revolution or any events since.

Rigg confessed ignorance more frequently the farther they went. He stayed right with the zoologists—he had spent most of his life tracking, trapping, skinning, dissecting, cooking, and eating the fauna of the highlands to the south, and he enjoyed answering those questions in greater detail than was probably necessary. He enjoyed showing off.

But even in the areas where he didn’t have anywhere near as much experience, he held his own. Father had quizzed him constantly, and Rigg responded to these examiners exactly as he would have responded to Father, though with less flippancy. When he didn’t know the answer, he would say so; when he had a guess, he would identify it as speculation and explain why he thought it might be so.

He soon realized that they were actually more interested in his guesses than in his knowledge. Once they knew he had a deep and wide knowledge of the vertebrates, they left zoology alone; whatever he knew little about, but still made guesses, they would pursue sharply. Always they brought him to a point where he had to say, “I just don’t know enough about it to make any kind of answer.”

“Where would you look, then?” the physicist finally asked. “Where within the library?”

“I don’t know,” said Rigg.

“If you don’t know where to look for the answer, then what good will the library do you?” the physicist demanded.

Rigg allowed his voice to reveal a little impatience. “I’m from upriver. I’ve never been in a library in my life. That’s why I want to be allowed to study in the Great Library here—so I can begin to find out where I would look for answers to questions like these.”

“There was a library in O,” said the botanist. “Why didn’t you go there to pursue your studies?”

“I was not planning to be a scholar then,” said Rigg. “I was still following what I thought was my father’s plan—that is, the man I thought was my father. By the time I got here, I realized either my father had no plan, or his plan simply didn’t work. So now I can choose for myself what I want to do. Only I don’t have enough information to make an intelligent decision about anything. So I thought I might attempt to add to what my father taught me, since his teachings were obviously incomplete.”

“All teachings are incomplete,” said the historian impatiently.

“And yet a wise man tries to add to his knowledge before making crucial decisions,” said Rigg.

“What sorts of decisions are you hoping to make?” asked the botanist.

“I don’t know enough to know what I need to know in order to decide what I need to decide,” said Rigg.

Rigg could sense that one of the scholars in the next room had stood up and was now pacing. Her voice was old-sounding. “There might be those who think your position here—as a member of the discredited royal family—”

Several of the other scholars got up, and one started toward her.

“I’m not speaking treason, I’m saying what everyone in this room knows, so sit down and let’s see how he answers!”

Rigg tried to remember who the speaker was, but finally concluded it was someone who had not spoken before.