Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“I wish Leaky had hit you in the head with that cabbage,” said Umbo. But he was clearly backing down from his wrath, if he was making jokes, however bitter he might sound.

“It was a lettuce, you dumb privick,” said Loaf. “And if she’d been aiming at my head, she would have hit me.”

They ate a decent meal at their favorite rice-and-egg stand downtown—there was little chance of anyone recognizing them, dressed as they were now, instead of the finery they wore when they were here with Rigg. It was late in the morning as they left the city again.

They were talking about nothing much as they walked along the main road, when Loaf said, “Look at them—taking the same turning we’re going to take.”

It was a man and a boy, and they looked footsore and dirty from the road. “I hope they can afford a bath like we got.”

“Stupid boy, Umbo. They’re going to get exactly the bath we got.”

It was only then that Umbo realized that the man and boy ahead of them were Loaf and himself.

But that was impossible. How could they still be in the past, yet only a single day instead of the months that Umbo had gone back to get the jewel?

“What game are you playing here?” asked Loaf.

“No game,” said Umbo. “I don’t understand it. We should have come right back to the very moment. When we go back in time, we don’t leave the present.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Loaf.

“Because whenever Rigg went back—”

“You were sitting there watching.”

“That’s right,” said Umbo.

“Well, who was sitting there watching when we went back for the jewel this morning?”

“We made sure nobody was!” said Umbo.

“We went back together, and we dug in the soil and picked up something. We weren’t just talking, we weren’t just telling stuff. We physically picked something up and took it.”

“I know that,” said Umbo. “But it didn’t make any difference when Rigg took the knife.”

“Because you weren’t with him. You were still in the present, sending him back. He returned to you.”

“Well, who am I returning to when I go back and talk to myself in the past?”

“When you just go back to talk, I think you stay in the present,” said Loaf. “But going back and doing something—I think that takes you all the way back. So when you return to the present, you’re really jumping forward in time again. And because you didn’t know that’s what you were doing, you weren’t careful. You weren’t accurate. And besides, maybe you can’t go forward to a time you haven’t lived through. You just went forward to a point fairly close to the last future time, the one you went back from.”

“I hate trying to talk about this stuff, it just makes me more confused.”

“No it doesn’t,” said Loaf. “You’re just too lazy to think.”

“I didn’t even pick a time, I just sort of let go. Just like always.”

“Well, ‘letting go’ must be identical to going into the future you came from. Within a day or so.”

“Back, forward, we go ‘back’ to the past and then ‘back’ to the place in the ‘future’ we left from in the ‘past.’ We need better words.”

“We need a place to spend the night,” said Loaf.

“But I’m ready to go on—we’ve got to get to Rigg now that we have the jewel I took. Or if we can’t get to him, at least we can get back the jewel he sold to Mr. Cooper.”

“Get it back?” said Loaf. “You mean steal it?”

“Did he get to keep the money?”