Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

The dung had been irritating. This was frightening. “How can you possibly know so much about what’s going on in other wallfolds?” asked Umbo.

“We learned how to intercept and decode all the communications of the expendables, the orbiters, and the ships within a few hundred years of the founding of this colony,” said the man.

“You’re the biggest news in ten thousand years,” added the woman. “Ever since humans went extinct in Vadeshfold.”

“A tragedy,” said the man.

“I’m surprised Vadesh let you leave,” said the woman.

“He’s not equipped to stop us,” said Rigg.

“Oh, he has all the equipment he needs,” said the woman. “But since one of you is carrying his baby”—she indicated the facemask on Loaf—“I suppose he didn’t want to damage any of you.”

Umbo wasn’t sure if she was being literal or figurative. “You don’t mean that that thing is going to give birth,” said Umbo.

“Oh, goodness no,” said the woman. “I forgot you don’t have sufficient knowledge yet to understand irony or analogy in this context.”

“What was your disguise for?” asked Param. “Naked-in-trees doesn’t seem very subtle to me.”

“Primitivity,” said the man.

“Decay and devolution,” said the woman.

“But you didn’t believe it, and so it probably won’t work on them, either,” said the man. “Which is why, ultimately, all our hopes are pinned on you.”

“All your hopes of what? Who are you people?” demanded Rigg.

“Don’t worry,” said the man. “We’ll explain everything. But it’s going to take some time.”

“What it comes down to is this,” said the woman. “We have a little over two years before the humans from Earth arrive for the first time since the terraforming of Garden.”

“And a year after that before they come back and wipe out all life on Garden,” added the man.

“You can see the future?” asked Rigg.

“No,” said the man. “But people of Odinfold, from a different version of our future, wrote an account of the end of the world and sent it back to us five thousand years ago, just before they died.”

“You can travel in time,” said Rigg.

“Not at all,” said the woman. “But we have machines that can send things to any past time and to any place on Garden.”

“And retrieve things,” said the man. “We can also bring things back from the past. Like that jewel they took from you and put in that bank in your capital city.”

“Our displacers got it out and left it for Umbo to find in Vadeshfold,” said the woman.

“We’ve been helping you as much as possible since we first found out about you,” said the man.

It made Umbo feel strange. Somebody had been looking out for them. Or manipulating them. It made Umbo feel vaguely like a pet. But was it really all that different from what the expendables had been doing to them? “Do you have names?” asked Umbo. “What do we call you?”

They looked at each other and laughed. “Names. I suppose we have names, though none of us ever uses them.”

“There are only about ten thousand of us in the whole wallfold now,” said the woman. “So we know each other, know each other’s history, and the compressed version of that history is what we use for names now, if names are needed at all. I’m usually called Woman-Gave-Birth-to-Boy-and-Girl, Swims-in-the-Air, Saves-the-World.”

“There’s a lot more to her name,” said the man, “but that short version is usually enough to distinguish her from everybody else.”

“I’m a little bit famous,” she said apologetically.

“You’re ashamed of being famous,” said Umbo, “but proud of going fecal.”