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  “So this will save lives on both sides,” said Param.

  “It might,” said Olivenko. “And the fact that in the future Umbo visited, they talk about raids all over Stashiland, it suggests that we liked the outcomes enough to keep doing them.”

  “This is all good,” said Loaf. “It gets us supplies and demoralizes them, but it doesn’t win the war. In fact, our most experienced raiders will be the ones in the very first raids that Haddamander’s army runs into.”

  “This is just a way to build up our strength while we train. To gather supplies, demoralize and confuse the enemy,” said Olivenko. “Remember that those experienced raiders who take part in the raids that Haddamander thinks are the earliest ones don’t come back to the enclave at that earlier time. They always come back after they left. So our soldiers will experience everything in the right order. So at the end of our ten years of raiding and training and building up supplies and weapons, it will have been only a couple of years in Stashiland. That’s when we suddenly show up with a large, well-trained army, only a few weeks after the raid we did first, which they think was most recent.”

  “So there’ll still be a battle,” said Param.

  “Probably more than one,” said Olivenko, “though we’ll do our best to win a decisive victory the first time. But when you actually commit to battle, you can’t predict the outcome. We might lose. Again and again.”

  “But if we lose,” said Umbo, “couldn’t we go back and fight it again, using what we learned?”

  “You tell me,” said Olivenko. “I’m not a timeshaper.”

  “This is where King Umbo comes in,” said Loaf. “Instead of taking the whole army back in time—which would hardly work, considering that it doesn’t do any good to take the bodies of the dead back in time—instead of that, Umbo, you simply appear to yourself before the battle and tell yourself—the way you always have—what went wrong, so we can take countermeasures and try it again. That will erase the battle we lost so it never happened.”

  Param nodded. “So the raids will all happen and be remembered. But when the battles come, we’ll keep repeating each ­battle until we get it right.”

  “Unless Umbo is killed,” said Rigg.

  “Well, he can’t be,” said Olivenko. “He has to stay in a protected location.”

  “If I’m in a protected location, how will I know how the ­battle went?” said Umbo.

  “Not a protected location,” said Param. “He and I will be in the midst of everything, but slicing time so that we’re invisible. If we lose, I slice us forward even faster till it’s all done, and then we go to the place where he can warn himself what’s about to go wrong.”

  “And then you continue to live in that future where you lost,” said Ram Odin.

  “No,” said Loaf. “Maybe a version of her will, but she will definitely be with us when we get Umbo’s warning, and so the real Queen Param Sessamin will always come through in fine shape. Look, I must have been beaten up, arrested, probably killed dozens of times, judging from Umbo’s warnings. But here I am. If there are versions of me living out a very terrible life to the bitter end, I don’t know about it because those versions of reality don’t exist anymore.”

  Param laughed cynically. “Is the same thing true of the end of life on Garden? If Noxon succeeds in figuring out why the Destroyers come from Earth, and stops them, does that mean that only one version of the future has a happy ending, but there are still dozens of versions in which everybody dies?”

  “I don’t know,” said Loaf, “and I don’t care. Because I’ll be living in the one where Noxon saved the world. Just as I’ll be living in the version of history in which the Rebel King Umbo and the rightful Queen Param Sessamin prevailed over the pretender King Haddamander and the Mad Killer Queen Hagia Sessaminiak.”

  “Sessaminiak,” said Param. It was the title of a Sessamid ruler who was rightfully deposed because of crimes or madness. It had happened only a few times, and in each case the Sessaminiak former King- or Queen-in-the-Tent was killed in a gruesome, lingering way.

  “We don’t have to treat your mother the way the other Sessaminiaks were treated,” said Olivenko.

  “Yes we do,” said Loaf. “Or the people will think she deserved leniency, in which case, why was she deposed? Or they might think that somehow her life was saved and you’ll be facing pretenders for the rest of your lives, and your children after you. There’s a reason for ruthlessness in the business of government and war. But don’t worry, Param. You won’t have to do it yourself.”

  “I will stand and watch whatever is done,” said Param. “Or I’m not worthy to be Queen-in-the-Tent.”

  “This whole royalty business is the crappiest job I can imagine,” said Umbo.

  “The job of captured Rebel King is much worse,” said Loaf. “And the job of Param’s husband might be pretty good.”

  To Rigg’s surprise, Param reached out and took Umbo’s hand. Apparently something like real affection had grown between them while he was gone. That was good. But it was also sad. Because so much could still go wrong, and one of them might easily die. The more they loved each other, the harder it would be to bear.

  Or maybe not. Maybe it would make everything better, for one to lose the other knowing there was a strong bond of love between them. Rigg had never loved anyone that way. Except his love for Father. It had nearly destroyed him to lose Father. Even though it turned out to be a lie, it was real enough for at least a year, before Vadeshex met them beyond the Wall and told them that Father was only a machine called Ramex.

  It’s better to lose someone you love, thought Rigg, than to have no one to lose.

  “I think,” said Loaf, “that it’s about time we heard the other plan.”

  “What?” asked Umbo.

  “Olivenko said he came with two plans. He told this one first because in the future you saw, it seems to be the plan we chose. But there’s another plan.”

  “It’s simple enough,” said Olivenko. “We still build the enclave. We still gather soldiers from the time when Haddamander’s oppression does the recruiting for us. We still bring their families with them. We go ten years into the past and build up supplies and an arsenal and we train the soldiers into a superb fighting force. But we give not a breath of a hint of where we are or who we are or what we’re doing. People disappear, but nobody knows where they’ve gone, and there’s not a single raid. Then one day an army appears out of nowhere, and Haddamander is completely unprepared and he’s destroyed in a single shocking battle.”

  “Yes!” cried Param. “I choose that one!”

  “No you don’t,” said Loaf, “and Olivenko knows why.”

  Everyone turned to Olivenko, who shrugged. “I said that we train the soldiers into a superb fighting force. But of course that’s not possible. You can train them to be athletically robust, but if that battle against Haddamander’s soldiers is the first time our men see combat, chances are very good that they’ll break and run at the first sign of blood.”

  “But the training,” said Param.

  “Training doesn’t prepare you for the man standing in front of you trying to kill you,” said Loaf. “It doesn’t prepare you for the arrows hailing down on you and there’s nowhere to hide but you have to stand your ground or the battle is lost before it begins.”

  “So we go back and try again,” said Param.

  “That only works if your army is already hardened and experienced. If the only problem was a failure of tactics or strategy, and by changing that, using the same soldiers, you can change the outcome. But if the problem is the soldiers themselves, then the warnings don’t work. They won’t remember the battle they lost. It will still be the first time they face an enemy.”

  “But will the raids really prepare them?” asked Rigg.

  “Yes,” said Loaf. “I’ve led men in battle. They don’t have to ha
ve fought a huge army. They just have to have fought somebody. They have to know what it means to stand their ground, to fight loyally beside their comrades. To depend on each other. And to win.”

  “So there will be killing in the raids,” said Rigg.

  “There’ll be fighting,” said Loaf. “That’s all we need. Yes, a few will die—with luck, only the enemy. But we’ll train our men not to charge in and slaughter the enemy. We’ll train them to disarm captives and control them. We’ll train them for as bloodless a victory as possible. Out of those defeated, demoralized soldiers, we might find many recruits for our own cause. But yes, if they face soldiers who stand and fight, then our men will have to kill them until the rest of them stop fighting. Or nobody’s standing.” Loaf looked around at the others, as if the fierceness of his gaze would convince them.

  Olivenko was nodding. “Loaf has fought in war. I never have. But I’ve read about battles till I nearly went blind, and it’s the simple truth. Training is essential, but it’s not enough. You have to blood your soldiers. Maybe not all of them, but enough to hold the fabric together on the battlefield. Things don’t always go your way, even if you achieve surprise. There has to be a cadre that will stand their ground, someone that the others can rally around. That brave cadre is never composed of green troops. It’s always composed of tough veterans.”

  “So the raids are to gather supplies and weapons and demoralize the enemy,” said Param. “But they’re also to turn some of our soldiers into those tough veterans.”

  “Then there’s no choice at all,” said Umbo.

  “There’s a choice,” said Olivenko. “If we take the second path—a green army that appears out of nowhere—I think we have a good chance of winning. Better than even odds. But Haddamander’s soldiers have experience—even if it’s only terrorizing villagers or beating down pathetic village revolts. They’ll know the sight of blood. And they’ll know the terrible things they’ve done, so they’ll believe that their enemy will have no mercy on them if they lose. There’s a chance they’ll have the cadre of veterans that the rest of the army rallies around. I give them one chance in three of winning.”

  “Not good enough,” said Rigg.

  “If we have a thousand soldiers who’ve taken part in raids,” said Loaf, “what does that do to our odds in that battle?”

  “Less of a surprise,” said Olivenko, “because Haddamander will know that there have been fifty raids. But we’ll still choose the time and place of battle. It’ll still be the first time we came with ten thousand men instead of fifty or a hundred. And we’ll have a core of a thousand veterans. I think our odds are four out of five.”

  “Four out of five isn’t that much better than two out of three,” said Param, sounding a little outraged.

  “It’s war,” said Olivenko. “Nothing is certain.”

  “Besides,” said Loaf, “Olivenko’s making up those numbers anyway.”

  Olivenko chuckled. “Yes. I’m putting numbers on my gut feelings. And even though so much depends on what the individual soldiers do, it also depends on how they’re led. On how much they love the Rebel King and the Young Queen. On how much they trust Captain Toad, who led them on all those miraculous raids. On how much Captain Loaf shouted at them and terrified them during training. And on how well we plan the battle itself.”

  “Which is where you’ll come into it,” said Rigg.

  “I’m a scholar of war now,” said Olivenko. “Not a commander.”

  “But the key adviser in our councils of war,” said Rigg.

  “None of us can match your knowledge of past wars,” said Umbo. “Just as none of us can match Loaf’s experience in battle.”

  “After a few dozen raids,” said Loaf, “you’ll pass me right up. It’s not as if I took part in any great war. I’ve done some bloody fighting, but there were never more than a few hundred on each side. And I never commanded more than a few score of men, and even that was only after the real commander died and I took over in the field. The logistics of a truly massive army—”

  “Another reason to learn from raiding,” said Olivenko.

  “And something else we’ll have to learn,” said Rigg. “I seem to have been nominated to lead troops in combat, and I don’t know if I can do it. I’m not a fighter. Father raised me to be a diplomat. Or maybe just a bureaucrat.”

  Loaf barked out a laugh. “What do you think the commander of an army is? It’s ninety percent bureaucracy—babysitting petulant commanders and dealing with their rivalries, planning where everybody will go and how and when they’ll march to get there, making sure their weapons and their food all arrive where they’re supposed to go. We’ll find men and train them to help you, but then you’ll have to manage them and their ambition and their fear.”

  “Do you imagine that you’re encouraging me?” asked Rigg.

  “I’m telling you that it’s the job that Ramex trained you for,” said Loaf.

  Maybe they were right, thought Rigg. Maybe he would find out he was up to the job. Or maybe he wouldn’t.

  Rigg turned to Ram Odin. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Ram Odin.”

  Ram Odin nodded gravely. “I didn’t want you to think I pushed you one way or another.”

  “Well, now we need to know. What do you think?”

  “I’ve spent ten thousand years or so, popping in and out, ­visiting here and there. All the wallfolds. I’ve seen bad governments and good ones. Ugly wars and fairly clean ones, as wars go. I think your plan is as good as any I’ve seen, and I think you won’t just be trading one group of thugs for another. My only new advice is this. Don’t choose the officers who’ll serve under you solely on the basis of their military ability. They can’t be ­idiots, of course, you have to be able to count on them. But when the war is over, your highest commanders are the ones who will know how to go about bringing down a government and setting themselves up at the head of a new one.”

  “How do we test them for lack of ambition?” asked Rigg.

  “Oh, I’m not suggesting you choose men who won’t try to do that,” said Ram Odin. “I’m suggesting that you choose men who, if they rebel and succeed in killing Param and Umbo and you and starting a new dynasty, they’ll be likely to govern fairly and well.”

  “So even if it’s a personal disaster for us,” said Rigg, “it won’t be a disaster for Stashiland.”

  “It’s the least you can do for the people, don’t you think?” said Ram Odin.

  CHAPTER 20

  Allies

  Noxon and Ram Odin rode down from the high Andes in a rattle­trap truck with a family of Indians. Noxon had to do all the talking, since he was the one who had passed through the Wall and was therefore fluent in the exact dialect of Quechua that the family spoke.

  This was Ram Odin’s native era on Earth, and he was able to get a duplicate copy of the credit chip belonging to his younger self. That took care of paying for their plane tickets. All Noxon had to do was pretend to be a Quechua boy as Ram explained that he was taking fifteen-year-old Noxon to Atlanta to consult with a plastic surgeon “to see if anything can be done for him.”

  The story explained Noxon’s obvious ignorance of airport procedures, made the deformity of his facemask into an asset rather than a liability, got them a lot of sympathy from airline personnel, and allowed Noxon to get through security without identification papers. As Ram whispered to him as they walked through the terminal to the gate, “Behind that facemask you could be fifteen or fifty. But nobody expects a fifteen-year-old Indian kid from the high Andes to have identification.”

  Meanwhile, Noxon looked at everything and everyone they passed. This was his first view of the Earth that would soon send the Destroyers to kill Garden; he had to learn who these people were.

  He knew of high technology from the starships that were buried in each wallfold of Garden. He had conversed with computers, he had been
raised by a mechanical man, and he had flown from place to place in flyers. He had seen the library in Odinfold, and the empty ruins of their great cities. But he had not been prepared for the degree to which technology pervaded the lives of ordinary people on Earth.

  “Everybody’s rich,” said Noxon to Ram Odin, as they sat together on an airplane flying from Lima to Atlanta.

  “Shhh,” said Ram Odin softly. “They think they’re poor, because they know that somebody somewhere has something they don’t have.”

  “Anybody can buy passage on a flyer here,” said Noxon softly.

  “To be fair, this is only an airplane,” said Ram Odin. “It can’t go into space.”

  “They can talk to anybody, anywhere in the world, and it takes no time at all. Where I come from, rulers and generals have to send messengers, and it takes days to get a reply.”

  “Remember, please, that high technology was deliberately suppressed where you come from,” whispered Ram Odin. “In eleven thousand years, you would certainly have surpassed this level of technology, if you hadn’t been so closely watched. The Odinfolders did.”

  “It’s better to be a commoner here than a king in Aressa Sessamo,” said Noxon.

  “Kings in Aressa Sessamo tend to be killed,” said Ram Odin, “so I can’t disagree with your point. Just remember how close Earth came to being destroyed by a comet only a few decades ago.”

  “And remember how few years will pass before Garden is—”

  A flight attendant interrupted them. “Can I bring you anything to drink?” she asked Ram Odin. Then, to Noxon, she said, “I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything alcoholic, young man, but we have a good selection of soft drinks and juices.”

  Noxon only smiled at her. He had no idea what to ask for.

  “He’ll have apple juice,” said Ram Odin, “and so will I.”

  “You have to keep yourself in shape, I know,” said the flight attendant.