“It doesn’t replace food, water, and rest,” said Ram.

“It seems you want to talk,” said Noxon. “But I need that toilet.”

Ram gestured him toward the open bathroom door. Noxon went inside and marveled, once again, at the machinery of daily life that humans of this era of Earth regarded as minimal acceptable conditions. Only a few hours on the plane, but these people had to replace several rows of seats with contraptions for carrying away bodily waste, and with galleys for the preparation of food and drink.

Few of these people could last three days in the wilderness where Noxon had spent his childhood. But they had, and would soon use, the power to wipe the world of Garden out of existence. These feeble toilet-using snack-eating destructive babies—but, like the weaker, possibly stupider Sapients whose superior ­weapons out-hunted and, maybe, outfought the Neanderthals, they had moved their evolution away from their bodies and onto their tools. They didn’t have to be individually clever or strong, patient or wise, or skilled at either peace or war. They could never have wiped out the Neanderthals hand-to-hand. But once arrows and spear-throwers joined their toolkit, the Sapients would use machines to do their killing from a safe distance.

CHAPTER 22

Finding a Home for Square

“What I’m about to ask may seem unpleasant to you,” said Auntie Wind.

Umbo responded more to her tone than her words; her tone said that everything was fine, and Umbo would be delighted. “Ask and we’ll see,” he said.

“I’m concerned about the baby you brought from the future. The little boy called Square.”

Umbo was puzzled. “How do you know about him?”

“Your friend Loaf passed him into our care a few weeks ago,” Auntie Wind answered. “I assumed you knew.”

“Loaf tells me only what he thinks I need to know.”

“Well, no matter what he thinks, I think you need to know, because as the timeshaper you are the one who saved the boy’s life and brought him into our time.”

“I do care what happens to him,” said Umbo.

“Loaf told us that the boy’s mother does not regard him as her own,” said Auntie Wind. “I understand this, in that she has no memory of carrying him in her womb. Though I do not understand why she cannot take him into her heart as any woman would take an orphan in need of care.”

“Leaky can’t make herself feel what doesn’t come to her naturally.” Or keep herself from feeling what does come; Umbo had too many painful memories of trying to get her to curb her emotions long enough to simply hear him out.

“That is unfortunate in a full-grown person,” said Auntie Wind. “Our difficulty is that our lives are spent in the sea, but caring for Square means that we must keep one nursing mother or another on land for extended periods. Since Square’s mother won’t have him, I ask consent to introduce him to a mantle and take him into the sea with us. It’s a good life.”

“I don’t think Loaf would want that,” said Umbo, “and yet I think it’s hard to ask Larfolders to stay on land. Let me talk to him.”

“I was hoping for a quick answer,” said Auntie Wind. “I’m facing a bit of a rebellion, I’m afraid—there’s already so much resentment over the mice that you brought in to possess our land, and some are saying now, Let the baby drink mousemilk, and leave us out of it.”

Umbo had heard nothing about resentment of the mice. As far as he knew, the Larfolders hadn’t even noticed them.

“Underwater,” said Auntie Wind, “it would be an easy matter to care for him. Even on land, with a mantle he wouldn’t need diapering.”

“The mantle makes it so you don’t have to . . .” Umbo was uncomfortable referring to defecation.

“No, but the mantle reaches down and cleans the baby, then washes itself. It’s very sanitary. Our mantles have had thousands of years to become habituated to our needs.”

Umbo sighed. “I understand your urgency. But remember what I can do. I’ll go ask Loaf, but I’ll return to you within an hour from now.”

“Will you?” she asked mildly.

Umbo was annoyed at her doubt. “If I don’t,” said Umbo, “it’ll be because I’m dead.”

“I wasn’t doubting your word,” said Auntie Wind, amused but kind. “I didn’t understand you to have so much precision in your movement in time.”

“It’s fairly recently acquired,” said Umbo. “But now, yes, I can place myself in time with some exactness, especially if it’s near a time where I remember having been. Like now.”

“Then I will wait here,” said Auntie Wind, “though it’s dry and hot and you have many days’ travel ahead of you.”

Let her think what she will, Umbo decided. He had no interest in taking days to find Loaf. He had the knife, which was also a “phone”—a communicator that could call for the Larfold flyer. So he walked only a mile from the shore before the flyer came to him. He didn’t bother making it find a landing spot; it lowered a ladder and he stepped onto it and waited as it drew itself—and him—upward through the floor of the vehicle.

Thus it was not even nightfall on the same day when Umbo came to the settlement between folds where Loaf trained soldiers for Umbo’s army. It was inconvenient that whenever Umbo arrived there, he was treated as king. Fortunately, he had refused to allow much folderol to develop, because, as he pointed out, Param was the reigning Queen-in-the-Tent, and he was merely King Consort. So the greetings were only a distraction as he searched for Loaf; there were no time-consuming visits to be paid for protocol’s sake.

He could hear Loaf barking orders to a field of clumsy oafs trying to master the use of the short spear. Apparently these were town-born recruits, because they didn’t even know the rudiments of quarterstaff and staff fighting that any child in Fall Ford would know just from rough play with the other children. Even privick girls learned how to defend themselves with the quarter, even if the full staff was too long for them to do more than vault streams with it.

Loaf would not be happy to be interrupted, so Umbo didn’t interrupt him. There was no urgency—Umbo had taken the flyer out of laziness and a desire not to expend more of his own life in meaningless walking, not because there was any time pressure. No matter how long this errand took, he would return to Larfold at the time he promised, or earlier.

Loaf noticed him right away, but Umbo deliberately looked off in another direction, then sat on the ground, sending a clear signal that he did not intend to interrupt. Loaf nodded to him, then returned to his work.

It was near sunset when he dismissed the weary, bruised, limping men to go off and have some of the glorious stew Leaky and her crew would have waiting for them. Some of the men complained about “stew every day,” but Loaf and Leaky had worked that out as the best way to make sure that food was always ready, no matter when Loaf dismissed the men from their training. Since other squads were training elsewhere, and would arrive for meals at different times, stew was the best solution for all.

And it wasn’t the same stew. Leaky made sure they had mul­tiple cauldrons at multiple hearths, and when one stew ran out, she had the pot washed thoroughly. There were cooks who claimed that never washing the pot, merely adding new water and new ingredients, “enriched” the flavor of the stew. But Leaky said, “I wouldn’t serve my customers a stew with ingredients older than their grandmothers, which is why our roadhouse was worth building a town around!”

Loaf made his way to Umbo with much more vigor than any of his men showed. “Is Rigg in need of these men?” he asked. “Because they’re not ready.”

“No, no, I haven’t seen Rigg,” said Umbo. “Nor do I need them. Unless one of them has teats full of milk.”