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

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.”