Orson Card - Ruins

“Mouse-Breeder’s mice,” said Umbo. “They have human genes in them. Including the genes of time manipulation. Only in these mice, the genes are expressed by time-displacement of inanimate objects. They can put anything anywhere.”

“So when they put a cylinder in my throat—”

“It’s what some Odinfolder humans told them to do,” said Umbo. “And they obeyed, because they knew that we could retrieve you.”

“Though it was harder than they thought,” said Rigg. “Because we didn’t want to retrieve you from a point before you learned all that you could learn here.”

“Whatever it is you learned,” said Olivenko. Was there a bit of scorn in his voice?

“We’ve spent nearly a year here, all told—a whole year since we left Ramfold and went to Vadeshfold. Which of the things that happened in that time should be erased?” asked Loaf. “We wanted to save your life, of course, but we didn’t want to kill a year of it in the process.”

Param felt uneasy, thinking of a version of the future in which her burnt-up body had no head left on it. “What will we do now?”

“Go to the border with Larfold,” said Rigg. “The wallfold to the north. Where Father Knosso was murdered.”

“We’re going to go back earlier and save him?” asked Param.

“We don’t dare,” said Umbo. “Not yet, anyway. We can’t go back before the time when Rigg took control of the Wall.”

“The flyer won’t pass through the Wall,” said Umbo. “We have to walk through. I’d rather not do it while experiencing the agony of the Wall.”

“We’ll go through the Wall at almost exactly the time Rigg took control,” said Loaf. “While we were still hiking around in Vadeshfold. Before we ever appeared here.”

“But they’ll see us,” said Param.

“Who?” asked Rigg.

“The Odinfolders.”

“Oh, well—they probably will,” said Rigg, “since they seem to cluster around the Wall. But they won’t know to stop us.”

“Unless the mice send them another Future Book,” said Umbo, laughing.

“Is that who’s been writing the Books of the Future?” asked Param.

“No, no,” said Olivenko. “This is the only timestream in which these mice existed. All the other Future Books were sent using the original crude displacement machine, before time-shifting was turned over to the mice and became precise.”

“And did the Odinfolders—the mice , I suppose—really alter Father’s genes? And create Umbo outright?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “But this is the first timestream in which we existed. Ramex was carefully breeding for time-shifting power, but he hadn’t reached us yet, not until the mice intervened. And he would never have reached our level in his breeding program, because Garden would have been destroyed first.”

They explained to Param all that they had learned in the starship. And Param could see that something else had happened, too—Umbo and Rigg were still a little wary around each other, but Umbo was actually cooperating with Rigg and not arguing with every little thing he said. Something happened on that starship, and Param asked what it was.

“I died a couple of times,” said Umbo.

“Really?”

“Copies of me,” said Umbo. He explained how that worked, and Param nodded. “The way there must have been two versions of me back in the library, when we were running away a minute ago. Six months ago.”

“Only because your earlier self didn’t see your later self, and so you didn’t turn away from the path in which you time-shifted, you didn’t cause yourself to split,” said Olivenko.

“But I still died,” said Param.

“Only it’s all right,” said Umbo, “because we don’t remember dying.”

“It’s not all right,” said Rigg.

Param and Umbo both looked at him, waiting for an explanation, and Param was surprised to see how upset Rigg looked.

“It’s not all right, because I saw you both dead.” He looked away. “I never want to see that again.”

“Really gruesome?” asked Umbo.

“There was a version of both of you,” said Rigg, “that felt all the pain and terror of death. You don’t remember it, but it happened.”

“And by the Odinfolders’ account, the whole world has gone through that many times over,” said Olivenko.

“Which brings us back to Umbo’s idea,” said Param. “How do you figure the Odinfolders are going to destroy the human race on Earth, if they haven’t made a weapon or even planned what such a weapon might be?”

“The mice,” said Umbo, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What can they do?” asked Param.

“If a breeding pair can make it back to Earth,” said Umbo, “they’ll have maybe a dozen children after three weeks. If only five of them are females, and they reach sexual maturity in six weeks, and they have the same number of female children, five in a generation, how many will they have before that Destroyer fleet is scheduled to take off?”

Loaf raised a hand. “These mice reach sexual maturity in four weeks. It’s one of the first changes Mouse-Breeder made.”

“Even without any notion of weaponry when they arrive,” said Umbo, “they’ll have several generations to learn all about it on Earth. And plenty of time in which to carry out the war. They won’t even need to learn about mechanical weapons, anyway. They’re experts on genes. Look what they did to us .”

Param was in awe. “You think a pair of mice could destroy the human race in a year?”

“That’s if only one breeding pair makes it through,” said Umbo. “And I’m betting more than that will make it.”

“Mice are vermin, in the eyes of Earth people,” said Olivenko. “They’ll exterminate them.”

“They won’t even know the mice are there,” said Umbo. “It won’t be like the library, where they’re out in the open. Mice are good at hiding. And the voyage doesn’t take long.”

“How will they get off the ship?” asked Param.

“They’re collectively even smarter than we are,” said Rigg. “They’ll find a way.”

“And then the Destroyers won’t come,” said Param. “So Garden will be saved.”

No one answered her. Umbo looked away. Rigg blushed. Was he ashamed of her?

“That’s true,” said Loaf. “But how is it better to trade the destruction of human life on one planet for another?”

Param shook her head. “It isn’t, except for one point. This way, the planet that survives is ours . And I count that as very much better than the other way around. Does that make me a monster?”

“We’re all monsters,” said Loaf, “because we all thought of that. We’re just ashamed of ourselves for thinking it.”

“I’m not,” said Param.

And then it occurred to her that that was why Rigg had blushed. Because he was ashamed of her for not being ashamed.

Which was why Rigg could never have been King-in-the-Tent.

The whole way to the Wall, Rigg sat in the flyer, looking out the window at the prairies that passed under them, and then the tree-covered hills as they came into the north, where autumn was in full swing again. It made Rigg feel a moment’s nostalgia for his life in the high forests of the Stashi Mountains.

But then he remembered that those high mountains had a starship under them, and the cliffs that loomed over Fall Ford had been raised by the collision that wiped out most of the native life of Garden. The man who had walked with him and taught him and called him “son” was a machine, and a liar, and when he died he didn’t die at all, but he left Rigg to feel the grief of the loss, and then to puzzle things out without help.