Ruins

CHAPTER 18 Transit

Umbo watched as the mice swarmed through the flyer, climbing all over each other in writhing heaps.

“They’re telling each other what happened here,” Loaf said.

“I think some of them are mating,” said Rigg drily.

Umbo saw how Param drew her legs up onto the seat. It wasn’t as if she had any memory of being killed by the mice. Umbo knew that Odinex had killed two copies of himself. He had even glanced down at the bodies as he walked over the bridge out of the starship. But they meant nothing to him. They had been him, but they weren’t him anymore. Still, he was bound to be a bit more wary of expendables now, so it probably wasn’t irrational for Param to be wary of the mice.

“It occurs to me,” said Umbo, “that we are nothing but a mouse’s way of getting through the Wall.”

Olivenko gave a sharp bark of a laugh. Nobody else responded.

Umbo went on. “And the mice exist only as the Odinfolders’ tenth strategy for preventing the destruction of Garden. If any of the earlier ones had worked, all the mice of Odinfold would be ordinary field mice or house mice.”

“And all of us exist on Garden,” said Param, “because the humans of Earth wanted to spread out onto other worlds.”

“You say that as if it were a poor reason for being,” said Olivenko, still amused.

“Why did humans ever come to exist?” asked Umbo. “At least we and the mice have a purpose. Somebody meant for us to be here.”

“Every generation exists to give rise to the next,” said Olivenko. “Every generation exists because of the desire of the previous one. It’s the cycle of life.”

“So you’re saying that the cycle of life exists in order to perpetuate the cycle of life,” said Umbo.

“Round and round,” said Olivenko.

“My head is spinning,” said Rigg. “I wish I could hear what they’re saying.”

“I’ve never wanted to be part of the conversation of mice,” said Olivenko.

“I’ve spent half my life as a mouse,” said Param. “Hiding the way they do. Watching from the walls.”

“Snatching food in the night from a dark kitchen?” asked Umbo.

“The kitchen in Flacommo’s house was never dark,” said Param. “Something was cooking every hour of the day and night.”

“Which is pretty much the way these expendables and starships are,” said Umbo. “If we’re all about the cycle of life, what are they about? Tools made by the starship builders. But for eleven thousand years, their starships haven’t flown. They’ve been the stewards of the human race, obeying some set of rules laid down at the beginning. Ram Odin changed the rules, and the second Ram Odin changed what he could change, and the Odinfolders have fiddled, but mostly the expendables have followed plans of their own, telling us what they wanted us to hear.”

“What’s your point?” asked Param, sounding a little annoyed.

“What if the Destroyers come to burn off Garden because of something the expendables tell the Visitors?” asked Umbo. “What if it has nothing to do with anything that any of the people of Garden do or say or built?”

They were silent again, but this time not because of uninterest in Umbo’s observation.

“I don’t know how we’d ever find out,” said Olivenko.

“The mice know what the expendables and ships say to each other,” said Loaf.

“No,” said Umbo. “The mice have told you they intercept the ships’ communications. The Odinfolders told us they could do it, too, but how do they know if they’re getting everything? They can’t intercept what the ships and expendables don’t actually say. Besides, the expendables know they’re being spied on, and they’re good at lying.”

“The ships tell me the truth,” said Rigg. “As far as I know.”

“I hope so,” said Umbo. “Because when you think about it, the ships and the expendables are all the same thing. The same mind.”

“Actually,” said the ship, “we have a completely different program set.”

“Shut up, please,” said Rigg cheerfully.

“The ships take over the expendables whenever they want,” Umbo went on. “That means that whatever the expendables do, the ships consent to it. Does it work the other way around?”

“Whatever the ships do is because the expendables want it?” asked Param.

“The orbiters are set to destroy the life of any wallfold that develops technology the expendables disapprove of,” said Umbo. “That means that part of the expendables’ mission is to judge everything we do. Everything the mice do. And destroying us all is part of their mission. What if this seed of time-shifting ability that exists among all the descendants of Ram Odin is a forbidden weapon? Then the only way to expunge it from the world is to wipe out the human race on Garden.”

“That’s as good a guess as any,” said Rigg.

“But still only a guess,” said Olivenko.

That irritated Umbo. “Why are other people’s ideas ‘theories,’ but mine are ‘guesses’?”

“They’re all guesses,” said Rigg. “And they’re all theories. This is one we have to keep in mind when we meet the Visitors. Maybe they’re not the problem. Maybe it’s what they learn from the logs of all the ships’ computers.”

“Maybe it’s what they’re told by the expendables,” said Umbo. “Maybe there’s programming deeper than anything that Ram Odin could reach. Maybe they had an agenda from the beginning.”

“In the beginning,” said Param, “there was only one starship, and it was coming to this world to found one colony. As far as the Visitors know until they actually get here, the colony on Garden should be only twelve years old. What deep secret plan could possibly exist in the expendables’ programming?”

“A plan that has nothing to do with us, but which gets applied to us anyway,” said Umbo.

“How will we ever know?” asked Rigg seriously. “How can we ever know anything?”

“I think we have to go back to the beginning,” said Umbo. “I think we have to talk to Ram Odin.”

“We can’t,” said Rigg. “We don’t dare. If we change his choice, we undo all of human history on Garden.”

“Not undo, re do,” said Olivenko.

“And maybe not,” said Umbo. “There were nineteen Ram Odins, at least for a few minutes. What if we could talk to one of the ones who died?”

“What could we learn from that?” asked Olivenko, a little scornfully. “Those aren’t the Ram Odins that made all the decisions that shaped this world.”

“First,” said Rigg, “Ram Odin only made the decisions that he made, based on the data the ships and the expendables gave him. But he also knew things about how the expendables worked that we don’t know.”

“The mice are leaving,” said Param.

It was true. They were rushing from the flyer, down the ramp and simply dropping off its sides. It took a surprisingly long time. They had apparently been swarming everywhere in the vehicle.

“Alone at last,” said Olivenko, when the last mouse went down the ramp.

“There are still five on Loaf,” said Rigg. “And three hiding in the upholstery.”

Those all came out of hiding and headed out the door.

“They don’t have to go,” said Rigg. “We have nothing to hide.”

But the mice went anyway.

Umbo got up and went to the doorway and looked out. They were on the brow of a hill, surrounded mostly by woodland. He could see several housetrees of the Odinfolders. Rigg came and stood beside him. “They’re at home,” said Rigg.

“But not coming out to see what we’re doing,” said Umbo.

“They see the Odinfold flyer,” said Rigg, “and all they can see of us is a couple of people standing in the doorway. As far as they know, we’re transporting mice for some kind of mousemoot.”

Umbo turned back to face the others. “Should we do it?” he asked.

“Transport the mice with us into the past?” asked Loaf. “We gave our word.”

“We don’t even know if we can do it,” said Umbo.

“Of course we can,” said Rigg. “If we can take Loaf with us, we can take anybody.”

Loaf smiled wanly.

“When should we travel to?” asked Umbo. “How far into the past are we going to take them?”

“As soon after we got control of the Wall as possible, I suppose,” said Rigg.

Umbo noticed the way he said “we.” As if anybody but him had any power over it. “I don’t carry a perfect calendar in my head,” said Umbo. “Why not just go through now, a year or so before the Visitors arrive?”

“Because the mice want more than a few of their generations to get established,” said Loaf. “They want to take ten thousand mice through the Wall, so they’ll have millions in place before the Visitors come.”

“That’s what the mice want,” said Umbo.

“We gave our word,” said Param.

“Based on information they gave us,” said Umbo. “And what the expendables and the ship told us.”

“Umbo has a point,” said Rigg. “Not the point he thinks he’s making—we’re going to keep our word, or at least I am. But we don’t know if we can take ten thousand mice into the past. Or even fifty. And how will we pinpoint when to arrive?”

“Just . . . hook on to some path, like you always do,” said Umbo.

“What path?” asked Rigg. “How do we know which of the paths that come near the Wall are from that time, or even close to it?”

“Take the flyer back with us,” said Olivenko, “and when we get there, ask it if we hit the right time.”

“No,” said Umbo. “If we arrive at a time before Rigg got control of the ships, then the flyer doesn’t have to do anything we say.”

“But it’s the flyer from now, from the future of that time,” said Olivenko.

“Machines aren’t people,” said Umbo. “It will sync up with the starship computers of that time and do what they tell it to do—and they won’t be obeying Rigg. They won’t even know who Rigg is.”

“We’re so powerful,” said Param. “But now we want to be all-knowing, too.”

“Well, it would be nice,” said Rigg.

“I think we need to fly back to where we came through the Wall from Vadeshfold,” said Umbo, “and go back to that time, where Rigg can see our own paths coming through the Wall.”

“But we won’t have the mice there,” said Loaf.

“They assembled here,” said Umbo. “Let them assemble there.”

“And then how long will it take them to travel here to the Larfold Wall?” asked Loaf. “They have little tiny legs.”

“I stay here,” said Umbo. “Rigg flies back there. Rigg hooks onto our paths. I push Rigg back, complete with the flyer. Rigg flies back here in that time, and then when he gets here, I pull him back to this time.”

“So much rigmarole,” said Olivenko.

“It’s the only way Rigg can go back and then get back to this time exactly,” said Umbo. “I’m still needed for that—the ability to stay in the present and send somebody else into the past. When Rigg comes back to the present, his own path will be here, at the Wall, and then we can take the mice back. Even if we can only take twenty or fifty or a hundred at a time, I can send Rigg back with the mice again and again, bring Rigg back to the present, and send him again.”

“I wish I could sense paths through the curvature of the planet,” said Rigg. “I can see them through hills, but they get faint and then invisible as more and more planetary mass gets between me and them.”

Param got up from her chair and walked to the door. She put her hands on Umbo’s shoulders. “What are you planning, Umbo?” she asked.

“I’m planning to do whatever we decide to do,” said Umbo, puzzled by the question.

“If you push Rigg into the past,” she said, “and then leave him there, he can’t get back to the present. He can’t see paths in the future. He can’t shift forward.”

“But I won’t leave him there,” said Umbo, blushing as he realized what treachery she was accusing him of.

“I’m sorry,” said Param, “but I’m trying to figure out what great wellspring of loyalty you’re drawing from here. Aren’t you the one who got rid of Rigg before, when we were still on our way to Odinfold?”

This was too much to bear, coming from her. “You’re the one who refused to go on hiking! I was trying to help you.”

“You were trying to get out from under Rigg’s thumb,” said Param. “Don’t blame it on me. Stranding Rigg in the past would make you the only time-shifter left here in the present.”

“But I won’t do that,” said Umbo.

“And we know that because . . .”

“Because I say so,” said Umbo.

“And we’re supposed to take the word of a peasant boy?” asked Param scornfully.

“The word of peasant boys is worth a lot more than the word of the royal family, as far as I’ve been able to see!” shouted Umbo.

In answer, Param gave him a shove out the door.

Umbo stumbled backward, lost his footing on the ramp, and fell off to the side into the grass. Above him, he could hear Param say to Rigg, “Now let’s take the flyer and go.”

“I see,” said Rigg.

“See what?” asked Param.

“That you’re our mother’s true daughter,” said Rigg.

Umbo was still getting to his feet when he heard a scuffle above him. He looked up to see Param stumbling down the ramp, tripping, falling.

Umbo might have caught her, or broken her fall a little. Instead he ducked under the ramp. She fell unimpeded into the grass, just as he had. Only she wasn’t used to falling. She didn’t have the catlike reflexes that Umbo had developed growing up in Fall Ford, playing in the woods, by the river, on the rocky cliffs, climbing every tree, every boulder, with other boys and many a girl scuffling with him. She fell like a lump and then cried out in pain; she curled up, holding her elbow.

Umbo had seen the elbow bend way too far in the wrong direction. And now it hung limply. Torn ligaments, broken bones—it had to be one or the other, or both. It wasn’t a hinge joint anymore. It was more like loose skin between two bones.

“That was ugly,” said Umbo.

Param screamed in agony and then . . . disappeared.

“Param,” cried Rigg, rushing down the ramp. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

Loaf and Olivenko followed him out of the flyer and down the ramp. “Rigg, you stupid little—” Loaf began.

“I know!” shouted Rigg. “But she had no right to treat Umbo that way! Who does she think she is?”

“She thinks she’s the Queen-in-the-Tent of the Sessamids!” said Olivenko. “And oh, surprise: As soon as your mother dies, she is.”

“She’s not queen of anything, here,” said Rigg.

“She’s my queen wherever she is,” said Olivenko.

“Well isn’t that sweet,” said Loaf. “As big a collection of idiots as I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“We have to get her back,” said Rigg.

“Any bright ideas about how to do that?” asked Loaf.

“I can write her a note. I used to write her notes on a slate back in Flacommo’s house. Before we actually met.”

“She can’t have gotten far,” said Olivenko. “It’s not as if she was in any shape to move.”

“If she isn’t moving,” said Rigg, “she wouldn’t disappear. Time-slicing only makes her invisible if she’s moving.”

“How can she move with that elbow?” asked Umbo.

“She doesn’t walk on her elbows,” said Rigg.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” said Umbo. “I’m the one who came up with a plan to get us and ten thousand mice through the Wall at exactly the right time.”

“Well, now we’re not doing anything,” said Olivenko.

“Listen to yourselves,” said Loaf. “Is there anyone here with a brain? This didn’t have to happen.”

“But it did!” shouted Umbo. “And it’s not my fault!”

“Nobody thinks it’s your fault,” said Loaf. “And it was Param whose ignorant arrogance caused this particular problem, that plus Rigg’s misguided loyalty to you. So here’s what you’re going to do. Rigg and Umbo, you’re both going to go to the top of this ramp and make a magical appearance a few minutes back in time, just before stupid Rigg pushed his stupid sister down the stupid ramp so she could shatter her stupid elbow.”

“But then all this will be undone,” said Umbo.

“Yes,” said Loaf, incredulous. “That’s what we need to accomplish—undoing all this wonderful nightmare!”

“But then I’ll never know that Rigg is still my friend!” said Umbo. And to his surprise, he had tears on his cheeks. He was crying. Why was he crying?

“Silbom’s left . . .” Loaf began. “Silbom’s left and right and middle everything. Go up there and tell yourselves what happened but stop this stupidity from going so far. Do you understand me?”

“You’re not my father, you know,” said Umbo.

“I’m as close to a father as you’ll ever get,” said Loaf, “and don’t you forget it.”

“I will forget it,” said Umbo. “That’s what you’re sending us up the ramp to do.”

“Yes, I am. So do it. Erase this lovely moment of agony for Param and stupidity for you and Rigg and utter frustration for the only grownups in our little company.”

“Are you counting me as a grownup?” asked Olivenko. “How sweet.”

“Go,” said Loaf.

Umbo and Rigg walked up the ramp together.

Umbo hit the ground after his fall from the ramp. He could hear Param saying, “Now let’s take the flyer and go.”

“I see,” said Rigg.

“See what?” asked Param.

But instead of Rigg answering her, Umbo heard his own voice coming from above him. “Don’t do it, Rigg,” he said.

“Don’t do what?” asked Rigg.

“Don’t push her, you fool,” said Rigg.

Rigg?

Umbo got to his feet. He could see himself and Rigg standing at the top of the ramp, talking to Rigg and Param.

Something bad must have happened, and he and Rigg had come back together to prevent it.

“I won’t,” said Rigg-of-the-present. “I never would.”

“You did,” said Rigg-of-the-past.

Umbo-of-the-past said, “But I’m glad you’re still my friend.” Then he turned a little and shouted into the air. “And Loaf is not my father!”

Then the apparitions of Umbo and Rigg disappeared.

Rigg and Param stood there in the doorway of the flyer. Param glared at Rigg. “You were going to push me down the ramp?”

“Don’t ever talk to my friend that way again,” said Rigg to Param. “I trust him a lot more than I trust you.” Rigg walked down the ramp. “Are you all right?” he asked Umbo.

“I am now,” said Umbo. “Worth the fall.”

“I thought you were my brother!” said Param. And then she disappeared.

Loaf and Olivenko appeared in the doorway of the flyer. “I don’t know what you two came back to prevent,” said Olivenko, “but it must have been a catastrophe, if this is better.”

“It’s not my fault if Param decides to disappear,” said Rigg.

“She’s your sister,” said Olivenko. “And someday she’ll be Queen-in-the-Tent.”

“And Umbo is a powerful time-shifter,” said Rigg. “Maybe she should remember that when she starts talking about peasant boys. Where I grew up, peasant boys were way above my station!”

“Seems to me none of you has grown up,” said Loaf.

Umbo had a pretty good idea of why his apparition had declared that Loaf was not his father. “Are we going to do what I suggested?” asked Umbo. “You fly back there and hook onto the past, and then fly here, and then I bring you and the flyer back?”

“Can you hold on to me that far?” asked Rigg.

“I don’t know.”

“So how will I know if you can bring me back to the present?”

Loaf held up his hand. There was a mouse on his shoulder, talking to him. “Our friend suggests you use the orbital phone to talk to each other when Rigg is at the other place.”

Umbo had no idea what Loaf was talking about. The term “orbital phone” meant nothing to him. That is, he understood both of the words, but had no idea what physical object they might be referring to, or how it would work.

“The knife,” said Loaf.

“Knife?” asked Umbo.

“It’s an orbital phone,” said Loaf.

“You knew this?” asked Umbo.

“I had no idea,” said Loaf.

“What’s an orbital phone?”

“I have no idea,” said Loaf.

Umbo pulled the knife from its sheath at his belt. “I thought this was a duplicate set of ships’ logs.”

“The jewels are a duplicate set,” said Loaf, who was apparently getting an explanation from the mouse. “But the hilt under it is a communicator. Wherever you are, it connects to the starship of that wallfold by transmitting a signal to the orbiter, which relays it to the starship, and back and forth like that.”

“This does that?” asked Umbo, looking at the knife. “It still looks like a knife.”

“My friend says that it’s in constant communication with the orbiter,” said Loaf. “The whole time you’ve had it, it’s been transmitting everything we said and did to the starship computers.”

Umbo flung it away from him. “It’s been spying on us.”

“It’s been keeping you connected to the rest of the world,” said Olivenko.

“Is there anything else it does?” asked Rigg, picking up the knife.

“Cuts meat,” said Loaf.

“Was that your joke, or the mouse’s?” asked Umbo.

“Mine,” said Loaf. “The mouse says the orbital phone was all they could fit into the hilt.”

“It must be a primitive design,” said Umbo acidly.

“Yes,” said Loaf. “It was made and sent back to you more than a hundred years ago.”

“But we only got it two years—” and then Umbo interrupted himself and fell silent. They got the knife two years ago, but with time-sending, that had nothing to do with when it was sent. Umbo blushed.

“We’re all still trying to figure it all out,” said Rigg. “So the knife is a communicator. No wonder the expendables in every wallfold knew all about what we were doing.”

“Well, they knew all about me and Loaf,” said Umbo. “During those months I had the knife and you were in Aressa Sessamo.” Then Umbo blushed again, thinking of the prank he had played, stealing one of the jewels from the bag before Loaf hid it near the Tower of O. What a child he had been. No wonder Loaf got so impatient with him.

Does the fact that I feel embarrassed about it now mean that I’m growing up? Umbo decided not to ask the question aloud. He had a feeling he knew what Loaf’s answer would be.

They waited an hour or so as Rigg tracked Param’s path down the ramp. As soon as she was clear of the flyer, Rigg took off, heading for their original entry point into Odinfold. Umbo stayed there on the knoll, holding the knife, talking to Rigg continuously. He knew that when he sent Rigg back in time, he kept hold of him, not with his eyes, but with some other sense, a deep knowledge of where and when Rigg was located. They had found each other in Aressa Sessamo without being able to see each other, and Umbo had pushed Rigg back and forth in time. But the distance now would be far greater, and there was that problem of line-of-sight. If Rigg couldn’t track paths through the curvature of Garden, could Umbo hold on to Rigg despite the thickness of rock and earth between them?

It took hours to complete the voyage, but Rigg and Umbo were still talking and, more to the point, Umbo could still feel whatever part of Rigg he felt when he had a grip on his timeflow.

“Make sure you take the flyer with you,” said Umbo.

“I definitely don’t want to walk back, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Rigg. “By the way, I have a mouse on my shoulder.”

“And I have a flea on my butt,” said Umbo. “Have you locked onto the path you want?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “Do it.”

Umbo threw Rigg back in time, and Rigg’s own connection with the path put him exactly where he needed to be. Umbo could never have found that moment with such precision, but he recognized the distance in time when he felt it. Yes, that is when we were, and where.

Keeping his focus on Rigg during the return voyage was much harder, if only because they couldn’t talk. The orbital phone only communicated with the ships and expendables that existed at the same time, not with a flyer moving over the prairie and woods a year ago.

But Umbo did not fail; he held on to Rigg. And while he could not trace paths, he knew when Rigg was back in place. It was a sense of rightness, of nearness. The flyer had completed its journey; now it was a fact that the flyer had landed nearby a year ago, and if Umbo brought Rigg back to the present, he would leave a path behind him, in the right place, at the right time.

The mouse, too, no doubt.

“I’m doing it now,” said Umbo to Loaf and Olivenko. “I wish I knew where Param was.”

“It’s been long enough that she could be anywhere,” said Loaf.

“With our luck, she’ll be stubborn and angry enough to have perched in the center of where the flyer was when she got out of it,” said Olivenko.

“Can you tell where Rigg will appear?” asked Loaf.

“He’ll appear wherever he is in the time that’s ‘now’ to him,” said Umbo. “I know he’s close, but I can’t say where for sure.”

“Just do it,” said Loaf. “If something terrible happens, you can go back and warn yourself not to do whatever we did that went wrong.”

“My whole stupid plan, probably,” said Umbo. Then, with a sigh, he let go of the continuous pushing that had held Rigg in the past.

Nothing happened. No flyer appeared.

“Are you going to do it?” asked Loaf.

“It’s done,” said Umbo. “I brought Rigg back to now. I just don’t know where he was when I did it.” Umbo rose to his feet to scout the horizon. Then he remembered that if Rigg had returned to the present, and still had the flyer with him, the orbital phone should work again. He pulled out the knife and talked to it, feeling stupid the whole time. “Rigg?” he said. Several times.

And then the knife answered him. “What’s so urgent?”

“You returned to our time,” said Umbo, relieved.

“I decided not to come to an area where Param might have wandered,” said Rigg. “I thought you’d figure that out.”

“We did,” said Umbo, “but what if I was wrong? What if I had stranded you somewhere else. Some when else?”

“You didn’t. But I can only talk to you this way while I remain with the flyer. I was already a hundred meters away, walking toward you, when the flyer called me back. So let’s hold the rest of our conversation till I get there.”

It took twenty minutes for Rigg to join them. “How far did you think Param could have gotten?” said Loaf when Rigg returned.

Rigg looked annoyed. “She had five hours. If she slices time just barely enough to stay invisible, she can cover a lot of ground. And what if she got into those trees and stopped time-slicing? Then she could have walked at a normal pace and gotten anywhere.”

“Can you see your own path?” asked Umbo. “The one you just made?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “We can do this now.”

“And where is Param?” asked Olivenko.

“Over there,” said Rigg, pointing toward the edge of the woods.

Olivenko looked, and when he did, Param reappeared. She turned away from them and made no move to join them, but she was visible again, and that was a good thing.

With the first pass, Loaf got a dozen mice to climb onto Rigg’s clothing before Umbo sent him into the past. Umbo brought him back a few moments later, and the mice were no longer with him.

“I tested it,” said Rigg. “I was in control of the Wall.”

“Did you send them through?” asked Umbo.

“I was only there for a couple of minutes,” said Rigg. “I wasn’t going to strand them fifty feet into the Wall. It’ll take a long time for mice to cover the distance, so I figured we’d move them all into the past and then open the Wall and let them all through.”

With the next sending, a couple of hundred mice climbed up onto Rigg, or clumped up near him, all touching him in a continuous heap of rodentkind. A musine mound. A mass of musculinity.

Not that the scientific name Mus musculus still applied to these creatures, even if it was the correct term for their ancestors. More like Mus sapiens now. Or perhaps, recognizing their human kinship, Homo musculus.

Umbo collected his thoughts and focused on Rigg, preparing to send him.

“Wait,” said Olivenko. “Don’t go back to the exact place you went before.”

Rigg got it at once, and Umbo understood only a moment later. If Rigg latched onto the same moment in time, while he was sitting in the same spot, he’d return to the past at the same moment and in the same place he had before. The two versions of Rigg would annihilate each other.

Rigg got up and moved a few meters away. “So the mice don’t crash into each other, either,” he explained.

Then the mouseheap remade itself, and Umbo gathered them all into his attention and began to try to push them back.

It was as if each one of them had a mass as great as Rigg. Like pushing a boat up a mountain. “I can’t,” said Umbo.

“Just send as many as you can,” said Rigg. “Let’s see how many that is.”

Umbo gave a shove to the past. He could still see Rigg and the mice. But when the mice nearest Rigg scampered away from him, they vanished; Umbo had no hold on them. Other mice, however, were still in the present moment, and so as they moved away, they remained as visible as ever.

Umbo brought Rigg back, and they assessed how many they had sent. Only about fifty or sixty were gone, the mice told Loaf.

“That means it’ll take about two hundred sendings,” said Olivenko. “If you’re going to do all ten thousand.”

“We need to,” said Loaf.

“Then we will,” said Umbo.

“Can you do it?” asked Rigg. “You look tired already.”

“I’ll do all I can, and then I’ll rest,” said Umbo. “What does it matter if we spread the sending across several days, as long as they all arrive at the same time and place?”

“I told them to head for those trees,” said Rigg. He turned to Loaf. “They do understand me when I talk, right?”

“They hear us just fine,” said Loaf.

As the day wore on to evening, they did another dozen sendings, each time with more mice attached. They had moved a good way along the knoll. But by then Umbo really was exhausted, and it was getting dark.

“We’ll continue in the morning,” said Rigg.

“I can do another,” said Umbo.

“These last two were smaller than the one before,” said Rigg. “You’re exhausted. We’re done for the day.”

Umbo was content to wait and rest.

Loaf had been cooking something over a fire he built. Umbo was vaguely aware that Loaf had gone down to one of the Odinfold houses and apparently he got food, because he had corn roasting and a loaf of bread and a quarter of a cheese. “They eat pretty simply,” said Loaf. “Not like what they fed us in the library.”

“That was simple fare,” said Olivenko.

“By the standards of Aressa Sessamo the library food was simple,” said Loaf. “And by the standards of O. But for this region of Odinfold, it would be a banquet. This is the best they have here. And speaking as an old soldier, I think it’s just fine.”

As Umbo, Rigg, and Loaf ate, Olivenko took his supper over to Param. A few moments later, Umbo heard distant weeping. He looked over to the edge of the woods where, sure enough, Param was sobbing into Olivenko’s shoulder.

She despises you, Umbo, he told himself. You’ll never be anything but a peasant boy to her. And what do you care? You stopped being in love with her months ago.

But seeing her holding on to Olivenko that way stabbed Umbo with jealousy all the same.

In the morning, Param ate breakfast with them, and formally apologized for her “petulant actions” the day before. Just as formally, Rigg and Umbo apologized in return. “I don’t know what we came back to prevent,” said Rigg, “but I have a feeling I behaved very badly.”

“Not in this version of history,” said Param.

But Umbo noticed that she hardly looked at him. Was it shame for having pushed him off the flyer ramp? Or contempt because he was just a peasant boy?

For your information, princess, I can make you a pair of shoes out of grass and rose thorns. I have a skill; I’m a cobbler’s son. Sort of.

It was the first time Umbo could recall ever being proud of something he acquired from his reputed father, the master cobbler Tegay. And it’s not as if Tegay ever praised Umbo for his prentice work.

Breakfast done, they went back to pushing mice into the past. They were done well before noon.

“Eleven thousand, one hundred ninety-one mice,” said Loaf.

“You’re joking,” said Umbo. “Why that number?”

“It’s a holy number here, too,” said Loaf.

“But they don’t believe in holiness,” said Umbo.

“No, you don’t believe in it,” said Loaf. “The mice are very devout. I don’t think the number has any practical value. They just think of it as a sacred number and they expect their new colony will prosper if they start with that many settlers.”

Thinking of mice as “settlers” jarred, but that’s how it would always be, Umbo knew. Mice were hard to see as human, or of equal value. There were so many of them.

“What can they even do?” asked Umbo. “It’s not like they can pull a plow.”

“They don’t have to farm,” said Loaf. “They scavenge beautifully. They would never have developed civilization on their own, but because they inherited the human culture and knowledge of the Odinfolders, they could leap forward vastly. And they’re designed to require less food than ordinary mice. So they can live as scavengers and still have leisure to create.”

“Create what?” asked Umbo. “Can they wield a hammer? Iron doesn’t get any softer just because the blacksmith is very tiny. What can they actually make?”

“They seem content about their ability to establish a very high level of civilization in a very short time,” said Loaf. “But now it’s time for us to go.”

Umbo turned to Param. “Are you coming with us?”

She turned away from him.

“Of course she is,” said Olivenko.

“Oh,” said Umbo. “She’ll allow the peasant boy to push her into the past?”

“She apologized for that,” said Olivenko.

“Not enough for me to forget it,” said Umbo. “Or to believe she meant it.”

“Then leave me behind,” said Param spitefully. “I can watch the world get destroyed from here as well as from anywhere else.”

“We need you,” said Umbo.

Param turned her face away. But Umbo could tell she was pleased.

They all held whatever bags and extra clothing they meant to take with them. It wasn’t much.

And this time, Umbo didn’t have to push. He and Rigg instead pulled together, shifting themselves and their friends all at once, leaving no anchor in the future they had just left.

The hill was teeming with mice, except in the spot where they arrived. Mice were so thick on the ground in every direction that it was easy to see the edge of the Wall, because mice were arrayed right up against the spot where the Wall’s despair was first clearly noticeable.

“I’m letting the Wall down now,” said Rigg.

The mice seemed to sense at once that it was gone, and they surged forward, down and across the little vale. It took hours for the mice all to go through the Wall. Umbo sat and watched the undulating sea of mice until they were gone. We are servants of the mice. We have opened a door for them. Does it even matter now whether we cross into Larfold?

It matters to Rigg and Param—their father died here. And to Olivenko, because Knosso was his mentor and his king. Maybe Loaf cares. But I’m just a tool of the mice, or the tool of the Sessamids, or Loaf’s surrogate son.

No, I can’t think that way anymore. These are my friends. It’s my choice to go with them, to help them do the things that matter to them.

“Please come with us,” said Rigg.

Umbo looked at him, startled. Did he know what Umbo was thinking?

“Of course I will,” said Umbo.

“You’re free to do whatever you want,” said Rigg. “I couldn’t have done this without you, so I’m glad you were with me. But now it’s done. You never asked to be in the business of saving the world.”

Umbo was moved. “You think it’s a monopoly of the royal family?” The words could have sounded harsh, but Umbo said them with a grin.

“The Sessamids?” Rigg chuckled. “From what I know of family history, we don’t save worlds, we take over what other people have built and slowly wreck it.”

“Pretty much describes my old dad,” said Umbo. “Except when he worked with shoes.”

“We Sessamids make no shoes,” said Rigg. “I want you with me, Umbo. I need your help. But if you choose not to come, I won’t resent it. How many times do people have to die because they came with me?”

“So far death hasn’t interfered with my life as much as you’d think,” said Umbo. “I’m in.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Rigg, and he held out a hand.

Umbo took it, bounded to his feet, and side by side they walked briskly toward the Wall, with Param, Loaf, and Olivenko following at a slower pace.