Visitors

Chapter 14 Opportunists

“I’m not going to experiment with timeflow on this ship until we’re in much closer proximity to Earth.”

“We’re invisible to them right now,” said Ram Odin, “but when we rejoin the normal flow of time, we’ll be perfectly visible. And if you don’t speed us up or slow us down, we’ll also be trying to occupy the same space as the original of this ship.”

“I know,” said Noxon.

“In fact, anywhere you put us back into the normal timeflow,” said Ram Odin, “we’re going to make a big explosion, because we’ll be exactly, atom for atom, in the same space as the original ship.”

“You’re telling me how timeshaping works?” Noxon tried not to sound too scornful, but didn’t think he succeeded.

But Ram Odin took it. “Then explain to me why we won’t explode.”

“I’m not playing with timeflow here because there’s not too much I can do. The only paths visible to me are your own—your own since the jump, when this version of the ship came into being. Nothing from the outbound voyage.”

“And you need these paths to travel in time?”

“I need them to travel into the past. I also suspect I’ll need them to get us back into the normal timeflow.”

“So you have to get back to where there are more people and therefore more paths.”

“Yes. And I need to get to a place where the past is deeper, reaching much farther back.”

“That still doesn’t solve the exploding starship problem,” said Ram Odin.

“If I can find a path at all that’s going the right way,” said Noxon, “it will be farther in the past. Therefore, when I jump to it, the original ship will already be somewhere else, so we won’t be in the same space and time.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

“If I can do this at all,” said Noxon, “I’ll make sure I jump us back to a time when there were no starships. No satellites. Nothing for us to collide with. And nobody on Earth prepared to think of this starship as anything other than a point of light—a meteor or planet or previously undiscovered star.”

“Yes, that would be a stealthy return to Earth,” said Ram Odin. “But then?”

“If we’re going the right direction, then I can slice time forward so that in a few days, we can return to a more useful time.”

“But then the starship will appear in a time when people will notice it.”

“I didn’t say I’d bring the starship forward into the future with us,” said Noxon. “We can stash it in the past and go back and get it when we need it again.”

Ram Odin shook his head. “I’m just not used to thinking of the past as a place where things can be stashed.”

“I’ve had a few years,” said Noxon. “You have no idea how strange it can get.”

“Going backward in time was pretty strange. I kept trying to find ways to communicate with myself. You know, the outbound me, the one who—”

“I know who you mean,” said Noxon.

“But the ship I’m in isn’t the ship he’s in. We occupy the same space but not the same… direction.”

“I’m still trying to figure out the rules myself,” said Noxon. “For instance, river travelers leave behind paths, not on their boat, but in the air above the water. Showing their course in relation to the planet’s surface. But when I was inside this ship after it crashed on Garden, I could see your paths inside the starship. Including your path right back to the moment you emerged from the fold. But that should have been clear out in space, where the starship was when it jumped between stars.”

“Apparently the universe doesn’t regard starships as boats,” said Ram Odin.

“But why not? Because it’s so big? It’s nowhere near as big as a planet. And this isn’t theoretical. Because when I jump us back into the main timeflow, I think it’s going to be very useful if I can take the starship with us.”

Ram Odin nodded. “That thing about having air to breathe…”

“I can bring vehicles with me. I moved a carriage once. Took it back in time with me. But our paths weren’t inside the carriage, they were in the air above the road. Here, though, your path and mine are definitely here in the starship. We’re not leaving them behind us in space as we go.”

“So the starship acts more planet-like.”

“Paths cling to the surface of the planet, rather than haring off into space. Now the paths are clinging to the interior of the starship, as if this were a hollow planet.”

“Well, in a way it is,” said Ram Odin. “If I had decided against going through the fold, I would have revived the colonists and we would have created a habitat in the ecohold. It would have been the whole world for generations of colonists.”

Noxon shook his head. “I can’t imagine that the paths would respond to whether there was potential farmland in the ship.”

“So maybe they cling because the ship moves in space. Independent of any world.”

“I don’t know why any of this works,” said Noxon.

“Maybe it works the way you need it to,” said Ram Odin.

“I wish.”

“Maybe you’re unconsciously making up the rules as you go along.”

“Then why did I have these paths? And Umbo had his ability to speed up his own and other people’s perceptions of timeflow, and together that meant we could jump in time. And then Umbo worked until he was able to shift without me, and eventually I was able to shift without him, and then I helped Param realize that she could see paths in her own way, so she can leap into the past and slice her way forward, and so can I, and…”

“I think what you’re saying is that it works the way you need it to,” said Ram Odin, “only you have to acquire each ability one at a time after a lot of trying.”

“That would be nice if it were true,” said Noxon. “But somehow I don’t think the universe is making special arrangements for me.”

“That’s how it looks to somebody who can’t do the things you do.”

Noxon smiled. “Our best guess is that we got these abilities from you.”

“Oh please.”

“The only two wallfolds that have time-shifting ability are the two that had your genetic participation.”

“The only two that you know about.”

“The expendables have been watching. You were watching, in your guise as the Ram Odin of Odinfold. And it isn’t just that. The thing that happened—the time-shift at the fold in ­spacetime—that wasn’t predicted and it still doesn’t make sense. The ships’ computers and Old Ram came to believe that what made it happen was you. An unconscious ability to relocate yourself in time, which was triggered by the sudden entry into that null moment in spacetime that the ship had to enter to pass across the fold. The ship’s computers only knew how to move the ship and its contents into the null moment and out again to a specific location in space. But your mind wasn’t prepared for any of it, and during that null moment you gave an instruction that moved twenty copies of the ship not only in space but also in time.”

“And changed directions on this one. Why would I do that?”

“You didn’t do it consciously. Your latent time-shifting ability probably put time as well as space in flux, and then the ship’s computers did what they planned, only their calculations didn’t take into account even the possibility that the time part of spacetime might be up for grabs. So they brought nineteen of the ships out in roughly the same location. Only spaced far enough apart that nothing exploded. And it happened to be 11,191 years in the past.”

“And this one stayed in the same moment that I departed from, only now it was heading backward down its own path.”

“Your mind didn’t choose those specific outcomes. I mean, how could you do such mathematically precise things? But you made it so the computers’ calculations did it. Nineteen computers, nineteen separate jumps of the same ship, into roughly the same space and time, but moments apart.”

“And what computer did this?” He indicated the backward ship around them.

“Somehow the computers calculated, back on Garden, that this ship should exist. So they knew. Or guessed.”

“There were twenty computers on the ship,” said the expendable.

Noxon and Ram Odin both looked at him. “There are nineteen,” said Ram Odin. “Each doing specific jobs in the ordinary running of the ship, but all ganged together on the calculations for the jump through null spacetime.”

The expendable said nothing.

“I think he’s thinking of himself,” said Noxon.

“But you’re slaved to the main computer,” said Ram Odin to the expendable.

“So were the other computers,” said the expendable, not seeming at all perturbed at being contradicted. Or, for that matter, at being “slaved” to the ship’s computer.

“Well, he does have a powerful computer in him,” said Ram Odin to Noxon. “But it wasn’t involved in the calculations of the jump.”

“That’s true,” said the expendable. “So I spent my time calculating how to get back to Earth.”

Ram Odin burst out laughing. “Did you click your heels together three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home’?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Noxon.

The expendable answered. “Ram Odin is alluding to the film version of a fiction by L. Frank Baum called The Wizard of Oz.”

“It never came up in my studies,” said Noxon, “but I guess I couldn’t absorb all of Earth culture in a couple of years of spare-time reading.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Ram Odin. “What matters to me is this: It took me seven years to get from launch to the jump site. I was afraid that if I went into stasis during the trip, the ship might not waken me in time to make the decisions. So I stayed awake the whole time. Now there’s no such worry because the ship can’t do anything about our predicament. Do we really have to spend all those endless days? You’re charming company, but we’ll start boring each other very quickly.”

“I know that we’re moving into your past,” said Noxon, “and that’s the direction I normally jump. But the direction we’re going in makes that the future to us.”

“I was actually proposing that we go into stasis here in the ship. Like the colonists. Then the ship wakes us up when we’re close to Earth.”

Noxon knew at once that he would never consent to this. It required too much trust of the ship and the expendable. And it would leave the mice free to manipulate things as they wanted. But he didn’t want to discuss the danger of the mice to Ram Odin, because the man might decide to eradicate the whole problem and Noxon wasn’t sure how to stop him.

Still, instead of simply refusing to consider it, Noxon made a show of letting Ram Odin demonstrate the whole process of going into stasis and then reviving out of it.

“Is there any loss of function? After you wake up?” asked Noxon.

“I assume not,” said Ram Odin. “Didn’t you say that Old Ram did it all the time, in order to skim through the centuries so he’s still alive after eleven thousand years?”

“I can’t vouch for his not having lost mental function,” said Noxon.

“He’s old,” said Ram Odin. “There’s probably mental loss without any damage from the stasis and revival process. But you’re inside a field the whole time. And it’s designed to protect your memories and reimplant them as you revive. To restore anything that might have been lost. In experiments on Earth the subjects reported that they actually improved in their ability to access memories.”

“So it does alter function.” And Noxon thought: Maybe this is the same kind of field that inserts all human language into our minds when we pass into the Wall. Which made him think of all the other things the fields that made up the Wall could do to his mind.

Finally Ram Odin said, “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“You can do what you want,” said Noxon. “I won’t interfere, and I’ll make sure you wake up on time.”

“You’d be alone with him for the next seven years,” said Ram Odin, indicating the expendable. “You’ll be bored out of your mind.”

“I wandered the forests of Upsheer with him for my whole childhood. I called him Father and he taught me and tested me constantly. It was hard and sometimes I wished it would stop, but it was never boring.”

“I really enjoyed those years,” said the expendable.

Ram Odin turned on him. “It wasn’t you, it was a copy of you.”

The expendable mildly agreed but added, “He brought a complete set of the ships’ logs. Nineteen of them, interlocking and verifying that everything he told you was true, within the limits of his knowledge and understanding. I have a complete memory of all the days, all the hours, all the minutes that the expendable named Ramex spent in the company of this young man.”

“But it wasn’t you.”

“It was me, because I perfectly remember it,” said the expendable. “We expendables don’t have the same kind of individual identity that biologicals have.”

“So it’ll be like old times for the two of you,” said Ram Odin, more than a little snidely.

It dawned on Noxon that Ram Odin was jealous. Here came Noxon out of nowhere with a far superior claim to intimacy with Ram Odin’s companion of the past seven years.

Even though he did not say this aloud, Ram Odin reacted as if he had. “I am not jealous of you!” Then he drummed on the console in front of him. “All right, I’m human. I couldn’t help bonding with this asinine machine and so yes, I was briefly and irrationally annoyed, but I’m over it.”

Everything about his tone and expression said that he was definitely not over it.

“You’re welcome to stay awake with us,” said Noxon.

“Seven years of aging,” said Ram Odin. “It’s not just the mind-numbing boredom.”

“I can promise that you age very well,” said Noxon.

“So if you won’t go into stasis and turn the ship over to the computers, why not try what your sister does? Slicing forward in time?”

“I sliced time when I first got here, hiding from the ship. But now I’m in the open. If I bring you with me, I risk bringing the ship as well. That would take us out of sync with the original ship.”

“But you already saw that the paths travel with the ship. So you won’t take the ship with us.”

“But if I can’t take the ship with us, we’re going to stay in this backward timeflow forever.”

“That’s a different kind of timeshaping, and it’s in the future,” said Ram Odin. “When we’re closer to Earth. Right? So by then, maybe Earth’s gravity will make it so you can take the ship with you.”

Noxon put his face in his hands. “I’m scared to try it.”

“You’d be insane not to be scared,” said Ram Odin.

“He’d be insane to try it,” said the expendable, “when there’s no recourse if your guess is wrong.”

“There’s no recourse no matter what we do,” said Ram Odin. “We’re cut off from the whole universe, and you’re worried that something might go wrong?” He turned to Noxon. “Just slice time for a little bit. Take my hand—that’s how you take me with you, right? And take us a second into the future.”

“A second or an hour,” said Noxon, “if we get out of sync with the original ship, it might get ugly.”

“Just do it,” said Ram Odin. “I believe that whatever you do, it won’t destroy you, because you’re the causer. Right?”

“Terrible things can happen to us,” said Noxon. “Being the causer only means that we can’t accidentally wink ourselves out of existence by changing our own past.”

“Take my hand,” said Ram Odin. “Slice time. See if it destroys us.”

Noxon took his hand and, with only a moment’s hesitation, sliced forward for only a second of perceived time.

But because he and Param had practiced slicing forward at a very fast pace, his “second” was more than an hour.

Nothing blew up. They were both there. And the expendable was exactly where they had left him.

“Well,” said Noxon. “I guess now we know that we can do that.”

“Please don’t do it again,” said the expendable.

“Missed us?” asked Ram Odin.

“No,” said the expendable. “The moment you disappeared, the mice started attacking the ship’s computers, trying to take control. They’re very good at it and very quick. They ignored my commands to stop. So I had the life support system drop oxygen levels so low that they all fainted. Then I found them all, put them in that box, restored the oxygen levels, and came back here to wait for you.”

Ram Odin gave a little bark of laughter. He thought it was funny, apparently, but that’s because he didn’t know the mice.

Noxon walked to the box, sat beside it, and leaned his head against it so he would be able to hear their tiny high voices, if they should feel inclined to try to explain themselves. “Well,” said Noxon, “you violated our agreement the moment you thought you could get away with it. I think you know what that means.”

There was begging and pleading, all the voices at once. And then one emerged stronger than the others. “You don’t tell us your plans, we don’t tell you ours.”

And another mouse voice: “We didn’t try to attack you. We could have.”

“Not twenty of you,” said Noxon. “And you know I slice much more finely than Param did back when you killed her.”

“And I would have removed any metal they placed in your space,” said the expendable. “They knew that, of course.”

“I assume you’re talking to the mice,” said Ram Odin.

“Human ears can’t hear their conversation,” said Noxon.

“But your facemask—”

“Loaf’s ability to hear the mice and keep track of them was one of the reasons I knew I needed to have a facemask of my own. For this voyage.”

“Kill them,” said Ram Odin. “I know they’re not ordinary mice, but this was treason.”

“I’m not king,” said Noxon. “Well, technically I suppose I am, in Aressa Sessamo, but that’s a dangerous thing to be. I’m not going to kill them. I might need them.”

“For what?” asked Ram Odin. “You can’t trust them.”

“I can trust them to do what they think is in their own interest,” said Noxon.

“In the interest of the world of Garden,” said a mouse.

“In the interest of the mice of Garden,” Noxon corrected him.

There was no argument from the mice.

“But now I’m sure that I will slice time with you,” said Noxon to Ram Odin. “Only we’ll bring the mice with us. The less time they have to figure out ways to fiddle with the ship, the better off we’ll be.” Then Noxon turned to the expendable. “Thank you for your quick action.”

“It was the obvious thing to do,” said the expendable. “Remember that I have a complete record of all the things the mice have done. Including the attempt to send a devastating plague to Earth, and the murder of Param. I have been watching the mice continuously since you appeared here. I recognized them as soon as the memory transfer was complete.”

“Thank you for taking the obvious action, then,” said Noxon.

The expendable nodded graciously.

“Give me your hand,” said Noxon to Ram Odin. Noxon scooped up the box of mice, tucking it against his body. “By the way,” Noxon asked the expendable, “why did you happen to have an empty box lying around?”

“This is a colony ship,” said the expendable. “We have hundreds of containers of various sizes for the use of the colonists.”

“They can’t chew through this, can they?” asked Noxon.

“It would break their little teeth,” said the expendable.

“Then by all means,” said Noxon to the mice, “go ahead and give it a try.”

“I’ve seen people talk to their pets before,” said Ram Odin, “but you’re the first person who actually got answers.”

“Not this time,” said Noxon. “I think they’re pouting.”

“They had a near-death experience,” said Ram Odin. “I think I know just how low our friend here took the oxygen level. They were desperate for air.”

“As we will be,” said Noxon, “if I can’t take the ship with us back to regular time.”

“Cheer up,” said Ram Odin. “You probably won’t be able to find regular time, so it’s a moot question. But let’s get close to Earth and see.”

Noxon turned to the expendable. “We’ll be moving very quickly. What should I look at to know when we’re nearing the gravity well of Earth, but are still outside it?”

“Gravity goes on forever,” said the expendable. “The Earth is already exerting a faint but noticeable tug on this ship. What threshold am I looking for?”

“I don’t know,” said Noxon.

“When we come within the average orbital distance of Pluto,” said Ram Odin.

“I didn’t even think about the outer planets,” said Noxon. “What if one of them captures our timeflow?”

“We don’t come in through the plane of the ecliptic. Our course brings us toward Earth from the North Pole. Or rather toward L5, a point balanced between the gravity wells of Earth and the Moon.”

“No,” said Noxon. “I don’t think this will work if we’re at such a point of balance.”

“As we approach,” said Ram Odin reassuringly, “Earth will have a much stronger pull on us than the Moon, until right before we arrive at the point where this ship was built.”

Noxon thought of something else. “Do you have any control over this ship?” he asked.

The expendable cocked his head. “The other computers and I are the ship.”

“No. I mean… can you make the ship go where you want?”

“I haven’t tried to change it,” said the expendable.

“We’re facing the wrong way,” said Ram Odin. “If we could deploy our ram scoop it would still be behind us. So we’re not capable of gathering fuel. The engines seem to be running, but I don’t know how.”

“Our best calculation,” said the expendable, “is that as ­hydrogen dust is consumed in the engines of the outbound ship, it powers the movement of both ships, the outbound and the inbound.”

“So matter is crossing over.”

“No,” said the expendable. “It remains entirely in the normal timeflow.”

“Then energy is crossing.”

“No,” said the expendable. “Energy and matter are the same thing, in a fusion engine.”

“Something is crossing over,” said Ram Odin impatiently.

“As near as we can tell,” said the expendable, “and that’s not very near, because there is no way to measure this, the only thing crossing over is momentum.”

“Is momentum actually a thing, in physics?” asked Noxon.

“It is not,” said the expendable, “at least not the way we’re using the term. Our hypothesis is that there’s some unknown force binding the subatomic particles to each other, forward and backward.”

“You know what?” asked Ram Odin. “I don’t actually care how it works. I only know that when and if we do break free and jump back into ordinary time, we’ll be hurtling toward Earth in reverse. That’s another argument in favor of making the switch before we come too close to Earth.”

“Yet if we try it too far out, we can’t bring the ship with us,” said Noxon.

“That’s all we were doing,” said a mouse. “Trying to figure these things out in advance.”

“I believe you completely,” said Noxon to the mice.

“No you don’t,” said the mouse.

“Apparently you don’t believe me,” said Noxon.

“I will alert you by standing exactly here and raising my arm like this when we’re approaching Earth but are still well back from it. Maybe a week or two out. Would that be good?”

“Yes,” said Noxon. “Make it three weeks. I want to see when I start getting a sense of paths that are tied to Earth rather than to spaceships. And that means I need to start looking well before the point of no return.”

“So shall we slice time?” asked Ram Odin. “I’m looking forward to my first actual time-shift.”

“You just had one.”

“Only an hour or so. And I didn’t feel anything.”

“You won’t feel anything. Nothing in the ship will change, unless he moves around. We’ll be moving, of course, but if I do this right, we won’t complete even a single step.”

“Then let’s do it,” said Ram Odin. “We have nothing to lose but seven years of mind-numbing boredom.”

“All right,” said Noxon, and he took a step as he sliced forward.