Visitors

Chapter 27 Retrieving the Mice

Because Noxon could see his and Ram’s paths—and the paths of the mice inside the box—he was able to return only a few seconds after he and Ram had left them buried.

They had explained the mice to Deborah and Anthropologist Wheaton, including all the disobedience and attempted betrayals. “Why don’t you just leave them there?” asked Wheaton.

“Because I promised I’d come back and let them out,” said Noxon.

“It’s one of his better traits,” said Ram. “But it’s also a serious weakness. And the mice really are dangerous and tricky.”

“Are we in danger from them?” asked Wheaton. Noxon could see that it was Deborah he was worried about.

“Yes,” said Noxon. “But only in the sense that the entire human race is in danger. Or that, if they were to kill me, the rest of you would be stranded in ancient Peru, thousands of years before any humans come to the Americas.”

“I suppose that means no internet,” said Deborah.

It took Noxon a moment even to remember what she was talking about. “Oh, yes, I forget how connected everyone is in your time,” said Noxon.

“We never even carried mobiles,” said Ram. “Didn’t get into that mind-set.”

“It’s time to open the box, then close it and rebury it before Ram and I come back.”

“You come back? Another time?” asked Deborah.

“We ran some errands,” said Ram. “And left the starship where it would be buried in ice. Then we came back and talked about letting the mice out.”

“But you didn’t,” said Deborah.

“And we didn’t check to see if they were still in the box,” said Noxon. “In case they weren’t. Because that would mean we came back here and liberated them. As we’re doing.”

“And you didn’t want to know?” asked Wheaton. “I can’t imagine wanting not to know something.”

“If we knew,” said Noxon, “we’d make guesses about why we came back and that might change our behavior. Which might erase whatever future had previously ensued. Or might duplicate us.”

“You have to be very careful,” Deborah observed.

“Everything has unforeseen consequences,” said Noxon. “And every attempt to make some things better is likely to make other things worse.”

“Saving me?” asked Deborah.

“So far,” said Noxon, “that’s working out pretty well. But duplicating the professor, here? I’m not sure he’s thrilled about the philologist version of himself.”

Wheaton shrugged. “It’s like finding out what I’d be like if I had never grown up.”

“I liked him,” said Deborah.

“How ironic,” said Wheaton, “since it’s clearly you that made me different from him.”

“I have much to answer for,” said Deborah.

“Should I open the box?” asked Ram.

“They can hear us already,” said Noxon. “So here are the rules. The mice will all come out of the box and stay in a group, approaching nobody. Ram will close the box and rebury it.”

“I have to do all the manual labor?”

“You’re the trained pilot,” said Noxon. “I have no skills.”

Ram grinned.

“If the mice deviate from these instructions,” said Noxon, “I’ll kill them all.”

Deborah looked skeptical. “Have you ever tried to catch mice?” she asked.

“In my previous life as a cat, yes,” said Noxon.

“The facemask makes him very, very quick,” said Ram.

“And I could go back and kill them in the past,” said Noxon. “They understand that.”

Ram opened the lid.

The mice swarmed out and formed a writhing heap on the bare dirt in front of the box.

“They look perfectly ordinary.”

“Look again,” said Noxon. “Their heads are quite large, for mice, and their bones and musculature are sturdier in order to bear the added brain weight. Also, they have tiny electrical connectors at the tip of each toe. Or finger. Or whatever. They can stick their paws into computer sockets and link up directly to their brains.”

“So they’re all computer peripherals?” asked Wheaton.

“No,” said Noxon. “All computers are mouse peripherals.”

“You came back,” said a mouse.

“They’re talking to me now,” said Noxon. “You’ll only hear my side of the conversation. I may switch languages.”

“The mice talk,” said Deborah.

“In very high voices,” said Noxon. “And most of it is lying.”

“So unfair,” said a mouse.

“Judgmental,” said another.

“Glad you’re back,” said a third.

“One of you at a time,” said Noxon. “Who speaks for all?”

“For the moment,” said one, “me.” It was a female, and she moved toward him, away from the pack.

“No,” said Noxon. “I know what you are. I want the alpha.”

“You’ll kill him,” said the spokeswoman.

“That’s quite possible,” said Noxon. “But it’s not my plan at the moment, because I need you, and I need to be able to assess your intentions and your capabilities.”

“If you think you can possibly understand us…” said the spokesmouse.

“I understand you at least as well as you understand us,” said Noxon. “The alpha, now.”

Another mouse came forward.

“You hide your maleness well.”

“Huge testes didn’t suit our purposes,” said the alpha. “We bred them out. What do you want with us?”

Noxon explained about the alien attackers.

“So you want us to prevent their computer infiltration,” said the alpha.

“That might be interesting, but it wouldn’t solve the problem,” said Noxon.

“You’re going to journey to their world before they evolved and destroy them,” said the alpha.

“Now you’re getting closer.”

“Is there any way to assess their biology before we make that voyage?”

“No,” said Noxon. “We never saw them come out of their airships and we’re not interested in going back into the future to lure them out. We’re going to leave from now and make the voyage.”

“I understand your fear that they might overpower you,” said the alpha. “It should give you some idea of how we feel about you.”

“I know that you betrayed me regularly long before I gave you any reason to do so,” said Noxon. “So now you see my dilemma.”

“I don’t,” said Deborah.

The alpha rattled off his answer. “You need us to be free allies, but you can’t trust us not to take over the ship during the voyage.”

“I want to travel with you now as equals,” said Noxon. “I want you to have full access to the ship’s databanks. I don’t see how you can be useful if you don’t have your full range of information and power.”

“All you have to do is explain why we need you now,” said the alpha.

“Because I still have the power to decide whether to turn the alien world into a home for humans and mice of your kind, or simply another colony world for humans.”

“So our alliance is based on your ability to kill us,” said the alpha.

“Your physical powers are limited,” said Noxon. “And your mental abilities depend on achieving a critical mass larger than the one you currently have.”

The alpha said nothing.

“I know that every mouse except you is a pregnant female. But they are not actually gestating—the embryos are not developing.”

“That thing doesn’t give you X-ray vision,” said the alpha.

“I know their hormones smell like pregnancy, but there are no fetal heartbeats and they haven’t grown since the beginning of the voyage. My guess is that you’ve found a way to enclose a litter of fertilized ova into a sac and keep them from attaching to the uterine wall. So they can be pregnant the moment you decide.”

“Close,” said the alpha.

Noxon thought for a moment. “No, I’m exactly right. But instead of just one sac, each one contains several. And each sac of ova will produce a litter that’s bred for different capabilities. So you can spawn—what, electronics whizzes? Spacetime displacers? Fast-maturing baby-breeders?”

“We’re all fast-maturing baby-breeders,” said the alpha. “But yes, you have the idea.”

“When you were loose in the ship during the voyage here, before the expendable rounded you up, what did you do?”

“We were exploring the possibility of doing a displacement of the ship during the voyage.”

“If you moved the inbound ship out of its one-to-one correspondence with the outbound version of the ship, it would have annihilated us.”

“Unless we displaced the ship so that it didn’t overlap with the original in any way.”

“That would kill all living things aboard the ship,” said Noxon.

“That’s why we were going to try to move the outbound ship.”

Noxon shook his head. “You aren’t stupid,” he said. “That might undo everything.”

“We didn’t actually do it,” said the alpha.

“For smart mice, you’re pretty stupid.”

“Be fair,” said the alpha. “We’re only a couple of dozen. We don’t get really smart until we have a few hundred.”

“And that’s another reason for you to want time to have a lot of babies.”

“It would be nice if you didn’t slice time the whole way to the alien world.”

“I’m not going to let you have any babies until we’ve reached the alien world,” said Noxon. “Until we see what we’re facing.”

“I think you need us to reach maximum intellectual capacity before then.”

“Not until I know what I want you to do,” said Noxon.

“Are you capable of such a decision without our advice?” asked the mouse.

Noxon immediately realized that they were manipulating him. Because the moment the mouse said it, Noxon was filled with anxiety that he knew would not go away until he agreed to let the mice reach the alien world in hundreds instead of two dozen. That anxiety was not rational. It was what the mouse wanted him to feel.

“Interesting,” said Noxon. “You aren’t behaving like a potential ally.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” said the alpha.

The other mice were echoing him. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” they bleated.

“Why are they all squeaking?” asked Deborah. “What are they saying?”

“They’re apologizing for their naked attempt at forcing me to obey them by influencing my emotions,” said Noxon. “I’m pretty sure we can eliminate the alien threat without the help of the mice. The main reason I want to bring them is because I wanted them to exist on a second world, too. And that second world will not be Earth. Earth is the sanctuary for the pure, unmodified human species. The mice have two wallfolds on Garden. Apparently that’s all they’re ever going to get.”

“Don’t pretend you’re trying to look out for our best interests,” said the alpha.

“You know I’m not pretending,” said Noxon. “But I place your best interests well behind the best interests of the whole human species—including your little subgroup. What good is it for me to save humanity from these aliens, only to have you destroy them instead?”

“We’re not destructive,” said the alpha. “We’re makers and builders.”

“You’re human,” said Noxon. “You make war and you eliminate anybody you think is a threat.”

“You’re a threat,” said the alpha.

“And you’ve already thought of six ways to kill me,” said Noxon.

“Only two with any real chance of succeeding,” said the alpha.

“Let’s not kill each other,” said Noxon. “Let’s travel to the alien world and work out a way to turn it into a haven for humans and mice.”

Deborah gasped. Noxon turned to her.

“You’re going to destroy the entire alien species?” she asked.

“That depends on how you define ‘destroy,’” said Noxon. “For instance, if time travelers came back in time, when anthropes existed only as Erectids, and then prevented the development of Sapients, would you say they had destroyed the ‘entire human species’?”

“What a fascinating prospect,” said Wheaton. “If the experiment weren’t so devastating…”

“Father,” said Deborah. “That is not a fascinating prospect, it’s genocidal.”

“Genocide is what we saw them do to us,” said Noxon. “Preventive diplomacy is what we plan to do to them. Unless it doesn’t work. In which case, yes. Xenocide, the entire species wiped out, and without an apology or regret. Because when it’s us or them, I choose us.”

“Genetically speaking,” said Wheaton, “it’s the only rational choice.”

“And if we fail,” said Noxon, “and only they survive, then that’s survival of the fittest, yes?”

Deborah looked away.

“They were the ones that determined not to leave us any option for survival,” said Noxon. “I hope to be better than they are. But I don’t see that leaving them any chance to destroy us makes us ‘better.’ It only makes us dead.”

“Absolutely right,” said Wheaton. “But you don’t suppose we could kidnap a tribe of Erectids and bring them along?”

“Tempting as that prospect is,” said Noxon, “what if we kidnapped the very tribe that was supposed to evolve into us? Or Neanderthals?”

“Well, these paths you see—surely you could check.”

“I don’t have enough lifetime to spend it tracing every path of every member of an Erectid bloodline across a million years.”

“Oh,” said Wheaton. “Oh, I see. Yes, that does bring mathe­matics into it.”

“Besides, we already know what evolution does to Erectids. It lets them spread across the whole planet, developing into at least three human species that interbreed a little, until Sapiens emerge as they are today. They’ve had their evolution. So have these aliens.”

“Are you so sure that we’re better than the aliens?” asked Deborah.

“Maybe they create beautiful music,” said Noxon. “Maybe their paintings are exquisite. But they didn’t give us a chance to admire them. So even if we’re not as good or decorative or accomplished or clever as these Destroyers, if I can whip their asses, their asses will be whipped.”

“And that’s how you see us,” said the alpha mouse.

“You’ve proven your lack of interest in keeping your word and cooperating with me,” said Noxon.

“What?” said Deborah.

“He’s talking to the mice again,” said Ram Odin. “You can tell by his tone of voice. When he sounds like he’s talking to an ignorant child, then he’s speaking to us.”

Noxon ignored the gibe. “I can’t make final decisions till we get to the alien world. We’re going to approach them now, a hundred thousand years or so before they ‘discover’ us. Maybe their technology will already be irresistibly more advanced than ours. If it is, I hope I have enough time to jump our ship back in time until they aren’t able to endanger us. I could use your help in monitoring the ship’s computers to see if they’re being interfered with. The expendable can’t really help us with that because he’s part of that computer system.”

“We could do that,” said the alpha mouse.

“But if I let you loose with the computers,” said Noxon, “you could kill all our colonists. You could shut down life support.”

“We would run out of oxygen and die before you even felt light-headed,” said the mouse.

“Meaning that you’ve already thought of a plan to circumvent that problem,” said Noxon.

“Well,” said the alpha, “we’re not sure any of those plans would work.”

“Meaning that you’re absolutely certain they would work,” said Noxon. “So here’s the bargain I’m offering. Once we get far enough back that we’re technologically superior to them, then I’ll decide—I will decide, not a committee—whether to establish a human colony there. That will depend partly on how compatible the existing plant proteins are with our bodies. And partly on whether we see any reason to hope that they might evolve a society that is capable of seeing us as a sentient species worthy of respect.”

“I know we respect you,” said the alpha mouse.

“You regard us as your toys, to be pulled apart and put back together at will,” said Noxon. “I’m living proof of that.”

“The facemask part of you wasn’t our idea at all,” said the alpha mouse.

“Your saying that makes me pretty sure that it was,” said Noxon.

“Really,” said the mouse. “All Vadesh. Well, him and Ram Odin. It’s in the ship’s log.”

“Which you can rewrite at will,” said Noxon.

“Only sometimes,” said the alpha mouse. “And we don’t do it, because we count on the log to tell us what happened in erased timestreams. You have to keep some things sacred.”

“Here’s the deal,” said Noxon. “The survival of both our ­species is at stake. If we don’t stop these aliens, they wipe out us and you. When we get to the alien world, I will do whatever it takes to prevent them from invading and destroying us. I will take no risk of their removing from me the ability to destroy them. Which means that I’m not going to try to negotiate with the very civilization that sent these invaders to wipe us out of existence. That civilization is already dead, period. I’m not going to leave even the slightest chance of its ever coming into being.”

“Very wise choice,” said the alpha mouse.

“You do understand that I can do the same thing with you,” said Noxon. “I can go back to Garden, jump back in time, and prevent you from ever having been bred.”

“The expendables will never let you,” said the alpha mouse.

“I only have to show them the logs that record your absolute unreliability, and your ability to manipulate them, and they’ll cooperate with me fully. You know it’s true.”

He let the mice think about that for a few seconds.

“There are several things we don’t know and can’t know till we get there. We don’t know if our ship will jump the fold in twenty copies or not. If it does, we’ll have twenty chances to establish viable colonies on their world, divided into wallfolds, just as on Garden.”

“Nineteen,” said Ram Odin. “I thought it was nineteen.”

“Every ship will contain a Ram Odin and a Noxon,” said Noxon. “And a couple of dozen mice. So if there’s a backward-moving ship, it will have me there to turn it around, and it’ll have the mice to see if they can detach it from the original outbound ship without the ship having to come all the way back to Earth.”

“Makes sense,” said Ram Odin.

“Only to the insane,” said Wheaton.

“Maybe we can preserve the native biota to a greater degree than it was preserved on Garden,” said Noxon. “Maybe we can preserve the ancestors of these monster aliens, and help to shape their evolution so it doesn’t get so dangerous. We know the ship’s computers can be programmed to prevent the development of high technology because they did it on Garden.”

“Or we can wipe out all the native life and make a new Earth,” said the alpha mouse.

“Whether or not we have nineteen or twenty ships,” said Noxon, “we can create as many wallfield generators as we want, and the expendables to tend them, right?”

“Yes,” said the alpha mouse.

“Yes,” said Ram Odin. “Very interesting. Wallfolds no matter what.”

“So the deal I offer is this. All the wallfolds have the same technology cap as on Garden. Every wallfold has an expendable or two. But we create enough wallfolds that besides having enough for several—or twenty—human colonies, we also have one or two wallfolds which have only mice as their sentient occupants.”

“How generous,” said the alpha mouse.

“Irony is still a lie,” said Noxon. “Hear me out. We also have a couple of human colonies that are shared with mice. Joint colonies. To see what happens. To see if we and you can grow and develop together, cooperatively or at least without slaughtering each other.”

“Unlikely,” said the alpha mouse.

“Why not?” said Ram Odin.

“I think it’s very likely,” said Noxon. “Especially because the ship’s computers will be programmed to wipe out any wallfold where either the humans or the mice find a way to exterminate the other species.”

“Maybe we can interbreed,” said the alpha mouse.

“I hope not,” said Noxon. “And we also have two or three wallfolds where the aliens are allowed to continue their evolutionary development—but with the same technology cap. At least one of those will also have mice.”

“The aliens should all have mice,” said the alpha mouse.

“They will have expendables. If possible, expendables redesigned to look like them. If not, then the same ones we have. They’ll all be supervised.”

“And that’s the plan?” said the alpha mouse. “You thought of this all by yourself?”

“It’s the obvious way to proceed,” said Noxon. “Everybody gets a home.”

“A reservation,” said the alpha mouse.

“A place to develop independent of the others.”

“But with a cap on what we can achieve,” said the alpha mouse.

“Not really,” said Noxon. “Because you’ll still have the ability you have right now—to move objects and manipulate things as tiny as genes, in both space and time.”

“They can do that?” asked Deborah.

“They’re very talented,” said Ram Odin.

“So everybody is completely at their mercy,” said Wheaton.

“That’s why we’re making this deal now, while there are still only twenty of them,” said Noxon.

“But they’ll lie,” said Ram Odin.

“I think they won’t,” said Noxon. “Because they can see that this is the best long-term protection for their descendants as well as ours.”

“Why?” said Ram. “How? We can’t develop our tech past a certain point, while theirs is invisible and already far beyond anything we can do.”

“Because every human colony will start with a Ram Odin and a Noxon,” said Noxon. “And that means that we’ll have the power to go back in time and undo whatever the mice do wrong. Or even undo the original placement of the mice into the ­colonies. Because part of the deal is this: The mice go into stasis during the colony founding, and they don’t get colonies of their own until at least three hundred years. And the release of the mice into each wallfold they’re allowed to enter will take place in public, and under circumstances that will make it easy for future human timeshapers to come back and prevent it.”

“That’s not foolproof,” said Wheaton. “I can think of—”

“So can the mice,” said Noxon. “But whatever they think of, we can probably think of a way to get around them and undo it. If we choose to spend our futures in stupid competition with each other. But maybe we won’t. Maybe the mice will see that keeping promises works out better for them than going to war with timeshaping humans.”

“I see it already,” said the alpha mouse. “And so will all my descendants.”

“Come on,” said Noxon. “The reason your testes aren’t visible is because you’ve been castrated. You won’t have any descendants.”

“Not me personally,” said the alpha mouse. “I think of all the babies in their uteruses to be my children, so to speak.”

“Well, Father of Great Nations, answer me: Will you accept this plan and abide by whatever decision I make when we reach the alien world?”

“I accept the plan and I promise to abide by your decision,” said the alpha mouse.

“How is that different from what you would say if you were already determined to break every promise and take over the world and the ship and everything?” asked Noxon.

“It isn’t different,” said the alpha mouse. “But I mean it. And you’ll see that I mean it because I will no longer seize every opportunity to subvert you.”

“So our alliance is set?” asked Noxon.

“We have only one condition,” said the alpha mouse.

“Which is?” asked Noxon.

“You take at least one of us into the future with you and let her connect with your computer system when the aliens take it over. So we can make some assessment of what they’re capable of.”

“No,” said Noxon.

“Seriously? Why not? Knowledge is essential.”

“Knowledge is power,” said Noxon. “You’ve been trying for thousands of generations to break into the programming of the ships that control Garden, in order to reprogram them to allow you through the Wall and to let you develop higher tech than they currently permit. And you’ve failed. But these aliens broke into our computer systems, took them over, and used them to destroy us. You want to see how it’s done.”

Silence for a few moments. Then: “That was truly not my plan,” said the alpha mouse. “If it had been my plan, then that means I was already acting in bad faith and our alliance was already shattered. But I was acting in good faith. I really need to understand what their capabilities are. We will be much safer approaching their planet if I have some idea of how to resist them and keep them from taking over our ship remotely.”

Noxon thought for a while. Finally he spoke to Ram Odin. “I think I’m going to take one of them forward in time to watch the alien invasion while hooked into the communications network.”

“I thought your argument against that was excellent,” said Ram Odin. “Flawless, in fact.”

“It was,” said Noxon.

“So what did they say to change your mind?” asked Ram.

“More promises,” said Noxon, “which are exactly what they’d say if they’re telling the truth or if they’re lying.”

“So you have no idea,” said Ram Odin.

“You have to leap sometimes,” said Noxon. “You have to trust.”

“And if you’re wrong to trust them?” asked Ram.

“It’s in their self-interest to keep the alliance at least until we get to the alien world,” said Noxon. “At least until we’ve eliminated that threat. After that—well, we’ll see.”

“That’s it? We’ll see?”

“All alliances between rivals take that form,” said Noxon. “We work together as long as it makes sense to do so—and then see how the other side behaves when some of the incentives for cooperation are removed.”

“Very wise,” said Wheaton.

“It’s time to get these mice out of here,” said Noxon. “Come on, all of you climb up on me. The mice,” he added quickly. “Talking only to the mice.”

They scampered up into his clothing. The facemask remained aware of every one of them. “You won’t regret this,” said the alpha mouse.

“Good,” said Noxon, already regretting it, yet sure there was no better way. “Now the rest of you, kindly take my hands. We’re jumping back into the future one last time. I believe we have a car parked nearby waiting to take us back to civilization.”

The decision about the mice had been entirely Noxon’s to make. But since Deborah and Anthropologist Wheaton were not crucial now to any course of action, he could leave their future up to them.

“You don’t have a place on Earth anymore,” said Noxon. “There’s a girl with eyes using your name and fingerprints, Deborah, and a charming philologist who has done rather a good job of keeping a dying discipline alive who needs no competing Dr. Wheaton.”

“Especially since there’s no record of my degrees or my publications,” said Wheaton. “It rather blocks my ability to influence what passes for thinking among this sorry crop of anthropologists.”

“I can offer you each your choice of improbable futures. You can voyage to the alien world and take part in the discussions, though not the decisions, about what we will do to prevent the destruction of Earth. Or you can voyage to Garden, my home, where I can promise you will have access to the full range of studies of—”

Deborah interrupted him. “For me, there’s no choice but the world where I can get new eyes.”

“You do understand,” said Noxon, “that you might be unable to control the facemask. It’s not a matter of what humans call ‘strength of will.’ Some of the strongest people I know have been unable to tame the mask. If you get eyes, but cease to be yourself, it would be a poor bargain.”

“Then you’ll go back in time and prevent it,” said Deborah.

“But there you’ll be in a world without replacement batteries, without charging stations.”

“They’re solar. We’re not Neanderthals.” She gave Wheaton an exaggerated wink, to prevent his objection to her pejorative use of “Neanderthal.”

“They’re solar, but not unbreakable,” said Noxon. “Garden is not a very good place to be blind.”

“I will bring spares,” said Deborah.

“And the technology of our era is available,” said Wheaton. “Each starship should have the ability to replicate her glasses.”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Noxon.

Deborah raised a hand. “Something else must be said, however. Just because I will go to Garden or nowhere, that doesn’t mean you must go with me, Father. The chance to study the evolution of two alien species—I think that not only will you enjoy that voyage more, you might actually be able to offer crucial insights as Noxon makes his decisions.”

“What insights?” said Wheaton. “I know Erectids and other anthropes, and nothing more.”

“You know how to see evolutionary patterns,” said Deborah. “You know how natural selection works, how different societies promote the survival of some traits and not others. And there have been no human scientists on that road before you.”

“Do I detect a desire to be rid of this old man?” asked Wheaton with a laugh.

“Do I detect a barely-concealed plea for validation?” asked Deborah. “You know I love you, and I’d like to think your work would not be possible without me to clerk for you. But that isn’t true, and besides, you can have the ship pop out an extra expendable to take notes and look things up for you. Much more efficiently and accurately than I would.”

“Very well, I suppose I can work without you,” said Wheaton. But he looked grumpy, and that seemed to be a concealment of an underlying hurt.

“One world offers me eyes,” said Deborah, “and the other offers you a chance to do seminal work. If Noxon and Ram succeed in changing the future of that world, you will be the only scientist to observe the alien society as it existed before human interference.”

“We won’t be doing much observation,” said Noxon. “Particularly if we reach them at a time when they’re already technologically ahead of us. We’ll skedaddle instantly then.”

“I’ve found that brave dead scientists don’t contribute as much as prudent live ones,” said Wheaton. “I’ll study what there’s time to study.”

“It’s where you want to go,” said Deborah.

“All things being equal. But… nineteen wallfolds. A species of merpeople! Either world will do for me.”

Deborah made no answer, even though both Noxon and Wheaton looked at her, waiting.

“You know I have a choice myself,” said Noxon. “There are two of me now. One who went through the nuclear blast but managed to heal from it. One who didn’t.”

“Which are you?” asked Deborah.

“I’m the one who was warned and saved from the blast,” said Noxon. “But my twin and I have worked it out. It’s quite simple, really. There’s some risk that he suffered damage to some or all of his gametes. The facemask heals damage it can detect, but it’s possible for gametes to be motile and yet not viable, or viable but mutated.”

“Ouch,” said Deborah.

“Mine, however, were unharmed,” said Noxon. “Not that there’s no risk of mutation or deformation—any gamete can be damaged by the vicissitudes of chance. But…”

“So you, Mister Pristine Sperm, will go where you think your seed will be most needed,” said Deborah.

“Not quite,” said Noxon. “Chances are that both of us will be able to reproduce successfully. But we want to invest my superior odds in a particular way.”

“I’m not sure why this is a matter for discussion with us,” said Wheaton.

“Excuse me, sir, but I’m discussing the possibility of marriage to your daughter,” said Noxon. “And explaining to you both why my twin and I have decided that where she goes, there go I. Not because we expect anything, or require anything. We’re both quite smitten with your daughter. In fact, we’re both very much in love with her. So on the chance that she might at some future point reciprocate…”

“Passage through the Wall apparently makes you awkward and stuffy in any language,” said Wheaton.

“We want to offer her the best chance of creating a family with healthy, whole, unmutated children.”

“Apart from that little genetic twist about being able to fiddle with time,” said Wheaton.

“We’re not sure whether that’s a plus or not,” said Noxon. “We do know that while pathfinding emerged at an early age, time manipulation came along much later. I don’t think that she would find a nursing baby suddenly disappearing and then reappearing at another time.”

“So you look at my breasts and think of attaching a baby to them?” asked Deborah.

Noxon looked at her steadily, trying to conceal his consternation. “I assure you that I’m a normal human male in most respects. But I’m an uxorious male, I believe the professor would say, and so I don’t have the alpha male’s assumption that all women are faunching to mate with me.”

“Only to nurse your babies.”

“Only to wish the babies they nurse to be healthy and not particularly weird.”

“What if I like your twin better than you?” asked Deborah. “Pretty cheeky, to take the decision out of my hands.”

“We’re quite sure that you can’t tell the difference between us at this point,” said Noxon. “And also sure that our feelings toward you are identical, because we were in love with you long before we duplicated.”

“When, exactly, did this overpowering passion first… overpower you?” asked Deborah.

“I first noticed it when you inconveniently got yourself killed by an Erectid stone.”

“Clumsy of me,” said Deborah.

“You didn’t follow instructions,” said Noxon. “And I knew, rationally, that I should consider the option of leaving that unfortunate event alone. But I did not consider it. I didn’t actually give a rat’s ass what else happened. Even if it would make saving Garden more difficult, I was not going to leave you dead.”

“How gallant,” said Deborah.

“I thought of going on without you and I found that unbearable,” said Noxon.

“Yet because one of you is going to Garden and the other to the planet Hell, or whatever we’re calling it, one of you must go on without me.”

“Yes,” said Noxon. “And so we decided, rationally, that we would offer you ourself at our best. My best. And the other would go about his tragic, meaningless existence without you.”

“And now you’re being ironic.”

“I’m being quite sincere,” said Noxon. “My twin is quite ­broken up about it. But he was the one who insisted that we make the decision on this basis—this rational basis—rather than drawing straws. Or making you choose, which would have been arbitrary and cruel to you.”

“Which of you farts in his sleep the most?” asked Deborah.

“We’ve never measured,” said Noxon. “But if you prefer that as a basis for the decision…”

“I believe you’d do it,” said Deborah.

“You’re the one who brought relative nocturnal flatulence into the discussion,” said Noxon.

“I had a condition once,” said Wheaton. “I tried eating an Erectid diet, back when we still had some unfortunate and inaccurate ideas about what they ate. Deborah may have an exaggerated idea of the importance of avoiding flatus in her pursuit of happiness. It only lasted a few weeks, but—”

“It lasted nearly a year, despite my begging,” said Deborah. “Noxon, I’m touched, you must understand, but…”

“Deborah Wheaton,” said Noxon, “I’m not really proposing marriage to you. Not yet. I know you can’t possibly give an answer now. I’m just saying that our decision rests upon your decision. Unless you are sure, right now, that no man with a mask like this can…”

“As I was saying, before you interrupted—and please don’t go back in time and stop yourself from interrupting me, because that might create yet a third Noxon, and I’d have to choose between the rude interrupter and the even ruder correcter of interrupters—”

“As you were saying,” Wheaton prompted her.

“I’m still sorting out whether I’m in love with you or the amazing things you can do. Human females are attracted to power. That’s simply a fact. And so my feelings of attachment to you are suspect, because they began immediately upon my learning of your ability to vanish and reappear, and then to go back in time.”

“Did my saving your life help or hurt?” asked Noxon.

“It complicated matters, of course,” said Deborah. “Now I have to sort out how much of being in love with you stems from gratitude, and how much from girlish awe at a champion alpha male, and how much comes from my enjoyment of your quirky personality and the prospect of having you as the father of my children.”

“Please wrestle with this quandary as long as you like,” said Noxon. “I’ll be content with whichever source of love you decide to go with.”

“Oh, just tell him yes and get it over with,” said Wheaton. “It’s been obvious from the start that you two were made for each other.”

“I’m used to keeping company with a genius,” said Deborah. “An irascible one, but…”

“I’m not irascible,” said Noxon. “In fact, I’m downright rascible.”

“That’s a false etymology,” said Wheaton. “The ‘ir’ in ‘irascible’ is not a negator, like the ‘ir’ in ‘irresponsible’ or ‘irrespective.’ The root of ‘irascible’ is the Latin ‘ira,’ meaning ‘wrath,’ and—”

Deborah stopped her father with a kiss on his cheek. “I’m sure he was making a joke, not asserting an etymology, Father.”

“Why are you kissing me?” Wheaton retorted. “He’s the one most in need of kissing, I think.”

“Now he’ll think I’m kissing him out of obedience to you, instead of as the result of my own uncontrollable ardor,” said Deborah.

Whereupon Noxon sprang from his chair, took her in his arms, and kissed her without regard for her immediate motive. She responded with as much enthusiasm as was appropriate with her father present. Which was to say that, upon repetition, in private, the whole business seemed to work much better.