“I’m that important to them, that my presence or absence changes everything?” asked Knosso.

“We’re all that important,” said Umbo. “But it doesn’t change everything. People who are married now will probably be married next time through, and were probably married on the previous pass. There’s really only the one pass.”

“What about babies?” asked Knosso.

“Most of the babies will still be born,” said Umbo. “But they won’t be quite the same. The mix of genes from their parents will be different on each passage through conception. Perhaps conception will happen on a different day. Or a different sperm will win through.”

“Do we have to discuss this so . . . candidly?” asked Param.

“We’re candid about all such things in Larfold,” said Knosso. “But I’ve learned what I needed to. We can drop the subject for a while.” Then he thought of something else. “But will we remember this conversation, once we go back?”

“Our memories will stay with us,” said Umbo. “Whatever happened to us before we went back in time remains in the causal chain—in our causal chain. It isn’t time, it’s causation that can’t be lost. Any cause that still has effects in the time-shifters, we keep in memory. It happened, even if the results that had no effect on us are gone and we can never recover that changed version of the future.”

“You must be geniuses to keep this all in mind,” said Knosso, and then he went back to join the Larfolders who were eager to talk to him.

“There was a time,” said Olivenko, “when he wouldn’t have been able to leave the matter alone until he understood it perfectly.”

“We get older,” said Loaf. “The exuberance of youth is replaced by a knowledge that learning things doesn’t ever bring any clarity.”

“So you stop learning?”

“You keep learning,” said Loaf, “you just have a lot less hope in the results. A lot less faith that what you learn today will still seem true tomorrow.”

“I’ll never be that old,” said Umbo.

“I never was that young,” said Loaf. “But I enjoy watching you lambs cavort upon the lea.”

The hours passed, and then the expendables told them that the exact moment recorded in all the Future Books from Odinfold was nearly upon them.

The time-shifting group gathered together and linked their hands, so Umbo could take them all back into the past before any damage could be done to them by whatever weapon the Destroyers used. “The writers of the Future Books had time to write,” said Olivenko. “We have no reason to think that it will be too quick for us to respond.”

“And if it is,” said Param, “then we’ll be dead and won’t complain about some minor error in our planning.”

Only a minute before the appointed moment, and Rigg appeared. It was Loaf, of course, who noticed him, and for a moment he let go of Umbo’s hand, breaking the chain that linked them.

“Rigg!” he called. “You made it through!”

“You came!” cried Umbo.

Rigg looked terrible, his facemask new and not yet blended to him the way that Loaf’s had gradually done. His eyes were not yet properly placed in the facemask, so they were askew and disturbing to look at. If Umbo had not seen how Loaf’s mask and the Companions of the Larfolders eventually adapted and came to seem natural, he would have grieved for Rigg. He grieved a little anyway, because his friend had once been handsome, in his way, and now he would be forever freakish in the eyes of anyone in Ramfold. There would be no returning to become King-in-the-Tent for Rigg. That was a civil war that would never happen, after all. No one would follow him.

Not that Rigg would ever want to be the king. Umbo understood now that Rigg did not want to be the boss of anything. That he only wanted what was best for everyone, and when he insisted on something, it wasn’t because he had to get his way, it was because he wanted things to turn out right.

Like now, as he bossed everyone about, telling them to get back into their group and link hands again, then inserted himself at the end of the line, holding Olivenko’s hand on the other side from Knosso, who also held Param, who held to Umbo’s hand, who held to Loaf.

“Why aren’t the others joining us?” asked Rigg. “We could all go back, if the Destroyers come.”

“And have two copies of us to live another few years to see this day arrive again?” asked Mother Mock, who had been standing near Knosso, talking with him, when Rigg arrived.

“It’s time,” said Vadesh and Larex, both at once, the same voice double-speaking, perfect twins again.

They waited.

“It’s past time,” said Larex, this time speaking alone, “and there are no sightings of the Destroyers by any of the orbiters.”

“But there wouldn’t be,” said Rigg. “Because the Destroyers never came from Earth.”

Letting go of hands, the others demanded to know what he meant.

“It wasn’t the people of Earth. The Visitors had nothing to do with it,” Rigg explained. “Ram Odin wasn’t dead. He stayed alive in stasis on Vadesh’s starship, waking up now and then to meddle in the world and override my orders to the ships. He was terrified when the Visitors came, because they took control of everything away from him. So before they could come again, to bring new colonists, or to trade with us, or whatever they really intended to do, Ram Odin ordered the destruction of the world. The orbiters slaughtered everyone at his command.”

“So what changed his mind?” asked Umbo.

“The knife he tried to kill me with,” said Rigg. “The facemask helped me take it from his hand, and then I went back in time and killed him. In preemptive self-defense.”

“You fool,” said Vadesh. “Well, at least I understand why you did it. And I believe your claim that he tried to kill you—that’s no surprise. He was afraid of what you’d become with a facemask—that’s why he made me put it on Loaf or Olivenko, and not on you or Umbo or Param.”

Rigg seemed genuinely surprised. “Then why did you put it on me after all?”

Vadesh smiled. “He changed his mind. And then he changed it back again.”

“He’s lying,” murmured Loaf.

“I can’t lie to the keeper of the logs,” said Vadesh. “Please remember that you can’t whisper softly enough for me not to hear you. And now I’d suggest that you join your little hands again, because the only thing that has changed this time around is that the Destroyers are arriving three and a half minutes late.”

“No!” cried Rigg, letting go and striding to the expendable. “I killed him! That’s the end of it!”

“You wasted a murder, my dear boy,” said Vadesh. “Poor Ram. All these years alive, and then assassinated by a child who jumped to false conclusions.”

“I knew he was alive!” cried Rigg. “I was right about everything.”

“Everything except what causes the destruction of the world. Join hands with the others, Rigg, or die with the rest of us—I don’t care which you choose.”

Umbo chose for him, wrapping his arms around Rigg without letting go of Param or Loaf. And then, as fire came out of the sky, Umbo pulled them all with him into the past.

CHAPTER 25

New Paths

Rigg knew at once what he had to do. The others had their opinions, there on the beach in Larfold, freshly returned from the destruction of the world, an event that once again was three years away.

For an hour, Rigg listened miserably as the others justified his killing of Ram Odin, marveled that Ram Odin had been alive at all, or agreed with Rigg that the murder had to be undone.

Finally Rigg said, “I’m going to do what I have to do. Again. It’s time for you to discuss what you’re going to do about your warning to the Visitors about the mice.”

Umbo looked stricken. “But it made no difference.”

“Exactly,” said Rigg. “While leaving them unwarned might save the world.”

“And wipe out the human race on Earth,” cried Param.

As if she really cared about another planetful of people.