Ruins

experimentation along those lines. What weapons were considered too dangerous to allow?

Any weapons that could threaten the starships’ control of this planet.

There were terrible slaughters in the wallfolds. The humans of Vadeshfold had made themselves extinct. There was apparently some kind of terrible plague that affected all the wallfolds early on. Many horrible wars and massacres and famines and genocides had happened, but it never triggered any reaction from the orbiters.

But then the Visitors come and a year later the Destroyers activate the orbiters to destroy every single wallfold.

Nine times the Odinfolders had tried various ways to placate these vengeful, terrible gods, remaking themselves, unbuilding their society, leaving everything, even their own bodies, in ruins; devolving all their powers and knowledge upon sentient mice; even contemplating the slaughter of the human race on Earth in order to prevent the destruction of Garden.

What if it wasn’t the humans from Earth who did this?

What if it was Ram Odin?

The Visitors came. They got complete access to all the ships’ logs. Then they went away.

What if they studied those logs and realized what had happened. The whole system was under the control of the man whose first act upon discovering the accidental nineteen-copy, eleven- thousand-year time-shift event was to order the murder of all other copies of himself, and then the destruction of almost all life on Garden to make room for his colonies. The man who used Garden as a means of creating people with his own strange time-shifting powers, only enhanced, clarified.

Now this same Ram Odin saw the people of Earth returning. Maybe they even got near enough to send an order to the ships’ computers, taking command away from Ram Odin.

Only Ram Odin had already programmed in an automatic response to this move. The result of any order that took command away from Ram Odin was the immediate destruction of all life on Garden.

If Ram could not rule, he would destroy.

The humans from Earth had tried to save Garden from its secret god, and the god had wrecked all rather than let his own power be curtailed.

Now it all made sense. No matter how many times the Odinfolders tried to make a better impression on the Visitors, nothing would ever work because the Visitors had always gotten a good impression and had never turned against the people of Garden.

All the lies were part of Ram Odin’s mad or evil plan to keep control over Garden while creating a race of time-shifters who were subservient to him without ever knowing it was him whom they served.

Speculation—all guesswork. Rigg knew this.

He also knew that with mice listening in on everything said among Rigg’s little company of five, and no doubt relaying the information to expendables or computers that passed it along to Odin, he couldn’t discuss his conclusions with anybody.

But there was a way that he could figure it all out. He could go to the starship where Ram Odin lived—in Vadeshfold. He could look for the path of Ram Odin. He could see how often he had been revived.

More to the point, Rigg could enhance himself the way Loaf was enhanced. It was possible that Ram Odin would forbid it—he might already have forbidden it, which would explain why Loaf got the mask, and not Rigg. It was also possible that Rigg would not have the strength of will that had allowed Loaf to overmaster the powerful forces that the facemask used to try to control its symbiote.

Either way, the world would not be any worse off than it was before. Rigg blocked from access to a facemask, or driven mad by a facemask, or even dead—how would that change the world for the worse?

But if he could get those enhancements, he could find out the truth, and if his suppositions turned out to be right, he could set the world free from this godlike monster who was set to destroy it in only a few years’ time, in order to prevent being called to account by the humans from Earth, who had the power to override his control of the computers and expendables.

Only when Rigg actually had those enhancements would he know how it would affect his time-shifting. Everything depended on his being able to get to Ram Odin at a time when there was no way an expendable could save him. No way that Ram Odin could command the mice to send some kind of object into the past that would prevent the assassination.

Or Rigg might find out that he was wrong, that Ram Odin was not alive, that the expendables were simply capable of lying, that the situation really was as chaotic and unknowable as it seemed. Maybe this brilliant guess of his was just wishful thinking. Maybe there was no theory that could unify and explain everything.

So Rigg tried to keep himself calm during his flight to the Wall. But then, he didn’t really need to conceal his trepidation, his excitement. After all, whatever changes in his behavior and vital signs the flyer’s sensors picked up could be completely explained by Rigg’s stated decision to go get a facemask. Who wouldn’t be tense, flustered, fearful, excited?

The flyer landed and Rigg got out.

Waiting on the other side of the Wall was Vadesh, looking so much like Father.

Rigg’s first thought was to wave him over. Don’t pretend you can’t go through the Wall, because I know you can.

But no, better to just go along with the way the expendables pretended the world worked.

Rigg walked into the Wall and felt the frisson of distant dread and anguish, the rekindling of language. In both the jewels and the knife, the ships’ logs would be updating. Rigg kept his attention focused on Vadesh.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Vadesh said when Rigg was close enough.

“No,” said Rigg. “You weren’t right. You let all your people die. You’re a failure. But I don’t want to be a failure like you. When the Visitors come, I need to have the enhancements that Loaf has, so I’m better able to assess them and figure out how to prevent the destruction of Garden.”

It was a long speech. It sounded rehearsed, even though Rigg had not known what he was going to say. How would Vadesh interpret it? Or, more to the point, how would Ram Odin, listening, interpret it?

Am I defending myself when nobody has challenged me? Probably. But will the expendable conclude from this that I’m deceiving him? Probably not. Humans always defend themselves when they think they might be wrong. And anyone about to receive a facemask who doesn’t wonder if his decision is wrong must be an idiot.

“In other words, I was right,” said Vadesh. “But it’s perfectly understandable that you don’t want to admit it. Ego plays such a strong role in the self-deceptions of human beings.”

“With a facemask, will my self-deception be even more effective?” asked Rigg.

“Oh yes,” said Vadesh. “But so will your ability to see right through your own self-deceptions.”

Even now, knowing what he knew, suspecting what he suspected, Rigg couldn’t help feeling a closeness to Vadesh, especially when he talked in conundrums and paradoxes the way Father always did.

He also felt as much loathing for Vadesh as ever.

Any human who is guided by his emotions is a fool, thought Rigg. Because we can feel absurdly opposite things at the same time.

“Did you bring a facemask to me?” asked Rigg.

“No,” said Vadesh. “You don’t want to take on the struggle for dominance here, where there is so much outside stimulation to distract you. You’d be swallowed up.”

“You found that out by seeing people go mad?”

“Of course,” said Vadesh. “There’s such a steep price for failure.”

“But you never pay it,” said Rigg.

“I’m a machine,” said Vadesh. “And the Pinocchio story is absurd. Machines don’t want to be real boys. Real boys are so corruptible, so easily distracted, deceived, killed.”

“And no one deceives you?”

“Many think they do,” said Vadesh. “And I pretend that they’ve succeeded.”

“So you’re the deceiver.”

“We’re all deceivers, Rigg Sessamekesh,” said Vadesh. “I’m just better at it.”

“So is there any point in my asking you whether you have prepared a facemask for me that will be too powerful for me to master?”

“No, there’s no point in your asking, and no, I have prepared nothing different to what I prepared for