Now they both laughed. After a moment, though, Toby’s smile faded. “What are you going to do now? Go back to Thisbe?”
“I guess,” she said. “Though, you know, the basic problem remains. The blockade … the punishment frequency.”
“I can’t reset your whole world’s clock.”
She looked him in the eye, and that steely look was back in hers. “Are you sure about that?”
“No. I don’t know. I haven’t exactly had time to find out what I can or can’t do. But anyway”—he turned away from her again—“I don’t want to.”
“I get it,” she said stiffly. “You don’t want to take on your brother and sister.”
It wasn’t that at all. The fact was, waking these people, evading Nathan Kenani and taking over the lockstep bots—it had all been way too easy. Disturbingly easy. It was like playing Consensus in God mode, except that this was reality. You could blow up whole planets without a second thought in the game. Nearly anything he did with such powers in Lockstep 360/1 was bound to hurt somebody.
“Look, why should I stick my nose into any of this?” he demanded. “I don’t know anything about anything here, you said so yourself the first time we met. I’ve been trying to catch up, but how do you catch up? It’s impossible. Now you’re asking me to rejig time for an entire world? How am I supposed to tell if that’s a good thing to do or an evil thing to do? Corva, if I can’t tell, then I’m not doing it. That’s all there is to it.”
At some point in the argument Corva’s brother had come up to them, and a small half circle of refugees from Thisbe had gathered a few more paces back. “You’re right,” said Halen, putting his hand on Corva’s arm. “You have no reason to take our word for anything. Why don’t you see for yourself?”
Toby grimaced. “By going to Thisbe with you, I suppose?”
Halen’s lips twitched into a smile, with the same reluctance Toby saw in Corva. “If you’re feeling insecure,” he said, “you can bring that little bot army of yours.”
“But really,” said Corva, “how are you planning on getting to Destrier? Evayne and Peter have to know that’s where you’re headed. They’ll be waiting for you with an army of their own, and it won’t be one you can switch off.”
“And you can get me there?”
“Maybe. If you help Thisbe, you’ll have an entire planet on your side.”
Corva had lowered her voice and was glancing around, and Toby was also growing uneasy with the listeners. He started walking, and she and her brother fell into step beside him. Wrecks was gamboling around Corva’s feet and attracting a fair amount of attention from passersby, but they soon left her curious countrymen behind, and the crowds of the Weekly were diverse and strange enough that the three of them didn’t really stand out.
Once they were out of earshot of the commotion around the airlocks, Toby said, “How much have you told them—your friends from the ship?”
“Obviously I told Halen. Some of the others know you brought us out of hibernation early, but not how. They might suspect, but the whole idea of you being a real McGonigal is so…”
“You think they’ll figure it out when I retune your whole planet’s frequency?”
There was a momentary silence; Corva and Halen glanced at each other. Then Corva sighed. “How do you want to do it? I mean, you’re going to reveal yourself at some point. Right? So when? And how?”
Toby’s bravado collapsed. He’d actually been trying not to think about that, just as he’d been trying not to think about how his brother and sister had changed, seemingly overnight, from familiar friends to hostile strangers.
“What happens when I do?” he asked, spreading his hands. “I have no idea. You have to tell me.” And I have to trust you. But could he?
“Well,” said Corva. “Some people think the world will end. You’ll bring us all to paradise, because your return will be the fulfillment of time itself.” She saw his expression and quickly looked down. “I know, it’s crazy. But even the mildest interpretations … you have to understand, according to all our traditions—the stories, the religious orthodoxy, and about a billion books and stories—you’re the heir. The eldest son of the McGonigals and the original designer of the lockstep system.”
“Which I’m not,” he pointed out. “Kenani said that Mom created it.”
“But who knows that, other than a few people like him?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Toby: you’re the heir. The Creator and Savior of the locksteps. If people thought you’d returned, they’d turn away from your brother and sister instantly. Many would follow you without question. And some…”
When she didn’t continue, Halen nodded to her, as if she’d just agreed with something he’d said. “Some would follow Thisbe out of the lockstep.”
“Not some,” said Corva flatly.
“A lot. Many. Most, maybe. Would you let that happen?”
Toby shrugged; he had no idea.
“More important, would Peter let it happen without a fight?” Halen leaned back, frowning at Toby. “Come with us to Thisbe and see what people really think of the McGonigals. Then tell us what you want to do. Though, I warn you, you might not like what you see there.”
“I don’t like any of this,” said Toby. There was no question he was trapped. With Peter and Evayne after him, he had nowhere else to go. Even so, the idea of pretending to be the messiah the legends said he was, was profoundly disturbing.
He sighed.
“I’ll go. But not as Toby McGonigal.”
Thirteen
TOBY STEPPED ONTO THE soil of Thisbe, stopped, and began to cough. Tears filled his eyes and he had to step away from the others and cover his face for a moment. Orpheus climbed up to perch on his shoulder and said, “mrrt?”
It was years since he’d breathed the dust-laden, mold-and-bug-filled air of a real planetary biosystem. It was like fire in his lungs. There was more to the shock than that, though.
Blazing sunlight sent waves of heat into his face. The air was hot and felt free of the heaviness of the subsurface domes and close metal passages he’d been condemned to after they left Earth. When he squinted his eyes open again, he beheld a wilderness of rolling hills, green grass, and trees nodding in the breeze. Blue sky presided over it all, where white clouds reached for and overtopped one another. He could smell the grass and wildflowers. The buzz of insects sounded from nearby. It was all so beautiful and overwhelming, so like Earth.
“Wh-where are we?”
The sun flickered and went out. Toby blinked and ducked with a shout of surprise. “Damn,” he heard Halen say.
Then the light came back on, only now it was a lurid, monochromatic blue. Everything was suddenly electric and strange, the trees pale parodies of themselves, the sky white. “What the hell—?”
Corva glanced up and shrugged. “Glitches. They happen. You’ll see. I don’t actually mind the blue ones. It’s the red I hate.”
Toby put his hand up to his face—but no, he hadn’t absentmindedly donned his glasses. This was no virtual world. He could still feel the heat of the strange sunlight on his face and smell the flowers. The bugs were still zizzing in the warm air. “That’s not a sun?”
Jaysir and Shylif were with them, and now Jay laughed. “Welcome to the Laser Wastes. Or, at any rate, their slummy edges.”
Behind them the Travelers’ Rest was a long low building on the edge of a fairly conventional, if overgrown-looking, spaceport. A few bots were struggling to cut down young trees that were blocking some of the buildings’ exits, and only one runway was clear; the others sprouted grass and more small trees through cracks in the pavement.