“But the original pilot, Ram Odin,” said Umbo, “he had time gifts. That’s where all our abilities come from. And he did time stuff when he was in a ship in space.”
“Yet the ship was displaced nineteen times,” said Rigg. “Doesn’t that tell you something? During the microseconds when the ship’s nineteen computers were separately calculating and activating the jump, the whole ship had moved far enough in space that Ram’s unconscious time-jump reached nineteen different places. We can’t go into space and use our time-shifting ability, or we’ll just create duplicate ships.”
“We don’t know that,” said Olivenko.
“But we don’t know it won’t happen. Or worse,” said Rigg. “Please remember that when I suggested going back to Earth with the Visitors, I wasn’t counting on the idea that we could keep ourselves out of trouble by using time-jumping. For all we know, that’ll be a sure ticket to our deaths. My idea was to go back, to make the attempt, and if they kill us, then they kill us.”
“Well, there’s this,” said Olivenko. “Even if that happened, and we couldn’t save ourselves—or rather, you couldn’t save us with your time-shifting—the Odinfolders would send another book into the past and tell them—and us—that having us get on the Visitors’ ship was a very bad idea and we shouldn’t do it.”
Param laughed. “So the fact that they haven’t already received such a Future Book proves that we succeeded?”
“Or that we decided not to do it,” said Rigg.
“Or that we did it, and failed, but the Odinfolders decided not to show us the Future Book that resulted, and just went on to try something else.”
“Or they gave up,” said Param, “and just decided to die.”
“No matter how much we learn,” said Umbo, “we never know enough.”
“All we can do is what we’ve always done,” said Rigg. “Make a try at something, and then if it doesn’t work, go back and try again. But we can’t always go back.”
Umbo leapt to his feet, “Right, there are things that stay terrible. For instance, Rigg, that you’ve completely forgotten about going back to save my brother Kyokay’s life.”
It struck Rigg like a knife, that this was part of what Umbo still held against him. “We already decided that we can’t, because if we did, then we’d never have gotten together to learn how to manipulate time.”
“But now we know more, we have more control, we could figure out a way to catch him partway down maybe, or—”
“Maybe we can,” said Rigg. “Maybe we can put in a net to catch him, or train a giant bird to snatch him out of the air, or a huge puff of air to blow him out to sea. But we’ll do it later—go back and save one boy after we’ve figured out how to save the whole world.”
“So you’re saying Kyokay has to stay dead, so that we can do whatever useless stupidity we’ve done since we found out how to do this stuff?” said Umbo. “Well, you know what? Maybe the best thing would be to stop Kyokay from falling in the first place, so we don’t ever learn to do our little time tricks, and then all the rest of our miserable history doesn’t happen!”
“And then,” said Param bitterly, “you get to enjoy living with your brother in your happy home, under the authority of your beloved father, while I get murdered by my mother and General Citizen because Rigg isn’t there to save me.”
“But if Citizen didn’t capture Rigg and realize who he was—” began Umbo.
“Whatever Citizen and Hagia Sessamin were plotting, it didn’t begin with Rigg’s capture,” said Olivenko scornfully. “Your father would probably have killed you by now, Umbo, and meanwhile Param would also have been murdered, and even if none of those things happened, the Visitors would come and then the Destroyers and kill us all, so what exactly are you saying here, that having a few more years with your brother—who would probably have found some other colorful way to get himself killed—that would be worth the destruction of the planet?”
Umbo buried his face in his hands. “I just want to stop all this. When did this become my job?”
“It’s not,” said Param. “It’s my job, and Rigg’s, because we were born with responsibility.”
“Stop it,” said Rigg. “Let’s just face the fact that we can’t fix every bad thing that ever happened, because every change we make brings about new bad things, because in the real world, bad things happen, period, that’s it. People die and we can’t always unkill them, that’s how it is. I’m sorry Kyokay died, Umbo, and I’m sorry we can’t fix it yet without making a whole bunch of terrible unpredictable changes. And I’m sorry that Param is such a provincial twit that she makes stupid arrogant remarks about how the royal family is born to responsibility—”
“We are!” cried Param, leaping to her feet.
“At least you got angry,” said Rigg, “instead of disappearing on us.”
“I really like the way you’re making peace here, Rigg,” said Loaf.
“Was that Loaf or the facemask talking?” asked Rigg. “Listen, we have plenty of reasons to be angry and resentful and suspicious and whatever else we’re feeling. Grief-stricken, terrified, whatever it is, it’s completely justified. And if we all hate each other what difference does it make? We have these abilities, which may be worthless, but we have them, and if there’s any chance we can use them to save the world, then let’s do it, and if we fail, well, we’re all dead so who cares, and if we succeed, then we’ll have plenty of time to feud and bicker like children, and no, I’m not saying I’m any better, I’m so lonely and angry all the time that I can hardly sleep, and I wish my father had really been my father and not some stupid machine, so don’t tell me what it’s like to lose somebody you loved, or to be disappointed in life, or whatever else is going wrong. Loaf misses Leaky. I miss my father. Param’s mother, the only person she trusted, tried to kill her. Olivenko’s mentor, Knosso, got dragged out of his boat and drowned. Have I given the complete list of Things We Haven’t Been Able To Change?”
“No,” said Loaf, “but it was a pretty good start.”
“We’ve been studying forever, and the Visitors are close to arriving, and while we might end up trying the idea of getting on the Visitors’ starship, if they’ll even let us, and going back to Earth, I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not what we should do first.”
“What should we do, then?” asked Olivenko.
“Not one thing,” said Rigg. “Nothing. The Visitors come, we watch from a distance, we see for ourselves what they are. Or maybe we even meet them and talk to them. But then they go, and we think about what we learned from them, and we go on studying everything we can, and then the Destroyers come, and we see what that looks like, and then we jump back in time to right after we got here, and then we decide what to do.”
They all sat there, looking at the ground, at the distant ruins, at the sky, at the elephants, at passing insects or the mice scurrying through the grass—anywhere but at each other, anywhere but at Rigg.
And finally Olivenko said, “That sounds like the best plan I’ve heard.”
“I think so, too,” said Param.