Rigg stopped cold.
“What did he say?” asked Ram Odin.
“Something that I halfway hope is true,” said Rigg. “But if it is, I’m not sure I want to know it. I’m sure Umbo doesn’t want to know it.”
“I’m lying,” said the mouse on his shoulder. “But it certainly startled you.”
“Were you lying then?” asked Rigg. “Or are you lying now, because you saw how it startled me?”
“What did he say?” asked Ram Odin.
Vadeshex answered. “He told Rigg that the mice didn’t really do any genetic alterations to promote his and Param’s abilities.”
“Well,” said Ram Odin, “is that true?”
“I have no way of knowing,” said Vadeshex. “We can’t monitor changes on a genetic level, not from a distance.”
“What about Umbo?” asked Rigg. “Was that brutal cobbler his father or not?”
“Bring me a genetic sample from Tegay and Enene, and one from Umbo, and I’ll test for paternity,” said Vadeshex. “Till you do that, I can only say that Umbo does not look like Tegay.”
“I could really come to hate these mice,” said Rigg. “If you didn’t really alter us genetically, why did you tell us that you did?”
“We did alter you,” said the mouse. “I was joking, and it’s getting funnier by the second.”
“I’m going to take a nap, too,” said Rigg.
“But now you won’t sleep half so well,” said the mouse.
“Get off my shoulder before I pick you off and crush your head,” said Rigg.
“Violence is such a human trait,” said the mouse.
“So is merciless goading and perpetual lying,” said Rigg. “When Mouse-Breeder made you, I wish he hadn’t added in those traits.”
“I’m going to get down,” said the mouse, “if you promise not to kill me.”
“I thought it didn’t matter if we stepped on a few of you now and then,” said Rigg.
“Well, in my case, it matters to me,” said the mouse.
“I won’t kill you as long as you don’t scurry under my boots.”
The mouse made a flying leap and landed on Vadeshex, whose hand flashed out, catching the mouse between his fingers. Vadeshex crushed its head and popped the mouse’s corpse into his mouth.
Rigg almost puked on the spot.
“I can process any animal or vegetable matter,” said Vadeshex, “and I didn’t want the corpse cluttering up the corridor.”
“Why did you kill it?” asked Rigg.
“Because he was causing problems with his lies,” said Vadeshex.
“Or else he was causing problems by telling me a truth I wasn’t supposed to know,” said Rigg.
“One of those,” said Vadeshex.
“Wake me when they get here,” said Ram Odin. “And don’t eat any more mice in front of Rigg. He’s more squeamish than you think.”
“I was raised by one of these machines,” said Rigg. “I still think of them as people, even though I know better.”
“Poor Rigg,” said Vadeshex. “Try to sleep.”
Rigg held back any kind of retort, mostly because he couldn’t decide on which of them he should use. He went into his cabin and stripped off his clothes, shaking out the mice. “All of you get out of this room and don’t come back in without an invitation.”
The mice scurried out the door. The facemask assured him that they were all gone. Rigg lay down on the cot. “I want to sleep,” he said aloud to the facemask.
The facemask always understood, whether Rigg framed the request in words or not. Moments after Rigg lay down, the facemask dropped him into unconsciousness.
It was the ship’s voice that woke him, not Vadeshex, which was fine with Rigg. The facemask had him alert in a moment, with no residual grogginess. Rigg pulled on his clothes and went down the now-empty corridors to the open area where everyone was gathering. Param, Ram Odin, Umbo, Loaf, Leaky, Square, Olivenko, Vadeshex, Ramex, and a few hundred mice.
“Are we waiting for anyone else?” asked Ram Odin.
“Just Noxon and Deborah Wheaton,” said Vadeshex. “And here they are.”
Noxon came into the room, accompanied by a girl who wore a thick band across her eyes. It was obvious by the way she moved that she wasn’t blind at all.
“Hi,” said Noxon. “We did it. Or, well, another copy of me did it, along with Ram Odin and her father, Professor Wheaton.”
“How?” asked Param. “What did they do?”
“Deborah and I saw them off in the starship. They left a couple of hundred thousand years before the aliens came, and when we hopped back to that time, the aliens didn’t come after all, so I assume they succeeded. I have no idea how.”
“She’s not really blind,” said Loaf.
“She has no eyes,” said Noxon.
Deborah tapped the band over her eyes. “It’s a machine,” she said. “Not as advanced as their visual units.” She indicated Vadeshex and Ramex.
“We waited until the Visitors came back from Garden,” said Rigg. “In the original version of history, the Destroyers had already wiped out human life on Earth before they got home. We sliced our way a few dozen years, just to be sure the Destroyers never came.”
“The expedition you call ‘the Visitors’ gave a very favorable report,” said Deborah. “They recommended that this world be left completely alone to go on developing without interference.”
“And the government made that official policy,” said Noxon. “Doesn’t mean it’ll stay the policy, but it’s a good sign. They stuck with it for a dozen years or so. Then we popped back, got on the Visitors’ outbound ship, and sliced our way through their whole voyage.”
“They never knew you were on the ship?” asked Umbo.
Noxon gave him a withering look. “Give me credit,” he said.
Umbo grinned. “We may call you Noxon, but you’re still Rigg.”
“I’m not sure how to take that,” said Rigg.
“It’s pure flattery to both of us,” said Noxon. “You should all know that I didn’t plan on coming back here. If I hadn’t accidently duplicated myself, I would have ended up with the backward Ram Odin out at the alien world. Presumably they’re colonizing the place now. But as long as this copy of me existed, I thought I might as well come home.”
“With a friend,” said Param.
“You can never have too many friends,” said Noxon.
But the way Deborah threaded an arm around his waist made it clear enough that this wasn’t an ordinary friendship.
“My job is over,” said Noxon, “but I realize you’re still caught up in the war against Haddamander and Hagia. I don’t want to distract you.”
“We no longer have such a tight deadline to work with,” said Olivenko. “Since the world isn’t ending a couple of years from now.”
“The ship told me that you already knew the Destroyers were aliens,” said Noxon. “Rigg and Param got bounced past the Destruction and had some kind of fight, yes? I’ve never actually seen one of them. Do you have it recorded?”
“Rigg makes us watch it twice a day,” said Ram Odin.
Rigg shook his head a little.
Noxon grinned. “Well, I want to see you whip them.”
“I only fought one, and it took more than twenty of me to bring him down,” said Rigg. “And it wasn’t actually me. The ones who did the fighting left the knife and the ship’s logs with Umbo, and he stopped us from getting into the fight. So all I know of it is what the ship’s log recorded.”
“Nice to know you had it in you though, isn’t it?” asked Noxon.
“You’re the one who saved the world.”
“Well, as I said, that wasn’t me, either. You and I are just copies of the heroes.”
“Good enough for me,” said Umbo.
“Only now both of us are back here,” said Noxon. “So we still have to try to keep out of each other’s way.”
Rigg shook his head. “Square taught me how to get the facemask to give me a new face. Turns out we have a lot more control over our appearance than we knew.”
“That’s right,” said Noxon. “You look like me now. I mean, the way we were. Originally. I didn’t even realize it because that’s how I’m supposed to look. Can you get my mask to do that?”