“Why?” asked Rigg. “With you butt ugly like that, people can tell us apart really easily.”
“And who is Square?” asked Noxon.
Leaky sighed a little.
“All will be explained in due time,” said Ram Odin. “But I think it’s clear now that you’ve saved the world, we have a war to fight, and your—friend? Wife?—wants a facemask.”
“I want it even more now,” said Deborah. “I won’t have to be as ugly as Noxon after all.”
“You can be whatever you want,” said Square.
“If you can control the facemask,” said Param. “Not everybody can.”
Ram Odin once again tried to take control. “Please. We’ve all seen each other, we know pretty much what happened, and we can get the details in the days and weeks to come. Let’s let Noxon and Deborah do what they came here to do, and the rest of us should get back to our responsibilities.”
“How did it work out with the mice and the computers?” asked Umbo.
“As far as we know,” said Rigg, “the mice now rule the world.”
“I’m so relieved,” said Umbo. “You and Ram Odin were doing kind of a lousy job of it.”
“Well, now you get to be king,” said Rigg.
“Just a figurehead,” said Umbo.
Param took his hand. “He keeps saying that, but when I try to give him responsibilities he refuses.”
“I don’t want to be in charge of anything,” said Umbo. “I just want to be able to complain about it.”
“He works hard,” said Param, “and he does a good job.”
“But Square and his maskers do all the heavy fighting,” said Umbo. “We’re still trying to figure out how to end the war, now that it’s obvious their armies can’t stand against us and the people want to be rid of them.”
“You’ll think of something,” said Noxon.
“This is what power looks like?” said Deborah. “The people in charge of a war. You’re the Queen-in-the-Tent?”
Param smiled. “Pretty hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“No, you’re very royal,” said Deborah. “But you also look younger than me.”
“They’re children,” said Loaf. “Brats with way too much power. Now that the world isn’t going to end, we’re going to have to put up with a lot of nonsense till they grow up.”
“Come on,” said Noxon. “If we don’t go now and get your facemask, they’ll keep you here for hours with their blathering.”
Deborah grinned at them all and let Noxon lead her out of the room. Vadeshex followed immediately. The rest of them stood there looking at each other.
“I was in the middle of a nice nap,” said Rigg.
“Mine wasn’t all that nice,” said Ram Odin. “I kept seeing Vadeshex popping a bleeding mouse corpse into his mouth.”
“Thanks for putting that image in my mind,” said Param.
“Anything for the Queen-in-the-Tent,” said Ram Odin. He left the room.
“Want me to take you all back to Ramfold?” asked Ramex. “Or somewhere else?”
“The enclave will do,” said Loaf. “Leaky has to serve dinner and I’ve got trainees to supervise.”
“I thought they were all trained,” said Umbo.
“He means my people,” said Square. “We’ve got some new recruits who just got control of their masks.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Umbo. “Are we going to go ahead and just get rid of Hagia and Haddamander now?”
“We aren’t going to assassinate—” Param began.
“Wrong words,” said Umbo. “I mean, why don’t we just kidnap them and stash them back a few hundred years ago? In another wallfold where they aren’t royal and don’t have anybody who’ll obey them?”
Rigg laughed. “I can think of a few wallfolds they’d really enjoy.”
“I don’t want to torture them or even punish them,” said Param. “But yes, Umbo, that’s a good idea. Just put them in a place where they can’t do much harm and maybe they can make a life for each other.”
“And then we’ll find out whether we’re any more fit to rule than they were,” said Umbo.
“Well, if you’re not,” said Rigg, “we can always bring back the People’s Revolutionary Council.”
The meeting broke up then, and they all made their way to the Ramfold flyer. Rigg ended up bringing up the rear, and as he reached the bridge leading from the ship to the tunnels beyond, he found Umbo waiting for him.
“Hi,” said Umbo.
“I think everything’s worked out pretty well,” said Rigg.
“I told Ramex to tell Vadeshex to tell Noxon that I saved Kyokay’s life. He’ll want to know, right?”
“Too bad you won’t tell him yourself,” said Rigg. “It’s a pretty amazing story. You’re the only real hero among us now.”
“Except Square. And when I watch you fighting the Destroyer—”
“Wasn’t me,” said Rigg.
“Was too,” said Umbo. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I just—seeing Noxon with the girl. With Deborah.”
“It would have to be a blind girl to fall in love with that ugly face of his,” said Rigg.
“I’ve got Param, and you know that I’ve been in love with her all along. And Noxon looks really happy with her—she really seems to care about him.”
“Looks like,” said Rigg. “But look, Umbo, if you’re worried about me, don’t. I’ve seen a lot of wallfolds. I’m thinking of going back to one of them, maybe. I met some people. Some places where I might want to live.”
“Really?” said Umbo. “Because I was kind of hoping you’d find some nice girl and hang around with me and Param. We’ve made a pretty good team, when you think about it.”
“Had our ups and downs.”
“I don’t want to get sickening about this, but I was hoping you’d stay. You’re my best friend, Rigg, even though I was a real pain in the butt for a while.”
“But I’ll still be here even if I go,” said Rigg. “I mean, Noxon’s me, right?”
Umbo shook his head. “Yes. I know. You’ve seen most of Garden, he’s been to Earth, and I’m just—”
“You’re just King-in-the-Tent, and married to my sister,” said Rigg. “You know that wherever I go to live, I’ll come back and visit whenever I want. I’ll be married and have kids and I’ll get up from dinner and say, ‘I’m going to take a walk,’ and then I’ll get in the flyer, come visit you for a week, and then get back home a few minutes after I left.”
“Sounds like a decent plan,” said Umbo. “I hope that’s all we ever have to do with our timeshaping, once the war is over. No more saving the world. No more changes to make.”
“That’s the best plan,” said Rigg. “It worries me, that these powers are loose in the world. We were clumsy enough, and dumb enough, but it all worked out pretty well. What if some of our descendants are, I don’t know, kind of awful. What if there’s somebody like Haddamander. Or Hagia. Or—or Tegay. You know what I mean.”
“Param and I have talked about that. We even debated about whether or not we should even have children. But here’s what we came up with. The mice brought us together, at the peak of our abilities, to save Garden and then, it turns out, to save Earth and everybody. But now our kids will marry people who aren’t timeshapers, and their kids will dilute the genes even more. Maybe when the human race doesn’t need saving, this ability will fade out, weaken, or become like our abilities were, before we put them together. You seeing paths. Me slowing people down, or speeding them up, or whatever. Just little things. Interesting but not scary. Not world-changing. That’s what we think.”
Rigg thought about that for a few moments. “I really like that idea,” he said. “I hope it’s true.”
“We can also try to raise our kids to be really decent people.”
“That’s a good idea, too, though children become whatever they want to be,” said Rigg.
“I know it’s crazy, Param and I both thought it was insane when I first suggested it, but now we think it might be true. I mean, I think it is true. That the human race was really determined not to be destroyed. And so it first got the Odinfolders to think up a machine that could send back the Future Books. And each time through history, humanity kept gathering its strength, and finally, between the Odinfolders and the mice and whatever genes were floating around in Ramfold, plus Ramex raising you and training me and Param—the human race needed us, and so it made us. And now it’s all worked out. So . . . it doesn’t need anybody to have our abilities anymore.”