Who was to say that Knosso hadn’t made the better choice?
Not that any of it mattered. For Umbo didn’t really think that anything they did would make a difference. Nine times already the Destroyers had come. The only difference this time would be that instead of sending letters or books into the past, they would return themselves, as eyewitnesses. Though with the Destroyers remaining out in space until all life on Garden was extinct, it would be hard to say just what they might witness from a beach in Larfold.
“There’s nothing to wait for,” said Loaf. “We might as well go right now. No need to pack a picnic for the trip. We’ll go forward far enough to see what happens, and then come back.”
“Even if the Destroyers don’t come?” asked Umbo. “How long will we wait to know that things have changed?”
“We can decide once we get there,” said Param.
So they joined hands and Param took them into the future, slicing time in great swaths, leaping forward faster than she had before. Not two times around the seasons, but three, slowing only when they got near the expected time of year, and stopping when they could see a great gathering of Larfolders on the beach.
Larex was there. And Vadesh.
“I didn’t want to watch for this alone,” said Vadesh.
But, as always, Umbo thought that there was more to his presence there than Vadesh was willing to say.
How could Vadesh seem furtive and Larex open and honest? They had the same face, the same voice. They were machines. They were no different in any way from Rigg’s father, Ramex. Or from Odinex, for that matter. Yet when Umbo confided these thoughts to Loaf, the man with facemask perceptions agreed with him. “There are microdifferences,” he said. “Your eye has picked them out, and your ear, even though without a mask of your own, you can’t bring those details into the forefront of your consciousness. In eleven thousand years, even identical, self-repairing machines acquire differences in experience, in wear, in habits. Vadesh has an aversion to solitude. He’s always been so eager for human company, far more than the others.”
“Maybe they’re all eager for it,” said Umbo, “but only Vadesh has been deprived of it long enough for the loneliness to show.”
“Or it’s a deliberate attempt to deceive us into thinking there’s a difference among them,” said Loaf. “But even that would be a real difference, so it amounts to the same thing.”
The people of the sea all gathered around Knosso and celebrated his return—to them, he had disappeared three years ago, and though the Landsman had informed them that Knosso was time-slicing with the Ramfolders, they had missed him and been sad that he had left without bidding them good-bye.
“But I’m coming back, if the Destroyers come,” said Knosso. “I mean to come back anyway.” Then, confused, he turned to the Ramfold party and said, “Should I already have come back? Shouldn’t they already know what happened because I came back and told them?”
“If you go back,” said Umbo patiently, “then you change the causal chain, and this meeting will never happen—not this way—because they will have lived a different life these past three years, a life with you in it, a life in which you were gone barely a day.”
“I’m that important to them, that my presence or absence changes everything?” asked Knosso.
“We’re all that important,” said Umbo. “But it doesn’t change everything. People who are married now will probably be married next time through, and were probably married on the previous pass. There’s really only the one pass.”
“What about babies?” asked Knosso.
“Most of the babies will still be born,” said Umbo. “But they won’t be quite the same. The mix of genes from their parents will be different on each passage through conception. Perhaps conception will happen on a different day. Or a different sperm will win through.”
“Do we have to discuss this so . . . candidly?” asked Param.
“We’re candid about all such things in Larfold,” said Knosso. “But I’ve learned what I needed to. We can drop the subject for a while.” Then he thought of something else. “But will we remember this conversation, once we go back?”
“Our memories will stay with us,” said Umbo. “Whatever happened to us before we went back in time remains in the causal chain—in our causal chain. It isn’t time, it’s causation that can’t be lost. Any cause that still has effects in the time-shifters, we keep in memory. It happened, even if the results that had no effect on us are gone and we can never recover that changed version of the future.”
“You must be geniuses to keep this all in mind,” said Knosso, and then he went back to join the Larfolders who were eager to talk to him.
“There was a time,” said Olivenko, “when he wouldn’t have been able to leave the matter alone until he understood it perfectly.”
“We get older,” said Loaf. “The exuberance of youth is replaced by a knowledge that learning things doesn’t ever bring any clarity.”
“So you stop learning?”
“You keep learning,” said Loaf, “you just have a lot less hope in the results. A lot less faith that what you learn today will still seem true tomorrow.”
“I’ll never be that old,” said Umbo.
“I never was that young,” said Loaf. “But I enjoy watching you lambs cavort upon the lea.”
The hours passed, and then the expendables told them that the exact moment recorded in all the Future Books from Odinfold was nearly upon them.
The time-shifting group gathered together and linked their hands, so Umbo could take them all back into the past before any damage could be done to them by whatever weapon the Destroyers used. “The writers of the Future Books had time to write,” said Olivenko. “We have no reason to think that it will be too quick for us to respond.”
“And if it is,” said Param, “then we’ll be dead and won’t complain about some minor error in our planning.”
Only a minute before the appointed moment, and Rigg appeared. It was Loaf, of course, who noticed him, and for a moment he let go of Umbo’s hand, breaking the chain that linked them.
“Rigg!” he called. “You made it through!”
“You came!” cried Umbo.
Rigg looked terrible, his facemask new and not yet blended to him the way that Loaf’s had gradually done. His eyes were not yet properly placed in the facemask, so they were askew and disturbing to look at. If Umbo had not seen how Loaf’s mask and the Companions of the Larfolders eventually adapted and came to seem natural, he would have grieved for Rigg. He grieved a little anyway, because his friend had once been handsome, in his way, and now he would be forever freakish in the eyes of anyone in Ramfold. There would be no returning to become King-in-the-Tent for Rigg. That was a civil war that would never happen, after all. No one would follow him.
Not that Rigg would ever want to be the king. Umbo understood now that Rigg did not want to be the boss of anything. That he only wanted what was best for everyone, and when he insisted on something, it wasn’t because he had to get his way, it was because he wanted things to turn out right.
Like now, as he bossed everyone about, telling them to get back into their group and link hands again, then inserted himself at the end of the line, holding Olivenko’s hand on the other side from Knosso, who also held Param, who held to Umbo’s hand, who held to Loaf.
“Why aren’t the others joining us?” asked Rigg. “We could all go back, if the Destroyers come.”