Wheaton shrugged. “So I allow Deborah’s family to die and her to suffer in order to avoid damaging my career?”
“I don’t care about your career all that much,” said Ram, “except that it’s your career that gives you the money and the privacy for us to hide out with you while we wait for the Visitors to come back from Garden and somehow persuade the people of Earth to commit planetwide genocide.”
“Thank you for reminding me of what I’m here to do,” said Noxon. “I can’t afford to lose track of that. But something Umbo and I learned early on, though we didn’t realize we had learned it for a long time: No matter what grand purposes and causes we enlist in, we still have to be decent and good to the people we meet along the way. People like Professor Wheaton here. And Deborah.”
“So what’s best for Deborah, that still allows Uncle Georgia to be helpful to our cause?” asked Ram.
They were silent for another long while.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” said Noxon.
“You just decide?” said Wheaton. “Without any kind of discussion or vote?”
“It’s always my decision,” said Noxon. “Because I’m the one who actually does it. So I’m the one who bears the responsibility.”
“But without advice?”
“Hear me out and then give all the advice you want,” said Noxon.
Noxon woke up in the morning and joined the others, who were having room service breakfast. Ram fluttered a two-page note toward Noxon. “Read it,” he said. “It’s from future you. Apparently our expedition today didn’t turn out too well the first time around.”
“Because apparently I’m an idiot,” said Deborah. “Apparently my dead body appeared out there in the grass about two hundred years ago, and hyenas already had their way with me.”
“Let the man read,” said Ram Odin.
Noxon read.
“So the thing to decide,” said Noxon, “is whether to go out there at all, and trust that we’ll do better, or just go back to watching the camp.”
“I say we go,” said Deborah, “and I just won’t be an idiot.”
“He lays it out—you lay it out pretty clearly, Noxon,” said Ram. “Slice time from the start, place cameras to record everything, then watch from invisibility the way we always do.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Noxon. “But what about his other suggestion?”
“His?”
“Future me wrote this note,” said Noxon. “I didn’t. So it’s his suggestion, not mine.”
“I don’t remember my parents,” said Deborah to Professor Wheaton. “Not enough to want to trade them for you.”
“It’s not a trade,” said Noxon. “What he’s suggesting will copy us. You—the you of right now, eyeless and brilliant and semi-annoying—”
“Thanks for that ‘semi,’” said Deborah.
“You will still exist,” said Noxon. “But that other you, the baby with parents and eyes, that version of you will continue. And live a completely different life. She’ll never know you existed.”
“She’ll probably get hit by a bus at age twelve,” said Ram. “There are no guarantees.”
“Or her parents might get divorced. Or all kinds of bad things. But she’ll have that life, and whatever happens, she’ll see it happening with her own eyes,” said Noxon. “And meanwhile, the four of us will still exist because we’re the agents of change. And we’ll jump forward in time and go calling on the other version of Professor Wheaton, and he’ll take us in because he’s a generous guy.”
“I’ll be living in a garret somewhere,” said Wheaton. “Or a homeless shelter. Or I’ll be dead.”
“And if you are, then the four of us will find some other way to survive,” said Noxon. “It isn’t hard for me to make a killing on the stock market. We don’t need some version of Professor Wheaton’s pension. That’s just the simpler way.”
“Why are we even thinking of going back to save my parents?” asked Deborah. “That was never part of the plan.”
“It’s what future Noxon said,” Wheaton answered her. “We saw you dead. And we couldn’t help but think, as long as we’re saving her life, why not save her original life?”
“We don’t have to do that,” said Deborah. “We can prevent my death out on the savannah today—or a million and a half years ago, or whatever. And then we just go home and wait for the human race to monstrify ourselves.”
“That’s one choice,” said Ram Odin.
“But it’s the one I’m going to make,” said Noxon. “Because my friend Umbo—”
“The legendary Umbo,” said Ram quietly.
“Never forgot about his brother who died when we first started messing with time. And if I know Umbo, he’s probably already found some stupid elaborate way to save Kyokay’s life. Because he couldn’t go on unless he did.”
“But that hardly applies to you, Noxon,” said Wheaton.
“And it certainly doesn’t apply to me,” said Deborah, “because I think I turned out just fine.”
“Oh, you did,” said Ram. “You are superb. If Noxon proposes anything that might get rid of you, I’ll strangle him first.”
“We’ve already proven you aren’t quick enough to kill me,” said Noxon. “And any change I make, I’ll be sure to keep you around, eyeless and mean as ever.”
“I’m not mean,” said Deborah, sounding a little hurt.
“I meant it in the nicest possible way,” said Noxon.
“None of the possible ways to mean that are nice at all,” said Deborah.
“He means that he’s halfway to being in love with you,” said Ram. “And I agree, that isn’t a very nice thing to contemplate, what with that incredibly ugly face of his.”
“Enough,” said Noxon. “Let’s go watch a gnu get slaughtered and butchered by Erectids. And then go back and save a little girl from being a blind orphan for the rest of her life. And then we can figure out how to save a faraway planet from destruction. I’m not putting it to a vote, and any of you who wants to can opt out of any step along the way, and choose your own consequences. But those are the changes I’m going to make.”
“You do realize that the simplest choice would have been to leave me dead,” said Deborah. “Why did they even leave this note to warn us? You can still accomplish your mission whether I’m there or not.”
“Because Professor Wheaton couldn’t bear to live in a world in which you were dead,” said Noxon. “Future me explained it very clearly.”
“So it isn’t me, it’s Father who caused all this annoyance,” said Deborah.
“My fault,” said Wheaton. “I take full responsibility.”
“Are you coming with me, or not?” asked Noxon.
They followed him out the door of the hotel room. They arrived at the parking lot much later than before, and now two rangers tried to persuade them not to go. But they went, and saw the prey stunned by two expertly thrown cobblestones, and then killed with the jab of a wooden spear into the spine. They watched the Erectids flake small blades from their seedstones, and flay and section the body while the blood was still warm, then bind the haunches and slabs of meat with twine and start jogging back toward the camp, where the fires would be waiting, and the women and children and old men were hungry for the meat, which would mean the survival of the tribe for another few days.