The starship of Ramfold was no different from any other. Except for a difference that only Rigg and Noxon could see. This one had Ram Odin’s continuous path. Not the Ram Odin that was with Rigg, touring the world right now—that was the Ram of Odinfold. No, these paths were of the Ram Odin who had ordered the expendables to kill all the others, and then brought out his colonists when the land was habitable again. This was the Ram Odin who had married, had children who then had children of their own, and so on until that time-traveling gene had made its way into the embryo that grew up to be Noxon.

That Ram’s path was all over the inside of the starship, but it was very, very old.

There were several iterations of more recent paths, too—the Ram Odin of Odinfold had visited here now and then over the years. But Noxon could see the faint but detectable differences between the paths of the two Ram Odins. They had begun to diverge once the copies had been made, and now Noxon could tell them apart with only a moment’s hesitation, and not just because the Ram of Odinfold had all the recent paths.

Noxon went right to work, finding the very oldest path. It began in the pilot’s seat in the small control room—just like the room where Rigg had come to stop Noxon from killing Ram Odin before Ram Odin could come and kill him.

But it could not begin in the pilot’s seat. “He wasn’t born here, in that chair.”

“But he arrived here that way. You know your paths are tied to the surface of the planet, not to any vehicle.”

“Then I’ve failed before I even began.”

“You don’t know that,” said Father. “You don’t know anything about what the paths do when the starship is not on a planet’s surface. Besides, what you’re seeing may not be the ship’s arrival here. It might be the moment when the ship passed through the fold. Ram Odin was sitting in that chair for that, too.”

“If I could see a path for you, I might be able to tell.”

“But the facemask lets you see more than the mere path. Look closely. Even if you can’t see me, you can see whether he’s talking to me.”

Noxon looked. “He’s talking to you in all the paths. Talking to you seems to have been his main activity.”

“It was,” said Father. “I’m excellent company. Part of my programming.”

“And sounding proud of it—that’s part of your programming, too?”

“And a bit shy—don’t forget that I also had a hint of modesty as well as pride.”