“But to us, only fifteen years. How do they get the whole human race behind such a wanton slaughter? Genocide of our colonists.”

“The whole human race?” asked Noxon. “Why would they tell the whole human race?”

Deborah looked surprised. “Because we’re a worldwide democracy now. Lots of different nations, but everybody votes. On something as big as this, they’d—”

“They’d tell nobody,” said Noxon. “They’d destroy Garden for the good of the human race, report that the colony failed, and then use faster-than-light ships to establish new colonies. Lots of them. People wouldn’t know about us, not for a long time, maybe not ever. Purge the computer records so our logs never show up.”

“It’s hard to keep a secret like that.”

“Once Garden is gone, it can’t be undestroyed.”

“Except by you,” said Deborah.

“I hope. I wish. I can hardly believe we’ve succeeded this far.”

“Why did you come to us?”

“I’m sure Ram is in the other room, asking your father to let us hide here and eat your food while we see what happens when the Visitors return from Garden.”

“But if you’re right,” said Deborah, “they won’t tell anybody what they found. And it’s not as if Father would be in on any of the secrets. He’s a great scientist but he doesn’t know any politicians.”

“That would be our job,” said Noxon. “Well, really, mine. To get to know politicians. It’s what I was raised to do.”

“But—you’re a kid.”

“I have no idea how old I am,” said Noxon. “But yes, I’m young. But I’ll get older.”

“And you have . . . that face.”

“I saw it on my friend Loaf. The face gets more and more normal—it’s still fairly new on me. Even if it doesn’t, though, so what? I’ll just keep coming back until I find a road in. If I need to. Because the first thing we’ll do is slice forward to the time when the Visitors return and see what actually happens. Only then will we have any idea of which organizations I need to infiltrate.”

“Why you? Why the kid?”

“Because Ram Odin’s face is known throughout the world. Not yet, but it will be. He can’t very well show up while his ship is supposedly out there starting a colony.”

“I suppose it’s too late to invent a twin brother for him,” said Deborah. She laughed. “They do that kind of thing on television all the time.”

“Well, I invented a twin brother for myself, so it actually can happen,” said Noxon.

Silence between them for a few moments.

“You know what I want?” said Deborah.

“Do you really want me to guess?” asked Noxon.