“And if we fail,” said Noxon, “and only they survive, then that’s survival of the fittest, yes?”

Deborah looked away.

“They were the ones that determined not to leave us any option for survival,” said Noxon. “I hope to be better than they are. But I don’t see that leaving them any chance to destroy us makes us ‘better.’ It only makes us dead.”

“Absolutely right,” said Wheaton. “But you don’t suppose we could kidnap a tribe of Erectids and bring them along?”

“Tempting as that prospect is,” said Noxon, “what if we kidnapped the very tribe that was supposed to evolve into us? Or Neanderthals?”

“Well, these paths you see—surely you could check.”

“I don’t have enough lifetime to spend it tracing every path of every member of an Erectid bloodline across a million years.”

“Oh,” said Wheaton. “Oh, I see. Yes, that does bring mathe­matics into it.”

“Besides, we already know what evolution does to Erectids. It lets them spread across the whole planet, developing into at least three human species that interbreed a little, until Sapiens emerge as they are today. They’ve had their evolution. So have these aliens.”

“Are you so sure that we’re better than the aliens?” asked Deborah.

“Maybe they create beautiful music,” said Noxon. “Maybe their paintings are exquisite. But they didn’t give us a chance to admire them. So even if we’re not as good or decorative or accomplished or clever as these Destroyers, if I can whip their asses, their asses will be whipped.”

“And that’s how you see us,” said the alpha mouse.

“You’ve proven your lack of interest in keeping your word and cooperating with me,” said Noxon.

“What?” said Deborah.

“He’s talking to the mice again,” said Ram Odin. “You can tell by his tone of voice. When he sounds like he’s talking to an ignorant child, then he’s speaking to us.”

Noxon ignored the gibe. “I can’t make final decisions till we get to the alien world. We’re going to approach them now, a hundred thousand years or so before they ‘discover’ us. Maybe their technology will already be irresistibly more advanced than ours. If it is, I hope I have enough time to jump our ship back in time until they aren’t able to endanger us. I could use your help in monitoring the ship’s computers to see if they’re being interfered with. The expendable can’t really help us with that because he’s part of that computer system.”

“We could do that,” said the alpha mouse.

“But if I let you loose with the computers,” said Noxon, “you could kill all our colonists. You could shut down life support.”

“We would run out of oxygen and die before you even felt light-headed,” said the mouse.

“Meaning that you’ve already thought of a plan to circumvent that problem,” said Noxon.