“Sentience always carries with it the power of destruction. We must work to make sure that decency and wisdom are part of the heritage of every wallfold, and then trust our descendants to use this power responsibly, if they have it at all.”

This became the consensus of both conferences. Using the ships’ computers, they communicated their decisions across the space between Bass and Treble.

Then the Noxons were carried back by flyers to each of their wallfolds, where they married the women they already loved. There would be no stasis for them, no attempts to live across the ages and keep track of what the future brought. Nor did the Ram Odins attempt to keep watch over the future. That was for the Wheatons to do, as they carried on their evolutionary studies. And since they were already getting old when the colonies began, after a few centuries or millennia they either allowed themselves to retire and die, or their wakings became so far apart that they could not be said to live in any of the wallfolds anymore.

But the children of the Rams and Noxons grew, and became whatever they would become, and in the course of the generations, their genes became mixed with the rest of the population, and their stories and ideas became part of the lore of every culture that arose. Among the mice as well, the memory of Father Starpilot and Father Timeshaper were preserved. And it was hard to guess which would have more influence in shaping the future, the stories or the genes.

Chapter 30: Dispositions

CHAPTER 30

Dispositions

Rigg sat with Ram Odin in the control room of the Vadeshfold starship, along with several hundred mice, and confessed his own ambivalence. “I’ve watched the log of dozens of myself fighting with these inhuman Destroyers, and I want them to come again, and this time find all the computers of Garden closed shut against them. Let them come to ground here and find every wallfold armed and ready to fight. They can be beaten.”

“By a timeshaper with a facemask, who can duplicate himself until he vastly outnumbers a single Destroyer,” said Ram Odin. “What wallfold can match that?”

“At least, if they can’t turn the weapons in the orbiters against us, we have a chance.”

“Yes,” said Ram Odin. “What that lost version of you and Param discovered has tipped a balance. Perhaps it even tipped it enough. Perhaps the solution of our problem was in our own hands after all. And I’m relieved to know that our enemy is not the humans of Earth.”