“How do you know all this?” asked Rigg. “How long did you wait to come tell us?”

“As you ask me questions,” said Vadeshex, “the flyer is passing along the questions and then I’m getting their answers. Why do you always see some kind of conspiracy or wrongdoing in everything I do?”

“Because he thinks you’re even more deceptive and evil than we are,” said a mouse perched on Rigg’s shoulder. “And that’s saying something.”

“I’d roll my eyes,” said Vadeshex, “except that Rigg gets testy when I do such human gestures.”

“I’m still going to go take that nap till they get here,” said Ram Odin. “And maybe I’ll sleep a little better knowing that the world has been saved.”

“Saved,” said Rigg, “but the computers have still been reprogrammed by the mice.”

“If we have to,” said Ram Odin, “somebody can go back and tell us not to have them do it.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Rigg.

“See?” said the mouse on Rigg’s shoulder. “We are helpless before your superior powers.”

“Poor babies,” said Rigg. “You gave us those powers, so don’t blame us if we use them.”

“You mean you believed that story about how we altered you genetically?” said the mouse on his shoulder.

Rigg stopped cold.

“What did he say?” asked Ram Odin.

“Something that I halfway hope is true,” said Rigg. “But if it is, I’m not sure I want to know it. I’m sure Umbo doesn’t want to know it.”

“I’m lying,” said the mouse on his shoulder. “But it certainly startled you.”

“Were you lying then?” asked Rigg. “Or are you lying now, because you saw how it startled me?”

“What did he say?” asked Ram Odin.

Vadeshex answered. “He told Rigg that the mice didn’t really do any genetic alterations to promote his and Param’s abilities.”

“Well,” said Ram Odin, “is that true?”

“I have no way of knowing,” said Vadeshex. “We can’t monitor changes on a genetic level, not from a distance.”

“What about Umbo?” asked Rigg. “Was that brutal cobbler his father or not?”

“Bring me a genetic sample from Tegay and Enene, and one from Umbo, and I’ll test for paternity,” said Vadeshex. “Till you do that, I can only say that Umbo does not look like Tegay.”

“I could really come to hate these mice,” said Rigg. “If you didn’t really alter us genetically, why did you tell us that you did?”

“We did alter you,” said the mouse. “I was joking, and it’s getting funnier by the second.”

“I’m going to take a nap, too,” said Rigg.

“But now you won’t sleep half so well,” said the mouse.

“Get off my shoulder before I pick you off and crush your head,” said Rigg.

“Violence is such a human trait,” said the mouse.