“Param and I have talked about that. We even debated about whether or not we should even have children. But here’s what we came up with. The mice brought us together, at the peak of our abilities, to save Garden and then, it turns out, to save Earth and everybody. But now our kids will marry people who aren’t timeshapers, and their kids will dilute the genes even more. Maybe when the human race doesn’t need saving, this ability will fade out, weaken, or become like our abilities were, before we put them together. You seeing paths. Me slowing people down, or speeding them up, or whatever. Just little things. Interesting but not scary. Not world-changing. That’s what we think.”

Rigg thought about that for a few moments. “I really like that idea,” he said. “I hope it’s true.”

“We can also try to raise our kids to be really decent people.”

“That’s a good idea, too, though children become whatever they want to be,” said Rigg.

“I know it’s crazy, Param and I both thought it was insane when I first suggested it, but now we think it might be true. I mean, I think it is true. That the human race was really determined not to be destroyed. And so it first got the Odinfolders to think up a machine that could send back the Future Books. And each time through history, humanity kept gathering its strength, and finally, between the Odinfolders and the mice and whatever genes were floating around in Ramfold, plus Ramex raising you and training me and Param—the human race needed us, and so it made us. And now it’s all worked out. So . . . it doesn’t need anybody to have our abilities anymore.”

“I’ll have to think about that for a while,” said Rigg. “It sounds too good to be true. But then, sometimes good things are true.”

“So Param and I aren’t going to worry about the future. I mean, yes, we’ll try to govern well and plan things so that there’s a good chance of Ramfold having peace and freedom and prosperity and all that. But when we die, it won’t be our job anymore. We don’t have to deal with all of history. We’re going to allow ourselves to make mistakes without always going back to fix them. We’ll do what regular people do—we’ll fix them after the fact. No more miracles. Just . . . life. Just doing our best, and living with the consequences.”

Rigg heard this with relief. He hadn’t realized that these were exactly the questions that had tied him up in knots for a long time. “You know, Umbo, that’s the smartest idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Kind of surprising, I know,” said Umbo. “I mean, hearing it from me.”