“I’m going to take the ship to Earth, but I can’t land it on the planet. It’ll be in orbit. And when I go to the surface, I may or may not take mice along.”

“Then what’s the point?” “We’ve seen spaceships.” “We have all the schematics.” “A voyage just to stay in the ship?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s my point. I’m going to go down to the planet and try to learn why they destroy Garden, and then see how I can prevent it. Until I’ve seen what’s going on, I’m not bringing anyone with me. But I may need you. And if I do, I’d like to have some of you there.” He did not say: I may need you to destroy the human race, to wreck their ability to come to Garden and destroy us. He knew that they already understood what their task would be.

But that did not mean they were content to let him call the shots. “Why is it all your choice?” “You think you’re King-in-the-Tent.” “We won’t go.”

“Then don’t go,” said Noxon. “I was only inviting you, not commanding you.”

“Let us go!” “We want to go!” “Don’t leave us all behind!”

They nagged like children. Cute, too, like children. But Noxon knew just how dangerous they were.

“I know that even on the ship, you can cause trouble for me,” said Noxon.

“Not us.” “Why would we cause trouble?” “We want to help.” “Let us help.”

“You can send things in time and space. You could kill me in my sleep.”

“Why would we do that?” “We aren’t killers.”

“You most certainly are killers,” said Noxon. “I saw Param’s dead body.”

“We never actually did that.” “You got her away in time.” “We weren’t really going to do it.”

“You did it, and then we came back and undid it.” Noxon didn’t mention the attempt to infect the whole population of Earth with a plague of some kind, because they hadn’t done it yet, and it would be a bitter irony if it was Noxon who gave them the idea. “I’m sure you had very good reasons.”

“We knew you’d undo it!” “We were just trying to get you to take action!” “You were all being so complacent!” “Lazy!” “It was time to act.”

“I’m sure your motives were pure.”

“Irony!” “Lie!”

“Not a lie, and not irony,” said Noxon. “You were doing what you thought was right for Mus sapiens. It just happened to be inconvenient for Param.”

“Queen-in-the-Tent.” “We love her.” “We revere her.”

“You love no human, you revere no human.”

Silence.

“Of the biped class,” said Noxon. “I recognize you as a kind of human.”

“Then we are not Mus sapiens, we are Homo musculus.” A ­single voice. The distinction was important to them.