Ruins

by Orson Scott Card

  Rigg would know, because of the paths. But could even he sort through the movements of all these tiny mammals?

  The great hole in Umbo’s plan was now obvious. They could move into the future, but where in the future did they want to be? Where would the Visitors come, when they came to Larfold?

  If they came to Larfold. There was a thought. What if the Visitors saw no trace of human habitation in Larfold, and so didn’t bother to come there?

  What if the mice had insisted on invading Larfold precisely because they knew the Visitors would not come, and perhaps the Destroyers would not destroy the wallfold because they thought no humans lived there? After all, the account of the destruction of “all” of Garden in the Future Books might not be accurate.

  Or maybe this was where the mice were trying to construct underground shelters where they could live for decades without coming to the surface. Maybe they meant to wait until Garden was habitable again, and only then emerge and inherit the world.

  Why did we always assume the mice were trying to attack Earth? All they had to do was hide deep enough to escape notice.

  How much about the mice was in the ships’ logs? Would the Destroyers be looking for them? They couldn’t have been on any previous visit, because the mice had only existed for the first time on this go-round.

  The Visitors will come to Larfold, thought Umbo. They’ll be thorough. The ships’ logs will tell them that there was a colony here and that somehow it went underwater. So they’ll come here looking for the site of the colony.

  And that’s where we are, or nearly so.

  Umbo raised a hand in a stopping gesture, and Param slowed them down. The mice resumed a normal pace—which was still pretty frantic. Almost instantly, there were mice on their clothing, up on their shoulders.

  “You know who we are,” said Umbo softly. “We’re about to go into the future. If you want to see your families again, get off.”

  The mice understood and scampered down their clothing and got about a meter away before they turned and sat watching Umbo and Param.

  “Why did you make us stop?” asked Param.

  “We want to be about three hundred meters that way.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s where the colony was, so that’s where the Visitors will come.”

  Almost at once, the mice took off in the direction Umbo had indicated. “It’s nice to be regarded as an authority by somebody,” he said.

  “Since the mice already know where we’re going, can we just walk there in realtime?”

  “Sure,” said Umbo. “Though if there are any Larfolders on shore, they’ll see us. Not to mention the Visitors themselves, who might be watching from space right now.”

  Param sighed. “I’ve spent plenty of time slicing time already. A little more won’t kill me.”

  Though of course if the mice decided to try their little stunt with metal again, it might kill her. “Never mind,” said Umbo. “I prefer to walk in realtime myself.” He let go of her hand and started to walk out into the open.

  She hesitated a moment, then followed him.

  “I wonder,” said Umbo, “what would happen if I peed while time-slicing. I mean, as soon as the piss leaves my body, it’s not part of me. So does it keep moving in sliced time, or does it immediately become part of realtime? So I’d pee, and it’s like it would move really fast and hit the ground almost before I peed it.”

  “I can’t believe you’re making me listen to something so disgusting,” said Param.

  “Come on, you can’t tell me you never thought of it. I bet you tried it.”

  “It was better when we were slicing time,” said Param. “We couldn’t talk then.”

  “So if you don’t like what I think of to say, you say something.”

  For a minute or two she remained silent. Then she spoke. “Thank you for not making me slice time when the mice knew where I’d be.”

  “I think if they wanted us dead, they’d find a way, but sure, I could see why you didn’t want to do it. And I didn’t want you to run the risk either.”

  “So thanks,” she said.

  Umbo wanted to laugh. It was such a simple thing, saying thanks, but for her it was hard. Probably not hard to say thanks—just hard to say it to him.

  “We’re going to have to slice time eventually, though,” said Param. “We didn’t pack a lunch.”

  Something perverse in him made Umbo return to the previous subject. “Farting, too,” said Umbo. “Bet it completely fades before we can smell it, if you fart while slicing time. And no, I absolutely won’t believe it if you tell me you never did that while slicing time.”

  “I never—”

  “I have sisters,” said Umbo. “Girls fart and snore and belch and pee and all the really gross offenses. They just pretend they don’t, and expect everybody else to go along with the lie.”

  Umbo expected Param to say something cutting. Or move away from him in disgust. Or disappear.

  Instead she farted.

  “Oh, you couldn’t wait till we time-sliced,” said Umbo.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “I’m sure it was a collective fart from all the mice around us.”

  “The mice broke wind?” she said. “How advanced of them. They have evolved to the level of boys. Still, that leaves a long way to go.”

  Umbo smiled. Only a little. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Wasn’t it amazing that she could say rude things one moment and it felt like hatred, and then say equally rude things the next moment, and it sounded like an offer of friendship.

  They reached the boundary of the colony, as far as he remembered from the map in the flyer’s display. But he had a good memory for where things were, a good eye for landmarks. It was here.

  “Tired?” asked Umbo.

  “You woke me out of a sound sleep two years ago and I’ve been walking continuously since,” said Param. “How could I be tired?”

  “Can you slice time in your sleep?”

  Param hesitated. “Sometimes I wondered if I disappeared in my sleep. If it was such a reflex that I slept all night but only got a couple of hours’ sleep.”

  “Tired all the time?”

  “I wanted to go back to bed the moment I woke up.”

  “Sounds like my mother,” said Umbo.

  Param was about to say something, then thought better of it.

  Something insulting about Umbo’s mother. And then a decision that this might be out of bounds.

  Good call, Param.

  “The mice know we’re here. So we could probably both sleep at once. But I’ll keep watch if it makes you feel safer.”

  They were in the shadow of the woods now, and Umbo piled up this year’s leaves to make a large sleeping area without much work. Param lowered herself gracefully onto the leaves. Umbo sat up with his back leaning against a tree.

  After a little while, Param moved herself closer to him. She held out one hand.

  Umbo looked at the hand.

  “Hold my hand,” she said. “In case I slice time in my sleep.”

  Umbo took her hand.

  It felt good.

  In a few moments, she was snoring. She didn’t slice time. The mice left them alone. So instead of waking her to take her turn, Umbo eventually lay down beside her, still holding her hand, and caught some sleep as well. When he woke up, she was awake. But still holding his hand.

  “Did I fart much?” asked Umbo.

  “It’s been so long since you bathed, it’s hard to tell,” said Param.

  “That was good,” said Umbo. “You’re getting good at this.”

  “At insulting you? That’s not even a sport, Umbo,” she said. “It’s so easy.”

  But because she called him by name, it didn’t sting. In fact, it made him feel kind of good.

  Awake now, they took care of their morning ablutions, taking turns going down to the river, which was near enough to have been of use to the
colony when it was new. Unlike the facemasks in Vadeshfold, the mantles in Larfold were larger and easy to avoid in the water.

  Rested and a bit cleaner and emptier, Umbo mentioned that they should have thought of food, and Param said that she hardly thought of anything else, and then she sliced time again, days, weeks, until . . .

  There was a flyer setting itself down a few hundred meters away.

  Param and Umbo moved swiftly toward it. Of course, because they were in sliced time, the people around them moved even quicker.

  They watched as the Visitors set up all kinds of equipment whose purpose Umbo couldn’t guess at. And very soon, mantled Larfolders began showing up to talk with the Visitors.

  The Visitors looked like regular people. There were sharp differences between them—some with skin so light you might call it white, others so black it was blue. Far more variety than the rather uniform brown of the wallfolds they had visited so far.

  Umbo decided this meant that on Earth, races that originated in one geographical area tended to marry within their tribe, while on Garden, everybody had intermarried so much within each wallfold that, because the colonies had been identical at startup, they all evolved into the same intermediate brown.

  We won’t learn anything if we don’t talk to them, thought Umbo. That meant coming out of sliced time and taking things at a normal—and visible—pace.

  Then there was a flurry of motion near the Visitors’ flyer, and Umbo realized what it was. Mice were scurrying up a bit of cable dangling from the ramp leading up to the flyer’s door.

  Not all scurrying, though. Some of them moved downright sluggishly.

  Why so slow?

  Pregnant, he thought. More babies.

  No. They wouldn’t want their babies to be born en route. It would be hard enough to conceal adults; younglings would be impossible to hide.

  So why else might some mice be more sluggish than others in climbing the rope?

  And then Umbo realized: They were sick.

  Why would they send sick mice as their agents?

  Because the sickness was the purpose of their stowing away.

  The mice had created a disease of which they were themselves the vector. They would go to Earth and pass the disease to humans.

  A crowd of Larfolders assembled. Umbo signaled a stop and Param slowed the movements of the people around them to a speed approaching normal.

  One of the Visitors, a woman, was talking, and after a very short time, Umbo understood the language. She would speak a sentence, and then a Larfolder would translate for her. How does the interpreter know the Visitors’ language, he wondered. Then Umbo remembered that the Larfolders had held on to the ancient language with some stubbornness. And because they could ordinarily speak only on shore, they spoke more rarely, and so their language would evolve less. Maybe it was still very similar to whatever the Earth people spoke.

  “I know what the mice are doing,” whispered Umbo.

  “Sneaking on board the ship?

  “With a disease,” said Umbo.

  “I wonder which disease.”

  “I don’t want to find out by catching it,” said Umbo.

  “Poisoning them,” said Param. “The mice are going to murder the entire population of Earth.”

  “Have you got her language?” asked Umbo.

  “Yes,” said Param.

  “You go to them invisible, then appear and warn them,” said Umbo. “I’ll take you back in time with me the moment you show me a fist.”

  “What message?” asked Param.

  Umbo thought for a moment. “A warning. Something about how the mice are smart and very dangerous and they can’t let a single one reach Earth.”

  Param nodded and disappeared.

  Umbo kept his eyes on the Visitors; he could not afford to be looking away at the moment Param appeared. They’d only have a few second before the mice would react. Perhaps by killing her again.

  Param appeared. The Visitor who had been speaking stopped and inclined her head to look at Param, then said something to her.

  Param held up her hand in a gesture of silence. Wait. And then she was blurting out something and suddenly her fist was extended. It was the signal. Umbo took hold of her and dragged both of them backward in time.

  Param dropped in a heap to the ground. The flyer was gone, so her position on the ramp had become a point in midair.

  But she was unhurt, and in this particular timeframe there wasn’t a soul here. Not even the mice.

  “I think I may have brought us back a little earlier than I wanted,” said Umbo.

  “Or later,” said Param. “I don’t know if it will matter.”

  They walked back toward the camp in realtime.

  Whatever doubts he might have had, Umbo found as they approached that it was the very night when they had left. There was Loaf, and there was Olivenko, exactly as they had been; and there were Umbo and Param, asleep.

  “No,” whispered Umbo when Param seemed about to speak. “Say nothing if you can help it, not till our earlier selves are gone. We don’t want to let them see us. It complicates things sometimes.”

  “I was going to say,” said Param softly, “that you got us here within half an hour of the time we left.”

  “In the wrong direction,” said Umbo.

  “Before is better than after,” said Param.

  They waited in sliced time then, wordless until the sleeping version of themselves woke up, packed quickly, and set out, disappearing moments after they started walking.

  Was that the same way it had been earlier? Or did Umbo remember that Param started splitting time before they walked away from camp. Was it possible that they had inadvertently changed something in the past? Might they have therefore bifurcated themselves, so that a complete duplicate set of themselves would be wandering around, thinking they were the real Umbo and Param?

  Maybe they were.

  Param and Umbo walked back into camp.

  “What did you learn?” asked Loaf.

  Umbo had forgotten that Loaf and Olivenko had been awake when they left. “The Visitors came but I didn’t have much chance to hear them.”

  “We saw mice getting in their flyer,” said Param. “They moved sluggishly. As if they were sick.”

  “We thought, what if the mice developed a disease to carry back to Earth?” said Umbo. “Something the humans of Earth can’t defend against.”

  “So instead of learning the answer to your ‘what if,’ so you could decide whether to intervene,” said Loaf, “you intervened.”

  When he put it that way, it didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  “Did you know that any mice were sick?” asked Loaf.

  “They looked sick,” said Param defiantly.

  Umbo was grateful that she was backing him up on this; she could so easily have laid all the blame on him. In fact, he suspected that the blame was his. But then, to blame him would imply that she had been taking orders from him. Her pride could never let her do that.

  “What did your intervention consist of?” asked Olivenko.

  “I told them that the mice on their ship were smart and deadly,” said Param, “and they needed to kill every last one of them so they’d return to Earth with none aboard.”

  “And the mice didn’t stop you,” said Loaf.

  “I’m not sure any of them saw that she was there,” said Umbo. “Param delivered her message so quickly.”

  “So you’re going to get away with having a whole bunch of half-human mice slaughtered,” said Loaf. “What a relief.”

  “What if having the mice reach Earth was the only way to save Garden?” asked Olivenko.

  “Then next time around,” said Umbo, “we’ll let them go.”

  “What next time?” asked Loaf. “Maybe next time, the mice won’t alter Knosso’s genes, or give you your real father. What if they completely undo us so that next time we won’t interfere in their plans?”

  “You forget,” said Umbo. “The
y can’t go back in time.”

  “They can write letters,” said Loaf, “and send them back, and read them, and act on them.”

  “On your information-gathering mission, did you learn anything to guide us on how to prevent the Visitors from hating and fearing us?” asked Olivenko.

  “We were too busy trying to save the lives of all the humans on Earth,” said Param.

  “I thought saving the lives of all the humans on Garden was a slightly higher priority,” said Olivenko.

  “Isn’t it enough to have learned what the mice were doing?” asked Umbo.

  Olivenko shook his head. “You saw mice getting on the Visitors’ flyer, and you assumed that they were doing what you already thought they were doing. You assumed that your previous guesses were right. But you had no evidence.”

  “Are you a lawyer now?” asked Param.

  “I try not to be part of indiscriminate murder,” said Olivenko. “Which is pretty much what you just did. Will do.”

  “Maybe warning the Visitors will prove to them that they shouldn’t get us all killed,” said Umbo. “Maybe we just saved Garden and Earth.”

  “Think!” said Loaf. “We know they destroyed Garden nine times—before the half-human mice were ever created. So how can warning them about the mice stop them from doing something they repeatedly did before there were ever any mice at all?”

  Why hadn’t Umbo thought of all this himself? Why had he just . . . acted? For that matter, why hadn’t Param thought of all these objections even if for no other reason than to undercut Umbo? Why, this time of all possible times, did Param actually cooperate with him?

  Umbo saw the way Loaf looked at him, then glanced languidly at Param, then back at Umbo, and he knew what Loaf was really saying. You were showing off, Umbo. You were impressing the girl. You weren’t thinking with your head.

  “So maybe we blew it and maybe we didn’t,” said Umbo. “Or maybe we saved the world. Let’s see how things turn out.”

  “If the mice don’t kill us all as soon as they find out what you’ve done,” said Loaf.

  “For all we know, the future mice are putting poison in our food right now,” said Olivenko.

  “Then we’ll die,” said Umbo. “But you don’t know we were wrong any more than we know we were right. So back off!”