“And humans are very good at coming up with all the wrong questions,” said Ram Odin.
“We never have complete control over anything,” said Noxon.
“No,” said Ram Odin. “Because at some point, we have to trust machines and people to do what they say they’ll do.”
“And every now and then,” said Noxon, “their disobedience is actually wiser than if they had done what we commanded. Because they have their own wisdom, and we have no guarantee that ours is wiser.”
“Trust and obedience,” said Ram Odin. “Every cruel dictator in history has only had the power to do evil because so many other people were willing to obey him and carry out his orders.”
“And every wise and good leader has been repeatedly stymied,” said Noxon, “because no matter how wise his commands, some bureaucrat somewhere believed that it wasn’t in his self-interest to carry them out.”
“So what are you going to do about this?” asked Ram Odin.
“Well,” said Noxon. “I could stay here with you and slice time for a few months, watching to see if the flyer returns. We wouldn’t leave the surface here until we were sure the mice were dead.”
“We’d also see that we didn’t return from the future during that time,” said Ram Odin.
“The first time through, we’d see that,” said Noxon. “The problem is that the second time through, we would see ourselves come back, and that would change our behavior, and therefore it would create two new copies of the two of us because we would then behave differently.”
“At least we’d know the mice and the expendables hadn’t disobeyed us,” said Ram Odin.
“There are enough copies of me in the universe,” said Noxon, “and way past enough copies of you.”
“I can only agree,” said Ram Odin.
“So I think our best course of action,” said Noxon, “is to assume the mice are still alive, assume the flyer won’t return to liberate them, and get out of here so our future selves have time to get here and dig them up alive if the expendable hasn’t already done it.”
“And if the mice happen to be dead already?” asked Ram Odin.
“We’ll shed a gentle tear or two, and move on,” said Noxon. “It’ll only matter if it turns out we needed them. And if we really need them, we can always come back to the moment right after we buried them and flew away.”
“Which is another reason not to dig them up right now,” said Ram Odin.
“I really don’t want to know whether they’re still there,” said Noxon. “Because if they’re gone, it means our mission failed and we needed them to destroy the human race.”
“So we don’t wait for the flyer,” said Ram Odin.
“It’s time for us to get on with our mission,” said Noxon. He held out his hand. Ram Odin took it.
Noxon sliced rapidly forward in huge leaps, until he reached a time with human paths nearby. Then he sliced his way ahead until their original marker appeared. And beyond. And beyond. Until there were paths of people in airplanes flying overhead. Lots of them.
That was when they hiked their way out. Within a half hour, they were among tourists.
“Of course, we don’t have passports,” said Ram Odin.
“What’s a passport?” asked Noxon.
“Believe me, Noxon, up to now we’ve only been dealing with time-shifting, the laws of causality, computers that lie, and perfidious talking mice. Now we’ll be dealing with bureaucrats. This is when it gets complicated.”
CHAPTER 19
Council of War
The time-shifters and their friends gathered beside the stream where the Larfolders assembled to tell tales, to learn to walk, and to make decisions that required speech. Their intention was only to greet each other, as Olivenko returned to them from Odinfold, and Umbo, Loaf, and Leaky from Ramfold.
Inevitably, they gave an account of themselves. Loaf and Leaky had a baby to explain—though of course it was Umbo who did the explaining, because he had rescued Square before removing the future in which he had been born. That tale could not be told without a mention of the Rebel King, and of Captain Toad, the ugly soldier who was leading raids all over Stashiland.
“I don’t know if we should go to war,” said Param, “merely because it seems we’ve already done so.”