“They’d tell nobody,” said Noxon. “They’d destroy Garden for the good of the human race, report that the colony failed, and then use faster-than-light ships to establish new colonies. Lots of them. People wouldn’t know about us, not for a long time, maybe not ever. Purge the computer records so our logs never show up.”
“It’s hard to keep a secret like that.”
“Once Garden is gone, it can’t be undestroyed.”
“Except by you,” said Deborah.
“I hope. I wish. I can hardly believe we’ve succeeded this far.”
“Why did you come to us?”
“I’m sure Ram is in the other room, asking your father to let us hide here and eat your food while we see what happens when the Visitors return from Garden.”
“But if you’re right,” said Deborah, “they won’t tell anybody what they found. And it’s not as if Father would be in on any of the secrets. He’s a great scientist but he doesn’t know any politicians.”
“That would be our job,” said Noxon. “Well, really, mine. To get to know politicians. It’s what I was raised to do.”
“But—you’re a kid.”
“I have no idea how old I am,” said Noxon. “But yes, I’m young. But I’ll get older.”
“And you have . . . that face.”
“I saw it on my friend Loaf. The face gets more and more normal—it’s still fairly new on me. Even if it doesn’t, though, so what? I’ll just keep coming back until I find a road in. If I need to. Because the first thing we’ll do is slice forward to the time when the Visitors return and see what actually happens. Only then will we have any idea of which organizations I need to infiltrate.”
“Why you? Why the kid?”
“Because Ram Odin’s face is known throughout the world. Not yet, but it will be. He can’t very well show up while his ship is supposedly out there starting a colony.”
“I suppose it’s too late to invent a twin brother for him,” said Deborah. She laughed. “They do that kind of thing on television all the time.”
“Well, I invented a twin brother for myself, so it actually can happen,” said Noxon.
Silence between them for a few moments.
“You know what I want?” said Deborah.
“Do you really want me to guess?” asked Noxon.
“I want your mission to be completely successful. Then I want to get on a starship with you, one of the faster-than-light ones, and go to Garden and get one of those facemasks for myself.”
“You do see how ugly and inhuman it makes me,” said Noxon.
“Have you seen my face? I want eyes, Rigg Noxon. Even if they’re too far apart and one of them sags a little down onto my cheek. I want real eyes instead of something that plugs into my brain and gives me a digital raster image.”
“You don’t look so bad right now,” said Noxon. “They did good work with you. I’ve seen burn scars and you don’t look like that.”
“Noxon,” said Deborah, “that is a complete load of horse pucky.”
“It’s true.”
“I saw your face when you first looked at me at the door. It was as if you were looking at a train wreck.”
“I was trying to figure out what happened, that’s all,” said Noxon.
“I’m sure that’s what everybody thinks they’re doing. From my side, though, it looks like horrified staring. Because that’s what it is.”
“I know,” said Noxon, “because I get the same looks. Followed by pity when Ram tells them about my tropical parasite.”