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.
“You’re right,” said Noxon, drawing upon Father’s counsel about negotiations: Get your counterpart to agree with you about a common foundation, then build on it. “You are as entitled to the one name as the other. It’s really up to you whether you’re mice with human traits grafted in, or humans with the gifts that come from being small but many.”
“Good.” “Very good.” “True.” Father’s advice worked again, as it almost always did. More mice were talking than ever before. Tiny voices, but so many it was like a chord of music, held long on an organ. And instead of arguing with him, they were agreeing, amplifying.
“For all I know, you’ll be the key to solving the problem and saving Garden from the Destroyers,” said Noxon. “But you have to agree in advance that you’ll stay on the ship until I choose to bring you to Earth, and that you’ll do no mischief.”
Silence for a while, and then a lone voice: “Mischief to you might be survival to us.”
“I understand that. I’m asking you to put a lot of trust in me.”
“But you are not putting any trust in us.” “You try to control us.”
“Trust? I’m putting my life in your hands. Once you’re on the ship, I can’t possibly watch you all the time. You know how to interface with the ship’s computers, you could change our course, y
ou could corrupt the life support. You know how to kill a man in his sleep.”
“We can’t harm you.” “You are the one who can take us into the past.” “Backflowing time is a trap only you can pull us out of.”
“Yes. You know you need me, but I don’t know yet if I need you.”