Visitors (Pathfinder 3)

As they walked toward the mountain pass that led to the next village, Rigg said, “I can’t figure out if he finally felt remorse at the end, or if he had felt it all along.”

“I don’t think he ever felt anything like remorse,” said Ram Odin. “I think he treasured the memory of the rape and the murder, both, indistinguishably.”

“Then why did he kill himself?”

“Because he couldn’t conceive of life outside his own village.”

CHAPTER 16

Near Earth

Noxon had sliced this fast before, practicing with Param. And, a few times, had sliced through more years. He had even watched for a marker—a stone he placed on top of another stone. When he saw it stacked up, he knew he had arrived at the target time, and stopped. The expendable’s arm would be as good a signal.

It felt like no more than five minutes, at the rate Noxon was slicing. But five minutes of absolute silence can seem long indeed. Noxon could have taken them even faster, but he didn’t want to overshoot too far from the time he saw the signal to the time he stopped.

The expendable’s arm went up. Noxon stopped slicing. Just like that, they were back to one second per second.

“Whee,” said one of the mice.

“So you enjoyed yourself?” asked Noxon.

“Did we skip seven years of unchanging travel? Then yes,” said Ram.

“Sorry, I was talking to the mice. They were getting sarcastic about how much fun they had.”

“We’re in a box,” said a mouse.

“So are we,” said Noxon. And then he repeated to Ram what the mouse had said.

“What matters, I think,” said the expendable, “is whether you can sense any of the paths on Earth. Inside Pluto’s orbit makes Earth a nearly-invisible dot.”

“So we should have picked Neptune?” said Ram. “Jupiter? I’d suggest Uranus, but you don’t have one.”

“I actually have an anus,” said the expendable, “because the lack of it would make it too easy to tell that I’m not human, and it’s important that I be able to pass for human for sustained ­periods of time.”

“Does it work?” asked Ram.

Noxon knew perfectly well that it worked—Father had done his business in the woods every day, like clockwork. If you had a clock that pooped. All very authentic. “Could we please stay with the subject? Can you point out where Earth is?”

“Are you asking him or me or the mice?” asked Ram.

“The expendable.” Noxon almost said “Father,” but that was an old reflex, and not that hard to suppress.

“Good thing,” said a mouse. “Cause we’re in a box.”

“We can’t do astronomy from here,” said another.

“Only boxonomy.”

Noxon didn’t bother reminding them that their own malfeasance got them there.

“While we were moving forward,” said Noxon, “I was thinking about all the things that can go wrong. For instance, all the paths on Earth are moving the direction I need to latch on to in order to return to normal time. But the path of the outbound Ram Odin is in this starship, moving the right direction in time. If I can’t see it now, what makes me think I can see any other path moving that direction?”

“What an excellent question,” said Ram Odin.

“Now you think of it,” said a mouse.

“It’s not as if I had any wrong-direction paths to practice on, back on Garden,” said Noxon. He couldn’t keep his irritation out of his voice.