Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

More plans were made. More drastic cutbacks in population. A deliberate reduction in technological change. And yet there came another Future Book.

So they tried again. Instead of cutting back on technology and science, they pushed it forward, trying to offer dazzling brilliance as an incentive—something to sell, something that might earn their survival.

Another Future Book showed that as a dead end.

“Nine books in all,” said Mouse-Breeder. “The last one came only three thousand years ago. That was when we decided on the yahoo strategy. We got the idea from a book from Earth, Gulliver’s Travels. It ended with the traveler visiting a land where the sentient residents had evolved from horses, and the creatures that looked like humans were tree-dwelling beasts that grunted and threw their dung at strangers. We bred ourselves for that, in a flurry of new generations, and then sat back and waited.”

“That was when we gave ourselves shorter legs and semi-grasping feet. Learning from the primate ancestors of humans on Earth,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “And when there were about ten thousand of us,

long-lived, intelligent, but able to pass for beasts, our beautiful ancestors allowed themselves to die out, so that only we were left.”

“What good is it?” said Param. “How do you even know it was your wallfold that convinced the Visitors that Garden had to be destroyed?”

“Ours was the only one we could change,” said Swims-in-the-Air.

“Be accurate,” said Mouse-Breeder.

“I should have said,” Swims-in-the-Air replied, “that ours was the only wallfold we could change as drastically as this. We didn’t have the right to interfere in the others at anything like this level. But we did fiddle here and there.”

“How?” asked Param.

“You mean, what changes did we make? Or how did we manage to make changes?” Mouse-Breeder said. “You know that we can send things back in time to any place on Garden, the way we did with the jewel. Well, we also assembled all the jewels—originally, each wallfold contained only its own control jewel. We put them together, and we gave them to Ramex.”

“Ramex,” said Rigg. “The expendable who raised me?”

“In this language,” said Mouse-Breeder, “we name each expendable with the name of the founder of the wallfold, plus ‘ex’ for expendable. So we speak of Vadeshex, Ramex, Odinex.”

“Where is your expendable?” asked Olivenko.

“Off doing whatever he does,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “Vadeshex met you in Vadeshfold because it has no other sentient inhabitants. But if a stranger came to Ramfold, do you think Ramex would be there to greet him?”

Param was impatient with such digressions. “Why did you assemble the stones? And when you did, why didn’t you use them yourselves?”

“Because we can’t,” said Mouse-Breeder. “You have to pass completely through a Wall without using the stones before you gain the ability to control a ship and pass freely through the Wall.”

“So if we had only had the one stone,” said Param.

“You would have had to present your stone at that starship and gain the right to control the Wall surrounding only your own wallfold.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you gave all the stones to us,” said Param.

“Because you are the most powerful,” said Mouse-Breeder, with a shrug. “Though truth to tell, we didn’t understand about your ability, Param. We figured that Rigg would be able to attach to the past and go through before the Wall existed.”

“But then we never would have acquired the language ability,” said Umbo.

“Truth is, if Umbo hadn’t pulled us back to the present when we were still short of the edge of the Wall, Loaf and Rigg and I wouldn’t have had any effect from the Wall,” said Olivenko.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Umbo.

“They were about to kill us!” said Param.

“I know that,” said Olivenko, sounding annoyed.

Param couldn’t believe she had spoken so sharply to Olivenko. But it really had sounded as if he was criticizing Umbo, and he had no right—he wasn’t there. Yes, he experienced the agony of the Wall because of it—twice, because he and Loaf heroically went back to rescue Rigg—but to phrase it as if it had been Umbo’s fault . . .

“Nobody’s blaming anybody for anything,” said Rigg. “It’s obvious they’re not telling us the whole truth, but—”

Rigg waved off the Odinfolders’ protests.