Visitors (Pathfinder 3)
“And if it destroys him, Umbo will go back and prevent it,” said Loaf.
“It will go well,” said Auntie Wind. “Even in their original state, the mantles and facemasks are gentler on babies. Babies have little control over their bodies—but their will is terrifyingly strong. They get control over the parasite right along with getting control over the body. You’ll see.”
I hope you’re right, thought Umbo.
And, in the flyer, Loaf echoed the thought. “I hope she’s right.”
“If she isn’t,” said Umbo, “we’ll try something else.”
And then, because he thought of it, and because it was Loaf that he was with, he added, “Square is alive because strangers have cared for him when it was inconvenient. Dangerous. I think Garden wants this boy to live. And with a facemask, and the body you and Leaky made for him, he’ll be a force to reckon with.”
Loaf heard this in silence.
After a while, though, Loaf said, “If this works, I think I’ll seek out some adults and invite them to wear facemasks. You can go back and prevent the ones who fail. Then you can take a colony of successful facemaskers a few hundred years into the past and let them be the citizens of Vadeshfold. Let the colony grow. Far from
the city where we first arrived there, but . . . a colony of facemaskers would be the true heirs of the wallfold, don’t you think?”
“No mice,” said Umbo.
“Wouldn’t matter,” said Loaf. “With facemasks, the Vadeshfolders could see all the mice, and catch them if they want. Use the mice to sing lullabies to their children. And squish their little mousy heads if they got out of line.”
“Once the mice get into the millions,” said Umbo, “it would be time-consuming to catch them all. Especially if they developed a disease that weakens facemaskers or slows them down. Or kills the facemask.”
“All right,” said Loaf. “No mice.”
“What about timeshapers?” asked Umbo.
“Rigg already has a facemask.”
“But maybe he should be the only one,” said Umbo. “Facemasks are one kind of power, timeshaping another. I’m thinking we should keep timeshaping out of the Vadeshfold gene pool.”
“Can’t be done,” said Loaf. “Timeshaping is already in the Ramfold gene pool, and we have no way to screen it out. It’s going to crop up eventually among the facemaskers.”
“What we timeshapers do is already so dangerous,” said Umbo. “Undoing vast swaths of history just because we decide to. With facemasks, there’d be no stopping us. We’ve got no guarantee that other timeshaping facemaskers would be as nice as Rigg.”
“Something to think about,” said Loaf. “But not for you and me to decide just between us. If we actually get a colony of facemaskers in Vadeshfold, they should have a voice on such a decision, too.”
Umbo shook his head. “It’s all right for us to call them into existence, but . . .”
“But once they exist,” said Loaf, “they have a right to be consulted about what genetic traits we do and don’t allow into their population.”
“So sometimes we get to decide for everybody, and sometimes we have to ask their consent.”
“That about sums it up,” said Loaf.
“And who decides which times are which?” asked Umbo.
“Me,” said Loaf. “Because you’re an idiot.”
CHAPTER 23
Erectids
They had learned a few things from their experience with the Neanderthals. Once Noxon identified which paths belonged to Erectids, he chose an apparent settlement site that was just over a low rise from a very comfortable hotel. The only thing separating them was a hundred meters and a million and a half years.
It was April at the hotel—the rainy season, so there were plenty of rooms available and not a lot of observers. It was a simple matter to leave the hotel, cross a little-used road, follow a walking path over a rise till they were in sight of the little river, and then, when they were out of sight from the hotel, link hands and jump back to the exact time they chose.
They chose to visit the Erectids during the dry season, so even if they arrived wet with rain, they were dry soon enough.