Visitors

by Orson Scott Card

“If we give one wallfold to aliens and mice together, we have to make sure there’s a tight lid on their technology,” said Noxon. “I’m afraid of what their combined abilities might lead to.”

  “Happiness and peace for all sentient species everywhere,” said the alpha mouse.

  “No doubt,” said Noxon.

  “Same discussion on most of the other ships,” said the expendable.

  “Most?” asked Ram. “So we’ve diverged?”

  “Two ships on the far world and one here have to deal with a Wheaton with a broken hip,” said the expendable. “It slowed down the decision making.”

  “I thought you’d protect me,” said Wheaton accusingly.

  “I can’t always anticipate the stupid choices of human beings,” said the expendable.

  “Stop bickering,” said Ram. “Dividing up the world is the obvious choice. We have to decide what to do with the extra humans who won’t be needed to found a colony in three of the wallfolds.”

  “We can establish more wallfolds than we have ships,” said Noxon. “Let’s make thirteen colonies on each world, ten for humans, one each for aliens and mice, and one for both.”

  “Must there also be a colony that includes both mice and humans?”

  “I hope not,” said Wheaton.

  “Of course,” said Noxon.

  “At least don’t let ours be that colony!” said Wheaton.

  “You’ll get used to them,” said Noxon.

  “That means you already agreed to have ours be the human colony that has mice,” said Wheaton.

  “Unless you plan to mate and settle down, Professor,” said Ram, “I think all the copies of you should regularly visit all the colonies. Sleep in stasis in between inspections. See how the alien species are developing, now that they have humans and mice interfering.”

  “Assisting,” corrected the alpha mouse. “At least that’s what we’ll be doing.”

  “I think that’s an excellent plan,” said Wheaton. “I only wish I could publish my findings.”

  “You should write down everything you see and conjecture,” said Ram, “and we’ll eventually share it with every world.”

  “One more need,” said the expendable. “A name for each of these worlds.”

  “‘Garden’ is already taken,” said Noxon.

  “I don’t think the worlds should be named for any of us,” said Wheaton.

  “Never crossed my mind,” said Ram.

  “Said the man with two wallfolds named for him,” said Noxon.

  “I didn’t name them,” said Ram. “I’ve never been there.”

  “How about Roach and Tripod?” asked Noxon.

  “‘Roach’ is hardly expressive of a desire to get along with them,” said Wheaton.

  “All that ‘Roach’ will mean in a generation or two will be the name of a world,” said Noxon.

  “The human settlers will know from the start,” said Ram. “They may never let go of the associations. We need them to speak of the natives with respect, at least inside the shared wallfold.”

  “Melody and Harmony,” said the alpha mouse.

  “Just as I was thinking ‘Noise’ and ‘Nasty,’” said Noxon, “the mice suggested ‘Melody’ and ‘Harmony.’”

  “As long as this is the world that’s called Melody,” said Ram. “We came here first.”

  “And we have such lovely voices,” said Wheaton.

  Other suggestions were made on other ships, but in the end the idea of Melody, though attractive to most, was superceded: One world was named Treble, since the Tripods had high and piping voices, while the other was named Bass, because the Scuttles made sounds that were so low that many of them could not be heard by humans. Neither species had anything that could be called a language yet.

  Thirteen wallfolds on each world, with the native species each confined to the area where, in the original timestream, they had achieved full sentience. The mice were satisfied, and the natives didn’t get a vote, so everything proceeded peacefully.

  Inside every wallfold that included a Noxon, he and the expendable made a jaunt into the far future, not just to see how their own colony had fared, but to check the wallfolds that contained either mice or natives, or both. The orbiters provided firm calendar dates based on stellar positioning, so that the Noxons could observe both the year when their ships arrived and the year when Earth had been invaded in the old timestream.

  There were no spaceships in any of the futures, nor technologies that allowed communication between wallfolds, except by way of the expendables. The natives had evolved sentience in all four native wallfolds, though whether they were the same as they would have been without human interference, it was impossible to say. In each wallfold shared with mice, the natives and the mice were at peace, and the Scuttles and their mice had evolved a system of shared cities, with some dominated by the Scuttles and some by the mice. The Tripods were less cooperative—with the mice and with each other. They were torn by warfare, but so were most of the human wallfolds, so that was hardly a reason to make any changes.

  The visiting Noxons all reached the conclusion that their original mission—to keep these aliens from destroying the human race—had been achieved, and it had been done without depriving the proto-sentients of a chance to achieve their evolutionary potential.

  Then the Noxons of each world met with each other in one of the grounded spaceships and conferred about the only important decision remaining to them.

  “There’s a lid on development of technology,” said the first speaker in each conference, “but we represent something far more dangerous than any weapon or tech. The ability to go into the past and wipe out whole timestreams. We had to use that ability when the future of humanity was at stake. But now, will Treble and Bass be better off if these timeshaping genes are part of the mix, or if we allow our abilities to be extinguished by not reproducing?”

  And in both conferences, another Noxon pointed out the obvious. “There are timeshapers on Garden, no matter what we do here. And Ram Odin has already married and had children in every human wallfold. He was the source of these genes in the first place.”

  And another said, “The mice knew how to send objects through time and space when they got here. They knew how to manipulate human genes to create the original Rigg and Param and Umbo. We’d be fools to think they’ve forgotten that knowledge. For all we know, they all have the ability to manipulate time. Should we let the mice have such power, while we give up our only possible remedy?”

  “So we keep the ability in the gene pool? So that we aren’t at the mercy of the mice? Or the humans from Garden, if they ever come here?”

  “This ability exists in the universe. We’d be fools to throw it away, when we might need it someday. It saved us once.”

  “But only because people of extraordinary decency and wisdom wielded it.” And while they all laughed at such ironic self-deprecation, they also knew that it was true.

  “Sentience always carries with it the power of destruction. We must work to make sure that decency and wisdom are part of the heritage of every wallfold, and then trust our descendants to use this power responsibly, if they have it at all.”

  This became the consensus of both conferences. Using the ships’ computers, they communicated their decisions across the space between Bass and Treble.

  Then the Noxons were carried back by flyers to each of their wallfolds, where they married the women they already loved. There would be no stasis for them, no attempts to live across the ages and keep track of what the future brought. Nor did the Ram Odins attempt to keep watch over the future. That was for the Wheatons to do, as they carried on their evolutionary studies. And since they were already getting old when the colonies began, after a few centuries or millennia they either allowed themselves to retire and die, or their wakings became so far apart that they could
not be said to live in any of the wallfolds anymore.

  But the children of the Rams and Noxons grew, and became whatever they would become, and in the course of the generations, their genes became mixed with the rest of the population, and their stories and ideas became part of the lore of every culture that arose. Among the mice as well, the memory of Father Starpilot and Father Timeshaper were preserved. And it was hard to guess which would have more influence in shaping the future, the stories or the genes.

  CHAPTER 30

  Dispositions

  Rigg sat with Ram Odin in the control room of the Vadeshfold starship, along with several hundred mice, and confessed his own ambivalence. “I’ve watched the log of dozens of myself fighting with these inhuman Destroyers, and I want them to come again, and this time find all the computers of Garden closed shut against them. Let them come to ground here and find every wallfold armed and ready to fight. They can be beaten.”

  “By a timeshaper with a facemask, who can duplicate himself until he vastly outnumbers a single Destroyer,” said Ram Odin. “What wallfold can match that?”

  “At least, if they can’t turn the weapons in the orbiters against us, we have a chance.”

  “Yes,” said Ram Odin. “What that lost version of you and Param discovered has tipped a balance. Perhaps it even tipped it enough. Perhaps the solution of our problem was in our own hands after all. And I’m relieved to know that our enemy is not the humans of Earth.”

  “But what can we think, except that the Destroyers massacred the humans of our ancient homeland before they ever came here?” said Rigg. “That’s why I have to hope that Noxon will succeed in stopping them there, saving humanity on Earth. But then they’ll never come here at all, and we will never find out whether this reprogramming of the computers did the job. Whether we were able to defend against them.”

  “I can live with not knowing that,” said Ram Odin. “If it means the Destroyers never come. So many lives will be saved that way. So if I had a choice, I would choose Noxon’s success over having a chance to see whether our brilliant musine friends have done the job here well enough.”

  Rigg heard the mice as Ram Odin could not. “Of course we did the job.”

  “They’re bragging,” said Rigg. “But I’m afraid that they’ve done a great deal more than build a wall that the Destroyers can’t penetrate.”

  “What could we possibly do?” asked a mouse. “Why are you so suspicious?”

  “For instance,” said Rigg, “what if they are the ones in command of all the starships now, instead of you or me?”

  Ram Odin shrugged. “Then maybe the world bows to a hybrid conqueror, half man, half mouse.”

  “We have no such ambition,” said a mouse. The others echoed the assurance.

  “They’re all innocent of plots and schemes,” said Rigg.

  “The innocent and the guilty all say the same thing, with equal fervor,” said Ram Odin. “Can your facemask tell the difference?”

  “Not really,” said Rigg. “They’re always lying, always concealing something. But since everything they say is deceptive, it’s impossible to tell whether the exact words they’re saying right now are a direct lie, or a truth that conceals a deeper lie.”

  “Very subtle,” said Ram Odin.

  “I can’t very well feel morally superior to them,” said Rigg. “If they weren’t listening to all our conversations, we’d lie to them, too, or at least hold back our plans. They may have human genes and, collectively, intelligence to match our own—”

  “Surpass it, you mean,” said a mouse.

  “By about ten thousand times,” said another.

  “They’re quite vain,” said Rigg, “and they grossly overestimate their own mental prowess, but that only proves how much they resemble humankind. What they won’t do, even if they take over the computers somehow, is use that power to destroy all life on Garden. If we have to choose between a tyranny of rodents and the utter destruction of our species, I’ll hold my nose and take the rodents.”

  “You smell worse than we do,” said a mouse.

  “I bet they’re telling you how much worse we smell,” said Ram Odin.

  “See?” said Rigg. “They’re not as subtle as they think.”

  “How will we know if Noxon succeeds?” asked Ram Odin.

  “In all our planning, we never got that far,” said Rigg. “It was hard enough to think of a way to get him to Earth and after that, he had to figure out how to stop the humans there from destroying us. We had no idea that he’d have to stop an alien invasion. If he succeeds, he may have to do it in some way that prevents him from ever coming back here. He may be stuck on the aliens’ home world.”

  “What if Noxon comes in exactly the way that the Destroyers have always come?” asked Ram Odin. “What if our new defenses kill him before he can tell us of his success?”

  “Our defenses don’t kill anybody,” said a mouse.

  “We’re blocking out their computer commands, not blowing up their ships,” said another.

  “Though we could work on that.”

  “Don’t,” said Rigg. “Please. Let’s wait and see if what you’ve already done is enough.”

  “If Noxon can come back,” said Ram Odin, “he’s bound to be as smart as you. He’ll think of the danger. He won’t return at the time the Destroyers always came.”

  “He might have the use of a starship. The backward copy of the original. If he can turn it forward, he might make another voyage, another jump through the fold.”

  Ram sighed. “And that means he might return eleven thousand years ago, with nineteen copies. Maybe we should be checking the past to see if he’s succeeded, instead of looking toward the future.”

  “If he returns in the past, he can slice his way forward. Or jump. Who knows how precise he’s learned to be? He and Param accomplished a lot together before he left.”

  Ram Odin rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “I’m tired. Since Noxon could return at any time in the existence of Garden, I don’t think it will hurt anything if I nap now.”

  “We should actually leave some open time here on the bridge,” said Rigg, “so that if we have to come back and tell the mice that they need to do more, there’ll be an open space for us to return to.”

  “Yes, Rigg, you can have a nap, too, if you want,” said Ram Odin. “You don’t have to come up with theories in order to justify your need for sleep.”

  “Good, they’re leaving,” said a mouse. “We can take over the world now.”

  “The mice are trying to see how gullible we are,” said Rigg.

  “We’re as gullible as they need us to be,” said Ram Odin. “Once they take over the ships, they control all our information. How can we possibly check them? So let’s go to sleep and then decide whether to bounce into the future to see if we’ve succeeded.”

  The door opened as Ram Odin approached it. Vadeshex was standing on the other side. “Oh, you’ve already heard?” asked Vadeshex.

  “Heard what?” asked Ram Odin.

  The mice swarmed through the door. “Stop that!” said Rigg. “When you do that we end up stepping on some of you.”

  “We don’t mind,” said a mouse.

  “Much,” said another.

  “Well we mind,” said Rigg. “It’s sickening to feel your little bodies crunch under our shoes. Especially since the one we step on might have been conversing with us a moment before.”

  The mice swerved to the edges of the doorway, and many of them clambered up onto Rigg’s and Ram Odin’s clothing to ride them out of the room.

  “What’s happening?” Ram Odin asked Vadeshex.

  “Noxon is back,” said Vadeshex.

  “Successful or not?” asked Ram Odin.

  “When did he arrive?” asked Rigg.

  “He arrived with the Visitors,” said Vadeshe
x. “He brought a blind girl with him, and they immediately came back to a time when the two of you were here in my starship. The flyer is bringing them.”

  “Did they stop the Destroyers?” Ram Odin insisted.

  “Of course,” said Vadeshex. “He wouldn’t have come back with that job undone.”

  “Did the Visitors know they were bringing him?” asked Rigg.

  “I don’t think so,” said Vadeshex. “But I wasn’t there when they arrived. Or rather, I’m sure I will be there, but I at this moment have no idea of anything except that they called for the flyer, and yes, they stopped the Destroyers.”

  “Have you notified everybody else?” asked Rigg.

  “The other expendables are spreading the word among those who care. The Odinfolders are celebrating. All the mice in Larfold are celebrating on the beach with the Larfolders as they come out of the water.”

  “And Loaf and Leaky? Param and Umbo?”

  “Ramex is heading for them right now, in his flyer,” said Vadeshex. “Give me credit for knowing my job.”

  “All the expendables and all the ships’ computers were notified at once,” said Rigg. “You had nothing to do with it, right?”

  “Well, true,” said Vadeshex. “But I think it’s significant that Noxon and the girl are coming straight to me.”

  “To us,” said Ram Odin.

  “To me,” said Vadeshex. “The girl is blind. Her eyes were burned out and she wants to try a facemask to see if it will restore her eyes.”

  “She’s from Earth?” asked Rigg.

  “Where else would he come up with a human girl?” asked Ram Odin.

  “Will the facemasks work with people who aren’t part of Garden’s gene pool?” asked Rigg.

  “She’s a cousin of Ram Odin’s,” said Vadeshex. He turned to Ram. “Apparently you had cousins named Wheaton. Arnold and Lanae’s daughter, Deborah.”

  “Of course,” said Ram Odin. “They died in an accident. Wasn’t her uncle taking care of her? He had an odd nickname.”

  “Georgia,” said Vadeshex.

  “How do you know all this?” asked Rigg. “How long did you wait to come tell us?”