What he felt was not fear—fear was an emotion tied to the body. He felt nothing, not in the usual sense. But he knew that attaching to that nub of backward-streaming path could mean utter failure or complete success.

He remembered that there were two of him, and he wondered what the other version of himself might do if he were here instead of Noxon. Rigg was the one who had seen the need to kill Ram Odin, and he had done it. Then Rigg was the one who saw the need not to have killed him, and so he undid it. But from this choice there would be no undoing.

Noxon could hesitate as long as he wanted. His body would not decay here. He could not die.

But neither could he live. Neither could he act and make changes in the world.

Of course, heading backward he couldn’t make changes outside the limits of this starship. It would be a very small world indeed. And who knew if, once caught in that timeflow, the regular stream of causality would not become as invisible as backward-flowing time had been to him till now.

Filled with uncertainty, filled with determination, Noxon mentally attached himself to that nub of a path, that path of a kind and color he had never seen before. He attached to it, and left that moment of nothingness.

The moment he could sense motion again—and it felt completely normal, he felt like himself, nothing had changed, and that infinite moment between everything was now infinitesimal in his memory—in that moment he began to slice time so that he would be invisible and undetectable to the computers.

He did not know if he had acted quickly enough. He did not know how long it would take the computers to be aware of the presence of the jewels he carried with him. Or how long it would take the computers to upload all the contents of the jewels, containing as they did the entire history of the human race in every wallfold of Garden. And the history of Ram Odin on all nineteen starships.

But even if it had absorbed every speck of those memories, it didn’t matter the way it would have if he had joined with any of the nineteen forward-moving copies of the ship. Because this ship was going back to Earth, but undetectably. As it now was, this ship could not have any effect on the rest of the universe.

Noxon’s job was to find an appropriate opportunity, after the ship returned to Earth, and take the whole ship with him back into regular time, so that he could learn what motivated the people of Earth to wipe out life on Garden, and prevent it if he could.

For now, though, his only job was to stay alive through the seven-year voyage.

If the expendable knew that there were jewels aboard, he showed nothing. Noxon could not hear the words they were saying, because he was slicing time so sound could not reach him in any intelligible form. But there was only the frustration of realizing that they were the loser in the lottery of ships, that they were the one that would never found a colony, the one that would never reach any destination at all.

Ram Odin was a man so young, so childlike compared to the old man Noxon had known. He and the expendable conversed. Ram got up and talked. The expendable talked. They walked here and there. They did inexplicable things that didn’t matter to Noxon at all.

All that Noxon cared about was the place where he could use the jewels to take control of the ship. Of course, it was possible that the ship would not let him take control, since Ram Odin was the commander.

But it was also possible that once Noxon had allowed the ship to upload the contents of the jewels, the ship’s computers would realize that Noxon was the commander of the only mission that mattered now, and that Noxon was the only person who could possibly bring the ship back into forward-time.

After the huge gamble he had already taken, wouldn’t it be ironic if the ship refused to pay off on this small bet.

It took Noxon more than a day of ship’s time to cross the small room to the jewel station. Then he kept sidling left and right, waiting for Ram to leave the room again.

At last he did.

Instantly Noxon stopped slicing time. His hand was already poised over the reader. He dropped all the jewels at once out of the bag.

They did not bounce off the surface because they were immediately locked in place, held in an invisible field that kept them all moving relative to each other. Noxon remembered the dialogue he had used before, the words he was supposed to say. But the ship’s computer did not speak to him.

Instead, it spoke to the mice.

Noxon could hear the high-pitched, rapid words, because the facemask allowed him to. It meant that the ship’s computer knew that with the facemask Noxon could understand this language, and therefore the computer used it so Ram Odin could not hear what it was saying. Or it meant that the ship’s computer, having reached its own conclusions from whatever was on the jewels, wished only to deal with the mice.

No. The words were to him. “Rigg Noxon,” said the ship’s computer. “We understand why you are here and we regard you as the commander of this vessel, superceding this Ram Odin because the older, better informed, and therefore more authoritative Ram Odin has certified you as his true successor in every one of these jewels. Do not speak because I must use the expendable to explain you to him before he sees you.”

“No,” said Noxon aloud. “I will explain myself.”

“The shock might harm him.”

“I have had far too much experience with ships’ computers and with expendables to believe that you have actually surrendered control to me, or that you will actually say what I would wish you to say.”

“It is unfortunate that you have such an untrusting attitude.”

“The mice that are now escaping from this room are to be contained on this ship and not allowed to leave it under any circumstances, until I specifically authorize each instance of their departure.”

“Understood.”

From down the corridor, he could hear Ram Odin’s voice. “I’m hearing a voice and it isn’t yours and it isn’t mine.”

“And you will preserve both my life and Ram Odin’s life, from each other and from ourselves as well as from you, the expendable, or any other peril.”

“Understood.”

Ram Odin came into the room. Noxon turned to face him. Ram Odin looked at him and kept a remarkable degree of composure. Which is to say, he leaned against his chair and then sank into it. But he did not point or shout or ask questions like “Who are you?” and “How did you get here?”

“First,” said Noxon, “I am fully human. My face looks like this because I have a symbiotic relationship with a parasite that enhances my perceptions and my reaction time. My name is Noxon.”

Ram Odin said nothing.

“Second, I am in control of this ship now.”

Ram looked at the expendable. The expendable nodded.

“Third, there are now mice aboard this ship. They are sentient, they are untrustworthy, but they might be quite useful to us at some later time, so do not harm them.”

Ram nodded slowly.

“Fourth, you know that we’re cut off from the normal flow of time. I was able to join you on this timestream only because I entered this path from the moment of intersection, where all the copies of the ship came to be. I don’t know if I can get us back onto the normal timestream, but if I can’t, nobody can, nothing can. I am your only hope to get back to the world of causality.”

Ram Odin kept looking at him.

“That’s all I’ve got,” said Noxon. “You can talk now.”

Ram Odin shook his head. Then, his voice choked and croaking, he said, “No I can’t.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Noxon, “I’ve met your very old self. One copy of yourself, anyway. I know that you’re a sneaky conniving arrogant murderous son-of-a-bitch. I also know that you are willing to sacrifice whatever needs sacrificing in order to save your people. Even though you’re not the copy of Ram Odin who actually founded nineteen colonies on the planet Garden, you could have become him. You meant to found a colony. I’m asking you to preserve the results of your own work. The lives of your own children. I’m one of those children. I’m here to keep your life’s work from being obliterated.”