Rigg was able to plan and calculate. Umbo did everything he did in a rush, on impulse. Even learning to travel in time, to send himself messages—he had done it by brute force rather than by thinking it all through and understanding it. Oh, he tried to think, and maybe his thinking helped. Somehow. But mostly it was just taking his power to manipulate people’s timeflow and trying to use it in a new way. That’s why it had taken months to learn to use it on his own, without Rigg—he had no idea what he was doing, he just flung himself into it, trying different things until one worked.

I learn like a squirrel, thought Umbo. No analysis, no finesse—I just keep leaping until I finally land where I want to.

I will never have a facemask, and I’m perfectly happy. I’d rather be my second-rate self than go through what Loaf and Rigg went through—and then wear that trophy of a face the rest of my life.

But if he said to Leaky, You’re better off this way, Umbo had a feeling that her response would cost him a significant portion of his hearing, if not a limb. Because it was true. Leaky did not have self-control. That’s why it had taken him so many tries before he was able to prepare her properly to meet Loaf again, in his new condition. She could not stop herself from raging long enough to hear the whole message, not until he found exactly the right way to approach her.

Which, of course, he had learned by flinging himself into the past, finding out that one method of telling her about it failed, and then trying again. Rigg probably could have succeeded the first time.

Still, I did figure out how to jump into the future, in a limited way, and I did it without a facemask. Just because I’m not Rigg doesn’t mean I’m nothing.

“What you don’t know,” said Loaf gently, “is whether that midwife was right. It’s easy to say, You’ll never bear children, but what did she know? If she was a good midwife the baby might have been delivered alive.”

At the mention of the baby’s death, Leaky’s tears came afresh. “I can’t believe I told you,” she said. And then, “I can’t believe I went so long and never told you.”

“You’ve told me now,” said Loaf. “So hear me out. We might still have a baby, though it’s perilous, because it’ll look like me. But if you want to risk adding to the ugly in the world, then let’s see if the problem was me. But if the problem is an old injury of yours, then that’s the way it is.”

“But the facemask could have cured it.”

“It’s not a cure if it kills you,” said Loaf. “If you aren’t still my Leaky, then I don’t want you to have my babies. And as long as you are my Leaky, then I’m happy whether we have babies or not.”

She flung her arms around him and wept even more, and finally Umbo did the thing he should have done in the first place, and skipped into the future by a few hours.

They were lying on the ground. Leaky was nestled next to Loaf, his arm around her. She was asleep. Of course Loaf noticed Umbo’s return, but he raised a finger to signal silence. Umbo nodded, walked quietly away.

He took a long walk, and after a while the city came into view. The great empty city with its sad empty towers made of fieldsteel, which never weathered, never wore away. Would the fieldsteel outlast the great burning when all life on Garden was ended? Would they remain as the sole remnant of human life here? No, there were other monuments—the Tower of O was also of fieldsteel. And there were nineteen craters and upthrusts scattered around the world, where starships had crashed deliberately into the crust and changed the planet’s speed of rotation, lengthening the day and adding more debris to the Ring in the sky that made it so no clear night on Garden was ever fully dark.

That’s all we leave behind us. A few buildings and nineteen deformations of the land.

“Have you come for your facemask?” Vadeshex emerged from the door of the building where he had first served them water.

“For a drink, I suppose,” said Umbo. “And water for the ­others, though I didn’t bring their water bags.”

“I anticipated that,” said Vadeshex. “Being an old friend of the family, so to speak, I thought to welcome Leaky to Vadeshfold with some refreshment, food and drink. But she isn’t with you.”

“We ran into a messenger. From the future.”

“Then the messenger was you.”

“Not me but yes, a version of me from a future that now will never happen. He warned us that the facemask doesn’t work on Leaky. You don’t happen to have a milder version, do you? Maybe not so effective, but also easier to adapt to and get control of?”

Vadeshex shook his head. “The one your friends wear is the mildest one I’ve ever been able to breed. Facemasks are invasive. They’re not for everyone.”

“How did you choose Loaf?”

“I didn’t,” said Vadeshex.

“It was just chance?”

“It was Ram Odin who chose. He observed, and he said, Loaf, and no other until Rigg is ready.”

“So he judged us and knew who was strong enough.”

“It isn’t about strength,” said Vadesh. “It’s about self-­mastery.”

Umbo chuckled. “And here I thought my future self was terribly wise and analytical, to come up with that.”

“He was wise to explain it to you that way, though, don’t you think?” asked Vadeshex. “The woman is apt to flare up at anything, isn’t she?”

“You don’t know her.”

“Once you brought the jewels into Ramfold in the era you arrived in, Ramex knew she was important and he went to the roadhouse as a customer. He has seen her temper. It’s a marvel to behold, but then she’s filled with regret and self-recrimination. Like you.”

“We know what self-control looks like in other people,” said Umbo, “and wish we had it for ourselves.”

“Oh, you have it,” said Vadeshex. “It just doesn’t kick in until you’ve already said and done things you can’t unsay and can’t undo. Though of course you can. But it does cut out a chunk of reality and discard it in the invisible dustbin of lost futures.”

“You saw me save Kyokay.”

“And saw you cause a disastrous change in futures.”

“How can you know that?”

“You were carrying the jewels. They came back in time with you when you undid your mistake. Any future in which you carried the jewels—on the knife or in a bag—and then come back with them, we have a record of it, at least the part surrounding you. But when you send a message, the jewels don’t come back, so those futures are lost.”

“If I send a message, I don’t run the risk of copying myself. The world can find a use for two Riggs, but I can’t even find a use for the one Umbo.”

“There you go. You couldn’t stop yourself from that bit of self-pity.”

“I didn’t try to stop myself.”

“But you feel contempt for yourself for having said it, yes?”

Umbo shrugged. “If you have food for them, can you bring it?”

“It’s spread on a table,” said Vadeshex, “and even though I’m very dextrous by human standards, I’m liable to spill something if I try to carry the whole table out to them.”

“Is the flyer available?”

“It will be soon. Meanwhile sit and talk with me.”

If Vadeshex had been human, and not a lying and conniving machine, Umbo would have complied. Instead, he said, “No thank you. I think I’ll go back to them afoot. You can bring the food when the flyer comes back.”

“Let me refill your water bag before you go,” said Vadeshex.

Umbo waited. When Vadeshex returned the bag bulging, he also gave Umbo a covered bowl. “You don’t need utensils for this. It will keep them till I get there with the main meal.”

When Umbo got back, they were sitting up and talking. Umbo opened the bowl and the crisp round pastries were still hot. Each had barely more than a dot of something spicy in the middle. They were delicious.

“That machine can cook,” said Loaf.

“What machine?” asked Leaky.