“Beyond that?”

“Jonah-type facemasks have never been tested on humans. There is no data.”

“And you don’t know how Vadesh expected this to turn out?”

“Vadesh is dead,” said the voice.

Rigg looked at the expendable. “He can’t die. Can he?”

“You call the expendable Vadesh. He cannot die.”

“So whom did you mean when you said Vadesh is dead?”

“The founder of this colony. The expendables call each other by the name of the wallfold. This is Vadeshfold. Now I understand you. No, I do not know Vadesh’s expectations. He used us for storing data but not for analysis beyond a primitive level. He did not discuss or share his thinking with us.”

“Will Loaf be safe if I leave him here?”

“He will need nutrition within a few hours. Would you like me to supply nutrition?”

“Yes,” said Rigg.

“Waste elimination as well?”

When Rigg said yes, arms began to attach devices to Loaf’s body.

“Can you keep this expendable here, immobile?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Forever.”

“Then keep him here, immobile, until I tell you to do otherwise.”

“Yes.”

“Now tell me, am I controlling you because I knew the codes, or because I have these jewels?”

“What jewels?” asked the voice.

Rigg opened his hand. A light moved toward his hand and an arm scanned the jewels.

“These are command module jewels. The red teardrop controls the starship of Ramfold. The pale yellow pentacle controls the starship of Vadeshfold.”

“But right now you are obeying me because I spoke to you in command language.”

“You said the codes,” said the voice. “You are acting commander of this vessel.”

“Acting commander,” said Rigg. “Who is the real commander?”

“Ram Odin,” said the voice. “He is dead.”

“So as the acting commander, I’m the only commander, right?”

“Unless someone else knows the code.”

“Does Vadesh know the code? The expendable?”

“I know whom you mean by Vadesh now. Yes, he knows the code.”

“Can he use it to control the ship?”

The voice seemed to Rigg to be almost offended. “Expendables do not control us. We control the expendables.”

“Not very well,” said Rigg.

“Your judgment is misapplied,” said the voice. “Expendables are designed to have almost complete freedom of movement and judgment. They can draw on our data but we do not interfere with their decisions until and unless we are ordered to by a human commander.”

“Vadesh told us this was the control room,” said Rigg.

“That was not true.”

“Is there a control room? A place where I can use this jewel?”

“Yes.”

“Can you take me there?”

At once Vadesh came alive, turning from the wall and heading for the door through which Rigg and Loaf had entered the room. “Follow the expendable,” said the voice.

After one last look at Loaf, lying on the table under the lights, hoses attached to him, the facemask covering his face, Rigg followed Vadesh out into the corridor.

CHAPTER 7

Control

The real control room made far more sense than the medical room that Vadesh had lied about. A single seat in the middle was held up by an arm that could move it in any direction, swiveling as needed. Three main control stations surrounded it, and this far Vadesh had told the truth: One was devoted to navigation, one to life support and other aspects of the internal running of the ship, and the third to the creation and control of fields—including the Wall.

Rigg sat in the chair, and it moved wherever it needed to be, depending on what Rigg said he wanted to do. First things first.

“What do I do with the jewels?”

“Which ship do you wish to control?” asked the ship’s voice.

“This one.”

At the ship’s instruction, Rigg placed the pale yellow jewel on a circular pad at one side of the field controls. At once the jewel rose into the air and began to glow, rotating rapidly.

“You are accepted as the commander of this vessel,” said the voice.

“Wasn’t I already?”

“Provisionally,” said the ship. “Now you can control the ship wherever you are.”

“What if someone comes along with a set of jewels from another wallfold?” asked Rigg.

“Only one jewel per starship was needed, so only one was made.”

Rigg nodded. Another lie from Vadesh.

“How did all the jewels from all the ships get into Ramfold?”

“The expendable called Ram asked for them, and all the expendables conveyed their jewels to him.”

Even Vadesh, thought Rigg. “Why would they go along with that?” asked Rigg.

“Because you existed,” said the ship.

“But I didn’t even know how to shift time then. Umbo learned to do it on his own before I did.”

“You were trained,” said the ship.

“Not to command a starship.”

“You were trained to lead the people of Garden in their first contact with the people of Earth.”

Rigg shuddered, as if it had suddenly become cold. “Are they coming, then?”

“It is assumed.”

“Has there been any evidence that they’re coming? Have you seen any sign?”

“They are many lightyears away. We will not see any signs of what they are doing now until far in the future.”

“Have you seen a starship approaching?”

“It is assumed that they will solve the mistakes they made in designing this starship. Therefore they will be able to jump as this ship jumped, only without creating duplicates. To them, it has been eleven years since this ship left Earth’s solar system. We do not know how long it will take them to solve the problems, build a ship, and come here, but we can only assume that after eleven years, they might arrive here at any moment.”

“What will they do when they get here?”

“They will find out that humans have been on Garden, at a high level of civilization, longer than the history of civilization on Earth.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“They will see that Ram Odin caused the nineteen copies of the original ship to divide the world into nineteen separate developmental regions, in which the evolution of the human race was accelerated in whatever direction seemed most promising to the expendable placed as guardian.”

“So in Ramfold,” said Rigg, “my father was directing our evolution toward the creation of time-shifters.”

“It seemed most promising,” said the ship. “Ram Odin himself seemed to have such ability in a latent, uncontrollable form. That is why, instead of the ship being obliterated by the fractional time differences between the nineteen computers calculating the jump, the contradictions were resolved by thrusting the ship backward in time by eleven thousand, one hundred ninety-one years. Ram Odin mated and reproduced, and those who carried the time-shift genes have been carefully crossbred to result in a combination of high intelligence, strong commitment to civilization, and the ability to control time-shifting.”

“Commitment to civilization?”

“You get along well with others.”

Rigg thought back over the past year. He and Umbo could have been rivals. So could he and Param. Instead, they had cooperated—and earned the trust and help of Loaf and Olivenko, too. Father had taught him that civilization only worked when people were willing to sacrifice some of their immediate self-interest for the good of the whole, and only those willing to sacrifice the most were fit to lead, because only they could earn and keep the trust of others.

“I’m not the one who should be doing this,” said Rigg.

“Expendable Ram believes you are.”

“In ten thousand years, I’m the best he could get?”

“In the collective opinion of the ships’ computers and the expendables, you are the first-choice option. We do not have control over the timing of the arrival of the first ship from Earth. It is possible, though unlikely, that no ship will come here for generations. You are now in place, in case they come soon.”