“What will I do if they come?”

“That is for you to decide.”

“But you computers and expendables know far more than I do.”

“Our knowledge is at your disposal.”

“Vadesh’s wasn’t,” said Rigg.

“Vadesh offered you the best of his wallfold.”

“A facemask on my friend?”

“It is the result of ten thousand years of careful breeding on his part. All the expendables are meticulous workers.”

“But he lied to me again and again!”

“He created circumstances in which you could be taught what you needed to learn.”

“I learned that expendables lie.”

“You already knew that,” said the ship’s voice. “What you did not know was how Vadesh’s improvements to the facemask would enhance the symbiosis between native and human life.”

“So you approve of what Vadesh did?”

“Vadesh fulfilled his assignment from Ram Odin. Now he is fully subject to your commands.”

“I can’t trust him! I don’t even know if I can trust you.”

“And yet you are trusting me, and Vadesh will obey you.”

“I’m not going to let this stand,” said Rigg. “You know that I’m going to go back in time and warn myself not to come in here.”

“Then you will not get control of this ship,” said the ship.

“I don’t want control! I just want to get out of Vadeshfold without a facemask on anybody.”

“That is possible,” said the voice.

“Then that’s what will happen.”

“And yet you have not done it,” said the ship.

“I haven’t done it yet.”

“You came through this entire process and no warning from yourself came to stop you.”

“Because this is the first time I’ve done it,” said Rigg. “There has to be a first time, when everything goes wrong, so that we’ll know what to warn ourselves about.”

“This is not the first time,” said the ship’s computer.

“How would you know? Only the time-shifter knows.”

“Because Umbo warned himself not to accompany you into the ship.”

“Umbo had a warning, and he didn’t tell me?” Rigg had known Umbo was unhappy with Rigg’s leadership, but he didn’t know it would extend to such disloyalty.

“The fact that Umbo came back and warned everyone except you and Loaf suggests that on some previous time path, something very bad resulted from a different combination of events.”

“Yes, the bad thing was that Umbo’s resentment of me got completely out of control,” said Rigg. “He wanted this to be a disaster.”

“Would Umbo do anything that might lead to causing harm to Loaf?” asked the voice.

“He didn’t know that Loaf would . . .” But Rigg didn’t need to finish the thought. Rigg couldn’t know exactly what future-Umbo knew, but he had to assume that he knew more than Rigg knew now. “Are you saying that I’m supposed to let that thing stay in control of Loaf’s mind?”

“I don’t know what Umbo intended when he gave himself warning.”

“Neither do I! Neither does anybody. I don’t even know for myself that Umbo gave a warning.”

“When you go back outside, you can ask him.”

“Why am I even in here? I’m supposed to turn off the Wall so we can leave here without having to go back to a time before the Wall existed. But the main reason for doing it was so Loaf could go home to Leaky. I can’t send him home like this.”

The ship’s computer said nothing.

“Come on, give me some help here.”

“That is a dilemma that is beyond my competence. We can provide you with information, but the decisions are yours.”

“So inform me!”

“About what?”

“I don’t know enough to know what questions I need to ask you!”

“That is true,” said the ship’s computer.

“So tell me what I need to know?”

“I don’t know what information you need,” said the voice.

Rigg saw the circularity of the situation but he saw no solution for it. “Tell me what’s within my power to do. Can I turn off all the Walls?”

“If you take control of all the ships.”

Rigg pulled the bag of jewels from his waist. “I can control them all at once?”

“You can try,” said the ship’s computer. “I can see only a few reasons why any of the ships would reject the protocol.”

“What are those reasons?”

“You have no idea what the consequences would be,” said the ship. “Bringing down the Wall may destroy the careful work of eleven thousand, one hundred ninety-one years of directed evolution, because a rapacious, expansive group of humans would have access to weaker or less violent or less technologically developed wallfolds.”

“General Citizen might go a-conquering.”

“Ramfold is not the most technologically advanced wallfold,” said the voice. “But your assessment is correct insofar as the attempt is concerned.”

“General Citizen would try, and he would fail.”

“The likelihood of bloody slaughter is very high.”

“So I shouldn’t take control of the ships,” said Rigg.

“That is one choice.”

“What are the other choices?” asked Rigg.

“The expendable Ram suggests that I not answer your question.”

“What!” This was the first reliable confirmation Rigg had received that Father was not dead after all.

“The expendable Ram suggests that I not—”

“I heard you the first time.”

“I know you did.”

“Why does Father think you shouldn’t answer my question?”

“Because you already know the answers.”

Rigg felt a wave of fury wash over him. “I’m not in the woods with him now! He’s not my father, and I finally know he’s not my father, and I don’t have to submit to his endless quizzing.”

“That is all correct.”

“So answer me. What are my choices?”

“The expendable Ram suggests that I not answer your—”

“I know my choices!” Rigg shouted. “I just want to know if I’ve left any out.”

“If you list the choices you know about, I will be happy to supplement your list.”

Rigg swallowed his anger and complied. “I can take control of the ships but still not bring down the Wall.”

The voice said nothing.

“I don’t know how this works,” said Rigg. “Once I leave this room, am I still in control of the ship?”

“You are the ship’s commander,” said the ship.

“How will I communicate with you?”

“By asking me, as you’re doing now.”

“You can talk to me after I leave here?”

“Only while you’re on the ship,” said the voice.

“So how can I get information from you after leaving the ship? How do I get information from the other ships?”

“Through the expendable.”

“But expendables lie to me!”

“Expendables provide information that will lead you to good choices.”

“Good choices as defined by them.”

“You are hardly in a position to define them, since you know almost nothing.”

Rigg recognized Father’s voice. “The expendable Ram is telling you what to say.”

“He knows you better than we do,” said the voice. “We are accepting his counsel during this conversation.”

“So you tell me I’m in command, but I’m not in command.”

“You are more in command than any other entity, human or otherwise.”

“What does that even mean? ‘More in command.’ Who am I sharing command with?”

“There is a constant process of negotiation and compromise,” said the voice.

“Only I’m not part of that process,” said Rigg.

“You are the most important part of it,” said the voice.

“But I don’t know what you’re thinking, I only know what you say!”

“We have the same dilemma,” said the ship.

“I tell you what I’m thinking.”

“You tell us what you want us to know, as a subset of what you do know, which is not very much.”

Rigg closed his eyes. “I still live in a world where my understanding is shaped by information you give me, and you still decide, without asking me, which things I should know. Therefore I can only make choices as you direct me to.”

“We know many quintillions of bits of information,” said the ship’s computer. “Your brain cannot contain all that we know.”