This time the book was only a single sheet, and it was on gold instead of a complicated alloy. The message was also simpler. It outlined what had been attempted, and reported on its complete failure. The outcome was the same as before.

More plans were made. More drastic cutbacks in population. A deliberate reduction in technological change. And yet there came another Future Book.

So they tried again. Instead of cutting back on technology and science, they pushed it forward, trying to offer dazzling brilliance as an incentive—something to sell, something that might earn their survival.

Another Future Book showed that as a dead end.

“Nine books in all,” said Mouse-Breeder. “The last one came only three thousand years ago. That was when we decided on the yahoo strategy. We got the idea from a book from Earth, Gulliver’s Travels. It ended with the traveler visiting a land where the sentient residents had evolved from horses, and the creatures that looked like humans were tree-dwelling beasts that grunted and threw their dung at strangers. We bred ourselves for that, in a flurry of new generations, and then sat back and waited.”

“That was when we gave ourselves shorter legs and semi-grasping feet. Learning from the primate ancestors of humans on Earth,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “And when there were about ten thousand of us, long-lived, intelligent, but able to pass for beasts, our beautiful ancestors allowed themselves to die out, so that only we were left.”

“What good is it?” said Param. “How do you even know it was your wallfold that convinced the Visitors that Garden had to be destroyed?”

“Ours was the only one we could change,” said Swims-in-the-Air.

“Be accurate,” said Mouse-Breeder.

“I should have said,” Swims-in-the-Air replied, “that ours was the only wallfold we could change as drastically as this. We didn’t have the right to interfere in the others at anything like this level. But we did fiddle here and there.”

“How?” asked Param.

“You mean, what changes did we make? Or how did we manage to make changes?” Mouse-Breeder said. “You know that we can send things back in time to any place on Garden, the way we did with the jewel. Well, we also assembled all the jewels—originally, each wallfold contained only its own control jewel. We put them together, and we gave them to Ramex.”

“Ramex,” said Rigg. “The expendable who raised me?”

“In this language,” said Mouse-Breeder, “we name each expendable with the name of the founder of the wallfold, plus ‘ex’ for expendable. So we speak of Vadeshex, Ramex, Odinex.”

“Where is your expendable?” asked Olivenko.

“Off doing whatever he does,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “Vadeshex met you in Vadeshfold because it has no other sentient inhabitants. But if a stranger came to Ramfold, do you think Ramex would be there to greet him?”

Param was impatient with such digressions. “Why did you assemble the stones? And when you did, why didn’t you use them yourselves?”

“Because we can’t,” said Mouse-Breeder. “You have to pass completely through a Wall without using the stones before you gain the ability to control a ship and pass freely through the Wall.”

“So if we had only had the one stone,” said Param.

“You would have had to present your stone at that starship and gain the right to control the Wall surrounding only your own wallfold.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you gave all the stones to us,” said Param.

“Because you are the most powerful,” said Mouse-Breeder, with a shrug. “Though truth to tell, we didn’t understand about your ability, Param. We figured that Rigg would be able to attach to the past and go through before the Wall existed.”

“But then we never would have acquired the language ability,” said Umbo.

“Truth is, if Umbo hadn’t pulled us back to the present when we were still short of the edge of the Wall, Loaf and Rigg and I wouldn’t have had any effect from the Wall,” said Olivenko.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Umbo.

“They were about to kill us!” said Param.

“I know that,” said Olivenko, sounding annoyed.

Param couldn’t believe she had spoken so sharply to Olivenko. But it really had sounded as if he was criticizing Umbo, and he had no right—he wasn’t there. Yes, he experienced the agony of the Wall because of it—twice, because he and Loaf heroically went back to rescue Rigg—but to phrase it as if it had been Umbo’s fault . . .

“Nobody’s blaming anybody for anything,” said Rigg. “It’s obvious they’re not telling us the whole truth, but—”

Rigg waved off the Odinfolders’ protests.

“You can’t tell us everything at once,” said Rigg. “You also want us to pursue a particular course of action, so you’re framing the information you provide us in order to maximize the likelihood of our doing what you want. Since I would do exactly the same thing, I’m not criticizing you. I’m just waiting to find out what you’re planning for us. And I want to know just how much you’ve already bent our course without our knowledge.” He held up his hand. “Again, that’s not a criticism. Can we all stop being so sensitive? Short of leaving us notes, which we wouldn’t have understood or believed anyway, you couldn’t explain anything to us. And thanks for the stones. I don’t know why you have that kind of trust in us, but I hope to live up to your expectations wherever I agree with them.”

Param listened to Rigg’s speech and was both proud of him and annoyed that he was so eloquent. He was so aware of how the others were taking the things he said. It was obvious that the Gardener—Ramex—had done a splendid job of training Rigg to be a leader, and Rigg himself was doing a splendid job of using that training wisely and well. She found herself thinking: He should be King-in-the-Tent. And then answering herself, I am the queen’s heir! And then answering, Mother has repudiated me, tried to kill me, and I am reduced to following my younger brother, whom I barely know, and pining over a scholar from the city guard like a moonstruck girl in a romance.

“How have we changed your course of action?” said Swims-in-the-Air coldly. “You want the entire list right now?”

“Yes,” said Param, without hesitation.

“Tell it in the order that you planned,” said Rigg.

“Tell it now,” said Umbo.

The attitude of the Odinfolders had changed completely. The warmth was gone. “Everything depends on you,” said Mouse-Breeder. “The yahoo thing—that’s what we tried last time, and it failed.”

“So you didn’t tell us the truth the first time around,” said Olivenko.

“As Rigg already guessed,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “Here’s what we did. We learned how to transfer very, very tiny things to very, very precise times and locations. Specifically, we learned how to pick up the genetic material from a fertilized egg before it implanted itself in the uterine wall, alter it as we desired, and reimplant it a microsecond later.”

Param’s mind was reeling. “Whom did you do that to?”

“We did it to your father, Knosso, in his mother’s womb,” said Mouse-Breeder. “Then we made just a couple of tweaks to ensure that it was Knosso your mother married, producing the two of you.”

“What changes did you make in Father’s genes?” asked Rigg.

“We knew both his parents had very strong gifts in time manipulation. So we added our ability to his genes, and hoped the recombination would be interesting and productive. It was—it gave us a timesplitter and a pathfinder.”

Param looked at Rigg, trying to see if he was as devastated as she was. But he showed nothing. “How dare you,” she said softly to Swims-in-the-Air.

“My name includes the title Saves-the-World,” said Swims-in-the-Air. “How do you think I earned it?”

“What other changes did you make?” asked Rigg.

“A certain knife,” said Mouse-Breeder. “Which we placed very early, so it had a history, and then moved to the hip of a man whom you encountered the first time you and Umbo did time-shifting together.”