“She’s not queen of anything, here,” said Rigg.

“She’s my queen wherever she is,” said Olivenko.

“Well isn’t that sweet,” said Loaf. “As big a collection of idiots as I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“We have to get her back,” said Rigg.

“Any bright ideas about how to do that?” asked Loaf.

“I can write her a note. I used to write her notes on a slate back in Flacommo’s house. Before we actually met.”

“She can’t have gotten far,” said Olivenko. “It’s not as if she was in any shape to move.”

“If she isn’t moving,” said Rigg, “she wouldn’t disappear. Time-slicing only makes her invisible if she’s moving.”

“How can she move with that elbow?” asked Umbo.

“She doesn’t walk on her elbows,” said Rigg.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” said Umbo. “I’m the one who came up with a plan to get us and ten thousand mice through the Wall at exactly the right time.”

“Well, now we’re not doing anything,” said Olivenko.

“Listen to yourselves,” said Loaf. “Is there anyone here with a brain? This didn’t have to happen.”

“But it did!” shouted Umbo. “And it’s not my fault!”

“Nobody thinks it’s your fault,” said Loaf. “And it was Param whose ignorant arrogance caused this particular problem, that plus Rigg’s misguided loyalty to you. So here’s what you’re going to do. Rigg and Umbo, you’re both going to go to the top of this ramp and make a magical appearance a few minutes back in time, just before stupid Rigg pushed his stupid sister down the stupid ramp so she could shatter her stupid elbow.”

“But then all this will be undone,” said Umbo.

“Yes,” said Loaf, incredulous. “That’s what we need to accomplish—undoing all this wonderful nightmare!”

“But then I’ll never know that Rigg is still my friend!” said Umbo. And to his surprise, he had tears on his cheeks. He was crying. Why was he crying?

“Silbom’s left . . .” Loaf began. “Silbom’s left and right and middle everything. Go up there and tell yourselves what happened but stop this stupidity from going so far. Do you understand me?”

“You’re not my father, you know,” said Umbo.

“I’m as close to a father as you’ll ever get,” said Loaf, “and don’t you forget it.”

“I will forget it,” said Umbo. “That’s what you’re sending us up the ramp to do.”

“Yes, I am. So do it. Erase this lovely moment of agony for Param and stupidity for you and Rigg and utter frustration for the only grownups in our little company.”

“Are you counting me as a grownup?” asked Olivenko. “How sweet.”

“Go,” said Loaf.

Umbo and Rigg walked up the ramp together.

Umbo hit the ground after his fall from the ramp. He could hear Param saying, “Now let’s take the flyer and go.”

“I see,” said Rigg.

“See what?” asked Param.

But instead of Rigg answering her, Umbo heard his own voice coming from above him. “Don’t do it, Rigg,” he said.

“Don’t do what?” asked Rigg.

“Don’t push her, you fool,” said Rigg.

Rigg?

Umbo got to his feet. He could see himself and Rigg standing at the top of the ramp, talking to Rigg and Param.

Something bad must have happened, and he and Rigg had come back together to prevent it.

“I won’t,” said Rigg-of-the-present. “I never would.”

“You did,” said Rigg-of-the-past.

Umbo-of-the-past said, “But I’m glad you’re still my friend.” Then he turned a little and shouted into the air. “And Loaf is not my father!”

Then the apparitions of Umbo and Rigg disappeared.

Rigg and Param stood there in the doorway of the flyer. Param glared at Rigg. “You were going to push me down the ramp?”

“Don’t ever talk to my friend that way again,” said Rigg to Param. “I trust him a lot more than I trust you.” Rigg walked down the ramp. “Are you all right?” he asked Umbo.

“I am now,” said Umbo. “Worth the fall.”

“I thought you were my brother!” said Param. And then she disappeared.

Loaf and Olivenko appeared in the doorway of the flyer. “I don’t know what you two came back to prevent,” said Olivenko, “but it must have been a catastrophe, if this is better.”

“It’s not my fault if Param decides to disappear,” said Rigg.

“She’s your sister,” said Olivenko. “And someday she’ll be Queen-in-the-Tent.”

“And Umbo is a powerful time-shifter,” said Rigg. “Maybe she should remember that when she starts talking about peasant boys. Where I grew up, peasant boys were way above my station!”

“Seems to me none of you has grown up,” said Loaf.

Umbo had a pretty good idea of why his apparition had declared that Loaf was not his father. “Are we going to do what I suggested?” asked Umbo. “You fly back there and hook onto the past, and then fly here, and then I bring you and the flyer back?”

“Can you hold on to me that far?” asked Rigg.

“I don’t know.”

“So how will I know if you can bring me back to the present?”

Loaf held up his hand. There was a mouse on his shoulder, talking to him. “Our friend suggests you use the orbital phone to talk to each other when Rigg is at the other place.”

Umbo had no idea what Loaf was talking about. The term “orbital phone” meant nothing to him. That is, he understood both of the words, but had no idea what physical object they might be referring to, or how it would work.

“The knife,” said Loaf.

“Knife?” asked Umbo.

“It’s an orbital phone,” said Loaf.

“You knew this?” asked Umbo.

“I had no idea,” said Loaf.

“What’s an orbital phone?”

“I have no idea,” said Loaf.

Umbo pulled the knife from its sheath at his belt. “I thought this was a duplicate set of ships’ logs.”

“The jewels are a duplicate set,” said Loaf, who was apparently getting an explanation from the mouse. “But the hilt under it is a communicator. Wherever you are, it connects to the starship of that wallfold by transmitting a signal to the orbiter, which relays it to the starship, and back and forth like that.”

“This does that?” asked Umbo, looking at the knife. “It still looks like a knife.”

“My friend says that it’s in constant communication with the orbiter,” said Loaf. “The whole time you’ve had it, it’s been transmitting everything we said and did to the starship computers.”

Umbo flung it away from him. “It’s been spying on us.”

“It’s been keeping you connected to the rest of the world,” said Olivenko.

“Is there anything else it does?” asked Rigg, picking up the knife.

“Cuts meat,” said Loaf.

“Was that your joke, or the mouse’s?” asked Umbo.

“Mine,” said Loaf. “The mouse says the orbital phone was all they could fit into the hilt.”

“It must be a primitive design,” said Umbo acidly.

“Yes,” said Loaf. “It was made and sent back to you more than a hundred years ago.”

“But we only got it two years—” and then Umbo interrupted himself and fell silent. They got the knife two years ago, but with time-sending, that had nothing to do with when it was sent. Umbo blushed.

“We’re all still trying to figure it all out,” said Rigg. “So the knife is a communicator. No wonder the expendables in every wallfold knew all about what we were doing.”

“Well, they knew all about me and Loaf,” said Umbo. “During those months I had the knife and you were in Aressa Sessamo.” Then Umbo blushed again, thinking of the prank he had played, stealing one of the jewels from the bag before Loaf hid it near the Tower of O. What a child he had been. No wonder Loaf got so impatient with him.

Does the fact that I feel embarrassed about it now mean that I’m growing up? Umbo decided not to ask the question aloud. He had a feeling he knew what Loaf’s answer would be.

They waited an hour or so as Rigg tracked Param’s path down the ramp. As soon as she was clear of the flyer, Rigg took off, heading for their original entry point into Odinfold. Umbo stayed there on the knoll, holding the knife, talking to Rigg continuously. He knew that when he sent Rigg back in time, he kept hold of him, not with his eyes, but with some other sense, a deep knowledge of where and when Rigg was located. They had found each other in Aressa Sessamo without being able to see each other, and Umbo had pushed Rigg back and forth in time. But the distance now would be far greater, and there was that problem of line-of-sight. If Rigg couldn’t track paths through the curvature of Garden, could Umbo hold on to Rigg despite the thickness of rock and earth between them?