“They’re going to kill us all,” said Param, as mice swarmed up into the flyer.
“No,” said Rigg. “They’re just happy to see us.”
CHAPTER 18
Transit
Umbo watched as the mice swarmed through the flyer, climbing all over each other in writhing heaps.
“They’re telling each other what happened here,” Loaf said.
“I think some of them are mating,” said Rigg drily.
Umbo saw how Param drew her legs up onto the seat. It wasn’t as if she had any memory of being killed by the mice. Umbo knew that Odinex had killed two copies of himself. He had even glanced down at the bodies as he walked over the bridge out of the starship. But they meant nothing to him. They had been him, but they weren’t him anymore. Still, he was bound to be a bit more wary of expendables now, so it probably wasn’t irrational for Param to be wary of the mice.
“It occurs to me,” said Umbo, “that we are nothing but a mouse’s way of getting through the Wall.”
Olivenko gave a sharp bark of a laugh. Nobody else responded.
Umbo went on. “And the mice exist only as the Odinfolders’ tenth strategy for preventing the destruction of Garden. If any of the earlier ones had worked, all the mice of Odinfold would be ordinary field mice or house mice.”
“And all of us exist on Garden,” said Param, “because the humans of Earth wanted to spread out onto other worlds.”
“You say that as if it were a poor reason for being,” said Olivenko, still amused.
“Why did humans ever come to exist?” asked Umbo. “At least we and the mice have a purpose. Somebody meant for us to be here.”
“Every generation exists to give rise to the next,” said Olivenko. “Every generation exists because of the desire of the previous one. It’s the cycle of life.”
“So you’re saying that the cycle of life exists in order to perpetuate the cycle of life,” said Umbo.
“Round and round,” said Olivenko.
“My head is spinning,” said Rigg. “I wish I could hear what they’re saying.”
“I’ve never wanted to be part of the conversation of mice,” said Olivenko.
“I’ve spent half my life as a mouse,” said Param. “Hiding the way they do. Watching from the walls.”
“Snatching food in the night from a dark kitchen?” asked Umbo.
“The kitchen in Flacommo’s house was never dark,” said Param. “Something was cooking every hour of the day and night.”
“Which is pretty much the way these expendables and starships are,” said Umbo. “If we’re all about the cycle of life, what are they about? Tools made by the starship builders. But for eleven thousand years, their starships haven’t flown. They’ve been the stewards of the human race, obeying some set of rules laid down at the beginning. Ram Odin changed the rules, and the second Ram Odin changed what he could change, and the Odinfolders have fiddled, but mostly the expendables have followed plans of their own, telling us what they wanted us to hear.”
“What’s your point?” asked Param, sounding a little annoyed.
“What if the Destroyers come to burn off Garden because of something the expendables tell the Visitors?” asked Umbo. “What if it has nothing to do with anything that any of the people of Garden do or say or built?”
They were silent again, but this time not because of uninterest in Umbo’s observation.
“I don’t know how we’d ever find out,” said Olivenko.
“The mice know what the expendables and ships say to each other,” said Loaf.
“No,” said Umbo. “The mice have told you they intercept the ships’ communications. The Odinfolders told us they could do it, too, but how do they know if they’re getting everything? They can’t intercept what the ships and expendables don’t actually say. Besides, the expendables know they’re being spied on, and they’re good at lying.”
“The ships tell me the truth,” said Rigg. “As far as I know.”