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“Yes,” said the alpha mouse.
“Yes,” said Ram Odin. “Very interesting. Wallfolds no matter what.”
“So the deal I offer is this. All the wallfolds have the same technology cap as on Garden. Every wallfold has an expendable or two. But we create enough wallfolds
that besides having enough for several—or twenty—human colonies, we also have one or two wallfolds which have only mice as their sentient occupants.”
“How generous,” said the alpha mouse.
“Irony is still a lie,” said Noxon. “Hear me out. We also have a couple of human colonies that are shared with mice. Joint colonies. To see what happens. To see if we and you can grow and develop together, cooperatively or at least without slaughtering each other.”
“Unlikely,” said the alpha mouse.
“Why not?” said Ram Odin.
“I think it’s very likely,” said Noxon. “Especially because the ship’s computers will be programmed to wipe out any wallfold where either the humans or the mice find a way to exterminate the other species.”
“Maybe we can interbreed,” said the alpha mouse.
“I hope not,” said Noxon. “And we also have two or three wallfolds where the aliens are allowed to continue their evolutionary development—but with the same technology cap. At least one of those will also have mice.”
“The aliens should all have mice,” said the alpha mouse.
“They will have expendables. If possible, expendables redesigned to look like them. If not, then the same ones we have. They’ll all be supervised.”
“And that’s the plan?” said the alpha mouse. “You thought of this all by yourself?”
“It’s the obvious way to proceed,” said Noxon. “Everybody gets a home.”
“A reservation,” said the alpha mouse.
“A place to develop independent of the others.”
“But with a cap on what we can achieve,” said the alpha mouse.
“Not really,” said Noxon. “Because you’ll still have the ability you have right now—to move objects and manipulate things as tiny as genes, in both space and time.”
“They can do that?” asked Deborah.
“They’re very talented,” said Ram Odin.
“So everybody is completely at their mercy,” said Wheaton.
“That’s why we’re making this deal now, while there are still only twenty of them,” said Noxon.
“But they’ll lie,” said Ram Odin.
“I think they won’t,” said Noxon. “Because they can see that this is the best long-term protection for their descendants as well as ours.”
“Why?” said Ram. “How? We can’t develop our tech past a certain point, while theirs is invisible and already far beyond anything we can do.”
“Because every human colony will start with a Ram Odin and a Noxon,” said Noxon. “And that means that we’ll have the power to go back in time and undo whatever the mice do wrong. Or even undo the original placement of the mice into the colonies. Because part of the deal is this: The mice go into stasis during the colony founding, and they don’t get colonies of their own until at least three hundred years. And the release of the mice into each wallfold they’re allowed to enter will take place in public, and under circumstances that will make it easy for future human timeshapers to come back and prevent it.”
“That’s not foolproof,” said Wheaton. “I can think of—”
“So can the mice,” said Noxon. “But whatever they think of, we can probably think of a way to get around them and undo it. If we choose to spend our futures in stupid competition with each other. But maybe we won’t. Maybe the mice will see that keeping promises works out better for them than going to war with timeshaping humans.”
“I see it already,” said the alpha mouse. “And so will all my descendants.”
