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“Or being really miserable,” said Umbo. “And that’s going to be the hardest thing. What if one of our kids has an accident?”
“Then go back in time and save him,” said Rigg. “Don’t be stupid. We won’t use it to mess with other people’s lives, but if you’ve got a power like this, you don’t let really bad things happen to the people you love most. The way you saved Square. That was right.”
Umbo shook his head ruefully. “There are other opinions on that.”
“He’s alive, and he’s got a real purpose, and when the war’s over, he’s got a family and a colony and you know what? Nobody can say you were wrong. Not even Leaky.”
Ahead of them, Leaky hesitated, as if she had heard her name and considered turning around. But then she walked on, and Rigg and Umbo lowered their voices.
“I’m glad I decided to follow you when you left Fall Ford,” said Umbo.
“I’m glad you did, too,” said Rigg. “And I’m glad you forgave me for Kyokay.”
“You didn’t do anything to him.”
“I’m glad you believed me,” said Rigg. “You didn’t have to.”
“And you didn’t have to forgive me for blaming you falsely.” Umbo grinned. “We’re just a couple of remarkably generous people.”
“In the long run,” said Rigg. “Ignoring a few really big blunders along the way—from both of us.”
“It all worked out.”
“It’s still working out for us, but yes, for the world as a whole, it all worked out. Good job, us!”
Umbo laughed at that, and they clapped each other on the back and shoulders and then they were at the transport that would carry them back out to the flyer. They crowded onto it with the others, and then it took off and swept them down the tunnel, out of the belly of the mountain, to the empty city where Vadeshex had managed to let his humans destroy each other. Only now even that mistake was undone, because Square was going to bring his people back, and eventually this city would be full of humans again. Humans with facemasks, so they were partly from Earth and partly from Garden. Still alive, part of each other now. That was the greatest triumph in all of this, Rigg thought. Undoing the bad stuff, that was big, that was vital. But the good thing was giving the life that evolved on Garden a chance to express itself again, to be part of a civilization. To be part of us.
Maybe Rigg would come to Vadeshex, in the end. Maybe he’d pick some time a few hundred years from now, when Noxon and Deborah had already lived their lives and had their children and grandchildren. Then Rigg could come along, three or four or ten generations later, and see if there was somebody for him, and together they’d make a few facemask-wearing babies. Watch them grow. See who they became. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Those were the paths Rigg liked best.
No matter how twisted his own path might have been, weaving in and out of time, that was what he had always hoped for. Maybe his path could end up that way after all. Time would tell.
