“Well, never mind. Why ask the children what even the old people don’t know?”

  “I think,” said Laz, “that we can shove things into the back of our minds, and when something squeezes them out, they seem new.”

  “Not new revelation, just faulty memory?” asked Ivy-O.

  “May I ask,” said Laz, “what this God-talk has to do with the leaves you gathered?”

  “It’s all connected, Laz, be patient. No, don’t bother trying, Professor Hayerian was never patient as an adult, why should you be patient as a youth?”

  Laz wanted to protest that he was completely adult. But in his own mind, that claim sounded so childish and petulant that he figured if he said it out loud, it would be a self-refuting statement. I am an adult! I am I am I am! Most effectively said if he also stamped his little foot quite earnestly upon the ground.

  “The leaves I gathered,” said Ivy-O, “were my attempt to salvage some value from our visits to timestreams that still had Shiva coming. Those worlds were doomed, and all the life upon them, but there we were, even if for only a few hours, and it hurt me, physically hurt me, to think of abandoning every scrap of that planet’s biome to be consumed in the Sun.”

  Ivy looked at her, astonished. “Why, Mother Ivy, that’s almost—noble. Tragic and noble. And romantic.”

  “What could you do with leaves?” asked Laz.

  “I flash froze them—Ron got me the equipment—and I’ve spent decades analyzing their DNA and other molecular structures to see where they fit in the binomial classification system. Most of them already had near analogs in the New Place and the Old Place. But about a dozen of them are not clearly of any known species. Those I have mined for DNA to plant in the seeds of other plants, to see what will grow. My garden is full of these specimens. They’re still terrestrial life, mind you. Nothing weird or alien. But they also never grew on the same world as humans, and so I really do have specimens of lost worlds all over my garden.”

  Ivy put her hands on her head. “How could I not have known when we sat in your garden?” she said.

  “You’re not a botanist,” said Ivy-O. “You couldn’t have known, not just by looking. And I haven’t raised most of them to a level of maturity that allows me to see their entire life cycle.”

  Laz had to mention his immediate concern. “What if the seeds from these plants get loose?”

  Ivy-O laughed. “We’ve brought so many invasive, non-native plants into this world that I hardly think a few more will make any important difference. Besides, I selected them for benignity—no thorns, no poisons, no carnivores, no sap-trappers. And if any of them does cause a problem, I’ll bring you in to side step to a timestream where I never planted it outside, so it hasn’t spread after all.”

  “So you did think I would be good for something,” said Laz.

  “Of course I did. Your predecessors—the Zees?—never liked me a bit, so now that you’re here, you’re my favorite living Laz. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “I’ll try to bear the burden.” said Laz.

  Before they left Ivy-O, she spent two hours with them, showing them her rescued plants and telling what she knew about their life cycles. “This one has berries that the birds love, but humans don’t. Too pulpy and bitter. Not sour, bitter.”

  “I know the difference,” said Ivy.

  “Laz didn’t,” said Ivy-O.

  Laz didn’t bother to defend his taste buds. He was enjoying this new, enthusiastic Ivy-O. They were admiring what she loved, and that made them friends. Laz wondered if Z-Laz and Ivy-Z had ever had this kind of conversation with Ivy-O—with Mother Ivy. Maybe there was already too much water over the dam for them to become friends now. But he liked having Mother Ivy as a friend. Obviously, so did his own Ivy.

  Mother Ivy even told them the scientific names of each of the specimens, though they were her own coinages, not approved by any botanist group, because she hadn’t yet published her results. Laz understood that—if she published, people would criticize, and since she wasn’t a certificated honest-to-goodness botanist herself, they would be determined to dismiss all her findings, especially her nomenclature. Science was such a collection of petty egotists, Laz decided, not for the first time. No wonder my original was able to snow them into thinking he was a blithering genius.

  Not the right use for “blithering” but he liked it anyway. “Blither” means what I say it means, from now on. And he liked using the intensifier from “blithering idiot” to also work for “genius.”

  “We’ve lost Laz,” said Mother Ivy.

  “We never had Laz,” said Ivy.

  “I was listening, I’ve been fascinated all along,” Laz said.

  “But you never say anything more than a grunt,” said Ivy. “Now and then a chirp of surprise.”

  “I don’t know anything about botany,” said Laz, “so my contributions to the conversation would merely display my ignorance and waste your time.”

  “O Laz, thou art wise,” said Mother Ivy. “That’s sort of a quote from… William Blake, I think. It wasn’t about you, though, it was about some kind of insect or arachnid.”

  “Not so far off, then,” said Ivy.

  “Four limbs,” said Laz. “Not six, not eight.”

  “I didn’t say it was an exact match,” said Ivy.

  If Mother Ivy had any more to tell them, she kept it to herself. She had not heard from OrigiLaz—Professor Hayerian, she insisted, which Ivy liked better than OrigiLaz, though Laz looked a little mournful about the name change. Mother Ivy and Professor Hayerian, instead of Ivy-O and OrigiLaz. Somehow it made the Professor more real, more human, to have a name they could have used in front of him.

  * * *

  On their fourth visit to the Zees, Ivy got a little testy. “As soon as Z-Laz notices that we’re coming, I think he side steps to a reality in which he was already away from home.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ivy-Z.

  “Of course he does,” said Laz. “What’s side stepping for, if not to allow us to skip away from annoying and painful and avoidable stressors?”

  “Are you selling side stepping, Laz?” asked Ivy.

  “My sales plan is: Always go to the only house in the world where they already have side stepping,” said Laz.

  Ivy-Z held up a hand. “I’m not really sure what you’re here for, or why you feel like you have to talk to my Laz, but I feel remiss about something. The Boy told me what happened—all of it, including his stupid offenses. Showing up naked, getting into your bed, touching your skin—”

  “Apparently he really did tell it all,” said Ivy.

  “He does not spare himself,” said Ivy-Z. “He is rude and crude and seems to have no boundaries, but in fact he does, and he knows he crossed at least one with you, Ivy. And not just because you plowed up his face, Laz. He takes responsibility for not having materialized completely. And the two of you were very deft in the way you saved him. So… thank you. And my Laz thanks you too, and so does the Girl.”

  “The messages,” said Laz.

  “Now I know what you’re here for. I’ve already told you everything I can think of.”

  “That’s why we want to talk to Z-Laz,” said Ivy. “It’s possible he might remember something useful.”

  “Look,” said Ivy-Z. “I think you keep coming back to me and Ivy-O—”

  “We call her Mother Ivy now,” said Laz. “She likes it way better.”

  “You should hear what I call her inside my head,” said Ivy-Z. “But that’s actually a good move, a kinder name.”

  “You were saying?” said Ivy.

  “You keep coming back because you want us to answer the questions you never ask. Did OrigiLaz write those messages? Is he traveling in time? And have any of us actually had contact with him, beyond the one-way messages?”

  “I bet I know how you guessed all our questions,” said Laz.

  Ivy-Z looked at him expectantly.

  “Because you’re plagued by those same questions all the time,” said Laz.

  “You think my Laz and I haven’t talked about them, oh, about a hundred thousand times?”

  “Not a million?” asked Ivy.

  “I didn’t want to exaggerate,” said Ivy-Z.

  “The best we’ve thought of is that defying all logic and science, time travel is happening and the Professor is doing it, and leaving us helpful notes now and then,” said Laz.

  “And Ivy-O—I mean, Mother Ivy, she thinks this might be possible?”

  “She didn’t venture an opinion,” said Ivy.

  Laz shook his head. “From everything Mother Ivy said about the Professor, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d go to a lot of trouble to help people out.”

  “He tried to save the world,” said Ivy. “He found the New Place when humanity had no place.”

  “Laz has a point,” said Ivy-Z. “I got that same impression from Mother Ivy. She cared about the Professor—I suppose that’s what we’re calling him now—but she also resented him. She was actually envious, I think, when she found out that Laz let me make decisions, because the Professor never did.”

  “So you think he wouldn’t have left these notes?” asked Ivy.

  “Somebody did leave the notes,” said Laz, “and we don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t obeyed. Maybe the note-leaver was saving us from something. Or saving the world from something. Or nothing bad would have happened and he was just jerking our chain.”

  “So the note-leaver could be bad or good, he could be the Professor or some unknown entity,” said Ivy. “We know nothing.”

  “Do you know what would really help?” asked Ivy-Zero.

  “No,” said Laz.

  “What about you, Ivy?” asked Ivy-Zero.

  “Do you know what wouldn’t help at all?” asked Ivy. “You hinting that you have an idea and then making us guess.”

  Ivy-Z grinned. “What a snot I was when I was younger.”

  “If I kill you, ma’am, would that be murder? Or suicide?”

  “We’re not clones of each other,” said Ivy-Z.

  “But we’re genetically identical, so if they found your body they’d be as likely to think it’s me as you.”

  “I’m considerably older,” said Ivy-Z.

  “Not that much older,” said Ivy.

  “You’re both being stupid,” said Laz, “and I know that’s hilarious coming from me, but look. You were both clones. You only have human rights because of special legislation because you were needed to save the human race. And I’m pretty damn sure that none of us has a soul.”

  “The Professor and Mother Ivy have souls because they were born?” said Ivy-Z.

  “I’m not, like, the ultimate authority,” said Laz.

  “No, that would be the Pope,” said Ivy-Z.

  “No!” said Ivy. “It’s the Dalai Lama! He knows all about the transmigration of souls and he probably knows who has souls and who doesn’t.”

  “Did he make it through the Portals to the New Place? And then to the Safe Place?” asked Laz.

  “You’re not thinking of really going to see him, are you?” asked Ivy-Z.

  “No, I’m thinking of you two going to see him, since apparently you care about not having a soul. I don’t care, I can’t think what I’d use it for even if I had it.”

  Ivy-Z put one hand on his shoulder. “You don’t use your soul. You don’t even have your soul. Your soul has you. Your soul is you.”

  Laz chuckled. “You’ve gotten as wacko as Mother Ivy.”

  “She believes in God,” Ivy told Ivy-Z.

  “I know,” said Ivy-Z. “I still don’t like her, but she keeps taking steps toward being human.”

  “But you have very strong ideas about the soul,” said Ivy.

  “It’s just what I’ve figured out in my own head. We have a soul, period,” said Ivy-Z. “Souls aren’t cut out of you because you were conceived in vitro or cloned from an intellectual giant or anyway someone reputed to be.”

  “You’re saying God gives us souls no matter how we’re conceived?” asked Laz.

  “Did I say anything about God?” asked Ivy-Z. “I’m still working on that.”

  “So let’s not go to the Dalai Lama,” said Laz, “because Auntie Ivy here knows that we already have souls.”

  “I reject the epithet ‘Auntie Ivy’ because it’s too cutesy, and because if anything I’m your big sister, and because I like ‘Ivy-Zero’ a lot better.”

  “That’s all?” asked Ivy.

  “And if you call me Auntie Ivy, either you’ll end up spelling it A-U-N-T-Y so it matches Ivy, or you’ll start spelling Ivy I-V-I-E to match Auntie, and both of those are abominations.”

  “Ivy-Z you remain, then,” said Ivy.

  Laz suddenly had a thought, and it deserved to be thought about more.

  Ivy saw it in his face. “What?” she asked.

  “What what?” Laz answered.

  “The idea you just had,” said Ivy.

  “It’s true,” said Ivy-Z. “You had your idea face on.”

  “Meaning I had Z-Laz’s idea face,” said Laz.

  “A distinction without a difference,” said Ivy. “Out with it.”

  “I know one way to find out if anybody’s time traveling,” said Laz.

  They both looked skeptical.

  “We’ll figure out how to do it,” said Laz. “We’ll keep trying till it either works or we know we gave it everything and it can’t be done. At least not by us.”

  “Insane,” said Ivy-Z.

  “And brilliant,” said Ivy.

  “Don’t make fun of me. I only just thought of it, that if it can be done by the Professor, it can be done by me, only I don’t have a clue how to proceed, so I thought at least one of you would be willing to help me.”

  “So it doesn’t matter which one?” asked Ivy.

  “He wants us both,” said Ivy-Z, “but you’re the one he actually needs.”

  Ivy shook her head. “Remember that when the Professor tried it, he vanished and hasn’t been seen or heard of in decades.”

  “Unless he’s the one leaving all the notes,” said Laz.

  “All three notes,” said Ivy. “That’s all we got.”

  “There in the clearing where we met Nasty,” said Laz, “both times we went there. And the one Zero-Laz got beside the road.”

  “And the one where you were making a backdoor Portal to allow Ron’s team to interfere with Tessera and the Berbers,” said Ivy. “The long one.”

  Laz had completely forgotten about it. But yes, it was as real as the others. “Go back no Portal here” was the message that time, when they were burying twine so the Portal would remain concealed.

  “Yes, those are the notes,” he said.

  “And the memory kicks in again,” said Ivy.

  “The messages feel like an irritant,” said Laz, “because they explain nothing about themselves. They aren’t even signed.”

  “But we obeyed ours,” said Ivy-Z.

  “Yes, why did you?” asked Ivy. “You were working with Ron, you saved the human race, like, eight times over—”

  “More, actually, but we don’t talk about the extra insurance timestreams Ron had us make,” said Ivy-Z, “So yes, we retired the moment we got the message.”

  “Why?” asked Ivy.

  “Because.”

  “Not just ‘because.’ We’re not your children,” said Laz.

  “You’re apparently my niblings,” said Ivy-Z. “My niece and her betrothed, since I’m Auntie Ivy-Z.”

  “I hate the word ‘niblings,’ ” said Ivy. “It was all trendy when I was in my early teens—”

  “I know,” said Ivy-Z. “I remember. But I’ve grown out of my distaste for it. We needed a collective ungendered term for multiple nieces and nephews, and it works.”

  “We’re talking about figuring out how to time travel,” said Laz.

  “You’re talking about that,” said Ivy. “I’m still sane.”

  “Will you help me or not?” asked Laz.

  “Help you disappear and leave me stranded while you’re gone for forty years? I won’t wait for you,” said Ivy.

  “Instead of keeping everything from you, the way the Professor did with Mother Ivy, you’ll know absolutely everything I know, think, believe, suspect, guess—and I won’t just leave without a word,” said Laz.

  “I’ll think about time travel and I’ll tell you everything I think of, as long as you don’t ridicule me for it,” said Ivy.”

  “I wouldn’t—,” said Laz.

  “You would if you thought my ideas were stupid, and you’re going to think that because my ideas will be stupid until they’re not. If they’re ever not.”

  “I’m so glad I was here,” said Ivy-Z, “to hear my thought processes so clearly explained.”

  “How do we start?” asked Ivy. “Thinking about time travel and trying to do it.”

  Laz shrugged. “Haven’t we already started? Didn’t we just?”

  “Think think think,” said Ivy-Z. “Yes sir, I’ve started.”

  Laz laughed and the discussion was over. Laz and Ivy went home. Ivy-Z promised to keep thinking, and to get her Laz to think, too.

  “While you’re at it, could you get him to think of maybe being here one of the times we visit?” asked Ivy. “Instead of hiding?”

  “I’ll ask him to consider it.”

  “What’s he afraid of?” asked Laz.

  “You,” said Ivy-Z. “Being young. Being adventurous. Going off and doing things on your own. What you did in that war—”

  “How would you know about—”

  “Just because we don’t do jobs for Ron doesn’t mean he doesn’t visit anymore. After all, we’re still on the dole like you are. Everything we have, everything we need, it comes from Ron.”

  Laz laughed. “I’ve got the answer for Mother Ivy. Why she thinks of God as male.”

  “Please don’t say ‘Ron,’ ” said Ivy-Z.

  “Ron,” said Laz.

  Ivy burst into laughter. “Ron would love that. Mixing him up with God.”

  “Not the platonic God. He’s tangible,” said Ivy-Z. “And he talks. And he gives us manna.”

  “I’m done with all the Ronology,” said Ivy. “Laz, let’s go home. Auntie Ivy-with-a-Y, thanks for really talking to us this time.”