Now he is 13, and he and his father travel together through the wilderness, trapping animals to sell their pelts in the village of Fall Ford. The calendar that began at 11,191 reached year zero when he was 3. Rigg is a poor kid who spends most of his time in the high country above Stashi Falls. When the humans learn to breach the wall, they will once again be in charge of the expendables and privy to any information that the expendables will choose to keep from them. To maximize the chance of human life developing successfully on Garden and minimize the problems that could arise by having multiple human copies in the same place at the same time with the same DNA, Ram and the expendables agree to divide Garden into 19 different areas separated by an impassable wall. Ram orders the expendables on the other ships to kill the other Rams.

All 19 ships find themselves 11,191 years in the past. Eighteen other copies of Ram’s ship are created, complete with copies of the colonists, Ram and the expendable. The jump is made successfully, but with an unintended consequence. If Ram’s starship makes the jump, other ships from Earth will follow with valuable supplies and other colonists. Ram’s only company is an “expendable,” a machine that simulates human life so well that it is capable of making decisions and provides him with company throughout the journey. Since Garden is so far away from Earth, Ram hopes to leap through a fold in space-time, and cut 900 years off their journey.

Ram Odin is the highly trained pilot of a starship carrying sleeping human colonists away from Earth and toward the planet of Garden.

Pathfinder by orson scott card