Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  A rasping voice jarred her out of her thoughts. “Thank you for coming so quickly.” A large, carapace-encased creature with a pair of eye-stalks on its head shuffled forward to greet them. Perhaps it was the weird lighting and strange context; it took Julie a moment to recognize Cromus, one of the leaders of the galactic core mission support team. “Please com-m-me with me to the star-spanner-r-r station. I’ll explain-n the situation while we travel.” He seemed easier to understand than before; perhaps her stones were learning to smooth out his speech. Cromus gestured with his pincer-hands, and they all stepped onto a dark pad at the beginning of the corridor. They began accelerating down the hallway.

  Julie steadied herself with a hand on Napoleon, and felt a hand on her own shoulder. It was Antares, who was steadying herself between Julie and Ik. Julie thought she felt a twinge of something. Empathic leakage? Antares, she thought, was deeply troubled. About Julie? No, about what was to come. Did she sense something from Cromus that made her worried?

  Cromus was talking again. “There has been a follow-up mission-n to yours.”

  “Rings told us. Why so soon?” This business of a second mission had Julie worried. “What went wrong? What were they trying to do?”

  “They were sent-t to stop-p the Mindaru.”

  Julie thought of the translator’s warnings, and her heart sank. Her voice trembled. “And—?”

  “There were miscalculations-s,” Cromus said.

  The corridor flashed open to reveal a wide platform, and the pad they stood on was suddenly stationary. Cromus led the way to a gleaming silver cylinder, where two more of the tripedal guards stood.

  “I don’t know what you’ve used-d in the past,” Cromus said. “This is a medium-m-range star-spanner, for local trips, within two—” rasp “—light-years or so. We are not going far.”

  Julie opened her mouth, then closed it.

  “Where, hrrm, are we going?” Ik asked.

  A portal turned transparent in the side of the vessel, and Cromus spoke as he shuffled in, leading the way. He swiveled his eye-stalks to look at each of them at the same time, as if he wasn’t sure who had spoken. “To our second launch center, near a black hole one-half light-year from here. Do not worry. It is part of greater Shipworld-d.”

  ***

  Reeling a little at that, they took seats in the cabin, all except Rings, who gonged something about things to do, and twisted out of the air.

  “We maintain-n several black holes for research-ch, and as energy sources.”

  “Hrah! Isn’t that dangerous?” Ik asked.

  Cromus’s gaze shifted. “Life is dangerous, is it not-t? But this? Not-t unduly so. It powers the particle-enhanced ghoststream-m, which was used by the s-strike force—”

  Strike force?

  Julie started to say something, but Cromus raised a pincer. “Sealed and ready,” he muttered. “Release.” Julie felt a movement under her like a small boat slipping into a river current.

  An instant later, the view forward showed space—and tiny, distant galaxies. They were on the side of Shipworld facing away from the Milky Way. It felt terribly lonely.

  ***

  Cromus wasted no time, speaking in a crackling voice. “We have a serious problem-m and do not know what to do. We hope your-r experience . . .” His eye-stalks swiveled, this time in turn from one of them to another. “I am sor-r-ry. That is understat-t-ing the case. You see, we have received a—” rasp “—Mayday—” rasp “—distress-s message from the galactic core s-strike force. How much did Rings tell-l you?”

  Julie’s heart was pounding. She shook her head. “Just enough to scare us. This is exactly the sort of thing the yaantel said we should not do.”

  “Sss. Well-l.” Cromus waved his pincers. “After your mission reports-s, a highest-t level decision—far above my rank-k!—was made to send a strik-ke mission downtime to the location you identified-d.”

  “How could you possibly mount another mission so soon?” Julie asked.

  “The team-m was already prepared-d when you were on your mission-n—in the event-t you needed assistance. And-d to be ready for immediate action-n, in the event-t you returned with a confirmed-d location-n.”

  “To do what?” Antares asked, her voice trembling. “You must be aware of the dangers of meddling with the past. You could have—”

  Cromus let out a percussive click that caused her to stop in mid-sentence. “Of cours-se. The goal was not-t to interfere on the planet.”

  “Hrah,” Ik said. “What, then?”

  Click click! “To f-find a way to close the timestream-m! And prevent any Mindaru-u from making their way up to our t-time. Any already en route to be destroyed-d. Since they were already on their way between times-s, there would be no paradox-x.”

  Julie shut her eyes, trying to picture the logic. “How could you be sure?” she demanded. “How could you be sure you weren’t going to change our present?”

  “Sss. I am no expert in the th-theory, but the mission was developed in strict accordance with the best available models-s.”

  “Hrrm,” Ik said, and did not look happy.

  Cromus seemed not to notice. “Urgency was great-t,” he continued. “Because of the imminent risk-k. We knew Mindaru-u were finding their way up the timestream—perhaps even following-g your path as you returned-d. The team was instructed to return-n to the point of your discovery.”

  “Why?” Julie cried. “What could they do that we couldn’t?”

  Cromus weighed his words. “We used a different and more powerful ghoststream-m for their mission-n. To permit-t certain actions you did not have available.”

  Actions? Julie shuddered at the possibilities.

  “Hrah, this modified ghoststream—” Ik growled.

  “It’s called-d a particle-stream-m,” Cromus said. “It is frankly beyond anything-ng we’ve tried before. It permits the possibility . . . under certain conditions-ns. . . an entangled energy pulse could be transmitted down the ghoststream-m . . .”

  Energy pulse? Feeling slightly sick, Julie asked, “What kind of energy pulse?” She glanced forward; they were speeding down a glowing but otherwise featureless tube, presumably with a black hole at the end.

  Cromus continued, “It was designed-d to exploit the principles that mak-ke the ghoststream possible. A properly tuned quantum-m pulse could affect the entangled state of a target-t just beyond the ghoststream terminus.”

  “Affect how?” Ik asked.

  Cromus’s eye-stalks swiveled. “The hope was that it-t would change molecular binding energies—and cause a rapid-d expansion of the molecules-s of the immediate surroundings.”

  Julie’s mouth went dry. “An explosion?”

  “Hrah,” Ik whispered. Antares was silent, but her stunned dismay reverberated through Julie like an electric shock.

  “Well-l-l . . . more or less . . . yes-s.”

  “You were trying to bomb the area we visited?”

  Cromus worked his pincers nervously. Click, click. “Not-t-t the place.”

  “Not the place? What do you mean?” Julie demanded.

  Click click. “We might have liked-d to bomb the Mindaru before they could enter the timestream-m. But not an option-n. Probably impossible—and the risk of altering the timeline . . .” Cromus waved his pincers in the air. “As you say . . .”

  “It is supposed to be impossible,” Ik said, and Julie couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.

  “ . . . even if theory says it couldn’t happen-n. Abundance of caution-n. No, the intent-t was to collapse only the end of the timestream-m. To destroy the entanglement-t joining it to the Mindaru-u.”

  “Hrah, that sounds better,” Ik said. “But still—to decide so hurriedly—”

  “Well-l . . .” Click click. “Whatever you think of the wisdom, it has gone badly.” Clack clack. “Instead of sealing the timestream, the pulse may have created a wider opening-ng.”

  “That sounds bad,” Ik rasped. “Is there more?”
<
br />   “More,” Cromus said. Click click. Clack clack. “Serious miscalculation. Blowback of the puls-se. Hit our team-m—hard-d.”

  Ahead of them, the pale tube streamed steadily by.

  “How hard?” Ik said.

  Cromus took a few seconds to answer. “We do not-t know the fate of the mission team yet-t.”

  “But you fear the worst?” Ik asked. “And what do you think we can do?”

  Click click. Wave of pincers. “We do not know. But you have fought them before. And won.”

  ***

  Julie had never seen Ik look like this before: somber, and at the same time profoundly angry.

  Antares seemed to echo Ik’s feelings. She was radiating a complex array of emotions: fear, fury, a desire to create calm around them all, and an inability to do so.

  Julie sat back to sort it all out, but was startled by the sudden reappearance of Rings-at-Need in the middle of the cabin. “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “Brief visit with a friend. Forgive my absence. I am here now.”

  Huh, Julie thought. She would ask him more when they were alone. She cleared her throat and addressed Cromus again. “So this crew is now in trouble—and you still have not told us why you launched right away, instead of waiting until we understood what we had found on the first mission. You knew we had gone to ask advice from the yaantel! And I’ll bet you knew that it urged caution!”

  “Yess, we did-d. But speed-d was paramount-t-t,” Cromus insisted. “We knew the Mindaru-u were on the move—in the timestream. You saw them on your way into the past!”

  She remembered. “We didn’t know for sure what those were.”

  “After analyzing-ng, we were sure enough.”

  “But they were still in the past! As long as we could still go back into the past to stop them, why didn’t you take the time to study the situation? Instead of risking that crew—and risking changing our whole timeline!”

  Rings made a low cymbal-ringing sound. In sympathy? Agreement?

  Cromus rasped sharply, “Miss Stone! We did not have the luxury of time that you seem to believe we had-d!”

  “Why not? A billion years isn’t enough—?”

  Clack clack clack! “Time does not-t work that way! Perhaps you think-k, ‘It is in the past, and we can take as long as we need to go sort it out-t’!” Cromus made a slashing motion with his pincers. “No! Once Mindaru are in the timestream, our window for action is very short-t!”

  “Why?” Antares interrupted, her voice tight with emotion. “Why is it short?”

  “Because-s,” Cromus said, “as we have told you, the past is resistant-t to change. Once the Mindaru reach our present, we can no longer change the circumstances that brought them here.”

  “So-o-o,” Rings said, echoing suddenly, “I believe we understand that there was genuine cause for haste. The best hope of keeping the Mindaru from our time was to prevent them from entering-ng the timestream in the first place. However, once they reach the present, that choice is gone—because their travel is then firmly part of the past!”

  Cromus made a soft, hacking sound. “Exact-tly. Don’t you see? When you returned and reported seeing Mindaru in the timestream-m, we had to act at once.”

  Julie’s head hurt. “If we have done something to allow the Mindaru into the timestream, doesn’t that mean we’ve already changed the past?”

  Cromus turned his eye-stalks toward Rings, who reverberated softly and answered. “That question is currently a matter of heated debate among-ng theorists.”

  “Please,” said Cromus. “Here’s the crux-x. If we cannot go back-k to change yesterday, we may still-l be able to influence tomorrow. But only by acting fast-t.”

  Julie glanced at Ik; he looked thoughtful. Antares seemed to be working the question out slowly in her mind.

  “We approach-ch our destination at the black hole,” Cromus announced.

  Chapter 5

  Mayday!

  JULIE EXPECTED THE black hole to appear as a white blaze of light from the disk of incandescent gas spiraling in toward the event horizon. That was how she had seen it in countless pictures. But this was not like that at all.

  The black hole emerged as a sullen, violet vortex of gases around the collapsed star. The difference, Rings explained, had to do with their installation capturing a sizable amount of the black hole’s energy to power the ghoststream operation, especially the higher-output of the particle-enhanced ghoststream. Because they were coming in high, above the pole, they could make out a brooding dark eye at the center, balefully watching their approach.

  Three stations orbited the hole; one of them was the bright point now in their sights. It grew quickly, and soon they were sliding toward its faceted, diamondlike surface. They had only a moment to enjoy the view before they slipped in through the side of the station and rocked to a halt in the receiving dock.

  They were met in a debarkation area by a biped about Ik’s height, but heavier, with numerous multi-jointed arms and a face that looked as if it had been carved out of shale, high and angular and slate-colored. “This is Arak,” Cromus announced. “He is oversight commander of the second galactic core mission, currently in progress.” Arak was dressed in what Julie took to be some kind of military garb, with padding and mottled coloration and markings that might have indicated rank. He uttered something harsh, with a lot of percussive sounds. The translator-stones took a moment to turn that into: “Are you the first flight crew—the time travelers?”

  “We are,” Ik said. “Is this the station where the second mission was launched?”

  “No.” Arak’s voice sounded clipped, modulated by the stones. “This is the control section. Launch is from Station Two, closer to the black hole. We will take you there shortly.”

  Don’t hurry on my account, Julie thought with a shudder, picturing the glowing maw of the black hole right outside the station.

  “News on the mission?” Cromus asked.

  Arak’s voice turned guttural. “We’ve lost and regained contact multiple times. When we have contact, there is considerable interference. The word ‘attack’ may have been registered.”

  Ik stiffened beside Julie. She thought she saw alarm in his eyes. Antares reached out and touched his arm, and there was an empathic wave that left no doubt: The possibility of a Mindaru attack in the ghoststream had triggered an instant fight-or-flight reaction in the Hraachee’an. His muscles had coiled in preparation for either. Julie swallowed her own fear and asked Arak, “Do you know what kind of attack?”

  Arak made a slicing gesture with one of his arms. “We have no information, but what else could it be if not Mindaru? But why guess what we do not know? Let us proceed to the command center and learn what there is to know.”

  He strode briskly, forcing the crablike Cromus to work hard to keep up. Rings had vanished again. The command center looked strangely like home, Julie thought with a shiver as they entered from the back. It was a darkened room, with at least a dozen crewed work stations with glowing holos. Arak led them to a station being operated by a spindly fellow whom he addressed as Watts. “Do you currently have contact with the team?”

  “We have a signal. Only intermittently intelligible.” Watts looked up, saw that Arak had guests, and seemed to realize that he could, or should, provide more detail. “Look, please.” Watts did something, and the holo-display went from a static-hashed image of the ghoststream to a graphic display that looked like a map of part of the galaxy. “This is our ghoststream.” Watts’s bony finger traced a red line that ran diagonally across the display toward the galactic center. Partway in, it angled slightly and joined with a green line, coming in from the left like a merging highway. “This is the starstream, a spatial distortion that carries physical bodies, like ships. Our ghoststream slips right inside it and joins it all the way to the core.” Watts’s finger continued tracing, and came to an intersection with a short third line, this one violet. “And here is where the temporal distortion from that plan
etary system, Krella—”

  “Karellia,” Ik corrected.

  “Yes, Krella—and that distortion, or time-tide, sets up all manner of resonances and reverberations with the starstream and—well—that’s why we’re here.” Watts zoomed the picture in and tracked toward the galactic core. The three lines became like braided wire, and remained so all the way to the galactic core.

  “I’m sure they know all this. What’s the point?” Arak snapped impatiently.

  “The point,” Watts said, “is this.” He pointed with two hands—one to a wisp of light moving back up the joined streams, away from the galactic core, and one to a small cluster of dots, not far behind. “This first is our team. Mapped as well as we can from their signals. The others are objects. Wave functions, really. Seemingly in pursuit. Mapped with our best telemetry, before coherence started to deteriorate. Went cloudy.”

  Julie blinked, trying to follow his jerky syntax. “But you heard from them? From your team?”

  Watts’s face looked squeezed, as if he might be squinting at her, though who knew what it meant in his terms? He answered, “Erratic connections, since the attempt to close the end of the timestream. Difficult to parse. They indicated estimation that there was intrusion into the timestream. Mindaru.”

  “But you said they were attacked.”

  “We heard the word. Or something like it. Then communication went garbled.”

  Ik shifted and muttered something under his breath. Watts asked him to repeat. “If they’re hacked, it could be very bad,” Ik said.

  Arak leaned in. The stones faltered momentarily in translating. “How many—” rasp “—ghosts—” rasp rasp “—bogies in the stream?”

  Watts’s fingers moved over the board. “Difficult to track. They come and go. Some may have gotten by and already left the stream.”

  Antares radiated unhappiness. “Uhhl, how is that possible?”

  Watts pointed to a place farther out from the galactic center and magnified the image again. Then he rewound. “There. We had some blips in our signal from the team. Caused maybe by entities in the stream. See them jump?” A cluster of tiny dots separated from the thread of the combined streams, like a train being shunted onto a spur line. Then they winked out. Watts tapped the display, pointing out that the dots vanished from the joined streams close to where the Karellian thread turned off. “I cannot track them. Not from here. Don’t know if they vanished, or flew on.” Watts’s hand trembled a little. “Really, they could have gone anywhere. My feeling, they may be following the course of the Krella time-tide. Seeking the source.”