Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  “Is that all?” Julie asked incredulously.

  Arak gestured for them to follow Targus, who was trudging out the far side of the control circle. “That is all we know now. More may be added later.”

  Julie laughed bitterly. But still, after what had just happened, she felt too responsible not to step up next. She sighed. “Where is the army of experts that will tell us how to do all that?”

  “No army,” said Arak, “can do what you do.”

  “I’m not sure what you think we can do,” Julie said.

  Arak gazed at them soberly. “Travelers, listen. Other Mindaru may be swarming into the timestream. Once they are here . . .” He paused, and his hands dropped to his sides. “I do not just ask—we need you to go back and learn if there is still an opening.” Targus had led them wordlessly to a drop-rail. As they peered over the side to a great emptiness below, Targus stepped into the opening in the floor. He dropped out of sight. Arak gestured to Julie and Ik to follow. Julie clutched the rail and stepped through the floor to an eye-popping, bird’s-eye view of an equally immense hangar one level down from the hangar they had just been observing. It was just one story down, but it was one hell of a high story. She came to a gentle landing, followed by Ik and Arak.

  “So,” she said, picking up the thread, “if we get there and find Mindaru are coming through, what then? What are we supposed to do? Do you have thoughts on how?”

  “Stop them,” Arak said simply. “You are the most experienced Mindaru fighters in Shipworld. We will give you all the knowledge and help we can.”

  “Oh, well, if that’s all . . .” She laughed hollowly.

  “Miss Stone,” Arak said, gesturing for them to follow Targus toward a duplicate of the launcher they’d just seen reduced to smoking rubble. “We cannot guarantee your safety. You can see that. We are sending you to try to stop a far greater danger to all of us, to all of the worlds. We are in a state of—” rasp “—war.”

  Julie nodded. All of that was true. But it didn’t help her understand how to do what needed to be done.

  Ik gazed at Julie with his hard, deep-set eyes. She closed her own eyes for a moment and shivered. I wonder what will happen if John and his other friends shut off the timestream from Karellia while we’re in there. And following that thought, she imagined beings like the one she and the translator had fought running free through the galaxy. “All right,” she said. “When do we go?”

  “Hrrm,” Ik said, gesturing with an open hand toward the new launcher. “Soon, yes?” And then his voice hardened. “But you must send us better prepared than this poor crew that just died.”

  Chapter 6

  Return to Karellia

  THE LANDING SITE the Karellian escort craft directed them to was the Kantong Spaceport, on the eastern seaboard of the continent of Moramia. The names were unfamiliar to Li-Jared. The spaceport had not existed when he lived on Karellia; space travel had been in its infancy then. It was located just south of a coastal city which in Li-Jared’s time had been a provincial capital known as Harlendon, but now was called Karellendon and apparently was the world capital. In his absence, it seemed, Karellia had grown from a planet of fragmented continental governments to one with a world government. He didn’t know if that was good or bad for the Karellian people generally; but if it meant they only had to talk to one government, he was deeply relieved.

  On the glide inbound over the sun-spanked waters of the Karellendon harbor, Li-Jared handled communication while Bandicut flew the lander. Akura and Sheeawn sat behind them, gripping their seats. The approach turned exciting when one of the Karellian escorts steered them into a course change without warning. The sudden maneuvering left Li-Jared with his hearts pounding, but Bandicut took it in stride, and even had time to glance over his shoulder to remind the passengers to breathe. He brought them smoothly around to a landing in the middle of the southernmost quadrant of the field.

  Their escort set down beside them on the tarmac, thrusters glowing. For a moment, Li-Jared just breathed in and out, thinking, I am about to set foot on home, and breathe Karellian air. He felt a pressure in his chest that would not go away. Bandicut grinned and said something congratulatory that Li-Jared missed; he was too busy absorbing it all. Back on home soil for the first time in hundreds of years, he hardly knew what to think or feel. For a few moments he simply sat, listening to the pounding of blood in his forehead.

  Home. World of beautiful, perilous sky.

  “Everyone unfasten,” Bandicut called out. “Li-Jared, do you still think we should step out together? Or do you want to go first and smooth the waters?”

  That wrenched Li-Jared back to reality. Glancing out the viewport, he saw a cordon of soldiers gathering around the spacecraft. Well, that made sense, he supposed. “Let me go first,” he said. “Give them time to get used to the idea of a homecoming native—”

  “Before you spring an ugly human face on them?”

  Li-Jared flicked his fingertips in a shrug. “Something like that.” He glanced back at the anxious Uduon guests, decided Bandicut could explain anything that needed explaining, and made his way to the side exit. He hesitated a moment, wondering whether or not to put on a suit shield. It might create an unnecessary barrier; on the other hand, it would give him a dramatic entrance. It’ll get their attention and make a point about our technology. He hissed a chuckle at the notion that this technology was in any way his. But never mind that. It was, for now. He flicked on the suit.

  The exit slid open, and he stepped out to meet his countrymen.

  ***

  Bandicut, following Li-Jared’s movements on viewscreen, thought this looked a lot like their greeting on Uduon—with one big difference. The difference was in Li-Jared himself. Instead of stepping out to greet individuals he assumed were enemies, he was greeting his countrymen, even if they were too cautious and suspicious to realize it at first. While they were just as concerned as the Uduon had been about who was under that gleaming silver, and what his intentions were, Li-Jared walked and spoke with the poise of one who knew he was home. They talked back and forth, and Li-Jared repeated his credentials as a Karellian scientist of several hundred years ago. There were instrument scans and communications with authorities not on the scene. Li-Jared did a remarkable job of keeping his composure. Eventually he lowered his suit screens so they could see him face to face. More questions. Three times he pointed to the sky. Presently they seemed prepared to accept that he was, as he claimed, a Karellian returned from the stars.

  “Time to suit up,” Bandicut said to Akura and Sheeawn. “I think he’ll be calling us out soon.”

  The call came before they were finished clipping suit projectors to their belts.

  ***

  The Karellian air cooled Li-Jared’s face and whispered through his clothing as he waited for his friends to emerge. He squinted in the bright sunlight, shading his eyes with one hand. For a blissful minute, he simply drank in the sensations. Two hundred and seventy-six years. It feels good. I wonder how much the place has changed.

  Then he turned to greet the three silver-suited figures stepping into the daylight. Li-Jared could feel tensions sharpen. The soldiers in the first line dropped their weapons to a ready position, aimed directly at the silver figures. The group leader called, “Will you ask them to remove their protection, as you did? We need to see them.”

  Li-Jared rubbed his fingertips together. “Will you avert your weapons, so they need not feel threatened?”

  The leader barked an imprecation at the ground, and then stared at him with what looked to Li-Jared like steely animosity. “I have more to think of than whether or not your passengers feel threatened.”

  “Perhaps. But I will not ask them to drop their protection while you are pointing guns at them,” Li-Jared said. He made a sweeping gesture at the arc of soldiers. “Don’t you have the situation under control? And you wish to see our guests, yes? That can’t happen as long as they feel . . . unwelcome. I gave them my assurance
of safe passage as diplomatic visitors. And I give you my assurance, as a Karellian citizen, that they are unarmed and that their mission is peaceful.”

  The leader barked again, but gave his left hand a twitch, and the soldiers in the front line raised their weapons to a rest position.

  Li-Jared touched his fingertips to his forehead in acknowledgment, then said to his companions, “All right, this would be a good time for you to lower your suits. But keep your fingers near the buttons. Okay?”

  One silver-suit vanished, revealing Bandicut. He blinked in the sunlight, then went to assist Akura and Sheeawn. Finally all three stood revealed, facing the soldiers.

  Surprise was visible on more than one face. The group leader angled his head slightly. His body swayed right, then left, as he studied them. “Two of you,” he said, “appear to be Karellian. Is that right?”

  Li-Jared started to answer, then decided to let Akura and Sheeawn speak for themselves if they wanted to. Sheeawn looked terrified, but he didn’t flinch as he glanced at Akura for permission, and then said, “If I . . . understand your question correctly . . .”

  “The question is simple. Are you Karellian?”

  “We are Uduon. From the planet Uduon,” Sheeawn answered simply.

  The leader’s eyes flickered orange, and he shifted his gaze to bore into Li-Jared’s. “They look Karellian. Like you.” An accusation remained unspoken in the air.

  “Yes, they do, don’t they?” Li-Jared said. “They are not from this world, though. I believe they might not object if you performed the same scan on them that you ran on me.” Turning to Sheeawn, he explained the procedure, and raised a hand to hold off questions until Sheeawn asked Akura, and then expressed agreement for both of them.

  “You can scan me, too, if you like,” Bandicut said, speaking for the first time since emerging from the craft.

  That seemed to startle the group leader, but he gestured to the two soldiers who had wielded the scanners on Li-Jared. They stepped forward and reran the operation first on the two Uduon, and then on Bandicut. The first soldier made a clicking sound. “I cannot be certain of these two. I do not believe they are Karellian, but the resemblance is close. A specialist might see more than I can.”

  “And the third?”

  “Clearly not Karellian. What exactly he is, I cannot—”

  “Human,” Bandicut interrupted. “I am human.”

  “So Li-Jared said,” the group leader replied, and then turned to receive a report from another soldier. He straightened to speak. “It would seem our researchers have discovered some facts relevant to your claim. Apparently there really was a Holdhope Academy in the region once called Watskland.”

  “Why would that be in doubt?” Li-Jared asked in annoyance.

  The officer gave him a sour look. “Are you not aware? A lot has happened on Karellia. Records have been lost, names have changed . . .”

  Li-Jared felt a sudden emptiness in his chest. Records lost, names changed. War? What had happened to his world while he was away? “I . . . Yes, of course, I suppose that would be true.” And why so surprised? Of course things happened. Change.

  The leader was now pressing something to his ear, and making low muttering sounds. When he spoke to Li-Jared again, his tone was different. “I have instructions to escort you to the harbor, where you will find transport by water to the House of Meeting, on the north shore of the bay. It seems your request to speak to a government official has been granted. Someone wants to hear your story.”

  With that, the leader spoke to his closest team members. Then he turned back. “Do you have everything you need? The boat is waiting.”

  ***

  The transport turned out to be a high-speed hydrofoil, waiting with engines humming. The area seemed to have been cleared, which disappointed Li-Jared. He’d been hoping for a glimpse of ordinary people on their ordinary business—did ordinary business still look the way it used to?—or even spectators come to see the aliens. But he saw no one as they crossed to the boat from the personnel carrier that had brought them from the spaceport.

  Now, as they streaked across the white-foamed water of the bay, sun glinting in his eyes, Li-Jared found his thoughts not on the meeting to come so much as on this remarkable homecoming to a changed world. He had dreamed of coming back one day, of course, but he hadn’t really known what to expect. Now that he was here, his eyes, his ears, his hearts were drinking in the surroundings. Some of it was Karellia as he had known it, but in other ways it was a new world to him. The water travel! The old Li-Jared would have been uncomfortable, at best, crossing even slightly rough water at speed. But after the world of the Neri, the Li-Jared of today found the water exhilarating. He was aware he was being watched by his escorts, but he didn’t care. They could report his reactions. He was going to take it all in.

  The buildings, the modes of transportation, even the people seemed changed. Granted he hadn’t seen many people yet. But on the whole, those he had seen seemed a little taller, on average—and maybe a little less quick on the uptake (or had they always been that way?). What were things like on Karellia, politically? When he’d lived here, during the Soldani reign on the North Continent, the leadership of his own nation-state had been corrupt enough to make anyone want to leave the planet. He hoped that had changed. He gazed across the bay, closing his eyes for just a moment to feel the deck and the railing vibrate with the boat’s movement, and he tried to form a new picture of the world he had returned to.

  It was going to take some getting used to.

  ***

  Not far to Li-Jared’s right, Akura was sitting with Sheeawn, trying to form her own picture of this world, nemesis to her own. Although they had been greeted by soldiers, she did not feel a sense of an overly militarized culture, not in the tiny sample she had seen so far. Even from orbit, they had seen no overt signs of threat, no bristling arrays of rockets ready to launch the next barrage. In fact, in many superficial ways, this world did not seem strikingly foreign. Even the people seemed much the same, beneath the strange clothing styles. The architecture was different, to be sure—seemingly constructed by hand or machine, rather than organically grown.

  What she was searching for most intently was some sense of the under-connection, the invisible, inaudible threads and currents that on Uduon drew all of the continents and all of the people together, at least among the Watchers. Not perfectly, of course. But all Uduon felt it, on some level. Here, though, she felt nothing. “Perhaps we are just in the wrong place to sense it,” she murmured to Sheeawn, who wisely said nothing, it not being his area of knowledge. She didn’t really believe it could be altogether absent; she couldn’t imagine a world that did not have them. Surely, hidden in this wild body of water . . .

  Sheeawn seemed awestruck by the water, and the stinging salt spray. But his sensibilities were different. He was a fisher, at home on water.

  Alien. It’s an alien world. Forget that at your peril.

  There was nothing they could do but let it play out, and see what they could learn.

  ***

  The approaching shore grew, the engines throttled back, and the boat eased back down off the hydrofoils into the water and motored up to a landing. Li-Jared had no more idea what to expect here than did his companions. The dock was flanked by two boat sheds and a low office building, behind which a neatly trimmed sward of grass sloped uphill to what looked like an estate, or academic center, or significant government office.

  They didn’t have long to wonder. A land vehicle conveyed them up to the building. Li-Jared almost didn’t want to get out. The car—with plush seats, huge windows, and electronic controls—was advanced so far beyond anything he remembered that he wished he could ride around in it all day. Instead, they entered the building through a huge, open lobby with a floor that Bandicut remarked looked to him like “marble.” A curving stairway that glided upward while seeming suspended in mid-air swept them past the second floor and up to the third. Guards, or at least offi
cials, were unobtrusively everywhere, watching the aliens and the mystery-Karellian, all being brought here to meet “the Ocellet,” whoever that was. Perhaps Li-Jared was projecting, but it seemed to him that the air crackled with excitement at the visitors from the stars. Well, it was no less electrifying for him.

  A circular hallway brought them to an office. They each passed in front of a battery of scanners, clearly set up in haste for the occasion. There was a delay while the screeners examined some image-projecting equipment they had brought along. But after all was declared safe, they were led into a small but well-appointed meeting room—not rectangular, but wider at the far end, with curved bay windows. In the center sat a wedge-shaped table echoing the shape of the room. At the table’s apex was a single seat. The company were directed to four seats at the wider, rounded end; they would sit with their backs to the windows. Flanking the seat of honor, on each side, was a single additional seat.

  The four took their places, and a minute passed; then a door opened in the wall to their right. A Karellian male and female entered, the male wearing a dark-green tunic with markings around the collar, probably military, and the female dressed in a one-piece, gray suit that looked civilian. They were followed by a second female—petite, with white-streaked hair, dressed in a long coat of a smooth, reddish-maroon fabric with gold piping down the sides. Her eyes were bright, with intense, blue-green bands. The company all got to their feet as she approached the single seat, and stood with the other two flanking her. The seven of them stood staring at one another for a long moment, before the female who was the obvious leader spoke. “You are Li-Jared?”

  Li-Jared placed his fingertips on the tabletop, as though to give himself a small anchor point as he leaned forward. “I am.”