Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  “Uuhll,” she gurgled softly and called, in the general direction of the comm, “Who is it?” The pinging stopped and she heard Napoleon’s voice: “Lady Antares!”

  “I’m here, Napoleon,” she said huskily, trying to make her voice sound as if she were wide awake. “What is it?”

  “Lady Antares, I am sorry to disturb your rest, but I think you had better come here at once.”

  “What is it, Napoleon?”

  “Trouble, I’m afraid.”

  ***

  It took her less than a minute to get to Napoleon’s side. She ran right past Cromus, who was pacing up and down the control center, muttering to himself and clicking his pincers. He started to speak to her, but she ignored him. Braking her run with a hand on Napoleon’s console, she leaned close to the norg. “What is it, Napoleon? What’s happening?” Glancing around, she saw that the rest of the control team appeared agitated. What the hell?

  Napoleon was clicking disapprovingly and fussing with the screen in front of him. He rotated his right eye-camera to look at her. “There was a disentanglement pulse sent from here, and they didn’t alert either you or me about it.”

  “What’s that mean? What’s a disentanglement pulse?”

  Napoleon buzzed in frustration. “It’s a wave sent down the ghoststream to try to sweep the Mindaru out of the temporal channel leading up to the present, and to close the entry point down at the other end.”

  Antares recoiled. “Isn’t that—?”

  “Yes, it is!” Napoleon barked. “They did it before, and for them to do it again without consulting us—!”

  “That’s not acceptable.” Antares straightened and called out to Cromus, “What have you done, and why did you not tell us?”

  Cromus came over, hissing and stuttering clicks. “The crew—your friends—called for the puls-se. The Mindaru pursuit-t—”

  “Isn’t that what killed the last crew?” Antares demanded.

  Cromus’s head jerked, and he snapped one claw, loudly. “S-superficially, yes-s. But that-t pulse went wrong, badly t-timed and badly calculated-d. They’ve learned from that-t and are better at it now. The people here, I mean. They modulated this one so it was less dangerous-s to our crew.”

  Napoleon’s eyes glowed a darker and more troubled hue of red. He rotated his head and said to Cromus, “Modulated or not, it weakened the entanglement that’s at the heart of the ghoststream, did it not?”

  “Weakened, yes-s,” Cromus admitted.

  “Weakened?” Napoleon said. “Or broke?”

  Antares felt a chill in her spine. Is that why the controllers up there were conferring so animatedly? Every minute or so, one of them glanced in their direction and hurriedly looked away.

  Cromus hissed unhappily and waved his pincers in the direction of the controllers. “Broken-n? We do not think so. We do not hope so. But—”

  “But what?” Antares demanded.

  “But their connection back to us is compromised-d.”

  Antares stared at him, trying to parse how bad that was. “But . . . you have a plan to reestablish connection, don’t you?” Don’t you?

  “Hk-k-k . . . they are working on it-t.” Cromus looked miserable. “They believe the crew are still alive, but having trouble linking back-k,” he said finally.

  Can’t the launch crew just pull them out? The question boomed in her mind, but she already knew the answer, made clear from the beginning. The answer was no. Their minds and souls were too entwined in that fragile thread of entanglement. If that was compromised . . .

  Napoleon was watching her with gleaming camera eyes. He flexed his neck, as though in sympathy, and said, “I suggest we focus on what we might do to help bring them back. Don’t you think, Lady Antares?”

  Antares felt her breath go out in a sigh. “Napoleon, do you have something in mind?”

  ***

  What the robot had in mind would require the approval and assistance of the ghoststream crew, and even Antares was skeptical at first. Sending Napoleon into the ghoststream after Ik and Julie made sense on the surface, but Antares wasn’t sure this was a job that an inorg could do. Still, she let him propose it to Cromus. To soften him up for her own proposal.

  Cromus rejected the idea out of hand. “The situation-n is delicate enough already. Introducing an inorg into the stream could generate new failure modes that we can’t predict-t.”

  “But,” Napoleon pointed out, “you have lost them at this point. I could look for them.”

  “No, our systems are not optimized for—”

  Antares waited as they went back and forth a couple of times. Finally she interrupted to say, “Or . . . you could send me into the stream. I am org, and close enough to what your systems are optimized for. I have yaantel stones similar to theirs, and I can search using an empathic reach that I believe may exceed any of your technical capabilities here.”

  Cromus bent one eyestalk to glance at the spindly controller named Watts, who had come up alongside in time to hear most of the conversation. Without speaking to Watts, he continued, “No, the risk is too great—”

  “For a chance at their safe return?” Antares asked, with an edge of sarcasm. “If I voluntarily take the risk?”

  Cromus rumbled with displeasure, and clicked appendages she couldn’t even see. “Clearly, I do not object to our crew’s safe return-n. I do, however, object to the possibility of losing them-m and losing you, and at the same time affecting the ghoststream in ways unpredicted-d.”

  “Uhhl, Cromus,” Antares said, with a low growl deep in her voice, “this entire mission has carried such risks.”

  Cromus rumbled. “Yes. Yes, it has. But that does not mean I wish to multiply the risk-k.”

  She felt her anger harden. “No. Perhaps you’d rather make the situation seem impossible. So that if you can’t get them back, you can cut them loose and say there was never any hope of saving them. Is that it?”

  Cromus stared at her in silence.

  Then Watts leaned in and spoke to him, too softly for Antares to hear.

  Cromus snapped his pincers several times as Watts spoke. Antares wondered if he was threatening to snap Watts’s thin neck. She could not read his emotions, though it was obvious she had offended him.

  “Please tell me what you are saying,” she said finally.

  Cromus peered at her with one eyestalk. “Wait here,” he said abruptly. He turned with creaking joints and strode with surprising speed down to the front of the control center. Watts bowed to Antares and hurried after him. Antares followed.

  Cromus rotated this way and that, speaking to the individual controllers. Finally he turned to beckon to Antares, and was startled to see her already there. Cromus gestured with a claw to indicate that she should face the control crew. He clicked loudly for attention. “Hk-k-k-k, team! We are going to try something new . . .”

  ***

  The technical preparation took a couple of hours. Antares would be strapped into a small cockpit alongside the one Julie and Ik were in, and her consciousness would be projected down the same ghoststream. While this was being set up, Antares was briefed by the controllers—but only after the controllers debated the best approach among themselves: whether to ease her in slowly and not stress the system; or act quickly to reach the crew before the thread weakened any further; or to not travel down the stream at all, but to try to lead them back home by voice alone. Antares shook her head as they debated. They obviously had no more idea than she did; she was going to follow her own instincts and do what seemed best.

  She was, in practical terms, reaching out to ghosts in the stream. Physically, Ik and Julie would be right next to her, sometimes still and sometimes twitching and straining, trying to recall their own spirits. She was there to help them, even if it felt strange beyond belief.

  She considered looking in on the faces of her friends before she was launched, to freshen the memory and the connection. In the end, she could not bear to, could not stand the thought of see
ing her friends’ faces when their souls were somewhere else. She thought it would feel too empty.

  “Lady Antares,” said Enwin, at the entrance to the launch pod. “This way, please.”

  ***

  The launch was terrifying. Antares held her breath as the world around her darkened, and the walls of the pod melted away into the ghoststream. In a silent transition, she was suddenly flying in space, as though in a star-spanner, but without the protective bubble. Vertigo threatened to overwhelm her, and for several minutes she could do nothing except try to keep her thoughts focused on her goals, and by concentrating, keep from being ill.

  *We are here. We can help you.*

  As the knowing-stones stabilized her body against vertigo, she felt a rush of gratitude. She caught her breath and risked another look. She was floating gently pastward through time. She remembered the last words from Enwin, before launch: Proceed slowly. Control your movement. Try to sense them from this end, if you can. If you must stretch down the ghoststream into deep time, do so with caution. That was the approach that had sounded so arbitrarily conservative when she’d heard the controllers discussing it. But now that she was here, it made perfect sense.

  She started by testing her control. Enlisting the help of her stones, she found she could make adjustments to the view. She could regulate her movement away from the launch point, and she could pull herself back. With a slight hand gesture and a low murmur, she caused the ghoststream itself to become visible: a hollow, misty channel of extremely pale light, extending to infinity—blue nearby, and shifting toward crimson in the distance. More than a channel, it was a delicate thread—or perhaps a tattered yarn—stretching down through time and far across space.

  Somewhere down that strand were Ik and Julie. Somewhere a long way down. She could see nothing down the stream. Would they be able to hear a call? How would a call even work, in this strange reality? She’d been told to try using her voice, and the ghoststream technology would handle the rest. She should listen for an answer the same way, by pretending that time and distance did not exist here.

  She cupped her hands and shouted, “Ik! I-i-i-k-k-k! Juu-leeee!” Her voice vanished in the distance, no better than a sigh into the wind. She tried again, giving it more force. This time she imagined a tiny echo. But there was no answer.

  She wondered how far her empathic reach could extend down the ghoststream, and backward in time. Only one way to find out. Carefully, deliberately, she stilled her thoughts and listened. Or rather, felt. For any sign of her friends.

  What she felt was a ringing emptiness.

  She kept trying.

  But there was no answer.

  Chapter 25

  Reunion with Dakota

  AS THE LONG VIEW closed the distance to Plato, Bandicut sat in the commons, his thoughts spinning in a hundred directions. Where did they stand with their mission now? Plato was damaged but recovering, and making headway toward Karellia. They had eliminated all of the Mindaru in detection range, and the temporal shield was off. Had they really stopped the influx of Mindaru? For good? What about Ik? And . . . Julie Stone? (That still seemed impossible; surely Jeaves had misinterpreted the message. But what if it was true?) Were they okay, if they were somewhere in the timestream? Had The Long View’s victory here cost them somehow, stranded them somewhere deep in the past? The thought made him shudder.

  But of more immediate concern—so astounding he could hardly believe it—he was about to see Dakota again! His niece, his last living relative—not through some scratchy comm connection in weird-space, but in person, flesh and blood! He would have to be careful not to overwhelm her in his enthusiasm. Despite their ship-to-ship conversations, the Dakota he saw in his mind was still the twelve-year-old daughter of his brother. Or really, the nine-year-old, because that’s how old she had been when he’d said good-bye to go to Neptune. A child. Now she was the XO on a starship, five hundred years removed!

  And what about Plato’s crew? If Dakota was going to be the first human he’d laid eyes on since Neptune, her shipmates were going to be next. What would it be like to be among humans again? He wasn’t actually sure he was ready for it. What a strange thought.

  They would be close enough for docking in a few hours. He should try to get some sleep.

  ***

  When Copernicus woke him on the intercom, he felt as if he’d just dozed off. He groped to look at the time; it had been closer to three hours. Not long enough. “What is it, Coppy?”

  “Cap’n, we’re approaching rendezvous. What arrangements would you prefer for docking? Shall I extend a tube? Or would you rather cross over in the number two shuttle?”

  Bandicut heaved himself to a sitting position. “Coppy, you just piloted us to victory against killer Mindaru. I think you’ve earned the right to dock us however you want.”

  “If you say so, Cap’n, but you are the captain.”

  “Yeaaah, but I’m delegating the authority on this one. Look, do I have time to take a shower? And can you put some coffee on?”

  “Affirmative to both.”

  Ten minutes later, when Bandicut stepped onto the bridge, steaming cup in his hand, he was greeted in person by Copernicus. “Cap’n, I thought you and Ruall might want to discuss security protocols—since the last time we met Plato, there were concerns about getting too close.”

  Bandicut remembered. “But that was before Plato came all this way to help us knock back the enemy. I think they’ve earned our trust.”

  “I concur,” said the robot. “Ruall, do you concur? Do you have any special concerns?”

  Ruall rang softly. “Your pardon? No—go ahead and set it up however seems best for human contact.”

  Bandicut was surprised by her easy acquiescence. “Ruall, is something wrong?”

  For a few moments, Ruall didn’t answer. Then she said, “I don’t know where Bria has gone.”

  Bandicut thought. He hadn’t seen her in a while, either. “She didn’t wander out into the middle of the fight, I hope.”

  “No, she was here when we started on our current course. She was feeling stronger. Restless, I think. She said something about speaking to Dark, and then she slipped off, as she sometimes does. But that was hours ago, and I don’t know where Dark has gone.”

  “Do you think they might be in trouble?”

  Ruall spun out of sight, spun back. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to go looking for her?”

  Ruall made a tsking sound. “Where would we look? This ship’s mastery of n-space is quite primitive compared to Bria’s. Or Dark’s.” She stopped the sound. “No, do what is needed to reunite with your kin.”

  Bandicut accepted that in silence. It didn’t sound like Ruall. Was her concern for Bria mellowing her?

  Jeaves spoke up. “If I may interrupt. We’ve just received a signal from Li-Jared. He and Ocellet Quin will be departing shortly in the landing craft to meet us. Quin wishes to pursue talks with the Uduon, to see if they can negotiate peace. They will likely join us in about one half day’s time.”

  “How close are we to rendezvous with Plato?” Bandicut asked.

  “Perhaps an hour, Cap’n,” said Copernicus.

  “Plenty of time for you to meet with your people,” said Jeaves.

  ***

  The two ships came together in normal-space, Copernicus handling the approach with his usual aplomb. Bandicut pondered how best to introduce his alien companions to the crew of Plato. Maybe they had protocols for meeting new galactic species. Well, he would go over alone for this first visit, anyway.

  Thinking about that, he looked down at what he was wearing. His jumpsuit was looking pretty ratty. That was no way to meet his niece and her shipmates. He returned to his quarters to have a new jumpsuit made by the ship’s fabricator.

  Now, better dressed, he floated weightless in the outer door of The Long View’s airlock. He gazed down the connecting tunnel, waiting for word to proceed. His heart was pounding. “They’re ready fo
r you,” Jeaves said in his ear.

  Bandicut pushed out of the airlock and down the tunnel. It was empty; it could be leading anywhere, he thought. He was two-thirds of the way across when Plato’s airlock slid open. He grabbed for a handhold to slow down, and paused to see who was coming to greet him.

  There was no mistaking Dakota. Commander Dakota Bandicut. She wore a dark blue uniform, closely fitted, with silver trim on the collar and shoulders. She looked slender and athletic, maybe twenty-eight or thirty, and startlingly attractive, with a bright and engaging face, filled with poise and confidence. Her golden-brown hair was cut shorter than he remembered, but the sparkle in her green Bandicut eyes was just the same, and so was the slightly off-center grin.

  “My God!” he murmured, the exclamation never quite leaving his throat.

  “Uncle John!” His niece launched herself from the airlock and caught him in a bear-hug that set them spinning in the zero-g. He felt his stones tingling in his wrists, reacting to the proximity to hers. He had forgotten she had stones! With a laughing, “Whoa!” she grabbed a handhold to steady them both. “Jeez, it’s so damn good to see you!” she cried, holding him at arm’s length. She tugged him toward the far airlock. “I have so many things to ask you! Come, see my ship!”

  “Lead on! Permission to come aboard?”

  She laughed gaily. “We don’t say that anymore, in the service.”

  “You don’t?” He caught the edge of the Plato airlock and swung himself to the open hatch. Large arrows inside the airlock were accompanied by the words, This side up. “What do you say instead?” He clunked down feet-first in the local gravity field.

  Dakota laughed again. “We say Hello. The scanner IDs us. If we don’t belong here, it doesn’t let us in. Unless, of course, we’ve told it to expect you.” The airlock door slid closed behind them.