Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  The inner hatch opened, and they stepped together into a small ready room. It wasn’t the racks of gear he saw first, but the greeting party—a man and a woman, both dressed like Dakota. The man had more silver trimming on his tunic. The captain?

  His guess was confirmed a moment later when Dakota introduced them. “Uncle John, this is Captain Brody, commander of Plato. Captain, John Bandicut . . . of Earth, originally. I hope we’ll learn more about where he’s from now.” Bandicut shook hands with the man, who appeared about his own age, sharp-nosed, with salt-and-pepper hair, hazel eyes, and a serious, almost nervous, expression.

  “John Bandicut—Captain, is it?—welcome aboard Plato,” he said, with a quick, energetic handshake. “This is my second officer and navigator, Tanaki Frank.” Bandicut turned to greet a wiry woman with Asian features. Were they Asian? Who knew what those eyes with a hint of an epicanthic fold would be called today?

  “I imagine you have quite a story to tell us, Captain,” Brody said.

  “Well, yes, I suppose I do.” Bandicut decided to forego explaining that he wasn’t actually a captain, even if his robots treated him like one. To these people, he was a long-lost human from another century, commanding a starship. “I’ve had some amazing experiences. But I’m so glad circumstances brought us together! I’m extremely fond of my niece, here, and I haven’t seen her in five centuries.” He caught Dakota’s forearm with a grin.

  Brody nodded in acknowledgment, but seemed to have other things on his mind. “I do hope you’ll explain what some of these circumstances were that brought us together, Captain. I don’t mind saying, I’m more than a little confused about everything that’s happened.”

  Bandicut reached into his breast pocket and produced a small chip. “I had our robot Jeaves put together a report on the Mindaru for you. It’s something you—and by you, I mean humanity—need to know about.”

  “Thank you,” Brody said, slipping it into his own breast pocket. “We’ll look at it right away.”

  Bandicut had a thought. “I hope you can read it okay. Jeaves said he put it into a format that was common back when the starstream was created. How long ago was that?”

  “A hundred years or so, depending on where you are when you’re reading the calendar,” Brody said. “But we’ve had stable file formats for a while—we had to, or communication would have turned to chaos across the galaxy.” Brody gestured down the corridor. “I’ll let you know if we have any trouble. Now, why don’t we go where we can talk.” He touched a fingertip to his right temple. “Senior staff, to the wardroom, please.”

  “Does that include you?” Bandicut asked Dakota.

  Brody answered for her. “You’d better believe it. Commander Bandicut is not only my exec, I don’t think we’d be here without her foresight and leadership.” He lowered his voice to a murmur. “She’s also got these alien things from back in Earth System. Translator-stones, she calls them.” Brody tapped his wrists meaningfully, as Dakota looked self-conscious.

  Bandicut allowed a smile to flicker. He held up his own wrists. “I guess we all have stories to tell,” he said wryly, and followed the captain into the passageway.

  ***

  He tried to keep his part of the story short, but how could he? After an hour in the wardroom, over real coffee and pastries, Bandicut had given the Plato officers a condensed version of how he had gotten to Shipworld, and thence onto other worlds. After that, he gave them the gist of the Mindaru problem, the Karellia/Uduon problem, the temporal distortion problem, and how Plato might have helped avert a calamity by providing The Long View with backup against the Mindaru here in this system. “So you see,” he said, nodding yes to more coffee, “we’re happy in many ways that we encountered you. I certainly was not expecting to meet humans of any kind on this mission—much less my niece!”

  Around the table, he saw faces that were dazed with amazement, if not incredulity. “I guess it does sound pretty incredible, when I say it all at once like that,” he admitted.

  “No argument,” Brody said, with a glance at Dakota, who looked perhaps the most amazed of all. The Plato captain steepled his fingers. “I do believe you. But . . . well, it’s a lot.” Dakota nodded at that, a Bandicut glint in her eye.

  Bandicut shifted around in his chair. “Maybe it will all seem more real to you when you meet my companions over on my ship—who, by the way, represent—let’s see—two—no, three different worlds. Plus, my robot Copernicus, who comes from Earth system of my own era—and Jeaves, a robot of human manufacture, but from another time and place altogether.”

  Brody sat forward, his hands flat on the table. “We would very much like to meet them. We do have protocols about making first contact with a new species, but I’m sure we can make those work.”

  “If it helps, it’s not really first contact with the human race.” Bandicut chuckled. “I’ve already blundered into that for you. So maybe that puts less pressure on you to do it strictly by the book.”

  “Hm.” Captain Brody sat back, working that over in his mind.

  “And I assume you’ll want to go down to Karellia to establish contact there. I can give you a good reference.”

  “Well—yes, if there’s time.”

  “Why, do you have someplace to be?”

  “In a manner of speaking. We have significant concerns about getting back into the starstream, to complete our mission and return home. It seems likely that the longer we stay here, the farther we’ll be from achieving that.”

  Bandicut held up a hand to interrupt the thought. “I’m pretty sure we can help you with that. The starstream isn’t going anywhere. But may I ask a personal favor? May I have a little private family time to catch up with my niece and the last five hundred years?”

  Brody cracked a strained smile, nodded, and rose from his seat. “I think you’ve both earned that,” he said, and shooed the other officers ahead of him out of the wardroom.

  ***

  He hugged her again, long and hard. Bandicut tried once more to picture the twelve-year-old girl he had last seen in a holo. Now she was all grown up, just like him. He took a long, appraising look at her, his heart bursting with joy, relief, pride. After all this time . . .

  He finally realized he was staring, and he barked a self-conscious laugh. “I must say, Dakota, you’ve grown up into a—” he gestured awkwardly “—stunning young woman. If your parents could only see you now! I’m pleased to see those good Bandicut genes holding strong.” He thought of his brother Joe, and Joe’s wife Megan, with wistful affection and a twinge of guilt. When had he last even thought of his Earthly family, all of whom had died before he’d gone to space? Joe? Mom and Dad?

  Dakota’s eyes gleamed with pleasure. “I am very pleased to see you, Uncle John.”

  “Uncle—damn, you make me feel old. You probably barely remember me. I think you were nine when I left.”

  “I remember you just fine. And now I finally get a chance to say thank you!”

  “Thank you?” He frowned. “For what?”

  She smacked him on the arm. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!”

  “Forgotten what? Oh—you mean—?”

  “Of course I mean the trust! Uncle John—or John, if you prefer not to feel old—that money was what got me into space! That and your example to follow. Without both of those, I don’t know how I would have gone anywhere. I sure as hell wouldn’t be here now.” She grabbed his right hand and squeezed it, hard. “So, yes—thank you. I can never repay you for that.”

  He hmm’d softly. “I think maybe you already did, coming along and smoking that Mindaru just when we needed you.”

  “Hah—thank the translator-stones for that! And that black cloud friend of yours that showed up and brought us along. It seemed to think you needed some help.”

  “Putting it mildly.” He remembered something and chuckled. “I think in my last letter to you I told you to come visit me in space. This is not what I was imagining!” He pointed to her wris
ts. “How did you get those, anyway?”

  Dakota grinned wryly. “Same way you did, I imagine. I visited Triton, where you discovered the translator—they were giving tours of the cavern!—and the little devils were lying in wait for me.”

  Bandicut was stunned. Tours of Triton, and the stones were waiting? What, were they keeping it in the family?

  “Which reminds me,” Dakota continued. “Did Julie Stone ever catch up with you?”

  “Jul—!” His voice caught, and he couldn’t get past the first syllable.

  “Julie, yes. She had stones, too! Did I tell you that before?” Dakota nodded briskly to herself. “She got in touch with me by holo, and we exchanged a few messages.” An old sadness seemed to fall across Dakota’s face. “She was last seen on long-range scanner, falling into the sun with the big translator . . .” Bandicut was stunned when she told him the more complete story of Julie’s interplanetary pursuit. “She was convinced you were still alive. Later, after my stones gave me some background, I figured something similar might have happened to both of you.”

  Bandicut reached for a glass of water and gulped, choking. He shook his head finally. “I have no idea. Except . . .” Except for that message they had received from Amaduse, mentioning JulieS. “Except maybe . . .” he murmured, his voice trailing off. Maybe there’s news waiting for me back on Shipworld?

  Dakota looked worried that she might have touched a raw nerve.

  He waved off the subject before it could swallow him. “So tell me—” he said, his voice cracking a little, “how did a nice girl like you wind up in a century like this? And here in the starstream, of all places?”

  Dakota snorted, and for a moment he recognized the young girl he had once known. She sat back and ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s almost as crazy as your story. I was living in the Earth 3 colony when a call went out for volunteers to settle Alpha Centauri!”

  “Incredible,” he murmured. “Was it a relativistic ship? Is that why you didn’t age much?”

  “Barely. Mainly it was the cold sleep that let me keep my youth.” Dakota hesitated, and then told him of their discovery on arrival that other ships had leapfrogged past them. “I didn’t want to join a well-established colony, so I moved on . . .”

  Bandicut listened in fascination.

  “Barnard’s Star next, and then a star called Don’t Stop Thinking . . . a hundred years into the future, give or take. Then I was on a planet called No Pain . . .”

  “Does that planet circle a sun called No Gain?”

  She grinned. “Yah. You know it?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  Dakota nodded. “By now, we were doing FTL, in k-space, which is pretty fast, though nowhere near as fast as the starstream. I was in the Space Patrol out of No Pain, when we learned of the creation of the starstream.”

  “And you wound up on a patrol ship, in the starstream?”

  She grinned again. “Did I do okay with the nest egg you left me, Uncle John?”

  He nodded dizzily.

  “It was a dream come true! Join the Space Patrol and see the stars!” She stopped and looked thoughtful. “You and I both wound up seeing the stars, didn’t we?” They sat facing each other with that thought hanging between them for a moment. Then she reached forward. “Tell me more about what happened after you chased that comet that was threatening Earth!”

  He searched for words, but his stones spoke first.

  *Why don’t you let us join with her stones? She’ll see so much more.*

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. There might be a way to show you that’s lots better than my trying to explain it all to you. Have you ever joined your translator-stones to exchange with another pair?”

  “Huh?” Her eyes widened in surprise, and maybe a little alarm. Then she put a finger to her forehead, as if listening to an inner voice. “I have not done that. Never had the chance. But I guess I’m willing to try.”

  “You might find it pretty intense. Hell, it is intense—you’ll be absorbing a lot in a short time.”

  “Okay—”

  “But the stones will do all the work. You don’t have to really do anything except go along for the ride.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded slowly. “What do I do?”

  He tugged back his sleeves to expose his wrists, where his gems, white on the right and black on the left, now gleamed visibly. He rested his forearms on the table, palms up. “Are yours in your wrists, like mine?”

  She pushed her uniform sleeves up, revealing a similar pair. “Yah.” There was a touch of quaver in her voice.

  He offered a reassuring smile. “It won’t hurt. Now, just put your wrists on top of mine. The stones don’t have to touch perfectly, but being close speeds up the connection.”

  Taking a deep breath, Dakota placed her wrists against his. He felt a little shiver at the contact. This was the little girl he’d carried around on his shoulders. No more. Though he’d joined stones on several occasions, this was the first with another human, much less a female relative. He hoped the intimacy wouldn’t feel too awkward . . .

  *Joining . . .*

  The connection occurred effortlessly, and a warm rush carried away his concerns . . . .

  ***

  The flow of information was astonishingly fast, though not so fast that he couldn’t perceive many of the details . . . his own life and hers, streamed out for both of them to see . . .

  First time in space, bound for Earth 3.

  Embarrassment and insecurity at first, feeling incompetent to do the jobs asked of her. She’d get over it. But it was a feeling that returned, over and over again, as she moved out into the galaxy in one time and then another . . .

  Arriving alone, but for an alien in his head, at a staggeringly vast place called Shipworld, out at the edge of the galaxy . . . fighting invisible adversaries . . .

  Uncle John—dear God—!

  Watching humanity leap like a crazed frog from a habitat circling the Earth to a galactic civilization, joined by k-space, and then by the starstream . . . but for the longest time, never quite belonging in any of those places . . .

  Ik and Li-Jared and Charlie and the robots, and then Antares . . . somehow triumphing over something called the boojum, only to be flung back into the galaxy to an ocean world . . .

  Antares? Forbidden alien love . . . dizzying . . .

  For Dakota, one world following another, and only intermittent and fleeting romantic attachments, or even friendships. Until during one of her layovers in the Patrol, on what she now considered her home world of High Concept, Harrad came into her life.

  Harrad? Say more?

  A flush of pleasure, and a picture of a dark-haired, brown-eyed young man with wry intelligence and a sparkling sense of humor.

  Eager to get back to him?

  Oh yes—!

  And on to the undersea world of the Neri . . . deep-space journey to Starmaker . . . Orion Nebula? First battle with the Mindaru? Detachment and separation from his old life, the nearest human five hundred years in the past . . . new love found, with Antares . . .

  Aliens of so many worlds . . . Hraachee’ans and Karellians and Imkek and Ffff’tink and noliHuman and Logothian . . .

  Charli, torn away in the battle in the starstream . . . gone . . . dead? . . . gone . . .

  Finding family again, after all these light-years and time-years . . .

  ***

  The connection dissolved.

  “Holy—” Dakota whispered.

  “Yah,” he said, drawing a rasping breath. “Wow.” It had been like drinking from a waterfall, taking in her memories along with the replay of his own. The painful echo at the end of losing Charli had kicked him in the stomach, and it was taking him a moment to bring his thoughts—and his eyes—back into focus.

  Dakota lifted her arms from the wrist contact with his. She looked dazed, probably feeling similarly overwhelmed. “Jesus,” she said, rubbing her wrists. �
��Uncle John, that’s—” She held her hands open, shaking them nervously, as she searched for words.

  “I know.”

  For half a minute, neither of them spoke, as they tried to sort out the rush of images.

  Finally he chuckled, and they both began laughing helplessly.

  ***

  “Did you really have an alien being living in your head? Named Charlie?” A variety of expressions flickered across Dakota’s face as she reviewed the downloaded images in her mind.

  The question brought a fresh wave of pain. He pressed at the bridge of his nose for a moment, waiting for it to subside. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I sure did.” He snorted. “Hated the little bugger at first, too. But then . . .” His voice fell away. It had been so sudden, the way Charli had been taken from him.

  Dakota’s eyes filled with sympathy. “You really miss him. Or her. Don’t you?”

  He couldn’t speak. He simply nodded.

  She closed her eyes again, clearly processing more knowledge about him, as her stones released it to her. “Jesus, you’ve lost a lot. Your world, and all the people you cared about.”

  “Except you. Now.”

  She grinned briefly. “But Julie. And . . .” She pressed a finger to her cheek. “Oh! Tell me about Antares! The stones showed me a picture of her. Is she as beautiful as your memory says? Is she important to you—?”

  “Oh, yes. And who is this Harrad fellow? Tell me all about him.”

  For the next hour, they talked intently, and without interruption.

  ***

  One of the officers burst into the wardroom with a message for Bandicut. “A friend of yours—Lee Jarrod?—is on his way here from the planet ahead of us, Karellia, and will be arriving soon. Your other officers thought you might want to return to your ship to meet them.”

  “That was fast,” Bandicut said. To Dakota he added, “Li-Jared is from Karellia, and has been away from his home as long as I have. Until we came here, on this mission. Do you want to meet him? And the others?”

  “Now, what do you think?” Dakota said with a laugh. “But Captain Brody will want to record it, at least. You know, first contact and all.”