Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  And now she thought that she felt within this thread the faint imprint of her ephemeral friend Ik. How odd, she thought. How very odd. How had Ik become a part of something like this? She might have doubted her own impressions, except that her ephemeral-stones, the gift from her friends, were prickling within her. They detected something, also. What they detected seemed to be others of their own kind. Ik’s? Dark wondered.

  “I think I see. I must get closer.”

  Dark tried to push inward. But the ghostly thread proved difficult to approach. Her movement toward it seemed to nudge it away and distort it; perhaps her mass and energy were too great to be near. She felt a clear pang of danger. Don’t force! Whatever this thread was, the boundary was too delicate; it was endangered by her proximity.

  She heard, or felt, Charli speaking to her.

  /// You have found them, yes? ///

  “Ik, yes, I believe.” About the one called Julie, she was not certain. But now her stones spoke softly and reported that they sensed more than one pair of stones in that place. The quarx said,

  /// They need our help to

  get back to Shipworld. ///

  Dark did not know how to answer that. She had many abilities, but it seemed something more was needed. “What is wrong with them?”

  /// The thread that anchors them to their home

  has become weakened, and they have nearly

  slipped out of its grasp. ///

  Dark pondered. Ik had been an important friend in their battle at Starmaker. And Julie a friend of John Bandicut’s? Surely there had to be a way.

  She spoke carefully. “I want to help. But I cannot approach without disrupting the thing they are a part of.”

  /// I see that.

  I cannot touch them directly, either.

  I can try to speak to them.

  But I cannot bring them back into the stream

  or to safety. ///

  Dark suddenly had an idea. Perhaps, she thought. If she will come help. If she is strong enough.

  ***

  Bria had the sneaky pleasure of surprising Dark, when Dark started back to the ship to look for her. Bria had followed Dark, right up to the point at which the cloud had vanished into the starstream. There the gokat had stopped, feeling not quite sure enough of where she was going to follow Dark inside.

  They were a long way from the ship where Ruall and her friends huddled, but only in a certain light. Really, it wasn’t that far at all—just a matter of slipping out of four-space down the quarto fractal slide, tesserating one-and-three-quarters times around to catch an offshoot of spindle-space—and then, when she was close, simply hopping across the gap to the outside of the starstream. She could see Dark through the starstream wall, and it seemed that she was talking to someone.

  After a time, Dark slipped back out. She sang a surprised greeting when she saw Bria. At first, there was a hint of remonstration in her greeting—and it was true, she had instructed Bria to stay with the ship, which Bria had not done. But there was no harm done, and soon Dark welcomed Bria into her protective presence. Bria felt relief and warmth there. She was more tired from her trip here than she’d expected.

  But the question that bubbled up was, Why had Dark been looking for her?

  The explanation followed, and to Bria the problem Dark outlined came as a welcome challenge. True, Bria was still healing from the battle with the malevolent Mindaru. But she was also restless, and a chance to do something appealed to her, especially if it involved an adventure with Dark. Bria sometimes wondered if the others—including Ruall—truly appreciated Dark’s gokat-like abilities, or her contributions to their cause.

  Dark’s request made Bria feel needed. She was sure she could do it.

  ***

  “Bria!” Dark began abruptly, even though she was deeply gladdened to see the gokat. “We need your help! Two ephemerals are in danger in the starstream. They are friends of our friend John Bandicut. Do you know which is John Bandicut?”

  Bria said she did. He was the one who hopped around a lot, and sometimes became overly excited.

  “No,” said Dark, “that is Li-Jared. John Bandicut is his friend. And his friend Charli is the one who sometimes spoke from out of nowhere, and became separated when we flew out of the starstream.”

  /Charli/, Bria repeated back to her, and indicated that she had been aware of Charli, but had never seen her, separate or apart from John Bandicut.

  “Charli is here, now, in the starstream. You may be able to talk to her. You may have to, if we are to save our friends from dying.”

  Bria did not seem to understand. Dark tried to explain, but they did not have enough language in common to make it clear. Finally Dark said, “Our friends are in a place where I cannot reach them. But perhaps you can. Will you try? And lead them back here, if you can?”

  The gokat made a low yowl of willingness. Dark opened a window and tried to show her the dimensional folds that would take her to where Ik and the other were located. Bria bobbed and twisted her head. Before Dark could judge whether it was clear enough, and whether Bria was strong enough, the gokat was gone, vanished through a pocket of n-space.

  Chapter 27

  Gokat Rescue

  THE QUARX’S HEART was heavy with worry as she watched Dark bring the gokat into this space, and then send her on again through the confusing geometry of the starstream and the two other streams entwined with it. Charli felt certain that the danger to Ik and Julie was growing with the fading strength of the Karellian timestream. Those two had come here through their own Shipworld stream. But that thread had become so intertwined with the starstream and the Karellian time tide that it was difficult to distinguish one from another. It seemed as if it was all coming unraveled.

  What could the gokat do? Would she put herself at risk, as Julie and Ik had? Would she understand the risk she was taking?

  Charli resisted an impulse to stop her. If the gokat could work her way through the folds of space and time all the way to the two, perhaps she really could do some good.

  And so Charli watched, her nerves on fire with worry. Bria was in a labyrinth with multiple dimensions; the possibilities were endless. It wasn’t long, in fact, before Bria took a turn into a channel that Charli could see would lead only to a cul-de-sac in the manifolds of space-time. She called across the dimensions to the gokat:

  /// Bria, that is the wrong way! ///

  Bria jumped at her voice like a tiny fish startled by a shadow. Charli spoke again, more softly this time, and the gokat seemed to relax a little. But when Charli suggested backtracking, Bria grew agitated and darted around with increasing urgency.

  /// Bria, let me try to tell you

  what you’re looking for.

  It’s like a thread with a vibration.

  And that vibration is moving . . . ///

  But as Charli tried to explain, it became apparent that none of this was explainable to the gokat, who had a remarkable talent for moving through such things, but without any abstract understanding of what it all meant. If Charli could just show her . . . then perhaps Bria could get to Julie and Ik—and perhaps lead them back from the edge of the abyss, to where the temporal strands were stronger.

  Was there some way to illuminate the path, or maybe give her simpler, more progressive instructions?

  /// Bria. Can you understand if I say go UP? ///

  Off in the maze, the small, distant figure of the gokat veered sideways.

  /// No, that’s LEFT.

  Can you raise your head and tip it back? ///

  Bria bobbed uncertainly. Charli wondered if there was some other way to say it . . . Suddenly Bria raised her nose and went up.

  /// Yes—that’s UP! ///

  And when the gokat bobbed down again, Charli called:

  /// That’s DOWN! ///

  Soon they had a working language of basic directions. It was time to get moving in a better direction.

  /// Good! Good!

  Let’s move fo
r real now.

  Go up—yes!—and now left! ///

  Bria soon turned down a channel between two folded layers of n-space; then, when a passageway opened to her right, she turned into it. This should take her toward Ik. But for Charli, the view was becoming cloudier, the correct path harder to pick out. A moment later, Bria crossed a subtle boundary within the ghostly time-travel streams, and Charli’s view began to break up.

  /// Bria, wait!

  I’m losing my connection to you!

  Look around for Julie and Ik!

  Do you see them?

  Watch carefully where you go, so you can

  find your way back. ///

  Bria stopped abruptly, suddenly afraid to go on alone.

  This was going to be nearly impossible. Charli hesitated, considering her options. Then she reached out in a way she had not done in a long time. Perhaps, she thought, she could join minds with Bria long enough to carry out this rescue . . .

  /// Bria, can you back up a little?

  Do you mind if I try something?

  It won’t hurt, but it might feel strange. ///

  Bria remained still, waiting. When Charli slipped across the intervening space and time, and into her mind, she felt the gokat’s sudden surprise. Bria hadn’t expected her right here in her mind. To Charli, too, there was an element of the unexpected. This is not John Bandicut. Do not expect the same reactions. It should have been obvious, but it wasn’t, and her landing in the gokat’s mind was rather graceless.

  /// I am sorry.

  Be patient. ///

  The creature was quick of mind and fleet of movement, and she adapted readily. Where Bandicut had a deep reservoir of thought and opinion and questioning, Bria was all zippy input and output, reaction and quick-thought. She lived at a different pace. There were layers in the gokat’s mind, for sure; but her inner world was a fast-moving place, full of shifting planes and dazzling flashes of light. Charli sensed Bria’s intense desire to pursue her mission, to save these people, to bring them safely back to their other friends. But it had to be done soon, because the world was a roiling and dangerous place.

  Charli felt some hope. But she also felt herself stretched dangerously thin. There was one thing she could do. Did she dare? What choice did she have? Without giving herself time to think any more about it, she cut this part of her consciousness loose from her main self. It felt risky, but she had to; she could not stretch to where Bria was going. It was jarring to divide herself like that—too much like the first time she had gone from Bandicut to Deep, during the Starmaker flight, a jump that had nearly killed her for good. She tried to hide her unease from Bria, but the gokat picked up on it right away and became agitated.

  Charli tried to speak soothingly.

  /// Hello, Bria.

  Where we’re going,

  I think we have to go together. ///

  Bria quivered. But she did not object.

  ***

  Something changed for Julie—a tangible sensation, like a prickling under her skin, strong enough to interrupt the dizzying endless vibration between past and future. But what exactly had changed? /Stones? Do you know?/

  The stones were silent. They seemed scarily gloomy, as if they had hit a wall and run out of ideas. That was unthinkable. /Are you still there?/ With the starry space swallowing her, it was easy to imagine that the stones had vanished, or never existed in the first place.

  The answer was a sharp poke. What was that supposed to mean? Was she being told to pay attention? To what? She focused on her surroundings. A semblance of the meadow was back, enough to provide a shadowy ground in the night. /I see movement! Is that what you mean?/

  Was it a thing moving, against what little remained of the terrain?

  There it is again! It was a tiny triangle poking up from behind a vague mound-shape. The flat base of the triangle was on top, with the point at the bottom, like a chin. A head? It was shiny in the starlight. There were two cartoon eyes up near the top. The head rotated one way and then the other, and when it did, it almost vanished into two dimensions, the way Rings-at-Need did. /Hello!/ Julie called. At once she felt foolish. There could hardly be a living creature here, surely. It had to be some kind of illusion, created by her mind.

  *No,* the stones said. *We think it is real.*

  Julie was shocked. Real? What was it, then? And why was it here?

  ***

  The creature that Charli had asked Bria to find was at the end of a long maze, in a kind of place that looked to Bria like “between dimensions.” Was she trapped? Why didn’t she move? Bria couldn’t quite make out her body, but there was something about her that reminded Bria of John Bandicut.

  Charli, sharing the gokat’s vision and even her thoughts, was so filled with relief and joy at seeing Julie that for a moment she almost forgot why she was here. But Bria was moving quickly, no time for sentimentality, and that prompted the quarx to speak. She did so quickly, hoping that between their seeming proximity and their stones, her words would reach Julie.

  /// Can you see us, Julie?

  Can you hear us? ///

  An answer came haltingly, /Who are you? I see . . . something. Someone? How is this possible?/

  /// We are a gokat named Bria.

  But we are also a quarx named Charli,

  and friend of John Bandicut.

  We have come to help you. ///

  All the while, another part of Charli was thinking, I hope I’m right about what you need—and that I can make you understand.

  From Julie, there came waves of confusion and disbelief.

  ***

  When the thing that looked like a creature spoke to Julie, she heard it through her stones, just the way she heard the translator. That alone was enough to make her shiver. But when it said . . . quarx named Charli . . . she was so stunned she hardly knew how to react.

  John Bandicut had mentioned a “quarx,” way back when he left Neptune.

  She tried to remember: a lifetime ago, in a message he’d left when he stole the spaceship from Triton, John had spoken of an alien called a quarx. Hadn’t he said it was a noncorporeal being, speaking to him in his head, possibly through his translator-stones? This is insane. Am I slipping away, dreaming before death?

  Before her, the meadow was dissolving again, pitching up and down like flotsam on a choppy sea. But perched there, riding up and down on the waves, was that small, triangular-headed creature that said it was Bria, a gokat. And also Charli, a quarx. John’s quarx?

  /Stones,/ Julie whispered, reeling. /Help me! This is unreal! Am I dying?/

  *Strange and unexpected . . .*

  /Just tell me—am I dreaming? Dreaming or dying/

  *No . . . no . . . not dying, no.* The stones stirred with hope and said, *We lived with the quarx even before John Bandicut.*

  /You what? Well, then . . . / She strained to think clearly. Could it really be the quarx John had known? Or was it something pretending to be the quarx? She thought quickly and asked, /If you are really the quarx, who is Dakota?/

  The voice that answered seemed to cry out with delight.

  /// Dakota! John’s niece!

  We met her in the starstream! ///

  Julie was stunned all over again. Met her in the starstream? That was too weird. But weirder than this? She took a long, deep breath. /Please—are you nearby? Or are you calling from a long way away? From home base? From Shipworld?/

  /// Not Shipworld, no.

  I am in the starstream with Bria,

  whom you see here.

  I was with John a long time,

  until we got separated . . . ///

  Julie’s mind flailed. Too much, too much . . . /I don’t understand!/ she cried. /You said you came to help? Can you find Ik? Can you get us back to Shipworld?/

  For a few seconds, she was so excited, she could hardly hear what the quarx was saying. But finally words came through.

  /// Your stones. Do you have translator-stones? ///

  /
Yes. Yes!/

  /// Can they hear what I’m telling you? ///

  The stones themselves answered, and she could have sworn she heard joy in their voice, as if they were just now believing what they heard. *We hear the quarx. We know the quarx.*

  Julie felt a rush of joy herself at that, followed by confusion. In front of her, the gokat was dancing and shuffling, as though eager to get going somewhere. Was she supposed to follow it? How?

  /// Listen closely.

  You must follow Bria. Follow the gokat.

  We will guide, but you must follow.

  Your stones can do this. ///

  Follow a gokat across space-time? She didn’t even know what a gokat was! It was preposterous.

  But it was all she had. /Can you do this?/ she asked her stones.

  *We will do that.*

  She took a deep breath and forced the doubts out of her mind. She listened as the quarx gave her instructions. Then the gokat turned, stretched upward to her left, and jumped. And she jumped after it.

  ***

  As far as Ik could tell, he was wobbling back and forth on a shifting piece of ice in a hostile sea. High above the ice floes, the sky was luminous with nebulas and star clusters, shifting and flaring. Under other circumstances, he might have appreciated the view, but right now it terrified him.

  There was a constant buzz . . . pastfuturepresentfuturepastpresentfuturepast . . . and it was getting worse.

  But a moment came when that droning fell silent before something new: a voice calling out to him, calling him by name. It wasn’t Julie, and he didn’t think it was his voice-stones. But he was feeling lightheaded and unsure. How much longer before he simply faded and ceased to be? But this voice was insistent, calling out:

  /// Ik! Can you hear me, Ik? ///

  He started to answer, but then he held back, because he was afraid it was all in his imagination.

  And then it said something that jolted him:

  /// I am Charli!

  John Bandicut’s quarx.

  Can you hear me? ///

  Ik gasped through his ears in disbelief. At last he replied, /From Shipworld? Are you calling from Shipworld? Is John Bandicut there? Where is Julie? Can you help me?/