Time Past

by Maxine McArthur

  I grabbed his, and dragged him away from the immediate range of Venner’s weapon. We backed toward the crowd. No need to carry bravado too far.

  Venner dropped into a half crouch and her eyes swiftly scanned the area. She backed toward her people, who were clumped together around Serat.

  The cannier members of the crowd began to ease toward the sides of the throughway and back into the buildings, remembering the last extinguisher “test.” In the center, the bald man and the woman who’d stepped forward from the other side of the crowd had been joined by three, five, ten, twenty more. They all stayed put, as if reclaiming the area from the New Council.

  This alarm wasn’t supposed to activate. Murdoch was merely using the extinguisher system up on Level Eight to effect the explosion. We hadn’t felt any vibrations—then again, we’d never blown up part of the center and I wasn’t sure how much of the shock would transmit to the rings.

  I managed to catch Desai’s eye at last. He made a sweeping motion with one hand. I took it to mean stay back, or down, or something. I shook my head, meaning, don’t attack them.

  Venner wouldn’t abandon Serat. The New Council crew kept pushing him toward the uplift. They hadn’t found maglevs—nobody left tools lying around in the Hill.

  The alarm shifted into high gear. Stone was yelling at me but I couldn’t hear a thing. Then with a hearty whoosh, the fire retardant sprayed from every outlet. I managed to turn my face away in time, but a large dollop fell on my head and for a moment I was blinded. Someone bumped into me and I stumbled. Someone else bumped into me on the other side.

  By the time I wiped enough of the powder-turned-slime off my eyes to see, Desai and his people had taken the opportunity to grapple with the New Council around a still-immobile Serat. The powder would have rendered the New Council’s laser weapons useless, at least for the second the Security forces needed to attack. There were several fist-fights going on at once, with members of the crowd joining in, but I couldn’t see Venner. I couldn’t think, not with that alarm screaming at me. I pushed forward through the scrum of bodies—the rest of the crowd was eager to see the fun. Stone had disappeared. Desai was wrenching the arm of a New Council crew member and trying to keep two excited Garokians from hitting that crew member with the soaking union flag. An Serat seemed rooted to the deck.

  Venner was already at the uplift, fighting a rearguard action with three of her crew. She’d finally given up trying to move Serat. She drew a concealed plasma pistol from her vest and fired at a security guard and three burly humans. One of the humans rolled away screaming and holding his arm.

  The uplift doors opened. Venner met my eyes for the last time and raised her weapon in salute. The doors closed. I bumped into one of the Tirenni, who pushed me back, and I skidded toward the spoke, thudded stickily against the control panel, and recoiled away in case I hit the uplift controls. We don’t want the New Council coming back down. I wanted Venner back in the center, into her shuttle, and away in that freighter.

  Stone squelched over to me. His soaked head was as smooth as a seal and his suit jacket hung half off one shoulder. He yelled something at me. The alarm cut off halfway through.

  “... stop, ” he shouted, then in a normal voice. “Can we stop them?”

  The controls showed the uplift was going all the way to Level One. It also showed a red warning light on Level Eight. Murdoch’s explosion must have taken out the crawler access there. I should feel anxious about Murdoch but after facing Venner’s laser, all I felt was astonishment that I was still here. Every action was a bonus. Even talking to Stone felt good.

  “We don’t want to stop them,” I said. “And thank you for backing me up.” Bloody good thing he did, I told myself. You were lucky.

  He tried to comb retardant out of his eyelashes with fingers already sticky. “You’re welcome. Don’t bet on me ever doing it again, though.”

  Serat hadn’t responded to the noise and movement around him. His silver suit was streaked with brown from the retardant slime but he just stood there.

  I tried to activate sensors on the spoke panel to see what was happening in the center, but my gooey fingers slipped uselessly around the touch pad.

  The uplift indicator showed Venner’s car had stopped at Level One.

  Commander Halley, this is the Bubble. Can you hear me? said Lee’s voice in the flat monotone of someone who’d been repeating the same words for a long time. The comm unit on the spoke panel was active.

  “This is Halley. How did Level Eight go? Sensors are dead down here.”

  Lee’s voice perked up. Chief Murdoch just called in. They had a bit of trouble before the end. Signal interference.

  Venner might have been attempting to get her Q’Chn back.

  The exercise was a success, he said. They confirmed three bodies.

  Stone and I looked at each other. The second victory over Q’Chn since their reincarnation.

  “We can’t get external sensor readings down here,” I said. “What are the New Council ships and Vengeful doing?”

  The New Council freighter is pulling out now, on a course to the other side of the system. The last shuttle from Level One just reached them.

  Venner was on her way.

  Vengeful is waiting for all the fighters. Looks like they’re pulling back from the jump point.

  And the other Q’Chn on Vengeful would hopefully go to follow Venner. “Did we pick up any more of their communications?” I said.

  Not after the freighter left dock.

  “Was there any damage to Level Eight?” Stone leaned over me into the pickup.

  The chief says about what they expected. But says more peripheral damage might show up over the next few days.

  Stone frowned, no doubt thinking of his repair budget. It wasn’t large—I’d been pestering Earth for years to give us more resources for maintenance. And he needn’t worry; if Lorna was right, I’d be paying off the repairs for the rest of my life.

  “Tell him congratulations from me,” I said. “I’m on my way to the Bubble. Tell Gamet we need that autolaunch for Level Three Bay 12. And keep me informed of Vengeful ’s movements.”

  Yes, ma’am.

  “You know.” Stone tugged at my wet sleeve. “As this exercise was under your supervision, you should sign the damage reports.”

  “But I’m not head of station anymore.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You don’t get out of it that easily. You took charge because you’re governor and therefore the responsibility rests with you.”

  “We need to sign them together, then.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  A semihysterical giggle rose in my throat. We’d just averted a major crisis and he wanted to argue about signatures. The commotion behind us, which had slackened off when the alarm ceased, started again.

  “Look out!”

  “He’s moving!”

  “Coming...”

  A Security whistle gurgled. Both Stone and I spun around, and saw the brownish slime-colored form of An Serat rolling toward us.

  “Stay back,” I yelled at the constable who was about to stand in front of the Invidi. “He’s armed.”

  The constable stared disbelievingly at me, but she did step back. A babble of voices rose in the background.

  I stepped forward to meet An Serat, being careful not to get too close or directly in front of him.

  “An Serat.”

  No response.

  “An Serat, it’s me, Halley.”

  His pace slowed.

  “We need you to help us get Farseer —your ship—away from the station. But please don’t use it. The ship has changed. It’s too dangerous.”

  He was about two meters from me when he spoke. His voicebox sounded normal again. “I cannot stop this path... I cannot achieve the end without changing.”

  “You can’t beat it. It nearly killed you. You’ll just become like it. It’s what the Tor do best.”

  He said nothing, then began moving again,
past me to the uplift entry. “If I must become, I must become.”

  “Is it worth finding that place—what you said—if you’re not yourself to know you find it?” I ran around and past him so I reached the entry first. Behind Serat, Stone spread his hands helplessly.

  “You know that one of the points destabilized in the past? It could happen again if you use Farseer. I’m sure that’s what Barik meant.”

  “I do not see the end.” He kept moving until I could have reached out and touched his tentacle.

  He stopped and we stood, nose to suit.

  “Your end?” I said. “Or the end to this conflict? You said you stopped looking into the future, so of course you can’t see anything. This is what being free is, you know. You have to choose. You can’t see how things will turn out.”

  He swung his tentacle away from me. The voicebox tone was changing back to the coldness he’d had on Farseer. “I choose to change.”

  I stepped aside. “Then get off my station.” Serat slapped his tentacle onto the control panel but the lift didn’t open. I nearly laughed. Great, now we want him out of here, the station won’t let him go.

  The uplift doors opened with a wet swish.

  An Serat was in the uplift and the doors clicked closed.

  I let my knees finally give way and slid down the curved wall of the spoke. Stone and Desai were talking about what happened, or they were talking to someone on the comm link. I found it difficult to concentrate.

  “... Level Three.”

  “Intercept if we...”

  Maybe I was wrong about the unstable point. The radiation could have been from another source or for another reason. Why would the jump point suddenly destabilize? Serat said the Tor had dragged the point back four years to 2122 and thus also to 2023— Calypso went through it once, I went through it, Murdoch went through it, and it remained stable. Yet two days after we left Earth, it seemed to have exploded or imploded or disappeared, whatever unstable jumps do. The only thing that could have changed during those two days must have been Farseer opening a new point to Jocasta right next to the old one. Murdoch and I had gone past the old coordinates, then jumped. Two jump points next to each other in space. Could that have created the instability? Or maybe it was the way Farseer opened the jump, with its Tor technology. Knowing Tor aggression, possibly Farseer ’s point had interfered with the other in some way.

  That still didn’t mean it would happen the next time Serat tried to use Farseer. Unless he opened a new point next to an old one again.

  The voices made me jump. Had I dropped off for a few minutes? “Halley?” Stone crouched down beside me. “He’s getting away.” I focused on him with difficulty. “We want him to get away. We’re letting go.”

  He stared at me and I managed to smile at him. Serat had taken Farseer, I’d never get a chance to look at it again. Probably never get a chance to look at a jump drive again. But the Tor threat to Jocasta’s opsys was gone, and Stone had stood with me. There were other ways to resist the Confederacy than getting the jump drive.

  Ten minutes later I hurried up to the Bubble. After Venner’s freighter left Jocasta, Lee had tracked it almost into the asteroid belt that extended to the next planet’s orbit. Even ConFleet would find it difficult to follow in there. Closer to Jocasta, Vengeful finished taking the fighters on board and started to follow Venner, to everyone’s relief.

  But then Lee had called me to say Vengeful was taking a detour—to attack Farseer, which was also heading away from the station in flatspace.

  When I arrived, the atmosphere in the Bubble was more relaxed than earlier today. We’d disposed of the Q’Chn and the New Council threat, after all. And also the threat few of the residents knew about— Farseer ’s attempt to draw energy from our opsys.

  Stone had come up, too, and crowded me as we leaned over Lee’s console.

  “We thought the Invidi was heading for the Central jump point,” said Lee. “But he’s turning to head under our planet’s orbit. That’s the other way from the Central point,” she added for Stone’s benefit, as he was watching the wrong set of readouts.

  “Why is Vengeful following him?” said Stone.

  “Maybe the Q’Chn want revenge on the Invidi too,” said Lee.

  She was probably right. The Q’Chn could know nothing of Farseer ’s special abilities, nor had they shown any inclination to capture an Invidi ship.

  On the screen, Vengeful fired on Farseer. It was nearly in range, pushing Farseer off its chosen course.

  “If that ship’s unarmed,” said Lee, “it won’t be much of a fight. The cruiser’s got more thruster power.”

  “They’ve nearly got him,” Stone said excitedly.

  I shook my head. “He’ll jump first.”

  Lee ran her finger over the screen. “He can’t jump, he’s going the other way from the point.”

  “He has to jump,” I said. “It’s why he uses Farseer. He has to jump to get to the between place.”

  They stared at me, but I didn’t mind. “And anyway, he won’t go through the Central jump because his enemies are waiting on the other side.”

  The crew moved around, watched their stations, spoke in low voices. The Bubble pinged, hummed, hissed, beeped, and now booped around me.

  “The place you and Chief Murdoch appeared,” said Lee suddenly. She began to tap through navigational records on the adjoining screen. “Dan Florida was here before the New Council came, asking for the exact coordinates.”

  I compared her results with Farseer ’s present position. “Didn’t think so. They’re nowhere near there now.”

  Murdoch and I opened a new point with Farseer at coordinates close to the old Calypso II point in 2023, but the two sets of coordinates weren’t close in 2122. We’d appeared in Farseer on the Central point side of the station, on the outer side of the planet’s orbit. But Calypso appeared on the sun side of the planet, near a smaller asteroid belt, and I’d left from there in Calypso II.

  And that was the direction Vengeful was chasing Farseer right now. I used Lee’s adjoining screen to search for the Calypso point’s exact coordinates. Farseer was heading near them, but not right for them. Even so, I felt a coldness on the back of my neck. Surely Serat knew that point would destabilize soon. He’d been on Earth on 16 May when it happened.

  “ Vengeful ’s gaining,” said Stone. He stood on my toe as he edged around the console to get a better view.

  By now the entire Bubble was watching, breathless.

  Why didn’t Farseer retaliate, I wondered. Surely the Tor parts of it could modify existing equipment into a weapon. Vengeful was within range now. The Q’Chn were fools, to spend this long chasing one small prey instead of following Venner to safety.

  Vengeful fired burst after burst. We could only see it on the tactical display, it was too far away for visual sensors. I looked over at the spectral display. That gave Vengeful ’s position as a bright patch of light, glowing as each volley was fired. Farseer was a different color, steadily burning in a line like a comet as it kept on its course.

  An Serat must be trying to get into the asteroid belt and then beyond. But he’ll be too late.

  Vengeful fired again and Farseer made the jump.

  It took us all by surprise. One minute the readings were normal, the next, everything rose off the scale. Or dropped, depending on the display.

  On tactical, a small whirling dot opened rapidly, Farseer ’s signal superimposed upon it.

  “Shit, that is a jump.” The first time I’d heard Lee swear. “You were right.”

  “Look at Vengeful, ” someone said.

  The cruiser veered as quickly as its lateral thrusters would allow, to avoid charging into the jump point. The Q’Chn apparently didn’t chase prey that far. But the space they veered into was changing, too.

  As the jump point and Farseer intensified in its normal burst of radiation, space nearby began to change. Every set of sensor data we had on that area showed massive disturbances. All ov
er the Bubble lights flared and signals blipped.

  “Never seen a jump do that,” said someone else.

  “It’s not the jump,” said Lee.

  On the visual display, the area of space around Vengeful seemed to bubble. The stars and nebulae beyond stretched, distorted. A bright ring formed, seeming to enclose it, then dispersed into auroralike shimmering.

  “What the...” Lee pored over the tactical readouts. “It’s some kind of gravimetric radiation, that’s all I can tell.”

  Vengeful ’s readings had disappeared, swamped in the surge of radiation. The Q’Chn would never get back to the New Council. Ninety-nine years ago this happened in space near the solar system on the other side of the jump point, now it’s happening here, on our side.

  “Look at the jump point,” said Stone. “Is it supposed to do that?”

  The tactical showed Farseer ’s signal, motionless, in a bright spot of jump point also unmoving. For a second I thought the screen had simply frozen. Then the confused distortion of the destabilized point next to it grew larger, reached out and around the frozen whorl of the jump point, sending out amoebic arms as if to embrace it. The jump point and Farseer also became blurred, distorted, and started to glow red. For a moment we were looking at a twisting red cloud. It seemed like Farseer was trying to free itself. Then the center of the cloud glowed brighter and brighter until the protective cutoff shut down the screen.

  We looked away and blinked or rubbed our eyes until the afterimages ceased to block the sight of the Bubble’s wall monitors and consoles. One of the ensigns held his hand up in front of his eyes. Stone pressed on his eyelids.

  Seconds later the screen came on again and we all craned to see. The red glow was shrinking far more quickly than it grew. Shrank to a dot, winked out. Only dark space remained. An eerily beautiful thing to be the end of a dream.

  Epilogue

  Murdoch said he’d come to see me after he got through Customs and reentry processing. He was on leave from EarthFleet after staying behind on Jocasta for a week after I’d left. Both my asylum hearing and the processing of EarthFleet charges had to be done on Earth, however much I would have liked to remain on the station.