Kicking Ashe

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Shan looked at the fallings pattern and found it hard to disagree. “It is…sentient?”

  “Hard to say, though sometimes it seems like it. Could be an instinctual response to stimuli.” Her expression turned reflective. “When you’re in it, it feels alive.”

  Now his eye twitched. “When you are in it? Are we not in time right now?”

  “We’re in, well, real time. In the stream, you’re out of real time, in all time. Kind of.” She grimaced.

  “Kind of?”

  “We exist here, but time—past, present and future—is all around us. And there is a way to get into that higher flow, that stream of time.”

  “Time travel.”

  “It is possible to traverse time in the stream, to move back and forth in it, but it’s a very imprecise science.”

  His other eye began to twitch now.

  “Think of it as a plain—sort of, though also like an ocean, swirling and shifting, in constant motion. It exists, our past, present and future, all together, on this plain. Within it, there are stable points around which Time moves. When those points become unstable or move, then the stream becomes volatile. It sends up distress flares. And that’s where we come in.”

  He stared at the horror that Keltinar Prime had become. “This is unstable.”

  “This isn’t about a city, Vidor.” Color washed her face, as if she weren’t sure she should have used his name.

  “My brother calls me, Vid.”

  Her smile eased his inner tension some. “Vid. The city is unstable because of you.”

  “Me? I have done nothing—”

  “You didn’t do it. I told you someone was gunning for you.” She bit her lip. “We think you’re one of those stable points, that something or someone messed with your life, maybe tried to kill you. Or shifted you out of your proper time. When that happens, Time ripples backwards and forwards in messy ways. The distress flare goes up. Time doesn’t like getting messed with. It messes back. And this could be the result.”

  Once again his mind slowed. He didn’t believe her. He believed her. These incompatible beliefs slowed his thoughts even more. Shock did not help. It was impossible. The impossible just takes longer.

  He latched on to the only palatable idea. “You think this can be repaired, my world restored.”

  “We are hoping that’s why Time brought us here.”

  “Why don’t you know, if you are time experts?”

  “When I set off that big bang, it tossed us into new territory. The only thing we are sure is—”

  “What?”

  “Time is persistent.”

  A fuel cell indicator flashed a warning. They needed to land as soon as possible. He adjusted course, the movements automatic, his thoughts still spinning. “But?” She hadn’t said it, but there was one.

  “We have to deal with the person messing with your life. That hasn’t been sorted yet, or so it seems. And if we don’t—”

  He spared her a quick look as he initiated landing procedure.

  “—time will continue to suffer time shocks and after shocks and instabilities. It will continue to toss us around until—”

  Both eyes already twitched. Both temples hurt. Shock gripped like iron. He had no words. His body had no responses left to deploy. So he brought the craft in low, dropping it into a clearing before what had been the gates to his family’s compound, deep inside what had been his stratum sector. “Until?”

  “I don’t know. It’s got all of time to play with.”

  “And if you fail?

  He stared at the broken columns that had once sported his family ensign. He’d believed his thoughts frozen, but now that the craft was still, he realized his thoughts spun around something he did not want to acknowledge, because if he did—

  “Failure is not an option.”

  He might have smiled at this, except, “You believe you know who it is.”

  “Yes.” She managed to make the single syllable both subdued and apologetic.

  His circling thoughts tightened. Only those you trust can betray you. If he trusted her—and he did—then…like a bird of prey, the spiral of thoughts tightened into one, inescapable conclusion. “My brother.”

  NINE

  The skeletal remains of the residential sector had been visible from the air as they came in low, the remains and foundations a perverse, nasty quilt dividing the horrid landscape into semi-random shapes. Shan brought the craft down in a clearing, between some broken gates and a tumbled wall. What was left looked a bit feudal for the high tech toys the Keltinarians fought with, though it did seem apropos for the leather uniforms—except this was the future, so no. The glimpses she’d gotten of his culture and society were interesting, but ultimately confusing. If Timrick had been messing with Shan, as they suspected, he’d done a huge number on his home world. Did he know it? Did he care?

  My mother didn’t have a garden.

  This comment seemed to indicate a very different world from the one Shan lived in, and it might signify that time had indeed gone wrong, promulgating the crazy imbalance. Or it could mean that Shan belonged in a different time, one where there were gardens and colors and where men and women could walk the streets together, one where balance had finally been achieved. What she couldn’t figure out was why they’d been brought to the end of his world. Unless—Ashe didn’t want to think it—this was Shan’s present, Timrick’s present. And the time messing, the explosion and the time quake, had resulted in this.

  The grandfather paradox.

  If this were one, she better understood why the word paradox caused shudders and sober looks on the Time Base. Weren’t popular in her family either, which was a bit odd and quite logical, now that she thought about it.

  No emotion showed on Shan’s face as he shut down his engines. The lack of emotion chilled the air inside the hull even before the outside started digging through the metal. Shan hadn’t taken the news well or ill. He hadn’t yelled or shot her. He’d just…taken it. Time’s learning curve was as much of a bitch as Time. She sighed, wished they had time to help him ride the curve, regain his mental balance, but time waited for no man. And neither, she expected, would the bugs. Or the Zelk. Or Timrick.

  She’d made weapons a priority when loading the supplies, so they had the Keltinarian versions of long range energy weapons, flash bangs, knives—long and short—and grenades. Sometimes it seemed that the more weapons changed, the more they didn’t. What she didn’t have was much of a plan. Other than the variety of weapons and her usual determination to use as them as time allowed. She considered shooting the enemy a reasonable fall back position, but would that restore the time line or just satisfy her need to shoot someone?

  Ashe tried to think of anything that would break the awful silence. Couldn’t, so she headed to the rear and started strapping stuff on. If today was the day she died, she planned to go out with a bang. She had Lurch camo some of the stuff, left others for show. Strapped a couple of knives to her legs, inside the loose legs of the Keltinarian pants, tucked a hand weapon in the back of her waistband and another one inside the shirt, snug against her back, because more was always better as long as she didn’t clank when she moved. That would be tacky.

  Without comment, Vid—Ashe tried out the name in her mind, hoping to get used to using it before it all ended—joined her by the stack of weapons. He reached for a long-range weapon, then froze, his eyes on the deck. She looked down. Beads of gold flowed out of the deck and into her feet. The drones returning home. They flowed up her legs, erasing aches and bruises, did a run to the top of her head, before going dormant.

  Did you leave any in Vid? They could use them to communicate without words if he had. Lurch heaved something that made her stomach feel a bit meh.

  Of course. And a few in this ship’s systems. There is enough power left for us to use the weapons.

  Sorry. Maybe he really was over his issues with Vid. Or he knew they were going to die soon and there was no point having
issues.

  Ashe caught Vid looking at her a bit oddly. “What?”

  “You had a bruise here.” He touched the top of his cheekbone. “It…vanished.”

  “The nanites healed me. They healed you, too, after the crash. I thought I mentioned that.”

  “It is disconcerting to…observe.”

  She rubbed her cheek. His reaction was disconcerting. “I suppose.” She bit her lip, but had to ask. “Does it bother you? The healing? The nanites?”

  That he didn’t hurry to reassure her was a bummer. Rather large one.

  “Did the…nanites…form you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did they create you to carry them? Are you their…creature?”

  Creature? “No. They most certainly did not. I’m no different from you. A human host.” Why did the question hit hard? Hit her deep in that place that had been unsettled since the meeting with not-so-great grandma. Did you? Did you steer my DNA in her direction? Try to create her again? It was what the anti-nanite factions had feared most of all from the nanites. Genetic manipulation. She’d been so sure the nanites were too ethical, had been told that they were over and over again. Believed it without thought until that meeting. You are too like her, he’d said, for you to like each other. He’d been amused. Happy like he hadn’t been for so long.

  I did not make you.

  But? Cause she felt one in his words.

  I did…watch for one like her. I missed her.

  I’m not her.

  No.

  That quick denial hurt. He cared for her. Ashe felt it at the cellular level, cause that’s where he existed. But did he only like her because she was like not-so-great grandma?

  You have her courage, her tenacity, her stubbornness, you have a mind that loves to learn, that refuses to be stopped by obstacles. You both feel joy you both try to hide for fear it will make you vulnerable. But you are you as well. When our time is over, I will miss you for what is uniquely you, just as I miss her for the ways she was like no other.

  The words helped, but…you couldn’t have known I was like her when I was a baby.

  His sigh ruffled through her, warm and a bit sad. I did not. But I had seen her at her genetic level. Your genetics had…more potential than any in your family. It felt like moving in with an old friend. A pause. I am sorry if this pains you.

  Did it? She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. I guess she wasn’t totally awful if she’s like me. Actually wouldn’t mind having not-so-great grandma at her back right now.

  You have me. And you have Shan.

  Did she? She looked at him. When he looked at her did he see a freak? A creature? She’d believed he saw her, the essential Ashe. Now she wasn’t sure. And they didn’t have time to sort it out. So she flicked the weapon on, felt it hum as it powered up. “Do we have any life signs readings?” Assuming his sensors could detect the bugs. Already knew they couldn’t see the Zelk. Timrick, though—a screen came up inside her head, a blank screen.

  There is a dampening field of some kind blocking the sensors.

  Shan’s frown matched her own. She noted she’d backed off calling him Vid, but didn’t stay with the thought.

  “Could the electro-magnetics from the meteorite activity do it?”

  He shook his head. “This craft was created to hunt fallings. The sensors are shielded from that type of energy.” His tone was less cool, though she couldn’t call it warm.

  Ashe lifted her weapon to her chest, her back against the side of the bird. Gave him a cool smile in return. “Looks like we have another opportunity to excel.”

  He matched her moves, except his free hand rested on the hatch release. “I will go first.”

  “I’ll be on your six.”

  If he did a count, it was inside his head. He slammed the release. The hatch began to lower, exposing more and more of the bleak landscape. The half tumbled, stone ramparts reminded her of ancient war vids. But instead of snow piled against them, these appeared buried in gray dust. The ramp hit the ground, sending clouds of powder puffing out in rolling waves that quickly settled because the air did not move on its own here. The silence was deep—and a surprise. Shan lowered his weapon and paced to the end of the ramp, Ashe on his six.

  “The fallings. They have stopped.”

  He was right. Neither meteorites nor lightning broke the grayness of the brooding sky. Ashe angled her head. No soft rustles or clacking of insect legs. This silence felt different from the one in the building. It waited, but it didn’t watch. Seemed like a good thing, but might not be.

  Shan stepped down and stopped, as if waiting for the next bad thing to happen. When it didn’t, he paced forward, pausing next to a half tumbled tower of some sort. Ashe followed him, though it felt like a leap into a dark place to step off the ramp.

  “What was it?”

  “This marks the boundary of our compound. Our strata covered this whole section of the city.”

  “Big.”

  “It needed to be. Even with the limits on procreation,” he slanted her a look that seemed a bit provocative, “our clan continued to expand.”

  She studied the foundations of the buildings, marked by half fallen walls. Had to assume the thicker walls were outer walls, narrower marking out living spaces and traffic paths. Small buildings, narrow spaces between.

  “Did your people build up?” He nodded. “No wonder you like space travel. You needed the elbow room.”

  His face closed, his gaze shadowed.

  Was it the sight of his home? Or did memories of his family life trouble him, too?

  Ashe had lived with all of time, the past, present and future, flowing through her time senses, because of the Time Base. It had given her, or made her, a bit detached. She frowned. She did feel anchored knowing she could go home, that somewhere in the morass of time, her family existed. It was her fixed point, or had been. If they managed to get back to the Time Base. How would she feel if she went home and found this devastation? Or never made it home again?

  “What now?”

  I can initiate your distress beacon. It should draw the Zelk here.

  “And the part you don’t want to tell me?”

  It could attract the bugs.

  “No cover.” Not even some slightly high ground for them to occupy. Not a great spot for a trap.

  “We have hides in the craft.”

  “Hides?” Ashe ran down a list of definitions, but before she hit on one that made sense, the horizon quivered. Like rippling water, something flowed toward them, passed over with a small sizzle and then it was gone. “Did you feel that?”

  Shan nodded, his gaze making a wary survey. “Look.”

  She followed his pointing finger to a low wall. And the small, sad flower growing out of the crack. Wretched looking, it drooped against the wall, a single leaf on its stem. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s not—”

  “It is. It means we’ve shifted again. Back, when something still lived here.” Or shifted closer to what was supposed to be right? Did it mean Time was still working with them, trying to get Shan to his proper time? Or just batting them around?

  Before she could get all happy, Shan frowned. “If Time is shifting us, then why do we need to find—”

  “Time sent Lurch and I here for a reason.” Probably. Unless this was the work of the bad dude. Not that she thought Time was the good dude. Nor did she believe it was a dude. But it was bad if it was messing with them. So bad it should be ashamed of itself. If it had a self.

  You are making my circuits hurt. Again.

  Sorry. For way more than making his circuits hurt. Like getting on Time’s bad side. Lurch popped up a definition for hide that finally made sense. It was a kind of camo. Okay, well he could use it. She could use her holo-gear to hide. “We need to get your hide…thing deployed.”

  * * * *

  Though Shan knew where Ashe waited, he could not see her. The camo built in to her uniform blended her perfectly into
the gray dust that coated his world. He did not like the physical distance, though he understood the concept of divide and conquer. He disliked more the other distance that had opened between them. He’d seen pain flash in her eyes when he asked if the nanite had created her. He had not meant to do this, but he had to know if she were…human. She’d appeared real on the scans at the camp, had felt real, felt human when he held her, when he kissed her, but if she were some kind of cyborg, he had a right to know.

  She is more human than you are.

  The invasion of his thoughts was impertinent, a breach of privacy.

  If you hurt her again, I will fry your brain. How is that for impertinent?

  Shan was not sure if the nanite could carry out the threat, or what he might have said in response. It was a relief to feel the prickle on the back of his neck, to catch waves of movement ripple the horizon. It felt like a reprieve. Not that he needed one, though he was eager to get the party going. If they survived perhaps he would learn what a party was. The bleakness of the landscape worked against the chameleon properties of the Zelk this time. Everything was too still, so their movement could be seen in the distortion as they moved forward. Nor were there any ambient sounds to hide the soft creak of scales and the impact of booted foot to ground—which stirred up puffs of the gray dust. The small dust trails indicated at least two trevas incoming, could be more if some followed the trails made by first line.

  Two of the dust trails headed toward his locked down craft. Did it mean they hoped to capture his craft? Crew? The Zelk must know their ships did not carry multiple crew or assault forces, so why the large force?

  The silence inside his head felt more unsettling than the Zelk’s muted approach. And the odds of their survival just got worse. Can she hear me?

  If I wish it.

  Please. He felt them connect, felt a blast of ice, like a door opening on a winter storm.

  I am sorry. Did the chill abate some? When we—

  —make them go away?

  He grinned. Yes, when we make them go away, you will keep your promise. Her optimism felt unabated, despite the chill he still felt coming from her.