The walls were plain goldenwood panels, with the faint cracks and scratches of age that matched the indentations in the greystone underfoot. The door itself was of the black oak that was tougher than iron-wood, but the latch was simple. The lock was a simple bolt.
Since I didn’t feel like exploring at that moment, I folded the empty kit bag and put it on the top closet shelf. The notebooks beckoned, despite my lingering irritation with the doctor’s cavalier assumption that I would automatically assume whatever duties she had in mind.
So I picked up the one on top. No title on the flexible cover. The page inside read, Notes on Perceptual Thresholds in the Non-Time Interstice.
Instead of standing around and waiting for Deric, I sat down in one of the wooden chairs and began to read . . . very slowly. Some phrases made sense and squared with what I had already experienced—
“. . . travelling into the red represents apparent temporal regression . . . although whether such regression places the traveller into a backtime setting purely subjective in nature, a setting representing one of a series of alternative universes, or a flexible ‘real’ backtime position will require further observation . . .
“. . . gold (cold) orientation is non-mass/non-energy oriented . . . black (hot) represents mass/energy concentrations . . . in a quasi-logarithmic representation . . .
“. . . intensity of subjective colour perception appears related to the apparent temporal velocity . . .”
While others seemed so much gibberish . . .
“. . . autonomous unwilled determinism . . . as a manifestation of free will. . .
“. . . difficult if not impossible to ascertain the validity of the ancestral suicide theorem . . .
“. . . mass-cubed energy progressions inapplicable . . . or apparently so . . .”
“Are you ready?” The thin-faced blond man was standing by the half-open door I’d never bothered to close. “The doctor would be impressed . . .”
“Nothing else to do, and I might as well learn what I’m supposed to learn. It might even come in useful.”
He frowned, but I really didn’t care. “This way, then.” His voice wasn’t quite as cheerful.
“Who lives here—on this level?”
“Several technicians and three travellers, at the moment, I believe, and you, of course.”
I looked down the long straight corridor. On one side ran a line of windows, beginning at waist height and extending nearly to the inside roofline. On the other side were nearly a score of the heavy black oak doors.
Deric followed my eyes. “Only about half are occupied, now. A number of those associated with the project . . . left . . . with the disruptions.”
I nodded, not wanting to say more.
“Doctor Relorn anticipates we will be adding several more from your contingent.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know all the ConFeds personally, especially some of the senior forcers or the newer recruits.
Deric wiped a stray wisp of his thin blond hair back off his high forehead and began to walk down the corridor in uneven long strides.
“The Security Forces are billeted on the level below, while the senior project members are either in the few quarters in the main laboratory or in the family quarters.”
Deric only gestured at the first level corridor as we left the building. “Security quarters. On the first level on the other wing are the messing facilities.”
“And the second level?”
“Empty quarters, for now.”
His tone was so matter-of-fact that I didn’t bother probing. I used my undertime sight to study Deric while we crossed the old stone-paved road to the main laboratory. Trying to walk and look undertime, I stumbled and almost crashed into the side of the greystone archway leading up the wide front steps of the laboratory.
Deric cast a few sparks into the undertime. Not many, but enough that he could probably travel short distances.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Just looking and not watching where I was going.”
“. . . aaaccuuughhh . . .” My guide cleared his throat. “We’ll take the right-hand corridor. The first few offices are for administration, although we have little of that now. Beyond the double doors is our mathematical section . . .”
“Mathematical section?”
Deric raised his eyebrows again, this time further. “Someone has to calculate at least general directional vectors.”
“Oh . . .” I’d never needed vectors, but since I hadn’t tried stellar travel, perhaps I just hadn’t gone far enough to need them.
“Now that the main power net is gone, and we no longer have access to the mainframe at the university, we’ve had to simplify things somewhat.”
I really didn’t comprehend the complexity of the calculations he was describing. Still, I got the message. Mental travel or time-diving— whatever you called it—was a lot more complicated than I had realised. Either that, or I was more talented than the others. Or both.
We passed two open doors. The first held a young man sitting behind a desk, apparently waiting for something to happen or someone to enter. The second held an empty desk and chair, and several antique filing cabinets.
Next, we passed a closed door, with a wooden plate in the middle of the upper panel which proclaimed in gilded letters, “Mathematical Section.”
Farther down the corridor, Deric opened an unmarked door and stepped inside. The room was larger than the plain black oak door would have indicated, long and narrow, with nearly a score of black and white consoles lined up against each wall. Several blocked doorways, and two lighter coloured sections of wall panelling—each about a handspan wide— testified as to where interior walls had been removed.
Two men and three women were scattered along the rows, their backs to the aisle in the middle of the room. I wondered at the placement, since, for engineering hookup, it would have been easier to have placed the consoles back-to-back down the centre. That arrangement would have allowed more privacy as well.
“Your console is number fourteen, over there.”
I followed his gesture and walked as quietly as I could past a small dark-haired woman, who did not even glance up as I passed behind her.
Sure enough, on the console with the number fourteen was a brand-new nameplate—“Sammis.”
A notebook, similar to the others I had already received, lay on the flat surface beside the screen, while several datacubes were racked next to the input slot.
I nodded. Dr. Relorn definitely did not waste time. I wondered how she would do in a showdown with the colonel-general.
“We’ll come back later,” Deric added, moving up beside me.
I sniffed back an itch in my nose, refraining from scratching it. The room smelled both of dust and of long use.
The tall, thin man shambled back out through the same doorway, then down past the two doorways blocked on the inside by consoles. He turned right down another corridor, which narrowed into a covered walkway leading to the west wing of the laboratory building.
“Here’s the main travel laboratory.”
As Deric opened the door, I recognised the big enclosed space again, and mentally located the doctor’s quarters—down the corridor we had not taken.
“I’ve been here. That’s where I was tested.”
“Have you actually done any mental travel?” Deric’s tone was bland.
“From what you indicate is possible, nothing at all.”
“Well, learning it should be an interesting experience for you, then.”
I stared around the empty laboratory from the half-open doorway, wondering where the good doctor was. “You don’t operate this late?”
“We’re working back up to a full schedule, but our operations were curtailed by the lack of power.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” How did the lack of electrical power have anything to do with time-diving?
“Without power, we couldn’t run the gammas, or the necessary t
ime-vectors for the travellers . . .”
It sounded like all their divers were as blind as the good doctor. That or they couldn’t recognise what they saw. Trying to use charts in the undertime sounded difficult. Or were they trying to memorise them before diving? I shivered at the thought of all that memorisation.
“What next?”
“Down below are the electronics shop and the equipment rooms . . .”
“Good. I’d like to see them.” I said that because Deric clearly didn’t want to show them to me.
With a shrug, he turned and waited for me to back away from the door before closing it.
As I looked down the hallway, I could see that the late afternoon shadows were fading under the clouds that gathered from the north.
“This way.” Deric turned to head back the way we had come.
“What’s down that way?” I pointed to the direction we had not gone.
“Just some guest quarters for visiting dignitaries.” His steps were hurried as he led me through another hallway door into a staircase leading down. At the bottom, a second doorway opened onto a hall identical to the one above, except that it had no windows, not surprisingly, since it had to be below ground level.
We walked silently to the left, away from the side of the building holding the “visiting dignitaries’ “ quarters. After another ten steps or so, Deric halted. On the door of the equipment room was a square metal panel with numbered buttons. Deric punched several in quick succession.
Looking through the undertime, I caught the numbers—six, thirteen, twenty-seven—noted the pattern, and then nearly laughed. So long as the room was big enough to stand in, I could enter it whether it happened to be locked or not.
The doorway’s modest size gave no clue to the size of the space— which sloped downward and into dim shadows beyond the range of an unaided eye. The doorway was nothing more than an interior building entrance to an equipment bunker that probably included the space under the parklike square across the stone-paved street from the laboratory.
I caught a glimpse of the pressure suits, interspersed with racks and racks of equipment I failed to recognise. In the gloom beyond the equipment racks, one object’s general shape caught my attention, as much for its massiveness as for its purpose. A laser-cannon, or as near to it as possible. Supposedly, only a handful had ever been built because of the immense power demands. Now, it had to be useless without the broad-cast power satellites.
Deric just stood there, not exactly barring my entry, but clearly indicating that I was not going to be allowed to wander through the entire equipment bunker.
So I just gazed around, and nodded. “Very impressive. Very impressive.” Then I stepped back. “Anything else down here I should know about?”
“No. Not really. Down the other corridor are the disciplinary cells that were used before the Westron Monarchy. They were never removed when the structure was converted.”
“Back for dinner, then?”
“I’ll show you the dining area on the way back to your quarters. You’ll have a little time to wash up. Evening meal is around 1800 for us.”
“Fine.” The ConFeds ate earlier, and my stomach was growling already.
The way back to my quarters was almost the same as the way we had come.
“You can take the walkway across, and those stairs . . .”
“If I take them now, and cross there . . . that will lead back to my room?”
“Exactly.”
“And the facilities—showers?”
“Oh . . . I forgot. Just at the end of the hallway from your room.”
“Do I just walk into dinner?”
“Yes. I’m afraid we don’t have much ceremony. Your name has been posted, and the cook will expect you.” Deric straightened, cleared his throat. “I do have one or two things to do . . .”
“I understand, and I can find my way back without any problem. Thank you very much.”
“It was my pleasure.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and I’d just have to find out why.
XXVI
THE DINING SECTION of the quarters building appeared more like a restaurant than a military establishment—light wooden shutters on the inside of the windows and cloths on the dozen or so tables.
When I stepped through the double doors, I could see only five people—Deric and four others, three women and one man—all standing by a circular table.
“Sammis.” Deric called.
“Deric.” Nodding my head, I stepped toward the five. Except for Deric, I had met none of them. As I crossed the ten steps that separated us, the aroma of peffin filled my nostrils.
“Sammis, I’d like you to meet several of your fellow-travellers.” Deric nodded toward a muscular red-headed woman. “This is Mellorie.”
Mellorie’s smile was instantaneous, and genuine, especially compared to Deric’s. “It’s nice to meet you, Sammis.”
“It’s nice to be here.”
“This is Arlean, who runs the math and information section . . . and Gerloc, who found Sertis . . . and Amenda, who was our last brand-new traveller until the doctor found you.”
Arlean looked like a librarian, with a narrow face and sharp eyes that missed nothing. Her smile was pleasant and showed even white teeth.
“Pleased . . .” Gerloc was about the same height as me, but rail thin, almost frail. His voice was deep, and contrasted with his sparse and wispy blond hair.
Amenda, slender and dark-haired, and half a head taller than me, nodded politely, but said nothing.
“The uniform . . . ?” asked Arlean, the mathematical librarian.
“Recruited straight from the ConFeds, Lady, with nothing to my name but uniforms.”
“Looks like he’s in shape, Arlean.” Gerloc’s tone was not quite mocking. “Arlean’s always complaining that none of the male divers have enough muscle to carry all the monitoring equipment necessary.”
I tried not to frown.
“Arlean is the one who co-ordinates the out-system data. Her library science background comes in handy,” explained Deric.
Again, I had trouble understanding the continued obsession with data. Some of it made sense— like a general catalogue of the habitable or visitable plants and whether the air was breathable and the level of gravity. But collecting mountains of data when our entire civilisation was falling in shards around us . . . ? When an unseen Enemy had levelled most of the cities? When every freeman’s hand was set against education and knowledge and the gentry whom they held responsible for the disaster?
“You look rather doubtful . . . is it . . . Sammis?” Mellorie’s voice was low, husky, and warm, far more sultry in a friendly way than I would have expected.
“I suspect I am.”
“You’re no farm boy ConFed, either.”
“Mellorie, please introduce yourself to Sammis slowly,” Deric suggested, with an edge to his tone. The edge bordered on a whine.
“I’m sorry, Deric.” She curtsied to him and returned her glance to me. “Would you care to join us—Gerloc and Amenda and me—for dinner tonight?”
“I’d be honoured.”
“Enjoy your dinner, Sammis,” added Deric. “I trust you will not mind if I occasionally introduce you to someone else.”
“Not at all, Deric. Thank you again for the tour.”
“Tour? Deric actually took the time to show you around?” Amenda’s voice was low, though not as husky or low as Mellorie’s.
“It was brief,” I explained. “Just these two buildings, really.”
“Still . . . ?”
“We should pick a table and sit down, even if we are to be saddled with peffin after all.” Gerloc’s tone was resigned.
Peffin stew or casserole sounded wonderful after ConFed slop. “Is it that bad?”
“No,” answered Mellorie with a low laugh. “But Greffin serves it so often. But we’ve been eating it once every five days for more than a year.”
That was a bit frequent for s
omething as spicy as peffin stew. On the other hand, it was my first meal prepared with any care in nearly a year—or more.
Amenda pulled out one of the chairs at a circular table set for four.
I offered the chair across from her to Mellorie.
“Like I said, no ConFed farm boy.”
I ignored the implication and sat on her left, facing the main doors, with Amenda on my left.
Gerloc took the last chair and sat, brushing his wispy blond hair off his high forehead after he edged his chair into place. “You’re not obligated to tell us anything, Sammis, but we are curious . . .”
I took a sip of the water in the glass before me. “There’s really not much to say. Born and raised in Bremarlyn, went to the Academy, escaped from the ConFeds who fired my family’s house, escaped from the looters, and ended up being impressed by another group of ConFeds. When Dr. Relorn decided to test for . . . mental travel talent. . . I showed up as having it.”
Mellorie nodded. “I thought so.”
“Thought what, Mellorie?” asked Amenda.
“What I thought . . . that Sammis came from a good family and a solid background. Besides, he looks like a traveller.”
“Old-style . . .” added Gerloc in a softer voice.
“I have been called witch-spawn, or worse.” I had the feeling Mellorie had more to say, but had held her tongue.
Amenda shivered, as if the term were all too familiar.
Mellorie nodded.
Over her shoulder, I saw another threesome enter the dining area, none of whom I recognised, since neither of the two women happened to be Dr. Relorn.
“How would I put this . . . ?” Gerloc’s voice was softer, pitched not to carry beyond the table. “Your . . . shall we say . . . experience level . . . ?”
“I don’t know. No basis for comparison.” Gerloc might be friendly, but I was reluctant to blurt out anything. “I can travel from point to point on Query. Too much travel burns a lot of energy, though.”
Gerloc opened his mouth.
“I certainly have no experience in travelling to the stars or other planets. You discovered someplace called Sertis? Could you tell me about it?”
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