“Pft,” said Kez, climbing to her feet.
“Wait!” protested Tuan, who had hoped for more remarks on his muscles, or at the very least a few more moments of Kez’s warmth beside him. “Where are you going?”
“Gotta find a good spot for the Box,” said Kez. “Some mucker’s always tryin’ to steal it. Don’t wanna make it any easier for ’em.”
Tuan was sitting in the co-pilot’s chair at the Upsydaisy’s console when Kez kicked open the door and pushed him out of it. She sat down in it herself and spun to face Marx.
Tuan said, “Ow,” peaceably and sat down on the floor at her feet instead, which particular instance of devotion Kez rewarded by tugging on his hair with both hands, the Newlands Box sitting lopsidedly in her lap.
“Oi,” she said to Marx. “There’s somethin’ in the Box.”
“What about it?” asked Marx. He was flipping switches on the Upsydaisy’s console—not really paying attention, Tuan thought. Pretty cool, to be not paying attention when Kez was speaking. Kez tended to do unexpected things when people didn’t pay attention to her, no matter how old she was. “We already know it’s a recording device. It’s got all of Uncle Li’s contacts on it.”
“And his blackmail source files,” added Tuan. “I stopped looking at those, though. It has a good bit of useful tech on there, too.”
“Not anymore, it don’t,” said Kez grimly, leaning her arms on Tuan’s head instead of pulling his hair. “All them files an’ records and speakin’ bits an’ stuff? They’re gone. Someone else is speakin’ instead. Ain’t no pictures, either.”
Marx left his console, swinging on his chair. “All right, I’ll bite. Who is it?”
“You’ll see,” said Kez, and started the Box.
When the Newlands Box had made its last chirrup and was silent, that silence stretched out for a very long time until Kez said, “We’re gonna die.”
Tuan, who would have tried to reassure her properly if he’d heard the rough scratchiness in her voice that meant she was really concerned, gazed up at her and said, “No. I won’t let you.”
“Still—” Even Marx looked thoughtful. “Think it’s a trick?”
“No,” said Tuan. He reached up and tapped the lid of the Box with one finger. “Even the outside of the Box—it’s not the same as it was.”
“What do you mean, it’s not the same?”
“The pattern is different.” Tuan tilted it for Marx to see. He had seen the Newlands Box once or twice before; its lid had always been picked out in green from a brown and gold background. Now, however, that random pattern had been replaced with ancient Seventh World characters.
“Wot’s it say?” demanded Kez.
Since Tuan knew how well she spoke Seventh World dialect, he only blinked at her.
“I can speak it,” Kez protested. “Never said I could read it!”
“It’s a proverb,” Tuan said. In light of what they had just heard from the Newlands Box, it was a rather ominous inscription. “It’s the Seventh World equivalent of that ancient Latin phrase—”
“Memento mori,” Marx said grimly.
Newlands Box Alternate Transcript
Female Voice: This thing on? ’Ow’s it work? Oh, right; I just talk. ’Allo.
Male Voice: Get on with it, kid. We’ve only got ten minutes.
Female Voice: Oh yeah. Hey Marx, it’s me, Kez.
Male Voice: It’s me, kid.
Female Voice: It’s both of us, anyway, talkin’ to—talkin’ to—well, both of us, I s’pose. An’ TuanTuan.
Male Voice: His name is Tuan. He’s not your pet.
Female Voice: Oi, TuanTuan. You don’t exist ’ere. Ain’t real nice. You should’ve tried ’arder.
Male Voice: He does exist. He just made different choices. Look, shut up, kid; I’ll do the talking. The thing is that there’s a Fixed Point—well, it was a Fixed Point, but someone has been playing around with it and things have gotten a bit confusing. There’s a whole alternate timeline in place and I don’t know if we’ll be able to push the Box through even if we manage to find a point that’s weak enough to try.
Female Voice: But we reckon if we find the right place—y’know, where we’ve stole the Box enough times—it’ll be enough to get the message through. Summink about time an’ space bein’ thinner there.
Male Voice: The Box won’t do you much good, but if you can get it back to yourselves before the Fixed Points start getting unfixed—
Female Voice: Then we got a chance to fix it all.
Male Voice: The important thing is that you need to make sure that the Fixed Points STAY fixed.
Female Voice: All of ’em.
Male Voice: Yes, all of ’em. Better listen carefully, because once the Fixed Points are unfixed, your Core isn’t going to tell you the things you need to know to make them Fixed again.
Female Voice: An’ if you don’t, we’re gonna die. We’re gonna be in the wrong timeline and we’re gonna die.
Male Voice: You’ll need everyone: Arabella, Mikkel, Tuan—heck, bring in Vladivostok, too. That Sergeant might help, too; you never know. We can’t go back to the Fixed Points without Unfixing ’em just by being there. That’s why things went so badly in this timeline.
Female Voice: An’ we’re gonna die.
Male Voice: Possibly. Probably. Yeah, we’re gonna die.
Female Voice: Don’t even know wot mucker done it.
Male Voice: Not for sure, anyway. We’ve narrowed it down to the Holstrom Institute, a special branch of the WAOF—Incursion Specialists, they call themselves; you’ll meet ’em later—or Uncle Cheng.
Female Voice: But first you gotta find the Fixed Points—
Male Voice: —before whoever it is finds them and starts undoing them.
Female Voice: —an’ when you find ’em, you have to make sure everything ’appens like it’s meant to ’appen. Only you can’t go there yourselves—
Male Voice: —because that will be enough to unfix ’em. Trust us. And if you can find out who’s doing it and stop them—that’ll make life easier for you.
Female Voice: Oi. Should that be doin’ that?
Male Voice: Nope. Don’t touch it.
Female Voice: Ain’t gonna touch it! Anyway, we—oo-er! Marx!
Male Voice: That’s torn it. C’mmere, kid.
Female Voice: Oo-er! Marx, lookit—! Marx!
Male Voice: It’s okay, kid. I got you. Close your eyes. It’s oka—
Transmission End
What’s Next for Marx and Kez?
Kez and Marx will return in 2018 for Volume Three of the Time Traveller’s Best Friend series.
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Memento Mori Page 24
