“And then,” said Barrie, “all hell broke loose. The moment the air and gravity systems came online, the portal began to adjust itself, and Dark Star launched some sort of vessel. A kind of missile, it turned out. Then, barely an hour later, the portal lit up again. This time, she started launching ships, a robotic fleet. They left, and returned a few hours later with their wings glowing green. Over the course of our first six days, this happened three more times. We’d been splitting our time between repairing the Artemis and investigating this place. By then we’d learned enough about the station’s systems to realize that it was using these missiles, and this robotic fleet, to power itself up by gathering energy from beyond the portal, but we didn’t quite understand how. Nothing happened for a few days, and then yesterday, the portal powered up for a fifth time. We’d managed to get the Artemis into a slightly more stable state, and we’d also found that ship—the one you took here from the Artemis, which Dark Star had allowed us to access. I decided to use it to follow this latest round of missiles through the portal, and I watched . . . as they flew directly into our sun.
“I got back as fast as I could—that Dark Star ship has a limited range, and no comms that I could use to contact humanity, no way to warn them. We’d barely wrapped our heads around what I’d witnessed, what it might mean, or what we should even do, when the fuel ships launched, which meant it was too late. All I could think of was to send Kyla and Jordy out to run salvage, which was when they found you. As you can imagine, it has been a long twenty-four hours. The toll that it has taken on the crew . . .”
Liam’s heart raced. His mouth felt dry. He saw that Kyla was wiping her eyes. “So, you’re saying Dark Star blew up the sun on its own?” he said. “For . . . fuel?”
“Its power cells run on gamma radiation, massive quantities, and the most efficient way to get that is from a supernova. We don’t know how long this place has been sitting here dormant. Ten thousand years? Billions? It needs a certain amount of energy just to maintain its position over that artificial black hole you saw beneath us, so the moment we turned it on, it immediately started opening the portal to stars in our universe and replenishing itself. The refueling comes in waves. It has harvested three more stars in the hours since our sun.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Phoebe. “Why didn’t you just turn it off?”
“Don’t you see? By the time we understood what it was doing, what in effect we had caused, it was too late.”
“No, I mean, after that,” said Phoebe. “Why haven’t you turned it off since then?”
“Well, it doesn’t appear that we even can,” said Barrie, “but the larger question still remains: What is it powering up to do? As far we can tell, it’s already drawn far more power than it needs simply for life support and to hold its position. It’s doing something else, and I believe it’s our duty, not only to humanity but to our entire universe, to figure out what.”
Soon I will show you, Liam remembered Iris saying, and yet now a terrible truth occurred to him: it was Iris who had destroyed his home, who was responsible for everything they had been through.
“And in the meantime?” said Phoebe. “You’ll just let other beings suffer in its path?”
“If we don’t figure out what this machine is intent on doing, their could be far greater consequences than a few species in a few star systems.”
Phoebe’s eyes narrowed at Barrie. “How is this even possible? You guys arrived here after the sun had already started to change . . .”
“It’s hard to wrap your brain around,” said Barrie, “but this structure is operating in four dimensions, maybe more. The portal can be positioned anywhere and anywhen in space-time, which, timekeeper,” he said to the chronologist, “is why you mistakenly thought there were six portals. It was the same one, appearing in six different places across space and time. As far as we can tell, the where is determined by the type of star whose supernova will yield the most fuel, and the when by the life cycle of the star, meaning that there’s an ideal point in time to harvest the most energy. The fact that, in the ten-billion-year life cycle of a star like ours, the best time to blow it up was right when we could just barely escape in time can either be seen as fortunate or tragic, depending on your mood.”
Kyla made a little sound, like sniffling. She was still gazing out at the nebula, green light on her face. “I’d prefer to stick with tragic,” she said under her breath.
“Of course,” said Barrie.
“Doesn’t that mean you could stop it, though?” said Phoebe. “If you opened the portal earlier in time, you could stop those missiles from hitting the sun in the first place.”
“I’m afraid Dark Star has not given us access to the portal controls, but even if we could do what you’re describing, what would that mean for us? It was the destruction of our sun that brought us here in the first place. To interfere in our own past like that . . . would it create a paradox that would make things even worse?”
“More likely some kind of superposition,” Liam said. The chronologist gave him a curious glance.
“What’s that?” said Barrie.
“Probably just as bad.”
“Anyway,” said Barrie, “from what you’ve told us, it sounds like the human fleet got away in time, so maybe our fretting—which has been significant—was overblown.”
“Overblown?” said Phoebe. “Thousands of humans have still died, and, you know, my entire race.”
“We’ve had losses here, too,” said Kyla.
Barrie made a plaintive gesture with his hands. “You know I’ve felt the losses just as much as you all have; you can forgive me for trying to find the optimism here. You cannot imagine the feeling, when we realized our role in all this.” Barrie’s face fell. “Not everyone could live with it.”
Liam thought of the memorial in the changing room. “We met Lieutenant Lyris when we were on the Artemis before. What happened to her?”
“She was always sensitive,” he said quietly. “Her mother and father died in the Valiant crash. That was a colony ferry.”
“We know it,” said Liam, remembering the great silver memorial in the middle of the Martian desert.
“The idea that she was responsible for their deaths, and so many others, both in the past and in whatever future was to come . . . It would have been hard for her to hear about this war you speak of. I tried to convince her it wasn’t our fault, or at least that it wasn’t nearly that simple, but she couldn’t accept that.”
“She wanted to turn back before the portal had us,” said Kyla, her voice suddenly quavering. “She urged us to pull back, but you—”
“That’s enough insubordinate talk!” Barrie snapped, his voice echoing in the room.
A silence passed over them.
“Apologies,” he said immediately. “It’s a raw topic. And what’s done is done. Let’s focus our energy on the future. The best thing we can do is finish repairing the Artemis, and gain a full picture of what this place is, and what it does. Who knows—perhaps there is an opportunity here: some way that Dark Star can be more than just a threat, that we can use its vast power to forge a better future for humanity.”
“This sounds fine and all,” said Phoebe, “but Liam and I would like to leave now. We’ve told you everything we know; the Artemis has Cosmic Cruisers, so let us have one and we’ll go back to our universe and find our families. We can tell them what’s happened here, and—”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave until we’ve finished assessing this station,” said the captain. “You two have experienced much that could prove valuable here.” He pointed at Liam. “And your time-travel abilities may well be of use.”
“But we don’t want to stay,” said Phoebe. She looked at Liam, but he could only manage a shrug. “Besides, the humans and the Telphons need to know about this! We tried to tell them, before we really understood. Now they’ll listen, and it might even stop the war—”
A great rumble shook the floor,
cutting Phoebe off and making everyone stagger.
“Speak of the devil,” said Jordy. “Captain, she’s prepping another fuel run.”
“Where now?” said Barrie.
Jordy expanded one of the glowing light spheres in front of him until it was a meter across. It showed a map of space, or something like a map. Liam recognized galaxies and clusters linked by navigation lines, but the map also rippled and blurred in a way that reminded Liam of what he’d seen in the chronologist’s office: a map not just of distances, but also of time. Jordy tapped different symbols scrolling along the edge. “She’s realigning to an 8–9 decimal right ascension.”
“Kyla,” said Barrie, “is the sensor network ready?”
Kyla tapped her link. “Up and running, sir.”
“We’ve set up a perimeter of energy sensors,” said Barrie. “We’re trying to figure out where the actual mechanism that controls the portal is located. Since Dark Star won’t let us access the software, we figure if we can locate the hardware, then maybe we can gain control manually.” Barrie spoke into his link. “Portal team, this is the captain, copy?”
“Roger, Captain, we’re in position.”
“They’re in a cruiser outside, waiting for a location to investigate.”
“Okay, here we go.” Jordy made a waving motion toward the center of the room. A giant version of the map he’d been looking at flashed into existence above their heads, spherical and twenty meters across, made of amber light. Jordy continued working on the one in front of him, his actions mimicked on the larger version above. The map’s view began to zoom in, dots becoming clusters becoming galaxies, thousands of stars, down to hundreds, and finally dozens. Amid this field, eight red dots blinked, and one yellow light. Jordy zoomed in even more, closing in on the yellow light, until he was focused on a single area of space with about ten stars. The yellow light’s nearest neighbor was blinking red.
“Target appears to be not too far from our old sun,” said Jordy. “Centauri A.”
Liam’s heart thundered, icy adrenaline spiking through his gut. The boiling star bloomed in his mind again, spitting solar flares, looming closer and closer.
“This will be fascinating,” Barrie was saying. “With all the new systems she’s brought online, I expect the process will go quite a bit faster.”
“Affirmative, Captain,” said Jordy. “Looks like she’s prepped twelve protomatter missiles this time. That should decrease the supernova development time down to . . . a hundred hours or so.”
“Ninety-six,” said Liam faintly, sharing a worried glance with Phoebe.
“How do you know that?” said Barrie.
“Centauri A is where we came from,” said Liam. “There are three starliners and the Telphon ship. My parents and sister. Phoebe’s family. When we left, they were trying to escape just before the supernova. This supernova.” He fought the urge to rush back to the safety of Mars— No! He needed to stay here. . . .
“Well,” said Barrie, “I’m sure they detected the nova and figured out the safe distance to relocate to.”
“The supernova itself will not be a significant concern,” said the chronologist. “However, the space-time rifting that will occur during the subsequent use of the portal for the fuel run will pose a significant threat to any vessels in the vicinity.”
“How do you know that?” said Barrie.
“The events around Centauri A were my focus in our inquiry. In fact, it is what I was working on when you abducted me.”
“I know they had a plan to get away from the blast in time,” said Liam, “but I don’t think they have any idea about the rifting.” He looked to the chronologist. “Will they be okay?”
The chronologist blinked. “When I left, the most probable future indicated that while they will escape the supernova itself, the space-time rifting will render their ships inoperable, leading to total system failure and total loss of life.”
“Can you stop the missile launch?” said Liam.
“I already told you,” said Barrie, “we have no access to those controls. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”
“How can you just stand there and say that?” shouted Phoebe. “They’ll all die!”
“Everyone dies,” Barrie said almost to himself, “if you tell the story long enough.”
“Captain,” said Kyla, “maybe now is the time to try sending that signal, with the comms unit.”
Barrie shook his head. “By the time we got that mobilized and launched, the door would already have moved to the fuel run, and then it would be too late.”
“Protomatter rocket thrusters are hot,” said Jordy. “Launch in ten . . . nine . . .”
“There has to be something you can do!” said Liam. He felt himself locking up, saw the fiery ball of Centauri A about to explode. Their families and friends, hundreds of millions of people . . .
“Like what?” said Barrie. “Ask nicely? We have no control over this.”
Ask . . . Liam squeezed his fists and pulled back from the moment. Iris! he shouted into the wind of his timestream. I need your help!
For a moment there was no response, but then, a growing light.
Of course. Iris appeared beside him, glimmering, and held out her hand. Come with me.
6
TIME TO DARK STAR FUNCTIONALITY: 15H:16M
Liam pushes away from the moment, like a swimmer kicking away from the wall of the pool, losing track of his feet and hands and skin, back into the dim light and wind of his timestream.
Iris is beside him—the shape of a girl, but again Liam senses that there is something far greater behind her, where he cannot quite see. “I sensed your fear about my latest fuel run,” she says. “How can I help?”
“You . . .” Liam pauses, thoughts catching up to him. What he knows now, what she’s done, but he presses on. “My parents and sister, Phoebe’s family, and everyone else in the Centauri system is in danger.”
Iris glimmers. “Ah, I see. Their position will make them susceptible to the side effects of portal operation. Well, that is no problem.”
“You can save them?”
“Yes. My refueling systems are automated, but of course, I am the one running that automation. A slight alteration to the launch time of the protomatter missiles will have only a minor impact on how much fuel I can mine from Centauri A. However, it will have a great effect on the survival of your people. I am in the process of modeling two billion possible alterations in each direction of the current time viewpoint, in order to determine which one will yield this optimal result. In fact, you are helping me do that as we speak.”
“How is that?”
“I am using information from your past, the part of your timeline that took place around Centauri A.”
The mention of it sets off the explosion in Liam’s head again, makes him glance back in time toward Mars, where it is safe.
“It will be just another moment,” Iris continues. “I am delaying the launch by a few time units—seconds, as you refer to them . . . there. I have executed the change, and postponed the supernova slightly. As a result, your starliners will be able to use the blast to propel themselves away from the area at the exact speed needed to escape the effects of the space-time rifting, but not so fast as to destroy their ships in the process. Your family will now survive.”
“It’s that easy?”
“Now that you are here, yes.” She seems to smile.
“Thank you.” And yet Liam feels the shadow of what he has learned since they last spoke.
“You know now that I am the one who destroyed your home star.”
A surge of frustration courses through him. “How can you say you are trying to help me, if you almost killed us all in the first place?”
“Because that was not my intent. At the time of selecting your sun, I had no idea that your species lived in that system.”
“You could have checked.”
“And yet could I have? I don’t mean to sound callous, but ther
e is some form of life in almost every star system that I evaluate as a fuel source; therefore I cannot realistically use that information as part of my selection criteria. It would be like if your species chose not to build a dwelling in any location where there were cockroaches or microbes. Or chose to bypass your best option for a new planetary home simply because there was some evidence of preexisting life there. . . . Do you understand?”
“Kind of,” Liam admits.
“At some point, you must make the choices that best suit your needs for survival. That is the case for every living being.”
“That sounds pretty coldhearted.”
“It has nothing to do with heart. It is simply math.”
“So you’re basically saying human beings weren’t important enough to care about. Why save them now?”
“Because I have met you, Liam, and you are very important.”
“Okay, well . . . You’re sure they’ll survive?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Thanks.” Liam feels himself welling up inside. It is relief, but also . . .
“You miss them,” says Iris.
Liam nods, biting his lip. “I’m glad they’re safe. It’s just that . . . I don’t know how I’m ever going to see them again. They’re moving away from the portal, from us, and with time passing so quickly there compared to here, by the time I even get back . . .”
“You will see them again,” says Iris. “I am sure of it.”
“How? Can you see my future?”
“Not as clearly as I will be able to once I am fully operational—but that doesn’t matter: I know that you see them again, because you are going to go and visit them right now.”
“What? I am?”
“Someone needs to tell them what they need to do in order to escape the space-time rifting.”
“But how—”
“Liam, I have walked the streets of Mars with you. Of course you have the ability to go see them, at least briefly. Wouldn’t that put your mind at ease?”
Liam understood. “You mean by traveling back along my timeline.”
The Shores Beyond Time Page 10
