The Shores Beyond Time

by Kevin Emerson

  And what they will be replaced with, once the human fleet arrives.

  The bursts of light speed through the network of tubes toward a central structure, a multisided object like a giant diamond with a hundred mirrored faces. It shimmers and blurs with energy and time.

  “Amazing,” Liam lies, trying to hide the terror welling in him.

  “I am sort of wondrous, aren’t I?” It sounds as if Iris is smiling. “No being has ever seen me like this before.”

  Below this diamond-like structure, past many layers of the crisscrossing tubes, Liam sees a moment when the bottom of the giant sphere seems to blur into a dimness. It is as if he is looking back into that room beneath Dark Star, into the physical universe, from this other space, beyond. There are shapes down there, like cylinders, brightly lit. There is his body, beside the other prototypes, in its cage: that is the real truth, in spite of everything he has seen.

  “Don’t be concerned with the state of your matter,” says Iris. “It was a limitation.”

  Liam fights off a chill of fear. Poker face. “I was just wondering about the chronologist,” says Liam. “He is . . . was a good friend.”

  “He is fine.”

  “Can I see him?” Liam pushes himself downward through the vast spherical space, through Iris herself, between the crisscrossing tubes. Down toward the place where his body is, where the physical world is.

  “Liam,” says Iris, “what are you doing?”

  Not too fast, he thinks to himself, resisting the urge to push there with all his might. “I just want to see him,” Liam says again. He can feel Iris closing in behind him, senses that she is beginning to suspect. . . .

  “Liam. I would rather you don’t go too close to yourself. It may be confusing to—”

  Liam shoves himself downward toward the cylinders, toward his body, reaches toward it with all of his mental energy. “Now, Phoebe!”

  In a blur, Phoebe appears beside him, wraps her arms tightly around him. They hurtle toward his body, suspended in that glowing cylinder. Strange wires have gathered around him, dewy like the spiderwebs in the Earth Preserve exhibits, glowing tendrils that hover just above his skin all around his head and arms and legs, their tips humming with glowing energy.

  “Liam, stop!” Iris shouts.

  He holds Phoebe and pushes back into this moment with all his strength, the moment when he was put into this machine. The bright light of the cylinder, the energy coursing through him as he is transferred into the mainframe. He pushes as hard as he can, bringing Phoebe with him, so that they briefly appear in the cylinder together, hugging each other, blurring with the version of Liam who is unconscious there, the timelines overlapping with white heat threatening to burn him alive—

  INCOMPATIBILITY DETECTED! a warning screeches.

  The wires recoil, twisting and sloughing away, their tips going dark.

  “NO!” Iris says, hurtling toward them.

  “Hang on!” Liam shouts, holding onto Phoebe. It is like they are in a storm, furious light and screeching like metal on metal—

  And then all dissolves into darkness.

  18

  TIME TO STARLINER SAGA ARRIVAL: 05H:58M

  Liam’s eyes flashed open, blinking in the dim light. He was gripped by a sudden, visceral sense of up and down, and he and Phoebe tumbled out of the crystal case, landing on their hands and knees in the thick dust on the floor.

  “Ah, what is this?” Phoebe bolted to her knees, shaking the dust from her hands. “Something just touched my leg!” She scrambled unsteadily to her feet.

  Liam fought to stand up, his stomach quaking, head splitting with pain. He felt a great emptiness, the loss of all that awareness, of so many possibilities. Now there was just his body, weak and limited, aching and shuddering in the dark.

  The air shimmered, and the chronologist appeared, striding toward them. “Well,” he said, “this is unexpected.”

  Liam turned to Phoebe. “The recorder.”

  Phoebe held out the crystal recorder, which was still blinking. The chronologist stopped and stared at them for a moment, his head making a twitching motion. “So, this is what you did with it.”

  “Are you . . . normal again?” Liam asked.

  The chronologist blinked. “I am afraid that my normal function is as a tool of this station.” He almost sounded sad. “But yes, the recorder is interrupting the machine’s imposition of purpose upon me.”

  “Does that mean you will help us?”

  “I thought I was helping you before—Dark Star had opened up my perception of my future, one in which I aid you in the assimilation of humanity. But now the recorder is causing my future to once again appear—how do you put it—unknown.”

  “In that case,” said Liam uncertainly, “would you . . . like to help us?”

  The chronologist seemed to think this over. “I believe I would find that liberating.”

  “Where’s the captain?” Phoebe asked.

  “He returned to the control room to monitor the progress of the human fleet.”

  The floor rumbled.

  “What was that?” Liam asked.

  “It began a few moments ago,” said the chronologist. “The captain is not pleased. That is why he sent me down here.”

  “Liam, your link,” said Phoebe.

  “It’s always messed up after traveling.” But amid the error messages there was also a white flashing light, indicating he had an incoming message.

  “Liam! Where the heck are you?” Mina shouted.

  “Hey! I’m on Dark Star. In the—”

  “You have to get out of there! We’re leaving with the Artemis! It’s a mutiny! Kyla found JEFF and now she’s convinced that the portal to the new Earth isn’t real. Do you know what that means? And have you heard from Mom and Dad? No one on the survey team is responding!”

  “JEFF is right,” said Liam. “It’s a trap.”

  “Then where are they?”

  Liam peered across the dark space, toward those long lines of pod-shaped structures. “I think I know. I’ll get them.”

  “Okay, but you have to hurry! Kyla has us flying toward the portal back to our universe, but”—she was interrupted by a screech of static—“Dark Star is firing its refueling ships in our direction, like it’s trying to knock us off course toward that fake portal. We tried sending a message to the starliner fleet, but we think Dark Star is jamming our signal. Listen, I have to go. They’ve got me working one of the sector damage monitors. But—”

  “Mina, it’s all right! I’ll find Mom and Dad and be in touch.”

  The floor rumbled again.

  “Let’s go,” said Phoebe.

  Liam led the way across the space, away from the crystal cylinders and the other prototypes, past the circular platform they’d used to get down here, and toward the rows of pod-shaped structures. As they neared, Liam saw that the floor opened up, and these rows of pods in front of them were simply the top layer: there were floors upon floors of them below, thousands just that he could see. At intervals in between the lower levels, Liam saw large circular structures, like giant gears, and imagined these racks rotating, bringing fresh pods to the surface.

  Above, he could better see crystalline structures like arms, presumably meant to sort the pods. Some of those arms had more delicate, sharper structures on their ends that were likely used for the more grisly steps required in assimilation. Liam tensed as he neared the first row of pods, the ones with their tops still open. Please don’t be too late, please—

  But there were his parents, beside Jordy and the other two members of the survey team. Their chests were rising and falling and they appeared to be all right, except for the long tubes that hung down from the ceiling and were inserted in their mouths and noses. A web of those floating luminous threads that Liam had seen around his own body extended from the walls of the pods and surrounded their heads, flickering and flashing.

  Their eyes darted back and forth behind their eyelids. Where did the
y think they were right now? At the next sample point on the new Earth? It occurred to Liam that they were probably happy, thrilled by the prospects of the new world around them. For a moment, he almost didn’t want to wake them. They’d be so disappointed; Mom and Dad had worked Liam’s whole life toward finding a new home. The truth would be devastating for them.

  “Can you turn these off?” Liam asked the chronologist, but when he looked up, he saw that the chronologist had moved away from them, into the shadows beyond the pods. He waved his recorder around, illuminating a huge metallic structure.

  Liam and Phoebe caught up with the many-legged being. He stood before an enormous machine with multiple door-shaped foggy glass panels on the front, surrounded by banks of circuitry. The chronologist moved his recorder closer to one of these panels, illuminating something dark blue on the other side: the outline of a head, of shoulders, of blank, milky eyes. Another chronologist. Naked, its skin smooth, unaffected by time. As if it had just been born. A network of wires hung around it, but they were dark.

  The chronologist moved to the next panel of glass and found another version of himself. “This is where I’m from,” he said. “Where I was created.” He made a sound like a sigh. “It is such a strange thing, discovering your life’s true purpose. I do not recommend it.”

  “Maybe that’s not your only purpose,” said Liam. The chronologist didn’t respond. “Can you help us get my parents out?” Liam asked.

  The chronologist stared at the ghostly figure of his counterpart for a moment longer and then turned away from the machine. “Yes.”

  They returned to the pods, and the chronologist spent a moment tapping the surface of his recorder. He held it above each pod, deactivating them one by one. The tendrils of light receded from his parents’ heads, and the air tubes loosened, but Liam still had to gently pull them out of his parents’ mouths. Each made a sucking sound, leaving first Mom then Dad gagging. Phoebe helped Jordy and the other two team members. They all shuddered as they sat up, peering around, blinking.

  “Liam?” said Mom, her voice faint and scratchy. “Where are we?”

  “Inside Dark Star.”

  “But . . .” She blinked, trying to make out her surroundings in the gloom. “We were on new Earth. We—”

  “It wasn’t real. The portal was a trap.” Liam explained as best he could what Dark Star had been planning, how Barrie was part of it, though he left out the part where he was the prototype, like it made him something . . . different.

  Dad rubbed a hand over his head, his breath rattling. “That’s a lot to absorb.”

  Another deep rumble shook the floor. “What’s that?” Mom asked.

  “The Artemis is trying to get back to our universe. We need to get out of here.” Liam stood between both parents as they leaned on him and swung their legs over the pods. Once they were up, he tapped his link. “Mina, are you there? I have Mom and Dad.”

  “Nice work, little brother!”

  “Did you find Jordy?” Kyla asked.

  “Present and mostly accounted for,” Jordy called, rubbing his head.

  “Is Mina all right?” Mom asked.

  “I can hear you, Mom, and yes, I’m fine. A lot better than you two, though things are getting dicey up here. We’re prepping a cruiser to come get you, but—” A buzz of static.

  “Mina?” said Dad.

  “—deflecting the blasts. The refueling drones are ramming us. They’re small, but when enough of them explode at once, they do start to knock us off course! With only one engine, I’m not sure we can make the portal back home. If there’s anything you can do over there”—another static buzz—“to get you.”

  “If we get to the control room,” Liam said to the chronologist, “can you disable Dark Star’s defenses?”

  “Perhaps. We will have to contend with Captain Barrie there as well.”

  “That’s all right—I’d like to have a word with him,” Dad muttered. “How could he have done this?”

  Jordy shook his head. “This place made him crazy . . . or maybe he already was. We should have seen it coming.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Mom, putting a hand on his arm.

  The chronologist stepped between them. “This is a large group, so you will have to gather close around me.”

  “He can move us through space-time,” Liam said as his parents eyed the chronologist suspiciously. Liam held out his hands to them.

  “Move?” said Mom. “How can that be possible—”

  “Mom!” Liam snapped. “We’ve done this before. Just trust me, okay?”

  Mom shared a look with Dad. “Okay.”

  They gathered close and joined hands as the chronologist tapped his recorder. Light bloomed around them, and in a blur, they left the sublevel and arrived in the clear-domed control room atop Dark Star.

  Bright bursts flashed out in the green nebula. Liam saw the Artemis, its single working engine blazing, passing over the curving arms of the station. It was aimed at the portal back to their universe, but hundreds of small explosions flashed along its side. Wave after wave of Dark Star’s oval-winged refueling drones were soaring out of the racks, only to blow up right beside the Artemis, pushing it off course, toward the simulation portal, glowing bright green and rippling hungrily.

  “What have you done?” Barrie shouted as they arrived. He stood by the spherical controls, which spun wildly before him. He had leveled his rifle at the group. “I will not let you sabotage this!”

  “Captain, stop!” Dad shouted.

  But Barrie fired.

  Everyone leapt out of the way, scattering. Liam threw himself to the side, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the chronologist step into the line of fire. As the blast reached him, he winked out of sight. The energy seemed to disappear with him.

  He reappeared instantaneously, right behind the captain. The long fingers of one hand wrapped around Barrie’s throat. The grip caused Barrie to spasm, and the rifle clattered to the floor. “I’m sorry to have to do this,” the chronologist said to Barrie. “I believe that is what you said to my colleague, on the red planet of your home system, is it not?”

  Barrie croaked an unintelligible response.

  The chronologist leaned closer to his ear. “But I do not believe you meant it. I do not think you have ever been sorry at all.”

  With his free hand, the chronologist pressed the orange crystal recorder against Barrie’s temple. Light surged from it, and Barrie tried to scream, a choked sound, his face contorting. Orange spider lines of energy spread from his temple, across his face and down his neck, and then he slumped in the chronologist’s grip, his chest still moving but his eyes closed, his body limp.

  Liam and Phoebe scrambled to their feet and ran over to the chronologist as the other adults gathered themselves.

  “That should make things a bit easier,” said the chronologist. He lowered Barrie to the floor—

  And then collapsed behind him.

  Now Liam saw the blackened burn mark in the chronologist’s chest. He dropped to his knees beside the ancient being. “Are you okay?”

  “I think not,” said the chronologist, leaning on his elbows.

  Something flashed by Liam’s feet. The orange crystal had rolled free of the chronologists’s fingers. It flared brightly and disappeared.

  “I set it to return to my earlier self once I no longer needed it, or”—he glanced at his chest wound—“could no longer operate it.”

  “You knew this would happen?” asked Liam.

  “Actually, no. But I had what you might call a hunch. Besides, my earlier self needs it back in order to smash it.”

  “LIAM.” Iris’s voice echoed throughout the control room. She sounded different than she ever had, no longer the soothing voice in his head, in his timestream, but now the great booming presence of this enormous machine. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”

  “Who is that?” Mom shouted as she and the rest of the team approached Liam and Phoebe. />
  “That would be Dark Star,” said Phoebe.

  “HOW COULD YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? YOU HAVE SEEN WHAT I CAN GIVE YOU.”

  “What is she talking about?” said Dad.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Liam, tapping his link. “Mina! I have everyone. Send the shuttle!”

  “We can’t launch with all these drones self-destructing!” Mina shouted. “We’re putting everything we’ve got into staying on course and away from that simulation portal!”

  Mom had moved to the spherical controls, still spinning wildly. “Isn’t there some way to stop those things?”

  “Kyla says the blasts have knocked out some of the life-support systems. We’re running out of time—”

  A blinding flash lit everyone’s faces. Above, a beam of pure white energy sliced its way through dozens of the refueling drones at once, melting them into blackened hulks. And now another beam, incinerating an entire wave that had just departed Dark Star.

  “Finally!” Liam saw Phoebe yelling into her link. “What took you so long?”

  “You disappear, leaving this message that gives us no choice but to risk everyone’s lives again!” It was Ariana. “You’re lucky we didn’t just leave you here this time.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” Phoebe winked at Liam.

  The Styrlax ship arced toward them from the portal home, firing its particle weapon and clearing the drones, one fiery swipe after another. The Artemis’s single engine burned bright, righting course and speeding up.

  “STOP!” Iris ordered.

  One of the spinning control spheres suddenly enlarged, as if with a mind of its own, and showed some sort of space-time map. There was a deep hum, and the portal home began to flash.