Starlight's Edge (Timedance)

by Susan Waggoner

  Zee knew she wasn’t drowning. She knew her lungs weren’t bursting with flame. There was no dark slippery wave dragging her under, no blackness caused by seawater rushing against her eyes, no force grinding her bones to powder. Yet she felt all these things. It was like the time before she came to New Earth, when she felt an earthquake and tsunami taking place half a world away. Only this time she didn’t feel the screams of thousands, only one.

  Following Major Dawson’s protocol, she logged the incident in detail—what she had been doing, who she had been with, what she had been thinking when the aura came to her, even what she had eaten in the last eight hours. She was hopeful that she’d found her way back to the diviner’s path, but when nothing surfaced in the news, she felt fresh disappointment. Maybe she would never fully regain her skills, and had left them buried forever in the past.

  But the next week when she arrived for a training session, Major Dawson was standing at the door, something the old man could only do with pain and difficulty these days. His eyes were sparkling.

  “Look at the screen, Zee.”

  Zee scanned the news story. Last night in the Tyrrhenian Sea, an aquanaut two miles down had left the safety of his submersible, been caught in the current of a thermal vent and buffeted against the walls of an undersea mountain. The jagged rocks had made a small hole in his pressure suit, a hole that the gravity and the sea had turned into a wide rip, crushing him and drowning him at once. She might have dismissed it as a coincidence, except for the map showing the Tyrrhenian Sea lying off the coast of Italy near Pompeii—and the fact that the aquanaut had been monitoring an underwater volcano for signs of activity.

  There had been enough incidents since then that Major Dawson felt Zee was on her way to finding the unconscious knack of making herself into a receptor.

  “The kind of shock you had,” he explained, “can be like giving a rug a good shake. Gets rid of all the dust and crumbs, and the pattern of the rug shows all the clearer.”

  If only that were true, Zee thought. She’d told Major Dawson about slipping from her wingchute and dropping into David’s arms, but she’d described it as an accident, nothing more. She hadn’t told him her suspicions, or tried to explain the tangled relationships behind them. But she knew what Major Dawson could not—that the incident had not made anything in her life clearer. It had left her in a dust storm of debris. Yes, she had had more experiences like the one with the aquanaut—sightings, Major Dawson had taken to calling them—but none that made any sense to her until she came across a story that matched it. A story that was usually finished by the time she realized what she’d tapped into.

  “If I’m making progress,” she asked, “why haven’t I been able to change anything? To know things in time to make a difference?”

  “Patience, Zee, patience,” the major said. “That will come in due course. And who’s to say everyone can be saved. There’s a cruelty to the universe, you know. It has its own ways and logic. Maybe these people weren’t meant to be saved.”

  She said nothing and turned her face down, glad her hair hid her expression. But Major Dawson didn’t need to see her face to know what she was thinking.

  “Don’t tell me now, Zee, that you’re one of those people who think death is the end of everything.”

  She thought of the voice she often heard in her head, a voice she was certain belonged to Mrs. Hart. Not Mrs. Hart from the days when Zee worked as her empath, but Mrs. Hart from wherever she was now, still taking an interest in things.

  “No,” Zee said finally, raising her head. “I don’t think life ends. But what is the point of these sightings if I can’t do anything about them?”

  “Because someday there will be a sighting you will be able to do something about. Someday you and I will show all these New Earth folks that technology isn’t everything. For all we know, we’re on the leading edge of making high-tech communications obsolete. Now, let’s get to work, shall we?”

  * * *

  On nights when David worked late, Zee sat in on advanced seminars in history or booked extra sessions with Major Dawson. It felt good to immerse herself, to tumble into bed knowing she’d used every scrap of her energy and would wake up with a fresh supply in the morning. But one Friday morning, when David said, “Why don’t we not work late tonight?” Zee thought it was a great idea.

  “What do you want to do instead? There’s a new Inamovie playing.”

  Zee still hadn’t quite gotten used to Inamovies, a complex combination of holograms, virtual vision, and sensory controls that turned you into a character in the story.

  “You know what I’d really like?”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to go to New York. See what it looks like now. It’s still there, isn’t it?”

  David nodded slowly. “It’s still there. Are you sure?”

  Zee hadn’t considered going to New York since she’d come to New Earth. For a long time, the thought had made her homesick, but tonight, suddenly, she wanted to see it. “I’m sure.”

  “Then, New York, here we come. We can catch the six twenty ghost from the base. Meet you on the platform?”

  Zee spent her lunch break shopping for a new outfit. Melisande had opened a boutique called, appropriately, Renaissance. She no longer devoted herself to wedding lace alone; she had a growing number of lace makers to do that. Now she designed clothes for every occasion, and Zee looked at screen after screen of tempting outfits before narrowing it down to just one. She tapped in her location and Emu account number, and her outfit—silken navy bell-bottoms with a ruffled white top—was hanging in her locker in plenty of time for her to change.

  She was anxious to see New York again. Would it be as unrecognizable as London? Was anything she remembered still standing? She arrived at the ghost platform early, hoping David would be early too. She knew her eagerness made the time go more slowly, and even though it seemed like she’d been waiting for ages, she didn’t worry. David often got held up or so involved in what he was doing he’d come racing up at the last minute, and whatever irritation she’s had would melt away. She had her shoulder bag with her computer and her cube in it, and browsed the news while she waited. It didn’t really matter that David wasn’t here yet—New York was five hours behind them. They’d have plenty of time to wander around, get something to eat, maybe even see a show, if Broadway was going.

  When her phone began vibrating, she snapped it open and was relieved to see a message from David, no doubt apologizing in advance for being late and on his way to the platform now. But her face froze when she read it.

  Don’t react and tell no one. Paul in trouble in Pompeii. Must get him. Left by the time you get this. Go home. Tell no one. Home soon. Erase this. Love, D.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NEPTUNE’S TRIDENT

  For a moment, Zee couldn’t move. The crash of falling boulders filled her head. David! David was in danger. Every bone in her body vibrated with it. She shoved her phone in her purse and took off at a run.

  Zee had no trouble finding Mia. She was just leaving the transporter floor, and when she saw Zee, she quickened her pace and headed in the other direction.

  “Mia,” Zee called in a friendly voice, making sure everyone in the corridor heard her, “I found that research you wanted.”

  Mia couldn’t ignore her without attracting attention, so she stopped and waited for Zee to catch up with her.

  “What is it?”

  Zee tried to look commanding, but it wasn’t easy. Mia was much taller than she was. And she was beautiful. “You need to come with me.”

  “To where?”

  “To wherever you were just now, when you transported David to Pompeii. Illegally.”

  Zee saw by a slight widening of Mia’s eyes that she’d guessed right. David hadn’t wanted anyone to know Paul was in trouble, so he’d asked Mia to help him go around the rules. It was silly, Zee knew, but she felt a slight stab of jealousy that it was Mia who’d helped him.

>   Mia didn’t speak again until she’d led Zee into a small chamber on Level Seven and sealed the door behind them.

  “What makes you think I transported David?”

  “Because you know how to override systems. Because you ignore rules if you think there’s something bigger at stake.” Zee lifted her chin. There was an acrid smell in the room. Transmission. She tried not to think of David’s ashes floating around her.

  “I have to get to David as soon as possible. He’s in trouble, and he needs me. Do you still have the coordinates Paul sent him?”

  A chilly smile played over Mia’s face. “Of course. But tell me again why it is you think I’ll help you. Because David loves you? I’ve known David since I was three years old, and I’ve got news for you, Zee, you’re not David. You’re just someone who came here with him. Someone who, as far as I can tell, always brings trouble with her. So I don’t feel like doing much of anything for you, even though you seem to think I will.”

  “No, I don’t think you will help me, Mia. I know you don’t like me. But this is for David, not me, and I think you’d do anything to help David.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Zee said nothing. Minutes were sliding by, and the more time that passed, the harder it was going to be to find him. Like planets, space, and everything else in the universe, time was a constantly flowing river. The same coordinates David had used might not land her exactly where he had landed. They might be hours or miles apart. And even if she landed in the same place, it was doubtful he’d stayed exactly on the spot. He could be anywhere in Pompeii.

  “Please, Mia. I need to go to him.”

  “How do you know I won’t just send you into time and leave you there?”

  Zee hesitated only a moment before saying, “It’s a chance I’m going to take.”

  Mia glanced at Zee with a look close to admiration. Then she slid something from her pocket and aimed it at a control panel. The screen went black, then cycled to life again.

  “Okay, lie flat on that table and hurry. The bypass charge won’t hold for very long, and if you’re only half copied—well, it won’t be pretty.”

  Zee hurried. Her heart was pounding as she lay down, clutching her shoulder bag to her. She tried to focus on David, but all she could really think about was her own life, how small it was against the infinite stretch of time and history. If Mia let her slide into the void, no one, not even David, would ever know for sure what really happened to her.

  “Ready,” she said.

  The dark curving shield that came down over her seemed like the lid of a tomb. She closed her eyes, felt the hum and the warmth of the transporter gearing up, and was still bracing herself when she felt the searing pain of transmission.

  * * *

  As before, it took a moment for the warmth to flow back into her body. Zee felt cold and slightly dizzy, but her first thought was grateful—she was alive. Mia had not sent her into oblivion. Her next thought was that someone was bending over her, shaking her. Someone too rough to be David.

  Her vision cleared as her eyes began to function again. She was lying on her back on smooth warm paving stones, and the silhouette bending over her was tugging at her shoulder bag. Instinctively, she clamped her arms around it. The man continued to tug, jerking Zee off the stones. Standing, she saw that she was taller than he was, and younger. With a final, strong pull, she wrenched herself free. The shoulder bag came with her, but the closure opened and her cube tumbled out with a clatter. She lunged for it, but the man kicked it away, then grabbed her wrists and held her.

  “Let me go!” Zee cried. Her translator chip must be working, she realized, because the man tightened his hold in response and shouted to a companion she hadn’t seen.

  “Arrius! Fetch that!”

  A young boy wearing a worn tunic, rough sandals, and the metal collar of a slave darted to retrieve the cube.

  They were standing in a street, a busy one, with pedestrians and carts flowing around them. The air smelled of bread and garlic and food frying somewhere close by. From the tunics, togas, and sandals people wore, Zee decided she was in the right place, or close to it. A woman went by in a palanquin carried by four men, with two more men dashing in front to push people out of the way. Its orange silk curtains, held back with yellow cords, fluttered in the breeze, and the woman riding inside looked wealthy. She wore a tunic of pale turquoise and had gold bracelets on both arms. Her lips were painted, and her hair was woven into an elaborate fan-shaped structure on top of her head.

  “Help me!” Zee cried as they went by, sure that the woman would order one of her men to free her. Yet the palanquin flew by without even a glance from the woman.

  The crowd was so dense and noisy that no one seemed to notice Zee, or care that she was being roughly held against her will. One man did slow his steps, but only to smile broadly at the man who held her and say, “You’ve caught a pretty one this time, Secundus! Send for me when she goes on auction!” Then he too disappeared into the crowd.

  “A slave!” the man called Secundus said, appraising her and tightening his grasp. “Now, there’s a profit I hadn’t thought of.”

  Anger flooded Zee’s body, and she lashed out. Her foot struck Secundus’s shin with such unexpected force that he let go of her, yelping in pain.

  “My father the senator will hear of this!” she cried, meeting his eye with what she hoped was a look of highborn fury.

  For a split second, the man’s pupils widened with fear. Then, with a curse flung back over his shoulder—“May you die in ash and flames!”—he fled down a shadowy alley, the boy and her cube along with him.

  “Come back!” Zee cried. “Please, Secundus, that thing’s no use to you!” But she knew her words were futile, her voice drowned out by the noise of the street before it could travel far.

  Brushing the dust from her clothes, she backed up just in time to avoid a mule cart piled high with earthenware vases. The street was busy to the point of being dangerous. Carts collided, goods spilled, people shouted at one another without slowing down. Was it like this all the time? There was a jangle in the air. Not a noise but an agitated vibration in the crowd. It was the same vibration she used to feel working as an empath in the hospital on Friday nights, the night things were most likely to go haywire.

  Zee walked along the crowded sidewalk until she found a deserted alleyway. Leaning against a wall, she opened her shoulder bag and took inventory. She’d left New Earth without even thinking of what she’d do when she got here, or what she might need. She still had her computer, lip gloss and some eye shadow, toothpaste tablets, nanomints, and two glowsticks. That was all. And since there were no shops that had scanners to read her fingertips or retina, she had no money and no identity.

  And, without the cube, no way of finding David. Her chip tracer was resident in the cube’s memory. She and David had entered their codes in each other’s cubes, one hundred characters each, long alphanumeric strings that were purposely impossible to remember. No one at Time Fleet would be looking for David, she reasoned, so he probably hadn’t had Mia take his chip offline. She’d counted on using the cube to find him. But now Secundus and the boy Arrius had the cube. Of course there was always the possibility that David wasn’t here at all, that Mia had changed the coordinates and sent her to some other town or some other time. But Mia had had the chance to get rid of her completely, without a trace. Wouldn’t she have done that instead?

  That was one bright spot, Zee supposed. Mia was looking less and less likely to have a hand in the things that had gone wrong on New Earth. Which left just Mr. Sutton and Paul as suspects. And it was Paul, she realized, that she’d suspected all along. Which made finding David all the more urgent. If David was here. If time hadn’t folded unexpectedly and landed her in a different place.

  Clearly, she needed a plan.

  “No money,” she said aloud to the empty alley.

  But she did have currency, she suddenly realized. Something she could
barter. Ever since the day she’d met Melisande weeping in the park and turned her life around with one of Mrs. Hart’s diamonds, Zee had taken even more care never to leave the diamonds behind. She touched the cord around her neck to make sure they were still there, safe beneath her clothes. She’d never heard of a society that didn’t value diamonds. If she could find Secundus and Arrius, she could trade to get the cube back.

  There were hours of daylight left, hours to search for them and for David. She’d need some clothes to blend in with the crowd, and something to eat. And, if she didn’t find David by sunset, she’d need a place to sleep. She was already time-lagged, and doubted being out after dark was safe.

  She walked until she found a woman selling clothing and cheap adornments from a market stall.

  “I have no coins, but I have this to trade. Paint for the face,” Zee said, opening her palm to reveal the eye shadow. The woman shrugged, unimpressed. “Face paint is cheap,” she said, indicating a row of small earthenware pots. “I already have plenty.”

  Zee pulled out the lip gloss and showed the woman how to apply it.

  This time, the look on the woman’s face was blissful. “Ah,” she said, smiling and running her tongue over her lips. “Feels so good. So soft.”

  The woman held up a dress of fine cloth, two large squares of fabric sewn together at the sides almost to the top. Each square reached from neck to feet, and the idea was to pull it over the head, pin the tops of the squares together at the shoulders, and rope in the fabric with a belt at the waist. But the item the woman was showing her was too fine and bright. Zee didn’t want to look wealthy enough to attract robbers. She sorted through the items for sale and picked a coarser fabric in dull beige, along with a simple belt and plain brass pins.

  “Even trade?” she asked, and the woman nodded. She gathered her purchases and at the last minute pulled out the packet of nanomints and offered the woman one.