beyond the river of time

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  BEYOND THE RIVER OF TIME

  Book 4 of The Plantation

  by

  Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  ©2013 by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

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  1

  Kroll’s heavy black boots echo through the corridors of Exodus L21. He marches back and forth

  like he owns the place. He exudes a menacing energy that sends chills down the spines of the space

  station’s inhabitants.

  His harsh features seem hostile and unwelcoming. I get it. They see him as an intruder. I don’t

  blame them but I have no option. I need to keep him as close as possible. His one job now is to

  protect Tobi. I have commanded it.

  Kroll is not particularly happy about the arrangement, either, but he will not utter a complaint.

  Not for something I have ordered him to do.

  Finn doesn’t approve of my choice to keep Kroll on Exodus. Nobody does even if they don’t say

  anything. How could they when I withhold the most important piece of information from them?

  The only person who seems to understand is Commander Eldritch. Luckily, he also happens to

  be the one person whose opinion matters more than mine. He has an ability to see through and beyond

  things. He has boundless experience in matters both of the heart and the mind.

  “Adjusting is a necessity in life,” he said with a wink when he agreed to let Kroll be my

  personal guard.

  I leave Pip and Tobi with Kroll in the playground. I head for Sector Three which is where I

  spend most of my time. My days at the energy recycling lab are over. A new era has begun and it has

  come with a whole new set of responsibilities for me. I have to monitor the development and

  progress in Spring Town as well as the Dark Legion camp. I have to supervise security systems,

  provide blue energy for the shields and discuss plans and schedules for what’s to come next.

  I would not be able to handle it all if I couldn’t trust that Tobi is safe. I still have nightmares of him being kidnapped by the Empress and turned into her slave. She wants to punish me for stealing

  Damian and Kroll away from her. What an unexpected delight she would discover when she realized

  Tobi has inherited her favorite mutated gene from me.

  I’m late and not for the first time. The others cut me some slack since they know I have no

  personal life. I have time only for fulfilling my obligations as the bearer of the powerful, healing and lethal sensory receptor. But when I am late I get frustrated with myself. It reminds me I am hanging on by a thread in this new role. The burdens of my position just might be too much for such a small, petty and vindictive girl. I feel like an imposter.

  I reach the mid-station rotunda that connects the four main sectors of Exodus L21 on my way to

  Sector Three when I notice him out of the corner of my eye. He walks in long strides coming back

  from Sector Four. I barely have time to process his presence before he spots me too. He slows down

  as he approaches, not knowing what to do. I am not sure what alternatives flashed through his mind,

  but he settles on a broad, toothy grin.

  “Freya,” he says stopping in front of me.

  “Hi, Damian.”

  He stares into my eyes. I stare back unable to find a way to shake off the spell of the chance

  encounter.

  “The boy, Tobi, is he well?” he says rubbing his hands together.

  “Tobi is good,” I say distracted by his odd hand movement. “As happy and cheerful as a little

  boy should be.”

  “Excellent.”

  We fall silent again. He fidgets which seems odd for such a graceful creature. It’s funny that we

  can barely communicate when we find ourselves alone for the first time in weeks. I haven’t seen him

  since the night Malzod agreed to destroy the underground Sliman base. Saviors apart for so long

  should have a lot of catching up to do, but we have been forever damaged by a broken intimacy. The

  secrets and fears that run wild within us overwhelm our need to communicate.

  I nod and decide to let go of all pretense. “Why are you here, Damian? Has something

  happened?”

  He takes a long, hard look at me. “Why do you keep Kroll in this flying prison? This is no place

  for him. The pampered people of Exodus are not comfortable with him here and he must feel like a

  chained beast on display.”

  “Kroll stays,” I say losing patience with his tone.

  “Trust me, I know how Kroll feels. There’s an ongoing battle within him and you never know

  which way it will go. But never mind all that. The Dark Legion needs him, Freya. He’s the one who

  binds them together, the only one who can keep their dark hearts loyal to you.”

  “I think Torik is more than capable of keeping them in line.”

  “Help me understand, Freya. Do you need a bodyguard? Any Sliman from the Dark Legion

  would do for that. It doesn’t have to be their beloved leader.” He pauses for a moment before he

  adds, “You would be safe under my eye as well.”

  His heart is in the right place, but I would feel no peace under his eye. I would feel things I may

  not be able to control. “The last thing I want is to drag you away from the life you’ve chosen,” I say trying to avoid his eyes.

  Love is blindness, I think. Like falling over a one-foot cliff or tripping on your own toes. After all that Damian and I have been through, we are not able to say anything substantial to each other.

  This is why lovers kiss to chase away the awkwardness, but we are no longer lovers.

  “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I will have to ask Finn, I guess,” he says with a teasing

  squint in his eyes.

  “Really? That would be comedy. I’d like to watch that,” I say unable to hide my bemusement.

  Damian shrugs his shoulders. “Who knows more about Freya than Finn?”

  “Freya does,” I say glaring my eyes at him.

  “Finn doesn’t know?” he says. “Holy shit. Things must be more serious than I thought.”

  “Ha ha, you’re so funny, aren’t you?” I say looking around. We’re standing in the busiest part of

  the entire station. People walk by in all directions in a steady flow heading to different sectors. Some of them throw hurried glances our way while others avoid making eye contact. They all know who we

  are and what we represent.

  “How long will you stay?” I say under my breath.

  “As long as it takes.”

  “What does that mean, Damian?”

  “I have questions that need answers.”

  I take out my touchpad and punch in a few words to let Command Deck know I will be late.

  Then I take Damian’s hand and lead him away. He follows me obediently back to Sector One. We do

  not say a word until we reach the Saviors’ meeting hall. The door closes behind us with a loud

  creaking sound that makes me want to cover up my ears.

  “When did that door get so loud?” I say and at the
same instant Damian puts his hands on my

  shoulders and sits me down next to him.

  “Why am I not in charge of the Dark Legion now that Kroll’s gone?” he says. “You can’t

  possibly trust Torik more than me.”

  “Is he not doing what he’s supposed to? Do you have reason to mistrust him?”

  “No. That’s not the point, Freya. This is our fight first and foremost. The Saviors’ fight. The

  humans’ fight. I should have some power, some control. It frustrates me that you have no larger role

  for me.”

  His words unsettle me somehow. “I did not choose to take anything away from you,” I say. “You

  made your choice. You left the Saviors. You left Exodus. I respected that even though it was the last thing I wanted. You are never happy. I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want you to consider me when you make decisions like that.”

  “I didn’t make it, Damian. I asked Kroll who he thought should be his replacement. It was his

  choice, not mine.”

  “You knew what Kroll would decide. You could have simply put me in charge and you know it.

  Letting Kroll decide was your way of not choosing me.”

  “Maybe I wanted you to keep your options open,” I say.

  “Open for what?”

  “C’mon, you know what I mean. I don’t believe you belong with the Dark Legion. You belong

  here with us. Someday soon you will realize that. I want you to be able to come back when you’re

  ready. You don’t need any extra responsibilities holding you back.”

  He sighs and takes my hand. “You know that it can’t happen, Freya.”

  It’s not easy to hear him talk like that. I feel my heart ready to leap up and shout that it could

  happen, that it should happen, as a matter of fact, and that there’s truly nothing keeping us apart now.

  But he’s not ready for this and I can’t force him to be someone he doesn’t want to be.

  “That’s a dangerous way to live,” I murmur.

  “Dangerous? What do you mean?”

  “If you think you know everything in advance, you’ll always be disappointed,” I caution him.

  Damian studies me with his penetrating eyes. “You see what happens. You’re stuck up here

  reading too much. All words and no action.”

  “Haven’t we had enough action for a while?” I suggest. “Tell me about you. How is your life

  down on Earth?”

  He leans back on his chair. “At its best, it’s rough, unpredictable, wild.” He turns to me with a

  pleasant expression. “Whenever I visit Spring Town, the children can’t stop asking about you. Freya

  this, Freya that. I would rather fight a genetically enhanced bull than smile and talk of you all day long.”

  “Thank you for being there for them when I can’t.”

  “You see why I want to command the Dark Legion,” he says. “You’ve made me an ambassador

  of good cheer. So cruel.”

  “You’ll forgive me one day,” I joke.

  His crooked smile is interrupted by something darker. “I will always forgive you. You know

  that,” he says. “I wonder if you will ever forgive me for the way I changed at Plantation-15.”

  He has a bad knack for turning all conversations dark. “I just want you to start living again,” I

  say. “I cannot tell you how but you have built too many walls. You’re always defensive. You have to

  let people in. You need friends.”

  “You see, you always want me to go back and be him, the man who no longer exists.”

  “No, I just want you to be someone with hope.” I reach for my touchpad and check the time. “I’m

  extremely late,” I say. “Do you promise you’ll stay until tomorrow at least?”

  He nods. “Of course. Your ambassador of good cheer will be ever obedient and at your ready.”

  “You, obedient?” I ask bending my face at him. “Since when did you become so silly?”

  I leave him in the room but carry him with me, as always, as I hurry down the corridors of the

  space station. It will stay like this for a long time. Maybe forever. Damian in my blood. He leads my thoughts to ruin. He overwhelms and suffocates me. Love is blindness. My certain past and uncertain

  future.

  *

  I’M SUPPOSED TO BE in a hurry but with each step I want to travel back to Earth or to the past

  or to anywhere I can feel a canyon breeze again, or a morning mist or the touch of afternoon sunshine.

  Life on the station has proven to be quite a challenge lately. The days all lead to another day just

  like the one before. I often wake with the same feeling I had when I woke at the plantation as a girl, the feeling of being pulled reluctantly through another monotonous day.

  I reach Sector Three as the eleven o’clock hour chimes on my touchpad. I begin to run when a

  hand reaches out from behind and grabs my shoulder.

  It’s Theo. When I see his face, I know something’s up. Something major.

  “Can we talk?” he says and motions for me to follow him to his lab.

  Theo’s recent growth has not been just physical. He’s more confident and serious. He moves

  with a purpose. Nya’s influence on him is obvious, but it’s more than that. We’ve all had to grow up

  fast.

  He shuts the door and walks to the thin glass screen on his desk. An advanced model Theo has

  helped design. It’s almost on par with the alien three-dimensional imaging technology. The code on

  the screen forms a rainbow of light very similar to my sensory receptor’s energy fields.

  “There has been an interruption in the energy field around Spring Town,” he says. “Three times

  in two days.”

  “Three times?” I ask as I try to process the information. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is it a glitch?”

  “That’s what I thought the first time and even to some degree the second time. But today I’m not

  so sure.”

  “Today’s the day of the third interruption?”

  Theo nods. “See for yourself,” he says.

  He brings the mapping of the security field up on the screen which displays three dimensionally

  in waves of infrared light. The continuity is apparent and harmonic, almost like a symphonic

  composition. But then something happens. The waves in the center of the energy field become shorter,

  then longer again. Up and down they go like a steady beat for several seconds right before they

  disappear leaving an ugly hole in my force field, the field that supports the shields placed around

  Spring Town.

  A few seconds later harmony in the field is restored only for the same pattern to be repeated

  three more times.

  I turn to Theo astonished. “Someone’s testing the shield.”

  “Bingo,” he says.

  “But who?”

  “Said the owl,” Theo says. “I wish I knew, Freya. I think we can both imagine the worst

  scenario.”

  We share dark thoughts of the Empire’s deadly ways, but neither of us care to speak of it or their

  cold-blooded leader.

  I set my hand on Theo’s shoulder. “I know you have a theory.”

  “I do and it’s not what you might think.”

  “Just share, Theo.”

  “Whoever’s doing it is in Spring Town. Or nearby.”

  I consider that strange possibility. “Are you saying it could be one of our own?”

  “At this point, we can’t rule out anything or anyone. We’ve gone from just twelve of us to

  thousands. Humans, Sliman, hybrids, the children. There are as many possibilities as stars in
the sky.”

  “Does anyone else know?” I say.

  “No, you’re the one and only.”

  “Not Nya, not Zoe?”

  “No. I tried to tell Finn, but I couldn’t find him.”

  “Alright,” I say as I head for the door. “We will need a list of everyone who’s been near Spring

  Town in the last couple days. We’ll go through it together.”

  “I’ll go to work on it,” he says as he shuts down the mapping and the infrared is replaced with

  black.

  “We’ll tell Finn later,” I say. “But for now let’s keep quiet. The fewer people that know about

  our suspicions, the better.”

  Theo nods. He immediately returns to his work as I leave.

  I don’t want to imagine there could be a traitor among us. I don’t have the energy to believe it.

  It’s an unthinkable, preposterous suggestion. Not again. Not after Gabe was sentenced to life in prison for trying to kidnap Tobi.

  One thing I have learned is that life really does suck sometimes. Things do not stay the same.

  Happiness and loyalty must be earned every day. Nothing, no matter how unwanted, is impossible.

  I have protected entire camps and I have brought people back from the throes of death, but it’s

  often the little things that I struggle with, the petty individual human desires. I am not a political creature. I am a warrior.

  When I finally enter Command Deck, the frustration and fear quickly melt away from my

  conflicted soul. I see Finn’s grinning face up on the big screen mounted on the wall. There are happy children with him, children of all ages moving about in the sunny, green gardens of Spring Town.

  2

  “Who authorized this?” I say keeping my eyes glued to the screen that’s receiving the feed from

  Spring Town.

  “Who authorized what?” Joshua says walking in front of the screen with a buzzing touchpad in

  his hand.

  “Finn. In Spring Town.”

  When Joshua’s touchpad stops buzzing, there is absolute silence in the room. I realize I must

  have sounded like a lunatic. At least like someone in a terribly sour mood.

  “I didn’t know people needed authorization to visit Spring Town. Especially you Saviors,”

  Commander Eldritch says half-amused and half-curious. I can feel his gaze focusing on me

  scrutinizing and impenetrable.

  I have to choose my words carefully. “No, you’re right,” I say. “There’s no need for