by Jaye McKenna
Cam returned shortly, saying only that they’d exited jump space safely and Anja would make an announcement when she had something to tell them.
It wasn’t long before Eleni opened the door to let them in. “He’s just starting to come around,” she said. “Try not to get him too worked up. He needs to rest.”
Rafe was the first one in. He practically ran to Miko’s side and reached for his hand. Draven kept a careful eye on Miko’s mythe-shadow, ready to drag Rafe away from him at the first sign that his presence was hurting Miko. But rather than recoiling from Rafe, Miko’s mythe-shadow sought him out, and as Draven watched, the two mythe-shadows merged and fused, like two halves of a whole.
Miko’s hand squeezed Rafe’s, and when Miko’s eyes fluttered open, a smile broke out on his face as he looked upon the brother who had been lost to him for so long.
* * *
Something was different. Something profound.
A soft, familiar warmth breathed through Miko’s mythe-shadow, awakening things that had been buried and forgotten long ago. Like a tiny plant unfurling its first leaves, Miko moved instinctively toward the sunlight.
His mythe-shadow was different. Brighter. More vibrant. Some deep, hidden part of him that had been torn and bleeding was now whole and shining. He’d been hurting for so long, but hadn’t even recognized the pain for what it was.
A hand was wrapped tightly around his, and when Miko opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his brother’s face.
Brother…
He knew it, deep in his bones.
Felt it, flowing through his mythe-shadow.
Remembered it.
A lost part of him woke and recognized the mythe-shadow that was as much a part of him as his own. Rafe was holding his hand and it didn’t hurt. Instead of bleeding the colors of loss and pain into the mythe, Rafe’s mythe-shadow shone bright with joy and relief. The places where it touched Miko glowed, and Rafe’s thoughts and feelings mingled with his own.
Had it been anyone else, it would have been an invasion, but this was Rafe, his other half. It felt right, like a crucial piece of Miko had been missing and was now restored.
Other mythe-shadows hovered nearby, flickering with concern, but they paled in comparison to the wonder that was Rafe’s.
Miko blinked and sat up slowly. He stared down at their joined hands, then raised his eyes to meet Rafe’s. A trembling hand followed, stroking Rafe’s cheek, tracing the line of his jaw.
Rafe leaned into the touch, and a tear slid down his cheek.
The thought was Miko’s, but the memories cascading through his mind belonged to both of them, a shared history, each piece falling neatly into place and forming a picture of the events and emotions that had strengthened their bond.
A lonely childhood full of needles and scans, tests and endless exercises, all administered by brusque, efficient adults who cared for little more than the data they gathered.
Kept apart from the world, Miko and Rafe had learned to depend on one another. To comfort and support each other, to speak without words when there were secrets to be kept.
Rafe had been Miko’s whole world then, and Miko had been Rafe’s. They’d lost it all when Aio had pulled Miko out of time, ripping apart their connection. She’d saved Miko’s life, but deeply injured both of them in the process. Miko had been healed enough that he’d never understood what had been taken from him. But poor Rafe had been left alone, bleeding from wounds that no one could see. Wounds that would never heal.
The sense-memory that was Rafe’s life after Miko had been torn from him was a bleak, empty place. To counter it, Miko sent Rafe a sense-memory of his own: the two of them as tiny children, minds and bodies snuggled together to keep each other warm and safe in a harsh, lonely world.
“Miko…” Rafe let out a choked whimper, and a moment later, he was in Miko’s arms. Miko held him tight, and Rafe pressed his face against Miko’s shoulder. Hot tears soaked Miko’s shirt.
On the periphery of his awareness, Miko sensed the others withdrawing, leaving him and Rafe alone to try to make sense of what they were now.
If he could have, Miko would have spared Rafe the dark, painful memories of the years he’d spent with DeMira, but there were no barriers between them. Rafe got it all. The abuse, the loneliness, the spark of hope when he and Draven had first met and realized they could talk to each other…
Likewise, Rafe would have spared Miko the pain of his own lost, lonely years, but Miko felt it all. The agonizing moment when they’d been torn apart, the festering psychic wound Miko had never felt, but Rafe had lived with every day, every hour, of his life. The soul-deep loneliness that came with the knowledge that the one person Rafe needed to make him whole was lost to him forever.
Tears mingled, mythe-shadows harmonized, and two souls that should never have been torn asunder rediscovered one another.
* * *
It was Draven who tugged Cam out of Miko’s room, leaving Miko and Rafe alone to come to terms with whatever had changed between them. Even Tarrin retreated without a word, eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
“What just happened in there?” Cam asked, feeling as if he’d missed something.
“You didn’t feel it?” Draven’s voice was rough. “Like something broken was made whole again.”
“Two mythe-shadows singing to one another in harmony,” Tarrin murmured. “Greeting one another after too long apart.”
“A song, yes,” Draven agreed. “Threading through the mythe. Whatever happened to Miko in that drive tube, it healed what was broken when he and Rafe were separated. Rafe doesn’t feel like he’s bleeding into the mythe anymore. And I’ve never sensed that kind of peace from Miko.”
“It’s more than just Miko and Rafe,” Tarrin said slowly, glancing at Draven as if asking for confirmation. “The mythe feels… different… and yet… not.”
“I feel it, too,” Draven murmured. “Familiar. Like I’ve been here before, only…” Amber eyes narrowed and shifted to Cam. “Did we make it to Hope?”
“I’m not sure,” Cam said. “Navigation says we’re on the edge of an uncharted system, and long-range scan suggests one of the planets has a breathable atmosphere. They were just launching a probe when I left. Come on. Let’s go see if they’ve found out any more.”
Draven and Tarrin followed him to the bridge. Inside, Anja and Rhys had pictures of a blue-and-white world on the nav-station’s vid-screen.
“This doesn’t look anything like Hope,” Cam said, studying the image. The land masses visible through the swirls of cloud cover were much larger than the islands covering Hope’s surface.
“It’s not,” Rhys said flatly.
Tarrin edged closer to the display in front of Rhys and began tracing one of the coastlines with a trembling finger. “This is Aion.”
“Uh, no,” Rhys said, bringing up another image next to it and rotating it until the land masses were in the same positions. “This is Aion.”
Even with some of the surface obscured by clouds, it was clear to Cam that the coastlines were almost identical.
“They’re the same,” Tarrin said.
“I don’t understand,” Cam said, twisting around to look at Anja. “If this is Aion, we’re not safe. They’ll find us. The station will have already logged our approach.”
“There is no station,” Rhys said.
“So it’s not Aion.” Cam turned back to the screen, struggling to understand.
“We made a blind jump,” Anja said, as if that explained everything.
Cam frowned. “So?”
“So… physics tells us performing a blind jump is like playing roulette. No telling where you’ll end up. Some say there
’s no telling when you’ll end up.”
“When?” Cam echoed, still not understanding.
Beside him, Rhys stirred. “The Mathilde.”
“Exactly,” Anja murmured.
“What about it?” Cam asked.
Rhys swallowed. He looked pale and sick as he stared up at Cam. “The Mathilde was missing for two years, Cam. When they found it, elapsed ship time was only a few hours.”
A deep chill gripped Cam as he finally grasped what they were trying to tell him. “You think… you think this is some future version of Aion?”
“Or past,” Rhys said.
“Closing the circle,” Draven murmured.
“How do we find out when we are?” Cam asked, still struggling to wrap his brain around it.
Rhys and Anja exchanged a worried look. “We might not ever know for sure,” Rhys said slowly. “We can take a stab at calculating the time shift by comparing the star charts, but… the navigation system doesn’t carry all the data we’d need to do it accurately.”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Anja said. “Whenever it is, this is our new home.”
“I thought we could make another jump,” Cam said.
Rhys glanced at Anja and then back at Cam. “I don’t think we dare. Our nav-charts are based on star positions that don’t exist anymore… or… or maybe don’t exist yet. I’m not sure which it is, but it hardly matters. The navigation system can’t make sense of our current position. Any jump we make from this location will be just as blind as the last one.”
“I’m getting some more data from the probe,” Anja said. “Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, gravity near Earth-normal, with a twenty-six hour day. The Wanderlust will make orbit in three days. At that point, we can take one of the shuttles down and have a look around. I’m thinking we leave the passengers in cold-sleep until we know for certain it will meet our needs.”
“If it’s Aion-that-was, it will,” Tarrin murmured.
“What do we tell them?” Cam asked. “A lot of our people are hoping this is a temporary measure, that we’ll be able to return to the Federation after things settle down.”
“We’ll tell ’em Space Fleet fragged our jump drive when they fired on us.” A red warning light flashed on the boards, and Rhys studied the displays for a few moments before turning to Anja. “You see that?”
“Aye, I see it,” Anja said, staring down at her own display. “Looks like we tell them the truth. The master drive crystal is cracked. We’re stuck in this system.”
There was a long silence while they all digested that.
“What about the rest of it?” Rhys asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “About where we think we are?”
“The constellations will be familiar enough that Vaya will guess,” Tarrin said quietly. “I expect Miko already knows, and Draven and I have both sensed a certain… familiarity in the currents of the mythe. I will speak with Vaya, but as for the others… I see no reason to frighten them with something we have no way to prove.”
Cam shivered. The reality had yet to set in, but the shock had already started, leaving him cold and shaken. “Then we’re agreed? We don’t tell them.”
“Agreed,” Anja said.
Draven reached for Cam’s hand. “It’s for the best. We have a lot of work ahead of us. The last thing we need right now is a panic.”
“And we call it Hope,” Anja said firmly. “Wherever we are… whenever we are… it’s still a chance to live free.”
* * *
Hot water pounded on Draven’s back, and he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh as he rested his forehead against the wall of the tiny shower cubicle. The days since they’d entered orbit around Hope had been busy. They were still in the process of choosing a good site for the settlement, but several candidate sites had already been identified, and tomorrow, a survey team would set foot on the surface for the first time. Among the passengers were several scientists whose areas of expertise would be invaluable in making the initial survey. They’d been revived early, and were eager to join the expedition.
Draven would be going down with them, in charge of security. If this was indeed Aion, there were dangerous predators down there, and someone would need to protect the technicians and scientists while they gathered their samples and ran their tests. Tarrin and Vaya had already briefed him on the hazards that had existed in their time, and Draven was ready to face them.
He’d been stunned when Cottrell had put his name at the top of the list in response to Anja’s request for recommendations for the security team. There had been a few dissenting voices, but Kyn, Alek McKinnon, Luka and Damon Valdari, and Eleni had all spoken up for him, and Anja hadn’t hesitated to put him in charge of the survey team’s security. It would take time to prove himself to those who knew him only by reputation, but he was grateful he’d been given the chance, and was determined to prove his worth and his loyalty.
As he dried off, he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror and froze, staring at his reflection. He usually avoided mirrors, because the face he showed the world was so at odds with the man inside his skin, but now he studied his reflection with growing curiosity.
What was it that Anja and the others saw in him?
What had changed?
Something had. The face the mirror showed him was subtly different from the one he remembered. The jet-black hair and amber eyes were the same, but the expression was a little less guarded, a little kinder, and the eyes were not so hard.
It was Cam, he decided. Cam who had changed him, shown him there was more to life than just surviving. Given him a future to believe in, and someone to dream with.
When he emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips, Cam was pacing the cramped cabin like a caged animal. His mythe-shadow writhed with the colors of tension, as it had ever since they’d come out of jump.
Draven dropped the towel on the floor and slid into bed, savoring the feel of clean, crisp sheets against his bare skin. “You need to relax, Cam.”
Cam’s restless movements stopped, but apprehension continued to flicker through his mythe-shadow like dark lightning. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t make sense of it. If this is Aion-that-was, what the hell does that mean? Tarrin’s always maintained that Aion isn’t a lost colony, that their history stretches too far back, but what if it is? What if we’re the ones who settled Aion?”
Draven rolled his eyes. This again. Cam hadn’t stopped turning it over in his head since they’d come out of jump and made a guess at where they were. “You heard what Rhys said. It might be Aion, but we don’t have enough information to figure out when.”
“What kind of responsibility does that put on us?” Cam asked, as if he hadn’t even heard him. “For the future of this world? What if we do something wrong or stupid? What if—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “What if it’s our fault Tarrin’s ancestors nearly destroyed their world? What if Tarrin’s ancestors are our children, and—”
“Stop.” Draven threw back the covers and rolled out of bed. He planted himself in front of Cam and put his hands on Cam’s shoulders. “Listen to me. Those are all good questions, but we can’t answer any of them now, and we may never be able to. And even if it is Aion, we could just as easily be in the future as the past.”
“But… think about it. Every decision we make could have staggering implications for the future of Aion. The future of the Federation, even. It’s too big, Draven. Too big.”
Draven pressed his forehead against Cam’s. “You’re making my brain hurt. You keep thinking that way, you’ll end up paralyzed. You can’t worry about every single what if. All you can do is move forward and make the best decisions you can with the information you have.”
“But what if they’re the wrong decisions? What if—”
“No guarantees. There never are. Sometimes, even when you think you’ve got everything covered, you make the wrong call. Then you clean up your mess, do wha
tever damage control you need to, and move on. But Cam, if you’re too afraid of what might happen down the road, you won’t do anything. These people are looking to you to be the strong, decisive leader you’ve been all along. Don’t tie yourself up in knots over something you can’t know and can’t change.”
Cam sucked in his lower lip and frowned. Draven could almost see the gears in his brain spinning out of control. He could certainly sense the tension flickering through his mythe-shadow.
“It’s not Aion,” Draven continued. “It’s Hope. And… if it turns out that we are in Aion’s past, well, maybe we’ll make a better job of it this time around.”
Cam sank down on the edge of the bunk and hunched forward, elbows on knees, staring down at the floor. “Can we do things differently? Or are we doomed to repeat the past? I don’t understand how this is supposed to work.”
“Let it go, Cam.” Draven crawled onto the bunk behind him and started working his shirt loose from his pants. “Come on. You’re so far away. Be here with me for a little while. I want to touch you. It’s been too long.”
They hadn’t had a moment alone since the night after Sylvester had arrived on campus, and Draven was hungry for Cam’s touch. Cam had spent every waking hour for the past two days closeted with Anja, Rhys, and Pat, locating supplies and making plans for the first surface expeditions.
They’d slept in the same bunk, but Cam had been too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Draven had missed being inside Cam’s mind and his body. Missed the warmth of his skin and the heat of his desire.
Now, he pulled the shirt up over Cam’s head, tossed it aside, and ran his hand down Cam’s spine, from the nape of his neck to the waistband of his pants. He sensed a softening, a stir of interest, but Cam wasn’t quite ready to let go yet. Draven set his hands on Cam’s shoulders and massaged the tight muscles the way Trinian had taught him.
