My experience with outer space is not as limited as it once was. I’ve seen a bit more of it than I expected to, and witnessed the destruction of an entire space station, so I’m at least partly aware of what can go wrong. But this scene is a different manner of catastrophe. For one, I’m not looking at scattered wreckage. For the most part, this ship seems to have come down in one piece. What I take to be the nose section is burrowed into the earth and that is what has caused the crater, its sheer size plowing up whatever was in its path on landing.
It has landed, albeit badly, and its occupants apparently survived the ordeal because an access door on the lower side of the sphere has been opened to discharge them.
No one is exiting at the moment. It looks like the door has been open for a long time. The oily smoke billowing into the sky is pouring out of a vent in the topside of the ship. A ring around the circumference of the craft is glowing faintly—pulsing an occasional blue light. There is something very unstable about the way the light flickers.
In the space between my position and the spaceship, moving down the inside embankment and out into the center of the crater, is none other than my bearded quarry. Zurvan has his robes wrapped tightly around himself, almost as if he’s cold. He is adding wood to a sort of campfire, built on a raised platform perhaps twenty yards from the exit of the ship. The wood smoke is joining with the plume from the ship and then blending with the dark clouds above.
The scene is oddly disjointed. Sinking behind a pile of rubble near the edge of the crater, I try to process what I’m seeing. He is clearly comfortable next to this ship. His behavior is not cautious or insecure. This is home for him.
Zurvan is a spaceman?
Zurvan looks Middle Eastern. Benny had mentioned Iraq or Iran, and he looks like he’d match that locale. More specifically, he seems like someone out of the distant past. I have a hard time reconciling his style of dress with anything modern, but the fact of this memory remains. He’s seen the future. He’s also talked to me in English and understood me when we spoke. That was an equally perplexing clue. Doctor Quickly once mentioned that a burka makes for the most universal garb, able to fit in across multiple centuries. As far as clothing styles go, Zurvan’s layered robes are almost equally hard to pin to any one era.
My assumption is that he’s a time traveler. A logical deduction since he ended up here in the first place. From what little I know of Neverwhere legends, it is supposed to be a place outside of time—not a spot the average person could accidentally wander into. Time travelers, on the other hand, toy with the bonds of reality every time they make a jump. According to Doctor Quickly, improperly conducted time travel is the fastest way to an untimely demise, and a fate frequently met by the foolish.
So why haven’t I run into more here?
The simplest answer could be that most incompetent time travelers are offing themselves in more definitive ways, fusing themselves into objects or failing at the normal laws of physics in more basic terms. It could also be that there are fewer people flinging themselves into the Neverwhere than suspected. Advances in Temprovibe technology used by most Grid travelers supposedly have safeguards against improper grounding. Assuming they work, that narrows candidates for the Neverwhere to analog travelers like me and whoever else from other eras might be capable of punching a hole in the fabric of time and falling out.
Benny fits into the analog category. Whatever method brought him here, it likely involved an improperly used chronometer.
It’s also possible that there have been plenty of people who shared this fate and their memories simply do not overlap with mine. They’re wandering other paths in the Neverwhere and I’ll never run into them unless we stumble into a location we both feel like haunting concurrently.
There is of course the other, less pleasant option. It could be that I haven’t run into other people here because someone got rid of them all.
Someone angry about being here.
Zurvan continues to feed the blaze, fanning the flames into higher and higher blooms of red and orange.
The presence of the spaceship completely throws off my sense of time when it comes to my enemy.
It’s a big ship. Clearly technology centuries beyond my time. Whatever brought it here must have done so rather violently. Little about this scene denotes a pleasant arrival.
Zurvan is settling down next to the fire, kneeling and resting on his heels. For the moment I’m not worried about him seeing me. I’m hidden behind an outcropping of rubble, and nothing about his movements suggests he feels anything other than alone. He hasn’t looked up or shown any suspicion about his surroundings. Perhaps no one has been bold enough to invade one of his memories before. He’s calmly facing the fire and, after getting himself comfortable, he extends both hands—palms up—in front of himself. Next he begins to hum.
The only other time I’ve heard Zurvan making this noise, he turned the location into the desert shortly after. I brace myself against the bit of wall I’m leaned against, but keep my feet under me in the event things are about to change and I need to flee.
Something does alter itself, but it’s not the scenery. Rather, the location hasn’t been changed, but it has grown more vivid. Watching Zurvan’s extended hands and the scene around him, I notice the shimmer of colors and realize what he’s doing. He’s opening a window to a specific time in this place, the way Benny did with my old kitchen in Oregon, and the way I’ve been doing in my apartment. He’s visiting the real events of the past.
Time slowly washes over the scene, graying out the figure of Zurvan and bringing only the new view into focus. Looking down at my own body, I look washed out too.
In this vision of the past, the ship is in the same position, but the door is still closed. Fires are smoldering in the dirt and rubble around the ship. It looks as though it only recently landed. Zurvan’s platform and fire are missing from this reality, but I can still see him faintly, the platform below him, a hazy shadow.
The door to the ship hisses and opens. I half expect a cloud of dry ice smoke to billow forth from inside the way it does in old sci-fi movies, but in this case, the only thing exiting is a battered and injured Zurvan. He stumbles down the ramp, one hand held to his bleeding head, loses his balance on the irregular footing, and falls. He makes one attempt to get up but collapses again. He lies in the dirt, not moving, for a long time.
The other Zurvan—the one in my world—is still on his knees, focusing on his fallen other self, concentrating on keeping the window of time open. As I observe the scene, the fires around the ship go out and the stars emerge in the sky. The sheer multitude of stars makes them brilliant. Despite the plume of smoke issuing from the ship, I can tell that this is a sky free of the normal light pollution in my era. This scene is unfolding in a century vastly different from my own.
What could be any amount of time later, depending on Zurvan’s vision, the edge of the crater comes alive and I realize there are other people here with me.
I look on in amazement as a group of men and women in mismatched and battered clothing climb the outside of the crater and peer inside. One member of the group, a gray-bearded man with a walking staff, is standing quite near me, but it’s clear that these people of the past can neither see nor interact with me. I am a ghost here. My dog may have been attuned to visitors from other times, but these people are oblivious to my spying.
The bravest of the bunch has climbed into the crater and is approaching the fallen form of this other real life Zurvan. She looks up at the ship, pausing to watch the flickering of lights around the perimeter of the ball, then creeps closer to the prostrate man. She has a hand on a weapon—a knife or shiv tucked into her belt, but she doesn’t draw it. Instead, she gives Zurvan a swift kick in the thigh before bouncing back a few steps.
Zurvan doesn’t stir.
Emboldened, the other half dozen members of the group descend into the crater and gather around. The young woman who arrived first has begun to search the body
, squealing with glee when she discovers Zurvan’s shiny blade tucked into his robes. One of the men near her tries to grab the weapon from her, but she jerks her own knife free from her belt and jabs the would-be thief’s forearm, forcing him to lose his grip on the big knife and retreat, swearing and nursing his wound.
The young woman’s eyes are shining with delight now as she straddles the body and waves her new acquisition through the air a few times. The blade shimmers in the starlight and the pulsing blue glow of the ship.
The whole scene is primal and baffling to the senses. I catch snippets of words from the group that I think I recognize, but the rest of their language is a garble of half words and sounds I don’t understand. The old man who had stood closest to me is now next to the body. He places a hand to Zurvan’s neck, probing for signs of life. Zurvan must still be alive because the old man gestures to a thick woman behind him and the two of them turn the body over. Together they begin to work on him, inspecting the wound on his head and dabbing at the blood.
The young woman with the knife has ignored their actions, apparently satisfied that there is nothing more to be gained from the body. Instead, she is now standing at the entrance to the spacecraft, gazing up the incline to the mouth of the ship. She sets a foot on the ramp, testing it, but retracts it almost immediately. It seems there are limits to her courage, and the doorway is at least temporarily beyond them. Instead of entering, she turns around and begins to gesticulate with the knife, pointing from one side of the ship to another. I don’t understand her words, but it’s clear from her gestures that she’s claiming the ship for herself.
The others in the group, despite being more numerous, don’t seem to challenge her claims. The man with the cut arm is scowling, but none of the others have objected. Instead, they begin to fan out around the ship, searching the ground for any other items of interest.
The meditating Zurvan in my world shifts his position slightly, then settles back onto his heels again, and the scene around us changes.
It’s daylight. The crater has been vacated by all but three of the figures. The old man with the staff and the rotund woman who had helped him are assisting the now conscious figure of Zurvan toward the ship. Zurvan is skinnier and wearing bandages around his head and chest. He’s no longer wearing his robes and is dressed only in loose-fitting trousers and a blanket. He’s not wearing shoes and seems to have sprung directly from his sickbed to come here, despite the continued protestations of his nurses.
The old man is pleading with Zurvan to stop. I make out the words “madness” and “danger” in his entreaty. The woman is likewise babbling admonishments, but the most I make from her speech is the phrase “fool man.”
Zurvan continues, despite their protest, until he’s standing at the base of the crater. His eyes sweep over the exterior of the ship, analyzing the pulsing lights and continuously billowing smoke. Today the smoke cloud seems even worse than the night of the landing. I can’t be sure if it’s just the daylight allowing me to see better, but it seems as though the back of the ship has grown blacker and is radiating waves of heat that warp the atmosphere around it like a mirage. He mutters to himself and struggles forward amidst a new slew of protestations from his assistants. He’s made it nearly to the ship’s entrance when a shout makes him stop. He pauses and scowls.
The voice has echoed from the interior of the ship, and a moment later a figure descends the ramp. If it weren’t for the seriousness of the expression on the young woman’s face, I would be tempted to laugh. It’s the same woman from the first memory who had claimed the ship, but now she has clearly explored the interior and proceeded to adorn herself with some of her findings.
I hadn’t thought someone could wear insulation, but this woman has found a method. She’s wrapped herself in what appears to be some kind of fire suppression blanket and is using it as a shiny cape. Her affinity for finery has not stopped there. Dangling around her neck is a bundle of wiring, capacitors, and salvaged colored light bulbs. Her head is perhaps the most entertaining. Her tangled hair has been adorned with metal spikes and thin, wiry devices that bounce and bop around her head like a technological mobile or a multitude of metallic antennae.
Zurvan takes in this new apparition without comment. As she descends the ramp, waving his knife and shouting, he lowers his hand from where he had been supporting his bandaged ribs and lets it dangle. I watch his fingers twitch, a gesture I recognize. The swaying of a cobra before the strike.
The woman dressed in spaceship doesn’t seem to sense any threat. She continues to wave the knife around and gesture toward the edge of the crater, clearly telling the intruders to bugger off. Two more people descend the ramp behind her. Her chosen friends have likewise adorned themselves with knickknacks from the interior of the ship, though none quite as outrageously as their leader. I’m surprised to see that one of them is the guy whose arm she sliced in the initial scuffle. The dispute seems to have been settled for the cost of a few oddments of spacecraft interior and some assorted knobs and switches. He’s toying with a bright red ball in his hand that looks like it might have once belonged on the end of an emergency lever.
I don’t know if it is any one item in particular that has caught Zurvan’s eye or merely the entire spectacle of the trio dressed in his ship’s innards, but it clearly infuriates him. His arm flies forward and clenches air in front of him. A gesture I’m now familiar with. I cringe involuntarily as I wait for the worst, expecting one or all of the intruders to feel the pain in their minds that I’ve experienced. Instead, it’s Zurvan who staggers. The exertion is too much for him and he groans, collapsing forward, caught awkwardly by his two companions who do their best to keep him from striking the ground face-first. The thick woman bears the brunt of Zurvan’s weight, and she goes to one knee in trying to hold him up. The old man has hold of one elbow, but staggers himself and mostly makes the situation worse with his efforts.
Laughter erupts from the gangway of the ship. The newly glitzy space queen is roaring with glee. Whatever has happened to Zurvan is more than enough to please her, and the men behind her grin along. After a few moments, the three turn and disappear back inside.
Zurvan has a hand to his skull, and when he pulls it away, it’s bloody. He considers his hand briefly, then collapses back onto his haunches, slumped partially against the old man. He is panting hard and it seems to be paining him just to breathe. Once the initial weakness passes, he puts a hand to the muddy earth and struggles to rise.
“You need to take me back,” he says. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll be better.” He lets the big woman hoist him up by his arm and then rests it across her shoulder. He stretches his other hand to the old man’s shoulder. “You will be rewarded. Both of you. You’ve helped me, and we’ll still have time. Time enough to stop it.”
The scene in the crater dims and fades, then grows lighter again, only to fade into darkness a second time. The clouds have returned, and if the sun is passing above them, it does so in secret. Night falls for a second and then a third day as Zurvan fast forwards through this memory. It’s only on the fourth day that I see the living Zurvan return. Whatever rest he’s had has done him good. He’s still thin and a bit pale, but not nearly as pallid as he once was. He’s donned his robes again, giving him the illusion of added bulk, and he’s walking without assistance.
The area around the spaceship door has been littered with debris. Cargo from the ship has been dragged out and rummaged through, only to be discarded to the dirt. Zurvan doesn’t pay any attention to the mess, he keeps his eyes fixed on the gangway to the ship and, when he’s within a dozen yards of it, he stops and shouts toward the open doorway.
“Datrica! Come out.”
When nothing happens he shouts louder. “DATRICA!”
It takes a few minutes, but something finally stirs inside the ship and a figure stumbles down the gangway. It’s not the woman. Not Datrica. It’s Arm Wound Guy. His upper lip is curled back, showing not quite enough teeth t
o be called a smile. He grins his less than toothy grin and makes a gesture toward Zurvan that I guess is something disrespectful. It’s a sort of pushing motion using three fingers and a thumb and hooking upward and then down. The last move lands the hand back at his groin which he grabs. A crude maneuver he might have thought better of if he ever got the chance. He doesn’t, because a rock flies out of Zurvan’s hand and strikes the man squarely in the face. A festive spurt of blood erupts from the man’s nose as he tumbles backward and collapses in a heap.
The speed of the action shocks me. I had expected some sort of conflict, but the sudden bloodletting has taken me by surprise. Zurvan strides over to the man’s fallen form and looks down on him with a sneer.
“I could have robbed you of your mind, but who would want it?” A moment later, he ascends the ramp into the ship.
The Zurvan in the Neverwhere rises from his knees and strides forward, ascending the ramp behind his real life counterpart and disappearing into the spaceship.
I’ve lost all sense of time while watching this memory unfold. Perhaps it’s the timelessness of the Neverwhere in general, but I’ve faded into the background as I viewed it, absorbing each new scene, enraptured as much by its twists and turns as by any Hollywood film. Likely more so.
I wait.
I hear voices. Datrica. She’s talking loudly and then yelling. Something crashes solidly and likely painfully into someone. There is a groan and a clatter. I’m frozen, unable to move. Datrica screams. Someone else shouts and then is promptly silenced.
I want to know what happens.
Cautiously, ever so cautiously, I creep forward down the inside of the crater. I keep my eyes fixed on the door of the ship. With each step I expect to see Zurvan reappear and accost me, but as I near the side of the craft, it becomes clear that I’m going to make it. I race up to the ship and hide under the boarding ramp. Zurvan hasn’t seen me.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 130
