Exile

by Rayann Marse

  "What is this?" asked Richard, suspicious. "Some sort of surveillance? You can tell the Mindseat that there is no reason for them to—"

  Another of the Menin had lifted a small remote control and hit a button. Suddenly, the seven-foot square of wall seemed to vanish, flying into the distance at the speed of light and leaving behind a void, a pocket of nothingness that extended into infinity. Just as suddenly, the void formed itself into a scene, like a movie set behind a wall of glass. It was the Menin ship. More specifically, it was one of the hangars, dark and huge and gloomy.

  Someone screamed and laughed triumphantly. A moment later, Stella realized that it was Ignu.

  Richard hit the dirt. His guards rushed forward, reaching to help him, but he waved them away.

  "I'm alright," he said. "Just tripped over something." He stared at the scene of the hangar, open-mouthed. "What is this? Surely..."

  "It is a direct portal to the ship," the leader of the ship crew told him. "You can step through and arrive there instantly. It is a new technology. The Mindseat has only just approved its widespread usage."

  Stella tried to keep the stupid grin off her face, but she couldn't. She was right. All along, she'd known. And if the Mindseat had this technology, it meant that Kozue was back. She had to be.

  "You knew all along," said Richard, standing up and brushing dust off his backside. He was talking to Stella. "This is the variable. The uncertainty in the Web. This, my friends, alters the natural order considerably." He gave the portal an icy stare, like it was some dangerous beast stalking toward him.

  "It will certainly change things," Gyrch said suddenly, and all eyes went to him. "It means all Menin can come and go from the ship to the colonies as they please."

  Ignu, catching on, asked, "What does this mean for exiles?"

  The leader of the ship crew turned to face them, stiff and official. "The Mindseat considers this breakthrough important enough to require a complete reworking of their methods of sentencing. For now, until they have things figures out, all sentences are temporarily paused. You are free to return to ship, if that is what you desire."

  Without hesitation, Ignu ran forward, dragging Aurora behind him. They sprinted like little kids, laughing and hollering in joy. In a moment, they had gone through, and immediately they could be seen in the hangar on the Menin ship, dashing across that vast expanse.

  Everyone in the crowd, including those from the ship crew, let out little gasps of surprise.

  The grin had finally dropped off of Stella's face. Richard, glancing over at her, understood as well. He beckoned her to him, and she went, pulling Gyrch along.

  As they walked, they filled Gyrch in about the previous vision. The one involving Ignu.

  "What should I do?" Stella finally asked as they walked across the dead ground.

  "You mean 'we'," said Gyrch.

  She squeezed his hand and pushed her head into his shoulder.

  "I have been thinking about it ever since that day," Richard said. "And I think Todd is right. The Predictive Web is a useful tool, but it's only meant for a few sets of eyes. Its existence doesn't preclude that of free will. It's best, I think, Stella... and Gyrch... that you pretend it doesn't exist. Based on what you already know, and under the assumption that the universe wouldn't let you know anything that you weren't supposed to, I think that you should act as you normally would."

  "Do you think the Web is working again yet?" Stella asked.

  "No. It will take some time to recalibrate it so that it takes into account the possibility of teleportation. I'd like it very much if we could simply tap into the mind of God and see his plan laid out before us. But we can't do that. We can only analyze information currently available to us and make educated guesses. I will admit that there are certain... spooky elements to the workings of the Predictive Web. Elements neither I nor Todd truly understand. But it is still a machine of finite power."

  He smiled now, looking up at the sky, taking a deep breath of the recycled, clinical air.

  "I hope we never find out what a true paradox might do," he said. "But, in my opinion, the worst it can do is to temporarily handicap the Web. And now that it's happened once, I'm no longer very afraid of it."

  "Will you come with us?" Gyrch asked. "To the Menin ship."

  Richard said nothing for a long time. But it was easy to tell he was thinking hard about it.

  "I don't know if I can," he finally said.

  ***

  It was many hours before Gyrch and Stella returned to the portal.

  They went to their quarters in the warehouse first and took their time gathering up what few belongings they had accumulated. Gyrch, making a sack out of a blanket, stored the stacks of paper on which he and Ignu had played their games, along with the plastic binder of TIDE instructions, which Richard had never mentioned missing and which Gyrch assumed now belonged to him.

  Stella had next to nothing and, after careful consideration, decided to leave it all here. The act of taking it with her was so final, the symbolic gesture of someone leaving on a long journey. But now, with Amnay's portal, she would never be farther from this room than a half hour walk. She could return at will.

  That made her feel a little better. But she let Gyrch do his ritual, gathering all his things, packing them away with such childlike tenderness.

  They made love a final time here, in the dusty room where their love had first come into the open. Afterward, Stella felt inordinately sad and determined that they would have to have more sex as soon as possible to get that taste out of her mouth.

  She knew, somehow, that they would be walking into a storm.

  Things would have changed. In ways they could not predict. But, with Gyrch by her side, she felt ready to face them.

  They walked down to the portal slowly, hand in hand. The ship was gone, and so were all the Menin who had come with it. A crowd of children stood marveling at the portal; one was hopping back and forth through it, landing with his left foot in the Menin ship and with his right foot on Titan. Stella had a terrible thought, of the portal suddenly closing when he was partway through it.

  She dispelled the image, focusing on the warmth of Gyrch's hand.

  "Ready?" he asked.

  She nodded, knowing they could come back whenever they wanted. And also knowing that they wouldn't.

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