The Valteran Ascension (A Paradox of Time Book 1)

by Mara Amberly

  “Didn’t your father ever tell you that asking someone’s age was rude?”

  “Only with old women,” she replied, grinning playfully. “So are you going to tell me?”

  “I’m old enough to know better, young enough not to care.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I have no idea, but it sounds good,” he replied as he relaxed back against the wall.

  The topic was officially dodged.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, as his mind turned to more serious matters. “I might be able to attach a beacon to my ship as it passes by. It’s a device that would let me track its condition in greater detail.”

  “That sounds like it would be helpful and might save you waiting unnecessarily to reach it,” Cora replied. She pressed in close against the wall of the barn because it didn’t seem as cold that way.

  “Do you have a beacon?” Cora asked.

  When she first saw Eric he didn’t have much with him. He had a bag with him now, but unless the beacon was small, her reasoning was that he might be out of luck.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But I have an idea about that. I just have to remember to return here at a later time and plant a beacon… say, under that empty trough over there?”

  It was laying side-on against the ground.

  Curious, Cora got up and approached the trough. She pushed it over and a small metallic disc lay beneath it.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Eric smiled, but there was a nervous edge to it. When he asked for things this way, he made a promise to himself that he couldn’t afford to break. His own timeline might fall into a paradox of ruin if he did. He knew he was going to have to start writing things down in case his TSAI ever failed him.

  Cora picked up the beacon with her blanket and carefully handed it to him.

  “Thanks, this is perfect,” he said, taking it from her with his hand.

  Worries aside, his future self was like a guardian angel, helping him out when he needed it most. He wondered if that’s what Cora would become too. He just didn’t know her as well as he knew himself.

  “How come you didn’t ask yourself to put it on the ship instead?”

  Eric gave her a long glance, and then started laughing. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You could ask yourself to do that too, in addition to this one?”

  “I could, but let’s try it this way first,” he said. “If I mangle the attempt, we can try the other way later.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” she agreed.

  Eric nodded, glad she approved.

  He felt a little foolish in Cora’s presence, which probably meant she was learning fast or once she got past the difference in technology level, she would likely be very much in her element. He may have found her especially attractive too, but he wasn’t quite ready to admit that to himself.

  “How are you going to attach it to the ship?” she asked.

  He knew his ship would be moving fast, so it wouldn’t necessarily be easy.

  “Leave that to me,” he replied with a daring grin.

  “Oh, believe me, I will,” she said, smiling back and closing her eyes.

  Eric was tired, but his mind was too occupied to rest easily. There was a record of his jumps in his wrist device; he made note of the places and times he had to return to, and what he had to do there, in its note section. Knowing how his luck had played out recently, he retrieved a pencil and a page of oddly-textured paper he’d bought and jotted down the same information.

  After rolling up the page, he crept over to the same trough Cora had turned over earlier. Beneath it he dug a small hole and buried the note, covering it over carefully. When the trough was back in place, he returned to his earlier spot.

  If anyone found the note, they wouldn’t make sense of the symbols, which were in his native language, but it was a backup in case he ever lost track of what needed to be done.

  Cora was fast asleep by now, her head resting against the wall of the barn, and her blanket wrapped around her.

  Eric watched her for a few moments, and not wanting to disturb her, he put his possessions back in his bag, found his own blanket and settled in to rest. He reduced the illumination on his TSAI and then tried to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  March 1724 – North of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England

  Eric shouted. “The ship’s coming; the readings are off the scale.”

  Cora kept way back because Eric had told her it would be huge and moving quickly. She obviously didn’t want to get too close.

  Eric had assured her it wouldn’t be close to the ground, but the rift might be.

  His cringe told Cora something wasn’t right, even before he explained.

  Eric had expected the ship to pass through so quickly the radiation wouldn’t be a problem, but the readings told a different story. Only a fractured core could release so much energy. There wasn’t an abundance of spare parts on Earth if he needed a new one, and right now that seemed likely.

  Perhaps it was a small mercy that the ship was effectively jumping from rift to rift back through time, rather than passing through time in a linear way. If it had come into contact with every time frame on its way down to Earth, the damage would’ve been far worse.

  Eric knew there was a chemical leak on board and the memory of his exposure was not a pleasant one. After he’d ejected from the ship, he’d spent his first two weeks on Earth in a dreadful state, until he’d finally purged it from his system. He was lucky it hadn’t been worse.

  Now he waited below the ship’s predicted entry-route into this time. It wasn’t far off now. He could practically see the headlights, or he would’ve had there been any.

  He got the beacon ready. In the absence of high technology, sometimes low technology was the answer. Eric readied his sling. He’d hyper-magnetised the outer casing of the beacon, hoping it would be drawn in by the gravimetric waves left in the ship’s wake. It wouldn’t be sucked in, but it should lock on to the hull with the help of its magnetism.

  “Have you used one of those before?” Cora asked a little uncertainly.

  Eric couldn’t tell if she was just checking or afraid of being hit in the head with a beacon.

  “What? Of course. I wouldn’t rely on it if I hadn’t. I may be from your future, but I was a schoolboy once and I used one for defence in the past.”

  She grinned at that and leaned back against a tree. “Let’s see if you can hit a moving target.”

  The day was shaping up to be more fun than she’d expected.

  The first sign of the ship’s approach was the billowing of dark clouds high above. It was like a storm was brewing – a sudden, powerful storm, and the previously-blue sky crackled with energy. Cora ducked down as she watched in awe, waiting for a sign of Eric’s ship.

  She might be the only person from her time to ever see one.

  Eric didn’t flinch. He readied his sling and waited for the right moment.

  There was a sudden roar – the sound of an expanding temporal pressure wave. That’s when he knew to act. Eric let the beacon fly a split second before there was the merest metallic blur high above amidst billowing clouds.

  His shot was on target, but he was sure he saw it struck by a burst of energy.

  Eric inwardly cringed, as he expected it to fall to Earth, but it was sucked in among the clouds.

  “Nice shot,” Cora called, clapping as she watched the clouds drift like smoke.

  “Thanks!”

  He glanced at his TSAI 40 and frowned. A warning was flashing on the screen.

  “You should leave here for a while,” he replied. “Those clouds are radioactive, though not dangerous.”

  Eric didn’t think it would be bad enough to cause lasting damage to the environment, but that would not be the case for his ship’s crash site. On the one hand, it had crashed long ago – hundreds of years, but there was a second instance of his ship that hadn’t crashed yet. He knew
he could still contain the leak before it crashed.

  At the moment, he didn’t have the means to reach it, but a future time might come when he did. He’d just have to be careful not to disrupt the existing timeline too much. Eric knew his earlier self must still be aboard the ship because it was further back that he ejected. He would have to figure out later what was possible.

  For now, he initiated a connection with the beacon. At first, there was nothing, but he grinned when a lock symbol appeared on his TSAI. It meant there was a steady signal. The bolt of temporal energy mustn’t have destroyed it. As he flicked through the options, he was relieved to see he had readings!

  “It worked!” he exclaimed, grinning at Cora, who he was sure didn’t understand half of what he was doing. That’s when he glanced up and saw bolts of temporal energy crackling alarmingly around the fracture.

  Eric had certainly learnt his lesson in Shrewsbury. He ran closer to the rift and directed his TSAI at the tear high above, activating the beam. He wasn’t sure he could get close enough to it; it was so far up, but the sides of the rift slowly began to close. There was nowhere else Eric had to be at this moment, so he took his time. The clouds dissipated, as did the energy discharges until the remnants of the fracture were finally repaired.

  Cora approached and gazed up at the rift, searching for any sign that it remained. There were none. Her gaze held a whirlwind of emotions – awe, worry, as well as curiosity.

  “That rift was huge,” she exclaimed.

  It was certainly larger than the one Eric had used to send the creature back.

  “It was, but I’m not surprised when it was caused by the Equinox.”

  “The Equinox? That’s the name of your ship?” she asked with fascination.

  Eric nodded. “It is. I didn’t name her; it’s what she’s always been called. I know it’s not a correct translation, but her name reminds me of ‘night horse’. Equi-nox. I believe it really means something like ‘equal night’.”

  “I like that. Night horse,” she said, smiling.

  “We should move on now. The ionizing radiation shouldn’t be enough to do us harm, but it doesn’t mean it’s good for us either.”

  “One of these days you’re going to have to explain to me what that means,” Cora replied with a smile. “Until then, I’ll take your good advice, sir.”

  They returned to the barn, where Eric studied his readings from the beacon.

  “It latched on to the hull as I’d hoped,” he said. “This gives me a snapshot of the ship’s readings as it travels back through time, but I should be able to alter the synchronisation settings to analyse its readings at differing points in time before and after its descent.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what you just said, but I think I’m beginning to understand,” Cora said, as she folded up her blanket and packed it away in her bag. “What does it tell you about the ship now?”

  “There are so many ways I could interpret that question,” he said with a grin. “In the past, as the ship descended, it was just as I remembered. If you mean the ship after it crashed, and in the time between then and now, I’m getting to that.”

  “Intriguing,” she replied.

  Cora sat down as she packed up the last of their food. She’d got the impression Eric wanted to leave in a hurry, even though he was busy with the readings.

  “I have it here. The energy leakage hasn’t quite repaired itself, but it’s mostly there. It was far worse when it was thrown back in time. I can’t tell if there are still chemical contaminants on board, because the beacon’s on the outside of the hull. I’ve also got a clear reading of the ship’s current location and if it changes, I can follow it. It’s on low power mode so it’s not likely we could do much with it but perhaps we can fix the problem.”

  “That sounds optimistic,” Cora said, as she listened to Eric. “So what’s the damage to the environment from the radiation? Can you tell how bad it is?”

  “I’d say it’ll be bad, but I’m not entirely sure. The ship should be safe to get close to now, but it’s not easily reached.”

  “I wonder what that means for the land, but I suppose we’ll have to see,” she said.

  Eric nodded. “That reminds me, I should add the ship repairs to the list of past changes; it would be best to carry them out aboard before the ship crash lands.”

  He glanced sideways at the trough and soon made his decision. Eric took the time to dig up the note he’d left himself because he wanted it to be as complete as possible.

  He made an addition to the page and re-buried it.

  “You’re not like other men, are you?” Cora asked, grinning at the sight.

  “Not especially,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “The other men you know are human; I’m not. I like the same things, at least most of them, but I suppose I’m different in some ways. I’ll let you figure those out for yourself.”

  “That sounds like something a man would say,” Cora replied.

  Eric smiled and put his wrist device into power save mode. Then he took a good look around the barn.

  “We probably shouldn’t linger here. I think we have everything packed that we’ll need now?”

  “We do now,” Cora replied, who had been the one to pack it.

  “Then we can go.”

  Cora started toward the doorway, but Eric didn’t move to follow her.

  “That isn’t where I’m going,” he said with a hint of emotion. “Now that I’m done here, I’m going into the future.”

  “Oh, you are?” Cora asked. “You mean we are?”

  He nodded, “If you want to. You could come with me, but it would mean leaving your own time – for now. If you stay, I apologise for what will undoubtedly be a long walk home alone.”

  He’d considered getting a horse, and now he wondered if it would’ve been a good idea, but he’d never actually learned to ride one.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said, resolute in her decision. “I can learn more from you than anyone else in my time and I think if I don’t go with you, I may regret it forever. Chances like this don’t come along often, if at all. I also can’t say why exactly but I get the feeling you might need me. I don’t know the full story but it feels like a fight you shouldn’t face alone.”

  “If you’re sure,” he replied, studying her expression for any signs of doubt.

  He wished he felt confident that he was doing the right thing, but his instincts told him he was. Eric was sure he’d seen her in Tintagel, and that meant for the sake of the timeline he shouldn’t waver now. It was just, he didn’t know what kind of future he was leading her into, and he felt some responsibility for her already. It complicated what was already a particularly complex mission. He feared it might lead to the end of his people and the people of Earth, and other worlds, if he didn’t handle it spectacularly well. Could he even do that?

  “I suppose we shouldn’t damage the barn. After all, its owner was kind enough to let us sleep here last night.”

  “Agreed, not that he ever knew,” Cora replied.

  They walked out into the field carrying their bags. There was nobody else in sight and little sign that they’d stayed there.

  Eric activated his TSAI 40, with coordinates set for the next rift where he might encounter his ship. He didn’t need to allow for as large a time window, though it paid to be safe rather than sorry. The space in front of himself and Cora began to glow and he turned to her with a smile. “You do the honours. Push on it – right where it’s glowing.”

  Cora was excited but also a little scared. She tentatively touched a hand to Eric’s rift and glanced at him confused.

  “I can feel it. That’s not natural,” she said in surprise, even though she’d seen him create one before.

  She pushed, just like Eric had told her to, and she voiced a gasp when the air cracked before her.

  “Force your way in. It’s time to go,” he said.

  With a shove and a yelp of shock as it gave way, Cora stepp
ed through time, accompanied by her masterful guide, Eric.

  “How do we know those time animals aren’t here?” she asked nervously, as her vision was overwhelmed with brightness and the flicker of distant lightning.

  “We don’t. Walk fast,” he urged her.

  Eric had a theory that the flow of time around himself and Cora might be protective in some way. He didn’t have long to think about it before Cora found a solid wall and, at his urging, pushed through to the other side. With relief, he followed her into a new time and place.

  Chapter 6

  March 1846 – Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

  Cora and Eric found their way into a darkened alley, which was lit up like a Christmas tree by flickering bolts of energy.

  Eric didn’t hesitate this time, not that it had been intentional during his arrival in Shrewsbury. He began to seal the rift; soon the energy bolts lessened and the alley grew gradually darker. When it became too hard to see, Eric turned on the light of his wrist device to make sure all signs the rift they’d created were gone.

  “That was amazing but I know we should go,” Cora said. “It’s possible someone might’ve seen us and the rift would take some explaining.”

  Eric paused to confirm the location and date, and they left the alley together.

  There were people going about their business in the town, so they slowed down and tried to blend in. It was livelier than Cora was used to, with kids out late and rowdy drinkers calling out to one another.

  Eric leaned closer to whisper into her ear, though the other people around were far enough away that they shouldn’t have overheard him.

  “We’re in the market town of Salisbury and it’s Tuesday 24th March 1846 at 9.03 in the evening. We just travelled over a hundred years.”

  He looked proud of that and it reminded him that his people had managed some impressive feats.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” she told him, grinning. “It doesn’t look that different except… ooh the dresses,” she admired, as two ladies walked by in the company of two equally well-dressed men. “Are we going to stay around for a while?” she asked, wondering if a new wardrobe of 19th Century clothes might be in order.