Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  Sunlight? Warmth?

  She was no longer a ghostly entity. She was solid. But she was alone, standing by herself in a meadow.

  Meadow? Sunlight?

  The meadow was gently sloped and speckled with delicate white wildflowers. She stood near the upper edge of the sward, facing downslope. The flowers went briefly out of focus, as though a lens were being adjusted; then they came into sharp focus and began opening wide, one by one, to reveal delicate petals, pearl white with pale blue interiors. They released a fragrance that took her instantly back to a mountain glade she had once visited in the Rocky Mountains of North America, on Earth.

  Earth. The memory of her homeworld suddenly overwhelmed her, making her so nostalgic and homesick that her knees buckled, and she staggered to keep from going down. There was no chance of her ever seeing that blue-and-white planet again, or any of the people that she loved. The thought made her weep. But what about her friend right here in this place? Where was Ik? What had happened to Ik? She called out to him, and called again.

  What was this place? Was she dead, waiting to be ushered into an afterlife?

  She could think of nothing else to do. So she knelt in the meadow and wept.

  Chapter 19

  Inside the Mindaru

  COPERNICUS CLICKED AND made fussing sounds. Jeaves said to Bandicut, “Ruall has left you in command. She said she was crossing over to the Mindaru to retrieve Bria. And then she disappeared.”

  Bandicut was stunned. “You mean, she actually left the ship and crossed over? Through the dimensions? Like Bria?”

  “John, I can’t see across the dimensions any better than you can. I’ve told you what I know.” Jeaves floated out to the center of the bridge and seemed to regard the view pensively.

  Bandicut was startled to realize that they had drifted closer to the Mindaru. “Coppy? Are you doing that on purpose? Did Ruall ask you to maneuver in closer? I’m not sure this is safe.”

  “Probably not,” said Copernicus. “But it appears to be dead. And Ruall did ask me to get closer. Just in case—”

  “We have to pull Bria back somehow? Or both of them?”

  “Yes. Do you want me to back off?”

  Bandicut grimaced. “I guess not. But no closer for now.” He sighed deeply and stood, hands on hips, gazing out at the tactical situation. The dead Mindaru was, in the unmagnified view, still rather small and indistinct. In the close-up window, it looked like the corpse of a particularly nasty, spiny sea creature.

  ***

  “Can you explain, please, what is happening?”

  Sheeawn’s question, so exquisitely polite, made Bandicut wonder if Sheeawn thought he was in actual control of their situation. “I’ll try,” he said. “Ruall and Bria have used another . . . dimension . . . to board that Mindaru. And we can only wait for them.”

  It had been hours now, without word from Ruall. What was she doing? What were they doing? The Uduon were getting restless and worried, and Bandicut didn’t blame them a bit. “Hang on,” he said, and turned and called to Jeaves, who was in his usual spot in the corner of the viewspace, near Copernicus. “Anything at all?”

  The robot just rotated his head back and forth.

  Bandicut sighed. Despite the company of the Uduon, he felt acutely alone in this situation. No Li-Jared, no Ruall, no Bria. No Antares, no Ik. And no Charli, who might actually have been able to detect something in the mysterious hyperdimensional realm into which Ruall had vanished. Even the stars seemed unusually cold, lonely, and distant. Where was the starstream that was causing so much trouble, anyway? It was completely invisible from here. “Copernicus,” he called, “are the probes detecting any additional movements out in the direction of the starstream?”

  Copernicus made a rasping noise that he guessed was supposed to be a clearing-of-the-throat sound. “Actually, Cap’n, we’re not getting any signals at all anymore from the probes.”

  He tensed. “Why not?”

  “Speculation: It may be that the Mindaru knocked them all out on its way here.”

  “But you didn’t say anything about them dropping out earlier.”

  “No,” Copernicus conceded. “But their routine reports are only transmitted twice a day, so I didn’t notice.”

  “Why only twice a day?”

  “To conserve power, and to reduce the risk of being detected, and eliminated or corrupted.”

  “But you’re saying that other Mindaru may have followed, quietly eliminating them anyway?”

  “It is possible, Cap’n.”

  Bandicut rubbed his knuckles. “What about Dark?”

  Copernicus made a ticking sound. “At last report, still sweeping the space around the starstream. She was concerned that these might be the first two Mindaru of many.”

  “Right. But it still leaves our flanks wide open, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, Cap’n. Recommend we be prepared for action on short notice.”

  “Most definitely,” Bandicut said softly. “Full alert status. All weapons ready.”

  “Of course, Cap’n. Do you have a firing sequence in mind—if we have to fire? Or shall I use my own judgment?”

  “If immediate action is called for, I trust you to choose the best weapon. But—I want you and Jeaves to analyze our results so far. Figure out what works and what doesn’t.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  “But Coppy, listen—we’re not going to fly off and leave Ruall and Bria, if there’s any way we can avoid it.”

  “Of course not, Cap’n.”

  Bandicut finally turned back to Sheeawn and Akura, wondering how much of the conversation they’d followed. “The plan,” he said, “is to continue to wait here for Ruall and Bria, unless circumstances—and by that I mean an imminent threat—force us to move.”

  Sheeawn nodded, but Akura kept her head cocked at an odd angle, looking not at them, but somewhere out into space. Was she wondering if she had made a terrible mistake in coming on board this ship?

  ***

  The continuum squirreled around Ruall as she slipped through splinter-space toward the Mindaru. That much was easy, as far as it went, but the path over to and then into the Mindaru was tricky to pick out. The Mindaru had distorted the space-time surrounding it, and Ruall had to poke and prod before she found her way in. Bria, she believed, was in here somewhere.

  The enemy vessel was a compact object in round-space, mostly a mass of solid-state circuitry; but in the other dimensional frames, it was a very different thing. Ruall rotated through thread-space, flat-space, round-space, diamond-space, spindle-space . . . and found the Mindaru configured differently in each space: a tesser-figure in one, a tight solid in another, and a wild series of trusses and spikes in still another. Ruall encountered no active opposition. She felt she was being watched, but the watcher seemed helpless to act. It felt as though there were pieces missing from the enemy—as though Bria had removed parts of the Mindaru, much as she had removed the weapons from soldiers in another setting.

  That was probably how she had disabled it—but at what cost? Bria was in here somewhere, wounded. But with every dimensional view of this place looking different, it was distinctly possible that she could only be seen in exactly the one right view. /Bria?/ Ruall called. /Bria!/ And again. And again.

  Perhaps Ruall was taking the wrong approach. Maybe looking wasn’t the answer. Ruall tried shifting to other senses. For a time, she did not move at all. She thought she sensed pain, somewhere in the distance; she also thought she sensed happiness. Bria’s? Ruall called out again, this time focusing on the tightly wound interdimension she called chaiee, which offered neither sight nor sound, but did give rise to other senses. Sometimes, the chaiee provided a channel for the bond she shared with Bria.

  Not now, though.

  Still, as Ruall rotated through the diamond-space view of the Mindaru, she thought she sensed a fold in its structure, and within the fold an opening. She followed her instinct and moved deeper into the enemy’s body. Sp
ace here was strange, a multi-dimensional maze echoing with a brooding intelligence. In the background was a faint rumble, as of systems trying to work, but failing, because they were too broken.

  Again, Ruall called. This time she heard a cry—a thin, reedy, cry—Bria in pain. Ruall rotated quickly through splinter-space to get to where the sound had originated. She came to a chamber, deep in the truss-work of the Mindaru structure. Some of the truss-supports ended abruptly, as though cut. Had this chamber been carved somehow out of the fabric of the continuum?

  /Bria?/

  And then Ruall saw her. The gokat was huddled on the far side of the chamber—shivering, as though cold, frightened, and exhausted. She peered at Ruall, but there was no recognition in her gaze. Ruall streaked across the space to her, ringing over and over: /I am here. I am here. I am here to help you!/

  Bria whimpered.

  That was not like her. She must be badly hurt. /I have come to get you out of here,/ Ruall said, but Bria seemed not to understand. Was she physically injured, or in shock? Ruall could not tend to her here; they truly needed to get out. But how?

  Ruall began to spin. First she rotated around her own axis; then she started swinging wide, encircling Bria, like a moon around a planet. She was tracing out a space, creating a bubble of protection around the gokat, in diamond-space. Bria raised her head a little. Then the rest of her body began to lift, levitated by the localized distortion of space that Ruall was creating. Once Ruall had the gokat inside her sphere of control, she began to ease her out, back the way she had come. Ruall found a thin slipstream through splinter-space that took them most of the way. They were almost out now.

  Almost.

  A tendril of something reached across splinter-space and hooked them. Ruall felt it, and Bria flinched. It was not a physical restraint, but something hooked into her mind—something telling her to stop, telling her to turn back, telling her to open her thoughts and reveal all that she knew. It’s safe, she felt. You must come back. The feeling was so compelling that for an instant she was tempted to comply; but then she realized it was an instruction from outside—and she immediately resisted, twisted, slipped, struggling to escape the thing’s touch. But it was not a physical thing to be evaded; it was a thought tangled up with her own thoughts. Come back. It’s safe. Help us rebuild.

  The Mindaru was not dead.

  The gokat flexed her body, straining to obey.

  Ruall tightened around her, but Ruall herself felt the temptation powerfully pulling her, entwining itself in her mind, as though it was her own thought, her own will coaxing her on. Could they, should they move closer to this intelligence, join with it and make something even stronger, something indomitable and indestructible? Wasn’t that why she was here? Wasn’t that why they were all here?

  Why did they keep fighting it? Surely this was the better way. Not just better, but so much easier . . .

  She squeezed Bria a little tighter. The gokat shrieked in pain, jolting her. Something in Ruall broke loose, and she caught a sudden vision of Bria giving in to the darkness, to the predatory mind of the thing that would rule them. Devour them.

  No! /Bria, we must not!/

  Join. It is better.

  It was a serpent wrapped around her neck, choking and twisting and pulling. Ruall fought angrily, but she could not simply expel the voice from her thoughts; it was entangled with her own knowing and being, and it was tenacious.

  Help us rebuild.

  Bria shrieked in pain again. Ruall suddenly realized Bria had shown her what to do when she’d attacked the Mindaru. Ruall might have this predator’s thoughts in hers, but she had her own strength and speed, and she knew how to rotate matter into other dimensions.

  Before the enemy could block her thought, she spun herself up and became Ruall, dimensional chopping machine. She sliced viciously across the trusses that held together what was left of the Mindaru, flinging the pieces into opposite ends of spindle-space. She sliced back, up, across, down, chopping and spinning pieces of the Mindaru into unconnected dimensions. The voice in her head screeched, losing its hold. The Mindaru was weakening.

  Bria squeaked and whistled. Joy? Or pain from having the Mindaru ripped away? It didn’t matter; it had to be done.

  Ruall was possessed by her fury. This thing had hurt Bria, and threatened them all. She would destroy it; she knew how to do that now. She would not stop until it was destroyed. She slashed, and carved, and shouted to Bria that she deserved the credit for leading the way. The Mindaru was in tiny pieces now, scattered through all the higher dimensions. The voice was gone. Its hold on them was gone. Ruall did not stop. She would continue the demolition until there was nothing whatsoever left to hold a thought, or even to feel the pain.

  ***

  Bandicut waited anxiously, feeling useless. He’d been over everything he could think of to do to help Ruall (nothing), and rehearsed possible intervention schemes (none that made any sense), and was starting to wonder under what extreme circumstances he might need to abandon Ruall and Bria and continue the mission. If more Mindaru showed up, he might have no choice. He hated the idea. He had no idea whether Ruall was in trouble, or just taking a long time. He didn’t know whether this Mindaru was still a threat or not, and he didn’t feel he could risk the ship by taking her in closer—not with passengers on board, and the mission unfinished.

  “Coppy, are you still signaling Ruall?”

  “Yes, Cap’n. No reply.”

  Bandicut felt the eyes of the two Uduon boring into him as he walked past them, pacing. He almost turned to speak to them, but then turned away again. What would he say?

  “John Bandicut,” Jeaves said, interrupting his thoughts. “Word from Dark. She has detected other objects moving from the starstream toward the Karellian system—nature unidentified.”

  Bandicut cursed under his breath. But he sensed that there was more. “What else?”

  “I am not sure what to make of this, but we are detecting a strange signal, possibly a signal. Possibly tachyonic. Embedded in n-space layers. I am uncertain, but think it could be a transmission from home.”

  “You mean Shipworld?”

  “Yes, sorry. I am trying to process the signal. We don’t have a proper antenna for such a thing. I don’t even know what such an antenna would look like. The n-space generators that form our hull and move us through n-space are detecting the vibrations, and the patterns suggest a deliberate signal. The direction of origin is right for Shipworld.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Bandicut breathed.

  “It might take a while to make any sense of it. I suggest Copernicus and I work on it in the background while we deal with the rest of the mission. Speaking of which, shall we send an update to Li-Jared?”

  “Definitely. And find out if he’s made any progress with the Karellians!”

  “Initiating contact now,” Jeaves said.

  ***

  It took the better part of an hour to reach Li-Jared, because he was in conference with the Karellians. When Jeaves finally got him on the line, he sounded tired. “It’s been a difficult proposition to convince the council, but I think they may be coming around,” he said, his voice thin but clear. “The members who agree with us actually had a good idea . . .”

  “That’s encouraging. What’s their idea?”

  Li-Jared seemed to have turned away to speak to someone else for a moment. When he came back, he said, “Aylen rallied the physicists, who say they could configure the time-shield to send a disruptive temporal shock pulse into the timestream. They think it might destroy any more Mindaru on their way up, before they can reach the present.” Li-Jared paused. “What do you think?”

  Bandicut thought about it. “I don’t know. What about innocent people traveling in the starstream?”

  “They say they can tune it, so that only things entrained in the time distortion would be affected. Presumably that would be just the Mindaru.”

  “Probably true,” Bandicut said slowly. “But we do
n’t know.”

  “No, but we do know letting the Mindaru continue to come through is bad,” Li-Jared said.

  “Definitely true. But I’d like to talk with Jeaves and Ruall first.”

  “Ruall! How is the little dictator? And did you get rid of that second Mindaru?”

  Bandicut explained what had happened so far.

  Li-Jared was silent for a time. “Moon and stars!” he said finally. “That’s tough. Still, you can’t wait forever for Ruall. You’ve got to protect the ship and the mission.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Li-Jared made a puffing sound. “I don’t know. But if any more of those things show up, beat it out of there and go back for Ruall later.”

  “More or less my plan.”

  “Good.” Bong. “Well, there are lots of people here wanting to talk to me. I’ll try to be ready with that pulse thing, whenever you want to call for it.”

  “Okay. Let me know.”

  The connection went silent. Bandicut stared into space. He realized he was lightheaded; he hadn’t eaten in hours. “Jeaves,” he said. “I’m going to the commons for some food. Come chat with me.”

  Chapter 20

  Diving into Junk-Space

  TALKING THE KARELLIAN proposal over with Jeaves only left Bandicut with even more questions: If sending a destructive temporal shock pulse down the starstream might stop (or kill) the Mindaru, who else might it stop (or kill)? The chances might be slight, but did they know enough to justify the risk? What about innocent ships in the stream? What about Dakota and her ship? What about the quarx? Charli could still be alive out there in the starstream.

  He gloomily ripped off another hunk of his cheddar-ish and something on something-like-pumpernickel sandwich. “We have a little time yet before they’ll even be ready. What about that tachyon signal? Any progress deciphering it?” He shoved the oversized hunk into his mouth.

  “It is difficult,” said Jeaves, speaking from the bridge via holo.