Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  ***

  When Bandicut woke from what seemed like much too short a night’s sleep, he came out of his cabin to find Ruall waiting for him. She was bobbing urgently. “I have searched everywhere I can from here,” she said. “Bria is not in this area—and Dark has not returned. I am concerned.”

  Bandicut winced. Bad way to start the day. “What do you want to do?”

  “I am not certain. I will ask Copernicus to try once more to reach Dark.”

  Copernicus greeted them on the bridge with a completely unrelated announcement: Several new ships had been detected approaching the Karellian system.

  “Ships!” Bandicut cried. “Mindaru?”

  “No, Cap’n. I think they may be ours.”

  “Huh? You mean from Shipworld? How?”

  “There’s a communication coming in now. Yes, they are from Shipworld. It’s the naval squadron we were told would follow.”

  Bandicut had to focus on that for a moment. He had completely forgotten: When they left Shipworld, they had been promised a backup fleet, as soon as it could be made ready. He’d put it out of his mind, because he hadn’t really believed it. For one thing, it had sounded as though they had to build the fleet first. But now they had arrived? In time to help write the report? “They really sent ships to help us?”

  “Apparently so. Cap’n, here’s the transmission coming via wide-band. I don’t think they know exactly where we are now. They’re calling to see if we’re here. Shall I put the essentials of what happened into a report for them?”

  “You’re sure it’s really them?”

  “Pretty sure, sir.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  Copernicus ticked. “Of course I’m sure, Cap’n.”

  “In that case—hell, yes. Tell them we can use their help.”

  The prospect of new arrivals from Shipworld excited everyone on The Long View. It was a chance to establish some continuity of contact with this new outside world. From the viewpoint of the Karellians and Uduon, however, there was also a certain caution. What if this signaled the start of an invasion—or at least unwelcome meddling? Bandicut tried to reassure them; but in truth, what did he know about the fleet’s orders?

  Maybe he should ask, he thought. The next time he talked to Copernicus, he posed a question for the robot to pass on to the fleet commander: What are your intentions regarding these two worlds? We have established a fragile peace between them, and believe we have eliminated the Mindaru threat for now. We welcome your assistance, but wish to reassure the local leaders.

  The reply, when it came, expressed pleasure at the success of the mission, et cetera, and asked where they should rendezvous and how they might help. They were here to provide assistance, and no more.

  Bandicut started making a list.

  Chapter 29

  To the Death

  SPEEDING DOWN THE ghoststream, Antares was aware of a certain . . . she didn’t know what exactly . . . a faint scent on the air? Or was it more like a sound, an almost imperceptible rumble? Echoes of her friends’ passage, perhaps? Or of other living beings in the stream? Now there was a disturbing thought. More and more, she was feeling the absurdity of trying to find her friends in all this infinity of space—and perhaps worse, the cosmic eons of time. She was looking for a pin in eternity. What were the chances?

  Her stones spoke at once to arrest that downward spiral. *Do not think it is hopeless. It is true we are exploring a long, thin thread between launch and end points. You might be thinking: If they have moved off the thread, it will be impossible to find them. But how could they? They can only exist on the thread of the ghoststream. Therefore, we will eventually find them.*

  Antares refocused, and for the moment chose to accept the stones’ reassurance, which at least sounded logical. Concentrate on the line in front of you, and not the vistas on all sides. Reach out. Concentrate. Call out.

  /Ik! Ik, can you hear me? Julie? This is Antares! If you can hear me, please answer!/

  She imagined her words flying down the thread like a train on a track, a track of almost infinite length. Eventually the words had to reach their target.

  ***

  Julie heard Charli cry Mindaru! and fought back a rush of panic. Mindaru? She’d thought Charli and the gokat had pulled them free of the damned things! But one was here now? She cried out to anyone who could hear, /What can we do?/

  It was Ik who answered. /You and I, hrah, should still be nothing but ghosts to it. I do not think we can do anything, except try to get home so they can turn off this moon-cursed ghoststream./

  Julie hoped he was right. But Charli/Bria could not just run away. The Mindaru had somehow attached itself to Bria, and the gokat was twisting and turning, trying to shake it. Charli/Bria shouted,

  /// Let us handle this!

  If we can get you hooked into your thread of time,

  let go of us and take it.

  Get yourselves home! ///

  /We can’t just—/ Julie began. But Charli interrupted with,

  /// Yes, you can! And must!

  Ik was right.

  The one thing you must do

  is get the ghoststream turned off.

  We’ll manage here. ///

  That was hard for her to accept. But it made sense. She and Ik could do nothing to help here.

  Right now they were holding tight to Bria/Charli. They could let go and try to re-center themselves in the ghoststream. But they would have to time it just right, or they’d knock themselves back into free-fall.

  The river that was the starstream shimmered around them. Somewhere in here, a frayed thread of light sparkled down its length: the ghoststream from Shipworld. Julie and Ik were still a part of it; they had to be, or they would be dead; but they had slipped to its tattered edges, where probability was thin, and they needed to be squarely in its heart if they were to ride it home.

  Bria was whipping violently back and forth, trying to shake the Mindaru. It clung to her like a monstrous sucker-fish. Charli’s voice cried out over the gyrations,

  /// You’re coming up on it!

  Be ready! ///

  Something sparkled that might have been the heart of the stream. /Is that it?/ Julie cried.

  /// Go! ///

  She and Ik released, and they spun around in the stream . . . almost, almost reaching what they were after.

  ***

  Dark had watched Bria’s progress through the various dimensional threads of the starstream. Peering down through time—which to Dark appeared compressed and magnified, as if by a tremendous lens—she had watched Charli join with Bria as she wove her way down the timestream to reach the imperiled travelers. Dark felt responsible for Bria’s safety, but there was little she could do, except watch as Bria ventured out into the frayed extremities of the timestream, to connect with Ik and Julie.

  Now, as those two, joined to the little gokat, moved back toward the center, Dark’s spirits welled up with relief and pride. Bria was succeeding, where Dark herself and even Charli alone could not.

  And then she saw it: the glistening shadow, creeping after them, another of the silent, ghastly, Mindaru waveforms.

  Dark tried to call out a warning, but they were too far away. She hovered where she was, trying to think of a way to help. If Bria could just bring them all a little farther back up the timestream, Dark might be able to intercede. If she had enough room to work, she could slice the accursed thing away, and let them all get to safety. If Bria could bring them close enough.

  ***

  The shadows feinted and split and circled and merged. Bria knew that things had gone wrong, without exactly understanding what was happening. It was the enemy. It was like the things she had fought before. It looked quite different, but she could smell the same malice. It had somehow broken right into her space. It was preparing an attack.

  When Bria had fought these things before, there was form and substance to attack. But this was all shadow and smoke, here now and there now. She wasn’t sure
what to do. Get our people home. Get them home. But to do that, she had to fight this thing. But how? She just knew she’d fought them before, and won.

  The Charli-part of her was spinning through memory even faster, remembering previous mind-battles with the enemy, battles they had nearly lost. She couldn’t let that happen again. But this thing was just a complicated wave. How could they kill a wave form? They needed to collapse it somehow. But how?

  Bria-part didn’t understand the Charli-part’s thoughts, but she knew she had come here to get these friends of Dark to safety, and she needed to hang on long enough to do that. Frantically she pulled them onward, shadows or no shadows, through the fault-lines of splinter-space, and on to a place where she felt a glow come over her, almost a feeling of warmth—and she sensed the gaze of Dark nearby. She also saw channels opening up into flower-space that seemed to say home. With a sudden rush of hope, she released Julie and Ik into what she hoped was their ghoststream, tingling with a cry of satisfaction from the Charli-part.

  Bria yelped and yowled a farewell—and then she slid sideways out of that place, and turned and attacked the shadows, wave or not, with all of the fury of someone who had one last chance to destroy a mortal enemy.

  ***

  Ik felt the gokat release them, and saw her suddenly move away, enveloped by the dark, dancing silhouette of the Mindaru. It was hard to keep Bria in sight. He wasn’t sure where he and Julie were at this point, but he understood their job was to get clear. Unfortunately, he had no control over his movements; they were spinning and corkscrewing, barely holding together, in a turbulent current that only vaguely felt like the ghoststream.

  Now he caught sight of the gokat again, moving with astonishing speed, raining violence down on what truly appeared to be shadows, projections on a distant screen. It was a scene of unbridled fury; but was it doing any good? Bria seemed to spin in and out of existence. What was she doing? She appeared to be slicing at the Mindaru like a chopping knife, but her target swirled and bobbed like a chip of wood in a pounding surf.

  It was out of his hands. /Julie!/ he called. /Julie Stone, we must move away! This is beyond us!/

  He felt Julie’s voice-stones respond even before she did. The two pairs of stones joined forces, and with their help, Julie and Ik fought to bring their own movement under control.

  ***

  Bria had started the attack the same way she’d gone after the other Mindaru, slicing and hoping to scatter the pieces to the many dimensions. But this thing wasn’t solid, it was just waves, and her attack had no effect.

  The Charli-part was starting to interrupt, to tell her it was no use, when Bria suddenly realized the Mindaru was struggling as much as she was, struggling just to hold itself together. It was in trouble—dying, maybe.

  /// You’re right, it’s losing strength!

  The Karellian time-tides have been turned off!

  I think the effects are just now reaching us

  this far down the timeline. ///

  To Bria, those words carried only the sketchiest meaning. But she did know that the rip-current of time that had come from way back near that planet was now losing its strength. Maybe this nasty thing needed that current to live. If so, that was fine with her, though she’d rather have torn it apart herself.

  /// Bria, I think that’s exactly right.

  It can’t live without that current,

  because it’s nothing but a wave in the current.

  Just keep a safe distance from it

  and let it die. ///

  So it was as good as dead already?

  ***

  Dark saw it, too, from her position up-time; the strength of the thing was ebbing away. She was relieved to see Bria break off her futile attack. Let it die alone. It was a problem they hadn’t expected and didn’t need. Dark tried to call down to her: “Bria, can you pull back from it? You’re losing energy. Save it for helping the others!”

  Dark could see that the continuum of space and time were all twisted up into channels and mazes in this area, probably because of the fading away of the time-tides from Karellia. Changes were still rippling down the main starstream and causing things to kink and twist in that special thread stretching all the long way down from Shipworld. Ik and Julie were not yet out of the dimensional eddies that impeded them from reconnecting to that thread. They were not out of danger.

  And then Dark heard something in the far, far distance, something that seemed startlingly familiar and wholly unexpected.

  ***

  Space-time was growing more agitated around Bria—openings to shard-space here, spindle-space there, rays shooting toward infinity, and others curling into infinitesimal hidden dimensions. Through the confusion, Bria caught sight of long, long connections. One reached deep into the past, to the beginning and the core of this great, spiraling swirl of stars. Another arrowed in a different direction, back toward something that looked like the home they had all left. Was that Shipworld she sensed through the haze of the travelers’ ghoststream?

  “Bria, listen! Do you hear that?”

  Hear what? She heard Dark. But Dark seemed to want her to hear something else. She listened, and as she did so, she heard something like a voice, calling down. Whose? It didn’t sound like Ruall, and couldn’t be her, anyway. Bria suddenly, intensely, missed Ruall. Why couldn’t she be here? Had she even said good-bye to Ruall before she left? She couldn’t remember.

  “Listen—do you hear it?”

  Yes, she did. She couldn’t quite make it out. But there was something familiar in it, something that reminded Bria of her friends from the ship. It seemed to be calling down through a fragile kind of splinter-space, from very far away, and saying, “Can you hear me, Ik? Can you hear me, Julie? This is Antares.” Calling and calling.

  Now, that was strange, Bria thought.

  The Charli-part in her was electrified. Antares? That wasn’t just strange, it was astonishing!

  Urged by Charli, Bria tried to reach out and catch the sound.

  ***

  Charli saw it, but too late. The Mindaru, drifting away in the starstream, had not died and dispersed, but instead had collapsed from its tortured wave function and transformed in a twinkling into a solid thing in the starstream. It had crystalline sides and splintered thorns. It was almost beautiful in a terrible way—but it had weapons, and an inner light flickered as it powered them up.

  /// Bria, danger! ///

  The Mindaru spun toward them.

  ***

  Bria had already forgotten the Mindaru—and she barely even saw the fountain of purple light that burst upon her from behind. Only as the light—and all of the higher radiations that came with it—coruscated through her did she register Charli’s warning cry. The radiation flashed all of her thoughts and her world white, and she felt something shatter inside.

  ***

  Dark was nearly upon the Mindaru, to make sure it was dead, when she saw it transform in an instant into something quite different, a small but solid vessel in the starstream. Before Dark could react, it had belched a gout of radiation directly into Bria.

  Dark did not need to hear any words from Bria to know that this was bad.

  “Bria, no!”

  But the cry was in vain. Bria probably never saw the blow coming.

  The gokat tumbled backward up the starstream. It seemed to Dark that she was on fire.

  ***

  /Do you hear that voice?/ Ik asked. /Am I dreaming it?/

  But Julie was having so much trouble orienting herself in the stream, she couldn’t listen for voices in the ghoststream. Everything seemed to be wobbling and swaying.

  /Ik! Ik!/ she cried. /Can you tell which way we should be going?/ She looked frantically for a direction that would connect them with home. When they’d let go of Bria, she’d hoped it would be a straight shot right back up the ghoststream to Shipworld and the launch point. But she couldn’t find the way. Did they still need Bria? Where was she?

  Something fl
ashed, lighting up the starstream like a bomb.

  Julie forgot about finding her way and scanned everywhere, trying to understand what was happening. Some distance behind them in the stream, she saw something tumbling out of control, and ablaze with light. /Bria?/ she whispered.

  Ik snarled with wordless fury.

  There was another shape against the pale light of the starstream; it was weirdly crystalline and spiky, and shimmered with inner fire—and it seemed to be turning in flight. Turning toward Julie and Ik.

  The Mindaru? They knew the things had the ability to change form. But so quickly?

  /Ik, we need to do something! Stones—help!/

  Now the thing was accelerating toward them.

  *We have no way to fight it. We can only try to shield our thoughts from attack.*

  /That’s not—/

  She didn’t get to finish her protest, because from out of nowhere a shockingly dark shadow stretched suddenly across the stream, directly in the path of the oncoming Mindaru.

  ***

  Dark’s first instinct was to go to Bria. But Bria and the travelers were still downtime from her and hard to get to. Dark knew she could disrupt things dangerously if she got too near the ghoststream. But if she didn’t, she would be abandoning not just Bria, but Ik and the human, to the Mindaru. She had to eliminate the threat. And if that thing had harmed Bria, Dark would see it dead.

  Dark let out a cry and arrowed down the luminous river, skimming the embedded thread of the ghoststream, the displacer of time. Her friend Deep could have done this easily, but for her it was difficult. The time dimension compressed like a collapsing tube, and then she was reaching into the part of the stream where the travelers were, and Bria, and . . . the thing of malice, the Mindaru.

  Bria was the farthest away, and would have to be last. Dark put herself between the Mindaru and the two travelers. She allowed herself a moment to evaluate the foe. It was newly solid; it was comparatively weak; it had caught Bria only through the element of surprise.

  Dark slammed into it like a falling comet, crushing it with a sudden wrench of gravity. In an instant, she engulfed what was left of it and squeezed and twisted, and compressed all of the energy that was in it, ignoring its dying shrieks of dismay, squeezed it white hot. Then she drained all of that energy out of it and spat out the dead, frozen remnants, spat each piece into a separate, curled up dimension of space.