The Depths of Time
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
The Timeshaft Wormhole Transport System
CIRCUM CENTRAL TIMESHAFT WORMHOLE 5211 A.D.
CHAPTER ONE Assault on the Future
CHAPTER TWO The Fog of Time
CHAPTER THREE Lost to the Past
INTERLUDE Grand Library Habitat Orbiting Neptune
SOLACE--127 YEARS LATER 5339 A.D.
CHAPTER FOUR Loss of Confidence
CHAPTER FIVE Socks in the Sour
TIMESHAFT SHIP DOM PEDRO IV
CHAPTER SIX Out of Time
CHAPTER SEVEN Out of the Cold, into the Dark
CHAPTER EIGHT Heisenberg’s Suitcase
CHAPTER NINE Arrivals
CHAPTER TEN Awakened by Death
AUXILIARY LIGHTER CRUZEIRO DO SUL
CHAPTER ELEVEN Walls of Glass and Steel
CHAPTER TWELVE World Enough and Time
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Bursting the Bubble
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Jonah and Pandora
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Domino Theory
SOLACE CENTRAL ORBITAL STATION
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Deepest Tower
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Chamber of the Conjuror
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Rude Awakenings
SOLACE
CHAPTER NINETEEN View from a Diamond
CHAPTER TWENTY For Want of a Nail
SUNSROX AND GREENHOUSE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Gatekeepers
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO A Thousand Times
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Collateral Damage
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Blowout
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Ocean of Years
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Depths of Time
Glossary and Gazetteer of Terms, Places, Ships, etc.
Back Cover
Cover
PRAISE FOR ROGER MacBRIDE ALLEN’S THE DEPTHS OF TIME
“A tense tale of intrigue set in the far future of terraformed—and doomed—worlds.”
Library Journal
“A highly readable balance of characterization, graceful and sometimes witty prose, and thoroughly, intelligently developed ideas.”
Booklist
“I’ve read my fair share of Roger MacBride Allen novels over the years, and I’d have to say The Depths of Time is his best thus far. This novel has it all—hardcore science fiction foundation, a plot based upon a mystery that is guaranteed to drive you crazy trying to unravel it, and a deeply moving story.”
Barnes and Noble Explorations
Novels by Roger MacBride Allen
The Torch of Honor
Rogue Powers
Orphan of Creation
The Modular Man*
The War Machine (with David Drake)
Supernova (with Eric Kotani)
Farside Cannon
The Ring of Charon
The Shattered Sphere
Caliban
Inferno
Utopia
Ambush at Corellia*
Assault at Selonia*
Showdown at Centerpoint*
The Game of Worlds
The Depths of Time*
The Ocean of Years*
The Shores of Tomorrow*
*Published by Bantam Books
The Depths of Time
Roger MacBride Allen
Bantam Books New York Toronto London Sydney Auckland
This edition contains the complete text of the original trade paperback edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED
THE DEPTHS OF TIME A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam Spectra trade paperback edition published March 2000
Bantam Spectra mass market paperback edition 1 July 2001
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 by Roger MacBride Allen
Cover art copyright © 2001 by Gregory Bridges
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-40436 No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ISBN-10: 0553-57497-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-553574-97-5
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York.
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To Eleanore and Matthew, mother and son, for creating a past, present, and future filled with wonder and joy.
He hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
—Ecclesiastes 3:11
That which is hath been long ago; and that which is to be hath long ago been: and God seeketh again that which is passed away.
—Ecclesiastes 3:15
Wherefore I saw that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him back to see what shall be after him?
—Ecclesiastes 3:22
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
The Timeshaft Wormhole Transport System
CIRCUM CENTRAL TIMESHAFT WORMHOLE 5211 A.D.
CHAPTER ONE Assault on the Future
CHAPTER TWO The Fog of Time
CHAPTER THREE Lost to the Past
INTERLUDE Grand Library Habitat Orbiting Neptune
SOLACE--127 YEARS LATER 5339 A.D.
CHAPTER FOUR Loss of Confidence
CHAPTER FIVE Socks in the Sour
TIMESHAFT SHIP DOM PEDRO IV
CHAPTER SIX Out of Time
CHAPTER SEVEN Out of the Cold, into the Dark
CHAPTER EIGHT Heisenberg’s Suitcase
CHAPTER NINE Arrivals
CHAPTER TEN Awakened by Death
AUXILIARY LIGHTER CRUZEIRO DO SUL
CHAPTER ELEVEN Walls of Glass and Steel
CHAPTER TWELVE World Enough and Time
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Bursting the Bubble
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Jonah and Pandora
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Domino Theory
SOLACE CENTRAL ORBITAL STATION
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Deepest Tower
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Chamber of the Conjuror
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Rude Awakenings
SOLACE
CHAPTER NINETEEN View from a Diamond
CHAPTER TWENTY For Want of a Nail
SUNSROX AND GREENHOUSE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Gatekeepers
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO A Thousand Times
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Collateral Damage
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Blowout
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Ocean of Years
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Depths of Time
Glossary and Gazetteer of Terms, Places, Ships, etc.
Back Cover
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my thanks to Pat LoBrutto, my editor at Bantam Books. His sharp eye significantly improved what you are about to read. Further thanks to him for allowing my ideas room to evolve, and for agreeing that an idea for one book was really big enough for two or three. Thanks also to Tom Dupree, who had a big hand in this book’s early development. And, once again, thanks also to Eleanor Wood and Lucienne Diver, who were far more patient with me than they should have been, but definitely hard-nosed enough when it counted.
Thanks as well to my parents, Tom and Scottie Allen, who read over the manuscript and zeroed in on some significant flaws.
But thanks most of all to two people. First, thanks to my wife, Eleanore Fox, who read the first draft of this book and gave it no mercy at all. She was right, and I was wrong, about a lot of things.
And finally, thanks to my son, Matthew Thomas Allen. He had nothing to do with the writing or editing of this book, as he was born after it was finished. But that doesn’t matter. Thanks, Matthew. For everything.
Roger MacBride Allen, Takoma Park, Maryland January 1999
Dramatis Personae
A glossary and gazetteer appear at the end of the book.
Characters are identified in regard to their situation on first introduction in the story.
Wandella Ashdin—Historian and expert on Oskar DeSilvo.
Ulan Baskaw—Scientist who lived approximately five centuries before the main action of the story. Little is known about her—it is not even certain whether or not Baskaw was a woman or in fact a man.
Baskaw invented many terraforming techniques that were later appropriated by DeSilvo. Baskaw also discovered certain mathematical principles underlying the science of terraforming.
Norla Chandray—Second Officer aboard the Dom Pedro IV.
Oskar DeSilvo—Architect and terraformist of the previous centuries, and director of the project to colonize Solace. He managed the centuries-long project by using cryosleep and temporal confinement, arranging to have himself revived from time to time in order to oversee critical points in the process.
Aither Fribart—Assistant to Grand Senyor Jorl Parrige.
Neshobe Kalzant—Planetary Executive, Solace.
Captain Anton Koffield—Commander of the Chronologic Patrol Ship Upholder.
Captain Felipe Henrique Marquez—Captain of the Dom Pedro IV.
Elber Malloon—Solacian farmer, caught up in the evacuation of flooded farm areas, and sent to SCO Station as a semi-involuntary refugee.
Mandessa Orlang—Director of the Greenhouse Institute.
Jorl Parrige—Grand Senyor, or senior senator, of the Planetary Council of Solace.
Dixon Phelby—Cargo specialist aboard the Dom Pedro IV
Karlin Raenau—Station commander of SCO Station, orbiting Solace.
Hues Renblant—Propulsion and guidance officer aboard the Dom Pedro IV.
Ensign Alaxi Sayad—Watch officer aboard the C.P.S. Upholder.
Yuri Sparten—A young man working as an assistant to Karlin Raenau on SCO Station. His parents, as children, were refugees from the fall of Glister.
Milos Vandar—A biologist working on the project to revitalize Lake Virtue on the planet Solace.
The Timeshaft Wormhole Transport System
1. Spacecraft departs home star system, bound for target system, ten light-years away. Crew enters cryosleep hibernation and/or temporal confinement for duration of voyage.
2. Spacecraft travels for fifty years at one-tenth light-speed, thus traveling fifty years uptime and a distance of five light-years.
3. Spacecraft reaches timeshaft wormhole, midway between home and target systems. Captain is revived briefly to pilot ship through timeshaft.
4. Both uptime and downtime ends of wormhole are guarded by Chronologic Patrol ships.
5. Spacecraft drops through timeshaft and is propelled one hundred years downtime, into the past.
6. Spacecraft emerges from wormhole, fifty years before its departure from its home system and one hundred years before it enters the wormhole. Captain returns to temporal confinement.
7. Spacecraft once again travels fifty years at one-tenth light-speed, again traveling fifty years uptime and five more light-years.
8. After traveling for one hundred years shipboard time, spacecraft arrives at target system a few days or weeks after departure in objective time. Crew is revived from one-hundred-year hibernation to find less than a month has passed.
CIRCUM CENTRAL TIMESHAFT WORMHOLE 5211 A.D.
CHAPTER ONE Assault on the Future
Brightness flared upon the face of the deep.
Alaxi Sayad, the most junior watch officer aboard the Chronologic Patrol ship Upholder, saw the dazzle of energy that appeared on her screens. She hit the alert button before she even had time to think—but not before the automatics had a chance to set off the alarms themselves.
She checked the drill-indicator, the one light on her board that would tell her if this was just old man Koffield running yet another dry run, another systems test. If this was a drill, the indicator would be a steady dot of green. The drill-indicator was unlabeled, and carefully positioned in the upper-left-hand corner of the display board so that only someone actually seated in the watch officer’s chair could see it. Only the watch officers and senior officers were even supposed to know it existed.
Sayad had seen that tiny secret green light come on during a thousand drills, and she expected to see it now. But instead she saw a tiny, flashing dot of red: shocking and positive confirmation that this was not a drill. It was the real thing. Some damn fool was trying to make an unauthorized run through the timeshaft wormhole. Stranger still, if her displays were to be believed, they were going for the downtime, not the uptime, end of the timeshaft wormhole. They were trying, not to head from future to past, but attempting to dive out of the past and into the future.
Sayad allowed herself the luxury of a full hundredth of a second of stunned disbelief. Such a thing had never happened, to the best of her knowledge, in all of Settled Space.
But it was happening now. She shoved feeling aside and let training take over. Seemingly without any intervention from her conscious mind, she started on step one of the standard operating procedure that had been drummed into her through all those thousand drills.
Confirm alert. Easy enough. There was no doubt this one was real.
Locate. That part was likewise quite straightforward. The blast of light had come straight from the timeshaft wormhole.
Identify. A far more difficult proposition. What in space could light up a wormhole like that? And why hadn’t the Standfast, the downtime ship, sent some sort of alert through the shaftlink comm system? Even as she formed the questions, she got her answers. The comm system powered itself up and reported data streaming in from the downtime link. Seventy-nine years downtime from the Upholder, the Standfast had activated her comm system and started relaying through the shaft communications system. The signal had been flashed from the Standfast to the downtime sta-tionkeeping laser relay. Then the stationkeeper had fired a repeater signal through the wormhole’s signal portal, and to the uptime stationkeeper relay, which instantly passed it on to the Upholder.
The action-status display flashed to life, and Sayad expended five whole precious seconds studying the three-dimensional symbol-logic imagery the Standfast had sent milliseconds ago—or decades before, depending on how one looked at it.
She swore silently, but vehemently, as she struggled to believe what the display was telling her. Thirty—no, thirty-one incoming targets, sixteen of them bearing down on the wormhole, and the remainder diving straight for the Standfast. One of the targets bearing on the Standfast popped out of existence as the ship brought fire to bear. There was another flash of light, dimmer this time, as the blaze of the explosion lanced through the wormhole. That first light blast must have been another of the targets going up.
“Are they trying to kill th
e ship, or just trying to keep her busy?” asked a low, calm voice from directly behind her.
It took a major effort of will for Sayad not to jump half a meter in the air in surprise. It was Captain Koffield, of course. She glanced up at the small look-behind mirror built into her console, and there he was. Awake, alert, in a clean uniform. Sayad had been on the graveyard shift ever since coming aboard the Upholder and had rarely seen the captain. But every time she had seen him, the man had looked just as he did now—steady, alert, well rested, in control.
Captain Koffield was of average height, but thin and wiry enough that he gave the impression of being smaller than he was. His face was long and lean, his thinning hair dark brown. His eyes were brown, deep-set, bright, and expressive. He was clearly used to command, and used to his commands being followed. But there was nothing harsh, or cruel, or peremptory about the man.
Only the slight but unmistakable stubble on his un-shaved face hinted that he had just rolled out of bed, wakened by the alarm: It was a small but telling detail, and Sayad found it reassuring. It said Koffield took care to be alert and professional, to get there first during an emergency, but that he was not fool or egotist enough to stop for a shave on the way.
But the captain was not a man who wasted much time with rhetorical questions. “I think they’re making a try for the ship, sir,” Sayad replied. “With velocities that high they won’t have time to break off before impact—they’re looking to ram her.”