AWOL

by Traci Harding

  ‘So that’s that then.’ There had been quite a few moments recently when he felt he might live to regret his decision to go AWOL without his timekeeper’s assistance, but his primary objective had been achieved and for that Zeven was very grateful.

  Still, as he gathered up his daughter to return to the palace to report the banishment of the curses — and the heroic demise of General Prochazka and Khalid Mansur — he was saddened to realise that this victory also meant that his adventures through time, and across universes, had come to an end. The timekeepers had served their purpose.

  When Zeven had made that first jump into the past with Taren and Jazmay they had been clueless as to how long and hard they would have to work to set the history of the USS back to rights. As wondrous and diverse as those travels had been, Zeven was damn sure none of them would risk such an endeavour again. It was time now to be content to allow human consciousness and causality to run their own natural course.

  EPILOGUE

  BACK FROM THE PAST

  Through the lingering light haze of her quantum jump, which had numbed all her senses as efficiently as a deep sleep might, Taren’s waking consciousness detected a disturbing distant sound that was both foreign and yet familiar. In a rush of awareness the sound grew louder.

  As alien as the sound of a crying baby was to Taren, the intensity of the wail woke her nonetheless. Her breasts ached with a vengeance, as if they had been pumped full of air and were fit to burst, and upon inspection, she was horrified to find they had doubled in size and her T-shirt was dripping wet.

  Lucian stirred beside her, and reaching across he gave Taren a nudge. ‘The baby,’ he mumbled, and sank back into sleep.

  ‘The baby?’ Taren finally put two and two together, and was horrified. ‘We have a baby?’ She sat up and shook her husband furiously.

  ‘What?’ Lucian protested to being forced into a fully conscious state.

  ‘We have a baby?’

  ‘I know,’ he mumbled, ‘and boy, he sounds hungry.’

  ‘It’s a boy?’ she stated, stunned and enlightened at once.

  ‘Well yeah.’ He sat up to support his dozing form on his elbows, and yawned.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Taren panicked, as she had returned to her form on AMIE only one week before Khalid was due to cause the disaster that had cast many of them into another universe.

  ‘Oh!’ Lucian was enlightened and amused at once. ‘You’re back.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m back,’ Taren stressed. ‘Only there appears to be a lot more of me now.’ She referred to her swollen breasts, and all Lucian could do was laugh. ‘How is this funny? We face off against Khalid in less than a week!’

  ‘Well,’ Lucian controlled his mirth. ‘Look on the bright side, you missed the birth.’

  ‘Yeah!’ she emphasised, nearly hysterical. ‘I missed the pregnancy, birth and everything I probably learned about being a parent! I don’t even know our son’s name!’

  ‘Danon,’ he informed, to calm her.

  ‘Dan.’ She smiled, delighted, being that Ji Dan would have been the father of this child.

  ‘You approve, I take it?’ Lucian climbed out of bed to fetch the soul in question, as Taren was quite obviously too petrified to do it, and once lifted from his cot, Danon fell silent.

  ‘Does he do anything?’ she asked in a panic, knowing Zeven’s daughter had been performing psychic feats from a very young age.

  ‘Well he cries, belches, creates a lot of dirty nappies,’ Lucian advised as he carried the bundle over to where she was seated on the bed. ‘But far and away his favourite pastime is gorging himself on your breasts.’ Lucian held the child out to her.

  ‘Seriously?’ Taren was momentarily stunned by the request. ‘I’ve never done this.’

  ‘You’ve been doing it for months,’ he downplayed her fear, and placed the child in her lap.

  The sight of the dark-haired babe, sucking so hard on its own fist that it appeared it might devour it, broke her heart wide open, and as she held him close, he went into a frenzy, trying to nuzzle his way through her shirt. Then she raised the barrier and within moments, Danon had latched onto her aching breast and began sucking madly, which came as a relief to both mother and child.

  ‘Told you so.’ Lucian kissed her forehead, and she was overcome by the serene bliss of the moment.

  ‘When I asked does he do anything,’ Taren recalled her earlier query, ‘I mean does he have any psychic talent?’

  ‘Not that we’ve noticed,’ Lucian said. ‘But give me a break, he’s only three months old. He hasn’t even got teeth yet.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not in a hurry to find out,’ Taren assured him. ‘We’ve got enough to worry about.’

  Lucian had to chuckle. ‘And you don’t know the half of it yet.’

  Taren’s brief bliss departed, and she was panicked again. ‘What could possibly be more shocking than this?’ She referred to the child in her arms, but Lucian appeared to wish to defer that news for the present.

  ‘I think you should just take a moment to catch your breath.’ He sat down beside Taren to admire her and their babe. ‘Whatever we did out there, where you’ve been … awesome job,’ he awarded her her due. ‘Danon is safe here with us, and not stuck in another time and universe. I was wrong to doubt —’

  ‘No —’ She felt he had just cause to.

  ‘Regardless,’ he persevered. ‘You did the right thing, and that’s all you need to know.’ Lucian bent down and kissed his son’s forehead, and then looked back to Taren. ‘As far as the rest of what evolved here in your absence … well … that shall reveal itself soon enough.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Taren insisted. ‘I need to know what we are up against now! A week is not a long time.’

  ‘I tell you what, why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll call a crew meeting,’ Lucian proffered winningly.

  Taren had a whiff of herself and decided. ‘Good call, this parenting business is rather on the nose.’

  Lucian grabbed up his communicator and placed a call. ‘It’s Lucian, she’s back. And ah, best warn Yasper to expect Jazmay.’

  ‘Telmo and Zeven are meeting us here today also, don’t forget,’ Taren relayed, noting Danon had lost interest in feeding and was getting grumbly.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Lucian, sounding a little uncomfortable about the news.

  ‘What do I do with him now?’ Taren held Danon out in front of her, and he released a huge belch.

  ‘That’s the one.’ Lucian took the baby off her hands. ‘Good job.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘Shower.’

  Taren had to admit she was really impressed with how good Lucian was with Danon; he seemed to be a natural at parenting. She wasn’t sure that she was going to be as proficient at it.

  ‘Why Danon?’ Taren wondered at their choice of name, as she accompanied Lucian and the baby to the mess hall for the crew meeting.

  ‘I remembered Ancient Zhou and thought you would approve,’ Lucian explained with a shrug, admiring their boy.

  ‘I do approve,’ Taren assured him with a smile, which quickly faded. ‘But I thought we agreed to do children after we saw the being of the field safely gone, and Khalid back in prison?’

  Lucian was amused. ‘You really don’t remember anything that happened these last few years, do you?’

  ‘Well I’ve lived through it before a few times,’ she was saying as they entered the mess, to find the entire crew assembled beneath a ‘Welcome back’ sign, and there were quite a few more of them than she remembered.

  Mythric, Amie and Jazmay were all holding baby girls and Zeven had his arms full with twin boys — all the same age as Danon. Thurraya was proudly holding up a little aqua blue cat.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Taren was smiling at how amused the crew were by her surprise.

  ‘That’s what I said! I had another kid! Who knew?’ Jazmay seconded her surprise, and she observed the sleeping infant. ‘Pretty cute kid,’ she warranted.

  ‘Wh
at are we going to do with all these babies when we take on Khalid?’ Taren wondered what had got into everyone.

  Most of the crew burst out laughing, but Zeven handed over the boys to Aurora to come forwards and explain. ‘Timekeeper, I have a confession to make.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Taren was wary. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well, I helped.’ Telmo came forwards to own his part in the affair.

  ‘I haven’t told her what we did yet,’ Zeven objected.

  ‘The curses have been banished, Khalid has left this world and returned to his own people, and your parents apologise that they could not be here today, but they are on Frujia signing the psychic bill of rights.’ Telmo gave her the fast version.

  ‘This is supposed to be my confession,’ Zeven protested. ‘I’m the one who decided to go AWOL and save Khalid.’

  ‘You did what?’ The control freak in Taren panicked.

  ‘Did I mention we also took care of the photon-camera problem on Maladaan?’ Telmo added, to quell her wrath.

  ‘But that’s everything on the list.’ Taren realised there was absolutely nothing to panic about. ‘You achieved all that? Truly?’ Taren was hoping this wasn’t all some horrible hoax, or some lovely dream she was having before she awoke in a nightmare.

  ‘I did.’ Zeven suppressed a grin in an attempt to be modest. ‘And I kept a mission log of everything that happened, in the time you missed.’ He braced himself to get yelled at but Taren just had to hug him.

  ‘Well done, you!’ She was bursting with gratitude. ‘To know I don’t have to face another disaster this week is the most incredible gift, I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh … you helped with all this,’ Zeven assured her.

  ‘A LOT!’ Mythric emphasised.

  ‘A WHOLE LOT!’ Ringbalin was smiling broadly at her, as was everyone.

  ‘But I still don’t understand where all these babies came from?’ Taren looked about; there was barely a couple on board who hadn’t added a family member, and her sights came to rest on Ringbalin as he was holding up a finger. ‘That’s kinda my fault. I got a little over zealous healing you all after the battle of the curses … you fell pregnant at once.’

  ‘I don’t remember that.’ Taren was perturbed, wishing that she could.

  ‘No matter,’ Ringbalin smiled to reassure her. ‘It led to the release of all the Phemorian souls languishing in the celestial city of the Phemoray, who are now free to live out their lives as the universe intended.’

  ‘We fixed that too?’ Taren was speechless with joy and disbelief.

  ‘With a lot of help from Jalila Lamus and her twin sister, Jafera,’ Ringbalin added, to be fair. ‘Both women have taken rather a shine to Trance, who is now running the Phemorian defence department. So, I don’t think he’ll be returning to Sermetica any time soon.’

  Taren was smiling and frowning at the tale. ‘Who is Trance?’

  ‘It will take a little while for past and present consciousness to meld,’ Lucian said, taking her in his free arm. ‘But you’ve lived through these events, so sooner or later they’ll come back to you. But until they do, all you really need to know is that … this time next week, we’ll be waving Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi farewell for the last time, with a drink in-hand to toast the being bon voyage!’

  Taren placed her arms about both her husband and her son, and kissed them both. ‘Best plan ever.’

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Once again my main references for this book were other books from my past trilogies as the events of these books directly relate to the events in this one.

  The Light-field (Book 3: Triad of Being)

  Dreaming Of Zhou Gong (Book 1: The Timekeepers)

  The Eternity Gate (Book 2: The Timekeepers)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Since the 1996 bestseller, The Ancient Future, Traci Harding has published many fabulous books with HarperVoyager. These are available in print and e-books, and some titles are available in audio; she has also been translated into several different languages.

  Go to traciharding.com and find out all there is to know about Traci and her books.

  OTHER BOOKS BY TRACI HARDING

  Books by Traci Harding

  THE ANCIENT FUTURE TRILOGY

  The Ancient Future: the Dark Age (1)

  An Echo in Time: Atlantis (2)

  Masters of Reality: the Gathering (3)

  The Alchemist’s Key

  THE CELESTIAL TRIAD

  Chronicle of Ages (1)

  Tablet of Destinies (2)

  The Cosmic Logos (3)

  Ghostwriting

  The Book of Dreams

  THE MYSTIQUE TRILOGY

  Gene of Isis (1)

  The Dragon Queens (2)

  The Black Madonna (3)

  TRIAD OF BEING TRILOGY

  Being of the Field (1)

  The Universe Parallel (2)

  The Light-field (3)

  THE TIMEKEEPERS

  Dreaming of Zhou Gong (1)

  The Eternity Gate (2)

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperVoyager

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2015

  This edition published in 2015

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Traci Harding 2015

  The right of Traci Harding to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Harding, Traci.

  AWOL / Traci Harding.

  978 0 7322 9270 6 (pbk)

  978 0 7304 9288 7 (epub)

  Harding, Traci. Timekeepers; bk 3.

  Time travel – Fiction.

  Prophecy – Fiction.

  Science fiction.

  A823.4

  Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio

  Cover images by shutterstock.com