A couple purchased two salted pretzels and two lemonades from her, walked away and paused to look over the boardwalk railing, out over the beach and toward the ocean. A crowd of young people passed by, enjoying their summer, and Astrid sighed. If Elliot was a time traveler, why hadn’t he thought to leave a nice big deposit in her bank account for her? Or at least enough to cover a few months of living expenses until she started school?
When the crowd cleared, the couple who had purchased pretzels no longer stood against the railing. Instead, they were on the ground. The man crouched, his hand on his chest, while his wife slid her arm around him. Astrid yelled around the corner of the arcade for the employee staffing the prize counter to call the paramedics. A crowd gathered, obscuring her view, and a minute later, two Luna Park security officers arrived and pushed the crowd back.
She moved forward, wanting to help and also knowing that she could not. She had no medical training and didn’t even know how to perform CPR. She ought to help keep the crowd back. She wore the park uniform, so the crowd might listen to her. She headed for the group, but something caught her eye to one side, just beside a blue and white covered trash can with the park name on it. It was a twitching movement in the air. In an instant she knew precisely what it was.
The air had shimmered. She had only witnessed such a thing when she had been present at a death, though the Time Corps members assured her that it also occurred when a time rip opened between one time and another or between worlds. The air shimmered again, a few feet from the ground, then the air grew into an opaque, foggy disk. The center of the circle opened, revealing a mirror-like surface. Passages to other worlds allowed one to see the other side. This was true in all cases but one. This was a Door, the thing she created and the thing she was. It was a Door into death.
She hurried toward the Door, noting only briefly that paramedics had arrived, pushing an empty gurney. The man, the dead man, walked toward her, as solid as he had been when his hand had brushed hers as he paid for the pretzels and lemonade.
“I think ... I thought something happened,” he said. “I thought it hurt.”
Astrid wasn’t sure what a proper psychopomp ought to do. She was supposed to accompany a soul to the afterlife, but she had no idea how exactly to accomplish this.
“I’m not sure, but stay here, with me.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted him to stay, but if her job was to be an escort for the dead, she couldn’t very well let him wander off.
“Something happened over there,” he looked back. “Where’s Sandy?”
“She’s fine,” she said, moving closer. He was sunburned and balding and his tee shirt was faded black with a football team logo. He was also clearly frightened.
“Look, I need to tell you something. I think you passed away,” she said.
“No,” said the man.
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I mean it. You died. Over there. Your body is over there, and you have to go through the Door over here.”
“No. No, I can’t go without Sandy. She was here with me.” He craned his neck, looking for his wife, but she was obscured by the crowd.
“You can’t stay with her anymore,” Astrid said. “It’s time for you to go.”
She felt like an idiot saying these things. Was she supposed to tell him he was dead? He didn’t seem to believe her. Should she inform him that a better place, like heaven, waited through the Door? Was that the truth? Or would he move on to another body, another life?
“Yes, I have to go,” he said, and Astrid relaxed. Then he turned and headed for the crowd, back toward his body.
“Wait!” Astrid cried, but he did not look back.
As she watched him leave, she noticed something. A small dark-skinned boy, about eight years old, stood at the edge of the crowd. But instead of trying to see what the commotion was about, he was watching her. Then he turned, followed the dead man’s spirit, and a few moments later, they emerged from the crowd, hand in hand.
“Are you sure she’s there?” said the man. “I haven’t seen her in fifty-three years. She died so young.”
“She’s there. And your parents and grandparents. I promise that Sandy will be along soon too.”
The man and the boy stopped a few feet from the Door and the boy looked up into the man’s face and gave him a small, reassuring smile. The man released his hand and stepped through the Door, which then contracted, like a pupil, and was gone.
The boy turned to Astrid. “That wasn’t your Door,” he said. “It was mine.”
Chapter 3
When the sickening spinning finally ended and the weightless, falling sensation abated, Elliot found himself face-down on a cold stone floor. The place smelled like wet rock, earthy and moist, and though only a few lamps burned on the wall, the place was bright. Diffused light poured in through high windows of translucent white stone. Alabaster, he thought. Piles of scrolls and tablets filled parts of the room, and through a wide archway, he saw rows and rows of bookshelves filled with volumes of varying sizes. He pushed himself up.
An instant earlier, he had been standing with his cousin Astrid in front of a crowd of angry Seelie. Astrid had made a Door to death, and then another location, and he had stepped through. Now he was in this place, not dead. At least he hoped not.
It was a library. Astrid had sent him to an old library. Okay, then. It could be a lot worse. He was, as far as he could tell, safe from the Seelie who wanted him dead. Now, he simply had to find a way to get back home to his fellow Time Corps members, Astrid and Sister and his partner Neil.
“Ah, there you are!” A giant tortoise lumbered in on all fours and tipped its head to one side, examining Elliot with one beadlike black eye. “I thought someone had arrived.”
Elliot was no stranger to talking animals, and he felt a moment of pride as he responded without horror or shock, as if a giant talking tortoise was nothing out of the ordinary. “Where is this place?”
“The Library, as you can surely see. I take it you’re not a great scholar.”
“There’s no need to be nasty, I only asked a question.”
“Then you are not a scholar?”
Ah, so he was seeking information. Elliot wasn’t sure how he ought to answer. “And what if I am?”
The tortoise blinked. “You’re not.” He sighed. “Just another accidental arrival. You’re the third one this year. Come along then.”
The tortoise led him through corridors and rooms, too many to count, all of them filled with books or scrolls, stone and clay tablets or electronic reading devices. Columns painted in bright red and blue, gold and orange held up a high ceiling, sometimes made of plaster, and in other rooms of warm sandstone. Statues stood here and there, depicting hippopotamuses and crocodiles, jackals and peacocks. Some rooms had plain walls and were filled with soft chairs. Elliot wondered what was stored there, as every other room was crammed with reading materials in every form imaginable. As they walked, the tortoise spoke.
“I won’t make the same mistake twice, you see,” said the tortoise in his low, gravelly voice. “I’m going to show you the reality of your situation, put you to work, and that will be that.”
“Put me to work? No, I need to leave. I need to get back home. Just show me the exit, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Just come along and we’ll get this over with.” He led him up a curving marble staircase, which the tortoise navigated with remarkable agility.
As they climbed, Elliot remembered having climbed this staircase before. Déjà vu, but not the typical sort. He remembered waking up in his trailer just after dreaming of this place. His spirits lifted. He had a rare ability, according to the Time Corps, to detect things that were not solidly attached to a certain place, or when timelines slipped slightly off from where they ought to be. For the most part, it was a useless skill, though N
eil and the others had assured him it would come in handy. If the timelines were off in this library, then that information might prove useful.
After twenty minutes of walking through rooms both ancient and modern, they arrived at a simple wooden door. Elliot wasn’t sure if he should open it for the tortoise, but any concern he had over propriety ended when the animal reared up on his hind legs, his blunt claws reaching around the knob.
The room beyond was dark, unlike all the others which were illuminated by the high-set alabaster windows. It was empty save for a wooden chair which sat just beneath a shuttered window.
“Go on and open it,” said the tortoise. “You’ll see where we are.”
The tortoise’s tone gave Elliot pause. But wherever he was, whatever time or whatever world, he would cope with it. He was a Time Corps agent. He unlatched the brass hook holding the shutters together and opened them.
Outside it was black. It was a dark beyond night, beyond the photographs he had seen of deep space. There were no buildings below or in the distance, no horizon, no clouds, no stars. It was simply emptiness. Elliot leaned out over the windowsill, looking down where the walls of the Library ran down, down, down for floor after floor. He could not see the base of the building, but little rectangles of light shone from within the library, descending endlessly into the dark. They glowed with the same pale light that lit the library inside. The light seemed to have no discernible source. Odd.
He looked upward to see the same thing, an endless windowed wall rising forever. The place around the building was quieter than silence. Not only was there no sound, but even the sound of him breathing was muffled, absorbed. He squinted into the distance, trying to pick out anything, any variation whatsoever. The blackness was absolute. It pulled color and light and everything into itself, leaving nothing. It was the absence of everything, all matter and even, Elliot had the sudden notion, thoughts.
Looking into the darkness, he felt something tug at a thread in his mind, like a fish pulling on a line, present one moment and vanishing the next, leaving a little swirling hole. The tortoise walked up beside him and raised himself to look out the window beside him. He was glad for the company, as looking into the black gave him a deeply uneasy feeling.
“It is said that if you look too long, you’ll go mad,” said the tortoise. “But it’s not true. I’ve looked into the void plenty of times.”
“The void. Is this the void?”
The idea gave him hope. Astrid was a Door, and she was able to make pathways through the void. Surely she would find him.
“It is. And now you see where you are. We are outside of time and place and whatever world you came from.”
“Earth.”
The tortoise waved a paw as if what Elliot said was irrelevant. “You are here now, and here you will remain.”
Elliot wasn’t so sure about that, but while he waited for Astrid to make a Door or for Neil and the rest of the Time Corps to find a way to this world, he would make the best of his situation.
“I didn’t introduce myself,” he said. “I’m Elliot.”
“Malachy.”
“Are you the librarian?”
“I am a librarian, but not the Librarian. Him ... him you would not wish to meet.”
Chapter 4
“I’m just here for the files on the Librarian,” said Captain Hazel Dubois.
She didn’t reach for her gun, even when Kurzen’s guards moved up to flank her. They were huge, and she was small, even for a woman. And though her gun was a great equalizer, they could take it from her in an instant. Mr. Escobar, a capuchin monkey and her first mate, shifted uneasily on her shoulder.
“We agreed on the price, Kurzen. I have the devices on my ship,” Hazel said. “The deal stands.”
Kurzen was a slim man, too young to have amassed so much wealth and power without inheriting it. Hazel had heard of his father, but preferred to deal with lower profile individuals.
The situation had seemed ideal. Kurzen possessed a file with images of a cave painting from a place somewhere in the Mediterranean. Hazel had a time traveling ship and could provide him with hundreds of the newest implantable electronic devices a month before they became available to the public. She couldn’t understand how twenty–first-century electronic devices were constantly being redeveloped, making older ones obsolete within such a short time. In the mid-nineteenth century, when she was born, even fashion hadn’t changed so quickly.
“What I don’t understand,” said Kurzen, “is why these files are so valuable to you. The price you agreed upon was far too high for some digital images of crude paintings.”
“The cave collapsed, or so I understand,” said Hazel. She had no idea where the cave was located, or she would travel there herself, arriving before the collapse. But even if she could see the cave, she did not have the academic commentary on the images from a now-deceased scholar. If she knew his name, she could find him before he died. But Kurzen had all of that information in one neat package.
“Yes, the little coastal cave is gone,” said Kurzen. “Collapsed and swallowed by the sea. Which makes these files the only ones of their kind.”
“That’s why I offered a high price,” said Hazel. “A price that you agreed to.”
“A price that could go higher.”
“I only have so many devices. I can’t get more. The new versions are being announced next week, and you can be there to sell them during the initial frenzy. There’s plenty of profit to be made here.”
“Look, Captain Dubois. You’re cute with your little monkey and I hate to disappoint. But I didn’t get where I am by letting valuable information slip through my fingers. Someone will be willing to pay for these files, either one of the big museums or a wealthy private collector.”
“It’ll take you months to find them and negotiate a price. And there’s no guarantee that they’ll pay you more than I will. Besides, if you give the files to me, I won’t publicize them. They’re for personal use only.”
How could she explain to him that she would take the files back to Los Angeles for Julius and Pangur Ban to study and that they’d never be made public? If he desired, Kurzen could sell them twice or more, not that he’d get a good price. Hazel was the only one who wanted them. But she couldn’t tell Kurzen that without explaining why she needed them.
A man entered and whispered something in Kurzen’s ear.
“My associate informs me that the sample of the device you provided is real, not a knock-off.”
“Why do you care if you don’t want to deal?”
“Unload the cargo,” said Kurzen to one of his men.
“So you are going to deal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She turned for the door and the guards moved in, blocking her way. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said, giving them a sweet smile. Occasionally, people would act politely if presented the opportunity. She didn’t sense that this was one of those times, but she was a Southern woman, and old habits were hard to break.
“Take the goods off the ship,” said Kurzen.
“Don’t you go near it!” said Hazel, spinning on him.
Mr. Escobar leapt from her shoulder, slipped between the guards’ legs and dashed out the door. Skidbladnir, Hazel’s sentient Viking ship, would listen to the first mate’s instructions to move out of range of Kurzen’s men. And, failing that, her crew would stop them. They only looked furry and sweet. Even if Kurzen’s men were armed, and they certainly would be, hers were not helpless.
Two men held her upper arms, but lightly. She didn’t struggle, nor did she try to pull away. The situation was not so bad, really.
“Why are you smiling?” Kurzen asked her.
“Did you wake up with something strange near you this morning?” she asked.
He tried t
o hide his reaction, but she caught the flicker of apprehension in his expression.
“What was it?” she asked. “Nothing too frightening, I hope.”
“It wasn’t too bad, was it?” said a voice behind them. Neil Grey, Hazel’s bosun and friend, came through the doorway. Then he also came in through the back door, followed by four other versions of himself. Others appeared behind the first version, all wearing identical clothing, blue jeans and a black duster. All of them were of medium build with brown hair and eyes. Ordinary looking and forgettable, Neil never drew attention to himself, except in times like these.
The two men released Hazel, preparing for whatever the Neils had in store.
“It was a letter opener,” said the first Neil. “Right beside your pillow. And if you don’t wish to wake up with it though your eye, you’ll give us what you agreed upon and we’ll be on our way.”
“What the hell is this? How the hell do you have clones?”
Hazel knew that here, in 2072, clones in common use did not exist. It would be decades before the emergence of the duplicate hordes. Kurzen was only confused and trying to make sense of the impossibility that confronted him.
“Call off the men you sent to my ship,” said Hazel. She caught the eye of one of the Neils across from her. She did not know where he fell in the spawning order of the group, but by the time she and Neil met up later, he would remember it. Typically, in these dealings, the Neil who did the talking was the oldest of the group, as he would have the memories of all previous versions.
“I’m not doing a damn thing,” said Kurzen. “You all leave right now. Leave now and we’ll let you go without any trouble. You keep your goods.”
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 90