by DG SIDNA
"I understand. My aunt can be... eccentric."
"There's a reason we have these rules."
"I understand. May I ask what happens now?"
"Well, you admit to entering the cargo bay without permission. For that, I will give you a strong verbal warning. Otherwise, I see no evidence you've done anything more serious, despite all the questions I still have. Lieutenant Chimat believes one of the other cargo containers must have been booby trapped. Your aunt must have triggered it by accident. It's a logical theory, I suppose, as we do occasionally have issues with smugglers. Anyway, it seems futile to hold you any longer. Your aunt's nanites are being quarantined and destroyed, but you should be able to visit her now. You're free to go."
I let out a long, thankful breath. "Thank you, ma'am."
Captain Gernsback lifts her pad. "Oh, before you go, a question. I see here a receipt in the records. You had dinner last night on the arcade. Butternut squash ravioli at Tellers Lounge. I've been meaning to check it out. How was it?"
Story's chin jerks up. "She's trying to trick you. That's not what I entered in their system. Tell her pizza. At Harich Pizzeria."
"We had pizza, actually, ma'am. At Harich Pizzeria"
"Ah, yes, so you did." I notice now that Gernsback has what looks like a ballpoint pen in her hand. She clicks it twice, almost absentmindedly. "And last question before I let you go. What color is the Cawdorian sun?"
I await my answer from my coach. But no answer comes. I wait another second, but still nothing. I have no choice but to turn my head and look.
Story Beckett isn't there.
My holographic savior has vanished.
"You must know the color of your own sun, Ms. Overhill."
It's that damned pen. It has to be.
The charade is up.
Mercifully, Captain Gernsback isn't the sort for games, and she doesn't make me squirm in my chair too long. Instead, she looks at me quite seriously. "Your friend, whoever it is, can't help, Ms. Overhill. I assume they are with the Tegan Defense Force? Or dare I guess, the Tegan Ministry of Temporal Affairs? I can think of several intelligence agencies from several states that could hack my computers, but there's only one that could get you aboard my ship mid-flight undetected. It's the reason the whole universe loves to hate the Tegans. Though, I'm betting you probably don't know about that."
"You know who I am?" I ask.
"Not exactly, but I can venture a guess. We're sort of slaves to technology these days. Take the universal translator, for example. Why study a foreign language when you can understand every language as clearly as your own? And yet there's so much subtlety in the way languages are spoken. It's what makes them such beautiful things. We've lost our ability to appreciate that, I feel."
"You could always turn it off."
Gernsback smiles at me. "I like you, Ms. Overhill. I really do. Yes, I could turn it off, but I doubt you speak Flemish, my mother tongue. And I don't speak English, so we'd be at something of an impasse. You are speaking English, am I correct?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She looks again at her pad. "Ah, yes, you are. And how interesting. The language algorithm says you're speaking an Earth-based dialect of English. We don't get many Earthers this side of the galaxy. Let's see, it also says with ninety-eight percent certainty that you're speaking a North American dialect. I assume that's a continent? And if we trust this program, there's a sixty-four percent chance you're using an Eastern Seaboard Mid-Atlantic United States dialect dated between 2000 and 2040. My, my. If that's true, it would make you a very, very long way from home, Ms. Overhill."
"It's not what you think."
She puts down the pad. "Believe me, you don't want to know what I think. The Tegans are not to be trusted. I disrupted your friend's signal to give you that bit of warning in private. They almost succeeded in this little ruse. I have to give them credit, they have some of the best hackers in the mandate. Did you know they inserted footage of you and your aunt going all the way back to your arrival on Cawdor III? Amazing, really. But there's one base they couldn't cover."
I put a hand to my lips. "My accent."
That stupid Jersey accent.
"No, it was not only that," she says. "As I told you, we're slaves to technology. A normal investigation would rely on the security footage and your shopping receipts, all of which your chaperon manipulated expertly. But sometimes I enjoy reading those Old Earth detective novels, you know, where they have to look for clues the old-fashioned way. So in that spirit, I had Lieutenant Chimat take a peek in your room, only a minor violation of our privacy policy. And imagine his surprise when he found no luggage, no clothes. Nothing. Not even toothbrush. Which tells me you were never passengers aboard this ship."
I'm like a deer in headlights.
I don't know what to say.
She then gives me some honest advice. "Whatever you've gotten yourself wrapped up in, Ms. Overhill, I suggest you exit while you still can."
"I'm not sure I have much of a choice at the moment," I admit to her.
She nods. "You may be right about that. I'm not sure if you're aware of the dynamics of the technology that brought you here, but it was engineered by a man on Tegana named Jonathan Baker. He founded the Ministry of Temporal Affairs not long afterward. He could have shared this new wonder with the world, he could have changed humanity, but instead he and his disciples deemed it unfit for anyone but themselves. They treat us like school children who must be kept from the box of matches."
"They told me it was dangerous."
She laughs. "Why, of course it's dangerous. What technology isn't? But we can harness the power of the atom without being destined to use it as a bomb, can't we? And we're not asking for the power to alter time. But just as the atom can do more than make a weapon, their tachyon technology can do more than take one back in time. It can move matter across the universe in the blink of an eye. As a ship's captain, perhaps I should be more concerned about my job security, but just think what it could mean for humanity. We've conquered the speed of light with our ships, but there are still limits. Travel time between worlds, just in this mandate alone, takes weeks. And Earth? Earth is a place so far away that few of us out here feel any connection to it at all. But the Tegans refuse our pleas. Their secrets could save lives, could reconnect our species in ways that we haven't experienced since our days on Old Earth. But they turn a blind eye to us."
"So no one else can take me home then?"
"I'm afraid not," she tells me. "Officially there's a non-proliferation treaty, though I'm sure some governments secretly dabble here and there in tachyon manipulation. If you have deep pockets, and I mean very deep, you could try the black market, but good luck there. They use vests for the jumps, which don't hold a candle to what the Tegans have. With the black market, it's fly by night. You're just as likely to end up in the belly of a Triceratops as you are to hit the year you're aiming for."
What she seems to be saying is, until all this is over, I'm attached at the hip to Careena. Great.
"So now that you know," I ask her. "What do you intend to do?"
The captain sizes me up. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Look, Ms. Overhill. I'm not your enemy here. To anyone that might ask, your story checks out, on paper at least. I'm inclined to sweep the matter under the rug. And not because I enjoy any of this, but what's the alternative? Quarantine the ship because of possible nanite contamination? Not so good for our reputation, as you could imagine. Lieutenant Chimat and Doctor Heinlein already want to tear the Stellar Pearl apart to find the weapon that injured your friend. Which ordinarily I would do, but you and I both know we'd never find that weapon, because that injury didn't originate here, did it? So I'm left with the option of keeping quiet, or starting a diplomatic incident with one of our neighbors. Count yourself lucky that I'm choosing the former."
I'm speechless. I thank her and rise from my chair. But I only get halfway to the door before I stop. Something i
s bothering me, something I can't put my finger on.
I turn back to her. "Pardon me, captain, but you don't strike me as the type of woman who takes the easy road out. In fact, from everything you just told me, I would think you'd love to stick an incident in the eye of Tegana. Why are you really letting me go?"
"You think this is a trick?"
"I don't really know."
She leans back in her chair. "I'm not tricking you. I feel for you, in fact. But that's not why I'm letting you go either. You see, when I was about your age, I was conscripted as a storm trooper in the Second Khelt War. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but just know that it was the worst war in the history of all wars. Bad enough that we had to draft girls your age. And we weren't ready for it. Humanity had grown soft, even in space. For too many centuries we'd relied on drones and robots to do our dirty work for us. And what good were they against the Khelts, who were so technologically superior that they could turn our own automated weapons against us with a snap of their fingers? So we had to fight. The old-fashioned way. And we had to die. I can't tell you how many friends I lost. Which is another reason so much of the universe hates the Tegans. They had their tachyon technology even back then. They could have ended that war before it ever started, could have prevented us from having to send children to the front lines. Yet, even faced with the threat of human extinction, the Tegans refused to violate their prime directive. They've taken an oath, to protect the timeline, to never alter it. They're fanatical about it. Like religious zealots. They think they've inherited the keys to eternity. But I want to know, who made them the damned gods of time?"
"So they didn't fight," I ask.
"Oh, no, they fought. But only with weapons and ships and soldiers and blood. And I can't say that they didn't sacrifice every bit as much as the rest of us during that war. Perhaps more so. I've always had this suspicion that they felt a need to atone for what was so clearly their sin. And so they volunteered for the front lines without hesitation."
"I don't understand what this has to do with me," I tell her honestly.
"Hear me out. During a massive retreat sometime during the middle of that war, my company was cut off from our evacuation point. We'd been tricked and funneled into a trap, a kill zone, just waiting to be bombed into oblivion by faceless enemies up in the heavens. We should have died. I should have died. It's not a moment you ever forget. One of the last support ships remaining in orbit was a Tegan destroyer. They were ordered to retreat, to leave us behind, and with good reason. They were packed to the rafters with rescued colonists, including many children. They needed to get out of there. They were just waiting for three of their fighters to return from the surface to give them cover. And then the most brazen thing happened. On their way back, one of those fighters broke formation for exactly three minutes and twenty-four seconds. The pilot came in fast on our position and downed the bombers sent to finish us off. It was reckless, it was against orders, but it gave us the opening we needed to escape ourselves."
Gernsback bites her lip in reflection. "You better believe that I made it my mission in life to find out who that pilot was and thank them. It's part of our culture on New Mahshad. We repay our debts. I'd say it's as close to a religion as you'll find with us. But the war was too hectic, so I had to wait. After the war concluded, I went to Tegana, to repay my gratitude to this pilot. There's a bar I heard about where all the pilots meet to trade stories. I started my search there. Like I told you, I'm something of a detective. I found out my pilot's name and I went to search the records. Unfortunately, they'd been killed in action during the final days of the war. Tragic really. I never found out the exact details, but I was heartbroken nonetheless."
I'm still unsure why she's volunteered this story. "I don't understand."
"I lied to you earlier, Ms. Overhill. I told you I knew your story was a sham because I checked your quarters. The truth is, I knew you and your friend were Tegan agents the moment the incident was brought to my attention. I knew, because the pilot who saved my life all those years ago on Verdun IV is now laying on a bed in my sickbay."
"Careena..."
"It would seem she hadn't died in a mysterious crash after all," the captain says. "That was only the cover story they created for her. The truth is she'd been recruited. As a damned temporal spook. Well, good for her, I suppose. Ironically, it appears, after all these years, the universe has finally offered me my chance to repay my debt. I'm grateful for that. So go tend to your friend, but don't thank me."
"Why not?"
The captain gives me the honest truth. "Because I think you'll see soon enough, Ms. Overhill, that all I'm doing is sending you back into the lion's den."
FIVE
A thousand years into the future and little about hospital rooms has changed. They are still white and sterile, a sort of purgatory where matters of life and death are decided by invisible courts, by juries that ignore evidence and pass judgement on whim and fancy alone. My grandfather died in a room such as this one, powerless against the humiliation of an aging mind, helpless against the ravages of time.
I'm lost in those thoughts when Careena finally wakes. How long I've been sitting by her bedside, I'm not sure. But I felt someone should.
The old woman's voice is cracked. "By the pricking of my thumbs. What the bloody hell are you doing in the future, freckles?"
I squeeze her hand and smile. "Someone had to look after you."
"Hah! Ain't that the truth." She looks around. "Where the fork are we, anyway?"
"On a ship. Called the Stellar Pearl."
"That stupid cruise liner they're always advertizing? I take it we're on our way to Tegana then?"
"I think so."
"Quite the forking mess this is going to be."
"I think it already is, to be honest."
Careena smiles warmly back at me. It's what I take to be a rare moment of honest emotion from the old lady. "Hand me that glass of water, won't you? I take it Beckett had a hand in getting you here?"
"She did," I say as I hand her the glass.
"You know, she's normally a proper stickler for the rules. A real pain in my arse. So believe me when I tell you, some serious poppycock has transpired if Beckett is the one breaking the rules now. Where is that tart, anyway?"
"The captain blocked her out somehow."
"Brilliant. Well, it's her own bloody fault for putting us on a Mahshadi ship. The Mahshadi are wankers, every last one of them. You spend some time on this ship, you'll see what I mean." She tries to get up from her bed, but then groans in terrible pain. "What is this injustice! They can't even treat a simple wound?"
I try to explain. "The nurse told me they have to treat you with more conventional methods until Doctor Heinlein determines it's safe to turn off the quarantine field. They're worried about stray nanites. Apparently, those could hijack more advanced forms of treatment, or something like that. Maybe even make copies of themselves. I don't really understand any of it."
"I see. And how are you holding up, deary?"
It's a good question. "Well, this morning I thought the world literally ended because I missed a school interview. That all seems trite now."
"And I suppose you have some questions."
"You could say that," I tell her.
"Well, don't hold them in, deary. You might explode. Ask away."
"Where are we?"
She takes a sip of the water. "That's an easy one. We're in what they call the Outer Colonies, though like the Wild West, it's a bit of an outdated term. This hasn't been the proper frontier for some centuries now. But if you want to know the specifics, we're in the Ghent Mandate of the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which likely doesn't mean much to you, but just know that it's really forking far. Tegana is about 11,664 light years from Earth if I remember correctly."
"So it's true what Captain Gernsback told me, these ships can travel faster than light?"
"Technically, no," she tells me. "But technicall
y we can't travel back in time either, yet as you may have noticed, we have a way of playing fast and loose with the laws of the universe. Hah! Fork physics. But imagine space as a tightly stretched band of cloth. If you could loosen the tension between two points, the two points would appear closer together, even though the amount of cloth has never changed. Assuming you can prevent your ship from shrinking along with the cloth, you'd have shortened the distance considerably."
"So how far is home in one of these ships?"
She takes a thoughtful breath. "You must understand, there's only so much wiggle room to play with before you start ripping the cloth."
"How far?" I press.
"Aboard the fastest ships? And I mean the fastest. Fifty-four years, give or take. But most ships would take closer to seventy or eighty."
My eyes widen in shock.
She continues. "The only realistic way to make the journey is in suspended animation, sort of like freezing yourself. Not many do it. You'd be younger than your grandchildren by the time you arrive, and any skills you had would be obsolete. If I'm honest, I'd wager you're one of only a handful of souls in this entire mandate who has ever seen Earth."
"But you and I got here in a matter of seconds."
"We did indeed."
"So that's why no one here seems to like you."
Careena laughs. "Hah! And yet they're all on this fancy bucket of bolts just so they can holiday on beautiful Tegana. I told you they were wankers."
"It's more than that."
"I suppose it is," she admits. "They're upset that we didn't use our tachyon technology during the war. I don't blame them, I suppose. But they don't understand how it works. The truth is, there wasn't much we could do, even if we wanted to. First, you have to understand how we cheat the physics. The amount of matter and energy in the universe is constant. And it's perfectly balanced. Sending you back in time would be like adding that final straw to our poor camel's back. Or more precisely, the dimensional membrane that we sit on would fold up into some new configuration, and not only would that fundamentally alter all the current laws of physics, it would most probably annihilate all matter as we know it."