by DG SIDNA
Before Careena can say anything, or even offer a word of encouragement, there's a third figure with us.
"Agent Smith," Story Beckett says. "I see you've been busy."
Careena almost jumps out of her coat. "Jesus Forking Christmas, do you have to creep up on people like that?"
"Well, I'd love to say that you're a hard woman to find, but half a dozen of these settlers just mentioned you in their diaries. By name."
Careena shrugs. "Oops."
I'm more worried. "Doesn't that mean Soolin knows we're here too?"
"She does," Story says. "But the new QDDs won't be ready for another twenty hours. She'll have four ready for use, and she's already handpicked the new agents to use them, including Grimalkin, who is still quite upset about the little stunt you pulled on him back at the ministry. I suggest you not be here once those QDDs are active."
"Alright," I say, "But I have to speak to Zipporah before we leave. I can't just run out."
Careena doesn't say anything. She's as troubled as I am.
Story is looking at a clipboard. "I see here a new isotopic tracer has appeared in the records. I assume that's you, Smith?"
The old woman nods. "Yeah, it's a ring one of the Red Man's soldier boys was carrying. Think you can use it to find his base?"
"I can try. Give me just a second." The young officer scrolls up on her pad. "Alright, looks like prior to the attack on the Stellar Pearl he was in the Valeyard for six months. Arrived by conventional transport."
"The Valeyard? Should have guessed. Right in our own damned backyard."
Story looks up. "Smith, that's the best I can do for you. If that base were anywhere else, I could pinpoint where this man used the toilet, but the Valeyard is layers upon layers of interference. Without someone on the ground there, I can't get you anything more specific. Do you want me to inform Soolin?"
Careena considers this a moment. "Not yet. You said she hasn't got the QDDs yet, right? If we tell her now, she'll know you're helping us, and I'm not ready to risk you just yet. I'll go scout the Valeyard. If anything comes up, I'll call her myself. I want to leave you out of this if all possible."
Story is suspicious. "You're not thinking about taking on the Red Man alone are you, Smith?"
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Story then brings up our other predicament. "I also couldn't help but notice that those diaries mention there were three of you. Something about a cook?"
"You can blame freckles for that."
Story asks, "What are you going to do about it?"
Careena doesn't hesitate. "There's only one thing we can do. Shoot and bury her."
"What?" I yell. "You can't do that. She saved us."
"She was supposed to die on the rig, deary. It was her destiny."
"Like my destiny in Brooklyn?" I shoot back.
"Don't ever compare yourself to that machine."
"She's a human being, Careena."
The old lady's face turns red. "She's no such thing! Look, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do. She can't stay here. If the Yamato finds her, well, that's not an option."
I turn to Story. "What does the historical record from the Yamato say?"
"At the moment, nothing," she tells me. "But it doesn't work the way you're thinking. There's some complicated physics involved; probability clouds, quantum collapse, Hilbert space, the Lefler paradox of free will. The short of it is, I can't tell you what will happen until you've committed to an action. The only reason I could find you now is that some of the young ladies here have already mentioned you in their daily journals. You have to understand, you're tethered to the present. For all intents and purposes, this is all happening in real time. The downstream effects of whatever you do here don't reach me until you do them. So I can't tell you what leaving her here will do to the timeline until you do it, and by then it will be too late."
"Fine," I say. "Then she's coming with us."
Careena nearly chokes. "Oh, that certainly can't happen."
"It can and it will, Careena."
"She's dangerous, freckles. And who says she'd even agree to join us?"
I merely point. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"
Careena spins around with Old Bessie.
Rhoda is standing at the corner of the chapel.
The old woman lowers her weapon, but only a little. "Is everyone sneaking up on me today? How long have you been standing there?"
Rhoda answers, "Long enough, old maid. I wanted to come and ask why you saved me."
"I didn't save you."
Rhoda turns to me. "It was you?"
"Yes."
"Then I am in your debt." The girl turns back to Careena. "Shoot me if you must. As improbable as it is, I've gleaned how it is you know so much about the future. And knowing that, I understand why you feel my death is the only option available to you. I wish only to say that I am not the monster you think I am."
Careena is dismissive. "Bah."
"Hear her out," I say.
"You hold me responsible for things I've never done," the girl says. "You judge my people not for what we are, but for what you say we will become. I cannot speak to crimes never committed. And I certainly will not answer for them. But I also heard the way you spoke of my people. You said we lost our humanity. I wanted to refute you. We are not villains. And we've never had the desire to harm you. In fact, we pity you. We'd even help you, if you allowed us."
She goes on. "But meeting you and these children has made me pause. There are those on my world who would look down upon some of the emotions we've inherited from our ancestors. They call them illogical, primitive, even dangerous. And it made me wonder, what if you're right? What if our downfall comes not from some grand mistake made in the moment, but instead from a thousand cuts over a hundred years? What if each cut makes the next all the easier to inflict? Until we become.... something else."
She stares directly at Careena. "It would seem, old maid, that you have already gazed into that orb of premonition. You have witnessed what is to come. I can see it in your face every time you look at me. Tell me, what did we become to terrify you so?"
Careena doesn't answer. She can't answer. Her own memories are too strong. I can see them in her face as well. The war, the friends lost, the things she was forced to do in the name of survival, the nightmarish beings she confronted. Though she tries to hide it, her hand is trembling.
Rhoda finishes. "I owe both of you the debt of my life. You may believe that you must kill me—but if you would take me, I would fight alongside you. Not out of any foolish sense of honor, but because I've heard what else you've said about what is to come. You are here because you believe the universe to be in peril. Like it or not, old maid, this is my universe too, and I would lay down my life to protect my family, my sister, and yes, even my people. I cannot answer for the sins we've yet to commit, but I can promise you this—I'd stand with you right to the gates of perdition if that's what it takes to protect the ones I love and to prevent this end that you fear."
There's a long silence.
"Careena?" I ask.
"I don't like it," she mutters.
"Careena!"
"Fine, fine, whatever. She can tag along."
"Thank you," the Kheltic girl says. "I'd like to offer something else as well, a way to repay you for your kindness. As you've noticed, I can hear many things that you cannot. And I hear something even now. Over there, near the forest."
I don't understand. "What do you hear?"
The girl gives a soft, honest smile. "Your redemption, Isabel."
Without another word, I run past her, past Careena—I run into the fields, I run toward the forest. At first there is nothing, only the steppes and the treeline beyond. The woodlands appear quiet. What could she have heard? Was it the storm? I see rain clouds on horizon, grey and soft, but they are so far away.
And then I fall to my knees.
Because I see them.
Emerging from the forest, I see
them. All of them. The swampies. Some walking with sticks, others carrying on their backs every possession they own. They are haggard, tired, thin, and famished. They are bruised and rough and exhausted. But they march with heads held high. They march with purpose. For they are marching home. They have come to find again the loving embraces of their mothers.
At the head of this wayward pack of scrawny boys is Dinah and Hagen, each now seeming a little older, each standing a little taller. I can't fight my tears as I run to them. I hold them both tightly. Already there are shouts in the settlement behind me, joyous calls, as villagers toss aside their chores and come to join me in the fields.
Dinah smiles as she tugs on the star around my neck.
"You see, Miss Isabel. I told you it would protect you."
She winks at me.
I wipe away my tears of joy and squeeze her again.
A community has finally been reunited.
SECOND INTERLUDE
Here, a young man.
He awakes with a start, covered in sweat, his sheets soaked, his breath short. Triple moons peer down through open windows. A light breeze catches the curtains.
"Was it the dream again?" the woman next to him asks.
"Yes."
"Who is this person, John? This figure in red that so haunts your dreams?"
"I wish I knew."
"Someone from your past? From your childhood?"
"I don't know."
"Come back to bed, John. Hold me. I'll protect you."
Here, an embrace.
"My mother used to hold me like this."
"You must miss her very much."
"I don't know what's wrong with me, Niyanthi."
"It's just nerves, John. Stress. It's the investigation at the university. You can't blame yourself for Michal's death."
"I know. But he wasn't only my colleague, he was my friend. I should never have let him talk me into those experiments. We were violating university rules, probably breaking interstellar treaties. But I thought our discoveries could change the world. We were so close."
"Will they prosecute you?"
"No. The Federal Procurator's Office decided there wasn't enough evidence of a crime. The tachyon disruption destroyed the lab. They have no means to prove what we were attempting."
"So you were exonerated. The Circle of Deans will leave you be now."
"Niyanthi, the deans expelled me today."
"They can't do that."
"They can and they did. I'm sure they know I meant no harm, but they fear who might follow in my footsteps. Dean Sprigler compared my actions to those of the Khelts. Ambition was their downfall as well. It turned their world into that nightmarish Great Pearl. It destroyed them."
"I fear to ask. What will happen to you now, John?"
"My visa will be revoked. I'll have to leave Chilatmatoic"
"Where will you go?"
"Home. I have nowhere else I can go."
"Is there anything for you there?"
"Only my mother's grave. I sold our farms to study here."
"Your parents were from Earth, were they not? You could claim birthright. You could transfer to Harvard or Tsinghua, continue your studies."
"No university will ever take me now, Niyanthi. This stigma will haunt me for all my days. And would I even know Earth? I've heard it's as foreign to us colonists as the Thanish homeworld. And I'll know it even less after the five decades it will take me to reach it. By that time, I'll be an antique, useful to no one."
Here, Niyanthi's comforting smile. Without her the young man would be lost. This he does not yet understand.
"What if there was somewhere else, John? Somewhere that accepts with open arms the tired, the poor, the huddled masses of this universe?"
"You mean the new colonies? The Kush Mandate?"
"Yes."
"We're already at the edge of the universe, Niyanthi. To go further is exile."
"No, John. It's freedom. You're a colonist at heart. The frontier is in your blood. Out there will be others like you."
"Out there, Niyanthi, are desperate souls, convicts, and naive fools. And besides, I couldn't go alone. I haven't the strength in me anymore. I wouldn't know where to begin. I wouldn't know anyone out there."
"You'd know me."
Here, a surprise.
"You're leaving?"
"Yes. I was afraid to tell you. I know we've only known one another for a semester, but I feel we have something, John, something I've never had before."
"When do you leave?"
"Soon. I've accepted a teaching position on Amleth III. My launch will be the first wave of settlers. Think of it, John, a virgin world, ours to sculpt as we will. If you come with me, we'll be together at the edge of the known galaxy, just like your parents when they arrived on your world. No one will care about what you have done, only what you can contribute to the future. It would be a new beginning."
"Even if I wanted to, Niyanthi, I'd never make your launch. The work assignments will have all been taken and I'm sure the next launch is years away."
"Then don't come as a worker."
"Then how?"
"John, I love you so very much. I know I don't say that enough because we like to pretend what have is still so very casual. But I know that's not so anymore. I was afraid to ask before, but tonight I can't be afraid. Jonathan, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, will you join me at the edge of the universe? I guess what I'm asking is, will you marry me?"
Here, a moment of joy, a moment of hope.
Here, the curious hand of fate at play.
Here, a yes, an unwavering and absolute yes.
TWENTY-FOUR
I am saddened to say my farewells to the settlers of Nyssa. In some small way I feel I've made a connection with this strange community, that it's not so much different from myself, a place out of time, a people soon to confront a world beyond everything they know. While I do not envy the existential seas and direful billows they will soon be forced to navigate, I do understand them better than most. I ride them even now.
And so it is, after a tearful goodbye to Dinah and her mother Zipporah, I'm transported to the mysterious city known as the Valeyard. The year is again 3021, the cosmological present as Story Beckett once called it. It's Careena and myself, a rather inseparable duo at this point, but we are joined now by a third temporal interloper, the enigmatic Rhoda al-Khansa.
I still don't know exactly what to make of our new companion. But I've decided that I like her. And as fun as it is to bounce around the cosmos with a gun-toting, whiskey-drinking, foul-mouthed old crone like Careena, it's also refreshing to be around someone my own age.
The Valeyard. We've popped into existence on a busy urban street—so busy in fact, with crowds pushing past us in every which direction, that I'm unsurprised no one seems to have noticed three strange women materialize out of nowhere.
The transition for me personally, however, is bewildering; no longer are there the open, windswept steppes of Kryten. Here instead are claustrophobic towers and skyscrapers piled on top of one another without rhyme or reason, boxing in mobs of passersby, funneling crowds past street vendors shouting and hawking their wares. There are no cars, thank goodness, only the occasional trolley cutting through the mass of people like a knife through warm butter—but even so, it's a dizzying and chaotic metropolis that could easily dwarf ten New Yorks.
The entire city sits within a massive impact crater, making it roughly circular in shape, not unlike Careena's hometown of New Harmony. The similarities, however, start and end there. For beyond those steep crater walls, surrounding the Valeyard for as far as the eye can see, is nothing but lifeless rock. This is a dead world. I'd call it inhospitable and Martian, but I'm willing to bet that in this day and age, Mars is an absolute paradise.
Looking up, there's not even an atmosphere. The entire planet is a frozen rock of perpetual night, freely exposed to the abyss and vacuum of space. This is, I realize, a world that
waits with eager anticipation to consume the mortal invaders who have so arrogantly colonized it.
All that protects us from those appetites is a glass dome covering the city, conforming roughly to the walls of the crater in which the city sits. Ships are forced to land in a flat ravine several miles away; passengers are brought in by underground trains.
The city is horrid, with smells like a gymnasium locker room. It's noisy. Old men and women dressed in little more than rags are washing clothes in tubs in alleys behind posh martini lounges filled with fashionable couples. On every corner I look are dancing billboards, holographic ads, and junky, half-functional robots beckoning us into shops and stores. It all feels rather sleazy, like a shabby red-light district; one the size of Cairo.
I'm a little embarrassed that, once again, Rhoda is not getting to see the best humanity has to offer. When this is all over, I'm taking the girl to Florence.
"Why would anyone choose to live here?" I ask Careena.
"They aren't here by choice, deary," Careena tells me and Rhoda. "This is the Ghent Mandate's dirty little secret. Long ago it was a mining outpost, nothing special. When the mines dried up, smugglers took over the old tunnels. That was back when this was still the real frontier. The smugglers buried all sorts of jamming equipment into the mining tunnels, a lot of which is still functioning to this day, making this place a black market paradise."
"Fine, but everyone here can't be a smuggler."
"They're not," Careena says with some shame. She looks to Rhoda. "You want to know why I hate your people? Look around. This is what you did. During the second war you obliterated worlds, without warning. We had to evacuate entire planets, sometimes with as many as a billion people on them. Colonists piled into any ship they could, but many of those ships weren't equipped for long distance travel. The fighting never came to Ghent, thank goodness, but we were close enough that we were on the front lines of the refugee crisis. They arrived by the hundreds of millions. Sometimes they got deposited in places like this, so that the ships could go back and get more. Back then there was no city here. Refugees were placed in makeshift camps down below in the mining tunnels. It was meant to be only temporary. The Inner Core worlds agreed to draw lotteries and start taking their share of the people here, because our worlds were overwhelmed. No one was ever meant to remain on this rock."